July 1st 2013 - TracerTK - 3-Mac Chapter 1 & 2

[TracerTK]

This is my first novel that I've ever had strangers read and critic. Please let me know what you think.

 

Thanks 

[Carcinios he/him]

Firstly, well done for submitting your first piece. I hope to read more from you in the future.

 

I am going to give you feedback per chapter so I have time to read and respond to them individually. So anyway let's start with Chapter 1.

 

• This was definitely a chapter that was stronger in the middle than it was at either end. The sequence with the repair/salvage drones was easy to visualise and I really liked the way you showed the automated decsion-making process in the factory.
• The Beginning was too vague; In the first paragraph you have words like 'strange, unknown, unique' used to describe the visual appearance of the factory. The problem with these words is that they don't actually shape the readers view of the scene at all.You are trying to set up the scene for the action that is about to follow so you want to give the reader something to work with. I want to know more about these three robots than that they are aged and unique. Are they part of a construction line or are they more human (I got the impression that both these things were true at different points in the chapter.) Another easy way to get some more detail  into the scene would be to give a specific building that the crates are being shipped to.Being sent to the 'ministry of finance' building for example gives everything a very different feel to the 'central armoury' and you could actually show what kind of world you have set the story in.
• Finally for this chapter. I felt the end kind of lost pace. You had all the explosive drone action and then Mac-3 just drifted away. It just felt a bit anti-climatic. I was a bit suprised that he could talk and more so that he was self aware (and had a gender for that matter). I would have liked the tension of the scene to be raised more. Maybe having something trying to stop the robot leaving or have an even greater level of destruction wrought on the facility. I did like the mysterious commands that he kept recieving. It sets up some good questions that I want answers to.

Hope that is helpful. I'll read Chapter 2 later

Edited July 1, 2013 by Carcinios

[Carcinios he/him]

Ah my bad I thought there were three chapters.

Anyway Chapter 2 is so much better than Chapter 1.

• I really liked the way you characterised the three robots in this chapter. The instantly appeared with different characters and really clear images.
• Also good was the way you depicted the mania surrounding the choosing in Loris.
• The change of scene really built on what happened last chapter. I am curious to see whether the unconventional choosing is as a result of the carnage in the factory from chapter 1. Also something seriously creepy is going on with children being apprenticed to robots (that is a very interesting plot scenario)

Things to work on

• If Chapter 1 was vague in its descriptions Chapter 2 was a bit to specific. Unlike the machines from chapter 1 that could look like pretty much anything,a human is pretty easy to picture even with just a name. That can make it quite frustrating to be given very precise details of every characters appearance at the expense of them actually doing things and being developed as a character. Height and Length are particular parts of the description to get rid of. When I look at someone I can never estimate the length of their hair or how tall they are so knowing that information doesn't help me picture the character. You don't have to describe a character as soon as they make an appearance either. It can break up the action and feel jarring.
• This is more a stylistic thing but I found the name Tim a bit jarring amongst all the other exotic names such as Rain, Adria and Landis. Names work best when the feel consistant.

Looking forward to chapter 3

[jParker]

I guess I'll be the one to harsh your buzz. For a first work, it's pretty good, but it needs work.

 

Disclaimer: After reading Carcinios' comments, I may not be your target audience, so take the following with a grain of salt.

 

You straight up lost me in the first paragraph of Chapter One. No action, no drama, no mystery. I can tell you were trying to create that, but I was sorely tempted to just move on down the line. A lot of Chapter One felt like it didn't work for the same reasons: I didn't get a character to attach to until page 3 and he didn't get a name until the next page. Why are we supposed to care about 3-Mac? Why are his struggles relatable to a reader? He's clearly supposed to be an important part of the story, but we didn't get a hint of that until the end of the chapter. 

 

Chapter Two, in my opinion, worked much better. Rain is obviously a likable person, even though we get so little character exposition, as are Adria and Tim. However, like Carcinios said, you really go overboard on the details. Furthermore, the mystery exposition in dialogue regarding the machine's dominant status in society feels Matrix: Revolution clumsy.  Add to that the inconsistent verb tenses and apostrophe misuse and I'm not really sure about it.

 

However, I do like the potential of the story. It's clearly going to be something cool once you get the craft of writing worked out. In terms of a first work, the plot seems fairly original, which is rarer than a unicorn fighting a T-Rex. Please, please, please don't trunk this story. I really want to see it finished.

[TracerTK]

I would like to thank everyone for their encouraging comments and really appreciate the work you've all put in. This is exactly what I'm needing to hear and will only help the story grow and evolve into something better.

 

I'll keep working on the book and chapter 3 will be out soon.

[Mandamon he/him]

Welcome to Reading Excuses!
As the others said, it is obvious this is a first work, with some of the commmon mistakes.  However, I also enjoyed the underlying plot.  Apprenticing humans to robots is original and begs the question of how it happened (which I assume is developed in the story).

That said, I have some comments made as I was reading, similar to what the others posted:

There are no characters in the beginning.  It immediately lessens the impact on the reader. There is also some passive voice, which you shoudl avoid, and several pages of description of things happening, but no real action.

 

You describe events leading up to the accident that creates 3-Mac in lots of detail.  I would argue this all can be cut, as the real starting point of the story, as told through a personality, would be when 3-Mac first wakes up, and sees the destruction around him.

