Jump to content

Reading Excuses July 9th 2012 Primordial Lights Chapters 3-5.5 - Aminar


Aminar

Recommended Posts

Well, here we have my next submission. As mentioned in the e-mail, my Chapter Blocking is all kinds of wonky. I plan on making a major edit of the beginning(up to around Chapter 5) so that I can manage some submissions, but that will start after I obtain some new tools in the coming weeks. For now, This needs work. Tell me where.

The Full document can be found in Writing Group A's Dropbox.

Lastly, was anybopdy at Convergance in the Twin Cities last weekend? Some of the Panel's were great.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like the ideas and the setting. It's very different. I read over the first couple chapters as well, since I hadn't read them before. This submission is definitely better.

The magic system seems a little "loose," as in it's flinging a lot of power around. You may have this in the background, but I haven't really seen any cost for the magic yet. There's also a lot of really powerful magic users, not far into the story. Are these people going to develop further during the story? Even Keth is pretty powerful, to the point where he can easily summon something to solve a problem.

As an overall comment on the writing style, You use a lot of semicolons. Not a bad thing if you use them right, but it's to the point where each new one is taking me out of reading. In general, your sentence structure is a little weird, especially in the first few chapters. You have liberal commas and semicolons, and I'm not sure they're all in the right places.

here's a sample sentence (from the very first page):

Iraisa quickened her steps, she wanted to get out of the jungle as quickly as possible, it was a dangerous place.

vs (my edit):

Iraisa quickened her steps; she wanted to get out of the jungle as quickly as possible. It was a dangerous place.

Another one (from near the end of this submission):

""Viv, this is more than just a bit off. Every damned cut here is in a straight line; whatever did this wasn’t a malfunction.""

vs (my edit):

""Viv, this is more than just a bit off. Every damned cut here is in a straight line. Whatever did this wasn’t a malfunction.""

For some reason, a semicolon in dialogue just feels strange to me. Try to say that line out loud and mean the semicolon instead of a period.

You tend to infodump whenever you come to a new concept. Yes, we need to hear a small explanation, but break it up so we hear some of it later.

The demon calls Keth sir? This seems at odds with the rest of the demon's insubordinate attitude. It seems like it would pick some choice epithet to call him. Or is there some reason why it's "sir?"

I think this was from the first two chapters, but I got confused with MIA vs. the common abbreviation.

Also Heinrich /The Grumr/ Mr. G gets pretty confusing. I think you settle on The Grumr later, but it's a rocky starting up.

I want to see more of this dinosaur/magic interface--it's fun, even if there are some rough spots.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like the ideas and the setting. It's very different. I read over the first couple chapters as well, since I hadn't read them before. This submission is definitely better.

The magic system seems a little "loose," as in it's flinging a lot of power around. You may have this in the background, but I haven't really seen any cost for the magic yet. There's also a lot of really powerful magic users, not far into the story. Are these people going to develop further during the story? Even Keth is pretty powerful, to the point where he can easily summon something to solve a problem.

As an overall comment on the writing style, You use a lot of semicolons. Not a bad thing if you use them right, but it's to the point where each new one is taking me out of reading. In general, your sentence structure is a little weird, especially in the first few chapters. You have liberal commas and semicolons, and I'm not sure they're all in the right places.

here's a sample sentence (from the very first page):

Iraisa quickened her steps, she wanted to get out of the jungle as quickly as possible, it was a dangerous place.

vs (my edit):

Iraisa quickened her steps; she wanted to get out of the jungle as quickly as possible. It was a dangerous place.

Another one (from near the end of this submission):

""Viv, this is more than just a bit off. Every damned cut here is in a straight line; whatever did this wasn’t a malfunction.""

vs (my edit):

""Viv, this is more than just a bit off. Every damned cut here is in a straight line. Whatever did this wasn’t a malfunction.""

For some reason, a semicolon in dialogue just feels strange to me. Try to say that line out loud and mean the semicolon instead of a period.

You tend to infodump whenever you come to a new concept. Yes, we need to hear a small explanation, but break it up so we hear some of it later.

