Author Topic: Sept 7-Frog-DR-Chp 7&8, Alt 1  (Read 1470 times)

Frog

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Sept 7-Frog-DR-Chp 7&8, Alt 1
« on: September 07, 2009, 05:30:42 PM »
Comments here.

Question on new first chp:
1. Did it hook you/interest you any better or worse than the original first chp (Aishia receiving her prophecy)?
2. Do you think the added background relieves some of the confusion necessarily or just spoils the mystery?
3. If I keep this chp, I could fairly easily combine plot points and get rid of the first Raven chp (Chp 4). Do you want them both, or prefer one to the other?

Yeah, basically, do you like this new chp and want it included in the book?
« Last Edit: September 07, 2009, 07:16:19 PM by Frog »
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Recovering_Cynic

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Re: Sept 7-Frog-DR-Chp 7&8, Alt 1
« Reply #1 on: September 08, 2009, 10:58:28 PM »
I liked the new chapter one, although I am somewhat confused about how it links in to the story.  In a later chapter it appears that Raven and Mordin are boyfrieng/girlfriend, while here they appear to barely know each other.  Also, Mordin appears to be just fine in the later chapters.  If there is something weird or bizarre going on with him after his encounter with the genie, then you need to forshadow it better, or hint at it when we see him later.  Also, is this the same genie?  It had better be... I mean, it's not like you find a genie every time you kick over a rock, right?  Or is the serving girl Aishia?  I don't think she is, but she's the only one with a genie that has been mentioned so far.

I havn't read the other two chapters yet.  I'll be doing that in a bit.
this is the way the world ends,
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Recovering_Cynic

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Re: Sept 7-Frog-DR-Chp 7&8, Alt 1
« Reply #2 on: September 08, 2009, 11:27:57 PM »
Thoughts while reading ch. 7 and 8

Kylta really is a flat character.  She didn't tell on the two girls for spying, but she is still mean to Aishia for no apparent reason.  She's not a teacher's pet, she's not a snob that I can tell, she's just mean.  Why?


Love the genie!  The snarkiness after she first wakes up is great :)


I'm somewhat confused... they are working in the kitchen.  Are they servants?  Who are they serving?  I thought they were the students.  Are they students serving other students?  I guess I'm wondering who gets to be waited upon here.  It could use some explanation.


Okay... so they are getting a lesson while out pulling weeds.  Interesting setting.  Aren't they like getting sunburnt?  This seemed like a pretty randomly thrown in visit, or were they just out strolling the grounds and lecturing the students as they passed?


Yay! for hints that Mordin is acting weird :)  Boo for the Genie not knowing anything about him.


Overall impression: interesting chapters with some plot advancement, but I felt like it was not enough.  I mean, we're now 8+ chapters into the story and we really don't know anything about anything other than the fact that there are some rumors of a demon, a genie who escaped, a genie who is snarky and confused, and a girl who wants adventures.  I just don't feel like we've made it to the real plot yet, and it feels like we should already.  The addition of the new chapter does help a lot though.  Mordin is a much more interesting character now, but I'm not sure if he is meant to be sinister or heroic.  You say that he broods, but that could go either way.

To sum it up, your writing is very good, but I'm worried about the story's pacing.  It seems that by now, it should be further along, but then I haven't read too much YA stuff lately so I might be off.  If I am, feel free to throw rotten tomatoes, squishy potatoes, and whatnot at me, and discard my comments :)

this is the way the world ends,
not with a bang, but a whimper
~T.S. Eliot

RavenstarRHJF

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Re: Sept 7-Frog-DR-Chp 7&8, Alt 1
« Reply #3 on: September 09, 2009, 03:58:42 AM »
Thoughts about Alternate Ch. 1:  It's very well done!  Perhaps I'm reading to much into it, but I think I know exactly what happened with Mordin and the Genie... ;)  I'm interested to see how it turns out.  Seems that with something like that, though, it might work better as a prologue.  I know you've already got one, but...

About chapters 7 and 8:
I agree that we need more explanation of the action.  I can't remember if the idea of working for her keep was introduced when Aisha first got there, but that would be a great place to introduce the concept if you didn't.  But we still need additional information on the type of work they're expected to do, even something as brief as "in the afternoon, they were turned over to the gardeners to pull weeds," or something.

Also, I wasn't quite sure what was happening with Raven and going to the tavern until I read through it again and caught the brief reference to a "rest day."  It would help to know that the rest day was coming up soon- remember that Aishia doesn't know most of what's going on... and the readers don't either!  This is an entirely different environment for her- have her ask questions!

