2,326

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

Maybe they could pull a platter uphill?

2,327

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

Good dogs, those.

I knew a family, years ago, that had a husky and a couple of husky-malamute mixes.  They had a giant tricycle for the dogs to pull most of the year.

2,328

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

Congratulations!

2,329

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

It looks like the Erevain sequence will end up around 15,000 words.  That's a quarter of a mainstream novel, or a sixth to an eight of an ordinary fantasy novel.  I'll need to trim, and if I can't get it under about 11,000 altogether I may have to rethink it.  Meanwhile, I'm moving forward and looking back at once.  I may trim some of the earlier Erevain chapters, though I don't think I'll get the 2,500 words I'm hoping for there.  So expect edits i recent chapters (but not repubs, unless you ask.)

For reference, this monster has a mouth and a spare: http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.p … VnGMFv9Okm

Hitting with bricks is for kets, not rytters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krazy_Kat

Mathematical Expectation

janet reid wrote:

I'm going to step away now with the grace of a hippo. smile

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FTlnV6_uaK4

Lazarutian

Gunn Diode

See The New Hacker's Dictionary on catb.org .

Bore Axe

Well, by now Amy's reader has a sense of Tazar's packaging dimensions, and her narrator said it was a tight fit for him.  I think this distinction might matter in Lit Fic, but not in Fantasy or Commercial Fiction.

Your point about narrative versus dialogue is worth remembering.

Janet, yes I did say it's an aside ... an asidecar the size of a Cooper Mini.  Technology has a worse expression: 'A bag on the side'.  I'm sure Amy gets the picture, even if you don't.

At a certain point you have to stop showing or your story mires itself in detail.  That said, I think this passage might be improved, but not by going as far as you have.  'tight fit' is a plausible target, but 'narrow' is direct description, though not related specifically to Tazar's scantlings.

You've also added conclusions not supported by the original story.  Had an animal broken through that, the crystaline points would have broken off.

To answer your Q? tell me where to look for the clues I missed.

Let me add a thought on Janet's "It's just an aside."  A Cooper Mini is a small car, but it would be very large if you tried to use it as a motorcycle sidecar!  The result would be hideously unbalanced--unless maybe you used this motorcycle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Tomahawk  (That's a frightening thought, actually.)

I don't say the information shouldn't be there (though Tazar probably doesn't actually see them as he weaves through), but that if you put it in that place, in that sentence, in that paragraph, you distract from and dilute the main action of the paragraph.

The problem with the five priests is that the sentence is overloaded.  The main topic (Tazar's traverse of the passage) is introduced, and then we have to introduce a whole 'minor premise' almost as an aside.  You could change 'five glowing speartips' in my version to 'the five priests' glowing speartips' but we've tread that point repeatedly in the story.

Amy's version of the second paragraph doesn't tell us if plug is slug is poultice, or why Tazar would chew it.  I had to guess at the connection to make it explicit.  It uses the participle for 'pulling out' as a modifier on the act of going in--a contradiction.  We're left to surmise (reasonably) that Tazar bandages the injured calf, but saying so does not break the flow.  'Supply' is a vague word with no picture.  'Roll' is specific, and provides a picture.

Tazar fit through the narrow passage, but it was tight. Each one of the priests had light glowing from their speartips, so he could see well enough to know where to place his hands for the least damage.

Tazar worked his way through the narrow passage.  It was a tight fit, but with the light from five glowing speartips he was able to find safe handholds.

Still not great, but a bit better.

Critter must have cut a bleeder, he thought. He limped to his pack and sat down next to it. He reached inside without looking, pulling out a supply of bandages. Using a waxy plug of poultice, he chewed the slug and then slathered the mix over his wound. He replaced Alda’s bandage with one of his own, wrapping it around his calf.

Critter must have cut a bleeder, he thought. He limped to his pack and sat down next to it. He reached inside without looking, and pulled out a roll(?) of bandages and a plug of poultice.  He chewed the waxy plug into a paste and slathered the mix over the length of his wound. He replaced Alda’s bandage with one of his own, wrapping his injured calf tightly.

Not sure if I preserved the facts ... but you see how I read them.

I hope you never have to do that!

