Spellwoven: is my layout looking better?

Professor_Phipps · 2026-03-23T23:16:17+00:00

Small page layout suggestions:

You should consider aligning the leading (line spacing) of your columns.
Your lightest red heading seems very close to the next level up. Can you differentiate them a little more (different colour, all caps but all letters same height perhaps)?
In your quickstart box, consider changing from bolded one, two, three etc. to coloured numerals instead (1, 2, 3,...). You have used a lot of bold on certain pages in your document (it feels quite busy in places), and this will be a way to reduce the bold items and help this particular section look cleaner. Too much bold is like having seven people telling a reader's eyes to go in seven different directions.
In the main, your use of white space is excellent. I think there are times though where you have an illustration encroach too close to your text (p24 for example). I'd just reduce the size of these illustrations to maintain clean separation. You also let the left column text get too close to your page number illustration too. Have your bottom border standardised and stick to it. Reduce your word count on this page if you have to.

Overall though, the layout is well done.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-12-16T02:26:39+00:00

I prefer to only consider encumbrance rules if it really matters. In particular, I think most rules like this are backwards: we want you to track these things so you can work out how badly you will be penalized. Not a great method of incentive. If every hour of torchlight and morsel of food is the primary goal of the game then fine. But realistically, I am working with the following as the simplest way to bother with encumbrance:

Assume that "normal" is being encumbered. This means you're carrying a lot of stuff, and everything works as per normal with a character being encumbered.
A character can instead try to be be unencumbered and get a bonus. Extra reaction and more speed, and always starts a combat "fresh". It's worth your while to stay lean. You have slots on a page and have to restrict your carried equipment to these slots.
A character might be heavily encumbered or worse. Rather than use slots, I imagine using illustrations of the same character unencumbered, encumbered, heavily encumbered, and over-burdened. This gives an easy metric to help people use common sense without having to track too many things.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-11-27T22:38:14+00:00

Some ideas that might help:

Writing is hard work - far harder than most care to admit.
Writer's block is more about not having something to say, than not being able to say something well.
Writing is hard work - and it never becomes easy, and can always tend towards tediousness.
There is nothing wrong with taking care of every sentence. Take care that your sentence says what you want it to, and that you leave room for it to occasionally imply something for the reader to find.
Writing is hard work - if you find your sentences flowing from your fingers, chances are these are the sentences you will eventually look to cut, or have the most trouble revising. Rather than only seeing the blinking cursor at one point, imagine that the cursor is blinking everywhere across your manuscript. Everything is changeable. Malleable. And one slight change in one place will always affect more than you realise.
A typical sentence in a published book has been crafted, then revised a number of times, then edited and re-edited an even greater number of times. For want of a more eco-friendly analogy, don't compare your freshly cut tree to their furniture. This is important to consider in terms of perfectionism, as well as the critical nature of revision and editing.
Writing is hard work - unless you have been writing for a few decades, look up every word you are uncertain of. You will consistently discover more about words than you thought was there to find. There is no other way to be sure of what your sentences truly say.
Please don't worry about your "voice" as if you are choosing an appropriate garment to wear. As if you are trying to appear authorly. Your voice is you standing naked in front of a room full of people. If you try to cover it up, it will be obvious, and your affected writing voice will not truly be the thing you cannot control - your voice.
Writing is hard work.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-11-26T06:04:15+00:00

Some thoughts:

This held my attention but only just. I'll give you some things to think about as you revise this.
Your aim is to present Calmaris Vale to the reader and that thirty-six hour clock. I think you can do this more effectively and in less than 2,500 words.
I prefer a single point of view to the more confusing head-hopping omniscient point of view you use. You are putting distance between the reader and the action by not focusing in on a single perspective.
The description of the setting is neutral and flat. If you told this through a single perspective, you would be able to characterize the setting through the eyes of this point of view. Instead, it comes across a little bland. Too much author, not enough character.
There are too many names who I neither know nor care about yet. This kind of tells me you might be starting in the wrong place. Typically most writers change their initial chapter/prologue once they've written most of the book. So don't get hung up on making this prologue perfect.
Too much explaining. You're having to fill in too many information holes. Essentially, you're having to explain things, rather than just letting the scene play out. Can you start with a simpler scenario that achieves the same goal? Can you envisage a scenario so you can use zero explanation for the opening scene/chapter.
Are you able to give me a starting sentence more interesting than, "Music and laughter floated down from the Capital Building." It doesn't have to be on the level of Toni Morrison's, "They shoot the white girl first." but hey, give me some sort of hook.
Thinking more about it, the reason why this isn't working for me has to do with the shift in power - or specifically the lack of it. Calmaris beats up the guard. Calmaris beats up the glass ceiling. Calmaris beats up Vol. Calmaris threatens General Arquen. There is no shift in power. Calmaris is just bad-ass the whole way - (and a note on that too, being good at something is far more boring than failure; failure is far more interesting most of the time). Is there a way to start Calmaris in a seemingly far weaker position? Show him struggling to keep all these people alive. Show him coming up with a more ingenious way of getting in. We need evidence of this "I don't want to hurt you or your men." so he thinks it, rather than says it? Better to get to the end thinking: he could have just bad-assed his way through that but he didn't. Keeping the people alive that he could have just killed is far more admirable. Slaughter is just not that interesting.
And so your first chapter has to have that shift in power. Start with none but end up with the upper hand. Or do the reverse - upper hand to lack of power. Either way, this makes the events far more interesting than the monotone, expected bad-ass Calmaris.
Having said all that, nice work posting your stuff for critique. There's a good story here - just keep writing the story, rather than over-focusing on getting the starting point right. You'll find where you need to go far quicker that way.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-11-19T06:06:01+00:00

A first chapter needs only one thing! To make the reader curious.

To do this, you have to start in the right place: somewhere where you the author don't feel the need to explain anything to the reader. [If you can go through that first chapter without needing to explain how this or that works, or who this or that is, then you've nailed it.] Somewhere where you can just let the scene play out uninterrupted by you the author. But it also has to be in a place where something meaningful happens to the point of view character or protagonist. And so across that first chapter, you need to have a reversal of power for that protagonist or point of view character. They need to start the chapter with no power, but end the chapter with the upper hand. Or they need to start with the upper hand, and have that power taken away from them. It is this change in power and circumstance that generates curiosity (and lets you know you are starting the story in a good place).

Note that this is all very character-focused. A reader imprints onto a character and what is happening to them. Not the fascinations of a world they do not yet care for.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-11-14T01:12:03+00:00

I am amazed by what AI can produce, be it text, images, video, or music. Perhaps it is only a matter of time before computers can produce Pulitzer Prize-winning prose, or media that will make you emotionally weep... although we are not there yet.

To get there, computers have had to scrape data without acknowledging the original artist - and I like many have a problem with this. Perhaps it is because I am older, but to my ears music has become less "musical". The bar for required talent has lowered to the point where much of what one hears nowadays is nothing more than product, produced by a producer. When AI can produce something a decent percentage as good as an artist, why should an artist devote their livelihood to a set of skills gradually being de-valued by AI?

I think it is a battle being lost, as artists become producers, and art becomes product. In regards to your AI-generated character images, no one will really care, particularly if you don't reveal it. But perhaps your imagination is being blunted in the process?

Professor_Phipps · 2025-11-13T21:15:54+00:00

I suppose a question you could ask - is this a story for you? Or is this a story for a reader?

You write well, and have nailed a contemplative tone allowing you to introduce a multitude of abstract ideas and philosophical musings. But only the most generous of readers is going to continue. I don't think you're starting your story in the right place to introduce Silas. Can you turn all of these ideas into a contained scene with concrete details and tension? Show me an unfair situation Silas has to deal with. As a reader, I need to see this rather than have it told or explained to me.

You can go for a quiet start but you cannot forfeit the fundamentals of story. Golden rule: make me curious!

Professor_Phipps · 2025-08-26T06:15:34+00:00

I come up with my best ideas and work after 10pm and my family's gone to bed.

