Bloodlands

I started to enjoy this from the start of chapter one. You pulled your troll out of your imagination and brought him to life on the page. Nice voice. Felt as though he was actually talking to me which means you did a good job on the first person narative.

It comes together as a very believable fantasy and that to me is the mark of a good writer.

Bloodlands has a profoundly imaginative plot and the trolls remind me of some people at authonomy. It has great appeal to fantasy readers who have a thirst for melodrama and can immerse themselves in another world which exists inside the author's brilliant imagination.

Walden Carrington
Titanic: Rose Dawson's Story

What a nice short preface. It's engaging and shows your talent as a writer. Love the idea that the brothers are of different ranks. It creates tension. Your dialogue is outstanding. Just the way he told his brother about addressing him was amazing. 6 stars for the preface.

The first thing I noticed about this was how well you tap into your character's mind. Right away, we know Gabru's thoughts, and it not only helps us understand what he's thinking but brings your reader into the story quicker.

I usually hate reading prologues or prefaces, but yours is so to-the-point, well-written, and intriguing that it worked. It hooked me, particularly at the end. In fact, I wouldn't even mind if you cut most of it and started the scene with him standing before his brother. Those last few lines were perfect.

Once in chapter one, you once again bring your reader along for the ride as you tell the story in first person. I love the choice here as it becomes a lot easier to relate to Rickter. He's a believable, likeable character from the get-go. He's "different," which makes him easy to sympathize with. I also like his relationship with the other characters. His attraction to Henny is believable, and I like that he has at least someone to count on despite being a bit of a black sheep. I also like his modesty. He has a very low self-esteem, which I'm excited to see change as he seeks vengeance.

The premise is interesting. While the concept of not fitting in has been done many times before, I like the twist on it with him being half-troll. I'm definitely intrigued.

The dialogue works well. The pacing is quick, and the delivery of the lines felt realistic. Dialogue is an art, and you've really mastered it.

I love the idea of The Offering. I'm intrigued!

Suggestions: The writing is excellent throughout, but you slip into a bit of an info-dump near the beginning of chapter one. While it is interesting, it feels like too much too soon. Can you trim this and spread this information throughout your conflict? You do "tell" rather than "show" a bit more than I like, especially during the opening pages of chapter one. Really watch for "was" and "were" as they tend to be the most obvious signs of telling. I think you'd bring your reader in better with more showing. I'd break up the sentence, "I opened the front door, sliding sideways through it..." It is way too long and rambling. I'd reword, "what I had been too giddy over the day to look at." It took me three times through to get what you were saying.

Typo: Should be: "Enter, Brother," the seated figure commanded. You have this issue with dialogue each time you use this structure. "Hard-packed" should be hyphenated since it's two words serving as one adjective.

As a whole, this is excellent. I love it so far. The story has me hooked. Highly rated!

By the way, your pitch is top notch, too. I can't wait to read more!

l only had to read your opening lines...l love the names and background to this book..
this is on my watchlist, sure to back...
read SEASONS...

I started to enjoy this from the start of chapter one. You pulled your troll out of your imagination and brought him to life on the page. Nice voice. Felt as though he was actually talking to me which means you did a good job on the first person narative.

It comes together as a very believable fantasy and that to me is the mark of a good writer.

Bloodlands has a profoundly imaginative plot and the trolls remind me of some people at authonomy. It has great appeal to fantasy readers who have a thirst for melodrama and can immerse themselves in another world which exists inside the author's brilliant imagination.

Walden Carrington
Titanic: Rose Dawson's Story

What a nice short preface. It's engaging and shows your talent as a writer. Love the idea that the brothers are of different ranks. It creates tension. Your dialogue is outstanding. Just the way he told his brother about addressing him was amazing. 6 stars for the preface.

i do like your story. you are a good story teller and able to draw the reader into a different world. I felt your writing became smoother and flowed better as i read on. I felt the preface and first bit a chapter one were at times just a tad wordy, which hinders the flow just a bit here and there. A thought or two; early on i would like to know what a half troll looks like, perhaps start with him looking in the mirror on the eve of his birthday and lamenting over his looks, or perhaps expressing pride over his looks. Also could you get us to feel a bit more what he feels being a half breed, little hints of that inner struggle would draw us into the character more. You tell us some of what the town folk think, but what did and does the character feel.

All in all a good and worthy read. well done indeed, good luck.

thanks so much for backing the smoke that thunders, much appreciated. Cheers Nate

Finally found the time to make it here after a week’s holiday and who knows what else. My crits come with a list of disclaimers as long as your arm, but basically: if I miss the point of what you’re trying to do then ignore me.

