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Yeah, I am thinking about rails now.
The cool point of prepublishing work is that reality can change.
Turns out they didn’t use cables, they used rails.
Why I didn’t use rails was actually simple: How do you lay rails on a near vertical cliff?
I was thinking that it was easier just to have long cables over the edge.
They are there mainly to stabilize the cage, it doesn’t have any other directional steering, it just goes up and hopefully in a straight line, hence the cables.
Hmmm…maybe I am over thinking it…the grove has geomancers and stone shapers? Maybe they could create grooves in the side of the cliff?
Just need to have it be a covered channel, like on a drawer
________ | | |
| | | |
| ====== | |
| | | |
| ========== |
|_________________|Of course, rails are also going to create a horrible racket…hmm….
Cool thanks!
OK, The ‘true crime’ critique is probably the most unexpected complaint to date. Most of the other stuff, like hook at the end, cloud stuff being slow, too little Tom at the beginning, all of those are things that were weighing on me while writing.
So Trisfelt’s true crime is #1 surprise
Second is the correction of succubae to succubi.
I actually had to go look that one up because for my entire life, I’m of an age with Trevin. Me and everyone I know (call them D&D geeks) that ever used the words succubus or incubus always used succubae or incubae. (Understand, I don’t use the term a lot in my day job doing IT)
According to Dictionary.com (and wikipedia) it is however succubi
However, some dictionaries do list succubae as an alternative plural. So somewhere along the line it must have snuck in.
I am sure it was in some dice based role playing game I played as a kid. Can’t say that it was Monster Manual (first edition) or Arduin or something like that.
I will be posting a proposed game plan before too long, but I am thinking of doing what I almost did anyway, and that is move the first big scened of book iii into book ii.
Specifically, you note that Hilda almost went to Murgatroy the second day, where she would likely have run into Jenn. That was a toss up; Jenn & friends are there for a couple days. I bumped hilda’s visit to the next day to move it after the party.
So Hilda shows up in Murgatroy where Jenn & Gastrope’ see her and she’s got to explain how she can just jump 2500 miles so quickly (considering they were booking along on the fastest ship they know of, and cheated by taking a runic gateway for a third of the journey.
Next, the astlanian’s and orcs need to go home, that means Tizzy pulling on Gastrope’s link to open a gateway…and out walks Damien, Vaselle, Edwyrd, Rupert, Tal Gor, Schwarzenfürze (who feasted the night before and may need to fart) as well as the other 3 orc shamans.
(or a similar combo)
Surprise, shock and freak out ensue.OK, I get the roller coaster over the top.
But now the deeper question of this plot line.
Is it that the mission, at this point seems a little “throw away” and to be fair, for J&G it is, they are being drug on an expedition to get them out of Freehold.
OR is it the characters themselves. Are they boring without Tom? Are they too one dimensional without him.
In this book, I don’t do a deep in character for Jenn. The only deep in character I really do for Gastrope’ is the stuff at the fort.
I do need the stuff at the fort to discover the link to Tizzy so I can pull Astlanian’s back after the party.
The cables, btw are mithral (quite light) and are guide cables only not pulling or moving.
But let me reread with this in mind.
Thanks!
I think it is technically correct, or tolerable, but reading it, even out of context, I don’t like the word choice. I think it can be said more in character/artfully.
Yeah that quote mark problem is one I dread, you just have to catch it by being very alert to context of paragraph.
It’s the sort of thing too easy to miss after you’ve read it X times since you think it’s right.
BTW With the () style corrections, as I’ve mentioned. I will be marking the post with a thanks once I’ve corrected in the text.
Hi,
OK, so talked to editor and she is able to slide back her time/readjust her schedule.
This is good because there are enough issues that we will need more time to address them to get things tightened up.
Of course this means a delay in publication for non-beta demons, but I’m more interested in getting it right (or as right as possible) than soon.
T-A-G
Hi,
That’s what it does…impressive? No.
