Author Topic: PHYLES Chapter one Pt. 1  (Read 2512 times)

maxonennis

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PHYLES Chapter one Pt. 1
« on: December 01, 2008, 09:20:09 AM »
Okay, I don't think I emailed everyone, so if you didn't get an email and one one, please let me know.

Anyway, let 'er rip.
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Reaves

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Re: PHYLES Chapter one Pt. 1
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2008, 11:32:19 PM »
Wow thats kinda creepy.

I'd be interested to hear your reasoning behind writing it in first-person.

It seemed kind've short also.

Very interesting magic thus far although I wasn't really sure what the time period was. For some reason I got the idea it was modernish, but that's just me.
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WEKM

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Re: PHYLES Chapter one Pt. 1
« Reply #2 on: December 02, 2008, 09:39:32 AM »
Haven't been able to read it yet as it was send in DOCX format and my pda couldn't open it. Have it converted now and will read it today.

Silk

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Re: PHYLES Chapter one Pt. 1
« Reply #3 on: December 03, 2008, 11:39:43 PM »
I forgot to stick a no .docx files request in the Rules of Reading Excuses thread. It's there now.

Doesn't seem to have been a whole lot of discussion on this one, so I'll just post my comments wholesale. Oh, now that Reaves mentions it, he's right, I didn't know what the setting was either. Actually, I had the opposite assumption, that it was a somewhat more medieval society (though that may just because it's what I'm used to reading) though words like dining room and whatnot do seem to give it a more modern feel. (Not that I really think  those kind of words are really a problem. There's a certain amount of Babelfish going on whenever you read something said in a period piece. I wouldn't get too worried about it unless you find it REALLY throws people off, and it didn't me.)

My comments:

I love your first two lines. Very nice.

There’s a lot of reflection within the first page or so. I think it’s all good but I wonder if it would be more effective it could be spread out over some kind of action. It doesn’t have to be anything complicated; just him standing up, or maybe looking at the box with the knife in it, or whatever. It’s not until just after the start of the second page that we have any idea what the narrator is doing.

I thought that you were just a little heavy on the descriptive details. Every now and then you throw in adjectives that I don’t think we really need, because we already know the character is small, or has dark hair, or what have you, and it’s already clear who you’re talking about.

On page four you make reference to Phyles’s hemorrhaging cut. I get the impression that she’s been dragging this wound around for a fairly long amount of time. If it was bleeding that badly, is still bleeding that badly, she should at the least be passed out from blood loss by now, and probably dead.

You have a lot of “doing this, character A does that” sentence constructions in this piece. When you’re ready to edit, you might want to go back and look at those, get rid of some of them. It helps a lot to vary the sentence structure of your writing, I think.

So far I’m interested in your characters and your world and think you’re doing a pretty job of setting things up. It would have been nice to come back to the first person narrator and find out what his (her?) connection to all of this is, but it is just the very opening of the piece, so for the moment, I’ll trust the author and assume that it’s coming later. I do think that we should start getting hints, at least, fairly soon.

jjb

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Re: PHYLES Chapter one Pt. 1
« Reply #4 on: December 04, 2008, 03:59:31 AM »
Yes, I second the motion that you send it again as a .doc file.

maxonennis

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Re: PHYLES Chapter one Pt. 1
« Reply #5 on: December 04, 2008, 04:08:51 AM »
The next few submissions might be a bit sloppy. Hopefully I will have corrected all my consistency errors, I had a few in this first chapter which is probably why, Raethe, you didn't get the "I"=Bloyhia. When I plotted out the story, I had planned to start with Phyles at the door and move on, but after a while a better ending came to me which meant I had to start it in first person and have the reader follow the story with the narrator as he watches it happen. Also, originally it was meant to be written in third person cinematic--I over use internal dialog, and it was an attempt to wing me off of it as a crutch--but I wrote the first seven chapters in third person limited so that I could get a feel of the characters, knowing that in the stories final form I would have to show the characters through sensory descriptions rather than being able to jump into their head. Around chapter eight I started the third person cinematic format, and am slowly changing the limited into a cohesive story.

@ Reaves, the story is taking place within a city state, on an island, in a "Victorian-like" setting.
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Maxonennis’ soliloquy on Frog relations: “How can I bake the hall in the candle of her brain?”

jjb

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Re: PHYLES Chapter one Pt. 1
« Reply #6 on: December 04, 2008, 05:28:36 AM »
You said the only part of the body the Shaman had uncovered was his eyes, yet she could see the scars on his arms. Or did he pull back his sleeves before he cut into his arms?

"The Shaman shrugged as he rolled back the sleeve on his right arm. “Most people don’t like to watch because they don’t understand that the wielder in most harmed by the blade.” Bloyhia says causally. Phyles’ eyes grow wide. Her eyes follow the blood stained knife as Bloyhia closes his eyes and gently presses the curved blade to his pocked arms. This causes her gaze to transfer to the deep, twisting maze of ravine-like scars in his flesh."

I thought Phyle had seen this many times before, so why did her eyes grow wide?

Right now I don't feel like I know anything about the characters' personality. That could be intentional, something you will focus on in later chapters.


And I got a medieval impression as well.

