| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Thomas M. Reid |
Posted - 21 Jan 2004 : 21:17:52
If you haven't already heard, Wizards is planning to close down the novels portion of their message boards as of Friday, the 23rd. They intend to include a page of links to other sites as a surrogate to the forums. All other Wizards product lines, including RPGs, will still have forums available. You can read more about it >> here. << Looks like you might be getting a little more traffic to this site soon, Alaundo.
Thomas |
| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Bookwyrm |
Posted - 05 Feb 2004 : 06:26:10
Ack! Possible danger to Realmslore!  Well, I suppose it's as dangerous as a leak from above. ::shudders at the horrible thought::
Well, when you create something like the Realms, you get a lot of faults forgiven.  Especially eccentricities. |
| The Hooded One |
Posted - 05 Feb 2004 : 04:30:38
It's an old farmhouse basement, with uneven floors, dangling lightbulbs, Ed's workbench of heaped junk and "tools I might need to use SOMEday" (why do males collect weird tools?). It used to look like something out of a horror movie, but to cut down on some of the dust and soot (from the old furnace), we persuaded Ed to get the walls painted white, which brightened it up considerably.
The scary thing is: this hundred-year-old house, with literally TONS of Ed's books two floors above, is supported by...tree trunks. Yes, old cedar treetrunks, with wedges. And anyone familiar with drying-out cedars will already know the scary part: they get spiral cracks running all the way up them.
It makes you not want to walk on any of the floors, once you know this.
Ed, however, seems quite happy...but then, he IS crazy. :) |
| Faraer |
Posted - 04 Feb 2004 : 14:12:04
Ed's basement needs to be written up for Dungeon, or at least "Elminster's Guide". Or do a QuickTime tour for when his website appears.
Is there no way for the government of the People's Republic of Canadia to sponsor someone to rescue and scan the Realmslore before it gets eaten or something? |
| Lord Rad |
Posted - 04 Feb 2004 : 08:52:39
Curiosity got the better of me!  Urghhhhhhhh gonna be sick, gonna be sick!
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| Shadowlord |
Posted - 04 Feb 2004 : 06:07:52
Come on, Bookwyrm, we're not that bad......... |
| Bookwyrm |
Posted - 04 Feb 2004 : 06:04:35
Yeech. I can't stand arachnids and insects. They seem so . . . unnatural, somehow.
At first I thought your description of his basement was the Underdark as a microcosm (I'm sure you've thought of that already, of course). Now I'm sure it's the part of the Underdark where Vhaeraun rules. Only his followers would decorate on a "dead spider" theme.  |
| Lord Nasher Alagondar |
Posted - 04 Feb 2004 : 04:52:25
Ugh, I detest spiders. Oh well, there goes lunch..... |
| The Hooded One |
Posted - 04 Feb 2004 : 04:39:08
Don’t read this if you’ve just eaten, Rad. :}
I forgot to mention that Ed still hasn’t unpacked about a hundred boxes of Realmslore, and can’t get to several filing cabinet drawers that are literally buried behind floor-to-ceiling stacks of books in his upstairs study.
Not reading, Rad? Good…
I was a little disappointed in my last visit at Ed’s house, two nights back, to discover that during the installation of a new furnace Ed removed some old horizontal lead pipes (the lowest head-bangers, that led to horse-watering troughs in a barn that doesn’t exist any more), and that on these pipes were some long-dead spiders, hanging upside down, that were covered with blobs of glowing fungus (their bodies hidden in little balls, and with smaller balls at every joint of their legs, making them look like toys). These glowed in the dark like real-life Hallowe’en ornaments, and at least twice I’ve navigated Ed’s basement in the dark, giggling (no, don’t ask why) from spider to spider. But no more…
Oh, yes, I should mention that Ed assembled some metal shelves down there for MORE books. I could spend months reading my way through Ed’s basement. I could spend YEARS reading my way through his house. Sigh.
|
| Lord Rad |
Posted - 02 Feb 2004 : 22:12:22
quote:
Originally posted by The Hooded One
Ed has a barn attic, almost the entire basement, and an upstairs study (former bedroom) of a century-old farmhouse packed with books, gaming stuff, and papers. The basement is five feet high, has lots of bang-your-head pipes, and spiders. Lots and LOTS of spiders. It's also larger than my entire house. :}
Errrrrrr, ok Scribes, abandon the "raid-Ed's-basement" plan.... I aint tackling those spiders for nothin'!!! Alaundo can get some other mug to collect his Realmslore  Oof!  |
| The Hooded One |
Posted - 02 Feb 2004 : 18:40:26
About twenty years ago, Ed moved from the burbs of Toronto to the countryside. A lot of his players helped him move all the books and papers (it took two trucks and four days of heaving and hefting). Real movers took all the furniture and stuff.
