Welcome back to. Shockwaves the official after
show for Stellar Shock. I'm.
Jess here with Arthur, the guy who started.
All this mess. Arthur, how's it feel?
Seeing your fictional village get put through a meat grinder
in chapter 2. Not great, Jess.
Everybody keeps. Asking if I'll ever let these.
Folks. Just have a normal day.
Guess the answer is still no. I finished chapter 2 half
expecting something good to happen and then you pile it on.
Mud, blood, elders fighting, sword swinging.
Did you ever think about just writing a farming memoir?
I grew up around real farmers. Nobody survives a season
unscathed, metaphorically or not.
Makes for honest fiction though. Messy, mean, real.
That's how it lands. The first thing that hit me
before the Basalt crew even show up was how Teutoma feels.
That village is just. Clinging on, you paint it with
streaks of sweat and smoke, peeling everything down to what
people can hold in their hands. The gate.
The dogs. The kids running barefoot.
All that was that. World building or did you just
steal scenes from your childhood?
Middle of both. I I wanted Teetoma to feel lived
in and already under. Threat before the real.
Danger shows the. Idea is, wherever you grow up,
there's always a. Sense that something's coming
for what you've. Built could be a river, a
drought. Or just the wrong neighbor.
It's the kids that. Get me?
You've got Sir Roland. Balu lavu vitti each.
With a home. A set of.
Chipped routines a reason for moving the way they.
Do like that detail. About garden fences and patched
roofs lets you know these people.
Fix what they have. Nobody's got anything new.
That's what survival looks like. No.
Fairy tale cottages just. Mud jammed in the cracks.
The houses are patched, but you see the.
Story in every patch. VTS roof leaks Balu's dog is.
Smarter than any of them. They're proud of things they
shouldn't even need. To be proud of.
There's this line. Teutoma, at this hour felt held
in the palm of someone's hand, Too quiet.
As though the village. Listened for a threat behind
each bird call. That stuck.
You do subtle threat well before.
Basalt even says a. Word, people.
Act like they're being watched. Where I come from, we always
listened for trouble we hoped wouldn't come.
You. Sleep light that way.
I wanted that sentence, A world where even the quiets dangerous.
The village listens and everyone's tuning in.
And the kids go right from talking about dogs to spying on
the elders meeting. It's not innocence lost, but
just routine. Like they know when to sneak and
when to keep their heads down. That's life.
No kid in a. Real hard place stays.
Innocent for long. You learn the rules, you break
them in the right ways, and mostly you just.
Try to keep out of the way. These kids know fear, and they
know. Which adults to watch?
And which ones to? Avoid.
Ward, Seraphine. Let's talk about him for a
second. Balding.
Scarred. Voice that could stop a fight.
The way you write Ward, you don't hide that he's rough with
SER or that he's respected because.
He's survived more than anyone else.
Is he the heart of this book or just?
Another guy doing damage control.
Both. He'll never.
Admit it, but he's a stand in for every stubborn, broken
leader. Who acts like survival?
Is the only thing that matters. He's cruel when he thinks it's
necessary, loving only in ways that make other people strong.
Half the time he's barely holding it together.
A flashback to Sarah's. Childhood, the meditation lesson
turning into a beating, swords flying, real blood drawn.
People will say that's child abuse.
But you don't flinch from it. What's your goal with?
Showing a guy like Ward, warts and all.
I'm not endorsing it. I just refuse to write soft,
easy love. Into a place like Teo Toma, in
some families, violence and teaching come bundled together
and scars get passed down like heirlooms Ward wants.
Sir, to be tough because he's afraid the.
World will chew him up otherwise.
Doesn't excuse anything, just explains it.
The way you. Wrote that sparring scene words
telling Sir you're nothing. Next breath, he's tossing him a
sword. Love is a fist.
In this House. Word for word, sometimes every
hits a message. That doesn't make it right, it
just makes it true. For these characters.
No judgement but damn there's a lot simmering you also.
