Timewaster's Guide Archive

First off, nice hook! It felt intriguing enough to have the reader go on.

I liked the voice : sarcastic bordering on satire. This voice should make a great character.

This is where things start going not that well : this piece feels more like a character study than a short story, something you would jot down to try out a character's voice. In that sense, it works really well to show the character, but it doesn't go anywhere

My feelings : you're missing either a plot, or a punchline. Seeing that this was going nowhere, I hoped for a witty last paragraph where I would discover something unexpected about the character (I don't know, he's a zombie with only one leg hopping about, unable to get some brains for dinner.). I was sad to discover really nothing in the end.

The sequence of paragraphs didn't make much sense either : you're leading with fear, and then you've got a paragraph on a woman and her regrets, and then, it's about bugs... It feels like random thoughts put together.

As Fireflyz said, the overall phrase length is long, making the piece more difficult to read than it should really be.

I think I also spotted a discrepancy : at one time, the character has been dead for 13 years, but at another place, it was 150.

It was nice to read, don't get me wrong, but I really would have liked the text to go somewhere, especially after that wonderful hook.

I'd like to thank everyone here, your comments were very helpful. I have definitely quite a lot to think about with what you've given me.

I'll try to keep my reply short and not address all issues raised here. Just a few comments so that you understand better this piece.

First, this section was the first piece of fiction I ever wrote (that was about a year and a half ago). I had revised it once (mostly line editing), and last week, prior to submitting, I noticed something that needed fixing. In the first draft, Destra appeared right before she saw the library (I love 'in late, out early'. This one was really late). In the next paragraphs, she remembered how she got here, in a sort of flashback. While I re-read this, I realized that this was really the wrong way to tell that chapter, so I rewrote the first part, so that everything happens in sequence. As a result, you got an ending that has been vetted by a lot of people, a beginning that I just wrote, and the two meshing in the middle part with new and old words put together.
Now that I see your comments, I realize that the seams are really visible and need work so that I have a piece that feels much more like a whole.

As some of you detected (damn!), English is not my first language (I wish!). When I read the piece for myself, I could see some "stiltedness" in there. I knew something was wrong, but couldn't tell how to fix it. LTU mentioned something like "lazy wording". I think this is definitely part of it, and I'll try to correct that. If any of you have ideas on the subject, I'd be really grateful for any more comments.

For more specific points:

@LTU.
Almost every reader mentioned that "animals" part. Though it is really how Destra and her sisters see men, I agree that this comes in too early, making people thinking that regular animals are chasing her.

You mentioned a shift between part I with poor wording and part II with better wording. Could you tell me when that occured, so I can maybe look at the differences between the two parts?

All I really got as the reader as that she didn't like them, and thought them stupid

: That's exactly right. She's a much prejudiced person coming from a much prejudiced part of a prejudiced society.

I still had a lot of trouble sympathizing with Destra

: At that point, I'm not sure I want the reader to really sympathize with her, because she's not such a nice person, and she's not a main character. Besides, strong sympathy for her would negate much of the sympathy you would have for another character, and believe me, he needs every bit of sympathy he can get!

Mystery breeds intensity, no denying that, but all I really got was the author trying to tell me about a skism between men and women in this world

: It's a big part of that world. I tried not to do too much exposition here, to a point where I say really little. Maybe I need to add more. As someone else said, the scene is quite empty (no people at this hour), so the setting does appear "cardboard-like".

@Dark_Prophecy
Much of the points you mentioned appear to be a result of the late rewrite. I also agree with the parts about the need to insert some action in the middle and the bad guy telling too much (now that you mention it, I can almost see the villain with a curly mustache here).

Her death seemed...well, sort of wasted, otherwise.

That was partly the effect I wanted to achieve here. She felt cornered and the only thing she could think about was suicide, and all that was for nothing as she sees in the end.

@Juan Dolor
You seem to have been really bothered by the "maze". It's only a bunch of small short streets with lots of dead ends. She saw those with her children's eyes as a maze, but it's really not one.

Why not tell us what it is in the first paragraph?

I was really interested by that comment. I seem to have developed an habit to withhold information and present those as twists after. At some points, I want to do just that, but like in this instance, I didn't even realize I was doing it. Nice catch!

This library should not be a surprise.

Well, she's not used to be chased around. She knows the library is here, but she didn't realize that she could use any library to hide until she saw one.

You also raised some points about the absence of people in the streets. They're passing through what is really a "business district" and it's very late in the night (between 1 and 2 in the morning). Nobody comes here at this hour, nobody lives here, so you can shout all you want, people aren't going to hear.

First, how is she hearing them?  Is the library door not shut?

: Well, this is not a door. Pretty much everything passes through (light, sound, women), but some things are barred from coming through (men and rats mainly). This will be apparent in later chapters.

So the book, I presume, is destroyed?

: That would be telling :-)

Again, thank you all for your critiques, they've been really appreciated.

