When Jaylene's company meets Zylph (try Zylpf or Zlypf), it's rough on Tazar. Does his submission reveal anything new? Does it herald a change for better or worse? Is it a chance to show 'Petra' either afraid for herself or overconfident? Or to sneer (however softly) at Tazar, a threat she can't control?
Can 'Petra' damage a Sharing?
Why drop Earthwound? It seems like the precipitating event for the whole story, it links Kha and Jaylene, and the losses (of friends, health, and maybe power) are what's driving Kha right now. What the Alina/Kat issue is for Anver, the losses can be for Kha. Okay, maybe not quite the same--but they can fill the same hole.
Marion is another fascinating character. Can you use backstory/history in the start of the story?
Here's the question that I think you need to ask at the start: What is driving Kha? What inner events? What outer events? What does he seek? (Does he know?) What would answer his need?
What is Kha's journey? Given the character as he practically must exist, there are internal and external journeys. He has to go from the Mage whose inner needs drive him from his Guildhouse home and job to the Mage who comes back and joins Anver in the Chronomancer's quarters.
Try answering these questions in short summary form.
As long as Airen is part of the story and a vivid character, this will be at least in part a Character story about Kha.
OF COURSE this has to mesh, zipperlike, with the adventures. Does the attempt on his life make him value it? Does the attempt on Sil's life make him value it more?
Don't soften Airen too much.
If you haven't, get a copy of The Secrets of Story and read the sections on Character(s).
Okay, IMO and YMMV. Except that study assignment.
On reflection, and rereading =The Secrets of Story=, the following occur to me:
Primus, that the great strength of =Acts= is that multiple problems and subgoals branch and rejoin.
Secundus, that the weakness of =Dictates= is that we follow a single jeopardy/quest thread all the way through. (What if there were intimations that the problems had followed them into the Catacombs, and worries that the newly freed Taken were Part of The Problem?)
Tertius, that the problem with Mandates is that we don't have a strong enough reason for Kha to go on his journey, nor a sense of pieces coming together to create a new alignment apart frm Kha and Sil. (And that part is brilliant. PLEASE try not to sacrifice it.) A shortened version of Kha's scene with his old friend telling the story might help, if you show us Kha recalling, against his will, what he has lost.
Of course, I'm finding similar hard questions for my owm story.
Is the PoV character observing or analyzing? Or both? Is she creating a report?
Is this paragraph about the battle, or about her reaction to it? Without context, I assumed the former.
njc wrote:Do not mistake copulas and the progressive tenses for passive voice.
Agreed. I used to get reviews suggesting I remove all instances of "was." ALL OF THEM. Progressive tense has its purpose. It would be absurd to eliminate every "was." I can't imagine a reputable editor suggesting such a thing.
However high school and college teachers have sometimes demanded that, in stories that chill the writer's marrow and drive to fury those walking fossils who learned actual grammar in high school.
Do not mistake copulas and the progressive tenses for passive voice.
Rather than show versus tell, I'd point to 'in response' and 'umdaunted', which are narrator's thoughts intruding on the stream of action. It would be perfectly proper in a report of the battle, but might take away from a story about the battle.
Just find them on a map. Oh, and it's not just the 8th streets. Go look over the grids.
... I don't recall anything in Brooklyn, but I never went very far there.
Brooklyn Botanical Garden, more or less adjacent to Prospect Park (which was done by the same F. L. Olmstead who did Central Park). And there is a zoo in Brooklyn: the Coney Island Aquarium, which has a station on the Brighton Beach and Culver lines (West 8th Street, Q and F) one station away from the Stillwell Avenue double-ended 'terminal'.
Remember, Brooklyn has enough street grids for several cities. There's 8th street (one grid), North 8th Street and South 8th Street (in Williamsburg), East 8th Street and West 8th Street (between Prospect Park and Coney Island/Lower NY Harbor), Bay 8th Street (in Bath Beach), Brighton 8th Street (in Brighton Beach, part of Coney Island), Brighton 8th Place and Brighton 8th Lane (pedestrian-only alleys near Brighton 8th Street), Paerdegat 8th Street (off Paerdegat Basin) and Flatlands 8th Street (in Canarsie, not Flatlands, off the basin called Fresh Creek).
There's also an 8th Avenue in Brooklyn.
