I checked out your Wages novel on SoFurry, good, I like the idea! (FA's text system may be terrible, but at least it has dark background... My eyes are now sore) So, I liked the concept, the twisted psycho aspect mixed with bits of 1984, creepy politics, how the world feels so grim wicked evil, how you even chose people winding up in a murder to become the human characters. I feel it pretty well balanced, interesting, unique.

Maybe the most striking feature I didn't like is how the dragons cuss like today's people. They could cuss, but by your world, should have been living isolated, presumably their last connections being with the old American civilizations, so they should have developed their own language for it, definitely not using the "F-word" which I think is rather new. It feels authentic from the human characters, but is very disrupting from the dragons. I am Hungarian, to here the equivalent only came at best in the past two decades. This style of "F-word cussing" didn't even exist before the system change (our language had wild creative cussing before which the new generation of the Internet almost completely forgot). Otherwise on the terms of writing quality I see that it grew better towards the end, but I see it good enough to make me unable to judge. My impression is that you have a decent vocabulary, and can use the language in creative manners when you are in the right mood for it.

Just out of interest: Why exactly dragons? In overall the concept feels workable even with an isolated human tribe (Even for the crossbreeding aspect... It happens along mere humans, we all know. Even as bad as my grandparents telling about how their now dieing less than 1000 people village was split up to "upper end" and "lower end" in their young days with strict traditions and fights between those). Not like you shouldn't or couldn't choose dragons for "the fun of it", but if so, it could have received some very dragon-specific culture (even if ruled by crazy dictators). You mention their millennia of lifespan, that alone could contribute to great differences. Such as there should be dragons there who still remember the age before Cortez unless killed by the regime... Otherwise if no dragons were surviving from that long, it is unlikely they knew their lifespan at all or got it from religious belief. If they live that long with a small population, the distribution of adults and juveniles should be different to that of a human society (you give the impression they mature just like human, then the adults live ten times longer unless killed or executed).

Sorry to dissect it this way, I felt it interesting, and doing the world-building for "alien" civilizations is one of my soft spots (If interested, you may drop a note, I would like to chat).

Thanks so much for reading/reviewing.

I'm glad you enjoyed Wages. Sadly, however, I gave up on it. The novel, in my opinion, is just terrible. The storyline is a trainwreck and the characters were atrocious. I'm pretty embarrassed by Wages, as a matter of fact. People seemed like it, though, so I feel kinda bad that it's probably never going to be finished.

Regarding the swearing... yeah, that's one of the reasons I'm embarrassed by it. I wrote the majority of Wages when I was fourteen and fifteen, and it was the first real piece of fiction I had ever done (hence why the first few chapters REALLY suck). For a teenager, swearing is all the rage. I'm still a teenager, but fortunately, I've learned to dub down the swearing. I don't know how I ever thought it to be a good idea to put all that senseless talk into the story, but I did, and boy was that a mistake.

Why dragons? I couldn't exactly tell you. I've always found fantasy creatures, especially dragons, to be quite interesting. There's so much potential when working with fantasy, and one is only limited by one's own imagination. I can remember reading The Hobbit when I was young and wondering what it would be like to have an actual conversation with the dragon Smaug. I also wondered what it would be like if such fantasy creatures existed in the modern world, as it seemed that too often they are contained to alien worlds such as Pern, Westeros, or Middle Earth. After watching a TV program about Cortez and his conquest of the middle Americas, an idea came to me. I imagined a scene where, instead of dragonfire raining down on Esgaroth, artillery flak plucked dragons from the sky. I guess the storyline kinda just came along after that. Strange how things work like that.

The plot holes you mentioned regarding the age of the dragons are just a few of dozens. No use in really trying to explain them, as there really is no way to explain for such mistakes. I'm a very poor writing, in my mind, and though I have a fair amount of ambition for what I want to write in the future, I don't believe I have what it takes to get something published. To me, it's sad, but true.

Though Wages may be dead, I dragged myself out of a six-month-long writing hiatus recently and wrote the first part of a 2-part story. It's uploaded on a different website, but as long as you're interested in what I write, I might as well upload it to SoFurry (it does have dragons in it). People on Sofurry don't seem to like reading my stuff, probably due to the fact that it doesn't involve a dragon getting horribly violated sexually. I'll write sex scenes, but not Game of Thrones level stuff! I'll try to upload the story tonight.

