Glaives, an online epic

It's tough going to read so much online, Marcel - I think you need to work on the site presentation a little, explaining what the book is and what it's about before throwing the reader in at the deep end. I've read the first few pargraphs of the first chapter, and it hasn't 'hooked' me, so to speak, but novels never do. Not in that way. I usually have to push my way in, and the difficulty at the moment is not really understanding what I'd be getting myself in for. ~ I'll Show You Tyrants * Fuselit * The Prowl Log * Woe's Woe

Journal sites aren't really designed for hosting on-line epics, there are more appropiate sites you might consider for hosting writing. Can't think of any off hand though. keep your grubby mits off my website http://www.too-many-monkeys.com

Xane, I've had a quick look through and I've got a few suggestions. 1. Drop the narrator Your narrator gets in the way of your story. We as the reader get to 'hear' what the narrator 'sees'. We as readers experience nothing first hand. As your narrator is experiencing things at the same pace as us the readers (he isn't looking back on the story) this makes things a bit tedious. In a lot of places, having your narrator tell us what he thinks of events as they're happening detracts from any drama they might have. Example: "lthough my every move up to this point had been considered and rational, only part of my mind seems to be able to actively deal with the developing situation. The other part seems to dwell on everything that’s just taken place. So while I turn to hand over the dagger to lord Dragor and my eyes turn towards the door to be ready for anything, just in case, a number of different emotions and responses to recent events go through my head. Not the least of my emotions is fear. As I hand over the dagger, I look at the man in the black hood, detachedly observe his grey, emotionless eyes and completely blank expression. Could I trust this man? If so, how far? He didn’t shave recently, I notice. Had the situation not been so tense and chaotic, I would’ve chuckled to myself about the uselessness of the observation at this point, but the panic-driven levity gets drowned out by the many other voices inside my head." To write this without your narrator would amount to: "Lord Dragor waited for the dagger, his face unreadable. Halted by fear, I stole glances at the door. Handing him the blade, I examined his face under its black hood, looking for clues as to his intentions He hasn't shaved, I thought." 2. Get to the action If something is meant to be dramatic, make it so. Don't distance the reader from events. Example: "Now I'm standing almost knee deep in a puddle of muddy water. A man in a worn, simple tunic and mud spattered shoes comes charging towards me. I only notice his sword at the very last moment and instinctively raise mine to parry the blow. Almost automatically, I want to try circling around his defence and striking at his unprotected side. I somehow feel that is where he's vulnerable. Yet when I try to take a step sideways, I find that the mud I'm standing in has sucked down my boots and I nearly lose my balance before I can counter for the much greater resistance and steady myself. By then the second blow comes, low, to my left. I turn my shield towards it as best I can with my limited movement, but I can barely move my feet at all at this point." Without narrative distance: "Mud sucks at my legs. The man lunges at me. Parrying his blow by instinct I try to strike at his left side. I begin to topple, bringing my shield up to deflect his second attack." See the difference? 3. Describe things so that they can be seen and experienced The trick here is to picture things in your mind, and then describe them so that the reader can imagine them. Your writing, because of your narrative device, tends to flatten things out. The air is 'colder' the door is 'wooden'. It'd make things a lot more vivid if you could make these discriptions come alive by making them describe something more than just functional information. I don't really know what the cell looks like, for example. Or how it would feel to sit in it, night after night. You need to have a physical world for your events to happen in. I get the feeling that you keep adding bits to the world in service of the story, suggesting that you don't have a strong feeling of what it might actually be like. You need to know it as well as you would a real place, otherwise it won't feel like a real place to people reading about it. Hope these help! Cheers, Mark