krystalynn03

I think everybody's overwhelmed with end-of-spring stuff. The board's been quieter the last two weeks all round. Stay strong, writers! Summer (ie. lots more writing time) is nearly here!

Hey <R>, Sci-Fi collection? Is this Gfil? He read SF, too???? O___O

You know, GD is the most offensive odnthe bunch for me... but if it's cleaner I'll read and comment

I would like to read and critique, but the language is too pervasive for my tolerance. Thanks for the warning up front about it.

Agree. Hand-waviuming this one, really. The audience of readers (adolescents) wouldn't think twice about it, really. Furthermore, I'm hoping that what the characters are doing and talking about is so engaging that the cave stuff would never occur as a concern in the midst of reading it if one's not in edit mode...

Breathe, Robinski, breathe!!! :lol:

I think if you give some more visual up front maybe it would help me see it as the cheaper alternative to wine, but I still think that the word mead alone is going to make the event seem less elegant, simply because of its use in vernacular and culture. The descriptions you did provide were clear enough, so I think you could add in a little more to make it easier to see. I didn't get anything to tell me that it's in an extreme cold environment. If there was some mention in there, I guess it's not enough because I didn't catch it. One other nitpick, a pet peeve, I really hate it when I get character eye color in a first chapter unless it's very significant, and 99% of the time it's not. It makes me think amateur writer because it smacks of school, rather than modern literature. Just my two cents. Thanks for sharing!

Hey Kammererite, First of all your *G label was a good one. It had me pondering until I read your explanation. You didn't put any specific requests for feedback and judging by the level of polish on this piece, I've decided to give you alpha reader style feedback and not focus in on anything specific. Things I Liked You began with ice sculptures; that was a cool first image Paragraphs are short and action (though there's not enough of it) flows; your prose doesn't drag Dialogue sounds like folks talking for the most part, not bulky or like a narrator mouthpiece Things That Need Work Conflict & Character: There are too many characters too fast, and I think this is happening because this feels discovery written, like you're pulling in people and characters to see if they turn into something later; I like to think of this as sewing seeds--sometimes they sprout sometimes they don't and if you don't like it...weed it out later That said I was halfway through the sub scratching my head and wondering what was going to happen There are too many introductions and the characters are wasting too many words on it Setting: the ice sculptures made me think we were at an expensive party...but then we're ordering mead...? I can't get a feel for where we are In sum, keep working on wherever this going, but if this is just a cut of a first draft, you've got a lot of deep revising to do. Thanks for subbing!

Hey guys! Always the pacing--what parts moved well for you, what dragged, how does it feel in the overall? Did the character interactions work for you? Was the scenery imagery clear enough? What worked for you? What didn't work for you? Thanks!

