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Reading Excuses - 10.10.16 - T. K. Wade- Source(working title) - Prologue[V]


TKWade

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I appreciate you taking the time to read my piece.

As stated in the submission, I'm new to writing and am looking to improve my skill. Any critiques will be appreciated and any help with sentence structure and punctuation would also be very helpful. Please be nitpick it to pieces.

I also have a feeling that the first couple of paragraphs are too lengthy and that I'm dumping too much information on the reader at once creating a lull that might prevent a reader from wanting to continue. Thoughts on that?


Thank you!

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Hey Ernei, thanks for the crit.

I was worried about how that would work with google drive. It wouldn't let me attach it like a document straight from the drive, so next time I'll download it and then upload.

This is the type of feedback I need. I'll check out Elantris. I have been wanting to read it. I'm super new so I'm going to make rookie mistakes like a paragraph full of descriptions that are long and impossibly painful to get through. I'll definitely revise and take your suggestions to heart. I've listened to a few of his lectures online, but I haven't practiced much to be totally honest. Everyone starts somewhere I guess lol

I'll trim it up a lot and maybe use more dialog. I just wasn't sure how to start out an epic while giving a visual for a massive, tranquil city under attack. I wanted to really describe it's grandeur so it would be appreciated as sort of the height of civilization at the time. I'll find a better way to do it.

I really like unusual and unique names. It's probably not a good trait since it can make it difficult and annoying for the reader.

Again, thanks, I appreciate the time you took.

 

Edited by TKWade
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I only see the one post. Mine acted like it posted 3 time earlier. There is a 'hide' option that appears to act as a sort of delete button. But I'm only seeing the one.

I'll take the naming idea into account in my revision also, thank you for clarifying! I'm going to have to start rewatching his lectures and maybe doing short exercises to practice the different techniques he talks about.

Thanks again

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Hi there, TKWade!

 

First and foremost, I want to thank you for being brave enough to join a group like this and submit. It's not easy to do and releasing something you've worked hard on into the hands of strangers and waiting to see what they do or don't do with it isn't as it seems.

I'm going to give you some good stuff and some not so good stuff, and you can decide what you do from there. :)

First, I want to praise you for having a strong sense of grammar and vocabulary. You want to fill your text with imagery and give your readers pictures from your mind and that's good. You've put thought and work into world-building and it shows.

However, there are some pretty glaring 'newbie' flaws that you can stop that will instantly take you to the next level.

Firstly, kill the expanded setting description; even when experienced writers start a book out with a sweeping battle scene, they're playing 50/50 with me as to whether or not I'll bother getting past the initial, enormous crisis to see what the real plot is. When readers open a book, we want a hook. This particular piece of writing by you doesn't give me anything in the first page to latch onto and care about. Readers care about people, not crumbling cities. I see you introduce some characters down the way--but I don't want to sift through all the words at the beginning to get there and see if I care about those people or not.

I did read a sentence--a part of one--that I liked a lot:

"Ash covered everything."

If you started the setting out like that, it would have pulled me in harder. I'd want to know what was causing the ash: volcano eruption, atomic bomb fallout--what? Sometimes simple is more evocative than big.

Keep writing and submitting--don't get too bogged down revising and editing. Just work on having fun and getting good story and good characters onto the page.

Thanks for sharing! :)

 

 

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Hi Krystal!

Thank you for the kind words of encouragement, that means a lot! :)

I will definitely take those points into account on the revision. I'm going to really change it up and get another sub out soon with a much better hook and hopefully, make the read feel smoother and flow better.


Thank you!

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Okay, I really enjoyed what your wrote, just not how you wrote it, if that makes sense.

Brandon talks a lot about making your character want something at the beginning, that can be an apple, or it can be to save the world, they just have to want something, this character of yours isn't there until 1/3rd of the way through the chapter.

I would suggest something more like this:

    A crash sounded as Lyzell scribbled furiously on the ash-covered paper, the entire building shaking. His entire town was covered in layers of ash, making his study look neet by comparison...the door swung open, emmitting a blast of cold air laced with sparks...he stumbled out into the city, seeing the once great city, that had weathered the centuries, now reduced to a pile of ash...Ulganian ran for safety, mothers and fathers clutching their loved children...

