Timewaster's Guide Archive
Local Authors => Reading Excuses => Topic started by: lethalfalcon on November 16, 2009, 08:54:55 AM
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Congratulations! If you're still alive at this point, I salute you. If you've not read my work, you cheated, and shall be punished accordingly (by having to read it).
I welcome any and all complaints, big, small, but hopefully specific (you suck doesn't help, even if it's true). I also welcome any suggestions. Perhaps I'll use it, perhaps not, but it gets my gears turning, and most of you seem to do this a lot more often than I do.
Praise is nice, too, but not too much. My head is already inflated, and any more might cause my headphones not to fit.
I hope there aren't too many line-level edits, but I've been surprised before. Send 'em my way, please.
And thanks for reading.
P.S. I apologize for not setting my submission to double-spaced. I usually work in single-space, so I can see more. I'll try really hard to remember to change it when I pull it out to submit it.
P.P.S I also apologize for the mailing list eating my document title. That I have no clue about, because the one that I sent has the title. Perhaps one of the board devs can explain why it's completely gone. The title was Reading Excuses - lethalfalcon - Mortal Divinity - Chapter 2.doc.
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Alright, first things first: I am at a loss as to the tone of your book. The first chapter we read was bloody, gory, gritty and disturbing. This chapter is innocence personified; I half expected a unicorn to come prancing in. I am not sure which will better represent the rest of the content of your story. That being said, I liked the chapter. There was enough tension to keep me reading, and it was more than interesting enough for me to turn to the next chapter seeking more. The innocent tone wasn't a bad thing; it was just just a very stark contrast to what you submitted before.
There were a few problems, however, some minor, some more pressing. First, your horses are not acting much like horses, at least, I've never seen a horse come beg a human to get on its back in order to fix a problem, especially when the problem is not their own. Of course this is a fantasy, so they don' t have to be normal horses, or have normal horse level intelligence. However, if that is the case (and these are uber-bright, semi-sentient horses), then you need to let your reader know that.
Next, we have your campfire cook-out. If you cook stew in a pot over an open fire with the flames actually licking the pot (and especially if you don't stir it) you will end up with charcoal, not stew, and it will taste absolutely horrid. Most campfire cooking is done with coals, with the coals evenly distributed on the pot lid and underneath as well. Also, if the food is already cooked from last night, all that really needs to be done is heat it up--no need to bring it to a boil. Starting a fire, burning it down to coals, and cooking food over it will take two or three hours. Getting coals and then heating food up might take about an hour, more or less. Your choice on how you'd like to do it, but if someone who knows campfire cooking reads this as is, they will see the mistakes.
Other than that, some of the dialogue was a little stilted; I'd recommend reading it out loud, but there was nothing major. There are a few line-level things, but nothing really bad (e.g. I was confused to start as to whether the two boys guarding the door had actually seen your MC. It was unclear as to whether she had gotten away clean until a couple of paragraphs later).
I was also confused as to why nobody wanted your MC in the tower. Does she have leprosy? Generally most people are apathetic towards 95% of those around them; what did this little girl do to get herself on nearly every professor's blacklist? You say they don't like her, but give us no idea as to why.
Well, I hope the above was helpful. The chapter was very well written; none of the above critiques are make or break, but I think that they can make the story a little bit better. I hope I helped.
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I think you're confusing my postings with someone else's. This is the first chapter I've ever posted to this group.
As for the horses, they are slightly above-average intelligence, and Aliese has been working with Cloud Dancer for some time. I'll work some more detail into that.
The campfire... yes, it's true, it just needs warmed up. I can see your issues with this, though, and I'll have to do some further research into this. If I had an earthenware pot, I'd go do it myself. As it is, I know my stove burns things enough.
My dialog capabilities are horrible. I'll definitely concede any argument in that area. Even reading them out loud doesn't help me--it's wooden, and I know it, but I generally am not a conversationalist. I'll try to spruce that up.
A lot of the reasons why she isn't wanted in the tower has to do with about 9 years of backstory that I didn't want to infodump in the first chapter of her. I could pull a line from Chaos and tell you to RAFO, but in essence it has to do with the way her magic works--she's like a ticking time bomb. This will get illustrated in the next chapter with her though, so perhaps I'll leave that as a hook. :)
Thanks for critiquing it. I can already see numerous changes that will be made posthaste.
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Sorry about the confusion; we've had an influx of new blood. Anyway, as to why nobody wants the MC in the tower, you don't give us the 9 years of backstory--this is a good thing. An info dump at this point is fatal. However, you have to toss your reader a bone or two, at least hint at why she's not wanted. Perhaps you might make a vague reference to past "incidents."
