Young Writers Society

The back of the book would look a lil' something like this...

“Dark Angels and Demon Kings. What’s next?!
Late 2009. Lucia and her little brother, Elijah, have become accustomed to living average everyday lives. Their “guardians,” aunt Harah and the wolf-loving Alex have always provided them with the best that mortal money could buy. A spacious house. Nice clothes. A good life. Calm, unobtrusive, happy…

But this family has a secret.

Unbeknownst to Eli, they’re all former-residents of an underground society known as Lower Town—a community of humans (among other things) with supernatural abilities… and they’re all pretty badass about it.
Why’d they leave? Because two of Lower Town’s most powerful Players have been murdered, a Demon King resurrected, Dark Angels are on the prowl, and both their world and the Surface world are unraveling at the seams. So they’ve resorted to the awfully human strategy of running for their lives…
Are you ready for a wild ride?
Cause after you read this book… you’ll never look at "the streets" the same again.

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In exchange for critiques of my work, I will critique anything of your choice in return (length/etc. doesn't matter in the slightest); however, be sure this is an endeavor you're willing to take up (check stats below for word count/page count)! If you wanna take it in parts, that's fine, as long as it gets done.

I'll try and be generous with my donations (or as generous as I can be at the time), depending on the depth of your critique .

Do note that this is Book One of (tentative) Five. (Don't worry, that doesn't mean you have to read them all. Some would consider the First Book [chapters 1 through 7] to have funny formatting. I promise to fix that for the next one!)

Back-story: So I joined YWS at the beginning of summer to submit my "prologue" for this novel to the awesome reviewers I found here. After receiving a lot of advice, I retired from YWS for the rest of the summer, intent on completing this first book. In the end, I got nearly 100,000 words, 260 pages... I even amaze myself sometimes. Now I'm back, and ready to take the community by storm! Bwuahahahaha!

Stats:
- 7 Chapters (pro!)
- 252 Pages
- Approx. 90,222 Words
- Approx. 506,118 Characters
- Rating: Due to the bad language and semi-vivid/bloody fight scenes, I am required to rate this R. We're surrounded by bad language and bloody tv shows, so it mine shouldn't be that bad. Nothing sexual or anything like that involved here, though .

Since it's only 1 attachment per post, I'll have to triple post (2MB limit )

Update: Updated the other chapters with TedusCloud's revisions.
Update: Updated the other chapters chapter with Karsten's revisions.
Update: Updated the other chapters chapter with Empressoftheuniverse's revisions.
Update: Updated the other chapters chapter with Audy's revisions.
Total Download Count (09/26): 66

Next 3 Chapters. (w/ Updates)

Last Chapter. (w/ Updates)

Review of I ~ The Beginning.

The plot is enthralling I'll give you that. A typical Fantasy story, but gripping nonetheless. Perhaps the language is a bit too colloquial at times, but I suppose it's part of the narrative.
There were some parts which did not flow well, others which flowed better. Characters seem interesting enough, but some stereotypes exist in most of the characters. Beware not to develop them into this stereotype further.

I have edited your .doc version of the first chapter with some comments in bold.

If you have any further questions PM me.

I updated the first chapter with most of your revisions. Thanks.

I'm still working on yours though

Hi Xunn,

Wow. This story is spectacular. I was seriously blown away by the plot, the world-building, the characterisation. It’s such a huge, epic, story covering a massive range of fantastical elements -- angels and demons, blood circles and summonings, sonic magic, gods and the unmaking of reality. Parts tap into familiar imagery, like magic-users lighting up like beacons and attracting bad guys in night-time Lower Town. And parts are strikingly original, like the androids who nearly kill Austin/Sergius with wires. And the Landlords. And death curses. And the Musician totally rocking at DDR. I could go on forever here.

You obviously don’t need any help with creativity. The execution felt a little less accomplished than the underlying ideas, however, and I think one consistent problem is providing the reader with information. The world-building seems so huge, so complex, that I think you’re struggling to convey all the necessary information in a convincing way. At times I became confused because I had so much information I couldn’t identify what was important, and at other times I struggled to force down huge, indigestible chunks of infodumping. You have infodumps that run to 400-500 words at a stretch, and they’re totally daunting to read -- I’m scanning through paragraph after paragraph of unfamiliar words that I’m probably expected to memorise, and I’m kind of quailing and wondering if I could get a condensed version. For example:

Your explanation of the classes of mortals and subclasses of Players.

