Locke Lamora Read-Along Bonus #2: Other Roads Not Taken
I meant to put this up yesterday, but I was out at a birthday party and crashed early once I got home. Without further ado, your weekly dose of hidden lore:
*****
After digging through my papers this week, I was surprised to find just how many scraps, notes, and lists had survived from the Early Days of The Lies of Locke Lamora. Far more than I had thought, and quite embarrassing in some respects. Some of the dumbest ideas I ever had are preserved like flies in amber, just waiting to go into the archives for posterity. Probably the NIU archives, since Lynne Thomas will kill me with an axe if anything else happens. Anyhow, here are some fun facts to know and tell about things that were changed or discarded before the final draft:
The sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora was originally going to be called The Best Heretic Ever. The rough plot sketch was that Locke was going to pose as a religious prophet of some sort and wacky hijinks were going to ensue. The Best Heretic Ever was shelved about a quarter of the way through writing Lies, as I gained confidence in the world and the characters and felt free to detach myself from my previous outlines.
The earliest cast list for Lies features four Capas: Jacobo, Barsavi, Vorchenza, and Riga. All of them were meant to be murdered (I know this will shock my readers) but it wasn't long before I combined them all into the solitary godfather figure of Capa Barsavi. The Gray King was originally called the Pale King. Dona Vorchenza was originally called "Dona Sarabella."
From the same cast list, the first roster of the Gentlemen Bastards: Locke Lamora, age 28; "Gentle" Jean Tannen, age 31; "Long Tall" Galdo, age 26, and Venti Loose-Lips, age 22. Father Chains was originally going to be called, I shit you not, "Rude Trevor," age 40. This list also appears to have two younger apprentice characters, Petrava and Tomsa (ages 16 and 17) and a character named "Father Caladon." The words "Father Chains?" are written next to his name. This leads me to believe I had originally meant for a false priest to be some sort of adjunct member of the gang, and from him I grew the notion of chaining this priest to his temple, before finally deciding to roll this character in with that of the gang's mentor figure.
"Long Tall" Galdo must be a reference to a character I played in several roleplaying games named Long Tall John. John was four and a half feet tall, a mercenary swordsman, and a complete idiot who managed to lead a charmed life. He popped up in several milieus and none of the games lasted. Overt comic relief characters don't do much for campaign longevity.
The Thiefmaker was originally a double act, an old man and woman called the Maker and the Mother.
A more developed cast list from a few months later is closer to the final product but still shows some deviations. Conte is listed as "Corte." Two additional noble families, the Agnellas and the Garamonds, are listed as Five Towers clans, though I seem not to have found any use for them. Bug is on this list, and "Long Tall" Galdo" has been transmuted to Calo and Galdo Sanza. Nazca's on this list as "Nasca," and there are two other female members of the Barsavi Clan: "Firavina" and "Cienna." Her brothers Anjais and Pachero were originally called "Udezo" and "Roje."
The Falconer was originally called "Marek." I decided early on that this wasn't mysterious enough; I wanted to bring in the old tradition of sorcerers being secretive about their true names. "Falconer," incidentally, was the name of my Knights of the Old Republic II Jedi Guardian.
(Dual-wielder. Blue and silver lightsabers. Light-side Jedi forever, baby.)
This cast list also features "Runvical and Tomsa," a pair of guards at Capa Barsavi's Floating Grave. I think I meant for these guys to be some sort of running commentary/ minor comic relief, like the two dimwit guards that always manage to get caught up in the main action in J.V. Jones' Bakers' Boy books. Or, if I want to be more self-congratulatory, like Shakespeare. Regardless, I didn't find any room or use for them in the final draft.
Jean was originally a much cruder sort of fellow. His early-draft lecherousness and sarcastic foulness were passed over to the Sanzas. Also, the original Jean had no recollection of his family and claimed to have been cut out of the stomach of a large fish on the Camorr docks as an infant. He was definitely kidding about this and was never meant to be a mer-baby.
Karthain was originally called "Quarthain," but at the last minute I recalled that some GRRM guy had a city named "Quarth" in one of his obscure little books about thrones and dragons.
