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Rysn realizes how big Chiri-Chiri is going to get, what i think of

boat, sailing somewhere, suddenly a giant shadow blots out the sky and a ear shattering roar is heard, everyone starts to panic, Rysn says, "don't worry, that's just Chiri-Chiri"

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Alright. Just finished this book and I need somewhere to channel the array of nonsense that is going through my mind right now.

First of all the book was crazy good. What a surprise, right?

And then uhh, Lopen. Yes, Lopen. I mean, I always assumed he was as laid back as he seemed, and he kinda is, but being in his mind brings everything to a new light. I mean, when he is talking about why he made one-armed Herdazian jokes, and then the exchange he has with Rysn right after, I had to fight back the tears, it was so unexpected despite how obvious it was in retrospective.

Still speaking of Lopen, I think his feelings toward Cord are cute, but I can't help but ship him with Rushu.

Then when Rysn floats for the first time, storms I was dying there. How do you not cry on that part? I will need a tutorial for rereads.

Oh, and then there's the Dawnshard of course. When she was describing the mural I was looking desperately for something similar, I was like "Ok, so two layers? That's like the allomantic chart, right? But the colors are wrong" and stuff. Of course that option didn't even make any sense. In the end the closest I could find was the Cosmere symbol itself, and even then the only real relation is that both have a sun at the center.

And the deal at the end. I storming love when a final battle is a spoken one. That final encounter between Holmes and Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes 2? Amazing. Basically every important battle in Monogatari? Top tier. Half the gameplay in an Ace Attorney game? That's true tension. So when I saw one of those was going to be the climax of this book. Well, try to imagine my excitement.

And now of course, next order of business is try to predict when will Rysn meet an Awakener, what will it be like, and if it's going to be Vasher or Vivenna.

So yeah, basically, the book was amazing, the Lopen is even more great than he seemed, I predict that he won't get the dramatic scene he wants until the fifth Ideal and, guys, I think I'm in love with Rysn.

Now just to wait for my copy of RoW to get here, which it seems it will tomorrow. How's that for good timing?

Edited by Eluvianii
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I started reading comments but then realised I wanted to just react first. Ill just add though re:

On 08/11/2020 at 10:30 AM, Subvisual Haze said:

I was impressed with how he wrote the viewpoint of a disabled person.  It's easy for that sort of thing to come off as preachy or scolding if not handled deftly.  Here it just seemed really informative and compassionate to everyone involved.

If you read the acknowledgments, Brandon and his team put together a group of disabled beta-readers in order to make sure he handled the disability aspect well. I think they all did a really good job. I was kind of wondering why Lopen of all people ended up on this trip, but then he's there bonding with Rysn over hoe people act weirdly around disabled people? It was beautiful. 

Ok so....thoughts!
CANON TRANS REP STORMLIGHT TRANSITION I am a happy bean! More please!!
Really good disability rep!! More please!!

Lopen realising that he was actually kind of being an ass and vowing to do better? Amazing. 
Im amused that the Herdaz language has words for all the different types of cousins. I would like a list of those words. for research purposes. 

Also Navani is queen? Jasnah is queen? So good. 
Lopen yanking ...Tulik? up into the air was....quite something. I dont remember there previously being a description of the giant mural that depicts a wasteland, but I am only partway through my re-read. 

I also love the character/plot point of Cord being a "rebellious teenager" and making different decisions regarding tradition than her dad who we all know and love. I love that she's also a great cook. I want to know more about Horneaters in general, they seem really cool. I had actually completely forgotten about the Perpendicularity they guard and how that willl come to into play more as people are more aware of Shadesmar.

I wonder if Rysn is going to become like a dragon rider. I wonder if the Dragon from the interludes is a traditional dragon or some kind of great shell. 

Its curious that the Sleepless aren't native to Roshar. I wonder where they are native too. I dont *think* its anywhere we've seen before. 

I was starting to wonder if the fabrial stuff was going to start getting into like, mechanics for FTL travel. Im guessing thats what eventually will happen, there just needs to be some system for basically not running out of investiture between planets. 

My thinking is that a worldhopper brought aluminium over, and then someone else figured out how to soulcast it and it spread from there. How else would it have the exact same name in a completely different language? 

Ooh I also appreciated the multilingual struggles, when Cord, I think was like "oh my god someone who speaks words that work!". I really like Cord.

