Author's Commentary on Somewhere Else Entirely: Chapters 27 to 30

Garia recovers after her first major test. We learn more about Anmar as she becomes more comfortable with life in the palace.

Chapter 27, Aftermath

Garia recovers after her bout and then has to face Merizel. I knew that she would have to have minor injuries but I didn't want anything too serious since time would pass while she healed and time was in short supply. I think what she did get was a good compromise, even though I eventually forgot about her hand...

This of course is Garia's story and I think this might have been the first time that I followed another character for any length of time. It is a technique sometimes used and it can add to the atmosphere, especially when you are seeing events or reactions from someone else's point of view. In this case it was Merizel, summoned to the Queen's Sitting Room and not knowing what was going on. Suffice it to say that explanations are provided and peace made. Merry's companionship to Garia is an important aspect of her adjustment to her new circumstances.

In the evening, Garia begins to organize the way she will teach the Guard her version of unarmed combat. Unfortunately for her and for me, her injuries from her bout with Jarwin prevent that happening immediately. I would have preferred for her to make her first-ever test a little later in the tale but that was not to be.

In the evening she talks about police and armies and then realizes that she really doesn't want Anmar to have firearms. Keren points out that they will probably arrive anyway so foreknowledge could be a good thing.

Chapter 28, Girls, Guards and Gossip

Garia has to address the men of the guard, the day after her bout with Jarwin. I did think of making more of this but decided that less was probably more. After this she is left with six of the ten men she will train as instructors.

I made a mistake here but decided to turn it to good use. Garia doesn't want everyone to use her rank while she is teaching them, and if she had been on her own it would probably have worked. Having both the Prince and Merizel there makes things feel awkward to the men, though. This is resolved in the next chapter with a suggestion that turns out to satisfy everyone.

Backsides, asses (or arses) and butts

I wasn't sure what term to use here. I didn't want anything too crude or too obviously American English, which naturally the locals wouldn't use. I compromised with 'backside'. There are one or two other examples like this throughout the story where I felt that it was necessary to find neutral words.

Feteran

At this point in the story he is just another guardsman. I had no idea then what he would later become or who his father would turn out to be. Aside from a vague idea that there was to be a journey north, I had made no plans at all. I hadn't even realized at this point that Garia would be made a noble, which would bring with it a need for her own armsmen.

The color green

It is never explicitly stated anywhere, but I decided that Garia would favor the color green and this shows up throughout the story. Like everyone she will wear other colors, but a definite preference began to emerge with her visit to the Wardrobe with Merizel. Merizel, of course, is delighted to be let loose among rails of gowns.

Chapter 29, Of Gods and Magic

After agreeing to let the men call her 'Teacher' they go into the other room to look at weapons. Garia isn't going to be able to handle a normal sword but she has to find out the hard way. Mention is made of the Royal Master-at-Arms and it was inevitable there there would be a conflict there, however, I didn't want it to happen the same way as previous confrontations.

The Knife Trick

This is another running gag throughout the story. Although later on Garia does disarm somebody with a kick the 'knife trick' is mentioned every so often but never actually explained. "Obvious, really."

The use of telescopes is mentioned at her next meeting with Gerdas. I had forgot to make Garia give him a warning about not looking at the sun previously so made up for it here. That is one of the perils with publishing as you go.

Optics

I decided to get them started on the basics of optics, as they would be useful as various technologies developed later on. At that point I only wanted to introduce the subject, there was never any intention of going much further. Later on in SEE there is a mention of how the steel producers are using a crude spectrograph to assay their output. In What Milsy Did #16 we see such an instrument being used.

The laboratory

That was one of the more obvious things that would happen, since Garia (and subsequently Milsy) would need some space to do experiments and give demonstrations. Unfortunately, that introduced further complications when I remembered just what condition the study was in. However, making a virtue out of a problem allowed me subsequently to have a little fun at Keren's expense.

Neither the Laboratory not the study ever gets completely cleaned the way it should have been. This is partly because those who end up doing the job are all too young to really know what to do with what they find. However, this does leave space for 'chance finds', such as when not one but two antique pistols are discovered much later under a bench.

Gods and Magic

I had decided from the start that this would be a tale based more or less in the real universe, using only plot devices that could be explained by scientific methods. (Although at this point I had only vaguely hinted at the Beings and had no idea how that might work out in practice.) That meant that there would be no supernatural beings such as gods, demigods, demons and the rest nor any kind of magic in the sense of using spells or special objects, for example.

Granted, the Beings themselves have "powers", if you like, but though they could be considered godlike to humans I chose not to make them operate in that way. In the back of my mind was a great danger; I had not yet decided what it would be.

Balloons

I thought of introducing balloons, especially as they have an obvious application to warfare, but decided later that I didn't need that complication. Here they just get a bare mention as a possibility in Garia's mind.

Of course, Garia has a lot inside her mind and it is natural that she has to pick and choose what to tell the locals. First of all, though, she has to remember things to tell them and it is always going to be hit and miss.

Chapter 30, Morlan's Laboratory

The final four trainees turn up for Garia's classes and two of them have physical attributes that make an impression on her at an animal level. Sometimes, as with Jarwin, a man will affect her at a physical level who she would not otherwise be attracted to. Fortunately for her, Maxilar is a narcissist and Benith is gay. Since she can be so affected, she is concerned for her own vulnerability.

Merizel is man-mad at this point and discusses the group of trainees with Garia. It is apparent that Garia will eventually need to find a mate for herself but she has no idea how she will go about this in the future - especially in a society where courtship is handled differently. Since she has not had a female upbringing, and this society is so different anyway, she wonders how she will manage.

"A few weeks back"

When I originally wrote this I had no Timeline. I had written very few notes at this point, preferring to kep most of it in my head. I had not counted back just how long ago the original kidnap attempt had occurred but assumed it had been a decent while previously. There were a number of occasions where I made references to past acts but hadn't thought it important enough to count back the days.

Then things began to get out of hand and, once Julia began writing her tale, it became necessary to actually do the hard work of figuring out exactly when everything had happened. That was the point the Timeline was developed, along with things like the month names and order, dates of arrival and possible departure, festival dates and so on.

Now, going back through the chapters it is necessary to do something about all those vague references. Imagine my surprise when I looked at Merry's comment and then checked back... to find what I thought was several weeks turns out to be sixteen days. So, "a few weeks back" becomes "a week or so back".

We're working with people's memories here and the recent past has been action packed, so I think that the inaccuracy in her comment is fair enough, whereas to say "a few weeks" would be less credible. For that reason, not all of the back references made in the story will necessarily be changed the same way.

Cleaning Gear

This was an obvious opportunity to have some fun at Keren's expense. Yolda's reaction was predictable but the fact that Garia and Jenet already had cleaning dresses was fortuitous. Keren is initially furious then angry but sees Garia's logic so has to give in. Of course, we all know that he's never going to get away with it...

Fluffy Dusters on Sticks

I had to think hard about this seeming tiny detail. There are no feathers on Anmar, so there can be no feather dusters. Likewise, references to quills had to be changed to reeds where appropriate.

The Antikythera Device

Finding this is a significant moment, since it proves to Garia that there is some kind of link between Anmar and Earth, and that she is not the first person to have made the journey. This is explored in following chapters.