The Passage of Pearl
Page 6
When the librarian was done looking over the book, he certainly seemed to think it was just an ordinary magical one and Pearl quickly waved away his offer to pay for her donation. Normally, she’d take the money. Normally, she’d make small talk, or try to. Normally, she’d warn the man what he was getting, but she was desperate to get away before she changed her mind and snatched the book from his hands. She was desperate to catch up on her studies and she had an illness to feign. So she did not of those things, guilt burrowing deep in her chest.
But when she walked out of the magical library, she felt light enough to fly, even in her wrong, wingless shape.
Revision Notes
If you’re reading this then I assume that you’ve already read both versions of ‘The Passage of Pearl’ included in this volume. As this essay will discuss some of the changes I’ve made and my reasoning behind those changes, I will bring up points that you might consider spoilers. If you haven’t read at least one version of ‘The Passage of Pearl’, consider yourself warned of spoilers.
This essay will, as I said, focus on some of the changes I’ve made to the story between drafts and my reasoning for those changes. To do that, I should start off with the story of how this tale came to be written and then a brief look at why this edition is structured the way that it is.
Back in 2012, I joined with a Crowdfunding Creative Jam held on DreamWidth. It’s also held on LJ, so it should be pretty easy to find. One of the prompts was “the curious incident of the dragon in the library” and… that’s how Pearl showed up. More or less. That’s what inspired The Passage of Pearl anyway. It sat around my hard drive for a few weeks as I mulled it over and then started writing. The shorter, original version shared here is actually a fifth draft, but it hasn’t changed overly much since its beginning. The changes were mostly cosmetic, typos and clearing up grammatical issues and the like. I didn’t add much or remove much.
I’ve chosen to present that fifth draft last partially so that the version that people will read when sampling is the one that I published in Feather by Feather and Other Stories. It’s strategically putting the better story first in hopes of garnering more sales, but it’s also a question of which version do I want people to have read last before diving into these notes. And I want people to have read the shorter version last, so that the things that I cut out and changed will stand out more strongly. Hopefully that will aid interested readers in understanding what I changed and why.
The biggest change is, of course, the length. The original version of ‘The Passage of Pearl’ was 4,000 words long. The final version is almost 13,000. That’s a good three times longer than the tale originally was. Put differently, the word count grew by 320%. Authors are often if not always advised to cut down on their word count instead of adding in more. Like with most advice, it doesn’t go for every occasion. I routinely underwrite and underwrite badly. One of the other projects I’m working on this year was supposed to be a short story of about 6,000 words. The rough draft for that ended up being over 26,000 words. It’ll be longer before I’m done and that story, much like this story, needs those extra words if I’m to tell the story properly.
That’s why ‘The Passage of Pearl’ got so much bigger, though it’s for a reason different from why I usually underwrite. With this story the problem is that there were several scenes that I should have had and that I didn’t, actually, have. I’ve always jokingly described this story as a slice-of-life vignette of university life that briefly intersects with an actual plot. Trouble is that the original draft is unbalanced in that regard. We get a slice-of-life introduction, the story discovers a plot and then forgets that it was supposed to be a slice-of-life, nothing exciting, nothing too creepy story. Just a ‘day in the life of’ little piece about the stresses of being a university student in a secondary fantasy world.
There are several ways to deal with a balance issue like that. You can take out one half of the equation so the balance doesn’t matter or you can try to even out the scales. I opted for the latter, and that meant adding scenes to balance out the sections where Pearl obsesses over the book. It’s clearest in the ending since that’s the part that needed the most work.
In the original draft, I ended the story right after the plot strand is resolved. Pearl has handed the book over to someone else, normal life can resume. Huzzah! And that’s it. The reader doesn’t get to see that normal life afterwards, or Pearl’s return to it. I felt (and still feel) that, though clichéd, the final line of the original draft is a powerful image to end the story on.
“But when she walked out of the magical library, she felt light enough to fly, even in her wrong, wingless shape,” goes the ending. The relief that Pearl feels at being rid of the book is so great that, even weighed down by a body she’s not comfortable in, she could fly as she feels she should be able to do. It combines Pearl’s personality and beliefs with the plot of the story and ties them together and that is the image the reader is left with. If I’d written a story that was all about the way Pearl obsesses over the book she’s found, this is where I’d end it. If I’d wanted to write that story, she would have found that book on her first on-screen visit to the library and gone straight home. And the reader wouldn’t have had much of a reason to care about Pearl, as a person, because there’d have been no time to establish her personality prior to her obsession.
To do that, to show that, I had to show the aftermath of the book as well. I had to show how Pearl returns to her old self and old life, how she deals with the essay she still hasn’t written and the classes she’s missed. It circles the story back to the kind of scene it started with: a student doing research for an essay and going to classes. Plus, the essay was essentially what started the whole mess with the book obsession, so it shouldn’t be chucked to the wayside for no good reason.
