Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi,
OK, After getting some of my main concerns shot back to me I spent quite a bit of time thinking on what more can be done to end on a better note.
See latest conversations in Beta 2 General Impressions for more info.
Big thing is that the story is tied to Tom and his emotions. The slowest parts of book 1 are the periods where he is depressed (carving furniture etc) the best parts are when he is on an adrenaline high.
So…for the first half of book 2 he is on post adrenaline high comedown. A hangover if you wish as reality starts to catch up with him. So it’s rather bummerific for him and the reader, but we have Hilda.
He gets a good high from taking over Mount Doom, but then there is the run up to the party, where he is still excited, but we have the build up to the bummer of the Demon invasion falling flat. Time to fix that.
[SPOILER]So, the plan is to push the demon attack from book 2 to 3, and up the hell out of it; have it delayed due to Lilith sending in some seriously challenging big guns (which will be mentioned in book 1) which take time to get there
The party will be great, no gloom; Tom will party; but shortly after Ruiden runs into the portal the klaxons will roar as the radar detects the incoming threat from Doom’s Redoubt, forcing Tom to return to defend his newly won keep against a much nastier demon invasion in book 3; and of course, all the D’Orcs are still passed out.
[/SPOILER]
So at this point the changes will only affect the last several chapters and scenes and not the whole book.
Hopefully by Friday evening; latest by Sunday
[color=red][size=8]Beta 3 is coming as early as Friday evening as late as Sunday evening.
Do not read past 109.0. Reality will shift starting at 109.1[/size][/color]
Beta 2 has the first true editing pass, plus things caught by demons up to that point. It is still far from perfect though.
Done a few more since beta 2.
I am paying for a professional editor to do technical editing after beta. So in many ways the big “editing” goal for is to catch editing errors that a technical editor wouldn’t catch. Subjective/Questionable editing things.
Such as when one weirdly named character is accidentally talking to himself rather than the person in front of them. This has now happened at least twice in the book!
The whole Fierdy business, people out of character or speaking to someone not there. Grammar/syntax that is imprecise that confuses the readers; not so much technical English but as in: it looks like he/she is saying this to so and so, but shouldn’t they be addressing X instead, or similar things that require one to be immersed in the story to catch.
Obviously though, technical editing is also great if people can manage to catch and report them. This is because no single editor is perfect, even the professionals. I still find editing issues/typos if you will in big name author books from the big houses, and they have an army of editors.
I am going to reread the boggled I know it’s a different way of saying it, and I was sort of going for “shock” value in this situation where people use terse/shortened phraseology.
The same is true for the tent sentence.
It’s not a form you would normally ever read, but it is what people say. So in someways it may be the punctuation that is wrong/misleading.
The first question to Iskerus was about the priests, Iskerus answered.
The same soldier then asked about the Rod members, he asked Iskerus; but technically they report to Barabus.
So Barabus interrupted saying
[quote]“The same, different tent; disarm them, remove their armor and station guards.” [/quote]
Meaning:
(Do) The same (for them),(but put them in a) different tent (and) disarm them, (also) remove their armor and station guards (on the tent)
Barabus, like Iskerus is in combat mode, shell shocked (almost literally) and really focused on other matters at the moment. He doesn’t have or want to spend any more time on this issue than is absolutely necessary.
It’s a very clipped way of speaking which would be completely understood by a soldier in a tense situation when spoken. It’s just not what we see written. And even so, I can see with the full form where my punctuation is wrong.
Antefalken spends most of his time in Astlan. He’s using it as a common reference; I would guess that if someone that spent most of their time in Etterdam was speaking they might use the name of that star. There really isn’t a common word for it; I would think it would be a problem in interdimensional travel.
Not sure how Universal treats it. Actually that’s a good point.
It seems that to be logically correct with Universal; if the story is from Tom’s POV, he should hear “sun”
If it is coming from Antefalken’s point of view it should be whatever his star was called.
Rupert would hear “fierd”I think this might get too confusing. Hmm. Need to think on this.
On the field trip. I think maybe expeditionary can be cut. He’s a school kid and his teachers, the thaumaturgists in particular, would take kids on a literal field trip as “A trip out to the fields” to study small animals, insects, flowers, grasses, etc. Also think of the usage:
“The students left their classroom and took their studies afield.”
Got far afield and forgot about the dying part.
At the high level, “It’s Tizzy don’t look for logical or factual consistency” works well.
However, yes they can die if they lose the will to regenerate but that is actually only after very very severe dismemberment/disintegration.
If you leave major pieces of the body intact, it’s pretty involuntary. The regeneration isn’t particularly “conscious” so you have to be really worn down and out of mana to do that.
