Alpha Centauri 2

Community => Recreation Commons => Topic started by: Elok on January 17, 2019, 01:41:31 AM

Title: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on January 17, 2019, 01:41:31 AM

So, I'm planning to web-serialize my second novel, and I'm not sure which title to go with.  This doesn't have to be a permanent decision right now--that's the beauty of serializing, you know, you can switch titles--but whatever it is, it'll be [title].wordpress.com, or perhaps [title]novel.wordpress.com, to get there.  The two main candidates are "The Black Band" or "Chains of Fire."  The first sounds okay, but doesn't really fit the story as well, while the second makes sense and is more dynamic but might just be outright pulpy (or, as one wag on Poly suggested, too reminiscent of BDSM).  It's a somewhat grim fantasy.  The blurb, such as it is: "On a world wracked by cosmic disaster every four days, one young man is forced to grow up in a hurry when his father is crippled by a monster attack. Leaving his village and everything he has known behind, he sets out to save his family from ruin. But he soon finds that the world will ask more of him than he cares to give it. How much will he sacrifice, and for what cause?"  It can probably be improved, but that's what I've got.  I don't blurb well.
Not that you know a lot about it--that's the point, I'm trying to get a feel for what would inspire somebody who knows nothing of it to give it a shot--but which do you prefer?

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Unorthodox on January 17, 2019, 03:55:01 AM

Knowing absolutely nothing, based on those titles, I'd personally choose based on art at that point. 

Is the "Band" something of a pirate group, perhaps?  That might interest me more. 

Pure titles, Chains of Fire is hands down better.  But I find absolutely nothing wrong with 'pulpy', being an unabashed Shadow fan.   

edit:  The blurb is...

Look, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that the guy's dad is laid up so he has to leave the village.  If anything dad being laid up would seem to indicate he is tied to helping at home MORE.  leave that part out. 

Taking a crack at editing the blurb off the cuff:

"Cosmic disasters have befallen (town name) every four days for as long as anyone can remember.  When (character name) leaves his village to find a way to prevent his family's ruin, how much will he be asked to sacrifice?  For what cause?" 

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 17, 2019, 04:05:44 AM

He's got something there, 'Lok...

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on January 17, 2019, 11:40:18 AM

Well, 'taint just the town, but I can tighten it.  Not sure where I'll put the blurb, anyway.  I've dug through goodreads to find any variant on the concept of chains and fire that hasn't been used (including, e.g., "Firebound"); no luck.  Hm.
Ooooh!  "Pyrebound" is free.  And makes sense given world and plot.  Is that one terrible?  The title has to do a lot of work, given the format.  The Black Band is something of a weak play on words; it's both a disreputable group he winds up joining and their identifier (an armband).  The problem being that it might imply that the group plays a larger role in the story than it actually does.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Unorthodox on January 17, 2019, 04:27:18 PM

Quote from: Elok on January 17, 2019, 11:40:18 AM

Well, 'taint just the town, but I can tighten it. 

Don't NEED to be just the town in the book, the blurb is to get you immediately invested in the character/story, so it's all the reader NEEDS to know to make it interesting.  Stretching it out into a more full synopsis could be helpful, but focus on the character and trying to get the readers to identify with him on a more local level. 

Quote

Not sure where I'll put the blurb, anyway.  I've dug through goodreads to find any variant on the concept of chains and fire that hasn't been used (including, e.g., "Firebound"); no luck.  Hm.
Ooooh!  "Pyrebound" is free.  And makes sense given world and plot.  Is that one terrible?  The title has to do a lot of work, given the format.  The Black Band is something of a weak play on words; it's both a disreputable group he winds up joining and their identifier (an armband).  The problem being that it might imply that the group plays a larger role in the story than it actually does.

Don't care for pyrebound. 

If you don't want 'fire', imo, go with the inferno chains or searing moor.  If you like the bound as something to also mean destiny I think ember bound sounds better, but that might be too close to city of ember. 

