„Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place. „ ~Zora Neale Hurston What a captivating final chapter. To use play-acting to let Layle realise that he can experience passion and love without needing to imagine Elsdon being tortured, to let him realise by this means that he can work again with the prisoners and that he doesn’t need to fear his dreamings anymore - extraordinary. I wonder about how this story was written to be so coherent from its beginning up to the end ? Mustn’t the author have start from the end of the story to achieve such a logical and comprehensible result ? Optimistic fatalist
Dusk's fiction usually very well-built, so to speak. Because of it one needs to read every piece at least twice to see all its detales, not that it would be any hardship :)
The story is one of my favorites, by the way. The horrors of hell are very real, but they are used just to prove a point, nothing is redundant.
Oh, I completely agree with you. I had to go back and look at all the points where Elsdon was being 'night-blind' and marvel. How tolerant their neighbour must be!
I had a spoiler for this, from an evil friend, who told me that Master Aeden was the High Master of Hell. I very nearly stopped reading at that point. Stories in which characters are revealed to be gods, or even become gods after death and return to the narrative... well, I like those, too, but that's not why I read ED. I read ED because the characters are so human. I'm insanely glad that I kept reading, though, because it was so well and subtly handled, that it made the story ten times better rather than detracting from the believability of it.
Here, it was so tenable, so reasonable that I could not argue with it at all. It simply became another one of those, "Oh, wow!" moments.
Do you know what really catches my eye about it all, though?
That a reproduction of a four-hundred-year-old etching changed. It makes me wonder if Layle, in his dreamings, didn't actually go on a spiritual journey.
Of course, the etching changed. Or had it? Who knows? What matters, for me at least, that the realistic and the fantastic elements of the story are so perfectly spliced, that one has not to believe in hell in order to believe in chars' reality. Dusk is really VERY gifted
You see, it is long story. I should confess that I do not believe in a lot of things that are very important to Dusk's Muse. But still I cannot help to love the results :)
it is a bit like my view on Manna's Administration, which I value very high while not believing in such concept as "sociopath", which is very important in TA.
I could see that hell(its particular kind, that is) is real to Layle, but it does not mean it should be real to me as well. Hamlet beleived in ghosts, I do not, but Hamlet is still Hamlet. The secret is in inner logic of a piece - if all is tied in strong knots, it is plausible, ghosts or no ghosts.
I have read in one classic Chinese mystery (they called them stories about wise judges) a judge had to interrogate a ghost as a witness. It was a nice reading, really, even for such Atheist as me :)
If I may add some of my thoughts to your very interesting discussion - I think Layle is going deep down to his own personal hell , to his own personal High Master and Elsdon accompanied him to help him finding his escape. And when he was able to leave his hell, he didn’t longer need the picture of the tortured woman ( which allows him to work now with Mistress Birdesmond as a Seeker) as well as he didn’t need to see any more the pain of the others who also vanished from the etching . Isn’t that what constitute a good story like this one, to provoke different analysis and to allow every reader his own interpretation? I’m very glad that you shared yours. Optimistic fatalist
"What makes The Divine Comedy so great a poem is that even readers who do not share Dante's theological beliefs can be stirred by his tender and poignant description of Virgil's imprisonment in Hell."
(Um. Not that I'm trying to compare myself to Dante. I stole all the good stuff from him.)
The comment of one of my beta readers was: "How very brave the neighbor must be to pound on the High Seeker's wall."
"I read ED because the characters are so human."
I understand what you mean - similarly, I tend to gravitate toward fantasy that has little or no magic in it - but I've always found it interesting that this series (which was posted first at e-mail lists, long ago) has, until now, been discussed on every level except the spiritual one. Yet the entire framework of the Code of Seeking is built on the foundation of the Seekers' belief in rebirth. That enters into the storyline long before the Vovimian gods do.