The demons who work in Lillith’s dungeons, for example, are quite aware of this possibility and so are careful to ensure that they don’t go too far. Just like human torturers will work to keep the person alive but in pain, so the demon torturers will work to not let you get to a point where you won’t regenerate.
Also, the will to live is generally very strong; particularly with demons and overachieving Knights Rampant. So instinctively they will be averse to not regenerating at the core of their being; “where there is life, there is hope” etc. So, as a torturer you would have to judge that. A demon who has been tortured for several thousand years is far more likely to give up and not regenerate than one that has only been there a few decades.
Also, if your mana level is too low, and you have not much of anything left but a few cells, you will have to reaccumulate enough mana and that can take a while. More time to give up.
Finally, if someone “eats” your animus, you are definitely permanently toast.
I am not saying Coming of Age is a genre, not sure where you got that. If I called it that it was a typo.
Fantasy is the genre and there are certain literary story archetypes that cross genres.
Coming of Age is probably the oldest science fiction/fantasy story archetype. This is because most sf/fantasy was written as “boys adventure” fiction and told stories to boys (and girls who dared to read them) that tried to mirror their own growth experiences, the story of growing up and becoming an adult. [Of course, the funny thing today is that for some time (Andre Norton etc) it has been women writing these stories and today they are youth adventures; as well as for adults]
This goes back to Jules Verne, Robert Heinlein, and so many more.
Anyway reading the rest and having thought it about it last night; I actually think we are on the same page and arguing the exact same thing from different angles.
[b]It is an adventure book[/b] in the sense you mean it, I believe. But “adventure” is not what I consider one of the story archetypes that tell you what the story is about.
Very loosely
Coming of Age
The Quest or Voyage
The Redemption
Overcoming the Monster/Adversity
Political Drama
Romance and Fidelity/Infidelity
War
Loss (Tragedy)You see, I consider “adventure” to be part and parcel of most of these story lines. I don’t consider it to be the story archetype. If there isn’t some adventure, why read it? (I mean seriously, I might as well watch Masterpiece Theater–although I do love Downton Abbey)
Comedy and Romance can often get away without adventure. Jane Austen was not particularly adventurous, but I love all of her books. That’s comedy and romance. However, Thomas Hardy, the Bronte sisters, etc….bleck!
So yes, the political drama is coming
Following my diatribe on series
Book 1 was the introduction to the world as seen by Tom
Book 2 sets up and begins the introduction of the world and it’s politics and makes it more clear exactly what sort of mess Tom has stepped into
Book 3 will be the first conflicts resulting from stepping in a pile of politics
Book 4+ dealing longer term with these politics and the ramifications of ones actions. Learning to accept the consequences of ones actions (for multiple people)And here is the thing I don’t say a lot, but goodreads does bring up as Book 1 is on the list of Fantasy Parodies. The book really is something of a parody of fantasy. Although on some levels that offends me because I am not poking fun at the genre.
I think of it more as a winking homage.
Yes it is a comedy, but the comedy is that of human behavior and human misunderstandings. Fantasy is just the clothes it is dressed in.
It’s about how little things get blown way out of proportion and how ego/hubris, tangled histories, false narratives and poor communication cause lots of problems.
This happens all the time in world politics today. And that’s why I see it as a political drama.
Even on the small scale of book 1, you have people with conflicting objectives spinning propaganda and bad information flowing to everyone and pretty soon it infects everyone around them and it keeps growing.
People say and do things as political posturing, to gain small short term tactical advantages and they are taken seriously, perhaps more seriously than intended and then they can’t take them back so they have to double down on them and things just get really out of hand.
That is real politics. And politics is less about good and evil as about us vs them and defining us and defining them. It’s about choosing sides and then what happens if you suddenly realize you are on the wrong side, or that your side has gone off the deep end, what do you do? Do you double down and stay the course?
Anyway, enough rambling for now.
I think it is the context of the word adventure.
Your examples also show where I think we are disconnecting on the word archetype.
There are all sorts of archetypes: character, cultural, political, story.
In literary criticism they talk about story archetypes or basic plots, there are often 7 basic plots, sometimes more or less and sometimes with different categories, but all are similar to each other.
It’s how they categorize “stories” specifically fictional works of prose or poetry.
I use the word story archetype; but there are a lot of phrases for it.
The plot list I gave is my generic example of such a classification scheme. There are several others but they are all very similar, it’s really a binning exercise for literary scholars.
I think the confusion on “adventure” is that your categorization scheme has a different hierarchy, which is fine, there is no right way to do it. But that leads to such confusion when we have different ways of binning. You have adventure stories as a top bin in categorizing works; and using your system you can actually classify non-fiction, journalism, encyclopedias and various forms of fiction.