As to campfire cooking, I'd recommend http://www.chuckwagonsupply.com/faqs.html. It's a web site dedicated to dutch oven cooking. I don't know if your characters are using a dutch oven--they certainly wouldn't call it a dutch oven--but dutch ovens are the most common way to campfire cook in a p0t.
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I love your input, Lethal. so I hope there are no bad feelings and we can still be friends after this.
The vast majority of this piece reads like something out of a cheesy Japanese comic/cartoon. Now I like Naruto and Final Fantasy as much as other people (the fans that is) but even if you've never watched/played those your magic system has a ridiculous resemblance then. If I want to watch Naruto, I'll go do that. If I want to play final Fantasy, I'll go do that.
To clarify a bit of what I mean by how they sound similar: Air, fire, and life magic (chucked into runes) and summons.
As soon as I read "Air rune" I groaned, audibly. Air, fire, earth, water type magic is overdone and makes the author look lazy. Really really lazy. It was a nice touch sticking range modifiers on it, that was cool. But no mater how much you tweaked it there was still an air rune, and it blew wind. The next rune used was a fire rune. So already reading this (not sure what runes have appeared before) I'm getting the sign of Aristotelian elements (that's what they're called) and my first thought is "the author was too lazy to come up with something better?" To simplify: I immediately lost interest in the story the moment I read "air rune."
Now on to summons:
The word summons implies that they come from somewhere. Now I'm not sure exactly how the magic works but if you're going to use this fanboy magic then I think you would do well to really clearly cover why the summons don't try and leave the people who summoned them. I mean, lets say the bear is off trying to eat a meal, and boink, it's suddenly in your basement. Well I can take guesses as to what the menu will change to. Why don't the mice run and try to find their homes. How is it they follow their summoner? with the information available it just reads like a fan fic of Final Fantasy and and a dozen other animes.
I agree with Cynic about the tone. I was honestly waiting for Thumper to come out and say, "Look what I can do!" We seem to have this quaint little magic school with a big tower in the middle of what I'm guessing is England renamed and the only problem we seem to have is a very mild social stigma that doesn't make any sense. Is this Hogwarts? Or are we to expect things to be a bit more grounded?
Cynic already pointed out the issues with the campfire and the horses so there's not need to beat that.
After having made it through the text, I too was confused on why she had to sneak around. And also I thought it was odd that people, with so much magic readily available, did things in mundane ways.
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Hmm... at this point, I did want to point out some positive things (we all need ego boosts, especially after Underdog lays into us :P). Anyway, I don't really read anime, so I'll bow to Underdog on that issue. It might be that your similarities were unintentional; in that case, you might check out what's already out there and see how you can improve/differentiate from it. I hate it when I have this really cool idea and think it is awesomely original, only to discover that it's been done to death by some author/game designer I've never heard of.
That being said, I really, really liked the dome idea you had. The idea that they are quarantined to a specific area and face certain death if they leave the dome is interesting. It is a great root to a story, so keep at it. It has a lot of possibilities.
Also, as to the tone, while it was innocence personified, that's okay if you are writing for YA. There was enough tension in the scene to keep me reading, and I'm actually a fan of the more dark and gritty fantasy. Summation: your tone is okay, just keep the tension up, and make sure you are aimed at your intended audience.
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Hrm. I expected to get a decent ripping, and you haven't disappointed. :)
Okay, I see your point and raise you an explanation and question:
Evocation (one of the four runecasting disciplines) does work off of Aristotle's classical elements, including all five (earth, fire, air, water, aether). Each of the runes depicted therein has a very specific base line with very specific radials defining element type(s) and structure, and modifiers for range, position, and strength (so far). Now, given that (and it's something that most people can relate with), it's a very small subset of the entire magic system. There's also infusion (runes that would modify your body), enchantment (pretty self-explanatory), and summoning (summons are the embodiment of magic into an organic structure with a bit of the consciousness of the wielder "stuck" to it). These are mostly things I don't want to infodump into the second chapter of my book.
I suppose, yes, it comes across as "it's been done before". Of course, so has everything else. I could go into the chinese elemental systems and add wood and metal, and give you at least one MMO that has done it (and numerous books, I'm sure). I could go with a more force-like power, and step on Star Wars. I could make the runes stand for specific spells/be a language and rip off Elantris and dozens of other runic systems. I guess my point is that everything has been done, and it's just how you use it that defines its uniqueness.
