Timewaster's Guide Archive

Chapter 2 of Heartglass is done (and yes, the prologue been moved to chapter 1 due to popular critique). I am including chapter 1 in this submission because there is a lot of new blood since I published it, and they're both pretty short. There are some small changes from the old version, but nothing game-changing--just little tweaks that I figured out while I was choking on chapter 2. Please be brutal. I'll honestly say that I'm a little disappointed with it; it's missing something, but I have no clue what, so if anyone has suggestions, I'm open to them.

Summary:

Chapter 1: James, recently stuck in a prison mining world for theft, ends up in a meeting with a very important prisoner. The result of that meeting left him with a priceless piece of Heartglass, which he made a living "acquiring" when he was free.

Chapter 2: What you're going to read now.

Thanks

And here's a thread. Yay.

Thanks in advance to anyone who tortured themselves to read something of mine. I appreciate all feedback.

Guess I'll start this one off.

First, I like this chapter a lot better than the one with Jin. There's a lot more going on (and I'm a sucker for action). Also, I get a better feel for Anaiah as a character.

Covered in the shroud of darkness, the Red Beast was a massive swirling God like the Three, or Skyfire gods as they called them here. Rings encircled the Red Beast, and smaller spheres circled the Beast. According to stories, those spheres were where the Darken lived.

I'm a little confused by the Red Beast. Is it a celestial occurrence, a heavenly body, a natural weather phenomenon...? I doubt that Anaiah understands what it is, but the description isn't enough to let me understand, either. Also, the sentence itself confuses me: "massive swirling God like the Three". Huh? What's the Three? Are they the Skyfire gods that you're referring to? What's the massive swirling God, then? I think this needs a bit of rewording and more description.

Reading a little more, it seems like the Three are also the same type of thing as the Beast, but since the Three have never been mentioned before, comparing it to them is confusing.

Torches went up first, then lamps. Anaiah gathered the displays and removed the pieces from their ropes.

The torches and lamps seem to be an indicator that it's time to pack up, but no specific mention is given of that. Something like "Anailah decided that it was time to pack up and set about the task." (I'm sure you can do much better; I'm just giving an example). Right now, I see "Oh, lights. Oh, packing." I understand after reading the rest of your chapter that the Darken are (usually) afraid of lights, and that Anaiah obviously doesn't want to be out if they're prowling around, but it's not immediately apparent.

You mention when she's done that the light had almost vanished, but with the torches and lights, wouldn't there be quite a bit still? Or did all the torch-wielding people leave as well? Or are you referring specifically to the light from the sky?

With the spear she removed a pair of thick, leather wrappings with cuffs for her hands.

How do you remove something with a spear? Did she have to cut bindings? This confused me a little.

“What?” Anaiah stopped to turn around. Her father, pushing the sack behind her, hit her from behind. She stumbled forward.

With a whole stretcher of equipment between them, hoisted by poles, I doubt her father could have run into her. Perhaps you meant that he pushed the stretcher into her? Although, if she turned around, she would have had to drop the poles to do so, which would have grounded them in the sand as he kept moving. Probably would have hurt him a lot more than her.

Why are they heading toward the particular House that they are? Does he know someone in that House, or do they just take shelter in whatever one that's closest? This probably needs a little fleshing out.

Stones rained down from the ramparts around the massive stone building, flying overhead and landing with heavy thuds against against the sands. Flaming arrows followed. Arrows? How much wealth can these Houses have?

How large are these stones? Are we talking boulder-sized, as the thuds indicate? If so, why are these houses so prepared for something that has never happened before? Or do they throw boulders at the other houses for fun and profit?

There it was, a darken.

In the two paragraphs previous to this, you refer to the darken being moved back by the burning arrows. Since this is written from Anaiah's restricted point of view, she has to have seen them in order for the narration to describe them moving back. Or is this her second darken that she's seeing near the House (indicating that "a" needs to be "another", or something). In the next paragraph, she asks herself if there are three, or more. She's seen either one or two, depending on the above, so why does she ask if there are three or more?

Most of these things are really nit-picky, but if I'm reading fast and they catch my eye, I feel obligated to report them, because they break the flow. You have a really good chapter here, with lots of fun stuff happening. Keep it up!

I've started writing again recently, but I'm finding myself in the same predicament that I've always been in: I start writing the scenes that I have very clearly defined in my head (generally scenes of high action), and then have a lot of trouble trying to connect them together. It's not that the scenes are disconnected in the sense of continuity, but that they aren't chronologically together, and writing the connection bores me to no end. I like high action. I suppose if you were to think about making a movie out of a book I was writing, I've already done most of the work that would make it into the screenplay, and never got around to all the stuff that would be cut anyway.

So on with the question. Should I be writing linearly, even if it means I'll have to dog through all of the boring parts to get to the meaty stuff? Or is it better to get the parts I have spinning through my head down on paper, and just learn to write scene transitions better and/or more action-packed?