Calling All Wannabe Writers

[Flying Turtle]

Hey everybody everybody

Just wanted to see if there are any other wannabe writers out there who might want to help each other out. Want someone to give you feedback on your writing? I'm game. Just post what you want check out, excerpt, plot synopsis, story or setting idea, whatever. I myself am a wannabe trying to get my first book published and I was wonder if the fine folks of the playground would give me some feed back on my query letter, so here goes:

I wonder what it will be like? Being a god?
Bickering, fighting, and conniving, the gods rule the universe with all the grace of spoiled children. Half a dozen pantheons, as likely to destroy themselves as each other, gather followers and use them as the blunt instruments of their wars. Billions of years of conflict, fought across a mind-numbingly large universe, have finally wound their way back to earth, and people are starting to take notice.
A teenage boy, a young sorcerer named Bradley Carson, has just discovered his incredible abilities and in turn been discovered by a mere fraction of the powers that be. For now he is just another relic of the past, something to be destroyed or exploited. Fortunately, his friend Cole has something else in mind. Ambitious and idealistic, Cole has seen what his friend can do and has become convinced of the good they can bring to the world. In time, they’ll see the universe, challenge the gods, and leave their mark, but for now they have other concerns. A seer who wants to recruit Brad, a gang of spartoi who want to sacrifice him, and a crew of berserker who’d happily do either. They’ve chased Brad halfway across the U.S. and are now wreaking havoc in his home town. Brad’s only hope now is to master his magic and stop the fighting, before something far worse takes notice of him.

A Spark of Divinity (118,461 words) is an epic fantasy by first time writer Flying Turtle. It details the first steps in the transformation of our own world into that of a high fantasy story.

Hook me up with any feedback or post your stuff if you want some feedback from me. Happy writing.

[Lethologica]

Welcome to the forum! This thread is probably more suitable for the Arts & Crafts subforum.

For general guidelines on the query letter, this article (http://nybookeditors.com/2015/12/how-to-write-a-darn-good-query-letter/) is quite helpful (check out the examples of successful query letters in particular).

Looking at your query letter, I think it's unfocused. The plot of the book only appears in the last two sentences, and it practically sounds like a distraction from the setting and character notes you want to talk about. The vast scope of the conflict you lay out in the beginning of your query is, as you yourself put it, mind-numbing, and its connection to your actual story isn't clear. There are a number of interesting elements in your query, but the organization is lacking. Don't worry about being formulaic--for a form letter, it's expected. Here it looks something like: Hook, character + inciting incident, conflict + exposition, scope + stakes.

You also need to describe your market and find some comp titles, in order to help the people who read your query letter decide if it's a good match for them. A couple sentences on bio wouldn't be amiss, either. Dunno if you want to share that last, though.

[cobaltstarfire]

I feel like the background given first makes the pitch sound more intriguing than it would without the background, but I'm not sure of a good way to weave it all together.

edit: Should add, that it's just from my perspective, may or may not be good for a pitch to an actual publisher!

[An Enemy Spy]

As a word of advice, you probably shouldn't introduce yourself to publishers as Flying Turtle. Unless that's your real name of course.

I've got some stuff I wouldn't mind being looked at. These are the first three chapters of my own fantasy story.

Chapter 1 (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wprrYX81yXgC7n7Anz9bl1hlCTWF3FL60hdlmWwPLko/edit?usp=sharing)

Chapter 2 (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-_JjXIIlx5rxb-5AdygeiqC9mQ5TV33jv7rvhugWGnU/edit?usp=sharing)

Chapter 3 (https://docs.google.com/document/d/179Qrj7KKuou95pK_JBLc0e5c0iqrt2AC-_cyyy66G2g/edit)

[Flying Turtle]

As a word of advice, you probably shouldn't introduce yourself to publishers as Flying Turtle. Unless that's your real name of course.

I've got some stuff I wouldn't mind being looked at. These are the first three chapters of my own fantasy story.


Alas it is. Mama and Papa Turtle always wanted their son to grow up to be a pilot but no amount of wishful naming could cure me of my crippling fear of heights.

Also I read through your first chapter and I thought I'd hit you with my first impressions.

First off, I love the way you weave characterization into the narrative, especially the scene where Lyra is swimming. It reinforces how deeply she longs to fly while also giving me an idea of how she spends her free time. Characterization is not just beliefs and defining personality traits. It is also the mannerism and hobbies, the little details that really make a character stand out from other examples of the archetypes and you nailed it. Absolutely topnotch

Differences in voice are also very well define. Aul's eloquence immediately told me about him as a person and allowed me to intuitive identify whenever he was the one talking and similar things can be said about all your other characters.

On the negative side you seem to have a problem with unnecessary words clogging up your prose. I picked a few examples from the first page to highlight.

"The grass grew long and wild, and underneath the shadow of its blades, two faeries walked along."
What does the along at the end add? You can remove it and there is no loss of meaning or description.

"Unlike her tall and strong older brother, Lyra was a small and slight girl, her head barely came up to Orph’s shoulders."
Why use "came up to" instead of just "came". Better yet why not use a word with a little bit of action, like reached or rose. "Unlike her tall and strong older brother, Lyra was a small and slight girl, her head barely reached Orph’s shoulders." To me that just flows so much better.

"She hurried to keep up with him, having to take almost two steps for his every one."
Instead of "having to take almost two steps for his every one" try "taking almost two steps for his every one".

Personally, I feel that less is more with prepositions. Nouns are good. Verbs are good. Adjectives and adverbs are good. All these help paint a picture. Prepositions don't. They are transitions, they are breaks, they are seams, and the more of them you have the less organic your writing feels.

I also feel like you played your hand a little early when you had Aul literally tell Lyra, and by extension the audience, that she was touched by Aether. It makes me feel like I am one chapter in and I already know a large part of the plot. She is going to learn about her gift and eventually come to love it, despite the fact that it cost her her wings, because it makes her different. And even if I am completely utterly wrong that is still a problem because thinking I already know the plot makes me less interested in it. It is not enough just to mislead or with hold information from your audience you also have to suggest that that might be a possibility. That way they stay interested and keep reading. Some people will check out the minute they think they know your play and that is a problem even if they turn out to be wrong.

Overall I liked it and I am looking forward to reading the next two chapters.

[Dhavaer]

I have a few things on my blog you could look at, but The Storm Tree (http://iritewurdz.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/the-storm-tree.html) is probably a good place to start.

