Only read ten pages or so. Might read more, might not. Not because I don't want to, but because I have a backlog of books already. But early impressions.
Something I'm noticing right away is the sentence structure. You use the same structure a lot which is kind of like this.
"Fluctuating between there and not there, always in flux of presence in a system, but ultimately never leaving a trail of existence as if smoke and dissipation of smoke."
Like this.
"Long preposition, expansion, but/yet contradicting statement."
There is nothing wrong with that exactly, but you use it a lot. It can make the writing feel monotonous. Vary it up. It's ok to sometimes use a long winding sentence with multiple subordinate clauses and adjectives. Then a short punchy one. Then a balance between the two. If you don't vary the cadence, eyes will glaze over.
Imagine you're reading the book out loud to an audience. Better yet, if you can, read it to an actual person. You'll get a better sense of how it flows.
Another thing is you're doing a lot of telling. Not a lot of showing. For example, to explain his abilities, you're mentioning how if he wanted a cup of tea, a cup of tea would appear... Why not just have him actually conjure up a cup of tea? The story is going to be more engaging if we actually see the character doing stuff, not just hearing about how he can do stuff.
Think about these two sentences...
"Goku had the capacity to fire beams of energy from his hand. He had the capacity to gather his life energy through his hands and channel it out as a concussive beam of force."
"Goku thrusted his hands forward and a blinding beam of energy ripped through the air towards Frieza."
Which one is more interesting?
You have Upon, so I'd use him as a ride along character. Tell us things about Berlain from his perspective. That doesn't necessarily have to be first person but use sense words. Action words. You do that sometimes. Do it more.
Think of how you can use words economically. For example "The smell, he smelled the tone of disinfectant. Just that, without the odor of a room that smelled of frilly of lavander or peaches or lemon. It was just the smell of a sterile, clean, of an empty room filled only with oxygen, and nothing else, no pathogens, no dead skin, or minerals, just a vapid emptiness of space."
First of, the beginnings of the first three sentences (The smell, Just that, It was just the smell) are junk words. By that, I mean they just don't add anything to the sentence. Consider instead...
"He smelled the tone of disinfectant, without the odor of a room that smelled of frilly of lavander or peaches or lemon. The smell of a sterile, clean, of an empty room filled only with oxygen, and nothing else, no pathogens, no dead skin, or minerals, just a vapid emptiness of space."
It's also going to take a ton of rejection. Keep in mind, Stephen King was going to give up until his wife pulled Carrie out of the trashbin after repeated rejection. Harry Potter was rejected by I think 5 or 9 different publishers. So, keep on going, and good luck.
VitroBahllee said:
Okay. I'm a published author who has sold thousands of books. Unfortunately, based on what the OP has posted, he has a lot to learn. Additionally, based on his responses to criticism, he seems unlikely to learn it anytime soon. Hopefully someone will give you an intervention in an unmoderated environment that you'll actually listen to and you can begin down the path of learning how to create resonant work that will be as thrilling and delighting for your readers as it is for you to think about and write down. You obviously have some desire to tell a story, but you need to make sure the grand ideas in your head are being transmitted to your readers' imaginations, and this kind of prose does not do that. Hope this seems like a friendlier way of saying that. |
The problem is that you're not really commenting on his work. You're commenting on his personality and motivation, and that's really not called for. You're not talking about what he wrote, you're making speculation about what he enjoys writing, and what his motivation is. Your original post (and this one to a large extent) are really just talking about him as an author and a person, although this post is at least less caustic.
There's really no reason to be talking about anything beyond the actual text. And if you think he's not going to listen, then the best thing to do would probably just be to say nothing.
