Author Topic: Crashers Pro-Chap 1 12/29/08  (Read 4347 times)

little wilson

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Re: Crashers Pro-Chap 1 12/29/08
« Reply #15 on: January 07, 2009, 01:33:46 AM »
First off, thank you Jacque, for sticking up for me. I hope my e-mail had nothing to do with it, but if it did, that's okay. Thank you anyway.

Yusuke--the second critique was MUCH better in my opinion. I thought the first was good, up until you said that you had to stop reading the prologue because it pretty much sucked too bad.....I'm like "NO! You didn't  get to the good part" because for some reason I thought killing and destruction was better than a birth....even if it is omniscience (which, by the way, is being killed....no more prologue omniscience).  And then it got worse when you did the same thing for Chapter 1.....But that's okay. Looks like you went back and finished those, so I'm ALL good.

wcarter--haha. I LOVE that part. Thank you for pointing it out, because I just find it hilarious, and I'm really glad someone noticed it. As for 9/11. Yes, I know it's risky. I know it's VERY risky. It's a part that I still need to work on, although in truth, this version I think is much less controversial than the first one. For one, it never comes out and SAYS 9/11, whereas the first version of Chapter 2 (9/11 was originally in Chap 2) did come out and name it. My main point of putting it in there was to give the book a connection to something that we all know about and understand, and then showing how that could change over about 300 years--not that 9/11 is really all that big of a deal (or as big as it is now) at the time of the book, but they do know OF it, and in some places, the facts are screwy--like in Rick's case where the facts have been changed...

Anyway. I have a lot of things to fix before I submit again. And I'll have to give a good summary to tell the changes made so no one gets confused when new characters enter the story who seem like the reader should know them (there's a guy in the new pro--which is unwritten--who comes back in Chap 3). Because I am NOT re-submitting, regardless of how many changes I make....

Therefore, it may be a while before I resubmit. Right now, I've got jury duty (and I was just selected to be ON a jury), and then I have to start applying for a passport. So I may not be around for a while, and I can almost guarantee that I won't have much time to write....
"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

Frog

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Re: Crashers Pro-Chap 1 12/29/08
« Reply #16 on: January 07, 2009, 02:32:35 AM »
First off, thank you Jacque, for sticking up for me. I hope my e-mail had nothing to do with it, but if it did, that's okay. Thank you anyway.

Well, it was because of your email that I decided to look at it, but then I formed my own opinions. Then I started to wonder if I was over stepping myself by commenting on it but all's well that ends well, right?

Thank you for pointing it out, because I just find it hilarious, and I'm really glad someone noticed it.

Your glad someone noticed it? And who am I? Chopped liver? I so pointed it out on my first read through, with a pink comment and everything!  :P

Therefore, it may be a while before I resubmit. Right now, I've got jury duty (and I was just selected to be ON a jury), and then I have to start applying for a passport. So I may not be around for a while, and I can almost guarantee that I won't have much time to write....

Oh, they picked you? That's exciting, and annoying at the same time. Passport should be fun though... lucky. :)
I've already conquered the world. This is exactly the way I want it.

little wilson

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Re: Crashers Pro-Chap 1 12/29/08
« Reply #17 on: January 07, 2009, 02:52:08 AM »
Hate to correct you Jacque, but....the comment wasn't red. It was blue. For me, anyway....Blue's a better color, though, so I guess it doesn't matter.....As for your question. Are you chopped liver? I'll answer it with a question of my own--Do you really want me to answer that? Really truly? Because I'm not sure if you do....:P

Yes, they picked me. The trial's only 4 days (at most), and since I'm only scheduled to work at my job the last two (and only 4 hours each), I'm only missing a grand total of 8 hours of work. Woo-hoo. (That was NOT said with excitement. It was purely sarcastic). And yes. Passport should be fun. I need to get to Costco to get a picture, though, and since I don't have a membership, I need to go with one of my parents. And since I've got jury duty and crap.....that makes it slightly difficult. But it's the only thing I've got left to do since I've already filled out the paperwork....
"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

Frog

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Re: Crashers Pro-Chap 1 12/29/08
« Reply #18 on: January 07, 2009, 02:58:46 AM »
You'd hate to correct me? I'm pretty sure it's the highlight of your day....
But it was blue? How'd I manage that? It's usually pink. I hate it when my super powers appear and I fail to notice them....
Sure Wilson, just tell me how you really feel. I'll find someway to get back at you. I always do.  :P
So you'll just be having fun all over the place. Sweet!
I've already conquered the world. This is exactly the way I want it.

Flo_the_G

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Re: Crashers Pro-Chap 1 12/29/08
« Reply #19 on: January 08, 2009, 12:59:31 AM »
I've got a lot of nitpicky stuff to add, most of which seems to me to be highly debatable, and one or two slightly more profound observations.

