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When Good Angels Do Nothing - Chapters 1 & 2 [V,D,L]


AuthorityHellas16

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Hi all,

 
Apologies for the lengthy submission this week. I figured that these two chapters worked better when read back to back, as one kind of flows into the other. 
 
One of the biggest changes I’ve made since I last submitted this story was reworking the character of Hellas, so I’d like your opinions on his new look. The biggest part of this was changing him from the Batman-esque dark and brooding character to more of a sad jokester type. I also, following advice from our venerable Robinski, changed up his reasoning behind this behaviour, hopefully making him a little more sympathetic and a little less “me, me, me!” It’d be great if you could tell me how this comes across
 
I also minimised the eye-colour changing after feedback I got from you guys last week. I also took a closer look at the dialogue, which was widely called the worst part of my previous admission. Hopefully it’s a little less tripe. 
 
One last thing I wanted to ask. One of the readers of the prologue had trouble believing that the characters were angels. I made them deliberately more human to be more relatable, but it got me wondering whether them being angels in name only was distracting and potentially alienating to those of a non-Abrahamic (or even non-Christian) faith. It would not take much for me to change them to sufficiently-advanced-winged-humanoid-aliens or some such. What do you guys think?
 
As always, thanks so much!
 
AH16
 
Previously:
Hellas dreamed about the events that led to the start of the war against the hellspawn, before being arrested by the Holy Inquisition for crimes against the city. 
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Overall

The narrative didn't grip me. There wasn't enough description given for the characters to stand alone from Abrahamic myth, thereby relying on reader familiarity. The male to female ration was incredibly skewed, and the end, where we find Hella's motivation is the death of someone named Jessica....was too much. Evolving male characters and garnering sympathy for them through the deaths of female characters is not a favorable trope.

Some changes could be made easily, such as swapping genders on some of the described angels and giving Hella's a proper backstory that does not rely on the death of a woman to ground him. Other things, like the descriptors, need some fleshing out work. Write out Abrahamic standards, then define places where your characters split from those. Highlight those places in the narrative to make the otherness stand out more.

 

Your Questions

Hella's new look - I did not notice anything different in this version from the previous. This character still needs a great deal of developmental work.

Eye changing - it did help that this was less apparent, although the few times it surfaced again was just as jarring

Human versus angel - I've written about this in the line by line. See below

 

As I go

- tense change in the first paragraph is very confusing

- I don't care for the 'smelled like one hundred burning corpses'. I can't imagine that 100 burning corpses smells any differently than, say, 73, or 12. You've smelled one burning corpse, you've smelled them all

- first page has a lot of repetitive stomach churning

- The second to last paragraph in italics on the first page has too many adjectives. It feels weighed down.

- POV is muddled in first two pages. Is it Hella's POV, omniscient POV?

- page two - the descriptions of the angels and Elohim really doesn't add anything new to the mythos here. They aren't well described and rely on reader familiarity with the subject. Also, as these are fictional characters, they don't all need to be male. Check your gender balance in the narrative.

- end of page two: the narrative is bouncing between traditional angel lore and humanity reality, and that is very confusing. Angels, according to Abrahamic texts, spend their days worshipping the lord (sometimes smiting...we all enjoy smiting now and then). Here you have them set up as more of a human religion, working day jobs and worshipping at set times. Both of these settings are routinely familiar and are not novel.

- page four: the description of the battle with the hellspawn also relies too much on prior reader knowledge. Spend more time describing

- page six: Hella's use of the word 'sissy' does in no way endear me to the character. It is at this point that I am starting to have an active dislike for him

- seven pages in and the first female character appears. :(

- page 8, chapter two start: see, this 'glowing flecks of energy' being shaken from shoulders is interesting! I want more details here!

- page 13: he doesn't want to fail anyone again? Please, let it not be the 'my wife and/or kid was slaughtered' thing. 

- Page 13: 'Jessica'?  See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Refrigerators specifically the section dealing with 'Women in Refrigerators Syndrome'

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Diving straight in...

 The feeling of hurtling to the ground, the wind whipping savagely at my helmet.” – Sorry, any comments in any story where a male character talks about his helmet just slay me – yes, this is my level.

the rest of Heaven may have forgotten what Uriel had done, but he never would” – I find it unlikely that everyone apart from Hellas has forgotten someone who made an ultimate sacrifice. If nothing else, if there is a muckle great statue on a street corner, it’s kind of hard to ignore.

I’m glad you guys didn’t change the hay; I had it just the way I liked it” – LOL

The thousands of hellspawn that surrounded us on all sides” – If they’re surrounded, it must be on all sides or they're not surrounded, on other words, last bit is redundant.