Set up the black sword, right? From the start.
It's this ugly heavy. Thing SER keeps seeing things in
the blade, the woman's eyes moving, the etchings crawling.
Like it's as alive. As any character.
I wanted a sword that wasn't a prize or a destiny.
It's a burden, a warning, maybe a curse.
Sir's drawn to it, but not because it promises greatness.
He stares at it because it. Scares him and because it links
him to a family and a history that never brought him much
good. All right, but.
Let me push you here. Is there magic in this?
Story or is every. Supernatural thing in.
Sir's head. Both some things run on ritual
and story as much as on physics. The residents believe in Kanta,
in elements in IO, but when Sarah thinks he sees the blade's
face move, I won't say. Whether that's his head.
Rattling from trauma or something older poking through.
It's meant to be ambiguous, honest to how people really see
miracles. Or horror.
In ordinary things. Meeting the elders.
Meeting one of my. Favorites where you've got
Hodeya Oksuk. Canulo all arguing about God's.
War whether to. Stand or run the way.
You write it. Everyone's scared, but nobody
can admit to it. It feels very male, very old.
School. Fear comes out as yelling and
table pounding. I grew up watching men express
everything except fear. They hit they.
Drink. They shout about someone else's
mistakes but never say I'm scared.
I wanted that energy in the hall when Ward slaps the table and
says. We'll see.
What story? Navarro wants to tell that's.
Their whole faith, fate. Gets the last line, not the
council. That foreshadows Basalt and his.
Crew rolling up right? So let's talk about that.
Sequence the boat flying a blood.
Rag the guy with the red sash asking.
For Suns and Blades, is this your invasion or?
Just the start of. Trouble for Tuatoma?
This is the. Fuse I I don't.
See basalt as the. Villain.
He's just the river delivering a new flood.
Everyone in places like Teatoma knows you don't have to do
anything wrong for trouble to. Arrive.
Sometimes it just floats in on a boat.
You take your time with. Geography, by the way.
There's the river, the brush. The angle of the sunlight.
All so precise. You can.
Feel the heat, the squelch. Of mud under boots.
Are you sketching a map for us or just keeping yourself
oriented? If you can't feel the road under
your character's feet, you don't know where they're going to run
when. Trouble shows every.
Direction matters. The jungle.
The river. The line between safe and not
readers need to feel the boundary, so when it gets.
Crossed. You know it's being risked.
Let's pause for a. 2nd on the actual.
Fight. I kept waiting for a heroic
moment. Somebody shouts.
The enemy flees. Or maybe.
Sir grabs the black sword and saves the day but.
It's messy, small, dangerous as hell, and you leave most
outcomes ambiguous. Was that deliberate?
I hate. Clean fights in fiction, Real
violence is confusion. People miss Slip.
Get scared. Bleed in stupid ways, no glory.
Each person's just trying to come out.
Less. Broken than they went in.
Nobody cheers at the end. Not if not if you're honest.
If meet your take on Seer, he's our lens, right?
But he never. Actually feels like a classic
hero. Sarah's just another scared kid.
Forced to act before he's ready, He's not.
Brave. Just cornered.
That's true for everyone in Teutoma.
You don't get to choose your moments.
Most times the moment chooses you and you hope your feet move
fast enough. For all that there are.
Real moments of connection, Sir. Feeding Ward, scraping out the
soup, stealing himself to stand in a fight, even Balu and Lavu.
They're crude as hell. Sometimes, but when the.
Basalt come. They're there for each other.
Survival makes a pact. You can hate the people around
you all day, but when the wolves come, those are still your
people. Doesn't mean you forgive or that
the next day will be any softer. You just endure.
The end of the. Chapter After all the chaos,
there's this. Silence.
No one. Cheers.
Ward calls orders, but he looks half.
Dead, and you focus on the aftermath, washing wounds,
scrubbing blood from the ground, carrying the dead.
You make us wait in the tension. Was that your instinct or does
it serve a bigger theme? Both.