Now ... as to preconceived formula:  The preconceived formula is just the exact sequence of events, for all events internal and external.  It doesn't cover things like 'I'd never dreamed of anything so wonderful.'  Nor do I suggest or demand that you write everything that way ... only that you practice a little so that you learn, as a habit, how to see that ordering.  That will give you the freedom to use it or avoid it by choice.  I don't think you'll ever be a pointilist, or want to be.  But doing things on that very foreign way for an hour or so, on a very short sample, may show you the other side of Jack Spratt (or his wife ... you decide which is which).

Unless you think the exercise will ruin you forever?

When a movie script is written, especially for an action movie, it's often converted into cartoon-like drawings called a storyboard.  Sometimes (as for Jackson's LoTR) the director or author and a few others play out the parts before a camera to test both the script and the director's blocking and composition of shots.

What I'm suggesting is a little like rehearsing the story internally, going through things as they happen, as they must happen, for things to make sense.

Back to The Elements of PROGRAMMING Style for a moment.  The authors suggest, in different words, that the first step is to be able to identify bad style so you can go back and revise it ... and the second step is learning, during the revision, how to avoid the problems when you first write it, so revision is less and less necessary over time.

Only KH can say how well the samples I wrote match Jenna's voice.  In part, that's because he's kept it to himself so much!  More specifically, he's let Jenna show herself by her large actions, but not by small details.  A detail like the Unfamilar Potato can be telling--and touching.  If I didn't know Jenna before, this would hit me in the face like a mudpie.

I  have to work on description because I don't see things that way--yet.  When I work mentally I cut right to the action and skip the establishing shots and all the rest.  But I'm trying, and maybe even doing a little better.  The ideal, of course, is to have the description and action so closely linked that you can't pigeonhole the bits of story into one or the other.  That's a long way off for me.  But the nearer goals will get me closer.

Ah, I've got email about your next posting.  And Awwwayyy Wweee Gooo!

2,345

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

But it did allow the use of the shorter, pithier phrase instead of the andante clause.

Thank you.  A KH compliment!  I must learn how to happy-dance.

Here's K's first (let's say background) version.

The first roasted potato I placed in my mouth was so different from what I’ve had for the last four years of my life that I had trouble chewing it. The textures were crisp on the outside, yet malleable and buttery. The insides were creamy, and burnt my tongue. This, by far, was the best meal of my life. It brought a tear to my eye that I tried to wipe at with the back of my hand as it crawled down my cheek.

Here's what he used.

I chewed a bit of potato thoughtfully, revelling in a flavour I was unused to. It was a delicious distraction.

Let's see how I would have cut it.

My first bite of roasted potato burned my tongue.  I smiled and wiped away a tear, but not for the pain.  I'd never had anything like it: crisp outside, squishy and buttery--and hot!--within.  It was the best thing I'd ever eaten.

You cut over three quarters.  I cut a little over half.  Yet I kept most of your detail.  I didn't do quite as well with Jenna's voice, but that's your personal skill.  I also used both the Dread Forbidden Colon and the Abominable Em Dash, as well as a med!al exclamat!on po!nt.  Nobody but a Crusading Editor would notice.

Edit: One more revison:

I burned my tongue on the roasted potato.  I smiled and wiped away a tear, but not for the pain.  I'd never had anything like it: crisp outside, squishy and buttery within--and hot!  It was the best food I'd ever tasted.


Edit: Another:

I burned my tongue trying the roasted potato.  I'd never had anything like it: crisp outside, squishy and buttery within--and hot!  I smiled and wiped away a tear, but not for the pain.  I'd never dreamed of anything so wonderful.

Moments like this are gold.  Don't be so quick to throw them away.  (PS: If you haven't, read The Screwtape Letters.  The book does apply to Jenna here.)

That's not changing from oblique thinking to linear.  That's wiping the thinking out and writing in its outcome.

Minor edit to B1 Ch90.  It doesn't address any of Amy's comments.  That would be hard.  It's just a little fine-tuning of the alternating PoV/thread.

Oh, K (where have we heard that?) you might want to see the revision I put up of my B1 Ch90 (which really belongs in a later volume).  See how it plays on these description and interior description questions.