Timewaster's Guide Archive

If we're not too busy, I'll polish up another chapter of NaNoWriMo to submit. I might even be able to work in some editing time so you guys don't have to put up with what I crapped out for NaNoWriMo.

And are we supposed to be naming our files that way too? I was under the impression that was just the subject line of the email. Sorry!

Hmm... I think that just might work. I'll try it in my rewrite, and see if it works out. If not, I could probably trim portions of it as well.

I love the pacing of this chapter. Very good, made it keep moving along very quickly, but doesn't feel rushed.

I agree with Frog, though. Much of this is confusing. At the beginning of the scene, I didn't realize it had happened before Ch 1, which confused me to no end. I'm going, "Wait, when did he get free? Who's this Jake guy?" Maybe it's just that it's been a week since I read Chapter 1, and missed something at the end of that chapter that queues this one up, but there were other clarity issues too. Frog covered those for the most part, so I'll just stick with her stuff.

I also wasn't completely clear on why Baltier runs to the knights. Is it just because they're the enemy of whoever is attacking him? Is he somehow affiliated with them? If not, how does he know that they're there/have healers with them, and what makes him think that they'll help him?

It was very well done though. Overall an excellent chapter. I happily await the next installment.

Which is pretty much what I was worried about.

Ok, a few things.

Quote

   “Exactly!” the mage said, looking as though his annoyance was approaching open anger now. “You see, if you die, then I don’t get to kill you. Now, hold tight.”

This part really pushed me away. Perhaps it's because I haven't read anything previous to this, so I'm a bit lost, but it's still really cheesy. If Khyus is really that important, than Quinn doesn't really want to kill him (at least not right now). The fact that he's angry suggests that he does want to kill him, for reasons unapparent to me. It feels like he either wants to be a bad mofo, or he's just evil for the sake of being evil. I'm sorry if this is due to lack of prior information.

Pretty sure I'd attribute it to writing this section at about 2:00 in the morning as opposed to lack of prior info. Sorry 'bout that....

The whole thing with Khyus throwing Quinn. Once again, a two in the morning thing (Actually, this one's probably just lack of sleep in general, since I think I wrote this part of the chapter in the afternoon). I noticed it on my skim-through, but apparently forgot to change it to something a little more reasonable.

I envisioned the scene as Khyus standing at the top of the hill, looking out over the valley, which is filled with trees. The hill does have some trees, but not many, leaving Khyus with a view. The mountains are to the north, behind Khyus, behind the castle. Sorry for the lack of clarity in the text itself. I'll catch that on the rewrite.

And like I said, I'm concerned about the magic system infodump. It needs to come here, because if you don't have some basic foundations, the next chapter will leave you totally lost (It's from the viewpoint of an expert Deviator), and yet I have to find a good, interesting way to do it. What I have really doesn't work as well as I'd hoped. I'll have to think about it a tad.

I plan on getting into what is involved in Deviation considerably more in coming chapters, though some of it will still come across as being pretty vague. You have to realize, this is mostly instinctive, which makes describing what a character is doing difficult while maintaining the right feel for the way the characters understand it.

Lethalfalcon, could you provide some examples of details/reflections  that were repeated a lot so that I can work on them? That, and so that I don't keep repeating them. I tend to do that.

The issue with the setting is that this is Khyus' first time seeing the area as well, unless you count the previous night. He's not going to be paying attention to things like how Quinn supplies himself, just how many people live here, etc. He would, however, be surprised by the servant, as you mentioned, and later on he starts to notice other things. Which I would have completely forgotten to do, so thanks for the heads up. I'll add in a little detail.

And Cynic, you also addressed one of my other concerns, that there's no driving plot at this point. The next chapter should introduce some issues, but not on Khyus' plotline. I'll have to up-play the issue with not knowing what Quinn wants, and try to add a little bit more info to give you something of a tease.

As always, thanks for the comments. Keep 'em coming, people. Even though this chapter is ridiculously long.

Sounds fun! I'd like to take a look at it, at least. You could always email it to me if you're thinking about ever trying to get it published. My emails in my profile.

And as for some of us around here writing big involved fantasy novels, we never said they were any good...

Overall, this looks really good. I'm liking seeing into Haiden's mind a bit more. There were only a few minor issues I had.

1) Why exactly does Haiden go to Church? You mention that it's the totally logical thing for a near-atheist to do, which made me laugh, but his reasons for going were never really established.

2) The priest is a little weird. Sometimes he reads like he doesn't really believe in all the teachings of the church and such, sometimes he reads like he's the most pious person ever. I'd look at what he says and make sure he doesn't ever come across as being condemning of the church.

3) Why does Haiden think that putting a Khabor guy in the Consulate will help to increase Devidan unity? That really really confused me. One second he's thinking about how to unite the Devidans, and the next he's proposing a solution that seems to me would quite thoroughly piss off most of the Devidan world. At least from what I gathered of the relationship between the Devidans and the Khabor (Khabori? Khaborans?). The only thing I can see working is either a) Haiden uniting the Devidans against the Khabor, or b) Haiden attempting to unite the Devidans and Khabor, which sounds like political suicide. Option a kind of makes sense though, except that he's apparently well thought of by the Devidans.

It's in my line edits, but I feel obligated to mention that nobody looks at a grandfather clock and says, "It's 10:36." That would be 10:35.

There's also a little discontinuity with Haiden - at the beginning, he seems to be discussing how he has to break the empire completely to win, and inspire the people to do.... whatever it is he wants, but later mentions that he will not be a rebel, and hates being called a war hawk.

It seems a little odd for Haiden to be bitter about the Confirmation ceremony itself, when he himself is reflecting on how the cause likely has to be government corruption. I'd think it would be more likely for him to be speculating as to who tried to keep him out.

Also, the obsessive idea that everything Kurick did is inherently wrong is a little annoying. You might want to tone it down just a bit.

I asked this question earlier, but still haven't got an answer, and it's still annoying me. Are "Devos" and "God" interchangeable? If so, I'll stop commenting on it....

Jirald's sermon - He seems to be talking about how good and peaceful the Khabor are, even saying that they're better than the Devidans. Not sure if that's a mistake, or if the priest just holds some unique views, or if I misread it and the priest is actually Khabor. Either way I was a little confused right here. Oh, wait, is he talking about the stars? Because that would make sense, but the mention of the Khabor in the previous line really confuses the issue a bit.

Why does Haiden use Identification on Jirald? What is he worried about? This wasn't particularly clear.

What happens to a soul that isn't strong enough to reincarnate? Does it just like... sit there? Because apparently it still exists....

Line edits are in your inbox. They aren't very picky this week, but I got the major things. I'm assuming someone else will be nitpicky.

Just finished another chapter, and this one's a bear (both in terms of size and in terms of how great it was to write). Overall, though, I'm really happy how it came out. It's definitely not perfect, but I think it sets up the new PoV quite nicely.

That, and I knocked another 2,000 words out of my NaNoWriMo deficit. Only 12,000 behind now (I wrote 4k today, but only 2k count toward the deficit)!