Thursday, April 26, 2012

Trouble with the Wandering Tale

It seems I forgot a wee detail regarding my intended arc for these stories. I have the habit of mentioning things in stories that actually regard future parts of the Tale - this has the effect of locking me into certain choices. I refuse to retcon the things. While it might be easy to change small details in the story even after I've published it (seeing as few people have actually read them yet), it seems dishonest to me somehow.

Fortunately, we're dealing with fiction here, and I can change things as I please, provided nobody else has read it yet. The detail in question concerns a certain character who was supposed to feature as the main character in the fifth story of the Wandering Tale. I discovered to my embarrassment that, with the timeline I've set up, he's about a decade younger than he would need to be if I want to keep everything in the right time frame.

Drat. That certainly throws me for a loop.

It is one of the dangers inherent in writing these stories. They are basically stand-alone but with a certain amount of interlink and weaving going on for the (intended) delight of dedicated readers. This means those links need to remain consistent - however, I'm not paying as much attention to them as I would be if it were a single, cohesive novel.

No matter. I've already figured out a path around the problem. I'm the only one who needs to know the path we didn't end up taking.... For those who are interested, that story will still be written, it just won't tie in to certain other events in the way I'd originally planned.

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