edonil

So, one thing I wanted to comment on that I'm not so sure about...problem with jumping into a theory thread years after a book came out is that you miss all the confirmed facts. But, to me, the Knights Radiant are about protecting people. I could very much see Shallan being a KR as she is right now, because I don't see the Knights as an obsession with Honor, the Shard Honor notwithstanding. To protect people, sometimes you have to be underhanded. Right now, we don't know the reasons that Shallan killed her father...but I would not find it surprising that it was to protect someone in the end. Which, based on what we've seen of the Radiants, means that she's not quite out of the running yet.

Oh, frankly, I hate the title Kate's Folly. I just needed something to put in there, lol. I come up with titles at the end of a project, or somewhere in the middle...but since people would probably get lost in a sea of Untitled in the reading group, I needed to throw something in the spot. Thanks for the comments on the military etiquette stuff. I'm not totally sure how much I want to closely follow the NATO system, but now that I know there's more to the system than the five second intro I was handed in JROTC, it's definitely something to look into! As far as how Akim is.... honestly, I'm going to toss this in as a spoilers thing, cause I want people's first impression of him, then explain the reason I wrote him this way to see if that changes it. Thanks for the feedback!

Hey everyone, this is the prologue to the story I submitted last time. The more I worked on things, the more I realized I had too much backstory needed to get my character to the point she was at in that submission. I'm not really a fan of flashbacks, so I decided to start the story earlier in time. Also changed the name...this is more a placeholder, but it's more true to the story as a whole that I have in mind. Anyone, hope you all enjoy it! Looking for any and all feedback.

Alright, so, this is, after naming cities and countries, my least favorite part of writing. Normally, I don't ever worry about it until something is done, but with Reading Excuses submissions, 'Untitled' feels weird. So, I'm curious, how does everyone else come up with their titles for things? Do you have themes that you follow, things that you come up with...? Anything? I'm just looking for any advice I can get.

Could I submit something Monday?

I'd like to participate...anywhere I can get a little more information? Or is it closed for joining?

Thanks everyone for the kind words and the critiques! (honestly, a bit more for the critiques ) This was really an odd experiment all around, but I'm glad that it got started. Sorry for the bait and switch on the title, I've always been terrible with those and couldn't come up with anything better. Looks like I've got a good amount of work to do on this before continuing on, which is a good thing. A couple of you brought up the point of missed potential in the action scene...and reading over it, I definitely agree. Gonna be revisiting all that before I move on, and we'll see how that goes. (as an aside, anyone know if it's considered bad form to resubmit something once it's been edited?) Thanks once again all of you, you've given me a lot of inspiration and things to think about on how to improve this. Plus a few questions I need to figure out how to answer, too!

So, little bit of explanation is needed here. This started as the beginning of a short story/novella, and has evolved into a full novel, which of course this won't be the beginning of. Stupid muse. This section isn't complete quite yet, but wanted to see what people thought of it before I continued on. Hope you guys like it!

Question- if something is over the arbitrary number of words (but not super significantly), and it doesn't feel right to stop it at 5k anyway, can it still be submitted? I'm looking at one thing that's sitting at around 5300 at the moment.

Republic Commando era Karen Traviss, or later?

Honor Harrington, Victor Cachat, Nimitz and Eloise Pritchart from the Honorverse books. Wes Janson, Face, Tycho Celchu and Grand Admiral Thrawn from Star Wars. Also, Gilead Palleon and Mara Jade. Sabriel from the Abhorsen books. Mad Larkin from Gaunt's Ghosts. Garviel Loken from the early Horus Heresy books. Atomic Robo (I'm counting him )

Hm. Probably should stop in here and post at sometime...now seems good. Name's Jon, I'm an electronics tester/theology student. Been writing for a long time, but the journey to become a serious writer and author really only started in the past couple years. Since then, been working on improving as much as I can, which eventually led to me finding Writing Excuses, and through that, Reading Excuses. I've been a reader my whole life, and started in on scifi and fantasy early, which has really influenced the genres that I write. At the moment, I'm working on a steampunkish novel, Shadows of Real, and started a short story scifi for a bit of a lark that is rapidly growing out of control. Favorite authors would probably be David Weber, Brent Weeks, Michael A. Stackpole and Dan Abnett. No offense to Brandon Sanderson, just only started reading his stuff, would be hard to call him a favorite author just yet! Looking forward to seeing what everyone in here comes up with for things.

I'd like to chime in for next week as well. Just debating which of two things to enter...

Ha! Finally found time in this crazy week... So, I loved this. Absolutely loved it. Great depth of intrigue, and a very well done job with Tao. She comes across as very believable in her manipulation, especially as you revealed bits of her past. I liked the subtle ways you did a lot of the diplomatic games that the two wives were playing, especially the bit about how the timepiece fits into the game. Not a heavy handed explanation, just a line or two that kept it pretty simple. I will agree that explanation of Bao Yong's role in the story could be a little clearer. I didn't have a hard time following it, but I can definitely see where some confusion could come in. One thing that I noticed that was sort of jarring was a bit of a cultural thing. The dirigible having golden dragons for me was something that stalled me out. Dragons in Chinese culture were reserved for the Emperor's house, and golden dragons were only something for the Emperor. The way you have it setup at the moment, it comes across as Yang making a very subtle (or not so) attempt to be seen subverting the Emperor. It's a minor detail, but something that I'd recommend changing. The other thing I thought odd was the ending. It seemed rush in some way. Granted, I'm not used to pacing in short story, so there's that... Also with the ending, I found it strange that, of the options she presents, he chooses the one that will be more damaging to his career. Definitely there's embarrassment in being caught like that, but to let her walk out with a manual of that importance? I would think that the consequences there would be much higher. Overall, loved it, looking forward to reading more from you.

I could just kiss you right now, lol. I have literally been looking for a critique like that for years. Thanks muchly! Apparently I still have a lot to learn, which is awesome. I also need to revise how I introduce people and concepts...now that you brought it up, I'm seeing a lot of influence from particular authors I've read that did just fine, but weren't writing the same kind of story. One question, though...what do you mean by character tags?

Hey everyone, this is my first submission to Reading Excuses. This is chapter one of a novel in progress that I've been writing for a while. Honestly looking for any feedback anyone has, although I guess a couple specific areas would be how well the descriptions come across (by far my weakest area of writing) and exposition.

I would say word choice and pacing are two big ones. Some characters are going to be prone to using certain words more often, for instance. Others might favor certain metaphors, or have a very polite/formal method of speaking (Timothy Zahn's character Grand Admiral Thrawn comes to mind). Another thing might be how many words they get into a set amount of time- you can imply someone speaking faster by putting down a longer run of words before a new character speaks up. Some characters will joke around, but only about certain topics. For me, character voice is less about the accent of a character, and more about the words they use and how they use them. Hope some of that helps...

So, is it terribly inappropriate for someone brand new to the forum to want to submit something?

Hello all, I'm new! Well, that's a given, but regardless... anyway, coming here from the excellent Writing Excuses podcast, really excited to be here on the site. New forums are always so interesting... So...(rubs hands) what to say... Well, first off, I'm a college student at the moment taking a break from studies. I've got a full time job and tried to double up for three semesters, which was a bad plan. Getting a Bachelor's in Religion, which has been a lot of fun. I've been a voracious fiction reader all my life, especially of fantasy and science fiction, which somewhat naturally led to my interest as a writer. Been working away slowly at a novel for a couple years, along with a few web-only published short stories. I run a monthly short story competition over at the Wyrd Games forums, my usual haunt, which has been a lot of fun to organize and all. Looking forward to getting to know people here, and to participating in what goes on!