The week after the meeting had actually gone incredibly well. What a way to start a chapter! Bam! A week has passed. I hate both documenting every day and blithely jumping forward. That’s a bit of a conundrum. Right now, I’ve got 39 days in 26 chapters, which is pretty much every day. A lot,Continue reading “Totally Stealing This”
Tag Archives: fantasy
Chapter 19 Has Fallen Before Me
Finally. What used to be the problematic Chapter 18 is now chapters 18, 19, and 20 – and they are all done. 21 and 22 were mostly done, already. A new chapter 23 got injected. It’s not done. Looking up the link, that took almost four months. Tempus has fugitted. I’m not in any particularContinue reading “Chapter 19 Has Fallen Before Me”
Yeah, No Quests
Another book with System quests (called “tasks” here). I do not like them. They are too directly manipulative or too trivial. Our intrepid hero (from Proving Grounds: Annals of the Runeguard Book 1) is being targeted by a group of thieves. After some escalation, they kill the blacksmith (Gorman) making him armor and steal it.Continue reading “Yeah, No Quests”
My Competition 4
This one is aspirational. Wormhole Mana is good (at least book one; I just started book two). In no particular order… It’s tight third person. There are internal monologues in first person of the character monologuing. It’s all very obvious. No weird point-of-view changes. There is incremental “what’s going on?” as the magic system isContinue reading “My Competition 4”
The Fenris Effect
Not the self-fulfilling prophecy part. I’m not sure if my universe will have prophecy/divination or not, yet, but I really don’t like it. Dune did a good job with it, so it is possible. I just don’t like the idea of it. It makes the future and free will weird. I’m talking about the “I’mContinue reading “The Fenris Effect”
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”
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?”
Feeding the Dungeon
I need to toss some people into the dungeon to feed it. The dungeon doesn’t care who but our intrepid heroes do. That means I need a couple/few bad guys. There are plenty of places around to find them. An obvious possibility: People in jail (for something serious, of course). There are problems with that.Continue reading “Feeding the Dungeon”
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”