 

you ou can still have all the cool description that you have throughout it, well maybe not all of it, but a fair amount, but it hit us like a blunt weapon, if you spread it out a bit, and give us an actual story element at the beginning, Lyzell, then it suddenly become a story, not just a pointless scene. 

But it it was still good, I really enjoyed it once it got to the part about Lyzell

I don't know anything though, try it out, find what makes you happy, not us.

Edited by Sasooner
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First and foremost, welcome! I know how difficult it is to put your work out for others to analyze, but you seem to already be excited to submit again, despite the not so positive criticisms. That's a great attitude! I promise you'll be happy you did when you see the physical improvement it can have on your writing. Now, on to my comments:

This seems to be the unpopular opinion, but I don't actually think your description bothered me that much. Granted, I was reading this to critique it, and so I likely read deeper and further than I might have otherwise. However, I quite liked seeing a new style in the descriptive prose you chose to use. I've heard Brandon talk about prose as being a window, either left clear or decorated with stained glass. He prefers to keep his prose nearly translucent, using it merely as a window into the story itself. Others (Patrick Rothfuss, for example) are much more flowery in their descriptions and overall prose, a fact which doesn't at all deter them from hitting the bestseller list. (A caveat to this is that you should be doing this on purpose. If you're being over-descriptive without meaning to that may not be such a good thing. If this is what you consciously want to write, however, go ahead. Write what you love! There's certainly an audience out there for it.)

  • With that being said, I do think you could lay off the adverbs a little bit. Good prose is often about learning what to leave out and what to sprinkle across the narrative. Dumping a whole load of something good is not necessarily the way to go. I also felt a little bit of a disconnect when you described this horrific scene in a beautiful way. I'm not sure if this was intentional, but, if not, it did deter from me caring at all about the destructive events taking place.
  • Also, your learning curve is way steep. I felt very confused at all the proper nouns being used for the beasts, magic users, etc. That could be just me, but I hope to get a little more learning done next chapter before I get hit by another brick wall of names which I have no idea the significance of. (Just a quick example: 
    Quote

    "Source Aspectors, their white robes in stark contrast to their black chainmail protectors and black scaled Thrallar, brought down entire sections of Alluren's grand walls with their massive bursts of pure energy."

    You could just as easily have described the look of the Source Aspectors (i.e. "white robes in stark contrast to their black chainmail protectors") without directly saying what they were. I'm sure we will find out more about them when the time comes. Now my view is limited, so if you wanted this here for some reason, keep it. Sometimes, however, it's okay to trust that the reader will eventually figure this out.)

Line by Line: Warning: I'm not sure why, but I tend to get quite cynical in LbL's. You have been warned. 

  • The reuse of the word 'ash' at the beginning of so many sentences is quite annoying. Maybe change the structures slightly?
  • "Ulganian ran for safety clutching their children tightly, their children clutching them back for comfort and protection." Wait, so that's not the reason why the parents are also clutching their children?
  • "Hopelessness drove the Ulganian residents from the beautiful City of Alluren." Oh, it was the hopelessness. I was under the impression that it was because their whole storming city was on fire and under attack by a hostile army! 
  • "Lyzell, a tall Ulganian with thick golden-brown hair and a coarse red beard" This peaked my interest, even before reading about the enhanced ears. Really smooth transition into his POV, by the way.
  • The paragraph describing Lyzell seemed a bit forced. They are in a frantic dash for escape, after all. Why is he thinking about all this stuff?
  • 'termites boring out a tree" I didn't mention this before, but you have some great comparisons in here.
  • "They would travel lightly so they could move quickly." Here is where you may have to drop a couple of the descriptions. Doesn't seem like the time to be admiring the "railing gilded beautifully by a masterful carpenter" and the "long kitchen filled with the finest kitchenware."
  • "Lyzell quickly turned to action" Really strange phrasing here...
  • "We need to keep moving… we are running out of time." You used a lot of "..." in this dialogue sequence, most of which I don't think are necessary. They actually end up slowing things down, when you want them to be snappy and quick.
  • "...or had you forgotten?" I would take this out. Seems unnecessary, and slows things down.
  • "Alandria grabbed his head firmly between her strong hands and forced his head up." “You didn’t come all this way just to fail did you?” These lines make Lyzell seem completely incompetent. Alandria seems to be the one running the show, but she keeps deferring to him at times, for no apparent reason. Is this intentional?
  • "as a blood started running out of the corner of her mouth." I had to reread this a couple times to figure out what happened. I'm still a little confused. Did the Drouvlan hit her with the ax? I'm not quite sure about this, but would blood actually run from the mouth immediately? Also, why doesn't he mention the huge gash in her back? And why does she slip to the ground slowly? Shouldn't she be thrown forward from the blow? I feel this part could use a little more explanation.
  • One thing that's been bothering me throughout. If they were going to deliver the letter after leaving the city, why did he have to wait until the last moment to write it in his house? Couldn't he have just written it once they'd escaped?

