Guenhywvar Posted June 18, 2012 Report Share Posted June 18, 2012 OK, this is the prologue for my novel Turmoil which is now in its second draft. It is still over the word count, unfortunately, being about 7.5k words, but as it is only 3 scenes, I cannot break it up that well. I'm sorry for this. There is slight violence in the prologue. As it is now in the second draft, please be as critical as you feel you need to be, it can only serve to better my writing. In the prologue you follow Enthisa ascending into Godhood, and you meet two siblings, Athir and Hinther, who have unfinished business with each other. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack the Halls Posted June 21, 2012 Report Share Posted June 21, 2012 The magic system is all over the place. I found myself skimming through the magical stuff around page 5, and by halfway through the prologue I was officially bored by the magic. Everywhere I looked, there was some new and random aspect of the magic. The only limitation that I could see was that using so much magic hurt the world and the Gods had to destroy it. I hate the Gods. They are the most powerful magicians in the entire world, with enough power to destroy civilization, and yet they are so incompetent that they couldn't prevent this? They warned everyone by telling them, "If you use too much power, we will destroy you!" But couldn't enforce that? I found it particularly amusing that she is thinking out it is everyone else's fault for using too much magic as she flies over the city. Ha! Really, from everything I can tell based on this prologue, the Gods are the entire reason too much magic is being used. I have no idea who is on whose side, or who is fighting in this war, or why the war is being fought, or why the daemons matter at all, since world was destroyed like 10 pages before. The final fight sequence reads like a 1970s comic book. Your mutant power is no match for my mutant power. Let us have a 2 minute convo when only a few seconds should have passed. Magic needs limitations. There is way too much thrown out way too fast, and I don't feel like I will understand the magic system any better as the book goes on. If you're going to have such a magic system, the characters need to be more original, and they aren't. I'm not sure what Enthisa's purpose is except as a pair of eyes. I've read the story about the brother and sister before many times. Basically, I need something to relate to in order to be drawn in, and I was pushed away by all the random magic far more than I was drawn in. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guenhywvar Posted June 21, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2012 Jack, thank you for your time, although, I have a couple of questions, and would ask if you could elaborate a little? The magic system is all over the place. I found myself skimming through the magical stuff around page 5, and by halfway through the prologue I was officially bored by the magic. Everywhere I looked, there was some new and random aspect of the magic. The only limitation that I could see was that using so much magic hurt the world and the Gods had to destroy it. Could you tell me what it is that bores you? And could you tell me why you think it is random? As for the limitations, there are more limitations, although not all of these are expressed in the prologue, would you suggest implementing all these limitations into the prologue, even though they've been slipped in later in the novel? I hate the Gods. They are the most powerful magicians in the entire world, with enough power to destroy civilization, and yet they are so incompetent that they couldn't prevent this? They warned everyone by telling them, "If you use too much power, we will destroy you!" But couldn't enforce that? I found it particularly amusing that she is thinking out it is everyone else's fault for using too much magic as she flies over the city. Ha! Really, from everything I can tell based on this prologue, the Gods are the entire reason too much magic is being used. Just a question, as this confuses me a little, if they were to use magic to stop the problem of using too much magic, how would this help? They'd be using even more magic, which would make the situation even worse... I have no idea who is on whose side, or who is fighting in this war, or why the war is being fought, or why the daemons matter at all, since world was destroyed like 10 pages before. The final fight sequence reads like a 1970s comic book. Your mutant power is no match for my mutant power. Let us have a 2 minute convo when only a few seconds should have passed. Could you tell me exactly why this is the case? - Also could you tell me in what ways it could be improved? As this is an extremely vague statement, and doesn't help me much... Magic needs limitations. There is way too much thrown out way too fast, and I don't feel like I will understand the magic system any better as the book goes on. If you're going to have such a magic system, the characters need to be more original, and they aren't. I'm not sure what Enthisa's purpose is except as a pair of eyes. I've read the story about the brother and sister before many times. As I have expressed earlier, the magic does have limitations, one of them being that, at any one point there is only a