The demon calls Keth sir? This seems at odds with the rest of the demon's insubordinate attitude. It seems like it would pick some choice epithet to call him. Or is there some reason why it's "sir?"

I think this was from the first two chapters, but I got confused with MIA vs. the common abbreviation.

Also Heinrich /The Grumr/ Mr. G gets pretty confusing. I think you settle on The Grumr later, but it's a rocky starting up.

I want to see more of this dinosaur/magic interface--it's fun, even if there are some rough spots.

Dex calls Keth Sir largely as a point of sarcasm(and because he's a soldier somewhere in there.)

As for Power, I get to the costs later. For now I wanted to establish that magic is very very powerful(and it's costs reflect that, but they take quite a bit to get to). The Grumr spends quite a while without a soul worth speaking of as a side effect of his magic.

I do use semicolons-More than any writer I've seen. It's a part of my own inherent thought process; how my mind structures things. Kind of a thought, counterthought/further explanation kind of thing. I have to work hard not to use more... (I can say that line and mean a semicolon instead of a period because the thought branches off from the other one. What it really needs is an elipses though. I'll change that.) I think part of the issue(and I believe I've said it before) is that I think much much faster than I type, which makes the process feel slow, which makes short sentences feel off... (I rephrased that sentence mentally three times while I typed it and I type at fortyfive or so words a minute.)

I don't know if I ever clarify that the MIA thing is intentional. It's supposed to be camouflaged as a missing person's retrieval taskforce(Good grounds to be hunting down people who have changed their identities(as many summoners do)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I have a few, or rather quite a few comments about this.

The Pros:

I like the differing magic system, there seemed to be a great deal of power being tossed around and that was awesome. I like that feeling of high magic, and such.

I also know from your interrogation of my magic system that you like having well established rules, so I fully expect that I'll learn the rules later and that the consequences will balance out the level of power here.

The summons being part of the skin was very cool. The way the summoning was suppressed by the glove also makes sense, and seems very reasonable, (It also helped explain that the summons manifested from inside of the person's hands.

Dinosaurs and high fantasy, and sci-fi. This setting feels great. I got a great feel in the first chapter with the girl fighting against the dinosaurs.

Cons/Comments:

The learning curve. I like the level of magic, and the settings, and it all seems great. I felt very VERY overwhelmed though. I think the quick changes to viewpoints of characters who weren't near each other, plus (I think three, maybe four?) magic systems all at once was like blunt force trauma to the head.

There was a lot of exposition, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing, but as stated above it did feel like every new concept had some exposition. Some level of showing instead of telling, or saving the exposition for later might help a lot.

Your writing is very good, I didn't notice the semicolon use, nor did I feel like it detracted from the story, but maybe that is because of my own tendency to write in a similar style that it didn't bother me.

I didn't feel like the tension was ramped up with the captured summoner because it was an almost immediate answer to the problem, the 2-D summon instead of 3-D. If the exposition could have been earlier, where we learned that summons would cause the arm to get eaten, that would've been a good explanation point for the 3D summons.

The other 'complaint' is the chapter formatting, I'm not sure what could be done to change that, if it is simply your stylistic choice, but some amount of that could probably be adjusted to help with the flow.

I found myself wanting to skip the exposition, wanting to find dialogue, and it is indeed true that peoples eyes are drawn towards dialogue. I like the conversations that Keth is having with Dex, those are interesting exchanges and quite fun. Was that inspired at all by Jonathon Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy? That is who Dex reminded me of, a summon that has a great deal of wit and character. (As an aside, if you haven't read that trilogy I highly recommend it, theres a great deal of witty demon banter in that series, and a very well characterized demonic character.)

The first cost to magic that I see is the extreme pain in Keth when his calls his shadow summon. Perhaps some cost could be introduced earlier, It might have been in there, but the level of exposition and learning curve might have overloaded the costs, if indeed it was in there.

