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Messages - Frog

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31
My biggest problem with this piece is while most of it was technically fine, it felt a little lifeless. Some passiveness and very little emotion. Characters were a bit flat, dialogue was especially awkward and I don't feel any connection to them. Not a lot of tension because you are not explaining the situation at all (nothing to anticipate which you need for any kind of suspense) and your narrative pace seems leisurely. It just felt very glazed over. Cynic is right about needing to show rather than tell the interactions using direct quotes.

And when they see the guy in the tower, they just attack. I don't even see a lot of provocation besides that he is obviously trespassing. I mean, some explanation/motivation/tension and a lot of other things could easily be accomplished just by letting them shout at each other for awhile. Show me why what he is doing is so important.

You do need to tell us who Aliese's father is for any of her transitional thoughts and connection to him to make since. She may not think of him by name, but you might be able to work in his position. Or if he knows he is about to die, it would make since that he would think of his family and her by name.

So, while there are improvements here, my overall critique is going to be exactly the same as last time. World is fine, now show me why I should care. :P

Good luck.

32
Reading Excuses / Re: Progress and Submission Reports
« on: December 24, 2009, 05:54:54 AM »
I hope it would pass the Frog test.
There's a Frog test? Awesome. I like any test I don't personally have to take.

Personally, I prefer revising to drafting. I hate staring at blank pages and am a compulsive editor. This becomes a problem as I haven't yet got to a point where I felt I could, you know, actually stop revising, but yeah, at least I am having fun... kinda. ::)


33
Rants and Stuff / Re: comment for charity!
« on: December 24, 2009, 02:20:06 AM »
I love that blog...

34
This makes me sad. I am all for the honest critique, but if you are feeling more discouraged than helped, then maybe there is something that needs to change within the group. I, for one, never wanted to make you feel like you shouldn't even finish.  :-\

35
Movies and TV / Re: AVATAR
« on: December 22, 2009, 12:28:53 AM »
I just saw it. I went with my sister who had already seen it. We have similar tastes so I was ready to love it too, and there were tons of things I liked, but I ended up having a lot of mixed feelings about it. To avoid spoilers I'll just say that while there were many things I liked, I doubt this will be a movie I would want to buy or see too many times after this.

Maybe it was just too cool for me.  :-\

36
Outside of few added details I am not seeing many differences in this and the original chapter, so I really don't have much more to say. One thing I will say though about your writing in general is that you seem to like to make fairly narrow characters for comedic effect. I have done the same and if you wanted to join the dark side and write YA with me, I'd say you were right on the money, but I am not sure how much you can get away with that in the adult market. So yeah, need more layers to this character to make him believable.

One potential source of conflict I would personally love to see you exploit is in that you have a less morally minded character that may be influenced by a 'good' deity and his exact opposite in Baltier. So yeah, it might be fun if you brought that out as they are eventually (hopefully) pit against each other.

37
Better than last time certainly.

I think though that if I were reading this for the first time I would need some reference in the beginning on who Aedan is. I mean, we see him jerking generals/magi around and doing the typical evil overlord thing, but still might give us a bit more from the get-go. You tell us a lot about his underlings here (probably too much in all his musings about Lenalt and the magi chick), but I really don't feel I know much more about Aedan other than that he is the evil overlord with people to enslave and underlings to push around. I need more character from him and some more tension. It all seemed rather glossed over and leisurely at this point.

LTU already got you with more troop information than I personally would worry about, so I won't get into any of that... Oh, and Magi has some biblical/religious conotation along with the mystical. Is that the effect you want?

Yeah, I think that was all I was noticing outside of my line edits. Good work. :)

38
Reading Excuses / Re: Nov. 9 - Frog - DR - Chp 1&6 Rewrite
« on: December 17, 2009, 02:16:41 AM »
Thanks Silk

Quick question. The temples are a bit harder to get into (as I should have indicated in some of Jade's dialogue and I will look at that again) but what gave you the impression that they are far away? They really in the same area... maybe 20-30 minute walk total.