finite amount of "energy" available, and that "energy" is the source of magic, as well as the energy of the universe... I haven't expressed that in the prologue, as it may verge on info-dumping, and, I have managed to get it in later on... This is why you may find the magic system to be slightly difficult to follow, as all the rules haven't been expressed yet... Basically, I need something to relate to in order to be drawn in, and I was pushed away by all the random magic far more than I was drawn in. What makes it so that you don't relate? How does the magic push you away? I'm sorry, although the general statements didn't really help me; I can't improve the writing otherwise... I'm not trying to defend my work, I'd just like to have a clearer idea of why it has the effects it does on you, as otherwise it'd be impossible to improve.. While knowing what is wrong helps to some extent, I need to know why that is, in order to be able to fix it... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asmodemon Posted June 21, 2012 Report Share Posted June 21, 2012 To start with, the premise of the prologue has potential. A group of mages forced to make a difficult choice to destroy the world and create a new one or wait until everything is dead without a chance for rebirth. However it is mired in its execution. The prologue is too long for what it does and that’s in part because of the following points. Thesis: One of the big problems is that this doesn’t read as a story but more like a treatise on various uses of magic. This is especially true for the first part where the Gods destroy the world. The one spell they cast takes several pages. You describe a lot of effects and this may be cool in a visual medium, but in a book it’s dead weight. I started skimming. If I do that in a prologue you can be sure the book gets dropped. Redundancy: You have a tendency to explain the same point several times, usually in the following sentence even. This isn’t necessary, the reader can read between the lines and not everything needs to be explained. Take the following examples: “Time to summon the Daemons; creatures that had been locked away. And they were about to be unlocked.” A spell with a base she didn’t recognize; he was about to cast a banned spell She reached for the Well of Power, the Source through her aura She pushed her spell upon him, a block. She had stagnated him; he could no longer draw magic. Dialogue: I didn’t really like the majority of the dialogue. It’s not exactly people talking to each most of the time, only mouthpieces for the magic thesis. And where it’s not, it’s stilted. Take the first conversation between the Gods, it’s a maid and butler sequence detailing their motivation and the brief history of the world leading up to its destruction, nothing more. Gods: I don’t like them, don’t care about them. Enthisa is the foil through which we experience the five siblings, but the whole thing is about the magic and not them. And seeing the world they created I really doubt their motivations. In the first world magic is almost dead. The Gods use what’s left to save a part of the world. However, in the new world there are suddenly a dozen realms and magic is again thrown about willy-nilly. This gave me a lot of pause; seems like the mages just wanted to becomes deities. Maybe this is indeed the hidden plan. If so, Enthisa better not have been aware. I don’t mind untrustworthy viewpoints, but she has no reason to lie to herself if that’s indeed the plan. Athir and Hinther: I’m sorry, I don’t like them either. Hinther reads like a spoiled child instead of the leader of an army. And for the most part Athir is Enthisa all over again, just a foil for the world and the magic. Cetoki: A group of beings, Gods, create the world. One of them turns on the others. Maybe he is evil, maybe not, but either way this isn’t terribly original. Minor stupidity: “You have been dabbling in evil magics?!” Athir asked. Why is she surprised he’s using evil magics? She already knows he summons daemons. Sword: I hate Athir’s rhetoric about the sword ‘it’s a weapon and only a weapon’, ‘a spear can be used to hunt to gather food’, blah, blah, blah. To me this is pacifist nonsense. A spear is a weapon just as much as a sword is. If she had a spear she wouldn’t take it up to gather food, she’d take it up to kill her brother, same as the sword. Waste of Power: Why make such a big deal about how much energy the sword has if one big spell wipes out the entire energy supply? Is it to make the spell seem grander? Because that didn’t really work. So far we’ve seen big spells being cast, but there is no way to measure how much energy is really needed and for what kind of spell. To me this was too vague and didn’t fit with a cursed sword of awesome power. It was more like a dud. Dragons: Super powerful beings that could easily win the war but they do nothing. They give Athir a stupid prophesy that either she dies or her brother dies. Supposedly the dragons care about her, she’s even one of their own, but instead of all of them going out and simply wiping out Hinther’s army they do nothing. Conclusion: I don’t know what comes after, but after reading all of this the prologue had better be very relevant for the rest of the story. If not, you might be better of cutting it and presenting the relevant information elsewhere. At the very least the prologue needs to be trimmed. Do away with the thesis parts and work on your characters. So far I don’t care for any of them and that doesn’t bode well. