[Sixty]

You make a good point, Gamet. Now that I think about it, you might be better off leaving it as is. I think my objection is more with the "dark mood" bit than the second part. How exactly would Orne be aware of the "dark mood" without some visual sign? Or is it intuition, in which case the second part would suffice?

[Fist Gamet]

Chapter Three

SPOILERS


He is a good man, Pir, a General who actually cares for the welfare of his soldiers.

It is a bit surprising that they all seem to be almost convinced Maurin is getting help and reinforcements without any evidence whatsoever. It is all supposition – which is pretty much the point of the scene – but to me it would be just as likely that Maurin is desperate and hoping they will just give up the chase if he goes far enough away.
Perhaps things would be clearer if I had a better idea of the geography of the empire? Map?
I had a problem with the Captain’s plan of dividing their forces sine Pir was concerned at the possibility of being overmatched just a couple of pages ago. Has he dismissed this possibility then?

There was a bit of ‘tell’ rather than ‘show’ at the start with the introductions of Hoshe and Terragol. I held off on letting this bother me as I thought you were going to then show me this in a three-way conversation with Pir, thus allowing me to get to know all of them. I think you missed a great opportunity to do just that when they said a bout four lines before the Captain and Mage came in. Perhaps you brought these next two in too quickly and I got a bit overwhelmed. There were now five people (four of whom I did not know) talking and once they started I couldn’t really tell who was talking some of the time. Then I found it did not matter – the story was what mattered and the plot was moved forwards with talk of Maurin. Is this intentional?
As I mentioned in my previous post, writing a scene with multiple characters and doing both it and them justice (whilst not losing the reader) is really hard. This is something I have worked very hard at and made countless mistakes but I think a nice, simple technique is to introduce them either one or two at a time. In fairness, you did, but maybe too quickly?

I like the way you mingle Vos’s mission with her personality here. I understand her as a living person because she craves fame and respect. She wants to be remembered as being as brilliant as she clearly believes she is.

When the woman found Vos and sneaked close and then managed to hide from Vos, I thought that her friendly manner was a perfect trap.

“…She lacked the patience--why use a hundred words when you can say the same thing with one knife…” love the second part, but, lacks patience? An assassin?

Ah, good, I KNEW there was something fishy about that woman!!! Nicely done.

Back to Yashin. That’s some interesting stuff about Maurin’s return and the mystery of that. In fact, this really stood out for me. I started to think ‘what is Maurin has gone nuts? What if he is not to be the central character I had thought? Wouldn’t that be really interesting?’ so I was, well, sort of disappointed when Maurin came back an hour later full of life again. Ah, well, I am sure you have good reason.
I did expect Yanish to slap Tormas down (or at least reprimand him) when Tormas said ‘whatever came back wasn’t Maurin.’

The story moves on at quite a pace but Pir really needs to get moving now, don’t you think? He he

On a wider note: you are writing an epic story from multiple PoV, as I am. So far we have Vos, Pir, Yanish, Orme and miscellaneous (such as Chaktra, The Proxies, The Delanok, Maghin Choae and Rax) all within the first three chapters. I am having a rambling thought on this so stay with me. Are these your four main characters? Assassin, boy-mage, veteran soldier and old general? Do you intend to follow them but provide a whole host of random perspectives throughout the story to tell the tale? What sort of balance do you envisage for this in terms of actual ‘pen-time’? I would imagine you want to me to care for the characters, but obviously not for the ‘supporting cast’? Do you think this will work well?
I am very curious about this as I think I will have enough trouble with multiple PoV without adding in a lot of supporting cast PoV. A few is fine, imho, but you have quite a few in the opening chapters? Is this good / bad / not important? I really don’t know!

[Yellow]

Jesus, you're getting through this at some rate.

You've made a lot of useful points here, and one or two that I've had trouble with from the start. Which tells me I need to hack away a bit more at it (well, not HACK ).

