Ease Into Wormness

The more I try to give the story a sense of urgency, the more the Worm Rises To The Fore.

Which makes sense.

But there’s still this big leap: In my rewrite, the readers know there’s a White Worm pretty much from jump. The coyness really doesn’t work in the original because Stoker couldn’t decide how coy he wanted to be. I mean, Arabella is pretty much convicted of herpetophilia* when she slithers out of her coach, but then we don’t get an worm appearance till about 2/3rds through the book, by which point all the characters are utterly convinced of its existence.

But my worm is active. So to speak. It has to have a path to winning that goes beyond marrying the local lord.

For me, Adam is problematic because I can’t get him to believe in the Worm. He’s gonna see it, and that’s probably going to seal the deal for everyone on the good guy side. Of course, Arabella/WW knows.

But that leaves Edgar. Edgar has to know, pretty well, that it’s there and real, for family reasons. But how to make the readers get that without, IDK, showing ancient Caswall’s down at the Pub buying ales for giant worms? I’m already too exposition heavy. I suspect the final length of the book will close in on 300 pages minus a whole bunch of exposition I plan to trim. I think 240-250 pages would work.

But Edgar is struggling, at some level, to feel normal while having all these weird family pressures (which include dealings with worms) close in on him. And I have him at points thinking almost normal thoughts, and at other points almost casually worm-adjacent…there has to be a good way to put that out without being jarring, I think.

Meanwhile, I’m rooting out a bunch of inappropriate words. The narrative can (and probably should to some extent) be modern. But I can’t have my 1888 characters saying “repurpose”, since that word was invented in the 1980s.

Edgar now arrives the week before Adam, but the party is still the night after Adam arrives. When Adam arrives, things are in full swing. Adam probably needs a bit more to do, since he is kind of the Last Scion (as are Edgar, the Watford Girls, and Sir Nathaniel). Arabella is, too, perhaps… re-reading the source threw me for a loop, with March buying the place for Arabella… that just doesn’t add up.

Overall, things are good, though: The characters are coming into their own and their conflicts and desires are driving things forward.

Onward!

*herpetophilia: If you have herpetophilia, when you’re cut you bleed tiny snakes.