Welcome to Gaia! ::

Don't worry! I saw your thread and read through it. I'm still trying to organize my thoughts about it and try to get posted for all my characters. XD

It might take some time before I give an opinion about the plot since I'm still trying to figure out through it.

So what are you writing this novel for? Is it just something you're doing on your own time or an English project? ^^

I dident quite realize that it was a typical type of story. I thought it was pretty diffrent. Thank you!^^ I know what needs improved now. : ) im going to look into that!

Yeah, im working on my grammer and spelling... That is the down fall of me completly.. It sucks that I dont understand spelling and grammer much. Because really, im so passonate about writting. And yeah, like you said people dont take me seriusly at all because of it. Thanks for the help, ill deffinetly try and set the book apart from others^^

Pssst. Abuse spellcheck and recruit a grammar nazi to proofread. *nodnod*

Thats exactly what I use for reports and projects xD grammar nazis love to correct me.. Alot lol

Okay. A few people in the guild know this already but I am an author and I also run my own editing company. I've been working in the industry for about five years now, so what I'm going to tell you is going to be blunt, but honest, because you need to understand how the industry works and the literary world.

Because writing is much more than:

1. Write a vague thing
2. Send it in
3. ???
4. Profit

This is going to be long and it is going to cover a lot of things, so please bear with me.

Spelling and grammar:

Firstly, spelling and grammar. I'm always ALWAYS distressed when new authors seem to think this doesn't count. Let me drill it into you right now, it does. It does so much.

Now, that doesn't mean that your characters have speak in perfect, grammatically correct sentences, or that you shouldn't have sentence fragments. Part of being a good, skilled writer and editor is knowing when those work for the flow of the piece, and when they don't. Characters need to sound like people and sometimes sentence fragments are there for dramatic effect.

However, and I'm only saying this because in an effort to help, not in an attempt to insult you (so please read with an open mind ^^) the way you write and spell here on the forums, in the RP, and even in this post...is awful. You need to, tomorrow, invest in a dictionary, because your spelling is really bad for a teenager, let alone a writer. By now, you should know it's "headaches" not "headacks". And you don't use punctuation correctly (where are the apostrophes in the "I'll"? Why are there no spaces after commas?). These are things a writer needs to have a handle on. Do we spell everything perfectly, 24/7. No, but we have a broader vocabulary than the average person. And a greater handle on spelling and grammar, and how to bend it to our use and make a piece of art.

I see so many young authors think spelling doesn't matter and the editor will fix it. This is a complete myth. We editors are here to do only very, very minor edits to spelling and punctuation. The true role of an editor is assessing a piece for it's marketability and doing structural editing. Structural editing is on of the most important parts of editing. It is where the editor looks over the novel then discusses with the writer if certain parts of the novel are necessary, if certain parts should be shortened, should other parts be expounded on, if parts of chapters should be rearranged for better narrative flow, etc. But their role isn't to rewrite the piece for you.

In all honesty, do you want to know what happens to novels we get in that are have terrible spelling, grammar and punctuation? They get binned, immediately. Because when submitting a novel to a publisher it happens two ways:

1. Slush pile reading. This is where people send unsolicited manuscripts to the publisher and they are collected together for the slush pile reader/s to go through. (one of the trickiest yet most boring jobs). A slush pile reader then quickly scans the novel, makes a judgement as to whether it works with the publisher's publishing list, whether it is marketable, and how much work it will need. if it is too difficult to fix, if the novel is cliched, dull and just uses the same old themes, it gets binned. And because slush piles are so big these days, you won't get feedback (most of the time you don't even get a rejection letter, now).

2: Literary agent. This is where authors hire a literary agent to assess their novel, suggest minor changes, and then they go out and "sell" the concept of the novel to a publisher, to get you chosen. Again, these people receive an inordinate amount of unsolicited manuscripts and, if your piece is too difficult and unmarketable then they won't take you on.

