Timewaster's Guide Archive

All critiques here. Thanks!

Aside from the three years thing, I like the idea of three books. *ducks from the wrath of posters*

The problem for me isn't the switch from omniscient to limited, but the switch from third to first. You start a chapter in first person omniscient and it evolves into third limited. I did the same thing in the story I'm rewriting now. What I did to change that was make the entire novel third omniscient. Of course I have set limits as well; my narrator is non-biased, isn't allowed to address the readers, follows one character at a time, isn’t allowed to jump into a character’s thoughts, and is essentially invisible to the reader. In short the narrator is the vessel through which we see the story, and nothing else.

You say that breaking the fourth wall is important to the story, well that sounds like the best and most helpful opinions for the POV can be found with an alpha reader, who would to sit down and read the entire novel to tell you if it works. Reading on chapter-to-chapter bases, we can help you identify a lot of the small things within the chapter, but for reliable feedback on the POV you need an alpha reader. (There are people on the board that would be happy to do that for you.)

Question Necroben, would the character be able to see all electical impulses or just the ones in bodies? If he/she can see all, that would make for a pretty fun ability to play with.

I don’t care for the "omniscient-ness" of the chapters. From what I can remember of the prologue-chapter three, it seems to me to go against the previous feel of the story, and for me it gets tiresome. There’s also the whole breaking the forth wall thing.

Joining them now, is one more artifact, a sword. Through  the inky, hazy darkness it falls, as if in a trance. Under normal circumstances this sword would sink to the lowest depths, land upon the bottom of this dark abyss and remain there forever, forgotten.
But this is no ordinary sword. It is the sword carried and subsequently lost by Aric the Conquerer.

This should all be one paragraph, not one multi-sentenced paragraph and an one sentence paragraph. Oh, and conqueror is misspelled.

It took until the middle of page three before anything happened. I admit, by that time I was bored.

... after all, practical limits to what it could do alone.

I like the idea of the sword having limits to what it can do, however this sentence wasn’t really necessary to get that point across.

I see four one sentence paragraphs. The point of a one sentence paragraph is to make it stand out, but if it is used that much it loses its affect.

... A wind carrying the autumn chill breezed its way through the low-hanging branches of the forest, bringing also the smell of sea salt with it.

The opening of a POV, especially the first time the POV is used, is like the opening of a book. As the writing rule goes, “don’t open with a weather report”. I don’t know about others, but for me when this happens I have to force myself to continue reading.

He moved cautiously, deliberately placing each footstep in such a way that he wouldn't leave much of a trail. It was just the way he'd always done it.

Maybe it’s just me, but the kid (I’m assuming he’s a kid) is walking on sand. How can you not leave a trail?

The old tales told of legendary "ships" that sailed the Endless  ocean, but until recently, he had thought they were just stories for the babies.

This makes me that these islanders aren’t sea fairing people. Which, the intervention of magic aside, I find hard to believe.

He found the body of a drowned man several hundred steps down the beach. Nola searched him, looking for treasure, but didn't find any. The man's arms and joints were stiff.

This felt like an add on sentence.

So, the sword changes shape depending on the personality of the wielder, eh? Cool!

The story picked up by the end of chapter four, but chapter three and the beginning of chapter four were hard for me to get through primarily because of the switching from first "omniscient" to third limited.

Does Elayne ever leave her potty-mouth stage?

Sanderson's "Lord Ruler" was actually one of the made-up expletives I didn't have a problem with. I'm not talking about Sanderson's work in particular here, but often the made-up expletives kind of bug me; I think it's just a bit hard to come up with something that doesn't sound lame. The reason "Lord Ruler" worked for me as an expletive is that it really goes to show just how the people of the Mistborn world regard the Lord Ruler; not just a king, but a god. 

I agree. About ninty persent of the made up swears just make me roll my eyes. Also, "Lord Ruler" was actually one of the ones I liked the least. It felt so corny. But Sanderson countered that by using a d@#$ every once in awhile.

Actually our profane words are quite old. The F word, for example, dates from before 1500 in English and even before that in Scandinavian.

Profanity was certainly not used in polite society for centuries (especially around women), but then at least Martin's society is extremely far from polite—only girls younger than age 12 have any illusions about chivalry and whatnot. Also, part of what made the words impolite is that they came from Anglo-Saxon and earlier rather than coming from Norman French, and high society was descended from the Normans. If the world you're building doesn't have the equivalent of a Norman invasion, profane words would be seen in a different light.

I do think it's important for language not to be anachronistic, but it's possible to go too far. Like, if you try to write without using any words with Latin or Greek roots because your universe's history doesn't have anything that corresponds to ancient Greece or the Roman empire, you'll be left with a very poor vocabulary pool indeed. English is the language we're writing and reading in, and it is what it is.

But if your world is sheathed in darkness and there are no stars at night, someone should not be called a rockstar or a football star. The idiom wouldn't exist in that world.

This is why it is perfectly rational for GRR Martian to use an F word: because his most of his society is based on medieval century England/Europe.

It's a question of if it fits the world. If Tolkien had his orcs talking 1950's slang, it wouldn't have fit, but in other situations it might.

One thing to watch out for is phases. A lot of commonly used phrases go way back in human culture. If you want to use them you have to make sure that there is some cultural relevance to the for your world.