One final look at Connections! SPOILER WARNING is in effect for the Pathways in the Dark author commentary! Beware!

I mentioned 2 goals, didn’t I?

It’s been a bit since our last look at this tale but I mentioned having two goals with Connections. The first, and foremost, was the give Gilgamesh the boot from the series (for now). It was a necessary evil, but there was no way to make his presence work with where things are heading in A Circle of Shadows and set up Soriya’s growing isolation nicely.

The second goal, and the enjoyable one for me, was in laying out hints of things to come.

The good and the bad part of hints…

There are two sides to this coin and it is one of the points of my writing I work very hard at when outlining. Hints come at a cost. You are committing the narrative to an event of some kind that can’t be forgotten.

There has to be a payoff.

But it can be fun to create those moments. Connections is FILLED with them. Go on and read it again.

I’ll wait…

Done, yet? Good.

Every aspect of Connections is a hint for what is to come. Gilgamesh’s abduction by Ishtar and the forces of Anubis comes about because someone knows he is in Portents and working with Soriya.

Who? Who could be working in the shadows and manipulating events like that?

Then, of course, there is the big climax of the tale where Gilgamesh reveals his connection with Death and how it keeps an eye into the future…

The original ending of The Medusa Coin…

Yeah, I tend to keep my favorite bits even after they’ve been sent to the cutting room floor. In the original draft of The Medusa Coin, Gilgamesh meets Soriya in the Bypass chamber and offers hints of the future. He talks about events down the line and choices to be made that will impact everyone.

It didn’t work. It was forced and held no place for the narrative.

This later became the coffee house scene and the small tidbit about the Bypass falling if Soriya isn’t careful. Much clearer and it fit the moment.

Connections allowed me to revisit the original ending to The Medusa Coin, but use it in a fun, foreshadowing way for readers with a keen eye on what is happening in Greystone.

I don’t want to get into specifics. That spoils the game. And while I haven’t heard from many on the subject, I hope it managed to spark some ideas in your heads about what is on the horizon. That’s why I like playing with the notion of the future, of hinting at longer stories tucked into the background.

To spur imagination. To enrage readers (to some degree) and get them ready for what is coming down the line.