03/19/2013 - Colateralwar - Song of the Wild Sea Prelude, Tameless Prologue (V)

[Colateralwar]

This post is intended for next week. I accidentally sent out my work prematurely, however feel free to post your comments. They are much appreciated.

 

To clarify, Song of the Wild Sea is the name of the whole series while Tameless is the title of the first book in the series.

[Mandamon he/him]

Welcome to Reading Excuses!

 

Your writing contains a lot of emotion that draws the reader in.  There are instant hard choices we are faced with, that makes us care for the characters, even the ones in the prologue.  I think the story idea has merit, and I'd like to see more, but my main complaint is that that writing

itself is pretty rough.

 

First, your writing is very adjective-heavy, with lots of "ly" words that can be removed when you edit.  You also have a lot of really long sentences together, especially in the first couple of pages.  try to intersperse shorter sentences in between to break up the flow.  It makes it easier to read.  You also might want to break up some of the longer sentences.  They are reaching the length and convoltion where they are hard to understand.

 

There's also still a lot of typos and missed words in this.  I realize we're offering more in the way of general story criticism, but I would do an extra read-through to get rid of some of those errors--It really takes the reader out of the story.

 

pg 1, heading: "It is a rage so great, so fierce, and so old that is has taken" (it for is--practically the first thing we read!)
pg 7: “It is over wild one,” the old man said (needs a comma)
pg 10: "indicating it’s mid-life" (its)
pg 10: "pinning a rather large branch Ellil’s trunk" (missing a word)
pg 12: "Her face and eyes where red" (were)
pg 14: "He instantly felt his chest begin choke, and the stirrings of the storm within him whither and quiet," (missing a word and wither for whither)

 

Pg9: "The sky was rather pretty that day. . . Anyway!"
-I would remove the last word.  It doesn't sound professional.

 

Pg 10: "“Leto!” Maya shrieked, tears of absolute horror streaming from her bright eyes. Leto however couldn’t hear her; he couldn’t even hear the wind rushing past his head"

-a bit of a POV error.  Unless this this in 3rd omniscient, then from Leto's perspective, he can't hear what you say he can't hear.

 

I don't get a good feel for Ellil.  Is this a tree standing alone, or towering above a forest?  On pg13, it seems like he's running over the tops of other trees.  Was Maya also up in the tree? (later, you do explain this.  You might want to move some of the explanation before the action to

give the reader a sense of setting.)

 

pg 16: "Suddenly, a sound punched through the tempest coursing through his body, and he let the fist drop as the Advocates took hold of his arms. Not a single whimper escaped his lips as they began to beat him, taking turns at punches and kicks"
-didn't quite get this.  What sound did he hear?

 

I do like the environment you've created, with the island with such strong wind that everything is bent before it.  I'm interested to read more about the wild ones and what the Taming is.  It's early in the story to get a good feeling for it yet, but I'll say right now I like where it's

going, but there is a lot of cleanup to do in the editing process.

[Colateralwar]

Thank you for all of the feedback. I am aware of my issue with adjectives, its an instinct of mine I seem to be having some issues with. 

 

I only gave the piece a cursory look over for major typos before sending it out. Clearly I missed some, but I will try to be more conscious of this in the future. 

 

Thanks for catching the POV error. I had written this in 3rd limited so it's a glaring mistake. 

 

As far as Ellil goes, I attempted to emphasize that this tree is quite unique. It is towering over most of the landscape, and a defining characteristic of the "Reach-Willow" is that as the wind pushes on the trees their branches reach out behind them. In the case of Ellil they extend for an extremely long distance before finally tapering off. When Leto is running towards the town he is remaining on Ellil, but while there are many more trees beneath Ellil they are not nearly as tall.

 

I am glad that the Taming has piqued your interest. This is a major plot point that will be explored in the coming chapters.

 

Lastly, the epigraphs are penned by a character that has not been introduced yet. While the ". . .Anyway!" does seem odd this was intentional. The character in question is very unorthodox. Not necessarily insane, but certainly eccentric. 

Edited March 22, 2013 by Colateralwar