Okay, overall, this has a lot of potential. I'm hooked already, although I would like to see Lyzell seem a little more competent. For now, I'm not really worried about what he'll do while he's being controlled. He seems pretty useless at most things without his wife... Oh, and kaisa is probably going to give you the fridging talk. I'll leave that to her :) 

Thanks for letting me read! Hope to be seeing a lot more submissions from you in the future!

Edited by Tariniel
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Thanks Tariniel!
 

I went that direction with the first couple of paragraphs because I really enjoyed Robert Jordan and how he would start his books with a bit of a prose to really solidify a scene, but I think I ended up doing it poorly. It definitely needs work, but I think I'm going to chop it up. If this is going to be my first book then I want the reader to feel like they can't stop reading.

Quote
  • The paragraph describing Lyzell seemed a bit forced. They are in a frantic dash for escape, after all. Why is he thinking about all this stuff?

 - Here I was really just trying to information dump a little bit to give the reader an idea of how to imagine what an Ulganian would like before starting the dialog, it was more about creating the setting at that moment in time. I can see how how it seems to slow it down and cause a loss of urgency. I'll rework this. I can find better way to dump that information on the reader that flows with the frantic setting better.

Quote
  • "Hopelessness drove the Ulganian residents from the beautiful City of Alluren." Oh, it was the hopelessness. I was under the impression that it was because their whole storming city was on fire and under attack by a hostile army! 

- You're totally right. I don't know what I was going for here. Just that feeling of total despair and pain at seeing everything you love pulled down around you and fleeing with that hopeless feeling, not fleeing because of it, but fleeing with it and that loss your heart, knowing that life will never be the same. I need to rework that sentence or just remove it.

Quote
  • "They would travel lightly so they could move quickly." Here is where you may have to drop a couple of the descriptions. Doesn't seem like the time to be admiring the "railing gilded beautifully by a masterful carpenter" and the "long kitchen filled with the finest kitchenware."


- Right again. I just want to imbue this sense the spender of the building and architecture in Alluren and what is being lost in the world with it's destruction. I think I'm taking it too far. I need to let the readers imagination also work in the world creation maybe.

Quote
  • "Alandria grabbed his head firmly between her strong hands and forced his head up." “You didn’t come all this way just to fail did you?” These lines make Lyzell seem completely incompetent. Alandria seems to be the one running the show, but she keeps deferring to him at times, for no apparent reason. Is this intentional?


- I wasn't trying to make him seem completely incompetent, but that they are interdependent. She definitely has stronger character and that is by design and that plays into the major story line. His will power and strength of character wont match her own. She's meant to feel like a minor character in the prologue, but she isn't in the grande scheme of this first novel. And Lyzell's weak character comes into play and I was trying to portray that in a way when he surrender's his will to Osha towards the end. That's not something that Alandria would ever do. I'm probably giving too much away, but this being what it is I think that's probably okay.

Quote
  • "as a blood started running out of the corner of her mouth." I had to reread this a couple times to figure out what happened. I'm still a little confused. Did the Drouvlan hit her with the ax? I'm not quite sure about this, but would blood actually run from the mouth immediately? Also, why doesn't he mention the huge gash in her back? And why does she slip to the ground slowly? Shouldn't she be thrown forward from the blow? I feel this part could use a little more explanation.

- I'll have to do a bit more explaining on this in my revision i'm trying to leave it a little vague on purpose, that was intentional. I also wanted to give the sense that from Lyzell's perspective none of that matters. Nothing matters because she's dead, so they were details not important to the character in the story, that being said i think you're still right in that more explanation may be in order to prevent confusion.

