[drinksinbars]

actually i did model them on king's gunslinger series, well spotted

[drinksinbars]

the pub bit though follows kep saying how the three are confident, it would be out of character therefore to not have him react plus i always like drunk bashing in novels and it might help orm fit in better or provide some contention, both of which can be used equally well to entice a readers imagination depending on how you want his character to develop.

[Yellow]

Will send the mail soon...

I've been pretty busy with this so I've not had much time for reading.

I'm gonna catch up with your stuff soon DiB, while reading Warrior-Prophet in between

[Yellow]

Sorry, I've said it before and I'll say it again:

No

I disagree with you on this one mate... thanks for still reading though.

[Cause]

okay great send it me when you have it. I will check later for the questions. oh and whats a d.p.

[drinksinbars]

yellow - okay decided to try rereading the story, i can see where before the pacing got to me, the first section with yannish is well written and doesnt pander about, its clear you know what your doing and understand where your going, but the next section with mgrhan"spelling?" is too slow, there is alot going on but it feels, convoluted slightly, maybe. i dont know exactly whats wrong with it, except that there is something slightly wrong about it. in essence this guys is being swallowed yes? so why all the build up, you seem to put a lot of work into him being a certain way, but i just cant find myself warming to him or caring that he is taken over. wehereas yannish and pir are isntantly likeable

my thought would be to move this section farther into the book, it feels out of place here and too soon after the prologue, i honestly feel though aswell that yannish could have his section in the prologue and the htird could be chapter one.

finally, the sections with fungrin are in my opinion pointless, and could be done through pir's point of view, maybe through the con with josell. the scene with the tobacco in my opinion does nothing for the character, the ominous bit at the end is good with him but the middle section jhust made me want to skip it until pir arrived. instead of breaking this part up a continuos scene from pirs view would be better, just make note of the disgust the guard feels, and the tobacco in the mans mouth. if you want to make vague accusations about the intelligence have pir consider them when meeting josell instead.

[Yellow]

quote:

Originally posted by Drinks in Bars:
no i dont mean he has to read out loud,m there are plenty of authors who include this sort of thing as if the character is reading.

That's what I meant...

I knew there was a reason I don't read Gemmel EDIT - just yanking ya' plank, btw... I don't want any Gemmelites lynching me on my front lawn.

I don't like that particular idea, but keep 'em coming. I need all the I can get!

[bonza]

Just wondering if you could send me a copy of your work Yellow - I did have a link to it, but what with exams and a damn dodgy internet connection i never really got around to reading it. (If you cant find my email address it should be on the first page of this thread - it's been a while.)

Thanks.

[drinksinbars]

cool will give it a read sometime in the next day or two mate.

[Yellow]

lol no probs - there are more important things, I know.

[Yellow]

Ok thanks for the points.

With Larenne, I'm not sure I'm getting the right point across. She wants to give a display of her power, but it's not to make them fear her - it's to get them to realise she is not crazy and to get them warming to the idea of something which I'm not going to tell you I think there's something coming up in a couple of chapters which I haven't set up properly, but we'll see nearer the time.

You say Pir overreacts when she doesn't answer him - which question was this? "Who are you?" I didn't think he was overreacting to that one.

And yes, you are supposed to dislike Orm. I think I may have overdone it in that I don't want you to hate him, I just want you to see him as arrogant and ignorant, and perhaps have a laugh at his ignorance too. He thinks he knows everything, but he obviously doesn't.

I'm hoping to bring you round to liking him more later on... don't worry - he does a little growing, eventually he will learn. I'm trying to build a parallel between him and Vos, but I don't think it will become apparent until nearer the end.

The swearing - I thought it fit at the time. I'll have a think. Actually, fantasy does use f*ck from time to time, though I think the real problem is not the use of the word, but rather that it doesn't fit my general tone.

The assassins take the boat onto shore because they're carrying heavy packs, and they aren't going to swim with them. I may not have desribed that properly. And don't forget - they think/hope they're undeteced so far, but they know that if anyone is looking out for them, they would see the ship anyway. Which the magi did. So they just try to get into the jungle as quick as possible. It wasn't a perfect situation for them, but they were left with few choices really. The assassins arrive on the island a good few hours after the magi, and so they hope to be unseen, but also they need to pick up their trail, hence arriving close to each other. Unfortunately for them, the magi were waiting for them. Does that not sit well?