I prefer your telling of the attack on the students as Hellas’ fever dream instead of playing it out. I think it’s a much better way of emphasising the haunted nature of his thoughts/dreams.

I was worried that they were illiterate this whole time” – This illiteracy shtick didn’t work for me.

Will the criminal please state his name?” – To me, this is rather heavy-handed. A generically one-sided court appearance, I think the rotten or cripplingly officious state of the judiciary could come across in a more malevolent way, if that’s what you're going for.

The judge slammed his gavel down on the ground” – Surely it’s on a table?

maybe I would have payed paid more attention

I like the interlude from heaven and his interaction with Scrios, the tone of which is quite different, of course. Having read about 10 chapters before (I think, certainly into Part 2), I don’t know how qualified I am to talk about engagement in the story. I'm not what you would call gripped, and I'm reading I think out of interest for the changes. Hellas comes across reasonably well as a tortured character, although another flash or two, of a more graphic horror of battle would help.

The difficulty I have, I think, is that I'm not feeling the stakes. I don’t see the wrongs that Hellas feels disturbed by and might ultimately right. Heaven seems a mildly unfair place where people get on with their afterlives.

Hope this is helpful.

<R>

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On 25/07/2016 at 3:42 AM, kaisa said:

seven pages in and the first female character appears. :(

Yeah, I'll back Kaisa up on this. I'll admit to my shame that it's something I don't remember if I mentioned first time around. You do refer briefly in passing to his deceased partner/paramour earlier, I think, but that's not quite the same thing. After that, I think it's a long time before another female character appears...

Spoiler

...when he gets to that dungeon. In that situation, he has to rescue her, so it's the woman being rescued by the man. Be prepared for Kaisa to bust your chops over that one too ;)

The appearance and number of female characters is one thing, but I was conscious (and almost commented, honest!!) that Catherine doesn't get much at all to do when she does appear. She runs after Hellas when the first attack takes place, and is actually shown to rather incompetent, imho, in terms of not knowing there is an attack taking place. Then here, she gets to hug Hellas and tell him to take care of himself. I'm not over the top in terms of positive discrimination, but it's a bit of a stereotype. Even if she hugged him and said 'you're a melon-farming idiot, sort yourself out' it would be better, or slapped him on the back, or got to be proactive in some way.

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7 hours ago, Robinski said:

that Catherine doesn't get much at all to do when she does appear

Agree. I'm always afraid to call out this sort of thing when there are no other women in a narrative, just out of fear that that one will disappear as well.

 

With war stories, it can be easy for people to forget that movies do not portray war gender divides accurately. Women fought too - often as men, but they did fight. Camps followed armies into battle, comprised of a mix of prostitutes, cooks/washer women, and sometimes even pieces of the soldiers' families. There were children involved too, or at least, what we would consider children now. To make up armies, fictional or otherwise, solely of men is entirely gender blindness, and not historical at all. In this instance, Abrahamic myth doesn't help things (I can't recall female angels anywhere in the apocrypha) but those angels did have female lovers, and children who were giants (nephilim). If the angels in this story must be predominantly male, consider also adopting the females that surround them to help balance gender representation.

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Overall, this was a lot better this time around.  Things are explained better, and I think Hellas' personality works better as well.  Still needs work in the mythos area, as kaisa and Robinski have said, and I'm not sold on how the angels think they're punishing Hellas.

I'll also back kaisa up on the gender differences here.  Now when I write, I look through my story and say "does this character need to be male?"  (or female, but usually male)  if not, I'll mess around with gender, change it back and forth to see which works better in the story.


Notes while reading:

pg 1: "he quipped"
--probably overkill with the pithy remarks.  Could change this to "said"

pg 1: "His smile faded slightly and the amused twinkle in his eyes faded."
--repeated word

pg 2: (A/B) I like the  new information upfront about the angels, especially the better information about Elohim and how created the angels.  However, It goes on a bit too long and pushes over into infodumpy territory, so it can probably be cut down.

pg 3: "hay scattered over the rough cobblestones. "
--(D) still not buying that they use hay and cobblestones in prison with all the high techy buildings up above.

pg 3: (A) I like the introduction of the PTSD (?)

pg 5: (D) On the bottom half of the page, the snark might be turned up too high.  Unless Hellas can get away with no consequences at all.--I guess he knew he would be exiled?

pg 6, top: "prepared to leave" repeated

pg 6: (D) Hellas seems awfully glib about being exiled for a year.  Did he know it was coming?  It doesn't seem to be a big punishment, even if
they authorities think so. 

