Timewaster's Guide Archive

Hum - is Dec. 19 to Feb. 3 too long for a foreshadowing "we're getting ahead of ourselves" bit?

See the note on http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20081219.html

Although I have to admit, I vaguely remembered it. And found it without too much trouble.

Try an approximation.

First, that hole is 300 m diameter, right? So pi*(r*r) gives about 0.07 Km squared.

Now, the air is 6 K by 60 K. Call it a chunk of stuff 1,696 Km cubed? So line it all up in a 0.07 Km squared line, and you get about 24,000 Km worth to feed through. Run it at 100 Kph, it'll take 240 hours. Double that to 200 Kph, you've still got 120 hours. Even at 400 Kph, you get 60 hours.

And as the pressure drops, the winds will slow down. And temperature drop. Hum, I wonder if the hole would freeze an ice plug? Although those winds might pull something more solid in before that happens.

All roughly speaking.

If you listen to the podcast (Episode 33 on http://www.writingexcuses.com/ ) it was somewhat confused. I think Dan (aka Fellfrosch) started to suggest taking a side character from a novel you have written, and got tied up in the likelihood that we don't have a novel already written to borrow from. Into this tongue-tied state, Brandon (aka EUOL) swung a giant sword and clove the gordian knot in the interests of time, suggesting that we take a side character from the novel that we will write (in the future) and here in the present (which is the past for that future side character) write a story about them.

Bottom line: swipe a side character from somewhere and write a story about them. Promote them from the sidekick that doesn't have a viewpoint to protagonist. Take Lana Lang and tell the Smallville story the way she saw it. Or Jimmy Olsen? Or . . . pick a side character.

Two quick comments. First, how does he make a living? Drinking and plane travel cost. Is he independently wealthy? Second, you might recast this in third person. I sometimes think the reason we all like first person is that it lets us get away with so much. Third person limited forces us to think more about how to show things, just because we know darn well we aren't supposed to be doing it all with interior monologue.

Good question. Funny comics do usually end on a punchline. Serious ones?

Serious scenes end with a hook, a cliffhanger, a decision -- something to keep the reader going, to make them turn the page and keep on reading. I think serious webcomics would need the same kind of grabber, something that will make the reader come back tomorrow (or whenever the next strip goes up).

After all, the reader is going to turn away from the strip, work, play, eat, and otherwise gafia (get away from it all -- or perhaps fafia - forced away from it all?) so what is going to bring them back? A mystery (a man in black walked in), a revelation ("I'm your mother, Luke"), or something like that? You want them wondering, waiting, in suspense until . . . the next strip is up!

Hi, Necroben. I think instead of doing narrative summaries -- telling us what's going on -- I'd tackle it more as adding dialogue. So maybe:

"That wasn't a good sound."

"Who's shaking the ground?"

"Wait a minute -- did you feel the Earth move or was that just your moulinet?"

Not good, but maybe you'll see where I'm heading. Voice bubbles, not labels?

This religion focuses on the worship of pain. Early on in this culture's development it was noticed that the sensation of pain always accompanied important, formative events, such as danger or significant injury; sometimes it even warned of worse injury, as in when someone had their hand in a fire without noticing - the pain would warn him to pull it out before badly burning it. Pain thus began to be regarded as a gift from the gods; an important part of human experience, to be cherished rather than avoided and sought after as much as any other feeling.

Just wondering. Do worshippers follow the stoic path, refusing to react to their pain, or do they feel free to scream and cry? It seems as if the reaction would be a part of the experience, but I'm not sure how that would shape things. I suppose part of the question is whether worshippers are allowed to create their own pain (such as some of the festivals where people run nails through their bodies and such) or whether they are only supposed to accept pain when it comes "naturally." Which of course could result in some doubts as to whether someone had accidentally or deliberately put themselves into danger?

There's an interesting tie-in here to aging, since we tend to have more aches and pains as we get older. Clearly we are approaching the gods, and being blessed with increasing awareness of our own bodies. Oh, that works nicely.