Timewaster's Guide Archive
Local Authors => Reading Excuses => Topic started by: little wilson on December 30, 2008, 05:08:05 AM
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And post away on the criticisms....And again, sorry for the resubmission, even if it was sanctioned....
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Hmmm...
Well, there are two primary differences with this one and the previous:
1. The Crashers are far more obviously terrors. In the other one, they seemed more like they systematically destroyed the technology, but here they seem more like basic terrorists. You say that they killed "scientists", but two hundred scientists and a bunch of tech centers does not seem like a thing that would set technology back so far. Though, in that comment, I am obviously mixing the two drafts together here for my perception. Here, it's a lot more clear that the Crashers did horrible stuff (which is cool), but it's less obvious what the effects were.
2. Dialogue is much tighter and more effective. All of the dialogue felt better. Though, that could be because of my biggest beef with this: the narration. There's more of it, that's for sure. And boy, it's telly. The scenes do not pull me in. Ashley does not pull me in. After the narration, the dialogue was a much needed spell of relief.
I'm not sure I can elaborate effectively on why the narration didn't work for me except to say: "telly". It just feels telly.
Things like this:
Dark patches were growing on her jeans, indicating that the jeans were soaking up the moisture in the ice.
It's kind of redundant. This kind of redundant-telling happens a lot, and it really makes the story dull.
Let's see now... the Prologue. Still omniscient, which automatically makes it lose points in my book. I don't find that the omniscience is really necessary here, that Ashley's birth could be observed just as well. Anywho, besides THAT, this prologue felt like it was doing two different things. It was trying to display Ashley's birth and then illustrate how badass the Crashers were. The way it came out, though, seemed a bit muddled.
Chapter One was okay, but I thought the walking in the snow was relatively superfluous. I didn't really find that the tractionless boots were very interesting on any level. More importantly, though, I don't feel like I know Ashley. That could be the biggest problem.
I would write more, but I am dead tired. You'll get some more tomorrow :P Or sometime later, at least...
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I'm gonna have to agree with Chaos on a lot of this. It really didn't draw me in at all. Show me why I should care about Ashley. Show me why I should care about the world. Show me how it's different from the world we live in today.
I'm not really sure what the prologue accomplishes, to be honest. There was a sign at her birth that no one knows about, and the Crashers bombed all the Tech centers. Could you show that any other way?
I think what Chaos is saying about the "telliness" is something I've been working on myself, too: you say something, and then feel the need to summarize it. Try to avoid that.
It feels like you know who Ashley is pretty well, but to me she just seems like a normal college kid. Give her some unique and distinct personality traits.
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Okay, I feel like I’ve been really nit picky with you lately, so I will let the others take care of that for now, and just give you my general impressions of the 1st chapter. If you want more later you know where to find me. ;)
Alright, first off, it seemed to read like a first draft, which I know it basically is, so no real fault there except that you know that eventually it is going to have to be chopped down because it just seems…long. Not that you don’t do a good job of getting to your climax and setting up a few things about your characters, because you do, but there are a lot of the telly details that do nothing but fluff it up and make it harder to get through.
Like the snow. Now it made me smile because I remember having similar experiences back in the day when we were roommates, but at the same time, it really didn’t add much to the story in my opinion. A better place to start might be when Rem first starts whispering to her in class, then you have a point of interest and you can set the scene as you go (like, we’ll know it is winter and she hates snow later when they all go out to the field trip and stuff).
And at the end, I would think the cliffhanger would be a bit more dramatic if you just left it with the window cracking, and gave her reactions as the beginning to the next chp.
So that’s it for me…for now.
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I think what Chaos is saying about the "telliness" is something I've been working on myself, too: you say something, and then feel the need to summarize it. Try to avoid that.
Yes, that's what I was trying to say. I just couldn't find the right words in the throes of severe sleep deprivation.
Another thing that I was missing in the section were Ashley's own thoughts. I seem to remember them being in the previous one (italicized thought bubbles and such) but now they are gone.
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All righty....lots of work to be done. One question, though. Chaos and Frog, since you two are the only ones who have read the original version of the field trip, which did you guys like better? I have a feeling Chaos is going to say the first, simply because of the destruction at the end, but....he could surprise me. I need to know so I can change the second so it's more like the original than it currently is, assuming the original is the best....
