Lessons in Revision #2: Issa in The Rose Throne

Version 1 (2009):

Queen Timre had been sick but a handful of days.  She had kissed Princess Marlissa on the cheek only two days before, and patted her hand and told her to be a good girl, a good princess, and to learn her lessons, to improve her Rurin and to read her histories.

Issa went that evening to dinner, but found her mother was not there.  King Jaap told her not to worry, that the queen had just gone to bed early that night.

In the morning Issa went to her mother’s rooms, but was denied entrance.

“The Queen is very ill,” she was told by her mother’s friend Lady Ellis.  “You will see her tomorrow.  But for now, you must not make any noise and you must allow her time to rest alone.”

So Issa spent the day out in the Queen’s gardens that were just below her mother’s window.  It was early spring and her mother’s favorite flowers were just blooming.  The queen loved to spend time in the garden, though she rarely used her own magic to make things grow there.  The queen saved her magic for grander things, and spread it fairly through the kingdom.

It was here in the garden that Issa had proven that she had her own female magic the year before.  She touched her hand to the ground and a pansy grew out of it.  For a moment, she thought it must be another of her mother’s ladies, teasing her.  And then another pansy grew up next to the first, and another.  Until the whole corner of the garden she was in was growing pansies, Issa’s favorite flower.  She did not know how to stop it.

One of her mother’s ladies cried out for help.

But it took the queen herself to come and touch Issa’s shoulder and say softly, “let go.”

Since Issa is the princess who has the neweyr, and she lives in the kingdom (Weirland) where neweyr is appreciated, I knew I needed to make sure that the first chapter with her as the viewpoint character allowed her to show the neweyr. But it also needed to show her character. She is the more dutiful princess, the one who has had responsibility on her since her mother died. She has always done the right thing. But for a long time in my process, she was also the more boring princess. I think I wasn't connecting with her as a writer, and that made her seem rather boring.

Version 2 (early 2010)

          A knock at the door and a whispered voice said, “It's Lady Sassa, Your Highness. She's lost herself.”

          Princess Marlissa could not respond. She felt as if her voice had been ripped from her throat. Lady Sassa was only a year older than Issa. She had had her neweyr for five years.

          Issa remembered distinctly the day Sassa came into it, the pansies growing everywhere in the Queen's Garden, up the brick walls like vines, out the edges of the curled iron fence. Sassa had been so happy, and Issa had been so jealous. Five years ago, at only ten years old, Issa had worried whether she would ever come into her neweyr.

           In fact, Issa came into her neweyr the next year, and shortly after that, her mother had died. The joy of the neweyr had not lasted long before it was replaced by the weight of the responsibility, the duties of a queen for a girl not yet twelve years old. But Issa had worn her mother's circlet and shorn her hair as a symbol of her acceptance that from thenceforth, all her strength would go to the neweyr. And it had.

I was trying here to make this first scene with Issa more riveting, I think, by having danger attached to the use of the neweyr. This didn't work, either, however, because as many writers know, it is very difficult to get readers to care for a character who is going to be killed off in the first few sentences of a novel. Also, this doesn't make Issa a more interesting character. It just makes her feel more dutiful, sadder, and more pitiful. I remember reading Orson Scott Card's book on Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy. He argues that the best way to get readers to care for your characters is to make the reader feel sorry for them. But pitying a character isn't enough, especially if that character is passive. You need to feel sorry for a character, but also root for the character. You need to make your reader want to turn pages instead of closing the book.

Final Version:

Princess Marlissa of Weirland stood on the ramparts above the castle at noon, looking out on the craggy hills that surrounded her in all directions. Summer was waning, and soon Issa would use her part of the neweyr to bank the growth and fertility of the season, so that next year would be even more abundant than this one. But now, the neweyr of summer and life was at its height, and there was nothing in Issa’s mind as beautiful as the land that she was part of . She could feel the harvest plants growing fat and heavy, the warmth of the air settling deep into the black soil. It was as delicious to her as any taste on her tongue, as sweet as any imagined kiss.

           “Issa, there is an emissary come from Rurik, waiting to speak to you in the Throne Room,” said her father, King Jaap, coming up behind her.

           “I am sure he would rather speak to you than me, Father,” said Issa. Since her mother’s death, she had taken the queen's place in guarding the neweyr. But she had not yet decided if she would encourage the distant cousin who was her father’s heir to propose marriage to her.

          “His name is Duke Kellin of Falcorn. He is one of King Haikor’s court favorites. He has come to offer a betrothal.”

          “A betrothal?” said Issa. Well, this would be interesting, at least. A duke of Rurik had never been to the kingdom before. In fact, Issa could not remember any official emissary ever coming from Rurik, only spies. She might have fun with this.

This is the final version, where the dutiful side of Issa's character is still there, and her mother is still dead. She has borne the burden of her mother's position all these years, but that's all backstory. Instead of her character being all about pity, she is having some fun here. She thinks about her neweyr, but she isn't a cypher for using neweyr. I hope that in this version, she feels more rounded as a character and that the reader can have fun with her, as she intends to have fun. This was where I as a writer really started to love Issa and where I began to wonder which of my two princesses I was really going to let win . . .