[Yellow]

Hi to all

Would someone like to critique the (untitled) novel I'm *trying* to write? It's a fantasy novel, so far I've got the Prologue and first 3 chapters, and I'd like to know what people think of it. After all, they say the first few chapters have to really grab the reader.

So I'm wondering how mine's doing...

I'm not a fast writer, and it depends on how much time I have, but it seems to take about a month to write a chapter (about 8k words), so the 4th is coming, just not for a while

If anyone wants to read it and give feedback, I'd be extremely grateful, and I'll do the same for whatever you're writing as well (ideally, someone who also has written about as much, and at the same rate, since I might find it hard to find time to read and critique an entire novel! I'll try, though.)

If so, reply here or mail me at curious.yellow@btinternet.com

I'd rather do it over email than post the doc in the forum

Cheers guys, hope some of you might be interested...

[drinksinbars]

the point about the con- didnt bother me,

[drinksinbars]

i didnt mean anything so obvious, you could start by talking about his fears at being maghin, but his determination at doing a good job. bring in something about the portal wars and have him begin reading. even if you dont want this in italics etc, you could through in one of your *** and then have that section. but having just three or four pages of back history with no introduction was just not in keeping with the rest of the novel, it felt toally out of place and forced. i dont expect you to change it just cause i say to, but consider how simply to make it more accessible it doesnt have to be cheesy, i think your letting yourself down by implying that, it just has to be well written to pull it off, and with the other characters you manage this level of involvement so you shouldnt be frightened of trying something similar here. If you do fall on your face dont worry ill be there to throw a rotten vegetable at your head and scream "TURN IT BACK!!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TURN IT BACK!!!" as i cower before the cheesy enormity of it all

as for the blah blah blah for three pages bit. you have that at the start execpt its

chapter six

blah blah blah for three pages.

***

maghin cho was at his desk.

if you want to seperate the pages just have him talking about various bits of it. its hard to explain but i didnt really get anything from it other than that some guy was a dick, another was a weakling and together they attacked someone. Really i was just wondering where the characters were and whether i had opened up a revised prologue or not thats why i suggested have him thinking about it, not real blattant " oh look at that i never knew that, isnt it cool mister reader!!" i suggest something more along the lines of him finding sections disagreeable, (you seem to imply as much) because they are against the teachings he previously had access to or read. not only would this make us more ware of the politics involved in the world, which i think youre implying but it would also help show whioch sections of this back history are relevant( also good place for smoke screens) and which are just back history. the whole time i thought that this manshuta was the leader of those askrarama(mind me spelling) people. dont know why iu just did.

sorry if it seems i am having a go, it was just a big diversion from your usual style that i didnt think it fitted in

[Yellow]

@Cause - I've not really thought about the older stuff much recently... but I'll get back to you at some point. If you could comment on the ideas DiB has just posted, that would be a big help because the first section of this new chapter has me in two minds.

@DiB - the stuff at the beginning was supposed to be an excerpt from the book that Cho was reading (Studies, an academic piece on the Histories)... did this not come across? I don't really want to put the whole thing in italics. I think I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure I like the idea of chopping between Cho and the book he's reading. I think the excerpt would be too long for that, I think it would be better in one piece.

Btw - you say it's too early to be explaining so much, but actually this isn't very much This was actually on the first stage of the Portal Wars (or, the first War). I don't really want to give too much away about them, but would like to hear any other suggestions about how to do this. The thing is - the Portal Wars happened about 2000 years ago and have kind of a mythical status about them, so it wouldn't be right for characters to be discussing this stuff in much detail, hence my idea of the book. The rest of the Wars have a much more personal effect for some characters, so they will be handled differently. I just thought the grand scale and floweriness of the tense would be a nice change from the up-close-and-personal POV stuff.

As for the *** stuff... well I'm not sure. A couple of the scenes I originally had were just one long thing, but I found it better to break them down because otherwise there was no focus... too much happened to get a perspective on it. I don't want to move the Pir italics bit, because I don't want the reader guessing at who it was - I want them to be in Pir's head in his dream, and then be with him as he wakes.

