Don't do that then!
I'd love to... but the underlying discussion spills over into every other thread on there.
Once this fervour dies down, eventually there will be a new post about some other topic such as the colour of the sky to a colour-blind person, and all the same people will pile in there and continue their existing literary flame war in it. It means I must abandon every thread I'm following.
Basically, this war is gobbling the entire group of 12K people.
Every time I read a new post in Sneaked vs snuck, I lose a few brain cells
$100 is a total rip-off. Signed the guy in the GTA
The caps gives it more formality (more mocking) but I suspect either form is reasonable as long as it's consistent.
In particular, the caps implies someone famous carried this epithet before. Consider:
Hurry up, twinkle-toes
Hurry up, Twinkle-toes
(the latter being a Flintstone comparison)
bzzt!
And then, thinking back to my previous series... I have tons and tons of ranks.
Electron ranks go from electrokinetic->Lightning/Kinetic-Lightning->Elika->Namika->Nuclearkinetic (Each of these ranks can take "minor" or "arch" eg Minor-Elika or Arch-Namika).
Proton ranks Deputy->Sheriff->Lieutenant->General->Telika.
Telepaths rank themselves with a number representing how far they can reach + a division (projection / empathy / biopathy / placing / etc)
and there are many many more.
And I'm thinking about Book 6 and less than 10% of my ranks appear. The only ranks you see in book 6 are the ranks that matter to the characters. For example, [S t r a d i n] is technically a Minor Namika, but J calls him Namika. It's not relevant to her which kind he is because as far as she's concerned, he has all the properties of a normal Namika. She never refers to [K w a n] by her telepathic designation of "projection rank i". The term never appears in books 5 or 6. It exists in the story, but it's never so critical that J needs to mention it.
ok... back to yours. I ask of you... how important are the ranks? Which do you really *need*? Of course in a first draft use "lieutenant corporal". But in a second draft, maybe that guy is just a lieutenant or just a corporal. In a 3rd draft, maybe he's just "a leader baddie who wants to beat up the good guys".
Ideally the ranks are so unobtrusive that the story can remain dominant.
Here are some random questions to demonstrate what I mean:
a) In Seabrass's story, Tammon's rank/title is "Cityseer". Can you name the rank of Mawk?
b) Before the term "battle droid" was coined in 1990, how many classes of droid did Star Wars have?
c) Aside from "Prime" name at least 3 ranks of autobot.
(okay (c) is me cheating)
d) Aside from "dinobot" and "triple changer" name 3 classes of autobot.
PS: Classiarii and legionarii didn't throw me. I mentally re-assign them as "military guy carrying gun". Therefore no complaint. A 3rd, 4th, and 5th group merely joins this existing classification. Again, no complaint. UNLESS all five are in the same paragraph.
Well... take my thoughts with a grain of salt because I was confusing legionarii and classiarii (and still can't keep them straight).
Adding more divisions and ranks will only make me more lost. Thus, you must choose between "fresh" readers and readers with a good command of latin. I see no major issue with any option as long as you know your readiability going in, and provide sufficient explanations to handle it.
-K
Due to storyline complexity, I suggest converting that underground abandoned city into an ant mound. You could tie it into your existing ants, and then you could say "cavern wall" and "ducked under a stalactite" etc instead of introducing flat walls at this point.
That city you depicted... you could probably spend about 4 pages describing it and still parts would be unclear. I suspect it's not that important to the overall story, so instead of leaving some readers confused about the stage, why not normalize it to the previous chapters?
I suggest cutting it (rather than try to render it better) because I'm never 100% sure if it's "day" or "night" or if the characters can see the sun. I'm never sure of the flora and fauna (especially with respect to broad-leaf plants). Sometimes a "drop-off" is mentioned and I can't picture how big or wide or deep. This stuff could use more fluffing out next pass. The city? Not so much if it can be normalized.
Trump won.
The end.
*collects prize money*
You dont want to renew right now? Yeh... basic doesn't have a lot of power afaik
What do they generally prescribe for you against the infection?
Dryden?
Ron Carlson's Alphabet Exercise: Write a short story of 26 sentences, the first beginning with A, the second with B, and so on.
Soo many Xylophone stories!
- I'm not surprised that you think Joseph is ambling along. He's caught up in a whirlwind that tosses him from one place to another (cadet massacre, Central Haven riot, slavery, prison, battle, etc.). However, he believes it's all part of God's plan and doesn't question how insane his actions are until his crisis of faith.
Interestingly, this is the most common complaint K w a n has drawn from the market - that she doesn't take enough of an active role in her own destiny. And it's very true. As one reader put it, "things happen to her".
