Timewaster's Guide Archive
Local Authors => Reading Excuses => Topic started by: ryos on May 18, 2010, 07:39:24 AM
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Here you are. "Benders" is a working title. This novel takes place just after the events of one of my previous submissions, the short story Dalrymple, the King, and the Future, though I should note that reading that story is not a prerequisite for this one. In other words, I tried to write this to an audience who hadn't read the prequel short.
Those who read DtKatF and follow the Progress and Submission Reports thread will note that Dalrymple's brain be a'talkin' again. Yes, I cut it from the short story. Yes, I'm bringing it back in the novel. AND YES, I know that most of you hated the brain. I think I have a pretty good in-world reason for bringing it back. I still think it's pretty funny. But! Please let me know if you still hates it.
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Ryos let me start by saying I really enjoyed this. I am the reader you spoke of who has no preconceptions because I haven't read any of your other stuff yet.
The opening sparked my interest right away. I really liked the casual hints at the magic system (intriguing) and I thought the flyover was a good way of laying out the setting.
I would have liked to know more about Nmae, however. (And I'm not sure how i feel about her name. Part of me thinks you just typo-ed "Name" and ran with it.) Her chapter seemed to be more about plot and setting, so I'm not sure if she's a main character or not. You hinted that she's searching for someone, well more than hinted I guess, and I am assuming it is Dalrymple. Maybe if you included something about her motivation for her search. It doesn't even have to be detailed, just a hint. Like is she out to kill him? Capture him? Recruit him? Marry him?
I actually enjoyed the brain. The initial conversation had me a little confused as to who was saying what but the dialogue was fun.
It seemed to me that Dalrymple is much more developed in your mind than Nmae. I assume this is because you have written him before? As a new reader who wouldn't know that it just seemed like you liked him more, though.
I really don't have too many negatives. I am looking forward to reading more.
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I would have liked to know more about Nmae, however. (And I'm not sure how i feel about her name. Part of me thinks you just typo-ed "Name" and ran with it.)
LOL, that's exactly what I did. I commonly mistype name as nmae, and one day I looked at it and thought, "You know, that kinda looks like a name. Hmm..."
I'm...bad at names. I may wind up renaming her. We'll see.
Thanks for the comments!
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Like Drew, I haven't read your earlier work. But I really get a clear idea from the first chapter (how do you pronounce Nmae, anyway?) what the magic system is like. I'm assuming it has to do with the 'tones' Nmae heard above the castle?
But then we have Bending, which may or may not be related to the 'tones'. So that'll be interesting to see if there's a connection or not.
And I like the wings in the first chapter; it's just a cool image in my head, but I think there's so much you can do with. I think you should hint at Nmae's motivation, however.
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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.
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Thanks, Erik.
On how to say Nmae - I don't really care how people say it. I say it like you do, to be honest. How would an apostrophe make it more pronounceable? Personally, I've never quite known what to do with arbitrary apostrophes in fictional names.
Is there anything specific you wanted more of in the Dalrymple chapter? I suspect it feels rushed for two reasons: one, I was rushed when I wrote it (actually, both these chapters are unedited first drafts; I didn't even proofread them. That's what I get for setting an arbitrary public goal); and two, as I was writing it I was thinking, "They're just going from point A to point B, this is boring." I was actually considering cutting Dalrymple's chapter down, for that reason.
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I would have liked to know more about Nmae, however. (And I'm not sure how i feel about her name. Part of me thinks you just typo-ed "Name" and ran with it.) Her chapter seemed to be more about plot and setting, so I'm not sure if she's a main character or not. You hinted that she's searching for someone, well more than hinted I guess, and I am assuming it is Dalrymple. Maybe if you included something about her motivation for her search. It doesn't even have to be detailed, just a hint. Like is she out to kill him? Capture him? Recruit him? Marry him?
This.
I have little idea after this chapter 1 what this character's motives are and why I should empathize with her.
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Well . . . I can't say I was happy with the chapters. Everyone is very interesting, but everything is getting cut off before it gets interesting. And that's really it. It's just . . . almost . . .interesting, and then bam, chopped off by a big axe marked CHAPTER.
Anything else I could say was already said. I mostly just wanted you to know I read your piece. Needs more setting. But if you've read anything I wrote you'll know I'm nerd about settings.
Oh yeah, I liked the brain. But now that you've got something like that, I'll have to fix up Six Stones to not do the same thing.
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I haven't read it yet, but Nahmae from a textually standpoint looks pretty cool as a fantasy name, and makes the pronunciation clearer. You may want to try that.
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So I read the short story, loved it, and was somewhat disappointed by this follow-up. I will second everyone else's comments, and add a few of my own.
First, keep the events from the short story and add them to this. You reference them in Dalrymple's thoughts, and they were awesome, so add them in. You might have to edit them, but they will do a lot to make the story more interesting. I really think you should add them.
