You're illustrating exactly why I had inchoate concerns about the now-standard nominating process.
But I too wonder how good a fit it is for the Culture, where there are so few continuing characters (and the aesthetic and worldbuilding to some extent depend on that sense of vastness you get from the way no character or set of characters is central to anything like every important event in the Culture's space). All these suggested modifications strike me as directions we should consider.
However we do this, I definitely vote for allowing (and even inviting) original characters, human and not. It wouldn't be the Culture without a cast of thousands available, and relatively few continuing characters: it's part of the way Banks conveys the sheer scale of the civilization. And after all, if there are 2000 Abominators, you'd expect that every so often we'd see more than just the FONMC, right?
I also agree that at least a month makes sense for the thinking/writing period. Which, okay, I have a personal interest as the World's Slowest Writer; but it's a complex canon, and yeah, there's no fast way to do the review.
. . . and ack, there was going to be more, but I need to be a bit more coherent before I start free-associating about whether it makes any sense to try to match on books or time period rather than, or in addition to, on characters.
no subject
But I too wonder how good a fit it is for the Culture, where there are so few continuing characters (and the aesthetic and worldbuilding to some extent depend on that sense of vastness you get from the way no character or set of characters is central to anything like every important event in the Culture's space). All these suggested modifications strike me as directions we should consider.
However we do this, I definitely vote for allowing (and even inviting) original characters, human and not. It wouldn't be the Culture without a cast of thousands available, and relatively few continuing characters: it's part of the way Banks conveys the sheer scale of the civilization. And after all, if there are 2000 Abominators, you'd expect that every so often we'd see more than just the FONMC, right?
I also agree that at least a month makes sense for the thinking/writing period. Which, okay, I have a personal interest as the World's Slowest Writer; but it's a complex canon, and yeah, there's no fast way to do the review.
. . . and ack, there was going to be more, but I need to be a bit more coherent before I start free-associating about whether it makes any sense to try to match on books or time period rather than, or in addition to, on characters.