Quote
  • One thing that's been bothering me throughout. If they were going to deliver the letter after leaving the city, why did he have to wait until the last moment to write it in his house? Couldn't he have just written it once they'd escaped?

- I don't have a great reason for that yet. I will work on that because that is a big hole that I should have seen.

What's the fridging talk? lol 

Edited by TKWade
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19 hours ago, Ernei said:

The first sentence is way too long and too poetry-filled. It doesn't work as a hook; the contrary, it puts me off.

 

 
 
 
 

I'm want to add to this. Your description of Alluren sets the tone and setting beautifully. That being said I would definitely do some reconstructing and I would add more of a hook before it. 

 

11 hours ago, Sasooner said:

Brandon talks a lot about making your character want something at the beginning, that can be an apple, or it can be to save the world, they just have to want something, this character of yours isn't there until 1/3rd of the way through the chapter.

 
 

Kurt Vonnegut once said, "Make your characters want something right away even if it's only a glass of water." 

 

3 hours ago, Tariniel said:

This seems to be the unpopular opinion, but I don't actually think your description bothered me that much. Granted, I was reading this to critique it, and so I likely read deeper and further than I might have otherwise. However, I quite liked seeing a new style in the descriptive prose you chose to use.

 
 

I totally agree. 

 

 

I’ll start by saying that if someone critiques your work it means they care. If they didn’t care they wouldn’t say anything about it, so you might be new to writing but everyone in this thread, including me, is now invested in your work. 

As far as educational material goes there is a great book called Mastering the Craft of Writing by Stephen Wilbers. It has helped my writing dramatically. 

One of the most common shortcomings of new authors is an incapability to show instead of telling and to craft vivid imagery. You do not have this problem.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how your magic system develops. You did a great job of giving me enough to not be confused but also want to know more. 

I feel like you held the mood well at the end but I think it could have benefited from more tension. I’m not really big on telling people how I would rewrite scenes but if you want it I love this kind of stuff, and I would love to show you how I would write this scene.  

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4 minutes ago, EthanBassett said:

One of the most common shortcomings of new authors is an incapability to show instead of telling and to craft vivid imagery. You do not have this problem.

This is so true. Just wanted to reemphasize something I should have included in my post :)

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EthanBassett,

Thanks for the kind words. I would love to hear your variation to help give me ideas to build tension. I'm trying to use that last scene to really foreshadow the larger scope of the plot. The readers wont realize it at the moment, but that scene will come back later on and become a sort of pivotal moment for the story.

Thanks again!

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Well, you obviously know what you are talking about, @TKWade. Seems like most of these were style choices. We're all working on our own voices and styles, a pursuit that is likely a lifelong one. Welcome to the journey :)

1 hour ago, TKWade said:

You're totally right. I don't know what I was going for here. Just that feeling of total despair and pain at seeing everything you love pulled down around you and fleeing with that hopeless feeling, not fleeing because of it, but fleeing with it and that loss your heart, knowing that life will never be the same. I need to rework that sentence or just remove it.

Ah, I see. That definitely needs a little clarification, but I am cringing a little reading through some of my feedback. I do get a little cynical in those sometimes :unsure:

1 hour ago, TKWade said:

I just want to imbue this sense the spender of the building and architecture in Alluren and what is being lost in the world with it's destruction.

You definitely got it across to me. I was just trying to take a little more of a reader's perspective, from whose view I think that would have bothered me. As a writer, however, I am really intrigued by this world. How long have you been working on it?

1 hour ago, TKWade said:

I also wanted to give the sense that from Lyzell's perspective none of that matters. Nothing matters because she's dead, so they were details not important to the character in the story

Great reasoning. I really do like the vagueness, as the story-important fact is really Osha taking over him. I'm sure you will find a way to make this a little clearer in a new draft. (Which I would love to read, by the way.)

1 hour ago, TKWade said:

I don't have a great reason for that yet. I will work on that because that is a big hole that I should have seen.

That's what writing groups are for :) To quote some more of @EthanBassett's wisdom, we're doing this because we care. Getting invested in the story is a bonus side effect :)

1 hour ago, TKWade said:

What's the fridging talk? lol

I'll let her give you the long version, seeing as she knows a lot more about this than I do, but this seems to be a common problem in stories. From what I understand, female characters are often killed off for no other reason that to further the plot for the (often male) protagonist. I do it all the time, being a male myself, but apparently even females in our society have this problem sometimes. It's just something to be aware of.

