Excellent chapter! You had me wondering who was going to get killed this time almost every single paragraph.
It's interesting to me that you openly address the gender/bias/racism theme here. Yes, I picked up on the pronouns & saw what you were doing (possibly because I have to pay attention to pronouns in my day job, I might be unusually well-educated in that regard). As an author, I would've just said nothing & let the chapter stand on its own. As they say, all publicity is good publicity... Then again, I'm in the habit of adding content warnings to my stories & it's definitely safer to make things clear.
Yeah, that's a good point - knowing how much to address in the author notes and how much to leave the text as-is. I think with some of this stuff I mention it because I don't assume that I'm doing it right. I've aimed to give Triverse quite a diverse cast in various ways, but at the end of the day I'm a middle class, middle aged, male, straight white English person. It's useful for me to get feedback on where I'm getting things right and where I'm getting them wrong. (and, to be fair, this is the first time I think I've directly mentioned some of this in the notes in 2 years of writing it 😁)
Glad that tension came through in the chapter though. It was fun playing with the two viewpoints to build up that drama, with the reader having more knowledge than any of the characters.
Jul 9, 2023·edited Jul 9, 2023Liked by Simon K Jones
Ah, very sensible then. If Triverse were a 'traditional' novel I'd definitely recommend sensitivity reading but maybe you're already planning on that before releasing any official ebooks. (I know I am for at least one of the projects in my desk drawer...) Acknowledging that you could get things wrong is such an important first step though!
Now that you mention it, the second part with all the 'it's and 'he's did make me a little angry. Mission accomplished, I guess! :D
Triverse is the first time I've written unpleasant and problematic characters. In my previous books I've had more overt 'bad guys', villains and so on, but Triverse requires normal people who simply hold abhorrent views. That's more interesting but also much trickier to write - and unpleasant to write at times.
On the one hand I don't want to be heavy-handed, on the other I don't want to be misinterpreted, or have the text come across as somehow voyeuristic. I always think about people who read/watch Fight Club and somehow come away thinking it's a bible on How To Be a Man. That risk of having your work interpreted in weird and unpredictable - even unwanted - directions is all part of the process, I suppose.
Sensitivity readers are a good idea. I have run a couple of specific chapters by people prior to posting, and having the story go out week-by-week provides lots of opportunity for feedback before it gets compiled into 'a book' at some point in the future.
Morally grey characters are more challenging but I also find them more interesting to write! It's so much fun to see how they divide reader opinion.
Of course, I haven't had as much experience with reader comments & reactions as you but I like to think it's all part of an ongoing journey to learn that 'I Can't Change Other People Period'. All we can change is our own actions & responses. That's definitely an ongoing process for me as well. That being said, I believe everyone should have the right to write about anything they want, within certain parameters that everyone agrees on (eg. no extremist propaganda etc).
I think as long as you write with respect for the people and things you're writing about (even if, in this case, it's a fictional species), and are willing to accept that you won't always get it right, then you're OK.
Hadn't realized koth had feathers. Guess the "dragon" pejorative infected my visual imagery.
Boy, was I worried Ganhkran was just going to get gunned down by the SWAT team. While you've given them their biases and prejudices I will say - this time - they maintained professionalism.
I, too, was expecting intoxication. The koth from way back in the beginning was, right?
I also think this is the first time we've learned koth have different types of innate weapons. Fire we knew about. The electricity was new.
But one shouldn't assume koth are homogenous. Of course there are subsets. Races? Can we still use that term in. 2023?
I'm just glad Ganhkran wasn't shot. Again, I REALLY thought you were going to go there. I guess as an author you can consider your subtext well seeded that the fear was there.
So if this koth wasn't intoxicated, then the bad guys have multiple methods of setting off a rampage. That's not good.
Presumably there's a clue in the damaged shoulder plate. A clue which could have been fried...
Certainly more interesting for Ganhkran to remain alive. I immediately see *counts* at least five different possibilities for a potential return. Bear in mind, two or three don't end well for them...
At some point I want to do a one shot which basically catches up with a lot of the single-episode guest stars and sees what they've been up to since their stories.
Excellent chapter! You had me wondering who was going to get killed this time almost every single paragraph.