Hope this didn't come out as super critical, I liked it a lot, but I felt very overwhelmed by the curve. That would really help if it was leveled out a little, because the systems of magic seem really interesting and rich.

JW

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Summonings costs are actually not the pain, that's because he pushed his mind way too hard. Summonings cost is in the acquisition (which you get to see) and the effects binding a bunch of things to your soul has(imagine having a wolverine tied to your soul. The temper issues you would have.)

I need more dialogue throughout, it seems like all my characters talk aS little as they can...

My chapter formatting gets better once I get a system(character 1, 2, and 3 in one and then 4 and 5 in the next.

I have read Bartimaeus, damnation you for finding my hidden influences I hadn't processed yet... Bob is supposed to be the Bartimaeus series character and he's not even in this book.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

My opinion is that the writing is getting better, and I'm getting some more interest in the story. However, there are a number of things that could still be improved.

First, the good. The magic seems decently thought out, and so far is presented in such a way that I don't have any problems with it yet. Bearing in mind it's early yet in the story, I would echo that we don't yet have a real idea of costs, or of what it can do (other than some pretty spectacular effects), my only concern there is that the ending doesn't hinge on something we don't know about the magic at that point.

The dialog is also good, where it exists. I would echo the recommendation to add more dialog, at least in some sections. It will make the apparent pace go faster.

Some suggestions I have for improving include my ever-present suggestion to trim, or tighten the wording. One example near the beginning, "Moments later a massive and scaly mass bumped into Keth’s right hand..." (emphasis added). I would suggest that having both these are unnecessary, and the first one could be removed. I might further recommend trimming by removing the "right" from the sentence (possibly moving it earlier, since which hand isn't mentioned until here). I would also suggest a slightly more active wording than "bumped into". That would leave a sentence more like "Moments later a scaly mass jarred Keth's hand", or "Moments later Keth's hand hit a scaly mass" (although the second one does slightly change the feeling of what has the momentum).

I would also suggest paying a little closer attention to the blocking. Most of the time I was able to relatively easily follow what was supposed to be happening, but not all of it. In particular, right at the beginning when he is being dragged into the portal, it took me a bit to realize that's what was happening. A little confusion with the Dex/Grumr/dinosaur actions, and when the explosion on the ship happened.

Some other things that occurred to me:

  • I'm not sure that Keth would necessarily recognize a T-Rex, especially if it had tiger stripes, so I might suggest just calling it a big(ger) dinosaur from his POV.
  • I'm not sure how effective belt tourniquets are, but that may be because I'm assuming a modern psuedo-leather belt, which would wrap so many times and overlap so much as to not likely provide much of a tourniquet. Still, I suppose it's better than nothing. A fabric or rope one may be better in that regard.
  • I thought the Grumr's thoughts regarding Kit kind of came out of nowhere at the end of the excerpt.
  • Finally, I don't think this sentence says what you mean it to: "The deep blackness of unconsciousness threatened the edge of his vision, calling him away, but Keth resisted fighting."
  • Remember to show not tell where possible. In many places, I noticed telling the emotions of the POV character, rather than showing them. Still, I didn't note any direct tells of other character's emotions, so that is good.

Finally, I think the quick cutting back and forth hinders the reading for this stage of the novel. Especially when bouncing between two character's POVs, and trying to remember where and what each was doing. For this part, I think you could probably cut out a few of the POV sections, and fill in more detail on the others to make them feel like more substantial chunks. Alternately, you could reshuffle to combine them. I know I normally suggest chronological sections, but the capture and ship-explosion are unique enough events that they should be able to maintain the chronology in the user's mind while reading through two sections actually happening in parallel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My opinion is that the writing is getting better, and I'm getting some more interest in the story. However, there are a number of things that could still be improved.

First, the good. The magic seems decently thought out, and so far is presented in such a way that I don't have any problems with it yet. Bearing in mind it's early yet in the story, I would echo that we don't yet have a real idea of costs, or of what it can do (other than some pretty spectacular effects), my only concern there is that the ending doesn't hinge on something we don't know about the magic at that point.

