PiedPiper

Thanks for the suggestion -- that sounds like it'd be a really interesting magic system! I'll definitely look into it.

As long as we're identifying ourselves: I guess I'm a lesbian, although I've never really thought about labels. Also, I think it's really cool that there are threads like this one. I wanted to take a minute to talk LGBTQ+ representation in books, since this is a readers' forum: it's crappy and we have a long way to go. And I think it's a little sad that I consider Brandon's books better than most when, as of now, I believe he's got one gay character and one lesbian, and that's it. There are only two, and both are quaternary characters at best. I definitely blame Brandon, but I also blame the market. Why haven't agents, publishers, and authors started to include people of different sexual orientation and gender identity? Speaking of which, I don't think I've ever read a book with even a minor character who's transgender (or non-conforming, gender fluid, etc.). I think we need lots of new authors writing LGBTQ+ characters in addition to older authors to starting to include them. People like Brandon have a lot of influence in fantasy, and without them making the first steps, change will be very, very slow.

Hi Mandamon, my name is Piper, I'm new to the writing group, and I don't want to accidentally offend you by not reading your writing. The reason I'm not critiquing your work is because I've been told you're almost done with your novel; at this point, I doubt I'd be helpful to you. If I started now, I would be confused while reading, and then you'd be confused because I offered confusing advice because I was confused, and now we're both confused and having a very unproductive conversation. Suffice it to say, I can't wait to read your work when I'm confident I can keep up with what's going on. Best of luck, - Piper

When you see your dad reading a book and think "he's not supposed to do that!"

Not quite so extreme, but thanks for the idea! Don't worry, I'm kidding. Right now, I'm wasting my time by annotating Oathbringer in the Alethi Women's Script. And on Orson Scott Card: Every conversation I have about him is bittersweet, because I'm like: "his character and relationship work is AMAZING!" and also "I hate his living guts!"

1) I'd expect a dark but somewhat humorous tone, with some kind of space adventure plot. 2) I'd expect to see a vast world (in the very loose sense of the term, not in reference to a planet), possibly cultural conflicts between alien races, and lots of flying around in spaceships. 3) My guess for a big climax would be the death of the narrator; maybe you're using the structure of "these are the events leading to my death, this how my death went, these are the effects of my death," and then all the characters have to pick up the pieces of a destroyed society afterward. I liked your human vs. alien physiology -- really interesting concepts based on different genesis. I was a little confused by the scene with the kids and thought that Sherlock, Watson, and Frankenstein's Monster were all going to play a part in the story.

I have not read them yet, but I will have read them in -- let's give it two weeks. I'm pretty sure, at least, that he doesn't get royalties from the Ender's Game sales (although I don't know about the rest of the series), so I don't feel bad recommending it to people.

My name is Piper, and I'm cat vacuuming at 1:00am. Meaning: I'm introducing myself to all of you so I can put off writing. I've always loved to read, and my dad introduced me to SF/F when I was young. Writing was a natural next step to take.The first book I wrote was a Bob Book. (For those of you who don't know what the heck I'm talking about: Bob Books are short picture books with extremely simple sentences, e.g. Mat sat on Pat.) I was five, and my little brother was learning to read. In case you're wondering, it was really bad. I wrote another book in third grade about Halloween; it was 12 chapters (I thought that was super long), and I made my dad illustrate it. That was also a really bad book. The next book I wrote was -- you guessed it -- very bad. I started it in fifth grade and finished it in sixth grade. It was about 50,000 words; a legitimate middle grade book. I am currently working on a book; I've written about 30,000 words out of an estimated 90-100,000, and all I can do is hope I've acquired the skills by now to write a decent piece of fiction for once. Favorite non-Sandersons: Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card (he would be my favorite author, but he turned out to be a bigot); Fuzzy Nation, John Scalzi; Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman; the Watchmen comic; and Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Now that everyone who's made it to the end of this post knows of my infinite geekiness, I must kill you all. Expect assassins. Oh -- and I'm excited to be part of the community, yadda yadda yadda. (I get crabby late at night.)

No, there are no rules about how the segments need to be broken down. Thank you very much for your compliments!

Stories believed to imaginative extents Can all words bring to life such wonder? We know, we live; in life we know we wonder. Such life to bring! Words all can extend imagination to believe stories. Any feedback, anyone?

