I’ve retroactively added arcs for the first half and proactively added them to the second. What’s Going On? covers chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4.Getting Used to It covers chapters 5, 6, and 7.Lone Wolves, Numbers Go Up covers chapters 8 and 9Introductions covers chapters 10, 11, 12, and 13.The Cost of Power covers chaptersContinue reading “Arced”
Tag Archives: books
My Competition – Two
Another “two” post. Unlike the first one, this one isn’t awful. The cover image is a link. Note that the cover checks all the boxes: Weapons, Something that Glows, Monsters, Color, Not Photo-Realistic, and Serif font (sort of). (The lighting is wrong; there’s another light source about four feet above and ten feet forward ofContinue reading “My Competition – Two”
Feedback Two
I should just start out numbering all posts. I always seem to write at least a second one. Anyway… The back and forth between Luke and Tom, especially at the start of the book seems… off? I can’t describe it. It doesn’t flow well. Oddly the conversations Luke has with other people are better. IContinue reading “Feedback Two”
Town Defense
I will happily admit that I don’t understand how towns and modern warfare work together. From what I’ve read, it seems ridiculous, which means that I’m certainly missing something. Thankfully, that problem doesn’t matter, here. The “biker gang attacks town” idea has encountered the agency problem. Our good townsfolk are not going to be willingContinue reading “Town Defense”
What is Plot?
I’m sure there are plenty of books about it and several AIs are standing by ready to answer the question, but that’s not helpful for internalizing it. Somewhere in all these writing posts, I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I realized something years ago: All my favorite TV shows are layered. There’s a showContinue reading “What is Plot?”
Balance of Power
LitRPG universes generally survive due to Mutually Assured Destruction. When you’ve got people – and “not that many” is literally billions in a multiverse of any size – who can sterilize planets and blow up stars, something needs to keep them in check. The answer is usually “a coalition will gang up on you andContinue reading “Balance of Power”
Agency
One of my pet peeves with humans is that they deny each other agency. The “I’m not going to tell her to protect her” trope is ridiculously common in fiction and it’s not uncommon in real life. Everyone has agency. They should be allowed to make their own decisions, even (or perhaps “especially”) if IContinue reading “Agency”
No Plot
I wondered if it would come up. It did. There is no plot in the first half of the book. This is not exactly by-design, but it’s not accidental, either. There is a “theme”, but that’s not the same thing. Our intrepid heroes don’t have a goal. They’re not intrepid heroes, yet. They’re just twoContinue reading “No Plot”
Axis Orientation
I’ve found it useful to envision human behavior as set of rotated normal curves. Pick some attribute and incorrectly assume a normal distribution of it. Now spin that curve around its peak. You get a normal “mound”. Each individual attribute is its own curve. The mound is all of them together. We’re each a pointContinue reading “Axis Orientation”
Chapter 18 Shall Submit
That’s the weekend goal. It need four scenes. Updated with what actually happened. Done. Some monster needs to be killed, hacked into bits, and the best parts brought back for dinner. That sentence, with “ZZZ” in front of it, is all there is. Most of the monsters have been mutated existing things. Maybe it’s timeContinue reading “Chapter 18 Shall Submit”
