Jorville

@Mandamon, thanks this kind of stuff is exactly what I need. 

3 hours ago, Mandamon said:

Overall, I think the main character can be interesting, but the events in this chapter are not, particularly. This reads develops more into a romance as it goes along than a fantasy. Not that that is bad, but was not what I was expecting when I started out. Right now, I have no idea where it's headed.

Looks like you have an arc for this in mind with the villain story. What's the inciting incident that leads to that arc?

It's not a romance, and I do have an arc as I have already written it. My question is would it be better to give a general summary of the story before you guys read it or is it better to just deliver it in the bits and let people critique it as it comes?

As for interest, it sounds to me that you are saying that the events aren't interesting so I should focus on that rather then trying to make M herself more interesting. Am I correct in this?

3 hours ago, Mandamon said:

My biggest problem is: What is the hook that gets us into the story? Why do we care about this character? What exciting events are happening?
We start out with getting a dress for a ball, where even in romance, you need to connect with the character first to care why she is going to the character first to care why she is going to the ball.

From you comments I am thinking that I should probably take out the part of her thinking about the events and just write a beginning that is perhaps in the aftermath of events.

3 hours ago, Mandamon said:

pg 2: "She had come home from the ball her father had arranged for her to attend crying"
--She'd come home crying from the ball...

pg 3: There's been a lot of description so far, but not a lot to actively catch my interest.

pg 3: "They had fought for a few moments"
--this section has some...strange family dynamics..

Yeah the reason it's in red is that my wife has been really insistent that I take that part out. I was going for an expression of her not used to haveing men behave this way so she would act oddly, but it obviously it just sounds weird so leans me more to write a better more interesting beginning.

3 hours ago, Mandamon said:

pg 4: "Back among her own tribe"

--ok, so she's not native to this place. That might be good to bring out more earlier.

pg 7: "She however was the daughter of the richest man in the entire city"
--so she is a native then? Or did her father move from the tribe? Or was she raised in the tribe and came to this city recently?

this is something I address later. Her Father is from the city, her mother is not. Is that confusion ok if it is addressed later or should I try to figure out how to clear it up?

3 hours ago, Mandamon said:

pg 7: "called out in a clear voice"

--She's not winning any sympathetic points.

pg 9: "Fetch it and we shall see if it meets my standards."
--Not getting any more attached to M...

pg 10, top: All this is a big tell about M. Can you show us this competency and skill instead? 

So the initial feedback was that I made M too soft in the beginning. As I said she eventually becomes a villain so I wanted to make the transition believable. I might have swung too hard the other way and made her just look like a jerk.

Thanks for all the red ink, this is what I need.

Also, forgot to ask, when you said chapters that intentional? I ask because I always struggle with where and how to place chapters so if this feels like it should be a chapter I would like to know.

Suppose I will introduce myself after a week on this forum.

My name is Jake, my middle name is Orville(now you know the secret of my user name). I have been actually writing things off and on for about 5 years now, after some encouragement from my wife. I really enjoy thinking of stories and often disappoint myself with how little time I actually spend sitting down and writing. I recently transferred from sea duty to shore duty with the US Navy so I am hoping to kick myself in the pants and actually get som stuff done.

So far this community has been really cool and have enjoyed being here.

This the second iteration of my largest completed story of 26k words. Have only had my wife and a few buddies from the submarine read and comment on it. As such it's still pretty raw, most of the changes I made were on the first half so the back half is pretty much the original. I have read through it again and would say some very mild V, it's mostly imagined and very brief.
things I know for sure I need feedback/to work on:

Structure, it's a single perspective but no chapters or labels only scene breaks.

Magic, My ideas were (and are still) vague. I should probably lay out my ideas on magic for feedback by itself, lol.

the arc of the main character, this is essentially a villain origin story. She isnt a full fledged villain by the end but I want to make sure the the arc is believable.

I know this is only the first two scene and some or all of this may not apply. Anyways, thanks in advance for any of the criticism I know it still needs a lot of work.
 

@industrialistDragon, good suggestion but I don't really do handwritten copies(dont think it's possible with a nosy 3 year old around anyways.) but like @Mandamon part of me wants to save time. it occurs to me that I could scan it and just keep the original as a pdf and write the changes as I go.

Also you guys have me so jealous with this Ireland talk, I would love to go there. I've only been to Scotland and England and that was with the navy so it wasn't a real vacation.

Hey, got what might be an odd question:

Background:I have probably 20k words worth of material that I wrote on the submarine(I mentioned that I am in the navy and served on a submarine in another post). Because of the nature of the work I could not send the material to myself via email so I had to print it off. now I am left with all that to transcribe back on to my computer. reading through it while I notice things I want to change.

Question: Should I transcribe everything exactly as it is and then change it later or do I make changes while I transcribe the material?

Welcome, glad to have you in the community.

Glad, to have you here. If you could have the powers from one of the Cosmere worlds which one would it be?

Welcome, this is a great community and a great way to get your Sanderson fix.

10 hours ago, Robinski said:

 

You're not an engineer, are you, by any chance? 

* I should have added to the welcome message--and try to remember, but don't always--to ask that people don't use character names in critiquing my stuff. You will see that several other submitters on here ask that too. It's related to publishing, and the possibility that, if your work does get published, people might find these forums by searching for character names, and that see all this material which, clearly, would not be good! So, can I ask you, if you wouldn't mind, to edit your post here and abbreviate the names of the characters, places, etc? I should have asked in my original post, sorry.

