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Yes, but a Blue Genie with Robin William’s voice would compete with Tizzy for insanity.
Will rethink the genie description. Really doesn’t have to look like Jeanie but should be female.
The D’Orcs are important as a whole, individual ones will get more character as time goes by, which ones are most important…we shall see.
The J&G story is rather travelogue in thinking of them as secondary characters, if thinking of them as primary characters…it’s still probably dull but one has to look at the longer story (which only I can see–true) as to why the story is important. These people and the ship will (I think/plan) be more important as the story goes on.
I suppose the real problem is that these books should be as long as GRRM books to get per book relevance to all story lines, but Dead Tree limits make that hard to do (as does getting books out quickly double length books take 2x or more as long). I am having trouble both setting up future storyline and keeping current one relevant in the current size format.
Some people have previously suggested doing shorter books more often, but then I’d be totally screwed in terms of developing long term plot as a third of every book would seem irrelevant to the individual book. And trying to make everything relevant in the limits of a shorter space would actually increase writing time between books. A Catch-22 if you will.
So it’s basically learning as I go and trying to make good compromises.
Thanks for the 2 cents
I agree completely. Really working on making J&G much more obviously relevant. I think, at the least, I will be able to spice them up significantly. And we will get at least a partial reunion the day after the party…I fear the book is going to be a fair bit longer…but it has to be to flush stuff out so it makes as much sense to readers as it does to me.
As you reread, save mental room for a read of beta 2!
=d>
Back in the day, when there were physical book stores that you could browse…(OK, technically bn is still a brick and mortar store and you can do this) one of my criteria when looking at a new book was size and/or print density.
What really bugged me is a hard back or trade with thick/heavy pages and a huge super spaced font to try to make it look big.
So I would always look at thickness first (after seeing nice cover/title and reading blurb on back) and then open it to check page and print density.
Now, DAW was nice, back in the old days. Their books were often the same size as other publishers, but their print density, and page density were far beyond the others (usually–not always)
Page density was how thin/tightly bound are the pages. Lots of thin pages in tight binding, and then a print density such that today…I’d wear reading glasses…
Of course, then you’d have these big name authors with giant thick pages with what could almost be called large print trying to milk a story by having lots of volumes.
I was looking for maximum reading time for my money.
I really have no problem other than escalating dead tree printing costs with book 2 or 3 being long. I just don’t want the dead tree one to be too expensive for people that want a book book.
That and…prior to July 1 2015, long books were screwed over by Kindle Unlimited and the Kindle Lending Library.
Currently (until July 1) the amount of money you get is purely based on the number of books that people read a certain % of.
So…longer books were doubly screwed.
First, you got paid the same no matter how big the book was, 100 pages or 600 pages. Second, a borrower had to read a lot more of a book before it counted.
Thus KDP authors were incentivised to write lots of smaller books.
Starting July 1, they will do page counts. So long books get more money from borrows than short books.
Of course, I have no idea how they are going to count pages. Because now we come to print density.
Dead tree Book 1 was like 520 pages or so depending on version but that was because of trade paperback, small font and tight margins. If it were done at 400 words per page (like the average paperback) it’s about 700 pages.
So we shall see, at least it’s better starting next week.
So looking at what to best work on I thought I’d explicitly bring up the various plotlines
Major Plotlines
1) Hilda & the Host
2) Gastrope’, Jenn, The Grove, The Nimbus
3) Tom, the Abyss, Mount DoomSecondary Plotlines
1) Nyjyr Ennead (Gods on Uropia)
2) Vaselle & Tom
3 a) Exador, Bess, Ramses & The Book
3 b) Randolf & Crispin (+Lenamare) vs Exador
4) The Rogues & Captain Asmeth
5) “The Adventures of Rupert & Fer Rog”
6) Oorstemoth & The Rod->Inferno
6.1) Gadius and Gaius ??
7) Sentir Fallon, Lilith and Aodh
8) The Elvish freak out will evolve from the Grove plotline,And maybe some more lesser ones that I am not so much thinking of.
So what are your thoughts on what needs improvement/removal/redoing?
Clearly, the Gastrope’, Jenn, The Grove needs work. Working on that now, but suggestions good.