It really is a little silly to think that writing, a literary pursuit, shouldn't involve an excellent grasp on spelling and grammar. I you want you novel taken seriously, and if you want to make a serious attempt to break into the literary world, you MUST improve this. This is an absolute must.

Marketability:

Okay, now here we're going to get into the content of the novel itself. A book, these days, needs to show equal amounts of skill, talent and marketability (after all, how else do we explain Twilight XP ). You might be a brilliant author, with not a single flaw in how you write, but if your book is just a carbon copy of half the books in your chosen genre, the publisher won't pick it up.

Your novel needs to be a careful balance of the unique and the familiar - not too experimental that it makes the publisher nervous to take it on, but not so humdrum that they know it won't sell because there are a hundred other versions of your novel on the market already.

While it is true, that you should write for yourself, first, if you want to be published, you MUST research your chosen genre and see what is out there, already. Then, see how you can twist that. What new perspectives can you give? How can you challenge old cliches? How can you make your piece stand out from the crowd?

You also need to know your age group. At the moment, my novel is getting an overhaul because I realised it fell awkwardly between teen-fiction and young adult. Too coarse in the language for teens, but a little young to target only young adults. So now I'm going through and altering it a little, to target the teen market more. This is another important part when you write - working out who your market is, what they want, what they like, and how you can then make them NEED your book.

The Story and Characters themselves...

I'm going to be very brutal honest with you here, hun, because, again, these are things you need to hear so you can really look at your piece and make it into something brilliant.

Firstly, the story. I'm sorry but it is so cliched the slush pile reader wouldn't make it past the synopsis (which is what you have here) before binning it. There's really very little in it, at all, that is original, or that would make a slush-reader sit up and take notice (this is ignoring the spelling and grammar for the moment, of course).

As Strawberry pointed out, it's all been done, ad nauseum. Good, beautiful people vs. bad, ugly people, with a special female character who is needed for vague, prophetic things. These are really, really bad cliches, unless you're making the entire novel a sarcastic, ironic jab at the fantasy genre. Even the dream idea has been done.

So think about it, what can you do to make this different? Question EVERYTHING. Why are the good people so beautiful? Why must they be beautiful? Can't ugly people be good, too? And why are the bad people ugly? Do they have to be ugly? Can't the gorgeous people be bad, too? Why is there such a black and white divide?

Why is the protagonist needed? Why is she special? Why is she the only one who can see them? Why do they need her of everyone else? Why is she the only one special enough to have seen the gate twice? What if she doesn't succeed? What if she isn't strong enough, smart enough? Why can't the plot follow her failure?

What if the beautiful "good" people lied to the humans and told them that the ugly people were "bad" just to extend their own agenda? What if the nightmares aren't actually bad but warnings? What if the good dreams are there to lull people into a sense of complacency so the Estels can attack?

You need to think about plot as not a linear A-to-B, Beginning-to-Middle-to-End, but more as a spiderweb. Like in an RP where you have the overarching plot, you also have a lot of little side plots that scatter out, before drawing back to the main one. These are caused by character conflicts, characters going their own way, rather than with the group. What if some join the Demarians? What if some join the Estels and realise things aren't all they're supposed to be?

These are all things you have to think about and brainstorm.

Now, characters. Again, I'm going to be very blunt here. Your characters are very bad Mary Sues. They are all cut from the dame mold, all beautiful, kind, sweet, ditzy people - the worst kind of characters to read. They have no really deep flaws that make them human. They're 2D in a 3D world.

Let me use Cheeva (the novel Cheeva) as an example. Cheeva isn't beautiful. Her face is horrible scared, she permanently sneers, and looks old before her time. She is a hateful person, who has no qualms killing people (though she draws her own moral line at children), she is manipulating, sharp-tongued, cold hearted and aloof. And, yet, this is balanced out by a weirdly maternal side, that is very protective of anyone she deems as family. In the novel, this creates an internal conflict for her as often she is manipulating those she loves, to do truly horrific acts of violence. She is not your typical character, but she is a "real" one. She has real fears, real flaws, real joys and loves and failings.

