andyk

Plot-wise, I liked this. I thought that the movement back and forth in time worked, and the resolution fitted well with what came before. It seemed from the start that this was going to be about Ann's conflict with Jack and/or her losing him, and both those things were paid off. It's a resolution with a lot of potential to meet your challenge of touching the heart. Given that particular challenge, I think the biggest weakness is in getting the characters across. I didn't have a strong sense of who they were, beyond musician and parent/manager, or of how Ann felt about what was going on. My first impression of Ann, based on her thoughts about working as a musician, was of someone older than she was, and so I was pulled out of the story later on when I realised how young she was. If I'd known the characters better I'd have been more touched by their story. I also didn't get a strong sense of place in most scenes. For example in the first flash-back, when she's about to go out in front of a crowd, I had no idea how big this crowd was or what sort of place it was. Is it just a dozen guys in a bar or thousands of people in an intimidating arena? This would have affected how I saw the characters, knowing what sort of crowd they were viewing the way they did. A slightly stronger sense of place would also have helped in picturing the scene at the Laughterhouse. One plot point didn't make sense to me. If this is a teenage girl who's been pulled out of a car wreck, clearly injured and suffering from shock, why has she been left with her injured dog at the vet's? Surely someone would have taken her to a doctor or hospital, and dealt with the dog separately? Once I realised that she hadn't pulled herself out of the accident, this beginning bothered me. That said, her confusion and shock following the accident did come across well in that scene, helped me empathise for her and drew me into the story.

This one's a short story, meant to be steampunk in a Mayan rather than western setting. How coherently and vividly I've portrayed the setting is one of my biggest concerns, but I'd appreciate feedback on all aspects of the story. Looking forward to seeing what you have to say.

I'd like to submit next week.

I'm intrigued by this idea of a divine murder mystery, and there were some great details - the way the body was both hidden and revealed, the pot of urine (odd but made sense, funny to me but something the believers could take seriously - was this from a real life cult or did you come up with it yourself?). Most of my thoughts on this were around the characters, so I'll split them up that way. First up Mahau. I liked how the section started, using the descriptive scene of the setting to demonstrate something of his personality. But after that I lost interest in him. He seemed more like a modern human than a god of vengeance. Things like his commentary on worshippers as currency just didn't feel like the mindset of a vengeful, awe-inspiring divinity. Making comment on this within the story was good, but I'm not sure why it comes from him. I really liked Arlon. Or rather, I loved to hate him. The guy's clearly a tool, but he's a hugely entertaining tool, kind of like I imagine many Norse gods to be. To me, he had the strongest personality, and showed the arrogance, insensitivity and indifference I expect from a mythological deity. Really enjoyed him. I wanted to like Neda, and think I might have done if I'd read this from the start, but in this section she mostly just seemed grumpy. The intolerance within that fitted a priestess of vengeance, but I think I needed to like her first, so that I'd feel sympathetic. Like I say, probably works if you've read earlier chapters. But I also didn't buy in to how casually she was treating and thinking about the gods. She's dedicated her life to worship - shouldn't she feel a sense of awe and grandeur at working with two deities, including one she worships? And where's her confidence in the god she's dedicated her life to? For a lifetime believer, she didn't always have high expectations of him. Having her attitude turn casual through the story would be an interesting arc, but didn't feel right to me for an early chapter. I had a similar view on the pope's behaviour, especially the things he said. He's the high priest of a temple, and now these outside gods are intruding right to the heart of the inner sanctum - where's the arrogance? Where's the outrage? Where's the assumption that his god must be doing things right? After all, he believes enough to dedicate his life to this guy, surely he won't quickly accept that he's anything other than awesome? It seemed at times that you were heading that way, but more of it could have made some really entertaining conflict, and if he doesn't view things that way I would want to know why. Overall, I I didn't believe in this as a scene between powerful gods and their high priests, not because it was badly written but because of what I saw of their personalities. I like the plot and am interested in how the characters deal with each other. Especially Arlon - the more I think about it, the more he's my favourite. Hope that helps. PS When they found the sock in the bed my mind immediately leapt to inappropriate jokes about teenage boys and crusty socks. Then I went 'no, not that sort of story'. But then after that I went 'wait, isn't that something Arlon might joke about?'