I'll have a think about all this though

I must say that to write a chapter over the course of about a month and then have it read in an hour or so is really weird! It makes me feel like I'm writing REALLY slowly... I hope the long times between chapters isn't ruining the feel for anyone.

[Yellow]

Ok, I've sort of started to think back now to the beginning, and I've had a bit of a go at a rewrite on the prologue.

Would anyone like to have a read and let me know what they think of the new version?

It's not a huge change - I've concentrated mostly on streamlining it and reducing the length of the sentences, hopefully to make it punchier. There's no real change in the scene itself... maybe that would come later but atm I have no plans to alter that.

I thought I would cut it in two... but it turns out all I've done is reduce it from about 2400 words to 2100 words, which isn't a huge reduction. I'm also not sure whether it's now too punchy, like there's no flow anymore.

Anyway, I'd like to know if people think it's better, worse, or not changed enough? I'll email it to anyone who wants to have a read.

[Yellow]

Chapter 6 done.

I've sent it to DiB, John, Cause and Will. I think that's all of you...

[Yellow]

I don't skip them. Think you'll find a lot of people don't skip them. They're not needed, as such, but they add another level to the story. See Erikson, Bakker and Jordan (though his aren't before every chapter) for this.

Where else would you find poems about the Emperor written by people who were there? Extracts from Gothos' Folly? No, these things aren't essential, but imo they'd be sorely missed.

Tbh I think that to say you skip these parts without reading them becuase they're pointless is disrespectful to the author, particularly one who's work you're critiquing.

Just my 2p.

[drinksinbars]

watch out for the parralell between vos and orm. they seem like to very different characters, she seems like she should be arrogant, given her abilities. but instead she is wracked by doubt(something i dont really like about her) while he is the opposite.

you dont use modern slang enough to just throw in some random words. if you have them speaking like that at some point it should be consistent. try using something totally off the wall that you made up to replace it that should be ffun, a bit of local dialect

pir- he over reacts in that he aske dher once, doesnt like her answer and then says put her in chains. he supposed to be an able commander, yet he is in a situationb where one woman claims to have ambushed his army and instead of treading carefully he just blunders in. he seems like hes smarter, but this seemed odd for him. you might want to show off her power, but dont sacrifice another characters already well developed traits for it. you have to fgigure out someway to include this. i would suggest having ghan probe her with the gis somehow. incorporate those two sections. make him invoke the reaction while pir is still trying to recover properly and question her. then she can show her prowess, leave ghan mistified and pir can let them discuss it because it will help HIM understand. this would follow more with the subtle intelligence you have hinted at so far.

[drinksinbars]

dude didnt get a chance to look through this at home cause my sis was back int he country after two years travelling so will look into over today and tomorrow, try to get you some idea of what i was trying to say ^ but failed to do so. is there anything in particular you want looked at??

[Yellow]

Problem is, who is Cho going to be reading this stuff out to? Himself? That would seem more contrived to me, if he was reading this thing and then every few lines/paragraphs inserted his own thoughts or comments.

Who else would he read it to or discuss it with? There would be no real reason for two characters to discuss it.

Which is why I ended up doing it like I did...

I'm starting to think it would be best left out, and instead try and infer it gradually, but the problem with that is that it's too much to gradually infer (I don't have the whole book to get this into the reader's head by osmosis) - it would have to be partially inferred. Which would be good in terms of a series of books like MBotF where the world gets richer with each volume, but not so much in the first book (I thought GotM suffered this problem, and quite badly too). It is important to the story though. AAAARRRRGGGHHH

[Yellow]

Ok thanks for comments...

I'd have to agree with the fungrin stuff - thinking about it I'm not really sure why that scene is the way it is, though I liked both the scene and the character at the time.

For the Maghin scene - I will sharpen this scene, I agree it's proabbly a bit too long-winded and vague. It's there not to get you feeling for Maghin Chatka, but to:

1) Show the resurrection of the Third
2) Display a little of the heirarchy of the Order
3) Show that the Maghin is not actually as powerful (politically) as he should be in theory, and then finally...
4) Bump him off so that the new Maghin can come in. You've only seen a little of the new Maghin (Dunis Cho) so far, but he plays a bigger part later on.

