Serpentine Squiggles

Introduction

You often hear it joked that novelists make a career out of telling lies. It’s reductive‍—funny, but reductive‍—because what makes stories compelling is, in fact, their accuracy. Fidelilty, the faithful recreation of a recognizable truth, is what averts that most dreadful fate: a reader rolling their eyes, shaking their head, closing the book with a disappointed sigh.

No, storytelling is about telling the truth within the framework of a lie‍—it’s about commitment to the bit.

A years long preoccupation of mine^note(as recorded in numerous essays at this point)^endnote is a precise account of how much fidelity you actually need. Novels need rendering, to be fleshed out with so much strenuous detail, often several steps removed from whatever idea might have motivated you to start writing.

“A great peril was nigh, but through cunning struggle, the day was saved.” Atrocious‍—it goes without saying that one ought instead convincingly describe this peril, establish the stakes, and recount the struggle through gripping scenes pinned to specifics times and places and the acts of specific‍—and colorful‍—characters.

You have to be convincing‍—even if your lies would stand as truth within your framework, you need to first invite readers into it. What does achieving this require?

For years now (almost by accident) I have been practicing styles of short‍-​form storytelling. Not just short‍-​form, but low‍-​effort. Slop, if you will. But I moreso mean its cognate‍—it’s sloppy work, whenever I sketch out the bones of a story and throw it up on tumblr, or dump it directly into a chatroom.^note(To at least three fire emoji reactions!)^endnote

It works, through. Denigrate it though I may, people love it and I can already anticipate that calling some of my most effective work “slop” will have fans rushing to defend me from myself.

Why does it work? Because the medium, the framing, is always a first and crucial preamble to the message. Open up a news site, and you expect the stories to be written to certain journalistic standards‍—multiple named sources, a neutral tone, specific dates and locations‍—but open up your groupchat? If your friend is talking about the four car pile‍-​up that delayed traffic for an hour, you aren’t going to balk at a casual tone or exagerrated, emphatic turns of phrase.

When I analyze the prose of my ‘story sketches’ and contrast it with more high effort endeavors, certain tics crop up everywhere. I’ll begin with commands like “imagine if…”, directly inviting the reader to cooperate in the process of constructing this story.

I’ll skip from plot beat to plot beat with bridges of pure assumption: a paragraph begins “when that finally happens”, which both serves to backfill whatever that is as a plausible, nay, inevitable development (while it might be the first you’re even hearing of it!), but granting it momentum so propulsive that we’re already moving on.

Simultaneously, detail can be added and bases covered with the versatile syntax of “maybe this happens, maybe that happens,” allowing me to illustrate a number of possible paths, vivid flashes to stoke the imagination. Perhaps if you thought it all through, it would become clear that this can’t be how it would actually proceed‍—but I did say maybe! Even if it’s unworkable, raising the possibility adds flavor, primes your expectations, without the trouble of being beholden to it holding up.

And paradoxically, this ambiguity can grant the following events even more certainty‍—“maybe this happens, maybe that happens, but either way…”

In a sense, what my style of story sketch does isn’t telling the story‍—no, the fictional object one imagines is not a narrative itself (as it would be in a novel), but instead another, longer story which would properly depict that narrative. The reader is left to wonder, what if there was a story about this‍—wouldn’t that be so satisfying?

There’s art in this, still. So difficult to write a good story, and easier, I think, to write just enough of a good story that the reader can fill in the blanks and imagine what if this story was good. Easier, but not easy, and it’s a different skill‍—you can struggle at one but not the other.

But recall my original analogy‍—a news article versus a “how was your day” ramble in the group chat. Part of why one would care to read the latter is out of care for one’s friends. If it were a stranger instead?

Likewise, I imagine part of why I can get away with writing #myslop is I have a small audience of people with trust in me as author. I’ve proven I can write “real” stories, so people will let me cook when I speak off the cuff.^noteThere’s also the question of niche interest. One of my slop posts opens, “thinking about killer x victim yuri again”‍—and if that interests you, chances are you’ll tolerate a lot.^endnote

I digress. The conclusion of all of this is no more than reiterating that storytelling is a function of psychology. Know your reader and craft rhetoric to convince them‍—it may all be that simple.

Put more usefully, the fundamental skill of novel‍-​writing is modelling. You need a model of your reader and what each word in your story primes them to expect‍—but when your reader is the product of a lifetime of experience of a complex world, you necessarily need the understanding to faithfully recreate that world and the culture.

Now I’ve laid out enough framing and context for this blogpost. Let’s talk more precisely about the logic of convincing stories‍—what all naturally follows from a simple need to make sense.

The Core Question

When I reread earlier essays, I’ve often felt my analysis persistently suffers from a lack of examples‍—I would rather be elegant and correct than clear and specific, but the most correct statement of so many writing principles become so rarefied they verge on flying away unmoored from their the actual application.

So let’s give a working example a try.

What would be a cool idea for a story? Ooh, what if a world had a kind of big scaly dragon that, instead of breathing fire, could breathe spooky void tendrils?

Granted, there’s hardly anything to this idea, nothing to sustain a real story‍—but that’s the point. We don’t yet even have a premise; watch me work.

So, what if? Would it be cool? Or would it be terrifying? Would people try to slay them? Or would these dragons rule the world? What, pray tell, actually happens?

Well, I think it’d be cool, and maybe I think that elder void dragons should be the strongest of any dragon ever! But stating that as answer doesn’t ring out like a story progressing, let alone concluding.

So let’s get specific. Maybe we want to write about these void dragons, but we ought to pick one to be our protagonist. What would life like for an individual void dragon?

We could write about this dragon having a collection of dark treasures in an abyssal lair, or how the flesh of men and beasts alike are rent asunder by the void tendrils, but all this isn’t really that different from what fire‍-​breathing dragons are usually imagined to do. If we really want to show off the magnificence of void, we need a more direct contrast.

So, what if there are other dragons who can breathe flames, and our voidly protagonist has to compete with them? Perhaps there’ll be an epic boss fight against a elder firewyrm wherein the devouring void is once and for all proven superior.

If we want to write about a topic, the reader must be curious; a certain question must pique and demand resolution. Our “What if void dragons?” has prompted “Are void dragons stronger than fire dragons?”

To truly intrigue, more than one answer must seem possible. In a basic sense, we pulled this off right away. Maybe void dragons could be stronger, maybe they’re actually weaker. It’s our world, our lie, we can say it goes either way.

Culturally, “void” has more gravitas than “fire;” it is mysterious and profound. Any avid fantasy reader would expect elemental void to be especially potent.

So, can we cast doubt on this? What if in this world, this question has already been settled? In ancient days, void dragons reigned over realms constricted in inky tendrils, flying uncontested through skies blackened by their will. And then bright and glorious flame came roaring forth, and the incumbent void was banished in the grand conflagrations of inter‍-​draconic war.

Those days are long‍-​forgotten, and for centuries now, no dragon has hatched with those ghastly scales of the old night‍—until now.

At once, we have plunged the reader into a delightful ambiguity. The return of void becomes a inspiring defiance of the history and cruel modernity.

Let’s go farther. We can multiply our questions‍—rather than asking only whether void can triumph, why not wonder: should it?

How, really how, could dawning fire conquer the old night? Consider this: the red‍-​scaled usurpers did not work alone. After all, think historically, mythopoetically. Fire emerges and changes the world‍—you already know this story. And you don’t think dragon when you hear it, do you?

In this world, primordial dragons were sea serpents, the spawn of a ravenous mother deep in the abyss. These wyrms ventured on land‍—perhaps to escape her, perhaps to make her proud‍—hunting and hoarding the treasures of the earth. In so doing, the strongest of them won and wielded boons from their dark progenitor. The breath of darkest void.

Meanwhile, feeble and lairless wyrmlings were forced to the margins of this dominion‍—perhaps they found themselves sharing caves with another kind of creature. One smaller, weaker, and even more desperate.

When the ancestors of humankind discovered fire, perhaps it kindled something new inside the soul of the dragon‍—nestling itself where some boon from their mother might have sat, had she cared to give more.

Thus, ancient hunters let dragons dwell in their caves, crafted treasures as tribute, and sacrificed the fattest game of their hunts; in turn, the wyrm’s breath gave them warmth and defense and power.

The void wasn’t driven out by flamewyrm alone‍—no, the black dominion crumbled in war with the first dragonriders.

And men, as ever, were clever and avaricious. In their ascent and expanse, they crowned themselves kings and nobles. The dragons of a lord’s vassals could slumber, well‍-​fed and boasting hoards that burgeoned ever larger without any action on part of its owner.

In short, this new class of dragon knelt subservient to human nobility while enjoying fruits won from the striving of others.

They have strayed far from our image of a proud and mighty dragon‍—are these pitiful lizards even worthy of the name? Should they not be reminded of the ruthless darkness that birthed all monsters?

Now that has gotten kinda compelling! Admittedly, I’m showing off a bit‍—I’m polishing the fundamental conflict when we really need to get on with the actual structure.

So, our protagonist should be a void dragon unwilling to bow to humanity, and consequently something the flame dragon orthodoxy cannot allow to exist.

Stories have three parts: the question, the answer, and the work it takes to prove it so. Cast in familiar terms: the beginning, the ending, and the dreadful middle.

Our next quest is now clarified: how do we grant this protagonist a triumph over the flame kingdoms and have it satisfy readers?

First, let’s analyze the gears of this machine. The dynamic which animates stories is flow; presenting one element primes the reader to expect another. Consider: as soon as I described the dragonrider kingdoms through the lens of feudal oppression, did you not already foresee the protagonist cast in the role of righteous resistance?

I declare, “The void dragons are no more,” and you know this trope. You start expecting the but. When I describe the first void dragon hatching in centuries, maybe you groan at the cliché, or nod eagerly at the story hook, but what you aren’t doing is blinking in bewilderment.

