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The Taste of Peaches (Worm AU)

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kairuf said:
1-4 add nothing that we haven't seen before in terms of action or character, 5&6 are kind of pointless and SoD breaking(more on that later), 7 gets covered just as much earlier in the chapter and in the next PHO post(and IMHO Is better as a one line joke and then the reoccurring references we keep getting). And 8? 8 is useful, it is potentially relevant to the story but could be just as easily folded into the next PHO segment.
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these are showing us what others are reacting to, specifically the wards and the public. also i would be amazed if they hadn't already sent it up the chain. just because we see their posting shit doesn't mean they haven't sent that info up. hell i do it all the time with discord and here, i'll alt tab to discord and send something, then tab back here to post things. you need to understand that just because we know this info from the chapter before doesn't mean that everyone else in the story dose. PHO parts are tricky and can easily be glossed over but something like this not getting some reactions from others like the trio and people from winslow, the rest of new wave, and others.

another thing, one fourm is about the fight while the other was the official revealing. if they didn't have at least two threads i would be amazed.

you seem to think this would lead to bloat, but note this isn't at the level of Taylor Vaga at all. you say the difference between a good author and a great author is their word count. i partially agree, word count is indicative of length and when you start going through it, if it's weighed down by too much bloat. it's however flawed way of saying something is great or good overall. i would say keeping word count in mind and knowing when to add a bit more or to take out a bit is a sign of great writing. take too much out and you get tell instead of show, add too much and now i'm using your book as a doorstoper.
 
Slayer Anderson said:
...I have to wonder if Taylor is now a FLUFFY PRECOG ABYSS and Simmy stared too deep, too long.

Perhaps the FLUFFY PRECOG ABYSS stared back?
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It probably went something like Victor's attempt did but with less shinju-godtree maw and more fluff bombs.

Simurgh: *takes a look* Jiiii~.... *begins to drool and goes into thousand mile stare*
Taylor: *shiver goes up spine and floof goes poof* mrghl?!
 
TheUnicorn said:
Exactly my point,
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I was including you to acknowledge your support of my points. Essentially that someone other than me understood what questions I was trying to answer. I can be really terrible at getting my point across.


TheUnicorn said:
however assuming stuff like Clock leaking information or the existance of other Kitsune, or the Simurgh's reaction is important to the plot then the important function of the interlude would be to mask and support the way that information is provided so it comes naturally in the context of the setting,
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I have an issue with the Paddlewheel PHO Thread not the Bagrat PHO thread, In fact I think that the Bagrat thread is really well done. More on why below.

BRG said:
you need to understand that just because we know this info from the chapter before doesn't mean that everyone else in the story dose.
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So I'm gonna focus on the paddlewheel Interlude first.

So in it the secondary characters are Vista, Clockblocker and Glory Girl. Why do we need to see their reactions? I mean it's not like Taylor called glory girl right after the fight at the beginning of the chapter, or that she didn't ever meet up with Vista and Clockblocker before the press conference?

Oh wait she did make that call and they did meet up and we got to see their reactions to the fight and it was really well written! Why did we need to see it again in a PHO post?

Why do we need to know what the world thinks about the fight? Do we need to know that people think Taylor is awesome?

We got that from fight, from the post press conference debriefing and from the Bagrat PHO.

Do we need to know that people are concerned about whether or not she eats liver or tofu? Comes up before and after.

Do we need to know that people are wondering what powers she has? I they are and we see it before and after Paddlewheel thread.

The only thing that is really that important is clock slipping up and that could be folded into three other places in the story if Grounder10 wanted to keep that subtle

This brings me to why I really like the Bagrat PHO thread. It shows us the reactions of people to things that we did not see. We do not see a play-by-play of something we've already seen but instead between Taylor's debriefing and the thread we are shown the results and can easily extrapolate how it went.

And it brings in WingedOne's reaction, introduces Blutige_Füchsin, And shows us the reactions of secondary characters that we haven't seen recently.

BRG said:
you seem to think this would lead to bloat, but note this isn't at the level of Taylor Vaga at all. you say the difference between a good author and a great author is their word count.
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You brought up Taylor Varga not me :p

In my opinion the difference being a good author and a great author is not how they use their words but how effectively they use their word count. It is not the ability of an author to compress words, But rather their ability to identify what scenes need to be shown in great detail, what scenes need to be shown but not great detail, what scenes can be worked into other scenes and what scenes can be glazed over entirely.

The first Harry Potter books are a great example of this. J. K. Rowling shows the sorting in great detail and then we have the first transfiguration class, which is shown in lesser detail, And then we have the other classes which are basically skipped over until finally you get to potions which is again shown in big detail. And that process repeats through the rest of the book.

