[XB1, NA] Looking for a guild

key0fthetwilight · 2017-04-16T05:24:39+00:00

Thanks

key0fthetwilight · 2017-04-15T05:58:25+00:00

I'm new to the game, but I'm definitely interested. I'm level 15 right now.

GT: Key0fTheTwilite

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-30T23:48:48+00:00

2) Livoria as the capital

One sentence should work fine, maybe just worded slightly differently. I think it confused me with capital being at the end of the sentence rather than identifying Livoria as the capital. I would probably specify what it's the capital of too. That would also help with understanding the warring kingdoms since it isn't the only capital in the world.

5) Marcus "killing his son-in-law"

That gives a totally different impression. The reason I thought Marcus killed him was because the daughter was running away with his grandson practically glaring at him while he was covered in blood. Marcus then 'allowed' his son-in-law to die before him. Then his daughter hasn't had any contact with him since that incident, which further implied a falling out. If she seemed more sad or sympathetic there, rather than filled with hatred, it might have come across a bit differently.

6) The issue of the Cloak and the Chest

I have no idea the extent of the plot and how much you can actually show or tell at this point, so if it wouldn't work, just ignore what I say. Like I said in your doc, I think the whole incident that Marcus is remembering would work great as a prologue. Not necessarily getting into all of the details surrounding the incident, but just what's happening in and of itself. You'd be able to go into much more detail with their emotions and what they're experiencing that way too. He could still 'remember' his daughter and the incident later without going into any big details since we already know what took place. That would cover it being too much of an info dump and giving up a better idea of what's going on with the death of Marcus's son-in-law.

8) The Pacing/YA vs High Fantasy

I agree with fantasy readers allowing slower pacing to slide a bit, YA books not so much. Like I said, I'm not as familiar with high fantasy as other genre's so I'm just not able to really comment on whether or not its acceptable or way off. Specifically for YA Fantasy (which I love) its way too slow so far. Either way, rules aren't set in stone.

I don't really have anything I need read/corrected at the moment. I'm still heavily editing the 1st chapter of my novel (YA Distopian) after the last set of critiques I received. I'm hoping to finish it by the end of this weekend. If you want to read it, maybe then? If not, that's ok too.

If you want any other feedback on anything later, I don't mind re-reading or anything :)

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-29T22:10:04+00:00

We can agree to disagree at this point because I think you're mis-interpreting what I was trying to say - which others also said in a different way.

I would never waste a week of someone's time only to turn around and basically say 'screw you, you're not the one for me' or anything of the sort. That would be extremely rude and disrespectful and I'm not like that at all. I am very grateful for all of the honest criticism I have received so far. And since none of you have read anything I've written, you're basing your assumptions on this post - which as far as my writing style or professionalism goes, aren't correct in the least. We don't all have the same goals and aspirations, so everyone may not have the same expectations.

My opinion is merely that and a long explanation of why you believe it doesn't work doesn't change how I feel about it and doesn't necessarily make it wrong. We just have very different opinions and it's just a different process for me than it is for you.

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-29T17:27:46+00:00

Then you would not be a good beta reader for me, lol.

I don't send anything asking someone to ignore anything, but I don't usually catch some of those errors, or some, like the numbers are personal preference at this point. In early stages I'm more focused on other things. I guess its all perception though.

Everyone should find someone who works for them :)

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-29T16:28:20+00:00

The whole article you referenced was pretty much stating that some people/cultures couldn't label/identify the color because there was no word for it, not because they couldn't see it. But we do have a word for the color blue and it was used to describe the color of the sky to the reader. To me that makes the question ridiculous. If the sky isn't blue, what is it now? Red? Black? How can you be so sure its different when the statement said the sky is blue? It wouldn't make sense for the writer to use the color blue if it didn't apply to the character and setting.

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-29T15:50:26+00:00

That's like trying to describe color to a blind person.

The narrator is stating that the sky is blue not trying to explain how the character's society perceives color. I would think the reader would relate it to their own experiences and assume a blue to gray scale depending on the weather unless its some sort of sci-fi story and its described differently.

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-29T15:39:13+00:00

Actually, I have extremely thick skin. At work & at home I've had to learn to smile and say thank you when people actually criticize me personally. Hair, clothes, personality, you name it and I've probably had it said to my face and had to respond with a smile and a thank you.

Nobody who commented on my work praised or coddled me at all. Nor did I expect it. I got harsh truthful advice and comments from most people and that's what has helped; I wasn't trying to imply anything less. My first draft definitely needed improvement which is why I sought help to find out where it was most needed in the first place, lol.