"Waifs and Strays" by Robinski Alpha read by krystalynn03 Waifs and Strays is an epic length novel penned by Robinski. The only bits of his writing I'd read before came from "Hold the Bridge," so I knew a little bit about his voice and his preferred style of fantasy before beginning, although it was still a rough draft. Some places of W&S read more polished than others, but overall, has a good story in it. First, let me say that I've never done an alpha review before, so having Robinski kindly alpha reading "Roamwald" at the same time helped me learn to be a better alpha reader as I went. Robinski demonstrates an ability in W&S that I envy. He constructs a plot thick with many different characters following their own plots at the same time weaving them all back together. I like to read that kind of pacing in books, but I find it very, very difficult to pull off as an author. W&S does a good job at making a lot of intricate pieces are fall into place for the whole. The setting of Lufmatho has believable politics, religion, and a decent, if not completely fleshed out, magic system, that ties back to both of the former. The protagonists of W&S evade the cliche of characters all having to come from a particular age group to be interesting. My favorite protag was Benam, an aging 'has been' hero who is haunted by his reputation on one hand while seeming to under perform his potential as a dock supervisor on the other. The arrival of the enemy jolts him from a boring middle life into one of meaning again, although not without personal cost. Covelle, I think, is supposed to be the character that the majority of readers take to. He's an aristocrat gone rogue, but he never read quite right for me. He tries to change as a character and grow up as the novel progresses, but I think this is something that needs to be refined in revisions for him to have any texture. There are two female protagonists, but most of what I think about them might be too spoiler-y, so I'll not say anything here. There are parts of the book that need cutting and restructuring to change the pacing, but that's a normal fix. Who was who said that any first draft of a novel is really the author telling himself the story? I attribute most of the pacing problems currently in W&S to that and hope to see a tighter version in the future. The story, long as it is, is still pretty solid. While W&S sometimes had me question the characters, I never once questioned the overall plot logic. Robinski runs a very tight ship on the front. (See what I did there, R?) There are several setting changes that stick out in my mind as vivid and well done: the rocky haven, the bilge of a ship, the river outside the mansion at twilight, the overgrown country cottage garden... W&S did yank on my emotional chains a few times, giving me surprises, anger, and regret, which are all good in turn. Again, I can't really expound on that for sake of spoilers. Robinski has far more knowledge about how the military and ships work, and every time he brought those elements into the story, the setting became very real. W&S is a strong first run of a solid fantasy plot. I would like to see it's pacing restructured through cutting and revision, some of the main characters brought into more vivid focus, and a few of the more 'stock fantasy' settings or situations revised to be 'one off' to keep things a little fresher for readers who've read too many fantasy books in their life. I hope you keep revising W&S and share with me and/or beta thread in the future soon, Robinski! I'm still attached to Benam!

Congrats on finding the word!

Well, then the person most affected by this then is you, and you're allowed to work at whatever pace is best for your process. Otherwise, I think your 'leap of faith' phrasing is interesting. I don't think we ask readers to take a leap of faith when the read fantasy. I think the conventions built into the genre itself allow fantasy readers to suspend their disbelief in ways that actually gives us more creative freedom. The only thing is that were there is license there is accountability, so you have to not only write the rules but play by the rules you write. A leap of of faith implies that the reader is risking something. When I sit down to a fantasy book, I don't feel like I'm more at risk than I am with any other book. There's more risk for the author, because he/she has to construct everything in a way that feels real within the context, but I'd say the only time the author asks the reader to take a leap of faith is when he/she actually parts with money to read the thing! (Disagreeing for the sake of interesting conversation--not for the sake of being disagreeable. )

I don't think your integrity would be questioned--just maybe your accuracy. Besides, if the context is fantasy, not everything has to line up exactly perfectly to reality. It just has to be consistent within itself and not jar the reader. IMHO

Also, if I have a word, number, or name when I'm making a first draft, I like to use ### to mark it out. I'm not trying to look like Twitter, but the hashtag symbol is so foreign to any normal fiction conventions of punctuation that it makes it really, really easy to notice what I marked later. (as opposed to parenthesis or brackets, which can blend in better)

I think a whole lot of things depend on context and the mindset of the reader. I might be surprised by a word I don't know (as fiction is written for entertainment and doesn't have a lot of high academic vocabulary), but if the story has me pulled in, I won't slow down for a single term, especially if the author provides some context clues to help me know what I need to know. Otherwise, keep plugging on.

I would also like to request to submit on the 16th.

Keep going! Every word feel so valuable after being stuck for a while!

