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Unofficial Writing Group

Tags: #Writing  #Writing Group  #Writing Circle 
  • November 19, 2018

    ilanisilver said: Funny thing about the writers’ resources, even the one I use - I don’t like any of their fiction, any of their novels. I find their tips amazingly useful. But I’ve tried to read their books, and just, wow. For some of them, it’s probably just the content that’s not interesting to me, but even Brandon Sanderson, who’s pretty much universally recognized as a great voice in fantasy, I have trouble getting engaged in his stories. Weird. So of course, when I think too much about things, which I do, I’m wondering if what I’m doing following their tips will net me a story I don’t like. I hope not.

    Sanderson sucks. There, I said it, all TV people start chucking stones at my for the blasphemy I have just committed, but I'm entitled to my opinion. Tried reading the first book and it just sucked totally. And he writes women like total shit. Erikson is WAY WAY better. Better characters, more interesting plot, better world, just better. His mind fuckery alone is worthy reading. 

    HAHA, I just go to the classics and let them guide me, knowing that I'll still suck no matter what I do, because I'm not a good writer.

    And if I submitted Straag to this thread, you all would kill me. :P

     

  • Member
    November 19, 2018

    The Long-Chapper said:

    ilanisilver said: Funny thing about the writers’ resources, even the one I use - I don’t like any of their fiction, any of their novels. I find their tips amazingly useful. But I’ve tried to read their books, and just, wow. For some of them, it’s probably just the content that’s not interesting to me, but even Brandon Sanderson, who’s pretty much universally recognized as a great voice in fantasy, I have trouble getting engaged in his stories. Weird. So of course, when I think too much about things, which I do, I’m wondering if what I’m doing following their tips will net me a story I don’t like. I hope not.

    Sanderson sucks. There, I said it, all TV people start chucking stones at my for the blasphemy I have just committed, but I'm entitled to my opinion. Tried reading the first book and it just sucked totally. And he writes women like total shit. Erikson is WAY WAY better. Better characters, more interesting plot, better world, just better. His mind fuckery alone is worthy reading. 

    HAHA, I just go to the classics and let them guide me, knowing that I'll still suck no matter what I do, because I'm not a good writer.

    And if I submitted Straag to this thread, you all would kill me. :P

     

     

    I like Sanderson’s stories. But I find it hard to engage with his characters. I’ve tried Erickson, recently, too, and have the same problem. I’ve read the beginning 100 or so pages of the first book at least 5 times so far. I still have it on my TBR pile, and hope that my lack of connection has to do more with what’s going on in my own head than on the page. Because honestly, it’s been so long since I’ve found a fantasy author I connect with, I‘m willing to do countless re-reads to make it happen. 

  • Member
    November 23, 2018

    @Delta I'll keep that in mind! And please, take your time on the preliminary review. I am in no rush! I am currently deep in the editing process of the last four chapters of FM, once I am finished I will be able to read and critique SotF properly!

     

  • Member
    November 25, 2018

    I need to find a structure to streamline the process of these things.

     

    General Critique:

    Overall Unblooded feels like an extended prologue on top of the prologue. At this point, I'm not quite sure where Unblooded is going. The actual prologue (Which I might write in greater detail later) seemed to promise me that Frost Moon is a war story involving House White-Paw. But Chapter 1 - 6 is instead about how a bunch of Thalmor Elves want to steal the native's secret of Stalhrim, evil corporate style. Yes it does hint that there is something that ties the two together but after I just finished reading it, I have my head scratching.

     

    Stating the obvious here but it's something I ought to note; Unblooded is definitely written for fans of Skyrim who are somewhat familiar with the lore. I like to think that I know my stuff so that's fine but to newer readers, I'd reckon they'd have a hard time with that harsh learning curve throughout the story with information such as who are the Skaal (Culture/God/Etc.), Thalmor (Are they a race of elves?), fauna, and so on.

     

    Narration is generally third person limited which is my narration of choice but I find the narrator voice can get telly in a few places, boging the reading pace down for me. I say generally third person limited because the narration does jump into omniscient every now and then and I'm convinced it's more of a viewpoint error than a design choice. Prose is fine though, easy for me to read and I appreciate that.

     

    Dialogue structure of the the earlier chapters (1-3) read clunky to me. Too many action tags and descriptions in between. The later chapters are smoother reads. On the plus side, I enjoyed what the characters are saying. Their vocab and grammar pulls me into this fantasy world without being too flowery.

     

    I found myself have trouble engaging with the 'main' viewpoint of Unblooded, Kjeld White-Paw and to be curt: I find him boring. He's a passive character in this story; Kjeld doesn't do much in the plot of finding out who his father, Leiv actually is. Yes he talks about doing something but the story throws a wrench in that when Baldor gets kidnapped. He doesn't have much to do in finding Baldor, the dog and the hunters track the culprits first. Yes, he does make the decision to go save Reidar but if he doesn't Reidar will possibly die so I'd argue that's not really a choice. Morevover I don't know anything about him that's not related to the plot. He's a smithy apprentice but his boss is a plot device. He hunts but that's part of the world building. Basically, my problem with him is that I find that he doesn't have much going on that's not related to the plot nor is it there to build character.

