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Eventide: Part One



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Fri Jan 06, 2012 9:00 pm
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Lauren2010 says...



Title: Eventide
Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis: Natura Halle has always done what she can for her family, especially in the face of her father's failing health. So when a man she has only met once comes to her small village to ask for her hand in marriage, her father eagerly agrees and Natura has to accept. Only, her new husband's intentions are not what they seem, and Natura is whisked away on a shot-in-the-dark journey across Ascensia under the guidance of two strange foreign women.

What I have here is probably the first half-ish of the novel, coming in at around 59,000 words. Be warned, some of the words are awkward and some of the writing isn't the best, but the plot is pretty much stable at this point (in general, at least). What I'd appreciate the most feedback on is plot things, holes and stuff that doesn't make sense.

Oh, and also, if you run into a name in all caps like SURNAME or NAME or something similar, those are names I haven't figured out yet (I'm not good at names, okay?). So disregard them xD

*removed, cause revision*
Last edited by Lauren2010 on Tue Dec 04, 2012 2:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Fri Jan 06, 2012 9:18 pm
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Sins says...



Considering you're trying to trudge through mine, it's only fair I review this for you! Plus your writing is yum so y'know, I'd be more than happy to read this. Knowing me though, I'll take ages to review it, but hey, I'll be as fast as I can. :)
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Wed Jan 11, 2012 9:05 am
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Lavvie says...



We have a surprise, the Hut and I.


What is to give light must endure burning. – Viktor Frankl
  





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Wed Jan 11, 2012 4:58 pm
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Lauren2010 says...



Skinsy: Awh thanks dear! No rush, I'm already taking ages to get through Stop and Stare xD

Lavvie: a surpise :O *wants to know*
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Sat Jan 14, 2012 5:01 pm
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Jitterbug says...



Hey, this is Jitterbug. I'll start to read this tomorrow. Might take me a week or more to finish it, as I have a very demanding work schedule. But I'll get back to you as soon as possible.
  





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Thu Jan 26, 2012 12:12 am
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Jitterbug says...



Good eventide to you, Lauren! I finished reading all thirteen chapters, and man, you put this story together like a pro! The pieces of your plot were connected to form a perfect puzzle. And although there were some phrases here and there that needed a little attention, your prose flowed along at a nice, fluid pace that kept me engaged at all times and made me see all the events playing out as if I were watching a motion picture. What I really appreciated about your novel is that it went beyond being just a fantasy about adventure and magic. Your setting, your characters and their situations were so real to me. There was strong emotional conflict at all times, and to me, there’s no better way to heighten the tension and suspense in a story. My favorite aspect of your novel was how you affectively pulled the rug out from under me with some of the twists and turns the story took. When it comes to surprising revelations, timing is key. And your timing was always right on!
Honestly, there’s not much I think you should change in this story. There was only a few parts that confused me, or that I thought you should tweak a little:

1. Later on in your story, you mention how Natura feels that Nolen disapproves of her actions. Yet, at the beginning of the story, it seemed that Nolen was all too willing to play along with her hunting game in the forest. If he disapproves of her actions, then why did he encourage her by going out in the forest with her?
2. In the beginning, I thought you should have had Natura and Christiana show a little more anticipation about going to the Grand Icarthian City. It was an exciting place they had never been to before, yet before they embarked on their trip, they seemed to display little enthusiasm. I also thought it would have been nice to show Natura and her mom saying goodbye to each other, or at least have Natura slip her mom a note telling her where she was going. Just a thought.
3. In the Grand Icarthian City, when Natura sees Erik dressed finely at the dance, it mentions that the city dwellers do less dirty work. However, this isn’t entirely true of Erik – or Rigel, for that matter, since he’s a stable boy – so why mention it? Or maybe say that “most” city dwellers do less of the dirty work.
4. I also had trouble with the fact that Natura forgot about Alaster while she was in captivity. Even though she was going through a traumatic situation, I just find it hard to believe that it took her weeks to think of her beloved pup.
5. One more thing that I didn’t understand. If Grena wasn’t a true descendant of the Guardians, then why was she so skilled in the old forest magic?

Now, judging by what you said on your post, you wanted more feedback on the story itself, not on spelling and grammar. Nonetheless, I hope you don’t mind if I point out a few errors that I found on my journey through Icarthia and the outlying country:
1. In the second paragraph of chapter 1, you write, “Somewhere deep in the forest that covered the whole of the country, Icarthia, one young woman did not giggle and gossip as a young man she had her eye on whistled and called her name as she went about her chores in her village. This particular young woman crouched high in the branches of an ancient Icarthian oak…” At first, I thought Natura actually did have her eyes on a man as she went about chores in the village. Then you described her in the oak tree, and it totally confused me. I had to read this paragraph several times to grasp its meaning.

2. On page 38, when Natura catches Christiana sneaking to Haro in the middle of the night, it says, “Natura laughed softly to herself. “Haro is courting?” she whispered. The image of her old friend Haro, wise beyond his unspoken years, taking long promenades around the village square with a young woman on his elbow struck her as hilarious. It just wasn’t something she could imagine him doing with a straight face.” To me, it sounds like Haro is the one here who can’t keep a straight face.