Several years ago, I co-chaired a panel at a slash convention about spirituality in slash. People who attended the panel were talking about how they were afraid to write about their characters' spiritual beliefs, lest they offend their readers. My own experience has been that readers' eyes simply tend to glide over those passages . . . or alternatively, any thoughts the readers may have about the characters' spiritual beliefs just don't get voiced. As a former interfaith news reporter, I find this rather frustrating. :)
My own experience has been that readers' eyes simply tend to glide over those passages . . . or alternatively, any thoughts the readers may have about the characters' spiritual beliefs just don't get voiced.“ ... For me it‘s definitely the second part. Rebirth contains so many religious, spiritual and ethical aspects. But not being a native English speaker, I didn‘t found the courage to pose this subject. It‘s too delicate to handle . For me this story also contains the tale about a war between two religions -whereas the Yclaus one‘s is rather similar to the Christianity. And I always wondered why nobody asked about the rightness that a person who committed awful crimes gains „Rebirth“ only by confessing and regretting them. It reminds me deeply of my problem with the confession in the Roman Catholic Church and their former custom of the letters of indulgence. Due to the lack of my language skills I wasn‘t comfortable to rise this question even when Layle has done it in the „Unanswered question“ "You mean . . . after I am dead, I could . . . In my next life, I might be given the chance . . ." He swallowed. "But that isn't fair. Not after what I did." Optimistic fatalist
"For me this story also contains the tale about a war between two religions -whereas the Yclaus one's is rather similar to the Christianity."
Could you say more about this?
"And I always wondered why nobody asked about the rightness that a person who committed awful crimes gains 'Rebirth' only by confessing and regretting them."
I got a similar comment, actually, about a story in another series, Bard of Pain. I think, from the perspective of the Seekers, what happens isn't only a confession and regret. With the searching comes a breaking (emotional and/or physical), which can be horrendously painful. This is sometimes followed by death.
However, the issue of what constitutes justice continues to be debated by characters throughout the Eternal Dungeon series.
This question needed some thorough reflections. I’m really not apt to discuss religious questions, my knowledge isn’t sufficient. But due to your remark I did some research. The subject of eternal perdition is perhaps a part of the Christianity I gladly tried to ignore. And during my maundering through the Internet I became aware, that other monotheistic religions like the Jewry and the Islam also have these two aspects - perdition and forgiveness. Thus I have to correct myself . It’s not a war between two religions , you oppose two aspects which can be retrieved in different religions. And though I‘m not a member of any religion, I would rather join a religion, which offers this chance of forgiveness, and which perdition isn’t eternal. But on the other hand, can honest repentance not only be achieved without the knowledge of forgiveness? Optimistic fatalist
In his novel "The Great Divorce," C. S. Lewis has a fictional version of George MacDonald say, "If they [the damned souls] leave that grey town behind it will not have been Hell. To any that leaves it, it is Purgatory." That's an attractive concept, but I have to say that Lewis is going against the general trend of Christian theology in suggesting this.
I'm rather interested, though, that you see Yclau's concept of rebirth as being Western (Jewish/Christian/Islamic). Most readers who have commented on it have seen it as Eastern. (For me, it was simply a way to escape having to write about gods for the umpteenth time.)
In your fiction I interpret rebirth rather as resurrection than as reincarnation, because there are only two possibilities - rebirth or eternal perdition. This limitation to only two alternatives is typical for the western religions. In the eastern religions your form of rebirth depends on your former life or your reincarnation continuously advance till you obtain your peace in the nirvana - I know I’m oversimplifying, but that’s why it never crossed my mind to associate your fiction with the eastern religions. „For me, it was simply a way to escape having to write about gods for the umpteenth time.“ And by having done so, you encourage individual interpretations. Thanks, Optimistic fatalist
"In your fiction I interpret rebirth rather as resurrection than as reincarnation, because there are only two possibilities - rebirth or eternal perdition."
The difficulty with talking about rebirth in the Toughs world is that the believers in this doctrine have traditionally been very, very reluctant to speculate on the unknown. (There'll be more about this in Master and Servant, which is set in the Dozen Landsteads, where the doctrine began.) At this particular time period, the Seekers are actually the radicals, speculating about the exact nature of afterdeath and rebirth, and trying to pin it down into concrete theological terms. The traditional believers in Rebirth have an approach that's much more mythological: they have stories from which they take inspiration, but they don't expect that they know all the stories, much less what lies behind the stories.
