Timewaster's Guide Archive

Sorry for being late. I didn't think I'd have it done today but I woke up early this morning and finished it.

To recap:

Kail and Kajsa traveled to the home of the Trolls under the Mountain to get Kajsa help after she was poisoned with iron. While there Kail discovered pieces of her past, that she was a kinslayer, called a thief and an Oathbreaker, something punishable by death among the trolls. She swore never to return until she had take someone "greater than all the trolls in the mountain" as her mate.

During a short trial Kail defeated the troll Kajsa had been promised to in battle and drew forth a sword no troll could pull free from the stone. Possibly proving himself greater then the assembled trolls.

And yes, I know I'm stealing a line from Mulan... but it just fits.

Thanks for reading!

I'm just waiting for Rainbow to reply to this thread and break it down or us...

Ok, so here is my theory on the identities of the three travelers in the interlude.

First off, Grump is Galladon. I can't believe people are even debating this one. The fact that his skin isn't glowing or silver isn't even a consideration. Elantrians can create food out of thin air, I'm sure they can come up with a good disguise or change their shapes.

Second: I think Blunt is Shuden. He matches the description and when he spoke in the books he was, well Blunt.

Third, I think Thinker is Kiin. He matches the description and towards the end of Elantris he is fighting half a dozen soldiers and they stop him by smashing him in the head with a rock, thus the scar.

Also, he seems to talk like Kiin. In Elantris when his friends start to argue, he interrupts them, starting his sentence with  the word "Gentlemen." Thinker does the same. Also, Kiin has an unusual background that I think makes him an interesting choice. Its hinted at that he should have been king and its said that he's one of the most well traveled men, with various relics from his traveling days. Who better to take if you're going to another world?

I"ll admit, Shuden as Blunt is pretty weak. Mainly because Blunt is described as a solider and Shuden didn't strike me as the solider type.

Then again, part of me wants to  say that one of them is Ham. I could see Thinker being Ham. (Ham also took at head wound at the end of HoA).

I actually asked Brandon about this one time specifically and he told me that the Lord Ruler was lying. Brandon said he could survive being beheaded.

He then told me that we might see some people in Way of Kings that could though!

I guess I don't understand what you mean by bad YA, do you mean poorly written? Why would you want to emulate poorly written crap?

If you are talking about dark ya I'd suggest starting with Holly Black's Modern Faerie Tales books. They are great imo and sound like the sort of thing you are going for.

I'll agree with Recovering_Cynic though in that this could be tough to write.

Of course, if the protag really thinks throughout the whole novel that he's fighting the forces of darkness and you can pull off a 6th Sense like reveal at the end where he discovers that the entire things was really just some LSD someone slipped him while playing D&D then this might be the best novel of all time.

That's what I was planning on doing. I'm a discovery writer so I don't really know exactly how long the ending will take but I have a good general idea.

Sorry it took me to long to get to this, work and comic con has kept me busy 

I don't have a lot of comments on the story. The writing was great and well done. I felt that the setting, characters, etc were nice and fleshed out for being a short story.

For me the big problems were just the slow pacing of the piece and lack of tension. Tragedy, treachery or murder can always spice up a story like this.

This might just be a matter of personal taste, but the best short stories imo have some sort of bang at the end. They either surprise you or make you think afterwards.

Great story, its hard to come up with comments because on the whole it was enjoyable and a quick and easy read. I dig the idea of a street urchin finding a giant monster to protect her.

While none of your steampunk ships etc were really described, the names spurred my imagination to fill in the blanks. I especially like 'Cloud Lancer'.

While we didn't see a lot of the magic, I liked it. I would like it more if it was a little cleaner. Like we're told what Alowish magic can do, but I'd like maybe to know a little more about why it works that way. To me I got the idea that Furnios's could use fire, it seemed like Alowish was all mind.

Finally, while I liked the ending, I think you can do better. Right now there is an explosion, she gets knocked into BalKon and this triggers a bonding experience. It would be better if she had to work for it somehow (maybe he's dying and she has to make the decision to go into his head to keep him alive, etc)

Also, she only figures out the stuff about the monsters because of a magic power, thats often unsatisfying. Again, I'd rather see her work for it. Also, I had the impression that they wanted to know how to kill the monsters without them blowing up, but it still blows up when she hits the runeplate.

But great story, I just think the ending could use more punch!