Today we see that a mistake in your magic system can throw your entire world into question.
What I gleaned about the story: A young girl learns that she can draw the stuff of magic into her own world through her dreams.
Find this book on Amazon.
Analysis: The entire first scene is a monologue, but the paragraph breaks come in the strangest places. Normally, I’d have chalked this up to a stylistic quirk, but it actually confused me, so that makes it more serious. The paragraph breaks seem to come for no reason I can discern. In several places, it felt as though there was a second person interrupting the first. But no. There’s just the POV character, apparently talking to herself. But when I have to go back to see what’s going on, immersion has definitely broken.
Analysis: Interesting. A world of magic, populated by unconscious sleep-people. Yet somehow, this sleep-girl (who purportedly cannot manifest will) was able to make herself appear to the protagonist in a dream, stay with her during the day, and carry on a self-determined conversation. Don’t those things constitute “manifestations of will?” What about later, when Sora (the protagonist) tells us: Since I had given her something of my world, she wanted to give me something of hers. She tried to help teach me how to pull her world into mine. Sounds to me like the girl without will is willing all over the place.
If this had been a casual side comment, I might have been able to move past it, but this is no sidebar issue. This seems to be a key element. The line is telling us how magic works in this world, and why the protagonist is special not only to her own realm, but to the dream realm as well.
A magic system needs to be more than just a few lines of plausible veneer-speak. Those words have to be made real, woven into every aspect of the world and its culture. So once again, we see an example where what we are told in exposition is not manifested in action.
Analysis: That part right there? Those 35 words of backstory? That contained enough story for an entire novel. At the very least, an exciting chapter. But instead, I got 35 words of tell about it. The first scene is one long flashback, about a dream Sora had as a child. And as I’ve said before, if you open with a flashback, you probably should have started the story earlier.
I’d really hoped mine would make it the whole way!
This was useful feedback for me. I’d hoped the nature of the story would be obvious from the start, but I guess I failed to convey that properly – the entire story is dialogue, with the main character, Sora, confessing the main secrets and crimes of her life. So it didn’t begin with flashback – that was the beginning of the story.
Sigh. All three WTFs are the same problem – I failed to convey the situation. #1 She’s in third person, confessing to the POV character. #2. It’s not the world of dreams, she managed to actually travel to another realm (and by her presence, alter the “dream girl,” as you call her), which is explained later on, and #3. Like #1, it’s a dialogue, a confession, and that wasn’t relevant to her confession.
I’d hoped #2 would inspire curiosity, not a WTF – that was intentionally not addressed yet. I guess I counted on my readers having a little faith in me, which, in hindsight, is probably a poor assumption considering the nature of the market.
I really appreciate the insight into how to improve my writing. A shame I can’t fix the book now that it’s out – 2 sentences would have fixed all those WTFs!
Khana: It always impresses me when an author is so receptive to feedback.
If the feedback you’re getting inspires fixes, why not make them? These days, everything gets patches. When software comes out with bugs, the developers fix it. Like them, you’ve put a piece of digital data out into the world. You’re by no means obligated to issue alterations every time you get a less-than-stellar review. But issuing a book isn’t like pouring concrete.
I’m planning on making a few revisions to a book I released two years ago. I’m a better author than I was then, and I’ve had time to come to terms with the problems I see. I don’t advise polishing and polishing your old work to the detriment of publishing anything new. But if you see real issues, and after giving them thought you decide it’s worth the time and effort of re-issuing, I say go for it.
Hmm, good point. I think I can make small changes to my published work on Amazon without trouble.
It’s such a challenge getting good feedback – hence why I was so receptive to it. This was a story of passion, not for financial ends. It’s the first time anything I wrote got people pressuring me to find a way to publish it, straight away.
I sat on it for two years, polishing and refining it, according to the feedback I got. Sent it to English majors, because I don’t have money for an editor – while I’m an English minor myself, and there’s no grammatical errors, a third perspective is handy.
Dozens of people reviewing the blasted thing, and it gets abandoned after just 10 minutes on here. These problems just never occurred to me – those paragraph breaks are just how I write (and hell, I would love more specific feedback as to what’s confusing about that). I know they err on the side of being short, as walls of text are rather uncomfortable to read. The magic system is not flawed – it’s just not addressed in any depth in the first few pages.
I would love to have an objective reader review it and give thorough feedback. But that’s startlingly hard to come by >.>
There are some critiquing sites that offer great feedback. Try Scribophile, that’s the best one I know of. Even though this is already published, there’s nothing that says you couldn’t update it. Am I right in thinking this is actually a (long) short story, not a novel?
Yep, it’s a short story – about 30 pages on Kindle. That’s a major reason why I chose the format of a Interview With A Vampire style confession – it let me skip past lots of events, sticking to the very heart of the story. Apparently, Jefferson Smith missed that that’s what I was doing, unfortunately, earning me 2 WTFs.
I’ll take a look at that site. I really do think A Summoner’s Confession is a good short story – definitely very dark and emotionally harsh, but I loved writing it, and I loved the various feedback I got from it.
As someone who is almost done with the process of updating books on Amazon and Smashwords, it is a very easy process. You just upload a new version.
However, everyone who already bought a copy will never see the new version, only the people who buy it after the fact will get the new version (one reason I have a version number in my books). To tell Amazon purchasers that there is a new version, you have to ask Amazon to review it and they will decide if it is worthy of informing all purchasers. They are *very* detailed in this, from my experience, including requesting a list of all changes made to the document. I had about a thousand or so after getting a copy editor, which was driven by the failure to get to 40:00 here. It took me more time ot document the changes than to actually accept the changes from the editor. :)
Smashwords is easier. When a Smashwords customer goes to download a book, they get a list of *all* versions you’ve uploaded since they bought it. So, they can just choose to grab the latest version (again, a version number is very helpful to let them know if they have the latest).
Print, I use Lulu, usually requires uploading a new PDF, but there may be a cost (according to a warning email from Lulu), but I have never encountered it.
I actually don’t know how Kobo, Google Play, and B&N work. I need to find out.
Best of luck!
Thanks! I’m only on Amazon, so I can take advantage of their special promotion stuff. I’ll try to scrub Confession a bit before I do so – while 2 sentences could remove those WTFs, probably a paragraph would be better :P