Also the whole island is so cinematic? Its so visually beautiful? I have these gorgeous images in my mind that I dont have a fraction of the skill necessary to paint. Such a pretty island. Such sharp shabby rock guards. Such pretty creatures under the water. Such bleached sand and interesting city shape and storm in the background. 

Akinah could be an interesting place to take shelter from storms. I mean so is Urithiru. Speaking of Urithiru, very cool that people from all over and living and existing and trading there. Last we saw of it it was basically just Alethi and Alethi hangers-on from other cultures. 

One more thing - are the Reshi Isles all great shells, or is that just some of them, or a particular area? I realised that im not quite sure of that.

Also why are luckspren the spren that create a degree of weightlessness? What does that have to do with luck? What trait do they have in common?  

Ok I think thats all my rambles for now. Im excited!! Cant wait to get my hands on RoW either!!  

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On 11/10/2020 at 9:27 PM, Use the Falchion said:

My thoughts abridged:

liked it but I didn't love it, which felt weird because Rysn is one of my favorite characters and so many cool things happened! I think the change in her mindset really threw me for a loop. The last time we saw her she was learning to adapt, and by this novella she's adapted and has a new outlook on life. I'm very happy for her, but part of me wishes we could see flashbacks, just to see how far she's come. Maybe that' something a Stormlight show could add in. It reminds me of a complaint I heard on a thread here, where character's subtleties are sometimes dropped between stories to move the story forward, or how Sanderson will sometimes skip the more interesting bit for the readers in order to get to point in the story he wants to tell.

As an aspiring writer, I think I can say with some small amount of authority that it is a delicate balancing act between character development and plot development. It took me several years of constant pondering on my writing before I realized that those two things don't have to be the same for a good story, where a development in a character's personality drives a development in the plot, or a a significant plot event results in a character having a realization about himself or his relationships.

Certainly, that's what you're aiming for, but it is monstrously difficult to pull off effectively. It took me a long time to realize the character development doesn't have to happen right in the middle of the conflict. It's alright to have a character pondering the conflict they just went through and come to a realization after the fact, or in the lead up to a conflict realize something about themselves. Certainly you want both, but not every story needs them to happen at the same time.

From what I've seen of the Mad Max films, which is admittedly not much, there's very little character development in Max. Mostly he remains the same. The interplay comes from his remaining the same while the world changes around him, while the people he interacts with change around him. And yet, they're still good stories, evoking of sense of disconnect Max feels from the world he finds himself in.

That is something I'm trying to make work in a current short story I'm writing, that sense of a consummate professional who feels isolated from a world that doesn't seem to want him anymore. And I spent months deliberating how to work in development for this character before realizing that I didn't need to, not for him. The situation he finds himself in is par for the course for him, but not for the others who are in it with him. And so I shifted to focusing on their character development, and all these ideas started popping into my head. Sure, I wouldn't write this character as a main viewpoint in a book like Mistborn or the Stormlight Archive (assuming I would even be able to write a series as masterful as the Stormlight Archive), but the reason I'm writing this short story is to get better at writing, not to write a bestseller.

That's what first struck me about Brandon Sanderson's writing, though: he almost seamlessly blends character development and plot development, which requires a lot of skill and creativity. Take the scene where Kaladin meets Moash in Hearthstone: a powerful scene of character development in the middle of a tense conflict. I couldn't dream of writing that as well as it was written at my current skill level. In light of that, I give Brandon Sanderson a pass or twelve when his stories, especially his novellas, aren't as up to par as we would like them. And that's not even mentioning the sheer volume he writes seemingly nonstop. It's tempting to think of Brandon as Adonalsium, all-encompassing and divine with a grand scheme already laid out, but I have a feeling in reality he's a lot more like Hoid, with a grand plan in the works but still having to take care of lots of little things as they come.

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3 hours ago, Elias said:

As an aspiring writer, I think I can say with some small amount of authority that it is a delicate balancing act between character development and plot development. It took me several years of constant pondering on my writing before I realized that those two things don't have to be the same for a good story, where a development in a character's personality drives a development in the plot, or a a significant plot event results in a character having a realization about himself or his relationships.

Certainly, that's what you're aiming for, but it is monstrously difficult to pull off effectively. It took me a long time to realize the character development doesn't have to happen right in the middle of the conflict. It's alright to have a character pondering the conflict they just went through and come to a realization after the fact, or in the lead up to a conflict realize something about themselves. Certainly you want both, but not every story needs them to happen at the same time.

