Project: Writer Forum Working Group - 1

Group 1
1) Atlanta Carter - 21st Century Girl
5) Alex Lifeson - The Sepulcher
9) Sammy Somebody - 'Bio-Weapon'
13) Michelle Ross - Elsium
17) Shannon K - Run from Reality

Hey all, just wanted to put a thread up where we can discuss stuff. Did you all want to read everyone's work and then discuss, or just pick a person a week to read, review and discuss here? I'll go with whatever.

I will be doing my best to read all your stories and post reviews on your pages. Be sure that I'd like honest reactions, and I have a thick skin. :)

Hey Guys.
Don't be afraid to say what you mean about my piece. I'm planning a rewrite of it soon. The rerite will include part 1 and 2, but only part 1 is up in the list, so thats all you have to read.
Any suggestions would be great.
Thanks!
S.k.

Well I've already read and reviewed a couple of the pieces. They were both good reads though. As far as when you come to review Elysium don't be afraid to tell me if I've muffed something up. I will try to give each of you an honest and hopefully helpful review.

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Michelle, thanks for the review, it was very helpful. I'm a chronic one to see what I think I should have written, all your points are spot on!

I've already incorporated all your grammatical suggestions and decided to give the story a re-read. Ouch, that was sloppy even by my standards. I found at least 4 other issues needing resolving. I think it's good to go now, thanks again.

No problem Alex! I really enjoyed reading that piece and I encourage the others in our group to read it soon.

Atlanta, thanks for the review. I saw by some of your history (on the comments section of your writerscafe page), and by your comments at the end of the review, that you perceive yourself to be harsh, and others do also. I'm fine with that.

I've taken you up on a couple of your suggestions, I changed the "week 1" etc, to have a different header feel, and changed descent. :) Thanks for that one, totally missed it over and over. I love having fresh eyes on a piece.

Some of the repetition you stated in your review was purposeful. I'm going to relook all of them over, but a couple were repeated for a reason. For example, crazier. This is the working title of my memoir (They're Crazier on the Inside). This chapter is the first place I've hit on that topic so the repetition of "crazier, crazier, and craziness" was intentional. I may actually take that part out, if I end up doing a chapter with the same title. I'm still bouncing that idea around.

What's hard for me is this sentence you wrote:

"Without even going back to look, the words "horse," "supervisor," "crypt," "brown," and "cinderblock" all made a lasting impression."

Aside from supervisor, those are all images from this piece that I wanted to do just what you stated, make a lasting impression, a mental image. (besides fungus, that was repeated quite often too, but you didn't mention that one). :)

I think I know your point. The repetition isn't the type of lasting impression I'm looking for maybe (my interpretation of your review). I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on that, and from others.

As for the timeline issues you mentioned, I rechecked the piece and I don't see any timeline problems, I was there for 4 weeks before spotting the fungus, 4 weeks of fungal activity, plus things going downhill afterwards (with no timeline mentioned), works into 3 months quite well. Also, when I applied for this job, and many others, I never got to meet the employees. I interview with one person, maybe get shown around, but you don't get to see the personalities of the staff until you start to work there. Again, I don't see the inconsistencies here.

Aside from those two points, I really appreciate the feedback and I'm going to revisit and check for redundancies in the piece. You may see your feedback as highly critical, but your type of feedback a lot more helpful to me. I may not agree with it all, but at the very least all your feedback makes me think, re-examine, and be more critical of my own work. Thanks!

As promised Alex I'm here to thank you once again for the review. I'm glad that you didn't find any grammatical errors though I fear there are probably some there. ::sad:: As I've mentioned before I am no grammar expert. I do appreciate you looking for grammar mistakes though. It never hurts to have other people take a look as they may see something you don't.

You did express some confusion about what is going on. I have to say that I am pleased to hear that. ::biggrin::

It was my intention to put just enough action, and information to pull the reader in and make them want to read more. I want people to wonder, "What exactly was Slate up to?" "Is he going to be rewarded as he hopes to be?" and "Why was Elysium being attacked at all?"

You have to read more to find out. ::tongue:: LOL, sorry I couldn't resist that. I'm a little bit impish at times. Anyway, I do greatly appreciate the review and as I mentioned before I am glad you are left asking questions about what was going on.
Is that mean? LOL I will tell you that those questions do get answered. Some of them as early as the first chapter.

I actually put the prologue up on here to find out whether or not people would be interested in it or not. Testing the waters, so to speak.

Thanks again for the review.

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I guess my only question is was there enough to hook for the reader to want to read more. Did it develop enough interest? This is a tough question for me, as the only fantasy I've ever been interested in is Harry Potter. So for me it was questionable as to whether or not it sparked the interest necessary, but that may have less to do with your prologue and more to do with me.

I'm not sure if it will help or not but the trilogy I'm writing is actually aimed toward the same age group as the Harry Potter books. I realize that is anything from eight to eighty but it does make a difference in how a piece is written too.

I will look over the prologue again though, and get a few more objective opinions to see if I need to add a little more detail. Sorry I misunderstood what you were getting at. Thanks again for the review though. That's the kind of feedback I'm looking for. The grammar, spelling and whether or not it hooks the reader.

I once read that if you don't hook your readers in the first few lines you likely won't hook them at all. Something along those lines anyway.

Like I said, it likely has less to do with the structure and content of your prologue than with my literary tastes.

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As far as the repetition is concerned, I think it was that you were repeating too many things too closely together. Repetition is a device that I use a lot, but I try not to overuse it.

She reminded me of a horse, with the kind of face that had fifth-graders chanting, "Horse-face, horse-face!" at recess. The urge to join in twenty years later was almost too great to resist.

