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Abrielle posted an update 1 year, 6 months ago
@rae
Hi! I’ve finished what you’ve written so far, and it’s pretty good! It certainly doesn’t drag, which is great. I think the biggest thing I have is that you tend to be a little wordy. Particularly with trying to throw too much information into one sentence (totally understandable, it’s really hard not to when you’re trying to introduce readers to a giant new world).
As for characters, they’re great! You are really good at coming up with creative descriptions. Nahim is a fascinating main character. Most main characters aren’t very interesting, so well done!
I have two other things. You know the part where Nahim tells Mandin about his past? It starts like so; “It began first with strategic bombings to trigger the eruption of the Laxan twins.” Do you think you could make it a little more personal? Like, “I was only fifteen when the Nanians invaded Realn.” Something like that. It sounds very technical right now. Also, again a couple details that maybe aren’t as important to the story, like the bits about the refugees. The rest of that scene was spot-on (though I’m dying to know what his father’s last words were🙃).
Lastly, there’s one thing that I feel like could flow a bit better (ignore me if it doesn’t work for the story). Right now, the snip coming up after the conversation with Mandin feels like a coincidence. What if the snip was out all along, Mandin just doesn’t realize who it’s talking about until he sees Nahim’s face? Then that could be the citing event for the whole story, potentially.
Great job, and I look forward to reading more!
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You’re not the first person to want to know what his father’s last words are! I purposefully omitted them from the text in that one spot since in a later scene that you will have to wait until Chapter 23 for, he tells someone those words and also mentions he has never told another person before. The funny thing for me is the use of the quote from a background perspective, when he says it to the person, he’s making the rashest decision of his life and his father was not rash at all. Don’t worry, you’ll know when that rash decision comes along. (I don’t recommend repeating what he did even though it was okay in the end.) Now I think I’m just teasing you.
You’re also not the first person to make mention of how Nahim talks. Mandin talks informally, and prematurely for his age. Nahim talks very formally. He’s only 19 but as he quotes, “I’ve seen the fire.” you have to realize how the Laxan invasion really shaped who he has become. During this book, you see him as this grave, formal, quiet sometimes and other times the stark opposite (some of those points are coming up) and all of that is new. Compare him to the short story, 13th Birthday Sabotage, where he laughs and even cracks some jokes. At this point of his life (13) he has only lost one brother and that brother he never knew and therefore never really connected with. While it hit his mother hard turning her from her old strong spirit to the quieter mother that you briefly see, Nahim was almost completely unscathed. Then the thing that makes him mentally unable to fly happened. That of course left him a little closer to what you see him as when he’s 19. Then of course the Laxan invasion and it goes downhill from there.
At the end of the book, the Boomerangs shape him to be closer to when he was 14 but he’s not totally that 13-year-old jokester. In the book after Guardian Angels, called Sovereignty in the Galaxy: The Troublemakers, rebels against a new power (The Troublemakers for short) you see him inching closer to his old self but I know he will never be the same. He’s seen the fire and he will never be blind to it. I think he sees that so he tries to act it though for a kid who Nahim is trying to help…Anyway I’m going of track. And then after THAT when we have Sovereignty in the Galaxy: The Two Emperors, rising to meet the threat, you see a…that is still a jumbled mess.
I’ll work on wordiness in my writing to see if there isn’t a way to fix that and work on ranting with my typing. How much have I bored you?
Oh, and be aware, there was a malfunction with at least my side of the Guardian Angels google Docs and it doesn’t look fixable. I will be creating a new Google Docs and will put you and Annecaitlin on there. Bye!
Eager to see you again and with a headache from thinking too hard on something that I have already resolved,
-Ru
“You’re not the first person to want to know what his father’s last words are! I purposefully omitted them from the text in that one spot since in a later scene that you will have to wait until Chapter 23 for, he tells someone those words…”
Figured. Nuts, what an evil author thing to do🙃. “Here’s an interesting tidbit . . . just kidding! Now you’ve got to wait TWENTY MORE CHAPTERS before you get to read it.” Also, I might have to wait to read Nahim’s rash decision until you’ve written up to where it turns out alright, because I can’t stand it when characters are dense like that. (I’m teasing, by the way. What I mean is, I can’t stand, it, but I’ll probably read it anyways.)
Okay, I like the sound of Nahim’s character arc. If he were to get to the end of the series and still be his weighty, formal, completely serious self, it would be a little sad. People gotta learn to joke around a bit, ya know? Beware too many sob stories, by the way. If everyone has a dark background, it gets to be just dull after a while. That’s a pet peeve of mine.
Actually, I wasn’t terribly bored. It sounds like me trying to tell anyone about any of my stories. (My one that finally managed to get a solid plotline is spiraling into chaos again. Semi-orderly chaos, but chaos none the less.)
Hey, did the malfunction have to do with the paragraph that repeated at the bottom of every page? That’s in the footer, so deleting the footer ought to solve the problem. If that isn’t the problem, just ignore me.
As you can see, typing rants is not just a you thing. For whatever reason, I cannot for the life of me be brief. 😁
I mean I can hint to it… And I did actually already hint to something but it’s so secretive…I bet you’ll never figure it out until then. **Knowing smile creeping over face** Oh and it turns out alright in another book! At least completely alright. So if you stuck to your waiting you would be missing out on a wonderful part that I’ve got planned out sooooo well.
I’ve gotten rid of many of my sob story backgrounds. I have a few and it seems like a lot right now because those happen to be the ones I’m telling you but there are like over 3/4 characters who have wonderful happy backstories. Out of all of my characters, Nahim and Chase Duke seem to have the saddest. I haven’t told you about Chase yet, would you like me to? He’s a Wondian kid in the Middle Ages (MAs) and the MAs happen to be about our modern as far as tech level. For a while I made up characters with different types of sad backgrounds just to see how they would live life and the fact is, I have problems sleeping so many times I like to think up stories and Characters while I try to sleep. Actually on a night like that I came up with Guardian Angels and about 3/4 of its scenes! ot on the same night but you know, it was a night and the same dilemma.
And yes the malfunction was the repeat but I tried and it wouldn’t disappear for me. I can not think of how that happened since all I was doing was updating the type from my Word document since I think I had changed a paragraph somewhere.
Being brief is impossible. The only way can be brief is by doing the dialogue of a character who’s brief and to the point. Mainly one who said to his sister while she was trying to bake: “You know your baking is the worst I’ve ever tasted in my life, ugh.” Orhis son after him that will plain out flat say his thoughts without even trying to be nice about it.
The quote was from a short story that I was planning called Narr’s Cookies. Shall I pick up on that subject again? It was kinda being planned as a bit of a comedy.
Bye for now,
-Ru