Need honest reviews!
#1
Hello,
I've been working on this book for a while now and I've finally posted almost all that I had written ahead of time. My views dwindle at about chapter 9 and I've never gotten to many comments. I can't figure it out. Can some of you help? I'll review your story as well if you would like, just let me know!
http://royalroadl.com/fiction/14922/the-coming-of-magic-a-world-in-chaos
-Twin
I've been working on this book for a while now and I've finally posted almost all that I had written ahead of time. My views dwindle at about chapter 9 and I've never gotten to many comments. I can't figure it out. Can some of you help? I'll review your story as well if you would like, just let me know!
http://royalroadl.com/fiction/14922/the-coming-of-magic-a-world-in-chaos
-Twin
RE: Need honest reviews!
#2
Of course! I would love to. ::) I'll go check that out! If you want to read mine as well, I'd love that, but please don't feel pressured if you don't have the time or the desire. (see my signature for the link)
Just another girl living life to the best that she can, God's child, now and forever. I'm looking forwards to meeting you and talking with you in the future. My novel: http://www.royalroadl.com/fiction/14788/terminal
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RE: Need honest reviews!
#4
I've read your story up to and including chapter 5, and here is what I have noticed so far:
It was painfully slow at times, and filled with quite a few superfluous scenes. I ended up actually skimming trough a couple of your chapters, with nothing worthwhile sticking out to me as important.
Only 4 things felt like it was worth remembering. The MC's are brothers, Jack and Bryan. They only barely get along, Jack's love interest has appeared, and he owns a knife. He really owns an awesome knife. Did he mention that he owns a knife? and that it's awesome? <- that thing better save Jack's life mate. not to mention his brothers, his newfound girlfriend, and her brothers to boot, or I will rescind your licence to supply weapons of awesomeness to MC's.
You set up quite a few conflicts these last 2 chapters, but their relevancy is still unclear. If you needed there to be conflicts with the same people later on, then that is fine, but it has hurt your pacing up til now.
I think you could have skipped Bryans pov and stuck to Jack's for instance. We already know that Bryan can be an ass, so him getting in trouble would not be a surprise in itself. If we needed the details about who and why, then Bryan could have told Jack the pertinent details in 3 or 5 paragraphs tops. There was no need to have us witness his great goof of spilling beer on someone's girlfriend.
This would have speed up your story without detracting anything important from it.
Considering the buildup til the asteroid/meteoroid impact, the impact itself was anti climatic. I would have liked to see you pull out the big guns on describing the awesome/terrifying/earth shattering (litterally) event, rather than the preamble, namely the party.
There are also a couple of strange choices being made, like why are they carrying all their luggage? they rented a car, it was locked. normal people leave their luggage in the car in those cases.
All in all, your writing was pretty good so far, but you seem to have a drifting focus, and an aversion to glossing over things that isn't important to the story itself.
I have the same issues sometimes, but I have found that by asking a few questions about the text helps to spot it early on. you need at least 1 yes in order to keep a scene intact.
1. Is this relevant to the direction of the story?
2. Do the reader have to witness this event directly to understand something?
3. Is this scene interesting in it's own right?
4. Is the information presented important character/world/stage building?
Let's look at the motel scenes. most of them fails the first question. it wasn't relevant for the story, it was pure stage setting for a scene that didn't use nor actually need it.
It also fails the 3rd. and 4th. questions. It wasn't interesting, nor was it important to the events that took place later on. The dialogue itself was what we needed to witness, so with a rewrite, it could get a yes on question 2
There were also flashback style infodumps about their relative personalities. that was in violation of question 1,2 and 3. you could have done more to show us rather than tell us in this case, and thus gotten a yes on question 3 as well as 4. the more yes answers you get, the better your scene is working.
There were also a lot of background information about the MC's being dumped on us. this could have been deferred to later in the story. we don't need to know that much about Jack and his bro so early on. We can learn about them as the story unfolds.
It was painfully slow at times, and filled with quite a few superfluous scenes. I ended up actually skimming trough a couple of your chapters, with nothing worthwhile sticking out to me as important.
Only 4 things felt like it was worth remembering. The MC's are brothers, Jack and Bryan. They only barely get along, Jack's love interest has appeared, and he owns a knife. He really owns an awesome knife. Did he mention that he owns a knife? and that it's awesome? <- that thing better save Jack's life mate. not to mention his brothers, his newfound girlfriend, and her brothers to boot, or I will rescind your licence to supply weapons of awesomeness to MC's.
You set up quite a few conflicts these last 2 chapters, but their relevancy is still unclear. If you needed there to be conflicts with the same people later on, then that is fine, but it has hurt your pacing up til now.
I think you could have skipped Bryans pov and stuck to Jack's for instance. We already know that Bryan can be an ass, so him getting in trouble would not be a surprise in itself. If we needed the details about who and why, then Bryan could have told Jack the pertinent details in 3 or 5 paragraphs tops. There was no need to have us witness his great goof of spilling beer on someone's girlfriend.
This would have speed up your story without detracting anything important from it.
Considering the buildup til the asteroid/meteoroid impact, the impact itself was anti climatic. I would have liked to see you pull out the big guns on describing the awesome/terrifying/earth shattering (litterally) event, rather than the preamble, namely the party.
There are also a couple of strange choices being made, like why are they carrying all their luggage? they rented a car, it was locked. normal people leave their luggage in the car in those cases.
All in all, your writing was pretty good so far, but you seem to have a drifting focus, and an aversion to glossing over things that isn't important to the story itself.
I have the same issues sometimes, but I have found that by asking a few questions about the text helps to spot it early on. you need at least 1 yes in order to keep a scene intact.
1. Is this relevant to the direction of the story?
2. Do the reader have to witness this event directly to understand something?
3. Is this scene interesting in it's own right?
4. Is the information presented important character/world/stage building?
Let's look at the motel scenes. most of them fails the first question. it wasn't relevant for the story, it was pure stage setting for a scene that didn't use nor actually need it.
It also fails the 3rd. and 4th. questions. It wasn't interesting, nor was it important to the events that took place later on. The dialogue itself was what we needed to witness, so with a rewrite, it could get a yes on question 2
There were also flashback style infodumps about their relative personalities. that was in violation of question 1,2 and 3. you could have done more to show us rather than tell us in this case, and thus gotten a yes on question 3 as well as 4. the more yes answers you get, the better your scene is working.
There were also a lot of background information about the MC's being dumped on us. this could have been deferred to later in the story. we don't need to know that much about Jack and his bro so early on. We can learn about them as the story unfolds.