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on January 17, 2019, 04:42:49 PM

I chose pyre because it's a technical term in-world, and it sort of works as a play on words as well; at the end of the first chapter, he's headed for the pyre, so literally "pyre-bound."  But it works on another level as well.  I think I want to avoid pulpy in spite of your preferences just because it's easy to confuse pulpy-action for romance.  And the book itself isn't terribly pulp, I don't think.  But I don't want to be the contrarian ass who asks for advice and then argues with the advisor, so I'd best leave it at that.  Thank you!
https://pyrebound.wordpress.com/ (https://rsfoulpapers.wordpress.com/) is the new address.  Based on what I know of your tastes, Uno, you might enjoy the first part--it has some horror elements--but will likely be bored by the second.
BUncle, please note the prominent copyright notice.  What a good boy am I.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Unorthodox on January 17, 2019, 07:28:22 PM

Oh, be contrarian with me, it won't bother me.  I have my wheelhouse and mostly try to stay in it, which is why I mentioned my personal taste from the get go.  Genre differences/preferences were to be expected, especially when we specifically didn't know anything about it. 

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on January 28, 2019, 05:30:52 PM

On the subject of serial fiction, I got the idea to try it from Worm, a fairly popular and utterly enormous online serial about superheroes: https://parahumans.wordpress.com/

By "utterly enormous," I mean it's supposedly more than a million words, substantially bigger than LOTR.  I'm on chapter four out of thirty.  It's not bad, though the writing's a bit stiff and the characters don't always act believably for their age and situation.  He at least put substantial effort into creating an original superhero world.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on February 17, 2019, 03:17:17 AM

"The world has not been kind to Ram’s family. Father just lost an arm. Mother can’t work. And if Ram can’t find a way to make money fast, a life of forced labor is the best any of them can hope for. His only way forward is through the darkest side of their dark world–fighting on the front lines of war against the demons, hiding with thieves and assassins in the shadows, wandering the wilds where the monsters rule.  How much more will the god of the pyre ask him to sacrifice?  And why, Ram wonders, should he be the one to pay?"

I took two and a half weeks to finish Worm.  It's uneven, but at its best it's frigging mind-blowing.  The heroine is a girl with a seemingly lame power--she can control bugs--who's smart enough to leverage it for everything it's worth.  A pity the sequel kinda sucks.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Unorthodox on February 18, 2019, 05:10:16 AM

Wait.  A mambabarang story?   Ok I have to check this out. 

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on February 18, 2019, 01:14:12 PM

It's pretty addictive.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: DrazharLn on September 12, 2019, 10:24:45 PM

So I read all of the currently available pyrebound :)

Thanks for writing it and publishing it online!

I've both enjoyed reading about this strange, extremely unpleasant world and also found the constant callousness towards other humans quite challenging. I think you have been quite effective at making the awfulness of the world seem ordinary to the characters themselves, though, which I think is what you were going for.

Here's some unsolicited feedback. I hope that's OK. If not, feel free to just ignore the rest of this post.

The two things that jump out at me are:


1. Ram's uncuriousness about

(click to show/hide)

being indwelt and what that means for males. Especially when he finds out that at least a few other senior/knowledgeable people know what it means. I guess I could imagine that they're in denial.

2. Ram's very muted emotional response to most events, which I guess is why the rational fiction people like it ;)

I don't know what exactly it is, but Darun and their relationship with Ram seems off too. Maybe it's just that I'm reacting with irritation at tropes that are in principle OK, but used very often for women characters. In particular, Darun is almost always described in terms of sex appeal, and they also have a back-story element that is very common to many women written by men:

(click to show/hide)

sexual victimisation and prostitution

. I'm kinda worried by

(click to show/hide)

how they seem to be throwing themselves at Ram and being kind of subservient to them, despite all their talk of wanting to be independent

.

I'm not sure Pyrebound passes the bechdel test yet, either, though we have overheard a couple of conversations between pairs of men (edit: not including Ram).

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on September 12, 2019, 11:20:49 PM

Hey, feedback's feedback, and thanks for reading!

Darun is ... a difficulty.  She wound up being a very different kind of character here than she was in the first draft, with a much larger presence, and I'm never quite clear on how readers are taking her.  Lots of readers seem to like her, for example, despite her persistent and gratuitous dishonesty and the fact that she goes out of her way to be vicious to everyone.  I do wonder if she's being taken to be a very different kind of character than I mean her to be, and if so if that's my fault for being unclear or readers treating her as a stock type.
(Spoilers only for what's already published)

(click to show/hide)

Pyrebound's a book about power, and the ways people get leverage over each other, and what they give up to get it.  Darun had to be included as a take on the way women can get power in such a world.  She and her sister pursued different strategies using the one asset they had, beauty.  Darun was unable to process the trauma as well as her sister did, being far younger and her personality unformed, so she reacts chaotically, hence her persistently terrible behavior.  Her whole life is just one long, unreasonable running away.  But people seem to like her and treat her as a basically functional human being, and I do worry that this will lead to her being taken as some sort of sexpot eye candy prize for the hero, when really she's a broken person who may never heal, and getting involved with her is dangerous.  She's beautiful because an ugly and similarly traumatized girl would not get away with the crap she pulls, nor be able to support herself.

