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We tried a couple different schemes, I need to go back and look at what we decided worked best last time.
Some things are different this time that should make it a bit easier.
Last time there were chapters and breaks with ~ I had to go through and number all the ~, but that got confusing once I started inserting stuff.
This time most sections include a location and time. The exception being if location/POV doesn’t change between sections, in which case the ~ is back.
[attach]2[/attach]
So what I think we did was create a topic for each Chapter/Section and people posted to that topic. When it was corrected, I either “liked” it or commented on it if further discussion was needed.
Part of what I will be putting together on Friday is the “instructions/suggestions” for reportings and general priorities for what to look for.
And in posting this thing, I see an error right away: I am inconsistent in order location and time in Chapter 132, time should always be last.
See beta works before the first beta is posted!
:d/
Yes, that’s what I plan to write up this afternoon.
Editing/corrections are great and imporant, but on the first draft some of that may get rewritten anyway.
It’s the inconsistencies, unclear plotpoints, illogic and need for more or less detail that need to be hit in the first pass.
Hi,
So to remind everyone. The “Alpha version is an incomplete version that is missing about the last 20% of the book.” What needs to happen, at least to get it to “beta” is mapped out and planned, it just needs to be written. I know where I want to end this volume in terms of Tom & Hilda’s stories. They will be coming to an important inflection point.
What is less certain is how much further (in this volume) I take the Inferno, Nimbus, Freehold and the “Quest of the Emmissaries and Restoration of Glory” that depends on space and your input. I see a lot more continuation of these stories in Volume IV as most of them take place after the Tom/Hilda inflection point.
There will definitely be some short and major development yet on a couple of those plots in the last 20% but I don’t expect them to take up that much space.
So where is the “alpha” it is at 180,000+ words (450 pages in a normal mass market paperback with 400 words/page). The “beta” should be between 220-230,000 words (550-600 pages) and the final, with your input/additions, possibly as many as 250,000 to 260,000 words (650 pages). The Heavenly Host was about 270,000 words plus, volume around 235-240,000 words. I am trying to break “Demons of Astlan” up into roughly 250,000 word parts, so that four books is a million words. This is both timing and how much I can fit in a trade paperback book and not make everyone blind from small print.
I have no idea how much stuff you might want to add but there are places I want you to think about.
1) There are some scenes that I feel are a bit incomplete, I want to see how many agree and some ideas/thoughts about how to complete them.
2) If story points are not complete/sufficiently clear/obvious and I need to add more backstory, advise
3) Freehold (Lenamare and the Council) are rather underserved/untold. If you feel they need more detail as to what’s going on there, let me know. Last time around I probably had too much detail on some things for some people, so this time around, I decided to wait until people asked before spending time on such detail)
4) Perhaps other storylines need more detail/clarity.* Please look for logical inconsistencies. Places where I contradict something earlier. If two characters contradict each other, that is probably OK, but if the same character or group contradict, bring that up for discussion.
* Look for painfully complex/awkward/hideously unclear sentences.
* Please look for instances where I say the wrong character name or screw up who should be saying what (sometimes I get lost in these conversations and typing)
* Look for stuff that doesn’t make sense
* Look for characters not sounding like themselves/out of character. Some of these can be hard to tell, but the major ones should be more obvious.
* Let me know where characters need more development/more personality; i.e. flushed out a bit more. This is mainly important for characters that appear in multiple scenes. In some cases, all I might need to do is add some very pertinent/telling dialogue for them.
Obviously, spelling/grammatical mistakes are also very important. But for the alpha phases and the early beta this is a bit less critical since many sections may be completely rewritten. So I would note the mistakes as you find them, but we will worry about correcting them after any rewriting.
—
On Monday evening, I might hope to have a “Beta 0” however, in all likelihood it will be an Alpha 2 with the true first Beta coming this week.
Hi,
So I got very little done on vacation, both work and writing.
However, I am cranking down on the writing the next three days (through Friday) and will double crank down over the weekend.
If people want to do “Alpha” testing, we can start that on Friday.
The Alpha copy will be my current working copy as of Friday when I post it.
Monday night I will post Beta 0 which will be where I am Monday night. Hopefully Beta 0 will be Beta-Complete, meaning full story as set for Beta. As with last time Beta will likely introduce quite a bit more story.
So to summarize
People in this topic will be Beta Demoned on Friday and have an “Alpha Copy” then can start on, you can treat it as a beta, I just won’t have done a final pass over it, and you will be missing the last few chapters. New people will be able to join the beat by clicking on a link that I post.
