Beta 1, General Impessions (Spoilers, duh)
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I get that it is relevant, but does knowing every step of the journey actually matter or is it being in the right place at the right time? [u]Especially[/u] since none of it ties into anything for Book 2. It seems like whole Jenn & co. journey resulted in 2 things. First, they know about the D’Orcs. Second, they are at wargtown. Everything else is fluff.
Basically, anything between the time they left Freehold & the time they get the message about the D’Orcs can be saved for when a particular detail matters.
Honestly I think a lot of things would work better (and require less text) if you expanded the Book 2 timeline to be another month rather than a week. That way you could put people in the right places at the right times and have them just pop-up and be ready to intersect w/ Tom’s or Hilda’s story.
A thought to think….on the expansion.
A lot of this trip is to setup the elves, dwarves and the Grove. The elves are going to be a force in the coming war, also understanding the dwarf relations. The Grove is something of a U.N. of those races.
Introduction to the Nimbus it’s a battleship. Different side than the Inferno, which is also a battleship.
Just finished, and I have to agree with Iume, the story only rates 3 out of 5 for me if going with Amazon reviews. Some might even rate it lower.
Tom seems rather whiny and hesistant compared to his bad ass image in Book 1. Sure he might be in situations where it might be way over his head, but while he might think it, Tomas the Greater Demon would never let it show since it’s a sign of weakness and that’s a no no (refer to scene 96.4).
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of action in this story. Tom only got to fight against hydrahounds that’s about it. Heck Hilda seems a lot cooler than Tom right now – a 5 vs 1 and a dropkick finish on someone way bigger then her. Too much plot thickening I’d say. You’d also think from the Title “The Heavenly Host” he’d have a climactic battle with an angelic foe at the end but nope the ending was quite a letdown.
Story definitely could use some trimming down. There are too many new characters to keep track of. In addition, the incubus and gay parts might turn off some readers.
There are parts that made me smile though like the D’orcs. Heh.
I have pretty much cut out word limit 99% of sales are e-books.
So I can add another 90K words if I need to and the dead tree goes to 24.99 so that “extended distribution” sales don’t cost me money.
So I can add quite a bit.
The question is also in speeding up the first part, is that by adding/improving a story line or by cutting stuff? And if cutting what do with information that is important in cut scene….
Overall i loved the book and i want to make a couple of points
Liked the progressive build up of hints about tizzy and how it will most likely reveal him to be both the creator of the multiverse and its source of demon weed
The Randolf and Crispin romance kept him from being completely forgettable which he needs
If you cut out some of the fluff from the middle like Jenn & co travel and the rod POV it might help the flow of the book a bit, Since it kind of slows down a bit between the initial first reactions and tom getting mount doom (epic), You could also add a few chapters to the end of the book to make up for the cut content, Unless of course it was just before a big scene that is being saved for book three
Please don’t have Trisfelt call harry potter true crime in 83.3, since the magic in those books is different to the magic in your books (i know it’s nitpicking but i wanted to say it)
Very surprised how few errors there are before being sent for editing
I’m probably going to be rereading this a lot since it’s been a while since I’ve had something good to read, So I might come up with more things to say soon
Cool thanks!
OK, The ‘true crime’ critique is probably the most unexpected complaint to date. Most of the other stuff, like hook at the end, cloud stuff being slow, too little Tom at the beginning, all of those are things that were weighing on me while writing.
So Trisfelt’s true crime is #1 surprise
Second is the correction of succubae to succubi.
I actually had to go look that one up because for my entire life, I’m of an age with Trevin. Me and everyone I know (call them D&D geeks) that ever used the words succubus or incubus always used succubae or incubae. (Understand, I don’t use the term a lot in my day job doing IT)
According to Dictionary.com (and wikipedia) it is however succubi
However, some dictionaries do list succubae as an alternative plural. So somewhere along the line it must have snuck in.
I am sure it was in some dice based role playing game I played as a kid. Can’t say that it was Monster Manual (first edition) or Arduin or something like that.
I will be posting a proposed game plan before too long, but I am thinking of doing what I almost did anyway, and that is move the first big scened of book iii into book ii.
Specifically, you note that Hilda almost went to Murgatroy the second day, where she would likely have run into Jenn. That was a toss up; Jenn & friends are there for a couple days. I bumped hilda’s visit to the next day to move it after the party.
So Hilda shows up in Murgatroy where Jenn & Gastrope’ see her and she’s got to explain how she can just jump 2500 miles so quickly (considering they were booking along on the fastest ship they know of, and cheated by taking a runic gateway for a third of the journey.
Next, the astlanian’s and orcs need to go home, that means Tizzy pulling on Gastrope’s link to open a gateway…and out walks Damien, Vaselle, Edwyrd, Rupert, Tal Gor, Schwarzenfürze (who feasted the night before and may need to fart) as well as the other 3 orc shamans.
(or a similar combo)
Surprise, shock and freak out ensue.I think one of the things that everyone needs to keep in mind, particularly those that don’t like a long wait time between books is that for most authors, there is a remarkable difference in story quality linked to the time between books.
Book 1, which most everyone here thinks is much better is something that I worked on for years, literally, years. Yes, most of it was down time, but even the grand total of time ‘worked’ on it was about 3-4 years. But even in downtime I was reworking stuff in my head.
During that time, I wrote and rewrote and had discussions with people (very few by comparison to this beta).
As a rule things like the best humor come on the second or third pass. Dialogue almost invariably improves with writing and rewriting.
Same with plot tension, script tautness and cohesion.
This is not so much an excuse, as it is a simple fact.
My goal with the beta program is to try to accelerate this process, but it’s not easy. So, I appreciate all the help and feedback and keep it coming, but realize there are limits to what can be done without delaying things significantly, and maybe that will be necessary. We shall see.
That is what I am focusing on, less with the hook at the end. There are several things I can do for the end, filling out the beginning seems the more critical. I don’t want people falling asleep before things get interesting.
I can see that clearly, rereading it. I actually really like that old codger demon thing. I’d been thinking about Lilith trying to “scare” Tom into accepting her offer, but the logic and then logistics weren’t quite there timewise. There really isn’t that much time, given travel time for normal demons in the Abyss. While it seems like they are there for eternity before the trip to Hellsprings Eternal, it really is about two days. Most of which people are recuperating.
If the old codger demon idea helps then great! I hope I can help even if just a little bit.
The Deposed King
Done a couple things to speed up the first 15% through 30%.
The “codger” is there now, but he’s not so much a codger as a cipher that will end up introducing more plotline later, to replace some stuff that I moved forward. He was always going to show up, now he shows up sooner, if people realize who it is, and most probably will, it should not seem like filler, but rather an uncertainty.
There is probably going to need to be a third pass to more Tomize earlier things even as is.
The slow part of this is that I don’t want to throw things in for the sake of just action or whatever, because then it is actual filler, even if exciting. The trick is bringing action and Tom scenes in and reweaving them with the rest of the story, yet without disrupting or completely changing reality around it too much. There is plenty of that happening in the newer later half….I think…
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