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[filiusenox]

I am gonna try and write a book. But I think I suck horribly at writing so I need your criticism.Post at least one criticism you don't have to include any praise. This is like 1/16Th of the prologue

The city of Isesa was a gleaming beacon in a sea of darkness. It’s towers gleamed with pale silver plating. Its houses where made with white marble, its palaces out of the purest quartzite and its walls of steel. Scatter haphazardly around the city where beautiful gardens, providing a splash of dark green against the pale houses and tall towers as well as feeding the bustling and happy city.
   At the only gate into the city where hundreds of smiling faces waving and cheering on a young woman walking who was beside a horse
   She was an adventurer , a citizen who went out to get relics, gold and glory for the City. She slid onto the horse and slipped on her helmet. She gave one final wave and dug her heels into the horse and rode out of the gate. The crowd dissipated with a smile and began to talk about there hopes for the young princess  who had proved to be better in sword fighting then even her older brother.
   A horn rang out.
The gate lifted and princess Alen rode through, her helmet off and her hair flying behind her. She jumped off the horse and ran into the gate house and the large steel gate began to slowly close.
   But apparently not fast enough. A large green lizard-man slide under and smiled a wicked reptile’s grin. One of its arm’s was metal and the other was scaled green flesh holding a cutlass.
   A jet of flame shot out of the metal hand and began to burn through the crowd. The princess saw this and saw red. She ran down the stairs three steps at a time, bolted across the courtyard to where the goblin was burning aiming his hand at a young child.
   The goblin saw a flash of silver and then the metal hand slid off of the wrist. Its face contorted in anger and hacked at the princess with his cutlass, cutting a lock of her hair off. She dodged back and hacked at the goblin narrowly missing its neck and instead slashing it’s left shoulder open. It’s cutlass swept around but was narrowly blocked by the princess. Suddenly a arrow rushed by her ear and struck the goblin squarely in the center of its slitted eye.
   Only one person could have done that.
   “Shouldn’t you be protecting the king, Erleal?”

[The Worst Gamer]

The city of Isesa was a gleaming beacon in a sea of darkness. Its towers gleamed with pale silver plating. Its houses were made with white marble, its palaces out of the purest quartzite and its walls of steel. Scattered haphazardly around the city were beautiful gardens, providing a splash of dark green against the pale houses and tall towers as well as feeding the bustling and happy city.
   At the only gate into the city were hundreds of smiling faces waving and cheering on a young woman walking beside a horse.
   She was an adventurer, a citizen who went out to get relics, gold and glory for the City. She slid onto the horse and slipped on her helmet. She gave one final wave and dug her heels into the horse and rode out of the gate. The crowd dissipated with a smile and began to talk about their hopes for the young princess who had proven to be better in sword fighting than even her older brother.
   A horn rang out.
The gate lifted and princess Alen rode through, her helmet off and her hair flying behind her. She jumped off the horse and ran into the gate house and the large steel gate began to slowly close.
   But apparently not fast enough. A large green lizard-man slid under and smiled a wicked reptile’s grin. One of its arms was metal and the other was scaled green flesh holding a cutlass.
   A jet of flame shot out of the metal hand and began to burn through the crowd. The princess saw this and saw red. She ran down the stairs three steps at a time, bolted across the courtyard to where the goblin was aiming his burning hand at a young child.
   The goblin saw a flash of silver and then the metal hand slid off of the wrist. Its face contorted in anger and hacked at the princess with his cutlass, cutting a lock of her hair off. She dodged back and hacked at the goblin narrowly missing its neck and instead slashing its left shoulder open. Its cutlass swept around but was narrowly blocked by the princess. Suddenly an arrow rushed by her ear and struck the goblin squarely in the center of its slitted eye.
   Only one person could have done that.
   “Shouldn’t you be protecting the king, Erleal?”

Everything that is bolded is mechanically wrong in your post and I've fixed it.

Learn where/were/we're and there/their/they're. You seem to have a bit of trouble with its/it's, too, although you get it right about half the time. It's means "it is", as it "It's ugly" or "It's beautiful". Its is possessive, like "its arm" or "its shining silver gate".

Mainly, I advise you to read over it yourself and see what you can fix first. =p

On a more subjective note: I feel you're going too fast. Fantasy readers generally prefer quite a bit of description to be able to visualise what they're reading. If you like, I'll rewrite your first paragraph for you later to demonstrate what I mean.

[Supermikhail]

On a more subjective note: I feel you're going too fast. Fantasy readers generally prefer quite a bit of description to be able to visualise what they're reading. If you like, I'll rewrite your first paragraph for you later to demonstrate what I mean.

I wanted to say that I don't find anything abnormal about the speed, except the jarring contrast with a lot of detalisation... but now I'm confused. Maybe it's the other way around. Also, I've got flu, so my judgement might be clouded.

In this state I want to say, that with the level of experience displayed, the worst thing about this bit is that filiusenox wants to write a book. I suppose if he sticks to it, there'll be lots of improvement, but the fact that the work will have low-quality alongside with improved writing, is going to be a hindrance and a big demotivator. Writing short fiction would be much more useful.