Fist Gamet, on Jul 5 2009, 04:40 PM, said:

Chapter Three

SPOILERS


He is a good man, Pir, a General who actually cares for the welfare of his soldiers.

It is a bit surprising that they all seem to be almost convinced Maurin is getting help and reinforcements without any evidence whatsoever. It is all supposition – which is pretty much the point of the scene – but to me it would be just as likely that Maurin is desperate and hoping they will just give up the chase if he goes far enough away.
Perhaps things would be clearer if I had a better idea of the geography of the empire? Map?
I had a problem with the Captain’s plan of dividing their forces sine Pir was concerned at the possibility of being overmatched just a couple of pages ago. Has he dismissed this possibility then?

I do have a map, but it needs work. I came up with the map very early on, based a lot of the background on it, and then was separated from it for about 18 months while I was moving house, etc etc. Consequently, some of the distances in the book don't quite match up with the map, so like I say it needs work.

I will go through this section you mention again, and see what sticks. The idea was that they didn't have a clue what Maurin was doing. He disappeared off on some trek into what is basically the north pole, and they don't know if he's coming back or whatthefuck. Pir would be worried if Maurin had reinforcements, because then his ~ten to one superiority might be dashed. So, enough men to follow, enough to stay behind and watch the coast.

If none of that came through, I need to try again. If it did, and it stinks of shit, I'll have to think of something else.

Quote

There was a bit of ‘tell’ rather than ‘show’ at the start with the introductions of Hoshe and Terragol. I held off on letting this bother me as I thought you were going to then show me this in a three-way conversation with Pir, thus allowing me to get to know all of them. I think you missed a great opportunity to do just that when they said a bout four lines before the Captain and Mage came in. Perhaps you brought these next two in too quickly and I got a bit overwhelmed. There were now five people (four of whom I did not know) talking and once they started I couldn’t really tell who was talking some of the time. Then I found it did not matter – the story was what mattered and the plot was moved forwards with talk of Maurin. Is this intentional?
As I mentioned in my previous post, writing a scene with multiple characters and doing both it and them justice (whilst not losing the reader) is really hard. This is something I have worked very hard at and made countless mistakes but I think a nice, simple technique is to introduce them either one or two at a time. In fairness, you did, but maybe too quickly?

I'll have a think. If I can get them some more screen-time, that would probably help.

Quote

I like the way you mingle Vos’s mission with her personality here. I understand her as a living person because she craves fame and respect. She wants to be remembered as being as brilliant as she clearly believes she is.

When the woman found Vos and sneaked close and then managed to hide from Vos, I thought that her friendly manner was a perfect trap.

“…She lacked the patience--why use a hundred words when you can say the same thing with one knife…” love the second part, but, lacks patience? An assassin?

I take your point, however Vos may be a great assassin, but that's all she cares for--the business end, so to speak. She's not much of a talker, which is what I was trying to get across. I don't want her to come out as a cookie-cutter assassin, all sleek and cock-sure. I realise I may not always succeed, but she isn't supposed to be perfect. She has crises of confidence, makes mistakes, all that sort of thing.

Quote

Ah, good, I KNEW there was something fishy about that woman!!! Nicely done.

I actually thought you would hate this scene

Quote

Back to Yashin. That’s some interesting stuff about Maurin’s return and the mystery of that. In fact, this really stood out for me. I started to think ‘what is Maurin has gone nuts? What if he is not to be the central character I had thought? Wouldn’t that be really interesting?’ so I was, well, sort of disappointed when Maurin came back an hour later full of life again. Ah, well, I am sure you have good reason.
I did expect Yanish to slap Tormas down (or at least reprimand him) when Tormas said ‘whatever came back wasn’t Maurin.’

