Vin in her room
This first scene is a classical Brandon scene—a character studying, thinking, and exploring who they are in their own head. Some people find my narrative style—with the thoughts, the conclusions, and the debates in the head—to be a little slow. I can understand that, even if I don’t agree.
I like knowing my characters. A chapter like this really works for that, in my opinion. It seems to me that in too many books, you never really know a character’s thoughts, feelings, and logic enough to understand why they do what they do. So, I spend time on those things.
This scene is important for the decisions Vin makes about herself. She is not the type of person to second-guess herself. In a way, she shows some of the very things Tindwyl tries to get across to Elend later in the chapter. Vin encounters a problem, mulls over it, then comes to a firm decision to trust herself.
Oh, and the line “he was the type of person who could defy reality” in reference to Kelsier is one I stole from my friend Annie. She said it about me, actually. It was in reference to how I belligerently believed that I could do something like become an author—a job that very few people can have, and even fewer people can make a living at. She said it long before I got published.
Always stuck with me.
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