[filiusenox]

I was half asleep at the time but what you guys were saying is what I thought I screwed up most at.
I'll rewrite it and post it.
 

[Supermikhail]

I was half asleep at the time but what you guys were saying is what I thought I screwed up most at.

I don't really understand what you're trying to say with that. That you wrote your post while falling asleep and now think that might not have been the best idea? In that case, congrats, nice trolling. You asked people to put effort into coming up with ways to make your writing better, while you didn't care to make it good enough yourself, even though you knew how you could.

[The Worst Gamer]

Another trouble with it: Far too passive.

With writing, you should go from the viewpoint of the character to whom the chapter matters the most. Go from the adventurer-princess' point of view. Describe her elation at the massive crowds gathered, her horror as she finds hordes of monsters outside the gate, her anger at herself as the lizard-thing starts evaporating the crowd.

Or do it from the prince's (or whatever) point of view. Make him see like a stalker, following her along the rooftops as she makes her way through the city. Describe her rather creepily, and note his unhappiness at her leaving. If you leave out the fact that he's her brother, it'll seem like he's just a random weirdo. It'll all slot into place when the whole "brother" thing slots into place.

At the moment, it's just... Empty. It's like reading a statement of facts. "It was a pretty city. The princess went adventuring but naughty things happened. Twenty-eight people died."

I wanted to say that I don't find anything abnormal about the speed, except the jarring contrast with a lot of detalisation... but now I'm confused. Maybe it's the other way around. Also, I've got flu, so my judgement might be clouded.

In this state I want to say, that with the level of experience displayed, the worst thing about this bit is that filiusenox wants to write a book. I suppose if he sticks to it, there'll be lots of improvement, but the fact that the work will have low-quality alongside with improved writing, is going to be a hindrance and a big demotivator. Writing short fiction would be much more useful.

I just thing he went through it too fast. It was city description -> parade happened -> out of gate -> back in gate in about a tenth of the length I would've done it.

He should try some short stories first. It's something that I did, I gave them to friends who reamed me for them (seriously, they tore everything apart) and it made me a far better writer. It's just one of those things that's necessary.

[Supermikhail]

He should try some short stories first. It's something that I did, I gave them to friends who reamed me for them (seriously, they tore everything apart) and it made me a far better writer. It's just one of those things that's necessary.

At that, I'd just like to take this moment to complain that I once had a friend who was very dear to me, although in the end it turned into a long-distance friendship and then completely fell apart. Well, I sent him my writing regularly, and the first time, he said he had read it with his friend and had laughed the whole way through that's how ridiculous it was. He then promised to send me detailed critique, but never did. The times after that, he just said my writing was ridiculous. Well, how is one supposed to get good at writing with friends like this? Not to mention, that everyone else I ever showed my writing to, before I started Bay12 Writers Guild, said it was good and never cared to give any critique. I always had to work by intuition, which meant frequent restarting. Life sucks.

[Biag]

He should try some short stories first. It's something that I did, I gave them to friends who reamed me for them (seriously, they tore everything apart) and it made me a far better writer. It's just one of those things that's necessary.

At that, I'd just like to take this moment to complain that I once had a friend who was very dear to me, although in the end it turned into a long-distance friendship and then completely fell apart. Well, I sent him my writing regularly, and the first time, he said he had read it with his friend and had laughed the whole way through that's how ridiculous it was. He then promised to send me detailed critique, but never did. The times after that, he just said my writing was ridiculous. Well, how is one supposed to get good at writing with friends like this? Not to mention, that everyone else I ever showed my writing to, before I started Bay12 Writers Guild, said it was good and never cared to give any critique. I always had to work by intuition, which meant frequent restarting. Life sucks.

If you've got friends who won't critique, there is a very simple solution: send it to someone else. If you've got friends who think everything you do is awful and won't tell you why, it's entirely possible you need new friends. Also, I'd just like to say that you're being extremely negative in this thread without posting anything constructive. Don't do that, please.

I agree with Gamer, it seems to move too fast and passively. Another point: a lot of your sentences have the same subject-verb structure- "The princess X," "She Y," "The goblin Z," etc. Try varying that a bit; toss a clause at the beginning of a sentence rather than the end. "Her hair flying behind her, Princess Alen rode through the open gates."

On a positive note, you used almost no adverbs. I hate adverbs.

[Grakelin]

Never give your work to a friend or family member for critique. Especially if this is one of your earliest works (Hint: You're unpublished, so it is). My ex-girlfriend used to give me her stuff all the time (she actually finished a book, but I think she's been having troubles producing a second draft for several years now). She gave most of her friends the same stuff, lapping up the compliments she got in return. It feels great when somebody says nice things about your writing.

It was the same for me, until I got to "Now, an area I think needs a bit more work might be..." and then she got offended and thought it was a personal attack against her. So I didn't read the rest of the manuscript. This was in high school, and one of her teachers also critiqued her work in a similar fashion, and she was okay when he said it, even settling in to work on those aspects.