A series of these sort of expectated developments suggests a kind of beat‍-​map, landmarks to guide our journey. A checklist, if we’re being mercenary. First our protagonist will awaken their void heritage, and then learn about the harsh truth of dragonrider society, come to oppose it, and then there will be grand battles and escalating violence until ultimately they emerge triumphant.

Call this the core‍-​line. If the protagonist wants something, the core‍-​line sees them achieving it. If something is unknown, the core‍-​line reveals the truth. It’s not about the complications or obstacles, it’s the desire and its fulfillment.

But of course, dragonrider society won’t just let the protagonist fly in to wreck the place. Maybe they would try to bind and shackle the void’s power, exile the protagonist, or send knights forth to slay‍—or maybe instead, a cunning elder invites the protagonist to talk, make a deal. Allow yourself to become steed to some high noble, a forked tongue suggets, simply fall in line, and all will be well.

Maybe there’s even a sympathetic dragonet, same age as the protagonist, bearing no void heritage but their own struggles to fit in. (A rare variant breath, perhaps?) But this dragon believes in the order the red wyrm elders have created. Maybe there’s the chance to improve things without tearing everything down‍—and you should recognize these story beats, too.

Thus, we have the counter‍-​line. The antagonistic force that frustrates, denies, and negates the ambitions animating the protagonist. Like the other throughline, it’s straightforward. The antagonist wants to impede the protagonist, and this is how it could.

Importantly, core‍-​ and counter‍-​lines are hypotheticals. Vanishing points rather than a sketch layer. They serve as two competing answers to the central question of the story‍—more often than not, only one can be true, nuance notwithstanding.^noteThere can, of course, can be (and depending on the depth of your analysis, almost always are) more than just two throughlines to play off each other. But for now, let’s keep it simple.^endnote In simple terms: here we have the goals and stakes.

The task of story structure, then, is weaving and tangling these lines together so that the final resolution remains in flux until the climax.

An important technique for convincing the reader of this is crafting a counter‍-​line that is nuanced rather than antithetical.

If the dragonriders are unwavering in their determination to kill our protagonist, how curious will you be at whether they’ll succeed? But if we introduce a badass aspiring rider, giving them complex and conflicted chemistry with our protagonist? If we let the flame dragons grow sympathetic, and reveal that the prophesied restoration of Lucuna Invicta would be apocalyptic to everyone’s way of life?

Now do you still believe the protagonist will destroy the kingdom, or join it? Which will you be hoping for?

Narrative Chord Progressions

To chart the progress of a story, we’ll need more granularity than “beginning, middle and end.” In music, notes are often organized into keys; playing notes of the same key can forms chords, and music theorists organize sets of chords into a numeric series.

First comes the I chord, the tonic, the harmonic center. Many songs begin here, and fittingly, we’ll call the first stop on our journey Beat I.

Here we establish our perspective and the logic it obeys. The core‍-​line is introduced‍—teased if not fully revealed, and we understand what the story is about, the direction we’re heading.

Beat II then heralds the counter‍-​line, the tension that contrasts our perspective and blocks its direction.

Characters live long lives, before and perhaps even after the story‍—and if our true focus is something broader still, like a war, then there will be a vast tapestry of moments that might compose a story. So: where do we actually begin?

Beat III brings the urgency, the inevitability, the catalyst of the story. This can take myriad forms. Perhaps here we declare that the core‍-​line and counter‍-​line cannot both be satisfied, explain why the protagonists must defeat the villain. Perhaps we reveal a looming threat that the counter‍-​line will reach its dire end first, unless the core‍-​line concludes first. In short, where I and II pose the question, III promises that it must be answered‍—and soon!

Here’s a type of advice that always perplexed me: scene polarity. Many writing manuals posit that you should keep track of whether your scenes are “positive” or “negative,” meant in terms of… how the reader feels? How things are going? Something like that. And you should be careful not to have too many scenes in a row that are all positive or all negative.

This was never all that clear to me. Supposedly this helped pacing, or prevented reader fatigue? But forget the purpose, even the framing confused me. How is “positive” or “negative” essential to the structure of a scene? That seemed the sort of judgment that’s beyond the scope of structure‍—what’s positive in one story, to one reader, is totally different in some other subjective context.

Pacing took a very long time for me to understand, and I’m uncovering new facets of it even still. Here’s a new way to think about it. Imagine you go through Beats I–III, right? You’ve now posed your question, made it intriguing and urgent.

Suppose our void dragon needs to hone the tendrils of atrament to augment the budding dark power. So the young dragon trains. And in so doing learns a new technique. And then recruits a new ally. And uncovers an ancient talisman that the black dominion wielded to peerless effect. And tracks down a rare herb that can be ingested to accelerate the growth of one’s inner strength. And‍—

You get the idea. Maybe the dragonrider kingdoms are a truly fearsome threat, even in spite of all this progress, the protagonist would still struggles to challenge a single elder dragon.

But the pacing of these developments is monotonous. We’ve posed a question, and maybe at first we weren’t sure which way it would go, but then we present an argument for one conclusion. And here’s another, and another, and another‍— has the point been proven yet? Is the rest an exercise for the reader?

To keep things compelling, we should intercut core‍-​line developments with elaboration of the counter‍-​line to remind the reader why conclusion isn’t yet foregone.

So perhaps the void dragon trains in secret, but their mentor‍—an elder ex‍-​mount who became jaded when their rider died‍—is captured by the kingdom, barely securing the protagonist’s escape. Raging now at this weakness, the void dragon struggles day and night to replicate the last technique that mentor had tried to teach‍—and when finally performed, the protagonist rashly decides to raid a dragonslayer city to prove this new strength.

It goes disastrously‍—still too weak, even with a new trick‍—and only the intervention of a mysterious new ally rescues the protagonist from certain demise. Together the pair flee into the countryside, but the dragonriders pursue them day and night, permitting them no peace.

Desperate, they hide away in the depths of a cursed ruin even riders fear to tread‍—only it’s not any common ruin: at its heart lies artifacts from the black dominion, among them a talisman which invites one into the embrace of shadows, perfect for hiding from their pursuers.

Yet even with room to breathe, protagonist still bears injury from the assault in the city, and weariness from so long spent on the run. Only now can the void dragon begin to recover. This mysterious ally leaves now‍—abandoned already?‍—except no, turns out the other dragon knew of a rare and powerful flower that emerged from the brackish waters of some bog. For others, it would augment one’s power, but for the void dragon, this only suffices to mend their wounds.

I quite digress. The function of Beat IV is this sort of vicillating back and forth at length illustrated above. Progress dances with setback, opportunities are fleeting and double‍-​edged, protagonist and antagonist vie for dominance without it yet becoming clear how either could achieve lasting victory.

Arguably, this is the backbone of a story, its fun and thrilling bite. It’s training montages and rogues galleries, it’s the action and intrigue that the back of the book promises.

It’s a sprawl that can keep going and going, it’s back‍-​and‍-​forth rhythms verging on episodic. It’s the great swampy middle where stories go off‍-​road and are never heard from again.

Uncertainty defines this beat‍—this is where it is yet unclear how the story could even resolve. Danger lies in making this irresolution too persuasive. If the threat is so daunting, how can our heroes ever succeed?

Your first struggle is convincing the reader that there is genuine tension‍—but after that comes the harder task of convincing the reader that it can be resolved without contrivance or breaking promise.^note(I’ll quote it once more: surprising, yet inevitable. Go on, take a shot.)^endnote

It often requires sleight of hand‍—even as each line shifts back and forth, the fronts steadily advance into a decisive configuration. Three pieces move forward, two are captured, but one falls into place for the final gambit. When you have enough pieces moving, a reader won’t know which one is most important‍—they take their eyes off of one, distracted by a red herring, not realizing until it all comes together.

Beat V is not where it all comes together, but you can see it from here. This beat begins when we see the glimmer of possibility, the hope, the idea just crazy enough to work. You don’t yet know what it’ll cost, you don’t know what the enemy’s response will be, but at least you have an end‍-​game to plan for.

Beat VI, of course, is that dreaded enemy response. It’s where it becomes clear what has to go right for the final plan to work. You need to fight hard to even get to the final battlefield. If the last step is where the protagonist’s win condition was revealed, here is where we see the antagonist’s win condition. The terms are set, and die is cast: let the final battle begin.

Beat VII means climax, confrontation, culmination. Maybe it’s one sided‍—this may not be the end of the story‍—but what matters is that one of the throughline is near its conclusion, and it must be prevented or ushered in. Prior beats built to this, and all the plans and can payoff. But importantly, there’s still room for further transformation and twists. Either throughline can reach a new, more nuanced end than first anticipated.

And finally, you can feel we’re at the terminus. You might be expecting me to call this Beat VIII‍—and there’s some utility to that framing.^noteIt’s in fact what I originally wrote, but later on, I found myself writing paragraphs dissecting the difference between a I and a VIII when I realized things become much simpler if instead admit they’re essentially the same.^note(But imagine if invent a concept of Narrative Chord Extensions.)^{endnoteendnote}

But no, at the conclusion, we return to our home chord. Beat I also serves this function, a coda to close this chapter. The last step might only have resolve one of the throughlines, but by this point the two so deeply entangled that it has all but determined how the other turns out. At the end here, we can soak in the implications of the conclusion to our core question, and explore the nature of the world in the wake of all this striving. It’s a reintroduction, if you will.

In short:

1. Beat I: present the protagonist
2. Beat II: present the antagonist
3. Beat III: reveal the tension between them
4. Beat IV: heighten tension and advance a conclusion
5. Beat V: reveal the protagonist’s final objective
6. Beat VI: reveal the antagonist’s final objective
7. Beat VII: resolve the objectives
8. Beat I (reprise): present the consequences

All told, a tidy little system‍—if only it were that simple. Do you think we’re done?

