Feb 4 - little wilson - Crashers - Chapter 3

[little wilson]

Thanks again for any help you can give me with this! It's much appreciated...

[Syme]

So according to the backstory presented in this chapter, this story is set in the 24th century. I don't believe a word of it. If this is the 24th century, where are the general AIs? Where are the nanobots? Where is biological and genetic engineering? Where are the spaceships? So far we haven't seen even the slightest hint of future technology. I can see how some of it is non-functional after the Crash, but surely most of it would continue working.

I also find it wildly implausible that all the major technological advances come from one organisation that employs only a few hundred scientists. After all, even today there are millions of scientists in the world and the number is steadily rising.

And why can't they rebuild the lost technology? Surely they haven't lost all the know-how and research.

If it was meant to be a false backstory, then good job with that, but if not you've just stretched my suspension of disbelief way past the breaking point.

One little nitpick on page two. You wrote:

“Never could fool you. Fine,” he nodded.

Nodding isn't saying anything, so you shouldn't use that word in a dialogue-tag. You don't need any dialogue-tag here because it's already clear who's speaking, so you could write it like that:

“Never could fool you. Fine.” He nodded.

However, I would just completely omit the reference to nodding. His agreement is already clear from the dialogue.

At the end of the chapter, we have some nice rising action. It seems a bit odd how much Emily knows instinctively about the magic system, but maybe that's a deliberate part of her abilities.

[Mandamon]

I did get some of the same feeling as Syme on the lack of technology, but wasn't as bothered by it. I assumed it went along with whatever the Crash was. Unfortunately, that might have been because I spent the first half being confused. your first discussion on Crashers/gathering/volunteering/etc is a little too vague. You're trying not to reveal too much, but you've revealed too little, especially for the length of the dialogue. I'm having to keep track of things I don't yet have any description of, so I can't remember them by then end of the dialogue.

On page 7 you finally get to a reveal that this mysterious group is a bunch of students. You probably could have told me that sooner without messing anything up. I would combine the student's history lesson with the conversation with Remington. That way you can get across the information without 1) having an infodump and 2) the reader being confused for the whole chapter on which organization or person is doing what. As an example of this, you explain how ruling over a continent isn't exactly the correct description (vs a landmass) before I even know who's ruling what. I'm still not sure what the difference is between the Coalition and World Order.

A couple of character/plot things:

-Characters are still light on description and personality. I think I had this same complaint last time. I have trouble remembering who is who. I got Remington confused with Jonas during the conversation with the students.

-I didn't understand why Emily got so upset about the students asking about a conspiracy theory. And then someone she didn't know at all indirectly called her non-related uncle a stupid name and she got really upset. This is where you need some extra characterization to help the reader understand why this is happeneing.

-Also, was it supposed to be clear why the students were taunting her, or is that something to be revealed later? Did Jonas or Remington put them up to it?

I do like the writing style, and the story seems like it will be engaging once it gets going. I'm intrigued by characters developing some mental/magic power in a cultre with failing technology.

[AubreyWrites]

i'm not bothered by the lack of future tech as i assume it's part of your story. I do agree with syme though that "hundreds of scientists" are not adequate even if they did all disappear. unless science has been strictly regulated and you have to be registered with a special guild and all that (which if it was you need to make that clear) you would have thousands of scientists worldwide. How could they possibly all have disappeared?

as far as character development. i agree with mandamon. You're characters don't really have a lot of flesh- which is ok this early on but i am having trouble remembering who is who. It took me several pages in to remember who Oliver was.

You might start distinguishing them physically. Is Jonas an adult? if so how old? is he fat and balding or short with really intense eyes and bushes for eyebrows? it will help us keep them straight as they gather flesh to have things that you can physically reference from time to time until we really get to know them.

i too wasn't very sure why she had such an intense reaction to what seems to be just a couple of smart mouthed kids. She went from zero to pissed really really quickly and we don't really know why. "It's insulting to uncle Chris" just doesn't feel like a good enough reason to completely lose it and start shaking the building.