During the Levittown era, a developer created a community a little past the city line to lure people from Brooklyn. It is called Lynbrook.
There actually is an 8th Street on Staten Island, too, in New Dorp.
Queens has a very short 8th Street, east/south of Hallet's point.
Manhattan, of course, has East 8th Street and West 8th Street.
The Bronx does NOT have an 8th Street. In the days before the five boroughs were unified into one city, the Bronx was part of Manhattan for a while. There was an attempt to align the street grids of Manhattan Island and the mainland part of Manhattan, which has left a massive scar on the Bronx grid.
Just reread the first few chapters of =The Secrets of Story=. I've got my teeth a bit deeper into it now.
That's the Circle Line. They have a number of different cruises now. See their website; see WikiP for the Staten Island Ferry. The MTA should have a website on the SIRT, which should be a low-stress ride. (Heere: http://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/SIRT_Stat … d_Transit)
For Manhattan, there are a huge number of sightseeing buses. Some of them allow you to hop on and off wherever you like.
Amy, when it comes to NYC do not forget the water.
The Circle line still runs sightseeing cruises around Manhattan. The Staten Island Ferry is a NY landmark of sorts, as well as a vital part of the daily commute for several hundred thousand people daily. On the other side of the ride you have the sleepy Staten Island Rapid Transit (SIRT) which has such limited rail connection off island that its cars are carried over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge on trucks. (The carbodies are separated from their wheel/motor assemblies, also called 'trucks' because of the weight of each part.)
The SIRT runs almost completely in open cuts and on embankments. ('Sleepy' doesn't apply during rush hour.)
The Staten Island end of the ferry is also adjacent to a stadium for a NY Yankees minor league team.
The Circle Line also runs the old Day Line, a daylong excursion up the Hudson. They used to have a steam-powered sidewheeler whose engine spaces were visible to the passengers. I'm pretty sure that ship has been retired, which is a pity.
One caution: Ships' horns/whistles are LOUD, as in drop-to-your-knees loud, though you only get the brunt of it if you are abovedecks near the bow.
Pausonallie sorcelled a yellow light. She held it before her like a candle...
...A bright spot appeared in front of them ...
...In the sunlight, Merran saw that ...What's happened here is when the bright spot appears, I reach the end of the paragraph with no explanation. I'm now free to make one up, and I'm going to assume the most logical thing: They're using magic to make spots appear. In this case, I'm not naturally going to connect a bright spot to sunlight. Can you find a way to indicate they went outside?
They're not outside yet. Light from the outside comes through the lower tunnel and lights the bottom of the stairway.
Okay, working on it.
Minor retcon to The Garden of End and Beginning. Working on the next two chapters, one of which is out there, needng edits. I'll probably lop the last few paragraphs off to start the following chapter.
Anent Rebecca's review: I think your ending is just right. It opens the Oh S**t valve as the curtain drops.
Wikipedia has a bunch of good articles and photos. Expect to climb stairs.
Consider the A train out to the Rockaways. Not much at the end, but you pass sections of NYC that look like New England fishing villages.
Tourette Park
Check out talk-polywell.org for a fusion concept.
Depends on the jet engine. And over the last 30+ years, there have been HUGE reductions in jet engine noise output.
The subway noise has no doubt been improved ... but how much, and where, I can't say, not having ridden those lines in years. Give me some warmimg and I'll try to gather data for you.
In the meantime, check out the online referenced I gave you.
Turret
You can make your little cold fusion do whatever your heart desires. It can read Shakespeare or sing Pink Floyd , if you deem that desireable.
I suspect that not many rock concerts reach the spl numbers you get on the local platform when an express roars through on the Brooklyn Fourth Avenue line. New cars, welded rails, wheel maintenance, and sound-absorbing panels are probably helping, but I'll be surprised if it stays under 120 dB. Protectors help, but they don't block sound through the body.
The USA has enough oil available now that there would be no point in going after their oil. Russia or China might. But the Iraqi army is honing itself against ISIS, and doing well, so they might be able to bloody an invader badly.
I suggested the Stilwell Avenue/Coney Island station because it's above grade with a modern, greenhouse-like train shed. Four lines come in,, two from each end. Two of them have long runs in open cuts. The F goes over that highest elevated track, and connects with the G, which could let you avoid Manhattan.
Check out nycsubway.org . It has a LOT of station-by-station detail.
