Quick Fire Questions (A Place to Ask and Answer)

[Warren_Paul]

I was thinking of a jigsaw puzzle, but that's not really painful...unless the person putting it together is one who gets all sorts of pieces in the wrong place and then just hammers them in until they fit.

Amusing picture there, David. Let me just get my hammer...

Alas, would be quite a time consuming process.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Now, whoever said un-rending a soul would be quick?

Wonder what the instructions on the jigsaw-puzzle-soul box say. "Eighty thousand pieces. Not recommended for mortals. Recommended for adult deities. May contain traces of ego, angst and psychology. Do not eat -- may cause cognitive dissonance. Spark of Life not included."

 

[hopewrites]

yes emotional pain, because that is the only sort I have heard of that can rend souls. minus the absurd factor the banana is the closest yet, but with "magic" to "make it all better"
there is crying and screaming involved, but I wanted some words that were better than

her soul was unrend, and when left spent and sobbing on the floor, she knew the worst was over and life would be better from now on.

the puzzle is good, and I like that you suggest it takes a deity to put one together. nothing like the hand of god in your insides squishing your soul back together to lacerate old emotional woulds and extract the poison that had been festering there for years.

Now, whoever said un-rending a soul would be quick?

Wonder what the instructions on the jigsaw-puzzle-soul box say. "Eighty thousand pieces. Not recommended for mortals. Recommended for adult deities. May contain traces of ego, angst and psychology. Do not eat -- may cause cognitive dissonance. Spark of Life not included."

ps I want one of these puzzles for my birthday. just sayin.

 

[Warren_Paul]

and just like having a thorn pulled from a finger tip, the process I wish to describe is far from painless, and fairly swift. ...

...

...yes emotional pain...

I'm not sure repairing emotional pain can be quick, can it?

A tough puzzle to solve. I can think of slow things, and the puzzle idea would work really well for that.


How are you 'unrending' the character's soul?

 

[hopewrites]

with some emotional prep time then an unrending reveal of herself (sword of truth meets palantiri?) trapped within her own mind the pain of what she has seen and what has been done to her is relived the way drawing a thorn revisits the pain of its insertion. she can feel the pain of it all being pulled like thread through fabric from her mind. and the poisonous build up of emotional toxicity surrounding the traumatic soul-rending event is vomited up (possible with some real vomit, not decided on that one yet) and goes skittering away from her like so many imps being involuntarily born from her mouth. the "healing" finishes when the last of the pain she is willing to let go of is surrendered up and she is left sobbing, weak, and utterly helpless in a pool of moonlight which she can feel for the first time in years.

 

[Warren_Paul]

With the process of vomiting, the pain comes before you actually vomit, and as soon as you do, you instantly feel better afterwards - although tired/weak.

I don't know if she'd feel pain, more exhausted relief? You're right though, I'm frowning at that line "her soul was unrend" - something not quite right about it, and it also implies she knew what happened?

Unrend isn't the right word.

 

[hopewrites]

I think the only thing more frustrating to me than not knowing how to spell a word, is not knowing what the word is for what I am trying to say.

yes like vomiting the pain is much more intense before. yes like child birth there is a moment when she questions whether or not the pain will have been worth it and then afterwards that moment of blissful relief/ glow-y happiness that it was.

most mortals in my story would chose an easier if longer process of healing. and her Guide often admonishes her to 'take things slow' because not many people could survive the process she has chosen for her healing. all of the pain and agony of her life heaped on her at once then extracted as though it was being sucked out of her with a black hole that threatened to take everything not just what she was offering up to it while crushing her into tiny bits.
the whole thing takes alot of mental energy and concentration, and an enormous strength of will which she has used up to this point to mask her volcanic problems. now that her problems are being striped away from her, she will be free (after she recovers from the process) to use that strength of will to save her people.

so kind of an important climactic plot bit I'd rather not gloss over with "MAGIC!! all better, now go play" because the characters around her are going to react to her change with confusion and she will be forced to deal with that. I'd like the reader to at least not be confused with her 'sudden alteration' and be sympathetic to her plight at trying to describe the experience to people who werent there.

 

[Chel]

all of the pain and agony of her life heaped on her at once then extracted as though it was being sucked out of her with a black hole that threatened to take everything not just what she was offering up to it while crushing her into tiny bits.