pg 7: "‘He bet that he could defeat our combat instructor in hand-to-hand combat.’ Catherine’s smirk widened. ‘He beat you so black and blue you
couldn’t sit down for a week.’
‘Ha,’ Michael guffawed. ‘I’d have paid to see that.’"
--(C) Hellas beat Michael?  Micheal would have paid to see it?

pg 7: "None of them could understand why the Assembly mistreated him" 
--(C/D) yeah, me either.  Were the list of charges false?  Now I'm not sure what happened back there.

pg 8: "incredible energy"
--Vague.  Why is it incredible?  The type of energy?  The amount? How does it look?

pg 8: "‘I guess there are perks to being banished,’"
--(D) yeah, not understanding the angel's stigma about being banished.   Seems like a vacation to me.

pg 9: "They started to crack violently"
--(C) Not sure what this means.

pg 9: "demigod, or “Mor’kai"
--(C?) Not sure where demigod falls in relation to angels and Elohim

pg 10: (A) I like the dryads.

pg 10: "‘So, how long is it this time?’"
--ok, this explains some of the lack of response at his sentence, but I would have thought they would have come up with a harsher sentence if it
was clear this one was not working. 
 

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Thanks as always for the feedback, guys. It's clear there's still a lot to work on. I'll respond to the main issues raised here. 

  1. Gender issues. This is one I actively tried to avoid, unfortunately. Although they haven't been introduced, I have written several strong, independent female characters into the book who come in at a later time. Even though it's not entirely obvious now, I also made Catherine much more involved in both the re-writes of what has already been done and later in the novel, where she has much more involvement in the story, both as Hellas' emotional (and sometimes physical) crutch, and his metaphorical queen (i.e. the best soldier in his army). 
    An idea that I've been toying with for a while is actually swapping the genders of a few main characters, chief of which is Hellas. When I first wrote this, I obeyed the rule of "writing what you know," and since I was a nerdy teen at the time (five years ago), I thought I'd write a more convincing male lead. Then, I came across Brandon Sanderson's advice in his podcast, which was "write people, not genders." Since then I've seriously considered making Hellas a badass female character that plays with a lot of the tropes typically assigned to males (e.g. an alcoholic, traumatised soldier who still kicks butt). I might play around with this a little more.
    The only part of this issue that I don't have an excuse for is the "women in refrigerators" issue, other than to say that I was 18 when I started this thing, and overdosed on cliched tropes and REALLY bad fiction :P. It's something that I've been meaning to correct for a while, and indeed is something that I've deleted entirely in the most recent round of rewrites. Hellas has more than enough reason to be traumatised without relying on such a cliched and overused (not to mention unpleasant) trope
  2. Pacing: I'm grateful that this was brought up. I think the best way to do this would be to move the first battle (coming up in two chapter's time) right to the start, to illustrate the stakes immediately. You'll read it in a week or two, but until then I beg your indulgence. 
  3. Mythos: Scrios does do a bit of an info dump in the next chapter, but it's something I need to work on. 

Thanks again, guys. I promise to keep working :)

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- I liked the opening of the chapter, from what I presume is Lucifer's perspective.

- I do like the details about the Archangel statues, what each of them did, etc.

- Hellas still seems a bit of a cliche - a roguish outside with a scrappy, devil-may-care (literally) attitude and a tragic past. His character just hasn't grabbed me yet.

- Although, okay, I did laugh a bit at the Huckleberry line.

- I don't think it's enough to show why Hellas is tortured by the past battle. I think you need to show him being tortured by it, instead of telling the audience he doesn't know why he survived and his men didn't. That comes off as a bit trite, especially so early into the narrative.

- The name Jessica really stands out amid ancient-world names. Not sure if this is what you intended.

- Overall, I really do like the world that you've created it, and while I still have some problems with the characterization, I do want to see more. 

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Hey AH16, I was one of those who really liked your prologue, but unfortunately I wasn't as engaged in these chapters. I'm trying to put my finger on why I wasn't getting dragged in, and I think it had something to do with the overall mood--or Hellas' mood--during these chapters. For example, Hellas kept awaking from heart-pounding flashbacks, and in no time he was back to his casual, "sure, whatever" mood. Hellas didn't seem too concerned about what was happening to him (except in the few seconds after each flashback), so I wasn't too concerned either. From what I gather, you originally had him as a dark and brooding Batman sort of character and then decided to liven him up with all the wisecracks and whatnot. Maybe you could keep the jokes but show a little better how thin a veneer it is that is covering the broken, hopeless man you want to present him to be.

Personally, I think you should do a touch more world-building. My brain kept imagining NYC and I had to remind myself that this was Heaven. Just my opinion.

I really liked the description of the fire sprite!

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