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Shrike76

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Everything posted by Shrike76

  1. Your idea sounds very good for a starting point. I thought of a similar idea, but I was leaning towards making it lean more towards the horror and hard science-fiction side of things and I didn't feel like I had the skills to pull it off, so it's sitting in a trunk
  2. Well if there's going to be an obscene bar tab I want in!
  3. I'm jealous, but glad to see that the two of you seem to have made the most of your time there. The retreat itself is something I'd love to attend, but a week on open water surrounded by hungry sharks? I just don't think I have it in me.
  4. Silk! Glad to have you back, and I'm glad to see there wasn't anything too serious going on. We were getting worried about you. If you need help with something, don't be afraid to ask.
  5. I think that that's a perfectly normal writerly state. It's like a twelve-step program where nine of the steps are "panic" or "worry" or "tearful gibbering". On an unrelated note - I CAN BREATHE! I've been sick for the better part of two weeks and getting nothing done that doesn't involve sleeping or emptying boxes of Kleenex. Hopefully March will see me get through the things I wanted to get done in February.
  6. "before moon is dark" - I didn't understand what this was supposed to mean. Is this moonset (not during the day I assume) or is this a new moon? "a worthy blade, all silver" - I assumed that it was made of actual silver, but it occurs to me that that isn't the case and that you were just describing the colour. I assume the cutting blade needs to be steel in order to work the way it needs to? I enjoyed this quite a bitt, though I think it could be quite a bit better. The tone of the story worked for me, and so did the one-sided conversation, though I felt that it ran long for a flash story. A little less back and forth between the buyer and the smith would do well to speed this along to its conclusion (especially since the wordless smith appears to protest, but in the end produces at least three weapons). If I could suggest, cutting out anything where the buyer comes down hard on the smith might help, because we don't get a chance to develop why the character would look down on this person in the first place. Such as the following paragraphs: - "Do not speak that word to me again... bring me a blade fit for my station" - "Take that tone with me again, villain..." I'm not sure if this was just supposed to advertise the fickle nature of the buyer, but that was what I enjoyed the least in this piece. It works as character development, but makes me dislike the speaking character, and so I cared less about the twist at the end because I wasn't overly invested in his (albeit short) revenge arc. In the end, the fact that he's fae is important, but the real twist feels like "He's buying this blade for revenge" which isn't much of a twist when someone's buying a knife in a hurry with too much money. Something to punch up the "He's a fae" twist would sell this much more strongly (and especially, something to punch up why this smith in particular, and what the repercussions will be for the man after this deal).
  7. My oldest is turning 12, and he's read the first few of the Harry Potter books, but we'd already seen the movies so I think he lost interest from knowing more or less what was coming. My younger son is 10, and he's currently reading Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series and enjoying it immensely. When he's done that he wants to read Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams, which is one of my all-time favourites. When I was their age I was entirely into Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels, but my sons aren't at all as interested as I was.
  8. As a follow-up to Mandamon's last point - Also keep in mind that it's a great formula for keeping people interested when you need them to sit their butt down in a dark room with nothing but popcorn for 90-150 minutes, but it isn't what's best for all books. Your book can be good without being shoehorned into this format.
  9. Glad you liked the app! It's helped me break through a few rough patches. I do all my writing and outlining on computer, through I do have some writing exercises I prefer to do longhand. My writing problems are largely time-based - I'm a slow writer and I din't have as much time to set aside for it as I'd like, so I write on computer to optimize my speed. I do think my longhand is better, but then I'd have to take the time to transcribe everything, and I'd probably just quit.
  10. Scrivener FTW! There are a bunch of Youtube videos for Scrivener to show you how to do individual things, making better use of the tools it provides. I too mostly just use it as a filing system for all my story parts, and don't use many of the advanced features. I only do my writing on one laptop, so I don't have issues synching files from one place to another. I have a separate laptop for work but I don't keep or do any personal stuff on it. Aside from that I think the only specialized tool I use is Story Dice, for when I have an idea that's just missing a little something. Often it'll give me the hint of something that helps my brain come up with what I need. For those unfamiliar, Story Dice is a set of dice with fairly basic pictures on them. You grab a few random ones, roll them, and see what the pictures tell you. If you don't like it, try again. Available as physical dice (Rory's Story Cubes) or as an app (Again, as Rory's Story Cubes or a free alternative called Story Dice).
  11. Yes there has been some flash fiction submitted here. I think Mandamon sent the last one I saw, but I could be wrong.