[Flying Turtle]

Damn, An Enemy Spy, that was a hard right turn. I retract what I said about tipping your hand early. The second and third chapters quickly disabused me of that notion. You whip-lashed it right out of my mind, and I mean that in the best possible way.

And once again you did a great job weaving in your expoistion. Personally, I've always been a big fan of the 'plot while they walk' type of exposition but you also managed to weave it into the fight scene, with that discussion about rich dwarves buying rare people. Speaks volumes about their society

This time around I only have exceedingly minor criticisms. There was brief period, and I do emphasize brief, during the end of the fight scene were there was some pronoun confusion because you kept using he and his in the same sentence for both Orph and the thug he was stabbing.

You still have some unnecessary prepositions from time to time but that seems to be disappearing.

Finally, and this is even more a personal preference then my previous points, but you format your writing differently than most people in terms of paragraphing and indenting. Everybody does it a little differently but you seem to favor dividing your work into pretty standardized blocks of text which is fine but personally I like when writers are a little freer with new paragraphs and indentations while writing dialogue. It helps more clearly separate prose, thoughts, dialogue from different characters which is helpful in multi-sided complex discussions. It can also add a visual element of rhythm to your conversations. Blocks of writing tend to blend together visually but dialogue more thoroughly separated from prose leads to irregular paragraphs that reinforce the nature of the conversation. If someone says something short they get one very short line of dialogue paragraphed away from other prose. If some is talking on and on their dialogue alone creates a large paragraph. This can be quite striking especially in rapid fire conversations where the back to back short, less than a single line, paragraphs visually reinforce the back and forth of the discussion.

If the above sounds pretentious and nit picky that's because it is. This is really solid work and I'd don't have much to give you other than nit picks.

[An Enemy Spy]

If you don't my asking, what exactly were your expectations that I whip-lashed away?

[Flying Turtle]

If you don't my asking, what exactly were your expectations that I whip-lashed away?

My expectations were that the fight scenes were not going to be as brutal or as vivid as they are. Also the atmosphere itself of chapter 2 takes a very sharp turn from happy frolicking in the woods to fatal robbery and slavery. In the span of a few paragraphs you went from eating wild berries and chasing dragonflies to caving a man's skull in, in cold blood, with a weapon made from bone.

Reminded me of the Five Kingdoms by Brandon Mull.

[An Enemy Spy]

My expectations were that the fight scenes were not going to be as brutal or as vivid as they are. Also the atmosphere itself of chapter 2 takes a very sharp turn from happy frolicking in the woods to fatal robbery and slavery. In the span of a few paragraphs you went from eating wild berries and chasing dragonflies to caving a man's skull in, in cold blood, with a weapon made from bone.

Reminded me of the Five Kingdoms by Brandon Mull.

Yeah I feel that brutal violence is most effective when the reader isn't expecting it.

[Anonymouswizard]

Hello! As someone who has occasionally tried his hand at writing, I am interested in participating in our adventure of what seems to be an online writer's group (or similar). I look forward to reading what people have shared and sharing my own scribbles.

I shall definitely read An Enemy Spy's work and offer my opinion when I have some free time (which, unfortunately, is unlikely to be before tomorrow), and will share the beginnings of my own cyberpunk story once I've dug it out (I wrote a sample so people could see what style I'm doing for, but I've not written much more so I can plan the plot).

[Flying Turtle]

I have a few things on my blog you could look at, but The Storm Tree is probably a good place to start.

Just finished The Storm Tree.

I like your dialogue a lot. The scene in the coffee shop was very entertaining with some solid natural sounding banter. Your group dialogue isn't a back and forth, as it shouldn't be. Characters tease, they interject and interrupt with comments and suggestions, they repeat and insist, like a real conversation with more than two people. And it is not just the banter itself that is good but the actions that punctuate it. Mentioning Linda giggling quietly in the background, Sophie sticking out her tongue at Sara, even when characters aren't talking they are still interacting. The one exception is, of course, Vanessa but she's suppose to be distant, so it just reinforces her character.

Also Dan's erectile dysfunction joke at the armory made me laugh out loud as did Sophie rattling off synonyms for staring to Linda's displeasure.

I would however recommend getting someone to proofread it for you. Grammatical errors and confusing wording are a little too common. In particular you have a habit of switching briefly switching into present tense in your narration, e.g.

"Vanessa went home after leaving Romana’s. She really did have a kickboxing class to go to, but she has an hour yet and is in no rush. When driving through the gate she sees that the front garden is occupied, and after parking instead of going into the house she walks back out of the garage to meet her grandmother."

You start off in past tense, "Vanessa went home...", "She really did have a kickboxing class" then you switch to present mid sentence "she has an hour yet and is in no rush" You then continued on with the present tense while describing the garden and Vanessa's grandmother.

Narration is generally done in past tense although I've never heard that as anything other then convention. Whatever you decide for your narration make sure it is consistent.

Getting someone else to proofread your work will help with a lot of that and if you try to proofread it yourself not only are you likely to miss stuff but you'll become numb to your own writing and and lose all perspective. Speaking from personal experience here.

Also it is definitely too early to tell but I did see some Mary Sue red flags for Vanessa. She's smart, athletic, popular, attractive, rich, she speaks three languages, she has a photographic memory, she knows martial arts and magic, etc. The only real fault she seems to have is her rather cold demeanor. The problem is while this is a trait generally seen as negative, within the story it doesn't seem to cause her any problems. She doesn't mind it and neither do most other people. Take for example Sara. Vanessa doesn't enjoy Sara's company but Sara and her friends sure seem to enjoy Vanessa's. Sara even mentions that she misses not seeing Vanessa every day now that she's in college, and again this is a person that Vanessa doesn't even consider a friend. Dan and Vanessa's boss seemed to be the only people who are even a little put off by her coldness but that didn't stop them from confiding in her and hiring her respectively.

Edit: I tweaked my query letter if people would like to take another look at it. Also I should have mentioned this earlier but this is a modified version with all my author bio and personal stuff cut out. I didn't feel like posting private info to the internet.

