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 quote:Set in the city of Pantheon, this hard sci-fi cyberpunk follows Leonard Mann, a citizen who wakes up to discover he has had a quantum computer installed in his brain. This modification allows him to see the two most likely realities of any situation he finds himself in. In a world controlled by a mysterious corporation known as Tyche, how will Leonard act with this new found gift.. or curse? I don't think I'm supposed to post 18000 words in a thread, so here's a google doc link, enjoy: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uTFkvqG9VovJ24PyvL9j22yhZ1PnlcFJf0VHy_ayga4/edit?usp=sharing Looking for big picture critique. I'm stuck on where to take this. I don't know if I want to do the general story arc (i.e. good triumphs over evil) or something different. I've sent this to random people, and universally gotten very positive feedback. So, it's time for your feedback. Let me know if those people are right or if they're idiots. I also designed the cover myself, so let me know what you think of that. Thanks!
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Dec 1, 2014 10:39
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I'm not a fan of the style, or maybe subgenre, but I'd hate for this effort to go unnoticed. Since it's not a finished work, I'm not sure how important typos and such are, but here are some.quote:A janitor pushing a pushed a mop bucket while he also mopped the floor. quote:It felt unreal, as though he had some sort of disassociate out of body experience. Also, why isn't the elevator freaking out? I guess the story is based on the interpretation of quantum physics that gives consciousness a special role? Or maybe the elevator is in the most likely realities. quote:The door was unlocked, giving the indication that he was no prisoner here. The door creaked open. Looking down a long hallway, Leonard was faced with walls covered with newspaper clippings and scientific charts. quote:Doctor Victor Raymond wiped his hands off his sleeve as he rose to his feet and walked down the hallway. He approached Leonard with an outstretched hand. Leonard looked at him incredulously. quote:A dry erase board was the only clear thing occupying a wall on one side, and it was covered with mathematics that Leonard had never seen before in his life. quote:“I’m a programmer, Bot AI, cybernetics, whatever they need down in the trenches. I do this and that, you know?"  quote:He remembered that he had been operating on a man’s arm implant, making sure the pneumatics were properly adjusted.  So, I'm still skeptical about the "mathematics" part... You probably mean the second dot definition of cybernetics here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics_(disambiguation), right? Uh, the world is confusing. I guess you can ignore these three paragraphs. Or whatever.Well, so far, it kind of reads like a B-grade story, written quite competently, mind you. I'm not excited about it, but it's a matter of taste. I mean, there are particular ways in which it doesn't appeal to me, and I could tell them to you, but I suspect pandering to me wouldn't do much for your story's general appeal.
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Dec 2, 2014 05:23
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Thanks, I appreciate the comments. A lot of it was written in bursts through Nanowrimo, so I haven't gone back and edited it yet. That should help clear up some plot inconsistencies and grammatical issues. I guess I should sit down and write character summaries or something? That way I'm solid on the details. I'm trying to find a way to move the narrative forward. I'm weaving in a lot of Greek references because I want to work with the theme of playing god using science and technology, and how each of the two characters (Leonard and Solomon) use the technology in different ways. Eventually I want to reveal that it was all just an experiment done by Tyche, releasing the two "into the wild" to see how they react. Victor is employed by Tyche still and leading Leonard intentionally and sort of turn it into a revenge angle where Leonard tries to take down the corporation. It sounds cliche, but doesn't everything? Liam Emsa fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Dec 2, 2014 |
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Dec 2, 2014 05:52
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I've actually forgotten to mention that I haven't read the whole segment (although I've scrolled to the end to, ahem, confirm my suspicions). As I've said, not my cup of tea, although I can't pin down in a succinct way what I don't like about it. Maybe it's not my type of cliché... Or rather, I don't want to lead you astray with my particular story preferences, because you obviously like the setup you've created (or you wouldn't have wanted to continue it). One suggestion I've managed to pull out of my rear end is that the intro could be more exciting. I know, weird things are happening to Leonard, but they aren't actually threatening his life. It's a problem I'm experiencing for at least the second time in my life where a writer is trying to frighten me, but instead I get into a scientific mood and want to experiment with and explore the gimmick. Then they yank me away on an adventure. 