It's interesting to me that you openly address the gender/bias/racism theme here. Yes, I picked up on the pronouns & saw what you were doing (possibly because I have to pay attention to pronouns in my day job, I might be unusually well-educated in that regard). As an author, I would've just said nothing & let the chapter stand on its own. As they say, all publicity is good publicity... Then again, I'm in the habit of adding content warnings to my stories & it's definitely safer to make things clear.
Yeah, that's a good point - knowing how much to address in the author notes and how much to leave the text as-is. I think with some of this stuff I mention it because I don't assume that I'm doing it right. I've aimed to give Triverse quite a diverse cast in various ways, but at the end of the day I'm a middle class, middle aged, male, straight white English person. It's useful for me to get feedback on where I'm getting things right and where I'm getting them wrong. (and, to be fair, this is the first time I think I've directly mentioned some of this in the notes in 2 years of writing it 😁)
Glad that tension came through in the chapter though. It was fun playing with the two viewpoints to build up that drama, with the reader having more knowledge than any of the characters.
Ah, very sensible then. If Triverse were a 'traditional' novel I'd definitely recommend sensitivity reading but maybe you're already planning on that before releasing any official ebooks. (I know I am for at least one of the projects in my desk drawer...) Acknowledging that you could get things wrong is such an important first step though!
Now that you mention it, the second part with all the 'it's and 'he's did make me a little angry. Mission accomplished, I guess! :D
Triverse is the first time I've written unpleasant and problematic characters. In my previous books I've had more overt 'bad guys', villains and so on, but Triverse requires normal people who simply hold abhorrent views. That's more interesting but also much trickier to write - and unpleasant to write at times.
On the one hand I don't want to be heavy-handed, on the other I don't want to be misinterpreted, or have the text come across as somehow voyeuristic. I always think about people who read/watch Fight Club and somehow come away thinking it's a bible on How To Be a Man. That risk of having your work interpreted in weird and unpredictable - even unwanted - directions is all part of the process, I suppose.
Sensitivity readers are a good idea. I have run a couple of specific chapters by people prior to posting, and having the story go out week-by-week provides lots of opportunity for feedback before it gets compiled into 'a book' at some point in the future.
Morally grey characters are more challenging but I also find them more interesting to write! It's so much fun to see how they divide reader opinion.
Of course, I haven't had as much experience with reader comments & reactions as you but I like to think it's all part of an ongoing journey to learn that 'I Can't Change Other People Period'. All we can change is our own actions & responses. That's definitely an ongoing process for me as well. That being said, I believe everyone should have the right to write about anything they want, within certain parameters that everyone agrees on (eg. no extremist propaganda etc).
I think as long as you write with respect for the people and things you're writing about (even if, in this case, it's a fictional species), and are willing to accept that you won't always get it right, then you're OK.
Hadn't realized koth had feathers. Guess the "dragon" pejorative infected my visual imagery.
Boy, was I worried Ganhkran was just going to get gunned down by the SWAT team. While you've given them their biases and prejudices I will say - this time - they maintained professionalism.
I, too, was expecting intoxication. The koth from way back in the beginning was, right?
I also think this is the first time we've learned koth have different types of innate weapons. Fire we knew about. The electricity was new.
But one shouldn't assume koth are homogenous. Of course there are subsets. Races? Can we still use that term in. 2023?
I'm just glad Ganhkran wasn't shot. Again, I REALLY thought you were going to go there. I guess as an author you can consider your subtext well seeded that the fear was there.
Yeah, went back and forth on Ganhkran's fate. This way sounded more interesting, long-term.
Not all koth have feathers. There are many body types and wing types - they're quite a diverse species.
You're right that the koth from the beginning was indeed intoxicated. Somebody made sure they had access to that particular drug.
So if this koth wasn't intoxicated, then the bad guys have multiple methods of setting off a rampage. That's not good.
Presumably there's a clue in the damaged shoulder plate. A clue which could have been fried...
Certainly more interesting for Ganhkran to remain alive. I immediately see *counts* at least five different possibilities for a potential return. Bear in mind, two or three don't end well for them...
You're a man of many suspicions, Mike. :P
At some point I want to do a one shot which basically catches up with a lot of the single-episode guest stars and sees what they've been up to since their stories.
In fiction sometimes bad things happen to good characters.
Hey, I'd read that!