That said, I'm not really defending my system. If you don't like it/think it's cliche/want to kill me for using it that's plenty fine. My corpse will still be your friend. I can get away with explaining Zellenya's summons a little better, to illustrate that they're not *actual* summoned creatures (think of them like elementals, but with better makeup). My question is this: is it that you hate the magic system, or is it that you're so biased by all the bad anime you've watched (not saying all anime is bad, but...) that you cannot stand "yet another classical element-based" system?
At any rate, I thank you for the scathing. It's making me depth-ize (yes, I use made-up words, too) the magic a bit.
P.S. Naruto? Really? C'mon, that's pretty harsh. :'(
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I think it is just a simple matter of knowing your audience. And I (as the resident cliche, YA, completely light and fluffy fairy tale writer) loved the tone and what I've seen of world and magic system. Heck, my magic system is different, but has some elemental base too.... though I am not trying to demote you to my level since this is really only the first chp we've seen and I don't really know who you are aiming it at. If you are aiming for the dark and gritty adult crowd this chapter probably isn't doing you any favors, but there is enough of that stuff floating around anyway and in my opinion, it is just as cliche (not that I don't love you other guys and your work, but I am not talking to you now, and we all must push for our own 'team' sometimes).
Problems. This is the first chp with our new friend Aliese right? Because it really doesn't feel like we are starting at the beginning, almost like you are trying to refresh us on stuff we should already know so we can get to the 'real' story, like it was a sequel or at least a reorientation of the character rather then the first introduction. There are elements of showing, but mostly you are just introducing lots of characters and magic system, setting and dumping on them. There seems to be some tension in there, but it is pretty vague and the chapter doesn't seem to serve as a hook as you really didn't give me any since of what your overall plot might be. A few hints would be nice. I don't know your story, but I really feel you may be starting in the wrong place, at least with this character.
If you are going for YA, you really need to give us Aliese's relative age somewhere and your paragraphs are too long to be artistically pleasing on the page.
Good luck, keep it coming. Don't touch your world/magic system/tone just because you may have hit the wrong crowd this time around.
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Hey don't knock Naruto too much. It's not perfect but its far from bad.
It's not that I "can't stand another classical-element based system," it's that they make you look lazy. Now I KNOW you're not a lazy author, but that's the appearance they give off. Most editors (that I know) are like my wife in the matter. as soon as the classic elements come up, they put the book down. Now the whole math wizz thing of the system is pretty interesting, but that only comes after and is totally overshadowed by "Air rune."
Another thing. Using the defense, "It's all be done before so I can use something cliche," is lazy. I can probably conjure a few fairly original ideas as to how to make magic work (some hard fantasy admittedly) and research hard to make sure I'm hitting it right.
To make sure I'm being perfectly clear about what I'm saying: Your magic is old and tired and you can make it innovative if you try harder. You may have an original take on an old idea, but if you start with the old, we're all going to think it's old. it's the math part (radials, modifiers for distance, blah blah) that's super neat. I suggest you start with that, and try to avoid words like air, fire, earth, water, aether, or anything related to them.
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So it's really that you don't want to see the elements named, not so much that it's moving the air. "Air rune" gives off a bad vibe, even if my that particular rune deals specifically with the air. I suppose it would be akin to making it more subtle. This I could do, although I worry that explaining the magic would get really cumbersome if I have to say things like:
Aliese traced the standard horizontal base line, then one wavy line perpendicular. She didn't want the gust to be large, nor extremely powerful. Just enough to tap the cup. Cementing the idea in her mind, she activated the rune.
every time I form a rune.
A part of me *wants* to explain this intricate rune system to the reader, to say "See? See what real magic is? I have a real magic system!"... but I don't want to get caught up in minutia. I think it's similar to how you showed off your sign language. It's cool, it's really well thought out, and I like that kind of detail, but it invokes information overload in a lot of people with short attention spans.
One thing I really don't want to do is get rid of the concept of the elements. I *like* them, so the concept of manipulating them is not going to go away. As I said before, it's one facet, so there might be something there you still like, even if I'm meddling with those old Greek forces. I'll try not to make it sound so cheezy. (Incidentally, I think what gave me the initial idea was Avatar: the Last Airbender, mostly because I think it was a good idea that got horribly downgraded for kids).
And you're right, I'm not a lazy author. I'm a lazy person who *wants* to be an author. Seems there's only enough room for one of those attributes. :P
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I'm going to agree with Frog and say that this is definitely not chapter one. I feel like I came into a movie theatre five to ten minutes into the actual movie (not counting the opening sequence). WHY NOT JUST START US WITH CHAPTER 1????!!! >:(
Aliese seems young- early teens, rather than late teens, but it would help to know her exact age. Zellenya's behavior and the fact that she's her friend (despite your careful noting that her behavior isn't normal) reinforce this.
