Timewaster's Guide Archive

This was by far my favourite of all your submissions. It had great(as is usual with your submissions) characterization and dialogue. I especially liked the conversation with Burm about being free, and Jalean and Jin's conversation about weapons, both were fairly interesting and engaging. But what made this my favourite chapter is that we finally get the feeling that things are moving forward, we get a taste of things to come. I mean, finally the Shroud came back into the story as something tangible, and we get to see a larger portion of Jalean's life, her motivations and desires and background, all the while moving the plot forward.

I do think however, that this chapter, or at least this type of chapter, needed to come earlier on. While I thoroughly enjoyed reading all your submissions, most of them didn't have a good hook to make me want to immediately read the next chapter. It was a cool world with nifty characters, but not really a plot line. I disagree with Cynic, I don't think more is needed in this chapter. I just think we needed this chapter earlier on.

And regarding the fight scene, I very much enjoyed it, sure it was a bit complex and wordy, but still engaging and understandable.
I agree with Cynic about the Jalean/Jin relationship though. I do think she was too tough with him, and the image of her  threatening to castrate him, when juxtaposed with this chapter, is a bit far fetched. Either she wouldn't have been that tough on him, or she wouldn't have been this friendly this quick. But if you have an explanation for it, or if it fits overall later on, then I'll accept it. It's not that jarring, definitely not

drag the reading from the story kicking and screaming, beat them over the head with a rock and leave them wondering what happened.

 

Overall, like I said earlier, my favourite chapter, and I can't wait to see where this goes.

Okay, so I’m sorry for not critiquing your other chapters, but don’t worry, I did read them, and I have to say that I find your concept and world very intriguing. It’s unique enough without being too far out there. I like that.

   Now, maybe I’m missing something here, but it seems to me that this chapter is almost a rewrite, because I definitely recognize bits and pieces of what’s happening, but there are also large chunks of new material. Or maybe I’m just having a weird case of déjà vu. 

Anyhow,  one thing stood out right away that I did not like about this chapter: it was supposed to be six years forward, but I don’t sense a great deal of difference in Jin’s character. I had to reread the part about it being six years, because to me, it could have been one or two years and I would have believed that instantly, but six is pushing it. I also don’t want you to tell me that he is changed, like here

suffering for six years had definitely changed him.

Especially because I didn’t notice the definite change; sure he seems like he’s a little older and mature, but not enough to warrant for that amount of time, this sentence somewhat irks me(of course this is just my opinion, others might disagree).

 Also, with the harshness of the environment and the intensity of the whipping, I find it hard to believe that he would have survived, or not grown tougher and more cynical of life after six years of it.  I doubt he would reflect on how much he missed silks either after six years. Maybe in the first year or so, but he would move on after six years. In my opinion (which isn’t worth that much…) Jin would not be reflecting on the Shroud and his first escape attempt and silks and his father after six years, they would be a little more distant in his memory. For instance, I would assume he would be beaten for mentioning missing silks or his past, and since then would learn to equate them with pain, and therefore NOT reflect about them any more.(sorry, I just noticed that you mention this when he’s thinking about his father, and tears, and pain, sorry for missing that). Anyhow, I’m focusing so much on this, which really isn’t a deal breaker in your story, because there isn’t a whole lot to find wrong. Overall, I would like more show and less tell, and for you to make it a little more believable, especially in the terrible environment he is in.

Okay, so I’ve got one more big beef with this chapter, (still on the whole six year topic, I know I’m beating my own dead horse, but whatever) and that is his lack of muscle and any sort of fighting ability. I would have thought that slaves who are trained to be gladiators, trained to fight, would, after six years of training, have at least some small ability to fight. Especially for what we are told(more often than shown) that Jin is a brilliant kid, and a lot of fighting is using your brain and strategy and technique. Yet he is portrayed as helpless when he fights Burm, and he is held in contempt by everything for his lack of fighting prowess. However, he does beat the boy in the fight near the end, and that fight was to me exactly as he should be. But my problem is that it’s inconsistent with how he is supposed to be a baby.

Anyhow, even though I may seem overly critical of this story, I’m really enjoying it, and I like Jin’s character. His situation makes it very easy to feel sorry for him and root for him. I definitely want to keep reading and find out what happens with him. I’m also very hooked with the Shroud and the sparks from his fingers, I really want to know more about what it is and all that magic system mystery jazz that fantasy writers always include. I look forward to the next instalment.

Well thank you sir! That would be quite handy, Erik's chapters 14 and 15 will be sufficient, thanks a lot Chaos!

Haha, well, I happened to clean out my email after...

I would love to be added to next week's submission date. I really need a deadline to give myself some motivation to write something new

It was a good chapter, but subpar to your other ones for a few reasons(I won't mention all of them, so just read Cynic's stuff again, cause he said alot of stuff I agree with)

Personally, I would move this at least one chapter forward in your timeline. It's a battle for the lives of all the townsmen, Will, his sister, his dad, and Dezkin. But we havn't had time to connect personally with these characters. To some extent I cared what happened, because I knew that it was important to the storyline, and I always like to see the main characters survive, but I wasn't hanging on every word, desperate to know what happened and who died/lived. I didn't really care if Dezkin was captured, cause I don't know him well enough to care, same with Will's dad. Now I got some emotion out of Will, but not nearly enough when his dad is capture.

He screamed, "No!" He had never felt so helpless.  He tried to hold back the tears as he turned and looked up the trail Abby had taken.   He listened to the sounds of battle.  He sighed and started up the trail.  He slipped deeper into the forest and left the town and all the people he loved to fight for their own survival.

That doesn't really move me at all as to his Dad's plight. I mean, He sighed and then walked away? It's kind've underwhelming.

I'm really sorry to sound super harsh and negative. I hope I'm being constructive here, it' s good, I just want to help ya make it better.   The action scenes were generally well written and gripping, but the flow of things happening could use a little work. ALso, this is a minor thing,and something that I messed up with doing in my first draft, is thatyou changed the pov from Will to Abby in one paragraph to the next, and then back again, but without letting us know you changed it. Now, I could figure it out, but still, it broke the flow of the fight scene for me.

Overall, a good bit of action that livens things up alot, which I generally like, but I hink that we needed more character development before it can really be effective. But I'm intrigued by the story so far, so keep it up!

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.  

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.

If it's gonna be partly musical, Frog, then I'm expecting "At the End of the Day" from Les Mis. In fact, put any song in from Les Mis and it would be awesome.

Personally Frog, I'm enjoying this story more than Queen's Opal. The pacing is very well done, it kept me interested for most of it, even though I wanted to start skimming during Raven's and the Prince's conversation.

I'm intrigued by the background story with Raven and the princes, I want to know more about all their characters already, and where the plot is going to take her and change her.

The scenes with Aisha and the genie were pretty much pefect in my opinion, the dialogue and imagery fit with them, and it was a good way to show their characters.

And by the way Frog, I found the genie's personality "more playful" and a lot more complex than meets the eyes. But now I have high expectations for his character to be dynamic and intricate throughout the book, occuring from his relationship with Aisha

Good job overall Frog, not much more critiquing I can add, everybody else always covers everything! I need to get faster on the draw