Ed has a barn attic, almost the entire basement, and an upstairs study (former bedroom) of a century-old farmhouse packed with books, gaming stuff, and papers. The basement is five feet high, has lots of bang-your-head pipes, and spiders. Lots and LOTS of spiders. It's also larger than my entire house. :}
|
| SiriusBlack |
Posted - 02 Feb 2004 : 14:47:19
quote:
Originally posted by The Hooded One
Ed said it was superbly written. We asked what it was about but his reply was that he was honour bound not to let slip any details. Sorry.
And * I * am honour bound not to poke around in his writing study looking for any sign of it. Besides, I'd need a forklift truck. :)
Understood and thank you anyway. Won't poke around his study? How about his basement? I recall reading once there were still boxes of Realmslore in there or another part of his home. |
| Faraer |
Posted - 01 Feb 2004 : 18:12:27
She's hinted enough already to imply she's one of two people named in published sourcebooks. Hoods have purposes, and I'd rather not break the suspense, which is why I edited a post of mine that hinted too strongly. (And this may not be the first time she's spoken about the Realms online!)
But I'd also like to welcome "the Hooded" to these forums, and hope she'll poke in from time to time. |
| Lord Rad |
Posted - 01 Feb 2004 : 17:41:08
Greetings Hooded One........whilst you are definately "hooded", can you give any hints as to your identity? You seem to have very close connections with Mr Greenwood (ALL HAIL!), and know much about the workings of FR.
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| The Hooded One |
Posted - 01 Feb 2004 : 15:49:45
Ed said it was superbly written. We asked what it was about but his reply was that he was honour bound not to let slip any details. Sorry.
And * I * am honour bound not to poke around in his writing study looking for any sign of it. Besides, I'd need a forklift truck. :)
|
| SiriusBlack |
Posted - 01 Feb 2004 : 14:44:33
quote:
Originally posted by The Hooded One
Agreed. At last week's Realmsplay, Ed was raving about Richard Baker's forthcoming book. ["Raving" equals "he loved it," BTW.]
What did he love about it? |
| The Hooded One |
Posted - 31 Jan 2004 : 16:39:00
Agreed. At last week's Realmsplay, Ed was raving about Richard Baker's forthcoming book. ["Raving" equals "he loved it," BTW.] |
| JamesLowder |
Posted - 31 Jan 2004 : 04:12:38
quote:
Fair enough, Jim. and no offense taken. I guess I just didn't quite catch all the nuances of what you were saying the first time around. Although I'm still not sure I understand how, when writers were asked to come up with a plot involving the Harpers, it was far less restrictive than asking them to come up with a plot involving, for example, rogues. But I wasn't a WotC writer then, so what do I know?
I forget that not everyone saw the old Harper submission guides. :) The use of the Harper could be in just about any role--hero, villain, major supporting character. Ring of Winter had an ex-Harper, and that was enough to tie the book to the series. There were no limits on setting, year the story took place in, tone or approach to the Realms (which is reflected in the first half-dozen or so Harpers books). So as guides go, it was pretty loose. And many of the other early Realms books--Spellfire, Azure Bonds, Horselords, the early trilogies done by Niles, Salvatore, etc--were even less restrictive than the Harpers. The authors pitched what they wanted to do, rather than the book department deciding content direction.
As I mentioned, some of the books spun off of Spider Queen seem to be going back to that mold--where the SQ authors were asked to pitch proposals, sell the company on a trilogy. And that's a good thing. With a line like the Realms, some in-house control is necessary, and some orchestration of "event" books is vital, but you also need to leave enough flex room for authors to surprise you with something you, the editor, never thought of. That's how TSR landed Salvatore and Drizzt for the Realms, after all.
