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<blockquote data-quote="Radiating Gnome" data-source="post: 5851678" data-attributes="member: 150"><p>Notes on reading Chapter 2: </p><p></p><p>I had a lot of the same reaction to chapter 2 that I had to chapter 2 -- you could improve a lot with a revision that studiously reduced the word count by half, focusing on eliminating exposition and "telling" where possible. </p><p></p><p>This is also the first place where we have dialog, so I'm going to focus a little more attention on that. </p><p></p><p>My Soapbox about Dialog: One of my biggest pet peeves about any sort of fiction is the idea that every character always says exactly what's on their mind. Good dialog is often more like an iceberg -- there should be subtext and misdirection and all kinds of stuff going on under the surface -- one again, a lot of that is there for the reader to figure out rather than just being told. Really great dialog is more like tow icebergs colliding -- you see the bits on the surface and maybe some parts above the surface collide, but the real action is all going on in subtext, beneath the surface. </p><p></p><p>So, you've got this dialog between the King and Aelfie. It's actually a flashback, but some weird formatting makes it show up as part of the previous paragraph, so it doesn't stand out very well. </p><p></p><p>Here's the section I'm referring to: </p><p></p><p>[sblock]Several years ago, King Adorn had come to Aelfrey one day as he was exiting the chapel on a day of worship. He requested Aelfrey take a walk with him, out in the countryside, later that day. When they met, the king barely spoke until they were far outside the city’s walls, far away from his personal guard.</p><p></p><p>“Aelfrey, I want you to know that I truly value your loyalty and service,” the king had said to him. “There are times when I feel like there are few I can trust, even among my closest advisors.”</p><p></p><p>Aelfrey was slightly taken aback by this. He had always seen King Adorn as a beloved sovereign- certainly like a father figure to him, and he assumed many of the court felt the same way. But he felt no small amount of pride in hearing that he held his lord’s favor.</p><p></p><p>“But, your highness,” said Aelfrey, “Truly you know that each of us Horselords would lay down our lives for you in a heartbeat, were you only to require it.”</p><p></p><p>King Adorn nodded. “Yes, I know. And I truly value that as well. But I fear that there are some- even among my court- that may be swayed, either by hopes of personal gain, or by the machinations of outside forces.”</p><p></p><p>Aelfrey simply walked along with the king, unsure of what to say.</p><p></p><p>“My point, Aelfrey, is that I require something of you.”</p><p></p><p>“Anything, my liege. My life and service are yours.”</p><p></p><p>King Adorn stopped, placing a hand on Aelfrey’s shoulder.</p><p></p><p>“I need you to be… a spy, of sorts. I need you to be my eyes and ears among my court, and I need you to uncover any treachery or disunion among them. The instant you have any sort of proof, I need you to show me. Do you understand?”</p><p></p><p>Aelfrey had agreed all too eagerly, without fully realizing the weight of the burden of proof. Over the years, he had hunches, but without proof nothing could be done. Yet one constant hunch that he had tried to quantify at every opportunity remained: Galmod. Aelfrey suspected him of several plots against the throne, starting with King Adorn’s son’s mysterious illness. But without any proof, and because Galmod’s position as general placed him so close to the king, Aelfrey couldn’t afford to make any accusations without proof. When the news of orcs first arrived, his first thought immediately drifted to the duke.[/sblock]</p><p></p><p>Okay. So, just about any scene you're going to put in front of the reader probably can be improved if you have some clear intentions and goals for the parties involved, for starters. </p><p></p><p>So, in this case, you've got the King, and you've got Aelfrey. </p><p>-Alefrey wants to serve the king -- he's loyal and dutiful and all that. </p><p>-The King is troubled, and wants to ask Aelfrey to be a spy of sorts for him. </p><p></p><p>So, already I'm a little worried about the scene because Aelfrey doesn't seem to want anything -- at least anything specific. It's possible that he really is that loyal and dutiful, and it may be that he's otherwise fairly satisfied with life at the time the conversation takes place, so he doesn't have strong desires, but even that comfort with the status quo can be a good thing to keep in mind during the conversation. </p><p></p><p>Okay, so the king wants Aelfie to be his spy -- it's still not a very interesting conversation if he can just walk up to Aelfie and say "Hey, dood, like, I think there are some creeps around the court, so, like, tell me if you hear anything". Which is, outside my asinine attempt at humor, pretty much what the