I don't know how I would pass the Bechdel test in a story set in a heavily patriarchal society and featuring a male protagonist, save by such contrived means as having him listen in on servants talking about the wash or something.  The one girl-talk he's eavesdropped on necessarily involved men given the relationship of the women concerned (and their world).  Passing the test via token does not seem meaningful to me, and so failing it does not upset me.  If this were a Wonder Woman fanfic, failing it would be a definite sign that something was wrong.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 12, 2019, 11:28:24 PM

;lol

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on September 12, 2019, 11:52:37 PM

Please give that emoji some context, BU.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 12, 2019, 11:56:44 PM

Quote from: Elok on September 12, 2019, 11:20:49 PM

If this were a Wonder Woman fanfic, failing it would be a definite sign that something was wrong.

;lol

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: DrazharLn on September 13, 2019, 12:27:14 AM

There are a couple of woman-woman conversations in Pyrebound:

Darun talking to her sister (which might pass (can't remember what they talk about))
Darun talking to Ram's mother (which I think is not described to the reader)

There are all those kids and the more experienced witch at the start, too.

Even in a patriarchal society, women will have interesting things to say to each other.

Obviously, most of the conversations in the book involve Ram, but I would be interested to hear about women's experiences in the world too. Women's experiences are often elided from histories and I think it is interesting and valuable to see women characters and their world a bit more realistically.

Thanks for your other thoughts, too.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on September 13, 2019, 03:36:19 AM

Sure thing.  Spoiling everything plot related in this since I don't know how far The Avuncular One has read:
I can agree that it's interesting to tell women's stories even in a man's world.  I do, however, operate under constraints.  It's a serial, and it has to move at a certain pace with minimal digression.  If an update's too long, or I go too many updates in a row without the plot moving, I risk losing or discouraging readers.

(click to show/hide)

It's a big world, and you could tell any number of stories in it which are not related to Ram's.  One example would easily pass the Bechdel test--that of Darun and her sister, which I probably won't do much more than hint at due to so much of it being so unpleasant--and also secondary to the main event.  But it would make an interesting, if ghastly, tale.  I might make it one of the appendices for the print edition a year from now, IDK.  But there are other stories in there too.  All four of the other Damadzus have (potentially) interesting stories to tell; I just won't get to them in any detail.  Okay, maybe not Ushna, it's not really surprising that he would end up a blackband and I envision his backstory as being almost exactly what you'd expect.  But the surviving Damadzus.
Ram's lack of curiosity re: indwelling is totally a case of Homer nodding.  You're right, he should express more interest, it's just that I have a bunch of storytelling balls to juggle and each update is written in spare hours snatched during a single week.  It totally slipped my mind that he'd be curious, because I'm not curious about it at all; I know exactly what it means and why it's happening.  It's all a rough draft, more or less.

EDIT: typo

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on September 14, 2019, 02:30:13 PM

Posting in this thread so we don't have two Elok's book threads: it's all well and good to say I should update my FB page, but what with?  The only thing that really changes WRT my writing life is that I update PB every week.  Do I turn the page into an endless cascade of update notices?  Seems kinda pointless, since 90% of my fans are on r/rational where I post update notices anyhow.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Unorthodox on September 14, 2019, 03:42:13 PM

FB isn't for your existing fans. 

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 14, 2019, 03:47:13 PM

Excerpts - a random paragraph/page/partial sequence/conversation from anything, labeled as from what.  Maps and other story-related art, when you have something, like when you posted the Nadula art I worked up.  Glossary entries.  Passages you wrote and liked, but couldn't use for some reason.  Any stories relevant to/involving writing and being a writer you want to tell.  Throw out story ideas/elements you feel have promise, but haven't gotten workable yet.  Never leave any comment alone and in peace - conversation threads happening are better than likes, almost better than shares - you seem to do this one pretty well.

-I realized as I was writing that paragraph, that I was describing the contents of a couple Larry Niven random stuff compilations, N-Space and Playgrounds of the Mind, and there's at least one other - they're good reads, and people paid, I paid, for a bunch of the same crap I thought of trying to come up with writer FB-post-content.  If you keep it up no less than twice a month for a couple years -I know, but you're autistic; patient labor should come naturally- your audience will find you.

