Timewaster's Guide Archive

Hey guys,

Here's my next chapter. As always I appreciate the suggestions and feedback.


Chapter 5 Summary - A messenger delivers a dangerous package to Albione's room. When he opens it, the nightmare gets worse.


Here's the summary's for the first 4 chapters.

Chapter 1 Summary - Albione rescues a rival militia commander, but ends up losing the knight he's sworn to protect. A night elf raid has overrun the walls

Chapter 2 Summary - Charom, Albione's older brother, is in charge of the High Priestess' guard detail when the temple comes under attack.

Chapter 3 Summary - Albione rescues the High Priestess and accompanies her and his brother Charom to the wall. What he finds is completely unexpected.

Chapter 4 Summary - Albione is summoned to a meeting with his immediate Superior to face the consequences of his actions on the wall.

Will777r

This chapter was a smooth read, much more so than the last chapter. I didn't feel like there were dead moments or confusing sections. I could picture everything very well in my mind.

I did feel like it needed to be tightened up a bit. Things like "Darkclaw looked" are unnecessary as we're already in his head. You can just write what he sees. It will deepen the PoV and make the sentences/paragraphs tighter.

I'll echo what some others have said about "standard time". Instead of making me feel like the universe has depth from the different cultures/planets, it just threw me off.

I also have gotten the impression that the Trodoon's are lizard or frog-like. If that's what you're going for, then that's great.

I also got the impression that Keeneye was questioning Darkclaw. Up to that point, the entire mood is one of superiority, confidence, and order. I know he just questioned whether it was safe to enter the station, but in light of how everything has been up to that point, it came across stronger than maybe you intended. I would expect him to speak with a bit more deference, and even confidence.

I too like Darkclaw's character. I'm interested to see where his arc goes.

The High Lord strikes me as all-powerful. I'm interested to find out what his weaknesses are.

The space station was the only part that I didn't like much. Not the actual depiction of it. It sounded cool. But, the ability to clone an army at such a rapid pace seemed very convenient and gave me the idea that they will be unstoppable. The only danger with an unstoppable force is that it often requires something out of left field to defeat it. If the "left field" idea is creative and makes sense, then great. If it's not belieable, it will just leave the reader disappointed.

Good chapter overall. I liked it and am interested to see what happens next.

Will777r

Thanks again for the feedback Asmo, both positive and constructive. I'm really glad I found you guys

I especially apprecate what you had to say about the temple's stance not making sense. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to Albione either. One of the theme's of the book is the question of truth and evil. Albione has always believed his temple to be good. But are they? The temple's views seem a little warped, but religion can do that to folks. "Cowardice" to them would probably be synonymous with "sin" or "wickedness", even though the action might not resemble cowardice at all. The breaking of any of their principles falls in that category. I'm hoping that comes out more in the story as the temple is explored a bit, but it might not be working.

The miltia might be able to take the city, but it would be a bloodbath. Whether Benda or Ferris have compromised values remains to be seen, although I'll let the reader decide

As for the city being on alert - The militia is, but the temple knows it's over via Rook-Sha. Her revelation from Alazon told her the truth behind the attack, that this was a squabble between Rysok and Alazon (two deity's) and it failed. Maybe I should bring that prologue back heh.

Will774

Hey guys

Here's Chapter 4. It's about 2300 words, so a shorter chapter. Again I appreciate the time anyone takes to read this and offer feedback.

Chapter 4 Summary - Albione is summoned to a meeting with his immediate Superior to face the consequences of his actions on the wall.

Here's the summary's for the first 3 chapters.

Chapter 1 Summary - Albione rescues a rival militia commander, but ends up losing the knight he's sworn to protect. A night elf raid has overrun the walls

Chapter 2 Summary - Charom, Albione's older brother, is in charge of the High Priestess' guard detail when the temple comes under attack.

Chapter 3 Summary - Albione rescues the High Priestess and accompanies her and his brother Charom to the wall. What he finds is completely unexpected.


Thanks again!

Will777r

Waiting until next week myself if that's okay.

Will777r

As always, I really, really appreciate the feedback here. A lot of you are asking questions about why certain things are the way they are. There is an extensive backstory for all that, one I originally included in long infodump details hehe. But that wasn't working at all. So, I'm trying to decimate bits and pieces as the story goes on. Enough to make someone curious without stopping the story completely to reveal backstory.

