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Adventure Quest


Zach Caldwell

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[Special Note: The new website is now live. As a result the links throughout this thread are invalid except for the latest posting to the thread. All of Kyle's stories can now be found at Kyle Matthew Aarons]

Chapter 1 can be found at http://www.castleroland.net/library/author/kyle_aarons

Edited by Zach Caldwell
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Seriously people,

 

Haven't we already started to be here?  We have to submit a form to finish a project and some computer absolutely is not acknowledging our existence!  We are pushed, shoved, crammed or trapped on the so called freeways from Hell trying to just go home.  And family that works hard to eek out the best they can for the kids.  And those with enough power and money have life so much easier, with so many more opportunities.

 

All of Kyle's stories are incredibly well thought out and interesting and this one, well it takes you for a ride.  

 

Come and join Robin and Gavin as their world's expand beyond their dreams!

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Seriously people,

 

Haven't we already started to be here?  We have to submit a form to finish a project and some computer absolutely is not acknowledging our existence!  We are pushed, shoved, crammed or trapped on the so called freeways from Hell trying to just go home.  And family that works hard to eek out the best they can for the kids.  And those with enough power and money have life so much easier, with so many more opportunities.

 

All of Kyle's stories are incredibly well thought out and interesting and this one, well it takes you for a ride.  

 

Come and join Robin and Gavin as their world's expand beyond their dreams!

Not quite. We are about 54,000,000,000 pepole short but we are working on that

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I used to plan and conduct summer camps for teens. Nothing quite as strenuous as "Adventure Quest," and a step below "Outward Bound," but similar. Survival skills, repelling and climbing, marksmanship. Perhaps that is why I have so enjoyed "Adventure Quest" to date. Perhaps it is the quality of the writing, the character development, the use of tension to advance the story, the avoidance of a deus ex machine while ensuring proper guidance and "second chances." There are a lot of good things to be said about the story, including the dystrophic civilization in which it's set. I recall an English lit class in which we debated whether our civilization was headed toward George Orwell or Aldous Huxley's vision. We decided that we'd taken the worst of both and added some evils of our own. That's well captured in "Adventure Quest." Yet Kyle Aarons paints a picture of hope. Well done!

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Kyle , thanks for continuing Quest !

And showing us more about Oliver .

I think he'll have more power as the story goes along . 

At least I hope he does .

He seems like a character in another story I like .

Skeeter is his name .

dael

Fairfax felt his eyes go wide, "You mean you are gay?"

A tear trickled down Oliver's cheek. In the tiniest of whispers he spoke a single word. "Yes."

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So....on Kyle's recommendation, I started reading Adventure Quest as my first exposure to his obviously excellent skills as a writer. I told him I was not normally a fan of fantasy/sci-fi and usually avoid it. He encouraged me to give it a chance. WOW! I absolutely love this story. I read Chapters 2-9 in one sitting - it's the middle of the night and I need to get to bed. But I WANT MORE!!!!! Ugh! This always happens. I start a story and it's not finished and I have to wait to find out what's going to happen next. So frustrating....grin. (Of course, I do the same thing to my readers - we can only write so fast....)

 

Kyle, thank you for turning me on to this story. And I really do love your writing. If I could encourage only one thing that would be to "paint the scene" more with your words. There's enough there for my imagination to fill in, but as a reader I really want to see what you see, and in fantasy, I think it's very important to be able to get the full vision of what you, the author, are creating in your imagination. Or maybe that's just the limitation of my reality-bound mind...grin. What is not there in the scenery is deeply there in the characterizations. I love the characters, and the conversations and actions do a bang up job of revealing emotions and personalities of some extremely interesting people. I want to know more about every one of them, including the bully who I hope will be turned into a friend later, especially when Robin's team saves his life in the ISATZ....hint hint...grin. And of course, then Oliver and he fall in love....hee hee.

 

Okay, ignore my ideas. Write what's in your head - just do it faster!!!!!!!

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Jack. this is sort of an inside joke, if you will. An average "Kyle" chapter runs around 35K words... Novella sized chapters.

 

To be honest though, Adventure Quest, and some of his other works are no where near as large.

Ha ha! Got it. Yeah, I haven't read any of his other stuff yet. But that would be an awfully long chapter. That's when my high school composition teacher would have said, "Take out every other word and see what you've got. Only add enough words back to have it make sense." I thought she was insane, but then I read online how the average published ficton novel is only 80,000 words, and I can see how we have to "economize" on the language.

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Personally, I would consider 80,000 words to be a short story.  War and Peace or Dr. Zhivago were novels.  

 

It depends upon the story.  If it warrants the detail, then don't worry about counting words.  On the other hand, don't try to fill it in with "fluff" either.  There are great stories that are very short.  I can read a Piers Anthony book in a few hours.  There are others that come out to 3 or 4 inches thick when published.  Frank Yerby's "Goat Song" comes to mind, there.  Content is everything.  Yes, you should try to convey your message in as few words as possible, but if the message needs it, take as much space as needed.  

 

Roger

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Roger,

I agree with you. If the story needs the words, use them. My first "book" is just over 200,000 words. As the author I love everyone of them. A publisher however is unlikely to even consider it without losing nearly half of them. So far I can't bear the idea of tearing it apart. But even to self publish I may have to. This is why I love a place like Castle Roland. We all can put our work here and share it the way we intended.

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