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ob·du·rate
adj
\ˈäb-də-rət, -dyə-; äb-ˈdu̇r-ət, əb-, -ˈdyu̇r-\

Definition of OBDURATE Read more…

WARNING! MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!

Feast of Souls is the first book in the Magister Trilogy by C.S. Friedman. The story is that of the first woman to ever master the magical arts and transcend from life depleting witchery to the immortal life of a magister. Here name is Kamala.  Well, that is how the story starts anyway. Later on we learn of the threat of beasts known as Soul Eaters returning.

Ok, bluntly, I was not thrilled with the way the book shifted away from Kamala’s point of view so often. The narrative did so at the expense of making her seem like a secondary, perhaps even tertiary, character in her own story. I think that most of what the other characters were used for could have been transmitted to the reader without going in and seeing it through their eyes. That feeling still sits with me even now. Read more…

Just recently, a new member came into our author’s group. She is a nice enough girl with a lot of great ideas and good critiques on other people’s work. After getting through the trial period she was allowed to beginning getting critiques on her own material.  “You’re gonna love this story I wrote,” she beamed once submitting the book she has been working on. “Everyone else has,” added.

She was not so chipper after the critique of her first five chapters came back. No one was mean, but they were honest. The new girl’s face turned red with a cross between rage and embarrassment as reviews were given.

The critique centered around:
– lots of misused words that were not synonyms for what she wanted to say
– the fact that in the first five chapters (two scenes each) there were 10 different POV characters
– there appeared to be eight different plots happening with none standing out as the main one
– run-on sentences galore Read more…

I’ve begun to revisit my novel Under The Darkened Moon. I know I last said that I was going to do some free writing exercises and post them here. However due to some computer an server issues this past week getting online has been problematic.

So instead of pulling my hair out over those things I went back to something I already had started. I have nearly done a full rough edit of the novel, finding some major things that needed work including plot holes and inconsistencies you could drive a MAC truck through sideways and taken care of them. Other items I marked for review and further pondering. Now I am nearing the end of the novel and I am struggling with the way it was originally written. Towards the end of the novel I introduce a couple new characters who are just really bit players in the story. They are not there for the reader to become attached to. Although each has their purpose they roughly appear for no more than 50 pages of overall story.

One of these characters I introduce to show and reinforce in the minds of the reader the concept of the racism that exists in the world from humans directed at elves. Throughout the book up to this point the reader experiences this racism through the POV of the main character which is third person limited in nature. The main character’s friend who appears in many scenes with him serves as the major conduit for the expression of this racism throughout the novel previously. But by introducing a second character whom the main character interacts with on a similar level, while at the same time removing the original character who expressed these feelings, I originally felt that this reinforced this part of the story. It was meant to get the reader to understand that this racism is much deeper than just one particular character. While this is implied often throughout the story there is never the other heavy handed antagonist to reinforce it.

Now however I am not so sure about this tactic. This character’s part in the story is so small that it almost seems out of place and awkward. But at the same time it still seems to convey larger sentiments that I wanted conveyed.

I will have to ponder whether or not the introduction of this bit player at such a late point in the story is good for the overall story or not. I still think it is but I am not as sure of it as I once was.