Also, you seem to contradict yourself a bit, because at the beginning, you say that Aliese would 'definitely stay if it were a lecture by a master,' thereby implying that said master would let her stay rather than kicking her out. But later you say that classes taught by masters raised the chances of her being in trouble.
Also, just who exactly is Aliese's mother?! You say she's influential, with many loyal and dedicated servants... and then lump her in with a bunch of seamstresses. ???
Aliese's familiarity with Cloud Dancer initially left me feeling like the horse was something special- something akin to a Companion (I LIKE Valdemar). But none of the other horses mentioned act in similar manner.
Overall, I liked it, and I want to see more.
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It's the first time you meet Aliese. I mentioned this in my email that the Prologue is set 10 years into the past (The Event), and chapter 1 is another POV. There isn't really any earlier time to introduce her. It seems though that I'm doing something wrong introducing her, so I'll have to address that. Any suggestions as to what makes you feel specifically that you're starting late? I see countless books/shows/movies that start out with the main character just finishing something, which is what I was going for (I'm not going to use class as an infodump in chapter 2--even I'm not that bad). 5-10 minutes of movie time would *maybe* see you entering the classroom, provided they didn't bore you with the actual class. Should I back up to that point? I'm not sure I really want to go into the whole "starting with good morning" sort of thing. Although... maybe some good intro description into the city as she's trying to get *into* the tower could work... could it?
I didn't start with Chapter 1 because I'm not doing chapter 1. It's being done by my friend, whom I'm collaborating with (and I'll post his chapters as well, when/if he gets around to doing them, which will likely start after exams). Our two "groups" don't meet until a lot later in the book, so it shouldn't affect my POV much whatever he does. Basically it's 2 self-contained stories for a good portion of the book. The prologue I'm still crunching through my head; there are a few loose ends that need tied up before I even attempt to put it to paper.
She's in her late teens--close to 17 at this point, though I will admit that I'm *not* female, nor have I had a whole lot of experience with them (and it will likely show, eventually). So, behavior probably needs to be modified, too. Zellenya is a little over 2 years younger than Aliese is.
Interesting contradiction you found... which is difficult, because they're both true. She wants to learn from the best, even if it'll be more problematic if they notice she's there. However, I think the first part is already blown to bits, so it might not matter by round 2.
Aliese's mother is a duchess who also owns one of the top tailoring companies in the country (and is now the only one within Haalestir's reach). Before The Event, she was the one who did all the royal outfitting for all the countries (she's just that good). She's the Gucci of Kalan. :P
And yes, Cloud Dancer is rather befriended by Aliese. I don't know that I'd go quite so far as companion, but the horses in this book are above average intelligence (although not nearly to the level of something like a Pernese dragon, or such). I think I'm going to have her be a bit of a different breed, as well, since she *was* the queen's horse, and they only get the best. Hrm, well, an idea just popped into my head for that, I'll have to run it through my internal video player for awhile and see how it comes out.
So, lots of answers here, and I need to work most (all?) of them in. This is very helpful. As Johnny 5 would say, "Need more INPUT!" :)
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I wasn't looking for earlier in the day, personally. I was just looking for earlier. So much of the character already seemed established (her friends, her entrance and troubles in the school, her developing magic and a huge dome already placed overhead) that it seemed that any conflict she might have had there was either already dealt with or very vague. Depending on where your story goes from here, you either need to start with showing some of these problems and really show them on the surface in a scene or use the same technique to clearly introduce what her new, external to the school conflict will be. IMO, the setting was fine. What this chapter lacked was a hook.
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Okay, you told me in IM you wanted me to have at it. I think this is the most negative critique I have ever written. So... here you go? I guess?
This is a sort of stream of consciousness thing I wrote during reading.
You simply cannot make this the first thing we read out of this book, because it's really dull. There's nothing special about a magic school, and there doesn't seem to be anything interesting about Aliese, either. Certainly none of her qualities get me into the story. (You told me in IM you wanted me to have at it, so I'll eviscerate with extreme prejudice ;) ) Just saying, if this was the opening to your book... I would not read your book, because it does not fascinate me in the slightest.
