The First chapter of my Practice Novel, Red Mercury Lapis. Please Provide Feedback. I feel my pacing is too fast and things move along too quickly, but I can't think of any other things to add in.
Category Story / Fantasy
Species Dragon (Other)
Size 50 x 50px
File Size 14.7 kB
Listed in Folders
Beginnings are important; they serve to drawn an audience into the work.
You start off with flat telling a summary of details which is a turn off for the audience.
These elements either A need to be on a summary on the back of the book (In this case description box) or B. shown naturally throughout the work.
Find a place to begin.
You need to develop a sense of showing instead of telling. Show through description, sensory, and action.
This will help the work come to life and be a lot longer.
Character and setting description lacks. Take time and paint these through the text. The audience needs to feel with both character and place. Since the race are Espers, use their traits to your advantage. Use them to fuel the imagination. What it means to be a esper amongst espers in a world of espers. Also do they have wings as such holds a lot of sway on the text in concern of imagination and technology?
You often lay off with a single adjective, fat, yellow, etc. There is a lot more to a characters iconography than this. If you don’t you just blurb out a list of details which can be broken down and digested in the text. Work on making the characters come to life. The shortness stops us for feeling with characters and what is at stake.
Interaction is key. Through characters interacting with the world the audience gets to do so as well.
You mention space fleets? Think hard on the world and story you wish to create and tell. It changes the narrative scape and audience expectations.
You mention the empire and these corporations (which all produce similar things). No two entities can contain the same niche. Why do these companies produce nearly the same thing? Think of resources, politics, and population dynamics involved. Three arms/vehicle companies have that much power needs some rethinking.
For dialogue you use He said, she said, etc. People do more than just talk. They have habits, do actions, express, change tone, etc. This is a good place to reinforce characters for your audience.
Now tech is always nice and a good support blood for SF, but you interrupt your flow to break down these armaments. Is there a way you can make this more natural? Dialogue, documentation, inspection, etc? Is it important now or can it come later.
So what happens here is the attack. Yet it is quick and lifeless seemingly having little weight to it. This is where description, senses, and action need to really be expanded. Think about combat and everything involved the armaments, the characters, the tech, the orders, the fears, the adrenaline, the surprise and shock, the injury, the deceased. If this conflict is to have weight it needs to come to life. For conflict is a large audience attractor and creates the most flow. Cheapening it cheapens the whole work. Just remember to provide what is at stake and give it purpose because special effects without soul is cheapening as well.
You have strong lore ideas, just need to shape the clay more vigorously and take your time.
You start off with flat telling a summary of details which is a turn off for the audience.
These elements either A need to be on a summary on the back of the book (In this case description box) or B. shown naturally throughout the work.
Find a place to begin.
You need to develop a sense of showing instead of telling. Show through description, sensory, and action.
This will help the work come to life and be a lot longer.
Character and setting description lacks. Take time and paint these through the text. The audience needs to feel with both character and place. Since the race are Espers, use their traits to your advantage. Use them to fuel the imagination. What it means to be a esper amongst espers in a world of espers. Also do they have wings as such holds a lot of sway on the text in concern of imagination and technology?
You often lay off with a single adjective, fat, yellow, etc. There is a lot more to a characters iconography than this. If you don’t you just blurb out a list of details which can be broken down and digested in the text. Work on making the characters come to life. The shortness stops us for feeling with characters and what is at stake.
Interaction is key. Through characters interacting with the world the audience gets to do so as well.
You mention space fleets? Think hard on the world and story you wish to create and tell. It changes the narrative scape and audience expectations.
You mention the empire and these corporations (which all produce similar things). No two entities can contain the same niche. Why do these companies produce nearly the same thing? Think of resources, politics, and population dynamics involved. Three arms/vehicle companies have that much power needs some rethinking.
For dialogue you use He said, she said, etc. People do more than just talk. They have habits, do actions, express, change tone, etc. This is a good place to reinforce characters for your audience.
Now tech is always nice and a good support blood for SF, but you interrupt your flow to break down these armaments. Is there a way you can make this more natural? Dialogue, documentation, inspection, etc? Is it important now or can it come later.
So what happens here is the attack. Yet it is quick and lifeless seemingly having little weight to it. This is where description, senses, and action need to really be expanded. Think about combat and everything involved the armaments, the characters, the tech, the orders, the fears, the adrenaline, the surprise and shock, the injury, the deceased. If this conflict is to have weight it needs to come to life. For conflict is a large audience attractor and creates the most flow. Cheapening it cheapens the whole work. Just remember to provide what is at stake and give it purpose because special effects without soul is cheapening as well.