A more complete version will appear Monday night, hopefully that will be where I wanted to start the beta with.
The story up to the Alpha will be pretty beta complete, I don’t see making changes other than editing/rewording to stuff in the Alpha, other than what the beta demons want.
T-A-G
To sign up for the Apostles of Doom Beta Demon Program click on the following link
[url=http://www.astlan.net/Default.aspx?rsvp=Apostolic&portalid=9]Beta Demonize Me![/url]
1) If you have posted in the Countdown to Beta topic, you have (or should have been) demonized already.
2) After clicking the link you should see a notice on the home page.
3) It will take several minutes to a few hours for forum access to become available due to the site to forum synchronization schedule.To determine if you are “synchronized:” If you can see and have access to read the AoD Beta Demon Forum, you are good to go.
First ALPHA copy will be Friday September 2, 2016 in the evening.
First BETA copy (or 2nd Alpha copy) will be Monday September 5, 2016 in the evening.
Please read CountDown to Beta (or at least the end) to understand what is going on with the ALPHA version.
Tizzy
Ah, but could be worse, you could be trapped aboard the Inferno with its cast of crazies. That place is turning out to be surprisingly interesting.
The Library of Doom (which is still rather empty) is over there for Beta Demons only…
I had hoped, but I didn’t get it done. It is going to be a working vacation, both for one client I have doing stuff next week and for finishing up with the book.
I am basically down to “the final leadup” to the “final event” (of this volume) but because it arguably the “biggest event” “largest scale” event “involving the most characters” of the entire 3 book set so far, that’s still a big pile of words. One event, multiple groups of protagonists and antagonists.
I am looking for September 1/Labor Day weekend kick off.
Cheats at cards?
CHEATS AT CARDS!!!!!!!
[size=6][color=red][u][i][b]CHEATS AT CARDS!!!!!!!!!!![/b][/i][/u][/color][/size]
You do know that cards are an essential way of life for bored demons? Those of us relegated to the “background” against our will spend a lot of time playing cards while Tom runs around playing with his djinni, Talarius and various personages of godlike nature.
So cheating at cards is one of the most insulting things you can say to a demon!!!!!
Although I did have to spend some time gardening recently. Rooting out varmints trying to abscond with the fruits of your herb garden is very time consuming work.
T-A-G is trying to get the first draft done before he heads on a short vacation on the 19th. It’s a steep climb. However, one way or the other it needs/must/will be ready for beta at the end of the month. Even if he is typing on vacation.
Ahh some good catches there!
T Captain Cranshall, Elias Stevensword, Moorecock, Halferth are in fact crew members of the Inferno who you will meet in Book 3. I actually forgot putting them there already. Maybe Tizzy did.
Marcus, N, and Tibs are three of the individuals who stole the book for Lenamare. They had a story line that was cut from Book 2 and should hopefully reemerge in their own book/series with Captain Asmeth and crew. Either as a side series “Seas of Astlan” or as part of Chronicles of Astlan. Have not quite decided.
People were finding it distracting because they did not see how it fit into the immediate plot. So that gave me the idea of doing the side series for side/related plotlines that provide more background and detail on what is going on.
Yes, I think that was me saying that in book 2.
First generation D’Orcs are almost all either 3rd or 4th order because they were very powerful orcs to get promoted. Then you add in the circumstances and how many people were at the ceremony and their thoughts just like those summoning a demon. See book 3 for more information.
The big thing to remember is that these classifications are measurements of observed ability, they are not “fixed” categories. I.e. they are defined by outsiders, in the case of these demon levels, that’s generally wizards, priests, animages trying to classify them.
Since wizards don’t summon D’Orcs, they’ve never been classified, but in theory could be.
D’Orcs internally work on merit and experience, just like orcs or humans in an army etc.
So of course, later generation D’Orcs, born D’Orcs can be lower level. For example Fer Rog is only 10 years old (roughly—with Doom’s night/day mechanism broke they had no way of measuring time–although they did seem to know how long Orcus had been gone) So he might not be that high. Except of course for the fact that he is learning magic/animagic so…that would make him more powerful, at least eventually.
On average, D’Orc shaman would be higher 4th’s or 5th’s. The Commanders and such are high 4th and 5th level. Arg-Nargoloth, Darg Krallnom are very powerful. Of course you will learn something much more about them in book 3 as they are “special” (read OLD) on a grand scale.
Now, where it gets trickier is in evaluating half D’Orcs….