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Dec 2, 2014 12:39
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No, thanks, that's really helpful. I appreciate it!
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Dec 2, 2014 17:21
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I love the cover. Very eye-catching, simple, strong symbolism and colors. Not sure how I feel about the font or the way the letters intersect with each other, etc. If this was touched up by a pro, would be great. It's definitely very intriguing, so good. you say it's "hard sci-fi" -- I hate that term for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it's used as an excuse to exclude certain types of story from the genre. You're not a genre evangelist, hopefully, so whatever, but it conjures up a very specific kind of author and story for me. It probably does the same for people who LIKE "hard sci-fi" so it can arguably help you as well as hurt you. quote:Set in the city of Pantheon, this hard sci-fi cyberpunk follows Leonard Mann, a citizen who wakes up to discover This part of your blurb sucks. I don't know what the city of Pantheon is (so I don't care) and I don't want to be told what genre it is, and "follows Leonard Mann, a citizen" is weak and unengaging. Good News! this is really easy to fix, and anyway, you didn't ask us to crit your blurb. The rest of your blurb is pretty good, anyway. Personally I'm not fond of blurbs that end in a direct question, but you do raise an interesting question, which is kind of the heart of a good blurb. Anyway, story. You asked for a big-picture crit, but as I said on IRC, I'm not going to give you a big-picture crit on 18k words right off the bat. Too big of a commitment before I start reading. I'm going to give you a fairly in-depth crit of the first paragraph, and a broader crit of the first 1k words or so, depending on how far I read naturally. Also like I said on IRC, in draft phases I don't think there's much to be gained by focusing on the precise wording of your first paragraph. At the end of the whole process, having a solid first paragraph is mandatory. Why then, am I going to give you such an in-depth critique of your first paragraph? Because I can. Well, also because I think it's a good place to give you an example of what a hard-core critique of your writing might look like, beyond the big picture. So. quote:Pantheon. The word itself perfectly encapsulated the identity of the metropolis. So, Pantheon, what does that mean? A fancy word with fancy connotations that most people will vaguely know, but not well enough for it to actually mean something specific. For me, it reminded me of a place of many Gods. Kind of. It's hard to say because I looked it up before I wrote this crit. I don't think it's a well-known enough word to actually be meaningful in context. For one thing, there's no context. It perfectly encapsulates the identity of the metropolis. But it's not a word that can actually define a city out of context. You have, in my opinion, about two sentences to make this whole comparison make sense. And those sentences have to give me a character's eyes to see through, that would think about Pantheon and what it means. Does that happen? No. quote:The sun always obscured partially by a thick layer of pollution. Rain was the standard weather, and everything always had a cold, wet feeling as if it was perpetually covered in morning dew. If Pantheon was a living being, Tyche was it’s brain Nothing clarifies Pantheon for me. How does Pantheon relate to pollution or rain or cold or wet or dew? It doesn't. You get somewhere interesting with "Tyche was it's brain." Now Tyche is your only character. I have a thing against starting books with a description of setting. But wait! You cry. What about that William Gibson novel? William Gibson posted:The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. Yeah Gibson gives you a one sentence description and then jumps to a character. It's not "NOT WILLIAM GIBSON posted:The sky above the port was the color of television, turned to a dead channel. It was wet, as always. It rained a lot over the port. The ziggurat rose into the heavens, its apex never visible through the smog and cloud cover. Considered a new wonder of the world after its construction, it dwarfed every other building in the city. Millions upon millions of tons of concrete piled as far as the eye could see with iron pylons jutting out like gargoyles every few stories. I majored in architecture for 1.5 years before I gave up and became a deadbeat liberal arts major. Descriptions of cities are hella boring. Dickens wrote a book about two cities once. It started like this: I'm mother loving CHARLES DICKENS posted:jIt was the best of times, And ugh, jesus, I'm skipping over your entire giant first paragraph because it appears to all be a description of a city? Ugggghhhhhh ... really not digging an entire paragraph describing a headache after that. I've had a headache. It sucked. Here's a random person having a headache. I don't