I was actually trying to see if I could get rid of Raven's POV all together and use Mordin instead, but it seems to be causing more trouble than it is worth. Long story short, I think Ravenstar is right on the money. I either need to be up front with all that is going on with Mordin and the djinni or just let him be more a background character like I did before using Raven. I am trying it both ways, so you probably won't see anymore of this until I have it all drafted out and make my final decision.

I'll let you know. (whether you want to or not. ;) )

39
Reading Excuses / Re: Dec 14 - Vegetathalas - Godsplay, Chapter Two
« on: December 17, 2009, 01:49:51 AM »
Hmm... seems I shall be the dissenter in the group this time, if only because I have more to say then 'cool.' :P

Thoughts While Reading:
Quote
... was dreadfully, painfully bored.
I'd be careful about using this as your hook line. If the character is that bored, I am ready to be bored too and I don't like being bored. :(

Quote
His fiery throne blazed
This seems redundant. What else would a fiery throne do?

Long paragraphs to dump on character/description...

Quote
Which brought him back...

Did he ever leave it, or did he seriously stop for no apparent reason to think about how handsome he is?

Quote
I was thinking of the day I tore my own eye out.
Why are they talking about this now?

You are telling me far too much about your characters! Especially behavior/personality that can be so much better shown, like this:
Quote
his sister did have a certain kind of cold cunning
If she is cunning, just show me her being cunning.

Overall Impression: Okay, so Sathain is a great character. I did find him and your world building concepts interesting, but I did have a few issues with this chapter.

First, it just feels so random where you put it, after you already introduced Rachell and some of the more immediate conflict.  There is a reason so often theology and the like are used as prologues, it just makes sense to start out broad and than hone in on the specific. This, doesn't make any kind of structural sense at all to have this new character that seems to be at least attempting to pull on all these strings added in as an afterthought, especially since it breaks up the introduction of your MC and the more immediate conflict that you started last chapter.

Another problem is that this chapter seems to be nothing but an infodump. You break for several paragraphs to dump on character/worldbuilding, which you do need occasionally and it was interesting, but in the end it became a problem because nothing new happens here for these two characters. It is just another day in literally thousands and I don't see the immediate significance, the reason for this chapter's existence. I am sure you plan for it to pay off eventually, but I need some of the pay off now or they have no reason to be here yet.

On a more minor scale you need to make sure that the conversations and thoughts of characters are logical for them to have at the present moment. It takes readers out of the story if they are just doing it for our immediate benefit. I think you may be trying to hold our hands a bit too much in some of these description and characterization. I have a full novel to get to know everything well enough, so don't push it all on me at once. If you do, you'll wreck your pacing and I doubt most readers would remember it anyway. :P

One thing I noticed in your overall writing is that your summaries in the emails tend to be lot clearer to me than your chapters. I think that this may be because you have them so bogged down or maybe the plot points are just clearer now in your own head now that you have the full book in front of you. Use those to focus your writing, cutting out what we don't need and bringing out the more important/unique things that you will need us to remember.

Alright, sorry for all the rambling. I did like the character and it does make me a bit more excited for your world in general. I will look forward to reading the full book assuming I am one of the lucky few to receive it this week. :)


40
Reading Excuses / Re: Progress and Submission Reports
« on: December 10, 2009, 06:19:14 PM »
It was pretty much straight dialogue.
Yay! That sounds like my first drafts. :)

41
Reading Excuses / Re: Progress and Submission Reports
« on: December 09, 2009, 07:49:28 PM »
I wouldn't personally see that as an issue at this point. She hasn't submitted all that much yet... So I guess it all depends on how she wants to do it. One section at a time, or all in one go to those who want it.

42
Reading Excuses / Re: Dec7 -- Godsplay -- Chapter One -- Vegetathalas
« on: December 09, 2009, 07:31:01 PM »
Well, I never heard from you if you were able to see the editing tool/comments after the troubles over your last submit, so I shall try to be more specific here. If you figured it out and want the line edits just let me know.

Thoughts while Reading:
I love the image of the trees growing in the ruins. I think that is a great way to show the progress of time w/o directly addressing the reader. At the same time I worry about putting so much of this at the beginning of the novel. It is... intimating? It makes me think this will be a very formal read and a larger time commitment which is only a bad thing because your  characters are more down to earth and your plot hasn't hasn't struck me as overly complicated (yet), seeming to contradict this. As we go on, a lot of your descriptions, though good, even strikes me as poorly veiled infodumps that I don't think you've earned it quite yet. And yes, there are a lot of 'likes.' So great images, but I would cut through them for maximum awesomeness.

