[American Magic] How to Destroy the World in Seven Days

[Muphrid]

I should have said earlier that my comments were based on 1.1-1.3 alone.

I've read through the rest now. Overall, I felt the passages in 1.4-1.6 to be a little bit difficult to follow, especially in 1.4 where we jump around a bit in time and double back to see how Powell defeated Menzies' defenses and humiliated him. By contrast, I felt the flow of things was much easier to understand in 1.8 and 1.9; 1.7 kind of meandered a bit with this digression into religion that, I assume, will be relevant later but is hard to place in the proper context right now, but I really liked 1.8 and the creativity and ingenuity required to help that woman, as well as a glimpse into what Simon has been learning from Powell.

Now, after 1.9, it seems we have found the connection between what the Undertaker has been doing and the Yama, the people Powell feared would be involved in the binder plot. I want to ask you: you're about 40k words into this story at this point, by my very rough estimate of adding up the html file sizes and dividing by 6 bytes per word. This might be a little bit of a long time for the story to gel or come together. Maybe not, if you feel like the segments should be enjoyable on their own (at least the larger ones, like 1.6/1.7), but I would be curious what your intention is in this respect. I assume the Yama had a hand in the prescription bottle and the hell-hounds, so they matter for those segments even though their connection isn't revealed until later.

Edit: some other things. "Fung shuey" (feng shui?), living alone... with a roommate?

[Arakawa]

I've read through the rest now. Overall, I felt the passages in 1.4-1.6 to be a little bit difficult to follow, especially in 1.4 where we jump around a bit in time and double back to see how Powell defeated Menzies' defenses and humiliated him. By contrast, I felt the flow of things was much easier to understand in 1.8 and 1.9; 1.7 kind of meandered a bit with this digression into religion that, I assume, will be relevant later but is hard to place in the proper context right now, but I really liked 1.8 and the creativity and ingenuity required to help that woman, as well as a glimpse into what Simon has been learning from Powell.

Thank you, it helps to have these general impressions of what worked & what didn't to evaluate the structure of the story.

For 1.1-1.3, I'm still surprised that some early readers end up expecting a Powell-Menzies team up. Perhaps this fakeout could be handled better now that I'm actually aware it happens.

For 1.4, I agree the structure is not ideal. The phone call acts as an entry point in medias res and divides what Simon and Forbis know from what they don't know, but it's a bit weird to do this on the level of a single chapter rather than a full story.

For 1.5 thru 1.7, I'm not sure exactly what structural problems you perceived with 1.5+1.6? With 1.7, this was the site of a long writer's block, so I expect there are some seams where transitions from one topic to another could be made more smooth. Given how emotionally heavy this chapter was to write, it may take a while to perceive them properly.

For 1.8, it looks like the chapter more or less accomplishes what I was going for.

Next, 1.9 and 1.10 form a unit and 1.10 is a work in progress as my understanding of the Emissary required a major rethink. (Until it's done, I'm actually holding 1.9 back from another venue where I have a pre-reader.)

Now, after 1.9, it seems we have found the connection between what the Undertaker has been doing and the Yama, the people Powell feared would be involved in the binder plot. I want to ask you: you're about 40k words into this story at this point, by my very rough estimate of adding up the html file sizes and dividing by 6 bytes per word. This might be a little bit of a long time for the story to gel or come together. Maybe not, if you feel like the segments should be enjoyable on their own (at least the larger ones, like 1.6/1.7), but I would be curious what your intention is in this respect. I assume the Yama had a hand in the prescription bottle and the hell-hounds, so they matter for those segments even though their connection isn't revealed until later.

Chapters 1.7-1.11 are the emotional core of part 1, for better or worse, and consist precisely of what you're seeing: Simon & Forbis jumping from vignette to vignette intervening with these characters. As you can see with 1.8, these vignettes are satisfying if done correctly, while the Yama plot comes into prominence through the end of 1.9 to 1.11.

The binder plot is relevant to part 2 and onwards. The main structural problem is that a lot of word count is put into this up-front, and then I have to justify pivoting to the unrelated story thread with Simon & Forbis.

Edit: some other things. "Fung shuey" (feng shui?), living alone... with a roommate?

The butchering of the pronunciation is deliberate on Powell's part and 'computery feng shui' is, needless to say, not an actual concept of magic. This amounts to a deniably-disagreeable dominance move and means nothing more than 'you'll pay me three times your named amount because reasons'. And the point isn't the money so much as denying Menzies the power to set terms one-sidedly.

