Yados

Because one notable thing about Sazed (read Harmony) that sets him apart from the other shadholders may be that he's a member of the magic system in this world and not just the creator of it. I wonder if that's important. More notably: I don't think he's been using any health, strength, speed, etc for centuries, completely sustained by his shards. Is he still storing it? Could you imagine some sort of final chapter to the Mistborn Series where Sazed's been de-Sharded by someone.. Odium, Trell, what have you. And the big bad is all "mwahahahaha, you're powerless now 'Harmony'" and then Sazed is like "ORLY?" and hits him with over a thousand years of stored strength? That would be cool.

Plus Navani is pretty knee-deep in all that fabrial/spren tech that we barely understand at the moment. Even though we have a whole bunch of questions we want answered by these characters' pov book, I kind of hope that each answer is the kind that opens up more questions than we knew we thought we should know.

I saw that. I think I'm going to come up with a new concept to outline/write for it. Submissions seem to be closed now though. I applied a few days ago. Has anyone heard back?

Oh no. I meant to uprep not downrep. I'm so sorry. Could a mod see to that? Stupid touchscreen.

Fun fact: all elves are racist. So pick any series that features elves.

Thanks so much for your feedback! I'm glad you liked the style. I've realized that much of my efforts upon revising any work I do involves toning myself down when it comes to narrative voice. I'm trying to hit a good balance on the first go, but sometimes it gets away from me. Good point on the depopulation of Barrow Muck. I originally had a sequence where a catastrophically unwise footpad tried to have a go at Till, but I ran into page limit problems and cut it out. Now that it's out, I should add some people, just in the description. I like the sequence though, I may include it in the 4th or 5th chapter. Sorry that the instance of language was a problem for you. It probably won't make it into the final draft. I *did* put an "L" warning in the title. Darvy and the ale are sort of fossils from the first version of this chapter, which played the discrepancy between the quality of the bar now that Darvy had the money to improve it and Till's expectation for the bar to be horrible as he liked it in the old days for more page-space. Without that set up, the ale being good makes less sense. Of course, in the original draft, Till is upset that the ale hasn't been watered down. I'll set it up, though probably in a different manner as I've shied away from the original angle. I should describe Surr and Ayami, true. There was a prologue originally when I did that, but now it isn't here. I forgot. And Roa's complicated. She's definitely the muscle (read "haggish brute of a woman"), but if that was all there was to her she wouldn't be as fun to write. I am a firm believer that we need more ugly people in fantasy.