Spinning Circles Into Webs

What shown thus far is nothing more substantial than a reskinning of the Story Circle^note(A notorious past‍-​time of this blog.)^endnote But this the groundwork for the new principles I’d like to introduce.

Return briefly to our inspiration (or aesthetic donor, at least). These roman numerals evoke the notation for chords, but chords come up distinct types. Two predominate: major and minor chords. Many authors distinguish them with capitalization‍—“IV” is the major four chord, and “iv” is its minor counterpart.^noteI initially adopted this convention‍—and it in certain cases, it still lends clarity‍—but found it too fiddly to use consistently. I’m learning in real time why people stopped doing this.^endnote

But instead of ‘minor beats’, here it is more instructive to call them false beats.

Imagine our void dragon story begins with our darkling egg hatching, growing up in some obscure hovel‍—perhaps the hatchling is protected by guardians who believe in the prophetic return of Lacuna Invicta, and devote themselves to raising their little destroyer.

Then the dragonriders come‍—perhaps a guardian was captured or even betrayed them, revealing the voidling’s blasphemous existence. Outside, smoke fills the air as the village burns, and the home the voidling had once known will be but ash.

And then the world darkens‍—profoudly. A despair deepens until a black gulf opens in the voidling’s soul, and out pours the grasping mandibles of the void from a snarling, shrieking maw. At once a dragonslayer is struck dead, a long black sword‍-​tooth slicing his throat.

The voidling indulges completely in this new and overwhelming power, and the night comes alive, void infesting every shadow. She begins to ache terribly‍—but if it meant vengence against these hateful flames? The young dragon knew it would do anything if‍—

Now vast and lunging forth comes an elder red dragon. His rider bids him advance, and blindingly bright fire burns nascent in a throat vast enough to swallow the voidling whole. Then open yawns the mouth, and fire erupts like a sun descending. A tremendous roar shakes everything.

And where void had begun clawing a new foothold in the world, there is only scintilating ash.

End of chapter! Next, we see a small red dragon wake up with whining relunctance before slinking forth to greet a trio of smiling friends. These young dragons chat, chirping and growling, full of wild boasts and promises regarding their future battles and partners. Cheerfully they fly off‍—to the kingdom’s dragonrider academy.

Now, what I’ve outlined here is not an unusual structure for fantasy. It sounds like a dark and evocative prologue to pique reader interest followed by an seemingly unrelated main story.

But what if that ‘prologue’ lasted longer than a chapter‍—if there was a whole arc characterizing the voidling and her guardians, laying out a future plots of training and rebellion?

How would conventional models of storytelling describe such a structure? It seems a misunderstanding to describe that first arc as a ‘beginning’ and the second as a ‘middle’‍—they imply different stories: if you skipped the first arc, would you notice anything awry? The introduction of the academy dragon is clearly a beginning, but the voidling’s childhood is also a beginning.

The concept of ‘subplot’ seems appropriate‍—but is it a subplot, when it takes center‍-​stage, structured identically to the main plot?

To me, both of these arcs function like Beat I‍—the first, then, is a False I. A false beat is one that at first presents identically to a proper beat, but its relevance, if any, to resolving the main question is not what it at first appears.

You would begin reading this story and expect the voidling to be our protagonist. Except no, they are promptly killed, and then we meet our real protagonist.

Now imagine these dragons do various quests as part of their training. Our protagonist is told about a group of kobolds, cultists who have been attacking merchants and spreading blasphemy, and his job is to go in and reduce those evil kobolds to cinders.

This could take chapters to play out‍—flying out to the afflicted villages, asking the denizens for leads, hunting for the kobolds, skirmishing and tracking them back to their hideout, and then the actual confrontation.

But this mission turns out to be more than our protagonist can handle‍—the kobolds catch him in a trap, pricking him with poisoned needles to suppress his dragonflame, before dragging him in chains to an altar. These are worshippers of the old night, and they plot the inevitable return of the void.

Yes, that new darkling spawn had been slaughtered, but void does not simply die.

So they chant and they brandish runic knives and he screams. A gruesome ritual infuses our protagonist with the power of that dead hatchling; his flame is snuffed out and pludged into darkness.

And now, you’ll see that we’ve pulled a double sleight of hand. After the false introduction gives way to true introduction, we have a False II, positioning the kobold cult as our villains.

Specifically, I would map out the progression so far as something like i‍-​II‍-​I‍-​ii‍-​III. We introduce a false protagonist, position them against the true antagonist, introduce the true protagonist, position them against a false threat, then bind the true protagonist in conflict with the true antagonist.

You can easily imagine how other false beats play out. The False III appears to be a irreconcilable conflict, yet a mutual understanding or disarmament is reached. A False IV feels trickier to define‍—the nature of IV is that it tarries in ambiguity. But the nature of IV is also to search, to train and march forward in the face of adversity‍—and if it turns out you were looking in the wrong place entirely? If all your progress went down the wrong road, then you have witnessed a False IV.

The False V, by contrast, might be the most common. It’s the early attempt doomed to failure, the plan that almost works. False VI is another odd one. VI is often the price you pay by commiting to V, so the fake‍-​out would be skirting the consequences, thwarting the counterattack. False VII might need the least elaboration of all‍—you thought the battle was over, but no, phase two is thundering forth and now the choir is chanting in Latin.

But what my earlier example sneakily introduced was the true innovation of this system. The story circle is linear, it always goes 1‍-​2‍-​3‍-​4, each step leading to the next in an archetypal sequence.

These chords have a natural order to them (the system takes after its father), but here, I emphasize their nonlinearity.^noteI have at last achieved what I struggled with in an in‍-​progress post about alchemy I may never finish.^endnote Beat I is where so many stories begin, but it would make just as much sense to begin with III, first presenting the two feuding factions before we meet the players who’ll be caught up in their games.

You can play these chords in any sequence, though of course some cadences more easily sound right.

Re: Fractals

A repeated punching bag on this site is the snowflake meme. The notion that story structures are clean fractals, and the ideal story would be an eight step circle where each step is its own eight step circle.

A sentence requires a subject and verb and sometimes an object. These can be modified by clauses that themselves have their own subjects and verbs, but put simply, the structure of a sentence cannot be reduced to a single order or axis of symmetry. They sprawl and contort to accomodate their subject matter.

These seven chords are, I believe, key components of a story. Some are practical rather than integral‍—because III binds the protagonist and antagonist, it can obviate the beats that preceding introduce them, at the cost of skipping over space fit for building proper investment. But if you think your core conflict is enough of a hook? If you’re writing fanfiction? Or better yet‍—if this is book two of a saga and your audience should be pre‍-​acquainted?

Contra the fractal snowflake, the shape of idiomatic stories lends itself to more recursion‍—more sprawl‍—at specific points rather than others. Beat IV is the go‍-​to place to let distinct subplots play out as the protagonist searches for a solution.

If you wrote a seven book saga, instead of each book reflecting a single beat, what’s more likely is that somewhere in book one or two the ‘main plot’ is established and remains on hold while innumerable other pieces are pushed into place. Consider a dirge that holds to the harmony of a single chord for minutes.

Sentences have nouns and verbs, but they also have adjectives. Likewise, I think the necessary ingredients for the minimal story are III and VII. As stated, III can pull double duty introducing the protagonist and antagonist, and I’ve read stories where the final gambit was only revealed at the eleventh hour, during the climatic showdown it resolves; it can be done, it’s just easier with setup.

The nature of music theory and the analysis of compositions is an inherent subjectivity. The harmony of all but simple pieces can be notated differently by two theorists.^noteA passage hums with a minor A chord, but then a natural B rings out. The melody can venture outside the confines of rigid consonance, but sometimes the melody is all that’s heard. Melody alone can imply harmony‍—just tap out a few broken chords‍—but how many accidentals can you play before you’re in new harmonic territory?^endnote

Likewise with plot. You can lay out seven bullet points in an outline, but draft the prose, and the the beats blend together, early moments serving to set up or outright introduce the elements of the final beats. Even should you outline a core‍-​ and counter‍-​line, these may correspond to no chapter in the story‍—in practice, the beats are no more than paint to be mixed on your pallete and strew about the canvas.

So, one last time, shall we prepare our oils?

1. What is the story about?
2. What tension is unresolved?
3. Why must it be resolved?
4. How much work will it take?
5. What will decide it?
6. What else does it require?
7. How does it finally resolve?
8. Where does that leave everything?

I‍-​II‍-​III

Drafting this next section has taken me a few days. A skill issue, in part,^noteAt least one day I rambled about this setting on tumblr and discord instead of touching this essay.^endnote but also I think symptomatic of structural issues with the story thus far outlined.

We have an interesting world, and interesting core conflict‍—but the actual protagonist? We have a role for them‍—wanna become super strong, but don’t wanna bow to humanity‍—but what we don’t have is a reason to care about, or even understand them.

Why strive so hard to become strong? Why not just become a rider’s mount?

Let’s return to that void hatchling. Imagine, like all little dragons, she wants to run around and try out little roars. Except her minders are harshly insistent: she cannot do that. Perhaps they don’t outright hurt or yell, but they do punish her. When she’s old enough to speak and listen, maybe they finally explain: she can’t make too much noise, can’t wander around freely, because someone might see her. They have to hide, she has to hide, or they’ll never be safe.

Maybe a part of her urges her to test those limits, aches for freedom, but the rebukes sting, and one day, she realizes that dark look in those eyes is not hatred, or disdain, or even anger: it’s fear. Her stunts are terrifying the only ones who care for her (the ones who still care for her, despite everything). And maybe that’s when she pulls back, curls up into something staid but safe.

She hates it, of course, but she has to. She understands that now.

…Except it didn’t work. She’d given up doing what she wanted, and what did that get her? The dragonriders had found them anyway, and now they’re all dead. Now she’s dead.

