Coop

Hey Hobbit, this opening chapter worked just fine for me, and I have only two suggestions for you. One is that I wasn't getting much of a visual on each of the characters as I read. Maybe a little more description would help, but also some mannerisms or tendencies to help me get a better sense of their individual personalities. The other thing is that I think you can heighten the interest/tension in the first half of the scene--the conversation about Selnest. It could have held my interest better. I think the overall concept is good--two guys approaching an Elder about somebody doing bad stuff--but I think you could key into the tension a little better. Maybe show the boys' growing frustration (and trying to contain anger) as Luros refuses to go along with what they want (maybe add some mystery as to why Luros is refusing them); maybe they're worried Selnest is going to show up at the hut at any moment; maybe approaching Luros is a little dangerous anyway because he is linked to Selnest in some way. Nice work. I look forward to chapter 2.

Hey everyone, thanks for reading! Synopsis to this point: Sira is a 12-year-old girl who finds an unusual path of moss in a forest. At the end of the path she discovers an underground chamber that contains a chest full of colorful costumes and strange bronze objects. She takes the golden-colored costume and leaves. She reluctantly returns that night to her grandfather’s farmhouse where she is staying for the summer while her mother is overseas. She doesn’t like anything about being there, most particularly her grandfather, whose seriously disfigured appearance was the source of trauma for her as a young child. She tries out the equipment on the golden costume but can’t figure out what it’s for. She is back inside the underground room when the only door suddenly shuts her in and she sees a flash of red pass outside. She is relieved to find the door unlocked and hurries away.

Hey Hobbit, I'm glad you've joined Reading Excuses! It's nice to have your friendly, upbeat personality around here. I drafted some thoughts the other night but didn't have time to post them, and it seems that much of what I was going to say has been covered already. So I'll spare you that and suggest a couple things you can take or leave. Concerning this long action scene, I think I would be fine with the same sequence of events that you've covered in this prologue but perhaps condensed to around four pages. One suggestion you might use for dealing with the action is to use some summarizing sentences to describe the action rather than providing a complete play-by-play. For example, you might start the fight by describing exactly how Elias and the wolves are battling (a play-by-play, as you've already provided), so the reader can get a sense of what it looks like. And then you could throw in some summarizing descriptions such as: "The battle continued down the mountainside and left a trail of blood and three dead wolves." Then, the reader's mind will immediately fill in the gaps, imagining all of the lunging and slicing and biting that you don't need to describe. We don't need a complete play-by-play because, for example, a boxing match is exciting to watch, but reading a full play-by-play of the dozens and hundreds of punches thrown would get tedious--"And then he leaned left and punched upward. But the other countered with a right. The first fell back and..." A big thing for me when reading is the mood of the story, and I really liked the atmosphere and this world (as little we know of it yet) in this submission. Oh, I would recommend varying sentence constructions a little more. For example, I think they're called participle phrases, but I started noticing a lot of sentences that use a comma and then an -ing verb to finish the sentence. At one point (the top of page 3) there are five of these sentences in a row. Did the horse really intentionally take an arrow for him? I find that hard to believe. Maybe I read it wrong. Confusion: Did the man with the bow slit his own wolf's throat? Did a branch suddenly fall on Elias--wild coincidence or magic? Again, if the events in this prologue were consolidated to three or four pages, I wouldn't need to know more of the stakes or anything at this point. I know that a major and mysterious landslide occurred, causing destruction, and that Elias is getting attacked by unknown assailants. That is enough to keep me reading. Looking forward to chapter 1!

Could you put me down to submit this upcoming week, the 5th?

Thanks Mandamon, I have found all of this feedback helpful, whether it's right away or a week later. Can I ask one last question to anyone still awake at this point? One thing I'm planning to do to make Sira a little more sympathetic (hopefully) is to show that she feels guilty for the way she feels toward and treats her Grandfather. She beats herself up for feeling the way she does about him and wishes she could just get over it, but traumas don't just go away overnight. So my question is, Mandamon and others ( @kaisa @krystalynn03 @rdpulfer @Robinski ) have suggested that it would be better to hint at her fears toward Grandpa earlier in the story rather than splashing it all out there at once. Could you help me understand why you feel this way? I can't read it with the fresh eyes that you have, so I'm wondering what the problem is about dropping it all at once as a major reveal.

