Fixing Bigger Issues
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Great thoughts, and that’s basically what I’ve decided to do to some extent…
It’s all of a question of what fits. So I’m writing along and we’ll see how long it gets and if too long we cut it in two.
I am cranking on Beta 2 now.
I actually only officially started beta 2 today, I had been going to do that parallel edit thing, but from reports, the raw isn’t that bad, plot and pacing are bigger issues, so I held off and waited to start getting enough actionable feedback.
So now my full edit has become Beta 2.
And I have to say…the pacing I felt was there when I wrote the first several chapters last year (while doing a full time job with an 1.5 hour daily communte and another part time from home job) right after book 1 went live…it ain’t there.
I got to the Damien and Gandros conversation about getting people out of the city at end of day one and it was like hitting a giant sleep hole!
Things really slow down after the initial reactions. It really didn’t seem that way at all when writing them, but reading it…I have to agree on the pacing issues.
I also realizing commenting on stuff that there is a lot here that is in my head that when on PDF doesn’t come through. Too much context to some of this stuff is missing in terms of the big picture and why a scene might be important. (there are some that aren’t)
So working on it!
That splitting the mercenaries off into their own side series actually sounds like a really good idea. You can cut their stuff from book two entirely and instead just have them kind of show up as unknowns from Tom&Co’s point of view. Then publish their adventures in a separate series, their timeline can actually start earlier than Tom’s and run parallel since they will pretty much be unimportant to books one and two, I’m assuming they have a role to play in three since they are being introduced to us now.
Yeah, I know.
I really like the guys and the story, and one reason I wanted to include them (other than letting people know what happened to Asmeth and Evert—people have asked) is because I could use Tibs, a bard, to help people understand Antefalken better. They have never met, but there is overlap, and Tibs is aware of the legendary bard Antefalken, so that’s one way to give people more of his background.
However, it may just be too much.
It is in fact Barbara Eden from I Dream of Jeannie…yes probably a hugely dated reference for Tom, but let’s assume he didn’t have cable so was watching a lot of [url=http://metvnetwork.com/]MeTV[/url] which broadcasts really old reruns like that…
I supposed a big blue man with Robin Williams’ voice might have been better. But I rather want her to be female for later events.
Hmm, interested by the comments about Tom not being too suspicious of Tizzy. I was afraid he was seeiming too suspicious the other way.
Of course, the argument that Tom is using to “hide” Tizzy from himself” is the same argument he is using to prove to Talarius that this wasn’t a plot. “You’ve been with me all along, did you see me pulling any strings?”
The only string Tizzy pulled was getting them to the caverns. Their own greed led them in, and Tizzy was very very cagey, but never said he hadn’t been there.
It may also be an insufficient amount of internal dialogue for Tom. Perhaps I should up Tom’s internal dialogue later in the book, where he is present, just seen as more active, less introspective.
Tom is definitely leery of Tizzy. But also keep in mind, people who’ve known Tizzy for centuries dismiss him, essentially universally as a non-threat/imbecile. And Tom and his immediate party, but particularly Tom is the only one seeing Tizzy seemingly getting serious. Well, Antefalken as well. However he’s spent a lot of time with people biased about Tizzy.
Anyone else feel that Tom dismisses the fact he is being played by Tizzy way to easily?
At first it is just some slip-ups like not reacting to the ward ejecting the other demons and other oddities that he could pretty easily dismiss.
But the entire situation with the fortress and Tom’s rise is set about by Tizzy in a fairly visible way yet Tom only gives it a passing thought and shrugs it off.
He basically gets caught in a bunch of lies about never having been in those parts of the mountain and him knowing the inhabitants yet no one calls him on it.
If I was Tom I would be keep a really close and suspicious eye on Tizzy by now.
Yes, that seems a little bit odd, but it isn’t like he could risk to anger Tizzy if he is the one helping/playing him or has any real evidence.
I don’t get in whom the jinn transforms itself. Could anyone enlighten me?Well, I notice that too but I chalk it up to Tom being too busy with the d’Orcs.
Female for later events… what are you implying? Is it…
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There are a lot of other things I would like to talk about but isn’t I’ll wait for beta 2 and see if they persist.
Well… I do want to talk about one. There is a lack of Tom/Rupert moments for me. They are father/son (sort of) but that relationship isn’t given much attention. It was one of my favorite element in book 1. I want more.
=d>
Back in the day, when there were physical book stores that you could browse…(OK, technically bn is still a brick and mortar store and you can do this) one of my criteria when looking at a new book was size and/or print density.
What really bugged me is a hard back or trade with thick/heavy pages and a huge super spaced font to try to make it look big.
So I would always look at thickness first (after seeing nice cover/title and reading blurb on back) and then open it to check page and print density.
Now, DAW was nice, back in the old days. Their books were often the same size as other publishers, but their print density, and page density were far beyond the others (usually–not always)
Page density was how thin/tightly bound are the pages. Lots of thin pages in tight binding, and then a print density such that today…I’d wear reading glasses…
Of course, then you’d have these big name authors with giant thick pages with what could almost be called large print trying to milk a story by having lots of volumes.