care. ask yourself, could I start here? quote:He didn’t know how much time had passed when he woke. It felt instantaneous, but the daylight he briefly remembered had now given way to a night illuminated by the city lights. He winced in anticipation of an oncoming barrage of pain, but there was nothing but a dullness inside his head, as if everything had settled and taken a break from its activities. He took this opportunity to look around, for once, and see where he’d been. answer: yes maybe even later. So, hospital wake up is a THING. it's a thing that has been done a LOT. Waking up in a hospital to WEIRD poo poo has been done a lot. Just be aware, and be wary. Your scene doesn't seem to play by your own rules. He sees more than two nurses. You also give him a freebie -- a non-consequential opportunity to experience his own abilities. Why? Don't let him reach for the glass in private. You're wasting drama for the sake of exposition. You waste the excitement of the premise on a glass of water. and then! [quote} ADX Tartarus was constructed in 2021 in response to the growing civil unrest present in Pantheon. Increasing debt, energy costs, and an increasing gap between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of the population finally reached a tipping point. A maximum security rehabilitation center was created to house those that posed the greatest threat to the republic. [/quote] You're killing me smalls. I read to the next ## and you didn't grab me. I said before that your first paragraph doesn't matter in the first draft. I meant that. But you have to put something in the first 1kk that will grab a crit reader. A dude having a headache in a hospital ward won't cut it. A frustrated cop or whatever won't cut it. What's the grab? You need a character with a grab. Cop Smalls isn't your protag, but who is? "Dude with a headache" won't cut it. There's nothing in the first several hundred words that makes me want to read more. Since we are on the forums, and I'm not a random person in a book store, you have the chance to try to get me to read more. Tell me when to start reading if I want to start the story hot.
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Dec 5, 2014 12:13
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Ooh, I recently had a somewhat radical idea of having a thread for critiquing critique, and I think I've found a perfect candidate to try it out. I hope you don't mind.quote:you say it's "hard sci-fi" -- I hate that term for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it's used as an excuse to exclude certain types of story from the genre. You're not a genre evangelist, hopefully, so whatever, but it conjures up a very specific kind of author and story for me. It probably does the same for people who LIKE "hard sci-fi" so it can arguably help you as well as hurt you. There are also terms "high fantasy" and "low fantasy", "magical realism", "erotic thriller", etc. They all exclude certain types of story from a genre. They all have their proponents, sometimes very ardent ones, and even evangelists. I don't see what the point is of bringing it up. People tend to categorize things, mainly when there are enough things to be categorized, such as lots of different sci-fi, appealing to vastly different audiences. quote:and I don't want to be told what genre it is In the previous paragraph you say that it conjures a very specific kind of story, and you'd think that'd be a useful thing to include in a blurb. quote:Anyway, my point is, you can't write like Dickens anymore, even though he is loving hysterical. Well, how does that sound so far? 
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Dec 5, 2014 16:58
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Thanks for the feedback. The reason I wanted to describe the city is that I felt like in a cyberpunk novel the city itself has to be this living breathing organism. I really wanted it to come alive and tried to use a lot of description to set the scene. I guess that's not good to use as an introduction because it can lose the reader's interest? The main story, if you're interested, is this: There are two main people: Leonard Mann and Solomon Rothe. Leonard is supposed to be a mild-mannered guy just trying to survive in the city. Solomon is a notorious serial killer who has been locked away for life. Tyche, the large corporation that controls the city, grabs both men and operates on them. They install quantum computers in both of their brains, that give them the power to see the future, basically. They're released back into the city as an experiment to see how they will react with their power. Leonard just wants to find answers, and Solomon wants to return to his old ways. Eventually, Leonard and Solomon will be drawn towards each other, and their powers are nullified when they're in the same vicinity. Leonard's companion, Victor, helps him along the way, but he's secretly still on the payroll of Tyche, and will betray him towards the end. And as for when it picks up, I'd try chapter 9.