There's some interesting thinking in the background about Powell's vulnerabilities to the various powerful groups that keep wanting something from her. Needless to say, walking all over this particular group is an effective way to keep them from glimpsing where they might gain an advantage, and it potentially deters other groups by creating colourful rumours that others may not want to experience firsthand. If I find a way to address this background element without revealing too much, it would lead to improvements in this chapter and in 1.2 (Powell's reasoning for not interrupting the summoning, and Dracos' complaint that she's introduced as too unbeatable).

In 1.7, living alone with a roommate is more or less what it sounds: you live with a roommate, but that does nothing to resolve your loneliness.

[Muphrid]

For 1.1-1.3, I'm still surprised that some early readers end up expecting a Powell-Menzies team up. Perhaps this fakeout could be handled better now that I'm actually aware it happens.

Given Powell's hostility I think this is really not very high on the list of possibilities. Certainly no one who has read the other story would think so.

For 1.4, I agree the structure is not ideal. The phone call acts as an entry point in medias res and divides what Simon and Forbis know from what they don't know, but it's a bit weird to do this on the level of a single chapter rather than a full story.

For 1.5 thru 1.7, I'm not sure exactly what structural problems you perceived with 1.5+1.6? With 1.7, this was the site of a long writer's block, so I expect there are some seams where transitions from one topic to another could be made more smooth. Given how emotionally heavy this chapter was to write, it may take a while to perceive them properly.

I think really the main thing is 1.4 with doubling back to figure out how Powell has arrived in that particular seat at the table. I don't think the others really have that much of an issue with sequencing of events. They can be followed, albeit with some care, as narrative itself can wander to work in important background information.

Chapters 1.7-1.11 are the emotional core of part 1, for better or worse, and consist precisely of what you're seeing: Simon & Forbis jumping from vignette to vignette intervening with these characters. As you can see with 1.8, these vignettes are satisfying if done correctly, while the Yama plot comes into prominence through the end of 1.9 to 1.11.

The binder plot is relevant to part 2 and onwards. The main structural problem is that a lot of word count is put into this up-front, and then I have to justify pivoting to the unrelated story thread with Simon & Forbis.

It's hard to say without seeing more. I'd be tempted to consider either doing a bit more with the binder plot first, and pushing Simon+Forbis to the side until later, when it's clearer how their plot might interact with this one, or (and I think this more promising), put the binder plot to the side and go with Simon+Forbis up until the Yama enter play sufficiently, and then use that as your transition back to Powell. I think you intend this transition point already, but I mean something more: perhaps even to only allude to Powell and the phone call and start more or less with Simon and Forbis leaving the Christmas party. That could let you start with something with an understandable emotional core and transition into a bigger thing about the universe your in, with the Yama.

Maybe not though. It is, of course, far too tempting to do this sort of idle speculation on only part of a story without knowing how all the bigger pieces fit.

There's some interesting thinking in the background about Powell's vulnerabilities to the various powerful groups that keep wanting something from her. Needless to say, walking all over this particular group is an effective way to keep them from glimpsing where they might gain an advantage, and it potentially deters other groups by creating colourful rumours that others may not want to experience firsthand. If I find a way to address this background element without revealing too much, it would lead to improvements in this chapter and in 1.2 (Powell's reasoning for not interrupting the summoning, and Dracos' complaint that she's introduced as too unbeatable).

I pretty much got that Powell was making a statement even without knowing all the fine details of what statement she was trying to make. She already seemed less than amused with the summoning, so it seemed reasonable she would take out that annoyance on them and see just how badly they really wanted her.

[Arakawa]

clears throat with slight embarassment

The Emissary of Great Despair kicked my ass for the better part of a year until I was finally able to develop enough empathy to write the character. Oddly enough, I had an easier time understanding Great Despair's point of view than I did the point of view of a human that might choose to serve her willingly. Finally I broke through in November and finished it gradually and carefully, having to balance several factors.

Hot off the press, the result is interesting enough that it's worth sharing. I might be able to finish part1 this winter break, or I might hit another point that literally requires me to grow as a person to finish a first draft. tugs collar nervously

Potential problems to consider after reading

Spoiler: ShowHide

In medias res issue from having jumped to this story in the chronological sequence over other stories I'm spiritually less confident in: Not sure if I need to include more Forbis background material elsewhere in the story to sell the plausibility of her going 0-100, or what that background would look like other than huge tangents into prior events.

The Undertaker's detailed over-explanation of the plan at the end of the chapter is slightly awkward in a purely-Doylist sense, but (a) it's entirely justified in-universe and kind of necessary to establish that he does want to give them the best chance of not faceplanting immediately with the next person and (b) unfortunately(?) absolutely nothing in ch11 will go the way they hoped, so this is my only chance to address, within the bounds of part1, how they would have approached the situation.

Luckily, none of my revelations require me to retcon the prior chapters, an advantage of first-person narration. Where Simon's perceptions are mistaken, they are plausibly mistaken and he can gradually learn as much in the course of events. Where other characters were OOC, that would be a different matter... that has not happened as far as I can tell.

