Robinski

Hey, Daddy Warpig, when is posted that lol, I meant that it's very quiet (forums are rubbish for irony). I'm sure Silk will come on soon and say go ahead for Monday, as the perennial Mandamon is the only other person on the (starting) blocks. But if Silk doesn't message I'm sure you could go ahead. : o )

Looking at your comments, I thought Marlene and Joe's personalities were differentiated. I felt that Joe was more tense about things concerned about what people thought, but maybe less bullish than Marlene in his reactions to people. My comment was more aimed at the tone of their dialogue, as you noted.

Comments: continued. - The spiky frisson in their conversation with the neighbours is excellent. I think it adds another dimension to the story and shows an understanding that all fiction, regardless of genre, is about the characters. - I like your comic asides, possibly because I tend towards that style myself. I like to think I appreciate a good one-liner when I see it. - You have a real tendency to repeat the character's name which is tripping me up on a regular basis. In the section "Joe left for work...", 2nd paragraph, you use "Marlene" three times in the first two lines. For me, once you've established that it's Marlene, you can pretty much use 'she' until the reference someone else, or at least for a couple of paragraphs before the need to use her name again. - Nice 'reveal' with the multiple drones. That impact for me quite nicely. Surprising yet inevitable. The temperature and security thing isn't all that radical, as iPhones can do that now, as i understand it, but it's still a good concept. The Scottish Government (I'm from Glasgow) has caused a furore in the press after suggesting that school children could be tracked to monitor that they are where they should be. Quite a big issue here at the moment. - I'm not sure that the reminder is lonely, is it? - Referring back to my point about the use of 'Marlene' there's a point here at which you could do with one (I think). "She did her best to ignore the whirl-click..." comes right after you refer to Tracy, so making that a ;Marlene' would confirm to the reader whose perspective we're in. - I like your turn of phrase in describing characters. The thumbnail sketch of Nat Green is very effective, I think, and the description of his laugh was great. - I don't know what TMZ is. - "...wife in a bathing suite..." - There seems to be some POV confusion when Nat is leaving the house. I though we were in Marlene's POV, but she questions the cost, whereas the narrative says 'It was worth it." That seems to be Joe's thought (as it contradicts Marlene's). The rest of the section sounds like Joe too. For me that was a jump in POV. - "...tracing the small of her back..." - Nice use of "face the cameras". - "...the house across the seat street." - Interesting at the end you anthropomorphise he drone (his engine) - I thought that was unnecessary - I don't remember you doing that anywhere else. I enjoyed the story. I thought the characters were well drawn, convincing, and the idea was good, although I found that I predicted the ending quite early on. There was really no other reason for Arnie to be in the story. One issue I did have was that Joe and Marlene (and Nat too) had quite a similar tone about them. They all seemed to be partial to a wisecrack, and come back with a one-liner in many situations. Good though, still enjoyed it and looking forward to reading more of your stuff. I felt that your style was ease to read and carried me through the story quite comfortably. Thanks for submitting.

Hey, always nice to read a new author's material. - I would say traffic "ground" to a halt. - LOL, I like the line about Arnie being a classic move monster, and the drone as wedding present. One thing struck me though. It's called Arnie, but he was the good guy in Predator, where as he was the movie monster in Terminator - seemed to be a bit of mixed reference. - Impressions after the first section: I feel that I can see your comic book influence emerging. Marlene's every response seems to be a wise crack or witticism, she's worse than Johnny Storm! I like the wise cracks, they're good, but I felt towards the end that she only seemed to have one level of response. - "Slightly bigger than the farmhouse she had spent most of her life in." or "...in which she had spent most of her life." strictly speaking. - Joe's reaction to the fact that someone he doesn't know might knock on their door struck me a little odd. I guess maybe it doesn't happen on a farm? Welcome to the big city! - I love the line about Joe being thin and wiry from talking - hilarious. (Lunch break over - I'll need to finish up later , sorry for the break in comments.)