Of courses it differs based on the type of book, the purpose of it etc. The Dresden files are much smaller than Stormlight archive, Because one's an epic fantasy and the other is urban fantasy. The Stormlight archive is smaller than The Malazan book of the fallen because MbotF is a textbook about the rise and fall of human civilizations through cycles of compassion and apathy disguised as an epic fantasy.
 
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Yeah, regardless of wither you think its a kitsune, Kumiho, Huli Jing, or a hồ ly tinh(Vietnamese fox spirit) trying to put one in in a box they don't want to be likely won't end well and in some causes might not just result in a unhappy fox spirit but a angry patron deity.
 
kairuf said:
The first Harry Potter books are a great example of this. J. K. Rowling shows the sorting in great detail and then we have the first transfiguration class, which is shown in lesser detail, And then we have the other classes which are basically skipped over until finally you get to potions which is again shown in big detail. And that process repeats through the rest of the book.
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Say what? Quick, the person directly before Harry, who was it and what house were they in? Describe the wand motion for the first transfiguration spell. JKR was not that good, no better at descriptions than half the people posting here. OP is doing a decent job of describing the things that need to be explained, and to be honest I thought the entire PHO segment was nearly perfect.

After all, how many open forums do you know of where every single post is relevant to the actual thread subject? QQ? It is to laugh, and don't even get me started on SB and SV.

In the end, OP is writing the story they want to write. Telling them once that X part was not to your taste with an explanation as to why it wasn't good in your opinion is constructive criticism and a good thing.

The third or forth time you complain about the same thing it begins to sound like nagging, like you want the story written your way. That is an entirely different kettle of fish.
 
I disagree that the ability to know what you can cut away is the sign of a great writer, much like the ability to draw with the least amount of strokes is not the sign of a great artist. It all depends on your goals, intentions, and style, and there is no true right or wrong way to write. In this particular example, the PHO part had place simply because reading about the external point of view at what happened is simply fun, above all else, with some minor plot points being glanced at or introduced along the way.

In addition, I would add that the obsession with the decrease of word count is mostly external, due to pressure from publishers to reduce the amount of paper they have to use, and has no place in the age of web-novels. As long as you are capable of keeping your audience's interest, as long as what you're writing has meaning, or fun, or interest, or whatever else you desire to carry through in your writing, you have succeeded at writing.

And yes, I fundamentally disagree with the allegation that less is more. It's very much relative to a lot of different factors, including opinions and tastes.
 
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Ravenwood240 said:
Say what? Quick, the person directly before Harry, who was it and what house were they in? Describe the wand motion for the first transfiguration spell. JKR was not that good, no better at descriptions than half the people posting here.
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That's my point! It's not about the descriptions it's about How the author chooses what to describe and how they manage the in between that's important.

Ravenwood240 said:
The third or forth time you complain about the same thing it begins to sound like nagging, like you want the story written your way. That is an entirely different kettle of fish.
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The issue is is that the issues that I have with the chapter are not the issues that the people replying to me I think I have with the chapter. And I'm trying to clarify what the issues that I do have are
 
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@kairuf Counterpoint: Rowling is a master of forgetting things she just wrote.

During the Sorting that you use to try to prove that she is a master of the Less is More style, she name drops a character named Lily Moon.

We never even find out what house Lily Moon was sorted into, and she never makes another appearance. I'm sure if you asked Rowling about the character, she'd say, "I'm sorry, but who?"
 
jmcdavid said:
@kairuf Counterpoint: Rowling is a master of forgetting things she just wrote.

During the Sorting that you use to try to prove that she is a master of the Less is More style, she name drops a character named Lily Moon.

We never even find out what house Lily Moon was sorted into, and she never makes another appearance. I'm sure if you asked Rowling about the character, she'd say, "I'm sorry, but who?"
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Also, if I recall correctly, Sally-Anne Perks disappears from the alphabetically-ordered list of students at some point between books 1 and 5 (after the Patils and before Potter).
 
Norgarth said:
I can't recall if it's canon or fanon, but wasn't part of Emma's bullying of Taylor to 'make her strong'? If part of Emma believes that they obviously she succeeded, Taylor just beatdown Hookwolf and Stormtiger, and chased off Abalaster, Victor and Squealer (after wrecking her tank). A Squeler only escaped because she's slipperier than Taylor realized and bugged out while Taylor was busy with the E88.
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Dis Lexic said:
Pretty sure thats fanon. Or at least, she wasnt doing that by the time of the start of the story. I'm pretty sure that Emmas actual reason was to prove to herself that she was strong by breaking what (to her) represented her weak former self or something equally stupid.
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jmcdavid said:
That's actually fanon.

After all, how did Emma react in canon to Taylor actually being strong? Massive BSOD to the point of not evacuating during Gold Morning.

