Recent content by JBCrowson

In my WIP, I have a few. Some more obvious (Seren de Pertiss is the high priest of the god Luck) than others (Lydia Moda is leader is leader of the Frygian bards). Neither is an important character, only appearing in chapter heading quotes (up to the end of book 3).

One of the dumbest UK government ministers of recent times had Cleverly as his family name.

Be assured that regardless of the flag on the bag, Americans and Canadians are usually readily separated, even before they speak. (DOI Brit living in Canada).

Malik, thank you for your passion and for taking the time to share it with us. MUCH appreciated.

Footnotes? more like foothills, en route to climbing Everest! With that annoying habit hills have of making you think you've reached the summit, only to find there's a whole lot further to go. Overall, I would say Norrell and Strange isn't worth the time investment.

Been reading Steven Norrel and Mr. Strange. It reads, at sentence level, like a nineteenth century author such as Austen, with language most would consider flowery today. The pacing is slower than an ox cart though, with many chapters before the story proper actually begins.

For me there has been a back and forth between story and world: I had an original idea for a story, which necessarily included some world building (there were gods and magic). Clarifying some important details about the extent and limits on both gods' power and magic, influenced the story. The...

Welcome, and well done ditching the AI. If you post things in the critique requests area, people will usually read and offer thoughts. For anything you might want to publish someday that is best as it has different visibility way from this site, and doesn't count as publishing a piece of work...

I agree with those who've said it could work, depending on your skill as a writer. What I would add is that the more unusual your structure / POV, the harder it is to pull it off. I believe this is because when we write, we draw on everything we've read to some degree, and so we have more...

The Council of Elrond is a planning meeting of sorts. Do we use the ring, hide the ring or destroy the ring? Ok we're destroying it, so who and how? And of course it all goes pear shaped... With reference to your comment on getting the players together for such a meeting, Tolkien had Elrond...

Like Skip, I have not needed to reference days of the week or months as yet (2.5 books into the series). If I did I would probably have to come up with something complex as my world has 4 moons, each of which is the embodiment of a different god, siblings of the sun god. I have an historical...

I've always loved dragons, especially ancient, wise, morally ambivalent ones. Nicol Bolas is a cool supervillain in my view (from MTG for those not familiar).

I agree with the dragon, that if the plan is discussed ahead of implementation, it needs to not work in some way, otherwise you've removed all the tension from the plot. If the plan isn't discussed, it may still fail though, since it is unlikely the planners will be able to foresee all...

On a related note, you maybe talking about your current WIP too much when: your friend asks you if you're bringing your MC as your +1 to their wedding... ...and they don't need to ask about dietary requirements Your partner suddenly changes your nick name to the antagonist in your WIP

This is intended as a light hearted thread... You know you've done too much world building when: You just plotted a dozen short stories to explain the back story of a character in the backstory of another character who appears in a plot arc you decided to cut last month. You need to add an...