Hmm how many? All of them. But one particular act may extend along multiple volumes.

For example, Fire's current story, "Act I" is everything from the beginning to the point where she's with the Uranians and realizes she's going to have to go on this mission. So that's currently all of Book 1 and half of Book 2.

Within this "Act I" and several smaller Act I-II-III groupings. such as "Begin Auction - Secure bee - Escape Auction"

Q: Too long?

This is hard to answer, but I can definitely say I don't feel the length of a book, but rather the strength of the reward for reading the ending. In this sense, Han Solo vs Kylo Ren ending left me unsatisfied. Unrewarded. And one may make a counter-point that sometimes life is random like that, and not every death has meaning, but I would argue this should have meant more and rewarded more. It wasn't far from the death of Superman or Optimus Prime, (both of which the companies chose to walk back but Disney decided to plough forward).

If the reward is great enough, no length is really too much.

consider to be the end of act one/beginning of act two

I have trouble dividing the acts unless I reach the end.

(I imagine you face the same dilemma if you tried to split Laurie's journey in the ship right now. You know she goes to town on the crew in the third act, but where exactly did Act I end and give way to Act II? I checked my notes. Formally, Act II starts in chapter 20 when Laurie commits on a course of action. A purist would say her first commit is much earlier, probably around the introduction of Alice where the journey-story changes direction to survival-story)

For yours, I can guess Act I culminates the destruction of Joseph's homeworld, but not knowing now much story comes after that, I could be way off.

My concept of "too long" is really how many disparate elements I need to track over how long a period. As long as there is character growth, I'm usually along for the ride.

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

Yes. Sometimes I forget it's up there and lose my own posts

3

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

Bc my postis hidden in the stickies. Can Dirk or Sol unsticky it?

4

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

So I face this weird problem where Dirk mentioned my characters mis-quoted the verse count in Deuteronomy.
I checked a random online bible and my French version: Both have 69 verses. Eng KJV: 68 verses. Some online KJVs differ

68's:
This NIV has 68: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s … ersion=NIV (Their KJV version also 68)
MIT: https://web.mit.edu/jywang/www/cef/Bibl … UT+28.html

69's:
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/D … %2028%3A69
https://www.sefaria.org/Deuteronomy.28. … p;aliyot=0

I feel there is no one choice I can make that half the readers don't trip up


Edit: It's the spot with all the curses promised to sinners, and we learn here that due to the android massacre if the Antiquties, the world has added few more curses to the end such as don't sleep with an android etc. This will be extremely important later on, so the particular chapter is perfect for my needs, though I could theoretically just invent a new "chapter 28.5"

5

(13 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

MS Image-generator belched it up. Took a few rounds of prompts and misadventures

6

(13 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Sort of unrelated, but I popped a pretty good cover from AI. Won't be using it in the final product, but interesting what the machine saw from a few simple prompts

https://www.thenextbigwriter.com/uploads/postings/2024/10/vqf-v7-1728923994_230x230.jpg

7

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

I decided to go back-fill the old chapters leading up to the ship. Please ignore

More moving parts might not be a good thing

9

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

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigatio … 024-09-26/

"Laser sword" should be next

If he can't sit around, interesting thought. As closer to the Jew side of the spectrum, the lake of fire is instantaneous (read: little suffering). If I understand Catholicism, it's perpetual suffering (read: torture)

Also, Satan's spirit has very little power to manipulate the physical realm

In this state, does the nature of his environmental condition (eg cold / hot) bother him? Can he sit around for ten thousand years and wait for colonists to show up so he can make a new body?

Wouldn't Satan build a spaceship and come back? I mean super genius with time on his hands...

If Romano in the real timeline sins but this one does not, does he still get into heaven?

If both are perfect, do they both get to heaven? Or are there separate heavens for them to go to?

Another option is stray from the Bible. I mean, wait, isn't Revelation inerrant? Or is it interpretive? (https://www.missioalliance.org/why-bibl … esnt-work/)

Furthermore, God may simply change his mind like he did after the Flood or in the inception of the NT to replace the OT. Who's to say there won't be some newer testament (3T) down the road?

What I mean is, you're not necessarily shackled to the scripture if you have to make an alternate timeline anyway.

In my main series, when K@jo gets into the angels story-world, he immediately looks up God and challenges him to chess, figuring if he can hold his own against the creator of the universe for a few dozen moves, he's on good footing. God proceeds to trounce him in a 1-move checkmate, the impossibility of which turns the board into a thermonuclear chain reaction.

Noting this. Omnipotence is also hard to write

Problem is, that makes God responsible for the conspiracy and all pain and suffering that stems from it.

Or at least as culpable as the pain & suffering in Job's life. I mean Job got a happy ending, but those sons and daughters that got killed in the process probably weren't as enthused.

17

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

They're near the end of reading, and I fear the fate of yet another draft has been ascertained. Pity. I thought this one was finally headed out the door.

If I can stick to a firm One-chapter-a-day, it'll take about a month. But I really want to be working on my angel story. Choices, choices.

Omniscience can be defeated. Perfect omniscience is much harder.

Pick a different challenge. I, the Holy Spirit, will know who ultimately wins, but the Father no longer will, and he already accepted the challenge

When he accepted the challenge, he already knew the Holy Spirit would wall him off shortly after. He also knew Satan would change his pick, and he knew what the new choice would be

(Emphasis mine)

Dirk B wrote:

Somehow God already has the ability to do this as I noted above, even though we puny mortals aren't sure how.
...
I don't think I need anyone to explain how it's possible, just observe that God already does this.

Clarification to this: I wasn't saying it is impossible for him to do it. I was saying that the moment he does so, it means he's determined this is a successful outcome

Had you agreed back then and then now fail, you were never omniscient in the first place.

Once God agrees, he basically instantly wins (or is imperfect and failed to predict the outcome)

Now the inverse from the villain's perspective:

See, in Narnia, when the lion agrees the villain can go ahead and murder him, it's kinda ludicrous. Who would agree to be murdered?

Any villain worth his evil cackle immediately suspects something's wrong.

Alas, the witch does not, and proceeds to kill the lion, triggering the good guy's trap

You have a job interview tomorrow, and your omniscience tells you you got the job. You know if you don't get the job, you'll be shot.

Next day, you find you have blocked off memories of the outcome.

Now, you don't particularly want to get shot, so although you no longer know the outcome, you realize you wouldn't have agreed to an outcome where that was a possibility. It follows that you had agreed to it knowing back then you were going to succeed.

Had you agreed back then and then now fail, you were never omniscient in the first place.

It's the solution where God agrees to forget. The very agreement concedes success much as it does in Chronicles of Narnia I

Unfortunately, this solution creates a plot hole in a plot hole. Maybe you can just brush over it instead?