Okay, yeah, I'm not going to hold back at all here, lethalfalcon, simply because you told me to :P
She seems to just be leaving because she's bored. If so, then the verbs you're using to describe the action aren't exactly equal with the tension I'm feeling--or rather, the lack of it. "Jade cursed under his breath as they both dove off the bench after the rolling dice." Dove? After dice? I don't think I'm really seeing the importance here. More realistically I'd react with, "Well that was kind of annoying", not a "OMG MUST SAVE THE DICE OR I DIE!"
Okay, the dome? That's cool. Coolness must be inserted near the beginning of the chapter, because really, I'm not reading the story, I'm scanning it until something interesting happens. Because the magic school's gardens aren't particularly interesting to me. I'm not buying the tension here.
Definitely have to agree on the stilted dialogue. "We've been friends forever" is not something friends actually say. It's something that is shown on their faces, and the way they act. Cut the line, with extreme prejudice. Ultimately it does not matter, as I should be seeing how their relationship is from the way they act.
Also, let's talk about tom swifties. More specifically, how no one cares about tom swifties. What are tom swifties? Things like "Zellenya remarked". How does the word "remarked" give me any more clear a picture of what she just said than a simple "said"? It doesn't. If Zellenya speaks strangely, as your comment about summoning says, I should probably feel that something is off. As it stands now, your telly section explaining Zellenya is cheating me at real character development. And about tom swifties, "said" and "asked" are perfectly okay to use on a regular basis if nothing more interesting is happening.
So you can leave the dome?
You said "she said simply" twice in the same page. I actually kinda enjoyed the dialogue when you weren't telling me about the dialogue and just let the conversation flowed. You just can't repeat the same description so quickly.
When I said I enjoyed the dialogue there, that doesn't mean it wasn't stilted, it means that your prose is so unbearably bland and uninteresting that a short paragraph is a more pleasurable experience to read.
Annnnd your magic is being powered by the body. You spoke about energy conservation in the first line, and energy conservation is cool. Magic being fueled with your body isn't energy conservation, because honestly, there's not a heck of a lot of excess energy one can utilize magically that isn't important to the body's functioning. (Now that I think about it, someone should really be using that kind of magic as a sort of weight loss plan. That'd be interesting).
"She announced." Grrr, tom swifties ;)
Oh god. "Most of her past seemed fuzzy." Groooooaaaaaan.
Yawn.
</end stream of consciousness>
So, um, let's think about this for a second. It's boring. I did mostly scan the paragraphs. Part of this is because I start to get paranoid about my own paragraph length, so when paragraphs get this long, they better be interesting. They weren't.
Why weren't they interesting? Well, let's see. Nothing intrigues me about the world, nothing intrigues me about the character. There's no hook for me to get into. There's nothing that compelled me forward.
In review! We have a magic school. Judging from this submission, I'm getting that the genre is "Harry Potter" (and I know how much you hate Potter). This is not especially interesting. I have no sense of wonder, save for the simple matter of the dome, which was about two sentences in the entire submission. We also have magic runes, based off of the five elements. Elemental magics aren't necessarily deal breakers, either, and modifiers are kinda cool. (Kinda) But it's fueled off of the body. It takes a lot out of you. Fatiguing. That's...
Let me put it this way. I didn't like the system in Eragon, and I'm not going to like it here. Magic costing the body's energy doesn't even make sense, and it has been done basically forever. It is not interesting. So from a world standpoint, you've bored me to death.
(Summoning was somewhat interesting)
"Her past seemed fuzzy." That line seems to imply she has a hidden past, or she's an amnesiac. Also has been done to death. I'm sure she's important. I'm sure there's some reason why everyone detests her, and why she's really good at magic. That's, um, nice. These are all worldbuilding reasons for who she is. It's just like everything else. Character, you've also bored me to death.
And where's my plot? Even an individual scene needs to have a beginning, middle, and end. Nothing happened in this scene. Sure, you've introduced a lot, but absolutely nothing happens. She saves a horse. I'm enthralled? She's leaving the tower, judging from your first line, because she's bored. The lecture on magic wasn't interesting enough for her. Why, then, is it such a big deal? You have to give me a reason to care.
Needless to say, the writing takes itself far too seriously, as I noted above with your out of proportion selection of verbs vs. actual tension. You can get away with truly strong action verbs if you're writing an action scene. But like I said, nothing really happens.
The long paragraphs describing what she's doing with the magic were dull, and did not interest me. I'd actually think you need to back off on the magic considerably, because it throws me out of the scene. In the beginning, I want to be inserted in to the story.
