couple of days, and I will get to my destination quickly, with readily available food, shelter, fuel, and other resources readily available in familiar forms all along the way. I can get in an airplane and fly anywhere in the world with a minimum of effort and time expended. Even more remarkably, I can take out my phone and conduct a live video conference with people in a dozen different countries, and we’ll hardly notice a delay.
Blood Magic S2:E2: Witch’s Heir Re-Release
The separation between morality and law is something that has long fascinated me. It's a similar question to Socrates' famous query: "is conduct right because the Gods demand it, or do the Gods demand it because it is right?"
Training Montages
if you haven’t heard the phrase “training montage,” you’ve probably encountered one. They are pervasive in modern storytelling, especially in speculative fiction, to the point where the only techniques that might be more overused are prologues and flashbacks. Like prologues and flashbacks, they are overused for a reason, serving several valuable purposes in the narrative process, but so many of them have been done, with only mediocre execution, that the technique itself has become tiresome.
Blood Magic S3:E1: Shards of Glass Release
Writing the first episode of season three as a denouement for the Pifechan invasion made a lot of sense. Unfortunately, it left me with a small problem: plot. More specifically, it left me with a profound lack of plot.
Blood Magic S2:E1: Flailing in the Dark Re-Release
For the most part, revisions to season two episodes are going to consist (I hope) almost exclusively of editing functions, rather than substantial revisions, and as such I doubt that I will have many original and interesting observations to include in these re-release posts.
Youth Characters
realistic, sympathetic, capable, and not-terribly-annoying youthful characters, of which the failure of Wesley Crusher (from Star Trek: The Next Generation) as a character – good in concept, but poor in execution – is emblematic. It’s something that I’ve been thinking about recently because I’ve experienced several poorly done youthful characters in recent media I’ve consumed, and because I’ve been thinking about a character in Fo’Fonas (Wraith/Revia, for those few of you who have read the rough draft). I was even thinking about it enough to read a book on parenting, but more on that in this week’s review.
Blood Magic S2:E12: Pifecha, Part Two Release
down now, because the second part of Pifecha, season two’s finale, ended up almost twice the length of a typical episode. Putting the two parts together, we have a very respectable novella-length story. I mention this, because the increasing length was among my biggest concerns as I was writing the final episode. That might seem silly when I publish these on my own website and am beholden to no one as far as word counts go, but the fact is that word count is an important indicator of pacing and plotting considerations.
Blood Magic S1:E12: Old Blood, Part Two Re-Release
I’d like to consider it a testament to my improved revision abilities that I was going through and making minor changes to Old Blood, Part Two I identified an entire scene that should probably get cut. I identified it, I wrestled with it, I came to terms with cutting one of the scenes that was the most fun for me to write, and ultimately I decided to leave it intact.
Blood Magic S2:E11: Pifecha, Part One Release
Unlike the first season’s finale, this one does not include as many answers to long-running mysteries, or revelations about Blood Magic, although I am hoping to work some answers to world history questions into the second part. It is what it is: a dynamic story with a little more plot than character. Not that there isn’t plenty of emotion and character development contained in this episode, especially with how this first part ends. Since I do have two parts to work with, I also took the time to do a little more development of side characters and plots than I otherwise would. Oh, and I apparently have a bad habit of leaving characters stuck on islands in dire straits at the end of books. Sorry about that.
What’s Next?
We recently announced the upcoming third season of Blood Magic, which will also be the final season, and I promised you in that post some thoughts on what might be coming next. While there’s still more than a year before it will be time for the next thing, that’s not too early to be thinking about it. However, please note that nothing is certain yet, and until I make a formal announcement around this time next year, all of what I say here should just be considered possibilities.
IGC Publishing 