Eyes on the Words

The writing of THE EYES OF THE WIND pretty much followed my usual pattern — months of thinking about the plot and characters, of jotting down notes, of making outlines. Then I sat down and typed out the actual narrative in something pretty close to finished form in a week. There was rewriting, certainly, but that was minimal, mostly a matter of changing words here and there, adding a tad more imagery — I tend to skimp on that when getting the story down.

I admit that I expected it to run longer. The goal was the typical 60,000 word range for a fantasy adventure, like my three Malvern novels. The structure was a little different, four distinct episodes (one for each of the gems known as the Eyes), book-ended by introductory and closing sections. If anything, I thought it might run long — it seemed like a rather sprawling plot line.

Instead, it ended up around 50,000 words. That is fine with me; it took that many words to tell the story. I would certainly not tack on more material to reach a higher word count. I would not pad the novel.

Is there more to tell of ‘Saj the Seer,’ the protagonist of ‘Eyes?’ Most likely not; do not expect a sequel, a series. He settles down to the life of prosperous merchant in his new home and he and Marana raise a large family. That family, however, may have many tales to tell. We shall see about that.