5 Comments
Nov 10, 2022Liked by Daniel Lavery

table of contents: "look, you're not going to appreciate this book to the extent that the author intends unless you are aware of the three-part or five-part or nine-part societal structure in which its characters are embedded, so deeply that not only would they not need such an explanation, they could not fathom its even needing to be explained."

me: (nodding like the Jack Nicholson gif)

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Nov 10, 2022Liked by Daniel Lavery

I get so hung up on the currency one and it is so easy for authors to just, for example, mention how many coppers that wholesome tavern meal cost and whether that's more or less than in the small town the character journeyed from.

Also, I would like to be in on conversations where characters traveling together bicker over who pays for supper this time and who is exempt because they paid for the ferry earlier that day and so on.

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Nov 10, 2022Liked by Daniel Lavery

You might like Seanan McGuire's "Middlegame" -- the epigraphs from the fictional book-within-a-book were so popular that she ended up writing that book for real ("Over the Woodward Wall") under the pen name A. Deborah Baker, a character in "Middlegame"!

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HAR!!

Loved it, Danny!

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Delicious entries all. I want a shelf of these.

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