Author Topic: April 24 - LongTimeUnderdog - The Canticle and the Forge, chapter 16  (Read 1787 times)

LongTimeUnderdog

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Summary:

Prologue:  Traxix is being tried for grievous crimes against the world and all of humanity (or what that equates to anyway).  Imprisoned in a cell of iron, chained to a bed of iron, Traxix lives in complete solitary until the trial.  His friend, Salem, is to represent him in the trial.  His wife, Chalot, is the primary witness against him and the person who imprisoned him.  He receives a visit from a woman claiming to be his daughter who tells him Salem is the person he should be wary of.  Before she can be questioned further, the woman is forced to flee.  During the trial, instead of testifying of all the crimes and injustices Traxix is sure he has committed, she instead preaches of how great a person he is and how the trial is a farce.  She is struck down almost instantly by a man from Calor.  Traxix, quite upset his wife was just killed, rushes to attack the Calorite.  He is stopped and killed by Salem.  Before he dies, Salem draws on his head with a piece of charcoal.

Karemoth:  Karemoth is a the greatest hunter of the Ziphoa tribe.  During the hunt, a child wonders close by and Karemoth loses a leg below the knee trying to rescue her.  The tribe gives him what equates to three days to prove he can still contribute to the well being of all (gather food in some way).  Unable to prove this, he is slated for death, as his body can be processed to food and the blood for drink.  Angry at such a callous treatment of him, after all the things he's done for the tribe, Karemoth kidnaps the witch girl (read white skinned person) and attempts to take her away to kill her as the tribal laws say they all should have done already.  Before he can kill her, however, the Tribe is attacked by a band of witches who kill man warriors and kidnap the High Chief as well as taking the girl, Anaiah, with them.  The tribe is very upset and, despite the problem of Karemoth attempting to run away, they can no kill him now, as they need him to help hunt the witches if he can.  Once found, the War Chief, amazingly enough, converses with them in Numarian (their language) indicating she has a great deal of experience with the witchborn people.  Negotiations fall apart, however, as there is little the tribe can offer for their chief.  The witches have devils fighting for them, controlled by a group of singing women.  Karemoth and his brother husband plan an attack to kill the choir of women and thus render the devils out of control.  In the confusion they try to rescue High Chief but she insists on getting all of their other numerous prisoners out.  This results in her death.  Despite Karemoth's bitterness at his wife's death, the rescued prisoners, also witches, offer to establish exclusive trade with the Ziphoa tribe.  Karemoth's ability to smith things from Bones is one of their particular reason for this.  Save now that he can bring in food in exchange for his smithing, Karemoth is safe, but still very angry at the witches.  Anaiah is returned to the tribe, as no one knows who her real parents are and she is, in turn, given to Karemoth to raise.  Karemoth, Teravan, and Hammond, the three husbands of the late High Chief, decide to use these new trade arrangements as a means of gathering powerful resources and training warriors in the forbidden magic of the witches.  Their plan is to use the devils, like the witches did, to conquer them and steal their resource rich lands back.  They are going to raise Anaiah up to do just that, as she is the only witchborn they can control to do it.

Interlude (Traxix):  Traxix wakes up in a strange place filled with foggy paths and translucent green fortresses.  Touching the bricks of the fortress causes him to relive other people's experiences.  Very suddenly, he finds out he's as alone as he thought he was.

Jin'Cathul:  Jin is the son of Pai'Asie Del'Nosa and her husband, Talvin.  A tall, lanky, Numarian boy with long white hair (that his parents refuse to cut short) trained as a research scientists (or as close as one gets in a B.C. aged world) as well possessing the strange ability to make purple electrical sparks dance on his fingers.  His best friend Chalinae, is upset because among the other freeborn males, he is the least male-like and sets him up for a challenge to prove he is a "man."  This challenge involves invading a neighboring Houses's garden and stealing a red flower.  Unable to figure out how to do that, Jin is greeted by a strange voice while doing work for his father.  The voice convinces Jin he can do it, and helps him plan how.  Jin leaves to do it too early in the planning stages, however, and does not have everything he needs to succeed.  Captured, Jin is slated for death with Chalinae because she put him up to the task.  His parents are able to have him released from the prison but he is forced to do a great deal of work for the people tried to steal from.  The voice in the Kulutinist Tower also implies that Talvin may not actually be Jin's real father.