As to the chapters, just flesh them out more. Everything is good, just not enough of it.
Oh, did you ever submit the short story anywhere? What was the result? You might consider sending it to Writers of the Future.
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I sent it to Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, and they rejected it. I've not gotten around to doing anything else with it. WotF wasn't really on my radar since I've heard they're even more competitive than other markets, but I'd consider anything.
I might end up prepending that story to this one. I've thought about it, but in my mind it just doesn't fit for some reason. If you couldn't tell, I'm really really new at this novel writing thing (yeah, I'm new at fiction writing in general; DtKatF was my second story worth mentioning), and I'm mostly just going on instinct for things like structure and pacing. So, I appreciate these comments; hopefully I'll be able to get the story on track.
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So far I have only tried to write one novel (which failed). If I had one piece of advice I'd give you, it's to not workshop your novel while you write it. Some people can do this, but it killed my novel for me. For my second try (which I will be starting soon, hopefully), I will write the first draft, then workshop it. That way I don't get hung up fixing things and redrafting my first 10 chapters like I did last time.
Someone gave me some good advice (that I will heed next time). They said to go ahead and workshop the first few chapters to see if the tone and idea of the story works. If it does, then write it on your own, then come back and workshop it. I'm a perfectionist, so I think that's the path I'm going to have to take. If right now you have a driving, undeniable urge to re-write the last two chapters according to the feedback you just got, well, I'd recommend writing the rest of it privately. Your theme is great. Your characters work. Just write it, then re-work it. I plan on sending mine to family and whatnot for moral support, but not critical feedback.
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So far I have only tried to write one novel (which failed). If I had one piece of advice I'd give you, it's to not workshop your novel while you write it. Some people can do this, but it killed my novel for me. For my second try (which I will be starting soon, hopefully), I will write the first draft, then workshop it. That way I don't get hung up fixing things and redrafting my first 10 chapters like I did last time.
This is quite possibly the best advice one could possibly give.
I'm delving back into Rebirth, but you all won't see it for a long time. Also, I refuse to rewrite what I've already done.
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I appreciate the advice. While I won't reject it out of hand, I'll also say that I don't feel any great need to rewrite my story right now. The single most substantial criticism I've received is that there's not enough here. I'll react to this feedback by trying to write more complete chapters, but I'm very cognizant of the fact that this is just the first two chapters, and the rest of the story that everyone wishes were here is still in my head, queued up for later chapters. I literally can't rewrite the first two chapters without putting more down and seeing how that works.
So I'm not too concerned about succumbing to the desire for early revision, and I feel that your critiques will provide me with valuable course corrections as I go. I'll keep submitting, at least for now. :)
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The above is really great advice about when to workshop a novel. I rewrote my first so many times that likely not a single word of the original survived. I sort of wish I still had it, if for nothing other than nostalgia.
That said, I think I can add a little qualification. When starting off as a new author, you’ll probably find that the innate, talent-oriented aspects of it are strong, or at least, stronger than the technical aspects. And the characters and such will probably be so strong by the end that you’ll feel they deserve a solid novel. Save them. Start a storage bin where you put all your imperfectly executed but otherwise brilliant ideas. This is one aspect of writing that doesn’t get easier with time. Even some best-selling authors will say that their ideas were the best at the outset.
In the meantime, don’t feel bad about writing story after story with your favorite characters in them. You don’t even need to make them cogent with one another, though you may be tempted. Inspiration may lead you to try a plot twist on an old story, for example, and you shouldn’t feel that the characters are real somehow and have already passed that point in their lives. Until they first hit print, they’re yours to hone your storytelling skills with.
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I want to apologize for taking so long to get to this. I plead family issues.
This is the start of a good book. A lot of what I would say has been said in previous critque, so I've concentrated on the issue that I didn't feel had been dealt with. As for the problems with free writing a novel, wow you like to choose the hard way. :) But you might consider that rather than revising, you COULD take Eric's advice and simply expand on what's there already. Let Nmae muse a bit about her selection of wings which let's us see more of her personality and class/species/profession.
Another point is the handling of royalty. Jonas' "brain" is more majestic than the king, bickering, brogue, grammar and all. Kings who fail to BE royal, whether they feel it or not, soon find themselves on the wrong side of a sharp dagger. If the king is strongly entrenched enough to be recruiting covert operatives he needs to be more of a stickler for propriety.
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A lot of people have gotten hung up on the king, not just in this but in the prior short. The issue is that Thoracious is not a traditional king, and he plays a different role than the title suggests. I've all but decided to change his title in an attempt to fix this perception gap, but I'm not quite sure what it should be. President has democratic associations, and this is not a democracy (it's an aristocracy). Seer has religious implications, and Thoracious is not a religious figure.
Guh...I'll think of something eventually. Until then, I'll continue to write him as "king".