Lol ;o)

Well, it seems to me that you guys are vastly overqualified for this forum ;o) that's some really exciting stuff. Great to have you here, things have been a tad quiet over the last 3 or 4 weeks, so fresh blood is always welcome (mua-ha-ha), although it sounds like Daddy W has been here longer than I have, as a veteran of a mere 21 months. Hey, DW are you a Black Sabbath fan? Just intrigued by your moniker. And RD (my own initials as it happens!) I am defo going to check out your comic, been admiring the artwork of your avatar these last few days. (In fact I just did, that's way cool).

Hi Kyle, I'm not up to date with the podcasts, so not exactly sure what the challenge is, but if I was writing unstable, I'd be thinking about emotions changing for no obvious reason, perhaps going through two or three in a paragraph, or disproportionate reactions, which you are doing. Difficult to show in one sentence, but maybe some internal dialogue would help. Another thought on reading your sentence. If he's lashing out at people in the market, he's going to get beaten senseless pretty quickly, I would think!

Thanks again. I'll try and start closer to home. I remember WorldCon came to Glasgow once upon a time, but I was only pootling around hobby writing and not serious about it, but I'm sure I can find something in Scotland and the UK to cut my teeth on, there are so man cons these days.

Yeah, single document, even with a 100k-200k* word novel I find it easy enough to search for stuff or leave bookmarks for relevant sections and referring back. Like Endurant Archivist (do you have a nickname that isn't 17 characters long, Mr. Archivist?), I keep a series of older versions of my ms, and always track changes that I make from critiques and edits. Traceability is king! I also have a separate 'Notes' file where I keep all my character sketches; plot outline, DP; glossary; etc. etc. [* - Don't know what numbers I had in mind earlier - complete drivel!]

Reading these comments, I agreed with repulsed that the description is lacking. I have an image in my head, but I don't know if it's the one you want me to have. I agree with most of what Bill says also, really do think you've taken a good step forward from the last version I read.

I like Aldo's "Attack" response, but I felt it lost something by Julia gushing over it. The transition seems very sudden and felt disjointed to me. I didn't get any sense of threat from the Grunt. It appeared and Aldo killed it. It appears so easy that it's hard to understand why Julia thought they needed a plan, and why Brutus is upset, when Aldo did the job on his own without breaking sweat. I like the way you foreshadowed Aldo figuring out the third stage by tempting us earlier with the fact that Julia had a familial connection and therefore appears to be more informed than him. Why are the Equos hated when they seem to be defending the populace against the demons? I didn't follow that. Aldo's language is very sophisticated, I think I might have mentioned that first time around. I'm still struck by how it makes him seem older than he is. Two consecutive sentences starting with "They...". The sentence starting "Want to be a bit more specific..." sounded a bit odd to me. To me, 'eliciting' requires some effort to get at something that is difficult to obtain. The Equos jumping onto the dirt is pretty straightforward. The word 'eliciting' sounded odd to me in that context. I like the insults between Aldo and Julia. I like that Julia seems far superior to Aldo with a sword, she really goes for it and is clearly very able compared to him. It's good. I was also comfortable with the application of the magic, which wasn't drawn out or overly complicated. I said before how I feel about 'Parma' being the magic word. To me it's like him shouting 'Brisket' or 'Liver and onions'. I felt that this version read better than the last one I read, understandably, I suppose! But to me it felt smoother and I don't recall having any 'This post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules' moments, so I was pretty happy.