I wonder what it will be like? Being a god?
Bickering, fighting, and conniving, the gods rule the universe with all the grace of spoiled children. Half a dozen pantheons, as likely to destroy themselves as each other, gather followers and use them as the blunt instruments of their wars. Billions of years of conflict, fought across a mind-numbingly large universe, have finally wound their way back to earth, and people are starting to take notice, including one teenager in particular.
While on a trip to New York City, Bradley Carson, a young sorcerer, discovers his incredible abilities and is in turn discovered by the disciples of the gods that once ruled the earth. At first he is just another blunt instrument, something to be used until he breaks. However, with each day he grows more powerful and more people take notice. With help from his friends he escapes from those that would use him and returns home. Unfortunately, it is too late for him to slip away now. He has the spark of something that hasn’t been seen in centuries. Like starving dogs the factions hunt for him, wreaking havoc and snapping wildly at one another, each one seeking Brad for their own cause, for their own gods. Brad’s only hope now is to master his magic and stop the fighting, before something far stronger than a mere disciple takes notice.
A Spark of Divinity (118,461 words) is an epic fantasy by first time writer Flying Turtle. It details the first steps in the transformation of our own world into that of a high fantasy story.

Better? Worse? Tell me what you think.

[Dhavaer]

Thanks for the feedback!

I'm surprised and pleased that you liked my dialogue. I'd generally consider that my main weakness as a writer (apart from forgetting which tense I'm writing in, which is easier to fix if I notice) and I really don't enjoy it.

The tense trouble is partly because I have a problem remembering that and partly that the first draft was first person and solely through Vanessa's POV. It was awful, she's just the worst narrator.

For Vanessa, her coldness definitely didn't come off as severe as I intended it to be. I don't think protagonism suits her. I have another story, Piercing Darkness (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/485734), where she (or a slightly different version of her, it's not a sequel or prequel) is a secondary character and I think she worked out much better there.

[cobaltstarfire]

Is anyone willing to critique comic thumbnails?

I don't want to post them publicly but I wouldn't mind sharing links via note. I'm waffling on whether I should do a third iteration of thumbs for the second half of what I've completed so far.

These thumbnails are done at final viewing size, and have legible drawing, and writing. It's a fantasy story about a young Fae* who aggressively shirks family responsibility, and in an act of defiance goes into the forest...where he's going to very shortly find himself on the path of actively wanting to be responsible for once. The story is incomplete.

I'm not a great writer, and I've been trying to practice simple things, in this stories case it's trying to have the characters be more active, rather than passively pushed along by the story. If anyone else wants to share comic things I'd be happy to critique those, and I'd gladly try to give input on written stuff...though I'm not really sure how useful I'd be in that department.

*Fae in this world are basically magical anthropomorphic mammals that have very mixable traits, they rarely are able to directly harness magic, and in this era it's taboo anyway, but their life and sometimes abilities can be strongly tied to the magical ebb and flow of the world.

[Flying Turtle]

Is anyone willing to critique comic thumbnails?

I don't want to post them publicly but I wouldn't mind sharing links via note. I'm waffling on whether I should do a third iteration of thumbs for the second half of what I've completed so far.

These thumbnails are done at final viewing size, and have legible drawing, and writing. It's a fantasy story about a young Fae* who aggressively shirks family responsibility, and in an act of defiance goes into the forest...where he's going to very shortly find himself on the path of actively wanting to be responsible for once. The story is incomplete.

I'm not a great writer, and I've been trying to practice simple things, in this stories case it's trying to have the characters be more active, rather than passively pushed along by the story. If anyone else wants to share comic things I'd be happy to critique those, and I'd gladly try to give input on written stuff...though I'm not really sure how useful I'd be in that department.

*Fae in this world are basically magical anthropomorphic mammals that have very mixable traits, they rarely are able to directly harness magic, and in this era it's taboo anyway, but their life and sometimes abilities can be strongly tied to the magical ebb and flow of the world.

I'd certainly be willing to take a look. Not sure how helpful I'll be but in terms of comic stuff, but plot is plot regardless of media for the most part so I feel confident I can critique that.

[cobaltstarfire]

Yeah that's what I'd like, looking at story and characters...I really hope it isn't too clunky or dull.

As far as the "comic stuff" part of it, if something visually doesn't make sense, like you can't tell what a character is doing. Even pointing it out is enough to get me to look back and try a different take on the scene to get it to work right.

The only other person I have to look at this stuff is my husband, and because I talk to him a lot about the world and creatures living in it, there are some things he might just "get" that wouldn't be clear to a fresh set of eyes.

I'll shoot you a note tomorrow, I need to get to bed for now.

[Kislath]

As fun as it is to bounce ideas around and such, you should be careful. People will steal your ideas. You never know who is reading.

I made that mistake, and one of my stories wound up being made into a movie. A really BAD movie.
I never got an ounce of credit, or a single dime, from it, and now people think that my story is the one that's the rip-off. GRRRRR!!!!

[An Enemy Spy]

As fun as it is to bounce ideas around and such, you should be careful. People will steal your ideas. You never know who is reading.

I made that mistake, and one of my stories wound up being made into a movie. A really BAD movie.
I never got an ounce of credit, or a single dime, from it, and now people think that my story is the one that's the rip-off. GRRRRR!!!!

What movie, if you don't mind my asking?

[Comrade]

I sure hope it wasn't The Room or something.

Is this thread still active for feedback? Wouldn't mind posting a thing I've been working on lately.

[Lethologica]

I sure hope it wasn't The Room or something.

Is this thread still active for feedback? Wouldn't mind posting a thing I've been working on lately.
I'm no turtle, but I'd be happy to take a look.

[An Enemy Spy]

In the first chapter, I'd say the rather purple writing got a bit up itself. You clearly have a very good vocabulary, but always remember that as a writer, your goal is to tell a comprehensible story, not to show off how well you can wield a thesaurus.

You reined in the prose quite a bit in Chapter Two, and it's a major improvement. Got no complaints about Chapter Two. I'm curious about this world you've created. It's got a very strong WH4K vibe to it, and the placenames are... unusual for a city.

[Comrade]

Funny thing, actually: the first section of that first chapter is a part of the story that I wrote... years back now, I think, when I was trying to get it going as a roleplay rather than a story, and I decided to retain it for this. Didn't really change it up, so it's still characterised by the 'hey look how flowery my vocabulary is' perspective I'd fallen victim to at the time of the writing.

[Kislath]

No, not The Room, but almost as bad.
It was Good Luck Chuck.
My original story was called The Handyman. In it, this guy who is cursed has a problem. Every girl he dates, even just once, winds up engaged to some other guy in under six months.
Every. Single. Time.
Believe it or not, this is autobiographical. This is my own curse.

Anyway, in the story, my hero decides to try to "make lemonade" out of the situation by turning pro. Now he gets paid to date lonely women and get them married. He does alright, but it's a miserable life for him.
Naturally, everything goes wrong when he finally meets the girl of his dreams.