Thanks for the other suggestions, I see what you mean, and I'll probably try to incorporate them. I'm not too hot about this chapter, I felt it lacked something, though I don't know what. It didn't quite appear as I intended.

The next chapter has a fairly big scene in it (action-wise), and once again I feel I haven't set it up properly yet, but we'll see. I tend to not see these things until it's too late.

[Yellow]

The chains thing was more a bluff than anything else. Sure, he would have put her in chains if she wouldn't cooperate, but he was just trying to get her to stop p*ssing him around. He isn't blundering in to anything, imo.

I honestly don't see that I'm sacrificing a character's well-established traits for it. Pir is dizzy as hell atm, he's been through a lot, and he's starting to realise that he's out of his depth. He doesn't know what's going on (what was once just a simple route and run-down has took a strange twist for him), but he's hoping she can help him to understand. It's clear that she has something to do with it all. Pir's own internal state is going to be a major part of his story from now on, for reasons which should become clear later.

Ghan is too terrified to do much. He knows what's going on, though atm he is desperately hoping he's wrong, and it's crippling his judgment and his effectiveness. He can't probe her with the Gis, it doesn't work like that.

She isn't a bad guy, btw. She wants to help - if she had wanted to do any harm then she would have, but she wanted to create a display for them. Would any of them take her seriously if she just walked up to them in the forest and said "Hi, you don't know me, but I'm really powerful in ways you don't understand, and btw I used to be a man, but now I'm not. Fancy a chat?" At least this way, Pir et al have a reason to take her seriously, even if they don't trust her or if they think she's mad.

[Karsa Orlong]

Ok, this is a quite active thread! I think i have to check out your story, if i may?!

Please send it to joergATboursDOTch

P.S.: I loooove maps! (yeah, you can comment on that, Gamet ) Oh and i have unlimited space on that email...so don't worry about the file-size

[drinksinbars]

when i was reading tax story though i didnt realise i was reading it, and then suddenly the pov shifts and i was left thinking what happened there?? when i hit the second chapter the same thing happened. its probably though because its in wordpad and the entire story is one font and flowing across the screen.

Jordan uses a pragraph in the story usually only at the start of the book which isnt too bad. never read bakker. Though when anyone i know talks about him they say hes very similar to erikson in everything, and it was a critism for to them they felt it detracted from his novel by making an automatic similarity to another novel. how many times have you felt disappointed by a novel because it felt like a rehash of another story(brooks for example). i say dont use them because automatically you are making your book similar to another, whereas not including them makes your book faceless and less easy to place, which is to me a good thing.

tax's story wasnt eriksonesque in anyway, but because of the chapter start thats what my mind automatically associated it with. in the same way your story isnt eriksonesque, at least not in my mind, but it would take time and i think more effort to define your own novel if you automatically set yourself up as similar to someone elses work. it might add something to your story to have these seperate pieces but that would be your decision.

thats my 2p.

[Yellow]

Chapter 7 is done... I'm not sure whether I rushed it or not. Will have to see what you guys think of it.

I'm gonna mail it to DiB, Will and Cause since you guys are up to this bit. Anyone I've missed or anyone who wants it anyway, give me a shout

[Cause]

Okay I have read up to chapter 5 if theirs more please send it.

Okay your magic system is very interesting. But you seem to be mixing your metaphor. You have spiners, thatchers and weavers (are those just ranks) and you describe the gis as thread matching the metaphore but than it becomes a river and you speak of flows and floods etc.

The ending. Im not sure what I was suppose to take away from this but I feel their should be something more. It seemed rushed, the point too hidden.

When vos's presence is discovered why does she simply not slip away. She had the skills to hunt down the 10 guards without them hearing her as they searched fr her. Why not just slip awat meat rax get the next assigment and move on. She seemed to want to avoif the confrontation from the begining but than killed evryone why.

