February 6th Primordial Lights/Spectral Shadows - Aminar

[Aminar]

Well, here we have Chapter 2 of Primordial Lights. I have some plans for rewriting this chapter. Tell me what you thin of the non-Keth perspectives. I feel they're required to give the story the right feel; to translate the scope of the power flying around at the moment, and to setup multiple stages of involvement. Do they do that?

[Yados]

I'm only commenting on the Keth perspective, as it's the only part I've read.

I think sentence structure is really holding this story back. Comma usage is all over the place. Clauses that really should be their own sentence are stuck on the end. That sounds technical and tedious, but it *does* impact how someone reads the sequence you lay out. And the problem here is that the sequence isn't reading as fast paced and exciting.

You're explaining way too much. Don't tell us all about the elementals. Don't tell us about Dex aside from the fact that he's in Keth's head. Just sort of go with it at this point. I think a big problem a lot of people have when unveiling their worlds and magic is that they feel that, if they don't get to the theory right away, they'll be viewed as soft or inconsistent. But try to be cool and consistent at this point and then, later, when you explain it, the reader should be able to go back and see just how Keth was doing something.

For now, maybe try only giving us exactly what Keth is doing, nothing more, and then find a way to gradually work out the consistency behind it as you go forward. Because as it is, it's an infodump and it's making a scene where a spider fights a dinosaur and magic is worked boring. Which is the opposite of what should be.

In general, I think there is a lot of narrative distance going on here and it's working against the action. Get in the moment. Vivid up your language.

Also, you have a great opportunity for banter between Dex and Keth and I don't think you're quite capitalizing on it as much as you could. You could even use it for exposition.

Something like:

"Just saved your life, you know."

"No you didn't."

"Yes, I did."

"No"

"If you hadn't absorbed my reflexes, that Dinsoaur would have eaten your-- our--- throat."

"That's not the same as saving my life."

"It's not my fault you don't bring as much to the table, sir. I'm surprised you can fit all of me here in this --bleh-- flesh."

"I'm trying to summon."

Obviously, that's horrid and I'm just throwing something at the wall, but there's no reason we should be getting so much information about the different potency of elementals while your main character is running from a dinosaur.

[Aminar]

yeah. This is an unedited bit of the first work I put into the story.(Which is my first project. It needs a major overhaul, but I'm waiting on editing-as per Steven Kings advice. I'm hoping most of those problems get better as time goes on.

[Yados]

Oh well of course! Just maybe watch your narrative distance during your high octane moments going forward, I think.

In my first draft of BMBD, I had paragraphs of historical context-- just walls of text-- interspliced within a duel w/ liquid swords made of blood. It sapped about 70 percent of the excitement.

But if you steer things and let the exposition come through in different ways, you don't have to train someone to understand why something is cool or important while it's happening.

Happy writing!

[cjhuitt]

I'm getting nearly a month late again, but not quite. Perhaps someday I'll keep on top of things here (all evidence to the contrary).

So, with Keth once more at the start of this chapter. I kind of liked the opening paragraph as far as setting the scene, and giving Keth some odd abilities that he doesn't think are useful (which may come into play later?), but it was a little flat with regards to getting a feel for Keth's POV. What does he think about the cartography? Why does he do it? Does he consider it beneficial at all?

Why does he use a fluorescent lantern instead of magic, if he can produce a magic light? Is there some benefit to it? How does the backpack show it's use? Are there scrapes, dents, or patches that remind Keth of previous adventures or escapades?

The transition to him being alert right before the dinosaur appears is rough also. Additionally, I thought the reference to being faster than most cars off-putting. First of all, it seems unlikely that the dinosaur could accelerate that quickly in what is presented as mere instants before Keth has to dodge. Second, cars can go really, really fast, and I find it hard to believe any animal could do that (absent magical help, which granted, could be in play here).

As previously mentioned, you have a bit of a tendency to info dump in this part. The end of the paragraph with the dinosaur's charge is one good example, where the action is stopped to mention absorbing Dex's combat knowledge. (Also, absorbing knowledge doesn't necessarily speed your reflexes; I had assumed with the reference to "Dex's reflexes" that he had actually gained some sort of super speed from the demon.) Another worrisome spot is just a bit later when Keth summons the spider. The beginning of the paragraph isn't quite an info dump, but slows the narrative drastically. You could trim unimportant parts there, and have him concentrate to produce the elemental, with fewer details. However, once he summons it, the info dump really starts back up again.

I liked the crystalline spider and how it gained a blush when it drank the blood from the dinosaur.

When Keth unsummons the spider, why does his hand tingle strangely? Rather, is it strange to him, or normal?

Also, somewhere around here I started wondering why, if Keth can uncommon demons, he can't be rid of Dex? This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the text is starting to lose it's hold on me, and I'm starting to question aspects of the story, which means my suspension of disbelief is starting to fray somewhat. Also, what happens to Dex if Keth dies without releasing or unsummoning him? Why does Dex help Keth?

After Keth leaves the dead dinosaur, how does he know there's a pack charging towards the dead one? I also thought it was odd how he seemed to just go along with the tugging on his hand, especially at first. Also, on second read I again wonder why not summon his creature for light when his lantern is broken?

On a technical note, referring to the summoned creatures as "summons" confuses me, since that is also the present tense verb form.

For your first divider section, I was confused what POV this is supposed to be. It makes me question some of the past POV assumptions I may have made, that it is 3rd person limited. However, if it is 3rd omniscient (or something similar), I might recommend that you establish that better near the beginning, either in the prologue or in the first chapter.

For the second divider, it raised a lot of questions, and most of them good. For example, I was wondering who Mr. G. was, and trying to remember (without going back and looking) what the initials of the big bad enforcer guy was from chapter 1. Of course, there is also the contradiction in someone "slaughtering enemies of peace", which doesn't sound very peaceful.

On the other hand, some things threw me for a loop. For example, the midyear being the autumnal equinox, especially if Mr. G. was the same guy from the first chapter. It also has overtones of earth-like structures, such as the reference to conspiracy forums and cameras. The combination really threw me for a loop, and left me without knowing whether it was supposed to be earth (or a very similar place), or someplace different.

For the beginning of book 2, I thought that the build-up to the plan was a little overly-mysterious, but that it was written well enough to convey the abilities that a cheshire has (as well as some drawbacks), and how Jhin has expanded on those abilities. However, it left some questions and doubts in my mind as to the limits and some interactions -- such as if they need to breath in their other dimension? Not super important at that part in the story, but it had me a little curious. Also, how would they know if a cheshire neglected to leave a piece of himself in the "real world"? If he lost the connection to the dimension, how would people on the other side even know?

The other aspect that had me curious and/or confused, which you may want to address, is what happens to those random pieces Jhin sends back into the world when they get ripped away? Or actually more importantly, what happens to Jhin? Is he basically burning parts of himself away in order to travel like this? If so, what are the repercussions of, say, losing a piece of his intestine? Heart? Brain? Wouldn't he rather just phase bits of his skin over, preferably parts that would regrow?

Still, I think it has some potential as a sort of spy or heist story.