Or not quite? Her awareness still persists, reconvalescent in this darkness devoid of all sensation. Here she can only think, dream, remember. She has only those evanescent childhood memories, tinged bittersweet by the always punctual application of discipline, later pervaded instead by the placid, haunting absence of any game but quietly hiding.

She could rage at the pointlessness of all this‍—why did she ever give in! What if she’d just ran away? What if she could have called upon that darkness within sooner than the very end? Could everything have gone better if she just‍—

But she didn’t. So what’s the point? She had to hide from the dragonriders‍—they were looking for her. Nothing she could have done would have escaped them in the end. Nothing she could have done would have let her defeat that monstrously large elder and his breath like a sun. Nothing she could have done would have ever mattered.

Everyone was gone and all she had to accompany her now was this nothingness, yawning infinite at all sides of her present being. And wasn’t this a perfect place to to hide? She could hear that thought in the voice of her minders: quell this petulant tantrum, little one, and be quiet.

Forget all of it. What does it matter anyway?

She was always told her guardians knew better, they were her role‍-​models, she ought follow their guidance.

And since they were all dead‍—

But void does not simply die.

That’s when she finds herself awakening in a body not her own‍—scales red, frame larger, leanly muscled from ample food and never knowing the bite of constant rationing. A mind recalls a life, memories surfacing, and not those memories she’d dwelled so long in darkness reliving.

This dragon… Everything she’d ever wanted was his for the asking‍—without asking, merely granted.

He was so eagerly willing to become another one of the dragonriders who had contorted her life into an aching prison (that had ended her life). He was so ready to slaughter these kobolds (she recognized the glyphs the cult used; it was how she knew where it was safe to hide). He was so…

Loud. He’s still in this mind even now, and she can hear the panicked spirals of his thoughts, a will convulsing at its new inability to control anything. It almost made her miss the void‍— Would he just shut up and be quiet?

She hates him.

But‍—small mercy‍—his panic soon gives way to a kind of mental exhaustion, and that insistent flailing will fades from her attention. She isn’t alone, even now‍—she lay upon an altar, and the kobolds around her now treat her with worshipful reverence. This comfort, this touch, she hasn’t known it in so very long.

Then, some time later, the nature of her situation is explained to her. And the next steps of their plan.

The kingdom would slaughter any void dragon they found‍—which is why they’d needed this vessel. By transfusing her blood, she had achieved possession, but‍—a quick examination by a kobold mage confirms‍—her blood is already snuffing out his flame. She must restrain herself‍—this cannot be allowed to happen.

(Perhaps she rages at an order to restrain herself, thrashing until at great length she has been calmed down‍—or perhaps the vigor of her ressurection fades at once and, like vise closing around her, she quietly wonders sure, what does it matter.)

Here’s the plan. As long as her host’s flame remains, she can pretend to be him, slip right by all the dragonriders’ defenses. This is key. Much as she’d want to stay‍—and they want to stay with her‍—if a noble dragon went missing, there would be investigation, they would find them here in this den; and the cult had nowhere else for her to go. Kobolds were nimble and furtive, they could hide‍—but a whole still‍-​growing wyrm?

So return now to the dragonriders, tell them you were successful in your quest‍—continue to study their arts, learn their secrets. We shall secure a lair for you in secret.

And the kobolds have to work in secret: they hide away now for the same reason her minders had hid. All along she had thought it was all her fault alone that they all died, but with this firewyrm’s memories, she knows now the truth: this kingdom abhors kobolds just as much as the old night. It was the difference between ancient fear and fresh and aggravated loathing.

Kobolds were not natural creatures; they were wrought by dragons’ flame, lesser beings worshipfully devoted to their draconic master. Their very existence was a violation more horrifying than slavery. (Slaves, at least, could be freed.)

Faced with that fate, death was mercy. She felt this dogma ringing in the firewyrm’s head, with the same certitude she knew to be quiet and hide. Was it murder? Yes; but the charges lay at the feet of the dragon, not the euthanasist.

There’s something crackling under her scales‍—it’s the flame of the firewyrm, responding to her own rage. She had never felt the heat of dragonflame, except as the sensation of being utterly incinerated; and this only stokes the wrath to new heights. Kobolds had raised her, had brought her back from death‍—and this kingdom so callously thought they should die just for that petulance called existing?

She listens now to the chants recounting the prophecy of lacuna invicta, the restoration of our mother void in blood and desolation. It had been so long since she’d been lulled to sleep by a gentle voice‍—these voices weren’t gentle, and this was nothing like a bedtime story. And yet, it brought her her a deeper comfort.

Here, of course, lies the precipice past which the story proper begins. The goals and stakes are set, the characters established, all that’s left is marching through the arcs themselves. We can imagine the protagonist returning to the academy, and struggling with the balancing act of pretending to be her host while her innate nature gnashes to be free.

His friends are concerned‍—some of his strange new behavior can be trauma from a violent first quest that proved terribly more complicated‍—anyone would be shaken to see the sorry state of kobolds with no master. But why won’t you talk to us?

We can imagine learning more about the skills expected of a dragon. Kindling their breath (only now she struggles to produce flames), practicing their flight (except she’d never grown old enough to fledge), and the mechanics of hoards.

We can imagine that this all would take awhile, and I’m not here to outline a whole story. We’ll skip ahead. But first, an interlude.

Sidebar: On Gamer Slop

I’ll include a brief digression here about progression plots‍—because would you believe that is what actually motivated this entire essay?

Last month I thought of framework for outlining shōnen‍-​esque power fantasy plotlines. I hadn’t actually planned to write about, because as mentioned, I’m embarrassed about how much of my output involves reskinning the same few pedagogical tools.^noteIn a chatroom, I joked that I only have like 2‍-​3 topics I ever write about, but my social circles have just enough churn that I can spit out the same essay every few months and still get rounds of applause.^endnote

Still, when I mentioned this in passing, people expressed interest, so I started laying out some exposition. The askers in question were unfamiliar with plot structures in general, so I have opted for a general introduction first‍—you’ve just read that‍—and now equipped with an understanding of narrative chords, my take on progression fantasy is no more than painting numbers.

1. Power up!: the protagonist gains (awareness of) a new capacity that could one day make them more powerful than others. This is where we get exposition about how the magic system works.
2. Dangers & Limits: this new power exposes the user to harm; there’s a price to using it, and limits none can overcome.^note(Hi, Sanderson fans.)^endnote
3. Job for a hero: a problem plagues the world, one only those with power of capable of addressing. A niche fit just for them. Relunctant or eager, noble or conscripted, the protagonist finds themselves thrust into this role.
4. Grind grind grind: attaining power requires hard work and training, and here the protagonist proves themselves worthy of reaching the highest ranks.
5. Level up!: the grind pays off; the protagonists expands their power, gaining new abilities or breaking past old limits. The protagonist may instead or in addition need to Specialize, only able to progress by chosing one ‘build’ at the expense of other options.^noteIn a way, this would also work as Beat VI, but I’m reserving that spot for what’s more important:^endnote
6. Aura farming: the protagonist shows off their new powers, overcoming threats and obstacles that would have been insurmountable before. We were promised that the protagonist had the potential to do things others could not, and here we get to see it in glorious action.^noteYou can also have the aforementioned dangers bite, make them pay the price, or otherwise demonstrate the dangers of the job. Only if you want to stakes to like, matter or something.^endnote
7. Boss fight: here the protagonist fulfils their role, and conquers a threat that only someone who has poured this much effort into honing their powers could hope to achieve. Congratulations, you win.^noteAnd, as you can imagine, a Beat I after the boss fight naturally loops into the promise of further power‍—they loot the boss chest and fight an item that powers them up, or gain enough xp to level up again, or return to the village to get a quest reward. And would you look at that, a new threat is beseige them, another job for a hero.^endnote

And, of course, our little void dragon tale began in its very inception an exercise in powerscaling‍—we’re here to prove void dragons are stronger than fire dragons.

This merits some thought toward how dragons progress in power. I’ve spoken at length in other venues, brainstorming worldbuilding ideas for this setting, but this essay has already indulged it at great length.

One core idea we can work with is that dragons derive power specifically from their hoard. Once a dragon’s claws have engraved an object, marking it as their possession, then their breath may enflame it and thereby draw forth a kind of power. Little exists which cannot be incinerated in dragonflame‍—but the fire expresses their will, and a tempered will can spare its target.

Precious metals are distinguished, both for materially withstanding a dragon marking them, and for innately possessing a conduit to the earth’s own power. Even more distinguished are gemstones, resplendent with significance and scintillating when alight with dragonflame.^noteThough here, “engraved” may be less appropriate than simply “cut into shape.”^endnote

And‍—if you’ll forgive the tricolon‍—perhaps the third traditional target of dragons’ breath are living creatures. You may expecting some dark twist‍—that, unlike the metals and gems, this material component is sacrificed like mere fuel, perhaps in communion not to the earth, but the mother void herself.

But no, I have something more interesting in mind.^note(Those who’ve read my tumblr posts know where this is going.)^endnote Enflamed creatures will be imbued with the dragons’ will: it warms their flesh and flushes in every heartbeat. Where the tongues of flame licked them, a scar forms, hardening to something rigid. Scaly, even.

If ever were maidens sacrificed to dragons, they would never be seen or heard from again‍—where do you think kobolds come from?

This is why the kingdom bears such profound fear and hatred for kobolds. That any person could be transformed into something diminutive, so lesser‍—stripped of their humanity and eternally enthralled to a dragon? It unsettles the chain of being at its foundation.

I digress; I don’t want to spend too long on this, just suffice it to say dragons grow mighty from a hoard graven and enflamed. This fills in‍—or at least suggests‍—a few answers to the power fantasy harmonics.

