#pfh edits

[aohendo]

Happy Blorbsday! (to be answered anytime on any day because every day is blorbsday)

How have you been? I have been missing you and dear Kiris on my dash.

What kind of horrors has he been facing lately? Please feel free to go off about any OC thoughts that have been plaguing you or any trauma you have been inflicting on our favorite sad boy.

Happy Blorbsday!!

Life is certainly life 😅 Good and busy and nothing bad, just a lot. Expecting to get even busier over the next few months, too, so that's gonna be.... fun.

(It will be it's just I also like sleep).

Kiris, oh Kiris. This poor guy.

About two weeks ago, went back and blocked out all my ideas on how to fix Prince's plot: there's a few scenes to add, a few to rearrange, and a handful to cut, but Disney princess necromancy has solved all the issues! Into the fourth draft of it, now, which after a SPAG pass will be the version I send out to a first round of beta readers. My guesstimate is I'll be searching for people for that starting mid-late July!

The current horror Kiris facing today is *gasp* tea with 'L Tuola the empress. Doesn't sound terrible on the surface, but there's casually another prince being eaten by a hawk in the background, Ta Ritasa the advisor is being generally creepy, and 'L Tuola makes it very clear what she'll do to find the Prophet (who may or may not be trying to casually sip his tea (which also isn't really tea and Kiris hates it) across from her) and that she knows about Kiris' magic. Also some more set up stuff for the 'L Tuola/necromancy plot line, which Kiris is beginning to steadily really not appreciate even though he's pretty sure said necromancy is the only way to save his mentor from... one of his own prophecies.

In the span of the next two chapters after this, poor guy's gonna have two separate murder attempts on him and he's going to fail to save his mentor--the only person who's ever really cared about him. Shortly thereafter, Ta Ritasa begins finding ways to force magic from Kiris (guy's about to get wrung like a sponge 😬), a principality gets destroyed (and it's mostly Kiris' fault), and we begin the 'there's a fraud among us!' plotline. Not to mention the Turre getting even creepier, or Duvutriok coming around with various princes' heads, or all Batar's blackmail, or Iiriok trying to be friendly and compassionate (but clearly, obviously, he must have some further angle to it...)

Kiris just wants to hide under his bed. I'm really just hitting him with a baseball bat at this point, poor dude. Does not deserve this treatment.

I promise, these are all necessary steps in getting him his hug, though!

The goal for this draft is no more than 110k. That should be a fairly easy 10k to shave off during line edits, and 100k is a really nice spot for fantasy right about now. If I really had to in those future line edits I could probably get it even shorter (looking at Reverberate, which I somehow knocked from 123k down to 111k, but I genuinely don't know how), but I don't want to. Once I get to the halfway mark in about 2.5 chapters, I'm gonna go ahead and rewrite the tentative query letter for this thing--I've learned my lesson from Reverberate: it's much easier to do the query letter before the final draft, so that'll be a nice pause to get my thoughts in order.

How's everything with you? Haven't been around much lately (which is a shame, because I do miss popping in and seeing where everyone else is at with their projects and OCs. Gotta get back on that...)

[aohendo]

Prince for Hire Deleted Scenes: Part 13

Amount Deleted: 8k? thereabouts (1 half-formed chapter + 1/3rd of the following chapter, + most of another chapter which'll probably get added back in but was in the wrong spot and I haven't determined if there's a right spot yet)

Reason for Deleting: the deleted chapter could be condensed into a few paragraphs and the information, overall, completely redistributed and better integrated into the story. The third of the following chapter was then covered by the newly integrated stuff. That following chapter also received major rearrangement due to the focus being completely scattered.

Ways to fix: cut and paste, cut and paste, delete. Really: determine scene-level focus, then chapter-level focus, restructure this storyline's mini-arc (to include rearranging chapters), and combine/condense to keep the plot moving.

Excerpt length: 487

Context: Kiris needs to eliminate one of Prince Thaav's enemies, and thinks sending Iiriok at him is the best way about it (he's not wrong...)

Taglist (please let me know if you'd like to be added/removed!): @whimsyqueen @on-noon @houndsofcorduff @stuffaboutwriting @shrunkupthejams

“Nelovskevouk,” Kiris said, loud enough he was sure ni Musyr could overhear. Verosa refilled his tea. A different type, this time: lavender. “What would you do if you discovered a prince had sinned?”

Nelovskevouk nearly choked on his next sip of coffee. He hid it by clearing his throat—which is to say, not at all—and by taking another large sip to clear the crud. His brow slowly rose.

Innocently, Kiris rolled his mug between his palms. Ni Musyr glowered at them. At him.

“Why do you ask?” Nelovskevouk eventually said, when Kiris wasn’t forthcoming with more information, too preoccupied with not making eye contact with ni Musyr. It was all consuming. Whatever he’d done to piss her off—or whatever Nazvili had done—he wasn’t even sure he wanted to know. “Yphant?”

“Answer him, vakon,” ni Musyr ordered.

Kiris wished he couldn’t feel the blood draining from his face. The collective of princes was easier to face than her. Even the inquisitors—at least he knew why they hated him. “I… may or may not have overheard another prince—” it was like being ground by a glacier—“doing things?”

“Really?” Her eyes narrowed, and she leant forwards, and Kiris, again, leant back. Not so far that he tilted over his chair this time. “What sorts of things?”

This wasn’t his plan. Her involvement was not in his plans, except as witness. Nelovskevouk’s, yes. Let him eliminate Tevez for a prince’s sin. He was reliable, Kiris and Nelovskevouk’s younger sister, Kuthri, the only exceptions Kiris knew of. But ni Musyr? He didn’t know her. He didn’t know what she would do.

It was almost thrilling.

“Desiccation,” Kiris lied.

Nelovskevouk spun in his seat, and Kiris found himself quite suddenly bearing the brunt of the entirety of his attention. He had lovely eyes. This was already turning into a very tiring day.

“Who?” Nelovskevouk demanded.

For some reason, Kiris didn’t particularly want to look away from him. Ni Musyr was like being ground down, pummeled and pulverized, an unrelenting pressure. Nelovskevouk… wasn’t.

Prince Thaav would die soon.

Kiris glanced at Tevez.

“One of Prince Thaav’s enemies,” ni Musyr said. Smiled. “One of your allies, Pretty Boy. Curious.”

Nelovskevouk ignored her. He leant into Kiris’ space, and Kiris resisted the urge to pull away, too many people, too close to his space, easy to grab, this was fine, it’d be fine—

“You’re certain?” Nelovskevouk whispered. “First Prince Tevez has never been anything but decent and wise, in all the years I’ve known him. Did you… did you mishear?”

He smelled like flowers. Soaps, not the sharp scent of perfume. Sweat, too: those two weeks Kiris had spent in the Dargoulvga palace, helping Nelovskevouk with Kuthri, every morning he’d practiced on the training grounds; perhaps it did the same here. Weapons—yes—but sometimes, dance.

Iiriok Nelovskevouk was an excellent dancer.

“I know what I heard,” Kiris whispered.