@Robinski Oops. I was just starting my revisions today when I noticed that we have an actual "amateur John Cleese lookalike" among us. I would hate for my silly walk to step on anyone's toes or their mojo, so let me know if this is a problem and I can go back to either the Spaceman Spiff or Guy Fleegman backup plan I had in mind.

That is helpful to know, krystalynn. Thank you!

Ooh - this is good! Nice thinking. Kaisa, one thing I'm gathering from you is that Sira's treatment of Grandpa is off-putting and that it would help to provide more basis for her fears. Are there other things that made you dislike her? You mentioned how quick she was to cry in the cave. I'm just trying to make sure I'm considering everything. Thanks

Hey Vreeah, I liked most of the ideas you bring out in this chapter, though I think the chapter could use some cleaning up. I liked the pace. I liked the tone of the story, which helped me get inside the world (as I did in the first chapter). I was often confused by your descriptions in the battle scene. I could tell that you were trying to do interesting things with the magic, but I got lost at points in the descriptions. Examples of my confusion: Reginald's spell at the end of page three. Maybe it'd be better to simplify it to either the cube or the sphere. I got lost trying to keep track of spheres, cubes, jewels, stars, and glittery specks. In another place you mention "starlike spheres"--I'm having trouble picturing that. You have Reginald's "shoulder pinned beneath a war hammer." My first thought was confusion: "Did he really get smashed by a giant hammer? How else could he be pinned by it?" I could kind of tell what was happening with the air box, but that wasn't too clear either. What's clear is that you are seeing these images vividly--which is great--but I think you should go through each description to make sure you are using the right words to accurately and simply convey your ideas. P.S. The visual of a guy moving so fast that his curly hair goes straight would be perfect in a comedy, but I don't think it fits the tone here. In a comedy, I would laugh out loud at that. As with Kaisa, I also didn't think the conversation between Riley and her mother was realistic. It also didn't seem like the time or place for an extended conversation of that nature. There are some complicated dynamics in Riley's relationships with her parents. They don't want her to get involved in thieving, yet that's the very example they are setting for her. She's getting a little too independent and capable to be parented by them as much as when she was younger yet she is still their responsibility. I only mention this because I think it will take extra careful thought when writing their scenes together--it's not a normal parent-child relationship. If you haven't done it already, you could try running these characters through practice dialogues which could help you see where they really stand on these issues--it's also useful in finding their distinct voices. "Kidnapping fundraiser" - nice! "Eating the lights" - nice! I like where you're going with this. Glad you're submitting!

@kaisa @krystalynn03 @Hobbit @Robinski @rdpulfer @Vreeah @AuthorityHellas16 Thank you all for taking the time to read and respond to this! You've given me a treasure trove of excellent ideas to work through in my revisions! Quick thought for any of you who care to respond. I kinda need Sira to be self-absorbed and lacking in empathy at this point of the story because getting beyond those things is a central part of her arc. But at the moment she's a little off-putting to some (or many) readers. Any brilliant, elegant ideas for making a character like this sympathetic without being too in-your-face about it?

One quick thought that you can take or leave... In the prologue, Atena's side sliced rather quickly through the enemy and got straight to Cronus, putting him in position for a deathblow. So my initial reaction was surprise that the war is continuing twelve years later. I thought Atena's people would make short work of them. So I think you could build more drama around the idea that it turns out that Atena's side has grossly underestimated the enemy, or that Atena's side seems to have every advantage yet Cronus keeps slipping away or pulling off surprising victories. A good reference might be people's feelings about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as the years stretched on: "Why in the world are people still dying over there? We've got more tanks! This thing should be over years ago!" I think there's loads of drama in that which might help you build the stakes and Atena's character. Also, firmly agree about The Incredibles. Brilliant movie. I'm usually skeptical about sequels, but I guess we'll see...

