A singer--and the ones who pursue her

 

Continuing in this series of behind-the-scenes looks at the Moth Plateau, today we're checking out the main character of novella 2, Pursuit and Moth Songs. And hey, we'll toss in a bit about the other characters who show up here for the first time, as well.

Rahel had a pretty prominent role in the first novella, guiding Druskan to the body of his coworker. But she remained a mystery, hiding behind her plague doctor mask. Now we get to know her, both as she is now, up on the Plateau, and as she once was, as a singer in a distant city.

A singer? This is the clearest connection between the Moth Plateau stories and Spire City. It's no real spoiler to say that Rahel is an escaped spire singer. In fact, of everything written for these Moth Plateau stories, she was the first character I started writing about, in a writing exercise long before I knew anything about the Moth Plateau itself.

Nothing of that exercise made it directly into the novella, though the events of chapter 2, a flashback as she flees the city, are based on what happened in that older fragment of a story.

Verlang and Peps were fun characters to write. They're former child laborers from the factories, sent to find Rahel. Both bear the injuries they suffered while growing up. I won't say a lot more about them, except that they're very different from the characters I tend to write about, which is part of why I had fun with them.

And last, Melle. We don't have any part of the story from her POV, but even here she's a fun character to meet, full of spunk and very talkative. We'll get to know her much better later in the series, so as brief as her appearance is here...pay attention to her!

Check out the novella and the full series, and tell me what you think! (And the first two novellas are both available on Hoopla as well as many online bookstores, so if your library participates in Hoopla, don't hesitate to check it out for free there before you buy.)