Cheers,
Jim Lowder |
| Kameron M. Franklin |
Posted - 31 Jan 2004 : 01:08:06
I'm not sure how the other Priest books were assigned, but there where guidelines for location, characters, and general plot with Maiden. Some of those restrictions from the open call guidelines have been loosened, where appropriate to the story. I'd be interested if the other authors were given similar guidelines or just told to use a cleric of said goddess. |
| arilyn742 |
Posted - 31 Jan 2004 : 00:39:15
Hey, is there some list of people who migrated here from wizards.COMmunity, or something? (Other than the members list - I'm sure yawgmoth_742's not the only one not using his old Wizards username!)
Where are Rinonalyrna and Alrunic? I hear from Adrian Moonbow that Crust and Darkmistress have risen again from the ashes, but what of the others? |
| Richard Lee Byers |
Posted - 30 Jan 2004 : 20:54:39
Fair enough, Jim. and no offense taken. I guess I just didn't quite catch all the nuances of what you were saying the first time around.
Although I'm still not sure I understand how, when writers were asked to come up with a plot involving the Harpers, it was far less restrictive than asking them to come up with a plot involving, for example, rogues. But I wasn't a WotC writer then, so what do I know? |
| Edain Shadowstar |
Posted - 30 Jan 2004 : 20:38:15
Editors, in my experience (and its limited), tend to stay in the background mostly. It helps for them I guess since they tends to be the ones who make many of the unpopular decisions in publishing. Personally, I think the editing has gotten better at Wizards of late. I mean, there were way less typos in Condemnation than in The Icewind Dale Trilogy, but maybe that's not exactly what you're thinking of? By and large, alot of the recent novels being annouced by Wizards (the cleric series, the rogue series, ect.) seem to be exactly what people have been calling for (largely over at the now defunct Wizards.COMMUNITY novel boards). In the end I do not quite understnad their business model overthere. They can be so all over the place at times. |
| Faraer |
Posted - 30 Jan 2004 : 20:29:22
We hear online from novelists, freelance and in-house game designers and managers, but not from TSR/WotC's book editors -- I for one am curious about their thinking sometimes, and I wonder if a little more contact would reduce misunderstanding and wrong speculations.
Both the relatively all-over-the-place Realms books of the 90s (the 1360s DR) and the new more strictly coordinated timeline have their good and bad points, and I see the appeal of anonymity to the people making these major decisions about the setting, but I don't think I like it. |
| JamesLowder |
Posted - 30 Jan 2004 : 19:06:32
quote:
Originally posted by Richard Lee Byers
I think you may be overstating the case just a tad, Jim. I would say that the FR editors often come up with the basic concept or subject matter (e.g., "We want a book about rogues," or, "We want an epic trilogy focusing on the dragons of the Realms, and it would be cool if a Rage of Dragons was part of the story".
Which is the plotting/scheduling stage. And authors are currently rarely involved in that. Because authors are being asked to react to this scheduling--where it is decided what types of books, often what general plots, characters, and settings for books, go on the plan for the coming year--the authors are in a reactive, not an active role in determining content.
Being asked to write a book about dragons involving a rage, even if you are given input on how that book is later shaped, is limiting for the author far more than being asked to propose a Realms book you want to write without that restriction. You are limited from the start by a house-driven idea. You may be able to do some nifty things within those guides, but you can't, for example, propose a book about unicorns. So you are limited in what you can do.
At one time, the push was for less guides, less restrictions on content, with the authors being asked to pitch books before the schedule was set, or slots being set so wide (as in the Harpers) that they were essentially open for author input. The opposite has been true for years now. Some books are more author-driven than others--some of the Spider Queen spin-offs [Thomas Reid's trilogy, for example] are much more like the old "what-do-you-want-to-write-about" set-ups--but War of the Spider Queen is more typical than not these days. Threat From the Sea, Stormweather, etc, were all house-driven projects, with various and sundry limitations on characters, plots, settings, and so on. And that makes it clear that the line is being directed much more specifically from in house.
quote:
but the writers generally supply the characters and actual plot. At least that's been my experience.
The rough guides for characters, setting, and occasionally plot are being handed to the authors rather often. And I am talking about "We want a book about this sort of character, set in this part of the world," not fully formed plots. Authors flesh the bare bones out, but again, that's not the same as an author starting with a blank page and trying to sell the editor on an idea that is author-generated.
Is the author still called upon to be creative, even when handed rough guides? Of course! I'm not dissing you here, Richard. In fact, in some ways it is much harder to write a good book when you are given even a couple limitations.