So a traditionalist would be likely to stare at you uncomprehendingly if you said to him, "There are only two possibilities - rebirth or eternal perdition." He wouldn't be able to figure out how you deduced that, simply from the fact that the particular stories you've been exposed to only mention those two possibilities.
(Also, I trust that you've figured out that the "perdition" you're talking about is actually closer to the Christian concept of heaven? It's unending, unchanging happiness, which believers in rebirth consider a horrible fate.)
As for dualism, the doctrine of rebirth arose in a nation - the Dozen Landsteads - that has a ternary numbering system. Dualism just doesn't exist in the Dozen Landsteads, except as a foreign heresy. Dualism may well have crept into Yclau, though, what with its greater interaction with Vovim, which has a very dualistic religion. In fact, if there's an emphasis in the Eternal Dungeon on two possible fates, that may well owe something to the mindset of the current High Seeker. :)
Oh, I completely agree with you. I had to go back and look at all the points where Elsdon was being 'night-blind' and marvel. How tolerant their neighbour must be!
On my second reading through, I definitely had to kick myself in a few places for not even having a clue about the bigger picture. Until Layle first deduced that this was hell, I sadly never suspected that anything in the description was off, let alone that it was any sort of ethereal dungeon.
"Very well, here's the image I'll use to describe it. You know the Vovimian hell, where the torture-god and his assistants punish the guilty for eternity?"
Neither did I imagine that Elsdon and Layle could be play-acting.
He was struggling against an image breaking through to him of Elsdon in their bedroom in the Eternal Dungeon, screaming under torture. . . . Then Layle managed to pull back from the dreaming.
That a reproduction of a four-hundred-year-old etching changed. It makes me wonder if Layle, in his dreamings, didn't actually go on a spiritual journey.
SPOILER for The Three Lands This disconcerted me as well. I had initially believed that the story was being left up to the interpretation of the audience. But I can't help but wonder if there's something more to this. Especially after reading The Three Lands, particularly Blood Vow and Bard of Pain, in which the god(s) play an active role in the destiny of the characters. Perhaps I would've been able to write this off had it not been for the etching changing, plus the short epilogue. However, the more prominent question now is if this was real, would it effect Layle or Elsdon differently than if it had been nothing more than play-acting spiced with a bit of dark desire?
"Mustn't the author have start from the end of the story to achieve such a logical and comprehensible result ?"
Unfortunately, I can't reconstruct what order I inwardly drafted this story in, because I was having it betaed chapter by chapter, so I typed it up chronologically for the sake of my beta reader.
All I can say is, I might have started from the end, or I might not have. There's no way to tell from how it ended up.
For an example of a story that was written very much out of order, here's the original draft for "Rebirth 2: Love and Betrayal."
o--o--o
March 15, 2002: Historian's prologue; beginning of Chapter One.
March 16: Continuation of Chapter One; Layle's records (from Chapter Four).
March 25: First two scenes of Chapter Seven.
April 2: Rewrite of part of the first scene of Chapter Seven.
May 7: Fifth scene of Chapter Seven; historian's postlogue.
September 17: Beginning of second scene of Chapter Four.
September 18: End of Chapter Four.
September 19: Beginning of Chapter Five.
September 20: Continuation of Chapter Five.
September 27: Third and fourth scenes of Chapter Seven.
September 30: Continuation of Chapter Five.
October 1: End of Chapter Five.
October 7: Beginning of the second scene of Chapter Six.
October 17: End of the second scene of Chapter Six.
October 18: First scene of Chapter Four (Elsdon looking at Layle's records); end of the first scene of Chapter One; second scene of Chapter One; rewrite of end of the first scene of Chapter One.
October 19: First scene of Chapter Six.
October 20: New passage in Chapter Seven.