I'll gladly note/message you for further chatting!

... it doesn't involve a dragon getting horribly violated sexually ... OUCH! (Yes, seems like furry for a lot is like that :p )

I don't think you should be embarrassed for using swearing as a tool, but use that wisely and in a creative manner, there your own opinion on yourself stands firm. For the human characters I felt it completely OK to be like "fuck the fucking system", for the dragons, I didn't for the reasons I mentioned. Maybe doing some research would prove it is not entirely right for the humans either (were these used in this manner in 1974?). In the case of my own Hungarian native language it is quite entertaining to find these in old slang collections, to see how creative our ancestors were in this regard, the same could exist there. Just try to understand the logic behind, apply it the right way, and then the swearing will also turn out to be a creative artistic touch.

Yes, the characters are atrocious, especially Nimbus, but that's the point, the key of the story! You managed to convey it in such a manner (maybe not entirely intentionally then) that it feels plausible for most part, that is, it feels entirely possible that someone becomes such a wreck, and in this regard, his character felt very coherent for me (I had mild similar issues and I could relate: I felt like you understood the logic of how such a broken personality operates and fleshed out the related parts of the novel accordingly, mostly right). It is OK to focus on different aspects today, your preferences changing, I just meant to say that if you purposefully wanted to build up such a character, you did it properly. Such a subject (psychodrama) naturally prefers a lot of talks to flesh it out, so that's neither something bad.

Plot holes... That's not necessarily bad writing, rather bad world design. One could be a good fantasy world designer while being a sloppy writer, and the opposite may also be true. The story made me feeling like you have a potential to be a decent writer if you trained yourself right in the future, but didn't convey much good on the department of world design. Maybe you simply need to gather experience, be observant, be critical to your own designs, and eventually that will come. Until then, maybe try simpler designs which are easier to put together.

If you use dragons, or any other fantasy creature, you should bump up your world design skills a bit (read, watch related material, observe how the authors worked out their concepts but be critical, and also apply some science, study real world history, real world examples similar to the setting you aim to realize to find pointers on how it could be done in a plausible manner). Simply put, don't just add wings and tail and call them dragons, rather flesh out their entire culture to feel like dragon.

If interested, you could re-visit my brass wyvern novel where  Sirrush (a decent writer and dragon-related concept designer) made some good points of his own, likely worth a reading, to see for example how my concepts could carry their own flaws here and there.

Publishing... Far off dreams indeed! Maybe don't even aim that high at first, just do it for the fun of it. If people get to like your works, you get valuable feedback to polish your skills and succeed in doing so, then it might become a reality.

Christ, tell me about the damn world building. I've seen bad fanfictions with better worldbuilding! Twilight is Dune compared to what I write. My only comfort is the fact that I can lie to myself and say it was bad because I was fourteen and it was my first piece of fiction writing; however, I know that I am not being true to myself when I say this. I believe that with such things as fiction writing, some people are just not cut out for it - myself being one of them. Sorry to sound full of self-pity (something I abhor), but I'm trying to be realistic here.

I believe that the main problem with Wages is that I went into without a plan. I built up the world as I went along, rather than planning it out before hand. Hell, I wrote most of the chapters at 11 o'clock - typically driven on only by an Electric Wizard album and caffeine. I had no clue where the story was going, and thus, things fell apart. Wages, really, was an experiment of sorts. Before even writing it, I had a separate story planned out. It is one that I hope to put to paper one day - a fantasy odyssey of sorts. If it ever gets written, it will be done when I am older. Though it will never be published (not if it written by me, at least), it gives me drive to aspire to completing something, and for that, I am grateful.

Wages has taught me what my (many) weaknesses are. Many of them are beyond my improvement, however, others are not. For being someone who lacks any real talents besides drawing and climbing mountains, I see writing in general as a challenge. I try my best to be halfway decent at it, and though I have failed so far, with time perhaps I can improve. If I get lucky, I may have 65 or so years to do so (I'm 17 now).

Sorry I can't write a longer reply, I have to go to bed.

