Saffi and Hans where just two innocents the 'Goyf happened upon, not even guards. Hans was only 5 years old at the time!
Actually, they were guards, and Hans, while young, was not 5 years old.
"Hans, barely six feet tall and weighing no more than eleven stones, was still too small to join the hunting parties. In two winters on guard duty, the worst danger he'd faced had been a rabid fox that had nearly nipped his leg."
Well, I think that the stranglehold is not a bad thing at all
Anyway, I am looking forward to see your work again, but do not bring J.R.King back, please ;). But if you meet Jeff Grubb somewhere on the way, make sure to take him to us.:D
It's only a bad thing in that none of the rest of us get to play in that universe anymore.
As for Jeff Grubb, I actually work with him at ArenaNet now. I'm not sure if he wrote a story for this anthology or not, but I will ask him.
And, while I know some people did not like the Onslaught cycle, Rob King is a great guy and a fine writer (The Thran is put near the top of many readers' lists of the best MtG novels of all time). In addition, he is, perhaps, the best editor I've ever worked with (on The Monsters of Magic).
Jeff's work is alive and thriving in Guild Wars. He is the embedded writer doing story creation and continuity on the ArenaNet design team that worked on Guild Wars Nightfall and Guild Wars: Eye of the North.
It's been great working with him and other WotC ex-pats here at ArenaNet.
A note on my grading: I mark these as if I was doing a professional critique. I will be pretty harsh and I don't give out top marks unless I think the manuscript is publishable. Imagine I am the editor who holds the ability to publish your material or toss it into the circular file. Most slush pile submissions get tossed. You have lots of competition out there, so your story has to be damn near perfect to get published.
Tighten. Tighten. Tighten. Long paragraphs with long, convoluted sentences and an over-reliance on movie names as metaphors. I also didn't like that the story was written in second person. This was not all happening to me, and yet the constant use of the pronoun "you" makes it sound like it is.
This also keeps us from really getting to know or care about this character. And what we do find out doesn't make him appealing at all. Yes. I realize the title of the story should tell me that this is not a likeable character. But if you want people to read your stories, you have to make the characters at least a little bit sympathetic. If readers find nothing to like in a character, they won't really care if he lives or dies.
A note on my grading: I mark these as if I was doing a professional critique. I will be pretty harsh and I don't give out top marks unless I think the manuscript is publishable. Imagine I am the editor who holds the ability to publish your material or toss it into the circular file. Most slush pile submissions get tossed. You have lots of competition out there, so your story has to be damn near perfect to get published.
I never felt drawn into this story. It just jumped around too much. When the brother died, when the new friend died, when he left the army, I just didn't care because none of these were developed enough. And yet, you tried very hard to make us care with the preaching in between the scenes. If you want to get this preachy, first you need to invest us in the character doing the preaching. I just didn't care enough about the kid who'd lost his brother to take his views on war seriously (even though I basically agreed with him). Every time it happened, I found myself waiting for it to end so we could get back to the story. Tone it down, but first, make us care for the character so that we'll care about what he thinks about the situations.
As with many other stories in this contest (and many I see when critiquing new writers), this story needs a good edit with an eye toward repeated words. Reach for better words to tell the story. Stretch yourself to find the absolute right word each and every time. And then do what every professional writer does - edit the story and remove as many of your pet words as you can (we all have them and we all fall back on them in a pinch; the mark of a great writer is he or she edits them back out).
One last thing I will say is that you need to take a hard look at your descriptions of action. Too often you added more detail than necessary. Look at each sentence and see if it passes the "duh!" test. Is it obvious who he's giving the cigarette to? Then you don't have to tell us that part.
A note on my grading: I mark these as if I was doing a professional critique. I will be pretty harsh and I don't give out top marks unless I think the manuscript is publishable. Imagine I am the editor who holds the ability to publish your material or toss it into the circular file. Most slush pile submissions get tossed. You have lots of competition out there, so your story has to be damn near perfect to get published.