I didn't realize this was a writing group! How can I apply? I understand, of course, that my odds are low, but I'm working on my second novel right now and this seems like a great opportunity to improve my writing and to learn from other authors.

I composed this Ketek. Let me know what you think; I'm open to critiques, suggestions, feedback, etc. Art of beauty and grace, the end-all, be-all. Conveys meaning without language. Different forms serve functions; different functions serve forms differently. Language without meaning conveyed: All be, all end the grace and beauty of art.

On watching Brandon's lectures: I highly recommend watching the new series, even if you've watched all the ones on Camera Panda; there's a lot of new material, different takes on old material, etc. It's also fascinating to see how he as a writer has evolved and changed his opinions throughout the years. On balance between description and word count, we basically agree. It's important not to go overboard on the information you give to the reader, but the writer also needs to know everything going on, even if s/he doesn't share all their plans and backstory. (This was basically the iceberg concept, and the knowledge gap between the author and the reader generally depends on the depth of the his/her world; sometimes they don't have time to develop absolutely everything.) I also think that using different senses will bring a scene down on the Pyramid without pushing the prose toward a purple-y color (did that metaphor make sense? I doubt it, but I'll stick with it for lack of a better one). Adding variety to your description can ground the reader further while still keeping them hooked -- something I often forget to do in my first drafts but always try to work on when editing. However, I could see instances in which an author goes way overboard on something because they're writing from the perspective of a certain character who's really fascinated by (for example) abstract art. They may not want to give the full extent of the character's thought process, because the majority of the readership would be incredibly bored by this, but I think it would be beneficial to give a sample of the description of said art that would not come up if another narrator was in that place. The author can then just imply that the thought process continued -- or could cut the character off in their description by creating a disruption. I find this trick handy, but it's one that can't be used too often. Conversely, maybe an author is writing a head-in-the-clouds-type character who doesn't really notice what's going on around them; in this situation, maybe an author would hold back on details that should have been noted. S/he will have to find another way to convey the necessary information. I would just add a viewpoint, but that's a very SF/F type of thing. literary fiction does this less -- although, let's be real: almost no literary fiction buffs are on 17S. However, lit. fiction authors have to come up with other ways to do this, and that strengthens their writing, so maybe SF/F writers should explore different ways to do this as well. So while authors do need to find a general balance and stick to it consistently while finding ways to add variety to their prose, there are instances where one would stray from their formula and cut their description short or let it go on longer to help flesh out their characters more. (Side note: obviously this is not the end-all, be-all of character development; all authors need to find multiple ways of conveying their characters' personalities to their readers. To what extent do you use description as character development, and how do you use it in tangent with word choice in prose as well as dialogue beats and tags?

I think it'd be great to have a space for writers! I actually have been thinking about the Pyramid of Abstraction of late (if you watch Brandon's lectures you'll know what I'm talking about), and I wanted to discuss the line a writer walks between word count and really grounding a reader in a scene -- at what point is it counterproductive? I personally think that it depends on the purpose of a scene: does the author want the reader to really feel like they're really in the room with the characters, or does s/he want a more fast-paced, probably action-packed scene? Conversation beats also fit into this; if you want the reader to be more aware of what's going on and more inside the head of the narrator, you probably want more description, whereas if the conversation is of import, you want to focus on the dialogue and take out as many tags as possible while still making clear who is saying what. What do you guys think? Where does your prose typically fall on the spectrum, and how do you incorporate concepts like the Pyramid of Abstraction into your everyday writing? I don't think that one type is necessarily better than the other in the grand scheme of things, but you have to be very intentional with your techniques and their different purposes for each scene/chapter/book.

Absolutely. What's next?

You want to talk to one of the Synod (the main editors) of the Coppermind -- probably Fbstj, Thegatorgirl00, Windrunner, or Chaos 2651. If you go to the Coppermind main page and then click the History tab, you can find links to all their pages and information about how you can contact them. Hope this helped!

