Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

It was mentioned that the deal with the new label was also secretive and not yet known to her current label, since the current label had a period of exclusivity at the end of her contract to woo her to stay. She didn't want to risk violating her current contract and being penalized for it.

Part of the Dallas concert issue was that, if she couldn't pull off a sold out show after making such a big deal about it, it would allow them to come in with a lower offer, especially if the rumors her manager was trying to leak caused her issues where other labels wouldn't want to touch her.

The label was intentionally sabotaging the show in Dallas as part of their implied threat to destroy her career if she didn't sign the new deal. Then they sued her.

Yeah - I totally get the fact that they had to try to defend her reputation. That information if released would have been devastating. I just think the Dallas concert thing is a bit of a Trojan horse. If you do a 50 concert tour, and sell out all but one, I'm not sure thats a big blow.

This show was in a big stadium where even 50,000 in attendence would look like a flop. That's bad for the brand (Liz's brand,) lowers the prices on future events or requires them to shift to smaller venues. It can be devastating.

An example of the lengths taken to avoid it was Ed Sheeran's tour last year. At our local football stadium the intital prices for low level seats were $250+. In a couple of months, his people were running promotions selling those seats at $125 for 2. Upper level seat promotions were even cheaper.

They had to take a financial bath on the concert, but it filled the stadium.

You have to remember the in the streaming age the only way that 99% of the name artists can make any money is through concerts. It's 100% of the people who don't have songwriter credit.

Funny - I havent paid enough attention to the timeline I guess. Now you have to add in "Learning Curves" then you would have a 3 dimensional analysis.

In my multi-dimensional analysis, I put the start of Learning Curves in 2009. I think of the set as the "Randi Raver Universe", since I essentially use her as the time anchor to place the various stories.

I refuse to attempt to shoehorn Unending Night and Unforgettable Weeks into the mix.

All fiction takes place in an alternate universe, but unless time and space are different, Runaway Train clearly takes place in 2011. However, it is not clear how much time has passed between this story and A Flawed Diamond

Three years.

Randi Raver turned eighteen in A Flawed Dianmond, and was mentioned as being 21 in Runaway Train.

I noticed this while rereading them (the Brock Miller stories first) last month. The mention of Randi occurs fairly early.

Since at least one person is interested :)

I place Flawed Diamond at 2007-2008 for various reasons; and this lines up with Randi's age. She'd turn 22 while Travis is recuperating from arm surgery.

Timeline Issue #1 - Travis states that he watches Randi on TV. This would either be Iconoclast reruns or else Randi has a new show. Of course, we don't actually learn that Iconoclast only lasts 2.5 seasons until Learning Curves.

#2 - Travis refers to Dodger Stadium built in 1955 as "60 years old".

#3 - Watching the Baltimore-Cleveland game, implies that Brock's second season happened 6-7 years ago, not 3. [That snotty kid pitcher was 19 in Flawed Diamond and is 26 now] And the Browns left Baltimore "20 years ago". Both statements would put Runaway Train in 2015 (if we place Flawed Diamond in 2007-2008).

#4 Merrie's "adorable little boy" (says Liz) is 4-5 months old at the start of Runaway Train. I'd expect her to use the word "baby". This is definitely a nitpicky quibble on my part. Or - this story may have originally been placed in 2015 at one point, making Sam Miller 5 years old.

I don't consider these flaws at all - more like trivial details that I've noticed after lots of re-reading.

Looking at A Flawed Diamond:
Chapter 45 has the Dodgers' Spring Training as being in Arizona for the first time, they moved from Vero Beach (Dodgerstown) to Arizona before 2009 Spring Training.
Chapter 57 has Houston as having just moved from NL Central to AL West and that was 2013.