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Excellent points. Going to work on this full on. Need to bring some life to those guys, I really like your story telling character, that is a great information delivery mechanism.
Trevin definitely creeps out Gastrope’. I also think that people who live too long get really different views of morality, values and what is important. Not necessarily evil, just different. That is a problem not just for Trevin, but the elves, the avatars, the gods and of course demons.
Then it’s going to get worse…I think in book 1 it came up a couple times at most, it will come up quite a bit in book 2.
Maybe I need to have someone lookup to see where Fierd is in the sky at some point? Or go with something other than sunny or equivalent in this otherwise opaque context.
Most of the later uses, the context is much clearer.
@Rosver
Yes, I know your opinion, I have read all the reviews and opinion, and no one is calling anyone anything, including JMX etc. Different people have different perspectives. Reading and stories are subjective experiences. They are far more personal than TV or Movies because you have to use your own imagination to bring the words to life. What works for some people doesn’t always work for others. Reading is a joint experience between author and reader.
I can’t possibly write a book or books that pleases everyone. I just have to try to please myself and as many others as I can.
Given your complaints listed in this thread, I would say, as I said during the beta, you are not able to see the forest due to all the stupid trees in the way.
Not everything has to make sense immediately. In life, some things, the actions of some people around you and towards you won’t make sense to you for many years, and maybe never. The same thing is true in a complex book in what we call “epic fantasy.”
Just because “you” can’t see or understand something immediately doesn’t mean it’s stupid or useless or has no point. Maybe the problem isn’t the character or the substory line, maybe the problem is that you haven’t read the entire book (and again Demons of Astlan is one book in multiple volumes) and so you do not yet know how these things are going to play out.
I said this many times in beta. It’s a long book and I can’t cram everything into a single volume. These books are NOT sequels, they are one very long book. There is a beginning that happened at the start of book 1, but there will be NO ending, NO closure until the last page of the final book (and even then…there could be new beginnings after that) [i][b]But the end of each book is just an arbitrary break point. A resting point to take a breath during a very long journey. [/b][/i]
I really don’t know how much I can stress this.
If you have to have closure in a single book, then I suggest you wait until you see: “Demons of Astlan: The Final Volume” and then read them all at once. I will also do an omnibus volume (or two) at some point. I think the total story will be about 2 million words. We are around 500,000 in right now. So we are 1/4 of the way done, probably.
But I warn you, even then, I may not wrap up every loose end to your satisfaction.
Life does not have tidy endings, nor should stories. Part of the joy of life is not knowing where things are going, following leads/ideas/adventures for their own sake, and not for the sake of some future goal.
The name of the book is about where people think it is going, not necessarily where it is going.
So major story points that we can guess based on book 2:
1) Doom will expand its reach to the other worlds via Shamans; people will freak. Particularly Aodh and the elves. Gastrope’ and Jenn will be stuck in the middle.
2) The Inferno shows up in the Abyss and starts randomly shooting at demons and gets into lots of trouble while trying to find Tom and Talarius in an Infinite Sized plane.
3) The archdemons will try to pulverize Freehold and seize the book.
4) Lillith will get even more paranoid and probably do something rash.
5) Sammael will get involved
6) Hilda will charm her way deeper into a hole she doesn’t know she is falling down. Particularly once…well…I can’t say…and that might be book 4. Probably will be.
7) Hilda and Trisfelt will enjoy several nice dinners and more tasty wine.
8) Vaselle will probably get in over his head and need to call on Tom (or his powers) to kick some butt.
9) Rupert and Fer-Rog will cause more headaches for Tom
10) The Nyjyr Ennead will start trying to persuade Tom to help them take out Tiernon
11) The Djinn?
12) Randolf and Lenamare will try to bind and enslave Exador.
13) The Baron of Chaos whose knights were wiped out is probably going to want some answers from Lillith.Just idle thoughts, no promises. OK, I can promise #7.
Here is a change to 95.6 where Tom and the gang are exploring the crystal caverns and mention the “Demon Wars” and demon’s dying in the Abyss
New
[quote]“Why is there a portcullis in the middle of a cave passage?” Estrebrius asked.
“Were these caves once inhabited?” Antefalken asked.
“Are they still inhabited?” Rupert asked nervously.
“I hope not.” Reggie said nervously.
Tizzy shook his head. “Yes, there used to be some miners and others here, thousands of years ago. However, the entire region has been abandoned for at least thirty five hundred years if not more. Like I said, when I used to come here regularly, when I had people to visit, it was over four thousand years ago.”
“So why did they abandon it?” Boggy asked curiously.
“War, sort of a rout you might say.” Tizzy said examining the portcullis, shaking it for weakness.
