is a word I just made up to describe the process of removing from a fantasy novel a chapter about attacking and disabling a funicular (Wikipedia definition; many cool pictures, including the one below at the right). In other words, a process I just went through.
I’d really been looking forward to the funicular sabotage chapter. Great opportunity to forward the revolution, develop the relationship between two of the primary characters, cool magic-engineering tech. And there’s no reason you can’t have a funicular in a Renaissance-era story with metallurgical magic. Take a look at page 31 of Philip Ball’s wonderful biography of Paracelsus, The Devil’s Doctor (click on the link that’s on page 31). There are some marvelous woodcuts of huge, intricate mining machinery from the fifteenth century, built and used entirely without the aid of metallurgical magic! The main obstacle to creating a really useful heavy-cargo funicular using Renaissance engineering would have to be the rails; slap on a little metallurgical magic and off you go!
But, darn it all, the contrast was just too great. The book already flows well without the chapter I wanted to add; the funicular attack was just so dramatic, it deserved to be the climax of the book, not a relationship-building exercise that gets tossed aside as soon as it’s done.
Hey, Tita, you want to go blow up the funicular?
Ven, you romantic dog! Just let me grab my purse!
So I completed the defuniculation last night. Started the evening at 76K words, with the prospect of 80K before me; now I’m down to 73K, probably ending at 78K. I’ve started to move some of the less funicular-specific good stuff into other chapters. The great thing about novel-writing is how much good stuff can just spring into existence while you’re working out other things. I probably did as much prep work for this chapter as I had done for all of the rest of the book combined. I drew maps of the city to figure out where the funicular would go; I designed the workings of the funicular, invented magical terminology for metalworking, and plotted not one, but two strategies for attacking the funicular (as well as a counterattack that derailed (as it were) the first attack. And, for all that planning and outlining, what I loved about most about the chapter were the following lines:
“May I also introduce Tita Panteknika, an accomplished [air wizard] who will be assisting us today.”
Cirapo snorted. “An [air wizard]? I did not know we were planning to murder anyone today. I would have worn different clothes.”
If you had any idea how much those two lines did to support later events, ah, well, you might like them as much as I do. And there’s no way I had known they would crop up until I wrote them.
So I thought that I would lay down a couple of Writing Laws that I’ve learned to date.
First Law: The writer makes the rules.
Corollary: The writer doesn’t break the rules; the writer changes the rules.
In other words, I don’t have to have a funicular if I don’t want one. The only person who thought that a funicular would look good running along the southern border of Heathness was me. I think that there’s another law lurking in this experience, though:
Second Law: No good novel was ever improved by the late addition of a funicular.
In other words, a funicular is too cool a thing to be a seasoning on the dish; it’s got to be the meat. So, someday, you may see Knave of the Funicular from me, if everything works out. Knave of Yes, though, will have to do without one.