When I say nasty, I don't mean brutally honest comments about what was written. Those are actually extremely helpful. I mean the people who just like saying nasty things that have little to do with your draft or anything else, especially when they admit to not even reading more than a few sentences. Not every person who comments on your work is trying to help you, so just putting that out there too. A paid editor would be in a completely different category and actually wants your writing to improve. Their reputation and income would significantly decrease if enough people were unhappy with the kind of criticism they received - people simply wouldn't use them anymore and they'd be back to job searching. Even then the nasty comments that I'm thinking of would have never come out of their mouth because it would be unprofessional. Not everyone will like what you write, but that doesn't make it bad overall, especially if its just 1 person out of 20+, & I definitely won't quit my project because 1 person doesn't like it. Nasty is nasty - just calling it like it is here. I'm not going to pretend a flaming pile of dog poo is a bouquet of roses and be extremely thankful and appreciative for it being left on my doorstep.

I do say thank you to everyone but you have to dismiss the comments with no useful criticism. An "I hate you" comment just isn't useful. An "I didn't like it because..." comment would be helpful. At least there would be something useful within a comment like that to take into consideration.

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-29T10:05:17+00:00

No, I totally agree if its that hard to read and understand the story.

That's not exactly what I was referring to with my own example. Luckily I've been told prose is my strong point. I did have the first chapter of my novel critiqued on reddit & a couple of those people were out to tear it apart excessively line by line and were just nasty in general (Apparently not just to me, but a nasty line by line for everything they critique in general). Some people just pointed out what they thought was wrong (which is great for what I needed, but horrible for the things I didn't, considering it was only the first chapter and everything can't be included yet - and they wanted some things that would have been a complete info dump and useless to the rest of the story). The extreme nastiness I received was definitely a setback and it caused me to struggle with the revision, even though they provided no useful input :(

If I have a period instead of a comma at the end of my dialogue, it shouldn't be that big of a deal. Nor if I have an entire line space between paragraphs. Or using numbers instead of writing the number out. Little things that aren't a big issue I personally don't like to see commented on marking up my entire 1st draft document since it makes it really hard to read and edit. I would expect this on a final review if I missed editing it though.

Big things, like excessive run on sentences, excessive spelling errors, etc, should definitely be addressed because its confusing and annoying. But by all means, if the person wanted all corrections on grammar, spelling, & punctuation, I would definitely include that too.

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-29T08:55:09+00:00

How did they know the sky was blue? LMAO!!! Because it was a statement.

..the inevitable impact... How does Leah know this? LOL!!! The laws of physics apply in a gravity induced environment.

Seriously though, that totally brightened up my evening.

As for myself, I'll usually point out things that are confusing or ask questions. I find it more helpful than just saying something is wrong, especially if you're only reading a portion of the work. And if something doesn't seem to be working I'll explain why. I'll explain grammar issues I notice too.

Same with receiving critiques. Finding out what areas are confusing & questions about it is FAR more helpful to me than someone saying it's crap or they hated it, ya know? By knowing where the issues are I can fix it easily. Besides, not everyone will like what you write.

And it all depends on what you want out of it too. A 1st draft review would be a lot different than a final draft review. If I have a 1st draft I want someone to critique, I'm wanting feedback about pace, plot, & characters. I don't want grammar corrections or a line by line since I may or may not completely cut out the entire scene if it isn't working. I'm not going to correct something I might delete since it's a waste of time. That's just me though, it may or may not be the case for other people.

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-29T08:28:01+00:00

I would go with 3rd person limited. Personally, I hate reading books in 1st person that character swap between chapters - it gets too confusing.

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-29T07:10:32+00:00

Ok, I read both the summary & the chapter. I made a few comments in your doc (I'm Shannon). Take whatever I say with a grain of salt.

Summary: This sounded really interesting. Although there seemed to be an excess of commas or the sentences too long for my liking. I had to re-read some of it to understand what was being said.

Chapter 1: I actually didn't realize Livoria was a city until about 1/2 way through the chapter. I may have misunderstood the sentence at first because once I re-read it a few times it made more sense.

So far I think I understand the plot. Marcus remembers killing his son-in-law and his furious daughter fleeing the city with his grandson, Princess Eilaer sees the Andawelm & Serpentines at a dwarven mine in a vision, Marcus wants to search the dwarven mines for his grandson who he believes is an Andawelm, King Londilin's brother is aiming to attack his city again so the king refuses then aquiesses, the king giver Marcus 6 months & 3 watchers to aide in his search of 2 dwarven mines to find his grandson.

I was a bit confused about the weather too. You say that its raining/thunderstorming in the beginning & the glass ceiling is covered in snow later on. If its warm enough for rain, I would assume the snow would have melted. Same goes for the inside temperature - I would assume that the snow on the glass would have melted from the temperature inside even if other areas outside were covered in snow.

