I'm concerned that you'll end up with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: A roller coaster ride that never stops and leaves the reader wrung out rather than nourished.
2,076 2016-02-06 03:08:05
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
2,077 2016-02-05 22:55:16
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
You'd also be changing the ensemble mid-stream. Sure, it can be done, but it's another hard thing to do, and if you don't do it very, very well it's also another task for the reader.
IMO YMMV
2,078 2016-02-05 13:24:24
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Maybe one of the healers, seeing Anver faced with double-grief, took Anver aside the week before and told him that Anda was Alina's victim?
Remember, Kha tells Anver about the twins later. If Anda was intact when Kha went away to Earthwound he couldn't tell the story so cleanly.
2,079 2016-02-05 12:58:17
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
If you actually have the event then, you may be overloading the villiany, never mind Anver. If you have him learn now, it would be a little less overwhelming.
... caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed faster ...
2,080 2016-02-05 09:04:45
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Only thing is, Anda was Anver's tutor. Then Anver ends up her boss. Needs to be explained?
Don't worry about payback. I'll try to give you plenty of chances!
2,081 2016-02-05 08:19:14
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Huh? You lost me there. You're wiping out the duel and all the rest? You've got me scared, since I think that's a strong part. Flipping Anda to Tilly will lose some character material on Tilly and may make it harder for Anver to bond with Kat.
Hope things went OK at work.
2,082 2016-02-04 23:48:37
Re: The Sorcerer's Progress (1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
I've got sketches for 25-odd scenes covering Melayne and Kirsey in Sgolyabank, taking care of the mountain. Maybe 6000 words. I'll write them in sequence, but they should be intercut.
By that time, Merran and Jamen have got the kids, lost Shogran, and gotten into the Academy by a back route (evading Parkol and Forsa, and out of sight of the few eyes that Threkesrom can muster). Merran will have a few adventures, and her training back home in Pazot will serve her well.
There may also be a lesson in pitching horseshoes.
2,083 2016-02-04 17:53:39
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Side note: the Gillis reacts more strongly to the Lance than to the spears-bearers of Behira?
2,084 2016-02-04 17:49:39
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
I'm not sure that 'working' quite covers that contingency.
I've read the chapter. Gotta let it digest a bit before we go on. I speak Tazar -- Brilliant. The part about how the Wolves work ... I've got to think through how that group adapts. All of this is delaying the destruction of that Horcr##ror. (Hmm. Whattif the Gillis reacts to the Horror? Would that fit the story?)
It's not that Andalaya-the-person needs more intro, but that her story thread needs to be rooted somewhere. Telling us in the saving-Kha episode that Anda is Alina's victim, and then telling us that Alina is making a move on the school will build Alina as the villian you need and give Anver a wholesome reason to hate her. And not just Anver, but everyone involved in Andalaya's care.
2,085 2016-02-04 14:57:35
Re: Say the first word that comes to mind... (1,634 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
sear
2,086 2016-02-04 13:24:45
Re: Say the first word that comes to mind... (1,634 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
pal-o-mine
2,087 2016-02-04 13:23:12
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Maybe have Anver lead them past Anda's room or wing, thinking he shouldn't have done that?
Anyhow, I think there's some narrative principle here, the inverse of Chekov's gun maybe?
2,088 2016-02-04 11:47:16
Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (1,905 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Amy, as I move toward the Andalaya chapters, I find myself thinking that the topic's introduction feels like an interruption. I'm wondering whether you could mention and hint at Andalaya and her sister earlier. For example, mention her--and maybe Alina, maybe not--when you are in the curses ward with Kha. (Anver's relationship to the curses ward?) Then mention Andalaya and Alina again between Anver's exploration of Alina's house and the actual trip onto the roof, letting us know that Anver would really, really like to hurt Alina or make it possible for Kha to do so. Then instead of an interruption you have an answer.
YMMV.
2,089 2016-02-04 01:53:31
Re: The Sorcerer's Progress (1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
There will be more to come.
2,090 2016-02-03 12:08:21
Re: Say the first word that comes to mind... (1,634 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Dance of the Cleanerbots (From =Fantasia 2040=)
2,091 2016-02-02 18:17:42
Re: Say the first word that comes to mind... (1,634 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Okay, from Lupus Yonderboy:
Molly has a rider. (Not what you think. Not what you think, either.)
2,092 2016-02-02 17:15:07
Re: Browser-based word processors? (10 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
See if you can work online on Google Docs, then.
2,093 2016-02-02 13:13:35
Re: Say the first word that comes to mind... (1,634 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
You're welcome. ISBN: 0441569595
2,094 2016-02-02 05:18:16
Re: Say the first word that comes to mind... (1,634 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Lupus Yonderboy
2,095 2016-02-01 17:24:31
Re: The Sorcerer's Progress (1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Edits made. They don't completely answer the reviews, but it may be a little better.
If someone really wants a repub I'll do it.
2,096 2016-02-01 15:55:05
Re: Browser-based word processors? (10 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Spend X hundred dollars on a machine that may only run Window just to find out that Microsoft still doesn't know how to do thread and process scheduling, still can't keep from stalling when using backing store, and has a whole new suite of bugs requiring reboots daily and twice on Sundays?
My sympathies are with Norm.
Wll the Chromebook run Open Office?
2,097 2016-02-01 15:06:47
Re: The Sorcerer's Progress (1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Kirsey's character page:
There are details of history not there, but most of it is in longhand. Nor is there a drawing--yet.
2,098 2016-02-01 10:18:02
Re: Say the first word that comes to mind... (1,634 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
beatitude
2,099 2016-02-01 10:07:33
Re: The Sorcerer's Progress (1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
(Beware Deux Ex Machina. Kirsey can't be the solution to your story. It has to be Merran and Melayne. Everyone else is just an accessory to the plot.)
I mean to build up Kirsey and the sorcerers he's trained. Then I mean to show the limits to that kind of power. (You've already seen previews. Uemiska's skill at debate is another kind of power.)
FYI, I have a few titles for books late in the story. If I can get that far, the last three are Dies Irae, Dies Illa, and Riot and Rest. (The last comes from "It may be we are meant to mark with our riot and our rest ...".)
There's a mystery I've hinted at and some of you have half-caught it. The book where that comes will probably be titled The Gate of Broken Seals. ("In the Gate of Treason, in the gate of broken seals,/'Bend and bind them, bend and bind them, bend and bind them into wheels./Then once more in all my garden there may swing and sound and sweep/The noise of all the sleepless things that sing the soul to sleep.' " Wonderful and terrible to declaim, and you can find the source easily enough.)
There's another theme to add, if you like: For the end of the world was long ago, And all we dwell to-day/As children of some second birth, Like a strange people left on earth/After a judgment day..
2,100 2016-02-01 08:06:52
Re: Browser-based word processors? (10 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Google has an online-sevice editor, mostly meant for collaboration, but it writes a variety of formats.