Age of Anarchy: Dawn in Blood

That's a waste of Cyrus' powers!

But more importantly, next chapter where? Lol.

Great chapter as usual. On my ipad so I cba to point out typos. Felix is dumb as usual. You really need to consider having Cyrus stick one up in him.

Took up your challenge d, and plunged into browsing through the prologue and chapter 1. This means that I will be looking out for keywords like the Kingdom of Agaron (did I get that right?) and Frozen Shield (which I thought was a real shield!).

I am no writer of fiction but unfortunately I have irritating tastes when it comes to reading. Tastes, of course, are subjective and very, very far from the gold standard in writing should it exist.

I hope you wouldn't mind this post. These are personal opinions and moreover, proof that I have at least attempted to answer the challenge you have laid down for me in the Writer's Lounge.

When I read the first chapter of the Age of Anarchy, (well written, d has a lot of ideas, much better than anything I can up with) I thought that the chapter could be so much better if one paragraph is dedicated to tell whoever who is reading the following:

Why is Ryxor Borx going to the castle?
Why seek an audience with the king?
Who is Ryxor Borx? What does he do?

I understand that the answers to these questions can be found by scrolling down to the other paragraphs but I would love it you understand that this reader (leonard267) is an idiot who is suffering from ADHD and with it a short attention span. He loves Cliff Notes summaries of what the character is going to do (without telling us the outcome, of course), so that he could invest himself in the story.

PS: Made a similar post in the Lounge. There you will see me expressing my disdain for prologues in general, which is the reason why you see me making one myself in my abandoned story, The Not-So-Sacred Texts that Chronicles the Exploits of the Offspring of the Royals of the Land of the Not-Monkeys that is to the North, otherwise known as Lannomonthaistonor.

Well, I am definitely glad that you decided to read some of it. And trust me, if I'm willing to take Mibu's crap about icicles, then I have no problem with this post.



I get what you mean. Some people do come out and say almost immediately what's going on and what this character is doing. However, I thought it would be better to give readers a feel for the setting and the character first. Also, I tried to present it in a way that would lead people along.

First we find out Ryxor is going to the palace. Why? He's been summoned by the King. Why? He's his enforcer and there's a job. What job? Bandits being assholes. But wait, that's not the usual kind of job he goes on. To be continued!

Some people might prefer for the writer to just tell us some of this right off the bat, I think the way I went about it is better.

Others may not, but I really think Felix deserves it. With every chapter it only gets stronger too.

Judging by the response from some of the readers here, I think you may be right and I am in the minority.

But I can't help to seize this opportunity to write a short parody of your story, d. I had fun writing it and I hope it would entertain you.

Allow me to begin by arrogantly telling you, with little to no consideration of what you and others feel, what I would like to see in order to appreciate a story:

Surely it is difficult to have a feel of what the characters are and where the characters are without introducing them first.

To appreciate what is happening in the story, one might need to know where is the story set, who matters (and who they are!) and what they are doing. It is best done at the beginning of the story of course. So, if I were writing I would:

Introduce Borx:
Ryxor Borx, a high ranking officer of the Kingdom of Agaron, was accompanied by an escort of armed guards to the gates of the King's Palace.

Perhaps tell a little more about him:
There was a everlasting scowl on his face unmoved by the splendour of the gold-wrought gates, the neatly lined rows of well dressed, trumpet blowing heralds that greeted him and other non-plot relevant descriptions of how aesthetically appealing and a waste of money and resources the King's Palace must be.

Maybe explain what he is doing:
Those who knew the Borx's business may understand a little better why he doesn't know how to let loose and stretch his facial muscles into a smile.

Behind the well-adorned armour and the awe inspiring frame lies a man who is sexually deprived and poorly remunerated, never mind that he sticks his neck out nearly every breathing moment confronting whoever his slave driver, the King of Agaron, wants him to confront.

He could be a much happier man if he were expecting a reward from the King, maybe an endless stream of income to bolster his pension (or whatever its equivalent in a fictional medieval kingdom), a harem of 72 virgins or at the very least, 72 bushels of grapes peppered with white Agaronian aphrodisiac!

However, from his many years on the job, he knew that he would be performing another thankless job for his King and maybe his country.

