Yados

This is cool. I'll probably just read the e-version though.

Okay! Second Chapter. There are probably a few typos as this is a much rougher draft than I submitted last time. Summary: Coil is the son of immortals. Well, dead immortals. Well, probably dead immortals. Less 'probably dead' is his sister, Rae, who has just died of plague. This was very much in the modern fashion as The Land, previous inhabited by immortal humans from across the Endless Sea, is currently inhabited by mortal humans from across the Endless Sea. No one knows the reason for this, but few are happy about it. In the wake of the previously stated tragedy, Coil is called upon by visitors. Both of these encounters were unsettling, but they also both got in the way of Coil's grief-forged goals. First he will lay his sister to rest beyond the Sight. Next, he will kill Death. That the two have a history only makes it personal and will be fleshed out at a later date. Now all he has to do is get out of the Watches without being seen.

This monday I will either submit the second chapter of The Mortal Coil or a revision of Blood and Tallow; the first story I submitted to this group which I currently doing final revisions on.

I usually write under some mixture of caffeine and alcohol, often under some form of real or imagined deadline. I usually go scene first, boring scene-setting, description, non-conversation stuff after-- though I'm currently trying to go straight linear with my current project. Also, I've just now employed a professional editor to do some revisions with Blood and Tallow. I suppose that will feature into a lot of my future writing.

Hah, I'll cut that line about the smell. that doesn't make any sense once I think about it. Thanks for the feedback everyone.

I think you have some good ideas here and those shine through the work itself. You also have a good sense for drama. Technically, your writing has some major problems. Your sentences are choppy. Your diction is limited. Nothing flows or moves the reader along. Furthermore, you don't add enough discription to make the world tangible. You're throwing us somewhere alien, give us a foothold so we can reaccquaint ourselves. I also think that the scene breaks are too abrupt. You break us out of the narritive. Maybe try to keep it to one scene. With some hard editing, you could get this working, but it will take a lot of work to boost the prose and dialogue even to workman-like levels.

That would be equal parts ballsy, transhuman, and abstract enough that it wouldn't cause an outrage. I'd christen that ship.

No, it's that about forty percent of the words don't have spaces between them.

Huh.

I don't know if the file is coming through to anyone else with all the spacing messed up, but maybe you could resend it in .doc format?

Well, to put it plain (and this is something that will be explained in the *very* next chapter) Coil and Rae are17 and 10 respectively. Real years. Their parents were hundreds if not thousands of years old, who never had children until man started dying (which has happened gradually and region-specifically over the last hundred years). Most inhabitants, even the few individuals within the walls of Vern who are still immortal, were born on the current continent. People can be fourth or fifth generation but still be centuries old. Most people out in the Watches would be around 20th to 27th generation and mortal the last man. That Coil is 17 but first generation is exceedingly rare and of some small religious/political significance. But.. plot. But no, Rae is ten. Her father is very old. He left the lands in the West, where the ships landed, to go to the East (where they are now) hundreds of years ago. He left for elsewhere 9 years ago, after Rae was born. Rae was born within the Deathtimes. I hope this helps.

Yae-dose He's a character from my cosmology who doesn't technically appear until 700 years after the period I'm writing. Except he does but that's a bit of a spoiler and not at all relevant at the moment.

I'm mostly using Terry Pratchett audiobooks to get through the work days now. They're pretty perfectly suited for the task at that.

Joe Abercrombi is one of the most perfect mixes of grim and funny I've come across. You should especially look into The Heroes and Best Served Cold (one of my all-time favorites). All of them feature secondary characters from The First Law Trilogy however, so it may be best to start there. It probably won't give you nightmares, but they may make you severely depressed/hopeless.

This is another one that I missed by being off the lists. Do you think you could send me a copy at [email protected] ?

Yeah, I get that. You may be onto something with the Epic/Urban fantasy divide. I'm just using hands and fingers in my stuff so it's a twinge different but still coherent. Looking forward to reading more.

Ah. Because Way of Kings seems to suggest that people are slightly alien to Roshar. At least, it seems like their own mythology has them coming to Roshar from Shadesmar. Though who knows how accurate that origin myth might be. Haven't read to the thread. Sorry if that's been mentioned or isn't relevant to the discussion.

Had their what? Form of life? Does that mean humans or does that mean things like Chasmfiends and horses?

This was cool. You have some comma usage problems throughout and some of your wording could be clearer, but I think you move everything along quickly enough for it to be negligible. I would still try to clean it up for a final draft. You sometimes say things twice or make a general statement that is followed by the more specific action. Some of you diction could be more vibrant. And I think that if you just gave us a bit more access to the character when you're describing the them, we'd be better off. When you say things like "she could tell a sunshift was about to happen" but we don't know how she could tell until way down further when you say they happen every hour and a half or so, you confuse the reader more than you illuminate them. Aside from that, there's the tiny irk of this being an alien planet where very, very earth specific terms like hour, minute, tyrannosaur, and raptor are all commonly used. But this was cool. It sounds like, from your description, that the rest of this book is more urban fantasy. Obviously, as the writer, you're the only one who can judge how well this prologue functions at setting up things for later in the book.

New work. Prequel to Black Magic, Blacker Deeds that I've begun since realizing that there is way too much back story going into that.

Hey, so I'll have the first chapter/prologue of something new this Monday the 23rd.

I write fanfiction over at AO3 as claytonphillips. http://archiveofourown.org/users/claytonphillips/pseuds/claytonphillips It's all DCnU or Doctor Who (though I make a reference to Feruchemy in Chapter 20 of my DW FF) and all of it is pretty tame.

I'm Clayton. I'm 22, I just graduated from NYU this December, and I live in Brooklyn. I work currently as a paralegal, though I'm looking to break into editing (comics or prose). I'm just sort of living and working at the moment. Eventually I'll have to make the (terrible) choice between a Masters in Creative Writing or Law School. I'm working on several projects at the moment in both comics and fantasy. My favorite authors are Tad Williams, Patrick Rothfuss, Terry Pratchett, Guy Gavriel Kay, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, and (obvs) Brandon Sanderson. I'm also a big fan of the Dresden Files, NK Jemisin's The Inheritance Trilogy, His Dark Materials, Joe Abercrombie, Richard K Morgan's A Land Fit for Heroes, and ASOIAF.

Oh, I totally understand. I've been holding off posting my current project on here until I get it to a point where I don't hate myself every time I try to read it. I look forward to the critiquing.

I don't know what you think "gay" means and why it requires "cuddling" (when heterosexuality does not) but if two men have consensual carnal relations, that's gay. It's not bad. Far from it. But it's gay. However, whether or not you would submit, under threat of violence or death, to an unwanted homosexual act, means nothing in regards to your sexuality. Sorry, feel like between my K/A shipping (which I knew full well would gain no traction here so I should have given it a wide berth) and my post in that "Is Arangar Homosexual?" thread that I've become the "gay poster." Stopping now. Everyone go back to what you were doing a month ago.