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack the Halls Posted June 21, 2012 Report Share Posted June 21, 2012 Could you tell me what it is that bores you? And could you tell me why you think it is random? As for the limitations, there are more limitations, although not all of these are expressed in the prologue, would you suggest implementing all these limitations into the prologue, even though they've been slipped in later in the novel? I don't know if it IS random, but it definitely FEELS random. First there is common flight. Okay. Then there is stuff about elements combining into one force. Okay. Then there is a well from which all power is drawn. Okay. Then it feels like the One Power with all the strands and stuff, but none of the strands really make sense to me as the reader. THEN we have someone using pagan/religious magic (pentagram) to summon a daemon. THEN there are other words, which are apparently really easy to get to. THEN there are dragons. THEN there are magical swords. Any time the story or characters start to take over, we're hit with another new aspect of the magic, and with every new aspect of the magic I become more and more bored because I start expecting a story where anything can be explained by some new and random act of magic. For instance, I found myself skimming through the spell on pages 5-7. I said, No, I have to be good and read every word because this is a writing group, and I went back and read every word. When I got to the end of the spell, I didn't understand any better and I didn't feel like I had missed anything by skimming. Just a question, as this confuses me a little, if they were to use magic to stop the problem of using too much magic, how would this help? They'd be using even more magic, which would make the situation even worse... They could easily set up laws that limit the use of magic. Anyone caught using magic is put to death. They are obviously not above executing an entire world for the greater good. That would use very little magic. Because this prologue tells me that any aspect of magic I have ever seen in any book is fair game, I can't help but think... Why don't they just lock the well and give a select few the key? The elder can mask her ability to use magic, which tells me they could find all magic users in the world pretty easily and keep them from using magic. Yet, later, the sister talks about how the Gods taught her her healing powers. Why are they teaching more people to use magic when they don't want anyone to? Could you tell me exactly why this is the case? - Also could you tell me in what ways it could be improved? As this is an extremely vague statement, and doesn't help me much... Well, I guess it's because there is a battle raging and dead and blood and stuff everywhere. There is a great daemon who even the dragons know is a bad guy. Somehow the two siblings come together in the heat of it all and then... Have a conversation. Fight. Pause. Talk. Fight. Pause. Not only that, but like Asmodemon pointed out, their conversation doesn't seem to add anything. Why is she so surprised he's using evil magics? What makes one magic even and another good anyway? In Writing Excuses they talk about how the bad guy sometimes ends up being the most interesting character. This is very true, I think, in this prologue. As I have expressed earlier, the magic does have limitations, one of them being that, at any one point there is only a finite amount of "energy" available, and that "energy" is the source of magic, as well as the energy of the universe... I haven't expressed that in the prologue, as it may verge on info-dumping, and, I have managed to get it in later on... This is why you may find the magic system to be slightly difficult to follow, as all the rules haven't been expressed yet... I don't know if I found it difficult to follow so much as impossible to believe. What it makes me think of is a character written in such a way that they can not only track in the woods, but they are also a sword master, and they are also a political genius, and they are also a great lover, and they are also the forgotten king, and they are also very humble, and they are also the most powerful magician in the world, and they are also... You see where I'm going with this. What makes it so that you don't relate? How does the magic push you away? I'm sorry, although the general statements didn't really help me; I can't improve the writing otherwise... I'm not trying to defend my work, I'd just like to have a clearer idea of why it has the effects it does on you, as otherwise it'd be impossible to improve.. While knowing what is wrong helps to some extent, I need to know why that is, in order to be able to fix it... No need to apologize! I think my comments are more general than usual because while you are obviously a competent writer, the problems with this prologue are general in nature. Every page introduces a new aspect to the magic system, even if it's just pointing out that buildings can be forged with magic. It's almost like we don't even have one magic system here but many. The One