Just to be sure, I myself love when people make long posts critiquing my work, though I'm sure not everyone enjoys or has time to read page-long posts. If you want me to be more concise in future critiques just ask and I will try to shorten things up a bit.

Edited by Tariniel
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I love the detail in your critique. It's what I need, sometimes what we want to hear isn't what we need to hear, and that's more than okay.

I like the blunt comments, they get under my skin a little but I find that encouraging in a way. It allows me to use that emotion in my revision and sometimes that means writing it the same but in a different way just to prove something can work lol. But there is a ton of value in being offended by blunt, honest critiques if the person on the receiving end handles it well and turns it into great emotional writing.

I enjoy long critiques because they can uncover some of the finer details and I think it's the culmination of finer details that make a good novel a great one.

Ah yes, I get it (fridging), but I'm not sure that definition would apply. Without giving away too much of the plot, her story doesn't end there. I may be different as a male writer in that I gravitate towards strong female roles, not sure why that is, but I do. She isn't the main protagonist, but neither is Lyzell.

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Tariniel, to answer your question on the world building. It's been about 2 years since I started on the build. It started as a simple idea. I've always wanted to publish a book as a simple life goal, but more recently I've decided to really get aggressive with it. I enjoy writing and I got to a point for awhile where I just didn't know how to get started. I wrote the prologue i subbed months ago, but I couldn't find a group or even a person to give me feedback that i needed.

This group of people so far has been the most helpful thing I could have possibly hoped for. I really think with this feedback I can not only finish this book, but write a whole series. I'm really excited about that prospect.

My building process has been a little disjointed. I've built races, geography, economy, markets, politics, religions, magic systems, etc, but i find myself changing stuff all the time. I'm taking some of the advice regarding Elantris and i'm going to rename the Ulgarian race to the Allurians so that it's easier to remember both Alluren and where the race came from. It's fitting and I wish i would have thought of that in my first iteration. I'm sure i'll continue to make more and more changes. 

I love it though. I think world building is probably my favorite part. Creating the story around the world and a cohesive plot is going to be a major challenge for me, but one I really look forward to. At the end of the day I hope I can just continue to enjoy the process and keep learning.

Edited by TKWade
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Welcome to our beta co-op! Please remember to submit per the guidelines, and attach a Word document to your e-mail. I often read offline.

 

Overall

You had the courage to submit, so kudos for that. You've got a bit of work ahead of you, but editing is what makes a good writer. My main issue with your sub is not the abuse of adjectives (that's an easy clean up), but your treatment of women. After you read through my comments, if you have more questions about fridging, or how to better integrate female characters into a male-centric story line, I am happy to help.  

As I go

- First line is way too heavy with adjectives. As a newbie writer, work with one per sentence. As you get better, you can have a few more. Right now, ration. You get one. Make it count.

Wives looked anxiously to their husbands for answers their armored protectors could not provide, for they did not have them. This tells me a surprising amount about the society you're describing. I'm expecting something patriarchal now.

- That first paragraph is far too long, and also a giant info dump. It's all narrator voice. General consensus these days, for new writers trying to snag agents, is to let the readers learn about the world through the characters and their interactions

- note that prologues are generally frowned upon by agents. Most won't even let you sub them anymore

He and his beautiful wife, Alandria, Show, don't tell. What is beauty in this society? Is she fat? Thin? Curvy? Big breasts? Wide hips? What are working with here? You have all these details and yet nothing on the wife

With long enhanced ears he could hear the screams of women and children running for safety in the distance There's fighting, and this is a male-centric society in which women apparently cannot protect themselves. I get it. This does not need to be restated.

He would do anything to protect his beautiful wife because she... looked like a hippo and he had a thing for hippos? Seriously, his books get more description than this woman

Lyzell pulled Alandria along, because she couldn't walk? Are women completely dependent in this society?

- Dark figure in the street and I feel my fridge sensors tingling.

Alandria grabbed his head firmly between her strong hands and forced his head up. That was... unexpected. 