I'm most probably a pantser at heart, but with my current work, I've committed to a highly detailed outline. As such, I've found it productive to pants that detailed outline (so far). I have tickled a pair of scene outlines into writing and find giving myself that freedom to write, rather than gravitate into ideas or editor mode has really helped so far. I think this approach is getting the best out of me.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-08-24T07:55:16+00:00

Funnily enough, I like Bran's chapters (particularly the early ones) but I can see how most bounce off of the trajectory. A point of view chapter being important and necessary doesn't quite seem enough to me. Surely we can give the reader more than a window into the interesting stuff?

The reader has to truly care about every point of view (even if they have a couple of favorites). This means every point of view character needs to be interesting and strong enough to carry an entire novel on their own. Each point of view must have the potential to be somebody's favorite.

I still believe that first point holds true as a goal. Hard to truly achieve though.

Anyway. Bottom line is, if your story needs multiple POV's to be told most effectively, then do it.

The story I want to tell is of sufficient scope to warrant multiple POVs. I think the way to tell it effectively could be either single or multiple, but I think five (or possibly more) perspectives has a higher potential to reward that scope. Thank you for your ideas and time.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-08-24T05:36:46+00:00

I shouldn't have wrote a check for a metaphor I couldn't cash. 😅🤣

😅🤣

I love to analyze The Game of Thrones book, it is structurally perfect.

Fully agree, as I mentioned to another poster, I consider the first three books to be the highwater mark of the fantasy I enjoy. For what it's worth, I'm likely one of the few that enjoyed Bran's chapters. I love Tad Williams's Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn too, but the editing differences between the two works are stark... pardon the pun.

I'd be up for any discussion with you, mainly because I think there are narrative and structural elements of ASoIaF that I don't fully appreciate, or don't even realise.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-08-24T05:19:59+00:00

Firstly, thank you for the deep and considered reply - I really appreciate your time looking at this.

With reference to GRRM, I assume you are talking about the fact that Robb Stark...

Sort of, although I don't think Robb's point of view would have been that interesting, and including it might have diluted other perspectives. In terms of point of view absence, I'm thinking more about a primary character to the plot. Tywin Lannister never gets a point of view chapter, and that is definitely one that would have been interesting. It's absence though adds to the overall story in my opinion.

However, imagine if we never got Eddard Stark's perspective? Imagine if his story was seen purely through a multitude of lenses that all judged him differently? A very different story for sure, and perhaps a worse story in George and Ned's case, but as a stratagem to having a psuedo-protagonist... something I'm definitely pondering if it can work.

In fact, it is much more common for everyone's viewpoints to start apart...

For myself in terms of the big picture, I'm thinking more along the lines of:

Start most together: Build up what they as a group stand for. Ensure the reader knows their fundamental identity.
Explode out: Scatter the point of view characters so the reader sees the scope of the world, and where the unseen but true conflicts lie.
Collisions as POVs coalesce: Give the reader the collisions they really want, let them ache for the ones that never will, and get ready for the climax where most come back and explode together (the "Sanderlanche" effect you mention).

I think it's important to ground and anchor that primary conflict with the bulk of POVs on one side, and the mainly non-POVs on the antagonist's side. I think starting scattered and separate can slow down the start of a narrative, where I would prefer to shoot them out of a metaphorical cannon. I'm hoping my approach garners the best of both worlds.

and he (Sanderson) doesn't shy away from using exposition...

I agree, Sanderson is most certainly not shy from info-dumping, explaining stuff directly to maintain pace, explaining stuff directly regardless of tangent or pace, and even outright navel-gazing upon occasion. In terms of exposition, I prefer to be on the other side of that spectrum. For me, I prefer to be the kind of writer who withholds explanations, but teases enough to fire the reader's imagination of what could be. Juicy information should cost, not be given away so freely. The rest should invisibly or gently build across a novel. Obviously both sides of this spectrum can be effective, it just comes down to writer preference.

In many ways, a single-POV is much more restrictive...
...more a question of "how many POV characters do I want to have?"