Current Chapter:  Jin is shown his punishment and starts work on translating and helping his father with experiments involving a hole in the Shroud.  They are waiting for a nurse to come and check out Jin's injuries.

I hope it is an enjoyable chapter.

hubay

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Re: April 24 - LongTimeUnderdog - The Canticle and the Forge, chapter 16
« Reply #1 on: April 28, 2011, 08:56:56 AM »
I don't have a lot to talk about here; I think the chapter flowed pretty well, and I like the addition of magic here. Some of Talvin and Del'Nosa's dialogue is colored so that it sounds like they think of Jin as an object or commodity, rather than a person. Coupled with the voice's little bit at the end of the last chapter, I'm interested to see how their relationship develops now and if Talvin is his father or not. I do think you need to be careful Jin doesn't sound whiney when Talvin talks about him being useless. He might not feel independent enough to get angry about being insulted, but mostly I feel like he's just saying 'not fair.' Depending on how you want his character to feel, I think he should either get angry about it, accept the insults as deserved and then try to improve himself, or maybe play some sort of prank on Talvin to get back at him. Jin still thinks of him as his father, so anything violent would be wrong, but I could see him do something innocent like a cut a hole in his pants or something. Right now he just doesn't seem very active about the situation.

I think by now Jin, being the sharp boy that he is, would have come up with his own name for the voice. It will also help readers to have a name they can refer to, instead of just 'the voice,' until you decide to give us his real name.

I'm excited to see more of your magic in play. I know you've said you struggle with how much information to give us, and I know you don't like exposition. But I think it's safe to say you can be a little more forthcoming by now. Anyways, I look forward to the next piece.

akoebel

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The more I read your chapters, the more I do find them interesting!

As usual, I would have liked a much lighter epigram (the short one you did a few chapters back was especially good). That being said, this one was interesting. I liked the very last image very much.

For the chapter itself, it does get more and more interesting, but a couple of things bug me:

I find Talvin's character to be too unidimentional. The man's always angry and shouting at his son. The more I read about him, the less I like his attitude. I get that he's disappointed about Jin, but he never explains why nor does he do anything to correct the situation (besides shouting, that is). I know this is written from Jin's perspective and that the boy - as smart as he is - is essentially clueless, but I would like to see a more "fatherly" attitude from Talvin. The mother for herself feels much more balanced, even if she has way less screentime.

Jin is too easily distracted.
First, his friend was beaten, yet he worries little about her well-being (at most an off-handed comment once, but his mind jumps to something else and he never gets back to her). I feel like this should have really been a big issue for him (right now, he come out as really selfish).
Second, his propension to be distracted seems greater than his survival instinct. The boy has been in a very tough spot and is under close scrutiny. If that was me, I would be VERY self-conscious and would do anything to escape notice. Jin on the other hand goes on looking at books and daydreaming. It feels like he doesn't even care what will happen to him : he's under probation for serious charges, but for someone who wouldn't have read the earlier chapters, it feels like he was caught with his hand in the preserves jar. Maybe this is really his character not to be bothered by the future, but it feels off to me.

Other than that, everything feels fine : I'm waiting for the magics part to kick in any chapter now!

Asmodemon

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I’m a bit on the fence about this chapter. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s that what it contains feels odd to me. These include Jin’s behaviour and Talvin’s behaviour most of all.