Bonus note from the Scribe

Spoiler: ShowHide

It is not particularly apropos to any of the arguments in this chapter, but whenever I contemplate Great Despair's philosophy for how a planet ought best to serve its purpose, I am reminded of the following from Joseph de Maistre's *Soirées de St. Pétersbourg*:

Government is a true religion; it has its dogmas, its mysteries, its priests; to submit it to individual discussion is to destroy it; it
has life only through the national mind... What is patriotism?  It is this national mind of which I am speaking; it is individual abnegation. Faith and patriotism are the two great thaumaturges of the world... Do not talk to them of scrutiny, choice, discussion, for they will say that you blaspheme.  They know only two words, submission and belief; with these two levers, they raise the world.

People complain of the despotism of princes; they ought to complain of the despotism of man. We are all born despots, from the most absolute monarch in Asia to the infant who smothers a bird with its hand for the pleasure of seeing that there exists in the world a being weaker than itself.

Thus is worked out, from maggots up to man, the universal law of the violent destruction of living beings. The whole earth, continually steeped in blood, is nothing but an immense altar on which every living thing must be sacrificed without end, without restraint, without respite until the consummation of the world....

And yet all grandeur, all power, all subordination rests on the executioner: he is the horror and the bond of human association. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world, and at that very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple, and society disappears.

I thank God for my ignorance still more than for my knowledge; for my knowledge is mine, at least in part, and in consequence I cannot be sure that it is good, but my ignorance, at least that of which I am speaking, is His, therefore I trust it fully.

Ghastly as it is, this outlook may be taken as the author's sincere attempt to find meaning amid some of the ghastliest historical events the world has ever seen. Do you wonder, then, that a similarly ghastly outlook may be found amongst aliens who have a much wider view of the universe and its follies?

(I initially found these quotes via
https://bonald.wordpress.com/book-reviews-politics/works-of-joseph-de-maistre/.)

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[Arakawa]

Found just a couple Canadian spellings in the American character dialogue.

fulfil (CA) -> fulfill (US)
defence (CA) -> defense (US)

Fixed in my draft, probably not worth reuploading the document just because of those two words.

also typo 'finsih' -> 'finish' in one of the footnotes. bleah

[Arakawa]

Another chapter hot off the press, maybe with typos I've missed (in the footnotes, and in Beatrice's dialogue which is a mix of American and European English which is different again from Simon's Canadian, grr...). I'm reaching the end of partI (two more left) and I'll see if I can finish the story by the end of this year as I've finished feeling out where it is and isn't going to go thematically.

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Structurally, due to sheer length, I've split the material I planned for Ch11 into 11+12, and merged the remainder of my partI outline into ch13.

Ch10 is the chapter I thought would be easy but in practice I ended up seriously writer's blocked until I worked through it to my satisfaction. Ch11 is the one where I thought I'd be writer's blocked but in practice, once I thought more carefully about it, I had plenty of ideas and it was just labour-intensive to sort them into a narrative, especially for the stuff I've punted Ch12.

The thing I thought would cause the block is that Beatrice is the series-recurring element with the most convoluted backstory and set of prior reveals. In practice, I've seen this kind of 'character appears in a fanfic I'm reading, familiar to readers of series, not familiar to me' situation work out ok, so I had an idea what to aim for.

Anyways, it doesn't make sense for me to actively poke for pre-readers until I have a complete partI, but otherwise why not make the text available.

[Arakawa]

And here is chapter 12. Again, just throwing it out there. I was never really blocked at any point of writing this, but it turned into a long and complex set-piece with lots of checking and double-checking. And I got sidetracked to write 40,000 words of a completely different story. The way this chapter-12 was going was also tremendously helpful in clarifying the structure of what will be part II+III. But I'm definitely over my expected word count. Some of that is the footnotes.

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I think I was successful in introducing the parts of Beatrice that are interesting while leaving some very off-the-wall reveals unmentioned or unexplained beyond Simon's allusions to them, while also leaving this chapter natural assuming someone who knows the reveals reads it way-down-the-line. This wraps up her involvement until the Epilogue. Thankfully.

It's interesting that Beatrice's appearance looks like a 'save' to prevent the story from wrapping up too early, but I already knew she would be showing up before I knew exactly what kind of difference Simon could have made with the rooftop Emissary — indeed before was I even sure the man on the rooftop was going to be an Emissary. In the context of events preceding the story, this is not the kind of situation she would stay out of.

I will finish chapter 13 and then poke pre-readers more-actively and then take stock of what my part2+3 are looking like and whether I am on track to finish the story this year or not. It could go either way.