I was looking for maximum reading time for my money.
I really have no problem other than escalating dead tree printing costs with book 2 or 3 being long. I just don’t want the dead tree one to be too expensive for people that want a book book.
That and…prior to July 1 2015, long books were screwed over by Kindle Unlimited and the Kindle Lending Library.
Currently (until July 1) the amount of money you get is purely based on the number of books that people read a certain % of.
So…longer books were doubly screwed.
First, you got paid the same no matter how big the book was, 100 pages or 600 pages. Second, a borrower had to read a lot more of a book before it counted.
Thus KDP authors were incentivised to write lots of smaller books.
Starting July 1, they will do page counts. So long books get more money from borrows than short books.
Of course, I have no idea how they are going to count pages. Because now we come to print density.
Dead tree Book 1 was like 520 pages or so depending on version but that was because of trade paperback, small font and tight margins. If it were done at 400 words per page (like the average paperback) it’s about 700 pages.
So we shall see, at least it’s better starting next week.
Since when is a long book a bad thing? 😛
One of the things I hate most is when I go to a book store and see thin books. I always want MORE. Its one of the reasons I cant read short stories, unless they are smaller side stories of a larger series, because its over just as I get into it.
I hate the attention span the current ‘general audience’ has these days, and the tendency of editors/publishers to recommend cutting down book size (from what I have read from various authors).
I have also read some reviews where they put in ‘the book being too long’ as a negative. Not that any of that length was badly written, but that it was too long and they had trouble keeping their attention on it >_< This is why we cant have nice things...
Thanks for the 2 cents
I agree completely. Really working on making J&G much more obviously relevant. I think, at the least, I will be able to spice them up significantly. And we will get at least a partial reunion the day after the party…I fear the book is going to be a fair bit longer…but it has to be to flush stuff out so it makes as much sense to readers as it does to me.
As you reread, save mental room for a read of beta 2!
I am still working on my 2nd read through with work taking much of my time. However I want to add my 2 cents. I like J&G however the first read through at the end I didn’t understand the relevance of their travel compared to toms story at this point. I kept hoping we were going to get to see their reunion with Tom and Rupert But that didn’t happen in this book which made it seem like a wasteful compared when reading toms story in the abyss.
Even understanding it’s all relevant and you have to add characters in order to build the story it just doesn’t come together for me by the end of book2. Also I agree I really like the D’orcs/orcs and look forward to their continued development.
So in my non-expert opinion your story telling is great and the plot is epic but your trying to squeeze bits and pieces of a very indepth and complicated story into short books which I dont envy or have a solution to. As you mentioned earlier the story was single book and it’s hard to find the points to break it up into a series.
Good luck! Also I am greedy and want the whole story now lol.
Well, there are already dozens, if not hundreds, of characters clamoring for attention. So much in fact that most characters barely registers. G&G Unicorn riders? The Egyptian Gods? The Grove residents? Can’t recall much about them the first time I read them and that when I was reading slowly because I’m paying much attention as a Beta reader.
The D’Orcs… I fear that is something not so good.
As for J&G, whatever your plan for the future was, at the present, it is one big snoozefest. As for perception (secondary, primary), that much depends on the reader, doesn’t it? Since what is presented is just them doing much of nothing, thinking of them as primary characters is really remote. Also we can’t really see the longer story since we can’t really just see it.
Though, you might really need a larger format, you can start by cutting of things. Really, reading about each and every turn of the rollercoaster, every step they take on Nimbus, and other such pointless stuff is such a test in patience and fortitude.
You worry about the short format making a lot of stuff irrelevant to the whole but I can’t see much difference with this longer format when the exact same thing happens. A lot of stuff of stuff is irrelevant. This might be a problem of timing. It is not about what information was presented but when they are presented. It might be that you are introducing characters and new information too early for them to be relevant.
I just really hope that you can straighten things out.
Yes, but a Blue Genie with Robin William’s voice would compete with Tizzy for insanity.
Will rethink the genie description. Really doesn’t have to look like Jeanie but should be female.
The D’Orcs are important as a whole, individual ones will get more character as time goes by, which ones are most important…we shall see.
The J&G story is rather travelogue in thinking of them as secondary characters, if thinking of them as primary characters…it’s still probably dull but one has to look at the longer story (which only I can see–true) as to why the story is important. These people and the ship will (I think/plan) be more important as the story goes on.
I suppose the real problem is that these books should be as long as GRRM books to get per book relevance to all story lines, but Dead Tree limits make that hard to do (as does getting books out quickly double length books take 2x or more as long). I am having trouble both setting up future storyline and keeping current one relevant in the current size format.
Some people have previously suggested doing shorter books more often, but then I’d be totally screwed in terms of developing long term plot as a third of every book would seem irrelevant to the individual book. And trying to make everything relevant in the limits of a shorter space would actually increase writing time between books. A Catch-22 if you will.
So it’s basically learning as I go and trying to make good compromises.
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