Also the co-incidence that the assasin should happen to be in the same line for food as orm. That he should mention his order. That the assasin should think he meant food and than realise that they were warrior magi seemed a bit too lucky. Perhaps provide another way less reliant on chance for the assasins to discover it. Perhaps the meholims spies or something

I cant really think of more except to say it looks good and interesting. Perhaps you can think of something you want comment on and I will do my best.

Good luck with the rest send it to me as it comes.

[will]

Hey. I’ve just finished the next chapter and I’ve got to say that you are, in many ways, improving as the book goes on. The quality of the writing itself has taken a step up here, in the first section I found the occasional uncomfortable or awkward sentence, but I didn’t find that in this chapter at all. Also, I love the fact that we really get to spend some quality time with one character. Once we got to the good general I was expecting, every time I came to a break, that we would now be off to visit someone else and I was pleased that this wasn’t the case, not because I don’t like the other characters but because I feel that there was too much hopping around in the first section. This is more settled. The one little hop to visit Yanish was even a good thing since it’s brief enough to just supply a little break in Pir’s story. I like the fact that this seems to be a Pir chapter with a little bit of Yanish and the Maghin thrown in to keep it interesting. Now, I want a whole Vos chapter or a whole Orm chapter or whoever you want to write about next.

That said I KNOW you’re sitting there just dying to know what the problems are.

So… the infodump. Now here my thing about infodumps, I’m a really weird reader in that I love to read them. I want to know the story, I want the secret details that only the High Mage of Whositywhatsit has any idea about. Shadows of the Past was one of my favourite chapter in Lord of the Rings. Still, I’m with Bars in that I’m not certain this one works the way it is. I think it’s probably a little much, in terms of volume, and it also needs to be absorbed into the narrative a bit more. Also, I feel like you kind of have to earn an infodump, you’ve got to pique the reader’s curiosity enough that he wants the information so much he’s prepared to accept the dump. You’ve got my interest piqued on many topics, but this history, these countries and these people are not them (in fact I don’t think we’ve heard most of this stuff even mentioned before). So, my advice, for what it’s worth, is this. Break it up a little, like DiB said, try to make it more part of the scene instead of floating alone, and include some veiled hints and clues about this information before we get the full load. If you’re clever enough with your hints you can even cut down considerably on the amount you need to tell us during the dump.

My only other criticism is that I feel you need to show us more and not tell us so much. I know this is kind of old and clichéd advice but there are times when you describe a character or use another characters thoughts to describe a character, when it would be much more effective to just show us that the character is that way. For instance, we hear many times that the assassin Kep is an old and careful fellow. But if you made more of his over-preparation, or his concern when Vos want to change the plan without getting advice from the bosses, or the cautious way he follows Orm and his pals around, if you brought these things out then we’d getting the point without it needing to be explained. I feel a little less explanation and a little more concrete fact would work wonders all around.

I hate writing these critiques… I always feel like I’m being an uppity jerk. Still, I hope this is useful. Like I said, you’re still going strong and, in my opinion, getting stronger. Keep it up.

Oh and I’m working on yours at the moment Bars. I’ll be back to be poncy about it as soon as I’m through. I’m liking what I’ve read so far though.

[Cause]

excellent I will get to it when I can. You said you had questions for me so where are they

[Yellow]

lol ok thanks for getting back... Long post ahoy!

1) I see what you're saying about the infodump stuff on the magic. Problem is, the magic isn't a mystery to the people who use it - Orm, for example, knows the way to use magic, and for me not to describe what he's doing while in his POV wouldn't make sense. It isn't a flowery/fairy kind of thing - there are rules and techniques, and the Gis and Sha are very different in their nature.

The other bits where it's being explained (e.g. to Pir in the last chapter) might be a bit full-on, I can appreciate that. Thing is - you need to know this sort of stuff by this point, so I think the solution will have to be to edge it in before this chapter rather than leaving it until later. I have to stress that the magic system really isn't a mystery to the characters - even though some (such as Pir) aren't familiar with using it themselves, so getting it across to the reader is tricky, but important imo. There is another magic system coming in later (you've already seen glimpses of it), so I need the reader to be familiar with these two (or at least with the Gis, and how it relates to the Sha) first.