October 21: Beginning of Chapter Two.
October 22: Continuation of Chapter Two.
October 23: End of Chapter Two.
November 5: Historian's postlogue.
November 8: Third scene of Chapter Six.
November 13: Chapter Three.
o--o--o
Basically, how I wrote that story was by writing the scenes with Layle and Elsdon first, and then writing the scenes with Garrett. Yet Garrett was there from the very beginning; his eventual destiny was the original seed for the story, back in the 1990s.
So this was a case where my Muse did plot backwards, but not completely: he jumped around, filling in gaps wherever necessary. That's how he normally works, when he isn't giving me a story in chronological order.
It's quite common for him to leave me with the hard task of figuring out how to get all the loose threads to meet. "Law of Vengeance" (not yet posted) in Three Lands was one of the hardest plotlines he ever threw at me. I knew how the personal story would end, but there was an important political problem in the novel, and I had no idea how to resolve that problem. I ended up having to sit down and do a legal chart of possible solutions. Yet I doubt that you'd be able to tell this from the novel itself; my Muse managed to dovetail my eventual solution quite neatly with the personal story, so that it looked as though the characters were destined to take that course all along.
So basically what I'm saying is that my Muse is devious enough to hide his tracks. :)
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small}
Anonymous
August 20 2009, 22:02:17 UTC 2 years ago
What a captivating final chapter. To use play-acting to let Layle realise that he can experience passion and love without needing to imagine Elsdon being tortured, to let him realise by this means that he can work again with the prisoners and that he doesn’t need to fear his dreamings anymore - extraordinary. I wonder about how this story was written to be so coherent from its beginning up to the end ? Mustn’t the author have start from the end of the story to achieve such a logical and comprehensible result ? Optimistic fatalist
Anonymous
August 21 2009, 17:05:50 UTC 2 years ago
A spoiler? As I usually say
Dusk's fiction usually very well-built, so to speak. Because of it one needs to read every piece at least twice to see all its detales, not that it would be any hardship :)The story is one of my favorites, by the way. The horrors of hell are very real, but they are used just to prove a point, nothing is redundant.
Rose Red
August 21 2009, 21:23:25 UTC 2 years ago
Re: A spoiler? As I usually say
Oh, I completely agree with you. I had to go back and look at all the points where Elsdon was being 'night-blind' and marvel. How tolerant their neighbour must be!I had a spoiler for this, from an evil friend, who told me that Master Aeden was the High Master of Hell. I very nearly stopped reading at that point. Stories in which characters are revealed to be gods, or even become gods after death and return to the narrative... well, I like those, too, but that's not why I read ED. I read ED because the characters are so human. I'm insanely glad that I kept reading, though, because it was so well and subtly handled, that it made the story ten times better rather than detracting from the believability of it.
Here, it was so tenable, so reasonable that I could not argue with it at all. It simply became another one of those, "Oh, wow!" moments.
Do you know what really catches my eye about it all, though?
That a reproduction of a four-hundred-year-old etching changed. It makes me wonder if Layle, in his dreamings, didn't actually go on a spiritual journey.
Anonymous
August 22 2009, 06:32:23 UTC 2 years ago
Re: A spoiler? As I usually say
Of course, the etching changed. Or had it? Who knows? What matters, for me at least, that the realistic and the fantastic elements of the story are so perfectly spliced, that one has not to believe in hell in order to believe in chars' reality. Dusk is really VERY giftedRose Red
August 22 2009, 07:03:53 UTC 2 years ago
Re: A spoiler? As I usually say
How do you mean, not believe in hell in order to believe in the characters' reality?The way I see it, one would have to believe in hell in order to understand their reality, since it is such a reality for them.
Anonymous
August 22 2009, 11:07:53 UTC 2 years ago
Re: A spoiler? As I usually say
You see, it is long story. I should confess that I do not believe in a lot of things that are very important to Dusk's Muse. But still I cannot help to love the results :)it is a bit like my view on Manna's Administration, which I value very high while not believing in such concept as "sociopath", which is very important in TA.
