Timewaster's Guide Archive

Hubay has a great point. I was wondering what seemed odd about your magic also. He hit the nail on the head. Possibly the warmth of healing spell (prayer?) radiated from his hand, things like that.

So I'm not gonna lie. I didn't like this chapter as much as the previous, and that- I think- is due largely to the fact that you write from the perspective of three characters in the span of 20 pages. And you have killed two characters that you have introduced in a matter of 20 pages. I'm not saying this is BAD, I just don't get much of a character and therefore don't care much whether he dies in battle or not. The only character, so far, that I want to read more of, is Albione and that is because I want to know how his faith mixes with the fact that he is a warrior. And I think you talked about this with LTU in the previous thread,  you don't necessarily need a ton of fight scenes to catch your readers attention. Yeah, I like the idea of opening the story with a seige on the church-fortress-thing. But, this second chapter doesn't feel quite as dynamic- the High Priestess is cliche (which isn't always a bad thing either), the action is a little bit fuzzier (particularly the part about the elf mage continuing his chant and the red beam that came from one of the elf's), and the whole magic system is really fuzzy to me right now (you seem to use the words "mage" and "priest" interchangeable and I am assuming this is technically Christian fiction so wouldn't the "mage" be the baddie and the "priest" be the good guy like Albione?). Maybe I misunderstood that last bit, but I would really like to see how this spiritual magic system works- are the elves worshipers of your allegorical version of satan? Are the priests called to fight or to heal with the gifts of Alazon (why by the way is quite reminiscent of Aslan)? Also, the part where Charom and the High Priestess go into the Inner Sanctuary (the Holy of Holies?- therefore, wouldn't they be unhappy about their sacred place being defiled?), anyway, the part where they go into the tunnel gets kinda funny- suddenly all of the priests and soldiers are there. Also, if Albione is a priest, how come he is fighting? Beyond that there were a few sentences that had typos, there were a few sentences without periods (but that stuff is trivial right now.)
Wow, looking at this, I kinda cut your stuff down- but I don't mean to. I'm just letting you know some of these things that made this second chapter a bit less dynamic. But I'm still interested in the story and will make the time to read it next week also.

Welcome to Reading Excuses! I can only echo what has been said, this is a great opening. It got a little heavy on action, but you felt the battle, so it was good. I am interested to see where this is going for sure. Like you've already addressed, the Night Elf thing feels derivative but that is because of WoW.  Maybe start with the Latin word for night(=nox) and the Latin word for light (=lux), so you might want to start there for your name making process. Also, the name "Roran"  was used in the Inheritance Cycle, which is a more modern work of medieval fantasy fiction, so you might want to change that too. Anyway, great work and I'd love to see more.

Thanks, I'm not offended or anything. Feedback is what I'm here for, so, I'm keeping on, and yeah I will probably rewrite parts here and there.

Sorry I'm late and I haven't been commenting much, life has been busy. Thanks in advance for any feedback. I am slowing the pace down a bit, down to a normal story.

Sorry to take so long. I really liked this piece, not as much as last chapter though because it didn't really seem to get much done. For one, Talvin seemed pretty easy on Jin until his sudden decision to send him to the stables. Although the disembodied voice made the chapter worth while. And the Spanish accent in my head is seriously gonna make it funny now. There were a few typos like "he" instead of "the" but that is minor if you are just laying out the story. Anyway, at this point in time, I have absolutely NO confidence in Jin's plan. I'm just letting you know in case you wanted the reader to have confidence in his plan. I like the other commenter, would like to have seen more messing around with the hole in the universe or whatever it is. I am interested in the sparks that come from Jin's hands, very cool. Anyway, thanks for writing, and I might be late on this week's chapter. Sorry.

Thanks, I apologize for not making the threads, I have had some internet connection problems.
@LTU, I am suffering from the format, but I am beginning to write as a whole story and split it up. I am having problems fitting the details. I intend to go back and rework everything soon.
@Akoebel, I am not sure what has changed that disappointed you, could you specify so that I can work on that or make note not to do that again.  About Vara asking Leo to speak, I goofed there, I will cut those two sentences in between.

Please send it as a .doc. That would be greatly appreciated. And I am familiar with Schlock Mercenary, I just haven't had enough time to really get into it. I thank you for saying that I need to decide between long and short format while still keeping it interesting, cliffhanger-ish. And as of late, my brain has been fuzzled over this, because you're right, I have been cutting back a whole chapter into a one and a half page serial. So instead, I will begin to write how I want to, and split it into smaller portions, with just enough towards the end to keep it like a serial. Thanks for the comments.  And I hope I can keep the average reader's attention, because the concrete explaining doesn't come till segment after next.