This is a follow up to my 5 June 2024 post about attention to detail.
After I'd drafted out my revision plans for Chapter Two yesterday, I copied the old chapter to a new document and left markers where I planned to make all the changes. I find this to be useful because, while I write first drafts chronologically, I'm a somewhat chaotic reviser. I bounce around, often stopping mid-sentence if I get stuck in a revision and moving on to something else.
As I began the chapter, I realized I needed to assign one of the epigraphs to chapter two, and then that spiraled into finishing all the epigraphs and assigning them chapters.
Here are the results:
| # | Chapter Title | Epigraph |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Turn of the Pulley | Begin by setting out the axioms and assumptions that you have used for the proofs of your propositions. If you know the river’s source, its path becomes clearer. |
| 2 | An Unwelcome Return | For each great and revolutionary thought I have had, know there are a dozen hasty ones that would bring upon me varied forms of humiliation if shared with the public. |
| 3 | The Crier and the Dance | Those who do not believe engineering is simple fail to realize how complicated life is. |
| 4 | Attempts at Boarding | I have found a constant which helps relate a circle’s area to its perimeter; by this, I assume that knowing the outline of a thing can give its precise definition. This is good news for you, as your understanding of most things appears to be a hazy outline at best. |
| 5 | Captain and Crew | First, of all lines which have the same extremities, the straight line is the least. And remember, young engineer, that man’s life never moves in straight lines. It warps and weaves against our wills, or perhaps even in spite of them. |
| 6 | The Carpenter | Do not write to ask me what any of my ramblings or discoveries mean—I am a mathematician by nature, a philosopher by mistake. |
| 7 | The Port at Rauha | Fool, do not disturb my circles again! |
| 8 | Watcher and Dreams | No task is so simple that—when taken on reluctantly and without passion—it does not become infinitely complex. |
| 9 | A Suspended Breath | Like filling a lamp with oil, I find it useful to put my feet up and take a swig or two of hard cider before I begin to work out whatever has puzzled me of late. |
| 10 | Whistles in the Night | Life has within it an inherent urgency of action. One cannot simply know; he must do. |
| 11 | Among the Dead | You will never know the strength of a quarterstaff until you have broken it. |
| 12 | Dangers Three in Number | Because life can never move in a straight line, it inevitably becomes a circle. In which case, one life compared to another is as the squares of their radii. They cannot be compared without some yet undiscovered arithmetic of the Firmament. |
| 13 | A Desperate Ascent | What has been affirmed without proof can also be denied without proof. |
| 14 | The Final Petition | Any carpenter can tell you what a curve is. It is only the engineer, who has studied in depth the mathematics of a thing, who becomes confused through countless exceptions. |
| 15 | The Sealed Chambers | It has been said that when laws become necessary for men, they are no longer fit for freedom. But what is the shape if free from its boundaries? It becomes a Nothing, no longer a circle or a square, but undefined and purposeless. |
| 16 | A Knife Twice | Invention can be the source of improved life. But as many of my unfortunate colleagues would tell you if they could yet speak, it is more often a source of death. |
| 17 | A Snapped Rope | With a lever and a proper fulcrum, a man could move the largest island in the sea. |
| 18 | In Quiet Strength | There is geometry in the plucked string of the psaltery, a hymn in the circumference of a sphere. |
| Ep. | A Year and a Half Later | Men of lofty genius often accomplish more when they learn to put down their chalk and go out into their garden. The mind is freer to work when hands are thrust into the earth in some mundane task than when staring at a blank stone wall. |
It might be fun to explain the reasonings behind a few of these.
Like I mentioned in an earlier post, many of these are modified versions of things real-world ancient mathematicians have said (I pulled mostly from Archimedes, Pythagoras, Da Vinci, and Newton). A lot of The Engineer's Craft was inspired by this idea that tradesmen used to be more than just laborers--they were philosophers, thinkers, leaders, etc. I wanted the guild to be an exploration of how the very first freemasons might have looked, back when they were just masons.
Epigraph 7 is perhaps my favorite almost-direct quote, reportedly from Archimedes. I decided to include it with "The Port at Rauha" since that chapter sees Bartus trying to listen in on a supposed mutineer--and he almost gets caught. I thought it was funny to have this allude to social circles rather than merely geometric.
Epigraph 8 is my favorite completely original quote. "Among the Dead" is one of the most pivotal chapters in the book, where Bartus begins to question what motivates him in life. It comes at a time of deep despair, where he also is considering giving up on life in general after a severe bodily injury. I couldn't find a quote I liked to fit the weight of this chapter, so I came up with this one. It's fascinating to think about how you can't know the true strength of a material until it's been broken. You can do all sorts of calculations, but particularly with wood you won't know the limit until it snaps. I felt that logic really resonated with what Bartus goes through in this chapter (and the book at large). He has to break before he discovers what his foundation is, from what sources he actually draws his strength.
Epigraph 15 is half a quote from Pythagoras, and half my rebuttal to his argument. The original quote is "As soon as laws are necessary for men, they are no longer fit for freedom." While I understand what he's saying, I also think that we don't have to always think of laws as restrictions in the negative sense. I let Archenan argue with this premise a little bit, bringing it back to geometry and purpose.
Epigraph 17 is the only line actually mentioned in the text of The Engineer's Craft, in the first chapter when Bartus is convincing himself to try the new pulley system against Master Derani's wishes. I wanted to repeat that in "The Snapped Rope," because this is where Bartus essentially repeats his mistake on the carrack, but this time on purpose in order to escape a life-threatening situation. The repetition (though readers aren't likely to notice it unless they binge-read) forms a nice "full-circle" moment where it reminds the reader that yes, we're at a similar place to before...but our main character is completely different.
Epigraph 18 is one of those beautifully perfect, unexplained serendipities of writing. The central conversation of this final chapter discusses how Bartus keeps his faith by providing reasoning based in his knowledge of engineering--it is a blend between knowledge of the divine and knowledge of the mundane or technical. This quote (modified from Pythagoras) encapsulates that very idea.
The Epilogue Epigraph is one I hardly changed at all (originally from Da Vinci). I feel like it forms a different perspective on one of the main themes of the novel--that greatness can come from and be rooted in the smaller successes in life. As the epilogue sees Bartus settled into a new home life far from where he originally imagined himself, I think it fits him well.
As I've already had around 30 people read the rough draft without any epigraphs, I'm curious to hear how this will change the reader experience once I'm done with this current draft.