And as for the thoughts. I'll be sure to bring them back. And I promise that even if I do change these drastically again, I won't resubmit them.....Hopefully, if you read a little further into the story, you'll get drawn in more. If not.....Well, we'll cross that bridge should we get there (unfortunately, I think we will get there...) :(
Oh, and thank you for the critiques. They're helping...Or they will once I get over the relative harshness of it (but don't cut back the harshness. Harshness is good. I just need to stop being a pansy ::)).
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Hmm... its been awhile since I read the other version but I'd say it is a bit of a trade off. The first one was probably a bit more dramatic, but this one seems to flow/fit better in some ways. Not much of an answer I know, but I'll trust you to come up with a good mixture that meets all your new ideas. :)
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All righty....lots of work to be done. One question, though. Chaos and Frog, since you two are the only ones who have read the original version of the field trip, which did you guys like better? I have a feeling Chaos is going to say the first, simply because of the destruction at the end, but....he could surprise me. I need to know so I can change the second so it's more like the original than it currently is, assuming the original is the best....
And as for the thoughts. I'll be sure to bring them back. And I promise that even if I do change these drastically again, I won't resubmit them.....Hopefully, if you read a little further into the story, you'll get drawn in more. If not.....Well, we'll cross that bridge should we get there (unfortunately, I think we will get there...) :(
Oh, and thank you for the critiques. They're helping...Or they will once I get over the relative harshness of it (but don't cut back the harshness. Harshness is good. I just need to stop being a pansy ::)).
Yes, we definitely don't want to see this same section over and over again :P
I'll be honest, Wilson, I... didn't actually get to the ending of the old one. I was really tired. And it wasn't engrossing. The scenes weren't, I mean. So I didn't actually get to the end of it.
Though I will agree that the transition worked better in this new one.
One thing that I wanted to learn was, like, the tour guide explaining stuff. Like, giving more information on it. It's kind of an intentional infodump, which could go over really badly, but in my opinion, your strongest part about Crashers is the world. I'm interested in that the most. So since the field trip in both versions didn't have any of that, it ultimately fell flat either way.
Just my opinion there.
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From space, the world was still blue. Mostly.
I think you can just combine those. I mean, the Mostly. just seems unnecessary. Maybe try: From space, the world was still blue, at least for the most part. In my opinion it sounds better, but maybe experiment I guess?
There were green smatterings of land here and there among the blue, just as there always had been, but it was still mostly blue.
Next, I have to say I really don't like the word smattering you used there. I'm not sure what it is about that word and how it's used, but it feels weird lol. Maybe it's just me... If you decide to use a different word, you can always go to Rhymezone.com, which I've found exceedingly useful when I just can't think of the right word. Although, it could just be me, but I did ask the opinion of a friend who did agree.
The color stayed the same. It always stayed the same.
Once again it just seems like you can combine that into a better sentence structure. Maybe: The color stayed the same as it always did. Though experimenting is fun lol.
They didn’t expect a fight for power with nature, yet that was what happened.
Sorry if I seem really really picky about sentence structure, but I have a problem with this one too. What if you tried: They didn't expect a fight for power with nature, yet it was inevitable. Sounds better in my opinion.
Disappear and reappear instantly wherever.
I don't like how that's worded, but I don't really have any suggestions...
The same black tint in the sky which proved the existence of smog cleared up, and all of a sudden city-dwellers could see the baby blue color of the sky rather than the blue-black color of the smog-filled atmosphere.
Seems really long and sorta confusing. I think if you put a period after "smog cleared up", you could do something better with the next sentence.
It also made for strange requests, like at-home births when a birth could take place at virtually any hospital in the world.
Sorry, confusing to me on how it was worded. Though I don't really have any suggestions, but I guess it's just how you worded it.
The home was in a Long Island suburb about forty-five miles east of Manhattan, and the day was 21 December 2319, a little over 27 years after the Coalition’s breakthrough with the transportation system.
I think a period after "Manhattan" is needed, and then you can do something better with the following sentence if you'd like.
