yankorro

Sorry for the slight delay, I've been busy and now I'm playing catch-up here... I kind of dug this. I dunno, the prose and the pacing seemed to give off a much more assured story-telling vibe than the previous installment. Maybe that has to do with the simpler story that it has to tell. But the descriptions were lithe, crisp, easy to follow. Cool stuff. Personally, at this point in a story, I'm not sure I care about whether I "like" a character or not. I know I'm probably different than most people in that sense, but I'm really just concerned whether the writing grabs me. One of my favorite quotes about writing that I've read is this: "The start of a story should assure the reader that they are in capable hands." I'd say that goes the same for the start of a chapter, the start of a scene, the start of a paragraph. If the writing's good enough the character doesn't have to be "likeable", you can make a totally unlikable character interesting if you do it right, hell, you can make a dreadfully boring character interesting if you do it right. How to do it right is the hard part, of course. But I think this chapter does a good job with Liaf. So there's my two cents...

Hi there, sorry for the slight delay in posting this, been a busy couple weeks for me... I don't have a lot to add to what's already been said here. Perhaps it's a function of the gap in reading one chapter to the next, but I had a hard time latching on at the beginning of the chapter. Generally I think the party scene and her interactions with the others does a lot to bring out Cadmia's character, but I wonder if maybe some of the beginning of the scene could be streamlined or summarized. As you might imagine from reading my stuff my instinct is usually to let the reader observe character and work out their thoughts and motivations on their own--to a fault, actually--so take it as you will but I could actually use a little less of Cadmia's voice in the narration. Personal preference, I know, but as a reader I sometimes feel like I'm being flooded with too much of her opinions and "judginess" (which on one hand is fine because she's a judgey sort of person), whereas I'd like to watch Dama et al myself and sniff out the rat myself. Don't know if that makes sense. I think you could balance her perceptions and whatever little bits of information you need to slip in with a less-internalized perspective on the action. Again, strictly my personal preference, though. The action sequence was well handled although I got a little lost following things when the owls and what not showed up: >>‘I will make this man my prey, and bring him to you as offering.’ >>The knife plunged down, just as an owl dove out of the darkness. Startled, Cadmia’s attacker missed. The owl snatched a rat from the path and soared away. This is sort of a crucial moment to the scene but I wasn't one hundred percent clear what was going on here exactly, why the attacker missed, cause an owl grabbed a rat? Like I said, not a lot to say that's not already been said. Hope it helps!

Wow, y'all are starting the new year off in fine fighting form, I see... As usual, here's me sussing out the fixes: >"supposedly insane protagonist" - Have I really given the impression that Rose is insane? When? A little off, maybe. re: the lock - point taken. Will fix. >"hypocritical Christian extremists? That's been done a lot." >"And given the creative options with a literal interpretation of Revelations combined with an apocalypse...well, there are other ways." The 'locust army' is actually inspired by the Book of Joel and the book of Revelations. I may play around with the exposition a bit in this scene, spruce it up. It does kind of just lay there on the page, which I think contributes maybe to the sensation of triteness. Rose/Prince - I figured that would be the reaction. In a sense, it's supposed to come out of nowhere. Rose experiences it as coming out of nowhere, hence her shocked and mortified reaction. But yeah, could probably use a little judicious foreshadowing. re: the adjectives - I huess I kind of see what you're getting at. Still, after a couple of run-throughs this morning I still only see two, three max, that I'd want to take out. (oh, and the 'lugubrious and languorous' thing was a good catch, thanks) >"after a long hiatus, I kind of expected something different" Oh, I wasn't referring to a hiatus from writing, I meant a hiatus from subjecting you guys to it The story is finished, has been for a while now. Right around 40K, so a longish novella, like my previous one. In fact, I was kind of thinking about posting the rest of it in the 'Alpha Readers' space and let anyone who's interested have a look at it there, rather than reading it all at fits and starts. Sound like a good idea?

hi there. here's the thread for the latest chapter. have at it.

After a couple weeks' hiatus due to the holiday, I have a couple of chapters that are ready to be sent out and torn apart this coming week, if that's OK.

hi there! FWIW I agree and disagree with what andyk and jParker are saying. I think your writing here is quite effective, though I find myself kind of skimming over some of the passages where we get into the intricacies of the Chayus and things like that, to be honest. (I'm not big on magic systems and so forth; I know you're probably wonder what the hell are you doing on a B. Sanderson fan site then?) As far as Ichu's personality, I don't feel like he's being inconsistent in recognizing the gravity of the situation once he gets in the company of others. I think he's totally allowed to feel one way when he's by himself in isolation and another when he sees how other people are reacting. (If that makes any sense.) What I'm curious about is how you're going to fit this storyline in with the other one. At the moment I find the Ichu plot more engaging that I did Silluka, but that could change of course.