“War?” Tom asked.
Tizzy shrugged, “War used to be pretty common in the Abyss. The demon princes, occasional dark demigods, Knights of Chaos and such enjoyed battling it out. Much like human princes. This place was abandoned about the time of the last major shakeup among the princes. Since that time most of the squabbles have stayed at the archdemon level or lower.”
Tizzy turned to Tom. “Can you try and lift this? I do not think it is locked down, just very rusty and heavy. Demons would have been fleeing out, rather than in so I doubt they locked the thing behind them.”
“Demon wars?” Rupert was looking very curious. “But if demons are fighting in the Abyss, and they die, they die permanently, right?”
Tizzy grinned and nodded. “If you kill them bad enough! If you chop up a demon, or a knight,” he glanced pointedly at Talarius, “beyond what they can regenerate and they die here; there is nowhere else to go.”
“So what happens to their animus and mana?” Tom asked as he tested the portcullis to see if he could lift it.
Tizzy shrugged, “Well if you’re lucky you just sort of dissipate or evaporate and it’s like going to sleep, I’m told. Less fortunately something powerful nearby eats your soul and consumes your mana.”
“Eats your soul?” Reggie asked with a tremor in his voice.
“Like Lilith or Sammael.” Antefalken stated.
“Or any demon prince, and some archdemons.” Boggy added.
“Ick.” Rupert said.
“Yeah, from the screams of the consumed souls, I’d have to say it isn’t pleasant.” Tizzy remarked as Tom grunted and lifted with his legs. There was a huge and painful screech and the portcullis lifted.
[/quote]Then at the end I have Antefalken chime in (still not smooth):
[quote]Tom was still grinning at Gastropé’s rather typical shocked reaction as a horrible gut wrenching wailing came from the portal. Everyone stared into the hole at the horrible, even painful wailing that came from the hole.
“Is someone torturing a Ban Sidhe in there?” Ragala-nargoloth asked covering her ears.
Tom followed his link to the command center. Vargg Agnoth was on duty. Suddenly, unconsciously on Tom’s part the gateway shifted to the command center. Those standing in Astlan were suddenly peering through the portal into the command center.
“What is going on?” Tom shouted through the portal.
“Radar has detected a large incoming force from Doom’s Redoubt!” Vargg yelled back. “A very large force, easily twice as big as what we believed they had available.” Tom shook his head; he had been worrying about this exact situation; everyone hung over and passed out; and now the enemy was attacking!
“Crap!” Tom shook his head. He looked to his shamans and wizards. “I have to return, you guys stay here; it is going to be far safer here.”
“Commander!” Some D’Orc that Tom did not immediately recognize, Darth Venstradt he believed shouted. “We are detecting signs of a Chaos Maelstrom!”
Vargg Agnoth cursed loudly using some word that Tom did not recognize.
“What’s a Chaos Maelstrom?” Tom asked.
Vargg turned to stare at Tom, his face a very unusual pale shade of green; if Tom did not know that D’Orcs were incapable of fear, he would have sworn the commander was giving him a look of terror. “It means Lilith is sending in the Knights of Chaos!”
“Holy fuck!” Antefalken moaned and rolled his head.
“What in the Abyss are Knights of Chaos?” Tom asked.
“They are enforcers, mercenaries, freelance knights. They are not, however, demons but something else, something worse from other end of the multiverse.” Antefalken said. “In legends they were occasionally employed by the Court to deal with rogue archdemons or rogue princes.” Antefalken shuddered, “I thought they were mere legend, they haven’t been deployed since the Great Demon Wars.”
“So what? The extra troops are all Knights of Chaos?” Tom asked. Vargg Agnoth made a very odd sound on the other side of the gateway. Antefalken’s eyes popped open wide.
“Concordenax forbid!” Antefalken exclaimed, his voice shaking slightly. “One Knight of Chaos is a match for an archdemon!”
“Ouch! How many do we think she’ll send?” Tom asked.
“It takes at least 13 to form a Maelstrom.” Vargg said. “And this looks like a big one.”
“Great.” Tom sighed feeling his stomach twist into knots.
[/quote]Does this help much? At all?
I think the early planted text is fine/good. What about the ending?
Assuming we don’t do the battle. That is in the voting.
@Madfoxii
I think your fill in the plotholes is a good point across the board for modern story telling in general.
it’s what media folks call “shorthanding” like writing in shorthand.
When an storyline or plot archetype is incredibly well known to the audience, the writers can skip a lot of details and the audience will assume the rest because they get the situation
It happens a lot with modern sitcoms and all sorts of TV in media today.