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Ah actually president has imperial connotations, not to put too fine a point on it. After all the Caeser's other official title was President of the Roman Senate. But I wasn't talking about the nature of his kingship. I meant the nature of people. A leader who has any significant population following him, has to be imperious and awe-inspiring or he will be killed by someone who thinks he can do better. That's why our modern leaders have such efficient corps of body guard. But even the Supervisor of a small county in one of the US states --where we celebrate egalitarian ideals-- has to be somewhat unapproachable and even haughty in order for familiarity to not breed such contempt that no one follows instructions.
Can you imagine a General Officer having even as much familiarity with his people as the Lieutenant who commands a platoon? It would be chaos. A smart lieutenant learns how to cow his sergeants and corporals into knowing he is the voice of command come down to them, but lets the sergeants seem to run things. A duke or colonel can't even allow that paradigm to creep in. A king or general must seem unimpeachable and unapproachable. without awe command structure breaks down and mutiny is inevitable.
Now you’ve pointed out that the role of this figure is not that of a king per se, but if he’s a ruler, governor or any sort of military or civil authority he needs to be more regal. If he’s completely outside the command structure you need to go with something that describes his office. A seer would not ONLY be a religious figure but also would be an ADVISER to those who make the decisions. Same is true of vizier, philosopher, etc.
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Haven't read this yet (it's next on my queue, when I can actually get back to my queue), but just wanted to make a comment on the Nmae thing. I wouldn't go with N'mae, mostly because I have a tendency to dislike random and what feel like superfluous apostrophes. There's also this thing I read once, I can't remember where or who said it, but there was a push a few years back for sci-fi/fantasy readers to mentally replace the apostrophes with the word 'boink' whenever they read them. Since then, I have the unconscious tendency to do so, so "N'mae" in my head, would end up being pronounced 'Nah-BOINK-may'. :P
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Hmmm I didn't notice a stop in Nmae. I read it like MMMMMnim-ayeee, only compressed.
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Okay, I've finally gotten to this. I'm not sure what I can say that hasn't been said already, but I feel I shouldn't comment on 2b and 3 until I've commented on this.
Also, thanks for suggesting Tofu as a reader. It's fantastic!
Anyway, I've mentioned I don't mind Nmae as a name. Don't put an apostrophe in it, it's just fine as it is.
Wow, first chapter was a lot shorter than I expected. It was interesting, if confusing due to being thrown in this world rather quickly. Bending seems very interesting, and I'm curious as to the limits of what it can do. However, before I can begin to think on this, we're suddenly introduced to people having frequencies and tones and all that jazz. All of it very intriguing, but I didn't feel as if I was given enough.
I like Nmae. The thing with the emotions was rather odd, especially this line:
"She knew shouldn’t be this afraid, not yet, but it was getting difficult to ignore."
Which leads me to believe a cost of Bending, or of seeing things in audible terms (which, now that I think of it, could easily be more Bending at work), is that it makes you feel fear. This is further solidified in the final line of the chapter:
She was so happy that she felt she might just make it out of the city before being overrun by terror.
A very interesting ramification of using the magic, and one I haven't seen before. If this isn't the case, then I am so stealing that for another story because that is an awesome concept.
Not much else I think I can say on chapter 1. I would have liked to see more to it, but at the same time I'm not sure what else you could add. The only thing that comes to mind is more on Nmae and what she's doing; as Justice1337 said, there's so little on her and what she's doing, that I have a hard time caring about any of it. I'm intrigued, but not really intrigued enough.
Onto chapter 2.
Love the first line, although it seems like a lot of stories I read lately seem to start with people in jail or imprisoned in some other way. Nothing wrong with that, just coincidence in what I've read recently.
I like Dalrymple, especially how he argues with his brain. His escape seems to involve magic, obviously, and I'm wondering if the magic he uses is related to the Bending Nmae used in the first chapter. He doesn't seem to know what he's doing or how he's doing it, only that it works, which says quite a bit about his character. One page in, and I feel I have very good impression of the man, so very nicely done.
The corridor into which they emerged was posh, with polished marble floors and wood-paneled walls.
Use of the word 'Posh' threw me out a bit, as it's a British slang term (as you're using it here, at least) and unless this is set in our world, or Dalrymple has knowledge of the United Kingdom, it doesn't fit the rest of the story.
"{Countrian}" makes me laugh. ;D
Interesting chapter. Not sure exactly what I think of it. There's nothing quite yet to really hook me to this story, aside from a few mysterious motivations, and while that can work, I haven't been given enough to really care. Well, that's not completely accurate; I do want to know if I'm right about the magic causing fear in those who use it. Again, though, not quite enough to make me care beyond more than a few chapters, so the following ones will need to have a good hook to really get me into them.
Nice job overall, though. I'll be reading 2b and 3 and commenting on the shortly.
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Steal away my friend. Great artists steal. ;D
While you're correct that Nmae's fear is caused by her use of magic, there's more to it than that. Sadly (fortunately?), the full explanation won't come for several chapters yet.