Power. Religious. Elemental. That can work, too (I mean, we're all Sanderson fans, right?), but it's too much too soon. You talk about not wanting to info-dump, but this is a magic-dump. I think every time a magic is used, the limitations have to show themselves in some way. When Vin is burning metals, she is always aware of how much she has left. When Rand draws on the One Power, he is constantly aware of the impending madness. Here, the only time we see a limitation it is people criticizing others for using magic while using magic themselves. If Enthisa realizes that she is being a hypocrite by flying but then thinks, "Well, who cares? The world's already over anyway." That is more character development than she has in her whole section. What I personally think you need to do is go back into this prologue and make it about the characters. Cut out any magic that isn't necessary (leaving probably the world destroying weave, the summoning, the dragon meeting, but nothing else). This way you can at least HINT at those limitations you were talking about while cutting your page count down dramatically. I hope this helps a bit more! If you have any specific questions that you want answered, I'd be happy to try. I don't know how helpful specifics would be at this point, though, because the prologue is so vague in and of itself that I don't think it would help to point out that Enthisa should have noticed the wind when she was flying through it rather than when she landed, or that the dragon hall is far far too small for creatures so huge (it should take her much longer to get anywhere), or that you say the city is going to cease to exist, but not not in the same way it usually ceases to exist rather than it won't exist in the same way it has until then. Stuff like that can be caught and dealt with in another draft, after the more general problems are dealt with. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guenhywvar Posted June 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 22, 2012 OK, thank you very much guys! I have decided to cut most of the prologue down, to little over 1000 words, and redraft that bit in the next redraft (Redraft the bit from "The sun started to set behind Enthisa, casting an amber glow across the water" to the end of that scene, and I'll try and explain what's happening a little better, so that it doesn't feel as random...) I think most of the problems stem from the fact that what is happening in this prologue is basically a book in itself, and is the book I plan to write next... Because of this, not everything will have been explained to almost any extent, hence leaving the reader slightly puzzled... So, if I take out most of it, and include a redrafted version in the book I plan for later, then it'll be put in a better context... I can see what you're saying, Jack, about locking the well, and that would work, to an extent, although, that goes back to the earlier point, that it is a book in itself (indeed, the main characters in the prologue aren't the main characters in the main book, which is another reason I have chose to cut it, due to I don’t know what comes after, but after reading all of this the prologue had better be very relevant for the rest of the story. If not, you might be better of cutting it and presenting the relevant information elsewhere. And it isn't entirely relevant...If I'm strictly honest, only the destroying the world, and Hinther are relevant, as this is milenia before the events of the story line... The only difference between having it in the prologue and having it later, would mean that people would not see the flaws in the main Religion in the book as soon, which is both good and bad... Asmodemon, I've never noticed myself doing that before, but now that I look I can see that my whole book is suffering from this haha, so I'll need to cut it out. As a side note, I've tried to make it in this book, that the reader makes their mind up of who is good and evil, and I explore whether what they're doing is necessarily evil, or indeed good... And manipulation is one of the key themes in the book... The Gods are, as you've found out, mass murders.. Some feeling more remorse than others, and are, and always will be, guilty to at least some extent - While they are teaching others magic, they're teaching the damaging effects that it can have, and are forced to respond to Cekoti's overuse of magic... Dialogue is, and always has been my weakest point, I must confess, although I had thought that I had managed to remove most of the maid/butler talk, and the stilted dialogue.. Could you help me find what's still left in there? OK, I'll try to convey magic a little bit better, although as most of it will be cut, I'll make sure that I express it quite clearly in the rest of the book - as for the sword, I can see what you mean by it being anti-climatic, and will try to rectify that when it's used later in the book... I see what you mean about the Dragons, although in the main book they get very little mention, so as I'm taking that out, I'll keep it in mind for the other book... Thank you guys once again It's been a great help! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandamon Posted June 23, 2012 Report Share Posted June 23, 2012 Sorry I couldn't get in on this discussion earlier! I was a victim of a terrible internet connection while I was on vacation. There was a lot of good feedback going on in this thread, so I wanted to post my two cents and hope I don't repeat too much: Since no one has really done much in the way of specifics, first here are a few nitpicky things I noticed. Page 1, first pp: "Rather, not in the same way." should be something like, "Rather, it would not exist in the same way." two sentences further on : "She flew high above the city, her vision enhanced she watched people walk idly by, oblivious as to what was about to happen." You either need some more commas, or to break this up into two sentences. There are a lot of other sentences like this. Page 9/10: repetition of Hinther's name. Use "he" or "him" when you can. Page 14: '“You have a head beyond your years Keling.” The dragon said, sending a telepathic message.' We can figure out that it's telepathic from the italics. Page 16: I think there's a little too much telepathy...I'm not sure who is talking where. Bottom of page 17: You have Athir referred to as a he, instead of she. Page 19: we see that Cekoti seems to have betrayed the others in the future, but we don't see any hint of this when they are originally destroying the world in the prologue. Should we? It comes as sort of out of the blue otherwise. page 22. Mental link? This seems to have popped out of nowhere. I think this goes along with the comments on the magic system. Page 24 "She watched as he howled until her eyes stopped following him as she breathed her last breath." This sentence is a hard to follow. Even more than the magic system, the thing that bothered me most was the comma usage. I know there are some fairly lax rules regarding commas, but there are also some hard and fast ones, and you don't seem to be following either consistently. You might want to look into that. Another big point is that you have too much infodumping. There's the really big on on in the prologue about magic, and then another one on page 10 about summoning Daemons. I think most everything I thought of on the characters, the Gods, and Magic has been covered, so I won't be redundant. I think most of the problems stem from the fact that what is happening in this prologue is basically a book in itself, and is the book I plan to write next... Because of this, not everything will have been explained to almost any extent, hence leaving the reader slightly puzzled... This reminds me very much of the first time I actually finished writing a book. I immediately submitted it to agents, and of course never heard anything, because it was pretty bad. Soon after I listened to my first Writing Excuses podcast, which was Writing Excuses 5.13: Writing the Second Book. This was the one that made me go back and listen to five years of previous Writing Excuses episodes to catch up, because they had tagged basically everything that was wrong with my book in 15 minutes. If you haven't heard that one, I would encourage you to listen to it. There's another one somewhere about putting everything you can in the first book (that is, not leaving in bits that say "Ah Ha! I'll write about this in another book!") because you will always have other (better) ideas. So I would say if that prologue takes place so far in the past and is really another book in itself, take it ALL out. Leave hints in the book about what happened in the past, and DON'T write about it. Fans always wanted Robert Jordan to write a book about the Second Age of the Wheel of Time, and he refused, because that would take all the mystery and wonder and legend out of the Age of Legends. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjhuitt Posted June 24, 2012 Report Share Posted June 24, 2012 This is my second time reading this part of your story, and from what I can recall it has been improved. As you noted, however, there's always room for improvement. I could basically quote Asmodemon's critique and be mostly covered. Instead, I'm going to re-emphasize what the others have said, in that the part on the first world needs to be cut down as much as you can. I'd suggest you be as ruthless as you can manage in trimming it. If the whole thing can go, great, but I get the impression that's not quite the case, so make it short and quick. I'd spend a bit of time working on the polish of this section also, as if it's easy to read you can get away with a little bit more length than otherwise. Regarding polish, I'll reiterate that the siblings discussing their attempts to stop everyone at the end of the world was very much like a maid and butler dialogue, where the discussion appeared to happen more for the reader's sake than for any need for the characters to communicate. I suggest putting any necessary information like this in Enthisa's POV text, instead of in dialogue, and again, keep it to a minimum. I also thought that the description of building up the spell was too detailed, especially for a prologue. I think you could describe the length of time and the effect on the casters without going into quite the detail on the spell. Alternately, you might try hyper-concentrating on a few of Enthisa's representative actions, having the time pass without her noticing until it is done. Another aspect of the beginning section was that I didn't have a good feel for the people. The