The framework is whole now. In the original draft, more than half of the text is about Pearl’s adventures in researching her essay, and once she finds the creepy book that essay never shows up again. Now it does. I had to add a good 2,000 words to the ending to allow it to end in a way that works better for the story, and that’s roughly a quarter what I added in total.
Yet, despite all those changes I made and all those words I added, the story still ends on a similar note. The final version ends with Pearl toasting to her life and her identity. The original doesn’t carry the same celebratory tone, but it does carry the same affirmation of Pearl’s identity.
Initially, I was hesitant to change the ending. I liked that image, but the more I worked on it for the collection, the more I realised that it really couldn’t serve as the ending. I did keep the original image, but I toned it down a little by making sure it wasn’t the last sentence of a scene.
In creating the framework of the story, I also slanted it more heavily towards showing readers how Pearl’s life is structured around reading and her courses. Most of the words I added were added to expand upon the student life that she lives. It’s still a slice-of-life vignette that intersects with an actual plot, but the way that plot takes over the story for the duration in the final version is far more in keeping with the way that it takes over Pearl’s life within the story itself.
Now, because the reader has a better idea of what that life was like and who Pearl is as a person, that obsession hits more strongly. Pearl isn’t the most social of creatures, but she’s not anti-social either. Expanding on the meeting with her classmates and lecturers helps to show that she’s not as anti-social as she may initially appear. There’s more room to show how much Pearl loves books and her classes. The Pearl readers get to know is a young woman who is passionate about her classes and wouldn’t miss them for any reason. That, at least, was my intention. I won’t have succeeded for everyone.
A better sense of how Pearl lives her life means that the loss of those things impacts the reader more than when that life has only been hinted at. When it’s only hinted at there is very little for the reader to miss and so there’s little f
or the reader to empathise or sympathise with. Some stories are more tolerant of hinting, but this, I believe, is not one of them, so it had to become more visible and stronger.
Another aspect that’s seen a dramatic change between the final version and the shorter draft is Pearl’s synaesthesia. I’m not proud of my decision to take it out. I can count the number of times I’ve read a story about someone with synaesthesia on one hand, and that was a story about having synaesthesia. Pearl was a protagonist whose synaesthesia had nothing to do with the plot. It influenced her perception of the world and… that was it. It just was because it was. Characters like that are important too. And I took it out of the story.
Pearl’s synaesthesia played a large role in the delay I had getting Feather by Feather and Other Stories ready for publication. Because I was adding so much to the story, I started to fret and worry at it. What if I got it wrong? What if I didn’t get the balance right? What if I forgot to include it in places and descriptions where I could have, should have?
I asked some beta readers to help make sure that Pearl’s synaesthesia read all right to them, but they couldn’t get back to me in a reasonable time frame. (That’s not their fault, though! I asked at superbusy times for them and failed to poke them about it. I hope they don’t feel bad about it.) So I panic-flailed until I got to a point where I was either going to have to take the synaesthesia out entirely or cut the story from the collection entirely until an indefinite time. Since ‘The Passage of Pearl’ is, in my opinion, one of the strongest stories in the collection, I felt that I couldn’t leave it out.
So I did something I had never done before: I rewrote it and toned down Pearl’s synaesthesia as much as I possibly could without breaking the story. Cutting everything out probably took more time than fixing it up would have taken, as it was a pretty integral part of Pearl’s perception. It soothed my worries, but, as I said, I’m not proud of it, but it was something I needed to do for myself. There are always more stories to tell and I look forward to telling them and then sharing them.
I hope you’ve enjoyed ‘The Passage of Pearl’ and this brief look at part of the revision process that the story has gone through.
A Book Daisy-chain
While I was compiling my special edition for this novelette, I asked several friends and readers what they’d like to see as additional material. One of the suggestions was to discuss books and I really liked that idea. Pearl loves books. The whole narrative is about books. I like talking about books and sharing book recommendations with people. I can’t talk about the books and poems mentioned in ‘The Passage of Pearl’, largely because they don’t exist. (I will here go on formal record that I have no intention of ever writing ‘The Moon Bride’s B Minor’. I may, of course, change my mind, but I don’t think it’s particularly likely.)
So that leaves the question of how to go about it and… Why not make it a kind of daisy-chain, linking books up in specific ways? It could be fun. The list below consists of ten books that I’ve read and enjoyed. They all link up to the previous book in some way. It could be theme; it could be setting; it could be narrative voice… It could be anything. But I’ll be telling you how they link up and why I enjoyed reading them. Hopefully you’ll be able to find something fantastic that you might never have heard about this way!
First up: Mindtouch by M.C.A. Hogarth. If you’ve been following my blog for the past year or so, you’ll probably have noticed that I’m an unabashed Hogarth fan and spent much of 2013 catching up on her extensive backlog. (As of this writing, I’m still not there.) Mindtouch is a science fiction book, but it is set on a campus and it features predominantly non-human characters. I was sold the moment Hogarth used the words ‘asexual romance’, but when I read the book I fell hard for the setting and the characters both. They’re wonderful and some of the most engaging characters I’ve read.
