Subject: Concerns: Power and grammar
Author:
Posted on: 2012-08-17 18:05:00 UTC

Coming out of my standard 'silent lurking' because of my love of Sanderson.

1) Third Heightening is... really quite powerful. 'Wealthy Merchant' might not even cut it for justification for it. The thing about powerful characters isn't straight up that powerful = bad, but it gets closer to Sue/Stu territory. I think last time this came up the concern was that you explicitly like having powerful characters for the sake of powerful characters, and that you avoid admitting how powerful a character is in order to get your shiny. This smells exactly the same. The "she fell into a gaping plot hole while chasing a bird" makes me especially skeptical.

If you feel that strongly about having a higher BioChromatic power level, I'd go with Second Heightening, much closer to 200 than 600 Breaths (seriously, 600? It's a freaking lot).

2) Writing sample: to be harsh, it made my eyes bleed a little. It read like you were writing Wheel of Time fanfic for someone who doesn't read Wheel of Time. The result sounded like "Wheel of Time for Dummies." If someone's reading WoT fic, they already know these basics. If some doesn't, it just comes across as clumsy. Other, less explanatory-details-oriented clumsy sentences include: "She paid the scribe the twenty-seven crowns she had paid for Talavin." More importantly, however...

Grammar. You consistently abuse the rules of punctuation, especially governing comma placement with dialogue. In fact, you do so in almost every line of speech. You also left out some periods at the ends of sentences. It means not only are you beyond careless with punctuation, but either your work is un-beta'd or you choose seriously sub-par betas.

On the off-chance you take my criticism to heart and change it: I applaud your decision. However, it came after effectively publishing it. It doesn't count.

Periods at the ends of sentences? That's elementary school material. There is no excuse.

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