One discarded opening for Lies was set aside and eventually became a chapter in The Republic of Thieves called "The Undrowned Girl." Another discarded opening featured several of Capa Barsavi's men and women being murdered by the Gray King's people. Wiping out nameless red-shirts struck me as a cliched grab for attention. A third discarded opening was a sort of scholarly discourse on the sharks of Camorr bay. It read (all errors and shitty construction intact):
"Any scholar of the Therin Collegium can tell you that the Wolf Sharks of the Iron Sea are beautiful creatures when contemplated from a comfortable distance, which in their case is about two hundred and fifty overland miles. Any dockworker in the trade city of Camorr, on the other hand, can tell you that Wolf Sharks are big vicious bastards that make the warm coastal shallows around the city dangerous even if you never get your feet wet. Wolf Sharks, you see, like to jump.
"The midnight indigo of their dorsal fins and upper back tapers to a waxy gray on their ventral surfaces; their bodies are packed to bursting with muscle as thick and touch as a bull's. Unfortunately for anything else moving in the water, Wolf Sharks really are as vicious and territorial as folk wisdom has it. Wolf Shark pups floating in utero will instinctively devour their weaker siblings. While they form packs later in life, only one pup in any litter will survive to be born to salt water. They're bad enough anywhere, but few people know why the ones haunting Camorr Bay are such voracious man-eaters. The answer to that lies with Capa Vencarlo Barsavi (himself, curiously enough, a former scholar of the Therin Collegium), the crooked master of Camorr's vast underworld."
Yes, one detail that I didn't manage to work into the final story was that Capa Barsavi himself was to blame for the viciousness of Camorr Bay's predators, as he'd been feeding them enemies and failed henchmen almost nightly for twenty-two years. Although all the dangerous wildlife in Locke's world is turned up a notch or two from ours, and the seas are in places ludicrously dangerous, I have always felt bad about maligning sharks quite as shamelessly as I did in Lies. There was originally supposed to be just a bit more backstory behind their troublesome behavior.
*****
After digging through my papers this week, I was surprised to find just how many scraps, notes, and lists had survived from the Early Days of The Lies of Locke Lamora. Far more than I had thought, and quite embarrassing in some respects. Some of the dumbest ideas I ever had are preserved like flies in amber, just waiting to go into the archives for posterity. Probably the NIU archives, since Lynne Thomas will kill me with an axe if anything else happens. Anyhow, here are some fun facts to know and tell about things that were changed or discarded before the final draft:
(Dual-wielder. Blue and silver lightsabers. Light-side Jedi forever, baby.)
"Any scholar of the Therin Collegium can tell you that the Wolf Sharks of the Iron Sea are beautiful creatures when contemplated from a comfortable distance, which in their case is about two hundred and fifty overland miles. Any dockworker in the trade city of Camorr, on the other hand, can tell you that Wolf Sharks are big vicious bastards that make the warm coastal shallows around the city dangerous even if you never get your feet wet. Wolf Sharks, you see, like to jump.
"The midnight indigo of their dorsal fins and upper back tapers to a waxy gray on their ventral surfaces; their bodies are packed to bursting with muscle as thick and touch as a bull's. Unfortunately for anything else moving in the water, Wolf Sharks really are as vicious and territorial as folk wisdom has it. Wolf Shark pups floating in utero will instinctively devour their weaker siblings. While they form packs later in life, only one pup in any litter will survive to be born to salt water. They're bad enough anywhere, but few people know why the ones haunting Camorr Bay are such voracious man-eaters. The answer to that lies with Capa Vencarlo Barsavi (himself, curiously enough, a former scholar of the Therin Collegium), the crooked master of Camorr's vast underworld."
Yes, one detail that I didn't manage to work into the final story was that Capa Barsavi himself was to blame for the viciousness of Camorr Bay's predators, as he'd been feeding them enemies and failed henchmen almost nightly for twenty-two years. Although all the dangerous wildlife in Locke's world is turned up a notch or two from ours, and the seas are in places ludicrously dangerous, I have always felt bad about maligning sharks quite as shamelessly as I did in Lies. There was originally supposed to be just a bit more backstory behind their troublesome behavior.