3. On page 50, when Rigel holds out his arm for Natura to escort her to the Festival, you accidently call him Nolen. “Well?” Nolen held out his arm for her to take, his same crooked smile spreading across his fact. “Shall we celebrate?”

4. On page 56, when Natura sees the evil prince in her dream, it says “As the fog receding from him, Natura saw that he was a tall, thin man and not unattractive.” Should be “As the fog receded from him.”

Hope my review was helpful. I’m also hoping you post the rest of your novel for us to read. Can’t wait to find out what happens next!
Oh, and by the way, that silencing serum Natura’s mother uses on page 8…could you forward me the ingredients to it?
  





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Sun Mar 25, 2012 6:10 pm
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Sins says...



I know, I know. I'm around a century late. Don't judge me.

I don't even know how I've reviewed this, to be honest. I've just made it up as I was going along. I do that a lot. Basically, all of the chapter reviews are in the MS Word document (at the end of each chapter) along with the more nit-picky stuff. In terms of overall plot, characters e.t.c. I'm going to do that here.

Just a warning: I'm really sorry because my reviews are a little messy and all over the place, so some things I've said may not make sense. Hopefully, you'll be able to piece everything I've said together and find at least one useful thing in what I've said. (Also, sorry in advance if I misspell/forget a character's name at any point. It has nothing to do with you not making character's memorable, just me and my excuse of an attention spam and memory)

So, let's begin!


Descriptions and all 'em pretty things

I’ve got to say that one of my favourite things about the novel as a whole has to be your descriptions, especially when you describe nature. You create clear images in my head of what things look like, but you leave just enough of a space for my own imagination to finish building these images up. I think that’s a great thing because I don’t like it when a writer literally describes every single thing and leaves nothing left for their readers.

See, I’m always jealous of people like you who can just pull out great descriptions from nowhere because when I try to describe, well, anything… um, let’s just say that it’s not the best result. What you did best though with your descriptions was balanced them. When they were necessary, you used them, but at the same time, you never overdid it on the description, you know? You had a good balance of actions, descriptions, and general narrative.

I think there is one criticism in the document review about your descriptions though, which is that I would’ve liked to have had a clearer image of the area where Christiana lived. That can easily be worked into the novel though if you feel you want to add that, so it’s not a huge deal at all. Not only that, but that was literally the only slight negative I had regarding descriptions, so you’ve really done an awesome job on them overall.


Plot

This one’s a little harder to critique because this isn’t the whole novel, and as a result, it’s hard to critique a part of the plot that may be solved or explained in the later part of the novel that I haven’t read yet. Nonetheless, I’ll try my best here. Overall though, I rather like the plot. This isn’t usually the kind of narrative I’d enjoy, but I must say that I’ve found that this plot has pleasantly surprised me. I liked the beginning where we got to see Natura’s daily life, her journey to the city was interesting, and her time in captivity was also an interesting read. I most definitely like where the plot looks like it’s going next. When things turn bloody and violent, I really get into them, so I’m totally looking forward to finding out what’ll happen next.

In terms of criticism, one thing that did bother me now and then was Natura’s time spent in captivity in the cottage. It’s a rather big chunk of the first part of the novel, right? It’s just that at times, it did feel like it was dragging a bit, like nothing major was happening. Although I liked how it was a time for us to get to know Irina, Grena and Rigel better and find out more about the descendants, I sometimes wanted something to, like, blow up or something. Obviously not literally, but do you know what I mean? For such a big chunk of the first part of this novel, I can’t help but feel that maybe more should’ve happened there. It almost felt repetitive at times. Natura wakes up, polishes swords, fights with swords, gets called a fool by Grena at least ten times a day and then goes back to sleep.

Something else that’s been niggling on my mind a little is that I still don’t quite understand why Natura and Rigel had to marry, even if it was a fake marriage. Couldn’t Grena and Irina have just kidnapped her from the forest one day or something? Why did they need to go through the process of a fake marriage to obtain her? I probably was half asleep when I read the marriage chapter and the few after it or something, so I just missed something, but in case I haven’t actually missed something obvious, I would suggest making the reasons behind the false marriage clearer. I suppose a false marriage would have stopped her family from worrying too much, but even then, the cottage seems pretty out of the way so if anyone did go looking for Natura, she would’ve been pretty hard to find in the first place. Besides, if Natura hadn’t contacted her family at all since her marriage, wouldn’t that have worried them anyway. Ah, I don’t know. I’m confusing myself now. I hope at least some of what I’ve said has made sense to you.


