valor of the healer

I have just finished my word count reduction review of Chapter 24, the final chapter of Lament of the Dove. Y’all may recall that I’d already yoinked out a huge number of words from this chapter taking out Nine-Fingered Rab’s final scene, now targeted for the beginning of Shadow of the Rook. I did however want to make one last pass through it just to see if there were any other words I could lose.

Now that that is done, I can commence Draft Six. This will be the pass through which I will implement the bigger requested changes from both Carina’s editor and the beta readers who’ve given me the best feedback. I’m not going to go into detail on the planned changes here for purposes of avoiding spoiling anybody.

Suffice to say, instead, that Draft Five’s final word count clocks in at 104,504 words, some of which will come back as I add in new content for Draft Six. And Draft Six begins NOW.

Those of you who’ve beta-read Lament of the Dove for me or who have been following my posts about the edits to it may recall that among the various bits of feedback I’ve gotten (both from Carina Press’ editor and from beta readers) is that it was a bit unclear as to the distinction between the nation of Adalonia and its smaller neighbor which it absorbed, Alendar. It was suggested to me that I rename one of them in order to help make the place names more distinct, and I’ve been thinking about that. Alendar is I think the one I want to rename, given that I’m less wedded to that name than I am Adalonia.

That got me to thinking. A lot of the names in this story are mutated versions of Gaelic names, but some of them were inspired by Norse-style names–like ‘Vaarsen’, Kestar’s last name, and a couple of other surnames of minor NPCs. So when I looked up what various place names in the real world are in Scots Gaelic, I was surprised to see that the Scots Gaelic for Norway is ‘Nirribhidh’.

That immediately grabbed my eye. If I finagle that around a bit the same way I’ve done other names in Lament, I may be able to come up with a replacement name for the unfortunately conquered nation of Alendar. The question is, what altered spelling would look best?

This is where you all come in. Tell me, o Internets, which spelling you like best? I do want this general idea of names and I think I prefer these vowels–they help create a different look than ‘Adalonia’ when reading, and a softer sound when I say it aloud. It’s also something that sounds in-universe like it might have been derived from an older Elvish name, which is appropriate given that the folk of Alendar have always been friendlier to the elvenkind than the Adalons have.

If you’re looking at this post on LJ or Dreamwidth, please click over onto the original post on the WordPress blog to vote on the poll. Otherwise, drop your vote in the comments!

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Chapter 21 remains the longest chapter in the current draft of Lament of the Dove, even after I’ve reached the end of it tonight in the Word Count Reduction pass. Not too many words taken out of it at all, but that doesn’t strike me as a bad thing; a lot happens in it, and nothing in it feels extraneous to me at this point. I think I did well to find a couple hundred words I could trim at all.

This leaves Chapter 22 and Chapter 23 to get through, since I’ve already touched on Chapter 24 by removing Nine-Fingered Rab’s last scene. If I get ambitious, I could maybe finish off this draft by the end of the week, and that would give me most of the month of February for the hardcore final changes before I fling the manuscript back at Carina Press.

Meanwhile, I’m already mulling a couple of changes of notable nouns: the name of the former nation of Alendar, as well as Celoren’s horse. I’ve been told “Alendar” is too close to “Adalonia” as a nation name, so I want something shorter and starting with a consonant, ideally no more than two syllables. That, however, will come in in the sixth draft.

This feels like a good plan. Let’s see if I can implement it. Wish me luck, folks.