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Messages - Dark_Prophecy

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1
Brandon Sanderson / Re: How did you find out about Brandon Sanderson?
« on: March 18, 2011, 12:03:47 PM »
My local Waldenbooks guy recommended Elantris to me just shortly after it came out. I read it, loved it, and just a couple of weeks later Brandon did a signing at that same Waldenbooks. Sadly, I lent my hardback first edition Elantris, signed, to a friend of mine and it never returned. :(

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Reading Excuses / Re: March 7 – Hubay – Lord Domestic Ch 0
« on: March 08, 2011, 12:54:52 PM »
Okay, having read the other six chapters now, I'd have to agree with Akoebel. I think it might be better to be a little more mysterious about the Chell here, though I still think this chapter helps quite a bit with the magic of the series. Nice work!

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I'm with Asmo on this a little bit. One sentence that really put me out of the story was "We should get back, quickly now." She said. The camp is almost an hour away..." If she's really the head of her group, she's not going to be spouting the army's location right in front of a prisoner.

All in all, there wasn't much to complain about with this chapter. I'd say tighten up the action a little bit, watch out for the passive, and you're set! Nice work!

4
I'm in agreement on the rotten leg. Those animals wouldn't have touched it with a ten foot pole. They might have avoided the corpse entirely, unless they were really hungry. That might make for deepening the mystery, when the soldiers take it as a bad omen that the animals won't give Gaitu a proper sending off because of the plague or whatever.

This was a solid chapter, and I think I have to say that it's the best of all of them so far.

I still think that Jhuz needs a larger reaction to his killing women, based on the way you described it in the earlier chapter. This would be a good time for him to do it, maybe while he's flying around scouting the area.

One note: I could use some clarification on exactly how the Medusi get towed around by the Harpies. Or how the Medusi work, really. It just wasn't clear to me.

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Reading Excuses / Re: January 24 – Hubay, Lord Domestic Ch4
« on: March 08, 2011, 12:15:35 PM »
I'm okay with Jhuz's sudden change into Angel of Death here, but the part that threw me for a loop was Gaitu's death. It seems a little quick, just in the pacing of the chapter. We've got a fight, then a brief from Zaishu "Let's go talk to Gaitu," then another brief fight, and then another "Let's go talk to Gaitu...oops, he's dead." If it's Zaishu delivering the news, it seems like she shouldn't have been able to get back to command to get that news fast enough, and if she's heard it from someone else, it seems like it came too quickly. I think you just need to stretch that section out at the end a little bit more. Perhaps this is an excellent time to put some further reaction from Jhuz about how terrible it is killing women.

I'm still a fan of this book. Go you! However, I'd give my left arm for a war story that DIDN'T have a country with a weird sense (from the POV of the main character) of honor. I'm getting pretty bored with this idea. I know it's factually based, but just once I'd like to see two or three armies duking it out where everyone understood the rules clearly, and weren't stepping all over each other's culture's honors.

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Reading Excuses / Re: January 10 – Hubay – Lord Domestic Ch3
« on: March 08, 2011, 10:50:35 AM »
Please Please Please give us more setting. I only ask because I am some sort of Crown Prince of Fail when it comes to setting. I'm awful, and you're already better than I am at it, but please give us something to root us to the scene.

Now, you can tell from my childish begging that I actually like your story, and I'm rooting for it, so YAY for you! :D

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Reading Excuses / Re: December 27, 2010. Hubay – Lord Domestic, Ch 2
« on: March 08, 2011, 10:37:51 AM »
Okay, I'll echo everyone else by saying watch out for the passive crap. 'Nough said.

I like this section, but I felt like maybe there could have been just a touch more description of the camp here, maybe something to give a real feeling of the size of this army. I know that it's possible that the opposing army might just chase after them, so I know they're big. That said, it never hurts to throw an actual number out there, unless you don't know exactly how big it is, or Jhuz wouldn't know.

I'm interested in Jaizu as a character after reading this, and not just because she's supposed to be hot. It's interesting that she seems to be pissed off the the main commander interrupted her, rather than the other way around.

All in all, good stuff, and I'm on to chapter 3

8
I agree with most of what's been said here. Go for more dialogue or action to do your explaining for you.

There are also some small spelling and grammar errors, things like two instead of too, or they instead of the. They're hard to find, and I only noticed them because they threw me out of the story, but I'll sure you'll get to them in time.

I DID like how the swearing ramped up with the action. This seems appropriate to me.

