Timewaster's Guide Archive

 I didn't mean to be rude in expressing mine.  Sorry.

lol don't worry, you weren't rude. I was trying not to be rude while disagreeing with you somewhat. And yes, we all have different opinions on what makes a good story. Which is probably why I loved Joe Abercrombie's First Law series that many people hated, and I am having great difficulty foraging through "The Lies of Locke Lamora" by Scott Lynch that according to reviews everyone else loved.   

No offense taken or given I hope.

some of your sentences felt  overly dense. I'm all for descriptive prose, but I choked more than once on some sentences and had to go back to read it.

This is a definite reoccurring problem in my writing. Something I fall prey to often. I'll definitely go back and try to not choke anyone.

I agree with the others who said the first few pages didn't feel very engaging.  Sweaty balls aside (the first mention was fine. The second was too comical)

noted, less balls references lol

, there's a lot of sitting, talking, swearing, and internal thinking.... but not much else.  There were a lot of names and references to things we have no idea about yet.  I was a little frustrated by that and kept wondering why I was confused:  was I just dumb, or were things intentionally not being clear?

I'll try to see if I can make the beginning a bit more engaging, though Brauv's character is bored, and to much excitement might hurt that emotion. Maybe some less important parts just need to be eliminated.

Maybe I personally tend to be hyper-sensitive to this, but I noticed that you mentioned a Creator, putting people "to the question", and a war that has gone on for Ages and Ages.   You're treading on commonly used Robert Jordan terms there.  Unless those terms are important to your world and story, just consider alternative terms.

The Creator is central, I will try to change how I word putting people to the question (i.e. soldiers beating information out of them), and the war for ages and ages is going away. It sounded good when I was writing the prologue, but as I'm farther into the story now it just doesn't fit.

You mentioned a Creator, and later Brauv mentions "gods".   That's fine. I just want to point it out in case your getting your pantheon mixed up.

Brauv should definitely say "God" not Gods, that was just a screw up on my part. Religion plays only a minor role in the story, but the idea of a Creator is central, though worshiping him is not if that makes sense.

I am always interested in a good magic system.  And I love mages / magi.  It appears as though your magic system links magic and blood.  My initial knee-jerk reaction to that is "Eh, okay, that's cool. But I feel like it's been done before."   Check out NAME OF THE WIND By Patrick Rothfuss.  While it's not specifically related to blood, the magic system in there frequently has characters draw their own blood in order to use their natural body heat to power spells.  Also, I can't think of a specific example, but somehow I get the impression that magic and blood being linked to one another is not something that's new to the genre. 

Man I read Name of the Wind (fantastic book) and I don't remember that, but then I tend to forget all but the most memorable elements of a story not long after I read it. Blood is central to the magic system, in fact it is the magic system in some ways. I don't want to reveal to much or some of the future chapters will be quite boring to read. But without blood, the magic system just doesn't work.

I don't know if it is a "new" idea or not, but it is not just something used "sometimes" for magic to happen. It is a requirement for it, along with one other thing, and at great cost. Please feel free to let me know though if you feel it is treading to closely to some already written work.

After the explosion, it felt a little unrealistic to have Brauv talking so much considering what he just went through.  The fact that he survived at all is tough to grasp (especially if the explosion fried people's eyebrows off a good distance away), but I understand that its good for the chapter to have him get a few more words in.  Consider sticking to a few words though.  He was pretty lucid and articulate for a mostly-disintegrated chunk of flesh.  ;-)

After a quick re-read you are so right. He says far to much for a man that by all rights should be dead.

So despite my tough constructive criticism, I see some good potential here.  If this is, as you say, the end of the book, then that's pretty neat.  It's always a gamble to show how a main character dies before we know their full story, so I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with it.  I hope we see an interesting character arc for Brauv, rather than having him be a flat-asshole character the whole time.

I'm looking forward to chapter 1 and beyond.  Good work!

Brauv = not an asshole.... most of the time.

And thank you very much for your opinions. I really appreciate it.

