Excerpt Critique?

I had fun on that thread (reading, anyway) last year. I'll play given I have time energy and you don't mind short comments… (I should be writing, you know!)

Be warned, the excerpts I have up right now are short and probably painful to read. *evil grin* I'll give yours a look in a sec.

~Merc

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SCRIPT FRENZY '08: Hero's Choice (stage play)
SCRIPT FRENZY '08: Honorless (graphic novel)

The Toasted Scimitar

Merc, dude, are you writing four books this month, or is it four different aspects of the same novel? I vaguely recognize your name from last year, but I also have a Swiss cheese memory.

Anyway, excerpts. Well, they're interesting. I liked the first one better, just a personal preference because it sounded more amusing. The fae with jet packs bit made me giggle. A few minor spelling mistakes (desert, not dessert), that's not really important except to a freak like me. Possibly a bit more info on the second bit would help, though I know there's a limit on these things. Zasa makes me think of Zazu, which makes me think of a toucan singing, which just sends my mind to weird places. So far I thought your excerpts were pretty good, they flowed well in most parts, though it seemed to get a bit uneven at the very end. Keep up the good work.

Words are meaningless and forgettable

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YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was waiting for someone to put up this thread. I love it!
Anyone who wants to, please tear my excerpt to shreds - I don't care how mean you are so long as you explain why you hate something (I only dislike people who say "this sucks" for no reason).
Mine is the entire first chapter of my story so tell me what I've done wrong as an opening, with character building, set building, etc.
I will be critiquing others as soon as things load for me
:D
Yay!

Working Title: Gatekeeper Chronicles
Genre: Fantasy
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nekomedea

Okay, first, just to get it out of the way: my first thought upon reading the beginning was 'omg, Digimon fanfic?' I was gonna be all excited, because I haven't seen Digimon fanfic in ages (I will not go back to The Pit).

Anyway... The first little bit was interesting, with the possessions moving around by themselves (second thought: Harry Potter fanfic? I don't know what is with me and the fanfic stuff lately). I'm afraid you started to lose me once you got into all the descriptions of the characters, however. It just felt a little like, 'Here is A. Here are A's stats. Here is B. Here are B's stats' etc., etc. I skimmed through some parts of it, though that's partially because of formatting; big chunks of text make my eyeballs hurt. I do have to point out that my third thought, upon reading the description of Rina (I think) was, 'Mary Sue!'. My apologies. It's just that 'this girl is so totally perfect-looking' thing. Perhaps try to ease off on the descriptions, or make them more subtle. A little bit of action might help break up parts of the first chapter, though not that this could be a personal preference; I simply like to have things happening other than A meets B, meets C, meets D through Z. On the other hand, my interest was somewhat piqued by the end, where TK and Rina appear to know each other/love each other. I kinda thought it might be a reincarnation thing, I dunno. Keep up the good work, I hope I haven't come off as too mean, regardless of you saying to be as nasty as we want. Good luck this month!

Words are meaningless and forgettable

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Cuno: I love it, it’s kinda mysterious the way you don’t use names but at the same time you get a good feel for the characters at the beginning, and then when you do use a name it’s only because the name seems to be a curse….
A few minor grammatical things: “…goddess lay those cool fingers across her lips.” – ‘her cool fingers’ may sound better. “It was empty, though the fire burning in the hearth showed that her husband had been in recently, had perhaps gone in search of her.” – ‘recently, AND had perhaps…’ again may sound better. “In contrast the sea seemed enormous,” – ‘…sea IT seemed enormous,’ seems like the word is missing.
You may also want to add a break of some kind between the two sections so one can tell the difference.

I really love the princess part, you do a wonderful job of implying that everyone is insulting her because she’s not pregnant and yet never mentioning it. The pearl necklace as well sounds horribly important and mysterious. The kid on the boat also sounds interesting, I may have to keep checking your excerpts just to see why being who he is, is seen as a curse – enough that they’d all so easily kill him…
Overall, great job, there’s not a lot I can find for faults, which is always good. Can’t wait to read more!

Working Title: Gatekeeper Chronicles
Genre: Fantasy
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Harry Potter comparisons: 2
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I loved Digimon as a kid, but always saw it as a lesser echo of Pokemon. Still, you've managed to fulfill the needs of FanFiction by providing an excerpt that has a) no Gay slash angst, b) a good story flow, and c) it doesn't stray too far from my memories of Digimon, reminding people how good that show was while not being too sentimental.

I like it!

