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Messages - Miang

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Alright. First off I liked the characterizations very much. I thought that Hamaline, Dala and Guli came off very well. Your dialogue seems pretty fluid to me, and flows well enough with each character having their own style and cadence. At the beginning of the submission I thought some of the descriptions could use a little tightening up in form. I can't point to any one sentence per se but the first few paragraphs feel a bit choppy, almost like you weren't quite sure how to get across what you wanted and make it flow. I think that if you interspersed the descriptions of your characters with their actions at the beginning it might help some. You also might want to go back through and check your grammar. I noticed a couple of sentences that have tense issues. I didn't go through and mark them but if you want me to send me a message and I'll see about making some notes in the file to send back to you.

On a side note, I've been out of touch for a bit. Is there any way I can get you to send me the other submissions? I'd like to read them. You've piqued my curiosity.

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Reading Excuses / Re: Aug 31st - Chaos - Rebirth, Prologue
« on: September 05, 2009, 07:52:10 AM »
I think the concepts here are fascinating. I want to see more of the world and setting. That being said, Haiden did not draw me in as a character. I don’t entirely follow his motives in this. Was it personal? Anti-religious? Was he truly after justice for the killed? Nerida says something about this making him one of the richest men in the land and I have no idea what she is referring to but it takes away from the sense that he was acting out of noble ideals. Also, in several places it seems to me that Haiden doesn’t like blood and violence. In fact, it seems to me like the very thought of it makes him sick – and yet he is happy to be witness to the execution.
I have a lot of questions about the emperor’s actions but they’ve been brought up by others so I won’t reiterate them. Most I think are going to be explained somehow later in the story anyways; at least that is the feeling I got from this. There’s a lot of vocabulary here that is slightly distracting from the scene. I think the pacing is almost right but the overall needs to be tightened up a bit. I can sense that you have a good, solid world concept but trying to take in the setting, magic and motives of the character here all at once is a bit much.

I'm sorry this is so short right now -- I'm really tired. I'll try to add more specifics tomorrow.

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Reading Excuses / Re: Progress and Submission Reports
« on: August 13, 2009, 09:50:40 AM »
I have a friend who works in that industry who spent some time on it tonight and he couldn't do it with private software. I'd have to find a place and pay. No; I'm afraid not. I'm going to skip some 'fun' plans I had for tomorrow, put off a couple of errands and buckle down to work on it again.

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Reading Excuses / Re: Progress and Submission Reports
« on: August 13, 2009, 08:18:10 AM »
Well....I had an unbelievable technical problem tonight. I  finished my plot summary for Thread of Oblivion and saved it to my jump drive. Something came up where I needed some files off of the jump drive moved onto my laptop. I saved my file and took the drive out. I went to put it into the other machine and the back end came off of it. The chipset slipped out. When I got it back together I stuck it in my laptop the only file that was damaged was my pre-writing file. The whole document was erased. So, basically unless my friend can pull of a miracle and recover the document I will be getting up tomorrow morning and starting all over again. :(  I had a lot of material written too -- over 17000 words. Now I have the bare threads of a six chapter outline left. *sigh* Sorry for the complaints -- I'm just a bit down about it.

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Reading Excuses / Re: August 10, Miang, The Golem in the Town of Glass
« on: August 12, 2009, 08:19:17 PM »
I think lengthening it is probably my best option to explore the character. Brevity is not necessarily one of my strong suits.

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Reading Excuses / Re: August 10, Miang, The Golem in the Town of Glass
« on: August 12, 2009, 06:18:43 PM »
Basically, what I am thinking from what I am getting here is that I simply let this get too short. When I was writing this piece I had a strict 1500 word maximum (it was originally for a writing class) which I still failed to stay under and I had to cut a couple of scenes that helped with some of the motivation/ moral compass issues being raised. Otherwise, the general confusion is exactly what I was concerned about. It could be expanded into a longer story -- maybe not a novel, but perhaps a longer short or a novelette. I have a couple of ideas for how that might work and I'm going to consider them. :) I"m also thinking now that the piece might work better from the first-person rather than third. I think that might allow me to keep the mystery and sense of wonder the golem feels while giving a broader understanding of what is happening and why to the reader. I'm definitely going to explore those possibilities. Everyone has been really helpful. Thank you!

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Reading Excuses / Re: August 10, Miang, The Golem in the Town of Glass
« on: August 11, 2009, 11:31:07 PM »
The code of Hammurabi is a great idea!

