8FOLD: Mighty Medley # 32, September 2016, by Messrs. Brenton, McClure, Perron, Russell, and Stokes

[Saxon Brenton]

On Sat 10/Sep/2016 Drew Perron replied to Tom:
On 9/4/2016 11:03 AM, Tom Russell wrote:
<snip>
>> GENTLE READERS:
>> You might be wondering what happened to our August edition.
>> Unfortunately, the editor of this publication is human, and thus
>> subject to the illnesses, stressors, and foibles of all flesh in this
>> temporal realm. Until robot editors can master the fine art of the
>> semicolon, such lapses, while regrettable, remain in the realm of
>> possibility.
>
> Aw, it's okay. I figured it was because my chapter was so insanely late. XD;

Wait, what? *You* were insanely late?  No no no.  I'm pretty sure I was the one
who was insanely late and caused the publishing delay.

Humour aside, I'll just respond to a few of the comments:

>>    The Man With The Green Gloves smiled with the face he was currently
>> wearing, and shook hands with them all. The Gentleman With No Shadow,
>> The Baron of Ash And Dust, Grandfather Nomenclature, and all the
>> others.
>
> Of *course* they all present as dudes, and aristocratic ones at that. More like
> The Many-Oppressive-Paradigm'd Ones.

Actually, that's a very good point that I didn't notice until you mentioed it.
I had been so busy riffing a type of name (specifically some ancient, powerful but
now largely defunct cosmic entities in the backhistory of the Champions RPG - many
of which *were* gender multi or neutral) that I failed to notice.  It works rather
well for exactly the reasons you cite - but I can't claim credit for it.


>>    The whirlwind gave Deidre what she interpreted as an amused look.
>> "Pleased to meet you as well. Your suggestion for mimetic collapse was
>> unusual, but surprisingly workable. We have people preparing to
>> implement it within the next hour or so."
>>    "Really? Well, hey, that great," said Deidre, somewhat overwhelmed
>> by the idea of how quickly things were proceeding.
>
> Me too. :o I thought there'd be some kind of climactic difficulty to resolve.

That's a good point, which I'll touch on below.

>>    Someone that Deidre hadn't been introduced to - he looked like a
>> human male - suggested, "Maybe they plan to stay inside and convert
>> themselves into living ideas? Like anthropomorphic personifications?"
>
> Great, now we've got Faction Paradox *and* the Celestis all up in this joint.


Among many other sideways references.  I just hope I can remember them all when
I do the annotations in the hypothetical trade etherback edition.

>>    "I'm not a ghost," Marcus chided him dispassionately. "I destroyed
>> my soul with the Effacements, remember?"
>
> Hm. Why did he need to do that again?

He wanted to be untracebale as possible while he was busy saving the world/
committing treason.  His sorcerous oath was binding on his soul, so he decided
to get rid of it entirely for tactical reasons.


>>    And then the universe collapsed.
>
> Hmmmmmmm. So if may critique (and if not, feel free to skip ahead), I feel like
> there's a pacing problem here - there isn't really a sense of build-up to the
> climax, past the point where they got trapped in the forcefield and had to
> desperately execute Joan. Like--
>
>> "That was quite a tight deadline towards the end. But I'd
>> better get back to work."
>
> --it should've felt tighter, I guess?
>
> I mean, full of neat ideas and cool moments, just, yeah~

Can't actually disagree with that.
I originally started writing a penultimate chapter depicting Joan returning to
heaven and notifying the memesmiths.  I then realised that it would be (a) another
instance of repeating information the readers already had, and (b) effectively
padding at a point in the story when the pacing was supposed to be speeding up
to a climax.  So I decide to chop it, and then went into a creative funk with
procrastination that contributed to the aforementioned being late.  With the
benefit of hindsight that seems to have gotten rid of one pacing problem while
substituting another.
Analysing it: perhaps a final booby trap, with the ManWTGG anticipating a possible
escape, him leaving a supposedly cunning backup contingency (probably leaving the
hund as a hidden guard) that threatens to interfere with the timing of the plans.


---
Saxon Brenton  'Still crazy after all these years...'


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