All this scene accomplished was show off your magic. Oh, and I guess she saved a horse. This is not the most promising first submission. I'm prepared for a terribly derivative setting with action scenes that consist almost exclusively of blow by blows, as well as a derivative plot which is not terribly surprising. What the scene lacks is any sort of tension, conflict, or a hook. It's not there. It's just a giant bowl of bland.
None of these elements, like the magic system or a school of magic, are dealbreakers. With Frog's writing, she writes a lot about non-human races, and I'm prepared to be bored to death. You have to prove my apathy is unfounded and your story is interesting, and there's only one way for you to do that.
You make it interesting.
Ask yourself, why is this scene happening today, and not tomorrow? My acting teacher loves to ask these questions, because what we want to see in theatre is something interesting. People are working on other people, where the outcome is uncertain. The scene must happen in this exact way because it is important! It's important to characters, it's important to the story. Because if it doesn't have to happen today, the scene can wait until tomorrow or the endless gruel of a boring life. Why does this story happen today? What is happening that's important? Introductions are nice, but you actually don't have to say anything about the concepts you're introducing if the scene is important.
A great answer to "why does this scene happen today" is because there is a tension. There's conflict. "Oops, I blew up the castle," Aliese said as the Headmaster glared at her darkly. That line, while utterly ridiculous, has more conflict in it than the entire scene I just read.
And if there's no conflict, it's not interesting.
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With Frog's writing, she writes a lot about non-human races, and I'm prepared to be bored to death.
Hey, what's the deal? Don't we have enough Frog bashing in the designated 'Frog bashing Thread'? What's it doing over here? :P
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My issues were extremely similar to Chaos.
I'll be honest, I didn't like it. There's very good potential if you rewrite it to make it more interesting, but there was very little to actually catch my interest.
The problem isn't that you are using cliche settings or systems - that's fine. The problem is that we don't see anything different from the cliche. Until we do, we go, "I've heard this story before. Why read it again?"
The dome is good. Keep the dome. Move the dome up.
Your story suffers from the same issues as mine does, though. At this point, there is no plot. There is no reason to care.
Now I typically give an author fifty pages to get me interested, unless I've got a recommendation from a friend, so you definitely haven't lost me yet. But you've got to get something interesting going fairly soon, or you will lose me.
I want to make sure I say, there's a lot you can do with the setting you've established. None of it is fundamentally flawed, just the way it's used in this scene doesn't work.
You should also remember that you are getting critiqued by a bunch of dark-fantasy-lovers who are mostly firm believers in hard magic systems as well, and are used to reading huge tomes with nine thousand characters and a huge world with a decently steep learning curve. We get bored easily when we're reading things that are simpler than that, but there are a WHOLE lot of people out there who live for it. If you're writing a story set in such a world and all we ever critique is that we don't like your setting or your system, that means your doing it very well.
However, if you're shooting for our crowd....that's not good.
Overall, though, it had some real potential. Keep it coming, and try to add more tension to the scene.
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Honestly, at this point, I'm starting to think that this chapter was more a test drive of the scene than something I should have submitted. However, I'm still glad I did submit it, because it shows me a lot about what the vast majority of the crowd does expect. At this point, I'm still a little unsure of how I want the book overall to go. Since it's a collaborative work, I need to match the style of the other writer, or it'll be really odd to read. He's currently stuck in classes, though. I'm definitely going for darker than this chapter shows.
This chapter has already started to undergo the process of butchering. I can't even continue on to my next chapter with the issues that I've unleashed. My next submission will probably be the prologue, and then a vastly rewritten chapter 2. Hopefully I can redeem myself. Or at least have more micro problems than macro.
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Heh, late, but here's my critique. In reference to your latest comment...I'd warn you against collaboration personally unless you have more experience. Or, at the least, I'd work on a project by yourself too on the side. That way, you can move forward and learn at your own pace as well as your partner's.
I like the fact you don't give away all of Aliese's background at once, though I think you could add some great humor with vague references. "And then there was the incident with the claustrophic rabbit..." [Brandon Sanderson did this a lot in Alcatraz with the "broken chicken"-type references] The fact that she is intelligent enough to use her teachers and do alliances creates a bond with me, which is good. I like intelligent characters.
I think you need to work on the "in-late" thing. Skip Aliese sliding the walls and find the first actual real-time conflict. The biggest problem is...that doesn't happen. We don't have any stakes. How unpleasant would it really be if Jade and Ian catch her? A mild scolding? Why does it matter? Since I don't know the stakes, I find myself skimming the garden chase. It might help if I felt her fear--heart pounding/sweat/etc. Otherwise, jump to a place where she a) gets caught b) is threatened somehow, physically or otherwise. The chase is meant to create tension, but it just isn't as written. A lot of that has to do with the fact I know her mother is influential, so chances are there will be no repercussions on her for sneaking around.