First off, I'm still a fan of the prologue. I even like this version better, though this is where most of the nitpicking happens.
You mention "a two-second journey from New York to Moscow". I think two cities beginning with the same letters would have fit much better. As it is, I expected some kind of explanation pertaining to the relevance of those two cities, politically or otherwise.
Directly after that, the "strange requests" lead to the birth. You could add one or two more examples of strange requests before mentioning that specific one (marriage on Everest or something equally silly), to make the transition to the next scene less abrupt. Maybe this part also needs an explanation of how the teleportation works, if it fits in there, plot-wise.

Once you reach the birth, your previously omniscient narrator suddenly has only very limited knowledge ("presumably the husband of the woman", etc), and then returns to omniscience.

The sky flashes, "no one ever tied it to the baby girl" - and why should they, I asked myself. Maybe here you should have further reinforced the general assumption that the flashing would be important sometime later on (mentioning that they happened at exactly the same time, for instance), otherwise it could just be judged an interesting coincidence and forgotten by the end of the next chapter.

"The Night the World Blew Up" doesn't sound to me like a name people (i.e. newspapers and other media) would adopt, escpecially as no actual blowing up of the world is involved. These things tend to have concise yet poetic names. Think "Black Friday", "V-Day" and the like.


Right, on to chapter one. In the prologue, you mention the date of the birth, then you mention that "over seven years later" something else happens. Chapter one then begins "17 years later". That adds up to 24. ;)
"10 years and X days after World Blowing Up Day" would work. At that point I could still have done the math, and the first mention of Ashley's birthday isn't that far off.

A thing I don't like in general, not just in your submission, is emphasis through visual means, i.e. underlining, italicising and whatnot. Actually, I completely and totally despise that, because I think it disrupts the natural flow of reading. Mostly the emphasis is completely unnecessary, because it's readily apparent from the words themselves. If it isn't, then the words need changing. I did mention that all this would be highly debatable, didn't I? ;D

I feel the need to throw in something positive again, so I'll state once again how much I liked the prologue, and that the excursion worked very much better than the two classroom scenes one after the other. There would still have been room between the two scenes for something unrelated to school, to show that Ashley has an actual life, but it wasn't as striking as in the previous version.

Another minor thing: the first mention of Kyle's name is a perfect point to insert a brief description of him (along the lines of "a bloke with purple hair").

After they talk about the Crashers in class, Rem says that it was a good "discussion".  I stumbled over that word, because I personally wouldn't have called it that.  It read as if the whole thing took maybe a minute or two, so I think you should let them talk a bit longer. Perfect place for an infodump, if you ask me.

I have one more. Someone mentioned above that they didn't get to know Ashley a lot. I partly agree. The major impression I had in two particular scenes was that the girl must be pretty dense. Walking on snow is better than walking on ice? Did she spend the last 17 years in sunnier climes, or why is this such a major discovery? The same goes for sitting down on ice and then being suprised at wet trousers. Those two scenes really made me question her intelligence, and they don't go very well with the somewhat more educated behaviour she displays shortly afterwards.


In retrospect, I seem to have gone for the "find lots of bad and little good"-approach. In my defense, I'll claim that good parts are naturally elusive because you breeze past them in reading. Anyway. Everything I didn't mention above obviously needs no fixing, and my overall impression is still similar to that of the previous version: I like it, give me more. Ideally combine the best of both drafts, and keep the prologue.

little wilson

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Re: Crashers Pro-Chap 1 12/29/08
« Reply #20 on: January 08, 2009, 03:14:49 AM »
Keep the prologue?....I want to. Trust me....But it would be weird if I did. This book is supposed to be the first of a trilogy. Literally everything else is 3rd person limited. Even the other two book's prologues.....So I think it would be weird to have the first prologue be omniscient and then never again go to omniscient.....I like it as the omniscient, but when I started to think how it fit with the rest of the story, I wasn't so sure.....But I do plan on keeping it very similar to how it is. I'm just adding a few characters who know the most about what's going on.

And since I don't plan to resubmit the prologue again, I may as well give a basic description of the biggest new character in the Prologue. His name is Craig Thurston (although that may change to Chris...I'm not sure. I'm tossing between the two). He's a neighbor of the Walkers. He works for the Coalition. He recently ported (teleported?) to the moon as a test. It's him thinking about the colors. It's him who sees the light (well....along with everyone else who sees it that night). He actually DOES tie it Ashley. And he knows what it means. But he doesn't care enough to turn her in to the government (he works for them, but he doesn't particularly care for the way they operate some things....for example, he thinks it's REALLY dumb of them to have all of the technology for not only the weather control and the porting (teleporting), but also for all the other technological advancements kept only in those 6 tech buildings around the world). He likes to walk. In a world where most people port. He likes to walk so much that he's walking around at 2:30 in the morning when it's freezing cold outside and there's snow on the ground. I think he's crazy. But that's just me.

Anyway. Good catch on the date thing. Totally didn't catch the 17 years to 10 years thing. I should've. And I will definitely take into consideration your ideas when I finally choose to get back to re-writing that part, even if they were "debatable." I think they were good points. You've definitely made me feel better about this submission, because I was becoming convinced that it was an utter failure. It's nice to know I was wrong. Thank you.
"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."