Timewaster's Guide Archive

Awesome feedback guys. I'm glad that it stirred things up a little bit.

This is actually only the second story I've ever finished, and the first story I've finished outside a classroom with a due date. And yes, ick is right.

Second, yeah, I've seen that episode of Buffy, and I hate Whedon for it, since he took a very cool idea and let the whole thing play out in the last 30 seconds of the show. I certainly thought of it when I wrote this, but I figure with a character of a different sex, age group, and predicament, it's different enough to stand on its own.

The locker room is more than just a little cliche, but you know someone's gonna try it

Sorry I arrived so late to the fight.

In short, I liked this piece a lot. There are some really good things going on here, and I want to hear more. For a prologue, at least ones that I like to read, I want a catchy first sentence, just like a chapter 1. If it's not there, I'm not horribly disappointed, but it always helps if it is.

As to what everyone else said, yeah, there are some things that could be worked out. I've taken the stance now that I'm not going to submit anything that isn't a completely finished draft, since I think submitting prologues would only make me into one of those people that endlessly tinkers with the first few chapters, and never gets to the end. You might ponder doing the same.

I like James, a lot. I'm a fan of the first person narrative, though I didn't actually read one until I was almost twenty years old. Keep it up, and if you need a good alpha reader for the whole thing, I'm your guy. Especially since I live in Logan. Feel free to email me any chapters that you'd like me to go over, and we can even meet up at some point if you'd like, to discuss. There's a nice writing group here in town, too. They charge something like $20 a year for a membership, but they seem serious about their business, so that's always good.

Well, I liked it a lot. I wouldn't change anything at all, if it doesn't jive with the rest of the book.

The way you worked the senses almost made me think this person had a magical ability that was effected by the noise of the crowd, the heat, etc. That's cool. If not, it's still good to see someone that can work the 5 senses well.

Honestly, I often wonder why we submit small pieces of a novel, since it's really hard to judge anything but the most basic grammar and spelling without knowing the rest of the story. The senses could be important, they could not. This prologue could be exactly the things that Recovering Cynic was looking for: historically relevant, showing powers, etc....or it could not. We won't know until we read more.

From what's here though, I liked it. Of the five or so pieces that I've read tonight, this one seemed to be the easiest on my eyes. Meaning that reading it wasn't any sort of a chore, and something about the word placement, dialogue, etc. reminded me of how I would write a similar scene. That's not really praise, though, since I'm not every reader in the world. Still, it's something, right?

I really enjoyed this piece. Nice job!

I enjoyed this read. I think that with a little effort the Swords and Sorcery style of story is making a comeback. These things go in cycles, though, just like vampires and werewolfs, so who knows?

As to the character of the piece, I really liked his voice. I'd agree that he might benefit from a little backstory, but don't lose that voice!

The only thing I found difficult about the piece is separating his internal thoughts from the rest of the piece. I think this might be solved with some simple italics, though.

I'm looking forward to another chapter, so we can see how things roll from here. Remember to take everyone's comments with a big old bag of salt, since a novel is more than just a short story, and it's always hard to judge just a single snippet of the whole.

I've emailed you back some line edits using the Microsoft Word/Openoffice track changes thingy.

Hey all, I'm back and better than ever. My goal? Impress Frog

Just kidding! I'm really just finally back to writing after being far too busy with kids and whatnot.

Anyway, if there's a spot open to submit this coming week, I'd love to shoot the first chapter of yet another novel your way.

I would recommend Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind. It doesn't really have any language or sex that I can remember, and if it were strong enough, I think I would remember it. Then again, I can't remember what I had for dinner last night, so yeah.

I suggest The Lies of Locke Lamora to pretty much everyone, but it has a lot of language, and some fairly intense violence, so I'm not sure it's really your thing.

I second John Brown's Servant of a Dark God. Brown is a really nice guy, and his writing is great. It's very clean, and everything that's in there has a purpose.

I have a soft spot in my heart for David Eddings' stuff, since they were some of the books my mother read to me growing up. They're very clean, as I remember them, and would probably be considered YA by today's standards. Flame away, everyone, I like Eddings.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman is a very good read, and I highly recommend it. Think of the Jungle Book, but with dead peoples' ghosts. Oh, and a guy trying to murder the main character...who is not a tiger or baboon.

Sanderson's Alcatraz series is clearly aimed at kids, but it's still a fun read for adults.

Joseph Delaney's The Last Apprentice series is one that I never hear people talking about, but I think is great. Just gruesome enough to seem scary to kids, but solid writing in my opinion. They make a good airplane and car ride book, since you can plow through one in just an hour or two.

The Hunger Games and Catching Fire are very clean books. I liked The Hunger Games much more, but Catching Fire is a worthy succesor. The Third book is probably due out in a year and a half or so, maybe less. I hear there's a movie deal in the works too. Think Thunderdome for kids. That's honestly the best quick description I can give.

On Stranger Tides is a novel by Tim Powers that I finished not too long ago. It's a swashbuckling tale that Pirates of the Carribean clearly swiped several things from initially, and I hear that the next Pirates movie is based on this book. It was fun. There was some violence, but not much in the way of cursing or sex that I remember, and it was all necessary to the story.

There's always the Harry Potters, though I think everyone in the entire world has read those. It's like they shipped them in Crack Jack boxes or something. Sheesh.

Overlooked and well worth the read for YA is the Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud. I really enjoyed these books, and I think that the only reason they weren't more popular was because they were out at the same time as the steam engine that was Rowling's Harry Potter stuff.

That's a decent list for now, I guess. Enjoy!

Frog...I think I like you. You're okay in my book