I've been making a post a day in the JKStudio page since the 5th of June; I've gotten the enthusiastic, reliable support of exactly Rusty, who 'likes' everything about once a week.  Otherwise, ten friends, including you, I think, have 'liked' the page … and over the last three months, and so have nine strangers.  My audience is finding me, albeit agonizingly slowly.  -And that's mostly pics of me having played with unpainted strips of newspaper, if well.  Who cares?

-Well, the few who do will find me if I don't run out of pics or optimism too soon.  The FB posts do better on search engines than the actual JKS website of organized, designed stuff.  The FB posts ultimately lead back to that website where I plan to do the selling, ultimately...


Check this.  Imagine as a FB post w/ no intro:

Quote

   The heart should be right between the breasts.  He stood as close as he dared, levered it onto its back with the blade, and rested the point of the sword in what he thought was the right place.  It moaned, and thwacked at the blade, but the blows were weak and only moved it an inch or so in either direction.  Ram took a deep breath, and thought of the child dead in the raid.  It had been a girl, barely past her first bloom.  Her father had only found half the body, and not in one piece.
   He leaned down on the sword, putting all his weight into it.  The body resisted for a moment, then gave, and the point went through until it jarred against the stony floor of the passage.  The resh let out a whistling gasp, flailed its limbs a moment, and was still.  It was finished.
   No.  Not finished.  Now came the hard part.
   Setting aside his shield, Ram bent over, and reached out with his left hand for the resh’s right.

-from Raiders of the Dawn Company


-MY interest would be piqued, especially in the presence of other excerpts that gave away it wasn't all uncomfortable violence...

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 20, 2019, 04:39:30 PM

I've finally caught up on webpage projects for the moment, and have made it up to Chapter Six; if you mean for it to be unclear whether Kamenrag is dead, it is.  -IRL, one would assume a trauma severe enough for unconsciousness would be fatal, but in an adventure fiction?  Mmmaybe.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 20, 2019, 08:21:25 PM

Part way through 6.2 - wait; the sword's talking to him?  Somehow it seems like it was doing that all along, but this is sudden, and seems late in being made clear.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 20, 2019, 09:08:21 PM

Seven: A Beggar at the Door

HoHO!  "Five tetrads and three days" travel just plain skipped.  Sir, I just want to say ;b;

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 21, 2019, 01:23:52 AM

8.2 and caught up.

I don't know if I have a complaint about Bal similar to the one about the sword talking or not - in all of the previous version I was shown and here up the incident in the mines, I didn't catch that there was anything 'off' about him - just big mute fighter-type.

ISTR something like you denying the En development before - at least I'd swear that was one of the sorts of things I suspected when SOMEthing mysterious/important happened at the previous version of the indwelling ceremony.


I must say, this time the pacing feels more satisfactory/quicker, and Ram's increased agency and powers, the winning a few fights along the way and making more decisions for himself, while nothing has really changed … gratifies that nerd affinity for power fantasies better.  We all know feeling lost and powerless and crapped-upon in a world we only dimly understand entirely too well, and don't really need that much realism in our escapist fictions.  You've found a better balance, letting him kick a few nuts and knees while he doesn't know what's going on and gets crapped upon. ;nod

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on September 21, 2019, 03:20:35 AM

As I recall, what happened was that I asked you, when you'd read all the "first half" of the original version, what you thought would happen next, and you said, "he'll become some sort of super-Ensi, maybe?"  I neither confirmed nor denied.  I more or less expected that a lot of people would see the twist, if only because the only male, magic-associated figures we're given are the en/ensi.  Not a lot I can do about that, though I tried to chuck out some red herrings this time to muddy the waters.  What annoys me is that at least a couple of people guessed the twist by making a completely invalid set of inferences.  No that does NOT follow from revealed lore RAAAAAAARRRR

Bal unfortunately doesn't have much to do here; I wish I'd found time to show more of him.  I tried to hint that he spends a lot of time staring into space and not appearing to notice or care what's going on.  It's probably easy to skim past, given his minor role.  He and Shazru are going to be the losers this time around, I think.

