Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

njc wrote:

Janet, if a side bit about some abusive soldiers will get you to read a chapter ... well, when Jose Luis Borges picked up The Napoleon of Notting Hill he said that the opening, less than a complete sentence, convinced him that the author was a master.  Anyone who could throw away a line like that must surely be sitting on a wealth of story.  The opening?  "The human race, to which so many of my readers belong ..."

Yeah, I'm easy. But then, everyone knows this by now. I read romance novels after all! big_smile

I don't think a lot of people know that I do, I'm pretty private IRL. A few might actually be shocked out of their underpants if they'd ever find out. Co-workers. I think they won't take me serious ever again based on the crap I was given when I mentioned I liked Transformers. Yes, I like mindless books and movies (not all of the time, just most of the time), because the only time I have for them is when I want to stop thinking and start to relax.

So, one day when I'm a famous romance writer, I'll hopefully be retired already! LOL

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Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

njc wrote:

Some minor edits made in the flashback, and a little more of Amy's cherished description.  (Caneth Bound is another chapter entirely.)

ha! So she gives you crap about that too! I'm in good company ... smile

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403 Reply by amy s

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

We are all in good company.

NJC, you know my opinion about the names. Your changes only make me think, "G name. Definitely a woman. Two out of three are kids, so statistically, I can assume one of the kids is being referenced."

I think this has to do with my patterning.  I work with a lot of linear thinkers at work (i.e. men). Logical thinkers who follow logical chains of thought. I also work with two who have nearly photographic memories. Keeping up with them is a bitch.  (Especially when I was new at this.)  However, I think in circles, gathering my information from multiple sources, and finding two or three answers instead of the approved one.

This makes me really good at diagnostics because I think outside the regular train of thought. I also read CT scans better than my attendings because I can discard normal and pick out the weird thing instead of being confused by the chaff.

I learned how to think like my coworkers, but it fades away when I'm tired. Mostly, I fake linear organization as a survival mechanism.

So, what I'm saying (in my circular roundabout way) is that don't worry what I think about the names. I will continue to be confused by them because I gloss over the name and read the content after it.  That is why K's trick of choosing names with a different first letter works well for me.

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404 Reply by njc

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

And yet no chemist would confuse an alkane with an alkene.  Why?  Because he's primed to look for the difference.  Nor would most people have a hard time distinguishing butane with butadiene.  Why?  The word lengths are different, for one thing, and the latter word has the unusual syllable 'dien(e)'.  Even without interpreting it as a diphone, the words look different.

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Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

KHippolite wrote:
njc wrote:

And yet no chemist would confuse an alkane with an alkene.  Why?  Because he's primed to look for the difference.  Nor would most people have a hard time distinguishing butane with butadiene.  Why?  The word lengths are different, for one thing, and the latter word has the unusual syllable 'dien(e)'.  Even without interpreting it as a diphone, the words look different.

Hmm butane and butadiene would kick my ass if they were used in the context of a story where there was a third "butalong" and all three were related to each other.

"Butalong walked by and say Butane kissing his girlfriend Butadiene"

Yikes!

So that would be butene, butane and butadiene. Butane can be twins, normal butane and isobutane.

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406 Reply by njc

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

Janet, I yield to your superiority in chemistry.

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407 Reply by amy s

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

I rest my case. Linear thinkers. The question is: NJC, do you want to have non-Linear thinkers reading your book? Or are you willing to sell it to the masses? You aren't dumbing down anything by making concessions to reading style. You're learning how to communicate with people who don't think like you.

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408 Reply by njc

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

This is the smallest of things on which to hang that question.
I'll give this more thought, but I have other things to do.  I've got a scene in my head that won't happen the way I'm seeing it, but I might put it up anyway.  I have some revision on Nikkano and Erevain.  And I have to get back to Nikkano today.

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409 Reply by amy s

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

I'm jealous. Right now, I'm cleaning and peeping my downstairs apartment for rental. Boo-rah.

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410 Reply by njc

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

I need to spend a few hours in a hurry straightening mine.  There's a crew coming in on Friday morning to replace the bathroom floor with one that won't crack all over the place when a heavy person walks on it.  I'm lighter than I used to be, but the floor joists are only 2x6's.  A vitreous floor will crack.