The dialog is also good, where it exists. I would echo the recommendation to add more dialog, at least in some sections. It will make the apparent pace go faster.

Some suggestions I have for improving include my ever-present suggestion to trim, or tighten the wording. One example near the beginning, "Moments later a massive and scaly mass bumped into Keth’s right hand..." (emphasis added). I would suggest that having both these are unnecessary, and the first one could be removed. I might further recommend trimming by removing the "right" from the sentence (possibly moving it earlier, since which hand isn't mentioned until here). I would also suggest a slightly more active wording than "bumped into". That would leave a sentence more like "Moments later a scaly mass jarred Keth's hand", or "Moments later Keth's hand hit a scaly mass" (although the second one does slightly change the feeling of what has the momentum).

I would also suggest paying a little closer attention to the blocking. Most of the time I was able to relatively easily follow what was supposed to be happening, but not all of it. In particular, right at the beginning when he is being dragged into the portal, it took me a bit to realize that's what was happening. A little confusion with the Dex/Grumr/dinosaur actions, and when the explosion on the ship happened.

Some other things that occurred to me:

  • I'm not sure that Keth would necessarily recognize a T-Rex, especially if it had tiger stripes, so I might suggest just calling it a big(ger) dinosaur from his POV.
  • I'm not sure how effective belt tourniquets are, but that may be because I'm assuming a modern psuedo-leather belt, which would wrap so many times and overlap so much as to not likely provide much of a tourniquet. Still, I suppose it's better than nothing. A fabric or rope one may be better in that regard.
  • I thought the Grumr's thoughts regarding Kit kind of came out of nowhere at the end of the excerpt.
  • Finally, I don't think this sentence says what you mean it to: "The deep blackness of unconsciousness threatened the edge of his vision, calling him away, but Keth resisted fighting."
  • Remember to show not tell where possible. In many places, I noticed telling the emotions of the POV character, rather than showing them. Still, I didn't note any direct tells of other character's emotions, so that is good.

Finally, I think the quick cutting back and forth hinders the reading for this stage of the novel. Especially when bouncing between two character's POVs, and trying to remember where and what each was doing. For this part, I think you could probably cut out a few of the POV sections, and fill in more detail on the others to make them feel like more substantial chunks. Alternately, you could reshuffle to combine them. I know I normally suggest chronological sections, but the capture and ship-explosion are unique enough events that they should be able to maintain the chronology in the user's mind while reading through two sections actually happening in parallel.

I LOATHE that section. It's so hard to block out. I just rewrote the thing though.

And it being his right hand is important... That's where his star is.

Keth‘s hand felt warm and sticky, as if it had been transported somewhere different from the rest of his body. He tried to bring his hand out of the cloying humidity, but something was pulling his hand further and further into the heat. Whatever had his hand began to pull harder, his prone body slid across the smooth stone floor. What was pulling him? Why was his hand so warm? He couldn’t see.

A roar louder than anything Keth had ever heard split the air, shattering the eerie silence. Moments later a huge scaly mass bumped into Keth’s right hand, shoving him back into the cool tunnel. The light playing across Keth’s eyelids suddenly disappeared. Something heavy hit the ground near Keth with a sickening wet thump. The scents of blood and carrion filled Keth’s nostrils, bringing on waves of nausea that ripped through his guts like a bullet. Dry heaves wracked Keth for several moments before he could draw himself together. He slowly stood; his whole body shaking from exhaustion and pain. Around Keth only silence and darkness seemed to exist. He slowly backed away and thought, ‘Dex, what in the Selcha’s Holy Wail just happened?’

Otherwise I agree. Although the emotions thing... Typically I tell the emotions because I'm in the characters perspective. They know(at the moment) what their emotions are. Showing the emotions is for outside perspectives. I know that's typically a first person perspective thing, but it feels better to me if I give the emotion some deeper perspective than just... His eyes widened or the He balled his fists. We know what those mean, but they don't convey the depth of emotion as well. Hence the frequent motions associated with emotions. (I just had this debate with myself. :P )

Edited by Aminar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...