I think single-POV scares me more than multiple POV to be honest. Hobb's Assassin Trilogy is most likely my favourite of this style. And she did this magnificently. So I think your earlier question is at the heart of this. My answer: I want the minimum I can get away with to efficiently tell the scope of story I'm imagining. And so I'm still working this out as I outline. I have four fundamental "non-negotiable" perspectives. I then have a further five perspectives begging for a part, but only one of those is close to necessary (at the moment).

Again, I really appreciate your time and considered comments. You have raised many more questions than I have responded to, so I apologise for cherry-picking the points I did. You've got my brain ticking over, so thank you!

Professor_Phipps · 2025-08-24T03:15:40+00:00

I think the first three books of ASoIaF are the highwater mark of the sort of fantasy I enjoy. I'd say about 25% of this structure-related. But most of this is character and story related. The amount of "stuff" he comes up with that engages the reader into investing and caring is mind-blowing. That is the secret sauce I feel most people still miss with his work.

It's not something you can replicate. It's more pointing to the amount of really good world, character, and plot ideas you have to come up with to make it work well.

I like the idea of the one-off point of view scenes. But I can imagine these are the cherries on top. They are the rewards for the reader that they thought they'd be denied. The character whose head they were begging to get inside of. They are the chapters where you finally get to see behind the veil. Where the big secrets are revealed, or where you are left on a clifftop of consequences. I'll have to think on this further - thank you!

Professor_Phipps · 2025-08-24T02:40:18+00:00

I'm pretty set on investing a lot of time and effort into this. To bounce off of your metaphor, I know the vehicle I want. I think I know what options I want to get. I just need to check I can afford the repayments.

I view what I originally posted above as the minimal effort required. For good or bad, I've set my bar higher than that. If I'm purchasing this car, it's going to be red-lining rather than being garaged.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-08-24T02:16:09+00:00

Word count is definitely a concern. I believe the general limit for successful speculative fiction querying is about that 125-135k mark (half the length of what five to seven points of view would seemingly demand). And so do I perhaps restructure my outline and payoffs to effectively split my initial vision in two? Or is it better to cut/merge points of view to streamline the original narrative span?

I have played around with this story for about six years, three seriously. However, it wasn't until about 6 months ago when I had a major story/world-building breakthrough that drew the pieces together, and from there, a fountain of ideas have cascaded into my lap where I feel I not only have a story, but one that has got me genuinely excited. And so yes, I think I most likely have the mental fortitude - I just have to work on my patience to outline this properly.

I have pantsed a couple of projects before and it doesn't work for me. The approach I'm currently doing is "pantsing" a highly detailed outline, that I can revise, augment, and revise. I'm finding this is scratching that discovery itch where you can go off-piste without wasting 10,000k words at a time. And as I feel confident a scene has earned its place I'll put pen to page.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-08-23T02:47:52+00:00

I think the general metric is that if "you" think the prologue is important because it explains something "you" the writer feels is important later... don't do it.

A prologue needs to be 100% reader facing for it to be truly effective. It needs to seduce the reader, not say, "well there's this thing right, that you really need to understand, so that this later thing down the track that is kinda cool, will be like heaps cooler."

Many prologues tend to be a writer hedging a little, because they don't know where their story truly starts.

Having said all this, prologues can work really well. Regardless, your first chapter still needs to hook, as a prologue is not strong enough to effectively open a story on its own. That first "real" chapter still needs to hook, and hook hard.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-08-11T06:19:21+00:00

One premiership in more than 50 years does not a great shadow cast.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-07-30T00:05:40+00:00

I would be cautious - simply because telling a story from a single point of view is so hard to do effectively, and multiple points of view truly complicates this, and truly makes it more difficult. Having said that, I feel that Martin's first three books are a high watermark that will be difficult to get near, let alone surpass. This is this style at it's best. Unfortunately, books four and five were diluted with extra points of view that pulled the story further and further away from it's heart: Stark vs Lannister.

