My next chapter (I hope it's just one!) has to bridge several days and get Merran and Jamen moving again, bridging into a new ensemble that will lead Merran to stand on the wrong side of a conflict--and move her into a really ugly situation. (At least I hope it will be.)
Current thinking is that Momma/Kirsey are reunited with daughter after the Book 3 cliffhanger, as Merran is trying to return from The Observatory.
I've got a lot to do first.
It's only legal because of a Depression-Era Amendment to the Constitution. Blame the Big-Government movement. (Big back then meant a quarter-horse, not a pod of sperm whales.)
"Ameriica has no native criminal class except Congress." ---Mark Twain
And if businesses did their accounting the way governments do (including pension contributions) their owners/executives would do serious jail time.
You understand why some people would like to rip the whole thing down and replace it. It has metastatized (did I spell tha tight, Amy?) We spend several =BILLION= a year in payments and time just to complete the forms. We could buy off half of Congress for that.
Behira's own Standard?
I thought I saw 'milk-givers'.
So long as you use plural for one individual, attention will go to the pair. Use singular, and attention will go to the pectoral region.
'emblem' instead of 'stanchion'? Or did you mean 'Standard'?
Unless you want the lurid (and possibly titillating) image, you might make 'breasts' into the singular, to move attention from the organs to the area.
Much better. Review this afternoon.
Took a blank page and made a column for each of the principle players in the next B2 chapter w/Merran. Tried lining things up to get their proper order. Instead, I found important fill-in details occurring to me. It's movement in the right direction, though not what I wanted.
It's going to be a busy chapter. I've got a script for a scene that might be good for a few giggles--or might be a hoot. Think Jeremy Lemuel Alexander Kelling Kelling in =The Convivial Codfish=.
There are about 20 items on that sheet, and some of them call for more than one section of narrative. Busy chapter ...
Remove the bucket of ice. Put the chanting back (barebones). Go back to the demon-chase, or even use the word Horror (TBD!)
Try to include 'The Lady Behira had to notice her now'
Whatever I suggested for the movement, try to use 'a dance of combat' instead.
The chance to do something good is worth trying to keep, even as IM if you have to.
Jaylene's scream is important, methinks.
"You charged me with her safety ..." is, IMO, more important than who saw Jaylene first.
Those are the things I would work hardest to restore.
Amy, drop the 'There was a joke in there' and put the next sentence in IM. Six words.
Though with the acting character female (not to mention naked) the imagery is a little ... well, I would say grotesque, but other perceptions are certainly possible.
We've not heard from author Rhianon since the first question. Has she given up in despair, or is she waiting for a pearl to issue forth from this discussion?
(Flagellation was normally administered on the back, not any ventral area, and is entirely different from the expression of grief or remorse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Fortuna , second verse, last couplet .)
I've added more notes on the review.
I suggest pulling the old version up and setting it side-by-side.
Which is why I wrote the fourth item, 'or from the particular story'. But the point of the original post was that the author expected readers to know the tradition of the act BEFORE reading her story, and was surprised that a reviewer didn't.
None of this helps author Rhianon answer her question, nor does it address that the tradition =which she expects readers to know before reading her book= might not be exactly what she understands it to be, or might not actually be applicable to her character.
Understood, BUT the reader's knowledge must come either from the Western Canon, from popular culture, from Fantasy 'tradition', or from the particular story. The first and last are most likely; I'm not aware of breast-beating in popular culture or mainline Fantasy.
Since the act in question differs somewhat for men and women and the Western Canon would probably have men as the actors--unlike the present work--it seems reasonable to question the background of the practice.
Moreover, I suspect that when the plural 'breasts' is used, it refers to (as patent language would say) a plurality of persons, and that when one person is involved, the singular 'breast' is used, indicating the general pectoral region and not the mammaries (or where they are undeveloped in men).
(Please excuse the clinical language. I'm trying not to be crude.)
However, I think our oldest references are Biblical. Almost any other reference in the Western Canon will itself be referencing the Bible. And my point was that presumably-all the Western Canon references will be to men.
If I am mistaken, PLEASE correct me, with actual references.
I was under the perhaps mistaken impression that Biblical breast-beating was a masculine expression. It would be somewhat different in effect for women, no?
While tangling with other stuff, I've had a Blinding Flash of the Obvious about Merran's training in Book 1. I've got to get Merran to and through an adventure in B2, and Melayne maybe to a decision point, and then I have to work on B1.
It's not just meter and pace. It's the character painting and the humor and the felicitous expression--and the balance between all the elements.
I'm interested in your thoughts on what to add back. What you remember that mattered to you. I'm practicing how to edit...and I think that thinning to the bones is a good start. Then adding detail back into the story can be used to build it up. If nothing else, I can go back to previous saves and find the version/ reinstall it.
On reflection, I disagree. You want to cut the fat, but not the muscle. So the trick is learning how to tell muscle from bone.
From The Passive Voice: How Shakespeare was remembered. Time for a little gratitude, I think.
To the degree that the known impossible is impossible because of human nature, it's stepping outside the requirements that the stories put human-like beings in a different frame. As to physical impossibilities, well, we're still learning. See the EM thruster which provides support for a new theory of inertia that links QM and GR, and simultaneously explains the discrepencies recorded in the speeds of satellites propelled by planetary fly-bys. (Is the theory right? We don't know, but it seems likely that whatever theory does emerge will look like it in some way.)
I'm afraid we've run quite far and long from the topic of this thread.
