Question: Dates/Times
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There is a lot of activity. Lots of quick scene changes.
There are some very big events but….
It’s about half of where I thought book ii would go.
So in many ways, it will set a very big stage for Book III & IV. [i][b]I now cringe to hear people groan as I type this.[/b][/i]
Long and short of it, the events at the end of Book I were so huge (in terms of freaking out the observers) that I felt it necessary to go into pretty good detail on the reactions and aftermath, particularly since those actions and the aftermath were sort of like opening the door to [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibber_McGee_and_Molly]Fibber McGee’s Closet.[/url]
All sorts of crazy starts spilling out now and the motives of some of the players become much clearer.
Just so I am clear
You like it worked into the paragraph?
I mean it’s my normal mode is that if there is a large break in time, I mention it with “Jenn had spent the last 6 days cleaning up the rubble made by demons bursting from the walls.” (Hint that doesn’t actually happen)
Otherwise I assume or try to imply, that the next section is sequential or at best simultaneous, and if a break of a few hours, I try to speak of the time delay
The big problem is that in this book, there are lots of scene changes and you can be whipping between timezones on a plane (i.e. the sun is lower in eastern locations) as well as completely different planes or other places where time is complicated or different.
Yup, pretty much nailed WoT there. Another series like that is Goodkinds Sword of Truth, I enjoyed reading them but probably won’t revisit the series, I wasn’t happy with it lasting 14 books and then just ending all of a sudden. It went from feeling drawn out a bit too much to all of a sudden it’s over and leaves you feeling kinda unsatisfied.
One gambit that I feel he overused but is still a good plot device was there were numerous times where one character needed information that another character had to solve something and while searching for a way to fix the problem would pass within a mile or two of the person that had the solution, missing each other entirely.I did love the Belgariad though.
If WoT didn’t drive you to begin with, I wouldn’t bother.
Although you could just read the first and leave it at that. He wrote the first book with a victory at the end in such a manner that if he didn’t get many sales, it could end there. The second book reopens the case to demonstrate the ‘victory’ of book 1 was only the opening gambit in a much bigger story.
The problem is that it just keeps going and going and going and doesn’t seem to get much of anywhere.
It could probably have been done in 4 books maybe 5. But he strung it out adding lots of filler for not a lot of good reason (plot wise). I was OK with it at first, thrilled a bit…but then the time between books got long and the books so complicated I couldn’t remember who was who and what was what and …
The Belgariad series by David Eddings is very similar
1.1 Pawn of Prophecy
1.2 Queen of Sorcery
1.3 Magician’s Gambit
1.4 Castle of Wizardry
1.5 Enchanters’ End GameAnd it ends. Did I like individual parts of WoT better, yes. Is WoT a bit more Epic in scale? Yes. But in its entirety the Belgariad is not so bloated and it ends.
I am trying very hard to not change character perspective without changing scene.
A scene change has different location and people.
In the quick editing, I have seen a couple places where this is a small change in perspective between two characters…I want to fix that, but that I expect to happen in beta.
So scene change and perspective change are ~ on their own line.
I think Wot has been finished. I made it further but yeah at this point I would have to retread the whole series.
I think it would be very helpful to have some time frame indications or dates, especially in cases of when the viewpoint shifts
Also my motto for the last few months has been
If I have time to read, then I have time to write…so write is right!
Ah okay, if you have the space for it allocated already then it should be fine, that’s really how I prefer it gets done anyways, easier to maintain your immersion in the story that way.
That sounds like a terrible idea, I was thinking more like a standard calendar with maybe the major holidays listed like you get, well, people used to get anyways, from stores. At least when GRRM kills off a character they don’t tell you about it in previous books, although I have pretty much stopped reading his stuff. I don’t care for waiting 5-6 years in between book releases and then having to pay through the nose for the next one when it finally gets released.
2 maybe 3 years for a moderately priced book or even 20-25$ for a hardcover copy of a book from a good author that does solid work is fine, but I can’t stand waiting so long that I have to go back and reread the entire series to even know whats going on. Sometimes it feels like its an excuse to reuse plot twists and drag it out for 14 books when it could have been ended on 5 or 6.
I.E. Wheel of Time.
Well, one very long series I known is Anne of Green Gables Series. Though it was a series, each book could be read independently from each other. Each book also has vastly different stories and major arcs. Maybe because it is not an adventure story that makes such diversity possible?
WoT doesn’t interest me much when I fist see it, haven’t read it, so can’t really contribute. Though would you advice me to read it? Or it would just be a waste in the end?
I think you need to make a special dictiontionary for the Oorstemoths. LOL.
Well that’s a very interesting possibility that I want to explore.
Much like gravity affects the flow of time.
On a large scale, I have to suspect that the topology of the multiverse might affect time, even as the curvature of space time affects time in our single universe.
E.g. Interstellar and it’s black hole and wormholes.
My guess is that things within a given localverse have the same time flow (albeit different length of days depending on the planet) but that really far out planes might have a different time flow.
The thought that magic, or mana or animus or something might also affect time, the same way mass does, is quite interesting to me.
God, I hate that!
The guy with the answer is one village over in the middle of a multi-continent epic. And they miss each other. I think authors do that to torment readers.
SoT went 14 books? Wow, I think I did the first 3…
I think a real problem with the never ending series is that, particularly when there is a long time between books, you can only keep so many stories and plotlines in your head.
Hi,
One thing that I sort of think confused a few people/or was not completely obvious was the time table of events in book 1.
Book 1 takes place over a grand total of 30 Astlanian days. 1 1/2 Anuropian Quarter Months, 3 weeks.
There were some multi-day gaps in the book, particularly near the beginning, but by the end time was pretty much contiguous.
Book 2 takes place over an even shorter period of 10 Astlanian days. One week/half a quarter month. By the end of Book 2, Tom will have been a demon for only 1 Uropian month.
This is a very fast time table for most fantasy books. I think this is why so many people were perplexed about things like a love interest for Tom…between adjusting and the various insanity, there was no time to really build a relationship for him. Under the best of conditions with a job/school how likely are you to find a new love interest with 30 days of moving to a new country? Particularly one where no one gets your Star Trek and Star Wars references?
Anyway, book ii moves into hyperdrive and we have almost the same number of words/pages in book 2 but one third the time, the fact that demons and avatars don’t sleep, means we have round the clock 20 hour action that is all mostly sequential or maybe overlapping.
So do you guys think including periodic date/time updates would be useful?
T-A-G
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