Search options (Page 47 of 76)

FYI, I've joined the superhero origins contest in my quest to see how much beer the prize money can buy. It's short. Only about 750 words. Anyone willing to take a peek for me so I can make it better?

(Dangles carrot.  K, it has powers in it!)

I'm sooooo confused! I missed the point but be free to let me in on the joke. Nothing is more funny than laughing at me. Truth :-)

(crickets chirping:-)

Maybe I'll wear you down someday but I doubt it:-)

M doesn't strike me as a younger child. Anthony does. M has been set up as the disciplinarian. The one who pays his debts to those who nurtured him. The one who follows his head rather than his heart. (Quite similar to Catherine, BTW.) I would expect him to be contained. Controlled. Lust is something that he understands since he has been 'trained' by various serving wenches and an occasional dalliance with a woman in town (maybe a rich widow who lives in town but is below his station.)

If his first marriage was loveless, he would think of the nobility as someone to marry and bear his children, rather than someone to love. (maybe equating lust as the same thing) He would be very loyal to his mistresses, even if they weren't active in his life. Then C comes along and turns everything upside down.  She is nobility AND a love interest. A dangerous and new combination. C's barren history would also play into the mix. He has no children and she can't give him any. That means that a dalliance would be for only sex, since their union can't produce an heir. An affair isn't something he would think of right away.

He knows what he wants and what he likes. She is all of those things. However, her status as a peer makes her VERY dangerous. If scorned, she can ruin his reputation as well as his prospects for a viable wife. (not that he expects that, but it could still happen)  The fact that he used to protect her (a bond he promised to both his and her father) is another residual from their past, and a promise he still needs to keep. (especially since the death of C's father in a raid where M failed to protect his mentor)

As to the previous marriage thing, I can't see him NOT having been married. It's just that she died in childbirth and he hasn't found another woman yet. He has to be around 25 to 30 years old. In this world, he has to produce an heir before he dies. (What was the life expectancy of someone who is skilled in battle?  How old did people live in that time?  I can't see it being older than 50 or so. If he wants to live to see his son grown and married, stable, and ensconced in his station, then M needs to get busy. His internal clock is ticking.

And the barren thing has to be something he considers instead of just C.

Have I helped you get in M's brain?  Hope so!

A

I think your first complication is the requirement that the chapter be written, "A certain way."  I've found that when I have a block, I force myself to write through it, roughing out the scenes and dialogue, despite the fact I'm unhappy with it. Then I have a written outline to expand on later. That way, your readers will get a chance to know what happens instead of being reluctant to skip over and start again. 

I would post it and see if anyone can give you ideas to get past this block. Why make it hard when you have help available?

I can't get over the rodeo kids with sheep:-)

There needs to be more mention of the raid that killed C's father earlier in this book. Make it a reason C hasn't seen M for eight years. That way, it comes up sooner

The only thing that might help with this is a list of who exists in this world. That way, we have a chance to know who it ISN'T.

I'm jealous. Right now, I'm cleaning and peeping my downstairs apartment for rental. Boo-rah.

I rest my case. Linear thinkers. The question is: NJC, do you want to have non-Linear thinkers reading your book? Or are you willing to sell it to the masses? You aren't dumbing down anything by making concessions to reading style. You're learning how to communicate with people who don't think like you.

Insatiates. That is close. People who are controlled by their base desires and what the Defiler can give them...

Hmmm

We are all in good company.

NJC, you know my opinion about the names. Your changes only make me think, "G name. Definitely a woman. Two out of three are kids, so statistically, I can assume one of the kids is being referenced."

I think this has to do with my patterning.  I work with a lot of linear thinkers at work (i.e. men). Logical thinkers who follow logical chains of thought. I also work with two who have nearly photographic memories. Keeping up with them is a bitch.  (Especially when I was new at this.)  However, I think in circles, gathering my information from multiple sources, and finding two or three answers instead of the approved one.

This makes me really good at diagnostics because I think outside the regular train of thought. I also read CT scans better than my attendings because I can discard normal and pick out the weird thing instead of being confused by the chaff.

I learned how to think like my coworkers, but it fades away when I'm tired. Mostly, I fake linear organization as a survival mechanism.

So, what I'm saying (in my circular roundabout way) is that don't worry what I think about the names. I will continue to be confused by them because I gloss over the name and read the content after it.  That is why K's trick of choosing names with a different first letter works well for me.