Amy, I made a few edits to Books for Pengrit.  I didn't cover everything you wanted, and I probably won't.

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411 Reply by amy s

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

Maybe I'll wear you down someday but I doubt it:-)

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412 Reply by njc (edited by njc 2015-08-27 02:54:04)

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

Oh, please.  Only you consider superpowers inherently interesting.  B'sides, I'm giving away klooze

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413 Reply by amy s

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

NJC, I need chapter numbers and clarification of what book. That way, I won't read material that isn't as fresh.

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414 Reply by njc

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

Book 2, recently published Kirsey-Erevain (high chapter number).

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415 Reply by amy s

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

Gotcha!

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416 Reply by njc

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

I have a new standard for my Academy.  See the last panel in this mad Mad science world.

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Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

njc wrote:

B'sides, I'm giving away klooze

No. Way. This I have to see to believe. I'll check it out this weekend ...

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418 Reply by njc

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

Ooorf.  I'm way behind ... in reviews ('pologies, all!), in Erevain, in some edits on the Kirsey-Erevain-0 chapter ... and on top of it all I've had an insight on future thread development.  And I am, as the Commonwelth folks were wont to say, knackered.

Merran and Jamen will be running into trouble at the Academy--and they'll end up there several times.  One time, I think Merran will be alone, with the fading Threkesrom.  But that's not all I need.

I'm thinking now of an ensemble, four to seven people, with an informal center and sometime leader.  He'll be a lot like Pike--talented, easygoing, always busy, never busy, always helpful, and always at the center of every gathering of his friends.  Male or female?  I don't know.  There should be a second, maybe in love with #1, with a great faith in #1.  #1 considers thi #2 flighty, but will tie the Worlds into a knot over something that Really Matters to #2.

I'm still working on the others.  They won't show up for a while, but when they do, they'll be strongly aligned with the Academy--except that #1 is far too much live-and-let-live.

Thoughts?  Pitfalls?

I need to improve my note-keeping on characters; this may put me over the edge.

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419 Reply by amy s

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

Interesting to see the way you develop the characters. I make a personality and then write the story around their motivations. You are writing an 'ensemble' based on their actions rather than motivations. Not bad...just different. 

I think it works.  If you want me to go into pitfalls, then the love interest thing can complicate the character's actions, limiting your choices in the plot.  Nothing that you can't get around, but a real risk.

A

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420 Reply by njc

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

Not so much actions as temperments, qualities, and the interior obstacles they will have to get over.

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421 Reply by njc

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

That scale does not apply.  Kirsey could frost almost anyone's flakes, excluding Pike's and Threkesrom's, and maybe a couple of other Masters.  Threckesrom now might be good for one or two strong spells, but he's old and tired.  I may give him a minute or two on stage, through.

I'm looking forward and seeing what raw material I'll need and what I'll have.  I may include a comet or two in this solar system.

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422 Reply by njc

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

njc wrote:

That scale does not apply.  Kirsey could frost almost anyone's flakes, excluding Pike's and Threkesrom's, and maybe a couple of other Masters.  Threckesrom now might be good for one or two strong spells, but he's old and tired.  I may give him a minute or two on stage, through.

Or do you mean that he's too big to be in much jeopardy?  I  mean him to be a study in the limits of power.  For now, his limit is knowledge and the ability to be in only one place at a time.

The Kirsey-Erevain scene might involve someone else, but only a few people could bring the wolves along.  (As of now, nobody, but I expect that Kirsey will need to be able to hand them off to at least one other person.  Think of those documents Kirsey signed with Threckesrom.)

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423 Reply by njc

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

Too much Kirsey, then?  Too mich Obiwan, not enough Luke?  Remember that you're seeing a chapter stripped from its context.

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424 Reply by njc

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

But it doesn't fit the plot.  Besides, if I put all the cool episodes in Book 1 there'll be none left for the rest.

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425 Reply by njc

Re: The Sorcerer's Progress

Okay, there's a sketch of an episode up in Book 2, chapter 40, A Lecture at the Academy.  It's mostly scenery and power moment.    Amy, you may OD on it, even though you'll spend more words telling me what's wrong with it.

When it becomes a real chapter (Book 2 or 3), the phony names will get filled in and there will be more meat.  Right now it's meant to be very pretty bone and appetizer.

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