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Kashimir

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About Kashimir

  • Birthday 03/17/1988

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    Finland

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  1. At first, due to the structuring of the document, I thought there were two different beginnings(beginnings 1-3, 4) instead of four, and I have to say I really enjoyed both of them. As separate four beginnings I still did like them, but depending on what promises the story will aim to fulfill the actual beginning should be a mix of many. My understanding of the definition of the gee whiz factor is fairly vague so I'll use words that I actually understand instead. I'll list what the main conflict of the story would seem to be with different beginnings. And delivering on that conflict would be the promise. It's kind of hard to separate the knowledge in my head from one beginning to another (especially because of my initial misunderstanding) but I'll try. The first one: The conflict between the colonizers and the alien sentience. There isn't much else to be said about this. Still, outside of the exercise such beginning might work fine to set the scene. The second one: The conflict between the people that want to land on a planet and the people who will have massive problems with gravity. Either the fight of the POV character to stop the decision to land, or how he -and his kind- will deal with gravity. With this beginning, especially if the POV character remains important through the story, the gravity would be a bigger enemy than anything living on the planet. The third one: The conflict of actually managing the colonization of a planet. The fact that the viewpoint character is one who's in position of power suggests that there will be an emphasis on the actual complications that arise from trying to start anew on an unknown planet. At this point the thing that I'm really looking forward to is the settling down on the planet, and then the gradual and possibly painful realization that the planet is alive and sentient under their feet (or whatever it is that lives there). One minor point that came to mind: -"A few hours later, she floated into the room a generational had indicated was where Higgens was waiting." This line tied my brain in a knot. The sentence is convoluted and it's the first time the word "generational" appears so I read it as an adjective. The fourth one: There is a feel of mystery to this. Sure, there's a lifeform that is influencing people's behaviour, but why? What is its goal? Is there an actual biological/evolutionary reasoning behind it, or is it sentient and working out of "higher" motives such as curiosity? So I'd say the thing I'm most interested in is this lifeform that seems to be collecting people for reasons unknown. I'm not expecting Agetha to end up in a position to actually decide what the whole colony should do. The questions that arise instead are: How will she cope? Will she escape her mind and manage to let someone know what is going on? Will she defeat the rider or learn to accept its company by coming to some sort of an agreement with it? And how will all this affect the colony as a whole? One possible problem is that she has begun to accept the rider's company already, but I assume that something she will see/experience in the gamma radian will become a trigger for more conflict.
  2. Unfortunately, I'll have to pass this week. I haven't been writing in any kind of linear fashion, but I though that submitting in the order it's intended to be read would be more useful. So, I started to write the next part, but couldn't quite make it. The words are down, but they're barely legible. I'll do an initial edit on it to get the most out of everyone's insightful feedback.
  3. Thanks for the additional feedback. -The skeletons: They are indeed Ray Harryhausen-style skeletons, due to reasons. I'll have to sneak in some indication to the visual early on. -The knife throwing: Good point. I haven't thrown any knives during my days, so I didn't even stop to think about it. Whether I'll keep it or not, this is good to know. -The fire sword: Actually the fire is supposed to "condense" into a form of steel. This is not communicated well enough. Robinski raises many good points. I'll comment on a few. -The first line: I'm glad you like it. That image was enough to hook me into writing this story. -Fire and fire: there is indeed a difference, one being the normal everyday fire, the other being the energy to do the magic. The differentiation might not be necessary, and the method I'm using might be a bit clunky, but I'll see how it plays out. -Bird's arms: Bird skeletons look absurd and their wings do look like arms. I attempted to convey the image but it probably isn't worth pushing so hard. -The repetition of words: I'll keep this in mind on the next pass, as well as while writing along. Thanks again.
  4. Even though I do quite a bit of outlining, my first draft of any given scene is little more than a stream of consciousness, so submitting that would be quite pointless. The thing with these past projects of mine is that they all have problems that I have probably identified but haven't yet had the enthusiasm to fix.