I believe violence echoes. It doesn't just stop when the.
Blade gets sheathed. The only victory is making it to
tomorrow. Everybody's already calculating
the next loss. Is there hope?
Even a grain. Hope is what you carry, because
you. Don't have a choice.
Nobody in Tuatoma is under illusions, but they keep
standing. Maybe that's resilience.
Maybe it's. Just habit.
OK, your habit of? Putting people through.
Hell aside, what? Comes next for SER.
Don't spoil, but can you tease? Cerix decides.
What he's willing to lose? Home, innocence.
Whatever's left after a night like that, he's not through the
gauntlet. Not by half.
That's grim, but. Fair Arthur before.
We dive further Audience Q&A. People want to know does Toitoma
get rebuilt? Or will you just?
Keep burning it down. Chapter after chapter.
If the village burns, it's because someone lit the match.
If it stands, it's because too many.
People refuse to leave. Both are honest outcomes.
All right, whichever happens. The most direct answer you've
given, honestly. Not in me to lie.
About these places. Folks, send your questions
anytime. We'll grill Arthur on every
single. Detail he refuses to.
Explain. But now let's unpack a few stand
out details. Shoot.
The animals. You use the black dog, the cats,
the goats. Sometimes they notice.
Trouble before people do. How intentional is that?
Animals always know they move how the weather or the mood.
Shifts. You see a dog?
Acting strange, you know, to look.
Twice at the road. People ignore what their gut.
Says dogs, cats. Don't intuitoma.
Even the animals are survivors. Next up this line no.
Trade we take or you? Give that's one.
Hell of a threat. Any reason you made?
The basalt so direct. So there's no room for
negotiation. Or stories, that's how.
War enters with blunt demands. No extra words, no bargaining
makes the choice simple, not easy.
Did you always imagine Basalt as an extension of the place?
Or as the. Start of something new, a change
coming up the river. Both.
Again, you can't separate the invader from the world he.
Invades basalt. Wants to absorb to atoma the
same way the jungle wants to take back cleared land.
That's the natural order of things.
Conflict, no matter how. Well, you build your.
Fences. Let's talk mothers.
There's a lot of focus on men fighting, boys picking up
swords, but there are mothers here.
Roland's mom. Baloos, Lavoos.
Calling out to. Their kids fixing.
Wounds cooking even while the village is under siege.
What made you lean into that? Every hard place I ever
survived. The women held it up.
Might be behind doors. But they keep the place stitched
together, feed you, drag you out of bed, pat you.
Up when you fall. The story focuses.
On the kids and. Fighters, but the real.
Backbone is always the ones sewing, scraping, whispering
orders behind the curtain. Comes through in their actions.
No melodrama, just hands moving to save what's.
Left. Don't need.
Speeches to do hard work. Which brings me to the way you
treat wounds. Nobody.
Gets the hero's recovery Here, there's blood.
Busted bones, Infections. Waiting.
Sirs cut rib Lavu's leg. V TS nose grown men dropping
from a hit to the knee. This isn't fantasy violence.
It's like a blueprint for the. Hardest side of survival?
If you're going to throw a knife, it'll land somewhere
soft. Bones break easy.
Blood shows up in places you wish it didn't.
Nobody. Shrugs off a blow.
Pain lingers, bodies limp to ignore.
That is to write a lie. And even the aftermath.
You keep it close, People grumble, patch roofs, mend
bodies, all in silence. Is there catharsis for you as
the writer after? These big messy chapters.
If there is, I haven't found it. The work after the.
Violence is heavier than before. Story only moves if you keep
shoveling the. Dirt.
I write the. Aftermath.
Because that's all the reward the characters get.
There's a scene near the very end Sir, at the.
Well, with Ward. Quiet, sharing.
A silence. So wide you could drive a boat
through it. What's that?
Space mean for them. Sometimes the most honest thing
two people can do. Together is just endure.