I enjoyed reading this again. I glanced back at my previous comments and I’ve got less to say this time around, which I guess must be good, you’ve certainly addressed many of the issues I raised before. I hope that the following are useful. I agree with a lot of what Mandamon says about the improvements. It’s not clear that it’s Favra speaking until the end of the first dialogue sentence. I assumed it was Davan. I like the introduction of Davan, and his spectacular death really nails the dramatic life or death situation that Favra and the children are in. We know they’re in a hidden spot – give the reader credit for remembering from 30 seconds ago. Woah, was Mya the kid in the last version? If she was I didn’t get that before, whereas I do now. * Favra dared to raise her head... Some of the phrasing is a bit wordy, as an example “Jorvu ran from under the oak” could easily be “Joruv ran from cover” as you’ve mentioned the oak a few words prior. It’s good that you don’t pull back from killing the children. I enjoyed the description of Favra being hit by the bolt. When the parent says “nice work honey” it sounds like Mya has done the job, the comment seems premature. Not convinced quite so much description of what the humans are doing is needed, since you’ve set it up through their dialogue, for me, you could trim that paragraph a bit. It remains a powerful prologue, highly effective I think in introducing the themes of your story. I think it feels very naturalistic, the way we get the minator’s perspective as the wild creature in it’s natural habitat hunted by the humans. “a band of hunters of a dozen different nationalities” The first Aldo paragraph seemed a bit untidy to me. At the end the word “mouth” is used twice, and I don’t understand why Aldo’s in pain, although it’s explained, but at first it seems to be directly connected with the head wound to Diego. “the imp’s head” “Julia exited the arena, and the summoners began the short process of summoning another Imp. Another contestant entered the arena.” This phrasing seems a bit untidy. There’s a paragraph explaining that the incident with Diego was not repeated, but I didn’t think it was clear at the time Diego died that the trialists were not supposed to die. I think the initial impression is that it’s a trial to the death. I'm a bit confused that the Equos don’t seem to call the shots as to when the trials end. It seems strange that it’s up to the contestants, as implied by the exchange between Aldo and Brutus. The description of the weapon is all very well, but we don’t know either of the places mentioned. You explain that it’s expensive, but maybe if you said something like rare old wood and hard-won white steel it would resonate better, then again, the paragraph is pretty long as it is. Wordiness “Aldo gave him one look, up and down.” Why not “Aldo looked him up and down.”? What pulled loose? It sounds like the shadow. If he presses his blade against the imp’s eye, the beast flinching is going to take its eye out, surely it would be trying not to flinch. If it does flinch away, what does he press the blade down into? I found this “I think it’s time I rejoined my manservant to eat” a bit out of place. Why would he tell her that? And it’s obvious he’s going to eat from the tray. I just felt that nothing more needed to be said after he brought his conversation to a close with “it was nice talking”. Brutus’ use of “hardly” repeats Aldo’s use of the word not long before.

So... The gloom thing, fair enough, I maybe didn't register that at the time. I thought that was what you were going for, but I felt Aldo or even the narration would have registered some impression of the thing, like 'a dark furry shape' or something, whereas I don't remember as much as that - could be I've forgotten though, as it was a month ago! I take your point about the cowardly comment. His reaction just seemed so at odds with his earlier behaviour. I get that this is him coming face to face with some proper, wild danger, not a seemingly more controlled bout, and I suppose I fell for his earlier bravado and didn't expect him to crumble quite so much. I guess I'm hoping to see this trauma as a lasting effect on him as we go forward, putting some doubt in him over his own invincibility - or lack of it. The YA thing was just for the purposes of my wisecrack. I think there's always a temptation to start off thinking a young protagonist is aimed at youngsters, but I got over that pretty early on, for obvious reasons. Being long in the tooth, I've played some old, old stuff - Runequest, Rolemaster, Powers & Perils, Aftermath, Pendragon, Ringworld RPG, Judge Dredd RPG, Bushido, the list goes on. It got to the point where my best bud and I just sit in a room and play free-form almost without a system. One of us leads the story playing all the NPCs in the usual way and the other is the PC, we'll use geography from Harn (Columbia Games) or some such, but all the NPCs and scenarios comes from the GM. It's really like playing out a novel actually, more than gaming. The only 'game' / character we still play (my friend's in my Tashal scenario) has been going for about 25 years, real time, and I've written up the first three chapters of a novel based on it. I've got 770 pages of handwritten notes (don't try this at home, kids). Sorry, rambling there, but I blame you as you did ask! Naming can be a pain, I agree, and it's a very personal thing. I quite like Rubumultis, it's unlike anything I can remember seeing before. I guess the key is the reader not being able to associate it with something else, if it an unusual name. Like, John would be okay (in the right setting) because it's universal, whereas Cassio can be associated with a particular other instance (or two). Don't worry about the critiquing, I'll read anything, I guess the depth of comment might vary sometimes, but I'll get there!

