Yados

This is a bit of an infodump. Instead of Melenius' "tired mind" going over these things, why not have him going around doing things that would involve all these things. Then you can split up the information and inject at least some movement and character interaction in with everything else. Shard of Choice: I think you have the opposite problem here. You're setting things up a bit too quickly without giving us, the reader, time to get even the tiniest bit into the story before blowing it up. If you want us to care that these people are dying, let us get to know them or at least compartmentalize them as people we like before pulling the rug out from under us. Maybe start mid-scene with everyone already in the middle of interacting and have the knock come as a more abrupt interruption. When you start the action, I think you need to block it out more. You seem to have created a system where people can do some magic with their eyes, but that doesn't mean we can't have a bit of a struggle. Draw it out a bit perhaps so it doesn't merely seem like a list of who died and how. It occurs to me that maybe the flashback is so brief because you mostly want to get it out of the way instead of use it as a scene in and of itself. If that's the case, consider cutting it and letting us get that backstory some other way. You're also throwing the magic in thick right at the get go. Consider toning it back. Remember, even though Kelsier was doing things as a Mistborn in the prologue of The Final Empire, we didn't get the explanations as to how the magic worked until much later in the book. It can just be about character development in the beginning, not setting up the magic. As for me, here's the first chapter of my current project, The Mortal Coil. I'll let it stand on its own but for a slight language and violence warning. Nothing gratuitous. I'm writing for YA.

What's cool is that we're getting movies for Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy. For future movies, I really hope we see Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel and maybe She-Hulk. While Whedon did an excellent job with what he was given (Black Widow) the lack of female characters in the Avengers (and upcoming movies) was kind of disheartening.

Anyone watching Gravity Falls? I'm pleasantly surprised. It's like if Adventure Time and Regular Show got mixed together and thrown into Twin Peaks.

Um, it's obviously fishes that grant superpowers when ingested. ...which, I suppose means that there are a lot of fish out there with superpowers as fish tend to eat fish.

Sorry I've been so bad about responding to this (and everyone else's) I did take a lot of this stuff to heart. I nixed the l-word and some of the exposition. I toned down the dialogue in the beginning. I didn't do anything different with Irna, but I probably will. One of my female alpha-readers noted that, propriety aside, it's really difficult to fight with breasts sans proper support. I took her word on it. This was the only sizable bit I added, though. Just to set it up, I moved the chapter to atop the wall, not in the snow. I wonder if anyone has thoughts on that if only because it gave Coil something mildly heroic to do up front. I realized that was missing.

I should have the second chapter *hopefully* done by this monday. I'm not sure how the group has transitioned in the last week, but if we're still submitting things, I'd like to submit.

To play devil's advocate: Wouldn't the people of Roshar, whose giant beasts are all crustacean, mythologize Dragons as looking something like greatshells? They don't have any giant lizards (or any lizards?) on Roshar. Much like they did with the Voidbringers in the drawing Jasnah showed Dalinar.

Huh, when I heard the comment, I kind of hoped it would be Eric from White Sand. It just seems like it would fit his character arc.

Yeah, I'd read that. I hadn't heard that he was planning on doing a book with a gay PoV. Where did he say that? Or was it an implication from the "so far" wording in the above quote?

Why does homosexuality have to be the focus of a piece for it to exist in it? Even if, as you say, the cosmere books aren't "romance-focused", there's at least one romance in each book to date. All heterosexual ones. Vin and Elend. Sazed and Tyndwill. Spook and that one girl. Siri and the God King. Saerene and Raoden. Dalinar and Navani. Shallan and Kabsal. Wax and Marasi. Beyond that, of the supporting characters who have mentioned past or present love interests who never appear, characters such as Ham, Dockson, and Kelsier, where their sexuality either way doesn't affect the story one iota, all are straight. And yet, as you said, the cosmere books aren't "romance-focused" or as Inkthinker pointed out don't "touch on sexuality much". We don't react to them like BS is trying to ram heterosexuality down our throat. But what if just twenty percent of those relationships were queer in some way? Would people say the same? It's not about tolerance so much as cultural assumption. Much like in TV, no one bats an eye at all-white casts because, for a character to be a poc, there must be a story based reason for them to be a poc. Otherwise, the assumption is that they're white. The people writing and casting these shows aren't racists. They just have it ingrained that white is the cultural default. These shows aren't about race, after all. But that doesn't make the lack of representation less of an issue in how poc in this country see themselves and interact with media.