When making a character, don't make them how you would want to be seen. Don't try to make them perfect. There's just no fun in someone who is completely perfect, the best at everything, the strongest, the bravest, and the most beautiful. What is fun is making a character the reader can identify with. One who they can see fail and grow from their failures, who has fears like they do, who has triumphs like they do. People want a character to hold onto and watch grow, and they can feel, in some way, emulates their own struggles. They can't do that with something that's porcelain perfect and completely unobtainable in real life.


I know that's a lot I've thrown at you here, and a lot of it is very tough critique. But I think you needed to hear all of that before you went any further. If you want any help at all, someone to bounce ideas off, etc. You can PM me, here, on Gaia, or, with Lightning's permission, we can set up a thread here and anyone can ask for some help ^^

Well, why not practice right here, on the forums and in the RP? Post nice and slowly, triple check what you're doing, and keep your dictionary next to you as you do so. Anything that looks wrong (like "completly") double check and change it.

It's a great way to learn. After a while you'll get so used to doing it that you'll need to check fewer and fewer words ^^



I think you need to do a bit more to get this story to stand out. Because that "good versus evil" idea is very very overdone, especially how you're describing it.

I want you to think - why are there only "good" and "bad" people? Instead of having two factions, why aren't there, say, four? You have the general Estels and Demarians, fighting, because of, say, an age old grudge drilled into them as children. But then you could have a faction that combines both sides, trying to end the conflict in an attempt for "peace" yet trying to exert their will over everyone in a different way (ie: America invading the Middle East). And then another faction made up of both sides, trying to keep the wars going because they profit from them.

The issue with books like these, where you have warring "factions" is wars are never truly "them vs. us", there are always myriad factions at play, all vying for their own agenda to be the one that succeeds. You do need to have a good grasp of both history and politics (not expert knowledge, but you need to understand them) when writing these kinds of novels, so you understand the subtleties. And this requires - like ALL things in writing a novel - a great deal of research.

In your case, I recommend you research into the French and Russian revolutions to get a good grasp on how politics is intertwined with conflict, and how each can hinder the other. You never just sit down to write a novel, you need to do research into hundreds of different things. Let me take a chapter from my novel, for instance. In one chapter alone, I researched: wormhole theory, anti-matter, quantum foam, leeches, butterflies, tape worms, parasitic hosts, flesh eating insects and viruses. This is all for a Steampunk novel, mind you, but it was all still relevant. I needed the knowledge of all those things, for that ONE chapter, to ensure that I wrote knowledgeable on certain topics, and so I could create a monster that could logically exist.

Did I spell out every single thing I learned? Nope, but it will come across in my writing. Research is so very important when it comes to writing - I want you to remember that. You never EVER just put something in a novel, without studying it first. If you're going to have guns, you go and research and learn about them. Are you going to have horses in it? Then you research them, too. And on, and on. No writer should ever neglect their research. Ever.

In your case, I really do suggest you read up about both revolutions and get a good handle on the political climate, because I think that will help you broaden this plot.

You need to ask yourself these questions:

Why is there a war?
Why do they hate each other?
Why are they bringing humans into this?
What is the point of bringing humans into the conflict?
Why can't they just keep the fight to themselves?
Why are/Are the dreams good, and the nightmares bad, or is it actually the other way around?

Now, my next point of contention with the "plot" is the question: why does it have to be this one character and why does she have to be special? This is something that is done so many times in fantasy it is beyond cliche. I would, honestly, stay away from anything like that, any prophecies that proclaim her to be the one to save them all, any "destined hero" stuff, any special talents, etc. This has all been done and will guarantee you end up binned at the slush pile if that is your only focus.