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Dec 5, 2014 17:30
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I could use some practice giving critique, as I haven't done much of it in a while. I'll comment as I go along. If you think that the story does not pick up til Ch. 9, it would be prudent to start there. The first page is one massive paragraph. White space is helpful to the reader--it gives a place for the eye to rest and breaks up the ideas and images you are presenting into more digestible bites rather than one massive loaf. I found it difficult not to skim this section just from encountering the wall. quote:If Pantheon was a living being, Tyche was it’s brain. Correction posted:If Pantheon was a living being, Tyche was its brain. Invoking "Pantheon" kind of confuses the imagery, since I'm imagining a good ol' boys' club of ancient Greek deities/that sweet rear end Roman temple rather than a city. Tyche the luck-goddess of cities might fit in with the theme in a looser sense, but in the concrete sense of "what is Tyche's role in Pantheon," the only concrete knowledge I leave that first page with is 1. Tyche is a ziggurat in the center of the city and 2. Tyche is Important. Why is Tyche important? Is that simply the name of the building, or is Tyche a company? Who considered Tyche a new wonder of the world and why? Humanity has been building pyramidal castles in the sand for literal millennia. Size is not a very exciting measure to use to point out why it's a marvelous structure. The Great Pyramid of Khufu weighs in, at an incredibly conservative estimate, at 12,650,000,000 pounds of limestone which was cut and shaped by hand and every bit of it moved and placed by living muscle. Pouring concrete is not an achievement compared to this. (Also I straight up don't know what a Gaussian distribution looks like but that's me being )The image of the elevated rich is a pretty common one. If that is what you intend to evoke, that's okay. Battle Angel Alita does this with the Scrapyard and Tiphares. It's hard to call an elevated world of the incredibly rich naturally gentrified if their literal stratum was built as their playground, though. Gentrification would apply if the rich had pushed their lessers out of such great heights, but that isn't the sense I got. Skyscrapers are built by the rich, so unless the cream of society was kicking people out of high-rise, low income projects, I'm not buying the gentrification line. I also don't really get searching streets with spotlights for "dissidents." What is it about "dissidents" that is visible with a spotlight? Is anyone dressed like the black bloc automatically suspect (and if so, why would they take this risk)? Or does dissident have a special meaning in this story? If a dissident is like a kaiju, that's something to say up front. This first page feels like setting information really meant for you to draw on as a writer. This type of information should be integrated into the narrative instead of front-loaded like an expository readme.txt that pops up in your face when you start the program. A story's setting is at its best when your characters are interacting with it and using it, not when it is described like a Greyhawk RPG location. The other two named zones come at the very end of this window dressing and don't fit the naming scheme you set up, so that's a missed chance to double down. The first 4 pages about the hospitalized dude(s?) probably should not come at the start of the narrative. I don't know who he is or why I should give a drat about his suffering. Save this for when we know who he is and have built up some give a poo poo about his well-being. I sure hope his healthcare costs are covered, though. (If the first two paragraphs are the same person as the following section, don't be coy with the names. Coyness rarely builds mystery; instead, it spends your credit with the audience.) quote:Reality had been turned to eleven. This Is Spinal Tap is great, but is this really a reference you're going to see at god knows where at some point past the year of our artificial savior 2021? It may be possible, but I don't think the reference is the payoff you're looking for at the end of that section. If reality had been turned to 11, I'd expect more than someone being chased by security while trying to leave against medical advice. Though I don't have a great idea of what personal liberty is like in this setting yet, I also harbor suspicion that no one would be prevented by security for leaving AMA if the person weren't already locked down in bed by restraints. If the authorities do not want him to leave, that should be made more evident by restraints and security personnel and actual weirdness rather than fairly standard things like a nurse and sub-q fluids. Stress and drug induced hallucinations don't necessarily add that layer of threat. Solomon's section is more interesting by nature. A prison release is more exciting than a random bro in a hospital bed. You have more questions about the nature of the character in this section (was he imprisoned rightfully or wrongfully? Will he redeem himself or sink to greater depths?) and he interacts more with the setting and with other (named!!!) characters. I would like to read more about this dude. quote:Somehow, Leonard