     

    Nit Picks (or crap only I care about):

    I'm not too much of a fan of onomatopoeias. I find them on the tell side of things, oddly enough.

     

    Also I don't like dossiers.

     

    Welp, think I missed out anything in particular?

  • Member
    November 25, 2018

    Very grateful for the honest feedback, Delta. It's a struggle not to defend myself over every little thing, but I have to acknowledge that some of the things pointed out are simply errors or weak writing on my part!

    The first six chapters are indeed the roughest, and I was aware while writing it that Kjeld may come across as boring. (I hope this is something I have fixed in later parts, but I'll let you be the judge of that)

    I just want to note that Legend of the Skaal is my first attempt at fanfiction, and my first time showing that fanfiction publically. This critique is what I needed to improve. :)

    I am anxious to hear your thoughts on the next part. I am going to save your critique of Unblooded for later review, when it comes time to revise the entire messy thing.

    If it isn't too much trouble, could you message me where in the story the viewpoint got wobbly? It definitely wasn't a design choice, and I'd love to get that corrected asap.

    Thank you for taking the time to critique my work, Delta!

     

    Side note: there should be some critique templates floating around on the net, if you wanted a hard-set format to follow. 

  • Member
    November 25, 2018
    Just to show how subjective enjoyiment of stories and writing is, I have to say, I found Kjeld interesting from the start. Strong and dependable and loyal with just a hint of self-doubt you can just pick up in how he relates to others. He’s one of those characters who I immediately thought “wow, his world is about to be rocked and it will be cool to see how he deals with it.” It’s hard to know what type of character is going to engage more readers, right? What one finds boring, another will find intriguing.
  • Member
    November 25, 2018

    ilanisilver said: Just to show how subjective enjoyiment of stories and writing is, I have to say, I found Kjeld interesting from the start. Strong and dependable and loyal with just a hint of self-doubt you can just pick up in how he relates to others. He’s one of those characters who I immediately thought “wow, his world is about to be rocked and it will be cool to see how he deals with it.” It’s hard to know what type of character is going to engage more readers, right? What one finds boring, another will find intriguing.

     

    Exactly. The hardest thing about critiques for writers is not the criticism itself (Although it stings like hell); it's what to do with the criticism.

     

    EDIT: And that's why it shouldn't just be me who's critiquing stuff. Everyone should do it so that the author can get a more rounded overview of their work.

  • Member
    November 26, 2018

    @ilanisilver

    Thank you for providing a second opinion! I'm beginning to think I need even more critiques, to see if the same problems Delta pointed out keep cropping up. Your insight makes me feel a little better about Kjeld, so I thank you for that! I still feel like his character solidifes and becomes stronger in the later parts, especially with Mor'vahka as a foil.

     

    @Delta

    So right! I'll be saving all of the reviews and critiques, with the intention of picking out patterns or (hopefully) learning from my mistakes. Thank you for the PM, by the way. I'll give it a hard read after I'm done editing chapter 37!

  • Member
    November 26, 2018

    @Delta, that might be true. But I don’t think many people want to do that here. When I first signed up, that’s what I asked for, and it’s just not what people wanted to give. They wanted to read for enjoyment. And I don’t want to give extended critique, either. Asking me if I see a plot hole or if a certain phrase sounds realistic or what’s my first impression of a character is about as far as I want to go in really digging around someone else’s work. More like targeted beta reading, really, than critique. 

    I think it boils down to where I am in the whole writing quagmire. Personally, I’m not at the point where I WANT super harsh critique either, not right now, anyway. I’ve had some in the past, and for me at least, its negatives far outweigh its positives. For me to be a better writer, I know what I need to do is read work that I want to emulate, and write. Write a gargantuan amount. And getting critiqued has a dampening effect for me. I’m sure I need to gain thicker skin, but for now, I just need to write.

     

    @Fawn: you’re welcome. You just never know how something’s going to relate with a reader. Even established writers have their critics. I‘m re-reading the Harry Potter series just now because it’s christmas and that’s what I do, and I’m astounded at the number of things I didn’t notice before I started writing. Head-hopping, infodumps, plot holes, etc. But it didn’t matter, in the long run, all that. Readers forgive because she’s giving us what we want, in some way. We forgive imperfections when it’s something we love. So we just need to figure out how to do that, right? Totally easy. ;)

  • Member
    November 26, 2018

    Alright-o! I'm still recovering from the extended period of writer's block and real life chaos, but I do have the first segment of a new series (hopefully). Going off my old Agents of the Queen story, this one is based off of the quests from Elder Scrolls Online. Unlike AotQ, however, it will deviate quite a bit from the game canon. This is actually both fully intentional and in-universe; there's going to be some Kirkblade-esque madness, let's just say. Of course, I'm nowhere near happy with the results, due to my obssessive perfectionism, so I figured it best to have other people take a look at it. Thanks in advance!

     

    GHAHR-TOK, Story 1, Chapter 1