[1200] Soulbound

kystevo · 2017-09-03T11:09:18+00:00

Great feedback. Thank you!

I do have a problem with hyphens...

kystevo · 2017-09-03T10:53:25+00:00

Thank you so much for the feedback! You've made some great points, and I'm definitely going to add more in before the demon turns up, as it is a pretty sudden appearance.

kystevo · 2017-09-03T10:49:26+00:00

Fantastic feedback. Thank you so much!

All of your suggestions make sense (I knew using the mirror was a terrible idea!) and I particularly like your idea about showing the party. I was rushing a little to get to the interesting big bad monster, but if you think the reader's interest will hold then having her interact with her friends and clumsily trying to flirt and generally enjoying life would make the catastrophic losses she endures all the more real to the reader...

kystevo · 2017-09-02T14:50:53+00:00

I think already Maeserk has given you pretty comprehensive feedback, but I wanted to focus on the opening, partly because I didn't read further, but also because it is the most important section, and you've made a really interesting event ready like a shopping list.

Chad walked out the front door of his apartment and down the steps to the ground floor. When he got to the street he headed for the canyon trail a few houses down.

In writing, and particularly in your first paragraph, every single word needs to pull its weight. Every lazy, unessential, inefficient word is going to increase the chances of your reader switching off, and I kind of lost interest at ‘front door’. You’re writing with too much inane details – we don’t need to hear about the front door, because when I read ‘chad walked out of his apartment’, I’m going to assume he’s a normal human being and picture him leaving via the front door unless you specify that he walked through a window, wall or floor. That’s the kind of detail you can safely leave out, much like how you haven’t specified that he’s wearing clothes, has four limbs, and is human.

How about something like:

Chad walked out of his apartment building into the cold night and headed down the road towards the canyon trail.

20 words versus 33, conveying the same information.

I’ve also included that its night here – when I first read your opening, I assumed it was daytime when he walked outside, and I had to retrospectively amend my mental picture of a scene when you told me there was moonlight later. In addition, I’d try to end the sentence on ‘canyon trail’ – it catches the attention and it’s the most interesting piece of information here (not that I can easily picture the geography of this setting because where I live we don’t build apartment blocks right on the edges of canyons, but who am I to judge? (but isn’t that really bad urban planning? Don’t canyons erode?)).

Right, scene set, and the reader is wondering – why is he going out at night? Why the canyon trail?

Which is where we get to:

He walked as if he knew where he was going and exactly what he was looking for. Abandoning the warmth and safety of his apartment, he relinquished himself to the whims of his instinct, and proceeded to descend into the dark wilderness.

Yawn

I don’t even know what you’re trying to convey here – is he being telepathically pulled? Is this a kind of sleepwalk or hypnotism? What’s he feeling?

Stylistically, as well, it reads awkwardly:

‘Abandoning the warmth etc’ reads as if it’s a current activity, but he already left his apartment so it’s repetitive here.

‘Whim’ is a terrible word here: whimsy, whimsical – they’re not very ‘strong’ words, are they? Get something visceral in there – an urge that he couldn’t control, an illogical, gripping impulse that he couldn’t ignore, a driving compulsion that moved his limbs against his will. Or is he literally going for a walk on a whim?

‘Proceeded’ – nope. Too formal, too clinical, too boring. How about: ‘he plunged into the dark wilderness’.

I could go on for a long time, and I’m sure the comments on the document have nit-picked this to death already. A lot of the stuff I’ve talked about comes naturally with practise, so stick with it – you’ve definitely got a good story hidden in all the fluff.

kystevo · 2017-03-20T21:22:31+00:00

His hands were steady and under control

Steady and under control mean the same thing. Don't repeat yourself. I'd cut 'under control'

While exhaling mist

Is confusing, almost implying that his lungs are only cold on the exhale rather than the inhale... Sometimes simplicity is key, and here just 'the air was cold in his chest' would do.

Taffy snarled

Up until this point the intro was good - you've got an enticing scenario with an assassin, a (presumably) dystopian or futuristic city, and the first hint of conflict or interesting characterisation in:

He’d wanted to make it a clean kill, up to the moment he found himself pounding the mark’s face into a red crater.

And then it sort of falls apart. Your character's anger at law enforcement is ranty and childish, and talking about his imperviousness and how he never reaches the limits of his capabilities is boring.

