I was hoping someone would take a stab at the meaning behind the elemental order…
First Fire, then Earth, then Water, then Wind, and finally, ‘Ideal‘.
Where do we see this pattern in nature?
Here’s a visual representation I cooked up on Photoshop:

Did these hints help?

Also—-lately, I’ve been fighting a battle with my own dialogue.
There are two parts to this battle. The easy part is that I’ve recognized I’ve been afraid of the word ‘said’. I need to use that more.
The hard part is—-after much more practice, I’ve found writing dialogue is a lot like trying to play chess against yourself: You have to keep walking between Player 1 and Player 2′s sides of the board, trying to forget everything the other player knew, attempting to reassess the entire situation from a completely different frame of mind.
I’ve found that because of this, it’s very hard to judge your own dialogue from an unbiased point of view. And, after I’m done writing dialogue, I can’t shake the feeling that a trained eye could pick up that the same person played both sides of the board.
Hopefully, this will go away with practice. But please share if you have ever struggled with this. Any tips are definitely welcome. I do intend to win this battle. :)

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