Timewaster's Guide Archive
Local Authors => Reading Excuses => Topic started by: Reaves on December 16, 2008, 01:37:54 AM
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Yay! Round 2!
I want to ask is this too soon for a fight of this caliber? Am I making promises to the reader that this story is all action and no depth?
Also, I tried some experimentation with my sentence structure. I am concerned with one sentence in particular: it's basically...well, its got lots of commas. What I want to know is, did you notice it? If you did, did it jar you out of the story? Did it work?
Thanks for reading!
edited for clarity
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Reaves, you submitted this a cycle too early, mate (unless you got permission...?).
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Birthright and Aspirations also gave out round 2 today. I think it was agreed that people could submit again if they wanted since once a month is only twelve chapters a year, but I could be wrong.
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I apologize if this isn't the case but I thought we agreed in the "What would you like to do" thread that we would try a "do what you want" strategy where people could submit on both the 1st and the 15th. Also as already mentioned two other stories have been continued.
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Sorry to say I was disappointed with this chapter. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't as good as the first. That could be because it is less polished than the first or it could just be because the whole crystalheart thing isn't new any more. The super crystalheart was a surprising twist in the story and I have no idea how you're going to bring the two mains back from the dead...
A few inconsistencies I noticed:
Main Character A(forget his name) was awakened up by screams and explosions? but later on it says that he notices people finally getting out of their tents and engaging the enemy.
Also, Main A and Main D seemed to have no problem with all the attacking warriors in the camp, but when they were attacked by 18? warriors in the super crystalheart's home they were overwhelmed way too easily for me. I understand that they were probably in a more confined space and were attacked by all at once, but it seemed way too easy for me.
Good cliffhanger at the end, I guess, though we know Main A is somehow going to come back to life or we just switch to another viewpoint and then we'll stop caring about Main A 'cause we never got to know him.
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Sorry to say I was disappointed with this chapter. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't as good as the first. That could be because it is less polished than the first or it could just be because the whole crystalheart thing isn't new any more.
Can you go a little more in-depth on this? Even if you can't tell me exactly what you didn't like, can you tell me which general sections didn't vibe with you?
The super crystalheart was a surprising twist in the story and I have no idea how you're going to bring the two mains back from the dead...
Nobody is too dead for a little divine intervention.
This chapter is one where if you were reading it in a book, I'd hope you'd rush to turn the page and find out what happens next! In this format it doesn't work quite so well I suppose.
I just want to let you know though, I have a well-thought out reason for why what happens next happens next. You don't find it out for quite a while, definitely not in the next chapter, but it is there.
I do agree that this chapter is not as good as the first. But I really need to know why. Tell me, please!!
As always, thanks for your thoughts.
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I wasn't here for the first round, so this may not be the best critique, but I will do my best!
First off, I liked it. If this is a sample of what's to come, it may be a bit too bloody for my personal taste, but I found a lot of other good things to latch on to.
The magic system was intriguing, but beware of the dreaded info dump. If this is your first draft it is perfectly acceptable to lay that stuff all out so you know, but you need to space it out for your reader and find ways to show (rather then just tell) the essentials. Like when you have the prisoner bonded with the stone and killed. We don't necessarily need to know how the crystalhearts are usually made, just discribe what your evil dude is doing now so we know that it is, well... evil. Your MC, Aermyst, seems very well informed... it could work, depending on where you plan on going with all this, but usually it is helpful if there is at least someone on the team that is completely clueless, like the audience, so we can learn with him. Especially this early in the game.
Some technical advice... there is a lot of action in this chapter. Try to make your sentences concise and maybe even a little choppy to convey that. Like this one: "His oncoming blow swept up in a curving arc that would have taken off Aermyst's leg at the knee, if he had not frantically turned the blade to parry from a direction he never expected to be attacked from: directly below. " could easily be made shorter or into a couple sentences if you just stayed with Aermyst rather then making judgments about his attacker's state of mind (he never would have expected...).