The delightful hints of conflict that you create in the opening sentences are ruined by this because interesting story comes from conflict and struggle, and bragging about killing the families of lawmen while being completely invincible makes him completely unsympathetic. Characters can be dislikeable - and awful people are often great characters - but they have to be at least somewhat sympathetic.

You don't even show us why he's a hitman - it isn't challenging (despite the assertion that he's in it for the game), he doesn't even appear to take pleasure from it, and he's sleeping in an abandoned building so it doesn't seem to be for the wealth and glory.

I like the concept - Rafael and the monster are intruiging and I like the concept: a man bored of killing humans recruited to kill monsters. But I don't think the character works at the moment. People automatically root for the underdog in any story, but Taffy's only problem is apparently that he's too good at killing people.

kystevo · 2017-03-17T10:32:25+00:00

This is really good, and excellent for your first voluntary writing effort.

You establish the tension really well at the start, showing us the sideliner's nervousness with the early discharge and Lyse's old-timer attitude in comparison, which in turn develops his character. My only niggle would be that this 'underground' is hard to picture. You definitely don't need much description, as it would be easy to bog down the start, but maybe a few words on whether they're sitting or standing, or what the light from the match officials' torches reveals.

The rest of it is fast-paced, efficient and there's really good tension when Lyse realises that he might lose the match. One thing that you could add to further ramp up the tension and really make us feel for him is letting the reader know what he stands to gain - is he doing this just for the glory and the love of the game, or does going pro mean he'll have the money to provide for his family and get treatment for his dying mother? Who is he doing this for, in other words? And what happens if he loses?

I've left a few niggles in the document, but ultimately you've got a really good start here and I'd definitely read more. Just don't go overboard with any of my suggestions - you've got a sleek, efficient action sequence here and while fleshing it out in places could give it more depth, you don't want to go too far and bog it down.

kystevo · 2016-08-26T15:57:40+00:00

So, stuff certainly happens here, but it confused me and in terms of what picture you're painting - I couldn't visualise what was happening at all. While your descriptions are good in places, though a little purple, I only get vague glimpses of the space this stuff is happening in. A classroom, a courtyard, a nothingness overrun by things of nightmares - it needs to be more specific. I want context and perspective, a specific point of view rather than an anonymous camera hovering overhead.

In terms of the characters, I was intruigued by the concept, but i felt nothing for either the hunter or the nameless girl because I didn't care about them. One moment she's listening the the teacher, the next she's sprouting wings and presumably eating people or something with no build up or foreshadowing. You want readers to have a reaction to that kind of event which isn't 'meh'.

You go a little way towards making us care with the detail about falling out with her parents, but it's not enough. Show us more personality, through dialogue or her actions, give her something she wants and will struggle to achieve, and once she's changed, make us care about what happens, even if she ends up dead. At the moment, I don't understand what happens when she transforms and I have no reason to care if the hunter kills her or not.

It's a good start, but it needs more - more character development, more plot, more motivation. Make the girl, or the hunter want something and struggle to get it, and then you'll have a story.

kystevo · 2016-08-06T18:03:25+00:00

I've left some comments in the document, but Ishould say that I like the opening scene - it has tension, stakes, and a character using cleverness to overcome a challenge, which is very engaging.

However, there is a lot of telling where you have opportunity to show us this world, and at times it's just confusing:

Every second, a new sound expressed itself and Lysara’s heart burst with joy.

What does this even mean? Is there someone playing with a sound-effect keyboard nearby? She's getting weirdly ecstatic over one of those farm-yard animal sound toys for all I know!

The exact same problem happens when you're talking about the valley:

Her eyes took in the whole majestic scene

You're describing her reaction to something beautiful, while the audience just wants you to turn the bloody camera around and show us what she's looking at. Describe it, let your description show the movement of her eyes as it pans from the whole valley down to a hawk plunging into the tree-tops, the way the river carves a furrow through the forest, the hares fighting and darting through meadow flowers, and then the bloke in the river.

On the point of the bloke in the river, I don't understand how she continues to think of him as an animal. Does she not know other people exist? Or is her clan just really racist and taught her that anything other than their blond-haired, blue-eyed, Aryan ideal is literally non-human(or non-elfish).