The major missing ingredients now are what risks users of this magic system open themselves up to. Perhaps a stealing treasure from a hoard entails a certain vulnerability. Perhaps drawing power from the hoard means a period of slumber‍—cutting you off from participation in the world and its politics. Perhaps the composition of the teasure, the specific materials and manufacture and even arrangement, have bearing on the development of the users’ flame.

Perhaps kobolds were traditionally charged with that organization and optimization of a hoard; now ‘hoardmaid’ is a task that falls to others.

The next question has bearing both on this digression and the previous section.^note(…arguably itself a digression…)^endnote What do dragons and dragonriders do? What is the ‘Job for a Hero’ of a dragonrider story?

A go‍-​to worldbuilding tic of mine is invent a class of a morally uncomplicated monsters that magic‍-​users can exhaust themselves learning to hunt and overcome. This doubles as a means of making settings dark and desperate, where every village fears what lurks in the night.

Yet I think it might be interesting to dispense with that. What good are dragonriders? For the most part… nothing. Maybe every few years there might be a monster of note, maybe there’ll always been bandits and rogue dragonriders and even a outright predatory wyrm. But what really defines a dragonrider… is pageantry. They tour the countryside on visible patrols and pilgrimages, awing the settlements they pass through with grand displays and tales of old glory.

But the main thing a rider has to worry about are other riders. There’s a whole numeric system precisely accounting the “power levels” of dragons‍—why? Because it’s a competition! The riders joust each other for sport. What the academy trains you for is not defense‍—that’s, although foundational, now peripheral‍—it’s the tournament circuit!

You could imagine the void dragon’s vitriol‍—all the time she spent worried for her life, and this stupid dragon has been preening and losing sleep over whether they’ll earn a round of applause? Loathsome.

We should get back to her, shouldn’t we?

But first, a caveat. Most of the pedagogical information has been conveyed; the remained of this article is concerned with finishing what I started. This is already a daunting amount of work, and I don’t want to create more of it for myself by devising magic system mechanics and describing what each step is like while also minding conflict and characterization. In the end, I’m not an experienced power fantasy writer; what comes easy to me is character‍-​focused writing, and so that is what will get the bulk of attention.

V

There are two kinds of dragons that don’t yet have riders: those who are waiting for the right rider, and those who are waiting for any rider.

By tradition noble riders are bonded to a dragon early in their teen years‍—before the dragon has even fledged‍—but the kingdom also awards dragons to some knights for great deeds. For this, dragons of higher pedigree may be held in abeyance, as if as prizes to be won. By that same token, dragons of disgraced lineages and reputations may find no aspirant rider willing to chose them.

The host of the voidling had belonged to a small cohort who’d all grown up without riders; this group used to be larger, but members were picked off over the years, until only four remained.

Of them, the host had the most distinguished parents. In fact, his father was the very same elder who had attacked the village that fateful night, sun‍-​like breath scorching away the voidling. (Using the host’s flame had been difficult enough before she realized it was the same fire she heard crackling in her nightmares.)

The other three dragons could be told apart by their scales; one had an orange cast, another a brighter yellow, almost sunny, and the final dragon had scales so dark and muted as to give him effortless stealth in night‍-​time hunts. (Once, the host had red scales, brightest of the group. But ever since that quest with the cult, he’d gotten paler, as if from some sickness.)

The orange‍-​scaled dragon had been tamed; he’d hatched and spent years in the wild and still remained ill‍-​tempered, biting any human he gets a chance to. The black‍-​scaled dragon never spoke of his family. He was clever but spoke rarely, and preferred less to breathe fire than to infuse tools with flame and set traps.

The yellow‍-​scaled dragon differred most of all from the group, a bouncy wyrm all but sparkling with cheer. He told everyone he met that he wanted to be a healer like his mom‍—well, but a combat healer, you know. The warmth of flames, properly controlled, could nurture life, and that’s what he studied.

He was the the only one besides the host who ever spoke of his family; also a noble lineage, but not nearly as martial as the host’s. He was a male drake from a clutch of female wyverns, so he was sent to the academy while his sisters became hoardmaids and wing‍-​vestals.

The academy did not assign teams. After all, dragons rarely worked together‍—few problems required more than a single wyrm to solve‍—so these four were bound together by a kind of informal pact. Among themselves they shared their treasure, companionship, and the hope of one day being a rider’s pick.

Keeping her distance from them was easy enough‍—solitary moods were common, though the yellow one quickly proved the most insistent, repeatedly reaching out‍—but unfortunately, cutting them off entirely would be suspicious.

One day, the yellow‍-​scaled dragon catches the possessed firewyrm alone, and says: Look, I know something’s up.

Maybe this isn’t the first time he’s said something like this, but his approach is different now. He says, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but… if I can guess it right, if I figured it out, will you open up? Just a little?

At a minute nod, his gives his guess: Well… I notice things, y’know? I’ve seen the way you react when people say your name. The way you’ve started covering yourself up. The way you must feel… out of place, right? And I get it. Do you‍— Do you ever wish you were a wyvern?

At first, the voidwyrm had been afraid that he really had figured it out. Her dread cooled to relief, then flared back to mute shock. He didn’t know, not really, but… he wasn’t quite wrong, was he?

Listen, he continues, I won’t say anything if you won’t? Because‍— I do too? Kind of. But. My family are healers, y’know, so I’ve learned a bit about dragon anatomy. It means I know how what determines if a hatchling is a drake or a wyvern.

She can’t resist asking: What is it?

Nothing! At least, nothing physical. Some vestals perform rites of divination, and some nurses just decide it by looking. But I’ve never been able to be sure it isn’t just random. Could they get it wrong? I’ve asked about it and most just say… Some dragons have to be drakes, and some have to be wyverns. That’s the way it works. But we don’t look all that different, do we? Not at all. It’s the same on the inside, too. Nothing is different except our flames, and not until we’ve had some time to grow and develop. It’s different for humans, I think. They have squishy bits and slippery goop‍—it’s a bit gross, really‍—but it means you can usually tell them apart, at least.

Um, anyway. He shakes his head, and continues: I do like fighting, and I want to have a rider and win glory and everything drakes do it’s just. Wouldn’t it be nice to be a mother some day… to have someone carve pretty patterns onto your horns… even just be called lady?

And maybe it’s at that moment, seeing this gleam in the yellow dragon’s eye, so desperate for connection, that the voidling says: Yes. It would feel right. Better than this. And maybe she goes farther, can’t resist going farther‍— she tells the other dragon her name. Her real name, that she’d never spoken in this body.

They share a hug, and the thought crosses her mind. She isn’t going to stay at this academy or play the games riders exhaust themselves with. She isn’t going to become some knight’s flying horse. None of that has changed. As soon as her kobolds find her a new lair, she’ll shed this life like old skin.

But did she have to do it alone? Could she take the other dragon with her‍—somewhere where that dragon could fight and heal, spit fire with graven horns, be called lady and whatever else they desire?

So the voidwyrm says: Right now, this is just between the two of us. But one day? It won’t be. I promise.

But it’s more than fellow dragonets that the voidwyrm needs to fool. The academy has mentors. Flight instructures, masters of all the different schools of breath, priests delivering lectures and sermons about the sanctified nobility of the kingdom.

It’s not only that the voidling can’t help but behave strangely, and in stark contrast to her host. Briefly, in the right light, you can spot black line veining her eyes, or a darkness that writhes in between her scales whenever she loses her temper. She still breathes fire, yet it seems to cast shadows that flicker more violently than the flames.

(She breathes fire. In this new body, she had never manifested the same black tendrils she had commanded on that night. Not even in private‍—she blamed this loathsome heartflame, inherited from that bastard. As if that light and warmth now precluded her full power‍—she felt pushed the margins in her own body. Her own? No, but it had to be hers; she nothing else.)

How long would she need to keep up this façade? Her growing familiarity with what was needed to fit in didn’t make it any easier‍—it just made the prospect of keeping this up for weeks, months, years unimaginable. What was the point? She had died before, was it really that bad? Was it worse than this?

Of all the academy staff who might’ve noticed, it’s the history teacher who pays particular attention to the voidwyrm.

He bears a scarred and wizened visage, and a faint blue tinge speckles his scales. Dragons and riders alike regarded him coolly; despite his age and scholarship, he bears the uncommon disgrace of surviving his rider’s demise. (How could he? they whisper. Two things truly bonded fall as one.)

So maybe it’s that always haunting sense of loss, that keen awareness of how what it means to have the world disregard you at your most vulnerable, that leaves the history teacher so able to recognize a reprise.

So when the unbonded firewyrm begins missing classes and acting with a aloof coldness completely out of character, some of the staff had remarked on it, but only the history teacher reaches out, inquiring about the dragon’s home life, meeting them in private to discuss personal matters.

She resists the probes, of course, so the teacher backs off, and retreats to merely academic matters. Safer waters, surely, to ask about those elementary lessons, teachings the firewyrm had long ago mastered.

Except there’s no hiding it from direct scrutiny: not only does this dragon acts as if his own friends and family are strangers to him, he bears a perplexing unfamiliarity with facts and doctrines any dragon after years in the academy should be familiar with.

She feels the weight judgment and revelation‍—her failure‍—even as the teacher speaks in the same soft voice. All of the fire in the host’s body goes cold, subsumed into her inky dread. Should she even bother fighting? Or should she make peace returning to that infinite void beyond? She had fail the kobolds who’d saved her‍—but what did that matter, ultimately?

Except now the history instructor is exclaiming in sudden realization. A smile, a laugh. He recognized this! Good thing he found the firewyrm first‍—if he didn’t know better, he might’ve assumed this was some sort of imposter or a symptom of corruption. Well, it was corruption, but of a specific sort.

You see, our records are spotty in the present day, but attacks targeting the mind were a known tool of the black dominion during its wars with the dragonriders. The void could gnaw at one’s memories.

But worry not, noble drake. Their geases were never truly effective‍—the victim’s true memories and self always remained, no matter how the darkness tried to blot it out.