Anyway. On to the words.

Your preface (which I wasn’t expecting, having read your chapter 1 opening on the agents thread) is well written but it didn’t really grab me. Probably just a personal thing. I’ve read an awful lot of prologues where mysterious non-human beings talk about portentous things. It makes me think this is just another fantasy, whereas I know quite well you have a unique premise and an unusual protagonist. But like I said … probably personal.

On the technical side, I didn’t like ‘momentarily looking’. Wouldn’t ‘glancing’ have the same effect? And I was confused by the second sky – I mean, I can kind of guess that you’re indicating this is a place beyond the main world (though may have got that wrong), but if Gabru lives in this place then wouldn’t he think of it as just the sky? Liked ‘he could feel the change in the winds like an itch’, though.

In your third paragraph he studies the sky ‘for a moment’ again. So he’s looked at it and then looked away and then looked at it again? Or is he in fact pausing to take more than a momentary look? (Yeah, I know, I’m being picky.)

A few other picky bits of the grammatical kind – don’t worry, I won’t do this after the preface as I know some people hate them – ‘The Seat of Justice’[,] as his brother’s throne …“Enter, Brother[,]” the seated figure commanded. “… what brings you all the way here, Brother[?]” Gabru returned his brother[’]s gaze.

Right. Now for Chapter 1. And I’m smiling and relaxing into it, because this is what I liked in what I read before – the engaging first-person narrative and the beautifully different half-human protagonist. There’s instant potential here.

I wondered whether you could cut down on the early backstory and bring it in a bit later in the chapter, but it depends how you feel it works best. I also don’t think you need to present Rickter’s thoughts as separate italics. The story is being told by him, so every word is what he thought or felt or observed. Separating out his thoughts like that only makes the rest of the text feel less immediate as a result.

The relationship between Rickter and Jonathan feels quite strained, quite awkward – almost detached at times. I can understand the strain, but I’d like to see a bit more emotion in there as well – perhaps not overt, but a subtle hint of it. Jonathan must care about the boy to have raised him all these years despite the attendant difficulties, and in particular I’d like to be shown more of how Rickter feels about his surrogate father in return.

In my opinion the relationship between Rickter and Mikel comes through more strongly, though there were some instances of dialogue I found a little odd – for instance, surely they have discussed Rickter’s origins before and so the part about Mayor Kane being the one who wanted to cull him felt a bit forced (as though you’re including it for your readers instead of because it’s what they would really talk about).

A few minor points …

Slightly random comment about Rickter’s unwanted epithet: to me ‘Trollborne’ would indicate he was borne by a troll, i.e. his mother was a troll. But actually his father is a troll, so wouldn’t he therefore be ‘Trollborn’ (born of a troll)? Just a thought.

‘The Unnamed only knows why he decided …’ – not sure I’ve got the sense of this correctly – I’m guessing ‘he’ is referring to the Unnamed but it reads almost as if it’s referring to Hank. (Which obviously wouldn’t make sense.)

‘She filled my dreams as wine does a drunkard …’ – like it :-)

‘Being one of three people …’ – this sentence doesn’t make it clear who the ‘being’ is referring to (Rickter or Henny) and so maybe ‘Since she was one of only three people …’ might be clearer.

‘Repeating the gesture to get into my room’ – should be ‘repeated’?

‘I tried to look ignorant of what he was speaking’ – I found this sentence clumsy.

‘I casually lifted the twenty stone anvil’ – by using the word ‘casually’ here, you’re labouring the point that he’s unnaturally strong in human terms. I think it would be stronger if you left it out.

As usual, I’ve lingered so much over the opening of the book that I’ve run out of time to read any further. Perfectly happy to come back later if you’re finding it useful, though. So far, I think there’s loads of potential here and I’m interested to find out what happens next.

The first thing I noticed about this was how well you tap into your character's mind. Right away, we know Gabru's thoughts, and it not only helps us understand what he's thinking but brings your reader into the story quicker.

I usually hate reading prologues or prefaces, but yours is so to-the-point, well-written, and intriguing that it worked. It hooked me, particularly at the end. In fact, I wouldn't even mind if you cut most of it and started the scene with him standing before his brother. Those last few lines were perfect.