He held her face in his lap looking into her clear, glassy, lifeless eyes. He felt tears on his face, his tears? His whole world...It's becoming like a rite of passage for me to have to point this out. Do. Not. Do. This. Do not place females in your narrative for the sole purpose of injuring or killing them just drive sympathy for a male character, or help build up his character. This is called the 'women in refrigerators trope'. Click the link to learn more. It is not considered good writing and is in fact incredibly offensive to many people. Remember when writing:

1) females make up slightly more than 50% of the population, and should thus also make up approximately 50% of your book character population (barring tales like all-boys boarding school, agendered sci-fi, etc)

2) females do not exist only to drive male plot. They have their own goals and desires, and this needs to be developed as much as the male plot(s)

 

 

Edited by kaisa
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13 hours ago, Tariniel said:

Oh, and kaisa is probably going to give you the fridging talk.

No refrigerator left unopened, no female left unspoken for!

 

LOL! Indeed!

Thanks for the response Kaisa!


To be fair, and now I feel it necessary to defend my plot to some extent, you're basically judging a book by its cover, so to speak. Which is probably the wrong way to say that considering you're actually reading it, but she doesn't exactly die in the prologue; the reader is meant to believe that she does. I'll grant you that I missed a huge opportunity by not clearly describing her and establishing her character. Her "death" is to do the exact opposite of build Lyzells character, on the contrary, his reaction to her death shows how weak his character is by his immediate submission to Osha, which I'll more clearly define in my revision. The purpose wasn't to kill her or injure her to build his character, but show the holes in his character and build a setup for later on down the plot line.

I obviously don't mean to be offensive to women, so I love your critique because it punches holes in my writing that I hadn't really considered. I grew up in a tiny town in the middle of Kansas and it was ingrained in me at a very young age that men protect and respect women, so I don't mean for it to sound like I don't give women their dues when it comes to the ability to fight or strength of character. One of my favorite all time characters is Vin, and another is Kahlan from Sword of Truth. I also had a love of the Aiel people in the Wheel of Time series and the depiction of women in their society. I want those types of roles in my own writing, so throughout the book, I hope to make those comparisons bleed through because I used them as some of my basis. I love strong female roles and I have one in this book. You don't see it in this chapter, however. My two main procrastinators are not mentioned at all in this submission and one is a strong, capable woman with plenty of sass that you don't want to mess with.

I didn't realize prologues were on the out. It just feels weird to go from chapter one to chapter two with a 500-year gap. Is that weird or do you think that would still work?

I loved your suggestions and I'll definitely take them into account in my revision!

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7 minutes ago, TKWade said:

you're basically judging a book by its cover,

True, but this is how everyone will judge your book. To get an agent, they have to get past the first five pages or so. To hook a reader, they have to get past the first chapter usually. Fridging is a known and concerning trope, and it's existence in your prologue will lose you chances at both agents and readers. 

9 minutes ago, TKWade said:

his reaction to her death shows how weak his character is by his immediate submission to Osha

... this is fridging. HIS character is defined by reacting to HER death. You need to find another way to show his weakness without killing (or pretend killing, or maiming, etc) a female character.

10 minutes ago, TKWade said:

The purpose wasn't to kill her or injure her to build his character, but show the holes in his character and build a setup for later on down the plot line.

So she exists to show holes in his character and drive a plot. She does not exist for her own purposes, her own desires, her own character, or her own plot. This is pretty textbook fridging.

12 minutes ago, TKWade said:

I love strong female roles and I have one in this book.

I think there is a misunderstanding here. You can have strong women in a book and still fridge poorly-developed ones. You can fridge well-developed female characters. The trick is to understand that killing or injuring a female with no purpose other than to A) drive sympathy for another (usually male) character, B.) develop, in any way, a male character's.... character, or C) move the plot along, is fridging. Most people don't mean anything by it, because implicit bias is just that. What's important is to draw attention to it, so that writers see that they are doing it and think more about development of female characters as they write.

For a fun test to see where your implicit bias might lay, check out these Harvard quizzes!

17 minutes ago, TKWade said:

It just feels weird to go from chapter one to chapter two with a 500-year gap. Is that weird or do you think that would still work?

I think you probably either have to make it work, or turn the prologue into a series of epigraphs. If you put the dates on the chapters it should work fine, but that's my opinion. Others might have different ideas.

