Decided to take this for "The Empty God" (now I think I might stick with this title; it makes the most sense) Feel free to join in; don't worry about post length as long as it all fits in one post ;D
1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
The main characters meet, fall in love, begin an affair, and start mucking around with forbidden books 2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
university professor, age 35, and translator of ancient books, age 22, respectively 3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
no 4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
I guess if you look at it from a certain angle it could maybe kinda sorta be like that. but not really. 5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
no 6. How about one that will destroy it?
no 7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
no 8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
no 9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
the one being, entity, whatever, that everyone assumes is a god, isn't, exactly 10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
no 11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
hmm, kind of not the opposite, but more of a right-angle from this 12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
no 13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
no 14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
no 15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
no 16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
no 17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
no 18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
no 19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
no 20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
no dwarves 21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
no elves either 22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
no dwarves or elves 23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
the only people under four feet tall are children, not in funny situations. 24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
no ships in this one 25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
no hay bales, either 26. Did you draw a map for your novel which includes places named things like "The Blasted Lands" or "The Forest of Fear" or "The Desert of Desolation" or absolutely anything "of Doom"?
haven't drawn a map yet, I'll admit that I called a distant country, only mentioned in passing once or twice, "The Jade Lands." But nothing ominous. 27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
no prologue 28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
no 29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
no 30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
no 31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
it's a stand-alone 32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
no 33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
no 34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
no 35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
no 36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
no 37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
no 38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
no 39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
no, humans keep me busy enough 40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
see above 41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
nope 42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
no dwarves, no ancient dwarven mines 43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
no battles 44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
LOL! ha ha ha. no. 45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
no 46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
no, at my inns you can also get a good meal and a bed for the night. only one tavern brawl in the book. 47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
no 48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
there's a lot of traveling, but I try to summarize the boring parts and get to what happens next 49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
no. neither of the main characters has any idea what's going on. 50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
no 51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
no 52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
no 53. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
LOL! hahahahahaha 54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
it's heavy 55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
no (peg would be proud of me ;D ) 56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
Roric's brother would probably claim he could, but he can't 57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
no, he's completely unarmed except for an all-purpose (non-magical) utility knife 58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
no 59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
no armor in this one 60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more? [info]
no swords either, actually 61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
actually, she seduces him at the end of chapter 3 62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
no 63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
no 64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
no. I know from watching "Trauma: Life in the ER" that it just takes one thing in the wrong place 65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
stews are served at inns and in people's homes. on the road, you eat dried meat and hardtack. 66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
my nomadic barbarians that live on the tundra drink fermented sheep's milk. so there. 67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
no 68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
no 69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
no 70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
no. he's trying to remain unnoticed, and almost suceeds. 71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
no, it's about two university scholars who have the survival skills of a mayfly 72. Is "common" the official language of your world?
no, one of my MCs actually has to learn a new language! fortunately, she's a trained linguist and her husband is a native speaker of the language, so it isn't too hard. 73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
no 74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
no 75. Read that question again and answer truthfully.
I pass!