You know there's actually spoiler tags that hide the information you don't want people to read. Edit: Because you fixed it in your original post and then *I* was the one spoiling all the things.

Speaking as someone who didn't like Elantris nearly as much as the other Cosmere books, this sounds like an interesting follow up and I look forward to reading it.

Now *thats* an interesting thought. And it might be why Sanderson said there was some disagreement amongst Spren as to which Spren are Honorspren. Or something like that.

You might want to reverse your wording in the title there as Farland was one of Sanderson's writing teachers at BYU.

Sure, but it wouldn't be honorable people who would twist words and hold people to the letter of their oath. Isn't a theme of the book the price of being honorable in a world where most are not? Isn't that a struggle that both Kaladin and Dalinar face?

Oh weird. This is about mine. Lucky I checked this thread. This was my thinking as well-- both about the distinction between Middle-Grade and YA as it pertains to parental oversight and the head-scratching over the clothing comment. But then I guess that's the kind of stuff that does get picked up on. Regardless of whether or not it should.

Well, you don't have anyone to blame but yourself for your expectations. Sanderson's LLC is called Dragonsteel Entertainment. His big, post-WoK epic is called Dragonsteel. It was also the name of his Master's thesis. And, oh, if you go to his website, there's a big, honking dragon in the middle of the front page amongst the Steel Alphabet and Seons.

I don't usually argue points on these threads, but I want to point out that I never use the word "topless". I'm not sure why it's in quotations in your post, but I can assure you that you're not quoting it from what I submitted *does quick ctrl+F search to make certain* I believe I wrote that Irna "stood naked above the waist" and then went straight into describing the "lean, ropey muscles in her arms". I did that pretty consciously because I didn't want to sexualize her. It seems that, at least with you, I failed. However I have to wonder what I could do here to fix that because, even when I'm basically incorporating your advice here--short sentence about state of dress and then right to arm descriptions--it still sets off a flag. I'm going to do a more detailed response on other points. However, in light of Jack's observations, I think I'm going to set this on the wall itself, adding an actual setting and making it more feasible for enemy scouts to shoot arrows. It'll also add a sense of movement to the chapter because I assume Irna will fall off the wall, pulling Coil with her. Oh, maybe they're on the wrong side then. That would actually force some interesting stuff with the culture's taboos. Going to have to adjust my outline.

I think that if you have a chapter set twenty-three years in the past which sets up the conflict of the story you've found your prologue. Unless you're going to be regularly skipping back and forth, which raises my eyebrow as to structure. I wouldn't have expected a flashback in chapter three. The prose was solid throughout the second chapter. Right now, Z's reactions to things go on a bit long... because they're giving us insight into his history with Dalen, his reservation about marrying, the political ramifications of thing, etc. Which is fine now, but could be a problem if it's how every exchange goes. A good strategy is to try to make all your prose do two things. That's a lot easier to do if you have more plates spinning. Like, if there's a compelling reason why Z doesn't want to marry, then we get a conflict and we get more about him. The way it is now, we just get an explanation of how the political landscape shapes up.