The silence, no tidy hug, no no nice talk, just sharing the
burden and letting. The quiet Say what words?
Can't. All right, let's get maybe a bit
lighter for a second the. Food.
You describe bread. Beans, soup, dried fish, each
meal barely filling even small. Details like SER tearing old
bread Vt. Flicking a fish bone.
Why those choices? Life in Tutama is hunger.
Every meal is measured. You appreciate survival more
when you. Fight for every bite plus those.
Little moments. Help readers feel the.
Grind of living, nothing polished, nothing wasted.
An audience e-mail. Why does nobody ever say thank
you in Tuatama? You don't hear a lot of thank
you's in places where survival's not guaranteed.
Gratitude is in actions. If I haul you from a fight.
I expect you to. Do the same next time.
Say it with your hands, not your mouth.
So you're telling me? If.
Basalt comes knocking next week. You want your neighbors.
At your back rather. Than flowers on your doorstep.
Exactly. In a pinch, I'll take someone
standing between me and danger over someone telling me I'm
brave. Did you plan out every elder's
personality ahead of time? Or do they just?
Start fighting as soon as the meeting starts.
I sketch the basics. Who's the loud one?
Who's the peacemaker? Who gives in first?
But once you put tired old men in a room with war on their.
Doorstep. They tell you who they are.
With their voices, not with what's on the page.
It's clear who's who. And everyone's got an edge, even
if you never. Use adjectives outright.
You don't need them someone's jaw or hands or.
Voice tells the truth. That's the goal.
Show how they carry. Fear not just.
Say they're afraid. Moving from elders.
Back to kids. Vt Lavu balu.
Roland Balu in particular. Big mouth.
Hot head, but backs. It up in the fight reminds me of
every kid in trouble. But with a.
Core that never bends. Everyone's got a Balu you.
You need someone who'll swing first, even if it's dumb.
Someone else judges, another hangs back.
Every group works that way in fights.
You need the. Guy who'll pick up?
The the heavy stone. And then there's Roland, always
at. Sarah's heel.
Hand shaking but still holding a blade when it's time.
Is Roland more than a tagalong? Roland.
'S scared but stays. Close loyalty, not courage, gets
him through a fight. If you write.
Real people, the ones who struggle most, are often the
ones you want beside you. They never.
Leave first. You keep choices tight.
When Ward tells everyone you stay or you run but make it now,
you don't let anybody Mull it over.
Is that a ticking clock effect? Exactly.
Warlands don't give you days. When trouble comes, you
scramble. To hesitate is a.
Decision of its own. So Ward tells it.
Straight draw the line today or risk it being drawn for you.
And by making, Sir. Say we stay, you have your.
Protagonist babysit and his crew step up without any grand
speeches. Or reward.
There's no glory in survival, just A reckoning with the fact
that someone's got to take responsibility, even if it's.
A scared kid. We're getting questions.
About the detail where Basalt tosses the red.
Cloth people assumed that's a recruitment sigil.
Or a threat. Are the colors random or?
Is there a larger? System.
Everything means something to somebody in these places.
Reds the color of. War never of trade it marks.
What you take by? Force.
The villagers know red means trouble.
So when Basalt chucks the cloth. He's not offering terms, he's
laying out consequences. Speaking of consequences.
You avoid the good guy bad guy trope.
Even at their worst, the Basalt and Elders have reasons.
It's survival resource, Old grudges.
Is that your world? View or just narrative device?
Both war strips. Away morality.
Everyone's afraid. Everyone's stuck making ugly.
Choices. If you pick sides too quickly,
you're. Lying to yourself?
When writing. Villagers post battle you.
Skip speeches, celebrations, just pain Patchwork kids poking
at the. Bodies by the well.
Why linger there and not move ahead?
Because that's where the truth. Is all that noise about heroism
fades the only thing left? Is the work.
Digging holes, sewing skin, mending fences, Everything else
is window dressing. You leave the reader in the.
Aftershocks because that's where character gets built.