It can't go further in the book though, because it happens before everything else! The new Maghin takes over from him, and I want him there ready to talk to Orm (there's a bit more going into his dialogue with Orm once I get round to the re-write, that should hopefully add to the feel).

The Yanish bit - definitely isn't going into the prologue. It's the start of the linear story.

The stuff with the Third in the prologue takes place about a month before the rest of the story, and it relates to stuff that you won't know about for a long time yet... so it's place is justified, trust me It's important for reasons that won't come clear until later.

I'm a firm believer that the prologue should be set apart from the rest of the story in some way, whether in setting or style. It should be removed or abstract to a certain extent, and should hint at developments or stuff that you won't understand. I think that if you don't do this, and the prologue is just the first part of the story, why is it a prologue? Why not just call it Chapter 1 and be done with it?

Granted, mine needs work to get it right, but it's definitely staying as it is - hopefully you'll agree once the pieces come together.

I'd have to add though... a big part of this story is the mystery aspect. I know that a lot of stuff isn't going to make sense at first, and the majority of that is on purpose. I'm trying to get it so that the reader has enough to go on for the time being, and their curiosity is piqued, so that there will be pay-off later. Of course, it's getting that right that's important

[drinksinbars]

read the prologue, and to be honest its been so long i didnt really notice much difference. It might be that i just understand the story better but it did seem faster moving, especailly at the start. not really much i can add, bar- check your grammar young man

[Yellow]

Okay, Chapter 4 is done and dusted...

It's only been through a little of my personal editorial process, so it may need the most work out of all of them so far.

Is there anyone interested? I'll email the chapter to you.

@DiB and johnturing: I've already sent it to you guys, since you've been my most ardent commentators

[drinksinbars]

as to the swearing i dint mean creating a word from scratch, but you see in kingpin where they go oh he really munsened there, thats a swear word in the klingpin world. something innocuos and relevant to the world. god knows who came up witht he word **** but its part of our culture, the word itself doiesnt matter, but its so ingrained in modern thinking thati feel it is always out of place in fantasy. whereas **** and bastard etc are perfectly reasonable

[Yellow]

Well I disagree on that last point... breaking a scene doesn't have to have any rules, as long as it feels right, and I think it's fine. There is a definite break there - the two parts (and also the bits later on) are quite distinct. I tried it the other way but I think it benefited by the breaks. I'll have to wait and see what the others think about it.

Personally I thought the stuff with the book at the beginning was quite clear - I felt I was using the character to do this. It would seem more out of place if I had:

Maghin Cho sat down to read.

"blah blah blah (for 3 pages)"...

Then the clerk came in.

I'm over-simplifying, but you get what I mean I think that would be cheesy, and would be worse than the problem you have with it now.

Like I say, I see what you mean but I'm not sure I agree. If anyone else feels the same, then I'll rethink it. I'm not 100% with it myself.

[Yellow]

Will send the email now

[Cause]

will check it out. review soon

Edit-yellow I got the email but no attachment

[Yellow]

No probs mate...

I suppose the msot important things to me at the mo with this chapter are:

1) With the last scene (Pir and the Ar'ak'rama)... I appreciate that most of this is not gonna make much sense at this point. But - what do you THINK is going on here? I'm interested to find out the impressions I'm giving out with this scene.

2) Character names - the Metholim (Vos, Kep, Saf, Rax) are all 3 letters on purpose. Orm and Pir are by accident - should I change their names? Or is it not too much of a problem?

3)Pacing... not including the magic infodump (which I'll tinker with later), is this chapter too fast? Are bits too fast? I see your point about the Banesul scene... but how about the other scenes in the chapter? Since most people (well, two lol) thought the earlier chapters were too slow, this might have influenced me too much in this last chapter... did I overshoot and make it too fast?

Ok that's it... thanks for taking the effort

Btw - I've been thinking about it the past few days and I've decided to hold off on the re-write until I have more of the book finished. It's all clammering to get out of my head atm, so I don't want to go back to the start just yet. All comments will be duly noted though

Hopefully that will help me to get that "fresh perspective" that you talked about above.

[Cause]

Thanks. I know I have not done much latly struggling to get back into it. But hopefully the new chapter will help.