kais

Quick! We can define a new trope! He died with Aunt Beru, so not technically alone. Dual-fridge? That's a strange example, too, because it didn't really effect Luke strongly. He didn't care for them to begin with, so aside from the 'stare at the burning hut' scene, they had very little impact on Luke's character development. They were sort of scenery, with a little angst about Toshi station and some power converters thrown in for color. Did Beru even have lines? Did she just pour blue milk and then get toasted?

Just finished Goldenhand, by Garth Nix. This is the latest installment in the Old Kingdom series of books, which started with Sabriel. The original trilogy I adored. Some of the shorts that have come out since have been alright, and Clariel was amusing. This one was... hrm. It felt like Nix was falling into YA conventions more than writing his own story a lot of the time. The romance between Lirael and Nick seemed very rushed. The romance between Sam and Ferin even more so. I realize that romance is sort of a hallmark of YA, I guess I just... I don't know. I enjoyed previous stories with Lirael because it was more about her personal growth and crippling anxiety. Goldenhand had great moments, where she came back to the Clayr and they had to adapt to her being a stronger willed person, but in other places, Lirael just sort of became another nondescript YA female lead. I enjoyed the third person omniscient writing style, even with info dumps. I think Nix handles these well and I never find them jarring or out of place (although I do identify them more now that I've started writing). Again, I didn't care for the second POV in Ferin, but not because she was poorly written. Rather, I have so much emotional investment in Lirael that I really just want to read about her. That makes me wonder if thats how people feel about my series sometimes. Heh. Erin's POV definitely made the story richer, and as a stand alone character she was great. I really just wanted to read about Lirael and awkward times with the Clayr. It was well written, like all of Nix's books I have read, just not as rich. I don't regret buying it by any means, but it does make me, once again, realize the peril of the multiple POV book.

If PETA gets involved here, we're all in trouble!

Next challenge - a male POV piece without fridging! Max difficulty level! Also, major kudos for trying something new. It takes a brave writer to put a piece that is being difficult aside and do something else for a while.

This is a great question, and a great conversation to have! You can certainly kill female characters. Let's say, you have a woman running for her life in an alley ahead of your protag, and she is, uh, her soul is sucked by a demon and she dies. Male protag passed her by. She is part of the scenery. Her death does not forward his story, rather, she is part of the world building. While this isn't the greatest writing, this isn't fridging, either. Example B. Emmy is a POV character in a book with her own goals. Sam is the second POV character with his own goals. Emmy's horse throws her and she dies. Sam is her cousin (and he didn't know her beforehand) and inherits her fortune and some ghost that gets passed down with the gold. Emmy is not fridged. She existed as a person outside of Sam, and her death did not develop his character, or try to drive sympathy to him. Her death forwarded the plot in the same way her life forwarded the plot, so that's not an issue. Example C. From my own series - a minor POV female gets blown up with a minor male POV character in a space battle. Her death is not used to drive emotional growth or sympathy. She just...died. She was a character, she had goals, she had feelings, we knew about all of them, but her time was up. Dead. She's not fridged, because my main POV character (female, btw), did not have to use angst from the death to develop her character. Her character was sufficiently developed, with reader sympathy included, well before Sal's death. Sal's death was a component of the plot, but not the sole driving force behind it. This is a tricky question. It's considered poor writing to kill a character to drive sympathy for another, generally. It's not technically fridging, because that term indicates an issue with implicit bias and sexism. I wouldn't recommend it, but I also can't think of a single instance in which it has been done, either, which should give you an idea of the problem of fridging (in that I have to have this talk with pretty much every new writer on this board, male, female, or other). You can kill to drive plot, you just can't do it... hrm, how to explain. Yes, you can kill characters. Yes, you can kill them to drive plot. Yes, you can kill female characters to drive plot. The problem is when you have poorly developed (sometimes even well-developed) female characters that have been clearly created to die. THIS is the issue we're trying to address. For instance, in your narrative, you have a husband and wife (maybe they're not married, just partners. Let's work with the husband and wife labels just for simplicity right now). Husband lives in a rich world filled with amazing description. He has fantastic books, a magnificent house, a lush landscape. His wife is.... beautiful. That's it. She's described twice, both times with just one word. This is warning sign #1. Danger! Husband and wife are in peril! He leaders her to safety, and she must be led. A dark figure emerges. The husband is concerned. Backstory is dropped for the husband. The wife... follows. She has a few lines of dialogue. The new villain is described in detail. The wife remans 'beautiful'. Warning sign #2 - wife is not developed while all characters around her are Tension! Villain attacks! Husband has emotional interlude with wife where he wants to protect her. He loves her. This is told over and over, not shown in his actions. She must run! Save herself! Warning sign #3 - emotional buy-in for husband coming through reader connection with wife, who has no backstory, no description, and is clearly about to die Death! Villan attacks! Wife is maimed/killed. Something emotional happens to husband that drives him to 'plot'. Motivation established at the expense of a female character. How to not make the above a fridge incident Wife is described in as much detail as the husband. She has family. She has a physical appearance. She wants to move because the neighborhood has clearly gone south and her, uh, fruit business is going under. Husband agrees. But wait! Danger! Fighting! They must flee! Husband grabs things important to him, wife grabs named things important to her. They have hurried dialogue as they escape about their lives, his dreams, her dreams, how they want to protect each other. They speak to each other like lovers. Villan! Appears, and both husband and wife react. They defend each other (in their own ways). Husband takes damage. Wife becomes upset. Wife takes damage. Husband becomes upset. Characters evolve. They realize only one can make it out alive. Husband begs wife to save herself. Arguing ensues wherein she makes valid arguments about why he should go, showing her understanding of his character, and he does the same, showing understanding of her character. Love is established. Wife is killed after making husband promise to, do something contrary to expectations... maybe to walk barefoot up a mountain to get away from villain and eat a special fruit she's always wanted to eat. Husband is upset about wife's death but chooses to honor her wishes. Writing shows he is mad at villain and wants to attack, but instead walks off, goes up the mountain, eats fruit. Things that still happen - male POV remains intact - male goals remain intact - villain still exists - wife still dies Things that are different - wife does not remain two-dimensional - relationship clearly established through action instead of narrator - wife has own desires, which are clearly established - wife's death does not evolve husband's character. He does not go berserker and kill the villain. Her goals are still recognized, as are his. Her goals are honored after her death. The husband does not gain reader sympathy directly from her death, rather, there is enough understanding of both characters to develop the husband's character sufficiently that he stands apart from her death as a real person, not one that needs a female torn from him to feel emotion and response. The above is, granted, not the greatest set of examples, but I hope it helps clarify things. If you need a TLDR: kill whomever, whenever, in your stories, just think first about what you are trying to accomplish with that death. If it is the sole motivating factor for another character, you might rethink your character development strategy