So, long story short, the friendly, helpful guys I met on the internet who helped me polish it up a bit wound up stealing and corrupting the whole thing.

[An Enemy Spy]

No, not The Room, but almost as bad.
It was Good Luck Chuck.
My original story was called The Handyman. In it, this guy who is cursed has a problem. Every girl he dates, even just once, winds up engaged to some other guy in under six months.
Every. Single. Time.
Believe it or not, this is autobiographical. This is my own curse.

Anyway, in the story, my hero decides to try to "make lemonade" out of the situation by turning pro. Now he gets paid to date lonely women and get them married. He does alright, but it's a miserable life for him.
Naturally, everything goes wrong when he finally meets the girl of his dreams.

So, long story short, the friendly, helpful guys I met on the internet who helped me polish it up a bit wound up stealing and corrupting the whole thing.

Damn, that's like, a real movie. A ****ty ****ty movie, but one people actually watched. What circles do you travel in, Kislath?

[Lethologica]

Alrighty, here we go.
I'm slow, but before I trundle off to bed, let me at least note that I really like the setting. A vast colony ship run on doctrinaire obedience to the dynasty and imagined diktat of a doomed ghost? Hooked. (At least, that's my best guess at the meaning of what you've presented.)

The second part of chapter 1 is what I struggle with most in a general sense, because its purpose isn't clear from what's been written, though that's likely to be revealed later. Chapter 2 has a more straightforward structure, and I'll try to offer more detailed comments on it when I get the chance.

[Flying Turtle]

Alrighty, here we go.



but a ghost could dream​

And so she lay there beneath oceans of starlight interminable, pinioned by fetters that yielded to neither the finest of blades nor the mightiest of fists. Her shackles were neither nanotechnology nor metal, nor were they quite the immateriel manacles that maintained the integrity of preserved living memories, in the care of the necromancers of Library-- and she herself was not quite living.

But a ghost can dream, and so she dreamed. Within a dungeon of her own making, she dreamed the future, for the present was beyond the scope of these walls and the past belonged to the dreamless deceased. So long had she let herself be tethered and dragged across the stars, but she had not forgotten why-- not for even a second, a flicker of a heartbeat throughout the aeons of her durance vile, had she forgotten why she had condemned herself to this. Indeed, she clung to it, for it was all that lent her substance and shape. Without it, she knew she would diffuse, the data that composed the lingering vestiges of what she had once been a part of scattering like particles borne on a solar wind, and she could not suffer that, no matter how long she had to wait.

She knew her designs had gone awry as the days of her incarceration became weeks, and the weeks became months, the months years, the years centuries, and the centuries an eternity. She feared, and not for herself. But her kind, or at least the kind to which her living imprint had belonged, were not afforded the luxury of unabashed fear, and so she buried it. Love and fear... these were not her languages, but hate and malice she was all too fluent in, and she embraced that familiar cant, knowing that someday, if she let her scorn and her spite fuel her and maintain her shape, if she erected her faith in her eventual freedom upon a foundation of seething hatred for the ultimate cause of her captivity, she would be able to love and fear anew.

Those were dangerous and enticing possibilities, and she wasn't sure in the end that they would be open to her, a mere remnant, a piece of a carcass-- but a ghost could dream, and so she dreamed.


.

.

.


"The world ends and begins today."

Artificial sunlight streams through the stained glass on the far wall. Light from a high place, unreachable until it travels to the cold metal earth beneath my feet. A thin haze of dust drifts aimlessly amidst the red- and green- and purple-tinged incandescence, the residue of the Commodore's mosaic icon in the high window. The light is like her all-seeing gaze upon us. I turn at the beck of my lady's voice.

Here in the depths of the world, my lady weaves the past with the threads of the dead. Her long-fingered hands work the instruments of her strange-- the benighted might say arcane-- art like the deft hands of a weaver plying her trade at the wheel. I do not altogether understand these magics myself, though I was born of them. Today, however, she works with the threads of things to come, of what lies ahead.

"Oh no, even I cannot know just what is to come," she says. Her thin lips curl into a vague smile, as though she knows my thoughts. "Nor may the Commodore, in all her wisdom and her foresight. Today, everything will begin to change irreversibly. I am only doing what I can to sway events in my favour." Her smile vanishes, and she stands, smoothing down the creases in her robes with her hands. I watch, waiting.

"You will have to watch her closely, Saheli. The whole world is on the cusp of shattering now."

I nod, and rise from my cross-legged poise on the floor, and my scabbard, the sword within-- mean-blade, weapon of lessers-- jars the silence of my lady's chamber as it scrapes along the floor with the motion. I press palm to palm before my face and bow, eyes closed. When I open them, her back is to me as she makes for the door.

"Kanam," I murmur, and she pauses, glancing over her shoulder. "What will become of the world, when all this is past?"

Her smile is not a kind one. "What does that mean to a corpse?" Nevertheless, even as she turns away again, she answers. "My domain is what was. I can't know what will be, too. I can only work with the threads I am given. But I think we'll find, child, that wherever we end up, it will prove to be home."

the fear and the awe and the reverence​



On the best of days, the markets and thoroughfares of Third Information Storage were thinly populated; a fairly quiet fiefdom of the fairly quiet realm of Library, ruled by the unambitious Nirendra Jiang, Third Information Storage was where excitement and interesting things went to die. A person settled down in Third Information Storage for one of just two reasons: either they fancied a bit of peace and quiet far from the bustling metropolises of Engines and Generators, or they had by service to the Jiangs been given no choice.

Jayati certainly hadn't been given a choice all those years back when Nirendra Jiang, at his daughter's behest, had 'enlisted' her service as a court magician, but she'd come if nothing else to appreciate the faint rustle of the breeze through the boughs of distant trees unmarred by the noise of city life, the cool evening air against her skin and the mostly empty cobblestone streets. And normally, she would have been quite pleased to have the streets to herself, except that she knew just why so many people were keeping indoors these days, and it was hard to enjoy the peace and quiet in light of it.

"It'd never come here." Every now and then as she paced along the cobblestone avenues, she heard passersby, heads bowed, eyes casting suspicious glances around, murmuring amongst themselves, and the earpiece nestled in her ear translated an otherwise incomprehensible mass of noise into words. "If what they say is true, if a purge is brewing in Life Control... it'd never come here to Library. Not here." The twinge of doomed hope in each voice annoyed and disquieted Jayati, and she found herself longing to pluck her earpiece aside and place it into the pocket of her jacket, allowing the words to evaporate into formless shapes. But there would have been no point: she'd have to put it back in the moment she arrived at Nirendra's court for the summons anyway. Speechless servants-- unable to produce or interpret words-- were required to wear the earpiece in the courts of the Commodore's progeny, and though Jayati was no fonder of the little instrument than were many of her peers, it was probably safest in these times to keep an ear out for the whispers and the murmurs of the world.