Keep submitting! Feedback means people care, and we want everyone here to learn to be a better writer!

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34 minutes ago, TKWade said:

you're basically judging a book by its cover,

True, but this is how everyone will judge your book. To get an agent, they have to get past the first five pages or so. To hook a reader, they have to get past the first chapter usually. Fridging is a known and concerning trope, and it's existence in your prologue will lose you chances at both agents and readers.

 

1

Touche.

Is it considered Fridging if I kill a male character to drive a female plot? Is killing characters, in general, to drive plot at all considered fridging and in bad taste?

I did a few quick searches on the term because I had never heard of such a thing. I get that it seems lazy, or it's considered at least a hallmark of lazy writing, so I'll work with it. I don't want someone to read my work and think, "Wow, that's the best he could do? Really?" 

I'll play around with the plot and the characters. Maybe I can find a way to make it work without using Alandria as a catalyst for Lyzell's weak character. I really wanted the readers to believe she was out of the picture for big reveal down the road.

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36 minutes ago, TKWade said:

I love strong female roles and I have one in this book.

I think there is a misunderstanding here. You can have strong women in a book and still fridge poorly-developed ones. You can fridge well-developed female characters. The trick is to understand that killing or injuring a female with no purpose other than to A) drive sympathy for another (usually male) character, B.) develop, in any way, a male character's.... character, or C) move the plot along, is fridging. Most people don't mean anything by it, because implicit bias is just that. What's important is to draw attention to it, so that writers see that they are doing it and think more about development of female characters as they write.

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I see an inherent problem here and it's probably due to my lack of understanding in literature, so correct me, please. If a character dies, it should affect the plot and the other characters in some way, I would imagine. It'll affect them on an emotional level and that should manifest itself in the development of that character. So, if killing a female character is considered fridging, can no female characters die? From what you're saying, the conclusion I'm coming to is this: Female dies, the character dies and affects an outcome of the plot, the character dies and affects other characters, character dying and affecting other characters or the plot is fridging hence, a female character dying, regardless of circumstance, is fridging.

So when or how do you kill off a female role and it not be considered fridging?
 

 

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1 minute ago, TKWade said:

So when or how do you kill off a female role and it not be considered fridging?

This is a great question, and a great conversation to have! You can certainly kill female characters. Let's say, you have a woman running for her life in an alley ahead of your protag, and she is, uh, her soul is sucked by a demon and she dies. Male protag passed her by. She is part of the scenery. Her death does not forward his story, rather, she is part of the world building. While this isn't the greatest writing, this isn't fridging, either.

Example B. Emmy is a POV character in a book with her own goals. Sam is the second POV character with his own goals. Emmy's horse throws her and she dies. Sam is her cousin (and he didn't know her beforehand) and inherits her fortune and some ghost that gets passed down with the gold. Emmy is not fridged. She existed as a person outside of Sam, and her death did not develop his character, or try to drive sympathy to him. Her death forwarded the plot in the same way her life forwarded the plot, so that's not an issue. 

Example C. From my own series - a minor POV female gets blown up with a minor male POV character in a space battle. Her death is not used to drive emotional growth or sympathy. She just...died. She was a character, she had goals, she had feelings, we knew about all of them, but her time was up. Dead. She's not fridged, because my main POV character (female, btw), did not have to use angst from the death to develop her character. Her character was sufficiently developed, with reader sympathy included, well before Sal's death. Sal's death was a component of the plot, but not the sole driving force behind it.

10 minutes ago, TKWade said:

Is it considered Fridging if I kill a male character to drive a female plot?

This is a tricky question. It's considered poor writing to kill a character to drive sympathy for another, generally. It's not technically fridging, because that term indicates an issue with implicit bias and sexism. I wouldn't recommend it, but I also can't think of a single instance in which it has been done, either, which should give you an idea of the problem of fridging (in that I have to have this talk with pretty much every new writer on this board, male, female, or other).

12 minutes ago, TKWade said:

Is killing characters, in general, to drive plot at all considered fridging and in bad taste?

