Possesed

I was possessed. Like a wolf on the hunt, I was possessed. Last week, I believe it was Friday, I picked up a copy of Robert Jordan's Towers of Midnight - and I was gone. Lost to this world, syphoned off into another, I had disappeared.

Every second of my free time, up to about 30 minutes ago, was spent with that book. And I enjoyed every second of it. Besides the pleasure of jumping back into a world I've grown to love, traveling through Towers of Midnight let me take a step back and really evaluate the world of Hierarchy. Studying, if I can even call it that, the character development that the Wheel of Time series does so well has set my mind a fire. Ladies and gentlemen, we now have a third protagonist.

So we've got a new character...what else? Towers of Midnight gave me perspective. Something that has plagued my mind for some time has been the question of length - how on gods green earth am I supposed to have enough material for a 300-500 odd page book? Other than describing every single stone in the world of Hierarchy so thoroughly that readers would come after me with flaming sticks and large, ugly looking pitchforks...I had no clue. But now I do!! For a story to be truly encompassing and in order to make a real case for an alternate reality, there needs to be a vast collection of detailed characters. I know...once again I've somehow managed to state the most obvious thing in the world. It's true though...the character thing. Tower's of midnight changed focus every chapter, always switching from one character to the next. By using this technique, not just in Towers but in every single Wheel of Time novel, Jordan made the world believable. I don't just mean his characters believable...I mean his ENTIRE WORLD.

The whole is the sum of its parts, and in order for the whole to really seem complete, all of the parts need to be visible. Hopefully, as I push on and persevere through the darkness of the unknown, through the shadows of Hierarchy, the people I need will show themselves. Random events, unexpected discoveries, and enlightening details are bound to find themselves into my life and with every little tidbit that comes my way, someone new will be born. The main protagonists are all here, all thats left are those in between. And hell, there's a whole bunch of them.