December 21 - LongTimeUnderdog - The Name of God, Guli Chapter 1

[LongTimeUnderdog]

For everyone whose new to this story (You know, those lucky enough to have not had to put up with the other horrible submissions).

Anaiah 1:1 - Caramoth, a smith for the Ziphoa tribe living in a very large rock quarry with a small river that spills into it, find a little girl by the side of the crater and saves her only to find out she has white skin, red hair, and green eyes.  This makes her a Witch, something he has been instructed to kill.  Taking pity on her, mostly for her age (infant) and because he believes there is something divine about him finding her and the winds preventing him from throwing her off the side of the crater to die.

Jin'Cathul 1:1 - Jin'Cathul is the son of a major researcher into a phenomenon known as "the Shroud."  Aside from that, Jin seems to possess some ability related to the Shroud, demonstrated by his ability to make purple sparks jump across his fingers.  He and his father, Talven, go to one of the Lyrist temples to investigate the first ever hole in the Shroud.  This is odd because the Shroud is quite literally everywhere.  While there, Jin'Cathul's body has a very violent reaction to a dagger made from a metal called Orcan.

Zulbane 1:1 - Zulbane, a small boy, is found by Talina and Laula (women) who take him in as a slave (like all men are supposed to be taken in as).  They worship a volcano.  Surprised Zulbane has a name, they take him to the scribe to get his name removed, thus making him a passive and obedient slave.  The scribe is gone but her assistant, Kuluva, is there.  Kuluva instead buys Zulbane from them and when the women leave, reveals herself to be his sister, but calls him Traxix instead of Zulbane.

Guli 1:1 - Behold the goofiness.

[Miang]

Alright. First off I liked the characterizations very much. I thought that Hamaline, Dala and Guli came off very well. Your dialogue seems pretty fluid to me, and flows well enough with each character having their own style and cadence. At the beginning of the submission I thought some of the descriptions could use a little tightening up in form. I can't point to any one sentence per se but the first few paragraphs feel a bit choppy, almost like you weren't quite sure how to get across what you wanted and make it flow. I think that if you interspersed the descriptions of your characters with their actions at the beginning it might help some. You also might want to go back through and check your grammar. I noticed a couple of sentences that have tense issues. I didn't go through and mark them but if you want me to send me a message and I'll see about making some notes in the file to send back to you.

On a side note, I've been out of touch for a bit. Is there any way I can get you to send me the other submissions? I'd like to read them. You've piqued my curiosity.

[Recovering_Cynic]

So I read this yesterday but did not have time to post.  Here are my thoughts:

Guli's character is a little problematic.  He seems very childlike at times, yet he is able to lift a heavy rock table.  How old is he?  Also at times, he acts like a simpleton, like a three year old trapped in a fourteen year old's body.  Was this intended?  It takes a special kind of person to crawl on top of a strange person's table and dance, especially a person who randomly  bursts into tears at the slightest scolding

I really liked the dancing rocks idea.  It was interesting and cool.  Kudos.

Dala's character bothered me.  There aren't a whole lot of people out there who are that heartless.

I got a little confused on who was who in the village.  Some of the names are very similar to each other, so I had a hard time keeping track of who was married to who, and attaching a character to a name.  By the end, I only really knew who your MC was, Dala, and Guli.

What is with people in this world randomly leaving children in the desert?

Hmm... that's about all I recall.  I really like the concept here and the magic.  Also, Guli's character is fun, it's just a little inconsistent.  Anyway, you have something good here, just polish it a little.

[Silk]

Why do these people assume that off-key singing is automatically dangerous? Later, Hamaline says "the thought of being eaten by something made Hamaline shake", which just makes it seem like these people are afraid of everything. I accept the that the thought of the hostile desert, out there, outside the village, probably seems pretty frightening, but at the same time they should also be well acquainted with the dangers, at least to the point of not shrinking in fear at the mere thought of a hypothetical situation that might happen some day.

The conflict between Hamaline's family and Jal's family I find interesting. Dala seems to be a bit inconsistent though. One second Guli is a witch, the next she's smiling at him and chatting with him, then she snaps at him over climbing on the table (okay, I get that, though "snaps" is a fairly strong word) and later she "jeers" at him and tells him she's clumsy. And later Guli becomes an "it". I get that she's upset about the table, but geez. I could probably accept her slightly overblown reactions over the table but she seems a bit all over the place even when she's not angry about anything in particular.

Oh, singing appears to be directly linked to witchcraft. I suppose I should have figured that out given the Lyrism system you introduced earlier, but it would still be helpful to have this information come earlier (while they're just hearing the singing, that is; it's obvious that there's magic involved after they actually find Guli) to explain while they're so afraid of it.

Guli does act really young. I assumed that he was about five or six. He also seems completely unconcerned about being abandoned by... well, whoever it was that he was abandoned by, but since he's obviously not a normal boy I assume that there's a reason for that.

You do seem to have a lot of people randomly abandoning children in the desert.

That's about all I have for this one. It was a good introduction and a fun read.

[lethalfalcon]

What better place to leave a child? The goal is for them to not be found afterward. I think the bigger problem is that all these other people keep discovering them. Maybe all these misfits should be left in bogs, instead.