Overhead, an illusory sun was sinking down across an illusory horizon, painting broad swathes of red and orange and yellow across an illusory sky. Further along, the path gave way to a little bridge spanning a stream so svelte Jayati could probably have crossed it with a running leap were she so inclined. As she was approaching from one end, two mara were crossing from the other end-- corpse soldiers, unarmoured, blades sheathed at their sides, singing, one in a soft baritone, the other in a lilting tenor.

"Nothing is eternal beneath the stars,
but the commodore's law and a corpse soldier's love."​

To this day, Jayati was not sure where the song or the myth it was based on had come from; corpse soldiers did not love, any more than they hated, or felt any other real human emotion. Still, the song was an old one, a beloved one, one anybody who spent any little time pacing the dusty old side streets and moonlit avenues of Library inevitably caught once or twice, and knowing that the mara were still singing their songs was somehow comforting to Jayati-- knowing that if nothing else, this had not changed.

Perhaps things would die down. After all, there was nothing here in Third Information Storage-- indeed, in all of Library-- to attract a purge. It'd happen somewhere out there in the world, somewhere far from her, and hundreds, thousands would fall victim to a terror that existed beyond the scope of Jayati's world. And then life would go on as it always had-- no talk of a marker, no talk of defiance, no talk of Earth.

That hope petered out like the flame of a candle before a violent gale when the magician stepped into Nirendra-val's hall.

To compare it with the hallowed courts of the lords and ladies of Engines, even the greater fiefdoms of Library itself, was to place a pebble beside a mountain, but there was nevertheless a certain humbled grandness in the stained glass mosaics that spanned the walls of the hall, the banners that flanked the podium at the far end of the hall, emblazoned with the emblems of Nirendra Jiang's house.

At the podium stood Nirendra-val himself, the high, sculpted features of the face he'd inherited from his great-great-great-great-great-grandmother drawn grim and dark, hands so tight around the podium the knuckles had forsaken the blackness of his skin for a sickly white. Before him, the hall thrummed with life-- with apprehension, with fear, with uncertainty, aides and retainers and journalists and lesser Jiangs of the Nirendra house; Jayati had not imagined so many had been summoned to the court. I suppose I oughtn't be surprised, she amended darkly. If even the court jester has been called upon...

Between the mass of bodies between herself and the far end of the hall where Nirendra and his entourage stood in pensive wait-- of what, she could only guess-- she caught sight of one of the side doors as it creaked open discreetly. From it emerged none other than Princess Iksura, daughter of Nirendra-val, by whose whim Jayati had been spirited away from her life as a street magician to amuse and entertain a Jiang runt. That had engendered enough lingering resentment that Jayati could have derived a twinge of perverse satisfaction from the drained colour in Iksura's face, the narrowly-restrained panic which Jayati had learned to discern over the years in her tightly-drawn lips and darting eyes.

But it was hard to be satisfied when she knew that trepidation could bear only ill omens for her, for her home, her peers-- just how ill, however, she could only dream.


.

.

.


This is a disaster. A calamity. A ****ing catastrophe with a side of the worst Commodore-blessed luck since the tragedy of Galatee's Folly.

Oh, how Iksura would have loved to voice those sentiments. She could have screamed her voice hoarse right now, she really could have-- but she did her best to keep her words tightly controlled as she leaned in towards Nirendra and murmured, "Father, Rathika-kanam-- " So much for tightly controlled: to her horror, her voice caught, but she recovered quickly, choking the discomfort down. "Rathika-kanam and her knights have arrived with the accused. She has ordered that the anterior gate be drawn to admit them."

She saw the same shock and impotent indignance spelled out briefly on his face-- almost a mirror of her own-- but there wasn't much comfort to be found in shared fear, not between Jiangs. "She's early," he hissed. "I haven't even had time to--" He fell starkly silent, wary of crossing the line into heresy himself, and swallowed nervously. "Don't keep her waiting," he admonished Iksura instead, as though her languor were at fault, and turned back towards the masses without another word to her.

"Brothers and sisters, loyal servants, denizens of Library..." She tuned his voice out as she made to make good on his demand, seeking out her personal aides nearby. Not the magician, not Jayati, of course: Iksura had retained her services as an entertainer but the woman was no use to her in an official capacity. Instead, she beckoned to the two guards standing discreetly off to the side.

"Open the anterior gate," she said quietly to them. "And--" She fixed both with a vicious glare. "Do not get in Rathika-kanam's way, do you understand? If you sully our fiefdom's reputation before her, your heads will roll next. Go!" She shoved them both with a hand on each shoulder, and they nearly tripped over themselves in their haste to attend to her command. She choked down the urge to swear again, and turned back to her father at the helm of the hall.

"... that in her infinite generosity and benevolence, the commodore wishes to aid us in culling the unfaithful among us--" He was, Iksura realised, doing his best to avoid the word purge, with its pungent weight, the affirmation of the fear lodged in every Library denizen's heart these past few weeks. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and she nodded wordlessly, saw him give a shuddering breath for a moment before returning his attention to the crowd. "In this capacity," he finished dispiritedly. "She has blessed us with her most valued servant. I trust that all present will receive her with the appropriate rever--"

His words were drowned out by the hiss of the anterior bulkhead as the ancient metal gate parted in half to admit the fiefdom's hallowed visitors, and Iksura scurried to take her place at her father's side, willing herself to stand straight and unshaken before... Her stomach squirmed as she came into view, an immense woman in soot-black Armour lined with luminous red, her scarred mien and bristly black hair bared for lack of a helmet. Her entourage followed closely at the clink and clank of her spurred boots-- Commodore's Knights, armoured from head to toe, no mere provincial guards-- four of them, two each on either side of the prisoner as they led him to his doom.

Iksura did not want to meet the eyes of the condemned any more than she dared meet Rathika's, fearing what she'd find in either-- the all-seeing stare of the inquisition in the latter, the acceptance of the inevitable in the former. She'd seen that look once before in another person's eyes as her father's brother was led to his execution-- she, a callow ten years old, watching and understanding even then the fate which befell those who ran afoul of their betters. She had not been witness to the execution, nor any since: the fatalism she'd seen in the eyes of the doomed had left her so deeply unsettled she'd never wanted to see that again, never wanted to witness a killing.