From what I've seen of the Mad Max films, which is admittedly not much, there's very little character development in Max. Mostly he remains the same. The interplay comes from his remaining the same while the world changes around him, while the people he interacts with change around him. And yet, they're still good stories, evoking of sense of disconnect Max feels from the world he finds himself in.

That is something I'm trying to make work in a current short story I'm writing, that sense of a consummate professional who feels isolated from a world that doesn't seem to want him anymore. And I spent months deliberating how to work in development for this character before realizing that I didn't need to, not for him. The situation he finds himself in is par for the course for him, but not for the others who are in it with him. And so I shifted to focusing on their character development, and all these ideas started popping into my head. Sure, I wouldn't write this character as a main viewpoint in a book like Mistborn or the Stormlight Archive (assuming I would even be able to write a series as masterful as the Stormlight Archive), but the reason I'm writing this short story is to get better at writing, not to write a bestseller.

That's what first struck me about Brandon Sanderson's writing, though: he almost seamlessly blends character development and plot development, which requires a lot of skill and creativity. Take the scene where Kaladin meets Moash in Hearthstone: a powerful scene of character development in the middle of a tense conflict. I couldn't dream of writing that as well as it was written at my current skill level. In light of that, I give Brandon Sanderson a pass or twelve when his stories, especially his novellas, aren't as up to par as we would like them. And that's not even mentioning the sheer volume he writes seemingly nonstop. It's tempting to think of Brandon as Adonalsium, all-encompassing and divine with a grand scheme already laid out, but I have a feeling in reality he's a lot more like Hoid, with a grand plan in the works but still having to take care of lots of little things as they come.

Oh absolutely. As an aspiring writer as well, I understand the mastery involved and what Brandon is trying to do. I don't always have a problem with it either, but here it bothered me because it felt like a 180. Again, I'm happy for the change, but it left me wanting to see the measuring stick, if that makes sense, if only to see how far we've come and to make some of the moments that happen in this story a little more dramatic. Imagine how we'd feel for Rysn if we saw little moments of her actively moving forward through the moment of the accident in her mind? Imagine how strong she'd seem if we saw her take that first step into who she is today. And maybe these are scenes better suited for an adaptation (especially since I imagine the series as a cartoon!). 

Maybe a better example of my overall complaint about skipping parts to tell a story would be in Starsight. At the beginning of the book: 

Spoiler

Humanity has advanced to the outer levels of Detritus and is doing great in the war. To me, seeing Spensa and crew fight at least some of those battles to take back the crust, to bond with her new squad-mates and her show how the Cob is as a leader of the DDF would be welcome. 

Imagine a novella where they're planning an attack, and the enemy is actually on the defensive this time - Spensa and her crew have to stall the enemy so that Rig can take the platforms. And at the end of the day, Spensa feels like her abilities could have saved them a lot of time, so she sets out to reenact that moment at the end of Skyward, setting the stage for Starsight

But we don't get that. And while I understand why that is (heck, the last time Sanderson tried that it didn't go over as well...), a part of me feels like there's a story there that could have been and would have been great to flesh out the characters and the world. 

The same is true for Shallan's wedding in OB, or Dalinar and Gavilar meeting Navani. I'm not saying these scenes should have been there like other people have, but I'm saying those are the scenes that, while not adding to the story proper, add to the characters and the world, which make them all the more important for me. 

Because to me, it's all about the little moments; those small, interlude-esque scenes that help humanize your character and connect the arcs. Those small arcs that aren't always life-changing, but leave you wanting more. 

 

Mad Max exists in a type of archetype of characters that don't really change much. Superheroes in comics belong in that archetype too. Batman never really moves beyond his initial goal of cleaning up the streets, but his crusade affects those who join it or find their way in its crosshairs. Same for the Flash and others. Captain America in the movies is a weird example, since his priorities and methods never change, but his stance on government (not people, but government and oversight) does. Rysn wasn't like that before though, and we see that she's still not like that. Rysn is growing, changing, and maturing. I LOVED the scenes where she bartered and inspired and showed the maturity we all knew she had within herself. 

 

And don't worry, I wasn't comparing it to a full-fledged novel, but Edgedancer. In Lift's novella, while the tone was appropriately Lift, it never felt YA to me the way Dawnshard did for some reason. And we see the development in Lift alongside her journey. It's not off-screen (...unless you skipped ED to go straight into Oathbringer...). I'm sure when I revist the novella I'll feel more positively about it; and I don't dislike it! I just think that something was missing in the novella for me. 

 

 

 

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