The Swords of Earth

I liked this, very descriptive and creative though not sure where it is heading yet.

Great writing.... great description, dialogue with at times well paced prose.....
but only after first chuck of backstory....

he finds a way of increasing profit margin... then sinks into a backstory?

maybe its better for it to appear in a quite, solitary moment, when one's busy life evaporates, and one is left to consider one's own position in life....

there is never any rush to create a character ..... slow and easy.... i am sure somewhere in the story, a place will present itself for such musings...

other than that... great story idea.... and good writing.

BACKED

You clearly have a wonderful imagination, and this book is bursting with excellent ideas, but you need to get yourself in harness. To sum up what all the others are saying: you need to manage the text with much more discipline (and this is something we all learn, and have to do). Try putting it in a drawer for six months, then getting it out and pretend you are a stranger reading it for the first time. Quickly you'll spot the mistakes, the over-written descriptions, the anomolies in the plot, and so on. The re-writing and editing then becomes an even greater joy than the original composition, because you've moved on from speaking to the page, to getting the page to speak to the reader. Good luck with this. I'm backing it. Best wishes, Tony.

Hello Vic,

After reading your pitch, first chapter, and comments from other authors, I backed "The Swords of Earth" for its potential. There's a good story here, but some reorganization is needed to bring it forth.

My notes say: --Good imagination at work. --Too much background up front. --Show relationship of Luke and Mark sooner. --Add to the strangeness of the alien. You don't need another guy in a 'one-piece monster suit'. --Suggest taking the comments seriously, mainly those on 'show vs tell'.

Wishing you success, Bill ("The Doctor Summitville," "Call Home the Child," "Annabella and Other Stories"}

The Swords of the Earth

Hi Vik,

What a wonderful imagination you have, rich and detailed and a great story idea. I am going to support you so you get more exposure and more comments and I have a few suggestions. Firstly, with your pitch, break it up with white space to make it more accessible. The first bricks of text can probably be disposed of, you are trying to give us loads of back story and it reads like an info-dump. Expunge it, start us up close and personal to Mark. Perhaps show the Coming as a prologue, we need to feel that excitement. The technological enhancements since the aliens have arrived can be weaved into later plot developments. I wanted to be much more in each scene, you tell us stuff sometimes, rather than show us. Your characters are great, although their dialogue is a little clunky sometimes.

I suggest you focus on POV, perhaps close-in third to Mark and build the story from his perspective and perhaps one other, it might be her or it might be the bad guys, the source of the conflict. Like I said great idea, but needs some editing work to bring the storying to the fore in my opinion, please remember I am an amateur like the rest of us so if you don’t agree dismiss my words.

Happy to support your work, great premise.
Best wishes and good luck
Andrew W
(Sanctuary’s Loss)

Thank you to everyone for your comments.

Paxie, that is interesting, and something that I did not consider. I may use asterisks to designate scene changes, or rewrite the beginnings a bit.

I will do that, John and AlleJo. However, as John pointed out, the word limit is not my friend here. I will try to split it up in a few days, when I have some more breathing room in terms of words.

Fred, I have actually ordered that book, and it seems like it will help a lot. I made some of the changes, such as splitting up the first paragraph. However, the plot, to some extent, depends on "telling", and I have to leave some elements as is.

Tom, I made the changes with numbering. Not something I would have considered on my own.

Thanks again to everyone. I will try to reciprocate as time allows over the next few days.

Vik

Am about to leave one of those comments where I'm not sure if you'll be sending me a message to tell me to get lost or not........

she looked up from her work,,,,just wrapping up some work, completed her work......Work mentioned 3 times in 3 lines..... she looked up from her computer, gathered her files, completed her work.......??

'Are you certain of this?' I thought who's speaking....Mark has just walked out the door and Lyndsay is tidying her desk !!!

I needed an into, or a change of scene, a heading or a new chapter perhaps....The only person able to form imagery here, is you, the writer......This was too sharp a corner to turn without any backdrop.....