Also, after reading the prologue first, I've definitely decided that all the double j words should go. There are just too many, and they're too close together, which makes them kind of annoying. I'm glad you're thinking about making that change.

And on to chapter 2 I go.

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Reading Excuses / Re: March 7 – Hubay – Lord Domestic Ch 0
« on: March 08, 2011, 09:14:58 AM »
I honestly liked this piece. There were a couple of misspelled words and some grammar that threw me off in a couple of places, but as prologues go I thought it was excellent.

I don't think your explanation of the magic was bad at all. I like how you got to show the powers of the boy, and then had Dezrius think about each one. It gives us just a little bit of action and keeps it from being an info dump. I also think it wasn't very hard to catch on to what a Geas is, so good job there.

The one question I had is about the last paragraph. I read all the submissions on my Kindle, since it makes it seem more like a book to me, and that part stood out, and not necessarily in a good way. I guess you could say that I thought it was a little heavy handed. Now, you don't have to change a thing, but if I had written it, it might have said something like

"...his teachers would see him graduate a military man, straight as an arrow and full of imperial fervor. Perhaps it was just the Geas, but obedience seemed to fit the child quite well, Dezrius thought. He was rarely wrong about these things."

Something that doesn't just give us the fact that everything's gone to hell. I guess the last paragraph was just a little jarring, since it moved us forward thirteen years in one sentence, and we really don't know the story of what happened in that time at all.

So yeah, I would have preferred a milder ending to the chapter, but everything else flowed very well. And this is coming from a guy that doesn't really like Prologues.

A few notes: do a ctrl+f for Girshka, since I noticed you had it spelled GRishka most of the way through, but a few of these showed up. Also, there's still a commejj in there somewhere, so you might want to switch that out. I was okay reading it, it didn't jar me too much, but I suppose some others might find the double j annoying.

Great stuff.

P.S. I try not to ever delete an email, so I've combined everything you've put up so far and converted it for the Kindle. I'll be reading it this week, and I'll try to get you feedback on every chapter.

10
Quote
But, honestly, why not leave the book in the library where it will be safe?  They can't get it there.

I thought this while I was reading, but completely forgot to mention it in the critique. I felt like she should have either left the book in the library, or kept searching for the passage, since she was going to die in the river either way. Her death seemed...well, sort of wasted, otherwise.

11
I have to agree with LTU on some of his points. For me, the wording didn't seem annoying, but it was strange. It almost felt like English might not be your first language.

If it is, and I have horribly offended you, just remember that I'm just some lame dude on the internet that lives in his parents' basement and is scared to talk to women, and you can always toss my opinion right out the window.

I read the piece on my Kindle, since I like to get a feel for what it would look like in "book form." I think it helps me treat it more like a novel, and less like a Word document. That said, I liked where things were going in the story. It's using the classic "protect the magic/great knowledge thingamajig with your life" plot, which feels a little old to me, but it's just different enough for me to run with it.

One thing that I definitely did not like was the excess information in the middle of the action. I was getting all excited about Destra making her escape from these men. We have:

Quote
When she got out of the maze, they were almost on top of her.

If they're almost on top of her, we don't need thoughts about killing herself, thoughts about the pavement, thoughts about life imprisonment for the men chasing her, etc. Right there, I felt like action needed to happen, someone needed to make a grab for her, or she needed to do something brilliant or special. Instead, I had to wade through some worldbuilding to get there. I actually laughed out loud when I read

Quote
She was still astonished they hadn't caught up with her already.

Yeah, me too I thought. If she's so busy looking at the stones below her, and thinking about how dumb these men are and how they're going to be in big trouble, she should probably get jumped from up ahead, or fall down or something.

Now, please please please don't think that I hated this piece. I felt like Destra definitely had a good character going for her. She's got opinions, and the narration shows them. She's got purpose, and the story shows that too. I'm interested to see where this is going, and look forward to more chapters.

Oh, one more thing. I'd shorten the dialogue of the main bad guy. It's pretty much a given that they're going to smoke her out of the building. He doesn't need to tell her what her options are, she already knows that.

I've definitely read much worse in a first novel, so keep up the good work, and feel free to PM me if you've got any questions. I didn't go into the grammar, since it's not really my area of expertise, and if this is a first draft, of course it's going to have some things wrong with it. Overall, nice work.

12
Reading Excuses / Re: October 18 - Stormblessed - Perfection Ch1 + 2
« on: October 18, 2010, 08:08:37 AM »
All right, here we go. I'll try to separate the critique into sections. Hopefully that helps.