setting was described (maybe a touch too much), but the people are just names and, occasionally, place relative to the others. Very little of their personality is shown, and I'm assuming from the setup so far that the relative personalities of these soon-to-be-gods will at the least strongly flavor the rest of the book. Once into the conflict between Athir and Hinther, there is still a lot of potentially extraneous information, especially for a prologue. For example, most of Hinther's actions and thoughts before his signal to summon the demons could probably go. Most of the summoning setup could be compressed into one short paragraph, I think, and Quaorr's description could maybe be focused on the most telling details (you have a lot of nasty details there, but I think any one or two of them may be even more effective without all the others crowding them in the text). I did like that Hinther added a little of the dramatic address to the summons, despite it being unnecessary. I'll skip a good chunk more with Athir and the dragons to get to the brother/sister fight. One of my first thoughts during this was to wonder why Athir didn't so much as bat an eye when Hinther attacked her after she defeated Quaorr. I also wondered about her using as much energy on the demon as she did; I didn't think it was fully justified in the text, especially if she had been expecting that Hinther would then still attack her. Also, being how Athir is written, I expected her to attempt talking Hinther out of the fighting, instead of just going along with the fight (and complaining about him learning stuff she hadn't). I'm also not entirely clear on Hinther's motivations for killing his sister. Sure, he wanted to defeat her, and possible take the sword from her, but as the saying goes, "death's too good for her". After he had clearly beaten her, why would he kill her instead of containing her and keeping her around to gloat at? Especially if Hinther is going to be around for more of the story, I kind of wanted some small reason to root for him, even just a little bit, and not killing his sister (or not intentionally killing her) would be one way to do it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjhuitt Posted June 24, 2012 Report Share Posted June 24, 2012 As I have expressed earlier, the magic does have limitations, one of them being that, at any one point there is only a finite amount of "energy" available, and that "energy" is the source of magic, as well as the energy of the universe... I haven't expressed that in the prologue, as it may verge on info-dumping, and, I have managed to get it in later on... This is why you may find the magic system to be slightly difficult to follow, as all the rules haven't been expressed yet... I wanted to quickly comment on this part also, to the effect of remembering one of some guy Sanderson's laws of something or another, that limitations are more interesting than powers. It's good to see the powers, and to see what the possibilities are, but I think in the prologue we maybe have too many possible powers, and not enough mention of the limits (whatever they may be). Also bear in mind, not all limits have to be inherent in the magic system, such as Jack the Hall's suggestion about laws against certain uses of magic. This is briefly present in the prologue with the reference to forbidden spells, but there doesn't seem to be any consequence yet to Hinther using them, and he certainly doesn't seem to see it as a limitation. Remember also that if the magic is accessed through spells, that there is the limitation of what spells one knows (again, hinted at in the prologue but not really used). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSadDragon Posted July 8, 2012 Report Share Posted July 8, 2012 Talked with Guenhywar about Turmoil on IRC but thought i would post the feedback in here for the sake of posterity 1. I didn't have too much problem with the gods, or rather the mages in the beginning of the book. Though that might be due to the fact that I did not think that they were that strong as others in here has gotten the impression that they were. Sure, I did think they were powerful just in the same way that Rand is powerful. He is strong but still seem to be far from unstoppable. 2. There was too much magic too soon, or perhaps just too descriptive. I mean there is quite a lot of magic being thrown around but it's mages doing things so its kind of to be expected. The descriptive side could perhaps be tuned down and introduces little by little instead. 3. The war-part lacked any tension. This is mostly due to it being in a prologue and having a prologue where the good guys win doesn't make for an interesting story. The addition of the prophesy is pretty much a dead giveaway that she will die which only disarms what little tension was there -- after all both of them could have died to maintain the status quo. --- One other point based on the IRC discussion. 1. I'm still not sure about the Gods and their affect on the tension and general conflict. With proper characterization I do not doubt that it will work, but you still have 5 people that can end the conflict whenever they choose to. That is all for now. -TSD 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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