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This is barely counterevidence but pirateaba's been streaming themselves writing the last few weeks of chapters (no audio, screen only). It took them 3 and a half hours to write Strategists at Sea pt 2 (no, I didn't watch the whole video), which is the second longest chapter they've ever written, so I would lean more towards the single person savant theory. Not that the other chapters were written in as short a time; the most recent nonpatreon chapter was only half-complete after 4 hours.
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May 5, 2020 06:25
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pirateaba wrote everything up to vol 7 on a lovely membrane keyboard she bought off amazon for 50 bucks. we managed to get her to buy an actual mechanical keyboard back in january. combine that with her PT seriously helping ease her arm pain, she's basically taken off her weighted clothing.
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May 5, 2020 06:38
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https://poofserial.wordpress.com/ That was quick.
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May 5, 2020 06:42
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Poof? Seriously?
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May 5, 2020 07:17
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:Anyway, the most interesting thing he's written in ages is his Ward wrap-up post if only because he sounds about a month or so from a breakdown but he's starting Pact 2 on Tuesday. Does he not have savings? He's big on the FIRE thing and lives on like $1k/month in a remote canadian town where there's literally nothing for him to do but sit inside and write so that he can save the bulk of his income. He seems to be aware that the patreon-supported web serial thing probably won't last forever, but instead of seriously perusing alternative revenue streams he's trying to get to the point where he doesn't need income to survive.
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May 5, 2020 07:21
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Like, coming right on the heels of his apology that he just happens to keep handling LGBT stuff in a really bad way through sheer happenstance? On the other hand, that chapter is way better than anything in Ward.
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May 5, 2020 07:22
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:Ward wrap-up post
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May 5, 2020 07:25
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Lone Goat posted:can i get a link to this? Yoink: https://wildbow.wordpress.com/2020/05/03/ward-off-a-retrospective-on-a-sequel/
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May 5, 2020 08:17
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Lone Goat posted:can i get a link to this? No. It's really interesting reading.
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May 5, 2020 08:20
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Argue posted:This is barely counterevidence but pirateaba's been streaming themselves writing the last few weeks of chapters (no audio, screen only). It took them 3 and a half hours to write Strategists at Sea pt 2 (no, I didn't watch the whole video), which is the second longest chapter they've ever written, so I would lean more towards the single person savant theory. Not that the other chapters were written in as short a time; the most recent nonpatreon chapter was only half-complete after 4 hours. Strats Pt2 took ~7 hours total (which seems to be how long all the Book 7 chapters take), the Twitch video archive doesn't have the VOD of the first half being written. A big flaming stink posted:pirateaba wrote everything up to vol 7 on a lovely membrane keyboard she bought off amazon for 50 bucks. I have to wonder if/when mental burnout becomes a more serious problem. I think every one of her streams in the last 2 weeks starts and ends with her complaining about mental fatigue. Speaking of burnout, gotta say Maviola has to be my new favorite character in TWI. Going to be sad when the potions run out. .Z. fucked around with this message at 08:58 on May 5, 2020 |
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May 5, 2020 08:50
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I feel like I'm taking crazy pills because one of the reasons why I stopped reading TWI is that yeah, there are a LOT of words but at some point it just started reading like well, tbh I've seen more readable text written by non native English speakers translating Japanese LN.  Someone posted a snippet a while back and it was full of repitition and weird phrasing
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May 5, 2020 10:51
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Xun posted:I feel like I'm taking crazy pills because one of the reasons why I stopped reading TWI is that yeah, there are a LOT of words but at some point it just started reading like well, tbh I've seen more readable text written by non native English speakers translating Japanese LN. the witch arc in vol 6 did drag a bit, but i honestly could not disagree more.
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May 5, 2020 11:00
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Maguoob posted:I haven't read the Wandering Inn, but how much of the chapters are just meaningless nonsense or outright repetition? edit: maybe this isn't the best metric, but it's up to like 5 million words now (so, equivalent to 25 decent-sized fantasy novels, or two and a half Dresden Files-es, or three Worms) and it hasn't even been a single year of in-world time yet Cicero fucked around with this message at 12:48 on May 5, 2020 |
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May 5, 2020 12:38
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Savant or not, I have no earthly clue how pirateaba does what they do.
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May 5, 2020 12:40
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Thinking back on it, my opinions have changed over the years, and I think I'm more fond of Pact them I am of Worm now, which is weird. I was actually thinking about slogging through it again, before seeing that this is set in the same world. It's a cool setting, hopeful to see where this goes! I loved Twig, but gave up on Ward pretty quick...