SUMMARY

Jason, a very dedicated (zealous) worshipper of the Goddess, and assassin who likes his job just a little too much, murders a man and a woman during the Festival. Chief Inspector Daniels is assigned the case, and catches a small break when a woman across the hall tells him the couple went to a restaurant in their fancy clothes. Two days after the murder, we see Jason worship the goddess and prepare for his assassin training.

CHARACTER

I really enjoy Chief Inspector Daniels much more than Jason. But I would assume I'm supposed to, at least at this point. There's something about Jason that screamed serial killer in the first chapter of the book, but then it comes out later that he's actually a hired killer. What I'm taking from that is that he's one of those assassins that enjoys his work a little too much. Assassin/religious zealot would probably do that. I'm interested to see what his rationalization for killing people despite the First Law is.

As far as character dialogue, I enjoyed parts of it quite a bit. However, the scene with Daniels and the Forensic team felt a little...well, I guess stilted works here. I felt like the sentences should be a bit shorter, with more contractions. If they've done this sort of thing before (inspected a murder scene), they'll likely be quick with their sentences.

EX: “Nothing,” came the muffled voice of one man after a few minutes. “It has been picked clean. There is evidence of some essence on the body, but it has been damaged by some corrosive.”
“All of it?” Daniels asked. “Surely there is some residue?”

The way I'd imagine it: "“Nothing,” came the muffled voice of one man after a few minutes. “Picked clean. There's evidence of some essence on the body, but it's been damaged by some corrosive.”
“All of it?” Daniels asked. “Surely there's something?”

Now, if the Forensic team speaks like that because of culture or whatever, that's fine, but Daniels seems to speak with shorter sentences with contractions in his head (or at least the narrator does) so I felt like his dialogue should be that way, too.

Now, on the positive side, I really LIKE the different feel between the two characters. Jason is all business, while the inspector takes the time to complain about the photographer, comment on the intelligence of his underlings, etc. It's almost like two separate books.

SETTING

The potential downside of a story feeling like two different books is that it's a little jarring the first time we move to the inspector. I had this stereotypical fantasy setting in my head, and when we suddenly had cops on the scene, it all went to hell. This could easily be fixed in the first chapter by including some further description of the setting that helps the reader see that this isn't your typical MEWM (Medieval Europe With Magic) setting so it's not so jarring for them.

Also (and I NEVER would have said this a year ago) I want to see more description of the world around the characters, particularly Jason. What's in his room? Is it incredibly spartan like I imagine it (bed, wash stand, stuff to worship the goddess and that's it?) or are there swords and knives and a Bowflex and season two of Big Bang Theory and a half eaten bowl of Cocopuffs?

Critiquer's note: It would probably be in your best interest to NOT include any of the items listed after "swords and knives"

PLOT

Your plot is great. Everything seems pretty logical. It all fits together well. I get the feeling that you know where you're going with this story, and I'm happy to be along for the ride.  :)

So yeah, there's my two cents. Nice work on the plot, give me some more description (which will also help the reader get a better idea of who your characters really are) and maybe tighten up the dialogue with a few contractions and incomplete sentences (ghasp, I know, but it's how we talk). Really great job, and I look forward to reading more!


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Reading Excuses / Re: NaNoWriMo
« on: October 13, 2010, 01:14:23 PM »
I plan on winning NaNoWriMo this year. It will be the first year I've actually tried it. It's just what I need to finally get myself over my "endless outliner" phase and actually complete the YA novel that's bouncing around in my brain. After that it's onto my "3:10 to Yuma with magic, but not quite" book.

I'm going to be shooting for 2000 words a day, since I know I'll miss at least a couple of days in there somewhere for emergencies beyond my control or space ninjas or something.

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Reading Excuses / Re: June 6- dark_prophecy- As a Man Does
« on: June 09, 2010, 06:44:23 AM »
Awesome! Thanks for the feedback, guys. I had a weird dream, and this was what came of it. I'll look at the wording again, and maybe see if there's a way that I can make the tense switch a little less....tense? :P

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Reading Excuses / June 6- dark_prophecy- As a Man Does
« on: June 08, 2010, 06:52:20 AM »
Sorry this is up so late :D

I work nights, so I sleep during the day, and I was super busy before I went to bed this morning and didn't get everything done that I wanted to. Evidently posting this thread was part of that everything.  :-\

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