hazelyoung

Katalepsis, Eusebeia Epoche - placid islands; black infinity - 2-1.17

Added 2025-08-09 00:29:48 +0000 UTC

Chapter strides the fairy paths, through woodland shadow and moorland mist, outpacing night's unkind caress.

https://katalepsis.net/2025/08/08/placid-island-black-infinity-2-1-17/

This week's password is: antithesis

Epub version of the chapter is also attached below!

Another chapter of Maisie's Marvelous And Most Harrowing Happening thus unfolds. And! This week, I actually have something to say about arc length, structure, and how I think the rest of this arc is going to go.

So, we are rapidly approaching chapter 20, which was my original goal for the end of the arc. That expectation was based on the structure I used for Book One (or just 'Katalepsis'???), in which each arc was more like a single component of the whole - the whole being Heather's very long and intricate story. Back in Book One I could resolve one conflict near or at the end of an arc, then cut off with a larger-scale cliffhanger and/or gesture toward the next motion of the meta-conflicts.

That set of techniques is ... not working in Book Two. Without going into the nitty gritty of all the stuff I've been doing behind the scenes, the short version is that this arc, 'placid islands; black infinity', arc 2-1, Maisie's story, etc, it's all functioning more like a self-contained novel than a web serial, at least in structure. I can't cut it short and pick up the thread in a following arc, like I did back in Book One, without causing more problems than the technique would solve. This is partly because of my plan for multiple POVs and the various other places Book Two will go.

What to do about this in the long-run is a separate question. In the short-term it means I am simply going to follow this plot, Maisie's plot, until she's done. That might be 20 chapters, it might be 25, it might be 30. The only other option would be to not do justice to what she's doing here. So! That's all. We're in with Maisie until she's done telling us.

I hope you're enjoying the ride, dear readers! I'll keep doing my best!