Aug 24 2015 - rohyu - Theavis

[rohyu]

What bored or annoyed you?

Do you know what the word 'jokee' means?

Thanks in advance .

[Shrike76]

This is chapter three, the fog is nothing short of tedious at this point and isn't adding anything to the story. Also, Theavis still hasn't done anything besides observe. Having him be around while potentially interesting things happened wasn't enough to keep my attention, and I find that having such a passive POV character is both boring and annoying. It makes for reading that's easy to skim ahead on.

I assume "jokee" means the two guys who had a joke played on them? I have to say it's not my favourite word.

 

P1:

  - "I figured it would be more fun ta tell ya I can fall forever" - Except that he didn't tell him

  - "bent his knees, including his third leg" - This conjures meaning I'm sure you didn't intend. Just say he bent his three knees.

 

P2:

 - "As soon as they landed [...] within a few seconds." - Which is it? It can't be both for this action.

 

P3:

  - "...so their peaks touch the atmosphere." - Grass, pebbles, and people on roads all touch the atmosphere. That's probably not the word you wanted.

 

Chapter Four:

  - This entire conversation between Relvaris and Ponsing is one long info-dump. It didn't make for a very interesting read at all.

Edited August 24, 2015 by Shrike76

[rdpulfer]

- The first sentence reads a bit weird. What is a "jar and wobbling" sound? A jar sounds like an item, and wobbling sounds too visual.

 

- I do like McTuggard's rationale for falling from high places.

 

- I agree the dialogue between Magnus and Theavis seems like an info-dump, with some repetition of facts we already know. 

 

- "Shadowwolves" looks weird with the two consecutive "w's". I'd recommend either splitting it up or hyphenating it.

 

- Parts of Chapter Four seem to be a bit of an info-dump as well. 

 

- I still like the eccentric cast of characters in this. It seems to be the strongest point. The only problem is so far, this early in, they don't seem to be doing much interesting other than talking and occasionally fighting. 

[Asmodemon]

I’m having a hard time actually reading this chapter for two reasons. One is purely technical, as I couldn’t open the document on my phone and I usually do the first pass of a story on my phone while commuting on the train (as I barely have time afterward to do a write-up). Neither this submission nor the last could be opened on my phone, which is not a problem I have with the other submissions. I don’t know why yours is different, maybe the .doc version is too old.

 

The other reason is that I’m just not drawn into it. There is a lot of exposition going on and little else. My eyes started to skim over stuff since at this point in the story I really don’t care about geoglomites, Trellites, Brock, the birth of mountain ranges, etc.

 

Theavis: He doesn’t do anything except being carried around or cowering when they are under attack. And at no point do I actually feel like any of them are in danger either, so in terms of excitement the wolf battle doesn’t do it for me. That leaves a passive character, lectures on the world, and an annoying fog that takes away any assertiveness Theavis might have had.

 

McTuggard: I hate it when accents are written out like this, it becomes annoying very fast and after a couple of lines of accented dialogue I have to say I’ve reached that point. You may want to reconsider writing his accent.

 

Relvaris: His chapter was even worse than Theavis’ chapter. In the words of Relvaris, “You're lecturing again.” No one wants to read a lecture, especially this early in the story. I’m not invested in the characters, world or plot yet, so all this gratuitous background information just rolls on past me. Take away the info dump and all you have is two characters walking around.

 

Jokee: Concerning your question on the word jokee, the jokees are the people on which a joke was played. Since you brought it up, I’m not a fan of the word.

 

Concluding thought: The characters need to start doing something and I really need a reason to care about them doing it. The passivity of the POV characters in combination with large info-dumps is really this story’s undoing at this point.

[rohyu]

Thanks everybody .

 

It seems like I wrote more of an info-dump filled travelogue than a story so far. I'll have to remove some chapters or add in more conflict, at least.

 

This is all very helpful.

[Robinski]

Do you know what the word 'jokee' means?

 

Yes, as in joker and jokee - not a real word, I think, but a logical deduction. It didn't bother me.