The story moves on at quite a pace but Pir really needs to get moving now, don’t you think? He he

I hope that Maurin comes across well in the book, or Yanish's parts won't work. To give you a spoiler, Maurin has gone batshit insane, quite frankly. The Yanish parts are not about Maurin's fight against Pir, per se, but rather Yanish's fight with Maurin--he has to pick up the scraps that Maurin leaves behind while struggling to come terms with responsibility thrust on him and still try and keep all the men alive. Let me know how that goes.

Quote

On a wider note: you are writing an epic story from multiple PoV, as I am. So far we have Vos, Pir, Yanish, Orme and miscellaneous (such as Chaktra, The Proxies, The Delanok, Maghin Choae and Rax) all within the first three chapters. I am having a rambling thought on this so stay with me. Are these your four main characters? Assassin, boy-mage, veteran soldier and old general? Do you intend to follow them but provide a whole host of random perspectives throughout the story to tell the tale? What sort of balance do you envisage for this in terms of actual ‘pen-time’? I would imagine you want to me to care for the characters, but obviously not for the ‘supporting cast’? Do you think this will work well?
I am very curious about this as I think I will have enough trouble with multiple PoV without adding in a lot of supporting cast PoV. A few is fine, imho, but you have quite a few in the opening chapters? Is this good / bad / not important? I really don’t know!

The four you mention are main characters, yes. The vast majority of the book is told from those four POVs. Other characters do play a part, but my intention is always to keep them second-fiddle in this first book. The start of the book has quite a lot of POVs mainly because I feel they tell the story from the proper angle and I like the pace of it (I may be in the minority on that one). As things move on, people come and go. I try to keep it coherent. Let me know if it doesn't work

I personally don't think that all the characters should be given equal time (that would just get crazy in any multiple POV book), but the main four are seen pretty much equally, with secondary cast coming in and changing around etc etc.

[Yellow]

Sixty, on Jul 5 2009, 03:27 PM, said:

You make a good point, Gamet. Now that I think about it, you might be better off leaving it as is. I think my objection is more with the "dark mood" bit than the second part. How exactly would Orne be aware of the "dark mood" without some visual sign? Or is it intuition, in which case the second part would suffice?

I dunno, really. You can generally tell if someone's in a bad mood with you without them pulling faces at you But point taken, I want to make sure it stands on its own too feet without me having to justify it.

[Bauchelain the Evil]

Very well. Read Chapter 2 and I must agree with Sixty and Gamet. THe part with Orme seemed to be just a way for you to introduce how magic works. Which could be fine if not for the fact that it seems to be incredibly clichè. You know: young guy, old teacher and all of that. The fight between Orme and his travher also seemed a bit ridiculous. I don't know exactly why, but I found it a bit strange thta he would simply start attacking him like that and that Orme, despite being obvious that it was a test, was ready to kill him. I agree it would work better if you give us some more background of the Temple and the Dying Suns. Anyway you have an interesting magic system, although I didn't fully understand it.
You know, I feel a bit guilty. The others do have their works posted and you can comment them, but I'm here criticizing your work and you can't say anithing about mine.

[Sixty]

Chapter 3:

I have to agree with Gamet regarding the introduction to the officers.

"She’d sought shelter as soon as she picked up the signs--it was going to throw it down some time soon. "

I was completely lost there. A couple re-reads and I think I know what you're trying to get across, but the "picked up" part sounds a bit colloquial. And the "throw it down" part completely bewildered me.

I like the impression I get of Vos.

"She snatched her waterskin from her lap and poured what was left over the hearth, killing its light and filling the cave with a wet, acrid hiss of steam. "
Not sure if I'd describe a hiss as "acrid", or steam for that matter.

"Vos was still pondering her options when the first of the rains fell fat and heavy to the soil."
Saying the first "rains" doesn't make sense here imo. "raindrops" works better.

I don't mind the "lacked the patience" line but I think it could possibly be rephrased to better emphasize your intent.

The ending to your Vos PoV works fine, but when I reached the part where the woman disappeared--before her reaction--my thought was "that's the end of the pov right there". Could just be how I'd end it, though, so more a matter of preference than anything else.