A man, presumably the husband of the woman, for he wore a ring on the third finger of his left hand, stood at the head of the bed, pressed against the wall.
Definitely seems like way too many commas in that sentence...
In the home, the baby crowned. Outside the home, the black, star-flecked sky flashed a brilliant white.
I believe you can combine those with a comma after "crowned" and the word while...
But although they may have missed the astronomical anomaly, only to read about it the next morning on the front page of the paper, many others were not so distracted as to miss such an event.
Starting a sentence with the word "But" equals uncool.
Okay, sorry if this sounds really mean. However, I really can't read anymore of the prologue here. It's really boring in my opinion and it's failing to draw me in. It seems bland and plain, so I definitely think it's something you should work on here. Sorry, but it's really really lacking... So, I'm going to move on past the prologue.
When balance was once again only relatively restored, she glanced around quickly to see if anyone had noticed her close encounter with the ice.
How you started it off throws me completely off. By that I mean it's worded awkwardly and could use some work.
She sighed, cursing the boots she was wearing for their lack of traction.
If Chaos has drilled ANYTHING into my head, it's that the word was is usually a last resort. You can easily say the boots she wore and avoid using "was".
Snow meant ice. Ice was slippery.
Snow meant ice, and ice was slippery.
And yet, her boots had no traction.
You started off the sentence with the word "And" which also equals uncool. Maybe say Yet her boots had absolutely no traction whatsoever.
She looked back up toward the building, noticing that even though she’d only taken a dozen small steps, it loomed nearer.
I don't like the word "nearer" there.
Then she realized where he was. Not on the sidewalk, but next to the sidewalk. In the snow.
That entire thing just doesn't flow well, as you can combine some stuff there. I think you should experiment more with that sentence and try and redo it.
Snow wasn’t ice. A person didn’t need much traction to walk in snow.
You can combine these!!! Simply put a comma after "ice" and add in the word "so". Although, it could be redone a bit, such as: Snow wasn't ice, so a person didn't need much traction to walk through it. Or at least something like that sounds better in my opinion.
A little smile lightened up her face and she looked down, noticing how deep the snow was.
Once again, sentence structure isn't up to par. A little smile brightened up her face, as she noticed the depth of the snow. Sounds better and flows well.
The deepness hadn’t mattered on the shoveled sidewalks, but off the path, the snow was drifting over two feet.
You can use "depth" instead of deepness which sounds weird. Also, that entire thing sounds awkward and doesn't flow.
Okay, honestly I'm gonna have to stop reading here. It's all really bland, plain, and lacking. I think a big portion of it is the sentence structures that you used. I'm really not finding myself being drawn into this at all, and I'm feeling like it's a chore to be reading it. It needs life, excitement, more feeling. I want it to pull me in and keep me in, read it and can't wait for the next part. I'm really sorry to say that it just fell flat for me...
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Wow, Yusuke. I know you’re probably trying to help, but your whole critique just seemed overly cruel to me. I mean, I joined this group because I thought that it would be nice to give help and receive help to beginning writers (just like me) not because I expected the work to be perfectly engaging all the time. So while I am not about to take back any of the honest criticism I give out, to not even finish a work you are critiquing and failing to find things (even small things) to praise and encourage seems a little anti productive to me. Might even be better not to critique the work at all.
I may be a bit sensitive in this case because Wilson is a good friend of mine, but I just felt it needed to be said.
All you guys are still awesome in my book, so just keep going strong because hey, writing is fun. :)
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Well, I really don't need to say that I'm honest when giving a critique. That was in absolutely no way meant to be cruel, I stated what I saw wrong with it and attempted to give possible fixes.
Okay, now after pausing for a couple minutes and giving it some thought, I realize that you are right. Critiques should also deserve some praise on what's liked about it. See, when I get my stuff (not just writing) reviewed, all the people pretty much just pointed out what I was doing wrong on it. I guess it just became natural for me to do it that way. So, it's not that I'm failing to find things to praise, it's just that I'm not used to doing it that way >.<. However, that doesn't mean I can't learn to do it differently, which honestly does seem like a better way after thinking on it.
I'll give it another shot right now...