True, but this is how everyone will judge your book. To get an agent, they have to get past the first five pages or so. To hook a reader, they have to get past the first chapter usually. Fridging is a known and concerning trope, and it's existence in your prologue will lose you chances at both agents and readers. ... this is fridging. HIS character is defined by reacting to HER death. You need to find another way to show his weakness without killing (or pretend killing, or maiming, etc) a female character. So she exists to show holes in his character and drive a plot. She does not exist for her own purposes, her own desires, her own character, or her own plot. This is pretty textbook fridging. I think there is a misunderstanding here. You can have strong women in a book and still fridge poorly-developed ones. You can fridge well-developed female characters. The trick is to understand that killing or injuring a female with no purpose other than to A) drive sympathy for another (usually male) character, B.) develop, in any way, a male character's.... character, or C) move the plot along, is fridging. Most people don't mean anything by it, because implicit bias is just that. What's important is to draw attention to it, so that writers see that they are doing it and think more about development of female characters as they write. For a fun test to see where your implicit bias might lay, check out these Harvard quizzes! I think you probably either have to make it work, or turn the prologue into a series of epigraphs. If you put the dates on the chapters it should work fine, but that's my opinion. Others might have different ideas. Keep submitting! Feedback means people care, and we want everyone here to learn to be a better writer!

Ooh, something new. Fun! Overall I loved the pacing and the flow of the dialogue. I had some issues with Clara and her lack of boundaries and reading people, but that's detailed below. I see others have commented on it as well. The ending was a little confusing. Dragon is magic, I assume? Maybe some bringer of death or something? Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable read. As I go - MC likes food. I like food. Immediately I am drawn to MC. - More glucose in my blood before making that decision. Science aside - check your sugars. Are you referring to the digestion of what s/he is about to eat, or the sugar of what s/he is about to consume? Solid on the digestion, but if it's the consuming thing, then you're likely looking at high fructose corn syrup, maybe some sucrose if you're lucky, fructose if it's fruit and most vegetables. #knowstoomuchaboutsugar - The brain doesn’t store much glucose, so when it runs out, it just tells your body you’re hungry even if you still have plenty of glycogen in your liver. Random. Takes me out of the narrative - page three: if a guy told me his name was 'dragon', I'd be immediately concerned about potential hipster if he was in a coffee shop. If I met him a pot store, I'd just assume he had hippy parents - page four: wow, she's really not reading this guy's body language and tone, is she? Dragon dude wants to be alone, Clara. Move along. This isn't the coffee shop hipster you're looking for - Maybe if I go to my partner’s place, his cat will sleep on my head. A truer statement has never been said - I wonder if he’s just broken up with someone. Maybe he needs some encouragement. Maybe he needs to not be pestered by his yoga classmate. I've dated girls like this. :| - I was expecting him to be a lot nicer than this. Why? He's given you nothing but clues that he doesn't want to talk. Why would he be nice? YOU'RE NOT TAKING THE HINTS. TAKE THE HINTS! - page 11: I think the word you want is the male version of cougar, not 'grave robber'. - I hope you find some freedom from your cage of joy Nice. I like that

