I suppose the most important scene in this chapter was the exchange between Sarene and Daora. It’s hard, in writing, to avoid being heavy-handed with exposition and emotion. Show don’t tell, as the proverb goes. Sometimes you get it right—like this particular scene. Sarene, obviously, is falling for Spirit—and Daora mistakes the emotion as being applied to Shuden. (Yes, I know, I shouldn’t have to explain this. However, that’s part of what these annotations are for—to explain things. I never can tell what people will get and what they’ll miss. I’ve thrown in twists I thought were obvious, only to have everyone miss them—but instead they pick up on the foreshadowing that I never meant to be strong enough to give the ending away. )
Anyway, one of my challenges in this book was to make the romance between Sarene and Raoden realistic, considering the relatively small amount of time they had to spend together. I hoped to avoid any silly ‘love at first sight’ type plottings, while at the same time making their relationship feel genuine and touching in as short a time as possible.
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