Overall, good continuation.  I don't think the pace is too slow- we're still learning about your world right along with Aishia, and only a couple of days have passed chronologically.  Plus you introduced a lot of plot in this installment, so I look forward to it speeding up soon.
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ryos

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Re: Sept 7-Frog-DR-Chp 7&8, Alt 1
« Reply #4 on: September 09, 2009, 04:28:37 AM »
Cripes, Frog. You just had to name your protagonist Aishia, didn't you? Now I'll get that song in my head whenever I read one of your submissions.

Ok. Ancient viral videos aside, I do think the alternate chapter 1 is livelier and more interesting, and probably a better choice. The trouble is, it either needs more material or a transition, because going from that straight to Aishia would be a bit jarring.

Actually, the jump from this to what is currently Raven/Mordin's first appearance would be even more jarring without more of a transition. Something, at least, to denote the passage of time. It occurs to me that this could work as a prologue. I didn't really like your current prologue anyway—it was a bit vague and hard to get into, and as it stands it isn't really adding much to the story.

Of course, it's hard to tell if I would think the same way if I had read the alternate chapter one with fresh eyes—i.e. without the prior knowledge granted by reading the rest of what you've submitted.

On your writing: it's generally quite good; you do characterization well, and your prose generally gets out of the way (though you do have a tendency to use the wrong words for things at times. One example I remember is having Illian grab the "helm" of her sword. Swords have hilts; heads have helms. Also, as has become obligatory for my critiques, I feel to mention the need for a good copyedit). Your dialog is a bit flat, though, and I don't have a good sense of any of your settings. Work on being a bit more descriptive so we can form a better mental picture of what is happening.

On the current setup: please don't turn this into "Harry Potter with girls". Also, I feel like Aishia's parents should have put up more of a fuss. Nobody in this land seems to trust this odd foreign Bearer, so I feel like her parents would have been rather less accepting of her running off with her.

On your world: interesting, if a bit of a mongrel. I get the impression you want to include everything from everywhere, which is not the approach I would have taken, and at at times I feel the many different mythologies you're pulling together clash too much. But! If you feel you can pull it off then have at it. Also: I hate elves. Thhhhbbbt.  :P

At this point I feel it's quite obvious that Aishia will become that loner goddess's Bearer. I hope to be proven wrong.

This random lump of critique brought to you by the Association for Random Useless Lumps of Critique, of which I am a founding member.
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Hamster

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Re: Sept 7-Frog-DR-Chp 7&8, Alt 1
« Reply #5 on: September 09, 2009, 04:47:29 AM »
Sorry for not really critiquing anything lately, I've gotten into a rut of reading everything, but forgetting to comment on things, while in my head I think I did comment.  :P

Overall, I would say you need some more action. I know that you think action scenes aren't your forte, but you don't need a big fight or anything, just some kind of action, rather than a whole bunch of chapters in a row filled mostly with dialogue and infodumping/worldbuilding. I'm sad to say that I'm slowly losing interest. I still like Aisha's character, and the dialogue between her and the genie is awesome, really well done and my favourite part of each chapter so far. The rest of the dialogue isn't as great...  I agree with Cynic in that I feel like the plot needs to be farther along, talk about the pot calling the kettle black though...even though, I still want something to happen.

Oh, go with the Alt. Chapter 1, it works quite well and will give the readers satisfaction when they make the connection from chapter 1 to chapter 8, and has a nice cliffhanger. But I agree with Raven here, because of the big difference of setting and characters from the new chapter 1 to chapter 2, it might work better as a prologue. For flow's sake. But either way, more memorable and interesting that the other first chapter. Keep the alternate.

Sorry to sound harsh Frog, I do like your story, and the writing is pretty good, I'm just getting a little bored with the way things are progressing. But I do like where the plot is promising to go, it seems to brim with potential awesomeness and interesting stuff, so I look forward to where it's going.


Recovering_Cynic

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Re: Sept 7-Frog-DR-Chp 7&8, Alt 1
« Reply #6 on: September 09, 2009, 05:42:45 AM »
I second Hamster.  I just re-read my critique and it was a bit too harsh.  The writing is very good, it just needs some spice, which is easy to fix.  I believe in you froggie ;) and, yes, I meant that.  I was not being cynical :)
this is the way the world ends,
not with a bang, but a whimper
~T.S. Eliot

Frog

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Re: Sept 7-Frog-DR-Chp 7&8, Alt 1
« Reply #7 on: September 09, 2009, 06:17:14 AM »
Wow, hello everyone. You step away from the comp for a few minutes.... ;D

Thank you everyone so much for reading. I have to say that I was a little worried about losing a lot of the boys with this piece, as I am terrible about the action/suspense/detail/yeah, basically everything non character related, though I am working on it and am glad that so many of you stuck it out so far to give me all this great advice. I also was worried that with these sections the plot (as far as the genie goes) would be so obvious that you would spend the rest of the book calling my characters stupid for not figuring it out sooner, which is why I took out chp 1 in the first place. I guess we will have to see if that is the case w/e we continue on.... Whenever I am done burning the book and hiding figuring out how to pick up the pace and address a few more of your concerns.

