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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 ...

Amy, drop the 'There was a joke in there' and put the next sentence in IM.   Six words.

I've added more notes on the review.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I will do the review before 0500 Eastern time, but I think it's more than brevity.  Much of the grace and flow were sacrified, while low-value words (IMO) were added.  The narrator doesn't reflect Alda as well.

Then you should like George MacDonald.

That will depend on your definition of Fantasy, and of your standards for writing.  Do you consider George MacDonald's novels Fantasy?  What about Zelazny's two Amber series?  The multiple modern reworkings of King Arthur?  How about LeGuin's EarthSea series?  I'm partial to Elizabeth Willey's three-volume series, but it's out of favor and out of print.  Still, for anyone who's read it: is it Fantasy?

How about Dracula?  It's horror, but it could also be called Fantasy.

Yes well, Gulliver's Travels was Fantasy.  It also made a number of points.  The same could be said of Dante's Inferno.

Fantasy that has no rules and no boundaries doesn't go over well.  The rules must be made, and any changes must be reveals of things already heralded.  At some point, I'm going to have to explain how Kirsey does at least some of the things he does.  But I've established that there is a mechanism to sorcery in my story and I have to stick with that, even if it means that certain things go unexplained.  These must serve as the axioms of the system.

The nearest thing to 'anything goes' is probably the arguably SciFi Dr. Who, in which each story (and especially the novels) seems to select a different subset of rules.  But the stories did sell.