I've done books for TSR/WotC under more reactive conditions (Knight of the Black Rose) and more creator-driven conditions (Prince of Lies or Ring of Winter) and know that they are not exactly the same processes. Your editor gives you problem X, with the various factors to be considered, and asks you to solve it. That's not the same as determining what problem you're going to be asked, in addition to how you solve it.
Cheers,
Jim Lowder |
| Edward Bolme |
Posted - 30 Jan 2004 : 18:46:42
Regardless, I'll expect to see an Eberron Novels Board when the time comes. |
| Richard Lee Byers |
Posted - 30 Jan 2004 : 14:19:32
I think you may be overstating the case just a tad, Jim. I would say that the FR editors often come up with the basic concept or subject matter (e.g., "We want a book about rogues," or, "We want an epic trilogy focusing on the dragons of the Realms, and it would be cool if a Rage of Dragons was part of the story"), but the writers generally supply the characters and actual plot. At least that's been my experience.
Even in the case of War of the Spider Queen, where there was by far the most editorial direction (of necessity, I think, with each novel being written by a different guy), I wound up concocting most of the plot in my installment, as well as many of the characters. Also, the writers of the first three novels participated in the big planning session for the series, so when editorial handed us our instructions, they were instructions that we helped to come up with ourselves.
Now, you're one hundred percent right that nobody asks us about scheduling. Or anyway, they're not asking me. |
| JamesLowder |
Posted - 30 Jan 2004 : 01:54:04
quote:
Originally posted by Kameron M. Franklin
From my understanding, it is primarily the editors who sit down and plan out the novel storyline for the year. Phil Athans is the managing editor for the Forgotten Realms line. I would bet that the authors they want to write the novels would also be included in discussions.
With a few exceptions, the individual authors do not seem to be particularly involved in the plotting/scheduling stage. That was not always the case. In the mid- to late-90s, TSR/WotC began coordinating in house so that all the novels released in a real-world year would be set in DR-year X or Y. This required the line editor to do a lot more of the initial planning, the authors to be less involved in the concept stage for their novels. In fact, many more of the basic plots for Realms novels are driven from in house these days than in times past. Threat From the Sea, Stormweather, War of the Spider Queen, and so on are all driven, initially, by characters and plots generated, to one degree or another, in house.
In the past, the Harpers books, for example, opened a number of slots each year and asked for authors to come up with proposals for books involving Harpers. That was the extent of the guidance offered at the proposal stage. The book proposals that surprised the editors--explored the Realms in interesting ways--were chosen. These days, it is far more likely that a specific author will be contacted by WotC about a specific book, with a location and maybe even plot details and even the main character already in place. Not all the books are done this way [EDIT ADD: The trilogies being written by some of the Spider Queen authors, for example, are more author-driven], but a significant number of them are still fairly company-driven.
Cheers,
Jim Lowder |
| EcThelion |
Posted - 29 Jan 2004 : 23:33:26
Fixed.
Huh? The moderator? Going off-topic? HAVE YOU NO SELF-CONTROLL!? ARR-
: : smack : :
: : The sound eccoes through the hallway for a few more seconds, and you can see The Forgotten One crawling off to some dark corner of the castle to serve his sentence. : : |
| Shadowlord |
Posted - 29 Jan 2004 : 21:08:14
Ah, thank thee Alaundo. I do know you are so prompt in such matters. |
| Alaundo |
Posted - 29 Jan 2004 : 20:57:30
quote:
Originally posted by Shadowlord
Yes, Forgotten One, he upgraded...... Now he's even worse!
Hey, Alaundo, you never got back to me about the e-mail issue about being doorman for the CK Inn. I can't create a new account because it says my e-mail address is already in use. I'm looking for a solution, so I'd appretiate it if you got back to me.
Well met, Shadowlord
::thumbs through his in-tray::
Hmmmm theres nothing here on such a matter, Shadowlord.... however, Ill pen you a personal scroll on the matter. |
| Shadowlord |
Posted - 29 Jan 2004 : 20:49:05
Yes, Forgotten One, he upgraded...... Now he's even worse!
Hey, Alaundo, you never got back to me about the e-mail issue about being doorman for the CK Inn. I can't create a new account because it says my e-mail address is already in use. I'm looking for a solution, so I'd appretiate it if you got back to me. |
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