Timewaster's Guide Archive

First off, I really liked the culture you have built here. The superstitions, formalities, names, etc. I liked it.
At times, however, I felt that things were a bit rushed. While I'm not a fan of lengthy transitions from one scene to the next, I think you could have put a little more into yours. For example, he went directly from killing Vales to getting the bars out of the box. For a moment, I wasn't even sure that Vales was dead, because you jumped right from the stabbing to the box thing. I don't think it would hurt to say a little more about Vales' death.
Overall, though, I liked what I read.
I also liked all the names... They had a nice ring to 'em

I am very impressed. I would have to say that this is possibly my favorite of all the submissions thus far.
I really liked how real you made the war feel. The grim reality of war was well-portrayed, both in the view of the soliders and in those who were only watching the war through rumors and gossip.
I also really like your prose. At times, it was hard to pin down exactly what perspective it was from, and to me, that was both a good thing and a bad thing. I liked the feeling it gave, but it was also at some times confusing.
There were two segments where I couldn't tell whose perspective it was from. I was guessing that they were from Darin's perspective, since he was the one on the front lines, but it never specified, so I was unsure. The first was the segment where it talked about how they wore no uniform, and the second was the one that talked about soldiers asked to dress up and play child's games. Both segments were intriguing, but I couldn't tell whose perspective it was from.
Overall, however, I really liked what I read, and I'm eager to see where this goes.

Here's another chapter!

I too, support the idea of letting anyone submit on the 15th.
However, I've gotta hurry up and read the rest of the submissions from the 1st! Lousy laziness.

I was gonna say, just because it's a cool idea doesn't mean it has to go in THIS book.

Very true. It will probably only be showing up a handful of times in this book.

I liked it. I found it very easy to read, and I found myself wanting to learn more about the setting. However I did feel that, at times, there was a bit too much of an infodump.
   I liked the debates, but I agree that two in a row was too much. I'm glad you're planning to put a scene between the two.
   I liked the little part about her doodling for the remainder of the class time. That pretty much sums up my schooling experience. . . and I find it continuing into college....
   Anyhow, as others have said, the characters seemed like little more than voices. They could use some more description, even if it's only brief (actually, in my opinion, brief descriptions are best). I also would have liked to see a bit more of what the main character was thinking.
   Again, I really liked it. keep it up!

I agree that the name of Edwyn's magic system could be changed, maybe just shorting it to the power of script?

With the names for the magic system, I've really had some trouble making decisions on it. Scriptomancy was just going to be one branch of the Birthright, and there were several others. My problem has been that I want to have, in the names, a reflection of what the power does. Unfortunately, some of those just sound silly when put into a name. One of them, Cartomancy, has apparently already been taken
 Here's what I have:
Scriptomancy - Based on writing, as seen in this prologue. I'm also considering the name Verbalmancy, as the more important part of it is the words.
Cartomancy - Based on maps. The marks you make on a map correspond with magical effects that take place at that location.
Illustratomancy - I definitely wanna find a better name for that... It's based on drawing creatures that then come to life.
Soulchemy - Mixing passions and emotions with magical components to get wacky cool effects.
Vitalchemy - Mixing attributes of living creatures with magical components.
Fatalchemy - Mixing events that have already happened with magical components to get them to happen again in a wacky cool way. The name was originally Fatechemy, because it fit better with what it does, but it just sounded terrible.
So, those are the names of the Higher Birthrights, and I'm struggling to figure out a better way to refer to them. I actually think I like the idea of shortening it, like wcarter4 suggested, to "the Power of Script" or "The Chemistry of Fate", or things like that, but I'm also wanting a shorter name for each the magic types that could be used as slang. With a name like 'The Power of Script', it wouldn't take long for people to come up with a shorter nickname.

Perhaps unintended humor: the enemy general Zheng Wii, the inventor of the famous game platform?!? Might consider a change to a homonym like Wui.

Second chuckle came with the horrified curse 'He's a Scholar!' Yes, the pen is mightier than the sword! It's almost like saying 'Stand back folks! He's an Actuarial! He has statistical tables, and he knows how to use them!!" I think it was an inadvertent bit of humor, and I'd almost rather you left it it.

Actually, I went with the spelling "Wii" because I knew that it was, at least, a real word. However, if "Wui" makes the same sound, then I may just have to go with that.

As far as the Scholar  bit, I actually felt the same way about that line. I may actually change it to something that specifies that he is a Scriptomancer. They actually knew he was Scholar (someone with the Higher Birthright), but they didn't expect him to be a Scriptomancer. More behind that will be explained later. However, I'm making some minor changes in the text to make it more clear as to what they were expecting.

Well, I'm done rambling. Thanks so much, everyone, for your input. This is really helping.