Andrew Moore's Blog, page 73
October 8, 2023
Addendum
I won't insult your intelligence by reminding you to set a number of continues.
October 6, 2023
Important Worldbuilding Question
Before you start your first draft, ask yourself: Do people in this setting get hurt if they touch spikes on the side? How about water? Does it kill them instantly? Suppose someone runs into an enemy. Is that enough for damage, or is an attack required?
Wheel of Time Season Finale
I didn't watch it, but did some background Seanchan or Whitecloak discourse on the history of heron-marked blades or wolf breeds or something? If not, I'd like to make a recommendation for next season.
October 5, 2023
About Character Descriptions
Bad: "He was wearing leather gloves."
Good: "His leather gloves had spikes coming out of them that glowed with demon poison that dripped to the earth and scarred it forevermore."
Bad: "The man looked to be about twenty-four."
Good: "The man stood among twenty-four corpses, a number the same as his age."
Bad: "Her eyes, one green, one blue, blinked."
Good: "The apocalypse had already begun."
Good: "His leather gloves had spikes coming out of them that glowed with demon poison that dripped to the earth and scarred it forevermore."
Bad: "The man looked to be about twenty-four."
Good: "The man stood among twenty-four corpses, a number the same as his age."
Bad: "Her eyes, one green, one blue, blinked."
Good: "The apocalypse had already begun."
October 3, 2023
Addendum
It's up to your discretion whether you give the henchman a name, but it's probably better in most cases not to.
Trends Are Friends
Antique: Easy transit between the surface and the moon.
Boutique: A random henchman who's shockingly well-informed on an esoteric subject.
Boutique: A random henchman who's shockingly well-informed on an esoteric subject.
October 2, 2023
The Treatise of Steel
The young scholar kept one hand on the cliff face. As rough as it was, he needed it to steady him as he walked. "Walk" was far from the most appropriate word; he would have been able to think of a better one in the city, but there, miles and months away, language thinned.
He kicked a pebble. It took looking down and concentrating on the laws of cause and effect for him to reach that conclusion. He managed it in the end, and to follow the pebble's path as well, and when he raised his eyes, at last he saw it. The library, that legendary library, that he risked everything to find. For him, "everything" did not amount to much, but that would change. The library was real.
At the entrance a guardian stood and had stood for incalculable ages. The scholar worried his plans would be frustrated at the end by some activity on the part of the great statue, twenty feet tall and as vividly painted as if its creator had finished the piece that morning.
"Inside," the guardian intoned, "is all the knowledge of significance in this world. Enter and learn, visitor." Unmoving, it gave that message again and again in response to the scholar's alternating withdrawals and advances. His old spirit of curiosity was returning, and it pushed him over the threshold.
What books, what scrolls, what histories and treatises filled the shelves tall and wide within that library? None. The place was bare, its rows unfilled. Not a single item of scholarly purpose did he see.
In the middle, however, was a platform, and on that platform a stand, and the stand held up a sword in its life-sparing sheath. The scholar took the sword in hand. He drew it. He understood then; he knew at last what mattered.
Finis
He kicked a pebble. It took looking down and concentrating on the laws of cause and effect for him to reach that conclusion. He managed it in the end, and to follow the pebble's path as well, and when he raised his eyes, at last he saw it. The library, that legendary library, that he risked everything to find. For him, "everything" did not amount to much, but that would change. The library was real.
At the entrance a guardian stood and had stood for incalculable ages. The scholar worried his plans would be frustrated at the end by some activity on the part of the great statue, twenty feet tall and as vividly painted as if its creator had finished the piece that morning.
"Inside," the guardian intoned, "is all the knowledge of significance in this world. Enter and learn, visitor." Unmoving, it gave that message again and again in response to the scholar's alternating withdrawals and advances. His old spirit of curiosity was returning, and it pushed him over the threshold.
What books, what scrolls, what histories and treatises filled the shelves tall and wide within that library? None. The place was bare, its rows unfilled. Not a single item of scholarly purpose did he see.
In the middle, however, was a platform, and on that platform a stand, and the stand held up a sword in its life-sparing sheath. The scholar took the sword in hand. He drew it. He understood then; he knew at last what mattered.
Finis
September 30, 2023
Infinity Strash
Q. Infinity Strash?
A. Infinity Strash.
A. Infinity Strash.
Addendum
You start with 10 life. Almost all characters have single-color decks. It's up to the creative team if there should be an explosion in the background every time a card is tapped; the real warning sign is if nobody even considers the possibility.
September 28, 2023
About a Magic: The Gathering TV Show
They should make one, but those cowards would have it take place within the Magic fiction like losers instead of making it be about people playing Magic.