Not much to comment on the Yanish PoV; Gamet's already stated most of my sentiments. Got a little cliffhanger at the end--I'm interested to learn more about "they", although I'm assuming it has something to do with Orne's mission.

In total, I think that as you get into a rhythm jumping between familiar PoV's, the plot flows a lot better. Now to see how it compares with your Orne PoV/development.

This post has been edited by Sixty: 06 July 2009 - 01:54 PM

[Yellow]

Cheers for the replies, guys. @Bork... no worries about not sharing. I feel guilty for not knowing Italian

@Sixty, I guess some of my North England colloquialisms don't translate that well. Ah well. "Throw it down" means "to rain heavily" and I'm sure you can say "the rains"... after all, you can say "the rains came" etc.

But meh, small points. The acrid thing - I guess I had the adjective in the wrong place. "Hiss of acrid steam" would probably be more appropriate. Not going to argue about whether steam can be acrid or not, but maybe "smoke" would be better

All food for thought, so cheers people

PS - chapter 4 has Orme in it. I can feel the love already...

By the way, if people want, I can just send you the whole thing. Let me know if you'd prefer that or not.

This post has been edited by Yellow: 06 July 2009 - 06:56 PM

[Fist Gamet]

Yes, send away, mate!

[Sixty]

I'd prefer just chapter by chapter. That way, if you so feel, you can update/change sections as you revise and I can ensure I get more up-to-date drafts.

[Bauchelain the Evil]

OK.
I was very intrigued with the part with Vos, who could very well become my favourite character, and the woman disappearing, however I found most of the dialogue a bit, well, boring. But that was very well balanced by Vos internal coments, who clearly shared my same thoughts. Loved the one about the lack of patience and that a knife was better than words.
You seem to like being shadowy(and I don't mind it) and not reveal anything about what awaits Yanish and co. I thought you were going to shed a bit of light on Maurin mission but I believe it's etter like this.
Pir's POV is still the one that convinces me the less. It still felt rather flat and simply to make us remeber tat there is someone pursuing Maurin's army. Ironically, unlike Sixty and Gamet, I really liked your descripion of the officers(maybe because I'm a decriptive guy,too)

Oh, and yeah, I'dlike if you sent it all.

[Yellow]

Sixty, on Jul 7 2009, 09:31 AM, said:

I'd prefer just chapter by chapter. That way, if you so feel, you can update/change sections as you revise and I can ensure I get more up-to-date drafts.

No problemo... although I won't be doing any more revisions for a while. But no worries.

Bauchelain the Evil, on Jul 7 2009, 10:37 AM, said:

OK.
I was very intrigued with the part with Vos, who could very well become my favourite character, and the woman disappearing, however I found most of the dialogue a bit, well, boring. But that was very well balanced by Vos internal coments, who clearly shared my same thoughts. Loved the one about the lack of patience and that a knife was better than words.
You seem to like being shadowy(and I don't mind it) and not reveal anything about what awaits Yanish and co. I thought you were going to shed a bit of light on Maurin mission but I believe it's etter like this.
Pir's POV is still the one that convinces me the less. It still felt rather flat and simply to make us remeber tat there is someone pursuing Maurin's army. Ironically, unlike Sixty and Gamet, I really liked your descripion of the officers(maybe because I'm a decriptive guy,too)

Oh, and yeah, I'dlike if you sent it all.

Cool.

I think I've said before that Pir has been a tricky one. I'm not entirely sure I accomplished what I set out to with Pir, but you'll have to wait on that and tell me what you think. He is there for more than following Maurin (although he spends all of the book doing this), but it's more about him and how he deals with things than the actual chase.

I'm wondering if Pir's story kicks off later than the others (it wasn't supposed to), but then none of their stories have really kicked off yet, so see how you feel about the balance in a couple of chapters' time.

[Bauchelain the Evil]

I've read Chapter 4.Poor Maurin, everyone's after him.