king does in this scene. </p><p></p><p>In the end, the scene as written is not much more than that. The king asks Aelfrey to do what is essentially his duty, anyway. After all, if Aelfrey were to come across the sort of perfidy that the King fears, wouldn't he bring it to the king anyway, even if the king had not asked him to do so specifically? </p><p></p><p>So lets go back to what the king wants out of the scene. And where he starts. The king fears that members of his court are not as loyal and trustworthy as he might wish. He has suspicions, nothing more. </p><p></p><p>His response is to turn to Aelfrey. Why Aelfrey? Because Alefrey is loyal. Not because he's especially smart, or insightful, or wise, or suited to this sort of work in other ways; but because Aelfrey is the one member of his court he feels he can trust the most. </p><p></p><p>If you run down that line of reasoning a bit, there's a whole ugly thicket it could imply. Can the king really trust no one else? If he can trust anyone else, is he? Is he asking others to do the same sort of spying on each other? If that's the case, is he the sort of conniving puppetmaster who might sow this sort of suspicion in his court for the sake of his own enjoyment? </p><p></p><p>OR is he just trying to get as many dogs in this hunt as possible? </p><p></p><p>And so on. </p><p></p><p>So, anyway........ I know from this thread that this is inspired by your game, and that's cool, but a lot of the expedients that we get away with in a game don't work as well in fiction. In a game, the king calls on the PCs for help -- not really because they're the best guys for the job, but because that's who the PCs have decided to play. We ignore the problems inherent there, and get on to rolling initiative, but for fiction, it needs to be tighter than that. </p><p></p><p>An interesting alternative to the scene could involve Aelfrey and the King dancing around each other a bit, not trying to reveal their suspicions to each other, while trying to figure out what the other one sees going on in the court. Aelfrey doesn't have proof, but he has suspicions. The King has his own theories, but doesn't want to prejudice Aelfrey. </p><p></p><p>Anyway -- I'm running out of time -- the key point I wanted to make here is that dialog can be much more interesting and engaging when there's much more going on than is being expressed in the words, and when both parties in the scene want something very specific out of the scene. And if you can't do that, you might be better off skipping that scene and covering the information with a quick "The king had tasked Aelfrey to keep an eye on the loyalty of his court.") and leave it at that. </p><p></p><p>-rg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Radiating Gnome, post: 5851678, member: 150"] Notes on reading Chapter 2: I had a lot of the same reaction to chapter 2 that I had to chapter 2 -- you could improve a lot with a revision that studiously reduced the word count by half, focusing on eliminating exposition and "telling" where possible. This is also the first place where we have dialog, so I'm going to focus a little more attention on that. My Soapbox about Dialog: One of my biggest pet peeves about any sort of fiction is the idea that every character always says exactly what's on their mind. Good dialog is often more like an iceberg -- there should be subtext and misdirection and all kinds of stuff going on under the surface -- one again, a lot of that is there for the reader to figure out rather than just being told. Really great dialog is more like tow icebergs colliding -- you see the bits on the surface and maybe some parts above the surface collide, but the real action is all going on in subtext, beneath the surface. So, you've got this dialog between the King and Aelfie. It's actually a flashback, but some weird formatting makes it show up as part of the previous paragraph, so it doesn't stand out very well. Here's the section I'm referring to: [sblock]Several years ago, King Adorn had come to Aelfrey one day as he was exiting the chapel on a day of worship. He requested Aelfrey take a walk with him, out in the countryside, later that day. When they met, the king barely spoke until they were far outside the city’s walls, far away from his personal guard. “Aelfrey, I want you to know that I truly value your loyalty and service,” the king had said to him. “There are times when I feel like there are few I can trust, even among my closest advisors.” Aelfrey was slightly taken aback by this. He had always seen King Adorn as a beloved sovereign- certainly like a father figure to him, and he assumed many of the court felt the same way. But he felt no small amount of pride in hearing that he held his lord’s favor. “But, your highness,” said Aelfrey, “Truly you know that each of us Horselords would lay down our lives for you in a heartbeat, were you only to require it.” King Adorn nodded. “Yes, I know. And I truly value that as well. But I