"System, Magic, Spirit," by T.D. Edge

[Scott H. Andrews]

This thread is to discuss "System, Magic, Spirit," by T.D. Edge, which appears in BCS #17 (http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/forums/../toc.php?s=17) from May 21, 2009.

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[adunsby]

Excellent story. A lot of richness for its length. Good characters and unpredictable. A minor criticism is that the wizard's opinion of the prince seems--to me at least--to turn on a dime. but still very good.

[ckastens]

Great story. I agree that people seemed to have exceptionally quick changes of attitude in this story (all three of the principle characters), but I like the optimism and the story is engaging from start to finish.

[Unregistered]

Thank you for your comments on my story. I wanted to say a bit about a point you both make, that character attitudes change rather quickly in this story. I think on reflection you're right, and am glad that it doesn't appear to have spoiled your enjoyment of the story. It got me thinking about how character and plot affect each other, and the difficulty in getting them to work together in a way that's both exciting and believable.

For example, I watched an episode of 'Dollhouse' last night, which was really gripping, mainly because it had a great premise: dead rich woman returns in a doll's body, purporting to be a friend (of herself) in order to find out who murdered her. In the process she finds out what her family really thought of her. However, in order to give the plot an exciting twist or two, the writers had to do a sudden flip with the characters, i.e. from most of them apparently hating her at the start to in fact loving her at the end - apart from the one who murdered her, of course. This axis of plot/character is probably the most important one to work on for an author, particularly I suspect crime/mystery writers. It's possible that it can never be perfect - that there will always be a logic-jump, either in the plot's progression or the characters' attitudes - but that shouldn't stop the writer making it as unnoticeable as possible.

Thanks again for commenting.

Terry Edge