Even in modern terms I wouldn't put Rachell at 17 personally based on this beginning section. 14, maybe 15.

There are a few actions here that you tell after the fact where you could easily just show the action. Pushing Mel into the dung heap, her skirt getting caught, and others.

Who is Thaya and who are the twins? It seems strange you would drop all these references w/o any sort of qualifier unless you introduced them earlier when I wasn't looking.

Umm... it seems odd that she would suddenly declare that she wouldn't kiss him. I mean, I know that is where her thoughts were at, but it wasn't any part of their conversation until now, so it either needs some type of dialogue transition or an immediate "what the heck?" kind of response from Mel. In fact, what it looks like is that you inserted those two lines (her declaration and his response) into a preexisting conversation without fixing the flow as the next line has to do with what she said before about the moss. And though I love playful, non trashy romance, this does strike me as a bit heavy for so early in the game.

His son was disinherited for marrying a human? Then who did Cien marry? I was under the impression that after all the death doom and destruction he would have been hard pressed to find someone suitable as well.

I wasn't aware that kittens could blink all that fast since they are born with their eyes closed.

And now she is gushing over Ravke. Are you wanting to characterize her as completely boy crazy?

This is like the third time in this section you told us that she is the heir. I got it already.

I'd lose the parenthesis around the internal thought when the Elv comes in. Unnecessary.

Quote
“Your grandfather should learn that the Twilight People are not his to command,” Baeratia said. “Cien aehl-Darenn is a fool.”
Awkard. Something like:
Quote
“Cien aehl-Darenn is a fool. He should learn that the Twilight People are not his to command,” Baeratia said.
Would work better especially since it is already firmly established that he is the grandfather.

The Elv just strolled up to her completely wounded like that? And then she seems to be fine just as quickly. I would see if you can build more of the tension here.

Ravke and Mel seem to have disappeared though this entire conversation. Where did they go?

Overall Impression:
Some of the descriptions seemed over the top and I rolled my eyes a little over the immediate romance, but I am still reading and looking for the hook. I am interested in the dreams and such, so we are good for the next chp at least.

I am biased about elves. I love them in many different variations (though sorry, no, yours are not the coolest version I have heard of. Mine are. And that is just the way it is going to have to be :P). So no problems there. But since your Elvs seem to be a fairly obvious variation of elves/drow, I would not try to hide it. You would risk losing your creditability as the author as your reader will all catch up with you and figure it out. Same with your Sci-fi roots. Don't try to hide it from me and I am less likely to hold it against you later.

Oh, and since your finished I have a quick suggestion for you. Try printing out your MS and reading it out loud if you can. It was a suggestion of a published author in my live writing group and it is a great way to check for overall voice and flow. Yes, she isn't an epic fantasy writer so she wouldn't have all the pages you would have to sort through, but I have done it for sections of my work and it helps me A LOT.

43
Reading Excuses / Re: Progress and Submission Reports
« on: December 09, 2009, 05:45:22 PM »
Oh, pick me, pick me! I love beta reading. :)

Congrats, Veggi. :)

44
You seem to be going in the right direction. I have no major complaints. Jagoth is a bit easier to take in this time and I am interested in his obvious inner struggle. I have a few line edits, but that is about it.
Good work, and good luck. Keep them coming.

45
Reading Excuses / Re: Dec 7th - The Sword of Worlds - CH 18 - Ellie
« on: December 08, 2009, 11:08:07 PM »
Lots of line edits on this one. You seem to be favoring passive voice, some run-ons and you are over doing the 'one sentence paragraphs' to the point where it isn't dramatic anymore. It is annoying. Some of the traveling break bored me (it happens) but I was interested in some of the character interactions and the prisoner at the end. Ellie failed to do anything to completely annoy me, so that's a plus. Anyway, it was a decent continuation. Nothing too bad or good but probably necessary. I'll send you my line edits.

Good luck. Keep it coming. :)     

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