:d/
I was hoping to have first pass, first draft done this week…but I’m getting bogged down (No, No, Boggy is not the problem, trust me)
I know exactly what to write, and there is a huge chunk of it to write, but it’s all very exciting stuff, but I just need to get several huge blocks of uninterrupted time to finish it….
To be fair, it is a LOT of words that have to be written, but I know exactly what they are and what needs to be said, and that’s the stuff that goes by fast, like 10,000 words per day fast.
That won’t happen this week, I fear. Hoping mid August. At that point I will open the Beta program up (it has been created) while doing a Second Pass of the book. This is a full edit read, just for clarity and to catch obvious mistakes. And then I release to beta.
If time runs short, I may release to beta without the Second Pass and do that during beta and incorporate feedback while doing the second pass.
Statuses:
I am really going to try to get the first pass done in the next 2 weeks. Meaning Beta start 3rd or 4th week of this month.
I have contacted the artist and we’ve worked out the details on the cover. Planning to have cover by Oct 1.
I have reached out to the editor to get her schedule, have not heard anything back yet. We shall see.
Assuming that all goes to plan, and you beta demons don’t shred the book to pieces causing a rewrite, (which could happen) then the plan would be to get it to editor around Oct 1 to mid October.
The goal would be to start presales on Nov. 1 for Dec 1 release.
I really want the demons lined up and ready for defense when Winter Comes. Don’t know why, but for some reason I’ve been dreading the fact that Winter is Coming.
There are four remaining major arcs to complete in the book, hope to do one today/tomorrow, 2nd Thursday/Friday, 3rd on the weekend, Fourth and Endgame next week. The fourth is the big one. Equivalent to the ending scenes of 1 and 2. Just bigger, more dramatic, more incredulable.
Also, assuming this schedule holds, I intend to resume work on Chronicles of Astlan, Into the Wilds during editing, over the holidays and January.
I will also be writing on Book 4 immediately after beta but will prioritize CoW:ITA
My hope would be to beta that in the spring, for a May/June release, July at the latest.
That would mean that Book 4 is looking at 12/1/17 as the earliest, possibly 1/1/18 or 2/1/18.
I am sort of thinking DoA should wrap up in 6 Books (plus Chronicles and other spin offs)
However, 7 volumes would be nice as that’s a prime number and is numerologically more satisfying. It’s also a very odd length for a series…but then DoA is not a series, it’s a single book.
Yeah, that was for various reasons.
In the first edition of Book 1, the appendices were interstitial, meaning that the vast majority of them were not at the end, they were between chapters where appropriate. So they fit better as “lore”
That however, drove lots of people nuts, they found it very interrupting of the story. It’s less of an issue in a paperback, because you just flip a page or two to skip. But it’s much more annoying on a kindle, particularly when you have little pages.
So I moved most of them to the end and just put links to them where they used to be. Which is a pain for paperbacks, but nice for kindles. And 99.99% of sales are kindle.
In the second book, there was a lot less time, and yes it was an info dump at the end. There actually were a bunch of tables in book 1, but they were less obvious in that the were encased as lore. I think part of the info dump nature was time on my part.
I had been working a lot of long hours at my day job for 9 months and was really really behind on book 2 (hence going 18 months between books) so I was much more rushed to get it out there.
Now, in Book 3, we are going back to the lore style appendices, in particular because some of them are going to disagree with each other. We will have a treatise on the multiverse from both the Council of Wizards Library and from the Library of Doom. They will also be at the end. See Smuggling for an example.
However, there probably won’t be as many appendices this time simply due to space constraints in the paperback. Book 3 is going to be pretty long without appendices. Sorting that out now…I think.
Also another new format change will be happening and we’ll see how beta users like it…
Now rather that just a ~ between scene/POV changes, if the location/POV changes (or time by big margin) you will get the location and time of each scene. If the location stays the same, POV stays the same but it’s just a jump of a few hours you still get a ~
e.g.
[i][center]Nysegard, Krallnomton: Late Fourth Period[/center][/i]
If people like that, if it makes it easier to follow I will probably go back and do the same for the first two books in a revision. (BTW you can get new revisions for Kindle by going to Amazon Manage my devices/content)
Hmm, well the final beta release should have pretty much been what got to e-book sans editor.
However, there were a number of recuts toward the end.
In the final book version, the last we see of her army is Bellyachus’ head going up his butt and everyone complaining about the cold. Although, I am sure Bellyachus’ ears are pretty warm.
