Timewaster's Guide Archive

One of my friends has a complete collection of the wild cards series, to date – they're ridiculously hard to find anywhere near where I live – and in exchange for letting me read them I've converted him into a fan of Shadows of the Apt, Locke Lamora, and Temaire. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and superior.

I've also been playing tag with bookdepository.com. I told them to notify me the next time they have Mr. Monster in stock at least five times, but by the time I see their notification email, the copy's already sold.

What was that game that showed character hands and feet from first person and the acrobatic female main character? Is would remember, but I never played it. I haven't gotten around to Mass Effect or Bioshock yet either, but they're just after the Knights of the Old Republic games on my list, and I just got them. Yeah, I'm a little behind the times.

You're thinking of Mirror's edge. I hadn't thought of it, but comboing it with steel and iron would be fantastic. i wouldn't even need another metal as long as i could jump on people.

Ha, told you I'd reply quickly. First things first. You don't have a lot of dialogue for the first half of the chapter/part. I know a lot what's going on doesn't need words, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't put a little talking in here and there for punctuation. You do a pretty good job of describing Karrus's (Karrus' ? I never now how to do 's' ending possesives) actions and fight scenes, but every once and a while you throw in a flowery description in the middle of the action and it throws off the rhythm. I did like that despite Karrus's training as a soldier, his lack of arms makes him a considerably less competent fighter. I also enjoyed the howlers' feeding habits.

On that note, you might want to work a little on your headers. I do like that you divide all your sections up into neat little chunks, but the descriptors could be improved upon. "Things that howl" comes off as awkward, and as a copy-writer/journalist I cringe a little when I see a question mark in a headline. That said, the section heads shouldn't be a priority until way later in the game. Even if a couple sound off now and then, your time's better served on the prose. The fact that you're even bothering says a lot – I'm not even going to try giving my chapters headlines until the book's done.

Going into the first few pages of a story, it's hard to judge on the age level/tone the writer is going for, but I thought I had you pegged – until Karrus dropped a few F bombs. Now, I have no problem with that, and you can probably expect an ample amount of language to pop up in my writing soon, but it seemed to jar with the tone you set in the first few chapters. If stars are falling and armies are dying, I expect there to be swearing long before someone mentions travel plans. And I know you fit in a bit of swearing before that, but I guess I just make a distinction between saying "bugger off" and f***.

We also see our first POV from Akara, and I think it wouldn't hurt to hear it sooner, maybe as they make their way into the city. What are her thoughts on last night? What are her motives, besides following Karrus around? What does he even mean to her? You haven't put in a full description of Karrus yet, unless I missed something, so it would be perfect if we could see how he looks through her eyes. Some of that depends on how many more POV's you plan on using. If it's just the two of them, she should get her own spot sooner. If there will be a lot of viewpoints you can probably get away with putting her off.

You turned  mundane warfare and intrigue intro something more sinister pretty quickly, so I'm excited to see where this goes.

Chapter 1 of 'Fathers of Gods.' Before the main chapter there's a short introduction – about 600 words – from the character Feeder. I've gotten mixed reviews/advice on his voice so I'm looking forward to hear what you all think.

Father's of Gods, Chapter 1 and Feeder Intro

2650 words.


Overall summary

Every year less than a hundred Polaesi are born, and when they turn eighteen they can bend reality to their will and are worshiped as gods – but when they turn nineteen they die. Now one Polaesi has broken the cycle and can live past his appointed time. While attempting to survive a budding war with a rival religion, he must also fight against jealousy and ambition within his own sect.

Chapter summary.

Cumo, now eighteen, has just a awakened to godhood but hasn't manifested a shri yet. The only sure way to force it out of him is sex or torture, so he's been assigned to sleep with Aela, a girl with a similar problem – who also happens to be his best friend's lover.

I'm hoping to get a chapter out every other week so feel free to digitally slap me into action if I don't.

p.s. lethalfalcon, my email was acting funky the other night, so I'm not sure if you ever got my reply, but the new edits worked fine. Thanks!

Ah wow I had forgotten how good the originals were. I sold my gba a while back, though. Might need to emula – er, buy it back again. I was always sad they left it at two games, looking forward to this now.

I guess "bad" was the wrong word to use. I guess I'm just thinking of the generic "teen fights evil while dealing with high school" sort of story. So maybe more cheesy than bad? I'll probably just take Ruthie's advice and ask a librarian.

And yes, I can see myself failing spectacularly at this, so I plan on spending a lot time researching books where something similar is pulled off. I haven't decided if I should put in a big reveal at the end, or just slowly let the reader figure things out as the MC becomes more and more crazy. What do you guys think?

I've had an idea for a short story, about a kid who thinks he's fighting evil in highschool, and believes his classmates are secretly vampires, witches etc.. but is in fact just crazy and murdering everyone in his class. I'll add a disclaimer that this is exactly what
I thought I Am Not a Serial Killer was about when I first heard of it. I'm happy it wasn't, but now that I have the idea I want to write the story myself.

I'm not sure if it's been done before – let me know if it has – but I'm really hoping to nail the voice that those kinds of novels would use; that is, the kind of story my killer imagines himself to be in. Not having read much YA for a while now, and certainly not bad YA, I was wondering if anyone could recommend a story or two that I can model after – and no twilight. That's one voice I'll never want to model.

Thanks!