Edward Pace's world is its own, and though I don't have enough of a voice to feel like I can do it justice with just a few short sentences (or even dozens of pages), I'll do my best: his is the gateway world, a world of all worlds. It's a world of magic, and technology, and the supernatural, and of a bunch of fucking cats. It's a world of science and reason, of mysticism and flair, and of eccentric junkyard owners with mind-bending inventions tasked with patching rips in the fabric of normality.
Edward's world is by no means fully matured, but it [i]is[/i] alive, and I think that it will continue to grow because I've been having a hell of a fun time discovering it. It's one of the few stories I've written where I actually felt it was [i]my[/i] voice telling the story, rather than some other author who I just admired; whose style of writing I found charming enough to want to try for myself. This is my voice, or at least one of my voices, and I hope you guys have fun with it.
Please, read through the introduction to Edward Pace and his world, and let me know what you think:
Link: [b][url="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1avFiaLoIDrljRGtvs2c-YBMHwJQyj9zqudfVTypyvlM/edit?hl=en&authkey=CJeagaQD"]Edward Pace[/url][/b]
[b]edit[/b]
At least read the first few paragraphs and let me know what you think of the opening. Come on, folks. The suspense is killing me.
"bunch of fucking cats"
Literally?
Excellent question.
No.
It's brilliantly written. The idea, however, is not so original.
Have you seen a similar story somewhere? Well, sorry about that. I guess the only thing I can say in my defense is that any similarities you're seeing between this and something else are coincidental. That's a bit disheartening to hear, but I did my best to create a fun and unique world/characters.
I loved it so far, very nice to read. Keep at it, I'm interested to see where this goes. I can't offer any criticism because I'm not a very critical person, so don't expect any.
Very easy to read, seems pretty cool. Reminded me of borderlands somehow. But with magic.
I hope you don't mind your thread being bumped, but I noticed you didn't really get any feedback. So...
At this point I've read about half of it, and, frankly, there's nothing wrong with it at all. Perhaps a little too much infodumping with little actual plot happening though- you should see if it's possible to spread some of the infordumping out, so that the reader's attention is caught by the character's actions. That, and not fully explaining everything in one go adds a layer of mystery to the story, so the reader thinks "I wonder why they're doing this", only to later have it properly explained and feel satisfied. For example, possibly you could split the two paragraphs that explain the concept of Focus Mages and then explain what Edward's Focus is.. Maybe go for a sort of balance between plot and infodump or something, having it swap between explanation and plot development more often. I don't know if I'm making myself very clear here, it's rather hard to communicate what I'm trying to say.
"The brush opened into a flat plain spotted with range markings and targets, many of which no more remained than a scorched post." - this sentence reads a bit awkwardly. Maybe something like "The brush opened into a flat plain spotted with range markings and targets, many of which had been reduced to little more than scorched posts." or something. You're a better writer than me, so I'm aiming for more of a suggestion of wording rather than specific wording here.
Ahahaha! Aww, poor cat!
I love the characters, and their relationship with each other. Especially Edward's somewhat evil sense of humour :D
"“Think of it this way,” Edward consoled as they sat in wicker chairs on the porch to watch the sun sink." Wait... Have they been here all along or did they move from elsewhere? It's not particularly clear at this point, as there seems to have been a lack of transition.
Quite long for just one chapter... But I've seen longer. No problem there.
So, the feeling I got from this was the same feeling I get from reading the works of newly published authors. If you're trying to get published, I'd say your chances are pretty dang good! Great story, A++, would read more of it.
I personally love it, can't wait to see more. Amazing writing, and a good story idea. Keep up the good work!
Some good tips there, Dude. I'll go through and clean up some of the wording a bit. The first Chapter is all set on Pace's lot, but the character jump around from place to place. I was trying to imply that they went outside to sit on the porch after dinner, but I wanted to avoid any redundancy in "Edward and Murphy go here, Edward and Murphy go there, now Edward and Murphy decided to..."
I'll revisit that paragraph and see if I can't fix it up.
The first chapter may have a bit too much going on, you're right, but I don't want to stretch those over multiple chapters. The lot is an important place to those characters, but it's not one I want to dwell on for long, so I was trying to tell as much as possible about the place before I tore them away from it.
I thought that's what happened, but I think you just overcompensated for the redundancy a little.
Judging by what you're saying here, I think that the chapter length probably makes sense within the context of the story as a whole (making assumptions here of course), and doesn't need any changing. Ultimately, you know best when it comes to that sort of context of course. Not that there's anything wrong with long chapters in the first place anyway.
I'm glad my critique proved helpful :smile:
So far, i think it's charming, witty, silly, and has an air of escapism to it. No clue if you plan to post more but please do.
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