I think that the best thing about this story is that you’re working with strong, visceral themes throughout. Fire, plants, identity, sexual awakening, family, restriction, heritage. It's all powerful stuff. I also think that those themes are what lead the ending to be so unsatisfying-- we simply don't get any real payoff, reconciliation, or closure to those themes. And by being so powerful, they require it. Now you do a good job with the obvious explosive themes, aside from the end. Sex and fire really break through the narrative and it’s obvious that you’re most at home when doing those parts of the story. Or maybe you thought they were the most important to get right. Regardless, they’re quite good. However, I think you skimp on some of the other themes-- plants, the mother, nature v. artificial constructs posing as nature-- and it results in strong themes with an unsatisfying conflict of themes. Look at your set up of the home-life. It’s all generalities. We never get quite what Brenton’s mother goal was. I mean, it’s obvious he’s some sort of fire elemental and she’s some sort of plant one and she’s trying to raise him not to be a fire elemental. But we don’t get this connection this woman has with plants characterized while we have Brenton’s connection with fire so explicitly introduced. Without this other spiritual path that Brenton is incompatible with characterized beyond that mere incompatibility, when he turns from it, there’s no sense of loss-- even if that sense of loss wouldn’t be shared by the Brenton. Also, especially since sex drives so much of the narrative, it seems strange that the plant themes are so thoroughly sexless. Once again, while to Brenton, flames and all sexuality seem to be one and the same, there should perhaps be some connection that we can intellectually see going on with the mother, but not with him. Now I don’t know if the divide between plants and fire as viewed through a sexual lens is a masculine/feminine divide or a puritanical/sexual freedom divide. But I should have a better grasp on that by the end of the story than I do. I also think you should do more with the inherent contradiction at work with the farm house in the middle of nature with all electric heating/cooking/light. Like maybe everything is made to look rustic-- a log cabin, a well, etc-- but then it’s fully automated. Because obviously fire would be a part of the sort of rustic experience that Clarise wants to emulate... which itself draws the question as to whether or not this separation serves to put Brenton more in touch with nature or entomb him into a facsimile that is more unnatural than anything else. Two things I’d suggest to flesh out this side of things would be to have another child living with Brenton and Clarise-- one who is compatible with this plant philosophy. I would also suggest having an in-scene exploration/failure/frustration for Brenton with this plant spirituality. You could establish a lot of these things very quickly if you just showed us Brenton failing rather than having him inform us of his failure. I think that if you flesh out the other half of this spiritual/sexual divide, it will be more obvious to you, the writer, what the ending needs to be doing and what it isn’t doing in its present state. Now, that brings us to voice. Brenton’s narration actually threw me out of the story on a few occasions and left me a bit dissatisfied. For one, we have a huge divide between where Brenton is in this story and where he is when narrating. However, we never really get a sense as to how he came to this state. Apparently he never wears pants, be he’s also familiar enough now with normal family structures and normal sex to be able to point out the inherent strangeness of his upbringing. We don’t really get where he is and as he’s gone off from the end, that gives even less resolution to the story. If we get the idea that he’s become some sort of terrible, consuming fire-rapist, that’s at least some sort of closure to the story. If he’s come to be at peace with himself and his nature and is looking back at how rapacious and unbalanced he was after being kept from it for so long, that’s another type of closure. While I didn’t like it when Brenton asserted himself into the narration, I think you need to do it more and better and really use it as a device to make this work. I also think that the dialogue needs some work. It’s a bit wooden. Also maybe give the mother a bit more character beyond stern, I would think. It’s hard to sympathize with her. Is she saving him from something beyond just his nature? Does Brenton’s survival in a world with these godlike being depend on him not being a threat to other fire gods/elementals? Give her some pathos. Otherwise she’s just a stern figure. You do depart from that a bit at the end, but because it isn’t set up that she has a nature beyond how Brenton sees her, it comes more as a character break than the end of a character arc. I think there are some really nice pieces at work here, but I think you need to sew everything together so that the strong scenes fit better with the others.

You'd think, but I believe the Nook only does epub. The Kindle only does mobi well, though it will do others.

This is Black Magic, Blacker Deeds with a new name and some different confines. If you've read that, you're set, just skip to chapter two. If you haven't, I provided the revised chapter one. There have been several prologues attached to this project. None of them are here. I don't know what I'm doing about that yet. The story should stand on its own regardless. Basically, I'm dusting this off to be published in NYU's genre fiction publication (even though I'm now an alumn) as a serial feature. The first chapter has already been published. What that means is that I have deadlines and pressure and those keep me working. So I'll be plowing forward on this project. Thus, give me your feedback if you'd like on the first chapter, but it's out there now and there isn't much I can do. The second chapter has to be in by the 18th, so whatever timely consideration you could provide would be appreciated. The real hurdle will be the third chapter, which is a mess. This one was mostly just trimmed down and de-whimsified.

Actually, I read them off my iPad too. I use ReaddleDocs, which does MS Word, RTF, Open Office, and Pdf interchangeably. But not epub. But then, iBooks does epub. In short, I have no opinion.

OH! oh! I think I'll have something for Monday. I'm rewriting the second chapter of BMBD for publication. I'll include the first one too, though that was already revised and printed.

Oh, oh. Thought of another. Elantris' lead-- Raoden. What's the name of Krypton's sun? Rao. ... seriously man, what's up with these names?

Sure, but you have a fantasy tradition of stuff like WoT or LotR or Harry Potter where magic serves as a destructive, cognitive, or creative force. However, magic that sends people propelling over cityscapes or over mountains is a bit less the norm. And yeah, I was alleging Batman with the Mistborn line. Should have been more clear.

Yeah, I'm the best at forced logic. I typed all the data into Reason, gave it my desired conclusion, and beheld all those believable logical steps it provided.