This story is pretty well written. I got lost an awful lot in your plot. Either from a lack of explanation or things happening off-camera that we were not let in on. It seemed awfully jumpy throughout. I wrote WTF way too many times on my edit copy. You don't want the editor you are submitting to, to have that reaction even once.
Another problem with the story is that I didn't know why the main character even cared about what was going on. If readers doesn't get invested in the main character's motivations, they won't keep reading. He was a detective. That seemed to be the only reason he was even interested. Pull the reader into the story by pulling the character into the story. Make us care because he cares.
You transitions between scenes were also often awkward. One moment we were in one scene with these characters and then we were in another scene with other characters, with no transition. This may be becaues of the way you wrote the story, but the editor won't care about that (and really, don't tell us at the beginning of the story. All that matters is the story, not how it was written or anything else.
Lastly, please do not have pages on end of dialogue with no attribution. Even between two characters, you will lose your readers. They will not be able to tell who is saying what. And it turns the scene into talking heads. Let us see what's going on and tell us who says what.
Oh, and this story needs a healthy edit. Not just to tighten it up and re-work the transitions, but to cut the fat. I can't remember how many times someone did something or said something to then turn right around and say what they did or said didn't matter anyway. If it didn't matter, cut it out.
A note on my grading: I mark these as if I was doing a professional critique. I will be pretty harsh and I don't give out top marks unless I think the manuscript is publishable. Imagine I am the editor who holds the ability to publish your material or toss it into the circular file. Most slush pile submissions get tossed. You have lots of competition out there, so your story has to be damn near perfect to get published.
I enjoyed this story, which is strange because I usually don't like totally narrative stories. I prefer scenic stories where we actually get to "see" things happen and not just get told about them from an omniscient narrator.
But this is handled pretty well. Although I have one huge caveat, and this is what would most likely keep this story from getting published. The whole future tense thing drove me crazy through the story. Sure, set it in the future with a narrator who seems immune to the effects of time. I liked that part. But when people in the story are actually doing something, don't tell us that she will do this or she will do that. It keeps us at arm's length from the character.
I would have liked to have seen the narrator removed just a bit from the story. Put the narrator comments into future tense, but put all the action in to past tense (as if it already happened, and thus has consequence to the people involved).
Other than that, I think the story just needs a good edit with an eye toward tightening the sentences and avoiding repetition of words. Also, some of your paragraphs get awfully long. This will turn most readers off. And, I had a little problem with the jump from millions of dead to a billion dead. That's a huge leap that I just don't think could happen in a matter of days. That one fact pulled me out of the story at that point.
A note on my grading: I mark these as if I was doing a professional critique. I will be pretty harsh and I don't give out top marks unless I think the manuscript is publishable. Imagine I am the editor who holds the ability to publish your material or toss it into the circular file. Most slush pile submissions get tossed. You have lots of competition out there, so your story has to be damn near perfect to get published.
This was a pretty good story. You still rely on adverbs a little too much in your writing. Adverbs are "telling" me about the verb in the action. Let the verb "show" me the action. There were also some awkward sentences and some lines that needed tightening (too many words making it tough to get through the sentence and get the gist of your meaning).
A bigger problem, I think, is your dialogue. It often didn't ring true for me. This was an intense situation, in the middle of a battle. The overly long lines of dialogue just didn't work for me. And the end scene, when the minotaur is mad at the mage, I didn't understand at all. He just helped him take the castle. What was with all the rage?
The characters were mundane. Mage, minotaur. In fact, until you told me he was a minotaur, I had no idea. If it's important enough to make him a minotaur, make the fact that he's a minotaur matter to the character and the story.
All in all, your style is pretty good. Just delve deeper for more complex characters, and avoid telling the reader things he already knows (a la, the bridge being down over the moat giving them access to the castle). You never want your reader to say, "duh!"