managed to make his way to a closing elevator. I'm sure he made it by walking or running. Otherwise, I'd like to know his alternative method of transportation which was fast enough to evade further hospital cops. This is only partly smart-assery, since the stakes here feel really low (what are they gonna do? Put him back in bed and tuck him in?) and don't justify a breathless "somehow." I also don't buy that Leonard has no choice but to accompany this stranger ("come with me if you want to live" is a hell of a trope). Leonard ran out of his cushy hospital bed for no reason, and will follow the Nameless Man for no reason? If the Nameless Man knows so much, he should know to speak quietly around poor Leonard's migraine. Clarify the stakes. Also, I do not think Solomon's section belongs in the middle of this part. That is an odd way to break things up and negates what tension might build from Leonard awaking in medical custody and escaping it. quote:Even from this distance he cong the wealthy. [...] Solomon swore uld see Pantheon. [...]a cheaper solution to the organ shortage amohe saw a skull at one point. This part is missing some words. "He could" probably got whacked by accident. (Hey, that's one more word that belongs in your nano wordcount!!! Reaching 18k in a month is still excellent. I often don't even hit 1k per month outside of work correspondence.) You mention "they" here in the driving scene before you mention Solomon's companions, which is a little disconcerting. It may have felt more natural if Leonard's section hadn't immediately preceded this scene. I think you are trying to present short scenes that are occurring simultaneously, but it isn't jelling. This section shares a particular stylistic weakness that page one carries: wordiness. Redundant description just all up in this joint. Pare it down and make your prose do more work per word. The thesaurus is your friend (in small quantities). In macro, the scenario you described strikes me as bad science unlikely to yield usable results to Tyche. Only two men, one seemingly rando and one a prisoner? That isn't even a statistically valid sample. Any results will be suspect due to the way the experiment is run. What hypothesis is even being tested here? (Naturally no fucks are given about what an IRB would think.) I think the motivation and experimental design require more work!  Especially if you're going for hard sci-fi.Skipping into this new Leonard section... I won't quibble over the soft/hardware issue that someone else already brought up. I will add, though, that there's nothing wrong with being a hardware kind of guy. What is wrong with having him be a more hands-on engineer/surgeon? He would still likely have a good theoretical understanding of the work, as well as the know-how to actually apply it. That is incredibly useful. I'll continue on later, but I will say that I think having Solomon actually turn out to be the heroic figure and Leonard more antagonistic would be a nice inversion of the good guy versus prisoner Face/Off model. Especially since prescience comes into play. If the characters know the future consequences of their decisions, that's a lot of interesting conundrums to play through. Especially if you decide not to reveal that foreknowledge to the reader, or only do so in limited quantities.
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Dec 5, 2014 19:11
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Thanks, that's very helpful.
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Dec 5, 2014 20:02
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supermikhail posted:Ooh, I recently had a somewhat radical idea of having a thread for critiquing critique, and I think I've found a perfect candidate to try it out. I hope you don't mind. This, like everything you do, is terrible and a dumb idea
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Dec 5, 2014 21:16
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Liam Emsa posted:Thanks, that's very helpful. I hope so, but please let me know if there is something you want hear more about. I think you've got the seed of an interesting story here and you're on the right track. The section between pages 13 and 14 where Leonard freaks out as he realizes he's been chipped is pretty good, pretty genuine I think. There's a natural reaction which arises out of body horror which I think any reader, even one who doesn't ordinarily sympathize with Leo would feel. That may just be me; I'm pretty susceptible to that type of horror.  