I don't personally identify with this order, but I think the most practical of them is the Elsecallers. Being able to Soulcast is infinitely useful -- no one can argue that. Accessing Shadesmar allows for infinite possibilities: it inform battle tactics (sneak up behind another army in Shadesmar, for example, and return to the physical realm in the midst of their ranks); it also makes research on Spren much easier to conduct, seeing as you can just transport to their cities whenever you want and not have to worry about traveling to a perpendicularity; and it makes worldhopping much, much more convenient for the same reason it makes research easier. Also, unlike some surges, (e.g. Tension, Cohesion, etc.) Transportation and Transformation can't be resisted by small amounts of Investiture. Of course, I would bet that you can't make a temporary Perpendicularity while wearing Shardplate just like you can't use the Surge of Gravitation while wearing Shardplate, but said surges are not as easy to thwart as some. OB and Warbreaker spoilers beyond! The Surge of Transportation would also help you not get stranded in Shadesmar like Shallan, Adolin, Kaladin, and Vivenna did.

It's a bit of a stretch, but you could use certain Commands to fill some of those spots. For example: Untie. Upon call, become my fingers and grip.

Captain Demoux is of the Seventeenth Shard, and he's been looking for Hoid forever. Vivenna is searching for Vasher. Both of them were on Roshar and decided to team up in search of their quarry. They eventually parted ways when their searches took them in different directions. (By the way, I love your theory about Pewter Savants and Greatshells.) Mistwraiths and an Awakened pair of pants.

I think I've done a pretty thorough job. I've also spent an inordinate amount of time on this post. These are all of my "OH MY GOD THIS WOULD BE SO COOL" castings, in no particular order: Vin: Aubrey Plaza (April from Parks and Rec) Kelsier: Robert Downey Jr. Spook: Tom Holland Hammond: David Boreanaz (Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel) Elend: Timothée Chalamet Straff: Michael Keaton Zane: Kit Harrington Dox: Chris Pratt Breeze: Matthew Perry (Chandler from Friends) Tindwyll: Elisabeth Röhm (Kate Lockley from Angel) Sazed: Anthony Stewart Head (Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) Lord Ruler: Sean Maher (Simon from Firefly) Marsh: Josh Brolin (Thanos) Clubs: Adam Baldwin (Jayne from Firefly) Mare: Gina Torres (Zoe from Firefly) Lord Cett: Samuel L. Jackson Allriane: Katherine Langford (Hannah from 13 Reasons Why) Preservation: Mark Ruffalo Ruin: Jake Gyllenhaal The Citizen: Tom Hiddleston Beldre: Scarlett Johansen Yomen: Nathan Filion (Mal from Firefly) OreSeur and TenSoon: James Marsters (Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel)

Happy to help.

I'd love to join? Is there late entry? Maybe I can audit?

I agree that Nalthis can go bad pretty quickly depending on who's running it. But I have (possibly misplaced) faith in humanity's ability to do the right thing in the end, or to overcome people who are doing the wrong thing. This example may undermine my argument, but look at Scadrial: they overthrew the Lord Ruler and then dealt with Ruin all on their own. Imagine what kinds of amazing things the people of Nalthis could do with some better-crafted laws.

Gavilar's mysterious black sphere contained a Hemalurgic spike with the powers of one of the Unmade that he was going to give to a Parshendi to bring back their gods. The Sons of Honor stole the concept from the Ghostbloods after Kelsier founded them (and obviously, he arrived on Roshar after his Burning spree with the beads in Shadesmar -- just connecting all of these so we can come up with a grand unified theory). Greatshells and Pewter Savants.

I feel compelled to argue for Nalthis, just because nobody else seems to want to. Here we go (flexes typing fingers): Nalthis is the only known Shardworld where every single person has direct access to Investiture and where that investiture is easily transferable, making it a very accessible source of magic in the Cosmere. If Nightblood was created there, just imagine what kind of other amazing/terrible things they could come up with. Speaking of Nightblood: Nalthis is also the home world of the Five Scholars, and who knows what kind of important information they've discovered and might have left behind there? (And not just about Awakening, either. These people are worldhoppers -- they could know tons about deep Cosmere lore!) Finally, I know necromancy creeps a lot of people out, but they're an extremely efficient army and could be needed in future grand Cosmere battles. And, considering there are several different types of Lifeless, so it would take several discrete disastrous occurrences to actually wipe out your army. Also, think of the advantages of having an entire army with no preservation instinct; they'd be willing to do so many more things than a live army would, seeing as there's nothing more that can happen to them. And yes, many of the Returned are spoiled brats, but when it comes down to it, there are ways you could make them give up their Breath, and think about the incredible power they would bring. In short, Nalthis has more to offer than meets the eye, and I don't think we should discount it just because it creeps some people out (even though I am admittedly among those people. Thoughts?