He says: If anyone wonders about your new behaviors, tell them my diagnosis. And, if you have free time outside of classes? Come meet up with me. I can teach you meditation techniques for overcoming this damage to your psyche. He give a firm pat and sends the student on their way.

The voidwyrm appreciate the excuse, of course, but she has no interest in recovering any more of this host’s worthless memories. She ignores the teacher’s offer.

But maybe one day, she encounters some dogmatic priest, perhaps overhearing some vitriolic remark about kobolds. She’s bit her tongue for so long, but now, the voidwyrm can’t resist leaping to the defense of a race that had shown her only kindness. And the glare she receives‍—the priest meets her eyes with the kind of suspicion that put witches to death.

And then the history teacher arrives, excusing this erratic slip of the tongue with explanation of her condition. The curse and its confusion will fade with time, the teacher promises, and then the firewyrm will be back to his usual right‍-​thinking self.

When the priest relents and walks away, a weight is gone from both their shoulders. The voidwyrm expresses grudging thanks, and in return: If you want to thank me, at least come meditate with me. You’ll find it worth your time, I promise.

So she does. And there’s a certain ambiguity to the way the exercises are explained that piques the voidwyrm’s full attention. The history teacher shows her how to fortify her will, to separate out foreign urges into distinct yet coherent strands of mind‍—how to parse what desired and known by the otherself without letting that overpower what’s true and good within you.

But that ambiguity‍—it’s clear that the point is letting the host’s old self reassert itself, but nothing about the exercises is inconsistent with instead strengthening the void’s own dominance. In fact, with these meditation exercises, her mask of pretending to be the firewyrm can become all the more convincing‍—and all the more easy to dispense with.

She tells the history teacher: Thank you so much. And it’s entirely genuine.

VI

Weeks pass like this; and the voidwyrm becomes familiar with the teacher’s rhythms and habits. And his health; he is weak and trembling, his flame more smoke than light. So she’s soon presented with a chance to repay his kindness: he reveals to her one day, with some embarassment, that he is dying.

She’s shaken to hear it, but bringing this matter up to others prompts mere resignation, if not outright anticipation. Bonded dragons ought die with their riders; that’s the way of things.

She finds herself the only one really concerned with saving the teacher, but has no idea how to accomplish it. Once again, the history teacher returns from the depths of a library‍-​hoard with a tome of old lore‍—he can’t say for sure, but he has a hunch that a certain artifact, spoken of in old legends, had been enflamed with an enchantment that could hearten his failing body. But delving such depths is too dangerous for him to dare ask‍—

She’ll do it. She spoke on instinct, not understanding quite why she felt so strongly‍—had she simply grown tired of spending so long trapped in the academy, and this was her excuse to leave? Did she hate the way everyone expected the history teacher to be quiet and die without a fuss? Or was it just the thought of losing the only dragon who almost understood her true struggles, and in spite of that, remained one of the only ones who really cares?

On her way out, she is confronted by a friend of her host, the dragon with black scales. She had never told the host’s friends about the curse or the meditation; the black dragon had noticed her private meetings months ago, but waited to see if any explanation was forthcoming.

You’ve been distant, hiding things. The point of our pact was sharing‍—do you not want to be a part of that anymore?

Did she? The answer she’s an urge to give is of course I do. But was that the host’s instinct, or her own? It was convenient, that they were kind and accomodating where others were not, that the host’s familiarity made them so easy to predict and mislead.

But then she thinks about the yellow dragon, and that’s her answer, isn’t it? She doesn’t want to lose this, lose them, and so it’s not entirely false when she tell him that.

Prove it, then. Tell me anything. Even if it’s why you can’t speak. Anything but this silence.

I like the quiet, she thinks. But she complies. Telling of the history teacher’s sickness, and the ruin that might hold a forgotten cure.

He listens, and in response, says he’ll come with. We will come with. An ancient ruin, with treasures no one has yet retrieved? Did you think you could handle that by yourself? Did you think you’d keep it all to yourself?

So the four of them fly out to the ruin beneath cold and stormy skies. And as she soars in formation with the other dragons, the thought persists in her head. Between the yellow dragon and the history teacher… there were dragons she’d come to care about in the dragonrider academy.

The teacher had a historian’s cynicism and the ever‍-​present ache of a rider taken from them, in a world that shunned him for it; the yellow dragon longed every day to be a wyvern. Easy to commiserate with them about the indignity of living in this kingdom.

But still. The orange dragon had never had a place here; others always viewed him as too angry, too unruly. The black dragon, though, was a mystery to her. That he’d never spoken of his family was suggestive, but his true priorities and loyalties were a mystery to her.

They arrived at the ruins in distant mountain, from the outside no more than rain‍-​weathered rock that had almost forgotten any old inscriptionss. Dirt burried the entrance. Nevertheless, they descend.

Skeletons line the antechambers. Almost human, but the voidwyrm has the familiarity to recognize kobold proportions. Impossible to tell if the dead had emerged from the depths, fleeing a home proven untenable, or fled inward, seeking shelter from some forgotten presecution. No, but these were kobolds‍—the persecution was not forgotten.

The corpses have tattered robes bearing the sigils of obscure orders, and maps of the realm, these mountains circled. The voidwyrm quietly recognizes the symbols of her cult. They may never know how many stories met their end here, but it provided confirmation: they weren’t the only ones seeking what was lost here.

As the tunnels take them deeper underground, the ruins reveal their truth: this is not some single lair hoarding forgotten treasure, but a buried citadel. The teacher had not told the full story‍—that legend could not be merely ‘old,’ it must be ancient.

The architecture endures, preserving the cyclopean masonry the black dominion preferred and none imitated. As deeper they dig, their torches begin to illuminate walls laced with glyphs none could read‍—except the voidwyrm. (The hatchling was forbidden from play, but her minders taught her to read.)

There are puzzles and traps‍—both accidental and deliberate‍—to navigate, dangers lurking the dark, but the one thing the dragons won’t forget is what they witnessed upon reaching the innermost sactum.

Ancient stone glows with long‍-​dormant power, with purple light (a shade impossible for any firewyrm’s breath), and the cascading energy resonated with one of their own: they had not noticed it on the descent, but at this depth any trace of red has blanched from the voidwyrm’s body; those scales and spines now resemble a ghastly visage akin to the scales she hatched with. (An adolescent form she had been denied.)

Inky black tendrils crawl forth from her mouth and seem to seep forth from wounds open in her flesh.

And her face bears not a trace of surprise. If anything: relief.

And it is not their friend’s voice that sighed out relief as if of an old ache finally soothed, nor his eyes that glanced back and met their confusion.

She flees from their questions, running onward to seek the artifact on her own.

She arrives at doors sealed shut. Every door they’d encountered thus far had hung open from the passage of centuries of intrepid looters. If any chamber could hold a treasure untouched for ages, it would be here, would it not?

How was she going to open this, though? Is there a lock? Was it barred from inside? She touches a claw to its surface‍—and purple light ripples across its dark expanse, and she feels the vibration of something shifting. At contact, her talon pushes the door open.

Within, there is no pile of treasure, nor even those sorted shelves that eviced a hoardmaid’s attention. There is a pool of black liquid within. She approaches the edge. No reflection‍—this is not water.

When a clawtip sinks in, she feels freezing chill.

Welcome back, my child.

This void is my blood. I bled out for you.

Will you bleed for me?

The thought‍—the voice‍—the truth‍—‍-​it quiets any other consideration in her mind. For a moment, she is back in that enveloping darkness after death. But now with more than her own thoughts for company.

She’d been asked something. A request. A command? But she has no open wounds out of which to bleed. But she is a dragon; she always had blades. It wouldn’t even be the first time in this body she decided it ought be torn open‍—violence against the host always had a tinge of satisfaction.

Except now her scales looked pale‍—except now this felt like her wrist.

Except now, it only hurts her.

Blood beads on her wrist, but the droplets do not fall‍—instead, black surges up from the waters and flows into her.

And that voice is vicious and gentle in her mind.

Nothing shall stop us, for we are nothing.

Then, abruptly, the trance is broken by a sharp crack, and a momentous rumble. Whatever she had done, it had unsettled what power had held the citadel together so long; now it begins to crumble under the weight of the mountain above.

She has to escape‍—and as if called by her alarm, she at once feels long arms of darkness catching and casting aside the weight of stony tons. It feel easy‍—but most of all, it feels familiar. Tendrils of unbreath have return to her with a thrill of nostalgia; she had never succeeded in commanding the void since that night.

And these tendrils have the might to carve her way to the surface, inky black roiling with new abundance and eagerness to respond to her will.

And yet, she pauses. She hadn’t come here alone. She could escape without the other dragons‍—she should escape without them, this way no one would know her secret! And yet.

She claws her way through the collapsing tunnels until she finds those flames guttering the dark. She cradles three wyrms in the embrace of void and drags them with her to the surface.

When they awake and see the star‍-​bright sky above them, at first there is no thought but relief. And their savior is still here; fleeing not from their glance this time.

The black scaled dragon is the one who asks: How long?

She isn’t sure what he’s demanding. How long have you been different? How long have you known? How long have you been lying to us?

But she says the truth: Since that mission with the cult.

His only response is to swear.

The yellow dragon asks: Why didn’t you tell us?

I was scared, she says. And it’s true, even if ‘I’ isn’t who they think. She even dares add: I’m not who you think I am, anymore.

Well, whoever you are saved us, says the yellow dragon. You still care about us, so we’ll still care about you!

But, she starts with a stutter, but the void is the antithesis of all that’s good and warm. That’s what the church says. Aren’t you going to‍—

Rat you out? the orange drake says. Nah. I’ve spent enough time locked up, you ain’t done anything to earn that kinda trouble.

I’ve asked around, the black drake says. The history teacher has spoken of your condition. You said he was helping you treat it?

Yes, she tentatively says.