I am pretty set on dropping Iaon's point of view scene completely. It's probably sufficient to show Albione in Chapter 3 arriving at the carnage outside the temple doors. Or I could replace Kase with an injured Iaon and thus not kill off a PoV character. Any thoughts there would be appreciated

Hubay, I really appreciate your thoughts on writing the magic from a deeper PoV instead of so detached. That's something I'm going to hit hard when I go through everything for the 3rd pass.

I'll try answer a few of the questions brought up here. Maybe some things will make more sense and you can help me to decide on whether or not changes are necessary to clarify this early in the story.

Asmodemon - The reason the militia commander doesn't believe Albione is because he feels assigned to a useless place on the wall. For the last two nights, the night elves have hit the southern and western walls of the city hard. The Militia controls 2/3 of the city and really is the driving force in that part of the land (not the Temple of Alazon). His assignment was switched to here tonight "for his safety" since he's Ferris' son-in-law. In his mind, not much has happened here and the temple forces were just exaggerating any attacks that came this way. I can't really show any of this w/out being in his PoV or giving an omniscient infodump. 

As for the priests being stupid - It's a suicide mission for the night elves. They might kidnap the high priestess, but it's way more likely they won't get close. Even though the night elf priest almost kills her, that's not his mission. He only chooses this route because he knows he's dead already. Much better to face Rysok (his god) having done something than nothing. If a direct assault simply to defeat the temple is the mission (as the temple priests assume), it's absurd. They might suprise the courtyard guards and achieve a few victories  at first, but when the temple brings even a fraction of its full might to bear, they'll be slaughtered. When Rook-Sha reveals their true intention, that at least makes a bit more sense.

Concerning the bells, they aren't a magical alarm or anthing. When Kase breaks away to notify the High Priestess, he sends someone to sound the alarm. The temple is actually quite some distance from the walls (Elueria is huge). As for Albione going to warn them, well, he's just late heh. When Setio sends him, he doesn't know the runners are dead or that this heavy frontal attack was simply a diversion to get an elite force into the city. Even so, Albione is bound to follow the orders, so he leaves himself. Maybe not the brightest decision, but Albione's a man who gets caught up in his emotions - He kind of goes with what he's feels is right, even if it doesn't always make sense. I'll be honest though, your comments on this really made me think a lot about whether or not the sequence is believable. I appreciate that because I don't want readers to get frustrated and put it down because it doesn't make sense.

Akoebel - I like your questions about the night elves being "evil" to a man. This subject actually a theme in the story However, there are deep prejudices against the night elves because they fought a lengthy war against every human nation in the world years ago. And the night elves took it to levels that changed the way war took place. In fact, magic was never used prior to this war in battle. But that's probably more backstory than you care for. Suffice it to say, there's not a single member of the temple who thinks there is any good at all in any night elf.

As far as Kase being sent to the infirmary, the temple has plenty of soldiers to fight and he's badly injured. I need to do a better job of showing both those things.


Thanks again guys! I'm editing the middle of the book right now, but I can't wait to return to this chapter and do some surgery to it

Will777r

If possible my chapter 3 is ready for submission on Monday

Will777r

Thanks for taking the time to read this and give me feedback Manny

One of my biggest struggles has been the PoV change to Charom in Chapter 2. If I skip that chapter altogether, Chapter 3 seems anticlimactic. If it's written at all, it can't be written from Albione's PoV. Originally, I had it from the night elf priest's PoV. People liked that, but chapter 3 still seemed anticlimactic. So, I wrote it from Charom's PoV to build some concern for Rook-Sha when the events of Chapter 3 occur. I would love to hear any advice on what I should do with this chapter (even kill it) after I put up Chapter 3.

As far as the magic system and the storyline behind the deity's, I can explain it more. But, it comes out in the story. I had more background in my original first chapter (and prologue), but it fell into the infodump category and slowed it down a bit. It does come in later though.

Concerning allegory. I wouldn't try to look for any because if any is there, it's not intentional. My story began as a "what if" scenario many years ago, but it's lost all those elements and taken on a life of its own. But technically, as a writer, I should be happy with your guesses. They're 100% off hehe

Thanks again!

Will777r