 

Pg 1: " A very strange looking machine"
-how is it strange?  Who is it strange to?

 

Pg 2: "drone was about to finish up his work when he stopped"
-Is it a he?

 

Throughout the story, make sure you use the right "its"
its = possessive belonging to "it"
it's = a contraction of "it is"
Say "it is" whenever you see "it's" in writing as an easy test to tell if it's the correct word.

Pg 4: "the light began to intensify to the point where objects began to become blurry and

unidentifiable."
-How would mechanical eyes be blurred by light?  A camera view, for example, might be overwhelmed by a bright light for a moment before automatically dialing back its aperture size, but nothing would get blurry.

 

You finally get another voice around page 5 that tells 3-Mac what to do.  This is the first real character you have, as 3-mac as yet has no personality, and brings some more attachment to the story.  As Carcinios said, this middle part is the most interesting of the chapter, but the beginning and end trail off.

 

Pg 6: "circular pad about 15 feet"
-an artificial intelligence, as 3-Mac seems to be, will probably not estimate sizes.  It is most likely programmed to measure sizes exactly, or compare to some known quantity.

Chapter 2:
This chapter was better, because you had humans and so could have personalities to tie in the reader.  However, you have a great big description infodump after the first bit of dialogue.  I don't know  the characters well enough to read a list of statistics about them.  You might try breaking the descriptions up and putting them in here and there as a few character traits that you reference.  You also don't want to include precise measurements (140 lbs, 5'8").  No reader is really going to care if Rain is 5'8" or 5'7".

 

As I said before, I'm interested by the plot, but the actual writing still needs some development.  In general, tone down the descriptions, start from a character POV, no exact measurements, and watch the tenses and grammar.

Please keep writing!  You can listen to us critique what you write all you want, but the real way you get better is by just writing.  And writing...

[andyk he/him]

As the others said, well done on submitting your first piece - putting your ideas out there for others to comment on can be pretty terrifying.

 

I agree with a lot of what the others said, particularly around the need to provide more focus on a character in chapter one. Starting at the point where 3-MAC gains consciousness might help with this, and with giving us someone to empathise with in that chapter.

 

There were times when you were inconsistent in your use of past and present tense, and in using 'he' or 'it' to refer to 3-MAC. That sort of inconsistency immediately threw me out of the story, and is worth tidying up.

 

I didn't know what either 3-MAC or Rain was thinking or feeling about anything. I also didn't get the feeling that either of them had a sense of purpose and was trying to achieve something. Without that, it was hard for me to root for them. I know that you probably don't want to give a robot feelings, at least to start with, but you could show what he thinks in reaction to the things that happen.

[TracerTK]

Again, thanks for all of the feedback. You're all only helping me further develop my book. Originally I didn't want 3-Mac to be like Johnny 5 from the movie Short Circuit where he was struck by lightning and became self-aware. I wanted to show the process of how becomes the way he is and that it's no coincidence. 

 

Looking at all the feedback I will be re-polishing the first and second chapter by adding some more conflict in the first chapter and removing useless info from chapter 2. Again, thanks for all of you comments they really help.

[TheSadDragon]

A lot of things have already been said so I'll try to not repeat anything too much in detail.

 

Chapter 1:

I had a hard time getting into the flow of the narration for the first few lines. Partly i think this might be due to the disembodied voice of the narrator in the first chapter but I also think that the style of writing isn't what I normally read. I did managed to get into it quite well when I adopted the same narrator voice and rhythm that I employed when reading Hitchhikers Guide -- worked really well, even though the story isn't as whimsical.

 

Some of the descriptions feel a bit redundant and didn't add anything to the story of 3-Mac.

 

Overall I enjoyed the plot chapter 1. The only real problem i had when i was reading it was that I had a problem, at first, to identify if the voice belonged to 3-Mac or not. At first i thought it was 3-Mac that had 'awoken' but it turned out to be a voice speaking to him -- still unsure how they are communicating. After the realizing this I had no problem with who the voice belonged to.

 

Chapter 2.

This chapter didn't really grip me as much. In part I write this down to the fact that its a whole new set of characters and I prefer to get to know one set before I get introduced to more. The narration style change also did seem a bit strange as you went more limited style here rather than the omniscient of the first chapter.

 

The description problem of chapter 1 still applies here, though here it's not so much that its redundant but just more blocks of description. I would have liked to see them more broken up by some dialogue or actions to make the text flow more. I have a tendency to gloss over big description/info dumps but if you weave them into a dialogue or something else you get the description as a bonus.

 

I'm unsure what to think about the fact that Rain never got chosen as she seems like the main character. She seems like the main character and not having her chosen only strands her at home or lessens the selection. That said, it was unexpected and I do like it -- just not sure if it's going to end up feeling like she didn't get chosen simply because it would have been too 'cliché' or obvious. As long as you can avoid that I'll have nothing to complain about regarding that part of the plot

 

I do like the world building, especially the run down nature of the factories in chapter 1 and the mystery of the machine capital in chapter 2. It created a nice opposition of ideas as the machine capital does sound shiny though we already know that the machine world can be more rust than chrome ^^

 

Overall:

After reading both chapters, chapter 1 felt more like a prologue than a first chapter. Most of this is due to the style change and the change of characters and setting so that might be something to think about.

 

Got plenty of potential so just keep at it and polish it once it's done

 

-TSD