Oh, and another personal preference thing... I find that chapters that start out with quotes from an old text are well...annoying and boring and I don't always read them. You wouldn't be the first author to do it, but I wish you wouldn't. I really don't care to read a text book from their past, especially at the beginning before I'm throughly invested in the world (I have enough trouble reading my own text books :) ). Flashback/vision mode is a bit better, but mostly I want to know what is happening now.
Characters were good. I liked them both. Too bad they're dead... but I guess that's one way to end a book.
(j/k I'll be looking for more. :) )
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Can you go a little more in-depth on this? Even if you can't tell me exactly what you didn't like, can you tell me which general sections didn't vibe with you?
I do agree that this chapter is not as good as the first. But I really need to know why. Tell me, please!!
As always, thanks for your thoughts.
Well I'll give it a try. One thing I noticed was the way action was worded sometimes. In the beginning when Aeyrmyst comes out of the tent and is almost run over, I kept thinking Where are they? (In relation to one another and the tent)
"The warrior had been trained well; instead of trying to scramble up and fight face to face, he simply swung his sword at Aermyst."
This might be nit-picking, but is that possible? Two people laying on the ground and one "swung" his sword at the other laying next to/on top of him. Two sentences later Aermyst leapt to the ground. I thought he was on the ground already. Anyway, I stopped to think instead of going with the flow.
"His longblade went through the throat of the first man. He fell choking. Aermyst withdrew his blade..."
My first though was; "Who fell choking?" I see that it is not Aermyst, now, but my initial picture was confused.
"... shoving his blade through the man's heart. He convulsed as he died."
Same here as well. I know I have an unholy love of commas, but I think that could clean it up a lot. There are just too many He, His, and Him references that it can become rather confusing in a fast paced mčleč.
"A heartstone granted a man incredible strength and resilience did not make him immune."
but {or} , but
I was a little thrown off by this sentence. I would suggest the above.
In the first 3rd of the chapter you used a lot of musical references, but that all dropped away completely afterward. I had thought it a foreshadowing of some kind of musical ability.
It just seems as though there are some little things throughout the chapter that take away from the whole. But that's just my opinion. I loved the cliff-hanger and have already started thinking of all the ways you might use the Soulstone! I can't wait to read more.
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Thanks, Necro, for answering for me. (no sarcasm)
Another weird action/placement thing was when Main A ran at the superhuman. For some reason I thought he was closer to the superhuman, but after Main A's been running a bit Main D starts running and he still gets there faster. Maybe I was wrong in their positionings, but that only shows that your writing wasn't very clear in that aspect.
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Yes, there was a general consensus that people who were ready could send out their submissions this cycle even if they’d done so last cycle. We’re fishing around for a solution to the “it’s going to take a damn long time to get your novel reviewed through RE” problem.
So. It didn’t really read like an infodump to me at the time – I think because it made sense to me that the chartacter might think of the things that were mentioned – but in retrospect you probably could trim some of it back a bit. Readers are happy to wait for more information.
My comments:
I wonder about the mystery figure’s armour. He has presumably heavy armour on his arms and shoulders, not really vital spots, but has his torso – with all sorts of vulnerable places – free so he can move unencumbered. I’m no expert on arms and armour, but this seems a little strange to me.
As much as I like the symphony metaphor, you’ve used the word itself two or three times in only a page or two. Maybe find another? (Of course, I say this, without being able to think of any direct synonyms at the moment.) Also, and this is picky and probably doesn’t really matter, but usually when talking about writers of symphonies you talk about the composer rather than the songwriter.
The “line of fire” that the mystery man draws across Dantes’s back is a great image, but I wonder why exactly it’s a line of fire, since he was using a blade.
“They fell slowly, agonizingly slowly, but everything else was quick.” Nice line.
You’ve done a really good job with these action scenes – very engaging.