You can kill to drive plot, you just can't do it... hrm, how to explain. Yes, you can kill characters. Yes, you can kill them to drive plot. Yes, you can kill female characters to drive plot. The problem is when you have poorly developed (sometimes even well-developed) female characters that have been clearly created to die. THIS is the issue we're trying to address.

For instance, in your narrative, you have a husband and wife (maybe they're not married, just partners. Let's work with the husband and wife labels just for simplicity right now). Husband lives in a rich world filled with amazing description. He has fantastic books, a magnificent house, a lush landscape. His wife is.... beautiful. That's it. She's described twice, both times with just one word. This is warning sign #1.

Danger! Husband and wife are in peril! He leaders her to safety, and she must be led. A dark figure emerges. The husband is concerned. Backstory is dropped for the husband. The wife... follows. She has a few lines of dialogue. The new villain is described in detail. The wife remans 'beautiful'. Warning sign #2 - wife is not developed while all characters around her are

Tension! Villain attacks! Husband has emotional interlude with wife where he wants to protect her. He loves her. This is told over and over, not shown in his actions. She must run! Save herself! Warning sign #3 - emotional buy-in for husband coming through reader connection with wife, who has no backstory, no description, and is clearly about to die

Death! Villan attacks! Wife is maimed/killed. Something emotional happens to husband that drives him to 'plot'. Motivation established at the expense of a female character.

How to not make the above a fridge incident

Wife is described in as much detail as the husband. She has family. She has a physical appearance. She wants to move because the neighborhood has clearly gone south and her, uh, fruit business is going under. Husband agrees. But wait! Danger! Fighting! They must flee! Husband grabs things important to him, wife grabs named things important to her. They have hurried dialogue as they escape about their lives, his dreams, her dreams, how they want to protect each other. They speak to each other like lovers. 

Villan! Appears, and both husband and wife react. They defend each other (in their own ways). Husband takes damage. Wife becomes upset. Wife takes damage. Husband becomes upset. Characters evolve. They realize only one can make it out alive. Husband begs wife to save herself. Arguing ensues wherein she makes valid arguments about why he should go, showing her understanding of his character, and he does the same, showing understanding of her character. Love is established. 

Wife is killed after making husband promise to, do something contrary to expectations... maybe to walk barefoot up a mountain to get away from villain and eat a special fruit she's always wanted to eat. Husband is upset about wife's death but chooses to honor her wishes. Writing shows he is mad at villain and wants to attack, but instead walks off, goes up the mountain, eats fruit. 

Things that still happen

- male POV remains intact

- male goals remain intact

- villain still exists

- wife still dies

Things that are different

- wife does not remain two-dimensional

- relationship clearly established through action instead of narrator

- wife has own desires, which are clearly established

- wife's death does not evolve husband's character. He does not go berserker and kill the villain. Her goals are still recognized, as are his. Her goals are honored after her death. The husband does not gain reader sympathy directly from her death, rather, there is enough understanding of both characters to develop the husband's character sufficiently that he stands apart from her death as a real person, not one that needs a female torn from him to feel emotion and response.

 

The above is, granted, not the greatest set of examples, but I hope it helps clarify things. If you need a TLDR: kill whomever, whenever, in your stories, just think first about what you are trying to accomplish with that death. If it is the sole motivating factor for another character, you might rethink your character development strategy

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23 hours ago, TKWade said:

I would love to hear your variation to help give me ideas to build tension.

The reason I usually don't share the specifics of what I would change is that (like @Tariniel so wisely pointed out) these are stylistic decisions. My way is no more right than yours and I not going to say it's better. That being said....

At the end of the prologue, you have this Drouvlan creature that adds a sense of urgency to the scene. I think it would do wonders for the tension if Lyzell looked back to check on its location and it was gone. Him not knowing exactly where it is adds to the urgency and provides a chase. 

Edited by EthanBassett
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4 minutes ago, EthanBassett said:

The reason I usually don't share the specifics of what I would change is that (like @Tariniel so wisely pointed out) these are stylistic decisions. My way is no more right than yours and I not going to say it's better. That being said....

At the end of the prologue, you have this Drouvlan creature that adds a sense of urgency to the scene. I think it would do wonders for the tension if Lyzell looked back to check on its location and it was gone. Him not knowing exactly where it is adds to the urgency and provides a chase. 

Ah yes, I really like this! It's the small things that can make all the difference, thank you!

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