Young Writers Society

Edit #4: After some consideration, I decided to take down the Kismet sections until I can sort out the mess it is into decent fiction. I'm also in a story bog, as I've got Kismet, Geezer's, Bubble Picture and yet ANOTHER long story idea waiting to be scribbled down. Out of the three I had writing, I decided that Kismet could wait. I really need a lot more experience to make this baby work. :]

Thanks for your interest!

Sumi

(Mods, you have permission to delete this. Thanks, I 'preciate it.)

I like it! However, it doesn't seem like a story anymore. You're kind of fitting in plot information, when it should go in by different means. Like what you did here...

I feel I have to tell you that before I describe the following scene, or you'd think I made it up.

Also, here...

Kerrian has big eyes, and they kind of bulge out of his head, giving him a permanently caffeinated look that nobody could ever satisfactorily duplicate.

I love that description, but it feels like I'm being lectured at.

Also, I don't know where he is. I think he left his office, but you didn't really say much about that. You really were only telling us about the past in this one.

I still loved it, though. Please PM me when you have more!

Ah, no! :bites lip: I thought it was only me thinking that....I'll re-write this a bit and re-post it.

And as mentioned, Jen, I PM everybody who expresses interest in my stories when I update ^^ so no worries.

Crap...I'll have to update this part tomorrow. For now, though, please pardon my info-dumpiness.

hey baroness
I have to ask, before anything else... why does your age suddenly say 46? just so people like me will notice and ask stupid questions? *scratches head in confusion*

Anyway, this is a bit info-dumpy, as was already mentioned. I'll go back to that, but for now here's a couple things I noticed:

"Out of the nine warriors, three of them are the defense. Kismet, Kaz and Aeone are what Jemai likes to call “groupies”. The name, somehow, stuck, and every Christmas since our little crowd got together the groupies got T-shirts with “Jemai 9”, “Razuz 9” or “Nell 9” emblazoned on the backs from Jemai, which they wear with good humor."
--> this confused the shiz outa me, if you'll pardon the expression. Maybe I'm just woefully ignorant, but I'm not understanding the connection between the thing emblazoned on the back and the 'groupies' label. I'm also not seeing very clearly why those three out of any are the 'groupies' and how that therefore the names Jemai, Razuz, and Nell should be on their shirts...?
--> also, the first sentence doesn't seem to match with those that followed. What's defense got to do with groupies?


"Here I must introduce you to the Council. "
--> and what does this have to do with the groupies? I don't see the connection there, either .


"And they’re not that bad, nowadays…"
"They do most of the heavy-lifting, these days,"
--> these two are repetitive w/ each other, I think


"The following upshot of politicians"
--> a bit unclear. Following the poisoning? I had to reread it to get that, and maybe I got it wrong, but if not I suggest you change it to the "resulting" instead of following.


"After looking through the files on my laptop for about twenty minutes, I’d found that several people who had also helped me take control had gone missing. More than half I hadn’t seen for almost a year, mostly because they’d chosen to live otherwhere than the capital. My mouth actually fell open when I saw the name of my oldest friend, Mar Sands, on the missing list."
--> the tenses here, and around this, feel shaky. It's like you're popping in between him talking to us, telling us about things, and him actively moving. The movement and the action feels lost, and is insignificant enough that it contributes to the feel of the info-dump.
--> also, this is a jump from the last topic, the politicians. We expect to be informed of the connection between the two shortly, but we aren't. Maybe that's just your cutoff getting in the way, but I think you need to show us the connection sooner anyway. You mention Kerrian, but then the explanation afterward gets in the way of any significance that we'd pick up.



So yeah, looks like that's it. And congrats, because I didn't notice any typos or fragments or run-ons or w/ev, no conventions issues! Nothing jumped out at me. *ENTHUSIASTIC APPLAUSE!!*

Well done, sib.

Moving on- to the info dumping issue. This segment wavers between info-dumping and simply being the voice of the narrator, active and natural, probably the way he would tel us things if he were in fact talking to us. It's right on the borderline, something I'm not having any brilliant epiphanies on how to fix. But I think if you go back and look at those lil issues I pointed out earlier, I think fixing those would help fix the info-dumpiness. Part of the problem, I think, is how he moved from subject to subject. The fact that some of them didn't seem to connect to the next is part of why it feels dumpy.

...does that help at all? More importantly, am I even making sense? *sigh*


Anyway. As to the Asimov "copyrighty-ness", to pull a Shakespeare- imo, that is a problem. It is too blatant, and too well known, and too... 'twould be like stealing the Luke-I-am-your-father line or something, you know? Buuuut, there is a way around that. If this is supposed to be an earth-in-the-future situation, all you should do is have your narrator make some sort of dry statement about how if they sound familiar, it's because they are, that they came from Asimov- you know, w/ev.


