But now I have a more consistent story. I am solely chasing a tone of bleak beauty. The 'fantasy' elements will be less prominent, except where they are integral to the plot. One of these elements has recently begun to excite me. Without giving too much away, it's fair to say that the Celtic festival of the dead provides the most easily explained tonal device. I have been able to extend elements of Irish mythology into various sections of the plot, where before there were loosely-Celtic-influenced passages. This will never be too obvious, and I won't start yabbering on about Faeries (that would rather undermine my attempt to move away from pure fantasy), but I can use the Samhainers' mythology to explore some of the darker themes in the book, most notably death and mourning, through the prism of established myths.
This is all part of my new "richness of detail" criterion, whereby a plot device is no longer allowed to exist simply because it's pretty and/or useful. It has to have an amount of depth to it. The world itself was always intended to borrow on elements of the Gaelic language, Irish landscapes and mythology. My new treatment of the Gaoth, the spirits of the dead drifting in the wind, will now be more closely related to the Irish sidhe, or aos si.
One of the joys of my little voyage into the world of Irish folk-tales and mythology is the way the novel seems to already speak with the same sort of voice. To the Irish, Erin herself plays a large role in determining the nature of her people. Thus it is also with Samhain. The land is a character itself. This is something I'm also going to focus on; weaving the story closely into the landscape in which it takes place.
The other major step is to build up better characters. I essentially have three, one of whom has changed significantly this year. But the relatively large cast of supporting characters have so far been too shallow. I can't speak with their voices, and know too little about what motivates them. They are just too one-dimensional. So I will be putting a lot of effort in the coming months into building that credible supporting cast. With decent characters, a rich material environment and a more complete culture on show, finally the plot might start to make sense. And that's my main remaining concern at the moment: is there, plainly speaking, enough plot? Do I need to invent a third strand just to satisfy my own nagging feeling that the book is still too thin? Stretching a dream, however compelling, into an entire novel was never going to be easy!
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