You have strong lore ideas, just need to shape the clay more vigorously and take your time.
Thank you so much for this review, it makes me realize I must push myself to the limit of my skills. Though could you explain this one part a bit more?:
"Character and setting description lacks. Take time and paint these through the text. The audience needs to feel with both character and place. Since the race are Espers, use their traits to your advantage. Use them to fuel the imagination. What it means to be a esper amongst espers in a world of espers. Also do they have wings as such holds a lot of sway on the text in concern of imagination and technology?"
I've pasted this comment on my outline page as a constant reminder for when I write.
"Character and setting description lacks. Take time and paint these through the text. The audience needs to feel with both character and place. Since the race are Espers, use their traits to your advantage. Use them to fuel the imagination. What it means to be a esper amongst espers in a world of espers. Also do they have wings as such holds a lot of sway on the text in concern of imagination and technology?"
I've pasted this comment on my outline page as a constant reminder for when I write.
Pretty much the audience has no idea what place looks like.
The audience has little idea what characters look like.
The other layer to this is what they feel, smell, sound, and rarest used taste like.
Actually you do have moments of great description.
EX: “A Massive chunk of the forest was plowed away in the center of the forest. Only dirt remained in the area. In the middle of the clearing was a massive military installation”
Despite good, That though, is only a base introduction image. It is the painted still image that looks really nice. The audience sees it and becomes curious and can say were we are at and know some things (Forest, military installation, still in use, clear cut dirty clearing). The next part is making these come to life through action and sensory (Not conflict, but movement and interaction with things). It is the characters who really help with this and it makes them real too. Don’t do this all at once, but spread it throughout a text. The trick is to make things alive and real after all. With place introduced take a character for example and follow them with your third person camera. Have them interact with a few things, give them a purpose.
On the esper thing. Espers are not humans, but your audience is (all debates aside). Your straddling the uncanny valley with imagination. You need to make them human enough for your audience to know and feel with them, but at the same time they are not human. Your world is filled with espers, and they are far more than just espers, they are indviduals, just like you are a single human amongst 7+billion people on earth with your own genetic traits, fashion sense, feelings, and thoughts.
So how can you shape your espers as individuals and espers at the same time? That is the question you need to ask yourself when writing these characters.
Color, scale markings, eye color are base details to get the ball rolling. Yet, what is it like ? What does it feel and how does it interact with the individual to have scales? Have a tail? Bodies interact as well? These inhuman traits are what make espers what they are and not humans.
I cannot tell you what a Elegant Esper or yellow esper is from another esper. That is flat details.
Didn’t know if they had wings or not. If they didn’t that would impact their technology and use quite a lot and a fun thing to work with.
I hope that makes a lot more sense.
The audience has little idea what characters look like.
The other layer to this is what they feel, smell, sound, and rarest used taste like.
Actually you do have moments of great description.
EX: “A Massive chunk of the forest was plowed away in the center of the forest. Only dirt remained in the area. In the middle of the clearing was a massive military installation”
Despite good, That though, is only a base introduction image. It is the painted still image that looks really nice. The audience sees it and becomes curious and can say were we are at and know some things (Forest, military installation, still in use, clear cut dirty clearing). The next part is making these come to life through action and sensory (Not conflict, but movement and interaction with things). It is the characters who really help with this and it makes them real too. Don’t do this all at once, but spread it throughout a text. The trick is to make things alive and real after all. With place introduced take a character for example and follow them with your third person camera. Have them interact with a few things, give them a purpose.
On the esper thing. Espers are not humans, but your audience is (all debates aside). Your straddling the uncanny valley with imagination. You need to make them human enough for your audience to know and feel with them, but at the same time they are not human. Your world is filled with espers, and they are far more than just espers, they are indviduals, just like you are a single human amongst 7+billion people on earth with your own genetic traits, fashion sense, feelings, and thoughts.
So how can you shape your espers as individuals and espers at the same time? That is the question you need to ask yourself when writing these characters.
Color, scale markings, eye color are base details to get the ball rolling. Yet, what is it like ? What does it feel and how does it interact with the individual to have scales? Have a tail? Bodies interact as well? These inhuman traits are what make espers what they are and not humans.
I cannot tell you what a Elegant Esper or yellow esper is from another esper. That is flat details.
Didn’t know if they had wings or not. If they didn’t that would impact their technology and use quite a lot and a fun thing to work with.
I hope that makes a lot more sense.
FA+

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