Congratulations.

This is great advice, for someone like me who's never been to a con - thank you. There is no substitute for experience. Maybe some year I will pluck up the courage!

I certainly didn't mean that I was constantly thinking about Harry, Ron and the other bloke, just that structurally you're in similarly territory and little details like green for the snake cohort will probably snag some people's attention. I've got no problem with X years old. On the man-boy thing, you've got an instructor who is clearly a man, a 20 y/o who's a man and a 16 y/o who's a boy. So, are 17 y/os boys and 19 y/os men? I guess if you clearly describe the individual 20 y/o as a man (or boy) at the start, it should work, although guy out would maybe need to reinforce it from time to time.

Yay!!

I fear I've 'stolen' the credit for Sprouts comments - do I get a 'rep' for that?

Well said. Take what you want and discard the rest : o )

Hmm, Ferox seems rather over-confident in dismissing his friends. Maybe he’s right, but he’s certainly not given Aurelia any respect by barely giving her a thought. “ever-growing” “their cohort’s color” “If this is what was to be expected for the rest of the day, then there was hardly a reason for everyone to have to stand around watching” – complicated phrasing, and the last statement in the paragraph about him staying relaxed didn’t seem to follow, for me. Ferox’s reaction to the olive-skinned boy and his tactics is interesting. Again, it’s rather disparaging and dismissive, that’s going to get Ferox into trouble at some stage – or it should! You call Altus a large ‘man’, but I'm taking it that these are youths, so the ‘man’ seems very out of place. What age are the trainees again? Maybe you’ve told us already, but I forget. “with his head high” Going into Ferox’s fight, I'm really interested to see which way you’re going to go with it. It’s far too obvious that Ferox is just going to crush him, but Ferox seems more afraid of the outcome than concentrating on what he’s doing – not focused. Interesting. Okay, so there were no surprises in the bought, but it’s interesting what Ferox takes from it, the hurt done to his own chances rather than any thought for his weak opponent. It makes Ferox seem focused, rather driven, but unsympathetic and pretty selfish. It’s good character building – assuming that image of him is what you’re going for! Again, with Ferox response to Aurelia’s opponent and her situation you reinforce my image of Ferox. I'm a bit troubled by your description of Aurelia being an Apex. Why can’t someone who is fast, nimble and clever escape the attack in the way she did, why do they automatically have to be an Apex? I'm more unclear now how things like Apexes are defined and how they originate. “...end the match with the next bout” – not sure about ‘bout’. To me, a bout is a match (see the use of bout in terms of boxing), so I think it would be the next attack, or exchange, or something like that. “... his long-winded stories.” “He had gone over this allotted time...” – had exceeded his allotted time, not ‘went’. “republic’s” – no capital. I like how you give us some historical background through your character’s internal complaining about learning history, ironic and really quite clever. There’s a rather strong similarity between the selection process and the sorting into houses in Harry Potter, the names and the colours have a similar feel. I'm not saying it doesn’t work. Your cohorts are based on combat, there is the Romanesque feel and a different tone, but I would be cautious, as people will draw similarities. In particular, you’ve assigned green to Vipera, which draws a direct comparison with Slytherin (green for snakes). Good, I'm glad you didn’t come out with some surprise selection for Ferox, he’s been left behind as a recruit while his friends progress. It should be a good test of character for him. All in, I enjoyed this submission. I think the tension in the fight scenes could be dialled up a bit, and I express my concern about that certain similarity, but I like the way you’re developing Ferox. His friends don’t have much character about them. I think you could maybe work harder at that in the previous portion when they are interacting. I appreciate that Ferox doesn’t really know them yet, but I would like to know a little more going into this fighting, unless I’ve just forgotten details from the previous sub, that could happen with my memory!

