fish wrote: If you're interested I'll give you a pedant's constructive critique of this section, but I'd rather do it by PM. Let me know your feelings.
I don't mind either way. I was just itching to get this part written up. There are two more sequential sections to this, one of which is more or less fully drafted and the other about 50%.
It probably, in reality is more likely to fall into the second or a subsequent chapter when the action relocates to Stockholm.
I have to splice together the simultanous actions of Todsengel, Camilla Salander, and Malin Thorstrom on the one hand with the parallel paths of Lisbeth Salander + Mikael Blomkvist, Dr Ehrenstrom + Georgina Moon, and Bublanski + the forces of law and order. Only when the latter people overcome their differences and start working as a group do they have any hope of defeating the conspiracy. That is a source of dramatic tension building towards the good. Balanced against this there is dramatic tension between Todsengel, Camilla, and Malin who tend towards the evil and covertly work to undermine each other.
The unifying metaphor is the ''Shakabao Project'' and what happens when the bottle is uncorked and the genie (25,000 Valkyren) re-animated and released. Do they obey orders and work for the Nazi cause or maybe they turn native, uncontrollable and unstoppable?
I'm still keen on the idea of the novel working on an ''existential'' level as well, mixing real and imaginary characters. There is a strong sci-fantasy element to this, so very unlike Larsson's style (although ironically his first ever ventures in writing were sci-fi stories).
I have Point A the gelling together of the characters and introductions, and Point B the formation of the battle lines pretty much worked out. Getting the two joined up is more troublesome.
The major locations (over the whole novel) are Brighton UK, Stockholm, Malmberget (in the north, the site of Chako Paul Underground City) and the region of Skane in southern Sweden (the political base of Malin).
I also have a time-scale worked out, stringing events along a timeline from November 4th up to Winter Solstice on 21st December in 2004 (The proposed breakout day for the Valkyren).
The format is still quick moving ''flash fiction'' style with minimal background detail at this stage.
I've still not got a juvenile male key character though and I've already killed off Agent Rislov!
and I'm rather short on useful things for Blomkvist to do, except baking cakes for the ''goodie'' people.