That's definitely not the behavior of someone who wanted to make Taylor strong. That's a bully learning how wrong her worldview is.
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I think it's partly canon. According to one Emma focused interlude the intention of the bullying campaign had initially been to prove to Sophia that Taylor was strong, and thus worthy of being known. However Emma gave up on that after Taylor failed to "be strong" and attack as a result of stealing and ruining her mother's flute.

kairuf said:
So I'm gonna focus on the paddlewheel Interlude first.

So in it the secondary characters are Vista, Clockblocker and Glory Girl. Why do we need to see their reactions? I mean it's not like Taylor called glory girl right after the fight at the beginning of the chapter, or that she didn't ever meet up with Vista and Clockblocker before the press conference?
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Have people noticed a couple things about the PHO section...

1. The person browsing PHO in the section is Emma Barnes, so this is very much showing her learning that Taylor has not only triggered but is incredibly strong and is now more beautiful then Emma herself is.

2. The reason the first post of one of the threads gets shown twice is because the PHO interlude shows page 1 of the thread then page 28 (I think) of the thread. If you use the PHO Interlude Wizard then it defaults to showing the OP of any thread for every single new page. You have to write each page within a thread as separate threads as well using the interlude wizard.
 
FaerieKnight79 said:
2. The reason the first post of one of the threads gets shown twice is because the PHO interlude shows page 1 of the thread then page 28 (I think) of the thread. If you use the PHO Interlude Wizard then it defaults to showing the OP of any thread for every single new page. You have to write each page within a thread as separate threads as well using the interlude wizard.
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the interlude wizard is helpful, very helpful, but it does have a few quirks. i wouldn't try to write a PHO section without it, however.
 
Gideon Falcon said:
...Did Ziz just have a Cuteness Proximity Meltdown?

Sort of like how Octopus tentacles have bundles of nerve tissue to control them, probably a bit more separate since they don't have spines. As far as I understand it, the Octopus' brain tells them what to do, but the tentacles decide themselves on how to do it, exactly.
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Mollusc tentacles (octopi, squid, cuttlefish, etc) are sort of similar but different: Unlike vertebrates, most molluscs do not really have a brain per-say, or rather they do not have a central nervous system. Instead they have a distributed nervous system, which is exactly what it sounds like, and their 'brain-equivalents' are a series of nerve clusters or ganglia in major body parts.

The most advanced cephalopods, like octopi, have developed a brain (though quite different in structure from our own, because duh) from basically clustering lots of ganglia together into a single structure, which is pretty much what a brain is. Despite this however, they still retain the distributed nervous system characteristic of molluscs, much like how we humies retain the hindbrain of our more lizardy ancestors.

In short, approximately 1/3rd of an octopus' total 'brainpower' is located in ganglia within its tentacles, these ganglia can think for themselves to a degree, and experiments have indicated that octopi are actually not consciously aware of their tentacles and actually have to look at them to see exactly what they are doing.

This is why octopus tentacles continue to wriggle for awhile after being severed; they do indeed have a mind of their own, a very small, primitive mind that is pretty much only capable of thinking about wiggling, but a mind none the less, and quite a lot more of a mind than a typical vertebrate tail.


Makes me wonder what it must be like to be an octopus, basically having eight independent other animals attached to you that listen to what you tell them to do instead of limbs. Like instead of reaching out to pick up a glass, you actually command your arm to reach out and pick up the glass, meanwhile your other limbs are doing whatever the fuck they feel like doing right now because you're not paying attention to them at the moment.

#mollusclife
 
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Neruz said:
Makes me wonder what it must be like to be an octopus, basically having eight independent other animals attached to you that listen to what you tell them to do instead of limbs. Like instead of reaching out to pick up a glass, you actually command your arm to reach out and pick up the glass, meanwhile your other limbs are doing whatever the fuck they feel like doing right now because you're not paying attention to them at the moment.
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In that case, maybe you should try playing Octo Dad.
 
kairuf said:
So in it the secondary characters are Vista, Clockblocker and Glory Girl. Why do we need to see their reactions? I mean it's not like Taylor called glory girl right after the fight at the beginning of the chapter, or that she didn't ever meet up with Vista and Clockblocker before the press conference?
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as @FaerieKnight79 has stated, and something i forgot we are getting it through Emma's point of view. who's worldview is now a bit shaken up and is obsessing over it. it stands to reason that she is looking at both threads at the same timeish via multiple tabs or something. so it's all new things for her. so technically your answer for why the repeat info is the same answer earlier, because only certain people knew things and there needs to be a logical way for Emma to get that info.

on another note, one of your points was why was Glory Girl using PHO to talk with her family though is something i thought about. New Wave is very PR cansious and i would not be surprised if all the members regularly keep an eye on it for things like Glory Girl plowing through a billboard while texting, or any other more serious social issue. plus teenager and even adults don't do the logic thing while slightly panicking like she was.