No refrigerator left unopened, no (dead) female left unspoken for!

Welcome to our beta co-op! Please remember to submit per the guidelines, and attach a Word document to your e-mail. I often read offline. Overall You had the courage to submit, so kudos for that. You've got a bit of work ahead of you, but editing is what makes a good writer. My main issue with your sub is not the abuse of adjectives (that's an easy clean up), but your treatment of women. After you read through my comments, if you have more questions about fridging, or how to better integrate female characters into a male-centric story line, I am happy to help. As I go - First line is way too heavy with adjectives. As a newbie writer, work with one per sentence. As you get better, you can have a few more. Right now, ration. You get one. Make it count. - Wives looked anxiously to their husbands for answers their armored protectors could not provide, for they did not have them. This tells me a surprising amount about the society you're describing. I'm expecting something patriarchal now. - That first paragraph is far too long, and also a giant info dump. It's all narrator voice. General consensus these days, for new writers trying to snag agents, is to let the readers learn about the world through the characters and their interactions - note that prologues are generally frowned upon by agents. Most won't even let you sub them anymore - He and his beautiful wife, Alandria, Show, don't tell. What is beauty in this society? Is she fat? Thin? Curvy? Big breasts? Wide hips? What are working with here? You have all these details and yet nothing on the wife - With long enhanced ears he could hear the screams of women and children running for safety in the distance There's fighting, and this is a male-centric society in which women apparently cannot protect themselves. I get it. This does not need to be restated. - He would do anything to protect his beautiful wife because she... looked like a hippo and he had a thing for hippos? Seriously, his books get more description than this woman - Lyzell pulled Alandria along, because she couldn't walk? Are women completely dependent in this society? - Dark figure in the street and I feel my fridge sensors tingling. - Alandria grabbed his head firmly between her strong hands and forced his head up. That was... unexpected. - He held her face in his lap looking into her clear, glassy, lifeless eyes. He felt tears on his face, his tears? His whole world...It's becoming like a rite of passage for me to have to point this out. Do. Not. Do. This. Do not place females in your narrative for the sole purpose of injuring or killing them just drive sympathy for a male character, or help build up his character. This is called the 'women in refrigerators trope'. Click the link to learn more. It is not considered good writing and is in fact incredibly offensive to many people. Remember when writing: 1) females make up slightly more than 50% of the population, and should thus also make up approximately 50% of your book character population (barring tales like all-boys boarding school, agendered sci-fi, etc) 2) females do not exist only to drive male plot. They have their own goals and desires, and this needs to be developed as much as the male plot(s)

@Asmodemon lives! Yay! Welcome back!

Reading Goldenhand right now by Garth Nix, and there is this tiny little one line mention of f/f relationships among the Clayr. There are no words for how thrilled I am for this itty bitty call out to sexual diversity. This further cements my love of Nix and his Old Kingdom books.

I actually yelled it at the computer while I was reading. My coworkers were not amused. I get a little too wrapped up in reading.

I'd like to submit this upcoming Monday.

Goldenhand is out!!!!! My copy just came in the mail. SO EXCITED!! Any other Garth Nix fans here? No? Maybe I'll just slink back into my corner with the one YA series I truly adore....

Just finished Kissing the Witch, by Emma Donoghue This is a fairytale retelling book, giving the classics a slightly more queer angle with a dash of modern feminism. They were well written and I found them easy to read and, amusingly, still very much in the prose style as some of the classic Grimm fairytales I read growing up. The one story that did irk me from a writing standpoint was the one done from a mentally challenged perspective. I understand what the author was going for, but it was very, very hard to read. I've never attempted this myself, so I'm likely being overly critical, but if it is so hard for me to read that even after three passes I can't figure out what is going on, it's probably not well written. Now I want to try writing something like this, just to see if I could manage it.

