That's because they were written as cute 2D kids. Imagine how much better Ani would have been if he had been a sadistic child when the adults weren't looking. Or someone who was teased by the other kids for being a slave. He had a tormentor, we'll call him Biff-Biff, who made his young life a living hell. He's too weak in the Force yet to defend himself, but he's practicing twisting the heads off newly hatched baby Rancors. Then, as he and Padme lift off from Tatooine, the camera pans down into a waste pit with Biff-Biff inside, his head twisted off in an all-too-familiar way. The viewing audience would be salivating for this kid's next move. Probably couldn't take 5-year-olds to see it, though.

Can you tell I've been writing Caligula? tongue

Give us some hints that all is not well with young Yunker. Make him into an interesting puzzle. Eavesdropping on Anver and the others. Caught trying to sneak out of school at night. A series of recurring bouts of magic sickness, typically caused by practicing dark spells that Yunker has no access to. You get the idea.

He may need his own book. tongue

Hubby's just afraid of what your twisted ... er, creative mind is capable of. Don't forget Yunker - he's your Anakin Skywalker.

3,503

(15 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

I find the interface generally easy to use and logical. I went through it briefly tonight and following are a few areas that could be more convenient:

- It takes a lot of scrolling on the home page to get to those "lists" that I'm interested in. I know you want maximum exposure for all work on the site, but I rarely stop to read an essay or poem. My interest is in new books/chapters and new work from my connections. If there were some way to minimize the others (varies by user), that would be a breath of fresh air. It's even worse on my smartphone, since I have to swipe my way close to the bottom to get at my groups' forum posts.
- The search icon on main screen (the magnifying glass) should include the ability to do a quick search in all forum posts (in addition to search for writer and search for works). That feature is currently too well hidden.
- The detailed search deserves to be more visible, too. That thing is a gem. I think it would eliminate some of the gripes about forum structure if you can easily find an old post by keywords. The detailed search could use tweaking as well. The list of groups to search should be sorted alphabetically and there should be a control that selects "all of my groups" in the list with one click.
- Ideally, it would be nice if the quick search and detailed search could treat the words in the search field as individual keywords, rather than treating the whole field as a single string. Sometimes you can remember a few keywords of an old post, but not the exact string. If someone wants a single string, they can put them in quotes.
- My Reviews screen should default to Inline Received instead of Regular Received. I think most would agree.

Hope this helps.
Dirk

Ooh! What if Yunker is secretly working for/with the necromancer? That would be so cool!

amy wrote:

And Norm, I always liked the idea of having Yunker and Anver in the first book, but it got panned. I'd love to put them back into play. I like the idea of making a side-story that allows Anver/Yunker to be featured earlier. I'll see what I can do.

Perhaps it could be a series of very short stories/parables that Anver tells Yunker that are directly related to Kha's experiences as the book goes on. Of course that breaks with your current storytelling style of independent books.

Please don't spend your vacation reviewing my crap ... er, masterpiece. You already review bombed me, so there's no rush.

Moving on to Acts. FYI, I think it would be great if Yunker had a bigger role throughout Acts. He'd be someone that a younger audience could relate to.

3,507

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

Thanks. Ponder my navel, I must.

I started by researching dark energy for power production this evening. To achieve the amount of dark energy believed to be in our universe only requires the mass-energy equivalent of 4 hydrogen atoms per cubic meter of space. I was going to drop it as a power source, but I found another article that talks about harnessing dark energy for everyday needs, although not in the author's lifetime. So I've got only a few hundred years before Professor Hinkley is supposed to make his major breakthroughs in astrophysics. I'm trying to think if there's one unifying concept that allows for FTL, flight cocoons for atmospheric-like mechanics in space, a great source of power, and cool weapons.

I'm going to punt this topic over to my thread, so I don't hijack yours.

3,508

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

Norm d'Plume wrote:

The only thing that I think may be unique in my battles is that I use heavily armored raiders to board enemy ships when hangar bay shields are knocked out.