Kamenrag ate a diagonal cut across the torso from a medieval-sized steel sword.  He is very much dead.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 21, 2019, 03:31:57 AM

Yeah; do work the word "dead" in there as soon as it happens next time, if you intend it to be clear.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Unorthodox on September 21, 2019, 02:24:46 PM

Quote from: Buster's Uncle on September 21, 2019, 03:31:57 AM

Yeah; do work the word "dead" in there as soon as possible as a general rule.

Fixed. 

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: DrazharLn on September 22, 2019, 05:01:01 PM

FWIW, I thought Kamenrag was very much dead.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on September 23, 2019, 01:16:00 AM

Well, that's good to know.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 01, 2019, 03:13:50 PM

I did read last week's installment, but I didn't have much to say, it seeming like bridging material with only the Imbri conversation/character development going for it - not a great move in something serialized weekly, BTW.  This is not saying it was bad, just … pretty long for no more than actually happened in it, and I have to wait a week.

The latest instalment was a good deal more interesting.  The Darun development, of course, prurient interest and all - and I'm suddenly thinking that my old speculation about Ram being something more than the new En might have something to it after all.  I want more.

-A note about serial chapters v. a novel - it greatly increases the burden on the reader of keeping track of characters and names, having been away from the text for a week each time.  You probably ought to take a lot of care to throw in an characterizing/reminding adjective the first time you name-check, for instance, the lugal 'back home', that city, the city Ram's in, the sun god, the sword - all those people places and things, I struggle to recall what you're talking about on first mention in a new installment.  I specifically keep briefly confusing the sword, Beshi, with the bazu, aliens, on first mention, for example.

This probably requires keeping parallel files; one that you write the ongoing story as you've been doing, for the complete novel, and a second jiggered to keep the serial installment audience up to speed as they go - constant in-text reminders are awkward as hell and bad style when left in a compiled novel version...

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on October 01, 2019, 07:53:04 PM

See, I was thinking 8.3 was utterly critical because it let readers know the reason, or the start of a reason, for pretty much everything in the plot thus far.  At the end of 8.2 we learned that okay, Ram's the en, but we don't know why that was done or for what purpose.  In 8.3 we learned that.  Now, r/r seems to agree with you; I posted the ad for 8.4 on Sunday as usual and thus far it hasn't had a single upvote.  I got upvotes on last week's, but fewer views and almost no comments.  Don't know if they lost interest because the story went in an unexpected direction, or if they were bored with the all-exposition chapter, or what.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 01, 2019, 09:05:52 PM

Well, that just underlines that a good novel chapter might not work as a serial installment, doesn't it? 

I'm having trouble believing in P-wasisface anyway, a dude -an OFFICIAL on an urgent mission- trying to put a kind face on things in a world where he seems to be the only one to ever try that at all about ANYthing.  -Giving Ram time to think, and walk around out of earshot/instant reach the whole chapter, is where that's coming from.

I'm stupid and tired right now.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on October 01, 2019, 11:18:43 PM

Well, all this started b/c the current Ensi did something stupid to make trouble, per Piridur's story.  Ram is the next Ensi, and as Piridur acknowledges, it's kind of hard to find volunteers for the position.  It's in Piridur's interest not to make Ram (more of) an enemy of the pyre, since he's likely going to play a significant role in its administration for at least a full decade.
EDIT: Also, I hope you're taking the two seconds to vote on TWF once a week or so?  It really does help a great deal to stay on the main page, or even move up it a bit.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 02, 2019, 03:40:48 AM

I've been assuming that would involve signing up -and I'd drop you the odd comment there if it didn't require an email- and I've been parsimonious online with either of my emails very religiously for a very long time...

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 02, 2019, 03:45:33 AM

My mistake, on the voting.  Pyrebound's now at #31. 

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on October 02, 2019, 10:44:43 AM

Thank you!  It goes by IP address, AFAICT, which is actually a fairly clever idea.  Makes it really easy to vote, but too much effort to spoof to be worth it for most people.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on October 02, 2019, 03:36:49 PM

Okay, so it appears I'm not getting upvotes on Reddit b/c some bug has made my post invisible to everyone but me.  That's ... a relief?

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 02, 2019, 04:39:56 PM

Try posting again or something?

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on October 02, 2019, 04:56:09 PM

Discussed it with a moderator; it appears their AutoMod does not like me.  IDK, but now there's a visible post (the human mod manually enabled it; AutoMod also disappeared my replacement post).  So I'm happy, albeit confused.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on October 03, 2019, 01:53:36 AM

One Reddit wag's comment on 8.4:

"Nice update! Things are actually happening in the plot, and Ram got to experience some new things. Like plumbing."

