It was important to me when constructing the story of Light’s Shadow that no single character would have direct connections with every other member of the central cast. I wanted the reader to wonder how they would connect – and whether they would at all. I guess, the reason for this was that while Exodus is ‘small’ it’s still big enough for people to hide on. I wanted some characters to hear about things that they didn’t understand or weren’t involved in.
I wanted people to wonder what was happening ‘offscreen’ when characters disappeared for extended blocks of time.
This is something that I’m really interested in – it’s a narrative trick that can open (and sometimes close) a lot of doors. The idea is that the world continues even when you’re not looking at it. It’s not like – okay, I’ve moved to a new character and when I come back to Ares, or Lee, or Carlisle, they’re going to be right where I left them, as though they’ve been waiting for me. I mean, it probably sounds like a really obvious trick that allowed me to skip boring things, but actually what it meant was that I could set up surprises quite early on in the story and then let them bubble away in my cauldron until I was ready to reveal them. This is certainly the case with a few of the bigger set-pieces.
By the end of book one the cauldron had turned into a fine broth of uncertainty and misdirection.
Lots of people have demanded that I rescue or resurrect certain characters, but it’s really not as simple as that. For some, their story arc has played out – that’s all they get. But there are others who are integral to the colonists’ survival. Most of the important pieces are in play by the conclusion of Light’s Shadow, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be anything ‘new’ in book two. Different characters have different skills – some are observant, while others are not. Some can solve problems that others can’t even recognise. Some mature with experience, while others are set in their ways. Most importantly, there are some that you’re meant to forget about.
Otherwise you might be able to piece together parts of the much bigger picture.
Book two brings its own problems to the story – not to mention the difficulties involved in starting something new that is built upon something old without it feeling like it is still part of the first one. Maybe I’ll talk about that next time.
So, here’s a scene-setter for book two extracted from the first draft of the blurb:
Two years have passed and the Shift has thrown Brakog into a brutally unexpected winter. The Exodus colonists suffer with reduced access to energy sources that might have protected them from the bitter cold.