So, hopefully this will be of some use to you when you re-write a bit? Meh. I still love the voice of your narrator, btw. It's great. There were some hilarious snippets of his speech in here which were awesome and made me laugh.
Can't wait to see the revisions, and once we get those- the next part! ^.^

gogogogogogogogo!!!

hehe later

~sworddance

Working on it now. OOH! Brilliant, sword! I'll remember that Asimov bit! Yes....I can hear Teige saying it now...XD

Working on it now......

EDITED! :smacks hand on table:

Let us never speak of this again. xD

*double-take* Whoa! Transformation! Your avatars never cease to amaze!
...oh, the story? meh... well, it's a little different....

rofl j/k

Honestly, waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy different. And better. Better indeed.

And your age is back to normal! *phew*


So now I'll go through it again... do-dee-do-dooo... it's 6:30 AM here... if I say/do anything completely bizarre, blame it on that...


"Besides the Nine, there is the Council."
-->before the edit, I mentioned a jump in connections. So I ask- what does this have to do with him glaring at the moose head? You don't really give us a reason for him to be glaring while thinking this. We expect to be told why he began glaring, but we aren't. At least, if we are, it doesn't feel like it.


"They take care of a lot of the political heavy-lifting, though any time I want to do something major,"
--> the 'though' feels out of place. Asking them is opposite somehow to their heavy lifting? I'd suggest just 'and' but that gives the sentence too simplistic a feel, so I'd say play with it a bit.


"the one who poisoned the President; starting enough political upheaval to let our organization get a strong enough grip."
-->comma, not semi-colon.
-->strong enough grip for what? That's an incomplete statement. Yes, we know what if we know the history of the story, but that sentence just makes me cock an eyebrow and ask 'for what' just because it's incomplete. The enough needs to go away, somehow.


"It was in one of the big cities, and I was lost, looking for an abandoned warehouse that Kaz had promised he’d meet me at. It wasn’t safe to use a telephone to communicate, because the government knew what we were up to and had begun tracing our calls."
--> this doesn't feel enough like past-tense. It 'had been', I 'had been', it 'hadn't been' safe, etc.... tha' there is what you need.
--> unless you want it to be a flashback, and have us not know it's in the past until you tell us, but then you need to really show us that so we go "OH! This was a long time ago! *phew*"
...But I didn't get the impression that's what you wanted...?


"Right out of freaking nowhere,"
--> mm. Too juvenile. 'freaking' needs to be shot. 'Tis inconsistent.


"This really scared me, one, because I didn’t sense his mind before I saw him and two, this is one of the world’s insightful officials attempting to question me. Even if he was trying to stop the mutant experimentation rash."
-->significance went *whoosh* over my head until I reread it the second time.
--> a bit unclear, perhaps this punctuation will help the first sentence: "This really scared me- one, because I didn't sense his mind before I saw him, and two, because this..."
-->'world's insightful officials'- awkward. Most insightful officials maybe?
--> reason the significance went whoosh is because it doesn't stand out enough. At that point, when he met him, I don't see why he would freak out if he knew already that he was trying to stop it. It was an unarranged meeting, unexpected appearance, he didn't know if he was [s]fried[/s] friend or foe (gods it's late- he could have been fried or roasted or baked, too), and he wasn't allied with the man at all- based on the impression I'm getting. Maybe it's just me, but...
--> uh, the point of that whole ramble was that you need to extend that seg- show us how he reacted, the shock, the panic maybe, the upset, w/ev you think is there. In adding all that, we'll better understand how the met and how his opinion of the guy formed and what the guy is like and why it's significant and... you get the point.


"His face immediately sobered into a hopeful smile.

“Your ticket out,” he said, staring directly at me."
--> that last sentence is a bit too dire and intense for him to have a hopeful smile while saying it...


"So after almost leaving the room and diving back in for the crullers"
--> I suggest "So after almost leaving the room -but diving back in for the crullers-" etc.


" I headed over to Bananatown, the place that was named after an ice cream shop. Yes, you read it correctly- an ice cream shop."
"the heart of Bananatown – the ice cream shop, of all things- and surrounded by a veritable ocean of whooping kids."
--> we get it. The ice cream shop. You've shown us this twice, sib.
--> haha don't shoot me for this, but I think I liked it better the way you gave this to us before. The whole "Bananatown, just so you don't ask what-the-hell, I'll tell you" sequence thing. However it went. It was funny, and more in keeping with his voice.
--> but then again, you need the stuff in between those lines, probably, so... play with cutting one or the other, and I'll be happy.