And ryos, don't worry they all hate you too. :P

« Last Edit: September 09, 2009, 03:21:35 PM by Frog »
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Silk

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Re: Sept 7-Frog-DR-Chp 7&8, Alt 1
« Reply #8 on: September 20, 2009, 05:01:09 AM »
Raven's meeting her sister at the tavern, and I'm a bit confused. I thought that Raven was rather far away from home.

The conversation between Mordin and Raven here is making Raven sound manipulative, ("you know those Sabrain women. They do what they're told") which is a little bit unsavory. That's fine if that's what you're going for.

I didn't really have much to say to the latest two chapters, except keep going.

I think the alternative chapter you sent here should definitely be included. It has a lot of good information and gives me a greater sense of where the story is going. It does do a few things, however:

Especially if it's a first chapter, it makes Mordin seem much more important. I don't know if you're intending on returning to his POV, but readers may wonder if they read about prince Mordin and then never come back to him. As it is it would be at least another six or seven chapters before they got another POV from him. It would also mean starting your first chapter with a character who is not as likeable as Aishia. I don't really think that's a problem, but it is worth mentioning. Originally I was going to suggest maybe including this as a chapter two or something; I see now that this would be impossible.

As to whether or not you remove your current chapter 4 in its favour... well, that depends. I kind of like seeing Raven get thrown into the school thingy, but with the Mordin chapter thrown in it doesn't present a whole lot of information. If you're torn on whether or not to include it, I'd consider this: How important is Raven going to be as (again) a point of view character? If you're planning on coming back to her often than you may want to keep it in there. If not, you may want to think of removing it; you don't want a whole lot of superfluous POVs. Also worth considering--and keep in mind that I'm no expert on the genre--is that you said that this is a YA novel and generally they seem to prefer fewer points of view characters in their stories.

Recovering Cynic brought up some concerns about the new Chapter One, and because groups like this wouldn't be fun without some sort of dissent, I'm going to go ahead and disagree with every one of them:

"...here they appear to barely know each other.  Also, Mordin appears to be just fine in the later chapters."

You've indicated that some deal of time has passed since the first chapter (the wedding) and Mordin's appearance in the most recent chapters. Time enough for the two of them to get to know each other and become a "thing", certainly, and possibly time enough for Mordin to get over/cover up whatever might have been going on with him after his encounter with the genie. IF there was something there, of course. And it would depend on exactly what it was, bla blah blah. But. Not necessarily a problem.

It never even occured to me that the genie would be a different genie, which--not that I was particularly bored before--makes your story much more interesting to me. Also, I don't see why there has to be a connection to Aishia at all in the new first chapter; obviously it would happen before she found the bottle, and before she had anything to do with either Raven or Mordin.

I was also a bit thrown off by them suddenly washing dishes, and confused by them going to the tavern (not just because of the distance that I thought was involved) until I caught the "rest day" reference.

The pacing didn't really bug me while I was reading it--of course the staggered way we reawd submissions probably had something to do with it--but now that it's been mentioned I think I agree.

Frog

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Re: Sept 7-Frog-DR-Chp 7&8, Alt 1
« Reply #9 on: September 20, 2009, 06:22:33 AM »
Thanks Silk. I have pretty much decided to hold off on deciding about Raven's POV until I finish the book for a lot of the same reasons you mention, mostly me trying to keep down the POVs. I know there are at least three more places I would like to use her, but it could end up being more of an hassle than it is worth. But you guys have definitely convinced me to keep the first Mordin chapter in some form or another. :)

And though most of the character concerns are things I wanted and expected, I  decided to reveal a little more at the end of these chps so there is less confusion  about the Djinni and Mordin connection. It just isn't worth trying to delay it further since this is the end of the first section of the book (I have my outline divided into thirds) and I still have people lost on plot. So whenever I submit next, it will probably be some rewrites and me catching you up on whatever changes I make. It probably won't be until I finish drafting the second section so I will have a few more of my facts straight and be able to add more description and look at the pacing (and solve world hunger :P), meaning you will all have a bit more of a break (Yay! :P).

Now for those of you that don't like the plot (which is basically a juiced up and slightly satirical fairytale... with some normal teenage stuff and demons thrown in) there is not much I can do to help you, but at least you officially know what you are getting yourself into... if you didn't before. Your choice whether to read it or not though I love the help from any source. :D
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