I could see that hell(its particular kind, that is) is real to Layle, but it does not mean it should be real to me as well. Hamlet beleived in ghosts, I do not, but Hamlet is still Hamlet. The secret is in inner logic of a piece - if all is tied in strong knots, it is plausible, ghosts or no ghosts.
I have read in one classic Chinese mystery (they called them stories about wise judges) a judge had to interrogate a ghost as a witness. It was a nice reading, really, even for such Atheist as me :)
Rose Red
Anonymous
August 22 2009, 20:17:15 UTC 2 years ago
Re: A spoiler? As I usually say
If I may add some of my thoughts to your very interesting discussion - I think Layle is going deep down to his own personal hell , to his own personal High Master and Elsdon accompanied him to help him finding his escape. And when he was able to leave his hell, he didn’t longer need the picture of the tortured woman ( which allows him to work now with Mistress Birdesmond as a Seeker) as well as he didn’t need to see any more the pain of the others who also vanished from the etching . Isn’t that what constitute a good story like this one, to provoke different analysis and to allow every reader his own interpretation? I’m very glad that you shared yours. Optimistic fatalistAugust 29 2009, 18:29:11 UTC 2 years ago
Re: A spoiler? As I usually say
I wrote in the historical note to Eternally Divided:"What makes The Divine Comedy so great a poem is that even readers who do not share Dante's theological beliefs can be stirred by his tender and poignant description of Virgil's imprisonment in Hell."
(Um. Not that I'm trying to compare myself to Dante. I stole all the good stuff from him.)
August 29 2009, 18:28:43 UTC 2 years ago
Re: A spoiler? As I usually say
"How tolerant their neighbour must be!"The comment of one of my beta readers was: "How very brave the neighbor must be to pound on the High Seeker's wall."
"I read ED because the characters are so human."
I understand what you mean - similarly, I tend to gravitate toward fantasy that has little or no magic in it - but I've always found it interesting that this series (which was posted first at e-mail lists, long ago) has, until now, been discussed on every level except the spiritual one. Yet the entire framework of the Code of Seeking is built on the foundation of the Seekers' belief in rebirth. That enters into the storyline long before the Vovimian gods do.
Several years ago, I co-chaired a panel at a slash convention about spirituality in slash. People who attended the panel were talking about how they were afraid to write about their characters' spiritual beliefs, lest they offend their readers. My own experience has been that readers' eyes simply tend to glide over those passages . . . or alternatively, any thoughts the readers may have about the characters' spiritual beliefs just don't get voiced. As a former interfaith news reporter, I find this rather frustrating. :)
Anonymous
August 30 2009, 21:26:38 UTC 2 years ago
Re: A spoiler? As I usually say
My own experience has been that readers' eyes simply tend to glide over those passages . . . or alternatively, any thoughts the readers may have about the characters' spiritual beliefs just don't get voiced.“ ... For me it‘s definitely the second part. Rebirth contains so many religious, spiritual and ethical aspects. But not being a native English speaker, I didn‘t found the courage to pose this subject. It‘s too delicate to handle . For me this story also contains the tale about a war between two religions -whereas the Yclaus one‘s is rather similar to the Christianity. And I always wondered why nobody asked about the rightness that a person who committed awful crimes gains „Rebirth“ only by confessing and regretting them. It reminds me deeply of my problem with the confession in the Roman Catholic Church and their former custom of the letters of indulgence. Due to the lack of my language skills I wasn‘t comfortable to rise this question even when Layle has done it in the „Unanswered question“ "You mean . . . after I am dead, I could . . . In my next life, I might be given the chance . . ." He swallowed. "But that isn't fair. Not after what I did." Optimistic fatalistSeptember 4 2009, 08:06:05 UTC 2 years ago
Re: A spoiler? As I usually say
"For me this story also contains the tale about a war between two religions -whereas the Yclaus one's is rather similar to the Christianity."Could you say more about this?