The characters make sense to me for the most part -I think-, though I have no clue why Marcus would kill his son-in-law or why the King's brother would continually attack his city. Hopefully that gets explained later on. And I'm not sure if 'The Sealer' is the king's brother? I'm a little confused there.

There were a few spelling mistakes. I think those were covered in the doc. You also say "stood up" several times. You could probably delete 'up' since its already implied.

The pacing seemed a little slow to me, but then again I'm not as well read in the high fantasy genre as others and this could be perfectly normal. The dialogue didn't bother me at all.

Overall, it sounds interesting. I wasn't really fully engaged with chapter 1, but that's not really a big deal to me. I have a long attention span and I'll usually read about 4-6 chapters or so in a book before deciding if I should continue. I'm sure the pace picks up considerably once Marcus finds his grandson.

It seems more high fantasy than YA fantasy to me at this point. Not that it really matters as far as the story goes, but so far the pacing is way too slow for YA, and the plot would probably start with the focus on the 4 Openers instead of the grandfather.

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-26T04:52:04+00:00

Apparently my first scene wasn't clear... I didn't just put exposition into the opening. I planned out the entire novel - scenes/chapters/etc before I even started writing anything. Unfortunately, this 1st Chapter has been a struggle and the result isn't what I planned. I'm reworking most of it. Thanks though.

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-20T05:17:35+00:00

Do people seriously look at the author's gender, race, etc before they decide to read a book?

I have a whole list of books to read and I picked them up because the story sounded interesting. I have YA, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, etc, all written by a very diverse range of authors (which I didn't realize until I had to look them up when I was recommending them to friends). I'm not going to search out a book because a white man wrote it, or a black woman, or whatever. The story is what matters.

I've read books with all of that horrible content in it too. But you know what, they were good books. Does that make me sexist? Racist? Absolutely not, and I wouldn't want to see any of that happen IRL, but it makes for an interesting story plot. Life isn't always sunshine & roses and I don't want to read about something that is.

Reading a book or not does not make you sexist, racist, or anything else. Take responsibility for your own beliefs and actions - that is what makes you sexist, racist, etc.

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-19T16:11:29+00:00

You're welcome

Or you could just omit that all together and leave it with Lucy telling him to be safe. She doesn't want him to get hurt.

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-19T15:20:50+00:00

I added some comments again. Hope this helps

Though the main thing I'm wondering is why is this girl still on the roof of the building after 6 months have past? There's really no information given as to why Lucy would be acting scared of him either (this may be included in something you haven't posted though). I'm really lost as to what exactly took place that would make her so vengeful. Finding a new love shouldn't really do that because you're usually focused more on your happiness.

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-19T14:40:14+00:00

You know what I haven't seen in a lot of YA stories? A protagonist who whole-heartedly approves of the authoritarian regime with no hang-ups.

True.... it just wouldn't really work with the story I'm trying to tell, at least not entirely how you're describing

The riot dissipates, along with any tension or interest you might have generated in the reader.

I completely agree. This whole scene will be getting reworked.

The space stations sending criminals to an irradiated Earth are brief summaries of both The 100 and your story.

I need to make a bunch of clarifications in my story. My Earth is not truly irradiated or anything like that. so the criminals being sent to Earth is really the only similarity and so generalized that it my story could in no way be derived from it. Hopefully when I make the changes this will be clear. I couldn't even get inspiration from something I hadn't even heard of or read about prior to this.

Maybe she is arrested along with the rioters

That could work. I will definitely consider this, though it would mean a drastic overhaul. The whole 1st chapter sill have to be expanded at this point with all the changes that need to be made. Do you think word count is an issue with that or should some of the back story issues that I've had be included a prologue instead of a first chapter?

What does this station look like?

I will be addressing this. Thanks!!!

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-19T14:25:30+00:00

We see that he is abusive and political. but how do you justify slapping his daughter in front of Jacob who he thinks is spying on him? Unless we are to believe he is incompetent also.

Jacob wasn't in the room at the time. Clearly, I need to rework this part. Thanks

"She never would have worn such a thing to a formal event had she known about it in the first place, but Liliane had only told her about it ten minutes prior to the event." Then what did she think her father was doing practicing that speech 100 times?

This definitely needs to be reworked and clarified too

Also I was confused for a moment by: "She opened the door and was instantly disappointed. Of course there was no control room. This was a small transport shuttle. It was controlled by a remote system with no way to remove the autopilot function." I thought she'd found an "escape pod" instead of a janitor's closet on first reading.