- Apollo scheming? Apollo is also caught up in events beyond his crontrol. In his case, he's fighting God every step of the way, and the more he does, the more he fails. Only when he grows a pair and follows God is he able to gain control.
Usually it's the character who's willing to fight who gets our attention. The chance-takers - the gamblers who put their necks out to hire assassins in a cause they believe is right.
- I agree that Apollo's arc is more dramatic. I'll see if I can further amp up the tension in Joseph's chapter.
I don't believe that's possible within the desired structure. I also don't believe it's warranted. I did not suffer a disconnect between the two stories (Sorry, Amy). My disconnect, as you know,was Caligula.
You must picture Caligula as a character the writer finds interesting, but always remember he was not a sell character. As such, he must work that much harder to earn our pathos.
Think of him like my Marsha McKnight: a) absolutely essential to the plot b) 100% replaceable
(in my case by David McKnight and in your case by Apollo's little-used brothers)
Your unenviable task is to get me to feel one way or the other about him. You don't want me neutral on this guy. I should either love him or hate him so much, I want Apollo to kill him just to wipe the smirk off his face. There are a bazillion ways to accomplish the former, but having him kill Adam and Eve is a good start. Bonus points if he's despicable. Shooting tied up, helpless opponents is a good way to harvest those points (Joseph, I'm looking at you shooting a guy in handcuffs).
- As I mentioned in my response to Amy, Act II needs work. There isn't enough animosity between the MCs, fur flying, etc. I do have to stop a couple of times in the book to actually allow Joseph to define the Christian Heresy, beginning with the New Commandments, which slows the pace. His thoughts that lead him to unify the Essence, reincarnation, and evolution need trimming, but I think they're more interesting than the commandments.
This is the basic premise of the story. Why are you trimming that part?
- Is the end of Act II the neutral phase you refer to? If so, I'm confused, because that's where both the queen and emperor die. Most of Act II drags, except for the deaths at the end. Acts I & II need quite a bit of rewriting.
Remember Star Wars New Hope when Palpatine abolished the Senate? How his guards gunned down the senators and he rose, cackling with glee to accept his throne? No? Oh... it happened off camera.
- The introduction of a smart, scheming Caligula was too good to pass up
Agreed
. His scheme mirrors that of the Imperium's founder, which is a nice connection. I also needed a chapter from his point of view in order to hide the surprise that Apollo is still alive. .
Why hide it?
Writer: "Bob felt something brush his cheek"
Me: Is this a shard of metal? A fingertip? A tree branch? You kinda know this stuff even if its dark.
Writer: Oh, I don't want to say yet. It's for suspense.
So I ask of you... is there a benefit I'm not seeing to hiding a major character?
- The cult will truly go nowhere in book one.
Sure... as long as it was intentional and not an oversight, I'm down
- Personally, I found the lightsaber duel with Palpatine very enjoyable, were it not for the fact that Yoda looks CGI. The emperor hurling pods down at Yoda and cackling was fun. And who doesn't love Force lightning? The stupid leaping about by the CGI Yoda was a bore. I digress...
I needed more build to that to make me remotely interested. I would have liked to see a 10-15 minute sololiquy from Yoda about how he hates Palpatine for killing his puppy or something. It was literally two randoms going at it with lightsabers for me. All the magic / personability / pathos-driving of Expendables II but with half the action.
- I agree that Apollo should continue to fear discovery, although it's going to get tedious at some point. There's only so many ways I can shake an arm. Amy's idea of having them mumble their dialogue with God is a good one.
Stage 3:
After the mumbling stage he should start to see furtive mevements from the car of his eye. When he randonly turns to look, people are staring at him quizzically. He's not sure if they're doing it to unnerve him. He finds muddy footprints in his room when he wakes up. Security assures him no one was in there. He starts imagining Aphrodite is cheating on him. He can suddenly no longer write straight - he hires a scribe.
Stage 4:
He starts to worry about poison (specifically of the exploding bowel nature). Hires a tate tester. Hires a second backup tester. Aphrodite grows distant. He thinks it's a conspiracy. He randomly has her arrested and searched for evidence (comes up empty-handed). Good time to throw in an exploding car bomb from the Heresy.
Need more? Amy and Seabrass are also good at this.
PS: Joseph needs a burning bush encounter. It's kind of a Judaic staple.