Enters.........Luke Samuels........same thing, so we're no longer with the translator ? new office, new scene.....

Mark Samuels........in his apartement....I was fine with this because you told me immedately where I was....And I'd met Mark before.....

After this I felt more at home, more grounded and was able to enjoy the flow of the story......

It might be more a case of my ignorance of the genre than your writing skills....so dont listen to me if I'm the only one moaning.....

Overall I enjoyed this, plot development well under way in a very short space of time...

Am happy to back it....shelved.

Hi Vik
Very enjoyable space opera - shelved

As well as what Fred said below you should break chapter 1 into 3, chapter 2 would start where they wake up in the spaceship and #3 when they are left alone on the yaght.

If you decide to do that add the extra chapters before you reduce chapter 1 or you could lose all your points and comments. Books must stay above 10k words at all times while editing on Authonomy.

Best of luck with this

John Booth (Shaddowdon)

Hi Vik,
Read the first chapter. The story looks from the synopsis to be a really good read. The writing needs a bit more work.
The opening is too long for one paragraph. Break it up a little.

In the dialogue a lot of people would say not to break it up so all you need is to put in speechmarks and an occasional ‘he said’ ‘she said’ toorientate the reader.

“, is wrong, leave out the comma. ‘he saked’ isn’t needed, we know he asked because of the question mark.

Use single speechmarks – double one are old-fashioned.

Several books I have read talk about show and tell. What does that mean?
‘He was anxious’
– tells.
‘He was sweating. Small beads of perspiration shone like tiny dewdrops on his furrowed forehead as he drummed his fingers on the phonebook. His collar felt tight, so he stretched it with damp tremulous fingers. He stood up, glancing at his watch. He jumped when a soft tapping on the door revealed the time had come.
– shows; we can feel what the man feels.

The opening is all tell.

Set the scene,
Bring on the character.
Have some action.
Make him do dialogue
-in that order.

The story is a good one and if you read a few books on writing you’ll change it a lot. It deserves to be told.

Try ‘Self-editing for Fiction Writers’ by Denni Browne and Dave King available on Amazo.
It will change your writing forever – it did mine.

I’ve shelved this for its potential.

A few suggestions,

1) Break up the first paragraph, it can be daunting having a big paragraph at the beginning of a book.
2) Slow down, I think the reader is being given too much information too fast.
3) Numbers, you have both '2' and 'Two'. I think the standard is write out numbers up to ten or at the beginning of sentences. However whatever rule you chose stick to it.
4) Need a space between 'automated' and '(in'

Of course you can ignore all of these as you feel.

However a good start to a great adventure.

I think your book is much more engaging, lively and readable
than the pitch indicates.

The two sections would work better divided into smaller chapters
for on-screen reading.

I very much enjoyed the voice in this!

AlleJo

You certainly don't sound like a "know all know sod all"(haven't heard that particular expression before, though).

This is my first attempt at writing a novel and its attendant long dialogue scenes. I appreciate any and all comments, seeing as most are more experienced than I. Those changes will be made, and thank you very much!

Interesting premise.
Can I make a couple of suggestions without sounding like a know all know sod all?

All punctuation should be within the speech marks. And a suggestion for some of the 'Saids' or Joked or whatever. ANd you can't breathe dialogue, you can only speak it.

Use an action tag beforehand instead of saying she or he joked or Said Mark so on so forth. ie.
Mark laughed... 'So...'

Otherwise, well written.
Best wishes
Sue
A Boy Called George

Interesting premise.
Can I make a couple of suggestions without sounding like a know all know sod all?

All punctuation should be within the speech marks. And a suggestion for some of the 'Saids' or Joked or whatever. ANd you can't breathe dialogue, you can only speak it.

Use an action tag beforehand instead of saying she or he joked or Said Mark so on so forth. ie.
Mark laughed... 'So...'

Otherwise, well written.
Best wishes
Sue
A Boy Called George

Sounds interesting. I'm a sucker for an alien tale.