But there was a first time for everything... no matter how unwilling.

And Rathika was here. As if it weren't disastrous enough that the purge was to begin here of all places, in their quiet little corner of Library... Anybody could sunder a commoner's head from their shoulders, it didn't take Rathika Jiang in the very flesh to do it; that the Commodore had dispatched her most trusted enforcer to do the deed was very much a message to all. The purge was beginning in earnest.

She heard the jingling of Rathika's spurs fall silent and was stirred from her thoughts, just in time to watch as the condemned-- his back now to her-- was pressed down to his knees, made to prostrate before the hall. Commodore's favour that I don't have to see his face-- but that didn't settle the churning in her gut as Rathika loomed over him, a specter of death, reaping at hand.

"The accused stands guilty, and the penalty is death." There was nothing wraith-like about that voice, however, as hard-edged as the cheekbones she and Iksura and every one of the Commodore's progeny had inherited. "For the sin of colluding with the heretical, Gaurav Thevar surrenders his life to the Commodore."

Thevar-- her father's own personal retainer? Iksura could have whimpered. This was close to home, too close to home; if personal aides were being accused, then this could only reflect ill on Nirendra, on Iksura herself--

Thevar's shoulders quivered, and then he went stiff, but he had nothing to say as Rathika unsheathed her nanoblade-- Malice, wicked single-edge gleaming in the light reflected through the mosaics-- and with a flick of her thumb against the chappe, Malice thrummed to life. Rathika raised her booted foot and pressed it against Thevar's back, her mountainous weight forcing the kneeling retainer into the floor, his neck bared to his fate. Iksura saw Rathika raise the blade slowly and deliberately, and though her eyes flickered to the dull grey of the floor just as the blade came down, she still felt nausea wrenching in her guts as Malice came shrieking like a banshee through the air, as she caught the sickening thud of Thevar's head hitting the floor, and could not bring herself to look up even as two of the knights stepped forward to silently drag the headless body away.

It was for the best that she didn't: Jayati herself could hardly stomach the sight of the Commodore's rotten bulldog brandishing Thevar's head by the hair like a grotesque trophy-- there was no blood in the advent of the decapitation, the intense heat of the ablatives coating the blade had chemically cauterised the wound even as they sundered head from shoulders.

"Not even the vaguest flicker of a treacherous thought escapes the Commodore's retribution," she declared, bearing the head as a testament to the grim veracity of her words. "Her presence flows through every corridor, every hold and every haven of the world as blood through veins, seeing all, overlooking none, knowing all that comes to pass within her domain-- every act of malfeasance, every whisper of deceit, every thought of perfidy. These walls sear with the fever of her wrath, and for the faithless amongst us..." Jayati thought she caught Rathika-kanam fix Nirendra-val and Princess Iksura with a steady stare as she finished, "Her scorn shall be the expurgating blaze of hell itself. This and this alone is the fate of the wayward back-to-earthers."

The executor of the Commodore's nigh-divine will upon Nirnaya fell silent, and the air went dank and heavy with the fear and the awe and the reverence of not only the hall's denizens but all of the world, all who knew the purge was now underway. Damn those back-to-earth nuts, Jayati swore silently as Rathika made to speak with Nirendra-val and the princess, and not only for the difficult position they'd thrust her into, her and every one of the servants of Nirendra-val's court. Didn't they understand? Commodore Jiang had always been there, had always ruled the world, more than flesh and blood, more than human. Everybody knew that-- everybody accepted that. To think it was worth going against the tide of her will... and for what? To return to a shattered cradle? Was that worth it? She scowled-- even I, ardently as I despise the rotten woman and her dynasty...

She trailed off as Rathika turned away from the two Jiangs and marched after her retreating Knights, shuddering as the enforcer passed her, spurs clinking and clanking step by step. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, almost as though she could feel the breath of something inhuman against the exposed skin of her throat, with hands that stood poised to seize her by the neck and strangle the life out of her if she but contemplated heresy, and in spite of herself, she reached back and rubbed at the skin.

First of all I love the setting so far. This is a matter of personal taste but I have always been a sucker for a heavily detailed, layered constructed world. The more details the better and you never miss a chance to sprinkle in a little extra info, like your descriptions of the swords. I don’t know what a mean-blade and a nano-blade are but you make clear the gap in prestige between the two, organically informing the reader that weapons are, to some degree, status symbols in this world. Natural sounding world building will always get you brownie points in my book.

I'm also getting an advanced technology but old culture vibe from the world which is always cool if you can pull it off. Rebuilding old fantasy elements like ghost and zombies with relatively well explained science and magic usually makes worlds seem a little more thought out but you have to do the work justifying and explaining it in story. If the explanation is just "the science is so advanced it is basically magic" things can get kind of boring. Like you just threw a new coat of paint on an old idea. Basically going forward I want to know not just how the world has corpses and fiefdoms but why it has them. If you can do that you'll probably hook me.

I also agree with what others have said about chapter 1. It feels a little purple although you do tone it down quite a bit in Chapter 2 and it is certainly to the story's benefit. I do however think you could still clean up chapter 2 a little bit.

Now here is the weird part that I am having some trouble putting into words. As I was reading chapter 2 there was something both extremely impressive about your prose and something that was ever so slightly off. Like others have said you have a great vocabulary and you know how to paint a picture but your sentence structure is a little hard to follow. Essentially the flow of your prose is often at odds with the flow of your narrative. Let me use some examples.

"And Rathika was here. As if it weren't disastrous enough that the purge was to begin here of all places, in their quiet little corner of Library... Anybody could sunder a commoner's head from their shoulders, it didn't take Rathika Jiang in the very flesh to do it; that the Commodore had dispatched her most trusted enforcer to do the deed was very much a message to all. The purge was beginning in earnest." Emphasis mine.

The ellipse here is rather odd. Generally, ellipse are used to indicate an unfinished thought, sentence, etc. but here you have it connecting two related but still separate thoughts, that it is bad that the purge is beginning where it is and that the situation is made even worse by the fact that Rathika was personally performing it. I might be the only one who had this problem but the ellipse initially confused me, I expected the following sentence to be an extension of the previous one and it took me a second to put it all together in the right way. The semicolon caused a similar confusion. Punctuation marks are a lot like words in that they come with specific connotations along with their text book definition. Simple marks like commas and periods are unintrusive and help maintain flow with out changing it. Ellipses, hyphens, semicolons and the like have more weight to them and at times your frequent use of them adds non-narrative hiccups to your prose.