Me included. All I wanted was the parts in the old city with the magic marks. Didn't care about any of the rest of it. I still loved the book, but some of those POVs really dragged. ETA: @Ernei I wouldn't say I dislike character work. I like well done character work. I like dialogue. I need tension of some form. So I don't like the above when it's just chit chat about the day stuff, but when it builds tension, that's when I get engaged. Action sequences can be boring too if I don't have good character buy in. I clearly am just not well suited for YA generally. Looking at my bookshelves the only YA I've kept over the years is by Garth Nix. I have a fair amount of MG though, so something must happen in structure between MG (which I am much more fond of) and YA, that then reverts back in Adult (another area I love). I'll have to give this some thought.

Welcome to RE! Overall I don't get a feel for the world much with these excerpts, nor the stakes. I think we'd be better off critiquing chapter by chapter, instead of overall. That aside, I was disappointed in this submission. The treatment of female characters was unacceptable. All the characters were male save a mentioned (dead) wife (+1 to fridge trope), and a daughter who is abducted (+1 to fridge), threatened with rape (+2 for titilation with fridge), and potentially killed (+1 to fridge trope). Please help us end sexism and borderline misogyny in fiction by remembering and writing with these ideas in mind: 1) Females make up slightly more than 50% of the population. Therefore your characters in a generalized world (outside of, say, a male boarding school book or a sci fi with an agender species, etc) should also be populated as such 2) Females have their own desires and interests, and do not exist solely for driving male plots. When you present females as with the daughter, you give her entire existence in your book one meaning - to gain reader sympathy and empathy for the knight. 3) Females do not exist solely as sexual objects. Rape, objectification, etc., do have their place in a narrative structure, and can be useful plot devices. However, when they are presented in a manner meant (or described so that they do, intent is not always a driving force and I understand you likely did not mean for your scene to come across like this) to titilate the reader, this now shows the reader that females not only do not have independent lives, but in fact exist solely for the pleasure of males. I think the story as presented has potential, but the role of females needs to be reassessed. I would be happy to help you with this further if you would like, in this thread or over PM. Keep writing! Critiques help us all grow and become better writers! As I go - comma splices are prevalent. You'll want to go through and clean those up at some point - the first sentence is a run-on - Woah. Three names in one paragraph that all begin with C? I will never keep these characters straight. Best to introduce characters one at a time, and give distinct names. - So. Many. Names. Who are all these people? - wife is dead, daughter is being kidnapped? My fridge senses are tingling. - Landon is screaming like a wild animal why? I don't have enough character context or world building to care about Landon or this battle right now - You're fridging the daughter. Please do not do this. Using the death/pain/ tittilating injuries of females to further drive reader empathy for a male character is not ok. See this link for more information. - “Maybe I’ll just cut her nighty away, and see what the offspring of a Divine Knight looks like? What do you think fellas, will her tities glow?” And here you hit the titilation part of fridging. You've achieved bingo blackout. - 'Raist' reads very near to 'Racist' - wait, so did the girl actually die? That's a whole new bingo board there.

Hooray for another chapter! Overall I really enjoyed that! A few comments below, but the narrative is really picking up as we continue along. It's nice to find out who the red suit is, and I love Sira's cloud swinging. Nice work! As I go - I don't think I've commented on this before, but I love the 'voice' of this piece. - Except...she hadn’t brought matches and never made an effort to find any. Suggest flushing the 'no effort to find any' out a bit more - Page four: aww, I love the cloud jumping. I am right with her in these pages - page six:I love her imaginings - Cousin speaks in very long sentences - Ray's getting a PhD? If so, he is a LOT older than Sira. Saying he is 'in college' makes him seem maybe late teens, early 20s. If he's going PhD, that'd be more late 20s