fear that there are some- even among my court- that may be swayed, either by hopes of personal gain, or by the machinations of outside forces.” Aelfrey simply walked along with the king, unsure of what to say. “My point, Aelfrey, is that I require something of you.” “Anything, my liege. My life and service are yours.” King Adorn stopped, placing a hand on Aelfrey’s shoulder. “I need you to be… a spy, of sorts. I need you to be my eyes and ears among my court, and I need you to uncover any treachery or disunion among them. The instant you have any sort of proof, I need you to show me. Do you understand?” Aelfrey had agreed all too eagerly, without fully realizing the weight of the burden of proof. Over the years, he had hunches, but without proof nothing could be done. Yet one constant hunch that he had tried to quantify at every opportunity remained: Galmod. Aelfrey suspected him of several plots against the throne, starting with King Adorn’s son’s mysterious illness. But without any proof, and because Galmod’s position as general placed him so close to the king, Aelfrey couldn’t afford to make any accusations without proof. When the news of orcs first arrived, his first thought immediately drifted to the duke.[/sblock] Okay. So, just about any scene you're going to put in front of the reader probably can be improved if you have some clear intentions and goals for the parties involved, for starters. So, in this case, you've got the King, and you've got Aelfrey. -Alefrey wants to serve the king -- he's loyal and dutiful and all that. -The King is troubled, and wants to ask Aelfrey to be a spy of sorts for him. So, already I'm a little worried about the scene because Aelfrey doesn't seem to want anything -- at least anything specific. It's possible that he really is that loyal and dutiful, and it may be that he's otherwise fairly satisfied with life at the time the conversation takes place, so he doesn't have strong desires, but even that comfort with the status quo can be a good thing to keep in mind during the conversation. Okay, so the king wants Aelfie to be his spy -- it's still not a very interesting conversation if he can just walk up to Aelfie and say "Hey, dood, like, I think there are some creeps around the court, so, like, tell me if you hear anything". Which is, outside my asinine attempt at humor, pretty much what the king does in this scene. In the end, the scene as written is not much more than that. The king asks Aelfrey to do what is essentially his duty, anyway. After all, if Aelfrey were to come across the sort of perfidy that the King fears, wouldn't he bring it to the king anyway, even if the king had not asked him to do so specifically? So lets go back to what the king wants out of the scene. And where he starts. The king fears that members of his court are not as loyal and trustworthy as he might wish. He has suspicions, nothing more. His response is to turn to Aelfrey. Why Aelfrey? Because Alefrey is loyal. Not because he's especially smart, or insightful, or wise, or suited to this sort of work in other ways; but because Aelfrey is the one member of his court he feels he can trust the most. If you run down that line of reasoning a bit, there's a whole ugly thicket it could imply. Can the king really trust no one else? If he can trust anyone else, is he? Is he asking others to do the same sort of spying on each other? If that's the case, is he the sort of conniving puppetmaster who might sow this sort of suspicion in his court for the sake of his own enjoyment? OR is he just trying to get as many dogs in this hunt as possible? And so on. So, anyway........ I know from this thread that this is inspired by your game, and that's cool, but a lot of the expedients that we get away with in a game don't work as well in fiction. In a game, the king calls on the PCs for help -- not really because they're the best guys for the job, but because that's who the PCs have decided to play. We ignore the problems inherent there, and get on to rolling initiative, but for fiction, it needs to be tighter than that. An interesting alternative to the scene could involve Aelfrey and the King dancing around each other a bit, not trying to reveal their suspicions to each other, while trying to figure out what the other one sees going on in the court. Aelfrey doesn't have proof, but he has suspicions. The King has his own theories, but doesn't want to prejudice Aelfrey. Anyway -- I'm running out of time -- the key point I wanted to make here is that dialog can be much more interesting and engaging when there's much more going on than is being expressed in the words, and when both parties in the scene want something very specific out of the scene. And if you can't do that, you might be better off skipping that scene and covering the information with a quick "The king had tasked Aelfrey to keep an eye on the loyalty of his court.") and leave it at that. -rg [/QUOTE]
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