Aequa Chapter One: Redraft

The night around them is wreathed in stars. Between them, a boy and a woman, He set the globe. And with each, He spoke:

This is a globe. What, this is the Globe? The entire world? Wow. What am I supposed to do with this?

It’s like looking at the night sky. Every single one of these little stars are people? Oh, not just people, animals and plants too.

So you’re saying I can do whatever I like? So I can take that entire city and… Wow! Did you see that? It just went whoosh… underwater.

Awww… What happened? All those stars disappeared. Yes, I know there are still lots more, but where did all of those go? It was like somebody dropped a great big blanket over them.

So I can do that with anything I like? What about… um… putting those back together? You see, that bit fits under that bit. And… there we go. Cool!

They died? That was like thousands of people. Alright, thousands of living things, but still. What could… Wait. That was an ocean. An entire ocean full of ships, gone. And what are those?

Hurricanes? I pushed two continents back together and I get hurricanes? I didn’t make anything spin. Consequences? But how… Oh. I guess that means I should stop playing with continents.

What are you doing? They say you’re all about mercy and love, but you let all of those people die. And all those typhoons and tsunami’s will kill even more people. How can you let that happen?

Hmm… What can I do next? I can mess with creatures as well? Cool. I want dragons! Dragons! Wha… Oh… I have to make them. Well, what about those things? Okay, they’ve got to be bigger. Lots bigger.

What good are four people going to do against him? He’s going crazy. You see there? How will the ecosystems support those? How do those even exist?

I like catgirls. Let’s make them really cute. Perfect. You see those ears? And she has to have a tail. Cool! An entire race of catgirls! Okay, okay, catpeople. But the girls are still hot.

Gods? Oh yeah, that’s going to work. He’ll just snuff them out like that city earlier. Me? What do you mean me?

Fly! Come on, fly! Oh. Magic. They’re supposed to be half-bird, not Peter Pan fairies. If I make them aerodynamic, they won’t be… Haha! Look! Bats!

Just those four? What’s the point of just four of them? Why don’t I do that for a legion of people?

No, I’m not going to change them. They’re awesome enough. Superpowers for everybody! You have telekinesis, you get lightning bolts!

Oh… I see. He can’t keep it up forever, so that’s when we spring them on him. What? Just him? What does she do? Her? It… Him? You know, it’s so infuriating when you have everything planned out like that. You should tell people. I know they never listen to prophets, so why not a giant PA system? Oh. Babel fish.

Working With Water – Behind the Words of Aequa. It’s an author’s commentary for each chapter:

Chapter One:

NOTE: most of this I only see a week after I finish writing.

This was an important chapter, as is any first chapter. I wasn’t at all sure how to introduce Nicola, James and the rest. I could have shown a slight bit before the cataclysm, but I disliked that idea, since I’ve never actually cared for the mechanics of it. Being persuaded by certain editors to actually begin in that place, I decided to show the cataclysm from the perspective of two, possibly three, gods.

This is an epic event, the driving force for much of the later plot. I couldn’t really give the  reader (you) a feeling of how absolutely global this cataclysm is by just focusing on one city. Especially a city whose nearest equivalent few of you would even know about. New York is a city everyone can identify with, but the name Durban would ring hollow in American and European ears.

But that removes the human connection, something I can’t write without. Dry description is something I hate to write. So I drew your attention to the catastrophe through two people; the boy who changes, and the woman who watches in horror. Both of these people are ‘outside’ of time, removing the additional obligation of describing all the disasters. Instead we see each disaster in two ways; the action that causes them, and the lives that are lost; the only two things that history remembers.

The boy changes all these things. Drawing attention to his thought process shows that he doesn’t intend for lives to be lost; he’s not evil, just naïve.

The woman gives the reader someone they can identify with. Seeing what destruction the boy is wreaking while remaining powerless to do anything is where the reader stands, so the woman acts as a reader avatar. Her feelings, dialogue and questions are supposed to mirror what the reader themselves will feel.

The third Person? Let’s leave it at I’m Christian.