Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (Page 65 of 77)

You have tons of antagonists - what you need is a villain

I'm not convinced.  You need a reason for your reader to identify with Kha before the new dangers appear.  You have it: what Kha has lost, and what Kha is seeking (which might not be quite the same thing).  You can have him consider stopping at Madame Zia's, or even The Milky Jug ... and discard the idea.  No, Airen's the only one left, the only one still whole ... if she is.  From the market square, a jump cut to the last fifty feet before Airen's guardhouse.

Wait, you need to get the Centrillium ... okay  that happens as he meditates on backstory.  He tries to imagine the fate of his friends ..., he's thinking of Drezdorf when it happens ... and the laughter seems at first to be making mock of a damaged man.

You've created the basis for so much theater here ...

The Earthwound is addressed in book 4. Book 1,2 and 3 are character bios where each one of the major players is given pieces of the puzzle. Only the reader has the whole picture until Book 4.

The Centrillium field can be seen when Kha is heading to the mountain and Airen stops off at the Hearth WItch's Inn. All I have to do is separate them and have them fight to distract him from bringing it up Airen.  I'm not too worried about moving that scene around.

In =Acts= Anver amd the school have to save Kha. In Mandate, you start with Kha having to save himself

Maybe.  But he's still both magic-sick and soul-sick.  Put a sick man on a mission?  Yeah, baby.

But how sure is he that the absent Wolf will be targeted?  Or is it just the McGuffin to get him going?  If he knows that Drezdorf is there?

His haste with fear for Airen will rule out stops and dawdling.  No listening to Karl, no thought of Madame Z. or The Milky Jug ...

Always tradeoffs.

The Guidhouse IS older than B. The preserved head is the remnant of one of the captured Founders.

No.  Sosol was a whole body.

But was Sosol the original monster, killed to stop her, after which Faulter vowed to pursue necromancy to get her back?

Anent the reviews

Yunker obliviscar numquam.  (Never forget Yunker.)

Perfect and progressive tenses.  (More precisely, perfect or progressive aspects.  The Wikipedia article is worth reading but it's written with the dusty odor of Professional Grammarian.)

"He goes."  --Simple present, which is used in English to show repetitive or -as-a-rule action.  It's also used for future action with a time qualifier.  ("He retires in three years.")

"He is going."  --Present progressive (or continuing present), which indicates specific action in the present.

"He went."  --Simple past.

"He was going." -- Past progressive.

"He had gone."  --Past perfect, also called pluperfect (the name used for the past perfect when studying Latin).

"He had been going." --Past perfect progressive.

The perfect and progressive aspects are also applied to the future: 'will go', 'will be going', 'will have gone', 'will have been going'.

Two notes:

English has a moderately complex system of verb tense, aspect, mood, etc.  I've heard that modern Italian is much more complex, and read that the Greek of Plato and Aristotle has a verb system that makes Italian look primitive.  (Molon labe is not Come and take them (a taunt) but Come in order that you may take them, also a taunt.  And one of the words is an idiomatic irregular contracted form.)

If John McWhorter's heresy is to be believed (Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue) our use of auxlary verbs comes to us from the Gaelic languages, most particularly Welsh.

I think she has a gold bathtub:-)

So the freelance editing had merits, and I'm going to ask the same guy if he is willing to do the same with another book(first half of Acts).

Pricey, but worth it. Most of his nits were concept ideas. Like the fact that a third of the book is about Tazar's and prison, but the purpose of the book is to display the Catacombs. I need better worldbuilding in. Chapter1. I need to show non-humans immediately, rather than talking about them half through the. Ok. I need to make the Horror issue secondary to a break igger reason for going underground (hackles down, NJC) so I decided to kill Sulder in the beginning of the book, all while forcing Jaylene to abandon the surface in order to protect Base Camp.

I need to start out every chapter in the right head.

Jaylene fell flat again. I'm considering making the book between Tazar's and Alda.

Will include other thoughts after the conference call