2) About the Metholim - Vos, Kep, Saf (and Rax ) - the 3 letter thing is on purpose, and they have no surnames etc, it's just a quirk of their societal structure. I recently realised that my other 2 main characters' surnames are 3 letters (Orm and Pir) which was completely unintentional - does it annoy or seem contrived? I don't want it to clang in the reader's head. I could change them if I have to.

As for the conversation they have - you're gonna have to expand on your comments, because I'm not seeing it In my head, Kep is kind of cautinary about it all, thinks they should take it slow. He's the older, more mature of the three. Saf is younger (a similar age to Vos) and is a little more excitable/prone to the need for adventure. I see Vos as somewhere in between and feeling the weight of the responsibility on her shoulders - but in the end decides to take the plunge.

Is that stuff not coming across?

3) I AM OUTRAGED!! lol just kidding

4) Seriously though - thanks for the comments, but I sort of have to put my foot down about the magic in that it has to be there - how it gets there is something that I'd like your feedback on if you can be bothered?

I have read through it all numerous times, but it is very difficult for me to see it with fresh eyes - I've been writing it now for about 6 months, but it's been in my head for about 18 months. I can't turn my mind off from it anymore, so it's hard to get the new reader's take on it. Of course, that's where your comments come in

5) The last section with Pir: Like I said in the email, this scene is really important, both to me and to the story, so I need to get it right.

You say it is too unexplained - most of it is intentionally beyond what the reader knows so far, and isn't really meant to be an infodump. It's supposed to whet the appetite, perhaps make the reader realise there is more going on than they thought, but not to explain it all. A later re-read after reading the whole book would probably make more sense...

So can I just ask what you think is going on here? What kind of impressions are you getting from this scene as to the plot/world? I personally love the idea of this scene, though I realise I may not have got it across very well.

Once again - I hope you can be arsed with this kind of in-depth crit It is much-appreciated.

Cheers DiB

Anyone else still reading this stuff? I really would appreciate second opinions - even to just say it's bad and you couldn't get past the first chapter! Hello?

[will]

Ok, I'ver read the next bit and I'm kind of grumpy because Bars jumped and said most of the things I was going to say. Still, I'll say it all anyway. I know a lot of this is a repeat of what's already been said.

The story's still moving along well. The characters are developing and you seem to be growing an interesting batch of people here. The assissins in particular worked well, if briefly here, and DiB already mentioned Yannish who I also feel is a point of intrest here. Also I'm not so bothered that Orm's so full of himself, he's an agravating character but you are building up a good base from which to develope him. Be a little careful about taking it too far. Sometimes it seems like this is all there is to Orm and I think he needs some good points or else you do risk getting us all so against him that we'll have trouble having much sympathy for him later. At the moment it's ok, but one or two good deeds to show that he's egotistical but not totally lost to the dark side wouldn't hurt.

I had some trouble with Pir's section (and this is the stuff that I feel DiB's already commented on). I felt that Pir did lose his character a little here. The whole scene felt just a little contrived. I started to notice it the second time Pir have an order to grab the woman. When they failed so spectacularly to sieze her the first time it seems like a compitent general wouldn't order a second attempt. Also he cuts the interview just when she starts to answer his questions, which is great for building suspense, but doesn't make a lot of sense characterwise.

Finally I think you really need to expand some of these scenes, you're back to short little snippits and then on to the next character and every main character has a point of view in this chapter. This could be two full chapters, Pir/Yannish and Vos/Orm (or why not go the whole hog and make it four chapters, give them one each). By breaking it up so much you spend a lot of time explaining what has happened since we last saw the characters and so it really feels like we aren't moving forward (even though to some degree we are). I don't mean that you should pump up what you already have but rather that you should add extra stuff. It seems like you're using each POV shift to achieve just one thing when you could get a number of things into each one (for example DiB's suggestion about a conversation between Yannish and co., and before that some sort of a ruckus over the fouled water, and before that some sort of escalation of the friction between the Vijka guys and Yannish's mob etc). It takes a certain amount of work to change a POV (both on the part of the reader and the writer) and so you should milk each one for all it's worth. I know I'm going on about this, but for me this is one of the most important things for you to address. You've got nice stuff going on with every character and a lot of potential to expand it.

So there's my thoughts. I know they're a little confused but I hope they're useful.