Dude! High five!! I had named my MC Tobias Christopher O'Connor - but I hated the double 'c' thing... then when watching Digimon it hit me Kristopher - K! TK!! It's not my fault they're both blond and have weird older brothers or best friends who happen to be brother and sister... on second thought... that could be bad... oh well... Though my version of Matt (whose name is Marcus... hmm M...) is rather dead so maybe... :D
You are right about the character info - I've been having a tough time trying to figure out how to work with so many characters who you really meet all at once. Maybe I'll cut Bard out until later - he's useless in the next few chapters...
I'm starting a tally with the HP comparisons now though... I've got two so far, and none with the real inspiration...

Thank you so much though! I'll put this on my fix-after-nano-or-50,000-words list.
:D
edit: Wait... do I need to point out that my excerpt has NOTHING to do with Digimon? It was just easier then writing Tobias every time... so I stole the name... the personalities, clothes, and eye color are all very different even though they're both blonds... Could this be worse then I thought? Do I need to go back to using Tobias most of the time (and leave TK as a nickname from some people)?

Working Title: Gatekeeper Chronicles
Genre: Fantasy
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Harry Potter comparisons: 2
Comparisons with real influence: 0

TA, I particularly like the tongue-in-cheek tone your first excerpt accomplishes. I'm not sure if you intended it this way, but it comes across as a charming satire of both popular emo culture today, and the dark-modern fantasy genre as well. If you can maintain a satirical tone like that throughout the work, I must say it's one I'd be particularly interested in picking up at the bookstore.

Cheers then
yote

Here is my victory over depression, that I may do a thing and find joy not just in the completion, but in the doing itself.

I intended it to be a satirical Fantasy, but it's also got serious elements. I hope I can keep up the satirical tone, did anyone notice what the "Much discussed couplet" was based on in the first excerpt?

I'd love to get some feed back on mine. I'm just about to post the completed prologue as my excerpt.

I'll return the favour tomorrow, when I have more of a chance and more brain power. thanks..

Blog - http://betweentheticks.wordpress.com/

I posted a third excerpt, but I'll see what I can do with other people's ones. I need to study!

Excerpt 1: Love it! Emo kids are so annoying (they're too mainstream and flock in too large of groups to be goth!) and the Emonomicon... priceless. I'm assuming from the capitalized Death that you're refering to the god Death, or the spirit of Death, or the Grim Reaper or something... making him cry... how mean! (wait it's the guy from the memory right? or is it the guy who saw the memory?)
Excerpt 2: I was almost thrown off with the Charlie is a girl thing, but I got it after a second... Love the Magi-flakes. The egg scene though - "Charlie went into the kitchen, took one egg, and tossed it to her other hand. Another egg materialised into her other hand..." The 'other hand/other hand' thing is a bit confusing. Ican't tell which hand is which. If it's refering to the first hand mentioned, maybe call it first hand? Or just put on a left and right thing so it's clearer.
Also the memory scene. It seems as though he call Oberon his father at one point... so is the Reaper his father? Was he the one stading over him at the beginning or was it Oberon and then the reaper came in later with his Scythe?

In anycase, I love the humor of this. There is so much you can do with satire then with serious fantasy these days (eveything ends up cliche...) You can see hints of the real plot line, but the humor can really distract you so you don't figure things out too soon... "Distraction! Distraction!"
Anyway, great excerpt! But no, I have no clue where the couplet is from... it sounded a bit strangely familiar, but not quite...

Working Title: Gatekeeper Chronicles
Genre: Fantasy
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I would love it if someone would be willing to read my excerpt. Is it too confusing? is there enough description? does it make you want to read more, or go burn it and erase the thought from your mind...? *doesn't know*

I got bored and wandered in here :P

TeenAuthor, your first excerpt is great! I'd definitely keep reading a book that started like that, or had that as a blurb. It promises to be funny and still give plenty of "ooo magic" moments, and mocks emo. Woot!
The other two excerpts were a bit lengthy, and admittedly didn't grab attention (or kick ass) like the first excerpt. And I agree with the post above, there were some vague bits, like the "other hand" section in excerpt 2, and I almost missed the part when Malkalith started having the vision. I was wondering how a Faerie child got in the kitchen. Don't know if anyone else got that though, I might just be a rather blind reader. But the first one - nice.

Yolaron, you sound like you had great fun writing that excerpt! It did rush by a bit fast though. I generally like reading things that take their time, explore the atmosphere and the scene a bit more, at least help to get me in touch with the main character's point of view. I felt almost swept off my feet by your dialogue - although your dialogue was really fun to read, and I loved the cats :)

Randilin, nice excerpt; I like the descriptive approach, I got a good feel for the setting. Especially when the lady and Oswald finally speak - it was a bit like having your furniture start speaking to you, and I don't mean that in a bad way, I mean it in a good, ooh wow, one. :) The only quibble I'd have would be some grammar and punctuation or typo errors, they kind of slowed the reading pace down. Otherwise, it's an excerpt I'd contentedly read on from.