Welcome welcome! A quick note - Silk's submission guidelines request a specific submission format. As I often do these critiques offline and then copy/paste the critique later, it would be very useful for me if you would attach a Word document, per the requirements, to your e-mail. Overall The story started out with a lot of interesting imagery and tension. By page two I was utterly confused, and the confusion kept growing from then on. Where is the story taking place? Why is the man/boy imprisoned? You don't necessarily need to fully answer these questions immediately, but the reader needs some sense of place in order to ground the story. The fight meant nothing to me and I was not invested in it because I didn't have any feel for the characters or why they were fighting. On a potentially more serious concern - Bianca. Is she Ben's guard? It sounded that way, but then she is made out to be his friend, and then a moderately-incompetent damsel in distress. This character needs to be much more fleshed out and her relationship with Ben made clear. Also, her actions are completely counter-intuitive for a guard and worrisome within a trope context. I think if you put a few more specifics in the narrative and cleaned up Bianca's character this could be a really excellent cold open chapter. Again, welcome to the forum! We're always excited to have new members! As I go - Page one, opening line: *sings* so I drew a new face as I lau-ua-uaghed. - page two? Unknown, as no page numbers. When Bianca comes in and I still don't have a clear feel for why the kid? adult? is locked in a cage, I start to lose interest. Suggest adding a few more tangible tidbits in the first page to get reader buy-in - the guard is his friend in an imprisonment he doesn't want? I don't understand this dynamic at all - introduction of Mark, and I am becoming increasingly confused. I need context for why the kid? man? teen? was locked up before these characters and their introductions have any weight. MC reported Mark. Okay, great. Why? For what? I have no idea what is going on - Ben puts his hands on Bianca's, his guard, and says he'll handle the standoff?? with Mark? If she's the guard, shouldn't she be guarding him? This section begins my 'female in position of power not being allowed to exercise said power because she is just a figurehead character' side-eye. - Bianca is clinging to Ben's arm now? Double side-eye. She's a guard, is she not? - Bianca gives her weapon to Ben why?? Even love interests should be able to protect themselves. - I don't understand why this fight is happening. Where is this taking place? Why did boy/man's guard lead him to this place with Mark who is maybe not Mark? - "I would not let him get to Bianca" Yes well, she'd have a better chance defending herself if she'd not given you her weapon. What exactly is Bianca doing right now, anyway?

Yup. Doesn't matter how big the boat. I have motion sickness on pretty much any moving thing.

I just wish the RE thing wasn't on a boat. I'd love to go, but I don't do boats. Starships, yes. Boats, no.

Amusingly, I found nothing to quibble about with the forest scenes. I was reading carefully there, too, waiting for some mention of undergrowth, and none popped up. I'm happy!

Just finished Dragon's Keep by Janet Lee Carey. I'm not a big fan of YA, so it's likely no surprise that the pacing in this book made me want to scream. The first half of the book dragged so much that if I didn't have a stupid self-imposed rule of finish books I start unless they are making my eyes bleed, I'd have put it down. The premise was solid, and the writing was alright, I just could not get behind the main character. I wanted to punch her mother. I did read the text more closely in the second half, after the MC became nursemaid to some baby dragons, but even that bored me at times. While we have established that I am a sucker for imagery writing, this book's style turned me off. I think the difference between Dragon's Keep and Night Circus was that there was almost prose in Night Circus. Dragon's Keep was just... fluff. I keep trying to read YA and keep being disappointed. I assume the trend of 'nothing happens for the first half of the book then you force the entire plot into the second half, possibly the last quarter if you can manage' must appeal to young readers, as it keeps cropping up. However when I compare to YA writers I like, like Garth Nix and his Sabriel series, I see that faster paced YA can be popular. Just, ugh. I don't like the writing style of most YA. There. I said it.

I'd call the people Sinchan. Best not to use a current nationality in a name.

I'm always delighted to see how this narrative is shaping up. On to it! Overall I enjoyed all of it except the flashback. Details below. This lighter interlude is welcome after the dark battle before. Your questions Scrios - was introduced, but per below I think the fantasy elements (hard fantasy dragon stuff) should at least be mentioned earlier. I found it jarring. World Building - no, I don't think its too slow, but the flashback sagged. I would have liked better dialogue with Scrios that really opened up Atena's mental state to the reader. I think an opportunity was lost there. PTSD - the flashback is more imagery, and I wanted emotions. I want Atena's thoughts, her mental state, her struggle. Her memories at this point are just more story when what i want is her . As I go - page one. Dangling name there in your first paragraph - page three: the dragon feels...sudden. Like mysticism was just launched into what has otherwise been a war story. You might want to seed some of this magic / fantasy element earlier on so it isn't so jarring - page three: since readers were present for Atena's meltdown, we don't need it recapped. Instead, consider having her discuss more of her mental state and reasonings, not just her actions - page four: why is Atena talking to her dragon friend, seemingly looking for help, if she's not ready for help (per the end of their dialogue)? I think I see what you're going for, but it needs to be emotionally brought a bit better - page five: name overload - the flashback runs heavy with imagery. It was very hard to keep from skimming. In contrast, before that I was genuinely enjoying the narrative.