 

 

Detailed comments below, but in summary, I enjoyed this. There are things that bugged me (most being edit details). Like the first submission, there was a huge amount of telling, massive slugs of background and history that I'm not especially interested in. For me, you only got away with that because of the characters being engaging. I did enjoy the banter between Relvaris and Ponsing. I think the story has a nice, breezy, comedic style that makes it easy to read. Chapter 4 more than the Theavis section, as I'm less interested in him. I think it’s because he seems ineffectual, whereas these guys are out in the world exploring it and having fun doing it.

 

Looking forward to the next submission, more than I was after last week, I must say, thanks to Relvaris and Ponsing.

 

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Chapter 3

 

“It's a long trip east fer yer short legs” – Every fibre of my being says that McTuggard should be as annoying as hell, but I can’t help liking him. Enjoyed this line, among others.

 

I don’t get that everything is a secret. McTuggard has told him various facts about this and that. Theavis’ question seems inconsistent.

 

The general had already told Theavis that Brock was a geoglomite. Him asking again felt repetitious.

 

‘Tennis’ threw me out of the story. Do they have tennis in this world? I'm guessing not, in which case the joke is out of place.

 

“Consoling a rock was not within his skill-set” – I'm still not sure what the tone of this piece is. There are some moments of straight up broad comedy – like this one, and yet there also seems to be a serious set up going on.

 

Talking of which, the loss of memory thing worked for me in the first chapter, but now Theavis’ companions are laying down some major slabs of exposition and I'm kind of glazing over. I find I don’t care about the past of a place when I know very little about the present.

 

“W-What is that?” – I find I don’t really have a sense of Theavis’ character. He comes across scared here, and yet he’s been belligerent elsewhere, I think.

 

Chapter 4

 

Sometimes the word choice makes me stop. Like in the first sentence here. “The small aura of light...” I can’t help feeling that small isn’t a very evocative/descriptive word, it doesn’t really tell us much about the aura. It makes me think, is it a pale aura, what colour is it (just white?).

 

I have no idea how you sharpen a sunbeam, but it’s a cool, rather zany image. Like, it makes no sense scientifically, but I don’t care.

 

I'm going to harp on some more about capitalisation. You capitalised ‘Warden’ when you were using it in the sense of any old warden, i.e. Relvaris is a ‘warden’, whereas if it’s his title ‘Warden Relvaris’, I would expect it to be capitalised. But when you say ‘Achinian’, which is the name of a people, I would expect it to be capitalised, i.e. the German people enjoy sausages.  

 

Why do you capitalise ‘forest’? I can’t see any basis for doing that. It almost seems random.

 

“a bunch of lumpy sticks glued together” – Excellent description – I am laughing quite frequently in reading this, I hope that the intention. The tone is light-hearted and fantastical. I'm enjoying the banter between these two. I could do with a little help on their situation though. Are they on the other side of the wall of mountains that Theavis is contemplating, or are they somewhere else entirely?

 

“for 6 years” – In narrative, ‘six years’, I would say. Have you ever seen Brandon use a numeral for a number of years?

 

“4 teams each consisting of 25 geoglomites” – again, this is not a technical book, I think you’ll find good form is to use words.

 

Here, you capitalise Trellites, but not rusticulans. Like I said, I don’t see the logic that you’re applying to capitalisation.

 

This section, as with much of Theavis section, seems like a massive info dump. I can see that you’re seeking to disguise it with the gaps in Relvaris’s knowledge. The problem, I think, is that it’s still a massive chunk of information, to the point of being like a history book instead of a story. This early in a story, I don’t care about all this background, I want to get to know the characters and how they interact, and about the situation in the world. What is the challenge/threat that faces them? The black hole, right?

 

I don’t really follow why Ponsing is insulted by the creatures in the wood.

 

“weary Ponsing lied about” – wary

 

“the entire Forest shined” – shone

 

“You're lecturing again” – He is, isn’t he? I would still prefer less teaching (telling) and more forward motion.

 

“one foot tall Warden had to wait for the 11 foot tall achinian” – eleven foot tall. Also, with this disparity in height, I doubt that Relvaris would pat Ponsing on the back of the knee. Relvaris’ reach is going to be another third (assuming human proportions), so 18 inches, whereas Ponsing’s knee (again assuming human proportions) is going to be about 2.5 to 3 feet up.

 

Nice multipurpose application of the sunbeam technology – Relvaris doesn’t need a flashlight! Neat.

 

“I have never seen a demonstration...”