  12. Yep. Even when acting without thinking he can still realize, having done it, that he needs to dial it back. Or at least take a deep breath.
  13. To a certain extent Ender's Game does this. The Walking Dead does it frequently (The most recent episode is a prime example). Saving Private Ryan. 13th Warrior. The Last Samurai. Lots of fictionalized historical accounts come to mind (300, The Alamo, Zulu) If you're looking for an example of how to do it with the express purpose of making me throw a book across the room in a fit of rage, there's Stephen King's The Stand. ARGH!
  14. For the ghost, that's my male reader bias kicking in I guess. You didn't describe the sex of the ghost that was military and checked down the shirt of the woman whose body it was inhabiting, so I assumed it was a guy because of course I would. It might be worth clarifying the point up front, especially if the gender is obvious and/or important later. For the destructive wind at the end, you should make those points clearer. It felt like the wind was obeying him at first ("His quiet command called forth a howl of wind"), but there was nothing in him that showed a knowledge of how to control it, or any sort of worry about what he was doing. His thoughts on why things are happening, and whether he wants more or less of it happening would tell us a lot about him.
  15. P6 - "You know as well as I do that her conception was far from immaculate." - I don't know if I'm being dense but I've reread this page three times and I have no idea what she's referring to. i know what an immaculate conception is, I just don't know what they were talking about that could relate to it. I still really like the narrative voice. It's consistent and unique enough to not allow the reader to get distracted by anything on the outside. It really pulls me through the chapter. Where I find this submission is the weakest is in the dialogue. It's fine for the most part, and realistic, but there's just too much of it. Sometimes it's redundant and I think some of it could be cut out to improve the readability of the whole thing. And this goes for both Baxter's conversation with Kim, and with the ghost that possessed her. I wasn't sure if the ghost was male or female, but I was leaning towards male. The voice sounded crude, and mentioned civvies, and seemed intrigued by the female body it was inhabiting, so it felt very male to me (some ghost of a dead fellow soldier I guessed), but I see up above you call the ghost a she. You asked about character development. Was synesthesia mentioned in the first chapter? I don't remember it being there (I didn't go digging to find it) and so it caught me a bit by surprise, but I enjoyed the way you described it here. I'm not sure how accurate it is, having never experienced the condition, but I liked how Kim's voice has a certain flavour which changes when the ghost inhabits her. Kim seems to take the whole thing very much in stride until she stops being her, and Baxter seems to take the ghost very much in stride, asking far fewer questions, and being far less freaked out, than I would have been in a similar situation. I think both of those reactions can be tunes a little to seem more natural, but aside from that I think this is pretty good stuff. I'm hoping we'll learn more about what makes Baxter Baxter, but I'm willing to wait a bit for some of that to be developed. The pacing was okay, aside from what I mentioned about with the dialogue. It was well-written, but there was a lot of it and I found myself wishing I'd get to the point. A bit of pruning should be able to help on this level. From a reader engagement perspective, you've got me curious about what the ghost said regarding the three that were coming and what the implications are for Baxter, I'm still curious to learn what the doors are used for, and because Kim passed out, I'm curious to know what her reaction to all of this would be. If I had this book in my hands I would definitely turn the page to continue. For wordsmithing, I don't see anything I would alter. The prose is clean, readable, and engaging. For comprehension, most of it was fine but I wasn't sure why trees were breaking. I see from your comments above that it's Baxter that is causing it, but that didn't come across in the story. - Is Baxter aware that these things are breaking because of him? - Is this something that he can control? - What's his endgame? It's not like he's going to physically harm Kim to get the ghost out, right?
  16. P2 - "Rivers of lava coursed through the earth like glowing veins of molten rock." - Not like molten rock, that's exactly what lava is. Agreed with Mandamon above that this is more readable than the first, but still leaves me feeling more or less the same way as I did about the first submission. I can see some of the changes you made, but I still feel like the whole endeavour was too easy. Yes, there was a fight to get into the manhole, but that replaces the fight you had before that took place after all the prisoners were freed, and both were incredibly easy. I remarked last time that it strained belief that prisoners for decades would be fit to fight after their captivity, but seeing that they've been exercising for decades didn't strike me as more believable. Eirael ripping the bars off her own cage was more of the same. After decades in this place they never tried to leave? Lucifer's picking them off one at a time for experiments, and as a matter of pride they're just going to let him instead of going down without a fight? I don't see what's so pointless about a "pointless death" trying to escape, compared to what would happen to them during Lucifer's experiments. I think what I need to know most is why it's so impossible to get out of this place that they never even bothered. Again, Hellas got in extremely easily, and got them out again with even less fuss. I don't see what he can do that Eirael can't, and why this army would have been trapped there this whole time if they're fit to fight.