When deciding on the quality of your work, you want a stranger, and at least a semi-professional setting (semi-professional as in: what we have in Supermikhail's Writer's Guild, where you can get solid and well thought out responses). Your friends are in a complex web of politics, in which you are a member. Their reaction to your work will largely be centred around whether they want you to like them or not. Get some people you don't know all that well, or some people who are also writers or work in the publishing industry (or, if you write a play or script, some people involved in those industries). The latter group is great, because they often know enough not to try to make it their own.



That said, my suggestion for your book-writing aspirations is to just write all the time. This year's NaNoWriMo was great for me, even though I didn't finish. Try setting deadlines for yourself all the time, since deadlines force us to do things. Remember that at some point, the writing process is going to get tedious. Try to hold on to that energy, and don't just take 'extended breaks' in the middle of writing. Save your 'extended breaks' until you are done and want to wait a few weeks or months before looking over the finished work. Writing something big is like playing an RPG in that when you get distracted and do something else halfway through, you're suddenly not all that into the story anymore and you have to start over.

You'll also get urges to write something else. Take an example from George R. R. Martin and avoid doing that, because you will never finish what you started.

[Supermikhail]

@Blag: I think the author himself said you don't have to be positive, even costructive, just any critique... Hey, look at that!

In this state I want to say, that with the level of experience displayed, the worst thing about this bit is that filiusenox wants to write a book. I suppose if he sticks to it, there'll be lots of improvement, but the fact that the work will have low-quality alongside with improved writing, is going to be a hindrance and a big demotivator. Writing short fiction would be much more useful.

It appears as if I gave some, if I may, constructive advice.

However, I'd still like to repeat myself, I am sick so head misty.

So, with all that said, it appears to me that the author has not written a lot, so, what Grakelin said, at this stage the best suggestion is to write a lot. And proofread one's work. And never ever ask for criticism when one is half-asleep. Unless one intends to write half-asleep all the time.

[Vactor]

I am gonna try and write a book. But I think I suck horribly at writing so I need your criticism.Post at least one criticism you don't have to include any praise. This is like 1/16Th of the prologue

The city of Isesa was a gleaming beacon in a sea of darkness. It’s towers gleamed with pale silver plating. Its houses where made with white marble, its palaces out of the purest quartzite and its walls of steel. Scatter haphazardly around the city where beautiful gardens, providing a splash of dark green against the pale houses and tall towers as well as feeding the bustling and happy city.
   At the only gate into the city where hundreds of smiling faces waving and cheering on a young woman walking who was beside a horse
   She was an adventurer , a citizen who went out to get relics, gold and glory for the City. She slid onto the horse and slipped on her helmet. She gave one final wave and dug her heels into the horse and rode out of the gate. The crowd dissipated with a smile and began to talk about there hopes for the young princess  who had proved to be better in sword fighting then even her older brother.
   A horn rang out.
The gate lifted and princess Alen rode through, her helmet off and her hair flying behind her. She jumped off the horse and ran into the gate house and the large steel gate began to slowly close.
   But apparently not fast enough. A large green lizard-man slide under and smiled a wicked reptile’s grin. One of its arm’s was metal and the other was scaled green flesh holding a cutlass.
   A jet of flame shot out of the metal hand and began to burn through the crowd. The princess saw this and saw red. She ran down the stairs three steps at a time, bolted across the courtyard to where the goblin was burning aiming his hand at a young child.
   The goblin saw a flash of silver and then the metal hand slid off of the wrist. Its face contorted in anger and hacked at the princess with his cutlass, cutting a lock of her hair off. She dodged back and hacked at the goblin narrowly missing its neck and instead slashing it’s left shoulder open. It’s cutlass swept around but was narrowly blocked by the princess. Suddenly a arrow rushed by her ear and struck the goblin squarely in the center of its slitted eye.
   Only one person could have done that.
   “Shouldn’t you be protecting the king, Erleal?”

I'm going to go a bit more for the story rather than how its written.  I think you would do well to lay out more foundation of what you're describing.  One easy addition would be to use the actions of the characters to move you through the city as it is being described.  Right now you have a paragraph that is just describing the city, and not part of the story.  When I got to the part where the horn is blown I was unsure of what was happening, was she coming back into the city, or was she passing through another gate on her way out.  Spend some more time setting this up.  (It also seems a bit fast, as if the goblin was standing just outside the gate ready to chase her back in.)  You went from lizard man to goblin, which could be an acceptable part of your world, that goblins are a type of lizard-like creature, but it violates the standard understanding of them as two distinct types of baddies, so it would probably be better to set it up as being described first as a goblin, rather than as a lizard man.  Some description of the chase back to the city might be good from the perspective of the townsfolks or the guards.  It would add a bit of tension, with the goblin chasing, and gaining on the princess.  Its a bit odd that she is capable of fighting it, but leads it back into her hometown before doing so.  Perhaps have a large band chasing her, with only one get through.  The final line also seems needlessly sassy, the fight was unfolding quite out of her control with the goblin scorching the crowds of innocents, to be so selfassured and snide after causing indirect harm to many people isn't very heroic.

[Grakelin]

She could just be a dick, like Theon Greyjoy in A Song of Ice and Fire, though.

But if she's not a dick, Vactor is entirely right in saying the line is too much sass.