So it was as if her soul exploded, and she could feel every little part as it was torn from her, leaving a burning abyss of hopeless darkness? But then her soul was mended, one part at a time, like one mends a tattered cloak or sail? And relief came as the stars that light up even the darkest night, when the clouds are finally blown away by mild winds?

 

[Ursa major]

I'm stuck on a description

i will venture to assume we have all heard of soul rending pain. what I want to describe is like that, but in reverse. the pain of having one's soul unrendered. I dont want to say healed because of the time and relative painlessness implied in the word. and just like having a thorn pulled from a finger tip, the process I wish to describe is far from painless, and fairly swift.

If you want to allude to the previous rending, and don't want to use words like unrend or derend - and why would you? - you might try 'rendered whole':

The pain was unbearable, and seemed to last forever, but finally her soul was once more rendered whole.

 

[luci2also]

"One-eighty" is a contraction and an abbreviation which fully stands for "one hundred and eighty degrees. However, it has come into common currency and one-eighty (as opposed to "one eighty", which might refer to a single quantity of eighty somethings) is a perfectly acceptable idiom or phrase.

I don't have problem of the use and existence of one eighty or one-eighty I just have problems with calling it an idiom (contraction and abbreviation is fine).
as to the number of eighties

I've got one eighty
I've got two eighties
I've got three...

Oh god I thought only an owl could do that. Stop stop you're making my neck hurt.

 

[Vertigo]

I think I might have been the first to refer to it as an idiom bad choice of words! Sorry!

 

[luci2also]

I think the only thing more frustrating to me than not knowing how to spell a word, is not knowing what the word is for what I am trying to say.

yes like vomiting the pain is much more intense before. yes like child birth there is a moment when she questions whether or not the pain will have been worth it and then afterwards that moment of blissful relief/ glow-y happiness that it was.

most mortals in my story would chose an easier if longer process of healing. and her Guide often admonishes her to 'take things slow' because not many people could survive the process she has chosen for her healing. all of the pain and agony of her life heaped on her at once then extracted as though it was being sucked out of her with a black hole that threatened to take everything not just what she was offering up to it while crushing her into tiny bits.
the whole thing takes alot of mental energy and concentration, and an enormous strength of will which she has used up to this point to mask her volcanic problems. now that her problems are being striped away from her, she will be free (after she recovers from the process) to use that strength of will to save her people.

so kind of an important climactic plot bit I'd rather not gloss over with "MAGIC!! all better, now go play" because the characters around her are going to react to her change with confusion and she will be forced to deal with that. I'd like the reader to at least not be confused with her 'sudden alteration' and be sympathetic to her plight at trying to describe the experience to people who werent there.

I'm beginning to favor the notion of lancing the wound.

The wound from the tearing that has festered to a point that the soul is unable to heal itself. The lance piercing to the very center of the ulceration that is almost the at center of the soul. In the process of draining the foreign there is a risk that it will seek to further tear the soul away and remove it as it itself drains away. What is left might be indeterminate.

 

[luci2also]

I think I might have been the first to refer to it as an idiom bad choice of words! Sorry!

No problem:
I was trying to be ironic making fun of my own objection since when put that way it might work well as an idiom.

I just don't have too many things come to mind that are in 80 quantities and no knowledge of any country's currency that has an 80 coin or otherwise of any denomination.

For me one eighty always means angular degrees. Maybe its a colloquialism maybe its slang.

On the other hand one hundred eighty degrees would be a good way to get your rump roasted.

 

[allmywires]

One of my characters is an archer and she has to lose her little finger in the none-too-distant future in part of a plot device. I was originally going to make it her left hand - the weaker one - but then I remembered that your little finger contributes a lot to grip. So my question is, if she lost her left little finger, would she still be able to grip her bow properly? Or would it be better that it was the right (the hand she would use to draw the bow - I assume that doesn't involve the pinky?)

 

[luci2also]

One of my characters is an archer and she has to lose her little finger in the none-too-distant future in part of a plot device. I was originally going to make it her left hand - the weaker one - but then I remembered that your little finger contributes a lot to grip. So my question is, if she lost her left little finger, would she still be able to grip her bow properly? Or would it be better that it was the right (the hand she would use to draw the bow - I assume that doesn't involve the pinky?)

If it were merely an (pardon the pun) off hand side plot it might not matter and you also might question why its there. If it's there it may be important and perhaps the drama of how this will affect a change in the archers abilities might be a plus. You just have to figure out how quickly they might recover from the imbalance.