Okay, so chapter two’s over. Well done. With you so far. Now, this is hard to comment on, because obviously I haven’t read the rest of it – but I am wondering about the rest of the story. We’ve spent a lot of time with these two so far, and now it seems like they’re out of the picture for the rest of the story, so I’m wondering why we’ve spent so much time with them. It all depends on what you do from here, of course, but I was expecting these two to carry the story, and now, well, they’re obviously not. It’s fine to screw with our expectations a bit. But you do need to justify the time we’ve spent with these two.
If there are other point of view characters who have to carry the rest of the story, just having their POV inserted sooner could easily solve this problem. If it’s even a problem. It might not be. But I don’t know, and so it seemed worth mentioning. (And now that I’ve read the discussion comments it seems irrelevant, but that was my reaction as a reader, anyway.)
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I wonder about the mystery figure’s armour. He has presumably heavy armour on his arms and shoulders, not really vital spots, but has his torso – with all sorts of vulnerable places – free so he can move unencumbered. I’m no expert on arms and armour, but this seems a little strange to me.
I explain this a bit in chapter 4.
The “line of fire” that the mystery man draws across Dantes’s back is a great image, but I wonder why exactly it’s a line of fire, since he was using a blade.
Sorry but I don't quite understand what was confusing. It was supposed to be the silver-haired man cutting Dantes with his sword and blood is red, hence the line of "fire". It wasn't supposed to be literal fire; is that what didn't make sense?
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Yes, I read that as literal fire. Maybe becaues there was fire elsewhere in the camp. Or maybe it's just that you usually see descriptions like that applying to the point of view character, since it's a sensory image in a way.
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Initially as I was reading this section I kept thinking to myself that I was going to be overly critical and harsh. Having read some of the other comments, perhaps I won't be.
First, I've got to say that you've got the story in there somewhere. But you have to find it! This has a lot of potential, but it really needs to be tightened up.
I thought the fights were overly long, redundant and unsatisfying. First the droves of mooks (let's just call them Kobolds, shall we?) that the heroes wade through without breaking a sweat, and then the boss monster shows up! Uh-oh!
Forgive me for asking, but have you ever studied martial arts/weapons combat/etc.? And I mean other than watching the Matrix trilogy? Research, my friend, research!
And what is black armor? Given most armor, plate or chain or whatever, it is not possible to drive a knife into someone's heart. And even with a half-asses gorget, the throat is protected from being slashed. More likely they would get stabbed in the armpit, back of the knee or in the groin, or have a blade slipped between the plates.
And they wouldn't need to kill everyone. a good dislocated shoulder or broken leg will stop a foe just as easily as decapitating them. And wrenching an arm around the wrong way would completely ignore whatever armor is worn.
I guess my point is that there needs to be just enough realism to make your fiction plausible. My suspension of disbelief failed.
At the bottom of page 8 you have your MC say "Enough." And I thought great! Time to move the story along. But again the two MCs plowed back in for some more of getting the kesters handed to them. "Enough" would have been a great point for that aukward conversation with the bad guy: "Who are you?"
"The heartcrystal is strong in this one, but he is not a crystalheart yet!" [Cue Imperial March].
Okay, the second half of the chapter is somewhat more compelling as it moves the story along. But why when the first MC gets free and them frees the other MC did they not just run for it? They could have outpaces any of the Kobalds in black armor (hey, if they wear blue cloaks are they cobalt Kobolds?).
Okay, let's see if we can edit this paragraph down to say the same thing, just in less words:
"He raised his sword one last time, preparing for another attack- and then a boot slammed into his face like white fire with a firmness that strongly resembled that of solid rock. He recoiled back, spitting blood, seeing stars- and then the silver-haired man continued his spin, slamming his heel into the side of Aermyst's head, this time blossoming entire spiral galaxies into his skull. He fell sideways."
The edit:
"Aermyst raised his sword one last time -- but a boot smashed into his face like white fire! He recoiled, seeing stars. And then his nemesis spun and slammed his heel into Aermyst's temple, entire spiral galaxies blooming in his skull. He fell sideways."