Once in chapter one, you once again bring your reader along for the ride as you tell the story in first person. I love the choice here as it becomes a lot easier to relate to Rickter. He's a believable, likeable character from the get-go. He's "different," which makes him easy to sympathize with. I also like his relationship with the other characters. His attraction to Henny is believable, and I like that he has at least someone to count on despite being a bit of a black sheep. I also like his modesty. He has a very low self-esteem, which I'm excited to see change as he seeks vengeance.

The premise is interesting. While the concept of not fitting in has been done many times before, I like the twist on it with him being half-troll. I'm definitely intrigued.

The dialogue works well. The pacing is quick, and the delivery of the lines felt realistic. Dialogue is an art, and you've really mastered it.

I love the idea of The Offering. I'm intrigued!

Suggestions: The writing is excellent throughout, but you slip into a bit of an info-dump near the beginning of chapter one. While it is interesting, it feels like too much too soon. Can you trim this and spread this information throughout your conflict? You do "tell" rather than "show" a bit more than I like, especially during the opening pages of chapter one. Really watch for "was" and "were" as they tend to be the most obvious signs of telling. I think you'd bring your reader in better with more showing. I'd break up the sentence, "I opened the front door, sliding sideways through it..." It is way too long and rambling. I'd reword, "what I had been too giddy over the day to look at." It took me three times through to get what you were saying.

Typo: Should be: "Enter, Brother," the seated figure commanded. You have this issue with dialogue each time you use this structure. "Hard-packed" should be hyphenated since it's two words serving as one adjective.

As a whole, this is excellent. I love it so far. The story has me hooked. Highly rated!

By the way, your pitch is top notch, too. I can't wait to read more!

I have only been able to read two chapters, but am really enjoying the read so far. I can't wait to read more.the backstory is well written and very original.

Cassadie

Hi Jefferson,
Good start here. A few comments about the preface.

First, what do you mean when you say he looked at the second sky? While that might have some meaning within the confines of the story, so early in the prologue risks losing your audience. I don't know what you mean by that. I'm also a bit murky about what's really been established here. We have some understanding now about the relationship with the narrator and his brother, who's in a position of power, and that somebody who was in restraints is now loose. Seems like a bit more elaboration is in order to really reel the reader in. I like the imagery a lot, though sometimes the dialogue seems a bit overly formal. However, that might be in part due to the fact that they're talking in a formal setting. One thing to think about is that if you're trying to establish conflict between the brothers, it would make sense to have the one sitting on the throne speak in more of a formal tone, and the other brother to defiantly and obnoxiously speak in a less formal tone. Just a thought. Nice start! I will try to read more as I find the time.

Thanks for asking good questions, Philthy! :) The preface is related to the story waay down the road. The angeli are effectively angels for the world in which this story takes place. The second sky is an allusion to the sky of the plane of existence that they guard, which is different from but connected to the physical plane on which the vast majority of the story takes place. Gabru and Makull, being not only allies but divinely aligned entities have possibly differing opinions on some of the ways they must deal with each other, but in the end neither of them has any animosity towards the other. I don't want to give too much away. Another thing to notice is that the preface is written in limited third person perspective, while the bulk of the story is written in first person perspective. I'm still working on perfecting my "voice" for the MC so any questions you think of let me know, I'm quite sure I'll still be making some revisions on the text I've uploaded and any help I can get I'm very grateful for. Thanks!

Hi Jefferson,
Good start here. A few comments about the preface.

First, what do you mean when you say he looked at the second sky? While that might have some meaning within the confines of the story, so early in the prologue risks losing your audience. I don't know what you mean by that. I'm also a bit murky about what's really been established here. We have some understanding now about the relationship with the narrator and his brother, who's in a position of power, and that somebody who was in restraints is now loose. Seems like a bit more elaboration is in order to really reel the reader in. I like the imagery a lot, though sometimes the dialogue seems a bit overly formal. However, that might be in part due to the fact that they're talking in a formal setting. One thing to think about is that if you're trying to establish conflict between the brothers, it would make sense to have the one sitting on the throne speak in more of a formal tone, and the other brother to defiantly and obnoxiously speak in a less formal tone. Just a thought. Nice start! I will try to read more as I find the time.

l only had to read your opening lines...l love the names and background to this book..
this is on my watchlist, sure to back...
read SEASONS...

I enjoyed your prologue. You have a nice style of writing too. Telling your story from first perspective draws the reader into the story easily. Your plot is well crafted. Your main character has not yet shown his good side of himself and I painted him rather mischievious. But it may be only me. I do sence some good traits from him also. Your story is nicely paced. Fully rated. Good luck.

Daniela (pls place your thoughts and ratings on Water Goblin)