Each of the Major Players arriving in the first scene gets about two pages of paragraph after paragraph of incredibly detailed physical description.

The explanation of Caster Shells is another offender.

The Landlords explanation is gigantically huge.

When the bad guys are attacking Lucia and company at their home, the entire narrative derails every time you squeeze in another huge paragraph of description. The pacing and tension really suffers when the fight scenes grind to a halt to describe the exact colour of the stitching on their clothes.

I once saw a brilliant explanation of infodumping, which was so awesome I’m going to shamelessly plagiarise it here -- it’s the Man in the Tuxedo explanation.

Imagine that this novel is a play. Whenever there’s an infodump, the plot stops moving, dialogue ceases, action grinds to a halt and a man in a tuxedo comes onto centre stage to deliver a monologue. Example:

That was when two cloaked figures jumped out at her as well; attempting to drag her off much like they did Eli.
[MAN IN A TUXEDO ENTERS HERE!]
They looked like trained assassins, with the intent to kill. Lucia got a rare moment to study her enemy. They were dressed in pitch black overcoats that ended slightly above the waist and split at the back to allow for fast movement. The inside of their coats were laced with intricate symbols, protective wards forged by an experienced Magimaster. They had on dark-crimson leather gloves and shimmering jet-black and silver combat boots. Combined with the black pants and black shirt, they were just big masses of blackness in the noon sunlight. On the front of their shirts, in silver stitching, were the numbers 78 and 63 respectively. Lucia guessed at those numbers being their ranks in whatever organization they were a part of. They bore no masks, but they might as well have. They showed about as much emotion as a brick wall.
[MAN IN A TUXEDO LEAVES HERE!]

These characters are absolutely stationary. Doing nothing. The man in the tuxedo is lovingly describing them to us as they stand there for the audience’s benefit.

I think these infodumps could be greatly improved if you made them more active. While static description describes facts that merely are, active description interacts with its environment. Just to give a crude example:

Static: The demon had claws.
Active: The demon slashed her with claws.

In the static sentence, the verb is “had”. Variations of “to be” and “to have” are pretty much dead giveaways of static description. Conversely, the active sentence has an action verb, “slashed”.

Another helpful rule of thumb for infodumping problems is to strictly limit your wordcount. What makes an infodump an infodump, and not perfectly good description and/or explanation, is whether it’s super annoying.

If it’s shorter than 100 words, it’s probably not annoying.

If we’re at 300-odd words, the reader is getting unhappy.

If it’s running to 400 or 500 words, I’m making a break for some other story, where the information is more smoothly integrated into the narrative.

Moving on.

I felt like there was an excess of names and titles, to the point where I struggled to follow whether several different names were referring to the same individual, or more than one. You’re stacking up a huge number of names and titles, and switching from one to the other with, for my taste, very little context. For example, I totally lost track of Austin and Sergius and Threadmaster and King of some Roman numeral or other and couldn’t remember that they were the same person; I was lost by people referring to Alex (I think) as Shadowwolf and King of some other Roman numeral and Something-master; and on and on. My feeling is that you can really only refer to people in 1-2 different ways, so once you’ve given them a name, using several titles is really starting to push your luck with readers.

On the other hand, if you only use a title once, on introducing a character, then never again, that’s fine. For example, I wasn’t bothered by the multiple names and titles of Aurora and Lady Sorrow, because they were known only as Aurora and Lady Sorrow thereafter. The other titles I didn’t need to memorise.

Much like a hard drive, a reader only has so much memory, so don’t fill it up with multiple unnecessary files.

I’m also feeling uncertain about the point of view structure. The first section has a first-person PoV which speaks directly to the reader in rather intrusive (to me) asides. This suggests to me a fixed structure in which the first-person narrator is narrating to an imaginary person. But then we switch to regular third-person PoV, and I’m asking myself: “What happened to whoever Alex was talking to? Where’d they go? Am I, the reader, supposed to be a different person now?” It’s just adding confusion that I didn’t need. I also (as I noted in the comments) didn’t fully register Alex’s name, because it’s all “I” and “me”, so was confused until I figured out that the Alex character was the same as the I-narrator. I would be seriously considering rewriting the first section in third-person for greater consistency and less possible confusion.