It's an avenue worthy of more exploration. Why take Victor's word for it, after all? Leo can verify for himself how long he was out, but the surgeon(s) could have done a real array of procedures to Leo while he was in a medical coma.On the other hand, Solomon's experience (being aware but not feeling? his surgery) did not feel as effective because it was presented in a wordy wall of text. Leo's reaction felt natural, was brief, and arose as a believable response. Solomon's was simply too long. I think shortening it significantly and breaking up the textwall would make it more pungent in a good way. Choose the images that really pull your guts and isolate the description to those. That's another thing to be aware of or perhaps address. If Leo was in an induced coma for a prolonged amount of time, his body will have deconditioned (perhaps dramatically) as a result. Six weeks is a long time to be prone. It's not a pretty thing. Usually a prolonged coma is the result of severe neurological damage. People are not put under very long for any kind of surgical procedure because anesthesia comes with its own risks (stroke, respiratory failure, etc.). If Victory is telling the truth and Leonard was out for that long, then Leo probably has a certain degree of deconditioning and some form of serious intervention must have been taken to reduce/prevent atrophy, bed sores leading to ulceration, pneumonia, and a more severe adaptive disorder called "contracture" where the muscle permanently shortens and must be corrected with surgery. Solomon doesn't seem to have been out for an extended period, or I could be misreading his situation. There's no need to shy away from the prolonged coma scenario, as debility is part of life, in your fiction it can be correctable, and the challenges it would cause Leo are also something worth exploring as he roams around with his shiny new superbrain. The coma could even be revealed as a falsehood later (which would answer the questions about a lack of systemic physical consequence to Leo). There isn't that much sci-fi with a main character whose injuries and limitations don't disappear within a chapter. The only one that comes to mind right now is Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan character. I think this, too, is worth exploring. For more information, you can always wiki the hell out of comas or check in with the goony docs, they might entertain questions. AgentCooper does emergency and can answer some questions if you want to PM them. (Something else I'd like to know is where Pantheon actually is in the world. You've got some serious Sprawl/Bladerunner flavor here, and both fictions were very much tied to their physical locations. Something I especially appreciated back in the day was that Atlanta was actually important to someone besides my fellow rednecks.) quote:Leonard sat back in the couch, exhausted at the explanation. It was a lot for him to take in at once. Years of scientific research, boiled down to a ten minute explanation in a musty room in the slums of Pantheon. quote:Leonard sagged into the couch, exhausted by the explanation. Years of research reduced to a cat joke in a Dreg shack. Something like that expresses Leo's weariness and pulls in your setting. I'm also curious that this experiment is not using only (at least semi-) informed volunteers. Why kidnap a Joe and use a serial killer? The logic isn't clear. Corporations can do evil, and they may fall prey to stupidity, but this is the kind of stupidity which costs your shareholders money and doesn't let you bail out on a golden parachute/embezzle a poo poo load of  The ear wiggling thing was amusing. I'm not sure if you really want to have a training scene, though. If the conflict is the center of the story, leave the Karate Kid training montage out. I know there is always the desire to say and show everything, but often it's better to leave that up to the audience and get on with the show. Personally, I didn't care for the 'educational' scenes in The Matrix beyond the pill--too much exposition leaves me cold. So as with any advice, caveat lector. quote:His shirt was stained with the blood from the wound below his mouth. His chin? This is another section where you could use more paragraphs. The thugs' accents don't really add much for me. It seems a little stereotypical English poors, not sure if that is the intent. Victor's gambit does not make him come off as a benevolent wise man, it makes him seem like either an idiot or a sadist. Again, as a reader, I have no idea which you are going for at that point. So far he's seemed pretty crazy, and not necessarily a man who's trying to redeem his actions by helping someone he screwed over. It also seems odd that no one has tracked Leo down to Victor's lair. Nearly uninterrupted CCTV coverage is a fact of life in any metropolis. London is only the poster city for that surveillance. Your first page mentioned constant patrols, so either you have a plot hole or you're about to kick down the door. Leo doesn't foresee an rear end-beating, one is not delivered, and then he goes out gambling (which I guess lets you use the Ante payoff). NOBODY PUTS SOLOMON IN A CORNER, NOBODY Most of the scene setting on page 23 could be omitted, and the rest worked into the narrative, same as page 1. I do like robots. More robots, please. Have you ever heard "The Hard Disk Approach"? It's a pretty funny track. The "literally" part of the vomit comet dodge should just be removed. If the reader hasn't picked up on the actuality... The joke comes off too  More dialogue here, which is good. Maybe too many dialogue tags/adverbs that do the type of heavy lifting the dialogue itself should do (complained, chided, asked plainly). Unless the speaker's tone is other than what you would expect from the line, "said" and "asked" are usually good enough. If the delivery contradicts the word choice, then a different verb might be in order. If there's no contradiction between the way the line is spoken and the tone, but you feel the need to