Timewaster's Guide Archive

As Avalon said, we'll have to do some juggling to make sure everyone who hasn't submitted in a while gets priority, so you guys may not get to submit every time. I'm sure you'll be able to get stuff out faster though.

I hope everyone writing novels doesn't inadvertently end up getting the shaft. My concern with this plan is that people won't be able to keep up reading for people who CAN submit a novel chapter every week, and that you guys might get fewer critiques because of it.

Ah, well - no plan is perfect. I guess we'll just have to burn that bridge when we get there.

...

What?

I think you mean cross. 

I am twenty chapters into my story, I can submit any time. 

I think whether you believe in a religion or not, it is probably the single most powerful topic because you rarely have two people who completely agree with one another. I think that any fantasy fiction novel that takes place in an alternate reality is poorly thought out if it doesn’t have some kind of religion. (Begin humming) My novel I’m having work shopped, PHYLES, itself doesn’t have a religion because I wanted to put within the story conflicting religious symbolism that is relevant to true religions, and actual beliefs. I thought that putting a fictional, or even a real, religion in it would be too suppressive to readers, and left it absent. Within the first page of Scepter of Infinity, you let me know that you have a religion that I would suppose is well thought out, and ties into the story and world. I like that because it makes the story feel more three dimensional—in much the same way that giving a character confliction personality traits makes them feel more real.

I love the compassionate torturer, very Joe Abercrombie (The First Law trilogy’s character Glokta), I still like it. As I said before, giving characters conflicting personality traits—Legate Gaius, religious man, torturer, and a tendency towards compassion—makes them feel real because we as human beings are walking contradictions.

I have only a couple of problems. First, the prisoner seems to have a lot of energy despite the injuries. To the point a question if he is able to continue the argument past a certain point without growing tired. The second thing is Gaius says that the gods of the prisoner have been dead for twenty-five million years. What that tells me is that either his religion is faking its deep roots in history, or it is the longest running religion possible. If the latter is the case, then I have a hard time believing it. Case and point, look at Christianity/Judaism, Judaism started out just like any other religion (I apologies to anyone I may offend before hand), with ritual sacrifices and the worship of more than one god—there is evidence that ancient Judaism worshiped a female god who scholars believe to have been seen as God’s wife at the time--and all in a handful of thousands of years Judaism has sprung the three greatest montheistic religions on the planet. No doubt, they have changed dramatically since early Judaism. I don't know what the longest running religion is, I would guess the Greek pantheon would be concidered the oldest "running", but still I doubt that any religion would last twenty-five million years without being altered beyond recognition or just dying out.

Actually, I beg to differ.  I think replies should be done on the public forums so that we can all see the response and learn from it.  For example:

Quote

Why should I say "How dare you" rather then "Doest thou mock me?"

reply: Because it makes your character sound less sincere.  Here's some other things to avoid.

From that everyone could learn how to make their charcters more realistic.

I would tend to think PMing would be better so that the questionee wouldn't feel like they were being called out. I personally wouldn't have a problem with someone asking me questions on one of my critiques on the forums, but I wouldn't want someone getting defensive if I posted on a forum. Also there's the question of how many replies do you want on the question if it is open for all to see.

I used to love reading superhero comic books—I’ve never been a fan of the movies—so when I read your email I decided that I wanted to read this first. I have to say that I’m a bit torn about the first chapter. On one hand I love your little plot twists, on the other I saw both coming a mile away. I assume that you wanted the reader to know about Blaster/Nobel before the reveal, however if you didn’t, what gave it away for me was when Nobel started giving blow for blow dialog about between a missing man, his dead family, and a dead man. Also Nobel was giving the emotional reactions of Blaster. Now, the Kevin/Robert connection was a bit more of a random guess (right before he’d looked at his tattoos, I’d guessed that he was a Powered, and right after he was shot I wondered if he was Blaster/Nobel’s son).

While I’m no the topic, I’m not good a guessing plot twists. I usually just set back and let the story come to me rather than try to guess twists, so if I do guess a plot twist right, it is usually because the author wanted the reader to. Take that for what it’s worth.

On to the superpowers; one of the main reasons that even as a child I’d stopped reading superhero comic was because too many superheroes seem too close to immortal. Many of them don’t ever seem to be matched against villains of equal abilities, or if the villain is as strong, then he’s stupid. I don’t know what to think about your character’s powers yet, but when I read that opening profile that says Blaster/Nobel is invulnerable, then some of that old prejudice starts to boil up.

I didn’t read the opening profile until I'd already read the chapter/story. I wanted to get into the story before getting documentation. I don’t know if others felt the same way, but that was my reaction.

Nobel, especially right at the opening, felt like a mix between Harry Dresden and the wizard Zan from the Sword of Truth. I like Harry, I never liked Zan he always seemed to take small common sense things overboard, and I felt a little bit of that with Nobel talking to Kevin/Robert about the chairs. Doing this once or twice wouldn’t bother me, but if it became epidemic as it did with Zan’s character, then I would put the book down—feels too preachy.

Those couple of things aside, I really enjoyed your story and look forward to reading the next chapter.

Bacon; not my thing, but I wish them the best.

TLR...I'm evil, pitiless, and don't trust anyone to do their own job. Also, I’ve worked with best of burden before.