My second sentence doesn't need to repeat it. The reference is obvious. Then later, at another encounter I'd probably refer to her as horse-face again, or even use my rewritten version of the Colt Neck references. You can do it close together twice, but the third should be later. Too close and it sounds like you are just repeating yourself. (I don't count the chant as 2 repetitions.) It's the spacing of the repetitions that is important.

I think cinderblock, supervisor, crypt and brown all appeared three times in a single paragraph. That's what brought them to mind.

I meant that your timeline was apparently correct, but that it didn't feel right. You glossed over a 5 week period, and it just threw off my sense of pacing; that's all.

Sammy,
Thanks again for the review. As I've mentioned before I am no grammar expert. I do take editing very seriously though. That prologue has been edited at least five times already. I've edited each chapter so far at least three times and the entire book will be getting a professional edit when I'm done. Like I said, I take editing very seriously. Anyway, you are right in guessing that there is a reason Elysium has to be protected. You learn the reasons why fairly quick in the book. I didn't include any more information about Elysium deliberately. It's part of the pull. I will look again at what Slate says in the end and double check that grammar. I think I better get out my Grammatically Correct book again. That whole was/were thing confuses me sometimes. Oh well, like I said, I'm no grammar expert.

While this book series (it will be a trilogy) has some of the same elements as other fantasy fiction novels (magic, fantastic creatures, etc...) it has one major element that will separate it quite well from all the other fantasy novels out. I'm not going to mention what that is though as that would give away too much. ::tongue::

Anyway, thanks again for the review. I'm glad that I have your interest.

Shannon,
Thanks again for the review and for catching that little mistake. I will get in there and change that as soon as I have everyone's review in. It's easier that way. Anyway, I understand your need for visuals but a book can have too many. You don't want to put in a lot of detail that has no purpose either. It's one thing to give the reader an idea of what the area looks like, or what the characters look like, but you have to be careful. Details are one of those tricky things that can help and hurt a piece. However, that being said I will look at what I have written to see if more detail is needed. I do appreciate the suggestion.

The characters, however, don't get a lot of description yet because it's just the prologue. Their descriptions come later, when they make their appearances in the main story.
I'm glad that you liked the piece overall. The book is in the editing phases right now. I'm about fourteen chapters in with that and have about as many more to go. Once I'm done it's getting a professional edit, being formatted, and sent to print. I'm afraid the prologue is the only thing I'm posting about it on here right now. I may, once it's printed, post part of a chapter, but I haven't decided yet.

Anyway, thanks again for the review. I really appreciate your input and the heads up about the mistake you caught.

Hey,
Thanks, and no problem. Ya, I understand the want to only put on the prologe, makes sense. Thanks for your comment, it really helped me a lot.
Thanks again,
S.k.

I'm really just bumping this thread up ... we should all be reviewing the second work on our lists this week. I've reviewed Sammy's Bio-weapon this yesterday, and have posted the full eview there.

Mostly, what I would like to see it expanded. Sammy's notes mention a word limit for the original assignment, and I found that the further he got into the story the less focused his description became. The story itself increases in intensity and I would expect the description to underline that tension, but he resorts to just telling what's happening. The word limit began to get in the way of the action. To stay within his limit, I would have tried to be more efficient at the beginning and then turn on the afterburners as the story progressed.

Narrative pacing is something that a lot of writers ignore. The more tension there is, the more you should milk it. All the greatest writers do that.

I could be wrong here as I am not perfect but I believe if you want to go by a structured system of reviewing one piece per week it would be time to review Alex's work not Sammy's. Yours, Atlanta, would have been first. Personally, I have already finished my reviews. Not because I was in any particular hurry but because I am able to put time into reading a piece and giving a thorough review. Anyway, just thought you might want to double check whose work you're suppose to be reviewing this week.

I was the one who suggested the system to Rusty. In the first week you review the name below yours, the second week, the next one down, going back up to the top when appropriate. So last week I reviewed Alex, this week Sammy, you are next week, then Shannon. Theoretically, you would have reviewed Shannon last week, me this week, then Alex and Sammy, but I know you've gotten through the entire group already.

The system was designed so you could read ahead if you have time. You may have time, but I don't. Since you do, you might consider reviewing other pieces by the same authors. For instance, Shannon has a sequel to her story, actually another version from a different POV. I've got another first chapter from another story in the same series (The Shot). Just a thought. Alternatively, you could contribute to the discussion of the various works in this thread, which I know you have done some already.

I thought about going in and reviewing some of the other works by our group members. The reason I didn't is because I wondered if after these reviews are done if we are going to start another round of reviews for specific works. Also, are we going to remain part of the same group or are we going to switched around so that our pieces are being reviewed by the other working groups?
That being said I would be more than happy to read and review any piece the group members want me to. Just don't try to send me a read request; my profile is set to reject them. Either post here what you want me to read or send me a message with the title of the piece.
Anyway, I understand that not everyone has the kind of time that I do. Been there, done that. I've been a stay-at-home mom for two years now but I well remember the time contraints I had as a working mother.

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I don't know the answer to that. I assumed that we switched, but maybe we just switch works. I'd probably put up chapter 2, rather than choose a different story. I wouldn't mind a review of It's Got to Get Better, but that is for mature audiences, which excludes at least one of our members.

Feel free to do so. :) I have a new listing as a feature work (The Errant Eye), and would love any feedback on it. My newest one up is called "Buddha, Meet Jim Henson ..." and would love feedback on that one too.

I have been plagued with real life work, but I have a 4 day weekend coming up and plan on finishing my reviews of the other group members I have not done. Sorry for any delays on my end.

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