Anywho, I didn't mind this chapter, although it feels a lot rougher than some of your other chapters (from a grammatical standpoint, at least). I think the biggest problem I have is that it feels a lot like Anaiah 1:1; you introduce a witch child (in the desert), some poor sap takes them in (a male, both times), other people disagree that they should stay (most of the rest of the village), and in the end, a place is found for them. Now, the characters themselves are slightly different, but I feel like you're reusing the same plot devices. This could be a problem.

I didn't particularly have a problem with Dala. She's like my mother was. I would guess that since she's never had a child, she has no real emotional "aww, a poor child left alone" feelings. Hamaline *does* have that, however, which is a little weird. I like it a lot more when he sees the practical advantage of him being in the mines. That's something I can get behind (from a male perspective), and perhaps you could make that his initial reason for wanting him to stay. They already see that he can move rocks even before he pulls a Hercules and lifts the table.

I agree with the other comments that Guli is schizophrenic. If he's supposed to be that way, then great. If he's doing it for manipulation, he's not doing a good enough job in my opinion. If he's supposed to be a semi-normal 8-year-old, then you have a lot of work ahead of you. He has the right amount of energy and destruction, but too much intelligent reasoning. Also, along the same lines, there needs to be some more indication that they're afraid of magic if they really are, unless they really are just curious about hearing this person singing.... How can they hear him singing, anyway? I know that sound reverberates through canyons and whatnot, but is that what's going on? I'm not entirely sure, which makes it hard for me to judge how far away the kid is at any given point in time.

[LongTimeUnderdog]

Guli does act really young. I assumed that he was about five or six. He also seems completely unconcerned about being abandoned by... well, whoever it was that he was abandoned by, but since he's obviously not a normal boy I assume that there's a reason for that.

I agree with the other comments that Guli is schizophrenic. If he's supposed to be that way, then great. If he's doing it for manipulation, he's not doing a good enough job in my opinion. If he's supposed to be a semi-normal 8-year-old, then you have a lot of work ahead of you. He has the right amount of energy and destruction, but too much intelligent reasoning.

He could be . . . or . . . there might be something else involved.  But Guli acts exactly the way I want him too.  Seemingly mentally deficient while at the same time exhibiting an amazing grasp of things.  Or to be more clear, yes, there just isn't something quite right with Guli.

Anywho, I didn't mind this chapter, although it feels a lot rougher than some of your other chapters (from a grammatical standpoint, at least). I think the biggest problem I have is that it feels a lot like Anaiah 1:1; you introduce a witch child (in the desert), some poor sap takes them in (a male, both times), other people disagree that they should stay (most of the rest of the village), and in the end, a place is found for them. Now, the characters themselves are slightly different, but I feel like you're reusing the same plot devices. This could be a problem.

Yeah well . . . okay you're right.

I know none of you have red Zulbane's intro, so this won't be as clear as it could be:

In each of these four introductory chapters, I have made an attempt at introducing a form of magic (there are four in this world).  In Anaiah's opening I introduced the Avatar system (talking objects), in Zulbane's I introduced Naming (stripping people's names to erase their memories, and the concept of Iron Names), in Jin'Cathul I pulled a bait and switch where I talked a lot about Lyrisism but actually introduced Forging (the sparks he makes) with a little bit of the Avatar system (the dagger), with Guli I actually demonstrated Lyrisism (singing to make things happen) but still used it as a red herring and again demonstrated Forging (Guli's super strength).  There's a lot of other forms of misdirection in the chapters as well . . . which admittedly seems to be working too well.

You do seem to have a lot of people randomly abandoning children in the desert.

And that, my dear, is the plot of the whole story.  If we place each character next to the others you'll see similarities and differences.  Anaiah is left in the desert, having no magic but being presumed to have magic.  She is taken in by people who's only reason for accepting her is a sheer act of God (appearing quite literally to be the case).  Guli is discovered by people, pygmies, who almost immediately view him as an amazing gift because of his magic and super strength.  Zulbane is discovered by two women who want him as a slave and try to stripe his name from him to make him more submissive.  If he looses his name he looses his memory and they can reconstruct him the way they want him to be.  And finally there is Jin'Cathul who was born free, but after causing some undisclosed complications is being hunted by people.  His father sells him into slavery and he grows for another 8 years essentially living in a hole in the ground.  Jin, much like Guli is able to produce magic on call, but unlike Guli is under the threat of being killed for it.  He's also the only one of the characters that's not adopted into a family.

I purposely made Anaiah and Guli similar as an experiment.  I was very curious to see exactly how, and more appropriately if, they would be noticed as too similar.  As Lethal pointed out, they're really similar.  Enough so to make him notice and stop.  Obviously that's not good, so while I'm rethinking that, I'll just move on to the rest of the story (which I'm really dying for someone to read).

I think that covers most of my comments to the audience.  I am very appreciative of your help and look forward to what you all have to say about my next submissions.  It's all been very helpful so far!

[lethalfalcon]

You have to remember, I'm OCD, so I'll notice all sorts of little things.

You ain't gettin' that one by me.

I'd put in some little things to make them just enough different to allow them to blossom on their own. Right now it looks like reruns.