Hey AuthorityHellas, I was happy for the chance to read some more of your stuff. Ultimately, I wasn't as excited about this chapter as I was about some of your other submissions. I struggled to maintain interest, occasionally needing to reread sentences or paragraphs where my focus waned. I've been trying to puzzle out why I wasn't super engaged, and here's what I've come up with. For one thing, you've decided to start your chapter with paperwork, which *isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I think you have to work extra hard to make paperwork interesting. (*One of the most interesting and rewatchable scenes in The Incredibles is a scene about paperwork, which follows a similar setup as you have: start with a big action scene, showing the MCs in their glory, then juxtapose that with a time-skip to Mr. Incredible pushing papers in a honeycomb of cubicles.) For example, the information contained in Atena's paperwork wasn't too interesting to me; could one or more of them hint at or reveal something significant about what is coming? Another way you might make the paperwork scene, the talk with Marcus, and the walk to her apartment a little more engaging would be to bring out some additional PTSD symptoms sooner. As you have it now, the first 4 or 5 pages are about Atena being simply tired and worn out from a long war. But, as emotions go, tired and worn out aren't the most compelling. Since she's a war hero suffering from PTSD, it would be really compelling to see how she tries to conceal those symptoms from her associates--from Marcus, for example. Rather than simply tired and worn out, how about showing that she's got so much pent-up stress that she lashes out at others, or is becoming unreasonable where she previously was clear-minded, or is more careless and mistake-prone in her work. These are just suggestions--you would know better what to do with this character. Also, I agree with @kaisa that I'm not sure yet why I should care about the war. Again, a military leader struggling to hold back and conceal a serious case of PTSD would make a great read (if that's indeed what you're going for), and so the initial setup for your book/story sound great, but I wasn't too excited about how you executed this chapter. Hope that helps!

Hey everyone, thanks in advance for reading this. Any and all commentary is appreciated. For continuity, I started the submission with the last paragraph from the previous chapter. Quick synopsis of pt. 1: Sira is a 12-year-old girl who finds an unusual path of moss in a forest. At the end of the path she discovers an underground chamber that contains a chest full of colorful costumes and strange bronze objects. She takes the golden-colored costume and leaves.

Hey neongrey, I'm afraid that I don't have much more to say about Lasila that hasn't been said above. The good thing is that I got a strong sense of her character and that she has the makings of a very real, multidimensional character. The world you've created also feels vivid and mysterious; I want to keep reading to know more about it. This is a little thing, but I also really like the names you've chosen for characters and places. Each one meshes well with the characters and with the overall tone of the story.

Your explanation above definitely clears some things up for me. I'll be happy to read a revision of this or the next chapters you have coming.

Hey Vreeah, welcome to the group! I'm afraid that the main issue for me is how similar this is to what I remember of the first Mistborn book, and I'm having trouble seeing past that. Riley uses elra much the same way that Vin used allomancy, not to mention that the two characters feel similar to me, both having roguish, urchin-like qualities about them. The rooftop approach of the hotel reminded me of scenes in those books too. If I wasn't familiar with the Mistborn series, I think I would have read this chapter very differently and might have gotten into it a lot more because there are things about your imagery and writing that I really like. Are there things you can do to distinguish this world more from Sanderson's? I love magic systems, and would like to see what else you can do with it. Another reaction I had was that the heist sequence was a little unbelievable for me. You mentioned that the penthouse had strong fortifications. If so, would it really be susceptible to her vent-clogging scheme? (Particularly considering this is a magic-using world with lots of dangerous possibilities.) She seems like she's rushing into this heist, not even scouting it out; this doesn't sound like the work of someone who has already managed to rob from so many wealthy, powerful people in the city. She also seems unprepared for what magic-using fortifiers can do. The invisible box trap seems like something an advanced thief would be ready to counter. Also, it sounds like the king is visibly exposed in the penthouse; wouldn't a penthouse (for a king, especially) be a bit more private? Finally, my fatherly instincts kicked in when I read how casually Reginald sent off his daughter to rob powerful people. Even if she's done it a dozen times before, I'm not ready to believe that he could be so easy-going about sending her out into danger. Again, if this hadn't reminded me so much of Mistborn, I think I would have really gotten into this story, so I'm looking forward to seeing what else you can come up with.