Hey, can one of you English majors explain the difference between action words like "slammed" and "slamming"? My English theory is too old (Chaucer-ian, perhaps) and I can't remember the proper terms. What I can say is the former is more distinct than the later. Oh, and I would avoid using the same word "slam" in the same paragraph twice.
I think trimming the fights scene would help the pacing and keep the reader engaged (yeah, I started skimming after a while). And though fights can be fun to write, don't forget that it also needs to move the story along.
Good luck! Back to work!!
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lol I guess that handily answers my first question, haha:
I want to ask is this too soon for a fight of this caliber? Am I making promises to the reader that this story is all action and no depth?
Thanks one again everyone for your honest (sometimes brutal) thoughts. I appreciate all of them and I think it will really help me to improve the story and this chapter in particular.
Karl as I think I've mentioned somewhere previously I've been taking foil fencing for about a year now. However, for anyone who is a fencer, you probably realize that it is not anything like the way actual combat really is. You are quite right about the armor, I completely forgot to factor that in to how they would fight.
Thanks for your suggestions about trimming the fights and adding in some conversation and questions to help introduce the plot and spice things up. I had wanted to avoid the silver-haired man saying much of anything to heighten his "mysteriousness" but I can see that isn't really going to work.
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Silence can be one sided. You could have your MCs start peppering the Silver-Haired Dude with questions that he only smirks or grimaces at.
Oh, and find a way to say "Silver-Haired Man" in a better way. Perhaps give him a nickname, like "Silvermane"? Trying to read "Silver-Haired Man" in every other sentence gets a bit repetitive.
If you have experience with fencing, then perhaps you need to interject some of the interplay of the blades themselves. Does a lunge knock the MC's blade off line? Do the quillons trap his blade (do their blades have quillons?)? I'm sure there's plenty of fencing terminology you could use. However, I would suggest using plain English versions of these terms, avoiding the French words often used with fencing (i.e. riposte) as this changes the narative voice.
Brutal we may be, but it is 'tough love.'
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Must admit, I found it difficult to get into this chapter... not sure why. Think there was too much of the earlier battle scene, if I'm to be honest.
But a couple of things....
A single moon shone on the cliff's horizon, giving feeble light to the battlefield.
Is there more than one moon in the place where they're fighting?
"How's it going?" Dantes asked.
Aermyst glanced at him witheringly.
"That bad, eh? Then let's go." He brought his blade to his cheek, and charged.
The two of them sprinted towards the tall man, waiting impassively. And then they danced.
I'd maybe say the sentence in the bold type doesn't need putting in. Or maybe just the speech. Think maybe there'd be a bit more humour if the 'how's it going?" was just answered with a look that both of them knew the meaning to?
Erm.. not sure what else to say, really. Sorry!
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A single moon shone on the cliff's horizon, giving feeble light to the battlefield.
Is there more than one moon in the place where they're fighting?
Actually, yes ;)
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Which would totally explain the single moon :)
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I liked it, but I liked the first chapter more.
I think there were a few reasons.
There wasn't enough outside of the fighting. I'm going to agree with Karl that the fighting was long, redundant and unsatisfying. There was too much action, and not enough of it was interesting. I got the point that the mr. silver hair was way out of their league early on, so their repeated attempts to take him were almost annoying.
I was also bugged by what appeared to be an inconsistency in their fighting abilities. At one point, they're like gods fighting the grunts, but, on more than one occasion, you point at that their small mistakes in battle nearly costs them their life. I'm going to second (or third or fourth, wherever we're at) the comments made about how easily they were beaten in the struggle near the end. It may have just been that they simply weren't in the best of condition at that time, but they seemed to be brought down by the blue-cloaked grunts all too easily.
There were also too many points where I had to stop and think about the action, attempting to make sense of what was happening. This may just be that I am not yet familiar enough with your style of writing action scenes (it wasn't until the third or fourth action scene in Sanderson's Mistborn that I was able to easily picture what was going on), so I'm not going to hold that against you, for now.