Characters


Natura

I must say that I do like Natura as the main protagonist. She’s tough but still has worries, is fiery but not too over the top and even though she’s portrayed as a bit of a tomboy, I like how she still has girlish traits. Because she’s the one who you’ve spent the most work on, or I assume she is anyway, you’ve created her very well and I can’t really fault her much. At times, I suppose some of her actions seem out of character (like when she almost just gives up on trying to convince Irina that she can see the future), but except for that, I can’t really pinpoint anything negative. Which is why I’m unable to write much else. xD


Rigel

Aw, Rigel. I rather like him. He’s sweet. I’m really glad he’s in the cottage while Natura’s there because he’s the only one who seems to have the ability to comfort her, which is nice, plus it gives me hope that they’ll end up together, hehe. One slight issue I have with him is that he can seem a bit too perfect at times. You could argue that faking a marriage and abducting someone is a huge flaw… but hey, I’m pretty sure the marriage wasn’t completely fake on his part. I mean, he’s good-looking, kind, strong, can handle swords brilliantly and is great at comforting Natura. I struggle to think of many flaws though. I’m not saying that he has to be a schizophrenic serial killer or anything, but I would like to see him with a few more flaws, just to make him more human really. Don’t get me wrong though because as a whole, I definitely like Rigel. P.S. considering he’s living in the cottage for weeks and weeks, wouldn’t his uncle and Erik be wondering where the hell he is?


Nolen

Even though he isn’t really that much of a major character in part one of this novel, I thought I’d involve him here because I like him. I’m extremely intrigued about where on earth he came from when he saves (or tries to… we don’t know yet) Natura at the very end too. I think Nolen would be a good comparison to Rigel actually because while he is portrayed positively as a whole, his flaws are clearer than Rigel’s. We see that as well as being loving, protective, kind and rather strong, he can be a little annoying, a bit whiny, sometimes childish (in the first chapter, when him and Natura were fighting) and let his concerns control him a bit too much (the way he acted after finding out about Natura’s marriage to Rigel). Whereas with Rigel, the only real flaw we’ve seen of him is when he abducts Natura, which I can’t help but see as not a complete flaw on his part for some reason. Overall though, I think you’ve done a brilliant job with Nolen.


Grena and Irina

So I really like these two as a whole, especially Grena. I like how different Grena and Irina are to each other because their contrast creates a very interesting duo. You’ve done a great job at making Irina come across as a wise character through your descriptions of her too, I must say. Without saying it, you’ve shown us her personality, so well done for that. As for Grena, hey, I like aggressive characters. What I loved best about her though was how you showed us why she was so angry: she’s just being protective and has a tough family life. Finding that out made me really rather fond of her. My only issue with her is that she could do with a thesaurus… She’s rather fond of the word fool, and when Grena wasn’t calling someone a fool, she was calling them an idiot. I did like it at first because it was rather funny, but after so much repetition of the word, it did get a tiny bit tedious.


Christiana and Haro

Even though we don’t see a great deal of these two, not Haro anyway, I think they’re great additions to the novel. They both seem rather quirky and interesting as people: Haro with his cluttered shop and Christiana with her colourful hair. I like how Christiana seems to be quite similar to Natura in her views and what not, but is a little wilder. The only problem is that us readers were left hanging a bit with these two. We only just find out about them being together, and the next thing we know, Natura’s in the cottage. Considering she gets abducted, I obviously understand why she may not find out more about their relationship, but it kind of seems like more should have been explained before she was abducted. Instead, Natura doesn’t speak to either of them much and is then kidnapped.


Natura’s parents

I’d like to get to know Natura’s parents better. I can sort of figure out who they are as people: her mum’s big on doing things as they should be done and her father’s quite a positive, hopeful man. I just feel that I should have more of a connection with them. The reason I think I may not feel this connection is because while Natura’s in the cottage, she doesn’t really give much thought towards them. As a result, us readers don’t’ have a chance to feel like we know them much. In fact, all of the characters from Natura’s life before the cottage almost seem to disappear once she’s in the cottage. I mean, her dad’s portrayed as being very ill but she doesn’t seem consider how he’s doing much. What we do know of Natura’s parents characters though, I like. Neither of them seem perfect, but at the same time, I can see them being very likeable, especially her father.


Overall

You, my friend, have started converting me to Fantasy. Although my reviews may not emphasize this as much as they should, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel (well, the first half of it considering that's what's posted). I loved the originality of the idea and how even though it was set in a completely made up world, I felt like I knew the world and knew how it worked. That's an achievement in itself. Your character's were completely different to one another, they contrasted each other well and complimented each other just as well. Although one or two things did confuse me a little in terms of plot, I love the plot as a whole. It's interesting, it has plenty of twists and turns, has its fair share of cliffhangers and is, at times, violent (I <3 violence). Besides, any confusion is probably just my lack of an attention spam.

On the technical side of things, your grammar was great. You had the odd instance where a comma could have been added or a sentence could have been cut, but honestly, nothing worth complaining about. Novels in third person aren't often favourites of mine because I tend to be a lot less sensitive to the emotions portrayed, but that wasn't a problem at all here. You portrayed all of the characters'' emotions, from the good to the bad, extremely well. I had no trouble connecting to any of them.

So yeah, before I start rambling as I often do, just know that I really did enjoy this. I'm hoping the next half will be posted soon and if it isn't, you may find me swimming across the ocean to bite your face off in your sleep.

Keep writing,

xoxo Skins
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