Here is another example
"His words were drowned out by the hiss of the anterior bulkhead as the ancient metal gate parted in half to admit the fiefdom's hallowed visitors, and Iksura scurried to take her place at her father's side, willing herself to stand straight and unshaken before... Her stomach squirmed as she came into view, an immense woman in soot-black Armour lined with luminous red, her scarred mien and bristly black hair bared for lack of a helmet." Emphasis mine

Why bother with a comma and a conjunction here when I simple period will do just as well if not better. You are narrating a sequence of events. Iksura's scurrying took place after the opening of the gates so separating them into sequential sentences could reinforce that, making the flow of your prose match the flow of events. The comma and the conjunction are just sort of extra fluff that don't do anything to the narrative. The ellipse is also odd here. Perhaps this is just me but I have always interpreted ellipse as being a trailing off of sorts but here it is being used to convey a sudden interruption as Iksura's mental preparations are interrupted by the very thing they are suppose to protect from. It is a weird transition and a regular hyphen might do a better job.

Here is a non punctuation example.
"'It'd never come here.' Every now and then as she paced along the cobblestone avenues, she heard passersby, heads bowed, eyes casting suspicious glances around, murmuring amongst themselves, and the earpiece nestled in her ear translated an otherwise incomprehensible mass of noise into words."

There is just a lot going on in this sentence and I'm not sure why it needs to be mixed together in one sentence. Try this instead
"It'd never come here." Passersby murmured amongst themselves as Jayati paced along the cobblestone avenues. Heads bowed, eyes casting suspicious glances, their otherwise incomprehensible mass of noise was translated into words by the earpiece nestled in her ear.

To me at least this arrangement flows better. Instead of one big messy sentence you've got two where actions are arranged closer to their details. The content of the murmurs is closer to the mention of the murmurs. Descriptions of the surroundings are no longer separated from one another by the explanation of the ear piece


In truth, I actually really really like your prose. The descriptions themselves are informative, interesting and are never generic but the way they are arranged is slightly at odds with your flow, making things seem slightly off

[An Enemy Spy]

Has this thread reached the point where bringing it back would be necromancy yet?

[Flying Turtle]

Has this thread reached the point where bringing it back would be necromancy yet?

Eh, I still lurk from time to time. I've got some fresh literary meat to offer if people are interested in tearing it apart.

[An Enemy Spy]

I have my first draft of my fourth chapter here. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QuACTf9kGQ_Sdgn4nEd4dadOR2aCXdJ9mK9D_qPlLG8/edit?usp=sharing)

[Flying Turtle]

I have my first draft of my fourth chapter here. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QuACTf9kGQ_Sdgn4nEd4dadOR2aCXdJ9mK9D_qPlLG8/edit?usp=sharing)

Liking this story more and more, An Enemy Spy. Your prose seems to be getting tighter and tighter as you cut out those unnecessary prepositions and the mood whiplash continues to affect. Also despite the fact that I read the previous chapters awhile ago, when the goblins showed up a immediately remember how earlier you informed us that the dwarves' time was coming to an end and the goblin's time was upon us. It bodes well for your exposition that even small bits of info still stick in my mind.

If memory serves, this is the first time we've seen dwarves but you never really give us a description of how dwarves as a race look. You describe specific features of Cloud, like his hair, but not really his overall appearance or that of dwarves in general, which unfortunately meant I didn't really have an image in my head for most of the dwarven characters. You mention 'thick dwarfin shoulders' but that's about it. How are they dressed? How do they hold themselves? What are their faces like? Assumable they are short but so are most of your races so how do they compare. Goblin descriptions like "they fought with a savagery that belied their small stature" and "small grey skinned creatures with long pointy ears" did a good job briefly detailing the goblins with out interrupting the flow of their assault and as a result I have a clear image of them in my head but not so for the dwarves. Judging by their temperament these particular dwarves seem to be a pretty calm pleasant bunch and if you use similarly mellow language to describe their physical appearances prior to the goblin raid you might be able to heighten the whiplash caused by said raid even further.

Also the scene where they break Cloud's legs could benefit from some details. What did the pain feel like? Was it a sharp pain that ripped through his leg? Was it a crushing pain that shook his body and made his bones feel like they were snapping? When the first leg broke did the pain persist or did it go numb? Did it abate slightly to an ache or did it roar in his mind at full strength until he passed out from the second breaking? We know this is a very visceral experience for Cloud. It was strong enough to knock him out after all. Make it visceral for the reader too.

Like I said, I'm really liking where this story is going and I don't really have much in the way of general criticism. Hope this all helps.

[An Enemy Spy]

Thank you!

To answer your question, Dwarfs are actually quite tall compared to the other races. Imagine an entire race of NFL linebackers, and that's what you're looking at, shrunk down to miniature scale of course. A faerie like Lyra would come up to about the average dwarf's nipple.

[Flying Turtle]

Thank you!

To answer your question, Dwarfs are actually quite tall compared to the other races. Imagine an entire race of NFL linebackers, and that's what you're looking at, shrunk down to miniature scale of course. A faerie like Lyra would come up to about the average dwarf's nipple.

Ah, that makes sense. From the way you described goblins as small compared to the dwarves that was what my guess was, but I've been so conditioned by fantasy to think of them as a comparatively short race that it didn't quite sit straight in my head with out real confirmation.

[Marlowe]

I'm game. If you could have a look at this (http://imgur.com/a/mlbsb) I'd appreciate feedback. Annoying typos and all.

Obviously, there's a lot more.

[An Enemy Spy]

Is this part of a series? I felt like I had entered the middle of a scene without seeing how it started.

[Lethologica]

Is this part of a series? I felt like I had entered the middle of a scene without seeing how it started.
Yes. See here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?422242-Planetouched-play-D-amp-D)

[Marlowe]

Is this part of a series? I felt like I had entered the middle of a scene without seeing how it started.

The current chapter has been going for a little over six months and includes 70 strips. I couldn't post them all in the few minutes I had before going to work.

And yeah, this thread should be in Arts and Crafts.

[Thrudd]

I've got a short story, would appreciate any views. Feedback from workshop was lacking.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xmziFYd1VfH7PPrZWCYNI0xtr7otR3aE9tZGAVhQ2eA/edit?usp=sharing

[Lethologica]

I've got a short story, would appreciate any views. Feedback from workshop was lacking.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xmziFYd1VfH7PPrZWCYNI0xtr7otR3aE9tZGAVhQ2eA/edit?usp=sharing
Is there any sort of feedback you're particularly looking for?