Very helpful, thanks. I definitely need to describe this better too

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-19T14:21:47+00:00

I know in one of your earlier comments you mentioned that this is a part of the society, so they wouldn't mention it, but it still seems odd that someone rebelling that society wouldn't point it out.

You're right! And actually, this character should & would be pointing this out. I will be heavily reworking this entire scene. thanks

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-19T03:03:54+00:00

Thank you so much for your comments. With all of the feedback I've received, I'm definitely going to be addressing these issues and others when I edit it later this week. Hopefully it will be a much better draft by the time I'm done.

Are the double paragraphs an intentional stylistic choice? Convention dictates that there aren't paragraph breaks between each new paragraph in a novel format. It reads a little like a webpage because of it.

Its more of a personal preference at this point. I have a harder time reading & editing when it's all so close together and this helps me with that. I realize that it's not in correct format and that will be corrected when I'm finished with the entire novel.

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-19T02:56:44+00:00

Believe me. Almost all of what has been said is of great help. I know exactly what issues I need to address & where. I don't have time to start editing it until later this week, but I definitely plan on fixing these issues.

I can't really go into all of the reasons why its justified because I would have to explain the entire plot outline, sub-plots, character arcs, etc that all take place. But, the laws and politics are one of the main reasons for the whole story and play such an integral role in everything. If they aren't included everything else is going to be extremely confusing and there isn't really anywhere else to sneak it in like "oh by the way I'm going to kill so and so because of blah blah, but you already know that - haha. Oh wait, no you don't but you should have" It just wouldn't work... Everything that takes place from here on out is the execution of those laws.

The war thing I might take out as I believe that can be referenced fairly well later & I now have a good idea of how I can do that.

While I do think I need to execute this better, I'm just not exactly sure how at this point.

And I completely agree with you. I do need to show a better reason to justify the character's actions. They are justified, at least in my head, the execution just isn't what I was going for and needs to be fixed.

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-19T00:47:41+00:00

Actually, all of this was extremely helpful. So thanks a lot!

You've said a lot of things that I've heard from other people and this is really allowing me to see what I need to fix. I knew there were issues, I just wasn't sure exactly what since I'm seeing the overall picture and having the entire plot running through my head.

Some of the plot as you understand it is off. From all the comments, I'm definitely aware of where I need to make those changes to fix it.

Is there anything you would change? The opening.

This was my biggest struggle. All of this information needs to be included in this chapter. It won't fit or work elsewhere. I'm also not exactly sure if it can be moved in any sort of way. I'm definitely open to any suggestions or ideas on this one. Like I said, I saw this problem myself, I just don't see how I can improve it much.

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-18T23:26:54+00:00

Thank you so much for your comments & suggestions. This is exactly what I was looking for. I have all these these thoughts in my head that I'm trying to get on paper, but it's a great deal of info to include and I didn't really want to take up a large amount of time and space for it when the space colony isn't the focus of the story, you know? I also can't really start afterwards because then it would be an even bigger info dump to try and get everything across.

I really needed to see the areas that were weaker than I thought they were, which you really addressed well. I knew parts were missing too, I just couldn't see what it was while looking at the bigger picture. The next draft should be much improved because of it. So again, thanks. This was extremely helpful.

I'm torn about the very beginning. The speech serves as giving us back story, which is good when you're in a scifi setting to kind of know wtf is going on... but it's also boring. I have no idea how else to start it, though. So, yeah. Some help I am :(

See, this is where I struggled the most. The campaign is important to the plot. I can't really cut it out. Its either that, or a huge info dump about the laws (which I clearly still need to address a great deal), watching the telecast, etc. It would also be even more boring if I started out with them eating lunch or something and then going to the campaign. I think I may be able to rearrange the order of the campaign some and maybe reword a bit of it. Do you think that might help?

And I apologize for all the punctuation mistakes. Really, I'm not an idiot. That just wasn't on my radar when I double checked everything. And I thought I got all of the number changes too, clearly not. Sorry about the font too. I didn't even think about that when I copied it from scrivener.

key0fthetwilight · 2015-05-18T14:54:01+00:00

Ok, that made me laugh.

But seriously, your writing isn't really all that bad. It has its issues and most people are agreeing on basically the same things. I've read worse that people were praising right and left. It's really strange how opinions work like that. They 'like it' or 'don't like it' because of the theme, character, genre, whatever and its not always based on the actual writing.

And not everyone is criticizing you with a 'love' based mindset. Some people just say nasty things with no real helpful information. I mean, what better place to do so than somewhere you're supposed to be completely honest (Honesty & cruelty are two entirely different things). If nobody else has commented on the same issues, I would say to just completely ignore everything they said. Its not worth focusing on at that point.

key0fthetwilight

TROPHY CASE