 

[Vertigo]

One of my characters is an archer and she has to lose her little finger in the none-too-distant future in part of a plot device. I was originally going to make it her left hand - the weaker one - but then I remembered that your little finger contributes a lot to grip. So my question is, if she lost her left little finger, would she still be able to grip her bow properly? Or would it be better that it was the right (the hand she would use to draw the bow - I assume that doesn't involve the pinky?)

Shouldn't really matter which hand. You (normally) don't use the little finger when drawing and you don't need to grip the bow all that fiercely when shooting. Basically you only hold it itght enough to stop from dropping the bow after the loose; whilst drawing the bow the tension holds it into your hand. Most modern competition archers use a wrist or finger strap (I use the finger one) to 'catch' the bow and actually shoot with a completely open left hand.

The reason for this is so that any tensions in your left arm when you loose have minimal effect upon the bow itself and so is less likely to snatch the arrow off target. Gripping the bow too tightly can cause all sorts of nasty jerks in the bow as the arrow is flying past it.

 

[luci2also]

Shouldn't really matter which hand. You (normally) don't use the little finger when drawing and you don't need to grip the bow all that fiercely when shooting. .

Small question- curiosity here.

So when you are balancing the bow in your non-gripping grip does the little finger come into play with the balance or is that too with an open hand?

Oh I may have been looking at this incorrectly.
But, what confused me is I do not know of anyone employing a device on the hand actually holding the bow. Mostly they employ devices which are used to draw. Some of those have triggers for the release.

When I've asked them most say the forces - when the arrow is released tend do draw the bow towards the hand rather than away so they don't employ any method to help them hold them. I've never seen competitive events in archery so I'm unfamiliar. And I do not myself participate.

Either way they do tend to just cradle the bow between the thumb and the palm. So perhaps there is no need for the little finger.

 

[allmywires]

If it were merely an (pardon the pun) off hand side plot it might not matter and you also might question why its there.

I say plot device, it's really so it can massively set up rivalry with the woman who does the finger chopping

Shouldn't really matter which hand. You (normally) don't use the little finger when drawing and you don't need to grip the bow all that fiercely when shooting. Basically you only hold it itght enough to stop from dropping the bow after the loose; whilst drawing the bow the tension holds it into your hand. Most modern competition archers use a wrist or finger strap (I use the finger one) to 'catch' the bow and actually shoot with a completely open left hand.

The reason for this is so that any tensions in your left arm when you loose have minimal effect upon the bow itself and so is less likely to snatch the arrow off target. Gripping the bow too tightly can cause all sorts of nasty jerks in the bow as the arrow is flying past it.

Thank you very much! As a more general question, would losing the little finger have a massive impact (more than the middle two fingers) on day-to-day life? I have never thought about my pinky as much until now, but when I imagine it not there, I think it might be a wee bit problematic.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

one of my characters loses theirs, and I've not really referred to it very much again, and no one has come back to me and said that they couldn't do this that or the other without it. I think things like typing might be tricky, but I can't see if being a huge issue.

 

[Vertigo]

I can't see it being a real issue in normal life.

You are absolutely right Luci as you draw the bow it is pulled snuggly back into the palm between the thumb and forefinger. However once you loose, the bow jumps forward both from the momentum of the string and the extension of your compressed bow arm. If you do not have at least a loose grip on the bow you will lose it. I have done this once when shooting without my sling and forgetting I didn't have it. Very embarrassing!

Here's a link to a page where you can see some bow slings.
http://www.quicksarchery.co.uk/superbasket/category/1090/Bowslings
My choice is the simplest one down the bottom left (not the most popular choice by the way). Essentially thumb and forefinger go in the two rings making a continuous loop from thumb, forefinger and sling with the bow inside it.

And here's the best picture that I could find showing how the bow is not really held at all. Note styles vary enormously, for example I don't curl my fingers up like this archer I just let them hang loose. http://www.london2012.com/photos/2010/4/archery-men-s-ranking-round-beijing-2008-60743.php

Of course for a fantasy story you wouldn't be using such devices but I believe you would still try to have a loose grip on the bow whilst shooting.

Bottom line, when shooting, your bow arm wants to be an inert rod whose only job is to keep the bow away from your body! You want as little muscle usage in that arm as possible as that will tend to spoil your aim. It seems a bit counter-intuitive at first but actually the same is true in the drawing arm once at full draw. As much as possible of the work is done by your back muscles.