A note on my grading: I mark these as if I was doing a professional critique. I will be pretty harsh and I don't give out top marks unless I think the manuscript is publishable. Imagine I am the editor who holds the ability to publish your material or toss it into the circular file. Most slush pile submissions get tossed. You have lots of competition out there, so your story has to be damn near perfect to get published.
The biggest problem here is that I saw the ending coming a mile away and the main character (who seemed reasonably intelligent) did not. It's also pretty cliche'd story and plot line with nothing new. Man was wronged, man gets revenge on everyone who wronged him, and the last man is the one he's telling his story to. It's been done.
Your style also needs some work. The low grammar score is because too many of your sentences run on or are structured poorly. This makes it hard for the reader to follow the action. I also never really felt close to the story. Sure, you are re-telling it and your main character is a cold, emotionless killer. But the story is told in such an emotionless way that I found it hard to care about what happened to him.
You might want to re-cast this as a story told to a son after all the killing had been done and use the story through the eyes of innocence. It could then be a story of how the vengeance gets passed on from generation to generation. It could then be a story about something more than just vengeance.
Nice question. Do you think that if you could download them somewhere for free, they would bother to sell them in the shops, for money?
I do know where there are three Magic short stories that are online and have the blessing of the WotC book dept.
My first three Magic short stories, printed in the Guides to Urza's (Saga, Legacy, and Destiny) are downloadable in PDF versions from my website (www.willmcdermott.com).
Just go to my fiction page. I got permission from WotC to reprint them there as the original books are out of print.
This is basically an homage to the Jungle Book with Meme in the role of Mowgli, raised by Boggarts instead of wolves.
The important thing to consider is when did Meme come to live with the Boggarts and when did things go wrong.
Will
Yes. Hans refers to Saffi as his sister at least once in the passge.
Will
Actually, they were guards, and Hans, while young, was not 5 years old.
"Hans, barely six feet tall and weighing no more than eleven stones, was still too small to join the hunting parties. In two winters on guard duty, the worst danger he'd faced had been a rabid fox that had nearly nipped his leg."
Helpfully yours,
Will
True. I'm not Jeff Grubb old (although I dodge that bullet by only a few years).
And speaking of Jeff, I asked and he did not write a story for this anthology.
Will
It's only a bad thing in that none of the rest of us get to play in that universe anymore.
As for Jeff Grubb, I actually work with him at ArenaNet now. I'm not sure if he wrote a story for this anthology or not, but I will ask him.
And, while I know some people did not like the Onslaught cycle, Rob King is a great guy and a fine writer (The Thran is put near the top of many readers' lists of the best MtG novels of all time). In addition, he is, perhaps, the best editor I've ever worked with (on The Monsters of Magic).
Will
Will
Will
I don't. I get to see him every day now.
Jeff's work is alive and thriving in Guild Wars. He is the embedded writer doing story creation and continuity on the ArenaNet design team that worked on Guild Wars Nightfall and Guild Wars: Eye of the North.
It's been great working with him and other WotC ex-pats here at ArenaNet.
Will
Spelling/Grammar: 3
Characterization: 5
Plot and Structure: 4
Style: 4
Creativity: 5
A note on my grading: I mark these as if I was doing a professional critique. I will be pretty harsh and I don't give out top marks unless I think the manuscript is publishable. Imagine I am the editor who holds the ability to publish your material or toss it into the circular file. Most slush pile submissions get tossed. You have lots of competition out there, so your story has to be damn near perfect to get published.
Tighten. Tighten. Tighten. Long paragraphs with long, convoluted sentences and an over-reliance on movie names as metaphors. I also didn't like that the story was written in second person. This was not all happening to me, and yet the constant use of the pronoun "you" makes it sound like it is.