"And I always wondered why nobody asked about the rightness that a person who committed awful crimes gains 'Rebirth' only by confessing and regretting them."
I got a similar comment, actually, about a story in another series, Bard of Pain. I think, from the perspective of the Seekers, what happens isn't only a confession and regret. With the searching comes a breaking (emotional and/or physical), which can be horrendously painful. This is sometimes followed by death.
However, the issue of what constitutes justice continues to be debated by characters throughout the Eternal Dungeon series.
Anonymous
September 9 2009, 20:54:55 UTC 2 years ago
Re: A spoiler? As I usually say
This question needed some thorough reflections. I’m really not apt to discuss religious questions, my knowledge isn’t sufficient. But due to your remark I did some research. The subject of eternal perdition is perhaps a part of the Christianity I gladly tried to ignore. And during my maundering through the Internet I became aware, that other monotheistic religions like the Jewry and the Islam also have these two aspects - perdition and forgiveness. Thus I have to correct myself . It’s not a war between two religions , you oppose two aspects which can be retrieved in different religions. And though I‘m not a member of any religion, I would rather join a religion, which offers this chance of forgiveness, and which perdition isn’t eternal. But on the other hand, can honest repentance not only be achieved without the knowledge of forgiveness? Optimistic fatalistSeptember 19 2009, 01:00:08 UTC 2 years ago
Re: A spoiler? As I usually say
In his novel "The Great Divorce," C. S. Lewis has a fictional version of George MacDonald say, "If they [the damned souls] leave that grey town behind it will not have been Hell. To any that leaves it, it is Purgatory." That's an attractive concept, but I have to say that Lewis is going against the general trend of Christian theology in suggesting this.I'm rather interested, though, that you see Yclau's concept of rebirth as being Western (Jewish/Christian/Islamic). Most readers who have commented on it have seen it as Eastern. (For me, it was simply a way to escape having to write about gods for the umpteenth time.)
Anonymous
September 20 2009, 19:39:23 UTC 2 years ago
Re: A spoiler? As I usually say
In your fiction I interpret rebirth rather as resurrection than as reincarnation, because there are only two possibilities - rebirth or eternal perdition. This limitation to only two alternatives is typical for the western religions. In the eastern religions your form of rebirth depends on your former life or your reincarnation continuously advance till you obtain your peace in the nirvana - I know I’m oversimplifying, but that’s why it never crossed my mind to associate your fiction with the eastern religions.„For me, it was simply a way to escape having to write about gods for the umpteenth time.“ And by having done so, you encourage individual interpretations. Thanks, Optimistic fatalist
September 26 2009, 18:01:44 UTC 2 years ago
Re: A spoiler? As I usually say
"In your fiction I interpret rebirth rather as resurrection than as reincarnation, because there are only two possibilities - rebirth or eternal perdition."The difficulty with talking about rebirth in the Toughs world is that the believers in this doctrine have traditionally been very, very reluctant to speculate on the unknown. (There'll be more about this in Master and Servant, which is set in the Dozen Landsteads, where the doctrine began.) At this particular time period, the Seekers are actually the radicals, speculating about the exact nature of afterdeath and rebirth, and trying to pin it down into concrete theological terms. The traditional believers in Rebirth have an approach that's much more mythological: they have stories from which they take inspiration, but they don't expect that they know all the stories, much less what lies behind the stories.
So a traditionalist would be likely to stare at you uncomprehendingly if you said to him, "There are only two possibilities - rebirth or eternal perdition." He wouldn't be able to figure out how you deduced that, simply from the fact that the particular stories you've been exposed to only mention those two possibilities.
(Also, I trust that you've figured out that the "perdition" you're talking about is actually closer to the Christian concept of heaven? It's unending, unchanging happiness, which believers in rebirth consider a horrible fate.)
