I've got a question for all interested readers.

How well have my stories done in making "Siluvara Files"... for lack of a better word... understandable?

There are some things I intend to leave a mystery until certain milestones are reached, but how hard is it to actually follow?

Sock it to me. Before I really truly go on, I need to make sure the story is easy to follow. It's the first thing a good writer has to master... and I wanna be a good writer!

I don't think I've read enough of them to really say, to be honest.

But... I do recall you posting a blog some time ago asking who a human (male) would be wisest to run to if surrounded by, like, eight of your females. I didn't hazard so much as a guess because absolutely none of the stuff you said about them made any sense to me.

I remember thinking "okay, so red's bad, blue's good..." but you've also said red isn't necessarily bad, just potentially bad, purple's potentially good but could turn bad... and I really haven't got a clue what the difference is between a Siluvaran and a Silhurean (or however you spell them!!!)... the names are too similar, maybe?

As I said. I haven't read enough of them. I've read two chapters of the Ian Scranton series and the prologue with what's-his-name (the Maasai guy) versus the Grue Prince. Other than that, I haven't read them yet...

So I'm really not the one to give an opinion, but I didn't like seeing your blog entry being ignored.

KavenBach wrote:I don't think I've read enough of them to really say, to be honest.

But... I do recall you posting a blog some time ago asking who a human (male) would be wisest to run to if surrounded by, like, eight of your females. I didn't hazard so much as a guess because absolutely none of the stuff you said about them made any sense to me.

I remember thinking "okay, so red's bad, blue's good..." but you've also said red isn't necessarily bad, just potentially bad, purple's potentially good but could turn bad... and I really haven't got a clue what the difference is between a Siluvaran and a Silhurean (or however you spell them!!!)... the names are too similar, maybe?

As I said. I haven't read enough of them. I've read two chapters of the Ian Scranton series and the prologue with what's-his-name (the Maasai guy) versus the Grue Prince. Other than that, I haven't read them yet...

So I'm really not the one to give an opinion, but I didn't like seeing your blog entry being ignored.

I think it's being ignored because one might get the idea that their responses would be... harsh. Thing is, sometimes harsh is needed. If there are a hundred holes in my writing skills they're still there whether I'm told of it or not. Anyhoot.

So the thing about being surrounded by 8 fairies - that was a guess-at-random exercise. What would your prejudice be at the first sight of one of these fairies, not knowing which is carnivorous and which isn't?

About red vs blue: essentially, you're right. Red = bad, blue = good, but there are exceptions. I made exceptions to reflect the variance you find among human beings. Fairies are intelligent beings and they have the power of choice: red = bad and blue = good, without exception, makes them 2-dimensional. I am going to highlight this point more in a few more stories including Ian Scranton's.

As for Siluvaran vs Silurhean... Siluvara is the name of a society of blue-aura fairies. Silurheans are the name given to describe carnivorous fairies. Basically Silurhean is a race and Siluvara is a nation. The Silurhean 'nation' is the Grue Combine. There is no equivalent name that I have come up with yet to describe the blue-aura fairy yet. There are many blue-aura fairies who are not Siluvarans; or, "I am African but I am not from Kenya". Also, the bottom line for the whole Silurhean vs Siluvaran thing - and why their names are so similar - is a long standing mystery. You're on my buddy list, the explanation is in my earlier "buddies only" blogs. Others will find out as the story progresses.

Speaking of which, would you be interested in "codex" story submissions? I feel more confident about this since Bitter just did a few, and I see this sometimes in books. Thanks to considering your response, I just realized that I can do a LOT in a codex.

I'm doing a codex right now at my Siluvara Files website as well:
http://siluvara.forumotion.com

In any case, some of your questions are about to get answered in my Ian Scranton series.

Jacquelope,

I'll comment (with the admission that I've read some, but not all of the stories, so you're getting a "newbie" opinion here.

I like the writing style-- there is a lot of variation in voice, in that the different sub-stories are truly different (a hard feat to achieve as an author). The character dialogue is very well-done and often funny ("Don't spend six hundred credits at the salon when your hair is going to be digested"), as are the characters (realistic) reactions to each other.

Aside from sheer size, what makes this difficult (for someone who hasn't read it all):

1: Magic. Any magical system not only threatens a "deus ex machina" escape from any situation you might set up, but it can often make things too convenient. A Siluvaran completely absorbs (body and soul) a human using a fairly biological (uterine) mechanism in order to gain energy and life force, and then the human magically reappears nearby, better than before. That seems to violate conservation of energy and "life force".

2: Complexity of magical systems. Any magical system necessarily has some intrinsic limits-- otherwise you've have omnipotent characters and no interesting story. Siluvara Files' magical system has the sense that it was created not from any kind of natural cosmic origin but rather decades of legislative compromise ("Okay, humans above this age can stay alive, but only fairies with blue auras and with an adjusted gross income below 120Kcredits/year can use pheromones to lure their prey, except in designated Special Opportunity Areas...").

Seriously, the rules make it harder to leap into the story at any given point: as an author you're forced to continuously re-explain them or have your readers refer to an external reference, which is more "work" than many potential readers will invest.

3: Unusual mix of biology and magic. You don't usually see these two things together: magical creatures can do as they wish without the need for specialized (and therefore limiting) biology.

4: These races either know everything about each other or they don't: I'm not quite sure (yet). It makes a big difference: if I know an encounter is likely to end my life, I'm inclined to avoid it (thus not making for an interesting story).

-- dw

dreamweevil - Thanks! I absolutely ROARED with laughter at the legislative comment in part 2. I just wanted you to know that. These powers are not created by natural cosmic origin - some powerful pseudo-divine forces actually passed on the absorption ability. I am still working on my system of magic and psychic abilities so as to establish limits, but basically, everyone THINKS the sky is the limit for them until they keep getting smacked down by what is called "the energy crisis" - the constant need to find mana to fuel their spellcasting.

As for re-explaining... yeah, that is a big issue, unless the reader is paying close attention as they read. This is why I submit my stories to Eka's Portal Writer's Group to see if I made my story easy to follow. Leaping into my story from the middle of it? Yeah, that's difficult. I gotta try to fix that.

Thanks for the perspective DW, it confirms a few things I've been trying to fix!

Jacq

Oh and I almost forgot... Siluvarans don't absorb the soul, just the life force that binds the body to the soul. They give the new body a new life force when the soul re-binds to it. The un-accounted for element in this conservation of energy "closed system" is the spirit realm which is tapped to give the new body its increased life force. EVERYONE is studying Gaia's Blessing to find a way to tap into the spirit realm. It's the ultimate holy grail.

Jacq,

I don't mean that the universe isn't internally consistent if you read everything-- I did read about Gaia's Blessing. And you do something in these stories that I would -- focus in individual and team efforts by the characters to research their own universe.

My comment about legislative compromise really points to this: Lawyers write laws with "hard edges" -- specific minimums and maximums, which you rarely see in nature (or presumably the spirit world). I like Christopher Paolini's magical system in "Eragon", in which a magic-user can attempt essentially anything they want, as long as they know the language for it-- but a given feat takes the same amount of energy with or without magic. Even that system has some drawbacks, story-wise.