+ I liked the detail that was put into it. To me that shows the time taken on the project was good, also that you're taking it seriously. Needless to say that time is very crucial to pretty much anything done, especially writing. I saw from your first post that this was a resubmission. Now, while I didn't read the first submission, the resubmission tells me you're taking time on this. Definitely a plus, since I believe that's how great writing happens. The imagery also seemed nice, and I don't really think I had a problem with that.
+ After reading someone's post about the dialogue, I decided to go back and give that a little read-through. When I was reading the dialogue it seemed more interesting to me at that point then when you were describing the actions going on earlier (By that I mean it was a lot more interesting when I was reading the dialogue than when I was reading the Prologue, or the start of the Chapter). So I have to agree that the dialogue is good, nice job there.
- Even though the imagery was nice and the detail was good, a lot of the sentence structure made it difficult to figure out what exactly she was trying to write. However, once I figured it out, I thought it was good. From what I read, a lot of things could have been structured better to give it a smoother flow. I think I gave examples on that in my post above Frog's. Sentence structure and flow are crucial elements, at least in my opinion.
- It didn't draw me in, and I'm not sure what it was about it that caused that. Thinking on it, I believe it was the structures of your sentences (Yeah, I know you're probably tired of hearing me say that and wanna sock me for it >.<) and the way you told it through your writing. It just felt lacking to me from the way you told it...
Hopefully you find this more helpful than my all negative critique o_O; Though, I do feel like I should say that I didn't mean for anything to sound ridiculously cruel. I simply stated what I saw wrong with it from how I was used to doing things. So, I have to ask for your patience, as I will get better at doing it differently from now on.
Frog- I have to say, everything you said I found to be true. So I hope you find the above a more acceptable way of doing things. Though, like I said above, you're probably gonna need to be patient while I get better at doing the whole critique thing a little differently =P.
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Yeah we are all fairly new to this, Yusuke especially. I think most of us have never given in-depth critiques like this for the most part, and we are all learning together. For myself I think I tend to focus a bit too much on faults in the work, so you're not alone Yusuke :P
I just want to say thanks though for giving such an in-depth and long critique, I wish all of us were more like that :P
And it is much better to be honest and maybe a bit cruel than just lie and always say nice things. You just have to make sure to not only focus on the faults.
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Hey, I’m all for honest criticism. Yours just struck me as over the top for whatever reason and I let my mama bear instincts kick in. I hope you don’t feel I singled you out and mauled you too much, because I do appreciate your willingness to listen, adapt and yes, give in-depth critiques, especially since you did give suggestions on how to fix things. I'm working on this as well and, as in all things in life, I think that the more we do this, the better we’ll be.
So, no hard feelings?
You guys are great! :D
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I must say "even a slight case of death" has got to be the funniest quote ever.
This is far improved from the original version. I would say the only problems I saw were one it's risky to have that much narration before the characters begin to really appear for fear of boring the reader and two its equally risky to mention the 9/11 bombings in any controversial manner. There is simply no way to do that without offending someone. That doesn't mean to take it out, just realise that as writers we tread a knife's edge when it comes to peoples' feelings.
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I would say the only problems I saw were one it's risky to have that much narration before the characters begin to really appear for fear of boring the reader and two its equally risky to mention the 9/11 bombings in any controversial manner. There is simply no way to do that without offending someone. That doesn't mean to take it out, just realise that as writers we tread a knife's edge when it comes to peoples' feelings.
You know what they say in the newspaper business; its better to be hated then forgotten :P
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First off, thank you Jacque, for sticking up for me. I hope my e-mail had nothing to do with it, but if it did, that's okay. Thank you anyway.
