Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - Renoard

Pages: 1 ... 64 65 [66]
976
Jordan Riggs a young historian who was born with the spark in another time, accidentally channeled into a Stone and ended up learning to make his way as a story teller and student of Jain Fairstrider.  Ends up going off to begin the Chronicles of Matt and Precious (Shamin/Seamin/Seameen?) in fabled Seandar...

No not spoilers, I just spent too much time infecting my mind with hermeneutics....

977
Brandon Sanderson / Re: A Memory of Light
« on: April 01, 2009, 01:43:12 PM »
I took the poll at the begining of this thread and I voted "only one or two"  I'd like to protest that the answer I wanted to give was not in the poll, however.  I think it will be a significant number of characters that have to be killed off.  I do not think that if Mr. Rigney had finished the rewrites and edits himself that Rand would be one of them.

1) The prophecies in the series have all been just a bit more obscure than the characters accounted for and it would be too pat for the blood on the rocks passage to lead to Rand's death.

2) James Rigney is one of the most amazing thieves I've ever read.  Now I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean he borrowed thematic elements, plot-lines and characters from every major work of Romance and Speculative fiction in the English language and I think a couple from Spanish besides.  But he manages to not only make them fresh and uniquely his but to integrate them perfectly. That said book #11 had started linking Rand to Barak Halfhand and Thomas Covenant from [Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever[/i]. That leads me to believe that he would eventually have lead Rand to survive but in a diminished persona minus Lews Therrin and without the Global Empire to manage. That will fall to Matt.

3) The operatic death-of-all-heroes-and-villians-good-triumphs-but-the-only-the-sidekicks-and-lackeys-are-left-to-mourn is so hackneyed I just can't see such an independent thinker being able to bring himself to write it.  Not to mention the fact he'd want to avoid connecting his own passing with that of his character and the obvious parallels some wild-eyed fans would draw.

Again just a thought, but I'm open to debate.

978
Brandon Sanderson / Re: Brandon To Write Wheel of Time Book 12
« on: April 01, 2009, 01:22:39 PM »
250K is just about the time I'm looking for the third major plot twist.  If a book ended at that point it would be rather unsatisfying.  On the other hand 700K is a little long.  But we're looking at this a bit too clinically I think.  Mr. Sanderson has pointed out in several posts that much of the current word volume is due to a lengthy prologue.  Is it really best to count forematter against the book's word count?  I read all the forewards/prologues but they are just the teaser to establish the context for the books which really in this case will begin with EUOL's original material in chapter one.  We're all just blowing off steam because of the anxiety over whether the series will end with a triumph or a whimper.

But really unless the prologue could reasonably be divided the results of splitting Memory would be ugly and require even longer delays not to mention encroaching on the precious real estate of text written by Rigney.  More text would be required to smooth the ending of Memory, a new title selected for the last book, hate mail answered from desperate fans and tinkering to smooth the opening of Book 13 (to be named whenever).  Not a pleasant thought.  An extra odd millions of dollars for TOR of course but messy and potentially disastrous.

979
Brandon Sanderson / Re: WOT Help
« on: April 01, 2009, 12:59:17 PM »
The foreshadowing suggested to me that the destruction of the seals will precipitate the Last Battle but what Fel discovered, in my opinion is that the seals have to be destroyed and battle completed in order to "finally" heal as opposed to sealing the bore.  Now I may be wrong and really we'd have to ask EUOL and he'd say wait till October... but it seems logical that there will be a call back to the circular nature of the wheel.  Rigney seemed of two minds on that but, logically, if time is a circle and there was no bore before Therrin's contemporaries opened it, then after the "last" Battle it has to be healed entirely.  blood on the rocks

Just a thought.

980
Writing Group / Re: Writing the Other
« on: April 01, 2009, 12:31:12 PM »
Seems to me that Humans are resilient enough to find racism even in a world with subspecies.  People resent the neighboring tribe for not being the same tribe.  You have to remember that for a good bit of European history, people really did believe Fae folk, gnomes and Djinn were lurking about.  That never stopped Anglo-Saxons from referring to dark-skinned Caucasians (Arabs, Scythians, Jews, etc.) as black and calling Africans, Nubian or worse.  People have an amazing capacity for prejudice and discrimination.  These lead to conflict and as EUOL likes to point out that is the stuff of good fiction.

981
Writing Group / Re: Grammar Questions
« on: April 01, 2009, 12:07:31 PM »
If brows are only unfurrowed 1% as often as they are furrowed that would explain the need for plastic surgery.

Is coining new words really a huge problem for writers/publishers of speculative fiction.  It seems that it's a necessary element in order to invoke alieness (for example).  Another thread was referring to the problem of introducing common usage into fantasy worlds and to what degree this is jarring.  It seems possible that some non-standard language, as long as it follows the rules of grammar and construction, might actually be indispensable.

I'd like to hear some thought on this?  Thanks.