My scheme is much more restrictive in that I’ve already dove down to “The Novel” as a work of narrative fiction (but the same classification also works for long form poetry and scripts) and am talking about the basic plot lines.
Anyway, I am no longer opposed to the phrase adventure story, as you use it. Because it is true.
As for parody; I recognize it as a parody; but that word often has modern connotations that imply a level of cynicism I am not comfortable claiming. I guess in that sense, going back to the 7 basic plotlines or less, I would call it more a comedy in something like the Greek and Shakespearean traditions.
I like it!
It is also reminiscent of the famous table top RPG called “Papers and Paychecks” where one played a corporate drone exploring a bureaucratic maze to accomplish a useless goal and earn a paycheck.
It was the favorite game for our D&D characters to play between dungeons.
Yes on repetition…here is the thinking and I may be wrong…
If you have read the book as intended (continuously as one long book) or have read the first one many times, then this is annoying overkill.
However, if this really is a “Book 2” instead of “Volume II” (which most people will treat it as) and you haven’t read in 6 months, a year or longer than this is “refresher information” it’s part of bringing readers back up to speed.
It is actually something that I have seen in numerous later books, near the beginning of the books, you sort or restate stuff that would be obviously if you were “binge watching”
It is sort of a literary “previously on” without being so in your face.
I am trying to re-comfort readers back into my universe who have been absent for some time.
TV series (in particular soap operas/telanovelas) do this sort of thing a lot for the casual viewer.
Netflix original series almost never do anything like this as they assume you are binge watching.
So the question that comes up with something like this: Do I leave it in as a reminder to casual readers, or do I take it out as an annoyance to dedicated rereaders?
Is the second quote/issue about “awkward sentence structure” or more of the “you are repeating who Talarius is and what just happened 10 minutes ago”
On comments:
Culture check: Standards do vary from country to country in Astlan. The Turelaneans mostly dress inappropriate by everyone’s standards, or at least the rich ones do. Gastrope’ remarks on this later, he wears a harem/djinn like outfit (see pictures here on website) which is the style what the upper class youth in Turelane wear.
Jenn is a brown robe, heavy clothes, medieval Europe sort of person, as in fact is Freehold and Gizzor Del and pretty much everywhere else.
Now, of course educated people are aware of other cultural traditions and are usually tolerant.
However, Trevin is wearing something akin to a blue harem outfit, i.e. very skimpy and sheer and seriously revealing. And lots of jewelry. It would be in bad taste for a swimsuit model to wear such an outfit to such a formal/high level gathering; for a woman who appears to be 100 years old, well…that is what Jenn is complaining about.
Google “I dream of “Jeannie” go to images, pick the most revealing one, and that is probably still more conservative than what Trevin is wearing.
Also, Jeannie in those images is what Tremin has chosen to look like.
Agreed on the flying Talarius. Thanks
It is the air above the ball, think of it as projecting a hologram. It is awkward will tidy it up.
Good catch on the rewind! That word is just stuck in my head. Argh.
Inconsistent capitalization is one of my most beloved errors. I am horrible about this. Seriously horrible. I have terrible consistency with capitalization and I often change my mind and then do search and replace and ugh! Will fix, thanks.
This is actually a common enough question that I am starting to doubt myself.
However, it’s because it’s the name of something. The Fierd (like fiery) the same thing is true of the “sun”
And it also has to do with how you capitalize these words.
–OK sorry to interrupt my story, but this is weird.
I was typing the above words and my computer locked up (usb sound card causes issues every great once and a while and locks up all USB and then everything gets mad and I reboot)
Anyway, rebooted, started chrome it asked to restore from crash. Did, and it restored with my unposted, typed text in the box.
That is freaky, I’m a programmer, among other things…that is really weird…
—
Anyway, for sun and moon, they are names and thus should always be capitalized, but the rules of style over time have declared that you don’t have to capitalize them and should not capitalize them unless you are also referring to other celestial bodies. I.e. The Sun, The Moon, Mercury and Venus.
So anyway, the same applies here. Fierd is the name of the local star. Just as here Sun is the name of the local star.
What these capitalization rules reflect is that we have taken a specific name and turned it into a generic object name.
Yada yada, it’s a name, typically a primary god. That’s why I do it. Search the forum on fierd and you’ll see me go on about it some more.
The comparison to tree is not good because tree is a generic object name not a specific name of a particular object of another class (in this case star)
The better argument of where I’ve botched this is why do they call their planet Astlan but the element is still earth?
And that at times HAS bothered me, I sort of waived at it one of Tizzy’s or Boggy’s rants in book 1 when one of them asked why did all these worlds call themselves “Earth” and not “Dirt” or similar.
