1,051 Reply by njc

(1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Well, I'm using more than a few hundred words.  I fear that I will have fifteen to twenty pages of perambulation and self-discovery on Merran's part.  (I'm putting 600 to 800 words on a letter-sized page in shorthand, and I've got about four pages so far and still writing.)  And, lacking Tolkien's skill, my work is likely to read more like Bored of the Rings than Lord of the Rings.

So I keep plugging at it.  Amy, if you say I don't have enough description, I may strip every word of description out!  And if you complain I'm re-using words, I may ask you for the name of your favorite thesaurus.

Meanwhile, if you have a copy of That Hideous Strength lying about, go read the sections on the Objective Room.

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1,052 Reply by njc

(18 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Some rules, particularly those that deal with commas, are almost invariably too rigid. They look at 'peepholes' in the grammar, and not the overall grammar parse.  But it's in the overall parse that the reader most needs help.

And I think I can say that Gertrude Stein didn't follow any stylebook on commas.

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1,053 Reply by njc

(1,217 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

If you say so guv'ner.

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1,054 Reply by njc

(1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

I've spent days trying to get Merran and Pausonalie down one hillside.  I've got that done.  I need a few hundred more words to get them into The Rockpile and ready for the Count Lundersot episode that I'm not yet skilled enought to write and then I can start editing it--and then put it into the chapter called The Rockpile.

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1,055 Topic by njc

(0 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

If you are entering a regular review and accidentally hit ENTER while entering the title, the whole review gets submitted, even if the body is empty.  I ran onto this on the smartphone, where the backspace and enter keys are close and my big fingers lead to a lot of backspacing.

I'm pretty sure this is in the web page/program, but have not the experience with forms to hazard a further guess.

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1,056 Reply by njc

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

Anytumw.

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1,057 Reply by njc

(107 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

A mystery in which the body is found in a room locked on the inside, or by extension, any impossible mystery.  Example: A magician enters a cabinet on stage.  The cabinet opens; the magician is gone ... and does not reappear.  Instead, he is found later hanging in the machinery above the stage.  (One of Joseph Commings's mysteries.)

The locked-room mystery has an entry in Wikipedia.  The first two Henry Merrivale stories were locked room (The Plague Court Murders and The White Priory Murder).  Here's a compilation: https://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-Locked-M … ocked+room

A fair number of Edward Hoch's Sam Hawthorne mysteries are of the locked-room variety.

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1,058 Reply by njc

(671 replies, posted in Alpha to Omega - Review Group)

Completed reviews of A Cartel's Revenge, Chs 3&4.

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1,059 Reply by njc

(281 replies, posted in Alpha to Omega - Review Group)

Oops.  Your Profile page 'features' the other version.  Future reviews will be on A-O .

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1,060 Reply by njc

(671 replies, posted in Alpha to Omega - Review Group)

Completed reviews of Matt's Kruges, Chs 6&7

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1,061 Reply by njc

(1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Anent the review reply: Tell us, either in the flashback or the chapter before, why the bracelet has survived this long.

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1,062 Reply by njc

(1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Your last chapter has two obvious flaws.  First, the wrong title.  It should be =The Beginning=.  Second, you need some hint that the story goes on.  More in the review.

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1,063 Reply by njc

(1,217 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Qeeted.

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1,064 Reply by njc

(1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

I think that the original 'Jaylene falling' section could be made into a ninety-word prologue, perhaps italicized, for Dictates.  Kha waking and the brief discussion can serve as the opening of Mandates (followed by Kha's letter to Anver).  Acts needs only a few words to tie Kha's condition to surviving the disaster at Earthwound.

Sadly, we'll need Leia's ghost.

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1,065 Reply by njc

(1,217 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

'twirped' ?

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1,066 Reply by njc

(1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Added a comment on Ch54.

Edit:  Ch55, too.

Edit:  I've been thinking about the connections between your B1, B2, and B3 for the reader starting them in whatever order.  Opening two of them at Earthwound and Acts with Anver trying to figure out how to save Kha will help the reader move from book to book.  You should also have a canonical order for the first three.

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1,067 Reply by njc

(1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/madgeniusc … your-muse/
https://madgeniusclub.com/2016/12/20/li … our-muse2/

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1,068 Reply by njc

(1,634 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Hydroplane, into pier.

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1,069 Reply by njc

(1,634 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Landing Ship, Dock?

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1,070 Reply by njc

(1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Regarding your comment on the last review: that was your muse.  (Google 'Myrtle the Muse')

That last scene is almost Tolkienesque in its drama, though I don't think Profesor T. would have resorted to the cliffhanger.

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1,071 Reply by njc

(671 replies, posted in Alpha to Omega - Review Group)

Finished two-part review on Jube's new Chapter 15.

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1,072 Reply by njc

(1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Got 'em.  Quick read has me thinking fast execution and uneven pacing, but I'll give them a better look a little late.

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1,073 Reply by njc

(22 replies, posted in Alpha to Omega - Review Group)

The system is multilayered, like mechanics above chemistry above nuclear physics.  Only not quite that.

The costs aren't inherent.  This is another aspect of The Covenant.  When that first sorcerer-king exposed the Voids and allowed the sorcerous Elements to flow from them in great quantity, he set the stage for Hobbsian chaos of a nuclear kind.  But the concentration of knowledge held this back.  That was broken, more or less, with the Sundering, and bounds set on the use of sorcerous power with The Covenant, which also divided sorcerers from other people to a degree.

And that is about to come undone, helped by people who crave freedom from their bounds, and by people who don't believe anything bad could happen.

So: Sanderson is right.  But what if someone breaks the rules?

And there are dangers of handling more power than you can use.  Melayne's going to flirt with disaster trying to find her old strength.

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1,074 Reply by njc

(671 replies, posted in Alpha to Omega - Review Group)

Reviewed CJD's Chapter 61.

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1,075 Reply by njc

(1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

This infection was ER material, period.  You're not going to find IV bags of antibiotics at anything smaller.

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