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Reading Excuses / Re: August 10 - Blade of the Fallen - Chapter 17
« on: August 11, 2009, 03:01:34 AM »
Ok, it's there now. Thank you!"

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Reading Excuses / Re: August 10 - Blade of the Fallen - Chapter 17
« on: August 11, 2009, 01:15:58 AM »
I didn't receive it either so I think maybe the email didn't go through?

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Reading Excuses / Re: August 10, Miang, The Golem in the Town of Glass
« on: August 10, 2009, 10:06:01 PM »
First off, I did forget to make a topic last night when I sent this out so thank you for that!

You weren't overly harsh by any means. I had concerns about this story, most of them centered on the issues you've raised and you managed to put them in perspective for me really well. I wouldn't mind seeing the notes you said you made :). Thanks for the critique.

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Reading Excuses / Re: Progress and Submission Reports
« on: August 08, 2009, 06:08:33 AM »
Yesterday I started work on a new project I am really loving working on. I'm calling it Thread of Oblivion, although that's a working title and like everything I do it will probably change a zillion times before I'm satisfied its decent. I'm in the earliest pre-writing stages but a lot of the ideas are coming together smoothly in my mind and I'm hoping to be able to start outlining next week. :) It's definitely a project I'm going to work towards submitting. It's a kind of modern epic fantasy hybrid and should be really fun.

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Reading Excuses / Re: Progress and Submission Reports
« on: August 05, 2009, 11:37:31 PM »
Ack!!! Sorry about that.  :o That's what I get for replying to topics when I'm zoned out and exhausted. Thanks, Silk.

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Reading Excuses / Re: Progress and Submission Reports
« on: August 05, 2009, 05:14:29 AM »
I'm working on a lot of projects, several of them collaborations but I have been wanting to submit something since I joined. I have an old short I wrote about two years ago that I'd like some feedback on. It's kind of modern fantasy. It's a little over 1600 words. I called it the Golem in the Town of Glass  but I may change it...I'm not sure yet. Particularity I'm concerned with PoV issues and tense issues on this piece but any advice would be welcomed. I'd like to send it around Monday.

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Reading Excuses / Re: July 27th - Chaos - Oathbound
« on: July 29, 2009, 05:00:42 AM »
I never read your other drafts so I'm coming off of this from just the copy this week. In a way I guess that's bad since I can't give any ideas on progress, but in a way its good too since I have a fresh perspective. Anyway -- here goes.

I liked the overall tone and style. Dark, brooding heroes aren't totally uncommon but I liked the fact that Varesh felt driven to act instead of simply focus his pain inward. I thought it was well focused -- you stayed very well on point and didn't wander like a lot of people tend to do in shorts.

I thought Samira was the weakest of your characters. Her motives are a complete mystery to me. Most women, even if they are unhappy in their marriages, won't go as far as to sleep with someone if it is going to cost them their life either for love, lust or to get their husband's attention. While the fact that she wasn't raped was foreshadowed fairly well in my opinion her thought process doesn't click with me and leaves me wondering if we were missing some other facet that would make her motives more clear.

I think it would strength the story to know if Varesh was work obsessed out of true, fanatical faith or simple personal ambition. Since selfishness is the crux of the story it would help define who he was before his wife's death and give the reader perspective on his inner turmoil.

It might have just been me but I was a little fuzzy on time in a couple of places. How long ago was Samira's death, give or take? Sometimes it seems very fresh, perhaps days while at other times it seems to me that it's been a long time. This is important in figuring out the dynamic between Varesh and Hasaan/Rashne. At one point it is made clear that they weren't associated until after Samira's death but then Varesh describes Hasaan as his "best friend".

Rashne's protectiveness makes sense to me, but I wonder about his willingness to accept Samira's offer. I think it's clear that he feels guilty about doing so, but it seems to be a serious flaw in his divinity although it casts Varesh's anger in a better light. After all, even without rape there is the issue of a god having sex with someone knowing they would have to be killed afterward. Perhaps developing Rashne/Hassan a little more strongly would help sort this out?

There are a few places where the sentence structure and grammar is a bit sticky. In particular look out for overdoing the adjectives. "horrible murderer" "atrocious revenge" "foolish vengeance".

Hope this helps some! :)

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Reading Excuses / Re: June 15, The Junction, Ch. 4 - RavenstarRHJF
« on: June 17, 2009, 04:49:39 AM »
Sure, go ahead and send me the first couple of chapters. :)

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