 

While not an actual Engineer, I am a nuclear operator for US submarines. This means I spend my time in the navy in a super technical field where the principles of thermodynamics are pretty important, so its kinda stuck in my brain.

Thanks for the heads up I will edit my post to reflect the character names issue.. 

Really clear outline, very well organized. I need to develop my own ability to do that. 

I like the basis section, good basic concepts on that. I was thinking about the government system though, so going to put on my history/philosophy hat for a moment. A monarchy is only as good as the monarch. If you want to have a neutral good state then you might consider more of a Roman imperial model with significant amount of power shifted to a legislative body to keep the monarchy from getting out of control. I understand this might be a little to in depth on this point but you could end up with an organization that trys to keep balance between the two branches of government or two organizations that each watch out for their respective corners. Anyway that might be a little overboard on that side of things but as someone who is interested in that sort of thing it caught my attention.

For the stereotypes: I don't think its necessary to wholly avoid those. You could put one in and leave out the others, or try to give one or two a twist. like you said avoiding a stereotype can get to be a stereotype of own.

On the Magic system: I was thinking that it was a few too may steps to get the power. Going a little nerdy on this but every time something is altered in form it loses energy. It would make a little more sense to me if the magic user could pull the energy directly from a bone, burning it up in the process of using that energy. You could still have people using ash or potion but that would then give less energy then so then solid bone would make you more powerful but would then have a built in inconvenience making it harder. That's a little more logical to me then drinking tons of magic bone juice to get more power.

Characters: The only flaw I saw was G. If he is a moral hero why would he be fighting a the monarchy for justice with the common people? To me having a classic moral hero fighting a neutral good state makes the hero look silly. might want to give him a past with his family being imprisoned wrongly or something so that he has an actual reason to dislike the benevolent monarchy.

For the story:  I think that the animus behind the test/robbery could use some work. I feel like the we need to test this guy cause we are down a member is a little thin even with the suspected necromancy. Maybe have the necromancer be a rogue member of the C or a member of a rival faction of D, something like that.

Questions:

High stakes: I think the stakes are high enough, especially for a first in a series.

Interactions: I think the ideas a pretty solid would have to see it written out to get a better picture of it.

Interesting set up: Yeah I think the setting and set up sound intriguing.

Magic: already said my outlook.

Last note: Another Kingdom is a narrative podcast, which will be turned into a book by author Andrew Klavan.  I know different stories can have the same title or similar but if originality is important to you you might want to think about it.

Overall: A lot of good stuff in there, would really like to see how the story plays out.

Welcome, glad to have you. What's your favorite Sanderson world?

I am curious what other people think about this. I have only read it twice but that's because I can only read it when I am in for a good cry after. I would have to say that if it's not my favorite it would definitely be in my top 3 all time favorite stories.

The interplay between Shai and Gaotona is just amazing. There wasn't a character in the story that I felt was boring or I didn't have an opinion on. The whole thing is just beautiful.

4 hours ago, Elenion said:

From the 17S discord get a link to the 17S D&D discord, and there's at least one channel that they're discussing MAG and maybe playing.

Is there a link posted or should I ask?

When all the other people at your D&D group complain at you and the only other Sanderfan are "Nerding out" over Oathbringer.

Just now, Reckless Reader said:

My life to yours, my Breath become yours.

Also, if it doesn't spoil too much, what is Breath?

It the animation force behind the magic in Warbreaker.

Waiting on the first to Legion books to arrive. Rothfuss, Also have not seen a new Magic of Recluse book in a bit and still need to start the Skull Throne.

I got the MAG with the House War kickstarter. I have been really interested in it but have not had enough people around me to play it with. Now that I am here(17th Shard), I was wondering if anyone could point me to where/who I could look at getting a game via the I internet/Skype/whatever.

Well, I suppose it doesn't matter if you are not a Nalthian, but if you are and don't care then it doesn't matter either way.

I have some material for this Monday, if that is cool.

Welcome, glad to have you here.

@Mandamon, I would love to read the rest.

Hello, I am new to the group so this is the first sampling of yours I have read. Some of my comments might have been addressed earlier so sorry if I put out some useless stuff I apologize.

First off, I enjoyed how easy it was to follow what the characters were doing. For jumping in to the middle of a story The actions of the characters were easy to understand and it was easy to follow events as they progressed. That being said, I didn't really get a feel for the environment. I understand they are climbing up a wall but am unsure of the terrain change and what allows them to transition from wall climbing to walking around on stuff. Also, I did not get the sense of a city. This may have been intentional, as a different concept of a city to our own but I didn't get the bustling sense and expansiveness that a city usually invokes.

The other thing I found odd is the diction choice in the excerpt at the beginning. I understand that W(name sounds Hawaiian btw, lol) talks in an odd diction when speaking to the other members of the party in what I assume is their language. I would think that the excerpt from his book would have been In his own language. This would then erase the odd English diction as even a translation of a book written in his own language would have been clearer with a more formal diction. This is all, of course, predicated on the idea that he does speak a different language from the other characters.

Overall I enjoyed it even if I did come in on part 7.

I second Kredik Shaw or Stick. @Archer is correct Stick out of wood would(wood would haha) be great!

I was playing WoW and hanging out in vent when I heard that someone had been Chosen to finish the WoT. I then went to the internet and looked up the first book by this guy named Brandon Sanderson and bought Elantris, read it and I was hooked, devoured everything I could by him in 2010-11 time frame. Also quickly found out he was LDS(as am I) so that contributed his coolness factor.

The Beatles are one of the most overrated bands in history. They actually did very little to influence the music industry. Also John Lennon was a terrible person.