  17. Right, but that's what I was trying to get at too. If you have a lush description in two sentences that you can do using two or three fewer words while still conveying the same image then the image becomes sharper. You don't have to go sparse, and you may even favour cutting some other things in order to keep your lush description, which makes it stand out more and showcases your own style. Like, here's a sample from a book I just finished (Westlake Soul by Rio Youers, best thing I've read in years), where the main character is a comatose former surfer describing the ocean. "Rolling blue sea and spray that shimmers like a smile. That embracing ocean smell, the chorus of breaking waves, and gulls curving their wings into the thermals." This is not sparse, but it's tight, while being incredibly vivid. Lush, but far from what I'd call purple. There's a lot of information (5 things perceived with three different senses) packed into those 27 words, and that's my point. In a first draft I might have described the same thing but I would have used more words. Probably a lot more words. I've been practicing cutting but I still don't think I could have come up with those lines.
  18. Catching up because I'm a little behind, and what a fine story to start with! P4 - "Six three, ninety kilos plus minus three percent." - Why is the height imperial but the weight metric? P6 - "I feel the van decelerating from forty-two m.p.h. at two point eight metres per second." - Here too, miles vs. metres. Normally you might get away with something like this because some countries are different and some people do think in different measures (Here in Canada I measure my height, weight, and building materials in imperial, but my speed and distance in metric), but this is data fed from a device which I'd assume uses only one standard. P7 - "Bang, bang. Something heavy hits the floor." - I have no idea what hit the floor. The girl was in the bed so it wouldn't be her, right? If it was the POV character I assume there'd be pain. Was it someone behind him? P16 - "My eye does goes to the coffins" P17 - "Can't take a B-line beeline to the fence" P19 - "Hot metal pain bights bites my left arm" - Bight! An intruder from W&S! I'm confused about the store the pony-tailed man goes to. There's no mention about what kind of store it is, but it's weird that they sell mops and cleaning products at an airport. Or was this meant to be storage rather than storefront? I liked the rest of this scene though, the two men obviously up to no good, and the girl in the bag at the end. ADDENDUM: After finishing the story, as much as this was a decent scene, I don't think it fits. The first scene helps set the scene, and helps us understand what comes later, but I don't know that it's necessary. Later on they jump into the mission at the airport without telling us what they're doing, and we know what they're doing because we've seen in it that first scene, but if they just clarified who they were going to that airport for and why, the first scene could be omitted and you'd save a point of view. The other odd scene with the two men talking about the NEU being implanted could also be omitted. Punch up the few instances early where his memory is affected and make it clear that it's the NEU, and the reader should be good. Likewise, we already know that it's military so we don't need that information. the only other piece of important information is that the NEU can be shut off, but that can be telegraphed in-story as well without resorting to an extraneous POV. Speaking of shutting it off, the last scene where he's losing his memories and struggling to recall why he's here and what he was doing before was absolutely brilliantly written. I loved every word of it but it brings up a technical question: Is the fact that the NEU is there what stops the memories from forming, or that the NEU is active? ie. Does shutting off the NEU mean he should be able to form memories? The ending: I find it odd. I assume it's there to tell us that he survived the encounter, but the words "Marie is still here" implies that he has some memory of her from before this day? Again, is this a function of hie NEU being switched off, and if so, why was his memory failing so badly before during the gunfight when it was off. This feels like a contradiction to me. Another piece that stood out was the opening line of a lot of the scenes. I like the "light switched on" bit, but "same every morning" implies that he remembers every morning, which I feel he shouldn't. Unless you make it clear that this is information that is fed to him rather than information he simply knows and remembers. Overall, I liked the premise of the man with no ability to make new memories, but with an ability to know more about what's going on around him. I liked the way the NEU fed him information, and what he did with it, and I think you conveyed well what was data and what was instinct/training. I think the writing is some of the best I've seen from you and was engaging throughout, though there were a lot of times when I had to reread bits because I wasn't sure what was going on, but I think that's more of a language pass thing once you have the nuts and bolts of the plot and sequence ironed out. What I found lacking was an understanding of what they were doing from a detective point of view, and I don't know if some of that was because Paul himself didn't have the information (because of his lack of memories and his only knowing what the NEU tells him). If that's the case, then it's a bit of a problem because without knowing why Paul is doing what he's doing it's hard to get invested in his story. I feel A LOT of empathy for him, so I think the characterization is spot on, but I need more than that. I think it's a matter of adding a few more of the right details to make this a winner. Lines like the following: P5 - "That’s when the NEU starts to whisper reminding me where to go and why" I think that's a great line, but then we cut to a scene where they're breaking down a door and shots are fired and the whole thing is very, very interesting, but I never know why that scene is relevant. That's what I'm missing. The only gripe I have with the writing is that there are a lot of sentence fragments strung together with commas which I sometimes found hard to follow. I think a lot of these should be edited to be separate sentences. ie: P9: "Same every morning, I can’t remember what drowsy feels like, then again, I can’t remember much." P23: "I snatch up a pad on the ground near me, screen cracked, but it’s all the tech I have, pocket it and lurch forward." So yeah, with a bit more of a notion of why things are happening, and specifically why Paul is doing things, this would be a fine story. If you get a rewrite done I'd be happy to take another look at it.