Silk

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Re: PHYLES Chapter one Pt. 1
« Reply #7 on: December 04, 2008, 06:26:27 AM »
I did wonder, actually, if the first person narrator was the same shaman we saw later in the chapter. I think it seemed to me that the first person narrator was watching the rest of this story unfold somehow (which I guess he is, in memory) and that's why it seemed to me that the first person and third person narrators were different people.

maxonennis

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Re: PHYLES Chapter one Pt. 1
« Reply #8 on: December 04, 2008, 05:05:57 PM »
You said the only part of the body the Shaman had uncovered was his eyes, yet she could see the scars on his arms. Or did he pull back his sleeves before he cut into his arms?

"The Shaman shrugged as he rolled back the sleeve on his right arm. “Most people don’t like to watch because they don’t understand that the wielder in most harmed by the blade.” Bloyhia says causally. Phyles’ eyes grow wide. Her eyes follow the blood stained knife as Bloyhia closes his eyes and gently presses the curved blade to his pocked arms. This causes her gaze to transfer to the deep, twisting maze of ravine-like scars in his flesh."

I thought Phyle had seen this many times before, so why did her eyes grow wide?

Right now I don't feel like I know anything about the characters' personality. That could be intentional, something you will focus on in later chapters.


And I got a medieval impression as well.

What he said shocked her, not what he was doing, although she does get a little sick to her stomach. By the way, why it shocked her is a big RAFO.
"Don't argue with ignorance. And when you argue with me, that's all you get!" Mike

Maxonennis’ soliloquy on Frog relations: “How can I bake the hall in the candle of her brain?”

wcarter4

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Re: PHYLES Chapter one Pt. 1
« Reply #9 on: December 05, 2008, 12:59:07 AM »
Your writing style actually reminds me of Ian Fleming's. First person simple-sentence structure works here, it kind of panned back into third limited towards the end though I'm not sure if that was intentional or not. My biggest complaint is that you have too many short sentences at the beginning. Too many stops interrupts the flow, but you balance it out  between short and long much better by third page on.
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Hayley

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Re: PHYLES Chapter one Pt. 1
« Reply #10 on: December 05, 2008, 02:45:07 AM »
Argh!

Cliffhangers!!!!


Does he die? Doesn't he die?

I like the way you've built the character up to be someone who's minimalistic, and yet his relationship with Phyles seems more.... un-minimalistic than most other things in his life.

Your writing flows really nicely, and find the first person easy to read.

Waiting for more :)
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Manyang

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Re: PHYLES Chapter one Pt. 1
« Reply #11 on: December 15, 2008, 12:14:52 PM »
I like the way you’ve paired the two main characters so far. They are clearly distinguishable and their relationship looks as though it will provide ample conflict. The magicsystem has a clear cost associated with it, which is good, and I like the implementation.
I didn’t really get the switch from first to third person. I guess you need it later on but based on this part alone I think starting with Phyles would work better. Perhaps the switch can be made clearer by isolating the first-person part in a prologue.

“The frozen illuminator cast down thanks of this worship in the form of light, not quite blue not quit white.”
This sentence was very hard to read. I think there’s a typo or a period (,) missing in there.

“The fire crackles in soft protest,”
What is it protesting against?

You seem to use setting consistently where I would expect sitting.

Phyles leaves the alley twice. (Alley, not ally)

As Phyles enters the cottage you literally switch from past to present and back every other sentence.

I thought the shaman who was introduced in first person was seeing Phyles in a vision only to find out she visits him in that vision and then we see him in third person, within his own vision it seems.








Karl

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Re: PHYLES Chapter one Pt. 1
« Reply #12 on: December 19, 2008, 07:44:29 AM »
Oddly enough, it felt Victorian to me.

Having said that, then I would expect Phyles to be wearing stockings and high-ankled shoes.

I think I have a problem with the way you use the word 'hemorrhage.' I know what you meant, but I don't think that is a word usually used to describe a bleeding wound. When I hear hemorrhage, I think of something bursting, not cut or punctured.

Now since you start off in first person I would have expected the man to give the proper name for the 'Shaman's knife.' But instead you have him utter that phrase that makes him sound no more knowledgeable than 'anyone who looked upon it'.

Wiccans and neo-pagans would use the term athamé for their consacrated knife. In the Scottish tradition it would be  a yag-dirk and in Saxon it would be a seax. Yeah, I had to look that up in Buckland's Complete Guide to Witchcraft (warned y'all I do a lot of research!). Now I'm not saying you have to use any one of these terms. But if this fellow is supposed be just outside of normal society, he could use some terminology that also places him further away from that society.

I also balked at your use of 'lovingly' to describe how he looked at his knife. He can have that sort of affection for it, but I think there's a better word or turn of phrase out there.

This may just be my personal opinion, but I think describing someone using the phrases 'eyes that [sit] too close' or  'raven hair' can be a bit cliche. I guess I've heard those phrases used before, and it might be nice to hear something new that says the same thing.

Sorry I was lagging on getting this critique done -- it was my last from the first wave. And like I've told others, I wouldn't be this critical if I wasn't intrigued! I look forward to seeing where this goes from here.
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