Timewaster's Guide Archive

Yah, I had no problems with how the older Aes Sedai were portrayed. A hundred years as an Aes Sedai and a hundred years as a blood drinking murderer are entirely different.

People tend to adapt I think, someone who'd lived a few hundred years might not be much different then the guy next door. My favorite is Corwin of Amber, part grandpa and part wise cracking smartass.

I'm shoby187

Good stuff. But it can be better.

Unless you are going for a really short YA and want that as a selling point, I'd think about lengthening both of those first chapters. We really don't get a sense of Nmae's character in the first chapter. You hint at something odd about how she handles fears but its really just confusing if anything.

I think whats missing from the Nmae chapter is that we don't know why she's afraid or of what. If we knew this, there would be a lot more tension in that first chapter.

As for her name, Nmae is kind of hard. Maybe it's just me, but I kept reading it as N'mae and pronouncing it like Nah-may, which is a pretty cool name, imo.

In the second chapter we have a better sense of Jonas's character, but it felt a little rushed. I think this might be ok if you're target audience is younger, like early teens but adults will want more.

Also, after reading Jonas's first chapter I'll probably never take him seriously. Which is fine, if that's what you are going for. I think its because he doesn't seem to take anything seriously.

Good stuff though, but I think it can be a lot better.

When I first started reading the chapter, Tasia mentioned that hell was different then what she'd been taught at church on Kemper st. When I read that I was drawn in, because I thought you were telling us a story about a girl who'd died and gone to hell!

Then I realize that Kemper St. was a street in the city she was in and the whole thing didn't make much sense. Why would a church be telling her that the place she's living in is different then it is?

Anyway, damn I thought that was a cool idea. Can you imagine a story where instead of a D&D like fantasy world, its about what happens to some of those player characters AFTER they die!

LMAO. I can only imagine. Surely a lot of the characters I've game mastered or played over the years have deserved to go to hell when they die.

Maybe hell isn't a place of torture, its just a place that's not heaven. Make sort of sense if you think about in. In the afterlife all of the orderly, law abiding people have built a perfect city, where they work together and live in peace.

But spirits of the dead who didn't live orderly, law abiding lives aren't allowed inside and have to make due in the spiritual wastelands outside of these paradises, hell.

So it took me a while to put how I felt about this chapter into words. The opening line really caught me. I read it and was like: hell yeah, a story about a demon chick living in hell.

But then you failed to deliver.

Let me say right now though that I did enjoy reading the chapter, if I had just picked up this book and started reading it, I would have kept on reading. But I think your first chapter can be a lot stronger.

I've decided what ruined the chapter for me was Tasia picking pockets. You start off the chapter by getting me excited, thinking that this is going to be about a demoness living in hell but the character then goes on to pick someones pocket for bread money in typical overdone fantasy first chapter fashion.

I guess when you mentioned hell in the first paragraph I was expecting hell! Someplace nasty. A place that really sucks to live in. Something a lot worse then just a place where a girl with wings has to steal to eat.

Right now I really don't know what you are going for with the novel. Is this really supposed to be a horrible hell-like city of demons? Or just someplace called hell that really is just a standard fantasy city?

This is just a suggestion, but if it was me and I was going with the whole hell thing, I'd start the chapter off not with Tasia picking someones pocket, I'd start her off a few days earlier, when they hung the skins of the last two that tried to rob the Cult of Lunus . . . or maybe with her standing in the crowd as she watches them peel her friends skin off, etc.

I guess my biggest thing is, if you're going to tell me she's in hell at least make it... unpleasant?

I guess the reason the Night Stalker seems so bad to me is that he didn't seem plagued with tons of mental illnesses or sexual problems like a lot of serial killers. I don't think he was ever actually diagnosed with any mental illnesses at all. He isn't a psychopath, sociopath, schizophrenic,  bi-polar or even a pedophile.

The guy is just an asshole.

He would randomly pick people and just beat them, rape them, kill them and steal their stuff. He wasn't intelligent, charismatic, and didn't have any neighbors that were surprised to find out what he'd done. The guy was just a loser through and through. A serial rapist that beat and killed anyone weaker then him. The times he tried attacking someone under the age of 60 he usually got his ass beat and had to run away. (Except of course for the 16 year old girl he beat with a tire iron for no reason).

And twenty years later this guy is still breathing, living a better life than your average gang banger doing time for a drive by.

Thanks California....

http://weblogs.variety.com/on_the_air/2010/05/nbc-stops-holding-out-for-heroes.html

Ugh. Damn I hate TV. There seriously isn't a single show I watch now.

Thanks for all of the comments so far guys, I'm feeling like I rushed this chapter a bit. Part of me is happy with it, part of me isn't.

Lastly, sword in the stone? Not awesome. I'm with Falcon on that one. Either figure out a way to make it awesome, or figure some other way for Kail to prove himself that is. The entire thing just came too easily. Kail laid the smackdown on a serious opponent without breaking a sweat, and he effortlessly proved himself by pulling a sword from a stone. At no time to we feel that he might be in danger, or that he might fail. It's like cheating at a video game: briefly entertaining but ultimately unfulfilling. You need the character to struggle harder than that for us readers to get that vicarious rush of accomplishment that can make books and video games so addicting.