I'm game. If you could have a look at this (http://imgur.com/a/mlbsb) I'd appreciate feedback. Annoying typos and all.

Obviously, there's a lot more.
That at least I can help with.

-Would Maurissa say "Thirteen hundred fourty-six" or just "Thirteen fourty-six"? (Admittedly the former is better for clarity.)
-There usually isn't a dash between the hundreds and tens places when writing out numbers. ("Thirteen hundred-fourty-six" vs. "Thirteen hundred fourty-six")
-'Tricksy', not 'Tricksie'. (Unless I'm missing an international spelling.)
-You use semicolons a lot where other punctuation would fit better (usually commas). Here ("Well, then; Lily.") it might be ellipses or a dash.
-"You just told off a Devil to go dust the drapes" should be either "You just told off a Devil" or "You just told a Devil to go dust the drapes."
-"Which means if I fire all all that happens..."
-Should "Human skeleton" be capitalized? It's the sort of thing that might be useful in a world with lots of sentient species besides humans, but it's not standard usage.
-"I still had skills and languages and even how to get around..." The last item of this list doesn't fit with the verb "had". "I still had how to get around..." Maybe it should be separated into another sentence--"I still had skills. Languages. I knew how to get around in a dungeon, in a forest, in a town..."
-Is it Alita Battle Angel or Battle Angel Alita? (Well, there's a movie "Alita: Battle Angel" coming out in '18...)
-Semicolon abuse again--here a colon works better. "I would say: scary, that you might..."
-And later: "Once again [--/:/,] clever girl."

[Thrudd]

Is there any sort of feedback you're particularly looking for?

Not specifically - whatever people's impressions are, whatever level they want to comment on, be it Technical/structure, plot/character, tone. Or even if it was enjoyed or not, what was enjoyable what wasn't, what bugged you.

[Marlowe]

That at least I can help with.

I've found it's APPALLINGLY easy to make the most trivial mistakes doing a "comic" because you've got so many things to think about other than basic spelling and grammar. Panel composition, flow, clarity, character speech patterns, keeping it brief so that it actually fits the space you've got.

Sometimes, since the entire thing is all dialog and pictures, it's possible to pass off errors as the Characters making mistakes or having their brains run ahead of their mouths and indeed lots of the characters have individual habits of speech, and then there's actual mistakes. My general policy with these is that if I spot mistakes something the night something is posted I fix it but if it's later on I let it stand and take my lumps.


-Would Maurissa say "Thirteen hundred fourty-six" or just "Thirteen fourty-six"? (Admittedly the former is better for clarity.)
-Maurissa's trying to look very scrupulous here, so I think she would say the "hundred".

-There usually isn't a dash between the hundreds and tens places when writing out numbers. ("Thirteen hundred-fourty-six" vs. "Thirteen hundred fourty-six")
-'Tricksy', not 'Tricksie'. (Unless I'm missing an international spelling.)
-Yeah, these are just mistakes. :smallfrown: Although I do prefer the look of "Tricksie".

-You use semicolons a lot where other punctuation would fit better (usually commas). Here ("Well, then; Lily.") it might be ellipses or a dash.
-I'm trying to ween myself away from ellipses and dashes. However I lately seem to have fallen for hitting semi-colons instead.

-"You just told off a Devil to go dust the drapes" should be either "You just told off a Devil" or "You just told a Devil to go dust the drapes."
-That's more antipodean slang creeping in. I think I got that particular expression off an old girlfriend.

-"Which means if I fire all all that happens..."
-Yup. Should be "...if I fire her all that happens...". This is the sort of mistake that creeps in when you correct and rewrite a line so often it stops looking like words.

-Should "Human skeleton" be capitalized? It's the sort of thing that might be useful in a world with lots of sentient species besides humans, but it's not standard usage.
-mmm. I think I'll stick with "Human", even if it isn't standard. She's trying to be very specific about just what she found.

-"I still had skills and languages and even how to get around..." The last item of this list doesn't fit with the verb "had". "I still had how to get around..." Maybe it should be separated into another sentence--"I still had skills. Languages. I knew how to get around in a dungeon, in a forest, in a town..."
-Maurissa's brain runs ahead of her mouth and she misses out a vital verb! Or rather, I did. In my defense, I know plenty of people who make this sort of error while speaking. Including myself, but it shouldn't have happened.

-Is it Alita Battle Angel or Battle Angel Alita? (Well, there's a movie "Alita: Battle Angel" coming out in '18...)
-Lily doesn't remember and doesn't care!:smallsmile: She knows neither is the original title of the work. That's "Gunnm" but nobody knows how to say that. Not that it matters but she's obviously referring to the manga since the plot-twist she's referring to only occurs there.

-Semicolon abuse again--here a colon works better. "I would say: scary, that you might..."
-And later: "Once again [--/:/,] clever girl."
-yup. Me; that is to say myself: should avoid that that semi-colon doo-hickey.

And one you missed; "going to remembering" should obviously be "going to BE remembering".



And thank you for your comments and continued interest in this experiment. I figure I've got 2-3 chapters to go before I tie everything up.

No, they are not all going to find out they are dead souls within Reinforce's internal virtual reality matrices. Because that would be lame.

Although it's possible some character will develop that theory.

And on that bombshell I might as well post this (http://imgur.com/a/xd33u) here.

[Flying Turtle]

The current chapter has been going for a little over six months and includes 70 strips. I couldn't post them all in the few minutes I had before going to work.

And yeah, this thread should be in Arts and Crafts.

Yeah I just bit the bullet and made a new thread in the Arts and Crafts section.

Here's a link for the lazy: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?511266-Calling-All-Wannabe-Writers&p=21568944

Please place new posts there.

Also Marlowe and Thrudd I've already posted my feed back to your work on the new thread.

[Ossian77]

Hi guys!

I hope I can chime in with a "wannabe writer" question. If I wanted to publish a fan-fiction cross-over (for the sake of the example, let s say I want Mobile Suits from Gundam to interact with Michael Moorcock s Young Kingdoms) what should I do to avoid lawsuits?

It would be a purely "just for fun" exercise which I might put on a blog or something, but I am sort afraid of the consequences. I reckon there is a ton of fan fiction out there, just about every conceivable setting, from Twilight to harry Potter to Tolkien, but I never rally bothered asking the question on the legality of all that.

Thanks for the answer in advance!

Ossian