I've often wondered if Mr. Sanderson is more influenced by comic books than the average high-fantasy writer, as an avid comic reader myself. There's never been anything concrete, just a few glimmers here and there. I'll show my work. 1) Movement Some of the magic systems we've seen in Sanderson's major works-- Mistborn and Stormlight-- have so much movement inherent to their magic systems. Mistborn jumping the highest walls and spires in Luthadel/Elendel. Windrunners walking on walls and jumping wide chasms. Even tiny Shardplate-users wrestling giant chasmfiends. It's a visual dynamism that seeps into the prose and, I know that one of the reasons that I take movement into consideration when writing my own things is because that visual half of things was drilled into me so early on with comics. Likewise, fight scenes are so visually choreographed. 2) Radiants and Mistborn In Dalinar's vision, the radiants were depicted to us as shining figures in blue armor with sigils woven of light blazing across the chest... bounding off into the distance as quickly as they came. Mistborn, at least the more classic ones (not Vin or Kel) are aristocratic, highly privileged individuals who, by night, stalk the streets and rooftops of their city dressed in segmented capes. Sound familiar? 3) Names Kal-el din K-El sier (Clark) Kenton ... yeah, so that one was from White Sand. But still. Movement based magic system, main character shares some name similarity with Superman. Seemed the place to mention it. I can take it out if we're not supposed to talk about that stuff in any way whatsoever. 4) Ironheart Not to mention that I believe Sanderson has mentioned a superhero standalone book of the above title. Just a bit of fun, meaningless conjecture.

First of all, thank you so much for going through all of these chapters. I am sorry I have been so horrid about responding in turn. It's mostly, because I've been horrid about getting any new writing done. But I'm trying to fix that. This was definitely a weird chapter, which really ins't something I considered when I was writing it. The next chapter has swords made of blood, giant prehistoric sloths, Nails to the skull, and songs that shape snow. So yeah... the chapter would have had ghosts and a tavern that had expanded into a village. ... But that's the other thing. I'm going to do another pass at this because I think there are a lot of things which you picked up on that just aren't working. Not the weirdness. I really don't think I could do that any other way. For one, you're certainly right about Coil's relatability once things get weird. I can't really find a way to strike a good balance there and, in the end, I think it's because of a few things. One, he's a mix of two character types which don't really mix. He's out on his own in an unfamiliar place, going on a journey-- basically a Bilbo Baggins/Arthur Dent. But then he also seems capable and has high aspirations-- killing Death-- which haven't been treated as folly within the narrative. So he comes off as inconsistent. The quest narrative doesn't work either. It exacerbates what's already wrong. Also, the main story takes place within the walls of Vern, not out in the lands beyond. I started my first draft of this book with Coil and Death meeting, after all of this stuff. That had problems too, but they were very different problems. I'm glad I've freewritten up to this point. I like making character discoveries. Spider, Fen, Irn, Finder-- none of these characters were in my first draft, but I like them very much. They'll be woven into the new story. But I think I'm going back to the drawing board with this. I'm going to outline at least 3/4 before I start writing and I'm going to make it a bit more cohesive. I really do need to learn to outline. Once I start actually writing from the outline, I'll post it on here. It's going to feature a lot of the same characters, but I think I'm going to weave the threads a bit differently. I'll keep it inside the watches, for one. I might also add a second pov within the walls. I don't think Rae will be dead from the outset and, hopefully, if I have a more complex plot, I can build up the Watches a little bit before the plot starts up in earnest. This is my plan, it may work out. Seriously, thanks for reading and feedback. I'm going to keep all of it close at mind when doing my new take at this.

Alright. Third chapter! Things start moving towards... stuff. I'll slap a light L warning here, because sometimes there just isn't a better word than "shite". I think it's just in there once... Summary thus far: Coil is the son of immortals. Well, dead immortals. Well, probably dead immortals. Less 'probably dead' is his sister, Rae, who has just died of plague. This was very much in the modern fashion as The Land, previous inhabited by immortal humans from across the Endless Sea, is currently inhabited by mortal humans from across the Endless Sea. No one knows the reason for this, but few are happy about it. In the wake of the previously stated tragedy, Coil is called upon by visitors. Both of these encounters were unsettling, but they also both got in the way of Coil's grief-forged goals. First he will lay his sister to rest beyond the Sight. Next, he will kill Death. That the two have a history only makes it personal and will be fleshed out at a later date. Getting out of the Watches is a trickier thing than expected because Coil's ill-defined romantic partner, Irn, is on guard. Upon realizing the gravity of the situation, he insists to come along with Coil to his vigil. Coil, knowing the costs, denies him. They are interrupted by Irn's sister, the witchy and severe Fen. Somehow, she knows all about Coil's trouble and sends Irn off on a false task. Coil is free to leave everything he has ever known. Coil then enters the Expanse beyond the Watches and the sequence of events that plays through this chapter.

