Sackcloth and Ashes (a Talent fic)

[D. M. Domini]

Title: Sackcloth and Ashes
Universe: The Tower and the Hive (Alternate Universe)
Main Characters: Afra Lyon
Minor Characters: Most of the crew circa the book Damia
Summary: Sackcloth and Ashes is my newest fic, an Alternate Universe story based on this thought: What if Afra hadn't been able to assist Damia in her teleport, and Rowan hadn't been able to hang onto the liner? Afra was scared out of his wits in Damia when this happened with the best possible outcome--what would happen if the worst outcome had happened instead? For one, all those Raven-Lyon kids wouldn't have been born with their surplus of Talent, changing the future considerably. Sodan wouldn't have happened the way it did, the Mrdini wouldn't have happened...at least not in the same way. And poor Afra wouldn't have the love of his life waiting for him 20 years down the line.

Sackcloth and Ashes on ff.net

(Apologies for the link; given it's a Talent fic, it relies heavily on italics, and I don't know of any program yet that can convert a word doc to bb code so I can post it here in its proper form)

I don't have a beta for the work, so please excuse any mistakes in spelling/grammar/canon that I might make, and feel free to point them out for me so I can correct them!

[granath]

This is very interesting! Feels a lot like Anne might've written it, although you've made a few grammar mistakes (site instead of cite in the first chapter, 'then' rather than 'than' in a few places are the main ones). Keep it up!

[D. M. Domini]

It's interesting you say that, because I've noticed I'm not writing in my own style either, I'm pretty heavily mimicking AMC. But thank you for the compliment!

then/than - will find and check all instances of those words in future chapters, and when I get back to revising the first 7 chapters, I'll fix those up as well.

site/cite - dumb mistake! I work with webpages so much it's likely my fingers just typed the wrong one--I found myself doing the same thing with DNA in chapter 7, I wrote DNS before I corrected it. In fact, I just did that in in this paragraph! Note to self: DNA != DNS (DNS has to do with domain name resolution to your webhosting provider...)

[granath]

I don't visit FF much otherwise, so it'd be nice if you could update these threads whenever you post new chapters.

[D. M. Domini]

Chapter 8 is up! As of yesterday. I'll be making a small update to it today though, because my link in the credits to your Towerdex got eaten up by ff.net. I understand why they strip HTML, but not why they strip everything but about 4 HTML tags.

(Sackcloth and Ashes is writing itself very fast, I wrote the first 8 chapters in 3 days and posted it, so at the moment I'm doing 1-2 updates a day.

Although it's slowing down; I had chapter 9 partially written, then trashed much of it because it wasn't serving my ultimate goal. I'll try to keep this thread in the know, however.)

[D. M. Domini]

Chapter 9 is up, and I did a re-upload of Chapter 8 with a few minor mistakes corrected.

[D. M. Domini]

Chapter 10 is up.

[granath]

This is a great story! Do you think it's finished now or will you continue writing it?

[D. M. Domini]

Thanks!

Sackcloth and Ashes isn't done--I just shifted in focus to my original works for a while. I'm working on an update to Boxed, and once I complete that, I'll likely complete the next chapter of Sackcloth.

Out of curiosity--which one do you (or anyone who wants to answer the question) like better?

[Maximillian]

As one who is a strong believer in Alternate universe theory, I find it quite fascinating. And I must comment that you seem to have nailed Afra's sense of character down very well. That is exactly how he would react to such an event. Well done Miss.

[edith]

oooh...

brilliant! Just caught up with this one!

[D. M. Domini]

Originally Posted by Maximillian

As one who is a strong believer in Alternate universe theory, I find it quite fascinating. And I must comment that you seem to have nailed Afra's sense of character down very well. That is exactly how he would react to such an event. Well done Miss.

Thank you!

I just put up Chapter 11 of Sackcloth and Ashes. (The next chapter for Boxed is in the works, just not done yet). I'm glad I am over this hump--it was hard figuring out what to write next while still keeping our yellow-eyed friend on the path I want him to tread. Yet I think I managed it. Yay me!

[D. M. Domini]

Chapter 12 is up!

[Brenda]

Wow.

I finally got over there to read this and was stunned.

This is a lot like my story "Dragonsong: An Alternate Tune" in that it revolves around a critical event that goes completely different than in canon.

Very well done; very good characterization of Afra.

[Kath]

Yes, it is very good.

[D. M. Domini]

Many thanks for the compliments, guys!

I'm working on the next chapter...but I've just started a new job, and I move next month, and I'm trying to funnel what little writing time I have into my original works rather than fanfic. Sooo...it might be a while.

[granath]

Not to worry. Good luck with your new job (from another in her first week, see the library) and with the move!

[D. M. Domini]

Updated!

Woo!

I just put up Chapter Thirteen.

[D. M. Domini]

Updated with Chapter 14, and Cut Scenes II (in which Coonies and STDs are discussed).

[D. M. Domini]

This has been updated with chapter 15. Longest chapter yet, and we're getting into the meaty parts. Yay!

[Brenda]

Just so you know, I haven't been reading it when you update, because it's not HERE.

[D. M. Domini]

That's up to you. I'm aware of a few people who do read it on ff.net, but have decided not to have a fanfiction.net account that will get automatic notifications. Thus, me updating this thread.

For my part, the reason I refuse to post it right here in the thread is because it's 43,053 words long at the moment, and it's a Talent fanfic, which means a good portion of those words are in italics. If I post it here, it will strip out the italics, and alter the meaning of lots of things throughout the story. Yeah, sure, it's only a fanfic, but I'd like the words to hold my original meaning, which fanfiction.net lets me do easily, and the board does not. (If there's a word doc to bb code converter out there, I'd happily use that, though, and post it here. But I'm not aware of one at the moment.)

Once the story is complete, I plan to do a final edit to clean up typos and strengthen scenes/places where the writing isn't as good as I'd like it to be, and I'll re-upload over the ff.net story. And then after that, I will slowly code it up so it's possible to post it here. At the same time, I'll archive it on my website. But I won't start this until the WIP is no longer a work in progress.

I might post my one-shot story here, however, since it's a one-shot and complete...thanks for the idea.

[kevia]

I couldn't believe the next chapter wasn't there, probably because I wanted it to be there so much! Can't wait for the rest of the story!

I laughed all the way through "Cut Scenes II."

I do have to mention a grammar thing. In chapter 12 about half way down, "It was a good thing him and Jeff clicked so well together" and "Him and David aren’t bad at all...." In both cases "him" should be "he." They are both part of the compound subject of a clause or sentence, so should be subjective case, rather than objective case.

And a spelling thing. In the fourth paragraph of chapter 14, "verses" should be "versus."

Great writing!!!! I can't believe you can write so well and be working on several stories at a time. I'm loving it!