Comments on: Aldain, Ch. 7

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 13:42:48 +0000

I’m going to assume from your username that you came here from Pages Unbound and not from my typical circle of friends. The very brief description of the story there explicitly mentions that the world is in fact Earth. I qualified that as a minor spoiler back when I wasn’t sure how secret I wanted that to be. Nowadays though, I’d almost prefer that people figure out that Aldain is from our Earth as soon as possible. So the short answer is no. There really isn’t anything else I can use. Or at least nothing else I want to use.

By: blackcatphobia

blackcatphobia — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 13:28:57 +0000

Re: Australia

No matter whether the world is Earth or not, if it’s a spoiler to say it might be, then you’ve just given it away to all of your readers. Either they’ll realise the setting is Earth, or they’ll think you made an amateurish mistake. In my opinion it would be better not to use it as a point of reference – is there really *nothing* else you can use?

By: Jenny

Jenny — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 06:19:02 +0000

Margareet is kind of an ugly word, and reminds me of an old female bird.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 05:17:56 +0000

@ Kyle:
You seem to be assuming that the Prime Material, the word proper, as opposed to the pocket reality that the action has centered in so far, is not our world. I will spoiler a bit here by saying that it might be.

Other than that, thank you for the readership and for the grammar and style pointers. The way Aldain talks about the alarms will be amended. If I recall correctly, I think that adding commas before those “ands” would be an incorrect conjunction splicing technique. Or is it the other way around and they’re run ons the way I have them? I’ll wait for a follow up comment from you or possibly commentary on it from the others to change those. I’ve always heard that a colon is no different from a period: It must end a complete sentence and the next word should be capitalized and part of a complete sentence. There are many times I have wished to be free of this limitation. Perhaps I should just be more bold and make the punctuation my bitch?

By: Kyle

Kyle — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 04:34:57 +0000

“My alarms…have triggered” or ‘have been
triggered’? Australia? Odd reference if this
is a non-Earth setting (as might be ‘East’).”The guard captains
rush into the room [,] and I start giving
orders. “Soon I can see them [,] and it’s
exactly what I expected: [s]ix…”

Sight of forming universe: functional.
intriguing w/o being poetical.
Image of 3D map: concise. understandable.
Overall, this chapter’s vastly more action
than vision.
I tend to over-edit rather than under. Cheers
for some diverting reading. I’ll be back.

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:57:30 +0000

Landmass in a sea of indeterminate size, not see. Other than that, looks good. I don’t see any problems with your descriptions. Then again, I tend towards brevity.