This also keeps us from really getting to know or care about this character. And what we do find out doesn't make him appealing at all. Yes. I realize the title of the story should tell me that this is not a likeable character. But if you want people to read your stories, you have to make the characters at least a little bit sympathetic. If readers find nothing to like in a character, they won't really care if he lives or dies.
Spelling/Grammar: 4
Characterization: 6
Plot and Structure: 7
Style: 4
Creativity: 6
A note on my grading: I mark these as if I was doing a professional critique. I will be pretty harsh and I don't give out top marks unless I think the manuscript is publishable. Imagine I am the editor who holds the ability to publish your material or toss it into the circular file. Most slush pile submissions get tossed. You have lots of competition out there, so your story has to be damn near perfect to get published.
I never felt drawn into this story. It just jumped around too much. When the brother died, when the new friend died, when he left the army, I just didn't care because none of these were developed enough. And yet, you tried very hard to make us care with the preaching in between the scenes. If you want to get this preachy, first you need to invest us in the character doing the preaching. I just didn't care enough about the kid who'd lost his brother to take his views on war seriously (even though I basically agreed with him). Every time it happened, I found myself waiting for it to end so we could get back to the story. Tone it down, but first, make us care for the character so that we'll care about what he thinks about the situations.
As with many other stories in this contest (and many I see when critiquing new writers), this story needs a good edit with an eye toward repeated words. Reach for better words to tell the story. Stretch yourself to find the absolute right word each and every time. And then do what every professional writer does - edit the story and remove as many of your pet words as you can (we all have them and we all fall back on them in a pinch; the mark of a great writer is he or she edits them back out).
One last thing I will say is that you need to take a hard look at your descriptions of action. Too often you added more detail than necessary. Look at each sentence and see if it passes the "duh!" test. Is it obvious who he's giving the cigarette to? Then you don't have to tell us that part.
Spelling/Grammar: 4
Characterization: 7
Plot and Structure: 5
Style: 6
Creativity: 8
A note on my grading: I mark these as if I was doing a professional critique. I will be pretty harsh and I don't give out top marks unless I think the manuscript is publishable. Imagine I am the editor who holds the ability to publish your material or toss it into the circular file. Most slush pile submissions get tossed. You have lots of competition out there, so your story has to be damn near perfect to get published.
This story is pretty well written. I got lost an awful lot in your plot. Either from a lack of explanation or things happening off-camera that we were not let in on. It seemed awfully jumpy throughout. I wrote WTF way too many times on my edit copy. You don't want the editor you are submitting to, to have that reaction even once.
Another problem with the story is that I didn't know why the main character even cared about what was going on. If readers doesn't get invested in the main character's motivations, they won't keep reading. He was a detective. That seemed to be the only reason he was even interested. Pull the reader into the story by pulling the character into the story. Make us care because he cares.
You transitions between scenes were also often awkward. One moment we were in one scene with these characters and then we were in another scene with other characters, with no transition. This may be becaues of the way you wrote the story, but the editor won't care about that (and really, don't tell us at the beginning of the story. All that matters is the story, not how it was written or anything else.
Lastly, please do not have pages on end of dialogue with no attribution. Even between two characters, you will lose your readers. They will not be able to tell who is saying what. And it turns the scene into talking heads. Let us see what's going on and tell us who says what.
Oh, and this story needs a healthy edit. Not just to tighten it up and re-work the transitions, but to cut the fat. I can't remember how many times someone did something or said something to then turn right around and say what they did or said didn't matter anyway. If it didn't matter, cut it out.
Spelling/Grammar: 3
Characterization: 7
Plot and Structure: 7
Style: 6
Creativity: 10
A note on my grading: I mark these as if I was doing a professional critique. I will be pretty harsh and I don't give out top marks unless I think the manuscript is publishable. Imagine I am the editor who holds the ability to publish your material or toss it into the circular file. Most slush pile submissions get tossed. You have lots of competition out there, so your story has to be damn near perfect to get published.