  5. Thank you for the feedback. This is all extremely valuable for me. -The name Alduin: I guessed that it might be a problem. I just like the sound of the name and it gives me the right feel when I'm writing the character. I'll probably keep it as a placeholder name for the time being, but in the end it'll have to go. -The additional POV: Thanks for pointing this out. It seems that I initially put it in there to give another angle on Alduin, yet during the process I apparently thought that this angle was not worth exploring. I'll either expand the POV, or cut it. -The command words: It appears that I made them clear only in my head. The extent that it was supposed to come across: With the command word, Henrik is temporarily able to take complete control of his comrades, allowing for highly coordinated attacks. -The combat, the confusion: This is definitely the area where I tend to struggle the most. The few 'beats' of the fight are probably just too complicated, with everything happening at once. I'll try simplifying the fight a bit, or think of better ways of wording it. -The fire behind the door: I actually noticed that this was a problem after the whole scene was written, and tried to place few tiny fixes, but apparently the fixes were too tiny. Thanks again. Even though the action scene will need a bit of an overhaul, I'm glad that the piece managed to pique your interest. It's highly encouraging that you thought the writing quality to be good. Up until now, I've written without any feedback, so any signs of improvement were easy to dismiss as wishful thinking. EDIT: She was initially a young woman in the outline, but the course of the dialog turned her into Granny Weatherwax.
  6. The beginning of the novel I'm currently working on. This is my first time submitting, but I hope you won't pull any punches.
  7. I think I've worked up enough courage to submit the first few thousand words of the novel I'm currently working on. It might be more useful to submit some of my short stories, but all of them need another round of editing before I dare to show them to anyone.
  8. It is really great for picking out problems that can be hard to notice when reading, like small missing words or silly typos. Also works well for dialog, as it's almost like having someone else reading your dialog out loud. Oh, it does drive me mental as well. So I do quick edits on my phone at work. That does sound like a bad work ethic, but we're talking about few seconds here and there.
  9. Hello, I have also not read the previous bits so I don't have much to add, but I have to say that this was surprisingly engaging for such an introspective scene. -"No harm, no foul," If I'm not completely misunderstanding the situation, backing out would mean. . . Rebecca's death. . ? That is hardly "no harm". I do agree that it felt like Irvin was hiding things from the reader, but it might have been what made it feel engaging for me.
  10. Hello, I'm Kashimir from Finland. I'm a person who likes to have a boring job so that I have the energy to have interesting hobbies, and lately the most important of these hobbies has been writing. I have written on and off for about four years. I have attempted to write a novel multiple times, but as I have learned and started to use basic tools like in-late-out-early, all of these novels have shrivelled into short stories or novelettes. I do revise these stories from time to time, but I have also started working on a novel (again). I owe all of my progress as a writer to Writing Excuses and the Brandon Sanderson's creative writing classes on Youtube, as I have had no formal education in it. I don't read much. Instead I listen to audiobooks, as I can listen to them at work. Eight hours of listening every day gets one through a mind boggling amount of books. I love science-fiction and fantasy, but I have been forced to explore many different genres, as I get through five books in a week on average. When I'm in a period of intensive writing I tend to put the audiobooks on a break. Instead, I make an "audiobook", using text-to-speech software, of whatever I've written so far on what I'm working on and listen to it, on repeat, for the whole day at work. This allows me to hit the page running once I get home. A favorite book or even author is a hard question to answer, but something that I've found myself recommending the most to everyone around me is The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson. I'm looking forward to participating in the critique group. Writing in English while living in Finland hasn't given me many opportunities to give or get critique.
  11. Hello, I have also just joined the community, and therefore did not get the chance to read the previous part. Here are few things that bothered me: -One point in the conversation between Kang and Lumi felt really info-dumpy (the cursed lands with the old gods). -When Kang goes straight from seeing the latrine to describing the library undermined the sense of his urgency. I felt it should be Lumi that keeps him from going. -There was a strong contrast between the comedic end to that conversation and the overall serious tone. To me, it felt a bit out of place. On the positive side, I catched up with the setting and the character motivations quickly, despite not having read the previous bit. Also, I thought the pacing and the blocking once the action started was really good.
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