Timewaster's Guide Archive

Thirded. And added to:

I don't think figuring out the blue glow should be a struggle. I'd think it's pretty obvious. Don't want to make Kail look *too* dumb.

As for previous brutality, I did mention that in my original critique, and that it always felt justified before whereas here it does not.

As for fixing the sword in the stone? I like the idea of making it something that the trolls have not been able to do for ages, but Kail can. I'll also point out that I would expect Kajsa's father to set the trial, since he IS the boss man and all.

As for fixing the object of Kail's anger, just make sure it's perfectly clear that Kail is pissed at Reggin, not Kajsa. It may well be, and I just fail reading comprehension. It's happened before. But I also think that, by rights, he ought to be mad at her, considering what she did. Deception and coercion are not a good foundation for a healthy relationship.

Well, LTU, you're right about one thing: I've been in precisely one fight in my life. It was in grade school. I lost.

That said, I think we're mostly in agreement. I hate fictional heros who have every reason to kill, but don't because of their unrealistic principles. What's missing from this piece, or at least is not brought out enough, is that reason. The way it's written, Kail's biggest motive is just that he's pissed off. Worse, the fight feels less like a fight to protect family and more like a cage match. A brutal sport, but still a sport.

In football, if you have a huge lead on your opponent, you put your third-string players in so they can get some experience. This is not only good sense, it's the sporting thing to do. Boxers don't kick their opponents when they're down. They don't hit below the belt. They're in a contest, not a fight for life. Kail's fight is too much like the former and not enough like the latter, and that was my issue.

I'm glad you decided to take a break from The Name of God, if only because it gives me a chance to give you a critique. TNoG is a little intimidating (mostly because there's so much of it), and when I tried to read the backlog I had trouble pushing through it.

Okay! First, I will gripe at you for the rough language. It took me quite a while to spin my autocorrect engine up high enough for it not to drive me to distraction. I assume you must be aware of this, and are planning to fix it, so I won't gripe too hard about it.

Next, I will gripe at you for the beginning. The hook is pretty weak, (I know I don't have much room to complain here...) but beyond that I felt like I had to read for too long to get a grasp of the situation. It wasn't until I was about a fifth of the way through that I felt like understood what was going on. This is due to two things: first, your exposition needs work, and second, there are too many interconnected things going on at once right from the start.

Since I'm a programmer, I think of this like reducing coupling. You need to refactor your scenes so they depend less on each other. Therefore, I can read a small chunk and feel like I understand it completely, then continue to build on that base. (I seem to recall you're a programmer. If you're not and/or that made no sense, let me know and I'll explain in different terms. )

To attack this, you may consider just starting earlier. At his escape from prison, perhaps? At least, at a point when there's less going on at once.

About that exposition. The piece is very explainy. I felt like there were too many asides and too many explanations. This is a stylistic thing and therefore hard to quantify, but even your fights feel explainy. The whole thing is like a chain of explanations instead of a narrative. It gets tedious after a bit.

Yeah, and about those fight scenes. They're a bit tedious. I don't know for sure why I feel this way, but I'll try to explain as best I can. Part of it is the explainy narrative style. A large part is, I think, that most of his opponents are horribly outclassed, so the outcome of the fight is really quite obvious. Once it becomes clear that he's just going to tear through and obliterate everyone in his path, it becomes tedious to have to sit through a blow-by-blow of him doing it. The Judge fight was more interesting.

Of course, the judge fight also read like an anime. Fight, talk, fight, talk. Pontificating about one's power in the middle of a fight. Powering up in stages. "I'm sure by now you've started to figure it out." Etc. Ugh.

At this point, I'm curious how he ever got caught, and how he lost the sword. The militia don't really seem competent enough to pull that off, not against him.

For the questions:

1) It's hard to make a murderer likable. One way is to make him into a killer and not a murderer. The difference? A soldier is a killer. A police officer is a killer. They usually have just cause for killing people, so they're not murderers. Can we see that Dariel has just cause for slaughtering a lot of people? Well, if he's really right about the sword, then he probably is. But, well, the passage doesn't make this clear. In fact, it actively works to cast doubt on it.

The other way is to use the Darth Vader phenomenon. Vader is one of the most beloved characters in Star Wars. Nobody likes Luke. Luke's a whiny puke. I personally have a hard time empathizing with him because he's so annoying. Vader, on the other hand, is pure awesome. We like watching him in action because he kicks so much trash. We want to dress up as him for halloween.

2) The magic systems are already pretty interesting. You don't have any work to do there.

3) Make it more clear what's going on. When he wall runs, it took me a while to realize that's what he's doing because the way you worded it made me think he had pushed away from the wall. That's one example, but there's a bunch more where the action is just not clear. If you can clearly describe awesome occurring, it will be interesting.

I did like the magic systems. They were interesting, and I wanted to know more. You seem to have a well-developed (if not entirely unique) world here. It seems that Dariel is well-developed in your mind, though you could do a better job characterizing him with your writing. A Fren in action has a lot of potential for awesome. I'd read chapter 2.

Yeah, I said chapter 2. I said it to teh Falcon, and I'll say it to you: with that ending, this is not a prologue.