There’s a certain amount of stating the obvious, for example “If anyone was constantly loitering around the area, then it was possible they were the staking the place out, following Gin.” I would begin to find that annoying after a while. I think it’s important to let the reader fill in the blanks and ‘discover’ things for themselves before confirming, rather than stating certain things outright, but this example is short even of that, emphasising a detail that is really obvious. Don’t know if I'm explaining very well. You could just say “Gin wondered if his apartment was being staked out. Gin’s interpretation of the graffito made no sense to me. How does it show sympathy for the rest of the city – and why would the local denizens want to do that? Is it not more likely to be the locals telling the rest of the city to ‘storm off’ – which hardly seems sympathetic? “It was time to start navigating a dangerous part of the city.” referring back to my comments about stating the obvious. “...it took care of evidence linking Gin to a crime” – again, obvious. The reader has already noted that, and you confirm it by mentioning fuel for Harry’s fire. After two pages very little has happened, but there has been a lot of thinking about the very little. I don’t feel I'm learning anything about Gin. I'm trying to lay my finger on what it is about the story that is not engaging me. I think it’s the very serious tone. There’s almost no humour and, I think, the pacing is rather flat, lacking in tension. For example, there’s never any feeling of tension when he is walking to Harry’s place, even though you are describing him being suspicious about being tailed and then walking through a dangerous part of town, I never felt that there was any threat, danger, nervousness or exposure. Reading through the second part of the submission, I was moved to think of an episode of CSi or one of those many, many generic cop shows. I couldn’t help wondering how many times in TV or movies I’ve watched some bunch of guys doing surveillance, even setting it up and almost getting caught. For me, it just wasn’t interesting. If any of us want our writing to stand out and engage an audience I think we need to be thinking about USP – Unique Selling Point. I said this somewhere else in another critique and I look at some of my own writing or ideas and bin them for this reason. I accept that everyone is going to have familiar elements in their stories, but I think the way to deal with that is to get past the familiar mechanical things as quickly as possible, talk about them as little as possible and concentrate on things that we can make ‘unique’. This might be characters or perhaps setting, maybe plot if we’ve tagged a neat idea or combination of events. The parts of your story I’ve been more interested in so far are Gin’s interactions with other people. The fight to a lesser degree, but the people in the office and certainly the doctor looked like promising relationships. I think characters bouncing off each other is where the real interest is going to come in most stories. Brandon’s settings and magic are interesting, but without the character interaction, it would be a lot less interesting, and Wheel of Time would be positively tedious without the character sparks. I seem to be a bit negative this week – sorry about that, but obviously no point in me doing anything but talking straight.

I liked what you did here, much better tension and conflict around Taras, who is clearly in real peril through these chapters. I had some specific issues, noted above, but happy with the overall effect and content. The ending with him being so close to home was a nice (frustrating!) touch. Picking up on a couple of comments, what Mandamon says about quantity of description is part of what I was saying out precision in phrasing and cutting unnecessary stuff, at least that's what I was trying to get at. Also, I note your point about Alph being a small mule, that would mean that Taras walked all the way out here. Surely if he's hunting a dangerous beast, or there are large numbers of wolves, that's pretty reckless, and just sheer bad planning, not to mention risk management. Anyway, here are my detailed comments. Big step to change the names, but if you don't do it near the start it would only get harder, probably. Brave move, i think it's a positive. I felt the description of the hair sticking (frozen, I guess) to the stone was a bit awkward. His memory was "full of holes"? I'm not really clear on where this groove is that he's pulling on. I guess on the rock under him? I was going to complain that I doubted he could do what he did until it became clear that it wasn't his rib!! Still, with a horn sticking in him, I can't see him being able to "throw" himself up to his feet. I like the feel of the scene though. He's obviously in considerable difficulty, life threatening, but he isn't panicking. Don't get about why he needs to stock up on water if the river is high/full? I like Taras talking to Alph, it's very evocative of the lone hunter, always isolated, and I think it throws his predicament into sharp relief, like he's talking through his intentions to convince himself he has a way out, that he might survive. Impressions on reaching end of Chapter 4. I'm enjoying Taras's struggles against the wilderness in his depleted state. It feels more tense than the first chapter with him hunting, as there was little impression of tension or jeopardy then, I thought. For me, some of the phrasing and narrative is a bit baggy and could be tightened up/ cutting down. You don't need to say "descend down", it's pretty much the only way to descend! This is the sort of phrasing issue I was talking about. Also, using the phrase "blob of ache" reduces his pain to a comical thing. Blob is not a serious word. His knees didn't gasp, suggest rephrasing. Also, later, since his grammar has be reasonable up to now, I'll point out "I must have EATEN the last of..." "Melor and HE had often..." Why does he ride Alph? It's been bugging me for a while. I find it hard to believe he can run, when he could barely stand before. Also, he must have lost a ton of blood and yet he hasn't passed out. I know this is suspension of disbelief territory, but Brandon does say you have to earn it and not stretch it too far. It's not steam, it's water vapour. I think there's a line between artistic license and stuff that just ain't right. If it was me, I'd say breath like steam, or some such. Nice touch deliberately confusing the bruskil and the human sacrifices, Taras's assumption with the reality of the Hand's intentions. The so-called "hallucination" scene was working well for me, but as I got further into it, I felt it became a bit confusing. For example I don't understand the context of the references to Melor.