Staying on the topic of the first section, I’m concerned by the passivity of the Alex and Harah characters. For the crucial first 8000 words of your novel, your main characters are total bystanders -- standing watching as other characters move the plot. The critical action that they do take, which is to teleport away the Musician and teeny baby Mius, is actually taken offscreen. This creates the impression that Alex and Harah are totally uninvolved in the actual story.

This could be fixed very cheaply and cheerfully, since they do take action, we’re just not shown it. Try refocusing this scene on Alex and Harah’s decision to rescue the Magician et al. This allows them to be more active, decisive, and impressive as leading characters.

Okay, I'm about done with big-picture critique. I'm attaching a document containing the three of your chapters I've read so far, all annotated. I'm afraid my comments are exclusively "Wow!" and "That's so cool!" toward the end, since I felt like I ran my other points into the ground, and I was distracted by the awesome.

In summary, this is fantastic. Did I mention that already?

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Karsten

Hi Karsten! Glad you enjoyed it!

Karsten wrote:...that I think you’re struggling to convey all the necessary information in a convincing way...

Exactly! My very first readers said the same thing! I've tried slightly different approaches every chapter... but it always comes to a huge, as you call it, "infodump." For my next try, I'm going to see if I can get my characters to have a conversation and get out all that facts in a smoother manner.

(list of infodumps)

Thank you so much for pointing those out
After I finish my current critique I'll try and fix 'em.

The pacing and tension really suffers when the fight scenes grind to a halt to describe the exact colour of the stitching on their clothes.

I was told at first that I didn't have enough description. Maybe I overdid it
I'll consolidate and compress my infodumps (or break them apart and scatter them through the chapter).

I would be seriously considering rewriting the first section in third-person for greater consistency and less possible confusion.

In the first chapter Harah and Alex are still teens, whereas they're much older when chapter two starts. I styled it FP on purpose, because I find it much easier to explain things from one of my character's POVs. I wanted to stay with FP (it's my forte), but too many characters had to be introduced and involved, and it would've been a hassle for me to get any good information out to the readers from the FP scenario

...by the passivity of the Alex and Harah characters. For the crucial first 8000 words of your novel, your main characters are total bystanders...Try refocusing this scene on Alex and Harah’s decision to rescue the Magician et al. This allows them to be more active, decisive, and impressive as leading characters.

This is another thing I did on purpose. I wanted to hide the fact that it was Alex and harah that saved two Major Players for as long as I could, just to increase the drama and suspense (and because there was a huge ~10 year time skip between chapters) I'll consider it tho

Thanks again! I'll try and take care of everything you pointed out.

I'm reading over the critiques and I can see just about every point as valid, thanks a bunch!

Responses to your responses to my ... yeah, anyway:

In the first chapter Harah and Alex are still teens, whereas they're much older when chapter two starts. I styled it FP on purpose, because I find it much easier to explain things from one of my character's POVs. I wanted to stay with FP (it's my forte), but too many characters had to be introduced and involved, and it would've been a hassle for me to get any good information out to the readers from the FP scenario

You crazy, crazy first-person writers. I just don't understand you at all.

What about whomever Alex is addressing in the first-person section? Like when he says "Oh, and Hi. I’m Alex. Nice to meet you" -- who is he speaking to, the "you" he refers to? Where does that person go? Are they still present during the rest of the story?

(It's pleasant to read about fantasy characters who are a little older than the usual teens and twenty-somethings, by the way.)

This is another thing I did on purpose. I wanted to hide the fact that it was Alex and harah that saved two Major Players for as long as I could, just to increase the drama and suspension (and because there was a huge ~10 year time skip between chapters)

I'm confused. The two Major Players mysteriously disappear at the end of the first chapter. Then we have a brief 1000-word dream sequence. Then we are clearly and obviously introduced to the two Major Players in question, and explicitly shown that they live with Harah. So the fact that Harah and Alex rescued the two Major Players is completely obvious 1000 words after the rescue. Where's the suspense? It didn't occur to me that who rescued the Major Players was even meant to be a mystery, because you tell us the answer as soon as the narrative resumes.

