Dead End Subplots

What adds more to an historic saga than a shipboard romance?  Just look at what it did for the blockbuster Titanic.  In Ikons: Saint Nicholas the Wonder Worker, I wanted to add one, but I could not very well have Massey, a happily married man, engage in oceanic high jinxes.  So the amorous task is performed by the addition of two young Polish brothers, Marko and Roman Kozlowki.

* * *

"They both looked like barrels with heads attached.  Although the heads seemed ridiculously small for the bodies, the determined look emanating from the faces told Massey the heads knew exactly what to do with the strength on which they rest.  With arms thick as stovepipes the closest Pole picked up Massey's belongings swung them away from the bunk and let them fall to the deck."

* * *

Following this inglorious meeting, the three become fast friends.  Marko, the more outgoing of the two, is a real lady's man.  However, his random evening flings came to an end when he meets and falls in love with the alluring Korin Meshanko.

* * *

"She was attractive, blond, tall, and promised to wed another.  Marko had watched for her each day since they left Danzig.  Korin would stand alone by the rail watching the sea, her blond hair tangled from the wind.  She did not wear her hair braided as the others, nor did she keep it covered.  Instead, she wore the scarf over her shoulders and allowed her hair to flow free." (I would write this passage much different today, but I was just starting my writing career.)

* * *

Immigrant Women enjoying the fresh air topside

Marko's romance with Korin is ill-fated.  In my intended subplot, Korin's father is leader of a Lithuanian nationalist group conspiring against the Tsar.  In order to unify her father's power within the cabal, Korin agrees to marry her father's rival. I had plans to integrate her story into Ikon's plot, but found it was too complex.  Instead, I allowed Marko's romance to fizzle when the ship docks in New York.

* * *

"All the waiting women were dressed in their best clothes with colorful scarves adorning their heads.  All that is but one.   A tall blond woman stood off to the side with her head bare, as if in defiance to the rest.  Korin Meshanko waited for her name to be called.  Waited to see for the first time the man who would be her husband."

* * *

Korin just disappears into the crowd, never to be seen again.  I intended to reintroduce her later, but never did.  

A more seasoned writer probably would have rewritten the Atlantic passage chapters and deleted Korin.  But I liked her subplot and knowingly violated the rule about "killing your babies."  Several readers have inquired as to what became of Korin.  To  them, I can only shrug.