Hope that makes sense and is helpful. Hope it doesn't dissuade you or anything. I am trying to be helpful, and not just a hater.

Hokay. This chapter was a mixed bag, and a bit of a letdown.

First, let me mention that I'm glad you described the cavern. However, you stuck it in there right as the action was about to begin, so it interrupts the flow. That description would have been better put in the previous Kail chapter.

Second, Kail's decision to shrug off Kajsa's deception was not what I was hoping for. Or, maybe, the way he just accepted it out of hand after a brief moment of anger. It felt like a cop out, because it made the problem just go away. "Well, you just made a lifelong commitment for me without even asking me, but I guess that's alright." Pushover! Love-sick puppy!

Don't get me wrong: Kail ought to fight for Kajsa, as he does. He ought to delay fighting with her over this slight, as he does. But I get the feeling, based on the way he just shrugs, that this conflict is never going to happen because Kail has decided to be an emasculated marshmallow, and that would be a shame.

Third, I was a little mortified at Kail's brutality here. I kept wanting him to take a step back and realize that his anger has taken him to a dark place. Maybe he will later, I don't know. But why did he keep maiming his opponent after he'd obviously won? It was offputting, and made me sympathize with Kail a little less.

Kail's been brutal before, but those times felt different for some reason. Maybe because, always before, he was fighting for his life, whereas this felt more like a friendly contest/boxing match type thing. Maybe, if you weren't shooting to darken Kail's character with this fight, you could change the setup a bit so it doesn't feel like he's out of line when he beats the tar out of a downed and defeated opponent.

Lastly, sword in the stone? Not awesome. I'm with Falcon on that one. Either figure out a way to make it awesome, or figure some other way for Kail to prove himself that is. The entire thing just came too easily. Kail laid the smackdown on a serious opponent without breaking a sweat, and he effortlessly proved himself by pulling a sword from a stone. At no time to we feel that he might be in danger, or that he might fail. It's like cheating at a video game: briefly entertaining but ultimately unfulfilling. You need the character to struggle harder than that for us readers to get that vicarious rush of accomplishment that can make books and video games so addicting.

Now, I don't want to give the impression that I hated the chapter. It was okay. It's just that this feels like a character climax, and in that role it falls quite flat. Sorry to be so negative. Take with an appropriately-sized grain of salt, and all that.

In general, this chapter was made of win and awesome. I'm having a hard time finding anything specific wrong with it.

The biggest issue is likely due to the writing group problem (namely, the length of time between chapters). In other words, I feel like I've missed something—like I accidentally skipped a chapter or something. I don't remember Ellie learning to use her rings, I don't remember Morrigan's oath to ignore her son, and I certainly don't remember any sort of battle looming at any time so soon.

I know that I've been getting on your case for slow plot development, but skipping setup isn't the way to speed things up. But, as I said before, you could have set everything up perfectly and I just don't remember because it's been too long since I read those chapters.

For some reason, it wasn't clear to me that the soldiers harrying Bloodbath were "vikings" until late in the scene, when you specifically mention it. It may be because that doesn't make any sense. How did those soldiers get so far behind enemy lines? Given that they are in a potentially highly strategic position, don't they have better things to do than play with an obviously wounded and dying animal? Since you depicted them as riding wolves themselves, would they not have a predisposition to care for the beasts, instead of making sport of them?

I also wonder at Ellie's total incompetence. Well, no, actually, that felt right, and made sense; it's the earlier chapters, where she single-handedly takes down a sigil knight and gives a lot of other soldiers quite a bit of trouble. The Ellie from those chapters would have handled herself better. The Ellie from those chapters did not hesitate to cleave an enemy in half with a sword in self defense. She shouldn't have any prowess at combat, and she is a scared, gentle little girl. But she also has a near-suicidal amount of courage, and her resolve not to kill, even in self-defense, doesn't make sense considering what she's experienced up 'till now.

Her decision to trade the sword to Mordred is a nice echo of Kail's "burn the world" decision to save Kajsa. Her torpedos-be-damned freeing of Malik is just the sort of madly courageous stunt we've come to expect from her. She acted without hesitation, without thought, and without fear; it was perfectly in character and entirely awesome. Her pathetic excuse for a defense of Bloodbath, however, was not.

I agree that we don't feel any tension from the battle, but this felt right to me. Mordred's army are the bad guys, and we kind of want them to lose. Ellie is detached from the fighting; it would be mad (and entirely pointless) to have her in the thick of things. She has no reason to believe that Morrigan will allow any harm to come to her from the opposing forces. So, she ought to be relatively safe.

Actually, what is she doing hanging out with Mordred anyway? Did she really think that he would take time for her, let alone Bloodbath, while in the midst of commanding a battle?

That actually came out to a lot of specific criticisms. Guess I just needed to get warmed up. I still think the chapter is awesome, though. It's like a diamond in the rough.

But wouldn't Vivenna be able to detect the Breaths in the object?

I don't recall any suggestion in the book that Breaths invested in objects are detectable.

8 hours wiped and 100 minutes disabled. There are 3600 seconds in an hour.

Exciting that it's finally announced, maybe. Not so exciting that it's so far off. Unsurprising and understandable, but not exciting. :\