I don't suppose you live in NY. I got a very "ground Zero two towers" feeling from the whole crash site. incidentally i did like your way of giving us some back story through the info video- i'm having issues with this in my own story so - kudos for doing it better than i did.

also when she realizes she is the cause of the shaking and starts running- i didn't really connect with her fear and terror. she seems way too calm about the fact that she's causing an earthquake. Not being able to relate to her in what should be such a moment of strong emotion puts distance between me as the reader and emily- which pulls me out of the story. I don't know her well enough yet to put distance between us.

Just a side-note. The underlined mental thoughts really bug me. You don't see that in published work. normally thoughts are just italicized. It really brings me out of the story every time she has a mental thought and i feel like i'm reading a book title instead.

I am interested in the new guy - i'm intrigued about the next chapter!

[little wilson]

All right. Thanks for all the comments. :)/>

Syme. I totally didn't even notice the lack of that kind of technology. I don't know how I managed to miss something like that. Since I saw your comment yesterday morning, I've been doing some research and figuring out what would work in the world. It won't show enough to make it sci-fi, because the focus of the story is on the powers that different powers. And those people typically have different ways of getting what they want. But some of them would still use nanobots in particular, and some bio engineering. AI's should be more prevalent too....So yeah. I'm working on that. I'm also fixing that discrepancy that all of you caught with the number of scientists. Yet another thing I'm not sure how I missed. This is why it's good having other people read my stuff....

Mandamon. I knew you would have issues with the characters. When I submitted it, I knew you'd say something. I'm trying to work on my character development, particularly character description. I know it's extremely important to a story, and I need it. It's something I struggle with since I'm not a character-writer. I focus more on plot, so that tends to get SUPER fleshed-out, and then my characters are left a under-developed. I guess in a way the writing process fleshes out the characters in my head, but I need to put that through so the reader can get to know them. Even if they're minor characters (which the vast majority of characters mentioned thus far are very minor, or fairly minor). ANYWAY. I'm working on it. I've got a friend who's far more character-driven and she said she'd help me fix it up. I'll also work on that part about Emily getting so mad so quick. As for your question about someone putting them up to it...yes. Rem did. He paid them to get her mad. So her suspicion was correct. And about the Coalition vs the World Order. The World Order is the Coalition's policing force. So they're very closely related. I'll try to make that a little more clear.

Aubrey. Not that I was trying to put off a Ground Zero/Twin Towers feel to the Crash Site, but I'm not surprised that that's what you got. It doesn't matter in reference to the story, but the Tech Center was actually built at Ground Zero. The Coalition had reasons for putting it there. Mostly symbolic reasons. The Tech Center was a symbol for unity and progress. Most of the cities with Tech Centers had the Centers built at somewhat similarly symbolic locations. But that doesn't matter in reference to the story (which is the only reason I'm saying it here). I'm going to go through and fix that whole section with Emily getting upset and causing the shaking, and when I do that, I'll try to make it so the reader can still connect with her emotions. You're right--it's a little early to be causing any severe disconnects (assuming there's ever a time when it's okay to have a severe disconnect between the reader and the character). And as for the underline instead of italics. That's part of the guidelines for manuscript submission. I figured it'd be easier to just put the underlines in now for italics instead of going through later and changing everything when I end up getting it to a point where I'd feel comfortable submitting it. I prefer italics as well, but alas, I also don't like making more work for myself, especially since I have yet to figure out a way to get Word to replace italics with underlines....

[Mandamon]

Mandamon. I knew you would have issues with the characters. When I submitted it, I knew you'd say something.

I guess I'm getting a reputation . The reason I harp on this a lot is that I was exactly the same way when I started out. I've spent my last two books training myself to write from character rather than a plot, and I find it make the story a whole lot better. This is the reason Romeo And Juliet can be done in 16th century Italy as easily as in 20th century L.A. or with animated garden gnomes. The characters drive the story. The plot and worldbuilding can be a wonderful addition (I prefer the garden gnome version myself...) but it's just that--an addition built around the characters.

I have yet to figure out a way to get Word to replace italics with underlines....

Open up the find/replace function. You can actually apply italics or underline in the search box and it will at least turn single words from one to the other. Not sure how to do it for all sentences, but you could at least identify every place it happens.