You click and the “site” puts you in that group and some bit later the forum software resyncs with the site and voila the forums show up.
You are in that intersync region right now. Tells me the synch is at last 2 hours…
I’m going to force you in the forum copy of the group. Ding. Done.
You should be good to go.
T-A-G
I have pretty much cut out word limit 99% of sales are e-books.
So I can add another 90K words if I need to and the dead tree goes to 24.99 so that “extended distribution” sales don’t cost me money.
So I can add quite a bit.
The question is also in speeding up the first part, is that by adding/improving a story line or by cutting stuff? And if cutting what do with information that is important in cut scene….
Cool.
At one point I was going to have dialog between Lilith and Sentir Fallon on this, he doesn’t know about the corrupting influences. She does, and Aodh certainly does, because that’s a dividing line between Sidhe and Dok Sidhe.
And while Aodh knows this, he simply doesn’t care. His goal is to destroy his enemy, and all orcs.
And you bring up a good question, I’ve had.
If the book were longer, some of the “filler” like scenes fleshed out and if more came of them by the end; and we added more Tom to the first half (which admittedly–he’s in a cave waiting on people to regenerate–makes me scratch for something other than more conversations)
Would that make help?
Or do I need to escalate problems for Tom or others, faster.
You would think one should not have to explain the obvious…
but do you know how many people think decimated is a terrible thing? I mean they think it’s a terrible, huge, horrible, bad thing.
It’s a 10% casualty rate! In a serious war, that’s not that bad. You can’t maintain it, but measure the other guys casualty rate and compare.
Now of course, in the original context, decimation was a punishment that was carried out against an opposing army, rather than a casualty rate.
[i]However, I think your point is, this paragraph needs to be smoother, more natural, less pedantic.[/i]
You are correct!
Someone else said the same thing.
Particularly in that it doesn’t come to a good fruition point…yet…that can be easily fixed. We are just getting to a head at the end…extending into book iii might fix this.
I would also say that while this plot needs to happen a lot of the extra detail was there because numerous people have mentioned wanting to see more of the non-human races, and the Grove is basically a UN of other races.
A big part of that storyline is to setup later juxtaposition issues for Gastrope’ in particular. The Elves/Alvar are going to be very anti-Mount Doom. The dwarves are going to be more split and fairly pro-Mount Doom.
Then we have the Nyjyr Ennead and what their relationship to the Council and history is.
They are tied to Tom via Hephaestus who ties out somewhat as we are seeing at end of book iii.
So, yes I would agree this plotline needs a lot of work. [SPOILER]It’s also a place for Gastrope’ and Jenn to spend some downtime together to get to know each other. :)[/SPOILER]
But this is one of the problems of trying to produce a book every year, or short books every year as many have suggested. That time frame doesn’t really give the author much time to massage all the details and perfect the telling of a complex tale that’s going to take several books to tell. In fact short books in spurts makes this sort of planning almost impossible because once a section is published, you can’t change it.
This is part of why GRRM takes so long is working out all these details and presenting them in the right order at the right place.
The first book, I had years and years and years to work stuff out. I would run into a wall, pound pound, take sixth months off and come back to it with new ideas.
I am still not really happy with how some of how book 1 worked but, I figured, if I don’t go with it, it will never go.
So, obviously, not that much time to pound things out this time around.
So that’s a big part of the betas. Do some parallel brain processing using beta demons heads to accelerate the process.
And at what point did boredom come in the first time?
Too long a journey to the grove? To much time on the ship?
Was it the roller coaster ride that added the filler “feel” to it? I’m looking to narrow down on definable elements to fix/remove/adjust.
I say this because, while, I enjoyed writing it, it did seem a bit “Harry Potterish” or “Hobbit like”‘
Really not sure that it is particularly necessary. I have considered some condensation of that area. Or removal.
Here is the thing, I like Gastrope’ worry about his own problems/issues with debts. to me it makes him seems to humanize him.
Not so sure about some of the other trip/coaster and Fierdal bridge.
