Local Authors > Reading Excuses

August 7, 2011 - Will777r - Soul Yearning - Chapter 8

<< < (2/2)

Will777r:
Thanks everyone for the feedback! As always, I really appreciate the time you all took to read my stuff and comment on it.

A couple of you have mentioned that the story seems to be meandering. One of my goals on the next re-write is to cut and condense a lot of chapter 5 through 8 to get back to the action a bit quicker. It's a difficult balance because the story is mostly character driven. But I don't want it to bog down. Once Chapter 10 hits, there's a small section of chapters where the world opens up, but other than that it's all movement until the end. Now to answer some questions hehe.

Aetherial is a friend of Albione's father, before Alb was even born. Alb's father was much more tolerant than the temple. Their relationship broke down the walls that would normally keep Alb and Aeth from friendship. To be honest, the temple's problem with the militia is much more political than religious. Ferris is former nobility and ripped the people's loyalty from the temple. That means less attendance, money, and power. That's really what fuels the temple's hatred. Religion is just the excuse to fire up the masses. Oh, and I'm glad some of you like Aetherial - he's one of my favorite characters.

There are alliances among the pantheon, although that doesn't come into play in this book much.

Hubay kind of nailed how the temple of Alazon views things, their theology per se. Albione doesn't quite see it that way because he's not really paid much attention to his religious studies - hence his superiors frustration with him.

There's no inherent animosity toward half-elves. I was trying to avoid that cliche. Plus Aetherial is very well known in this part of the world. He has an outstanding reputation with pretty much everyone (except maybe his father's people).

Thanks again!

Will777r

cjhuitt:
I liked the bit with Jake.  The main thing I wonder about changing there would be perhaps Albione's line being emptier than usual.

Does Aetherial have another part to play in the story beyond spurring Albione further in his doubts?  I hope so, since he seems a fun character.  On the other hand, if he's only here for this, I'm not sure he needs to be here.

Aetherial's story was intriguing in opening the world up a little more.  Especially the idea of a Ruboc, which I liked.  The mention of a wizard surprised me a bit, because I hadn't seen mention of another magic system separate from the church yet.  How are wizards and priests distinct in the book?  Or are they?

I hope the questions raised by the Ruboc story come into play later (why it was near the caravan, etc.).

At one point you refer to agnosticism as a religion, which I thought was odd.

The biggest problem I noticed is the same others have mentioned, that the introspective parts have gone on a while.  If you want a suggestion, one possible choice to help among many, is to have Albione be a little more active in trying to resolve his discomfort.  I'm not saying he has to do the right things, or even be active in the sense of doing a lot of stuff, but have a goal he's trying to accomplish, and specific things he does for it.  If he's working towards something -- and these things have some result -- mixed in amongst the introspection, I think it would read much better.  Maybe even make the scene with Jake into more of a struggle at first, in order to get the blessing, which he then accomplishes (but it doesn't really solve anything).  If it fits with your story, of course.  Mostly, I'm just trying to be a trigger for your ideas; whatever you come up with will fit your story much better than anything I can think of from this perspective.

Will777r:
Thanks for the feedback Hubay! I absolutely loved your suggestion about Albione and Jake. I think the reason that this section of the story sags a bit is because I haven't made Albione's goals and motivations clear at this point. I really appreciate the rest of your comments too. I found them to be some of the most helpful I've gotten in pinpointing how I can improve on this section of the story.

Aetherial will become a major character in the final 3rd of the story. He'll be in and out every few chapters until then. He is probably my favorite character next to Albione.

The power a wizard uses is distinct from priestly power. However, they would both be considered religiously based. There's a chapter later in the book where that is explained in detail.

Concerning Agnosticism, there have been periods in history where things meant different things than they do now. I got this idea from the times of the Roman Empire. For example, in Rome it was illegal to be an Atheist. However, their definition of Atheism was vastly different than the current one. An Atheist was anyone who refused to worship gods declared legal by the empire. If you worshiped an illegal deity, you were charged with Atheism. I've tweaked some common terminology in the story to something different to give it a bit of a twist.

Will777r

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page