Is it working?

Yes, she lies.

Then you’ve already reported it, haven’t you? And it’s already being addressed.

She smiles. The yellow dragon hugs her first, and drags the other two into a group hug.

She was safe.

vii

The other dragons hadn’t made it out of the ruins unscathed; wings were torn, bones were broken. With the yellow dragon’s attention, it doesn’t take long to at least patch up the injured well enough to escape‍—but a full flight back to the academy is beyond them.

So the journey begins on foot. But, now contemplating her return to the academy raises the question of how to explain her new appearance. Should she even return? Could she just run away now? Wouldn’t that be safer? But one glance at the other dragons‍—her friends‍—and she realizes she has to try.

Okay. First, she needed to know how much she’d changed. She reaches for that loathsome familiar warmth in her chest, where the host’s heartflame had once blazed. She’d feared it’d been quenched entirely, but no. With the meditation she’d been taught, she was able to feel the barest motes, stil burning.

And‍—as much as she’d rather fling herself into that abyss she’d been born with‍—she lets them burn, stoked the flames.

A gasp nearby. The yellow dragon watched her, and noticed a faint red returning to her scales, almost like a blush.

She coughs, spitting forth smoke and sparks. The yellow dragon smiles with a small laugh. It is still you.

Had anything changed? It was undeniable, and yet, the thought that the host’s old life might still be in her grasp… why was there a faint feeling of relief?

Day by day, she meditated as they marched home; the fire in her veins burned stronger and stronger, and that old red slowly returned. By the time she returned, she expected she’d pass as him again, albeit even more sickly.

But there was another concern. It’s the orange drake who outright asks: So, did we find it? The artifact that’ll fix up the old geezer?

Between all the other concerns, the voidwyrm had forgotten what had motivated all of this.

No. I didn’t see anything.

Maybe someone got there first? the yellow dragon suggested.

Or it never existed, the black drake suggested.

When they arrive at the academy’s castle, adorned with colorful banners, her head hangs low, these final steps toward the history teacher’s study are taken with great, plodding relunctance.

She greets him with a pained grimance, and he greets her with look serious and expectant. At a single glance, he nods as if she’d already answered some question. Perhaps he was too hopeful.

Loath as she was to dash that hope, she owed him no further delay. She says: I’m sorry, I‍—

He interrupts: So you bear it now, that darkness?

What?

I suppose it’s time I was more honest with you, he says.

All along, it turns out, he had known she had suffered more than memory damage‍—that something else had taken root and festered. But through the exercises, he had hoped she could master her dark passenger. Because void is more than just a devouring nothingness, he says. It was our first magic. Fire is blood, and void is also blood: the blood of our mother in the depth of the abyss. At least, that is what the histories suggest.

He adds: If you’re willing to delve farther into that darkness? I think you could use to heal. To help those no one else could. I think the world needs that more than it needs to be clensed of every last shadow.

To… heal?

I lied to you about the artifact, he admit. There are no enflamed artifacts from the age of the black dominion, that’s plain simple archeology‍—the techniques hadn’t been devised yet!

Then why…

What I expected you’d find down there was a wellspring‍—some remnant or altar of her power, perhaps, and it would complete you. If you’ll indulge more of my lessons? I’d like to review what I’ve reconstructed of the rituals of the old night.

And this will save you?

That’s the hope, kid.

No, will it really save you? You aren’t just lying to get me to do what you want again?

It’s just a hope. Every academic’s got pet theories. If it doesn’t… I think you will at least learn from it, and that’s good enough for me. I’ve lived a good century.

That… isn’t very old for a dragon. I’ve heard a lot of dragons older than you.

No, it isn’t. Losing a rider… it costs you. He paused, seemed to chew and dither his next words. He whispered: Would you believed that is what turned my research to the black dominion, initially? The voidwyrms, they did not have riders. The legends said they reigned without death, but the legends also tell lies.

Do you… think I’ll be immortal? Could I make you immortal?

Pet theories, kid. I’m still researching.

But something else he said stood out. So she asked, Do you… regret bonding with your rider? Do you… think I should do it?

All he said was: It costs you.

Distance doesn’t disappear in a flash; it takes work to rekindle a fire. But in passing weeks, the four dragons spend more time together. With the orange drake, she wrestles bears and competes to hunt more prey. With the black drake, she climbs into quiet nooks to read over scrolls and tablet, or sits on clear nights beneath the sky. With the yellow dragon, she sneaks into lairs far from the academy, dressed as itinerant hoardmaids, briefly sampling life as the other gender.

Their excursion into the ruins does not go unremarked upon. After all, the other dragons had joined with the intent to plunder treasure, and while the artifact they sought was a myth, there were relics and records to recover. Heavy bags were another reason flying back was untenable.

Some of the treasures were added to their hoards, but others had no place; they donated items of scholarly interest to the academy. This evidence of their achievement brought with it attention and accolades; unbonded students had discovered and survive a long‍-​lost ruin of the old night! They were the talk of the academy.

There were two types of dragons who did not have riders; but if they had struggled to attract the interest of aspiring knights before, those days were done.

The academy buzzes, and people speak as if their groups becoming bonded now was a swift inevitability. Dread‍-​panic swells in the voidwyrm; she were supposed to be gone, back belonging with their kobolds before succumbing to committment like this.

She distracts herself from the looming prison‍-​union by realizing an inconsistency, focusing on a more manageable problem. Their delving was so impressive because the ruin was long‍-​lost. But the history teacher claimed they’d learned of the ruin from studying old legends. Does that add up?

Another one of the history teacher’s truth‍-​liberties, less egregious than the others. The academy had scarce lore on the black dominion, but he did acquire his information from research‍—namely, letter correspondense with a distant scholar. This source is also where his knowledge of the meditations and curse comes from.

She wants to meet this mysterious correspondent. Some shadowy figure knowing so much about about her and her nature only felt like another hanging threat. (The only shadowy figure she trusted was herself.)

The history teacher makes no promises‍—by all indications, this was a secretive hermit unwilling to reveal the simplest personal details. She expected resistance, and wasn’t sure what her next steps would be then‍—yet when told the host wanted to meet, the correspondent replied with swift and unconditional acquiesence.

Within the month the voidwyrm is set to meet them in a nearby city. A public lair, replete with statues and artwork, and an oddly numerous retinue of hoardmaids: it had rooms offering the utmost privacy.

She waits there, tail twitching, for her indirect benefactor to finally show themselves. When a maid lets someone into the room, she thinks there must’ve been a mixup. But no, her guests ask if she’s the voidwyrm they’d heard so much about.

No doubting it now: the correspondent is a human. A woman, tall and thickly built, but still nothing next to a dragon.

She immediately distrusts the human. What could it be plotting? How does it know so much about the old night?

Some attempt is made to defer to personal or scholarly interest, but the voidwyrm doesn’t buy it. If you aren’t going to tell me what you’re up to, what will it take to make you back off? I could kill you right now.

I thought surely you’d want to reunite with the kobolds in your new lair? the human says.

This only puts the dragon more on edge. How do you know about any of that? Are you threatening them?

The humans insists not. Your kobolds are safe.

How could she believe that? She hadn’t heard from them in so long.

These machinations take time to unfold; it was safer for you both for them to hide from the kingdom’s attention. But have trust: our plans almost at its fruitation.

I have a lair, then? I can leave? Somehow, her dread coiled tighter. Would she have to abandon her friends and mentor without even saying goodbye?

Not quite. Leaving now would put us all at risk‍—a sudden disappearance of a noble dragon isn’t so easily overlooked.

But the lair is real? Where is it? I promise I won’t go yet. (She wasn’t sure she could bring herself too, anyway.)

That must remain a secret. But to appease your curiosity, know that this kingdom is not the whole world. There are neighboring lands that are not nearly as backward. Where kobolds, though not escaping the lash of oppression, at least escape death. You will go there soon. For now, you must return to the academy. Let them suspect nothing. Your time will come.

The voidwyrm has one last question. The history teacher‍ ‍‍—‍ is he with us? Does he know?

He has too much lust for neutrality to call himself a fellow traveler. But you can trust him.

He… really?

The human winked. I imagine a historian of fallen empires would not mourn having a new object of study.

Conclusion (False VII)

Let’s step a back‍ ‍‍—‍ what are we doing here? These sections have been written one after another, born of more ramble than structure; I certainly didn’t have a plan when I started writing this “essay.”

In particular, that remark several thousand words ago about the drafting taking a few days? It was itself written several days ago at this point. If I thought those sections gave me trouble, now that everything has built to what feels like an immenient climax, further progress feels like pulling teeth.

Programmers have a concept of technical debt. There’s no free lunch, and taking the easy route will lead to quick progress in the beginning and mounting problems later on that can only be resolved by carefully, tediously restructuring things with a more robust foundation.

@foone: one of the annoying things about being a writer is that sometimes you figure out a way to make something 10 times better by simply spending 20 times as much work on it

@snugglesquiggle: what’s really fucked up is this function isn’t monotonic? you can’t exactly just put 2‍-​5x as much effort into it and just get a modest multiplier. instead, you’ll wind up with something awkward: too much to take lightly, yet not enough to take seriously. a valley of dissatisfaction.

This story had problems from the beginning. In a sense, every story idea is nothing but problems to be solved. How to pique a reader’s curiosity, how to satisfy that curiosity, how to give context for information necessitated by the conclusion, how to prime them to receive to context to recieve the answers to‍—

It snarls and compounds. Detail begets detail; every attempt of mine to outline a story begins to reify itself as the story takes shape.

Early on, it was established that the voidwyrm’s possession is not absolute, that the original host is still there. Nothing is done with this plot thread. The fact that the protagonist is hiding themselves from the world in an ostensible source of tension, but the academy is never presented as having any competence put toward the end of rooting out or questioning her. It’s mentioned that the host’s father is the protagonist’s murderer, which makes for a cute angst‍-​gesture, but it primes me to expect a confrontation of some sort; imagine a tense family dinner while a monster wears the skin of the prodigal son. That would be cool, but there was not room for it in this hasty outline.