  19. I believe it was 15%, and the point of it is not whether or not the story NEEDS to be cut in order to sell, it's about forcing yourself into an economy of words. By forcing yourself to cut 15% from every page you ensure that every word that's there is there because it needs to be so that there are no lazy words or sentences hanging around wasting space. The writing becomes tight, focused, and evocative. Learning which words matter will make your edits better, and eventually will make your first drafts stronger. And again, this isn't something you generally want other people doing for you. Even a good (paid, professional) editor won't mark up a chapter with how every sentence can be tightened; they'd rather tell you, "This chapter could lose 10%" and then wait to see how you make the changes in a way that's different from how another writer would do it.
  20. Robinski ran through a lot of the grammar issues I saw like a snow plow, so it seems that my way is largely clear, but here's a few language-specific notes: Paragraph 2 - I wouldn't use "inside" and "outside" in consecutive sentences. page 2 - "its features alien" - This is pretty weak for description. It it big or small, does it have barbed tentacles? Give us something. The writing itself is fairly clean, aside form words used in a context that feels odd (Robinski caught pretty much all of those). My biggest issue would be with the overall style of the thing. I would say that the style is very melodramatic. There are lots of intense thoughts strung together, and it's not a style I particularly enjoy, though it's common in older writing that I have read and enjoyed. There's a reason people don't write like Poe and Lovecraft anymore. That's probably what makes this stand out to me most as the work of non-native speaker. Like this paragraph: "Such darkness. Such monstrous obscurity. I’d seen moonless nights before. I’d seen how dark it got when power cut off. But I’d never seen anything like this. Light was being smothered. Darkness seemed to have a mind of its own. Nothing made sense, except that I had to leave as soon as possible." For the ending, the character states "I realized what kind of situation I was in", but we don't know what that situation is. Is he supposed to die, because then I have to wonder why the thing didn't just eat him instead of waiting for him to wake up? Saying that, I just realized that this is the first part of a story, so I guess the main character is still alive and has a darker fate, but I still have no idea what fate awaits him, or what this thing wants from him. And no, repeating "blood" 18 times didn't help in that regard either, WHOSE blood? I didn't feel a whole lot of tension in this, and I'm guessing that's the emotion you wanted from the reader. Not knowing anything about the character or his motivation really weakened it. For me to feel worry, I have to care at least a little about the main character, and I don't. He's just someone in the dark at the moment. There is no story without a character, and this character is weak so he brings the story down with him. - I know that he was there after a ball, but why is he the only one in the cave? Was it a dare, was he bullied, or was it his fault? - What sort of stories had they heard? Every place had its stories, but giving us something specific to be afraid of, or showing us something specific that the boy is afraid of, would help. - Giving the boy something to leave for (a friend, a pet, a family member, a favourite toy or piece of sports equipment), would make us invested in his ability to get out of this cave alive, and would make us more worried about what happens to him in here. As it is, I have no real reason to care about this person, so I'm not too invested in his safety, or lack thereof. ie. The big scary thing is only scary because it's described as a big scary thing, which isn't very scary to the reader. Show me what it's costing the main character, and it'll be more scary to me as well. For its failures, I think this is a pretty good effort, and I can see the work that you put into improving. It's certainly a cleaner submission than the one with the guy at the harbour. So keep up the good work! I'll be here willing to help as long as you're there willing to work to improve
  21. Then that's as short as the story gets. I think it's okay, I can't say that there was anywhere where I felt that it dragged on heavily. My feeling that it was long in general may have stemmed from having read it twice in two weeks.
