Bay 12 Games Forum

He just answered a pretty long question.

While Andrew is rather odd at times, I honestly think that there's a point to this. He isn't the kind of person to do just weird random stuff.

... ahahaha

AHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahaha ha

ha

Okay, I'm done.

Being a Libra, my shirt is obviously one of the coolest. I have judged this justly, and I will hear no disagreement.

The no good blue bloods think I'm a little too teal do they? I will show them. I will show them.

♎ >:D

I warned myself, bro. I warned myself about homonyms.

I like the trolls as a giant incestuous slurry of awesome.

53 people in the poll agree that Trolls are awesome.

Also posting on page 413. I hope.

Also, I am totally down with Terezi/Karkat. Good Trolls. Best Hatefriends.

Also, when using slashes for ships ( X/X ), I usually put the dominant on the left and the submissive on the right. It makes life more interesting.

Spoiler: Snip (click to show/hide)

@Willfor: All in all, the previous version was much better, in my opinion. I'm going to add this one alongside. I don't think you should worry about it being online before submitting to a publisher, because, frankly, you've got a lot to improve. Also, the previous version was proofread much better.

Firstly, the beginning is confusing, kind of. Everything until "They nodded..." passed right by me. Maybe because there's too much information without any background. Or maybe because there isn't any introduction. A description of the speakers and the surroundings could help. Seamstress' shop can look differently depending on the era and the country. A person in a wheelchair can be a weathered war veteran, or a Victorian youth devoted to sciences.

Secondly, you should use more varied sentence structure. There are places where "She did..." repeats far too many times.

Thirdly, I guess it could be attributed to purple prose. Your dialogue is very dynamic, but then you insert a completely superfluous description of the landscape. Like

Quote

The city of Leanne sprawled out before her. She breathed in a puff of coal fumes mixed with flower scents from a stand across the street. The sky was full of small clouds, and the sun was behind one of them. A few trails of smoke were rising up from the city on the other side of the river. The skyline was full of construction with three new towers being raised. Reds and whites dominated the colors she saw. Hera stopped looking around, and focused on her company as they made their way through the streets.

Fourthly, he didn't really mean it, I hope. The way Hera acts doesn't really imply that Hector is able to kill her on a whim. Don't play with the reader.

Fifthly, unintended laughs. You know how I imagine a person would act if their guest spilled milk on the table? "Oh, goodness!... Don't worry, dear, I'll bring a cloth." I don't think that's what Renée's reaction was supposed to be.

Sixthly, I thought people would post in this thread instead of creating other threads for their stories. Well, I guess, for advertisement purposes, your way works better. But if your story is intended for this thread, post it in this thread, please.

Not much time before I have to go on a trip (weee, vacation at last), but I'm going to address a few points. But before I do that, I do want to thank you for taking the time to look it over and post your views. Good criticism is hard to come by.

When I put down "early draft" I wasn't lying. I am more aware than most the amount of improvement it needs, and I have had to fight my internal editor all the way to keep myself from taking too much time to clean up earlier sections while I ignore getting any progress done at all. My first chapter of the previous attempt was in every way better than this, but it had the advantage of being worked over several times after I already had a few more chapters. But while it was better, I had very little grasp of the setting. Since I've revised it (though it doesn't show) I have a very good grasp of the cultures involved, and I could very easily add any number of descriptions to anything in the city. The whole thing could be set in note form to myself, because I am likely going to have to gut the whole thing. I would be more worried if I hadn't already had to gut my previous work several times to make it as good as it was.

There is only so much that this first chapter will be able to do in the end though. It's not a standard fantasy world, and I have a lot of characters and concepts I have to introduce. Probably too many actually. The ones introduced at the start are going to be very important for the whole book, and I am likely going to have to come back to this first chapter several times to weight it against everything else. Leanne needs to be fleshed out a lot more simply because it's being introduced, and then abandoned for about two chapters, and then it gets very important again. (Woo, working with an outline is awesome, I need to do it more often).

I'll take all of your criticisms under advisement when I go back to it, but I would like to move forward, which means it's probably going to be awhile before revisions can be seen. Novels are hard work.

@Willfor: The positive point is that, knowing where you're going from the previous version, I see that you probably have got a very epic adventure, a kind of a saga, in mind, and if you've pulled off completing it, even if it's a rough draft, I must really commend you.
Also, you've got a note there, and I think you're wrong. The dialogue is just fine, it's the canvas that could use work.

Dialogue is my strongest asset. If I can do nothing else, I have several times been told that I can do good dialogue. I don't ever really start believing it, but it's nice to know people enjoy it. Description has always come the hardest for me, which is why I am writing Hera: Her characterisation lives and dies on my ability to do good description. I am going to be exercising my description muscles a lot, and hoping they get stronger as I go.

Further work on my Troll Mod. There's quite a bit left to do, but I decided to test out my Prosecuting Attorney noble (based on Terezi). The results are a little hilarious. This managed to happen in the first year:


Things are going to get very ugly. Especially since she's already had to cull one troll who was tantruming after applying a strict beat(down).

Annnnd she just killed her lover. blackrom is officially implemented.

Chapter 1 of the novel in its revised setting. Several things require names and expansion, but it's safe for me to move onto the next chapter knowing generally what's been introduced. In general, it needs more flesh on its bones, and better pacing. Also, it is formatted for posting in places where html is acceptable, and I'm not going to fix that right this second.


In general, I'd like to know if any of you feel if I'm introducing too many characters too quickly, and if the names get confusing. I like using nicknames in both Hera's dialogue, and thought processes. If you have to read it twice over to understand who is doing what though, it means I am not quite doing my job. Well, if it happens too often, anyway.

Now I am off to make some kind of blurb.