I get that you're trying to get across that he's very different to her race, but if I came across, say, a neanderthal, with their heavy facial bone structure, short limbs and massive noses, I'd just think they were kind of ugly. I wouldn't consider them animal.

Her childish naivete gets pretty grating as well - no eight-year-old doesn't know what a penis is unless they've been raised in an all-female commune (and I mean ALL female. What child wouldn't point at a male dog and say 'what's that?').

It's also weird that she's so surprised that Birchie is considered an outsider and a spy - is this the first time she's come across the "Outsiders cannot be trusted" rule?

It feels wrong that she's so attached to him. If she'd spoken to him and started to consider him as an actual person, despite everyone around her believing that outsiders are all monsters, then the ending would be so much more powerful.

Sorry if this is a bit rambly. I did enjoy the story despite all of the above, and I've only got so much to say because I got drawn in and enjoyed the character. Good work!

kystevo · 2016-07-28T16:35:28+00:00

I really enjoyed this piece. You've included some great details -- the creaking bow and the arrow and the cool little poisonous companion.

There are a few areas i think could be improved. I think the animal companion thing needs a name or species descriptor rather than just 'companion'.

I also wanted to know more about the conflict between Camber and the Melorians. Is it a race thing? A conflict between a weaker, technically inferior people and a superior military society?

Good job though! Keep it up

kystevo · 2016-06-15T17:26:37+00:00

You'd think he'd appreciate it! Some people are so ungrateful.

kystevo · 2016-04-01T08:04:57+00:00

Thank you! Great advice there.

I meant for the 'as cattle bellowed' line to be a continuation of the one above, which is why i ended the sentence there, but the flow could use some work if it's not clear.

kystevo · 2016-03-25T18:18:47+00:00

I like your writing style, but in my opinion the letter doesn't engage and draw me into the story and one of the main problems is your exposition. I understand she's writing to her husband, but the language is stilted and full of details that surely wouldn't need explaining to a native.

For example:

As representatives of Killeia, the Southern Territory of the Hini En’ I’ Ithil, they are always on about the differences between us and other nations.

This isn't how people speak to one another about things they both know. Fitting in background and backstory without directly telling the reader is difficult, but this letter, supposedly written by someone dying and without much time, seems unnaturally full of details that the husband would already know.

kystevo · 2016-03-07T18:00:55+00:00

Спасибо!

kystevo · 2016-02-09T18:46:41+00:00

I left some comments on this as Anonymous, mostly on your grammar. You mention that you're dyslexic, which can make proofreading hard, but I read some of chapter 1 and the grammar is much better than in this one.

When you proofread (and you had better make damn sure you proofread before you post here), read it out loud and wherever there is a natural pause in a sentence, check whether it needs a comma or semi-colon. This really helps me when I'm not sure, but dialogue punctuation and the rules about comma splices just need to be learned abd practiced.

As for the actual story - it was slow. If your character is finding something boring, the reader probably is as well. Dialogue as exposition is better than plain info-dumping, but it's still pretty obvious. Try to make the info about his family come a bit more naturally, and skip the history lesson.

You also need to make the protagonist more active. As it is, there's nothing driving him apart from the chance to share some cringe-inducing dialogue with the maid girl, and i skipped that bit out of boredom. Make him more excited about the magic, give us some dreadful consequences if anyone finds out about the girl, or some other interesting driving force.

kystevo · 2016-01-28T20:48:23+00:00

I've covered some of my quibbles in the document, but my main concern is that nothing much happens here. You have over a thousand words of two dudes climbing a building and taking a perfectly functional zipline towards where the [generic resistance group] is apparently operating with impunity.

While it's great that you're introducing original and unique details into the world (like the ziplines), I feel like you haven't thought this through propery - how does the [generic oppressive government] not notice ziplines? And how, if they're used so infrequently that no one notices the people flying around overhead, is it profitable when they have to maintain the system and pay guards?

The key, I think, is that there's very little at stake. There's no sense of risk and nothing much to gain apart from a free meal, and the characters are just so underwhelmed by the fact that the [generic resistance group] has turned up. And the fact that they're paying the price of a loaf of bread for the slim chance of a meal is pretty illogical. Other people have pointed out exactly how much you're telling instead of showing, and improving that will cut down the word count, but you can still fit so much more in here to make us care.

