6-8-2015 Turos Runes: Part1

[Turos he/him]

I am going to take the advice I've been given and stay silent, giving a whole-hearted thanks to everyone who shares their thoughts in advance. Thanks very much!

 

This is the first part of a new story. I hope you enjoyed it.

 

Anything else to say? Nothing vital that I can think of. Proceed with the ravaging!

[Majestic Fox he/him]

Ravaging, eh? Okay, here are my thoughts.

It's interesting, but the character is far too static. There's too much telling and not enough showing. There's a lot of undramatised exposition here which slows the pace and makes the story feel a bit flat.

Aspects of the world evoke my curiosity and make we want to know more, like how the city morphs and changes. That's good. But more generally speaking, how much of all this exposition is really necessary? I feel like this would be greatly improved you limited yourself to fewer setting elements and showed us the character interacting with them in a more dynamic and compelling way. At the moment he just kind of sits there pondering the letter. Put him into conflict with the world and show us the setting that way - through his distinct point of view.

The writing itself on the passive side, and a little repetitious, often beginning with the character's name followed by a straight forward description of what he did. Reading through one of your favourite writers and analysing their page, paragraph and sentence structure will probably help you improve this.

Ravaging aside, it sounds like you have some interesting ideas brewing up here. There's always a draw to front load exposition at the start a story, but try to resist, limit yourself, and find ways to evoke the reader's curiosity by withholding information.

Edited June 9, 2015 by Majestic Fox

[Mandamon he/him]

I have pretty much exactly the same response as Majestic Fox.  For being only 800 words, this read "long," mainly because there was a lot of description, but nothing really to catch my attention.  The first paragraph was good, and then you started to lose my interest.

 

I liked the idea of the modular city, but was too bogged down in details about the letter (which I really didn't about at this point) and how long it takes to get places.

 

I'm a lot more interested in why there are runes, which war is being fought and what trouble Tom will be getting into.

[LerroyJenkins he/him]

interesting set up here, I think you have a pretty good idea. That being said I have some questions you should ask yourself about your world.

 

1: What level of tech is there? Doesn't it seem odd that the civilization is so advanced that it designed a shifting city, but never invented Email? It's not a problem so long as there is a good reason that they progressed the way they did, some sort of extreme steam-punk engineering I would guess.

 

2: What really needs to be described? The others mentioned this, but is there anything special about the letter being blue, and its size? All the description of the letter did for me was remind me of "The Hudsucker Proxy" (if you haven't seen it you should watch it, real fun movie"

 

3: What about your story is going to make readers want to keep reading? Your setting is interesting enough for me to keep going, but you need to put you character in a situation that will make his seem more dynamic or sympathetic if you want to attract more readers.

 

I like your setting and think you could easily make this into a great story! Keep working!

 

EDIT:

Going off what the others said, and quoting Brandon's lectures you mentioned in the email; Show, don't tell. It is an interesting idea to have a shifting city, but it comes across like a text book. I usually try and keep from suggesting specific changes I would make, but I can't think of a better way to give an example so here we go: I would just have Tom be late. This way he would be running (which seems more fitting of a courier anyway) and have to traverse an 'edge' of two passing districts sooner rather than later. plus it strengthens the idea that the silver ink letter is more important if he is in a rush. 

Edited June 10, 2015 by LerroyJenkins

[Robinski he/him]

Intriguing read. I think it could be tidied up in places, but it asks some questions that I'm interested to learn the answers to. I detect that this is a short story. How many more parts?

 

Good job engaging my interest, although as I noted, it’s already in my field, so I was probably an easy win.

 

Are you going to submit more?

 

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People only on the street with the billboard, I guess, so singular?

 

‘Top end’ sounded odd to me.

 

I like Tom’s reaction to the message and his feelings of being official.

 

I like the idea of the switching districts. At first I thought it was bonkers, but as I thought around it, I think I can what you’re getting at. I'm a Transportation Planner btw, so that makes it an especially interesting concept from my pov. I mean, how in the hell do you commute if workers come from all over the city to a comment place of employment? Maybe they have to live in particular area. All very interesting.

 

The phrase “switching off between moving districts at perfect timing” was unclear to me.

 

“Tom was averaging about forty-five minutes” I think the repetition steals the punch from that line.

 

“showing up too late” I think this would be better without ‘too’, to avoid the distinction between ‘late’ and ‘too late’.

 

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Looking at the other comments, yes, I would go along with most of those. It's an engaging concept for a city that makes the reader want to reader more. That concept holds greater interest than the letter, in relation to which, the same information could be conveyed in fewer words.

 

Interested to read more.