Hi all,

This is the prologue from my first novel : The Fifth Compendium

Summary :
Prologue, 3700 words

Destra, Mother of the fifth heart is being chased by a group of men who want to steal the item she was asked to carry with her that night.


Thanks for any comments!

I liked the chapter as I did the earlier ones, and have no major complaints here.

One point that worries me a little is the ending, where I find that you do too much explaining for the reader's benefit. I don't think we need that much explaination about why giving up their prisoner was a very bad idea.
On the same part, the fact that nobody objects when he surrenders the prisoner didn't feel right : they only begin thinking about it only after Lexio leaves. Why didn't Jhuz even try to catch up with him and get him at least to wait for them? (Lexio can't be that far ahead).

Now, some specific remarks :

"lightning was wreaking havoc on the bodyguard’s nerves.", and "his mind would feel like he hadn’t slept in days" : these look like POV errors (even if slight ones); JHuz shouldn't know that.

"frightened by the weather. Jhuz asked aloud, “I thought you were..." : Placing the attribution here, just after some character's inner thoughts felt wrong. I would put the attribution at the end of the sentence.

"When he discovered who had convinced the Emperor to disown Gaitu, he would make them pay." : I wonder if Jhuz can really act on that discovery. Seems a little out of character for a person that is this naive.

"No. I smell bad because I’m a soldier. In the wilderness. Without soap.” : that sentence is really good. It's funny, has a good rythm and is very true. You put another sentence in the chapter commenting about the time passed in waiting for soldiers : another real fact. Good job in depicting a soldier's life here.

"They had seen evidence of that at Sanction." : I would rewrite that as "They had seen first hand what the Chell could do at Sanction" or something like that. As it is, I don't feel it connects too well with the preceding sentence.

"a bit later than he normally would have." : you're implying that he has done this before. Maybe using "should" would be better here.

That's all for this week!

Well, since I do not have much to say writing-wise, I'm forced to comment on the setting :-)

If you're saying that "Cold ones" have enhanced healing capabilities, I would advise you to show it on an earlier chapter, so that in chapter 9, nobody raises an eyebrow when someone with a grave injury gets out of bed in only 4 days.
Maybe you could add to the first scene with the two girls fighting at school and show how a small wound on a cold one heals in minutes (you can maybe use Mena for this purpose) .

That might pose some exposition problems, since right now you've handled it rather well : adding more could upset that fragile balance.

For the Arabs : being an astronomer myself, I agree that their scholars were much more advanced than european ones at the time :-)

This will be a quick review this time, since I didn't find much to tell here, which is kind of a good sign, I suppose.

The story still interests me very much, even if I begin to feel it dragging a little.

This chapter does alleviate some of the doubts I had in the previous chapter about Jhuz's reactions. At some points, you went a tad overboard with too much explainations of Gaitu's goals with Jhuz ; I think some of the dialog between Jhuz and Zaisha can be edited out without losing much.
You have shown us a very different side of the Jhuz character here, yet it integrates well with what we already knew, so job well done!

My only complaint would be about the end of the chapter where I feel that Arilu's request comes as completely out of the blue (in his place, I would be much more preoccupied by the legion's survival and status in the empire than taking a single live prisoner). I felt a little too much the writer pulling the strings here, as if the plot demanded those three characters went on a mission right now.
Maybe I'm wrong. I guess I'll see in the next chapter whether that point was valid or not.

I hope to have the next chapter on monday! This writing group feels like I subscribed to a magazine :-)

Ok, I'm back for a more extended critique.

First, thanks for the duel scene, it was very nice to read. You still managed to have me hooked after 9 chapters.

Aside from the fears I mentioned in the previous reply, I do have some comments about this particular installment:

* I found that Carrera's reversal didn't quite work for me at the beginning of the chapter : we have someone who was introduced as a bad guy suddenly appear human. At one point, I even wondered if it was an act on the character's part (since apparently, cold ones can hear very well) to induce some sympathy in his opponent, thus weakening him.

* Side note on the firearm's mechanism : since the bullets are still loaded as usual, I don't see the point in having a complicated triggering mechanism : a flintlock, while sometimes not igniting the powder, still works quite well in that respect and would fire quicker than a spring mechanism. Early firearms weren't accurate because they lacked the rifling inside the barrel that makes bullets spin on themselves, not because of the flintlock. On a more literary note, you don't need to describe the mechanism in such levels of detail.

* If I understand the positioning correctly, Matthieu had his right side facing the bullet and was hit in the right hip (so that would be a square hit). How comes the bullet ricocheted? On what part? I didn't understand how a dagger hilt hidden in a boot could provoke that

* "Coupled with his sudden change..." : the transition between this sentence and the previous one didn't seem smooth enough.

I really liked having the protagonist decide to fire anyway in the end : I hate it when heroes do the right thing!

Nice job. I'll be happy to read you next week.