You've churned a high page count in a short time

Edit: Do continuity hops if you have to. "In this chapter the police have special suits they didn't have before" that way you can measure if it's worth adding to the rewrite later on

ok... given that info, if you're canvassing for opinions mine is leave as is and finish writing the first draft.

What does the story benefit from the change?

305

(17 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

I would recommend you have windows (from outside) only at the top floor

Then Ukee's explanation requires less geometry:
Ukee: How many windows do you see?
Others: One row at the top
Ukee: And you have a window in your suite. Do you live at the top?
Others: ...

this simplification drops the requirement of counting steps

306

(17 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Tower Window issue?
http://www.skyfire.ca/kwan/tnbw/5thFloorWindow.jpg

From inside you can see out from the fourth floor. From outside you cannot see a fourth floor window?

307

(17 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Frost & Charcoal hair?
http://www.skyfire.ca/kwan/tnbw/Frost_And_Charcoal.jpg

I have little of use for you... partly as I noted because the details aren't consistent (I realize this is deliberate) and also because I can't fathom the structure.

For example, I tagged that I'm confounded by DeRosa's dwelling on the internal motives of the plainsclothes cop, but I might read something 3 chapters from now that explains the purpose of it. Anything you can do to write to the end will help me give you reviews meaningful to the plot you're building. Otherwise, I'll ask you questions that bury you in rewrites for the next quarter century

309

(16 replies, posted in Close friends)

Thanks for delete. I've learned these past few months to obfuscate the names (eg J3nna) to keep the google monster away. "Project L" and "Project  R" are named this way so I don't have to be so careful, though I don't expect any trouble because their haracter names are kind of common.

In one hilarious circumstance, tnbw used to come up first in a google search, ahead even of amazon. It took me 3 months to get google to "forget" this. I bet I can still drag up the links if I try but I don't want to remind it.

310

(17 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

re the missing letter, you have 3. That's it. If you write 'A, B, C, ...' my brain turns the remainder into <blah>. I couldn't find the Q if you asked me to.

This is an unusual paragraph. I’m curious as to just how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it. It looks so ordinary and plain that you would think nothing was wrong with it. In fact, nothing is wrong with it! It is highly unusual though. Study it and think about it, but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit, you might find out. Try to do so without any coaching.

See the above riddle? My brain cannot solve this kind of thing.

I highly recommend Butlerian Jihad. I was impressed enough to get them in hardcover. The ending /is/ forced though. Ugly forced. Like we've written ourselves into a box and have to cheap our way out forced. But there's a tie-in to House Atreides, which is a nice bonus.

Interesting that they felt the need to patch the original ending. Wonder if the Sr. is about to come back as a ghost and berate the Jr.

I view it as the worst of the originals... find reading it even more of a chore than book 1 reading a detailed description of a desert

Emperor's return kinda follows the books tho

Yes distancing from "it may be supernatural" to "It almost certainly is"

Checked it... don't have enough to get points off a review because my brain's too crusty for me to be sure of differences (I was "did she have a  cat? I'm not sure??") but it looked like a significant distancing from the original "it may be supernatural" premise

I vaguely a (windsurfing?) scene in the /other/ books and recall thinking to myself how little I could imagine the original cast having a relaxing windsurf. Really stood out to me - can't even remember which book it was but it stood out that much.

Vaguely recalls of Star Wars where we take 15 minutes off the action to show Anakin riding buffalo-like creatures while he falls in love, and I was thinking aw geez, Luke never got a vacation amounting to 10% of the show time to ride a buffalo

...need to be murders before Connor leaves ... so that Connor can be fully ruled out as a suspect.
>As stated elsewhere, Connor can be in two places at once (via miracles he's capable of)

Four total seemed like a reasonable number.
>Honestly, one is enough

>He may be ruled out anyway since he's only 175 cm tall while the killer is 185 cm.
>Same problem. What's to keep him from growing 10cm when he's in a bloodlust?

some mystery about how the Antichrist is able to kill in Rome and the Holy Land at virtually the same time
>some mystery about how [Connor] is able to kill in Rome and the Holy Land at virtually the same time
(I fixed your text for you)

Q: Do you /have/ to kill 3 cardinals?

I mean, could it be one cardinal, then a high-speed chase complete with Fast-and-Furious vehicular stunts, then a 2nd cardinal? Why specifically cardinals?

I mean, if it  were say 1 bishop, 5 lay-betheren, 1 poor altar boy and a cheerleader, maybe all of Rome doesn't have to know because there's a holy day coming up and the church is fighting media speculation that the Vatican is unsafe. By choosing so high up the ladder, have you built yourself a bed of nail to sleep on?

re because Herbert needed her for story purposes

Herbert would probably agree with you, but I' debate this point if I could. I'd suggest he feed her to the sandworms. For funner that way

Reminds me that it's been so long since I last read it cover-to-cover that I don't remember why the Emperor even brought Irulan with him (allowing her to get claimed as spoil)

instead of Martin Luther, perhaps "Batman". Less political

What Mlle Gacèlle said above. Narrator must establish himself as subjective. The earlier the better.

Adding. CJ's story can get away with this easier than yours because your genre requires your narrator to stay objective. Imagine a CSI: NY story:

Mary looked guilty.
or
Mary gave a guilty look.
or
Mary fingered her purse guiltily.

Right here, even if Mary is not guilty of the crime at hand, she is assuredly guilty of something because the narrator asserts certainity. This is extremely important because if we find out Mary is not guilty (not even of cheating on her taxes or double-dipping at last night's work party), the writer has cheated us. I dare say, it is required of the writer to reveal at some point "Mary is innocent of the crime at hand, but here's why she was acting guilty" -OR- work really hard on a judgemental-subjective narrator who the reader is convinced may be wrong on several points. In so doing, Mary's innocence causes the reader to go "aha, I knew the narrator was wrong"

Again, my example with Mary is significant in a crime story where tiny clues are meant to help the reader ascertain fact. In another genre, it would probably matter less.

You assume that was Alia talking (and not, say, the Baron, as we know from Book III)

Absolutely can be made to work, but not every narrator can pull it off. You'll want to use a highly subjective one to achieve this without getting called on for animate/conscious smiles.