Another e-mail. Does anyone remember the dead
intuitoma? Or are burials just necessity?
They remember, but grief isn't loud.
You show it by. Cleaning a wound by carrying
bodies with care, by doing what needs doing after stories come.
Later, if at all. Let's double back to the
structure of the chapter. You don't end on a battle just
to return to grim, constant work.
Twitama holds, Ward says. And that's it.
Why end that way? Success isn't dramatic.
Staying alive means more chores, more nights with your ear.
To the earth. It's never final.
I cut. It where the grind resumes,
because that's how tomorrow starts.
That. Realism keeps things brutal.
But true. Last audience message before we
close this segment, someone wants to know.
Was the black. Sword inspired by any legend.
It's a mix of things. Every town has a story.
About a blade that. Cut more than flesh.
Maybe a relic, maybe a rumor. I wanted a.
Sword you'd rather drop. Than claim one that never.
Fits the hero just. Burdens whoever has to.
Carry it. Arthur, we left off with Ward.
Saying to eat him a holds, but nobody's resting easy.
I want to dive back into that. You don't.
Call it a victory. Even.
After the basalt retreat. And not a single.
Character cracks a joke or acts relieved.
Nobody. Relaxes after a fight.
That close any? Storyteller who has folks.
Laughing over their wounds right away hasn't been in a real.
Scrape. You don't.
Feel safe, you start. Looking for what's next to go
wrong. It's almost like.
Grief is a muscle in your writing.
People don't break down at funerals.
They move. Bodies mend.
Houses count. Heads.
Is that deliberate? That's tradition in a hard.
Place if you stop. Moving you fall apart, moving
forward is survival. Cry on your own time after
things stop burning. And for places like Tuitoma,
things never stop burning long. Speaking of burning the.
Fire the barricades the. Rain.
It's all methodical. Buckets hauled, walls patched,
graves dug. Nothing flashy.
And you keep returning. Us to the tactile.
Mud on fingers, knots in rope. Is it just texture or are you?
Keeping us from drifting into abstraction.
Both if you're reading about a village.
Fight I. Want the rain in your shoes?
A rope digging grooves in your palm?
No. Heroes pose just the.
Grit between your. Teeth If it hurts to read,
you're. Doing it right.
And you use silence as a weapon. Nobody in Taitoma.
Wastes breath after the. Fight even the kids.
Shut up, there's a bit where Sir helps drag.
The dead says nothing. For pages.
What made you lean so hard on Wordless?
Recovery. Words don't fix wounds.
Work does. The heavy lifting speaks louder
than any. Are you OK?
Especially for someone like. Sir who?
Doesn't know how to. Talk about what he's.
Seen he does what needs doing because he's seen grown men do
the same. There's one repeated phrase.
Still here? Lavu says it, Sir, echoes it.
Balu spits it out. It's not hope.
It's not pride. What is that?
In your mind. To tally.
Just marking off the living, reminding each other they're not
ghosts yet. Sometimes it's stubbornness,
sometimes it's just habit. Say it enough, maybe you believe
it. One listener wrote in It feels.
Like your survival? Isn't just.
Who holds a sword but who hauls water afterthoughts?
Dead right the fight. Isn't over when the blade drops,
it's won by whoever. Picks up the bucket, stitches a
cut, dares to sleep. With one eye open.
Survival's everyday work. Not a ceremony.
I see that in Ward too. He's always moving, never sits
when he doesn't have. To the detail.
Of him wrapping the black sword, always keeping it close, not
letting anyone. Especially Sarah.
See, Touch it. There's a history there.
Are you saving a? Reveal or is the weight.
Of the sword, the point. The burden matters more than the
answer. Ward's always been defined by
what he. Carries the sword proves.
It keeps him sharp, keeps him tired.
Part of him wants to keep it away from Sir, not out of love.
But out of fear. The moment I noticed.
The switch was. In the rain, the attack at
night, you move fast. There's no.
Order. Just chaos.