I also not that The Rogues & Captain Asmeth are rather isolated and don’t add much at this point.
Other thoughts on various plotlines? Good or bad?
Cool!
They come back more into the central plotline in Book 3, just time apart Tom needed to be in the Abyss…however need to spice/speed that stuff up, working on that.
On Hilda…she is/has been a low level functionary in a huge organization. She is only now breaking free/standing out. She needs time to find her own voice.
Yeah the kill thing that somehow got stuck in my head really held me back near the end. Still not sure how I am going to rework that but there are better possibilities now that I am going back closer to the book 1 view of demon death in the Abyss. Not all the way back, but back enough to be consistent with what was said there.
The big thing as I’ve said before, pre-beta, my original vision for book ii was about twice this size…meaning the Inferno got to the Abyss, the Nimbus was in battle or close to it.
I am moving right now with trimming rather than cutting (although I have cut one section completely) and trying to break up the cloud snooze fest.
In particular there are a couple very short chapters, section-wise, that are almost exclusively cloud story. Working on breaking them up with more stuff, and make them more obviously relevant.
The Councilors, well, they are a mixed bag of self serving interests, the most “ambitious” ones are in this so deep that they are half the problem that’s in front of the Council.
Trevin is off doing her thing and is not concerned with Freehold right now.
Lenamare, Jehenna, Zilquar and Randolf have their plans, and they pretty much don’t care about the rest of the Council
Randolf’s main goal is to kill Exador and he’s working on recruiting Lenamare
Councilor Exador is the triggering problem.
Damien knows the god stealing demon and is just waiting to find out what’s going on.So that leaves Alexandros Mien, Gandros , Sier Barvon, Tureledor and Davron who are “not actively part of the problem)
Of those, we can be pretty sure Alexandros and Gandros have something up their sleeves, we don’t know enough about the other three and I really don’t feel like dragging them in yet…too many characters as is for the moment.
Higher ups and demons:
It’s not completely clear what the Highest Up (Tiernon) thinks. Remember we are seeing him and the Etonians from a different angle than the Nyjyr Ennead. The Nyjyr Ennead we see, and Lilith/Sentir Fallon do see things as a matter of politics rather than good vs evil. Lilith’s basic argument (I think I have her say this) is that the majority of gods see good vs evil as politics. What we start to learn from the dagger and antimus is that they may not be 100% correct on this point of view.
Remember, Tiernon is a god of justice (and war) there needs to be a cause. There are not (listed yet) any dark/evil gods in the Etonian pantheon, so the evil must be outside, infidels (the Nyjyr Ennead), demons, undead, and others.
J&G
Going to be spicing things up quite a bit here. Worked it out today/tonight, but was too tired to do it justice, hitting it in the morning.
Tom:
Adding some more Tom earlier…the reaction stuff is still rather Tom barren, but after DOF+0, he/they get more sections.
Nyjyr Ennead:
His accursed mistress & co are going to get a big shock. As you know they moved to a new city, so he got the night off. When he goes back and they are unpacking and he finds a statue of his new drinking buddy ‘Phaestus…they are likely to shit bricks. (recall Phaestus=p’Tah)
V & T
Yeah, I feel this is vastly underserved, but what I wanted to do with the possession was sort of creeping me (Tom) out. Meaning what you have access to possessing someone (think the exorcist) is seriously unethical and creepy. Fine for a villain character, but for the hero? So I need to get the angle of this situation right. It’s going to come up with more shamans and warlocks.
E, B, R & The Book
That was my initial thought, but as of yesterday/today, I think I am going to majorly shake this one up, seriously accelerate this and the Lenamare + Randolf plotline and might give Crispin a chance to show off some djinn power.
The Rogues
Yeah. I really know. But I just love these crazy characters and there is so much humor involved with these guys and their upcoming storyline. They are a walking D&D campaign satire, what with 20th to 30th+ level characters (by which I mean ADD v.1 whacked characters before they put the breaks on things)
Rupert and Fer-Rog
That was my thought. I am shooting on giving Rupert and Fer-Rog a coming of age storyline in book 3 and 4. This is their beginning. He’s about to stop being a foil and being a force in his own right (for better or worse–calamity wise not good vs evil)
If not clear, the plan is for them to shape change into orcs and get one of the Shamans to summon them to the Planes of Orc where they can accidentally incite chaos, fear, confusion, maybe a war or two, you know the stuff teenage demons are notorious for.