Sounds like a bit of excessive force
Seems like a fine length to me
Release the emus!
that would be like trying to ignore the sun
Ordinary girl learns to cook and sew
*Rolls on mythical traits for NPC table*
97: Maya was an otherwise normal girl who loved pastures and dragons until the day she learned she was secretly a unicorn polymorphed into a human be the evil wizard Bartluxu. She must now make a choice between returning to he equine life of forging a new home as a human"
*rolls again*
33: Maya always wanted to be a shoemaker. It would be her undoing to learn that the BBEG was a cobbler in his youth and held secrets of shoe-making she desperately craved
*** Spoiler Alert***
Your early concept is a kind of "is this voice real?" or a "which of these two characters is mad". This concept is interesting enough by itself, but as events unfold, the boys head down different paths with Apollo scheming, and Joseph kind of ambling along. This makes Apollo the more interesting of the two (in terms of drama) if we shall liken Apollo to MacBeth (willing to murder to gain the throne) and Joseph to Hamlet (willing to spend Act II waltzing where Claudius and Ophelia think he should dance).
From this point, we enter a “neutral” phase where political machinations develop that will help bring about the ending, and new characters are introduced.
After this phase, Apollo goes back to plotting and signs of madness increase. To hide the signs from his political enemies, Apollo is willing to disfigure himself. Joseph gets into prison and starts a cult dedicated to a voice in his head.
Introduce Caligula who will steal the spotlight. Drop the descent into signs of madness, introduce battle chess. Caligula loses, the boys are friends, there is no madness, there is no cult and what cult there was is irrelevant. The End.
PS: A world got blown up that we never really met and everyone is sad about it.
Now here’s where I draw the connection to A Beautiful Mind. If you think about it, the story begin-middle-ending never loses track of the main character and stays on its theme. Mind you, it has an easier time because it marries its central theme and stays there.
I’m not eagerly turning the page to find out how well Darth Maul is doing in Star Wars. I want to know how well the good guys are doing against Darth Maul. Ergo, in the battle of Darth Maul vs random monster, it is important to arrive at the conclusion of the battle quickly so he might go on to face a “sell character”.
The “sell character”... this guy should be drinking in the spotlight. I’m on everyone’s back about bringing out the sell character(s), so don’t feel sad. Whenever your sell character is not on the page, you risk your reader escaping. The danger of reader-leak increases the longer your sell characters are gone.
A digression: The easiest way to bring out your sell character is to remove unnecessary frill characters around him. You see this in A Beautiful Mind which has 13 names for the entire story. This is really low, and an exercise in cast control. I’ve seen stories hit this number by chapter 1. It’s an unrealistic goal for your story which is bigger and affects more lives and more planets, but I just wanted to point out one of the techniques it uses to focus the spotlight.
[End-digression] The final battle is missing its sell character. Permit me to reach into your structure and suggest it shouldn’t be Caligula vs Realm. It should be Apollo vs Caligula or Apollo vs Realm. I think a perfect use case is that you have Apollo in the flag ship with Caligula in the other half of the Imperial fleet. Caligula defects mid-battle and it turns into a 3-way fight. Apollo loses his ship and you can do the space thing.
Again, why am I suggesting Apollo needs to figure larger in the main battle? You don’t want your story to climax on two non-sell characters (Caligula vs Realm). Someone needed to tell Lucas this too. One of his staffers should have been brave enough to ask the hard question: Does anyone care about a Yoda-vs-Palpatine fight?
I would recommend you don’t shelf Apollo and allow him to consume any bit of page Joseph isn’t using. I would suggest you don’t lose the tension of Apollo’s fear of discovery. That’s an excellent trick you don’t see often enough in fiction. Ride that horse until the final page like it’s a young colt that needs breaking in.
*Or... if you want this structure... sell Caligula from the start. Make him conflicted with his need for power vs his need for sobriety and inability to stick to one plan. Have him clash with Apollo on must more than the wrestling mat. Personally, I don’t recommend a trinary focus in any story, but I’ve seen it sort of work.
So, overall, I’m calling for more cohesion, a stronger central theme, an ending that services that theme, and more Apollo / Joseph
Your phone contains a horror
I'm still planning the rest of v3.
For those who read v2, what changes would make the story more enjoyable and compelling? Also what bored you the most? Hammer me on that point, please. Finally, what do you think about the two MCs, and what would make them more interesting?
Thanks!
Dirk
Go rewatch a beautiful mind and ask me this again
Send you two replies on your chapter 37 and 38
Hey ya'll. I'd love a roll with some honey butter.
so... a baked ball of controlled fungus with bee vomit and a cow's fat-based mucus
It explains SO much.
You whippersnappers and your rolls