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2019, 02:02:49 AM

;lol

Edit: -Oh wait; I was taking that as a dirty joke, but there was also actual plumbing.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 10, 2019, 04:26:26 PM

A couple suggested edits:
"A few minutes later, Imbri’s door opened, and she came tap-tapping her way out in a dark greennightie" - I assume that's a typo.

"Shazru startled; Darun only pouted. “And that has what to do with us?” She snatched the bag from Bal, and all but dragged him from the table with her other hand." - poor phrasing; surely "dragged Ram from the table" would be better, as only the POV following her out of the room made it -eventually over numerous paragraphs- clear who was dragged.

Good installment. ;b;

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on October 10, 2019, 04:40:41 PM

Yeah, when I copy-paste each chapter, it automatically creates a few sporadic typos like that due to some oddity in the way LibreOffice formats, or something.  Fixed, thanks.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on October 13, 2019, 01:30:36 PM

https://pyrebound.wordpress.com/the-four-cs/

A draft I've been working on for ages.  It's not indexed yet, am thinking I will Easter-egg it.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: DrazharLn on October 21, 2019, 03:17:41 PM

Just read 9.2. Another good instalment :)

Obviously I find Piridur's arguments entirely unconvincing and I look forward to you exploring the obvious counterpoints in the future.

(click to show/hide)

One thing that hardly ever comes up when sacrifices are required in stories is that many people are near death already. Becoming an ensi for a few years would probably be a good deal for someone near death: the pyre restores their health for a few years and in return they sacrifice themselves.

Also, the notion that a family is voluntarily sacrificing one member a decade might be very palatable to sufficiently religious people.

The ethics of the people of pyrebound are very strange, in general. They think that allowing the pyre to go out is very bad, in part by appeal to the hurt it will cause to all, but they also don't seem to have much of any notion that people have rights outside this context. Even the right to life seems fairly low on the agenda with slavery working people to death and the town militia going out to be slaughtered every year (only a few know how unnecessary this is; but all know the scale and just accept it).

I think most have a might-makes-right worldview and some dress that up unconvincingly in greater-good rhetoric, perhaps unconsciously to persuade themselves, perhaps for others.

I imagine it's pretty similar to the stories that billionaires tell themselves now about how they deserve to hoard such incredible resources or the stories that aristocrats sometimes tell/told themselves about how they do care for their poor tenants/vassals without ever critically reflecting on their own privilege or what would really benefit their people.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on October 22, 2019, 12:20:03 AM

Thanks for reading, and for the feedback!  What's your impression of Piridur himself?  He's a new character and I'm curious how he comes across.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: DrazharLn on December 01, 2019, 07:48:00 PM

I don't know how I feel about Piridur yet. He's pretty pragmatic, but still an entitled aristo. I don't have any strong opinions about him right now.

Last sentence of the most recent update is missing some spaces again:

(click to show/hide)

> Imbri thrust the inductor into the sand, a key ina secretlock, and with another whispered phrase the world vanished.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on January 20, 2020, 10:24:17 PM

Going to copy-paste what I put up on the r/rational subreddit, this being a game-interested forum:

Idle question: would the world of Pyrebound make an interesting board game? The only modern board games I've played are Catan and one round of Castle Panic with my nephew, but I can see PB fitting into the general mold of a Catan-ish game.

You start with all players setting up new pyres at sites along a river. Turns progress in four stages, a season each for the bloom, harvest, war, and a spring "building" stage where you can decide to construct dropmills, housing, or other amenities. You have to gradually build up the land, start new hearths, allocate spirits every bloom to handmaidens, flamekeepers, and ens, and so on. Other players can be sabotaged with blackbands or moonchildren in various ways, and there are plenty of things to go wrong. Victory is defined by, I guess, achieving a certain status for your pyre first?

I could see it getting too cluttered and turning into micromanagement hell, though. It might be better done with a video game than a board, IDK. I have no means of making either, so this is purely a thought experiment in any case.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 20, 2020, 10:43:01 PM

That would go over very well with exactly this crowd, as a video game - it's just a matter of good design.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on January 21, 2020, 03:10:41 AM

Talked w/Lori, thought things over.  Edit from the Reddit: "On reflection, there's no reason it couldn't be simple pen and paper (or electronic files, whatever). The actual layout of the pyres would be irrelevant to gameplay, as they don't compete for land and all land in PB is about equally worthless until it's improved. The resources would be population (of various classes), gold, and prestige, the latter being recalculated every bloom based on performance. First player to reach a given prestige benchmark wins.