P.S. Here's some more recent writing, if you're interested: https://www.sofurry.com/view/862620 Still pretty bad, but not Wages bad. :P

Caffeine is indeed magic as I heard :)

However in world desing there is really nothing arcane, just work, common logic and experience. With the latter being older of course helps if you kept your eyes open during those years to gather it. Just a little thought experiment how it could go. So let's just consider fleshing out something dragon.

- It depends on one's approach, but most likely, the first to come is the shape and proportions of the body. Note the size and particular unique features such as wings, and even things like dorsal fin, horns and such if any. Of course having hands or not is also quite decisive for what kind of culture or civilization they could establish.

- Next, it is likely you have some concept on their intelligence, usually I see people applying human concepts tailored to some stereotype when using dragons. So you give them about the intelligence of a human being, likely with similar concepts of thinking (your stories show this: your dragon characters feel like teenage humans).

- The first complications raise when you attempt to blend these two together. For example if they have no delicate hands, you shouldn't give them concepts requiring such. Alternatively you could work it around with adding a concept of magic. Just think about ordinary things, what you plan to do with your dragon characters and whether they could actually do that. Remember those for starting points in the design of their culture and general lifestyle.

- Otherwise the dragon body gives them capabilities which are uncommon thinking within human constraints, the most notable being flight. Try to imagine it, how it affects them. Try to imagine yourself flying, play out the role in your mind, trying to indulge it. Shape the draft of their culture accordingly. With magic, likewise. If you use magic by the way it is very important to draw it's constraints: what it could do, using what kind of energy and such. You can't settle for "unlimited" since that wrecks the story outright. Magic must have it's own science. Then finally try to consider mundane things. Such as whether they could lay on their back (if you added horns, a stiff dorsal fin this obviously doesn't work or at least it is not so pleasant). Neither forget about stuff like what they eat and how they acquire their food, and sketch up related elements of their civilization accordingly.

- The above are roughly the bare necessities to make the dragon functional without considering anything to embed them in a world or making their personality anything unique apart from what their bodies demanded (however weaving the design forth from those considerations you could already came up with peculiarities). From here first you could probably attempt to settle them in your world (whatever it is), along with that establishing elements of their culture and behaviors necessary to blend in, to make them plausible in that world.

- Meanwhile you could flesh out the peculiarities of their culture (intelligent beings have one). For example their religion if any, not just their pantheon, also their relations to those gods, which they fear, which they find sanctuary in, how they connect with them along with the roles (shamans, priests) serving for this purpose. They could have a concept of afterlife, not necessarily heaven and hell (see for example Hinduism). Their build and capabilities could and should have effect beyond the immediate necessities making them functional, established above: try to enrich their culture by those. For example flight could bring a passionate love for freedom firmly embedded in their thoughts. Flight could also have further consequences such as a dragon inhabited land even on medieval technology level probably wouldn't be composed of very small isolated warring nations since they could meet each other far away, establishing a common language, understanding each other unlike humans in similar constraints who at best would have horses and could easily hinder each others movements.

- Finally research, research and research. Use the Internet once you have it: you know, it isn't just cute cat videos. It is stuffed to the brim with valuable information ripe for the taking. Religions? Look up Greek mithology, the Egyptian pantheon, Sumer culture, Christianity, Muslim or whatever you feel appropriate to flesh out your approach. Making a large creature airworthy? Look up pterosaurs, bats and birds, their anatomy, concepts of aircraft flight, airfoils and such. Want to settle your dragons and their story in an American wilderness? Look up national reserves, information on flora and fauna, find and read related books like Bill Bryson's Walk in the Woods.

So it is something like that. Good world designs sure take time. The best probably is to plan them for a good while in a manner they could be reused. If it is good, reusing might even be fun, connecting smaller stories to a larger epic, a long history to discover (if you like gaming, you might check out Battle for Wesnoth, a turn based strategy game covering a long history of the fictional land of Wesnoth. On their site you could read this history even without actually playing).

Climbing mountains is sure fun :) (I like caves, and within them, bats by the way)

I felt that other writing a bit chaotic, maybe intentionally. I think even if you prefer portraying psychological aspects (you seem to like this subject), you should attempt to design a prologue, something to introduce the reader to your world to have some idea on what is going on. It is not a very strict necessary (it is also an often used technique to start out with some epic act), but somewhere at the beginning there should be some anchorage, to allow for understanding the environment. Maybe I was just too damn tired to catch it, though.