Hey there Spieles, I read through the sub earlier this week, and I’m making notes as I go on read through number dos. ‘elongated to the end’ – extra wording padding to a long sentence when you’ve already given me plenty of visual info ‘sitting with the pack of Brides’ – This is confusing because it sounds like the Brides’ table is already full, considering you just said all the tables in the room are occupied ‘taking up whole bench’ – If you need the ‘legs elongated’ for clarity, this would be a better place for the phrase ‘mouth is turned, ‘almost-smiling’ ‘smile grows’ ‘smile disappears’ – seems like too much in a small space. I can already tell he’s smitten without the play by play of smiles to this degree ‘What starts?’ ‘The whispers’ etc – And the Brides have now gone from being Bad-A’s in my head to being a bunch of shallow high school girls with nothing better to think about. Disappointing move. And now Clair is moneyed. This isn’t doing anything for me one way or the other. ‘Didn’t feel like fitting in’ – Is this necessary? Is it setting something else up? Firstly, it pushed me from the narrative both readings because it makes me wonder why a military outfit like the Brides doesn’t have specific rules in place, and secondly, Hayden has done enough weird stuff that I don’t need her to change her clothes for her to show she has a one-off personality from everybody else. Even knowing the ‘reveal’ of her family connections from later in the submission, I don’t dig stretching an inference to think she gets away with this childish stuff because of it. ‘You can’t work for yourself’ – I like that you’re trying to get this out of her mouth in an angsty teen way, but with Oz’s line about price gouging, it feels off beat that she’s still continuing the thought after Oz and the reader have already moved on to something else. ‘bitter smoky laugh’ – Hm. ‘Night leaves’ – I haven’t really gotten a good feel for time passing, but that might be because I’m reading each of these subs one or two weeks apart, so that might be the problem, not the narrative. ‘under slept’ – Dictionary.com says you can make this ‘underslept’ but Merriam Webster doesn’t. I think it looks odd as two words, like I was expecting you to describe her sleeping in an uncomfortable location. Safe bet is sleep-deprived, although I’d like to see underslept become common usage! Uh, why is he eating dirt? ‘shuttered’ – Did the trading posts have enormous windows…? What did I miss or forget? How does Oz know all this stuff about Panama? ‘Del Reyes, I warn’ – This is starting to sound reversed. Like Oz is saying all the things Penton should and Penton what Oz should say. Five years ago. – Odd fragment when it could pin onto the next sentence with ease. ‘He’s not circumspect’ – I’m still bothered that most of Calgary’s characterization is other characters talking about him rather than his own dialogue or actions proving it. I’m not going to say a word on the pseudo-science because it doesn’t bother me one way or the other in the least. If you say a magnite grid could throw off an asteroid in a Sci-Fi setting, I’ll take that at face value and move on. That’ s not the big plot of this book—surviving in the wreckage it caused is. ‘miss the Brides uniform’ – Oh you mean the one you weren’t actually wearing at breakfast…? ‘did our private bridal lessons together’ – How old is Penton? Don’t tell me she’s a teen, too. I like the fish tank comparison. Been watching a funal infection from fish I bought last week ravage my poor tank. Make out scene is make out scene. Not my favorite. Johnny saves the story for me in the chapter. He really does. Overall, there are some tropey-self-indulgent YA bits that grate on me, and if Hayden’s quirks turn into weaknesses she’ll be interesting, but if they’re there just to make her ‘different’ then I won’t be impressed. Oz really didn’t do much other than react here: react to Hayden at breakfast, react to Penton’s offer, react to Hayden acting like a nympho, and then react to Johnny’s call for help. This is going to be hard on my tastes to get through as a reader if the book strays too far into teen angst/self/sexual discovery. Johnny saves this submission for me. I don’t care for Hayden right now (could turn into something more interesting) and Oz didn’t do anything great this time, but hanging in there to see how things develop with Mona, Raj, and Johnny. That was a good place to cut because I needed my interest level to be brought back. Thanks for submitting. Look forward to what develops out of Raj charging Oz.

Mischief managed.

I looked those lyrics up and now I have that stuck in my head. Ears. Bleeding. Argh.

You know You are Enjoying YoUrseLf. Life is Good west of the Atlantic. (capitalizing leTters RanDoMLy in words is Experts ONLy!)

Robinski, I legit laughed out loud when I read your response. I caught a Robinski. Hidden rules to Robinsking new words: Any Word you look up in the Dictionary must now be Capitlized. It lets others know that you are Expanding your Repertoire of Vocabulary! It's a good Idea, don't you agree? (Gosh, I wish I could insert troll face to this post.)