No, I like Cracked as a curse word. Maybe just introduce it better. Perhaps:

"It will hardly be a success if we can't get to the cracked islands," Aric finished with a curse.

Or something like that. I think I could easily believe cracked as a curse word if it was introduced as such.

OK, my humble thoughts below,

First, I'm not trying to be picky, and I don't know what draft this is, but there were far to many past tense "easy" verbs for me. To many uses of: was, were, had, etc... Often these words could be eliminated entirely and have no effect on the sentence or what it is trying to convey.

Aric felt a rising sensation as the ship was lifted high on a deep swell, and then suddenly dropped with a sickening decent.

Eliminate was from the sentence and it is less passive, more engaging.

More pressing, however, was the fact that his lungs were stilling burning.

Changed to: More pressing, however was the fact that his lungs still burned.

It still has a was in it, but eliminate a passive were that isn't needed.

Overall it just felt like a lot of the passive verbs could easy be turned to more engaging verbage with slight changes to the sentence structures. It makes the reader feel more like they are experiencing the story instead of being told the story.

Their shapes were somewhat diamond-like with the lowest point of each island coming to a point, like an inverted mountain.

The use of point twice in the sentence just seems odd, like saying the "lowest swell of the wave dipped in a dramatic swell." (bad example, hopefully gets the point across though.)

How did Pellis estimate that the island was 40,000 steps into the air. You say it like it is a good estimate and not just a guess. Do they have some way to come up with this number?

It will hardly be a success if we can't get to the cracked islands.

What does cracked mean? Maybe I'm just missing something. Are they broken? Are you saying they are the tops of mountains cracked off? Is cracked a swear word? Is Revast just stupid?

[insert comment about dolphins.... wait author says they are important later.... eliminate comment about dolphins]
Honestly though the whole paragraph about the dolphins and gazing about the ship in awe just seemed out of place considering he seemed entirely pissed off... not exactly the best mood for quiet reflection.

Chapter 3

the fog got to thick

later

Before them, on the burning edge of the horizon, the final sliver of sun...

Whaa? is it foggy or not? Apparently the lookouts can't see through the fog from the crows nest, but Aric can?

Also, you go into detail about the force of the wind, and flags whipping and snapping violently, but yet Aric and his companions just stand easily on the bow staring at the island. Perhaps they should be bracing themselves, or clutching at the rail, wind billowing in their faces?

A moment later their ship toppled completely over.

For such a catastrophic event a little more description would be nice. Aric's feelings as the ship slides out from under him, the sounds of a great warship capsizing, what was the crew saying. Just a thought.

For the latter, he deserved the former.

I loved that line, when combined with the sentence above it.


Summary: Good story, and man is a lot happening and yet I am still clueless (and curious) as to where this is taking me. A lot happening to Aric, his world being thrown into utter chaos, good stuff. The writing got really passive for a while, and was tough to swim through, but the action in chapter three made up for it. Can't wait to find out what happens next!

Ok, first submission by yours truly.

Working Title of the Novel is The Wells of Creation. Looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks.

Revast

Is that edited enough? Or would you rather I removed the words altogether and made it a more generic question?

Disclaimer: If you don't like (or better can't discuss) foul language please stop reading.

I was reading Deckacards review for Chapter 1: Memory, and there was a small discussion on using the world Bloody as a swearing word. It was suggested that it felt to Robert Jordan. Do most other feel this way?

This is something I've really been struggling with in my current writing. I have great difficulty using words like 'F**k/f**king', 'C**t', etc... For some reason I feel OK with s**t, bloody, and arse/A**. Also I would worry that including the most in your face cuss words in the English language might turn off many readers, but they do seem to fit better.

I do not like the idea of making up cuss words. Every book I've ever read that does that I just sat there thinking "Why not say the real thing if that's what you mean." Bloody seems different because it is a real cuss world in the Merry old England. Any thoughts? What do you do? Sometimes I feel like I should just go with how the characters are really saying it in my head rather than censoring them, but I haven't been able to get myself to do it.