On 'sandtrap' vs. 'sandfall': where the name first appears, you are discussing beauty. Soon enough we'll learn the nature of the danger, but for the beginning 'fall' is more vague than 'trap' and leaves just a little question for the reader.
And when it does appear, you could hearken back to the beauty before giving uss the terror.
Let's wait until the known problem (the containment jar sequence) is addressed, and them we can see if there is sill a problem.
Meanwhile, why is this thread sticky?
Actually, you did Alina very well overall. You don't want her taking over because if she does your 'not the real villain' pseudo-problem will get bigger.
Work on the containment jar. Maybe play up the Faulter discussion before the duel so that the reader knows that the torch is about to be passed.
Let Alina be a pons asinorem, and give the astute reader a Tabasco-cream-pie-in-the-face out-of-band clue.
Can Sil see that Anver is becoming a Founder?
So you want a simple, Marvel Comics story? Actually, even the Marvel comics stories generaly have two cycles of danger-resolution (after the good guys finish fighting among themselves).
I think if the containment-jar portion gets its due, you'll see Alina as just one problem of many. Really, she's only in the foreground for a few chapters. I agree, she's a delightful villian, but she's far too small to be the big bad and you should see that she's just one landing in the staircase.
I'm surprised that the Zyrtec-hunt didn't put your interest in high gear again. It held my interest, big-time.
So, are the Horror's based on the Seven Deadly Sins?
That's a relief.
Up to this point I've been suspecting that Faulter is The Defiler, but then Faulter could raise Sosol to life. So now I'm thinking that Faulter wants The Defiler's power for that purpose.
Either way, is The Defiler aware of Zyrtec?
Looks like we just wrote past each other. Go back and see the JATO analogy.
WHY would Maalok or The Defiler raise Alina from the dead? It would give the secret away and Alina woldn't be valuable enough to justify that, not at this point in the story. As a creeper she's more valuable.
But by the time of the duel, we've already had the mystery of the containment jar. Bring that out as you should and Alina becomes the troublemaker who forced them into that mystery, and who also brought Anver and Kat together. Alina's job is done. Give her a big payoff (from the action side) and let the clues contintue to accumulate, while bringing the creepy Sil onto the stage.
Think of Alina as the JATO bottle.
Nonononononono.
Don't ruin the story to make it fit some other model!
My preference, which I hope you DON'T take (because you're doing this so well) would be to make it a single series of volumes with the threads cutting in and out in each. If you want to think about it, do it after they're all written.
The biggest argument for it is that certain actions in Acts change the magical landscape and force the action in the other threads.
We know that there are weak sections in Acts. It's a question of fixing them.
Okay, one last set of edits to Pain v. Nightmare. If you think I broke it, let me know and I'll repub so you can get points for teling me.
Right out confusion is bad. Dribbling questions along the way is not. It's IMO brilliant writing.
My opinion, too, as a long-time reader of mysteries, including Asimov's SF mysteries.
No, the way it was framed it had something to do with her newly-granted powers.
Rocket Sled on Rubber
Yeah, that part puzzles me. Was 'puppy' under someone's Veil? Did he not even know that Alda was with him?
Was the dog-breeding The Defilier's history?
Has The Defiler been that deep that long in the enemy camp? Could the Order have survived with the Enemy as the Voice?
Oh, these reveals are going to hit the reader like John Dickson Carr's load of bricks through a skylight--or maybe like a flash-bang grenade.
The scoff can be Jaylene's mental reaction. It can even give half the secret -- "She's not old enough for that. NOBODY could be."
Yeah, that's the great thing about mystery clues. Though the ones about how many posts and how much of the library could be given more background. As to the guard being alone ... I have no idea what to make of that.
Yes. See my return email.
Especially since it makes her a useful partner, and nudges them closer to the marriage that C fears.
Declaim means to recite as for an audience, giving all the inflections and intonations appropriate.
Agape and abomination
Not bad. Not bad a`tall.
So ... have you looked in on my recent chapterlette for the start of SP/B2?
Try declaiming this (from The Pilgrim's Regress):
Behemoth is my serving man.
Before the conquered hosts of Pan
Riding tamed Leviathan
Loud I sing, for well I can:
Resurgem and IO PAEAN! IO IO IO PAEAN!
Now I know the stake I played for.
Now I know what a worm's made for!
Amy, you sometimes reply that I think outside your box. Let's see if I can show you part of mine.
In theater and cinema, the term 'blocking' refers to working out the movement of actors on stage or before the camera, and for cinema, the exact arrangement of shots. (The scriptwriter will indicate Closeup on Cassius, Wide on Caesar, and sometimes there will be additional notes like Scars visible; but the actual blocking of shots is done by the director, who has a lot of work to do before the shoot.)
Many of my comments have to do with movement and action. Unless the action is pulling me furiously, I construct the scene in my mind when I read. Not always in the same detail, but enough to catch many oddities, and those make me look closer to see if I've misread.
On words like 'multiple': I don't read aloud to myself or move my lips when I read, but I do recall the sound-colors and sound-shapes of the words. Small articles and very common words like 'for', 'to' (when used for the infinitive), and 'of' glide by almost unheard and copulas get only weak notice.
So the sounds and cadences of words matter, even though I read silently. Somewhere, probably in Manchester's The Last Lion, I read of Churchill being told that to call a policy "both obsolete and reprehensible" (as he had) was meaningless. It's not, but Churchill's reply was interesting. He said (paraphrased) 'Listen to the B's'.
The two adjectives are linked by the 'B's and 'P's, labial stops that are sounded hard in those words. When I hear or read a word like 'multiple' or 'rebarbative' I hear repeated hard-sounded stops.
When a native English speaker (who does not also speak Russian) hears Russian, he hears a multi-car pileup of guttural stops and fricatives. That's an extreme example, but even in listening to English we pick out the pulse and flow of sound and shape our sense of meaning around it. Is 'awkward' onomatopoeia? Not by the standard definition, yet the word does picture the meaning.
That covers all but a handful of comments in my last review. The others have to do with mental state, and I can't put my reading of moods on the same firm ground as the other comments.
In which case, he shows that he trusts her by speaking with her the way he would talk to a male friend. She's a friend again and not just a pleasure in bed.
And maybe it starts as a romantic interlude and turns into a serious discussion, and only later do either of them question it--differently. Catherine is afraid of becoming a wife, etc.
So did you survive my review?