qualify it in the tag, then re-writing the spoken lines is probably in order. This applies to internal monologue, too. Elmore Leonard put out some good tips on this. I don't suggest adopting them 100%, but he offers some good advice. Solomon's demonic characterization falls pretty flat. If you just want us to know what a bad dude he is, I don't know if I'd recommend including his POV. Solving problems is interesting, but hearing about his bogeyman status isn't. The part opening with kids crying that he was gonna come eat them just doesn't add depth to his character. A one note sadist is like a flat Coors lite. The description of Solomon's crimes (again) in the casino reminds me of the style that Virtue's Last Reward gives character backstory. You're really focusing too much energy on telling me what a bad dude Solomon is and how much he likes to feed baby sausage to the neighborhood. I'd rather see his lovely behavior myself in the narrative. A hundred victims or more in a surveilled society is pretty extreme. I don't think I buy that he's smart enough to have pulled that off. He has not shown any credible planning ability and behaves impulsively, which doesn't lend itself to keeping clear of police. quote:The events that happened next occurred in a flash. Omit this. Let the reader be surprised without the warning that a surprise is incoming. I like tables getting flipped. I'd like to know who did that, though. The final section is schlocky. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but if you really want that tone, then it needs to be more consistent throughout the work. Quantum entanglement makes a neat kind of convergence explanation, and isn't pulpy necessarily, but Victor's explanation and then insistence that the two dudes are like gods just dives over into some dramatic goofiness. It's funny, but perhaps not intentionally so. Victor's sudden fixation on murdering the hell out of Solomon is straight up nutty. Why is calling the cops not in the cards, exactly? Unless Tyche was never going to release Leo for some reason (but was willing to release the baby-mashing serial killer), that shouldn't be a big deal. Just because you can foresee something (if you focus on it?) doesn't mean you can avoid it. Prescience isn't always prevention.
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Dec 6, 2014 03:45
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systran posted:This, like everything you do, is terrible and a dumb idea Mother, take me back! For I am unworthy of this world. The great lord Systran has spoken in his infinite wisdom! (Glances at the rapsheet.) Oh, wait. Now that he's gone, I guess I should apologize for that post, since nobody seems that excited about it. When I wrote it I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to sleep if I didn't set the record straight on HARD SCIFI!  OP, it seems there's still no good motivation for Tyche, so here's my best cliché.  Tyche could be led by some kind of religious nut (or organization) who wants to bring about the end of the world through some kind of quantum instability. The chips are dependent on bioactivity and consciousness, so either Leo or Solomon have to die, and someone also has to stop Tyche from manufacturing any more of the chips, but Solomon doesn't actually care about the world that much, so he has to die, and Leo has to live. I know it doesn't incorporate the idea of godhood, but maybe it will give you some inspiration.
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Dec 6, 2014 05:01
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I'm the guy who gave you legit/patient advice like six times in the German thread which you ignored every time. Anyway, Dr. K is a good writer who spent a lot of time giving a very useful critique which you just nitpicked for no reason at all and added nothing to the discussion. Giving the OP random ideas of "this would be cool if you did this" also is not helpful at all. Maybe go back and read some of the useful crits in this thread to get an idea of how to constructively critique people. Go back and compare your critiques to Dr. K's, see how she manages to give broad advice that will greatly improve the piece, and when she gives specific examples she manages to relate it to a larger issue with the piece so it doesn't just end up being a pedantic nitpick. You gave a few useful comments, I'm not saying all of your crits were total poo poo, but there's no reason to critique a good critiquer's crits when she is way better at it than you are.
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Dec 6, 2014 05:59
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Do you think there's an element of opinion in criticism?
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Dec 6, 2014 09:27
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RedTonic and supermikhail, thanks so much! It's really helpful. I'm positive about finishing it and I think I can take it in the right direction. I really appreciate your enthusiasm. I'll put my nose to the grindstone and try to put out another ten thousand or so. I'm also going to meet with some local writer groups as well.
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Dec 7, 2014 06:14
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