I enjoyed this story, which is strange because I usually don't like totally narrative stories. I prefer scenic stories where we actually get to "see" things happen and not just get told about them from an omniscient narrator.
But this is handled pretty well. Although I have one huge caveat, and this is what would most likely keep this story from getting published. The whole future tense thing drove me crazy through the story. Sure, set it in the future with a narrator who seems immune to the effects of time. I liked that part. But when people in the story are actually doing something, don't tell us that she will do this or she will do that. It keeps us at arm's length from the character.
I would have liked to have seen the narrator removed just a bit from the story. Put the narrator comments into future tense, but put all the action in to past tense (as if it already happened, and thus has consequence to the people involved).
Other than that, I think the story just needs a good edit with an eye toward tightening the sentences and avoiding repetition of words. Also, some of your paragraphs get awfully long. This will turn most readers off. And, I had a little problem with the jump from millions of dead to a billion dead. That's a huge leap that I just don't think could happen in a matter of days. That one fact pulled me out of the story at that point.
Spelling/Grammar: 4
Characterization: 6
Plot and Structure: 8
Style: 7
Creativity: 7
A note on my grading: I mark these as if I was doing a professional critique. I will be pretty harsh and I don't give out top marks unless I think the manuscript is publishable. Imagine I am the editor who holds the ability to publish your material or toss it into the circular file. Most slush pile submissions get tossed. You have lots of competition out there, so your story has to be damn near perfect to get published.
This was a pretty good story. You still rely on adverbs a little too much in your writing. Adverbs are "telling" me about the verb in the action. Let the verb "show" me the action. There were also some awkward sentences and some lines that needed tightening (too many words making it tough to get through the sentence and get the gist of your meaning).
A bigger problem, I think, is your dialogue. It often didn't ring true for me. This was an intense situation, in the middle of a battle. The overly long lines of dialogue just didn't work for me. And the end scene, when the minotaur is mad at the mage, I didn't understand at all. He just helped him take the castle. What was with all the rage?
The characters were mundane. Mage, minotaur. In fact, until you told me he was a minotaur, I had no idea. If it's important enough to make him a minotaur, make the fact that he's a minotaur matter to the character and the story.
All in all, your style is pretty good. Just delve deeper for more complex characters, and avoid telling the reader things he already knows (a la, the bridge being down over the moat giving them access to the castle). You never want your reader to say, "duh!"
Spelling/Grammar: 2
Characterization: 6
Plot and Structure: 6
Style: 6
Creativity: 3
A note on my grading: I mark these as if I was doing a professional critique. I will be pretty harsh and I don't give out top marks unless I think the manuscript is publishable. Imagine I am the editor who holds the ability to publish your material or toss it into the circular file. Most slush pile submissions get tossed. You have lots of competition out there, so your story has to be damn near perfect to get published.
The biggest problem here is that I saw the ending coming a mile away and the main character (who seemed reasonably intelligent) did not. It's also pretty cliche'd story and plot line with nothing new. Man was wronged, man gets revenge on everyone who wronged him, and the last man is the one he's telling his story to. It's been done.
Your style also needs some work. The low grammar score is because too many of your sentences run on or are structured poorly. This makes it hard for the reader to follow the action. I also never really felt close to the story. Sure, you are re-telling it and your main character is a cold, emotionless killer. But the story is told in such an emotionless way that I found it hard to care about what happened to him.
You might want to re-cast this as a story told to a son after all the killing had been done and use the story through the eyes of innocence. It could then be a story of how the vengeance gets passed on from generation to generation. It could then be a story about something more than just vengeance.
I do know where there are three Magic short stories that are online and have the blessing of the WotC book dept.
My first three Magic short stories, printed in the Guides to Urza's (Saga, Legacy, and Destiny) are downloadable in PDF versions from my website (www.willmcdermott.com).
Just go to my fiction page. I got permission from WotC to reprint them there as the original books are out of print.
Enjoy.
Will