This story looks like it has a lot of promise. You fit a lot of worldbuilding into the first chapter, raise a few questions. There are neat details like the minotaur statue with smoke coming out of its nose that I found interesting. I will say though that the mechanics of the thing could use some work. Some of the dialogue seems a wee bit 'modern' for the sort of fantasy setting you have set up. Like the girl Dianne saying 'Let's do this thing', for instance. The dialogue works really well advancing the story and so forth, especially the last part, but the texture and feel of it is a little off, to my ear anyway. Also (and keep in mind, people on this forum are always bagging on my stuff because I don't go into my character's thoughts as much as they would like), I would keep an eye out on the use of 'tags' to introduce the characters thoughts. It can get a little intrusive. For instance: "But he knew that even if his uncle Pesio, the Vinetan King, died, the war wouldn’t stop" or "Tarrito turned away from them, thinking about how great it would be when he could return to his people and stop all these false pretenses that he lived under." could each be easily changed to "But even if his uncle Pesio..." or "Tarrito turned away from them. How great it would be when he could return..." Perhaps it's just my personal preference but it's more of a seamless transition that way. Well, looks like you're off to a good start. Good luck with it.

oops! i somehow managed to post this topic twice?? anyhoo, let's use this thread and not the other...

almost forgot to post the topic! here it is. do your worst.

almost forgot to post the topic! here it is. do your worst.

what mandamon said. if none of the other regulars are raring to go that is...

OK, so here's me sussing out the fixes for this week... Yeah, I could probably seed that a little more clearly early on. It's not a jaunty quest with a specific destination, they're meant to be more like amateur naturalists, trying to find a rare animal in its natural habitat. Yeah, I figured this would be a problem. I'll try to leaven the paragraphs leading up to it with enough information so that the reader knows they have no other choice. Point taken. Will probably change the description of Gogo a-Go-Go to make it a slightly less wretched hive of scum and villainy in that respect. Although no one is accusing Rose of anything. It's just that gossiping idiots can find a way to make anything anyone does seem illicit if they have a mind to... Thanks as always for the encouragment/beatdowns...

I didn't feel this was especially slow, or at least that wasn't the sensation I got from reading it. Same as with Mandamon's chapter this week I enjoyed this slower more intimate chapter more than the first two. I do feel that the portrayal of Varus is a little inconsistent, or maybe just not convincing. He seems like a bumbling idiot at times. Well, maybe bumbling idiot is kind of harsh, let's leave it at 'goofball'. And I'm not sure that's exactly the impression you mean to give of him, or if it is it's isn't on the page per se. Other than my general impression of Varus's character being a little unclear, I can't find a whole lot to complain about here. The dialogue in both scenes seems to be effective in what it's trying to do, backstory in the first part, moving the plot along in the second etc.

I like this way better than the first two chapters. I can see where you've put a little more attention to detail (getting kind of an Incan, Andean vibe from the food you're describing--kinwa, yams, and whatnot). Maybe you can go back and find ways to suggest that sense of setting in the first chapters. Not much else to say here, except good luck and keep at it.

Not a lot to add to what's already been said here. As far as problems with exposition goes, one problem with it is that the narration is so, so very closely wedded to the POV of the character. There's a broad spectrum of narrator-character involvement with total immersion in the character's psyche on one end and total detachment on the other, and in between there's a sliding scale that you might profitably play with. Maybe take a paragraph at the beginning of the chapter, just a few sentences, use a little description not only to set the scene but to slip in exposition. That way at least you don't have to walk the character around by the hand and have him look at things in order to be able to talk about them. (Hope that makes sense...) Anyhoo, in chapter 6 we finally get some inkling of what's actually going to happen with Elmer in this story, i.e. the encounter with John and Katherine (kind of a random place to introduce two characters, at the end of the chapter BTW) and the intimations of strange things. When you go back and revise this you might consider moving that last bit of information so that it appears much earlier in the story. Not the specifics (the devil etc.) but just "people see strange things" and leave it at that. I think in general in these first few chapters you have some interesting pieces in need of rearranging to make more sense dramatically (and some extra pieces that you can easily discard--maybe not 90% though)