Yusuke--the second critique was MUCH better in my opinion. I thought the first was good, up until you said that you had to stop reading the prologue because it pretty much sucked too bad.....I'm like "NO! You didn't get to the good part" because for some reason I thought killing and destruction was better than a birth....even if it is omniscience (which, by the way, is being killed....no more prologue omniscience). And then it got worse when you did the same thing for Chapter 1.....But that's okay. Looks like you went back and finished those, so I'm ALL good.
wcarter--haha. I LOVE that part. Thank you for pointing it out, because I just find it hilarious, and I'm really glad someone noticed it. As for 9/11. Yes, I know it's risky. I know it's VERY risky. It's a part that I still need to work on, although in truth, this version I think is much less controversial than the first one. For one, it never comes out and SAYS 9/11, whereas the first version of Chapter 2 (9/11 was originally in Chap 2) did come out and name it. My main point of putting it in there was to give the book a connection to something that we all know about and understand, and then showing how that could change over about 300 years--not that 9/11 is really all that big of a deal (or as big as it is now) at the time of the book, but they do know OF it, and in some places, the facts are screwy--like in Rick's case where the facts have been changed...
Anyway. I have a lot of things to fix before I submit again. And I'll have to give a good summary to tell the changes made so no one gets confused when new characters enter the story who seem like the reader should know them (there's a guy in the new pro--which is unwritten--who comes back in Chap 3). Because I am NOT re-submitting, regardless of how many changes I make....
Therefore, it may be a while before I resubmit. Right now, I've got jury duty (and I was just selected to be ON a jury), and then I have to start applying for a passport. So I may not be around for a while, and I can almost guarantee that I won't have much time to write....
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First off, thank you Jacque, for sticking up for me. I hope my e-mail had nothing to do with it, but if it did, that's okay. Thank you anyway.
Well, it was because of your email that I decided to look at it, but then I formed my own opinions. Then I started to wonder if I was over stepping myself by commenting on it but all's well that ends well, right?
Thank you for pointing it out, because I just find it hilarious, and I'm really glad someone noticed it.
Your glad someone noticed it? And who am I? Chopped liver? I so pointed it out on my first read through, with a pink comment and everything! :P
Therefore, it may be a while before I resubmit. Right now, I've got jury duty (and I was just selected to be ON a jury), and then I have to start applying for a passport. So I may not be around for a while, and I can almost guarantee that I won't have much time to write....
Oh, they picked you? That's exciting, and annoying at the same time. Passport should be fun though... lucky. :)
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Hate to correct you Jacque, but....the comment wasn't red. It was blue. For me, anyway....Blue's a better color, though, so I guess it doesn't matter.....As for your question. Are you chopped liver? I'll answer it with a question of my own--Do you really want me to answer that? Really truly? Because I'm not sure if you do....:P
Yes, they picked me. The trial's only 4 days (at most), and since I'm only scheduled to work at my job the last two (and only 4 hours each), I'm only missing a grand total of 8 hours of work. Woo-hoo. (That was NOT said with excitement. It was purely sarcastic). And yes. Passport should be fun. I need to get to Costco to get a picture, though, and since I don't have a membership, I need to go with one of my parents. And since I've got jury duty and crap.....that makes it slightly difficult. But it's the only thing I've got left to do since I've already filled out the paperwork....
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You'd hate to correct me? I'm pretty sure it's the highlight of your day....
But it was blue? How'd I manage that? It's usually pink. I hate it when my super powers appear and I fail to notice them....
Sure Wilson, just tell me how you really feel. I'll find someway to get back at you. I always do. :P
So you'll just be having fun all over the place. Sweet!
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I've got a lot of nitpicky stuff to add, most of which seems to me to be highly debatable, and one or two slightly more profound observations.
First off, I'm still a fan of the prologue. I even like this version better, though this is where most of the nitpicking happens.
You mention "a two-second journey from New York to Moscow". I think two cities beginning with the same letters would have fit much better. As it is, I expected some kind of explanation pertaining to the relevance of those two cities, politically or otherwise.
Directly after that, the "strange requests" lead to the birth. You could add one or two more examples of strange requests before mentioning that specific one (marriage on Everest or something equally silly), to make the transition to the next scene less abrupt. Maybe this part also needs an explanation of how the teleportation works, if it fits in there, plot-wise.
Once you reach the birth, your previously omniscient narrator suddenly has only very limited knowledge ("presumably the husband of the woman", etc), and then returns to omniscience.
The sky flashes, "no one ever tied it to the baby girl" - and why should they, I asked myself. Maybe here you should have further reinforced the general assumption that the flashing would be important sometime later on (mentioning that they happened at exactly the same time, for instance), otherwise it could just be judged an interesting coincidence and forgotten by the end of the next chapter.
