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You could always rough out an Astlan calendar to stick in the front or back of the books, that could be fun. Maybe sell full size calendars for people to buy, people will buy weird things sometimes, of course that would require an artist to make pictures for each month and might turn into an absolute nightmare.
well I was thinking that if a program like that was made it would have to have a reader built into it for distribution to beta readers. That would standardize the format and the secondary program wouldn’t have to be able to do everything that the master program could since it would just be there for people to read from and send in suggestions.
Yea WoT is finished, the point was just that it got spun out so long that Jordan passed away before the set was complete and they had to get another author to finish it. By the time Sanderson finished the series it just kind of felt like they were beating a dead horse to me. I had to go back and reread several of the books to remember what was going on and it felt lackluster at the end, which was probably at least in part the fact that it was another guy writing the final book that didn’t have his life’s work tied into it.
I totally understand that it can be hard to find a good stopping point, this story in particular seems like it would be pretty tough to find a good place to call it done what with the bringing in higher powers from multiple planes of existence and all that. At least you have the advantage of having a diverse set of interesting characters in a universe that is easy to immerse yourself in since you tied it into the actual world in a way people can identify with. You can probably find a comfortable stopping point for this story line and just flow into another one, maybe with different characters or from other people as the primary perspectives.
And don’t sell yourself short either, GRRM may write books that have twice the word count but he takes 3-4 times the amount of time between releases as you have been aiming for and doesn’t even have to deal with trying to write dialog for the Oorstemothians. I imagine that could cause headaches at times.
Oh I don’t mind multiple story arcs, even with the same characters being used, what I dislike is when it takes 15 books for them to defeat the main evil thing presented in the first book and the books are all 5 years apart. I can be pretty patient when waiting for a new book to come out. After all there are tons of them out there to read to fill the downtime between releases. However I feel that asking your readers to wait over 50 years to finally hear the end of your story is a bit much. If its more than one story, even recycling characters and the lands as long as the story itself is new I will read and enjoy it. Just look at Piers Anthony, he has written I think its over 40 books now or about to be around there, all of them in Xanth, all of them lighthearted and fun, filled with terrible puns, and a fresh story for each one.
yea they had to bring in another author to finish it, I was sorta lucky having started late in the release cycle and only had to wait for the last three books or so. I say sorta lucky because after I finished I realized that after book 5-6 you can effectively just jump to the last one, you miss out on some of the stuff but it just seemed like the same old stuff kept happening in slightly different ways, sometimes with different people involved. Finishing a series should never become a chore for the readers, I can see it getting rough on an author as you guys have to put in a lot of time and effort, but at some point you would think someone would mention that they could just cut out a couple books and cut to the chase so they can start on a fresh story.
Maybe this is a good use for beta readers? We will be there to be the guys that say whoa dude that happened already don’t do it again just cuz its Rupert and not Tom.
Well you would have to improve the writing speed and releases wouldn’t be able to be a year or more apart, but other than that you probably shouldn’t threaten us with a good time. As for the programming snowballing out of control, since you know what you want maybe just find another person to help with it and keep it under control? If you get something useful to a functional state you might even be able to market it to other writers to help with their editing as well.
I can already see spin off possibilities, a new set of books for each major character, maybe even the same story with the primary perspective of different people that we don’t really see much, prequels for each faction, really there’s an absolute ton of possibilities. Of course this is mostly because the universe you built for it is huge, complicated and spans several dimensions. My point being that you need to write moar!
Maybe have it display a side by side of the original text with the proposed change? With an option that lets the master editor (author/professional editor whatever the case may be) scroll through the suggested changes and select one to replace the original or just keep it the way it is. That and having the original text be changeable by the master editor in the event that a change is suggested that you kind of like but need to adjust it to get it to fit right. Might need to get some professional programmers to write something like that as it sounds terribly complicated.
For distribution to beta readers, how big is the file? You might just be able to email it to people in a compressed format and everyone that has signed up to be a beta reader can convert it to what they need or want. Everyone’s email should be on their accounts so distribution that way should be easy. Since we are checking for continuity and checking for redundant chapters or suggesting changes our input can be more vague so it shouldn’t hurt anything if people have it in different formats.
Personally I prefer it worked into the paragraph, for me its just feels like it flows better. I’ve seen both methods work but I usually don’t bother to keep track of the dates if they are given.
Now for the scene changes I wouldn’t mind if you put the name of whoever is taking the perspective for the new section in the break if there is going to be a lot of switches, about the only ones that you can instantly recognize from the first sentence is the Oorstemothians. sometimes it takes a second to recognize the perspective switch with some of the others. Well, at least for those that won’t know when they buy the book that those breaks are for perspective changes. We all know thats what they are there for but new readers might not.
One possibility for there to be some inconsistencies with the passage of time on Astlan vs the Abyss is that there isn’t an actual disparity between the two, it just seems like it to people in the abyss. You could theorize that the fact that Astlan is constantly summoning demons has magically linked the planes which would cause them to become synchronized in time. However, when plagued with boredom and an inability to sleep time could feel like it isn’t passing at all, I would expect to feel a little bit of fuzziness about the time if I had nothing to do for days on end, couldn’t sleep, and there wasn’t a day/night cycle. Honestly I’m fairly certain that the majority of people would wind up rather similar to Tizzy after a month or two if they couldn’t find something to occupy themselves with. Maybe thats why he is insane? He went too long without having anything to do?
As for possible fixes for the readers not having to try to figure out what is happening in what order or simultaneously or whatnot, dates could probably be inserted over the perspective change breaks pretty neatly. I know that you are trying to save space so you can cram the dead tree edition as full of content as possible so the usual method of dropping lots of vague time related hints into the text would probably just eat up space, not to mention the editing backlog that would probably cause. Dates or a small time reference taking the place of the perspective change lines seems like an elegant solution, maybe a date/time/location?
I was curious, is there going to be a locked forum for the beta readers only? Or will they be giving feedback strictly via email? Email seems like a horrifying mess to deal with for you guys to get feedback about things. I mean you get the info back sure but its probably easier for someone to mention it in a post and everyone else to chime in than to have 8 thousand emails about various things people think should be changed in different ways. Gives me a headache just thinking about it and I wouldn’t even be the one that has to try to filter that. Nope, if I get to be a beta demon then I would end up being part of the problem and not the solution.
Which would be the demon thing to do I guess….forget I said anything.
Well when you find a way to edit the timestream you may as well go for it! One of these days I will catch up to that blue box flying bastard and steal me a neat magical screwdriver.
Well my sister is really into art and photography so I asked her to draw a demon head or maybe a whole demon that resembles Tom and I will send it up when she finishes. All she would want if you decide to change the cover to hers would be credit for the artwork, it would be the first book cover she would have done and if you guys like it and want her to do the new book or whatever you could talk to her about fees or whatnot. I think she just wants to see if she can do one to start with lol.
My theory on the affects of worshiper to god power levels is that the prayers they get from their followers are somehow converted into God Mana and absorbed by the god in question and can be used by that deity to affect the plane it is getting the mana from. This would at least explain why a god’s power level would change from plane to plane. It would also mean that by tapping into that mana and absorbing it from the god itself by pulling the mana through the channel the way Tom did would probably seriously piss off said deity.