Anyway. In this chapter you decided to jump a lot between POV and scenes and I don't think it is a good idea. In fact, I was very confused nd I believe you should make it more coesive. may I suggest to maybe limit yourself only to Orme and Vos in this chpter?
This time Orme part was more interesting. I liked the part with the other Weawers. I really believed they were just bullying a young and unexperience recruit instead of actually testing him.
Even Pir was better. Him coping with seasickness was rather amusing and I liked all of your mentioning of the Portal wars. Ii'm very curious to know what happened. And also your desciption of Portis was very good in a succintway.
The assassin's part was my favourite. I liked Keb's POV . The smalls hint on the Metholim were interesting and I liked how you depicted the city atmosphere. I found it a bit dfficult that the other assassin, Zaf, is so full of life given his chosen profession, but then asassin don't have to be emotionless drones.

All in all it was a good piece and in my mind it could be better if you follwed what I said before, but of course this is your work and ou do as you want. However there where two sentences that irked me:

"He said a silent prayer to the Maseera"
For some reasons said doesn't sound the right verb to me,maybe you should change it.

" So; she’d ridden through most of the night and traded her mount for another the first chance she got"
I don't think a semicoon is needed here, a comma should suffice.

[Sixty]

@Yellow: Reading through your chapter 4 atm, but I'm slow and it's long so it might be a while before I get back to you. Reading Gamet's atm as well.

[Yellow]

No worries, six.

Bork, you leave me in a quandary - I should only stick to Orme and Vos, but you really liked Kep's POV Tbh I quite like how the chapter is structured, but what do you suggest? Moving the other POVs, or just removing them?

Thanks for reading, as always.

[Sixty]

Oh, and did I mention I'm a liar?

Chapter 4Thoughts (mostly nitpicking) as I read:

Orne's PoV feels a little better, although I feel it's more telling than necessary. Like:

"Orme wasn’t happy taking orders from either of them."

I already figured that out.

And such. Also, there are a few more adjectives than I felt necessary, like when you called a wagon "big"--big isn't a very good adjective to use anywhere imho, and I didn't care much about the wagon itself nonetheless. But that's just nitpicking.

I liked the scene overall, though.

It might be my memory, but I don't recall the captain's PoV from before (was it introduced in chapter 1 or 2 or something? D:).
(Now that I've read Vos's PoV I'm assuming he's the captain of the ship they're going on. Correct me if I'm wrong).

With Vos's PoV...
"The harbour city was overflowing with custom, "
I'm not too clear on what you mean, but when I heard custom there my first thought was about customs--like international customs at an airport--and decided it didn't make sense. My second thought was a whore's customer (although I've only seen it as that with Bakker's PoN so I dunno if that's a normal term).

"He was tall and good-looking"
Not very descriptive. What's "good-looking" to Vos? A hairy, morbidly obese old dude? Doesn't tell me much imo.

I liked the atmosphere you created with the city itself and the camaraderie of sorts between the assassins.

Pir:
"He cursed loudly, which Hoshe found hilarious."
Okay, I'm going to stop nitpicking. I think you get the point. D:

TBH I didn't like the Pir PoV that much. Felt...dunno. There was some conversation with characters I didn't remember well at all, and I learned they approached the ice continent.


I really think the pace and flow improved a lot starting with Kep's PoV. There's conflict beginning to brew, as opposed to exposition. I felt myself more paying attention to the story than attempting to analyze flaws, which is good.

Also, I'm not too clear exactly on the faction's alignments. Are the weavers working with the empire or something? Or independently?

