Alpha Goals & Game Plan
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Hi,
So to remind everyone. The “Alpha version is an incomplete version that is missing about the last 20% of the book.” What needs to happen, at least to get it to “beta” is mapped out and planned, it just needs to be written. I know where I want to end this volume in terms of Tom & Hilda’s stories. They will be coming to an important inflection point.
What is less certain is how much further (in this volume) I take the Inferno, Nimbus, Freehold and the “Quest of the Emmissaries and Restoration of Glory” that depends on space and your input. I see a lot more continuation of these stories in Volume IV as most of them take place after the Tom/Hilda inflection point.
There will definitely be some short and major development yet on a couple of those plots in the last 20% but I don’t expect them to take up that much space.
So where is the “alpha” it is at 180,000+ words (450 pages in a normal mass market paperback with 400 words/page). The “beta” should be between 220-230,000 words (550-600 pages) and the final, with your input/additions, possibly as many as 250,000 to 260,000 words (650 pages). The Heavenly Host was about 270,000 words plus, volume around 235-240,000 words. I am trying to break “Demons of Astlan” up into roughly 250,000 word parts, so that four books is a million words. This is both timing and how much I can fit in a trade paperback book and not make everyone blind from small print.
I have no idea how much stuff you might want to add but there are places I want you to think about.
1) There are some scenes that I feel are a bit incomplete, I want to see how many agree and some ideas/thoughts about how to complete them.
2) If story points are not complete/sufficiently clear/obvious and I need to add more backstory, advise
3) Freehold (Lenamare and the Council) are rather underserved/untold. If you feel they need more detail as to what’s going on there, let me know. Last time around I probably had too much detail on some things for some people, so this time around, I decided to wait until people asked before spending time on such detail)
4) Perhaps other storylines need more detail/clarity.* Please look for logical inconsistencies. Places where I contradict something earlier. If two characters contradict each other, that is probably OK, but if the same character or group contradict, bring that up for discussion.
* Look for painfully complex/awkward/hideously unclear sentences.
* Please look for instances where I say the wrong character name or screw up who should be saying what (sometimes I get lost in these conversations and typing)
* Look for stuff that doesn’t make sense
* Look for characters not sounding like themselves/out of character. Some of these can be hard to tell, but the major ones should be more obvious.
* Let me know where characters need more development/more personality; i.e. flushed out a bit more. This is mainly important for characters that appear in multiple scenes. In some cases, all I might need to do is add some very pertinent/telling dialogue for them.
Obviously, spelling/grammatical mistakes are also very important. But for the alpha phases and the early beta this is a bit less critical since many sections may be completely rewritten. So I would note the mistakes as you find them, but we will worry about correcting them after any rewriting.
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On Monday evening, I might hope to have a “Beta 0” however, in all likelihood it will be an Alpha 2 with the true first Beta coming this week.
I would like / request more from Tiernon.
I.e. his reasoning, at the moment he comes around rather dumb.Did he suspect Sentir earlier?
Did he miss the situation on Etterdam or is there an deeper reasoning?
Or did he agree with Sentir?lg
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