982
Writing Group / Re: What would be cooler?
« on: April 01, 2009, 11:53:15 AM »
Electrical impulses is a cool idea.  For another way that someone, not necessarily Ben, could use- -the character could have vision that shifts just a few hundred nanometers into the infra-red.  Normal vision, but seeing additional light that we call "heat" of infrared as if it were just additional shades or red light. Comparing the character's vision to normal vision would be like comparing normal vision to being color blind.  So no Predator(tm) bits with the character seeing everything distorted like through a sniper scope. 

Besides, "nanometers" is a $20 word too...

983
Writing Group / Re: Exposition: What is the best way to handle it?
« on: April 01, 2009, 11:44:11 AM »
Rigney/Jordan has an interesting way of dealing with the "info dump" in some places he uses it to seguey from one character's POV to the next.  Dialogue cuts out he continues with stream of consciousness that merges into narration then back to stream and finally internal dialogue on the next character. Heh, ignore the syntax in the previous please.

I seem to remember most of the old guard: Bova, McCaffery, Eddings- -all using a similar device.  It doesn't have to be a kludge or a dump if the voice shifts to accommodate the shifts in perspective.  Also breaking it up into separate direct observations by various characters could work.  Getting the info out there without interrupting the flow of the story or the plot is the main thing.  Of course a first person narrative can solve that too but their tricky.

How about a First Person narrative where the character of the narrator is one of the characters of the book, but who like to write in shifting POV limited...  It's called Name of the Wind...


984
Writing Group / Re: Writing Prompts!
« on: March 26, 2009, 05:38:47 PM »
Isn't this called Warbreaker.... ;D

How about a religion that worships color? The people believe that there is a specific spirit within each type of color. If there is a blue cup and a blue flower, both would be inhabited by the same spirit, but if there was a blue shirt that was even slightly different in shade of blue, there would be a different spirit. The strength of the spirits is based upon how pure the color is.

The pure colors (red, blue, and yellow) are the most powerful of spirits while green, purple, and orange are next in power. As colors become more of a mix, the spirits inside of them get less and less powerful.
There are numerous factions within this religion that are at constant war with each other. The three main factions are obviously for the spirits of red, blue and yellow. The worshipers believe that the spirits have called on them to get rid of all opposing color.

So, the worshipers of the red spirit will wear all red and their temple is completely red... you get the idea. Part of ridding the world of opposing colors involves assassinating priests of opposing factions. If the red priests catch anyone, they will open all the veins, making a lot of blood come out, and then they will spread that blood all over the captured persons (naked) body.

The blue priests wear all blue, etc. They kill their captives by drowning them in ice cold water...

Right now I'm not quite sure how the yellow priests kill. One idea is that they put captives in a cage out in the desert, letting the (yellow) sun kill them. That doesn't follow the pattern of turning the body yellow, though. They could paint the bodies yellow, but that would be too easy.


This was a really weird religion idea, but it seemed to me that if people can find spirits in rocks and such, why not take it one step further and find spirits in the colors, themselves?

And I apologize for my poor writing style.

985
Writing Group / Re: Formatting Question
« on: March 26, 2009, 05:33:39 PM »
Seems like it's really never too late to introduce a character if the plotting calls for the character, insert him. :)

The only way it would be too late is if the climax of the story has already begun to spin up.

Do I get xps for posting?

986
Writing Group / Re: Writing combat
« on: March 26, 2009, 05:28:39 PM »
I like the way rigney handles combat. Matt has a stream of consciousness that seems to skip like a greasy CD, while Rand is fairly calm and collected and even has time to notice some details of setting. Perrin smells...

I'm new too, and the discussions in this Group are entertaining and surprisingly flame retardant.  ;D

987
Writing Group / Re: Difficult writing challenge: Guilt/Shame.
« on: March 26, 2009, 05:17:27 PM »
This might seem trite, but it seems to me that free writing about your own emotional reactions to the "shame" might help you to pull out some nuggets of introspection you could use in the character's stream of consciousness.  Wow that was long winded of me. :) Sometimes the basics help us get through tough exercises. Do it by the numbers then go back and rewrite till it feels more like what you want.

Something else to consider: If you are identifying with the character you are writing and you are conflicted and angry such that you can't write him or her as submissive to the community, maybe your character would benefit from some of your own conflict and resentment. Maybe grudging submission garnered out of bile and bitterness is the way the character works through this issue and eventually finds peace and the strength to defend against abuse?

All I know is your question has me intrigued and wanting to read your story.  :P

988
Writing Group / Re: Modern Language in Fantasy?
« on: March 26, 2009, 05:05:55 PM »
It can be a story killer. Nothing is quite as jarring as reading a decent mystical fantasy set in a rustic pre-techno environment only to have the characters saying something that was spouted by Hanna Montana last week. That's part of the theme with the Xanth novels. But if Rigney or Martin did that, it would collapse the whole suspension of disbelief that's critical to the story.

Like all rules there are exceptions... "The Compleat Complete Enchanter" comes to mind. The amber series... Context is King!

989
Writing Group / Re: Markets
« on: March 26, 2009, 04:56:12 PM »
My first impulse was to be snarky ( the last post was in 2005?) but this seriously was a good idea. Anyone found anything recently?

Pages: 1 ... 64 65 [66]