Oorstemoth & Rod
I am upping the Rod quota a bit with one of the slightly new characters. So more Iskerus & Barabus upfront. Also more involvement with Hilda, repercussions from the beggar.
G&G
It was probably too soon to list them as a plotline. For now consider them a subplot of the Rod.
SF, Lilith, Aodh
So maybe I need to demonstrate more of her reasoning. She is pretty sure the reincarnation bit can’t be true, given what she knows of the dagger they made. Same thing that Tom thinks. However, somehow Tom got the Wand under all the seals and turned the mountain back on. That too should have been impossible.
Mount Doom is the closest thing any demon has ever had to a god pool. If it is operational, it will eventually be a threat to her. Orcus was a serious threat to her and Sammael, he was also a threat to Aodh/Ne’t and Sentir Fallon/Tiernon (although Sentir Fallon appears to have taking his own initiative)
Hi,
We have more betas demons reading than writing!
Speak up! or more accurately [color=red]Write Up![/color] Even if you agree with others comments, add your own two cents, that you agree.
If you disagree with what others are saying, definitely [color=red]write up[/color]. Don’t be afraid to have an opinion different than the consensus!
You guys are my Nielson Ratings system!
I need all points of view! If you have a different take than what the common consensus is, or what the fix should be, [color=red]write up![/color]
If people are trying to axe your favorite plotline or something you like, [color=red]write up! [/color]
If people are trying to keep/protect the part you absolutely hate, [color=red]write up![/color]
T-A-G
Unverified typically means that your email address hasn’t been verified, meaning you haven’t yet followed the link in the email.
When you first sign up, you are let in on probation for that one one time, then you have to click on a link in the email it sent you to verify that that was your email address.
I went ahead and marked you as verified, although you might want to go check your profile to make sure we have the right email address for you.
Otherwise, you should be good, I see you in HH Beta Demons.
My bad, I thought I’d saved you as a forum beta demon, but that didn’t take or something.
When I look at your post, I now see Heavenly Host Beta Demon in your side box. So you should be good.
That’s very weird, you were in the group when I wrote the post
I am thinking there was something wrong with your click on the link and you didn’t get put in the “Site Security Group” of the same name as the Forum Group. The syncing of the two is the time delay.
I put you in the Forum group, and it disappeared, I did it again and it disappeared again. So you must not be set in the site’s security group.
I will now go and put you in both.
OK, you weren’t in the security group, so the click must not have worked. Which is odd.
Anyway, I then added you to the forum.
You “should” be good, but at this point…I am wondering if Tizzy is screwing around…
It is in fact Barbara Eden from I Dream of Jeannie…yes probably a hugely dated reference for Tom, but let’s assume he didn’t have cable so was watching a lot of [url=http://metvnetwork.com/]MeTV[/url] which broadcasts really old reruns like that…
I supposed a big blue man with Robin Williams’ voice might have been better. But I rather want her to be female for later events.
Hmm, interested by the comments about Tom not being too suspicious of Tizzy. I was afraid he was seeiming too suspicious the other way.
Of course, the argument that Tom is using to “hide” Tizzy from himself” is the same argument he is using to prove to Talarius that this wasn’t a plot. “You’ve been with me all along, did you see me pulling any strings?”
The only string Tizzy pulled was getting them to the caverns. Their own greed led them in, and Tizzy was very very cagey, but never said he hadn’t been there.
It may also be an insufficient amount of internal dialogue for Tom. Perhaps I should up Tom’s internal dialogue later in the book, where he is present, just seen as more active, less introspective.
Tom is definitely leery of Tizzy. But also keep in mind, people who’ve known Tizzy for centuries dismiss him, essentially universally as a non-threat/imbecile. And Tom and his immediate party, but particularly Tom is the only one seeing Tizzy seemingly getting serious. Well, Antefalken as well. However he’s spent a lot of time with people biased about Tizzy.