Edit: I went ahead and read the rest of y'all's excerpts. I know; what am I doing critiquing with only 800 words to my name, eh? Heh. I'm kinda dry out of creativity at the moment.

idleyote, ooh, stream-of-consciousness fantasy! Very nice excerpt, and the ending was delightfully cliffhangery (uh, pretend that word exists for a while) too. I've always found first-person hard to write, and if not written well, hard to read. You seem to be doing just fine by my book. :) I'd love to read more of your story.

nekomedea, I'd agree with most of Cuno's comments, although I didn't notice that "character A: here, character B: here" methodical effect all that much. You sound like you've got a good idea of your plot already, which is always good, but I also felt rushed along a little too fast for my taste, as in Yolaron's excerpt, though not quite as rushed... I didn't get time to fully appreciate some of the other characters, like Vasu, or Rina - especially Rina. For someone who looks like she's going to be a pretty significant character, she doesn't seem to be given much room to develop in the reader's head before she gets presented big-time. Still, nice excerpt - I like the idea of music students, and combat lessons sound very interesting!

Mercwriter, like the tone in your excerpt. Terse, and also rather sardonic; and I'm intrigued by "her-lamps". Perhaps the writing was a little too terse, because I found myself a little confused at the end, not knowing why they were fighting or who they were - though that was probably your intended effect. Still an excerpt I'd be curious to read on from!
And I was strangely reminded of a scene from The Twelve Kingdoms in the first half of your excerpt. Coincidence? :P

Malkalith was supposed to be having a vision of himself as a Faerie Child, his mind was transported to the Faerie-Realms by the good ol' Meal in the Eggshell spell, coz he's a Changeling!

Admittedly, the excerpts aren't as good or as structured as they are in the actual book. And yes, these excerpts aren't that attention grabbing. I hoped that the vision one would be attention grabbing and revealing of Malkalith's Faerie heritage. Oberon in the book is supposed to be the Father of all Faerie Children, The Grim Reaper is supposed to be Mal's "real" Dad, for reasons explored later in the book...

Anyone care to take a look at mine? It might be a little long, but any advice appreciated! (It's pretty much what I've got so far - lol!)

Crossing Over...

The boundaries between Heaven, Hell, and Earth are fading...and nothing will ever be the same.

NaNoWriMo 2007

Whoops, somehow my comment on Cuno's excerpt got cut off. Hm. From memory...

Cuno, you've got two very interesting scenes here, and they're really well-written. I think, though, for an excerpt, you might want to focus on one scene in more detail, and heightened tension, than put two together... I found the bridge between the two characters' points of view rather surprising. I'd have expected a little marker, or break, but of course, that's not entirely necessary...minor quibble. I did think that the events could have gotten a fair bit more detail and time paid to it, though. Loved the idea of a goddess stepping up to her worshipper, silently - the amount of power you have over a scene like that! Amazing. It isn't often you get to wield the power of a supreme being :P The princess being simply referred to as "the princess" also made her seem more symbolic and distant than a character we were to empathise with. Perhaps that was your intended effect? Again, I might just be reading obtusely, so forgive me that.
The second scene had lots of potential too - a boy being pushed overboard! Fantastic. But again, it seemed to pass by too fast, and I didn't feel any sympathy for Tanathir, let alone feel with him, when he got the shove. A bit like Bran being pushed out the window at Winterfell, without having the earlier bit of the chapter describing his love of climbing. :P
But the excerpt was still nicely written, as can be seen by your very first line :) I'd still want to read more.

Anyone who stumbles in here is perfectly free to take my own excerpt and sizzle it with the bacon. I like bluntness. Be blunt!

I would like a critique. I will critique after writing time is over-my coffee is brewed, so I must get typing now.

http://www.myspace.com/tearsofsirion

"It's time to roll the dice." - Mat in WOT

Alex44k- I liked it, there wasn't too many cliches, and you explored the Gold Digger phenomenon in a fantasy enviroment on a small scale, in that one of your characters only had girls interested in him for his status. A good job!

hey y'all. i just wanted to let you know that my excerpt is available for ripping and tearing! have at it!

now i'm going to go back and read some of yours...

whoopee! it's only 8:00 in the morning and i've nearly finished my word count for the day. life is sweet...

"wow. you can turn it on and off. being ADD i mean."

my first excerpt is up. I think I'll be doing maybe one per chapter.

It's vague for a reason, and short, and from the middle of the chapter. Otherwise...

___________________________________________
NANOWRIMO 2007: If Wishes Were Horses
Twelve Chapters. Thirty Days. No Sweat.
120,822 words -- 12/12 chapters completed

Ooh ooh ooh. Critiquing!