Secondly is Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin. This also has a campus setting though, like ‘The Passage of Pearl’ and unlike Mindtouch, this one has a literary campus setting. Dean’s novel is a gorgeous retelling of Tam Lin and a fantastic description of university life. It is a little dated in terms of the technology used because it’s set in the 1970s and I’ve never attended an American college it felt instantly recognisable. Dean’s retelling is probably my favourite out of the ones I’ve read, too.
Then we’ve got Ellen Kushner’s Thomas the Rhymer. I should reread this eventually as I actually remember fairly little about the actual story of it. Mostly I remember loving the structure of it and the way Kushner used first person narration while keeping everyone’s voice distinct from one another. That’s hard to do dealing with different novels, never mind in the same one!
Speaking of fantastically realised first person, I need to add Chime by Franny Billingsley. Chime has some folkloric aspects as well, but the first person narration… Once you pick up on what Billingsley is doing (or has done), it is utterly amazing. Briony is also an amazing character. It’s not a pleasant book to read; Briony has been verbally abused for much of her life and she hates herself. Let me show you the first two lines: “I've confessed to everything and I'd like to be hanged. Now, if you please.” Chilling, but utterly gorgeous and yet filled with so much hope.
Fifth along is Becca Lusher’s Orion’s Kiss. Freyda, the protagonist, hates herself, though not quite as much as Briony. Like Briony’s story, though, one of the threads running through the story is finding worth in yourself. It’s very different (certainly a lot more positive), but the parallels remain. Orion’s Kiss is a near-future dystopian setting too, so it’s quite a dark YA piece with a heavy flavouring of fantasy. It’s an intriguing mix that Becca pulls off well.
Sarah Diemer’s Love Devours is a bit of a cheat, I admit, but she pulled the individual release of ‘The Forever Star’. It also mixes fantasy with science fiction and allows the stars (and a garden amongst them) to play a role. It’s a beautiful and haunting mixture of science fiction and fantasy. The other stories are all good too, but it’s ‘The Forever Star’ that stands out in my mind.
Beyond Binary is another collection, edited by Brit Mandelo. As it’s an anthology by multiple authors I have my favourites and least favourites, but the collection as a whole explores gender and sexuality in a variety of different ways. I was surprised to find that Nalo Hopkinson’s Fisherman, which is one of the most sexual stories in there, was one of the ones I enjoyed the most. The language is gorgeous and the story is a very powerful tale of the narrator’s first time.
Marcia Douglas’ Madam Fate has a similar example of language use. Madam Fate was the first book I’ve read that was written in Jamaican English. I highly recommend it. It wasn’t an easy read, both because the dialect of English was unfamiliar to me and because it’s magical realism. It’s a book best served by rereading it a few times to make sure all the subtle connections are made and the things you missed the first time are better understood. (It is also, sadly, out of print.)
Caitlín R. Kiernan’s Threshold is different in every way, but it too has a very unique voice to it. It’s dark fantasy or horror, depending on who you ask, and it’s anything but an easy read. The language is lyrical and sing-song, so it’s not for everyone and it means you’ll need a few rereads to really grasp everything that’s going on. But oh the end was so worth it, and I say this as someone who normally avoids horror books and dark fantasy as much as she possibly can.
Lastly, I’d like to mention A Story as Sharp as a Knife by Robert Bringhurst. This is a non-fiction book that mixes biography with linguistics, history and literary theories. The link between these two books is a bit tenuous, I know, but look at the wealth of linguistic data and the way it discusses Haida stories and storytelling. I loved getting to know more about the Haida language and the issues in translation as well as their history as a people. It’s one of the most gorgeous and most rewarding books I’ve read in some time. Plus, with its love of literature it ties back nicely to ‘The Passage of Pearl’, where we started off fro
m.
And there you have ten books that all relate to one another in some way or another (at least to my mind). I hope you’ll find something worth checking out in there! I had a lot of fun writing these up and looking for some less than blatantly obvious connections. (I think I failed, but hey I got to revisit books I thoroughly enjoyed! I’m happy. May your next read be amazing!)
Elsewhere in Eston-upon-Werl
‘The Passage of Pearl’ links up with another story I’ve been working on. By ‘working on’ I mean ‘temporarily shelved because other stories crowded to the forefront’. I also needed to write ‘The Passage of Pearl’ first so I could get a better handle on the book that features so prominently in that story. I suspect it’ll be novel-length by the time it’s done and I plan to be working on it next. In this section, I’d like to give you a bit of an idea as to what that story will be about. Details are subject to change as the story is finished, but the general line will remain much the same.
The wingborn aren’t allowed in the capital city. Not without permits and only in certain areas. They aren’t supposed to love reading either, but Justin does and he’s spent several years hiding his true nature within the city, working at a bookstore and enjoying his life as much as he can.
‘The Gates of Dawn’ isn’t just a magical book; it’s a myth of a book. It’s said that whoever has possession of ‘The Gates of Dawn’ can make all their dreams come true. There are many stories about the book, but no one has ever seen it and both the magical and academic worlds discount it as nothing more than a fairytale, a hoax.