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May 5, 2020 12:45
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Xun posted:I feel like I'm taking crazy pills because one of the reasons why I stopped reading TWI is that yeah, there are a LOT of words but at some point it just started reading like well, tbh I've seen more readable text written by non native English speakers translating Japanese LN. TWI is the most first-draft-like in terms of prose, and probably the weakest of the serials in this thread in that regard, but I don't know where you're getting that it's as unreadable as you say. In terms of being comprehensible or repetitive, it has virtually no problems. The closest it comes to repetitive is when it repeats facts that happened volumes ago that the reader probably forgot. Cicero posted:None of it's nonsense or obvious repetition, but they definitely have a very very word-heavy style of writing. Chapter for chapter, about the same amount of plot-important 'stuff' happens as in a regular book or web serial, only the chapter is like 4-5x as long as a normal one. Some of that is anime-esque extensive monologuing/narration, some of it is just spending a lot of time on little slice of life details/worldbuilding for an absolutely enormous cast of named characters. It's definitely word-heavy, but I wouldn't say the same amount of stuff happens. A lot of times I feel like "ah, this is a good point to end the chapter, quite a lot has happened" except it just keeps going... much to my enjoyment. Also it's been 1.25 years in-universe 
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May 5, 2020 12:57
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Cicero posted:None of it's nonsense or obvious repetition, but they definitely have a very very word-heavy style of writing. Chapter for chapter, about the same amount of plot-important 'stuff' happens as in a regular book or web serial, only the chapter is like 4-5x as long as a normal one. Some of that is anime-esque extensive monologuing/narration, some of it is just spending a lot of time on little slice of life details/worldbuilding for an absolutely enormous cast of named characters. TWI doesn't actually have a "plot" in the traditional sense, though. the characters and their lives are the plot.
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May 5, 2020 12:59
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On the one hand, I love Pact's setting, on the other...Milkfred E. Moore posted:he sounds about a month or so from a breakdown
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May 5, 2020 14:00
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The Shortest Path posted:https://poofserial.wordpress.com/ All I can think of is https://youtu.be/TiHsJ0Dz7e8 Velius fucked around with this message at 14:07 on May 5, 2020 |
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May 5, 2020 14:03
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Jazerus posted:TWI doesn't actually have a "plot" in the traditional sense, though. the characters and their lives are the plot. I like the slice of life things the most but there are loads of plot threads and even one maybe above all the others.
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May 5, 2020 14:31
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Thanks for making me do a double take.
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May 5, 2020 14:39
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the excerpt from TWI that was posted awhile back The other two Drakes stared at the [Alchemist]. ‘Annoyed’ was a mild word to describe how they felt about Saliss. Resigned, aggravated—you had to combine descriptors. But the Named Adventurer was the best [Alchemist] in all of Pallass, perhaps the world. He was more useful than he looked. And—well, he was also hard to get rid of. Moreover, he was amid equals, in a sense. Grimalkin, the [Sinew Magus], and Chaldion, [Grand Strategist] in charge of Pallass’ armies were both famed and influential. If anything, Grimalkin was the lesser figure here. If anyone was being a stickler for the exact nuance of rank. But no one was. And the three Drakes outranked and mattered more than anyone else in the inn in which they stood. And yet—they stood in a corner, talking. They were here, having taken time out of their incredibly busy schedules—again, Saliss being a sort of exception—to come here. Because of a Human. Erin Solstice. And at this moment, Chaldion and Saliss were experiencing a phenomenon Grimalkin in his personal notes was dubbing the ‘Erin-chaos effect’. Yeah words specifically aren't repeated but the...ideas are? There are a lot of words that don't really communicate anything new.
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May 5, 2020 14:50
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Agreed, Pirate has a tendency to really belabor the point/draw things out. I also hate their writing tic of immediate opposites, ala "It meant everything. And nothing." Oh my GOD stop doing that!
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May 5, 2020 15:13
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In school one of the things they taught us was that if we ever weren't sure to write, just write something and then edit it out later if it's pointless rather than getting stuck. TWI feels like the result of doing that without ever deleting anything.
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May 5, 2020 16:10
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Writing what are essentially unvoiced speeches to set the scene is just part of the prose style. It's kind of dumb but it's not actually trying to convey information.
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May 5, 2020 17:02
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Xun posted:the excerpt from TWI that was posted awhile back in some strange ways, this reminds of avacyn's collar, the symbol of her church
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May 5, 2020 17:24
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Yeah that feels more like just a writing style thing than anything else.
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May 5, 2020 17:26
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Sampatrick posted:in some strange ways, this reminds of avacyn's collar, the symbol of her church Goddammit
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May 5, 2020 17:27
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Pirateaba writes an immense amount of stylistic fluff that says absolutely nothing, including an immense amount of repetition of stuff we already know. Sometimes it's from many chapters back, but as often as not it's from the previous chapter or the same chapter. It reads somewhat similar to a translated Chinese web novel. Rather than set the scene, it often gets in the way of the emotions the story wants you to feel, either by making the tone too casual or by drawing them out too long. I think it's definitely one person. Their writing is very idiosyncratic, both in those stylistic trappings and in particular phrasings. As for plot, it works better if you think about it as a set of connected short stories, novellas, and novels. The overarching plot isn't very good, interesting, or even happening a lot of the time, but the individual stories themselves are often decently well plotted. TWI is as much episodic web fiction as it is web serial, blending both even as it switches between which it's emphasizing.