Hhm. I just remembered that stormtroopers boarded the Tantive IV carrying Princess Leia at the beginning of Star Wars IV. That means there's not a damn thing unique about my space battles. Meh.

3,509

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

njc wrote:

Okay, I can't speak for NormD.

Mine need serious work. I don't do anything creative yet. Just blast cannons ("novas" and "supernovas") and missiles. The only thing that I think may be unique in my battles is that I use heavily armored raiders to board enemy ships when hangar bay shields are knocked out.

I have something called brilliance cannons (prototypes) in chapter one, but they're all just variations of Star Wars/Star Trek tech. I need something different. I was thinking of something that involves either dark energy and/or dark matter. And maybe something that uses the starlanes to pop out of spacetime, travel to the other ship, and then re-enter spacetime and blow up. Another could be a weapon that sends powerful gravity waves at the enemy.

All need plenty of research.

3,510

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

Kdot wrote:

Clarinet enacts the screams of man-eating apes.

The Calgary Stampede has an attraction called Man Eating Chicken. Guess what's inside the tent?

3,511

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

What is a Mar and why does it eat the word 'everyone''?

3,512

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

Been finding quite a few curses are the same in Latin, give or take a suffix (e.g. stupidus).

3,513

(11 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Inline reviews alone are worth the price of admission.

3,514

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

Janet (AJ) Reid wrote:

That said, hope this is the last manure that the universe are going to throw at you. Hang in there!

Janet, you potty mouth. I typed manure into Google Translate and got shitus. Okay, I'm kidding, but it would funny if it did. I use excrementum instead. I've also begun making up some, including bastardus. Notice how disguising it in Latin makes the original English curse completely unknown. tongue

A very wholesome book.

3,515

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

njc wrote:

A small (groundhog meat) correction on that Standardese quote: A =type derived by a derived type definition= may be further derived if the derived type is used as parent type in another derived type definition.

Reads like C++.

3,516

(1 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Never mind. Found it by clicking on it from within my Reviews page.

Thanks
Dirk

Sol, I'm having trouble with a review I started on Kdot's book, VQF. I'm relatively sure I submitted it. The site says I started a review, but clicking on the word Draft doesn't take me to it, and clicking to leave an inline review takes me to a completely new review. How do I get tp the existing one?

Thanks
Dirk

Kdot wrote:

Per K. Don't clarify. =simplify=. You've got a lot of mobile targets. Keep killing them like Game of Thrones until we're at the edge of our seats swearing at you that if you kill another we'll hate you as we buy the next book

Although I do kill a few secondary characters (Kdot's influence), my dead characters are mostly redshirts. I hate killing my favorite characters, and Caligula just became one of my favs. I had originally planned to kill him by taking a blast meant for Apollo, but that ending doesn't really fit with the new Caligula. Ah, the possibilities...

3,519

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

I started making up the Roman curses. It's so much easier. Bastard? Bastardus! Thus, Caligula becomes Little Bastardus. As Kdot said, Latin makes everything sounds cool: bacon - porcus flavius. Don't tell him, but I actually looked it up, thinking it might be real. tongue

3,520

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

Stab them with dirks.

Sorry, I'm just looking for a cameo. :-)

3,521

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

Kdot probably has more spreadsheets to track your books than I do for my own. My spreadsheet has weird sh*t in it, though. One sheet is a table dedicated to calculating global population decline caused by Dr. Ess. That's how I found out it's virtually impossible to wipe out most of the human race, even with 85% sterility due to the vaccine. It is cool to see the weird population swings across 100 years.

3,522

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

I've reached the 1/4 mark of The Lord of the Rings. It's impressive how many different ways Tolkien can describe a long journey through endless trees, grass, hills, rivers, and mountains. However, The Fellowship of the Ring is my favorite part of the series, which makes this the good part. Ugh. I need to get back to writing.

3,523

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

You go girl! (I'm speaking to Lady Kay, of course.)

Shouldn't that be King Satan? Just kidding. Congratulations, Janet.

3,525

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

Ke wan eats Ke ajo for Ke breakfast.