"It all comes together to form a headache Dan would be proud of, should he ever emerge from his cocoon of technology, but that day, I don’t remember having a headache."
--> oh dear. Are we talking about back in the past again, or the 'present-as-told-in-past-tense' sort of time? It sounds like you're talking about the day he met Kerrian, but everything else indicates otherwise, so... clarify, please. Cut the remember shiz, maybe.



Ok, pick-apart done, I think. One, more general, thing, though- Kerrian seems odd. You talk about him as this politician, one of the world's most insightful minds, a leader of the old politics and such, but he seems more like... young, like one of the nine, almost. It's an inconsistency that can be kept, if that's what you were going for, but it needs to be explained somehow. ...meh. Up to you. I have no clue right now on that one.
...I need to go to bed. It is 7 AM and I have not slept.


sooooo.... lovely job on the revamp, sib, just so you know. A few issues which I pointed out, but overall, nice. Again ^.^
and cute pic, btw.

Looking forward to the next one, and finding out what's going on over at Azrael
later, sib!

~sworddance

sworddance wrote:*double-take* Whoa! Transformation! Your avatars never cease to amaze!
...oh, the story? meh... well, it's a little different....

I swear I was about to kill you when I read that.

Thanks, sword. Go to bed and sleep!
Why do you keep referring to me as "sib" and stuff? :muchly confuzzled:

Ah well. ^^ Thanks, sword! I 'preciate it.
I just made the corrections you suggested and will be editing the story post in a sec.

I really enjoyed the edited version. I wasn't being lectured at!

The only spot I could find that sworddance didn't already point out was the name. Bananatown. Sorry, but I hate it. Is there any way you could have him be there, without telling us what it is called? I like knowing where he is, though.

I also love the name Azreal. Did you make it up?

Well, now that you have edited this, it's time to make another chapter! I'll be waiting right here.

Hmm, sorry I haven't posted on this very soon.

Ahem, pic is actually............................er..................

Better than I can draw a human. Pretty good I think actually.

Enough of the pic. Um, the story. Well, only thing I have to say is that it seems that you're doing more narrating stuff than in your other sections. Not bad, but it just sounded differemt and to me personally not quite as good. However, the story is great andd funny, so you can ignore my personal preferences. I mean if you catered to everybodys preferences you'd never get anywhere would you? Oh dear, I'm rambling.

Good story, I'm still reading and a fan.

RatchetWriter wrote:Hmm, sorry I haven't posted on this very soon.

Ahem, pic is actually............................er..................

Oh, thanks

WHERE is Miya??

Hi again looking over the edits, I'd say you did a pretty good job fixing those things. Congrats- so, now that you've edited a bunch and stuff, when do we get the next part?

oh, random side notes-

"Besides the Nine, there is the Council."
--> maybe add a "You see," on the beginning to smoothen the transition


" take-over."
-->one word, no hyphen


"effing"
--> hahaha much better and really funny


"“Aw, crap,”"
--> out of curiosity, why'd you change that? Decided you didn't want the language?



lol anyway, nicely done. On a more random side note, in answer to your 'sib' question, you can feel free to ignore that, just like you can ignore my random usage of words in odd languages- bei'theh and sheka and the like. I've been writing too much, I guess- I seem to have started thinking in the lexicon of my characters, and then typing in the same manner... 'sib'= sibling, sister, sorta thing. Like I said, I've been thinking in their particular speech patterns, so... it comes out at random. I'll try to cut it. Maybe you can take it as an odd sort of compliment... 'sib'- fellow writer? ....ish?

heh yeah, anyway... later

Blah.

OK, people, listen up, because Aunt Sumi's talking. (:P)

I'm going on vacation tomorrow and probably won't be back until Monday. I won't have 'net access or a comp.
:watches everybody's hopes of updates fly out the window:

Hee. I'm so evil. xD

Well, have fun in my absence and try not to blow the place up, won't you? ^_~

ACK!!!1!!!!!1!!!111!!shift-one!!!!11!

OMG I go away for a few months and next thing I know you've deleted it?!?!?!?!!?!?!!?!!



*sniff* I'll have you know, I came online to look over one of seraphtree's works cause she's a friend in real life, and I was going to click out but then I went, "hey, I wonder if Sumi has written anything more on those? OOOHHH!!! I have to see!!!"

.....and then this.....

I'll forgive you eventually. Only now, I must go investigate what else you have written- or deleted!
omg!

*dives back into Sumi's portfolio*


(wtf else did these people do while I was gone???)