  22. This is the sort of specific help I'm usually loathe to provide. When you get to the point of shaving down a story and doing line edits, any advice you get from other people will be advice based on how the individual sentences and the overall story sound to their ear. If you and I were both to take this story and pare off 15%, I bet we'd cut a very different set of words, and the result would be something that would sound very different and that's what we usually would call your writing voice. In general, look for places where you're saying the same thing twice in different ways, or where you have long passages of description, or where you're stating the obvious. Look for places where you can combine sentences and make them work more efficiently as one.
  23. P1 - Is it possible for the knife to physically change shape? Otherwise that's probably not the description you want. P1 - Ashley released her grip on him" - There's no need for this " mark. P1 - hand to his chest, moaning" - Or this one. The writing is pretty clean, and I think you balanced dialogue and description well. It's definitely readable. On page two, I'm REALLY not a fan of these turning out to be practice knives, especially after it was described as being intimidating. This is a put-the-book-down-permanently moment for me. She can see the knife, but you describe it as a knife, and present it as a dangerous situation even though the character very well knows that it isn't. I hate it when a POV character knows something, but doesn't say it, and then the "surprise" is to reveal what they knew all along to the reader. Seeing it on page 2 of a book means I'm afraid it's the sort of plot device you're going to turn to often, and if I wasn't critiquing it and instead reading it for pleasure, I'd be done with it and on to the next book on my shelf immediately. You mentioned ghosts and regular people, I'm not sure why Courtney would say that Ashley would only have a physical body here on page 13. Ashley steps through the door normally, as opposed to Ben who disappears, so I don't know what it is that seta Ashley apart from the normal people. I'm sort of curious, but if it turns out that the special reveal is something that Ashley knew all along, then I reiterate the sentiments I expressed at page 2. That being said, you have an interesting premise here, and an interesting setting. Things I'm curious to know is if there are other places like this bar, how this bar got to be the place that is is, how the dead know to come here in the first place, and how Courtney got to be here. I'm also, as mentioned above, curious to know what makes Ashley special. The characterization is probably the weakest part of this piece. We find out through Courtney's eyes what Ashley wants, so we don't get much of a sense of where all of Ashley's motivation comes from. The civil war soldier is interesting, but I think you missed an opportunity to use that encounter to show us more about who Courtney is, how she got to be there, and how she feels about the dead man in front of her. Courtney's probably the most interesting person in this chapter because she's the only one we see a lot of, but I get the feeling that Ashley is supposed to be your major main character? Time will tell, but that's my first impression.
  24. In late, out early. The story's about them going to get a new god, and you come in as late as possible which is good. You want to go out as close to their success as possible, which you also did. If you're going to add romance, it needs to come in after the main goal is outlined, and be finished before they achieve their other goal, or conclude at the same time. I would not add any romantic denouement to this story, and I'm satisfied with the way you did conclude it. On that note, I would suggest that leading with a paragraph of backstory might not be ideal, and you can jump right in to the quest itself. They need a new god and Alssia has been chosen. You can put the older god's defeat in later at some point when Alssia reflects upon it. I didn't go back to compare this with the first draft, and I don't know what's clearer to me because I've read it twice now, or what's clearer because you've made it that way. I don't think it was as clear to me early on, the first time, that Siad Amak was a demon (rather than a god, or whether there was a difference at all) and that his power was still there to protect them from some of the demons. This is better now. In this draft I also get a better sense that defeating the stone lion weakened Idris, which is something that was lacking the first time. Not enough that I'm not wondering why he didn't do it earlier (unless he needed the raiders to be bleeding?I wasn't sure how relevant that was). Still, it's better. What I still don't get is why Alssia was chosen to protect Idris, if this was the sort of thing they expected to encounter and she had no way of defeating it? As far as I can tell, by page 6 Idris could have easily gotten this far without her. When Alssia takes out one jackal with her sling, is there a reason why the other jackals don't turn to feasting on their fallen companion if they're hungry? Seems like he'd be easy prey with his only real weapon (his bite) unavailable. When they pass the jackals, and there's nothing left but demons, I wonder why they think that that makes them safer? To me that would be the most dangerous part of the journey wouldn't it? Or would this normally be dangerous, but it's safe for them because of their god's remaining protection? All in all, it feels a bit tighter and cleaner than the first version. I think you've done pretty well. You could probably still shave off a few hundred words. P2 - "from within that ragged heartbeat." P5 - "fowling fouling her swing"
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