I'll start reading the others around here as soon as I take my next break, which will preferably not be before I reach 3 334 :p

2006 - Openbaar Vervoer - 22 500 / 50 000
2007 - Canhoto - 0 / 50 000

Brand new newbie.
Please critique.... but be gentle.

Crits please? :D

And be harsh, I like to have things straightened out instead of beating around the bush. xD

Thanks for the kind words, Cherylline.
The entire novel isn't in the first person form, nor stream of consciousness, but rather each section (or possibly only each chapter) opens with a journal entry from the protagonist, before it switches to third person limited. I do enjoy working from first person though, it's a fun way to get inside someone's head and offer some description without it feeling like an infobomb, since you can disguise it as musings.

I like your excerpt a great deal. I'm madly curious who the narrator is, what's up with the guy with the sword, and this Gamel fellow's role in everything. I've always felt the purpose of a good excerpt is to catch my interest, and I definitely would pick up at least the first couple chapters to read at this point.

It seems you're adding historical elements to a fantasy in your case. This can be good or bad depending on who you ask. Adding "earthly" profanities, even period ones, can interfere with the otherworldliness of a good fantasy, but perhaps you've picked an obscure enough one that it fits in without being too difficult. Be careful that you're not just adding phrases and tongues for flavor, but working them in as part of the setting itself.

Best of luck to you, and all other NaNos.

And please, I'd love for more folk to give my excerpt a glance :)

Here is my victory over depression, that I may do a thing and find joy not just in the completion, but in the doing itself.

My excerpt currentlly consists oof three different parts oof the stoory so far, so I apologise for it being a bit all over the place. The first part I wrote just a few moments ago, it just wannted to be written so I llet it flow. The story's supposed to concentrate on Kael but the 'prologue' bit is the most relevant part of the story as I'm hoping you'll find out later. I'm trying to let my writing flow the way it wants to so hopefully it comes across ok.

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q307/gomababe/Nanopic2007sig.jpg

Gah! My computer just spasmed and I lost my critiques!! I'm re writing them here, sorry if they sound short I don't have time to completely rewrite them. (I apologize for spelling and typos as well... my fingers are starting to get numb from all this writing!)

Kortu Lahan The first sentance needs to be more descriptive, the reat of the story has good description so the first sentance should too. Really set the scene with it. DOes it echo through the mountains or trees or is it far away in the village or close by breaking the silence.... Overall I liked it, good character building, I was confused as to whether the two characters were brothers or friends (I swear you called them friends at the beginning) THere are also a few minor editing problems, typos misplaced/missing commas, and particles missing. Overall a rather good opening - the beast you mentioned sounds interesting. :D

cherylline I like the POV, first person isn't seen much and usually not done all that well, but you've done a god job with it. There's some good descrptions of the scene, but not so much with the characters. I like the tarot reference, but the middle english slang is a bit hard to pick up on until a second glance over. Overall, very mysterious and compelling. The language may be a bit hard for the average reader but it really gives it a taste all it's own.
EDIT: I almost forgot to say thanks for the crit. I forgot about the Rina problem - when I originally thought up the story the insiration was a prologue I came up with late at night, which dealt with TK and Rina's past... I didn't take into account that I got rid of it I think... well there's more Rina next chapter. Thanks again.

tearsofiron Wonderfully vague and confusing. You have a great style and you give just enough info to keep people wondering, but not enough to give everything away... it is a skill I wish I had. The whole eye/sky/sea thing sounds really confusing - and I wonder how they even have a concept of 'sea' if there are none on their world? I can't remember any grammatical errors, which irks me (I always think I've failed without finding grammar errors)... but good job I suppose..

Working Title: Gatekeeper Chronicles
Genre: Fantasy
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Harry Potter comparisons: 2
Comparisons with real influence: 0

My excerpt is currenty three different pparts of the story. i only just did the prologue but and id the rest yesterday. it loks a bit alll over the place but thats the way my muses want to work so i'm letting them do whatever. Hopefully I can tie it all together later on in the month and iif not thats what december's for huh?

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q307/gomababe/Nanopic2007sig.jpg

Thanks for the Critque, I am glad you like the descriptions. I know going in to any writing project that my grammar and spelling are going to be my two weak points spots and will be the source of serious editing after the fact..

I'm hoping to read a couple this afternoon at work..

Blog - http://betweentheticks.wordpress.com/

Appreciate the feedback Mate.
I had it all planned that these guys would be friends but I figured what the hey, brothers it is. I have fixed the text up now. As for the description parts, I was just looking for a way to start the story, description comes later;-). However I really love a bit of "set the scene" myself.
Thanks again.