Just some additional thoughts.

What about whomever Alex is addressing in the first-person section? Like when he says "Oh, and Hi. I’m Alex. Nice to meet you" -- who is he speaking to, the "you" he refers to? Where does that person go? Are they still present during the rest of the story?

I hear they call it "breaking the 4th wall," and I always wanted to try it.

(It's pleasant to read about fantasy characters who are a little older than the usual teens and twenty-somethings, by the way.)

Where's the suspense? It didn't occur to me that who rescued the Major Players was even meant to be a mystery, because you tell us the answer as soon as the narrative resumes.

I didn't say gut wrenching Emmy-award winning 3 chapters long suspense. Suspense can exist from line to line. It's those little things that count most

Talking those things out really helped me stabilize my thoughts, thanks again!

Part two of book one posted before part one of book one!
The book seems to warm up right about here; or, more precisely, towards the end of here. Reading large text on the computer gives me major headaches. Just so you know I'm bleeding internally because I like your story so much.
I also read reply and your reply to their reply and their reply to your... yeah. SO here's my two cents.
On one hand; i thought chapter one was brilliant storytelling.
On the other hand; it was gimmicky.
And I understand about breaking the fourth wall. Or maybe creating a complex shape based on dodecahedrons so you could break the twelfth wall as well! That's what I'm trying to do with my work.

empressoftheuniverse wrote:Part two of book one posted before part one of book one!
The book seems to warm up right about here; or, more precisely, towards the end of here. Reading large text on the computer gives me major headaches. Just so you know I'm bleeding internally because I like your story so much.
I also read reply and your reply to their reply and their reply to your... yeah. SO here's my two cents.
On one hand; i thought chapter one was brilliant storytelling.
On the other hand; it was gimmicky.
And I understand about breaking the fourth wall. Or maybe creating a complex shape based on dodecahedrons so you could break the twelfth wall as well! That's what I'm trying to do with my work.

Thanks for the review! I'ma look it over now, and see if I can improve a few of my chapters and reupload before I get distracted by other work

For people who can't access the files: it's because they're encoded as a .rar file. You'll need to use something like 7zip - http://www.7-zip.org/ - to unzip 'em, and access the files inside.


Anyway, now that I've posted here I feel that I owe you a review. Watch this space.

Holy shizmole, that program worked! I can read it now!! Will edit this and add a review soon, i hope.
Being the technotard I am, I am uploading part three in three parts(?) A monkey could have done a better job, I'm sure.
Enjoy!
I have nothing to say here other than It was magnificent.
And the font that you use for the landlords' thoughts is mucho dificil on the eyes.
Also, the part about the castor shells didn't irk me at all; the description porn in the beginning was a little excessive but really interesting!
"wat really ir'tates meh is when yo car-kers spake lyk deees."
Okay, not that bad. But you know what I mean. I understand it's stylistic and phonetically true to the story, and sometimes the catalyst of humor... but could it be done a little less often?

"wat really ir'tates meh is when yo car-kers spake lyk deees."
Okay, not that bad. But you know what I mean. I understand it's stylistic and phonetically true to the story, and sometimes the catalyst of humor... but could it be done a little less often?

Did I do it that often? Oops I'll be sure to take care of it

YESS Part three of book one. Now all that's left are books two and three... hoo boy. But I can't freakin' wait for the tournament!
There are two ways to approach books. Either you fit big plots and concepts into a confined space or you try to lengthen stories that could be better told on a smaller scale.
The one that you try to usually explains why certain parts of your story seem stagnate. I would say yours is big idea-small scale right now (although your writing a sequel, right?)
My point being: what would Lord of the Rings be in two hundred pages. A bore. A joke.
Your masterful writing makes that impossible, of course, but my point here is : sometimes stagnate parts are sad but necessary. I think it was The Diamond Age, written by an acclaimed science fiction author, that had a chapter-long info dump on the history of computers... that did not accelerate the story in any way.
And every word I've read so far has nudged the story in some direction.
Anyways...
keep up the good work.