I heard that the Appendix or the prologue is used to explain what and where the Kingdom of Agaron is with other details but as you have stated, you did that later in the story.

End of Rant.

Allow me to say once more that you did a marvellous job writing Age of Anarchy, I don't have the ability or discipline to do what you have done.

If you don't mind, I'll add that to lore. An mysterious white, powdery substance from Agaron that may (or may not be) an aphrodisiac.



If you say so.

Tell you what, liking a WIP is a hassle. Waiting is always a hassle.

And worse, I can't really tell the author to work faster rofl.

Actually, you can. Chances are I'm not going to write faster, but you can tell me to if you so desire. This also might be a good time to bring up the fact that I'm back at school so that means even less time available to me to write. Obviously however, that's just an excuse. If I want to find the time, I'll find it.

The Great Game is almost over. When it is, it may be a while before I began writing the next arc. I have already started planning it out though if you or anyone else was curious. It will take place mainly in Velvidyne again, and it will happen during the same time as the Great Game. Also, Ryxor will return as a major character in it. Luther and Ryxor's childhood friend, Alice, who appeared briefly in the first story will also have important roles.

That means I can't. By 'can' I always mean (with noticeable effect).

In any case, you should take your time. Doubt it will happen to someone of your level, but I wouldn't want the quality to suffer because of one fool wanting ice spear plunging out of a guy's ass.

Just like to pop a question. May I ask what is difference between the Great Game and Age of Anarchy? Is the reason why you have split the novel into two parts due to both parts being different stories set in the same universe?

I wouldn't consider this one big novel. I also wouldn't consider them to be separate novels. Think of them as different volumes in a series. I did my best to make the Great Game it's own entity as much as possible but at heart, it's a sequel to the first un-named story. And yeah, if you were wondering and didn't see my previous posts, I got plans for more story arcs.

Been ages. Expected the chapters to stack up but that doesn't seem to be the case.



Sounds kinda weird.



Typos.



God fucking damn it Felix.



Huh, didn't think you'd make this mistake.

Excellent chapter as usual. And action packed too. Continue delivering quality stuff.

I'll end this post with a "god fucking damn it Felix."

The last chapter is almost finished and has been for several days. I have no desire to actually finish and post it though. I don't know if you saw a post I made in the writer's lounge a while ago, but I've had to really force myself to write these last couple of chapters.

Oh, why so? Is it related to being sick of writing itself or this project specifically?

Can't say. I just got no desire, though it's not writing in general for sure. I just wrote some random thing I pulled outa my ass last night. Not literally, but it's as close as you'll get. Like, I super made it up as I went a long and I have no idea where it's going or if I'll even add to it later.

Why not talk about the characters then at the Lounge or here? Do you base any of your characters on real people?

Characters for what? Age? None of them are deliberately based on real people. If anything, a lot of it was me looking at characters from other things and going, "What can I do that they aren't doing?" While I didn't stick with that, that's how some of them started. In the original version of Age of Anarchy for example, Ryxor was going to be a mercenary hired by the king to deal with some of his problems. Ryxor would then work his way toward killing the king and stealing the throne. Ratana would have been his ex-girlfriend who wanted to stop him just because she was still sour about their relationship. Now that I think about it, the only thing really remaining from that version is Ryxor and Ratana hating each other.

Felix's character was originally going to be less perpetually angry and more of a male tsundere toward Evelyn. But he quickly just turned into a guy with anger issues. He was also supposed to have a love for throwing wild masquerade parties

What else? A lot of characters were supposed to die in the original versions. Drex would die. So would some guy named Auras who's not even in the current version. Vanen was also the antagonist in one version and he and Ryxor were to end up killing each other in a duel.

And now I'm starting to get waaaaayyy off track. Cyrus started out as a pretty nice guy, but then I realized at one point I didn't really have a way to portray the corrupt side of the Sentinels, and I didn't feel like making an entirely new character. That's all I got for now.

Okay, read this thing. Now that's another good closure to a great arc.

Gotta admit though, not having to tolerate Felix anymore is a relief.

Time for the next!

Are you absolutely positive? I didn't say anything about Felix not being in the next arc! I didn't even say the next thing I would do is an arc. I only said that the next arc I do will involve Ryxor. The difference is subtle but you better believe it's there, sucka!