A few years back I started watching TV shows, mainly sitcoms on my ipod and then ipad at the gym because I could attach it to a TV on the equipment.
One HUGE thing I soon found is that the pacing of TV shows has increased dramatically since the 70’s until now, and it’s pretty much straight line compression.
I could literally measure it because the rhythm of the show was reflected in how fast I walked/ellipticalled/rode the bike and how many calories I burned in the course of a couple shows. Try watching Barney Miller and then watch Marry Me (which is the fastest show on TV today…I think) It’s literally insane.
Watching WKRP in Cincinnati is like pulling teeth…it’s funny but slow….Part of my “select audience has grown” comes from looking at modern shows on MTV, like Teen Wolf…they shorthand like crazy because everyone know werewolves and everyone known “TV High School Dating” tropes and archetypes.
Now taking this back to the bard…Shakespeare, despite the fact that his plays are insanely long (the versions you see today are almost always abridged) he still did a lot of shorthanding to the audiences of the day. This is one reason so many literature professors have been able to make a living off the guy for centuries…
@Rosver
Lots more fantasy races will be showing up in book ii, mainly because we will be getting people outside the very human oriented city of Freehold and into the rest of the world.
Tom was seeing the people, he just didn’t always recognize who or what they were or wasn’t paying enough attention. And everyone was tightly focused on what they were doing. Now as Gastropé and Jenn and others get out and about (book ii), they recognize the different races and deal with them more as they encounter them. I should also note, they will find some wonder in this as at least Jenn has led a somewhat sheltered life, but she has book knowledge of these races.
Gastropé of course, used to work for Exador, who’s army did have ‘regiments of evil’ in addition to humans: Dok Sidhe, Orcs, etc.
Going back to Tom, recall he did notice a lot of odd shaped/weird looking people, but it’s unlikely that when he sees short people in a crowed he won’t automatically know what they are
Dwarves, Heartheans (hobbits), Forest Elves (short), Gnomes, some other fae, etc. If he had had time to stop and stare, he’d probably have figured them all out, but he didn’t and was rather hurried at the time, and stressed about losing his shape.
@Icanrememberpito68decimalplaces
Can you give me particular characters that you think have lost their personality? That is a big concern of mine. The more characters there are, the harder it is to properly “shift perspective” so I need you guys to spot this.
The Jenn admiring guys is an example of trying to “extend” a personality, so in some sense it’s related to the above argument. Working point is to try to start to establish a more cordial and deeper friendship perhaps romantic relationship with Gastrope’
But there could be a number of places like that, worth flagging.
As far as the “book” you just need to wait a bit. There is a big reveal at the end. Plus big motion on Exador and friends vis a vis the book
I think the big thing has been “more Tom” I was a bit stymied going in because being trapped in the cave with those guys, I was afraid of over doing the internal dialogue thing.
Actually, I have been pleasantly surprised by how much people like the internal dialogue. It is something I really like, but have always been afraid would turn people off. “Heroes should crush foes, not think about the moral ambiguity of slaying them”
Arrowing in, I assume it is the “Not exactly, it let him surrender” implies that Tom didn’t let him surrender.
What she was trying to convey was in general (not as a quote):
The demon tried to grant Talarius mercy, but while surrendering, Talarius tried to kill the demon again, and failed; so rather than granting him mercy per se, he dropped him into the Abyss. Which cannot be considered mercy.
So yeah, paragraph really doesn’t work correctly.
Editor is saying I should have book by end of this week (today/tomorrow/Sunday).
Thus, assuming the Beta Demons vote on a title for Book 3, I am going to try to have at least the Kindle version out by October 1, 2015. If possible the Dead Tree at the same time.
#-o
I did think of that…I hope people will take it figuratively rather than literally.
However after the pain of having your limbs chopped off twenty minutes earlier, this will probably be a pin prick in compareison.
Yeah, that’s the plan, how to explain it without sounding like a teacher at Hogwarts might be tricky…
Of course, there is also the cable weight, even mithral is going to be heavy after enough leagues…
Excellent ideas! I will play with them this weekend and try to issue some alternate ending options.
But…this is that INFINITE WORLDS OF MAYBE stuff that I have warned about. OK, it’s not too huge a shift…but I am thinking I might downplay the Tizzy Arg-nargoloth scene
These are all great questions, which make me want to design my betademon website sometime and incorporate this…
Someone on my Amazon blog mentioned people using github and that really works well for exactly the story conflict issues…
I would seriously have to think GRRM would need something like that with swim lanes for each thread or some sort of pinnup board with strings and pictures on it…
I think we will just have to do the new topic break.
One nice thing is that scenes/sections are relatively modular this time around. That can help with continuity.
