JustSarah

Sorry, let me fix that.

Is there a way to increase the difficulty without making the character seem hopeless? At the moment I'm tweaking the next outline for a new novella. One of the things I'm noticing, is despite a sense of progression the difficulty remains largely the same for the main characters. But I'm not sure if increasing the difficulty in a steady progression would be advised. I've considered having them fail five or seven times before they succeed, then in the in between arcs balancing it out with succeeding several times before they fail.

Mistborn is really starting to pick up. I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit. I'm not sure what it was now, but it's great. Maybe if I stumble on something in the book, I might ask.

I got maybe, the first 7000 words done. (That's what I could save. Plot went in a totally different direction.)

When one is going for a more realistic effect when drawing mountains, is it considered more effective to use a gradient feature? In my original map, I actually draw mountains like points, that taper off semi-circularly. But when I did my elevator map (ground elevation other than mountains) I ended up creating a sort of gradient feature that a separate between low altitude to highest altitude with a color scale. (So darker shades would be the highest mountains, while lighter shades would be lower elevations. It wasn't really intentional, but I ended up drawing a large mountain partially blocking access to the castle on the map. (In the original, elevation didn't really come into the picture. It was flat.)

I ended up reworking the paragraph a bit: "Nadine was resting, beneath the dunes nesting. As the wind on the surface blew, buried in the mountains she flew. Coldness darkness chill, underneath the buried aluminum. Cardboard housing, residential district. It was the potato outskirts. A certain culture, similar to that of flies. But nesting, beneath the buried skies. It had been a few hours, since she had the taste of sand dragon heart. She was hungry, but she did not feel hungry. Her head was buzzing, her mind was becoming fuzzy. Vision fading, like steamed window-glass." I'm considering actually reworking the whole plot, to introduce the fantasy element a little more subtly. I'm still unsure what I'm going to lean toward, whether the sub-fictional world within the Uploaded Fairy (Voreth's Promise), is going to lean more to a mini-universe anti-paradise, or closer to a virtual reality game. And yes, that was extremely helpful.

I might end up considering black and white variation then. Thanks! I ended up actually drawing to different layers of the map. Because half the story is set in the real world (as real as a the potato district is), and the other half is set in sort of this game world. I'm sort of experimenting with how that will end up being communicated.

I was wondering, when someone wants to handle elevation when they draw they map, is there a standard way to chart specific areas that are higher than others? I presently have a couple of maps. One is for things like mountains, towns, rivers, and other typical map stuff. The second one I guess you could call a random encounter chart. But I'm not quite sure how I would determine elevation. I'm thinking more visually, not textually. Brandon mentioned that mountains come apart where ever there is a fault line. At this point I'm sort of having to guess, and maybe assume that the further away from the fault line, the lighter it becomes, and therefore less elevated. (Depending on whether you have darker be higher, or lighter be higher.) But I have the first two maps done.

One episode I haven't found yet, is how a short story writer could carry over into novel writing. However the part about world building was very helpful. I for whatever reason can't seem to get past that 2,500 word mark, for whatever reason. I have this practice of revealing information very quickly.

And yes, the story starts in modern day. First line: Nadine worked at the mini-mart, and in the distance outside the store she heard a voice in the ocean-scape in the dream-net. Distant voice fading, from her day dream. First paragraph: Nadine worked at the mini-mart, and in the distance outside the store she heard a voice in the ocean-scape in the dream-net. Distant voice fading, from her day dream. --- Morning sky, sprinkled with rain. The old hero was on the table, the executioner caressing his belly, and makes him find out the real meaning of losing his poop. His vision, of vengeful sheep in the crowd faded into darkness, as he himself faded from the matrix ... --- Alaxel: I forgot to add my own comments, I personally find it interesting that it leaves that lingering question for me as a reader. I would personally keep reading just to find out what comes of it.

I actually hung around in chat for a bit, and lurked around a bit before deciding to join. I'm a fan writing excuses, and having a good time with Shard cast. I'm currently trying to finish up a shared world short story collection, yet have a hard time writing one story every day.D: (A contemporary sf partial a week is common.)