The first words written for the Adventures Beyond New Raoolia, the sequel to Adventures in Raoolia, were written in the summer of 2006, shortly after the first edition of Adventures in Raoolia was printed. From July 2006 until the Fall of 2007, new material was being written on a regular basis for the sequel.
During the beginning of the first editing phase, revelations began coming to me about the structure of my story. The first major change to this story occurred when I realized that I had to build a schedule for the Minotaurs, as they attacked each village. This took months to complete, to figure out how fast they travel, the distance in which they traveled, and how long it takes to transform from Carcalian to Minotaur. Once these spreadsheets were complete, I began the first major overhaul of Adventures Beyond New Raoolia, applying dates and times to what was occurring, in order to coordinate events.
Once this major piece was in place, I realized that I had to create a clock and planetary time zones, in order to figure out what time everything was occurring. This major piece was completed in the Summer of 2008, with the completion of a map of the 13 Time Zones of Cougran, which are Shou Time, Shou-Uno, Shou-Duo, Shou-Trio, Shou-Cuarto, Shou-Quinto, and Shou-Sixto going east. Going west, beginning at Shou Fortress on Cougranada, Shou-Minuno, Shou-Minduo, Shou-Mintrio, Shou-Mincuarto, Shou-Minquinto, and Shou-Minsixto. This piece, though, came with another rewrite, which has changed the occurrence of some events that had originally been written, but such is the work of a writer!
While the time-zone idea was occurring, I also had the revelation that if the reader is to understand the gravity of destruction to the whole planet and to an entire species, that every settlement must have a culture and a story. So began my quest to write the cultures of Cougran!
In the summer of 2009, I read, "Write Great Fiction: Revision and Self-Editing” by James Scott Bell, which is a publication by Writer’s Digest Books. After reading this book, I realized yet again, that the rewrite I had just begun over a year ago was great, but boring. So now I am in the process of moving all the cultural descriptions to the Cougran Dictionary, as I replace the narration with dialogue.
The following is an example of a before and after section of Flogging Felinia, Book 9, Adventures Beyond New Raoolia:
Before:
Physia Village is a village that worships golden daar crystal, which is mined out of the ground outside the village. They have a temple called the Daar-Ian, which has a spherical mass with golden daar crystals jutting out from its spherical surface.After:
The village worships the material, adorning themselves with daar jewelry, trading their goods for it, making statues from it, hording it into underground caves, and bragging about the size of their daar stockpiles to others.
An hour after the troops from the Westward Gale landed, the troops from the Sword Victor began their march toward Physia. One hour and eighteen minutes after touching the beach, the Minotaurs had reached their target and launched their grappling hooks as well. The village of Physia has 3,340 Carcalians, and in less than 15 minutes, the village of Physia was completely converted! They marched northwest to Ollfellie.
'Intel, deploy,’ ordered Receiver SV-1, who had commanded the Sword Victor.
'Acknowledged, deploying,’ replied the Intel soldier.
'Transmitting data...Physia Village: population 3,340...miners of rock called purple daar. Contains three entry points, north, east, and west walls; wooden gates with two exterior guards each; no visible guards on walls,’ said the Intel Soldier.
'Acknowledged. Regroup with main attack force,’ ordered Receiver SV-1.
'Minotaurs, attack!’ said the Receiver.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! CRASH! The gates imploded under the percussive thrusts from the battering rams. Batterers kicked the debris inward as they rushed through the gates, followed closely by Infantry.
"Security forces, CHARGE!” shouted Klanreed, head of security.
"Aaaaahhh!” bellowed the armed security forces, charging with raised swords and shields. Boom-clang! Boom, boom-clang! The Minotaur’s swords clashed against the miniature weaponry, pinning swords to the ground with minimal effort. The security forces kicked and slashed at the giant Minotaurs, but to no avail, as they were hoisted ten feet into the air to hungry jaws of evil.
'Pathetic security measures. They didn’t even have guards on the walls,’ thought the Grappler Commander.
'Herd them out of the buildings and into the center. Close the noose around their meager population!’ said the Receiver.
"Waaahhh! Uhh, waaahhh!” cried the infant as Theelmar was ripped from her mother’s arms and gnarled by the dispassionate beast.
"Nooo! My baby! My baby! Aaaahhaaa!” she wailed, pounding against the Minotaurs legs as the baby was hurled out the door and into the stampeding crowd. The Minotaur picked the mother up by the right shoulder and sank his evil fangs into the squirming parent, fending off blows to his neck from her thrashing legs.
Three-thousand, three-hundred forty Carcalians were converted in less than twenty minutes!
'Minotaurs, march,’ said Receiver SV-1, marching northwest to Ollfellie Village.
Yee-Hah!
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