kairuf said:
The first Harry Potter books are a great example of this. J. K. Rowling shows the sorting in great detail and then we have the first transfiguration class, which is shown in lesser detail, And then we have the other classes which are basically skipped over until finally you get to potions which is again shown in big detail. And that process repeats through the rest of the book.
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i always use Taylor Varga as an example as for a massive piece of work :p

ok, the first...twoish maybe three books are written as children books. yes,yes i know the argument "the series opens with a double homicide!" but for reference, A:LTA is a kid show that tackles war, death, and the world piling things on you. now that we got that dealt with, they where written in the format of children books and so less is more is something that just naturally happens in those. simpler wards, less description, simple plot to follow, and short. compare it to say...book 5 or 6 and you'll notice that she starts to pile on complicated things and uses far more complicated words and overall expands the book. i can tell you that book 5 is easily a doorstoper in size, i can go find it in my closet. is it the largest book i own? know that would probably be the LoTR trilogy volume or the Hitchhiker's book but it is up there in size.

you have to be more choosy with children's books in how you do them. this of course isn't going into logistics of paperbacks.
 
FaerieKnight79 said:
1. The person browsing PHO in the section is Emma Barnes, so this is very much showing her learning that Taylor has not only triggered but is incredibly strong and is now more beautiful then Emma herself is.
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You know, I read the PHO segment about 17 times today because it's been bugging me so much,* because I consider @Grounders10 to be too good of an author to make a mistake like I was seeing.**

And I forgot that Emma is a Flippin redhead.***

Excuse me while I go beat my head into wall.

Still annoyed that it is a during fight commentary, rather than a post-fight commentary but it is a lot more understandable now.

BRG said:
i can tell you that book 5 is easily a doorstoper in size, i can go find it in my closet. is it the largest book i own? know that would probably be the LoTR trilogy volume or the Hitchhiker's book but it is up there in size.
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Giggles. One of my favorite series is has several books that are twice the size of HP book 5****

BRG said:
you have to be more choosy with children's books in how you do them. this of course isn't going into logistics of paperbacks.
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Eh, I could do the same kind of pattern analysis with Brandon Sanderson or Jim Butcher, which is why I brought them up, But that would take a lot more time and a lot more space because Their stuff isn't nearly as well self contained in one book.

DestinyPlayer said:
In addition, I would add that the obsession with the decrease of word count is mostly external, due to pressure from publishers to reduce the amount of paper they have to use, and has no place in the age of web-novels.
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I have a list of novels that would disagree with this statement, And topping that list is David Weber who's editors need to take a hacksaw to some of his more recent stuff.


*Also no one else was updating today And my reading addiction didn't care what I was reading so long as I read.

**I would like it noted that in Roughly 10 years of SV/SB membership this is probably only the second time that I've cared enough about a story to criticize it.

*** that's nicer than the saying that I forgot about her existence in a chapter that includes her right? I did also forget that she was a red head.

****And I have read those in a single sitting. Hyperlexia + Sensory processing order + ADHD is a hell of a nightmare.
 
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kairuf said:
You know, I read the PHO segment about 17 times today because it's been bugging me so much,* because I consider @Grounders10 to be too good of an author to make a mistake like I was seeing.**

And I forgot that Emma is a Flippin redhead.***

Excuse me while I go beat my head into wall.

Still annoyed that it is a during fight commentary, rather than a post-fight commentary but it is a lot more understandable now.
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In all fairness, I missed that detail initially too. I immediately picked up on what was likely Madison Clements trying to call Emma and Sophia's attention to the thread posted mid-fight. But it wasn't until my 2nd read through that I noticed that the PHO user matched who I assumed was Emma.
 
kairuf said:
I can be really terrible at getting my point across.
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Welcome to the club, haven't seen you here before :)

In my opinion the difference being a good author and a great author is not how they use their words but how effectively they use their word count. It is not the ability of an author to compress words, But rather their ability to identify what scenes need to be shown in great detail, what scenes need to be shown but not great detail, what scenes can be worked into other scenes and what scenes can be glazed over entirely.
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I disagree. A good author knows what scenes to focus on to keep readers interested, A great author knows how to write any scene to keep people's interest, even if that's an entire chapter on how to balance your checkbook.
 
PossiblyEnos said:
Indeed. You put the box down on the floor and let the fox jump in on her own. Just like you do with a cat.
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Difference is, with a cat you can be relatively confident that weather or not the cat gets in, you will still have a box on the floor, and if it decides to jump in you'll be able to pick it up. With a Kitsune, especially a 9-tail, you're liable to discover the Kitsune jumped in the pumpkin you just put on the ground because there isn't a floor and you're not sure how you were able to move a pumpkin that is larger than you, but you must have done it somehow...
 
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