"The Night the World Blew Up" doesn't sound to me like a name people (i.e. newspapers and other media) would adopt, escpecially as no actual blowing up of the world is involved. These things tend to have concise yet poetic names. Think "Black Friday", "V-Day" and the like.
Right, on to chapter one. In the prologue, you mention the date of the birth, then you mention that "over seven years later" something else happens. Chapter one then begins "17 years later". That adds up to 24. ;)
"10 years and X days after World Blowing Up Day" would work. At that point I could still have done the math, and the first mention of Ashley's birthday isn't that far off.
A thing I don't like in general, not just in your submission, is emphasis through visual means, i.e. underlining, italicising and whatnot. Actually, I completely and totally despise that, because I think it disrupts the natural flow of reading. Mostly the emphasis is completely unnecessary, because it's readily apparent from the words themselves. If it isn't, then the words need changing. I did mention that all this would be highly debatable, didn't I? ;D
I feel the need to throw in something positive again, so I'll state once again how much I liked the prologue, and that the excursion worked very much better than the two classroom scenes one after the other. There would still have been room between the two scenes for something unrelated to school, to show that Ashley has an actual life, but it wasn't as striking as in the previous version.
Another minor thing: the first mention of Kyle's name is a perfect point to insert a brief description of him (along the lines of "a bloke with purple hair").
After they talk about the Crashers in class, Rem says that it was a good "discussion". I stumbled over that word, because I personally wouldn't have called it that. It read as if the whole thing took maybe a minute or two, so I think you should let them talk a bit longer. Perfect place for an infodump, if you ask me.
I have one more. Someone mentioned above that they didn't get to know Ashley a lot. I partly agree. The major impression I had in two particular scenes was that the girl must be pretty dense. Walking on snow is better than walking on ice? Did she spend the last 17 years in sunnier climes, or why is this such a major discovery? The same goes for sitting down on ice and then being suprised at wet trousers. Those two scenes really made me question her intelligence, and they don't go very well with the somewhat more educated behaviour she displays shortly afterwards.
In retrospect, I seem to have gone for the "find lots of bad and little good"-approach. In my defense, I'll claim that good parts are naturally elusive because you breeze past them in reading. Anyway. Everything I didn't mention above obviously needs no fixing, and my overall impression is still similar to that of the previous version: I like it, give me more. Ideally combine the best of both drafts, and keep the prologue.
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Keep the prologue?....I want to. Trust me....But it would be weird if I did. This book is supposed to be the first of a trilogy. Literally everything else is 3rd person limited. Even the other two book's prologues.....So I think it would be weird to have the first prologue be omniscient and then never again go to omniscient.....I like it as the omniscient, but when I started to think how it fit with the rest of the story, I wasn't so sure.....But I do plan on keeping it very similar to how it is. I'm just adding a few characters who know the most about what's going on.
And since I don't plan to resubmit the prologue again, I may as well give a basic description of the biggest new character in the Prologue. His name is Craig Thurston (although that may change to Chris...I'm not sure. I'm tossing between the two). He's a neighbor of the Walkers. He works for the Coalition. He recently ported (teleported?) to the moon as a test. It's him thinking about the colors. It's him who sees the light (well....along with everyone else who sees it that night). He actually DOES tie it Ashley. And he knows what it means. But he doesn't care enough to turn her in to the government (he works for them, but he doesn't particularly care for the way they operate some things....for example, he thinks it's REALLY dumb of them to have all of the technology for not only the weather control and the porting (teleporting), but also for all the other technological advancements kept only in those 6 tech buildings around the world). He likes to walk. In a world where most people port. He likes to walk so much that he's walking around at 2:30 in the morning when it's freezing cold outside and there's snow on the ground. I think he's crazy. But that's just me.
Anyway. Good catch on the date thing. Totally didn't catch the 17 years to 10 years thing. I should've. And I will definitely take into consideration your ideas when I finally choose to get back to re-writing that part, even if they were "debatable." I think they were good points. You've definitely made me feel better about this submission, because I was becoming convinced that it was an utter failure. It's nice to know I was wrong. Thank you.