This post has been edited by Sixty: 10 July 2009 - 07:33 AM

[Yellow]

I'll keep an eye out for the telling. I think that a bit of tell isn't always the monster it's made out to be, but if I'm doing it by accident rather than on purpose I will have to cut that out

Captain. I'm not actually sure who you mean here, but are you talking about captain Lemnoch? Lemnoch is Orme's new boss, but he doesn't really have much/anything to do with Vos at this stage so that comment threw me a little. Anyway, this is the first time you get to see Lemnoch's POV. It's actually the only time, as well. I wanted to show that something is going on behind Orme's back, i.e. the Proxies etc. I could have chosen Brant for that little snippet, but I wanted to show a bit of the captain instead. You'll see how the Dying Suns and the Metholim cross paths soon enough.

Quote

Also, I'm not too clear exactly on the faction's alignments. Are the weavers working with the empire or something? Or independently?

Ok, a bit of confusion here. I'd like to know if Bork or Gamet are finding it to be similar. The Weavers are templemen, from the Thousand Isles. They're the Warrior caste, the Dying Suns. They're not affiliated to anyone else. The Thousand Isles are a separate seat of power in the south west.

Pir and co are from Llensmale, which is a nation in the north west (by the way, you're not supposed to have picked up on these geographical locations, I'm just telling you ). It's not an empire, as such, though a few of the bordering states have been absorbed sometime in the past. Untaris is one of these states (which tried to rebel a couple of years before the story starts), and it's here that Yanish's lot are from. Once again, you're not really supposed to have gleaned this yet - I prefer to let things like this into the story by Osmosis rather than straight-out explanation, which I realise may not always work, and some people may not particularly like.

The Metholim are a whole other thing, which you'll pick up on gradually.

It's a strange thing when people read your stuff. I wrote a story I would like to read, and then I find that some people want all kinds of details about stuff I never found to be important. Not saying this is you, just some reactions I've had from others. Some people want to know all the rules of the magic systems in there, and others don't give much of a shit about that at all, and tell me there's no romance in the story. Swings and roundabouts

[Sixty]

Hehe. All varies based on personal preference, I assure you. Personally, I don't care about romance, am ambivalent to revealing details about a magic system (I prefer a more pseudo-scientific structure with laws and such to avoid deus ex machina situations), and completely absolutely hate black and white characters with a burning passion. Oh, and I despise predictable happy endings. On the other hand, some people prefer their fantasy black and white with a happy ending. Can't please everyone, and--to paraphrase the Yearded One himself ()--if you're writing for others you're doing something wrong.

The PoV in question was about the guy who seemed to captain a ship or something in the city's harbor. I wasn't too clear about all of that.

Oh, and the locations and whatnot are made much much clearer with a map available. If you ever decide to make a detailed one.

I personally prefer the osmosis method myself (both as a reader and writer). TBH some of the questions, while helpful when answered, are mostly my semi-coherent thoughts as I read--if you'd prefer to let me figure it out myself from now on, just let me know. I'd rather read a book where I'm a little confused and have to think for myself than something where I'm spoon fed information.

This post has been edited by Sixty: 10 July 2009 - 05:17 PM

[Yellow]

Sixty, on Jul 10 2009, 06:13 PM, said:

Oh, and the locations and whatnot are made much much clearer with a map available. If you ever decide to make a detailed one.

I have one, it just has... problems... which I haven't got round to sorting out yet. Maps and dramatis personae are some of the other details people ask for that surprise me. I never use either of these when I'm reading a book, so it always surprises me how many people seem to crave them.

[Sixty]

It's nice when reading it disjointedly like we are right now. That way we can get a 1-sentence refresher or whatnot on who's who.

[Bauchelain the Evil]

Yellow, on Jul 10 2009, 08:49 AM, said:

No worries, six.

Bork, you leave me in a quandary - I should only stick to Orme and Vos, but you really liked Kep's POV Tbh I quite like how the chapter is structured, but what do you suggest? Moving the other POVs, or just removing them?

Thanks for reading,
as always.

What I wanted to say wasn't to stick to Orme and Vos POV, just to to limit this hapter to what is happenning around them. So it's not a problem when you use Keb's POV r Lemnoch's but I found it confusing when you jump to Pir.