Prestige is also valuable for other things; blackbands won't hire out to pyres below a given prestige, and some amenities like a tegnembassaga or a tinap creche are likewise unavailable for little podunk settlements. The trick would be to balance the different routes to prestige--it could be earned by amassing wealth, leading the Dominion in war against bazuu, building lots of hearths, or what-have-you. Hiring blackbands risks prestige--getting caught sabotaging other pyres is shameful, though everyone does it."

Of course, this game is basically roleplaying as the book's villains ...

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: DrazharLn on January 21, 2020, 10:31:30 AM

I'd say work out a design that you can prototype on paper. If it's getting fiddly enough that you want a computer to manage part of it, then it's probably just too complicated.

But if you're sure you want automation, prototyping in something like virtual tabletop could allow you to add that and gives you a market you could immediately sell or freely distribute to.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 16, 2021, 02:46:17 PM

Bumping so Draz will get a notification that there's been a new chapter up since Christmas.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: DrazharLn on January 16, 2021, 07:08:56 PM

I subscribe to the blog with my RSS reader, so I usually read each update the day or week it comes out :)

Thanks for thinking of me, though  :D

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 16, 2021, 07:15:51 PM

I have to remember to check, unless 'Lok announces.


-Gotta say that I, who has clamored for more agency for Ram since the story was a version in a very different world, am a bit put off/uncomfortable/something by how important he has become in this world.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on January 17, 2021, 01:43:06 AM

As I see it, the trouble is that he's not all that important at present; (spoilers up to present, nothing Buncle hasn't read)

(click to show/hide)

Etana and company think of him as a bit of firewood with propaganda value.  He has no real authority because the role he's asserting is unprecedented in living memory.  He has a task but no tools to do it with.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 17, 2021, 01:53:47 AM

(click to show/hide)

He seems a hair's breadth shy of King of the World, maybe.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on January 22, 2021, 11:48:24 AM

15.5 went up last night.  Less than a month since 15.4, so that's something.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: DrazharLn on January 22, 2021, 12:43:09 PM

I read it this morning, congratulations on keeping up with the project :)

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 22, 2021, 08:49:33 PM

Before I read, I wanna say it's seemed obvious since August that the ultimate solution is to something something put all the fires out to get rid of the Andre Norton world/interface...  No Kur, no problem.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 22, 2021, 08:50:38 PM

-Except social upheaval w/ the water empire structure of human civilization destroyed.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on January 23, 2021, 01:34:09 AM

I modeled this situation after Climate Change; there isn't any clear solution, just two bafflingly bad options they can't implement.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on February 01, 2021, 04:40:20 PM

Quick check while I'm writing: is it obvious why Ninshuma filched the indwelt sword in the last update?  I left it as implied, and I want to be sure it's clear.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on February 01, 2021, 05:38:47 PM

That was a loooong month, January.  I can't beLIEVE it's not been far off only a week I've been distracted and not gotten to reading.

I had thought of nipping over just this morning - I'll get it today.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on February 02, 2021, 12:22:36 AM

I didn't find it obvious, no.  I don't actually recall her from August.  That was a bout a year ago, after last month.

Seems plain what the deal with her is, but I may have forgotten something I need...

Something something energy in reaction with the spirit in the sword?  Didn't need it once she was about to have a huge fire to feed off?

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on February 02, 2021, 10:16:55 AM

Mas o menos.  Swords get hot when they're held by somebody who isn't supposed to be holding them; indwelt people absorb heat energy; she was far from her own pyre and wanted juice so she could set the needed fires quickly.  Seems like I don't have to worry too much.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on February 02, 2021, 12:02:26 PM

Maybe.

I'm clever, and also looked at the paragraph when Ram picked it up three times because you'd asked...

Not sure it matters though; handmaidens, which she clearly was, burn stuff and killing was on-mission; made sense anyway...

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Elok on February 03, 2021, 01:42:43 AM

It probably isn't super-important--and I suspect readers who aren't reasonably clever would have given up on this story a long time ago.  There's a LOT to keep track of.

Title: Re: Creative Consult
Post by: Buster's Uncle on February 03, 2021, 01:55:14 AM

There is.  I was having trouble keeping names straight even when I was reading weekly installments weekly.