Was it hard to keep track of everyone in that storm?
The trick is to follow. Bodies, not names.
I tracked where each person was by what they do in a fight.
Balu on the fences. Lavu running with a.
Broken spear, Sir. Losing his grip, then picking up
a rock. Rain makes it all worse.
Mud, pain, fatigue. You follow the noise, the fear,
the pain. You don't zoom out.
You stick to the boys to ward to the shape of the blade.
Let's go microscopic for a minute.
Sarah's wound just a cut, not life threatening, but you don't
write. It as a badge.
It leaks, stings, slows him. There's never the I'm fine
moment. You go through it, you don't
wave it. Off.
Every problem you ignore is another thing waiting.
To trip you later. In a fight, your arm goes numb,
your ribs burn, you start limping without noticing.
If the reader. Walks away feeling like they've
got a limp. Too.
That's the goal. What about the kids after the?
Rain ends. Some are patching mud, others
poke. At the basalt dead, it's.
Disturbing, but honest. What's the thinking there?
Kids don't know what. To do with horror.
Some get curious, some hide, some pretend it's just another
dead thing on the riverbank. They process loss differently.
If the grown-ups don't let them in on the pain, they find their
own way through or around it. You spend a lot of time
describing the smallest routines, rebuilding fences,
redistributing weapons, divvying up food.
Is this your version of? Aftercare for the reader or
just? What those characters know.
It's what they know. The only reward for survival is
more. Work all the.
Routines are a safety net. They distract they.
Heal they keep you upright for. Characters and readers both.
It's the closest you get to rest.
Pass. Forward to the public meeting at
the well. No speeches, no arguing, just
Ward. With his battered face.
And bloody Sword saying it's done.
Today we dig. Tonight we watch, tomorrow we'll
see what's your intent leaving it there.
Nobody cheers, nobody weeps. Grief in these places is
private, not public. Tomorrow we'll see.
Is as much. Hope as anyone gets you survive
one day, you don't promise another to do.
Otherwise is a lie. There's a good enough feeling,
no victory. Lap just dragged bodies.
And patched wounds. Do you ever worry it's too
bleak? Bleak is the baseline where I
grew up. Any sweetness feels earned if it
bleeds a. Little the people who live like
this, like Sarah Ward. Roland They find joy in smaller
things, but never in triumph over someone else's loss.
The last third of this chapter is just the work.
Hauling mud, sewing up cuts, eating whatever's left.
Then you describe the night Sir crawled beneath his blanket,
shut his eyes, and waited for dreams darker than any jungle
night. You're showing us, not telling
us. Just like the rest.
Every nightmare. Grows out of what's?
Left unfinished, Seer won't wake up better for having survived.
He wakes up hurt, scared, older by years.
Let's shift minor characters. Oksuk hodea kanuo.
Every one of them takes a beating.
Swings. Hard argues even harder.
What do you like about? Writing the Council.
Old men who never stopped fighting.
Each one stood for something once, now stands.
For whatever's left, they argue, to cover up.
For fear, for losses, for regret.
They'll never name. It's the only way they know.
To show love. To keep the argument running.
Listeners want more about the women, too.
Lavu's mother Roland's. We only see them through small
gestures. But they shoot through the.
Chapter as strong and. Quiet will they get.
More to do later. Or are they?
The Villages silent backbone. Both.
In Teutoma, women run the long war, patching, planning, keeping
the next generation planted. I didn't want to spotlight them
with. Speeches.
They're the. Reason the place holds their
wounds cut deeper because nobody sees.
All they carry. There's a passage where Balu
curses. And you write, he might as well
dig his own. Grave Is he hopeless?
He's angry for some hopelessness.
Is a slow leak for Balu. It's a fight with every step.
He'll go down clawing. He talks like he's.
Done. But he always shows up for the
next job. Sometimes that's how you endure.
The threat, the. Violence.
It's never romantic, even the best.
Fighters are just working through the crisis.