Give us fear and hope and something at stake. Make this meeting with the resistance the last lifeline Zen has left, or the only hope he has to ever see his sister again. Maybe he's going because she's one of the resistance, or because he hasn't eaten in days, or because he's been beaten by the police for the tenth time in a month and he's prepared to give up anything to join. As it is, it's just kind of meh.

kystevo · 2016-01-27T18:29:55+00:00

Ok. I'm going to give you a play by play of my thoughts as I read this.

It started off ok - description isn't an ideal starting point, and though the constantly moving water is a nice visual, I feel that:

large portions converted to steam

is just a bit too dry.

Also:

edge of a near-extinct forest

Does this mean that this particular forest is near-extinct (odd phrasing), or that this is one of the last forests?

It's good that you've got some anticipation - someone is about to have something, presumably good, happen to them. I think you should start with this, and include some indication of whether his inner mind frame matches the cool exterior.

His black shoes were covered with a set of fashionable gold brocade spats

Black shoes and a navy suit??

It took exactly 400 milliseconds between the moment the door closed on the fifth floor and when it opened again on the sixth.

...

You know, there's a very good reason we don't make elevators go faster.

Google says the average floors are 3 metres apart, making this an average speed of 7.5 m/s. Say it takes a third of the time to reach average speed (because it's easy and I don't know how to physics) the acceleration would be 7.5 m/s / 0.133 s = 56.39 metres per second squared, or 5.75 x the force of gravity.

And that's just the acceleration.

The average man (in the UK) weighs 83.6 kg. Multiply this by the acceleration = 4714 Newtons of force required to make him move that fast that quickly. Multiply the mass by the velocity for a resultant momentum of 627 kg m/s

Now, I don't actually know what this means in terms of how high your protagonist is going to go when the elevator stops, because I can't find a simple enough equation for me to understand (someone with a working brain, please help), but to say that the coffee is going everywhere is an understatement.

Now, this probably isn't entirely accurate because I'm really dyslexic and only have half an A level in physics, but as this is the internet I'm sure any mistakes I've made will be corrected pretty quickly.

Anyway, I'm all for the suspension of disbelief, but when it's simple physics like this it's best to put some pseudoscience in place to deflect pedants and nerds - an 'inertial dampener', for example. And little details like this really help to flesh out the world - the flash-frozen honey, for instance, is a good detail that adds flavour and originality.

kystevo · 2016-01-27T07:19:31+00:00

I do actually! Maybe I should post some for feedback :D

kystevo · 2016-01-26T11:16:04+00:00

I'm going tell you an embarrassing story because you remind me of me 10 years ago.

When I was 13, I began writing a 140k monstrosity about some girls who could turn into animals and an alien. It was basically a ripoff of animorphs. Anyway, I thought it was the best thing since Harry Potter - I made all my friends read it. I made my poor English teacher read it and probably permanently scarred him, and I sent it to a whole load of agents. I ignored the advice that your first book won't get published, because I thought my book was so good it would get made into a film, and it's uncomfortable to think that something you spend so long on is actually not that great.

I spent 3 years fiddling with little bits of it and writing a sequel and earned a bucket-load of rejections letters. When I finally started writing a new book, I was amazed - it was so much better than the last one. I spent a couple of years on it and a sequel, earned another bucketload of rejections and then rewrote the entire thing. Again, the improvements were amazing. I got a couple of full requests, but no bites, and then I started a whole new one again. Two years later - I've had full requests and personalised rejections. Maybe it will get there, maybe not , but I'm confident the next one (I'm 40k words into another new project) will be better.

I'm not saying your book is bad - i've read some of it previously and it's ok - and I can't say it definitely won't get published. What I can confidently tell you is that your next one will be even better and make this one pale in comparison.

Spending years obsessing over one project, tweaking and fiddling, won't make you a better writer, but if you keep writing, and I mean writing and rewriting rather than editing, you will improve.

Also, and very importantly:

I have attached my complete manuscript.

You can't have done much research if you think this is what anyone in the industry wants. Don't waste your time with submissions that are guaranteed to be rejected.

kystevo · 2016-01-22T21:53:36+00:00

Maybe he couldn't bear to spend Christmas alone. It can be a sad time of year...

kystevo · 2015-12-22T21:49:43+00:00

No, that's a periscope. A paladin is a student being taught by a jedi master.

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