"The entire thing just came too easily," I think is the problem with this chapter. I was worried about that going into things and I'm trying to find out a way to fix that part of it.

I'm wondering if lengthening this chapter and focusing more on Kail's thoughts might be the key to fixing it. Sort of making it where in his head he's really struggling to defeat Reginn, but to the Trolls it looks like an easy win. Same with the sword.

I want to find a way to make this scene both a challenge for Kail, while at the same time fulfilling Kajsa's oath to the satisfaction of the trolls in the mountain and more importantly, my readers. The problem is that Kail really has to come off looking like more powerful than everyone in that mountain to be considered "greater than all the trolls in the mountain."

The other part of me wonders if I'm looking at this chapter too closely. It's only one chapter, like 3,000 words of the book. Yes, its an easy win for Kail, but he's going to have a lot of nasty trials soon before the book is finished. Then again, its the climax of an important arc for Kajsa, so I want it to be awesome.

I'm wondering if making it more of an internal struggle as Kail tries to figure out what's happening with the glow he's seeings, etc will help solve the problem. That and possible splitting up the chapter in two.

Thoughts?

Second, Kail's decision to shrug off Kajsa's deception was not what I was hoping for. Or, maybe, the way he just accepted it out of hand after a brief moment of anger. It felt like a cop out, because it made the problem just go away. "Well, you just made a lifelong commitment for me without even asking me, but I guess that's alright." Pushover! Love-sick puppy!

I do want to have Kail address that with Kajsa later on, but at the same time I don't want to bog the book down with it. But you make a good point, its something else I need to flesh out a bit in the scene.

I was actually trying to pull a little trick on the readers with the Kail getting angry bit. At the end of the last chapter, Kajsa sees Kail getting frighteningly angry as he finds out she tricked him into marriage. But this is what KAJSA sees, not whats really happening. What's really happening is that Reginn uses Kail's surprise at hearing that bombshell to make Kajsa look like a fool in front of a room of thousands of her kinsmen.
This pisses Kail off.
The anger Kajsa is seeing isn't directed at her, but at Reginn. When he turns his back on her and leaps from the stand, its not to get away from her, its to go kick Reginns ass.

But maybe I didn't pull this off well?

We are left with a lack of conscience, a lack of concern for the welfare of others.  Of course, this might be the point where we learn that Kail is a cold-blooded killer, that killing or maiming others doesn't bother him.  That's not necessarily a bad thing.  Psychopaths--those who can kill without remorse--can be both "good" and "bad".  Some end up criminals, others end up in law enforcement, others as everyday people.  So Kail doesn't have a conscience?  I'm okay with that, but it would be nice if it were telegraphed earlier, a hint at the bit of darkness within.  Otherwise, a flash of conscience during the fight would be nice.

Yeah, I knew I was going to hear it for Kail's sudden brutality. Then again:

Chapter 5:
Then I heard someone hit her, and my heart turned cold. An anger like I’d never felt before overcame me—it felt like I had ice in my veins. The despair I’d been feeling on my way over here, the fear I’d felt as I snuck up to Ellie’s front door disappeared, washed away and replaced by cold determination.
No, not Ellie. I took a few quick steps and lowered my shoulder, throwing all of my weight into the front door.
It didn’t open—it shattered. Pieces of the door were thrown into the room as most of it was torn from the frame, startling the group of men standing over Ellie—who was on the ground. Inside were four men that I assumed were working with the guys that had killed Lance; a fifth man was back in the kitchen, holding a knife that was glowing red-hot.
I raised the desert eagle towards the nearest man, pointing it at his head and was about to tell him and his friends to freeze—then I glanced down and saw Ellie’s face.
Ellie is the sweetest, kindest brat I’ve ever met; the most caring person in the whole damn world. She’s never done anything to hurt anyone and often goes out of her way to help others. When I looked at her I had a revelation: I thought of Lance as my best friend. But Ellie was family—and these assholes had beat on her until her face was covered in blood and terror . . .
I pulled the trigger, cracking the mirror behind the first guy as it was splattered with blood and gray matter. I kept pulling the trigger as he fell, I think Ellie was screaming again but all I heard were gunshots.

And:

Chapter 12:
I’d killed four men. It hadn’t been murder. Manslaughter maybe. But you don’t just kill four people without doing time. I thought back again to how I felt, just before I’d pulled the trigger. If there’s a word for that feeling, I don’t know what it is.
What do you call that feeling you get, when you’ve caught a spider with a piece of toilet paper. The one right before you squeeze, and feel its body crunch in your fingers.
That’s what I’d felt before I pulled the trigger. Four bugs. That needed to be squished.
And now that they were dead?
I didn’t feel a damn thing.

Actually, I don't think Kail's got into any confrontations where he hasn't turned into a ruthless killing machine. 
It's always the nice guys... you never see them coming.