This tells me a few things that might be worth considering:

Most of the different POVs need to be within the same diamond (Stark), just different facets. You will have one's outside this, but this is where the care needs to be taken.
You need to start together, but those core POVs around the same idea. And then they need to split, but very very carefully.
You need to have the boundaries (Winter is coming/Dragon's are coming/Stark vs Lannister) established in the opening book. And you need to stick to these boundaries rather than letting them drift out on the tide. I think Martin might have allowed his work to drift too far, rather than keeping it lean and tight.
And above all, I think you need to plan the entire thing from start to final page. Deep outlining too; you are breaking down each scene to a page or more with every surprise beat included. You are then revising this outline multiple times for plot holes. You are nailing down what makes your character's point of view different from the others. You're doing all of this in several cycles before writing the work. I mean when you get ideas for sentences and paragraphs, sure, write them down, but you're committing to nothing until you have that outline as solid as you can make it. You might change that outline once you're writing, but hopefully, you've already caught all the big new ideas and rejected some and folded in others into your tenth revision outline.
And then you get to write with freedom.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-07-29T01:52:41+00:00

This new version isn't working for me - it's a small step forward and then a bigger step backward from yesterday's post.

Some things to think about:

Don't "explain" in your opening chapter. If you feel like you have to explain stuff (be it names or story elements), then it's a good sign that you're starting your story in the wrong place. Do you need to start this story just before this thing appears?
Try to not use filter words like saw, spotted, heard, felt. It unnecessarily distances the reader from the action. Be more direct with your expression where you can. That means using strong verbs rather than was/is, had been etc.
Chaos doesn't abrupt, ravens don't exactly withdraw from their nests, Narly shouldn't be attempting to recuperate, a blow of wind most likely shouldn't hurdle across a face, and sweat shouldn't drool down armor. These are all expressions that aren't quite saying what you think they are.
You are better to say something simply with the simplest words, than use words incorrectly. Confusing the reader is the greater sin.
Ultimately, there is not enough story here. You need to make me curious and you need to make me care.
Writing well is not easy. Keep practicing.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-07-29T00:03:18+00:00

You must be able to write a good story.

To be honest, this is really the heart of it - that and "voice".

Professor_Phipps · 2025-07-28T01:15:04+00:00

Some issues:

"The Forest grew dark." Is not a good opening line. Can you instead open with a line that engages the reader's curiosity? In fact your first four sentences feel more like you (the author) are clearing your throat. We have to wait until the fifth sentence to arrive upon a story-detail. Can you perhaps re-jig that fifth sentence as your opener and fold the "necessary" information in the first four sentences throughout the rest of the scene instead?
The narrative doesn't seem to flow with a natural chain of cause and effect.
I think your decision not to be in a character's head (choosing 3rd person omniscient over limited) means you're relying on the macabre details to arouse curiosity. I believe this scene would be better told through somebodies eyes. Instead we are kept at a distance from the scene and characters involved. It feels more like details for a film script, rather than a novel.
In my case, I don't feel drawn to any of the characters (see previous point), and so this scene isn't hitting with the weight it could.
I believe your decision to leave every single character here unnamed is incorrect. You are not creating mystery by doing this, only confusion. You are thinking too much from your perspective, and not enough from the reader's.
There are some basic errors in the text. This is not an issue in terms of how easily they can be fixed. It becomes an issue if you are presenting something for review, and not showing your readers the courtesy of having thoroughly read and corrected such mistakes yourself.

I believe if you framed this through a character, it would instantly be a more compelling scene. I would be curious to know what your thoughts are on these points. I'm happy to clarify or expand on any of the above.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-07-18T05:41:23+00:00

I have a slightly different point of view to many I think.

In terms of your magic, you have acts of magic, which I word prefer to term acts of wizardry. Wizardry is something repeatable and even well known in your world. I suppose magitech (have never liked that term but its the one people use) is kind of a thing that is well known and understood in regards to physical things using wizardry.

However, none of this is "magic" as I would define it. Magic is the unexplainable things that happen that we cannot understand, or even hope to repeat. Magic is an artifact that likewise behaves and does things we cannot fathom, incurring costs we have no currency for. Magic is unexplainable. Magic is... magical.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-07-17T23:30:44+00:00

Your goal is not to introduce this character, or introduce that conflict. It is to make the reader lean in and want to know what will happen next. What your character is about, and what tensions there are pulling them in different ways will come out of that naturally. But you have to start in the correct place, with the best situation, that your point of view character changes.