Prologue: I wonder if this has to be here. It's short. It's innocuous. But then, that's why I question its purpose. We didn't get a conflict or a character. We got a setting, and a short series of events that is no doubt important to larger story at work. But then, if all we're getting are these two things, why not just set this up without the prologue? I think you either need to put some narrative meat on this or you can fold it into the story. The prose is a bit sloppier here than in the two chapters that follow it. Chapter One: Aiden seems like a pretty normal point of view. I mean that as a compliment. It felt like I was reading a book I would scan the pages of in a book store. Your prose is professional. You don't really notice it. Which is good. However, while I would certainly not be surprised to find this chapter in a bookstore, I don't know if I would read past it. There are three reasons for this: 1) Aiden is a pretty generic protagonist. I don't feel like I'm seeing anything I've never seen before. There's really no sense of subversion or that my expectations are factoring in. He's a second son in a feudal house who disdains the deference his status brings and wants to pursue non-martial, literary pursuits. Why not just have a orphaned farmhand who finds a magic sword? Now, I'm not saying by any means that Aiden can't exist as he is in the story. But it's compounded by the second problem. 2) There's no conflict here. Aiden is happy. His life is good. He's happy for his brother and he's happy that he'll never be the heir. So everything's great for Aiden. Now, presumably, hopefully, this will change. Aiden will get shaken out of this nice nook he finds himself in and face either the "real" world or a situation where he has to assume a role he doesn't want. But that's not getting set up here. And, what more, we're not really seeing any internal conflict either. Aiden isn't jealous of his brother. He's not frustrated he can't do something he wants to do. He's a bit sad because he won't see his brother as much anymore, but then we've never seen that brother so we, the reader, don't have an attachment to that concern. All we're seeing is life being nice as the sort of feudal structure is set up by being seen through his eyes. It's kind of an info-dump. And it's made more noticeable because: 3) Nothing happens. Literally, this is a chapter about someone walking through a hall, hearing some news, and then reading a book. You're setting up who Aiden is and what his outlook and life are but you're doing it in a plot vacuum. Give him something he's trying to accomplish that will tell us something about him. Even if it's not important on the grand scale of things. It's literally like Aiden is waiting for the story to begin. Chapter Two: This one was better. Zerath seems a better character than Aiden off the bat and, probably, it's because he has stuff going on. Now, he has some of the same problems. He's comfortable in his role. He seems ready to assume whatever responsibility/trials he has coming up, or at least he doesn't seem patently unfit. He has a lot of the same complacency. There's more infodump as well and I have to wonder why you're setting up Dalen, a character that's going to have a PoV, with everyone talking him up. He's going to have plenty of time to do that on his own. Maybe he should come himself to offer his training of Zerath in exchange for marriage, etc. Then at least he'd probably physically back up his claims upon making them. You hit us pretty hard with the politics and, sadly, they seem pretty transparent. I mean, it's convenient here that everyone who seems decent and good are banding together on one side against people who are mean and ravenous... but this means there's very little conflict within the main cast. Sometimes you don't like people even though they're, objectively, decent people. Personality clashes and people get their feelings hurt and some betrayals are personal ones. Maybe the King hates this other guy because of some old score, but is banding together with him because he knows they both know what's best for their lands. For that matter, why is this empire something so bad? Aren't empires usually meant to be for the good of those within them? What's wrong with this one? I'd put this chapter before Aiden's and give Aiden something to do that springs out of this. Maybe he has to go pick up Dalen and Zarath's bride to be. So those are my macro-level concerns. Not enough conflict, both internal and external. Superfluous prologue. You need more stuff happening in Aiden's chapter.

Yeah, LGBTQ is a rapidly replacing/contending with LGBT stateside. Well, depending on the community. It varies. I was certainly not advocating calling one or a group of people "queer". It was my observation that by using the term "queer" or "queerness" over homosexuality, we would hopefully extend the scope of the discussion beyond male-to-male relationships to lesbian and, more notably, trans realms.

Well, I've never read Furies, but I do adore Butcher's Dresden Files books. I'd suggest you give them a try even if you have an aversion to urban fantasy. I know I normally do. I always recommended that people start with Book Three, Death Masks. You won't miss anything and it's where the mythos really starts getting built. I've had a couple people not able to get through Storm Front, the first book.

Yeah, but then the reference doesn't make sense. Asha'man do not obfuscate the meaning of their statements because they're bound to tell to tell the truth. It would be an Aes Sedai way of putting it. Plus Aes Sedai is technically a gender neutral term. Lews Therin is an Aes Sedai.

So you're pretty sure he killed himself? I mean, if the book was real life, all of those things would be likely. However, none of them are narratively interesting enough to 1) happen and 2) happen off page. I mean, we got a Gaz PoVin WoK. If he was going to be offed by happenstance, we would have been privy to it. There would have been no narrative reason to keep it a secret. So either 1) he's not dead or 2) his death is related to some situation in Sadeas' Camp/The Shattered Plains that were not yet privy to.

Nice run-down. It's a bit surreal having to defend the works of Neil Gaiman on a fantasy-based forum but you've risen to the occasion. Let's never speak of the works of NK Jemisin, Joe Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence, Richard Morgan, George R. R. Martin, or even... what? Jim Butcher. I don't think they would hold up to this level of content-based scrutiny.