That's sehr lame. At least you didn't lose your whole book. Happened to a friend of mine. Thankfully, I do all my work on Google Docs. I also have something for today.

Oh, I posted that Sunday. I sent out the rewrite yesterday...

Post feedback for new version here.

So I'll have something for Monday. Probably a rewrite of B and T.

I just finished Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence. Went through it in two nights. Imagine if Joe Abercrombie wrote Name of the Wind. Really, fun, fast, punchy read. Grisly as all get out though.

Oh well of course! Just maybe watch your narrative distance during your high octane moments going forward, I think. In my first draft of BMBD, I had paragraphs of historical context-- just walls of text-- interspliced within a duel w/ liquid swords made of blood. It sapped about 70 percent of the excitement. But if you steer things and let the exposition come through in different ways, you don't have to train someone to understand why something is cool or important while it's happening. Happy writing!

I'm only commenting on the Keth perspective, as it's the only part I've read. I think sentence structure is really holding this story back. Comma usage is all over the place. Clauses that really should be their own sentence are stuck on the end. That sounds technical and tedious, but it *does* impact how someone reads the sequence you lay out. And the problem here is that the sequence isn't reading as fast paced and exciting. You're explaining way too much. Don't tell us all about the elementals. Don't tell us about Dex aside from the fact that he's in Keth's head. Just sort of go with it at this point. I think a big problem a lot of people have when unveiling their worlds and magic is that they feel that, if they don't get to the theory right away, they'll be viewed as soft or inconsistent. But try to be cool and consistent at this point and then, later, when you explain it, the reader should be able to go back and see just how Keth was doing something. For now, maybe try only giving us exactly what Keth is doing, nothing more, and then find a way to gradually work out the consistency behind it as you go forward. Because as it is, it's an infodump and it's making a scene where a spider fights a dinosaur and magic is worked boring. Which is the opposite of what should be. In general, I think there is a lot of narrative distance going on here and it's working against the action. Get in the moment. Vivid up your language. Also, you have a great opportunity for banter between Dex and Keth and I don't think you're quite capitalizing on it as much as you could. You could even use it for exposition. Something like: "Just saved your life, you know." "No you didn't." "Yes, I did." "No" "If you hadn't absorbed my reflexes, that Dinsoaur would have eaten your-- our--- throat." "That's not the same as saving my life." "It's not my fault you don't bring as much to the table, sir. I'm surprised you can fit all of me here in this --bleh-- flesh." "I'm trying to summon." Obviously, that's horrid and I'm just throwing something at the wall, but there's no reason we should be getting so much information about the different potency of elementals while your main character is running from a dinosaur.

Thanks for the comments. I suppose the book gets darker. I didn't really think of it as a dark story when setting out, but I suppose it's become that way. It'll probably get more morbid before it gets less. Strange how that works out. I don't plan for the book to have a large romantic focus, nor do I plan to get explicit if it does. This chapter was more about establishing Coil's sexuality and the relationships/weight of the things he's leaving behind. I was worried about this stage of the story just being in vacuum and my original beginning shifted from the prologue to Coil's eventual destination, but I think easing into the worldbuilding and adding in some character moments, even with minor characters, helps give things some weight. And the dog thing is because I've just sort of... nuked horses? I was making a fantasy world and decided I would allow myself one thing that I would never have to write about. Like, one sort of general background thing I wasn't going to make myself touch. And it was horses. I really didn't want to do horses. I don't know or like horses. I didn't particularly want to research them. So everyone rides around big dogs in this world and it'll be awesome. My token explanation for the big dogs is that, because of all the motile plant life, herbivores are big and aggressive. Like mammalian giants. Like mammoths and those huge sloth-beasts you see in the museum. Also some really cool dear/elk monstrosities. I don't know where cows fit in, but really intimidating herbivores. Which means that the apex predators, stuff like wolves and mountain lions and bears, are similarly huge to prey upon the big herbivores. And I guess the big wolves got domesticated into more traditional dog breeds? But huge? Yes. See? Look at that scientific answer. This is some hard fantasy going on here. Yes sir.