No chosen one's speeches or sudden mastery.
Nobody wins because they're the. Best.
They win because they. Hurt less or are.
Scared a little longer I'll never write glamour into blood.
OK, that's circle back the black.
Sword the fighting, tying wounds, dragging bodies.
Still you end on a village that keeps going.
People want to know, will Twit O Ma become a legend or will it
vanish like the other burned out villages in this world?
Legends don't feed you, don't keep you warm to.
Atoma only exists as long as people choose not to leave.
If it turns into a ghost town, it'll be because nobody could
remember how to fix a. Roof.
If it survives, it's because every wound gets.
Patched one more time, then it's torn open.
Listeners, you heard it. Arthur keeps this village.
Running the same way. War does out of.
Stubbornness, spite, or maybe necessity.
There's no other way. Got some more audience questions
here? One person asks, was the rain a
metaphor for cleansing or just rotten luck?
Is rotten luck might clean the blood off the dirt, but it
never. Washes away the loss.
The rain is a problem to solve, same as any other.
Another are the boys. Closer after the fight.
Or cracks forming both. Fighting side by side, forges,
bonds. The cracks run deeper.
Too fear. Lingers trust, gets bruised some
wounds you can't see. Not all friendships.
Survive after a fight, but for a while.
You only lean harder. There's a tiny moment Vt
patching his own roof with his. Shirt, is that you?
Or did someone you know actually do that?
Both again, I've used my own clothes to plug leaks most
people have when there's nothing else.
Better you do what works. OK, let's talk pacing.
The chapter moves slow and detailed, then sprints when the
fight hits, falls back into slow again.
Do you plot that rhythm or does it come natural?
As you write. You feel it like a heartbeat.
Tension winds up. You let it snap, then breathe
out. With the work that follows if
all. You get is action.
You lose the weight. If you never let.
Up. The fight means less.
I write. The slowness as hard.
As the chaos. Is there a Rd.
Back from trauma in a. World like this or is every
chapter just a step further? Away from peace.
Recovery is a slow crawl. And not everybody makes it.
Most just break a little more with each day.
Peace isn't promised here, maybe not ever.
How much does place matter to? You could this story.
Happen anywhere or does it need? This dirt, these dogs, this
river. Place is everything, The river,
the mud, the dogs they define to atoma.
You take them away, you've got a different.
Village the story's. Not portable.
All right, quick. Fire round favorite character.
To write this chapter. Word.
Brutal. Old men are good company.
Most surprising moment as. You drafted.
Blue dragging a man off the fence and Lava with the broken
spear happens when you let them get.
Desperate characters do what? They need.
If you could. Change one scene.
What would it be? I'd add more of.
Vt he gets lost. Behind the.
Others, but he's got. Coat hanger bones, he bends.
But doesn't break. What's going to hurt the most in
the next chapter? The waiting what comes?
After is always worse. When you know it's coming and
can't move. Listeners, that's the most
warning we're going to get. All right, let's each pick a.
Standout image or line? Before we wrap.
The moment where? Sarah touches the black.
Sword and his skin hums he. Pulls back before he.
Loses himself. That's the.
Core of the book. Getting close to danger, not
quite giving in. I pick the still here.
Mantra. It's not courage, but it gets
everyone through the next morning.
Still here is the. Best anyone can do some days.
Audience if. We didn't hit your.
Question. Send it again next week.
We'll pull apart. What happens to a community
after a night? Like that Arthur closing.
Advice for those who want to write realism with this much?
Bite. Don't soften the blow.
Trust your world more than your wish for a happy ending.
Let your. Characters be petty, scared,
proud. Tired.
Let nothing come easy. All right, folks.
This was. Shockwaves breaking down
chapter. 2 of Stellar Shock Subscribe.
Send your theories and gripes. We'll be digging out the
splinters next week. Same time, same smoke soaked
corners. Thanks for listening.
Goodnight and keep the fire small.
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All rights reserved. Produced and edited by our
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