Talvin is not much of a father type person, that’s very clear, but the rage he flies into in this chapter comes across as being out of character. In the last draft he was a real bastard, but in this draft, until this chapter, he just seemed a cold detached researcher with no idea how to deal with his ten year old son. For the most part the interaction between them is cool, with only kindness when Jin says or asks intelligent things. In this chapter Talvin is very abusive and I  don’t think I’ve seen enough hints that he can be this explosively cruel in the previous chapters.

As for Jin, there are many cases here where Jin is in trouble, but instead of his problems he focuses on the scenery. Take the first paragraph where Jin learns that the nurse will be late. He’s worried and tries to hide in his chair. So far so good, but then he starts to wonder what the chair is made off, instead of worrying what’s going to happen to him, why only he can hear the voice, what’s going on with Chalinae, etc. There are plenty of things he could think of rather than wonder about one chair.

I don’t really understand Jin. He gets manhandled by his father and it does nothing, but when Talvin calls Chalinae a whore suddenly he wants to burn his father’s face off? That’s a rather abrupt change, especially considering the only time he tried something conceivably violent was when he ineffectually tried to rescue Chalinae. If this is intended as a sign that he really cares for her it falls flat since nothing else JIn does or thinks adequately makes this clear.

I remember feeling something similar with the previous draft, with the character Guli. Some of Jin’s behavioural oddities are very reminiscent of Guli. Did you mix the two in this draft?

The last point I’m on the fence about is Jin’s punishment. Despite being manhandled by his father Jin really gets off easy – he gets to read old scrolls and books and has to copy them. Hardly a punishment for someone who’d gladly read those books anyway. It raises the question of what could be so important that Jin has to help his father, when it’s clear his father doesn’t think all that much of his help? While part of this is good as a hook, the fact that his punishment feels disproportionate does more harm than good, at least for me.

LongTimeUnderdog

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First off, I'm really surprised and amazingly appreciative that you read all the stuff I posted.  That's like . . . wow.  Anyway, I'll respond as best I can here, for all of them.  Making it either really long or really short and contained, we'll see.

I am aware Talvin's behaviors are odd and inconsistent.  I'm doing in purposefully.  That said, I get the concern posed by the audience.  With out some prior hint, it does come off as weird or inconsistent.  Of course to me it doesn't seem inconsistent because I know more about him then the rest of you, so I appreciate you pointing it out to me since I never would have seen it otherwise.

The scenes where Jin and the voice are talking (who has actually been named but I'll let you figure that out on your own) are long, can't argue.  But as for being pointless or not adding anything . . . I'm surprised to hear that.

Asmodemon, one of the things that makes your reading of particular interest to me is that you're reading the submissions back to back, as one would the actual book.  From that, you have a perspective about the story I am really enjoying.  So thank you for that.

As for the treatment of the hole, I suppose I should be drawing more attention to Zarfar and Talvin's behavior toward it.  The behavior is not out of character, or odd.  but as I am the only one that knows that . . . I suppose capitalizing on that should be important to making the scenes better.  Perhaps making a more direct mention of it instead of the subtleness I have been using.  The stuff that's not working very well.

An interesting note about Jin's age.  10 years old in our modern society != 10 years old 3000+ years ago.  Viking children, intersetingly enough, were consider full adults at 10 years old.  At 5 years old they were shipped off to apprenticeships at 5 years old, to learn a trade and if they were men and willing women, learning to fight.  I can't remember off the top of my head which chapter I mention it in, but Jin's service to Talvin is also a result of his apprenticeship, not just because he's the man's "son."  There will be more on that later.  So yes, Jin acts older because, culturally, he IS older.

This brings up a problem I've been having I would love suggestions with (from anyone).  In a society like this one, that kind of younger adult expectation is normal.  I did mention in one chapter that 13 is considered a full adult in some cases.   this still hasn't appeared to be enough.  How do I demonstrate younger = older in this culture without comparing it to our societies, as they don't have our society to compare it to?

LongTimeUnderdog

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Oh yeah, and I still havn't come up with something satisfactory to replace huuk with.  Still working on it.