As for dualism, the doctrine of rebirth arose in a nation - the Dozen Landsteads - that has a ternary numbering system. Dualism just doesn't exist in the Dozen Landsteads, except as a foreign heresy. Dualism may well have crept into Yclau, though, what with its greater interaction with Vovim, which has a very dualistic religion. In fact, if there's an emphasis in the Eternal Dungeon on two possible fates, that may well owe something to the mindset of the current High Seeker. :)
February 10 2010, 09:40:06 UTC 2 years ago
Re: A spoiler? As I usually say
Oh, I completely agree with you. I had to go back and look at all the points where Elsdon was being 'night-blind' and marvel. How tolerant their neighbour must be!On my second reading through, I definitely had to kick myself in a few places for not even having a clue about the bigger picture. Until Layle first deduced that this was hell, I sadly never suspected that anything in the description was off, let alone that it was any sort of ethereal dungeon.
Neither did I imagine that Elsdon and Layle could be play-acting.
That a reproduction of a four-hundred-year-old etching changed. It makes me wonder if Layle, in his dreamings, didn't actually go on a spiritual journey.
SPOILER for The Three Lands
This disconcerted me as well. I had initially believed that the story was being left up to the interpretation of the audience. But I can't help but wonder if there's something more to this. Especially after reading The Three Lands, particularly Blood Vow and Bard of Pain, in which the god(s) play an active role in the destiny of the characters. Perhaps I would've been able to write this off had it not been for the etching changing, plus the short epilogue. However, the more prominent question now is if this was real, would it effect Layle or Elsdon differently than if it had been nothing more than play-acting spiced with a bit of dark desire?
August 22 2009, 20:54:22 UTC 2 years ago
Unfortunately, I can't reconstruct what order I inwardly drafted this story in, because I was having it betaed chapter by chapter, so I typed it up chronologically for the sake of my beta reader.
All I can say is, I might have started from the end, or I might not have. There's no way to tell from how it ended up.
For an example of a story that was written very much out of order, here's the original draft for "Rebirth 2: Love and Betrayal."
March 15, 2002: Historian's prologue; beginning of Chapter One.
March 16: Continuation of Chapter One; Layle's records (from Chapter Four).
March 25: First two scenes of Chapter Seven.
April 2: Rewrite of part of the first scene of Chapter Seven.
May 7: Fifth scene of Chapter Seven; historian's postlogue.
September 17: Beginning of second scene of Chapter Four.
September 18: End of Chapter Four.
September 19: Beginning of Chapter Five.
September 20: Continuation of Chapter Five.
September 27: Third and fourth scenes of Chapter Seven.
September 30: Continuation of Chapter Five.
October 1: End of Chapter Five.
October 7: Beginning of the second scene of Chapter Six.
October 17: End of the second scene of Chapter Six.
October 18: First scene of Chapter Four (Elsdon looking at Layle's records); end of the first scene of Chapter One; second scene of Chapter One; rewrite of end of the first scene of Chapter One.
October 19: First scene of Chapter Six.
October 20: New passage in Chapter Seven.
October 21: Beginning of Chapter Two.
October 22: Continuation of Chapter Two.
October 23: End of Chapter Two.
November 5: Historian's postlogue.
November 8: Third scene of Chapter Six.
November 13: Chapter Three.
Basically, how I wrote that story was by writing the scenes with Layle and Elsdon first, and then writing the scenes with Garrett. Yet Garrett was there from the very beginning; his eventual destiny was the original seed for the story, back in the 1990s.
So this was a case where my Muse did plot backwards, but not completely: he jumped around, filling in gaps wherever necessary. That's how he normally works, when he isn't giving me a story in chronological order.
It's quite common for him to leave me with the hard task of figuring out how to get all the loose threads to meet. "Law of Vengeance" (not yet posted) in Three Lands was one of the hardest plotlines he ever threw at me. I knew how the personal story would end, but there was an important political problem in the novel, and I had no idea how to resolve that problem. I ended up having to sit down and do a legal chart of possible solutions. Yet I doubt that you'd be able to tell this from the novel itself; my Muse managed to dovetail my eventual solution quite neatly with the personal story, so that it looked as though the characters were destined to take that course all along.
So basically what I'm saying is that my Muse is devious enough to hide his tracks. :)