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May 5, 2020 19:03
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TWI is great.
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May 5, 2020 19:28
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Tom Clancy is Dead posted:Pirateaba writes an immense amount of stylistic fluff that says absolutely nothing, including an immense amount of repetition of stuff we already know. Sometimes it's from many chapters back, but as often as not it's from the previous chapter or the same chapter. It reads somewhat similar to a translated Chinese web novel. Rather than set the scene, it often gets in the way of the emotions the story wants you to feel, either by making the tone too casual or by drawing them out too long. it reads nothing like a translated web novel, honestly. i genuinely don't understand most of the criticisms of TWI that this thread brings up any time someone talks about it, but at this point i've accepted that i never will
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May 5, 2020 23:47
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Jazerus posted:it reads nothing like a translated web novel, honestly. it is possible that you have different standards compared to other people in the thread
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May 5, 2020 23:53
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Jazerus posted:it reads nothing like a translated web novel, honestly. I've read a ton of translated Chinese web serials and while the quality can vary greatly, you can always tell it's a translated web serial. TWI never gives this feeling. While the quality of prose can vary, it's still been a better story so far then a lot of the western web serials I've read. It's also the only one I've actually kept up with, though I have skipped story arcs (by the ending stages the Goblin War arc was too emotionally draining). I've straight up dropped Twig and Ward, and I've put on hold Practical Guide (though it's about time to pick that up again). Sampatrick posted:it is possible that you have different standards compared to other people in the thread Everyone has different standards.
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May 6, 2020 00:45
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I didn't mean that the prose in TWI reads like it was translated, I meant it does the same sort of high word count stylistic fluff and repitition. From TWI posted:The other two Drakes stared at the [Alchemist]. ‘Annoyed’ was a mild word to describe how they felt about Saliss. Resigned, aggravated—you had to combine descriptors. But the Named Adventurer was the best [Alchemist] in all of Pallass, perhaps the world. He was more useful than he looked. And—well, he was also hard to get rid of. From a random chapter of Way of Choices/Ze Tian Ji posted:Although Su Li's cultivation was extremely high and he was publicly acknowledged to have reached unfathomable heights in the path of the sword, when compared to the Eight Storms and four of the Saints, he was still a junior. Moreover, for various reasons, his name had never been mentioned alongside them. "If these things were different than this would be the case but they aren't so it's like this instead" is a pattern that gets used all the time in both. Tom Clancy is Dead fucked around with this message at 03:02 on May 6, 2020 |
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May 6, 2020 02:54
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Yeah, neither of these are objectionable to me. It's fluff, maybe, but it's not really repetitive to the degree that the earlier assertions seemed to imply.
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May 6, 2020 05:02
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Argue posted:Yeah, neither of these are objectionable to me. It's fluff, maybe, but it's not really repetitive to the degree that the earlier assertions seemed to imply. The TWI quote is not an example of self-contained repetition, but it also says absolutely nothing new that hadn't been previously covered in recent chapters and that chapter itself.
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May 6, 2020 05:13
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Don't get me wrong, I enjoy TWI. It's fun escapist fare, and some of the stories can be emotionally moving. But it's abundantly clear that the reason pirateaba is able to write so many words every week is because so many of them say so little.
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May 6, 2020 05:17
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Tom Clancy is Dead posted:The TWI quote is not an example of self-contained repetition, but it also says absolutely nothing new that hadn't been previously covered in recent chapters and that chapter itself. I'd call that setting the scene, and if that type of fluff doesn't appeal to you I suggest you don't read TWI. Based on how many readers this series has at this point plenty of people do in fact like that. I didn't read Lord of the Rings until AFTER seeing the movies and my god, Tolkin could fill a lot of space with simple description. A series I found I liked much less then when I read the Hobbit in my childhood. Everyone has their own taste and it's not a crime to not like an author for their writing style.
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May 6, 2020 05:21
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Tom Clancy is Dead posted:Don't get me wrong, I enjoy TWI. It's fun escapist fare, and some of the stories can be emotionally moving. But it's abundantly clear that the reason pirateaba is able to write so many words every week is because so many of them say so little. Yes and? The Odyssey is over by the time some modern fantasy novels start, whereas in 19th century some novelists would describe the physical detail of scene in a frankly absurd manner. Patrons, what does the KQ stand for? Gladi fucked around with this message at 05:39 on May 6, 2020 |
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May 6, 2020 05:33
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Gladi posted:Patrons, what does the KQ stand for? King of Destruction and Queen of Pop
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May 6, 2020 06:32
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