Day One - A Massacre of Friends

In keeping with the post-apocalyptic, we have today visited destruction on the original draft.  Countless characters have died, lands have been torn, and whole concepts cast into the radioactive waste, to emerge again, twisted and shambling, from the goop.

Also, I'm collaborating with my wife.  So that's a whole new level of self-annihilation.  I won't be able to lock myself in a room and scrawl the chapter headings in blood and queso.

So, four protagonists have been chosen.  An elfin knight from the frozen north.  A she-geek from the west jungle.  A crusading, manifesto-slinging adolescent from the east.  And a maniacal, ranting, middle-aged grouch adrift between the three.

Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Notable among the corpses are the "talking animals".  It seemed cliche' and frankly didn't make sense within the context.  Sure, everyone loves a sarcastic kitten, but we're not here to give you what you want.  We're novelists, damn it. 

In place of these tired vermin we have placed the fey (genre-shattering name pending).  The fey are the magic of nature in myriad form - things inhuman and wondrous.  If the plot absolutely demands a yodeling polar bear then that's fine, but said bear is likely a result of fairy shenanigans, and not the projection of someone's inner polar-bear-soul.

I can't believe we originally called them "forest-kin" either. Though foreskin jokes were great, and kept us going through the initial drafts.

Likewise, we have replaced the animal companions and spiritual symbols with the fetiche - the object of obsession, the external possession that one cannot be apart from.  These are physical charms and trinkets, found at an early age or passed down by one's ancestors.  They exercise a mesmeric attraction on the bearer and allow them the occasional uncanny deed.

For example, a man who carries a rock and fusses over it his entire life might one day be a rock upon the battlefield, immoveable and stubborn.

Addiction, obsession and relationism are the themes there.

And from this we get the stakes.  The Divine Weapons, strewn across the land and awaiting mortal discovery, are now the Divine Fetiches - the totem-like possessions of the Dead Gods.  Not your average holy dragon-slaying sword, but something that an actual GOD once went loopy over.

Also, our Avians no longer have wings on their backs.  The wings are on their arms.  Sure, everyone likes a sarcastic yodeling angel who's simply dreamy to look at.  But no.  It's time we all grew up.