Think about these questions:

Why can't she just be an average girl who gets caught up in all this?
Why can't all the humans be just random people, of all different ages, races, sizes, and backgrounds who were maybe just in the wrong place at the wrong time? (maybe the humans are a "team" comprising an old man, an overweight ten year old boy, a young mother, a twenty year old guy, and your character - think outside the box, to use a cliche! XD )
Why are the humans even involved?
What if there are some humans already part of the the war who are either profiting from it, or fighting it?
Why can't the humans be the "evil masterminds" behind the plot, unbeknownst even to the Demarians and Estels?

I want you to think beyond having just a "there are these powerful beings having a fight and, for some reason, they need these "destined/talented/prophecised" humans, to help". I want you to think about all the different "whys" and see if a more interesting plot appears. Make yourself a brainstorming chart, listing all the ideas that come from each "why" and see if you can create an awesome plot from there.



In all honesty, your characters are pretty bad, nowhere near novel standard. When you create characters you're not creating something to put in a book, or into an RP, you're making a person.

Now, think about it, is anyone in the world, perfect? Of course not! So why try to make a character perfect? A character should always be seen as a real person and have real issues.

A big thing you need to learn is that a personality and a history and never mutually exclusive. Think about it - who we are, how our personalities are, how we interact with people, etc. are all born from our histories. A character who was beaten and abused horrifically, as a child, is not going to grow up to be a sweet, sunshiney blossom of love and kindness. Instead, they're going to be either cruel and hateful themselves, dishing out to others what was done to them, or they're going to be fearful and paranoid, wanting to avoid people etc. Always make sure how your character acts lines up with their history.

Another thing is how a character looks. No one looks like something in an anime or a magazine. No one can live as a near skeletal 5 foot nothing teen, and no one in the real world is furiously airbrushed to perfection. Instead, guess what? Some girls might have to wax their lip because they get a bit of a moustache. Some guys might start balding in their late teens (no laughing, a good friend of mine had a bald spot, already, at 18!). A person might have a really lovely complexion, but their hair is kind of ratty. Or a person with really bad acne, might by quite skinny and athletic. No one is ever perfect and in those imperfections is where you find real beauty and real characters.

I want you, when you're back at school, to do some people watching (another must have past time for a writer). I want you to study people and how they look. Use them as inspiration for your characters. Someone at your school might have really gorgeous brown hair, but their face is weathered because they spend time helping in the garden on the weekends, or out riding. A teacher might be a nice looking young man, but he's getting a paunch because he's got a girlfriend and is starting to let himself go. Look for things like that, those little quirks that make a character's appearance realistic, and use those. Crooked noses, being boney and angular, having a lazy-eye - these are all great things to work into a character to make people believe they're real.

So when you make them, think about it. Every aspect of them has to ring true. They shouldn't be an idealised person. They shouldn't be someone you wish to be. They shouldn't be you. They need to be a person in their own right, separate from you. Unique in their own way. So think up a real history/background for them. Think about how that would affect their personality. And then think about how that personality and history, their likes and dislikes, and their hobbies, would affect their appearance.

Then use all that and see what they would do in each situation. Don't make them do what you want, see what they would do, given their personality and history. When I write, I look at each scene and think, "How would Rye react, here? How would this affect him with his sense of responsibility and bravado?" or "How would Tamara act? How would she calculate and react to the situation, given her hot-hotheadedness and temper?" Don't think about how you would react, use what you created for the character to see how they would react. This is the same in an RP. Don't bounce around and agree with every character. Disagreements cause conflict, which enrich plot.

There is so very much more to being a writer, than just the act of writing. Research (both or the book and into your chosen market/age group), character development, plot development, how characters will affect the plot and change it, etc. etc. You don't just sit down and write a book in a few months. You spend years working on one. Guardia is coming up to 10 years this year. 10 years, I've been working on this novel and it's just about ready to see a publisher.

Keep that in mind.