Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (Page 67 of 77)

Here are a few thoughts about the freelance editor that I hired to look at Dictates:

Pro: He is helping me adjust the first chapter to make it stronger. I've always had a problem getting people to understand the magic system that I use. Lots of confusion when Alda isn't recognized as being one of the guards during the resurrection.  By introducing the power system of the Lance and the Veil in the first chapter, there will be a lot fewer hiccups when I start to throw these terms around.

Pro: He is helping with the ending. I'm more focused on wrapping up the subplots in one fell swoop, leaving the last chapter for a happy-for-now scenario. Before this, the only advice that I received was to end it and then revise, while I didn't have much of an idea of what to do.

Pro: He advised me to thin the perspectives, but amplify Tazar and Lewellen. This allows me to use Lewellen to avoid the Library scene (that bored Dirk to tears) yet still have the info dump. It also allows me to prelude the monsters, so that the critters aren't a surprise (Ex: Lewellen goes into the caverns and the Veil lifts, allowing him to realize that the texts he used to read weren't fiction. So he starts asking if X is real, and are they going to encounter a Y?  That will let me introduce the mar, the Leviathan, the gillis, and the nixies before they are encountered.) It also lets me make Jaylene more mysterious, because she's a great character and I keep writing her as B-O-R-I-N-G. 

Pro:  He helped come up with a GREAT character twist. Tazar was the one who pushed Jaylene to her death in the Earthwound. What a great mind-f**k!  This book is about redemption, and Tazar has tremendous need to redeem himself. When Jaylene comes back to life, he has to prove to himself that he isn't a threat to his friends any longer. I absolutely love the torment that I'm going to put him through. 

Pro: TJ sets realistic deadlines, which I can easily meet. He is also keeping me on track, making me work on Dictates even though I was pretty much sick of the revisions. It will get at least one book polished enough for submission, keeping me out of the trap where I publish too soon. I've seen it happen to a lot of writers on the site. They are tired of the story and want to move on, so they side-rail a promising project rather than giving it the attention it requires.

So, in other words, I'm satisfied with the $$$ that I paid. The cons were few. TJ took his time getting back to me, and extended the deadline for finishing my manuscript 3 times. However, he always notified me of the delay, and we kept in touch. I knew about the chaos at his job (from Twitter) and was patient with the delay because his day job has to come first. That was the only negative so far, and he met the last deadline, so his end of the agreement was met to my satisfaction.

That is about it. Anybody have any thought about this?

Not sure about the Tazar twist.  Let's see how it plays.  I'm afraid it might hold Tazar back early when he needs to act.

The cover is too dark. Perhaps add a torch on one side that casts light over the interior. It didn't remind me of Jesus so much as it did the Mines of Moria.

It was a rush job. I'll change the cover to something more mysterious :-)

Wow!

please please plz

I hiring you to do my cover.

Moving the discussion here ...

Your master title should be tied to the story ... but the tie should be even deeper once the story is read, if you can manage that.

Good question, Norm.  What is the core here?  Obviously, you're not giving it all away at once.  But Faulter, Defiler, Behira, ... what name is given to the battle or war into whch Kha saw Silestra plunge?

Age of Magic, Age of Diminishment ... what is the new Age to be called?

Or the name could be built around Earthwound.  Earthwound and Peril ?

I vote for anything that doesn't contain the word "of" in position 2

Earthwound Saga
Founders series
Cataclysm reborn

Founders' Fulfillment
Mage and Priest War
The End of the Guild and Temple War
Staff and Spear at War
Defiler Rising
Defiler and Wolves
War (or Battle) of Two (Three?) Ages  (The Age of Magic gave way to the Age of Diminishment.  But what would the next Age be: Redemption or Death?)