Caught in Crystal: A Lyra Novel Read Free Page A

wherever the information became necessary for the reader to know… sometimes many chapters later.
    And over the cheerfully miscellaneous crowd, above the jumble of homes and shops and inns, loomed Styr Tel. The castle of the Noble House of Brenn looked every inch the border fortress that it was, but the high stone walls that were a reassuring presence to a Trader caravan concerned with raiders and bandits gave an entirely different impression to a mildly unwilling visitor. Maurin could not shake the feeling that he was heading for a prison.
    Note that I moved the phrase “cheerfully miscellaneous crowd” to this point from the initial description several paragraphs back. I thought it works better as a summing-up of the (now) previous paragraph of description, rather than an introduction to the crowded streets. I also added more of Maurin’s personal reaction at the end of the description.
    They had nearly reached Styr Tel, and Maurin found it easy to believe the place had once been a fortress. It was surrounded by a high stone wall, The castle had been set back from the houses of Brenn as if to prevent an attack from the upper stories of the homes and shops. Above the wall, two tall black towers rose to command a view of the entire city; from this angle, they were all of the Styr that could be seen. Time and custom had made a marketplace of the open area between the low buildings of the town and the walls of Styr Tel. Maurin and Har wove through the merchants and townspeople to the gates, ignoring the persuasive calls of the dealers. The guards recognized Har at once, and let him and Maurin through the gate without challenge. As they entered the courtyard, Maurin blinked in surprise. got his first close view of Styr Tel.
    Black stone, polished smooth, filled his eyes. Styr Tel was made of it. The place was enormous; Maurin’s head bent back as he tried to see it all. He could easily imagine a company of troops vanishing inside without disrupting any of the gentler pursuits of the nobles who lived there. The lines of the building were clean and practical, but the dark stone gave it a dignity lacking in the airy palaces Maurin had seen in other cities. This was a strong place, an armored place, a home for a soldier. Maurin found himself admiring the man who had built it.
    If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve noticed that I’ve been cutting out a lot more than I’ve been adding. The revised chapter is 1,024 words shorter than the original… and most of the folks who read it don’t even notice. Really. I’ve asked.
    Cutting out so much description and unnecessary backstory right at the start did two things: it tightened things up so that everything moves along faster, which is better for the opening of this particular action-adventure novel, and it refocused the start of the story on the two young men and their friendship, which is crucial to the rest of the story. If I’d written a story about the caravan or the Traders, I’d have left in a lot more of this and tightened things up elsewhere… but I didn’t.
    A long whistle from Har brought Maurin’s eyes down, and he As they entered the courtyard, Maurin blinked in surprise . The Styr courtyard was full of activity a maze of benches, chairs, trunks, and other furnishings . Servants were bustling about with buckets, rods, wound among the furniture, carrying buckets and stacks of cloth , brooms and articles of furniture . Everywhere people were cleaning, polishing and scrubbing; the atmosphere fairly air reeked of soap and the strong scent of Mindaran wood-wax was everywhere . Maurin’s foolish mental visions of dungeons and imprisonment fled, to be replaced by the alarmed thought that at any minute someone would demand help with the cleaning.
    Here I was just tightening things up, making them more specific, and again adding in more tight third-person viewpoint. Oh, and the paragraph break shifted between the old version and the new.
    “Looks like we’ve