Likewise with all the hoard mechanics and the heartflame magic system I have more to say about. I mentioned much earlier that I made the choice to play to my strengths‍—character drama instead of power progression‍—and yet even what the story choses to devote word count toward is rendered insufficient. The teacher’s illness is self‍-​consciously tropey, but still unconvincing. But most unconvincing of all is the host’s cohort. Making them actual characters was a pivot midway through, and it shows. Their lack of real pushback or frustration with the protagonist leaves that whole subplot weightless and hollow.^noteWhat good is the kingdom’s anti‍-​void dogma if no character who matters actually believes it?^endnote

I could go on‍—the decision to have the kobolds go all no‍-​contact early on through is justified later but leaves the story feeling as if it forgot its own premise. Symptomic of the overall structure of this synopsis, which hops from topic to topic, backfilling past events, rather than weaving a continuous narrative.

It’s a rickety foundation, and while it might hold together from line to line, piling plot beat on plot beat has resulted in a groaning, leaning mess, and that is what has paralyzed me as we near the culmination.

I know what happens next, but presenting that information requires introducing several new story elements and backfilling their place in the world. Six or seven thousand words into this mess, and my ultimate diagnosis is that I still don’t have enough setup.

Loosely, the payoff to all this goes like this: The academy would inform the voidwyrm that she’s been selected to be bonded to a rider. In fact, all four of them had.^noteI had a thought, that the academy might have long ago taken note of how attached the four were to each other; so part of why they’d been stuck without riders was that it’s considered best practice to avoid separating dragons cohorts. I’m not sure if this kind of care is in‍-​character with the academy as presented, though.^endnote

Next, I would introduce a merchant whose four sons were varying degrees of successful at dragonrider training‍—none of them impressive‍—yet each was slated to get their own dragon.

It’s irregular for humans so young to be bonded to dragons much older; it’s irregular for humans with so little training to be bonded; but in the end, coin makes for a very persuasive counterargument.^noteDoes this sort of bribery make sense for a “feudal” society? Were merchants so influential that long ago? Or is this capitalist imagination‍-​poisoning? Another doubt that paralyzed me.^endnote

Then comes the bonding ritual. This would be a big gathering, much of the academy attending with an almost festival air. There would be a feast that even included diplomatic guests from other kingdoms.^note(Conveying the scale of this scene is another thing that paralyzed me.)^endnote

The black dragon would be bonded first, and perhaps another, but before the protagonist can be bound, the celebration is interrupted.

It’s not just that there exist people and kingdoms with a more liberal view of kobolds‍—there also exist those with more virulent beliefs about dragons as a whole.

One dragon’s head is run through with a spearhead, an arc of blood gushing out, and another dragon dies before it becomes clear that there’s been an attack.

The attackers are dragonslayers, fanatics who believe the bond between a rider and dragon is an abomination, at best a distraction from and insult to authentic human relationships. Do you think those lizards could ever love? It is a marriage with a cold‍-​blooded monster‍—and who do you think is the man in this arrangment? It’s emasculating, and not just for the rider. Those things want nothing more than to turn us all into their whorish halfbreeds. Really, haven’t they already? Our whole culture is has been reduced to worship of those beasts‍—men go hungry so that each dragon can eat a cow a week! Each lives like the fattest of kings, and for what? So they can parade about in play‍-​battles?

Here, of course, the voidwyrm would dispense with secrecy entirely, black tendrils awrithe in her desperation to save her friends from the dragonslayers. But she’s too late to stop the spears run through any of their heads. The black dragon was the first to die, followed soon by yellow and orange. Faced with this dilemma, the voidwyrm runs to the side of yellow first, and uses the void‍-​healing she’d been studying to try and save yellow. Cradling her once again with void tendrils, she flees the academy as it burns.

Outside, she encounters a human on the road, and almost goes for the kill before recognizing the lady‍—it’s the correspondent. Here’s a cute twist: flames dance over her body, and she reveals herself all along to have been a kobold clad in illusions.

Finally, she explains. The dragonslayers had been planning an attack for some time‍—someone has equipped them with a new kind of enchanted javelin that can kill dragons, as I’m sure you witnessed firsthand. This one‍—she indicates herself‍—was able to get an audience with them through the disguise.

At first, she might’ve reported this militia to the kingdom (she’s one of the most successful information‍-​gathering agents out there), but she soon saw an angle for instead incorporating them into the plans of her true master. This was the missing piece they’d been searching for for so long

Using the information about the academy (leaked thanks to their voidwyrm on the inside), she positioned them to have an attack planned right when this bonding ritual would take place. Not only would this weaken the academy and the kingdom‍—there will be war, at this rate‍—but in all the chaos, the host of void would be regarded as lost among all the casualties.

It’s the perfect cover for finally returning the voidwyrm to her family!

And she, of course, is shaken at the revelation. All of this death was her fault. If she hated the kingdom and the church, she hated the dragonslayers all the more. How could they work with vermin like that?

Is it not obvious? Fundamentally, we share an insight. Both dragonslayers and our mother in the depths understand the dragonrider pact to be a violation and a disgrace. Dragons and humans should have nothing to do with each other. They can try their best to kill you, but once they’ve served their purpose, they’ll be little more than a meal.

The voidwyrm sighs, unable to find more words. This is what she’d been longing for so long, wasn’t it? She was finally free of the academy‍—she was finally going home.

She even got to bring the yellow dragon with her. It’s as good as she could hope, isn’t it? But the yellow dragon still hasn’t woke up. She pours more of her black essence into her, keeping her blood flowing, her heart pumping. It was becoming inseparable from the warmth that had flowed in her veins‍—and the yellow dragon wouldn’t be ever rid of it, would they? The void would gain a new vessel.

The yellow dragon still hasn’t woke up. She should be looking forward to talking with them again; she should be hoping she saved them. But did she save them, or damn them? She can only dread what they’ll see when they wake up, what they’ll think, what they’ll feel. All of this was all her fault. It’s is what she planned‍—what she wanted‍—from the beginning.

How could she ever be forgiven?

At the beginning of this, we asked:

1. What is the story about? A void dragon who wants nothing more than to live and be free.
2. What tension is unresolved? Where can she go, what can she do, in a world that believes her and her kobolds should be put to death?
3. Why must it be resolved? After her death, she awakens in the body of a noble dragon soon to become a rider’s mount.
4. How much work will it take? She must pretend to be loyal to the dragonrider kingdom, living in an academy that would kill her if it knew the truth, suppressing the still‍-​concious orignal host of her body, as her hope of escape dwindles by the day.
5. What will decide it? The host had friends, and despite herself, she finds herself growing attached to them. There are dragons in the academy who see her pain and care for her, even as she keeps her distance.
6. What else does it require? But she can’t keep lying to them forever. They will learn the truth of what she is, and that she refuses to become bonded. Will she abandom them, when the time comes?
7. How does it finally resolve? It would be so much more convenient to cut them off, or kill them, but she can’t bring herself to. When the cult’s plan finally comes to fruitation, she risks it all to save at least one of her friends.
8. Where does that leave everything? She gets everything she wants most at the cost of everything else she’d come to love; and without asking, she destroyed her best friend’s life so they could be together.

But this is but an analysis of handful of plot‍-​threads running through a competent execution of this idea. How many other sources of tension‍—be it outright conflict or just open questions‍—are there besides the kingdom’s fear of the void? You could fill out one of these worksheets for the voidwyrm’s relationship with the four other dragon characters, let alone all the arcs I skipped over.^noteWorse, you’ll recall the chief virtue of my system was supposedly its nonlinearity. Perhaps a better demonstration might have clearly shown that, rather than just having a few swerves at the start. And then there’s the power progression I already discussed leaving on the cutting room floor… But when when the way to rectify these shortcomings is “write another synopsis from scratch”, or to put more sweat into this one’s execution, can you blame me for calling it a day here? But enough whining; there’s always more to do.^endnote

This is the fractal I believe in, this ever deepening recursion, shaped not by an imposed structure but what’s primed and flowing in what’s been written.

If you’ve read this far, I imagine you were borne by no more than curiosity at how this dragon’s little tale would play out. I hope this long ramble at least provided something; I wrote it all purely because it felt rude to outline that setup and move on without any catharsis.

Thank you for your time and attention. Some of you must be wondering: after putting so much energy and enthsiasm into this story, will I be actually writing it? I’d like to go on to write something with dragons, for sure; there’s aspects to the worldbuilding here that I love far too much to not do anything with (I haven’t even played every card I’ve drafted).

Beyond just the world, there are plot elements I like‍—the setup with the void‍-​possessed firewyrm is among the aspects I’m proudest of, and I’m fond the ‘end of book one’ setup where the kingdom is on the brink of war and the best friend/love interest has been dragged inescapably into this mess.

I don’t think everything about this is a complete winner. The prospect of writing long arcs spent an academy with such a male‍-​dominated cast and a society so dogmatically, oppressively hierarchal, with all the bigotry that implies… it does not spark passion or interest, it feels like a chore for all that’s thematically justified. Fun to spitball, but the druge of actually writing it?

The most likely outcome, I think, is that this remains in the compost heap of my mind, elements of it pulled out to be repurposed in some future project.^noteIf you want more now, I should at least mention I have past projects focusing on dragons. The Cold Haze of Dragonflame is the newest, essentially just a first chapter, written last year.^noteIt stalled out when I had to introduced a third character, and wanted to give her so much fanfare it brought all my momentum to a halt.^endnote. Kaon Rising and Endless Stars are older projects, difficult to recommend after so many years growing as a writer. These are ultimately the product very different ideas about what I want out of a dragon‍-​centric story.^endnote