Despite all of those problems, I still like it. I really want to see where it is going, and the chapter ended on, in my opinion, a good note (well, not good that they were dying . . . I meant that the quality of the writing was good....)
I want to see more, so keep it up!
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Well that was unexpected.
This chapter needs less action and more story. Have them kill a grunt while heading over to shiny-hair and have him beat them on the first go. They really have no motivation to keep running into a fight they cannot win.
As soon as you continue the story after the # it gets interesting again. Although even then, giving them even the slightest modicum of self preservation would make them far more realistic.
The ending was unexpected, especially since it feels like I'm back at square one after two chapters.
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Which would totally explain the single moon :)
They aren't always right next to each other in the sky. Maybe the other one was on the other side of the planet. Maybe the other one was at the end of its cycle.
I'm actually really surprised anyone caught the "single moon" part, I'm impressed!
Thanks for the comments everyone. I can see that especially the first half of this chapter is going to need a lot of paring.
The ending was unexpected, especially since it feels like I'm back at square one after two chapters.
;)
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My thoughts on chapter 2:
Wow, you start us our with a bang. Once again, I commend you for your big vision. You clearly have a fantastic imagination, and its truly a real pleasure to read what you share with us.
Some constructive feedback for you:
Page 1... right away, you don't have much foreplay before your fight breaks out, do you? ;-) This actually didn't really work for me. I get the impression you were going for making it suprising and shocking that a fight had broken out. If that was the case, just consider describing more of the calm before you tear open the tent doors with a storm.
Black spiked armor is cool. :)
Page 2... what color is "sable"? I'm not a published author (far from it!) but I heard a popular writer on another podcast recently say that for things like this "red" works just fine, and a lot of beginners will put more emphasis on overly heavy adjectives like this. IMO, in this case, reading "sable" slowed me down in my reading. This is a fast scene; it's a battle and things are happening fast. "Sable" broke the rythem you had going for me.
Something I noticed in chapter 1 that really caught my eye again in this chapter is how you begin many of your sentences with a conjunction. "And then, somehow, they locked eyes." I know my high school english teacher said never to do that. And then I heard from published authors that its okay to do that on occasion. So I've personally decided that it's okay to use. But only on occasion.
In all seriousness, just consider keeping a tighter rein on those conjunctions. I think the Writing Excuses guys talk about this someplace in their podcast.
Dantes was in full bloodlust now, laughing as he fought.
I hope you address this later on. Just recently (As I write this), the Writing Excuses team did an entire show on violence. One of their key messages was that they challenged us as writers to force our characters to have to deal with the emotional burden that comes with taking another person's life. Maybe Dantes and Aermyst can are hardened bad-asses. But something about their youth and playful nature from chapter one makes this ring false in my opinion.
A long mane of silvery hair glistened in the moonslight.
Sephiroth! ;-)
The battle with the silver-haired man was really visual, and I liked that. I also enjoyed the different tactics that Aermyst and Dantes employ to try and beat him. It showed me pretty clearly (better than any dialogue would have), that they have history together and work well as partners.
The fight itself, however, ran a little long IMO. There were only so many times that they could clash, get beat up, and have Silver-Hair-Man smile at them like he's toying with them. Consider condensing it some, or, alternatively, include a fresh approach to the some of the beats in the fight.
His entire body hurt; his skull felt like it was three sizes too big and bruises lay along his entire left side. His wounds burned.
This is a good example I see a trend I see often in your writing. You do a great job of being specific about how Aermyst feels, and then follow up with a very vague statement that doesn't add much, if anything, to the overall story. In this example, the line "His wound burned" doesn't add anything, and feels out of place.
page 13: Dantes escape didn't read well. One second he was captive, and the next he was free. How did he escape exactly? Please show us.
Good ending to this chapter. I was wondering all chapter if Dantes would die. I really commend you for your foreshadowing of that. (Intentional or not!) Now we'll see if he stays dead. LOL. I'll read chapter 3 soon and find out I guess.
Jason
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A couple more thoughts, now that I've read other people's reactions.