There's a lot of info-dumping that could probably be cut, such as dreaming about being a diplomat for the king, etc. I don't think you need to info-dump about the magic system at the moment. I would introduce a touch of mystery by leaving more out, personally-- ie "she made a gesture and smiled as the dice cups fell over". Make the reader wonder a bit more what she does/how she does it/what she's capable of. Mysteries (when done right) are my favorite hooks.
I think you have a nice clean style that's very clear. I don't feel confused, which is good, because I am easily confused. However, I think you could punch things up with stronger verbs and ruthlessly cutting extra words. "She dove through the thorns, ignoring the scratches on her arms as they tore at her shirt." BAM! That gets rid of five or six sentences of redundant information. Because of the mild verbs, I'm not getting a sense of the character's voice, or how she is different from other McCafferey-style fantasy heroines.
Part of your voice problem is your rigid sentence structure. For example, in one place, I counted four "she's" in a row to begin a sentence, ie. "She (verb) (object). She (verb) (object)" which is a little hard on your reader.
Hmm, you spend more time describing the hedges than the dome/magical wasteland, which is a strange balance given that I bet your dome is more important to your story than a thorny bush. You also need to mention that the dome covers the city and then some--for a moment I thought she'd left the dome when she went into the forest. Unless the pasture/forest is inside the city, somehow?
Yeah, I might run away from the summons. Or at least call them something different. Unless you do something brilliant in the first few pages, seeing the word "Summons" is enough to make me put the book down and start playing Final Fantasy instead. Does anyone else remember wandering through the cave of the summons with Rydia in FFIV (I think--or it could have been III)? That place rocked.
And the whole Snow White thing with all the creatures gathered around her is...weird. Your character says she finds it creepy. If that's what you're going for, ramp it up! Make the animals like the critters christmas' evil things from South Park.
The conversation with Zellenya is a little on the boring side. It doesn't seem to offer the reader any useful new info. I don't know what advice to give you about writing un-cliche dialogue other than to practice. Too many names dropped all at once. Definitely could use some cutting. Unless Zellenya's cooking is essential to the plot...
Yeah, the horses confused me, too. Definite Valdemar flashbacks. Why didn't the horse go to the stablemaster in the first place? Why do you have horses anyway in a domed civilization? I would think that the gain/loss tradeoff of how much food they use versus their utility since no one ever has that far to travel would mean that the limited pastureland goes to cattle and sheep instead. I would expect sedan chairs with laborers to carry the nobility around, especially since you likely have an impoverished class of people who cannot escape the city. I hope you go into the economics of dome-land, because that would be interesting. I guess the dome is fairly recent, otherwise diplomacy isn't really necessary since there's no one to negotiate with, and that ended Aliese's dreams.
The near-dead foal problem got solved too easily. I think you can throw in some more tension.
I'm okay with the physical energy becomes magic thing as well as a base elemental system. I don't love it, but I don't hate it, either.
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In general:
To me, I don't mind cliched characters/settings/magic systems so much. My own book is very cliche, unfortunately. I feel like compelling characters/plot elements can save a cliche from being unreadable. (Example, Name of the Wind handles the magic school cliche well).
Even if you as an author feel discouraged by your book's cliched-ness--keep writing anyway! I found that I had to get all my cliched ideas out on paper in this current book I'm writing before I could move on and do something more innovative. Like Guy Gavriel Kay, who wrote the Fionavar tapestry (well-written Tolkein/C.S. Lewis/Susan Cooper cliche--and is so well done it's one of my favorite series despite the overuse of genre stereotypes) before he moved on to his more interesting alternative history works. Similarly, Neil Gaimon wrote a lot of cliche comic book dialogue and plots before he started writing amazingly different/creative novels. So work with the cliche, love the cliche, develop as a writer, then abandon the cliche. And cliche-d ness doesn't matter so much in MG/YA, I think, if that's what you're going for.
My advice: 1) Write down what you NEED to achieve with this chapter and go to that. Cut everything else. Structure your tidbits of character information around that important info/action. Right now, there's no threat. No stakes. I think that's going to be a bigger problem for you than magic schools and stiff dialogue. Maybe if you start the chapter with saving the horse.
I won't deny this needs a lot of work, but I wouldn't call it an eye-scratcher.
