killing a well-liked character only makes them better

677

(17 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

http://www.skyfire.ca/kwan/tnbw/large_comment_box.jpg
Windows/Firefox 53

678

(68 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

My friend and I were discussing how each Sci Fi show has their own 'Jar Jar'.
For example Wesley is the Jar Jar of TNG and Neelix is the Jar Jar of Voyager.

Convinced you of Requiem?

Dun fret about the review counts. Chapters 1-3 are greatly loved on this site. Once you hit chapter 4, things naturally dry out, and only the really dedicated reviewers remain.

Also welcome. You'll get a lot of help here, and I'll be able to pick on you even more for not writing Yufu

681

(6 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

And it begins...

Is Thecla going to be in it?

683

(1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

what is the angle bracket made out of... Vibranium??

Think about your hook... if you had to choose four words for my eye to fall on in the first sentence, what would they be?

I'd hazard to guess "fourteen boy special powers"

It's probably not "Living orphanage Rome fourteen". That "Grab" is for a very different book, probably closer to Les Misérables.

Once you have your key terms, try to topload them if you can.

These things are always easier to see in other people's writings, so he's a sample for VQS:

Regular wrote:

Travelling amongst various monasteries, Shinji, the son of an accountant, loses his Sensei on planet Venus. He must apply his skill with the sword to survive a hostile and alien world.

top-loaded wrote:

Thrust onto a hostile and alien world, Shinji must use every combat skill he can to survive. He's lost his Sensei. He's but the son of an accountant. How can he survive?

(Actually, that can be much more top-loaded, but that's a whole different topic)

Indeed. There is a reference to the Pope among some others I spotted. Rome is implied. Once you say Pope, you've also implied Christian and Catholic.

Paragraph two lost me by word #7 (Don't accuse me up pulling punches!). Hopefully by the time you're ready to publish you've got that whittled down to awesome-sauce. Here's my rendition of line 1:

Fourteen-year-old Connor has special gifts.

I like the first paragraph... it's snappy, it's clear who the players are, it sounds like an even match, and there's the mystery of the dare

Now that you mention it, there is a certain redundancy in having a mother + a grandmother in one head + a father in the other.

Perhaps he doesn't cause her death - anti-religion lunatics do?

Lynne Clark wrote:

It's an interesting place The Edge. I like working in there a lot, but it isn't actually seen until Book 2.

This one writer has a place called the [E a r t h w o u n d] that's a fascinating collision of energies that kinda creeps up on the reader. Basically you have this bad place. And the story doesn't get into exact details about how it got there. But the characters respect it, which makes it terrifying.

It seems that song is from the 17th century. Surely copyright has lapsed on it

and half-naked Russian women wanting to be friends

I hear in Soviet Russia, Facebook delete you!

(All joking aside, does one ever delete a fb account? Or does it just go inactive and stay indefinitely so shady companies can harvest the data?)

https://www.facebook.com/WTFuture/video … 741829802/

Do you feel that it works as an early tempter for the other side of the world?

I didn't gather that's what  they meant... but I don't think I need to this early in the story - not without it dominating the chapter to the point of distraction. "The Edge" is enough for now that I get a feeling it's not a place anyone wants to be.

Feather of the Dark Angel

Divine Treachery

No major quibbles. Details don't override the pace. Of course you can thin / make precision-based finesse on future passes. But nothing felt brushed over - nothing screamed to me "missed opportunity".

697

(7 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

To add to what Vern said, yes review lots... but realize that 90% of your current reviews are on members who haven't issued reviews in several months. You're only going to collect ROI on 10% of your efforts at that rate.

God Emperor had a wicked ending

I thought the son did an ok treatment of Butlerian Jihad... but I still think Chapterhouse was heads and above the best of any in the series.

I have Hunters here unread tho. I read page 1, put it down and never came back. Erk

today's obsession with opening In Media Res would rule out this engaging, fascinating opening

Not really progress, but fitting. here's just so many distractions these days, I find a book has to sparkle harder to get me engrossed. I go back to re-read books I liked back in the day, and sometimes I'm thinking wow, how did I ever have the patience to slog through 200 pages of this crap to get to the good part? (Tommyknockers, I'm looking at you)

All things being cyclic, this fad will one day disappear. Probably not until we as a society find a way to tame the noise of entertainment