First, I love the idea of multiple moons in the sky. I also caught the reference. However, I might like the idea mostly because my own book has twin moons as well. ;-)
This chapter is one where if you were reading it in a book, I'd hope you'd rush to turn the page and find out what happens next
You want that with EVERY chapter ending. However, for this particular chapter, you actually end it pretty conclusively. I mean, heck, you killed off your main characters! One way you might consider getting the effect you want it to make it a bit more of a cliff-hanger. Does he actually die? Maybe cut the action right before you reveal what happens. THAT would make people want to turn the page.
As it was, when I read it, I mentally put my bookmark in, and rolled over to go to sleep.
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Page 1... right away, you don't have much foreplay before your fight breaks out, do you? ;-) This actually didn't really work for me. I get the impression you were going for making it suprising and shocking that a fight had broken out. If that was the case, just consider describing more of the calm before you tear open the tent doors with a storm.
I like this idea. I'll make sure to try it, or at least do a bit more of a lead-in to the fighting.
Page 2... what color is "sable"? I'm not a published author (far from it!) but I heard a popular writer on another podcast recently say that for things like this "red" works just fine, and a lot of beginners will put more emphasis on overly heavy adjectives like this. IMO, in this case, reading "sable" slowed me down in my reading. This is a fast scene; it's a battle and things are happening fast. "Sable" broke the rythem you had going for me.
What, you don't say "sable" in real life? jk :D To me it just means black; there might be deeper shades of meaning to that, but I don't know them. I'll take a look, I just don't want to repeat the word "black" over and over again to describe their armor.
Dantes was in full bloodlust now, laughing as he fought.
I hope you address this later on. Just recently (As I write this), the Writing Excuses team did an entire show on violence. One of their key messages was that they challenged us as writers to force our characters to have to deal with the emotional burden that comes with taking another person's life. Maybe Dantes and Aermyst can are hardened bad-asses. But something about their youth and playful nature from chapter one makes this ring false in my opinion.
Yeah, I took this out even before they came out with that podcast. It really didn't fit in with his character at all. He's not a demigod of bloody warfare; he is just a really cool, really fun guy who happens to be good with a sword.
A long mane of silvery hair glistened in the moonslight.
Sephiroth! ;-)
Guilty :P Really though, I have to tell that this was in part inspired by FFVII but I haven't played any of their games. I've seen a movie they did, Advent Children, but that was it. You mentioned somewhere that Dantes was similar to a character from Final Fantasy; that is purely coincidence.
The battle with the silver-haired man was really visual, and I liked that. I also enjoyed the different tactics that Aermyst and Dantes employ to try and beat him. It showed me pretty clearly (better than any dialogue would have), that they have history together and work well as partners.
The fight itself, however, ran a little long IMO. There were only so many times that they could clash, get beat up, and have Silver-Hair-Man smile at them like he's toying with them. Consider condensing it some, or, alternatively, include a fresh approach to the some of the beats in the fight.
I have done a lot of editing in this chapter in response to some of the feedback I was given. I'm planning to do even more. The deal with this chapter is, I wrote the entire battle scene a lot shorter originally, then came back ten chapters later and rewrote it in the version you read. I think what happened is, I had gotten a lot of plot down and wanted to write a fight, but forgot to take in to account that this is Chapter Two. It's just too early for a fight this long. And honestly a lot of the writing needs some tightening as well.
His entire body hurt; his skull felt like it was three sizes too big and bruises lay along his entire left side. His wounds burned.
This is a good example I see a trend I see often in your writing. You do a great job of being specific about how Aermyst feels, and then follow up with a very vague statement that doesn't add much, if anything, to the overall story. In this example, the line "His wound burned" doesn't add anything, and feels out of place.
Jason
Yeah, that's something I've been trying to work on. I've realized I tend to state something, and then feel the need to summarize it. Good catch, thanks.
Wow, thanks for such an in-depth critique! It's very constructive and you've given me a lot of great input. But you are being too nice :P