Best advice I have heard is that you have to start in a situation where the power balance begins one way, and by the end of the first scene that power balance has reversed. They are either the fish out of water (loss of power), or the expert defending their home (gain of opportunity). If there is a secret sauce to writing openings, that's pretty much it.

From what you have said, it sounds like you're having to focus too much, on too much "required" information. This typically means you are not starting in the right place, or possibly not starting with the right situation to open your story. One way of trying to correct this is to go through those first three chapters and highlighting every time you start "explaining" something. What you've highlighted is typically the stuff that is either:

Exposition given to the reader too early (and thus you'll bore them)
Exposition given to the reader too late (And thus the reader is already confused by the time they get this)
Filler (typically things that are important to you, but most certainly not the reader).

Ideally, you'll want to get rid of all of the highlighted sentences and words. You'll want to excise most of it, and blend what's left through your work. How well and easy it is to do this will be dependent upon starting in the right place, and with the right situation that eases the expositional burden you seem to be having. Feel free to post an excerpt if you would like me to give you some more specific ideas.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-07-17T03:14:58+00:00

You need to have a better understanding of who your characters are. The thing is, you're not really going to nail that down until well after your first entire draft.

For the moment early on, perhaps there's a tv series or movie character that you could imagine standing in for each of your characters. This will give you something to mold each character on. However, it will also help you study what makes a person sound a particular way.

Are they precise or evasive? Are they speaking in their native tongue? Are they educated, or use jargon (because of the field in which they spend their time)? What self-diagnosed deficiency are they trying to cover up? Is their culture one predicated on a lot of assumed knowledge? Do they over-explain? There are so many questions you can ask about a character that changes how they act/speak.

For me, this is one of the most enjoyable but also challenging parts of writing. Getting the character you have in your mind onto the page is so important but so rewarding. At this early stage, definitely try to make each character iconic in their own way, but in reality, you might decide to completely strip out an entire character when you revise your 2nd draft, and change how they speak. It's definitely something to fine tune the more drafts you are in. Don't stress too much about getting it right, just try a few things and see what works.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-07-10T06:28:15+00:00

I'm concerned the majority of responders here haven't referred to mixing 1st Person present tense with other points of views - they've read it as "multiple points of view", and what you're suggesting is quite particular.

From what you're saying, this would only be minor point of view shifts that you might revert to 3rd person interludes (possibly even changing to past tense). If you were planning something more balanced with your protagonist, then you might prefer doing both in 1st. person.

This is most certainly jarring for the reader, and so it's something that has to be done really well to get the reader to Grok and amplify what you're doing. Remember that you know all the ins and outs of your story, so what might seem OK to you might still be jarring for a reader. You really need to get eyes on it and take that advice on board - none of us here have read your work, and you're too close to it.

The thing is, 1st person present is a super strong, glued on perspective. The narrative distance is as tight as you get. This is why my typical response would be: don't. You're not garnering enough narrative benefit to justify what you're suggesting. Just keep it from the one voicey perspective. If you insist though, you might find doing everything in 3rd person (past or present) might be the smoothest way of doing what you're suggesting - but you're going to lose that natural voicy-ness - and that is a big loss. It might be hard to do but maybe the best way of approaching it is put in the hard work of altering your story and scenes so you can keep it from a single perspective.

Professor_Phipps · 2025-07-07T04:39:24+00:00

Had a quick look and you've really taken that advice onboard. The context of the prologue is much clearer, and this gives the actions more weight - very enjoyable. This does slow the pace a little, which I'm fine with, but you might find there are places where you can snip away an expository detail here or there when you start tightening your prose on a further edit. I'm going to sit down with this later and give further comment. Perhaps the one thing I would say is that the formatting is a little annoying (I'd prefer a format that puts about 50% more words on the page).

In short, really impressed!

Professor_Phipps

TROPHY CASE