There's an entire thread dedicated to Frog-bashing? Wow. I'm jealous :)
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There's an entire thread dedicated to Frog-bashing? Wow. I'm jealous :)
There are actually several, all masquerading as critique threads. I'll try to properly label the next one so we don't have any more confusion on where to direct these worthy comments. :P
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Aliese spends a lot of time sneaking around in the first three, three and a half pages, and it started to lose interest for me before she was finished trying to be a ninja. I think that's because I have absolutely NO idea what's at stake here. I don't know why she's trying to leave, or where she's trying to go, or what happens if she gets caught (other than that she doesn't get to leave, and that doesn't hold any significance for me right now).
I have no idea how old either Aliese or Zellenya are, but right now I'm assuming that they're fairly young.
At some point, I'm going to need some clarification on the relationship between Zellenya and Aliese and their--families? Teachers?
Aliese makes some remark about how "if you say that to my mother, we'll never see each other again". If her mother lets Aliese and Zellenya see each other, however grudgingly, what's with the need for the big escape scene at the beginning? Wouldn't Aliese sneaking out of the castle just make her mother more inclined to put her foot down?
I'm interested in why the runemasters in the city might object to Aliese's presence in their classes.
I'm having some problems grasping the setting here, or maybe you just need clearer transitions when your character is moving from one space to another. The entire city is under a dome, but Aliese sneaks out of the palace and is suddenly in a forest. Zellenya leaves and Aliese starts to wander away, and suddenly there's a Queen's horse in front of her. Since the Queen probably isn't letting her mount run wild, I assume that means we're at the stables that Aliese mentioned earlier... but there's no real indication of that in the text. And now she's feeding the horse forest grass.
You referred to Cloud Dancer as a female, but when Aliese comes across the stable boy with the other horse, the one dropping the foal, Aliese remarks that the foal is probably "one of Cloud Dancer's git", which I would normally assume means that Cloud Dancer is the father. But later on, you once again refer to Cloud Dancer as a mare.
Also--and I know basically nothing about horses--but I've never heard of a horse acting like that. XP
Alright, so. There are definitely a lot of things I'm interested in after this chapter. But (you knew it was coming, didn't you?) the execution isn't quite doing it for me.
The only real point of tension here is the dying foal, which seems a little... tangential to the rest of it. I'm not saying you shouldn't include it, but it seemed more interesting than anything else in the story, and that's probably not what you want.
There is a little tension at the beginning of the chapter, when Aliese is sneaking out of the castle. But I found that that dissipated quickly, because you spent quite a bit of time on that, and we had no idea what the significance of that was for the whole 3.5 pages that she spent sneaking out of the castle. In fact, I still don't really know what the significance of that is. As far as I can tell, she spent all that time sneaking out of the castle so that she could have lunch with a friend, which kind of deflates any of the tension that came before it. In the grand scheme of things, it just doesn't seem that important. And I still don't really know why it was so important for her to not get caught in the first place, since it seems that she does this often and that her mother hasn't yet put her foot down in terms of her meeting with Zellenya.
To respond to what others have said:
Comparing this to Naruto? Man, LTU, that's low. ;) *
Okay. I didn't have a problem with the magic system. I've played a few of the Final Fantasy games and it never occured to me that this was particularly similar to those systems. It's true that the elemental magic system is fairly common, but I would never stop reading on the basis of a magic system alone--especially this early on. We've barely seen your magic system, and I have no idea what you're going to do with it yet. I also assumed that there were more runes than just elemental ones. Actually, the one particular thing that your magic struck me as reminiscent of was Elantris, since you can draw "modifiers" on runes that do specific things. I'm honestly not too sure how you could circumvent that, though, without losing the entire concept of modifiers, though. Bindrunes, maybe? (Combining one rune with another.) Of course, that's not quite the same thing, and may also be distinctly more Norse than what you're looking for; I don't know.
Okay, whoa, I thought both Zellenya and Aliese were way younger than seventeen. I would have guessed twelve.
This tone definitely does NOT imply dark. Not in the slightest Personally, I'm fine with that if you are. ;)
Ah, so you're going the collaboration route, are you? I wish you the best of luck with that. I've only tried that route once, and I think my friend and I got maybe two chapters in. Of course, we were also sixteen at the time, and the story would have ended up going nowhere anyway (as did my other projects based in that world). So that's my cautionary tale, to be taken with salt to taste. :)
* The TV show, anyway. It had its endearing elements but the pace moved like a glacier. I haven't read the manga and heard that that's much better. Also, we knock Naruto because it's easy. Kinda like Twilight. All the cool kids are doing it!