Just reading this submission now because I didn't get a chance to last week and I want to be caught up when you make your next submission... So here's just a few thoughts. I wasn't terribly interested in Grimes' character and there wasn't a whole lot of plot going on to maintain my interest there either. HOWEVER, you have an excellent eye for observation about these characters and their surroundings and have a remarkable way of capturing these insights in just a phrase or two, so I found myself simply enjoying your prose. Looking forward to seeing what you can do with this excellent prose in a book, beyond these character sketches. I'm also interested in seeing how you will use Quirk in your final product. Seems like you could take him all sorts of directions--a mark of a strong character. I'm feeling sort of a love-hate thing toward him: I'm apprehensive about him and am kinda rooting against him, but simultaneously can't take my eyes off him. In case this is helpful to you, something keeps reminding me of Baron Harokonnen when I read Quirk. Not that Quirk is a copy in any way--he's definitely different in language, for example--but they seem similar at their cores. I just mention this so you know what kind of reaction I'm having to him as a reader. Also, maybe I missed some descriptors, but I can't get a sense of what Quirk looks like. I know what he's wearing of course , and I know he's bothered by his weight, but I can't tell if he's just worried about a few pounds or if he's a lot heavier. Age? Other? I'm enjoying it!

Could you put me on the list to submit next week (the 22nd)?

Robinski, those line-by-lines will be very helpful. Thanks for taking the time on this!

Krystalynn, if you are up for that, I would be very grateful.

I've written the full book. This is my first round of critiques beyond the input of family and friends.

Thanks for the responses. That answers my question.

Hey AuthorityHellas, Overall, I liked this new prologue well enough but can't say I loved it or that I'm hooked. As I read, I kept waiting for the big surprise, or for a seriously deadly threat to enter the stage, but it didn't really happen. Cronus showed up, but they handled him easily enough so I'm not worried about the characters being able to handle him again later on, despite his warnings about a "benefactor." In other words, I'm thinking that one purpose of your prologue was to establish a serious threat that will leave me thinking, "Wow, how are they going to handle that?" and get me hooked, but I'm not feeling a threat. Is there something Cronus can do to strike a major blow to the defenders rather than just getting away scot-free? I really like your descriptions and world-building. As with others, I agree that the prose is a little adjective-heavy, a little bogged down. Another edit or two should clean it up. You said they've had 500 years of peace. How then did they get so accomplished at warfare? On the point of world-building, I still think you should tease, or introduce, aspects of this world a little slower. It's like the rule of thumb that a writer shouldn't introduce too many characters at once, overwhelming the reader. You're offering a lot of new inventions to the reader, and I think you should allow more opportunity for each to sink in, or sprinkle them throughout the book. You very rapidly introduce Devastators, Lightning teams, Guardians, Seekers, Forging (with several different outcomes in this chapter), Marks, Custodian energy blades, aspect energy, wings, etc. I think you want to show how rich this world is (and it is rich), but the overall effect (for me, at least) is like one of those hyperactive and ultra-colorful shows they make nowadays for kids. This is a "less is more" thing, for me. There's tons of cool stuff but I felt like you were piling them up on my plate, instead of using showmanship to amaze me with each one. Scanning the comments above, I don't see others making the same point so maybe it's just me... Nice work!

Kryastalynn, thanks for taking the time to provide detailed feedback. Your comments about obstacles vs. complications nicely capture something that nags at me as a writer, something I need to address. Question: If she was eight or ten would her imaginative play be more believable to you? Holy smokes you've done a lot of thinking about forests! Admittedly, the extent of my research into this forest was to image-search words that I was pretty sure were the names of trees just to make sure they weren't a cactus. Thank you for your comments, kaisa. Thanks for the line-by-lines, Mandamon, they will be very helpful for my next edit. Thanks neongrey, I appreciate you pointing out problems with particular sentences and with passive voice especially. And regarding your final point, here's a question for any and all still reading: I'm hearing some concern about the story taking too long to get to this point. Would you still be feeling this way if the same words/narration was in 1 or 2 chapters instead of 4? Is it the narration that drags or the fact that 4 chapters just seems like a lot? For the record, 4 chapters seems like a lot to me too. I was trying to use a very brief chapter format that you often find in MG books, but I've never felt completely comfortable with how it looks in this opening section of this book.

Hello all, this is way early because I'm leaving right now on a hiking trip and will have limited access for a few days. These are the first four chapters (3237 words) to a middle grade novel, probably targeting 10-12 year-olds. Looking for any feedback you'd like to give. Also, what's your initial reaction to the title? Thanks