I've just compared my notes with what Mandamon said, and there's a lot of similar stuff. I liked Aaron, his independence and courage in doing things despite his blindness. But I was never really drawn into his journey. It was mostly a matter of motive - I didn't know why he was going up the volcano except that his vision went that way, and I didn't know why he believed in or was following his vision, never mind doing so without help from other humans. I didn't feel like there was anything really at stake, or know how he felt about stuff along the way. When he started seeing things that were different from the world around him I was intrigued. By that point I expected him to regain his sight, and so this twist came as an interesting surprise. It was a cool touch, and I would have liked to know more about how and why this discrepancy arose. Despite this, I drifted off a bit mentally just after he started seeing things. I think this was because I still didn't feel much tension, either through internal conflict or external danger. I liked that the ending wasn't the obvious 'and then he could see' finale. But I didn't know why Aaron just gave up at that point, or how he felt about it, and so I didn't feel much of anything myself. If you can get inside Aaron's motives and work out the ending I think you'll have a much stronger story.

Morning all (or afternoon, evening, depending on where in the world you are) I've just signed up for reading excuses, and thought I should introduce myself before I start offering opinions. I'm Andy, I live in one of the wettest, greyest corners of the UK, and that may help explain why I write scifi and fantasy. I've been listening to Writing Excuses for a couple of years, and listened to the rest of the back catalogue last year. I mean to make use of something from the podcast each week, but I seldom remember. I mostly write short stories, and I've had about forty published in the past few years, mostly in semi-pro places. My aim for this year is to up my game and get into some big name magazines. My favourite authors include Iain M Banks, China Mieville and Neil Gaiman (just noticed that it's all Brits - not a deliberate choice, honest). But my all time favourite book is The Great Gatsby - only time I've got to the end of a book and gone straight back to the beginning. When I'm not reading or writing I indulge in all sorts of gaming, gardening, and watching American TV dramas - TV is one thing we're not so good at on this side of the Atlantic. Looking forward to joining in the discussions.

I've also been writing a story using emotion based magic, but I took a different angle, where the magic users pulled power from the emotions of others. This can make a great orator or master manipulator very powerful even if they themselves are dead inside. It also created sources of conflict, due to the potential for abuse, as mages reduce other people to emotional husks. That said, after reading this thread, I'm starting to think that I'd taken the wrong approach. The idea of connecting this magic into emotional disorders and therapy has great potential for a modern setting. If you can avoid your own emotional traumas by turning anger into fire or grief into a snow storm, what happens to your personality? And if someone counters that spell, what does the backlash do to you? Shaidar's idea of connecting particular emotions to particular effects seems like the obvious limitation and why of adding flavour. Maybe you could do this by looking for a core quality each emotion has, and using magic to transfer that to the physical world, for example: - anger - destructive - fire, explosions, and so on, the obvious one - happiness - energetic - moving quickly, flinging stuff around, maybe wielding electricity (though I'm stretching my own logic there) - grief - turmoil and confusion - creating storms, scrambling people's thoughts, stirring cake mix (not all magic need be big and showy, right?) But the other thing that occurred to me is the wider implications if only real emotion is a power source. Does that make it more obvious when people are faking, because it doesn't provide power? Does it mean magic users become more honest, because their colleagues can spot their lack of power if they're faking? Or does it mean they sometimes go to great lengths to fake emotions, to bluff people about how much power they have? What does a psychiatrist or mind healer's job look like when people have even more interest in hiding their emotions, but even less ability to do so? Like Comatose said, just some thoughts, but ones that mean I'm going back to re-write my own story now.

I get a lot of my advice from podcasts, as it lets me work on my writing while doing housework. My favourites include: Adventures in SciFi Publishing - lots of author interviews, so a variety of comments on technique I Should Be Writing - as much for motivation as for technique, I like listening to Mur but she rambles a bit The Roundtable Podcast - alternates between interviews with authors and shows where they demonstrate their skills by workshoping a story - has unfortunately just gone on hiatus, but there's a whole load of old shows to listen to

As someone new to this forum, this seemed a good place to start. For me, the most useful thing I've learned has been seven point story structure. It's really helped me to think about structure beyond the obvious beginning, middle, end, and my plots have got better for it. Mindie's point about writing being an obtainable goal comes a close second. That said, I find something useful pretty much every episode, so 'most useful' really just means 'what I'm using right now'.

I'm a big fan of Writing Excuses, and signed up to discuss the show with other fans. This also seemed like a good place to find out more about Brandon's books. I'm British, so mostly communicate through understatement, sarcasm, and invading other countries.