Thanks Juugatsu, good considered comments, as I would expect from you, much appreciated. I see your point about "64 remaining", entirely reasonable first interpretation, I had not seen it that way, but then I knew what I meant. It would only take one word to fix that, but it's one word I don't have without cutting somewhere else, of course! Interesting challenge. I don't take your comment about characterisation at all negatively. It's an interesting point. Some felt that there was something there in terms of character, but that must come almost entirely from the reader, because there is virtually nothing at all in character description of course. Powell is the only one who really gets any description, being snappy, so any imagining of character beyond that must be entirely in the reader's mind. It's an interesting question. Hey, don't worry about not jumping in, I would hesitate to do that too. Thanks for your comments on this. I'm sure I will write it out a bit further, so you might see it again in a month or three : o )

This is a great idea, I've always been frustrated that, by listening through WE in order, I have always been way behind the discussion on the their site's comment pages. This said, there are various reasons why I won't be joining you in this endeavor. (1) I'm trying really hard to catch back up and keep pace with critiquing the submissions here and on Start Write Now; (2) I'm trying really hard to pick up Waifs & Strays again after doing nothing over the festive period / my 2 week holiday; (3) I'm trying to get caught up on WE from being midway through Season 7 and I don't want to skip ahead; (4) I don't want to muddle my thinking with Waifs by throwing around a lot of different ideas; and (5) I want to keep my powder dry for my idea for a slightly different thread on here, but that's probably a little way off. Sorry to bore you with all that, but I wanted you to know I'm not blanking this thread without good reason, and I'll still comment if I'm allowed. : o )

Thanks for your comments guys. If I'm really honest, I just wanted to post something up here, as it feels like ages since I stopped posting Waifs & Strays. I am tempted to write Brevity out into a short story, I like the punchline and there characters were starting to form in my head even as I touched it up for posting here - but I have to finish Waifs & Strays first. Thing is, I also have a strategy in mind for a new style of thread on here, a challenge, but so many things have to happen before I post it up. Wow, this has been a good post for ideas, you guys have really generated some sparks here, good job! p.s. Lerroy - the numbers made perfect sense to me at the time, and I was convinced I had a note somewhere of the logic, but I can't lay my hands on it. Suffice it to say here that the number 48 could be the design of the ship placing physical restriction on the size of the crew, and that the whole cycle begins again after 48 weeks (or rather 44 if you take it as the length of time one shift is in stasis for). In the end Stormweasel has the answer - it doesn't matter! But I accept that many people will read it the way you did, Lerroy, and take issue with the math. Rest assured, if I every write it out, there would be a more detailed account of the whole stasis and shift system.