So I've written a book...

[HasimirFenring]

The title does a pretty good job at describing it. I've recently finished my very own science fiction/space opera novel, the result of a year of hard work and sometimes frustration under the supervision of a mentor. I've made it available as a free e-book because I want advice. My mentor has given great feedback, but he's just one man. That's why I post it here after all, but also because I just want people to read it. Writing is pointless if no one reads it. I hope I can at least entertain someone by posting this here.

So, escapist, I beg you, criticize, troll if you must, read it and review it if you feel like it.

http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/t...gContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1

 

[Dale Cooper]

I read some random pages, will read the whole thing at somepoint if I have time.

From what I read, you struggle with writting dialogue, but the action is pretty well written.

I liked the ref section idea too.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

Haha, I was so sure your name was 'Simon Van Doom' at first.

Anyway, to be honest, you've got some potential, but you fall into cliché a LOT. There is a very simple remedy for this: read more. The more you read, the more you familiarise yourself with the standards of your preferred genre (and books in general), and the better you will become at recognising trite, over-used phrases or plot points. Also, beginning a story with reams of exposition is generally not a great way to make people think "wow! I really want to find out what happens next!"

My advice: read as much as you can, until you can explain -- at length -- exactly why your favourite books are written well. Then keep reading.


P.S. And for all that is holy, stay away from adverbs (angrily, sloppily, etc.), especially when describing speech. "Said" is always fine. The insecure need to explain how every line of dialogue was delivered (rather than let the content of your dialogue speak for itself) is the mark of a noob writer. No offence =)

 

[Death Prophet]

As an avid reader and occasional writer I will give it a read and tell you what I think. Cheers.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I have read about ten pages. I don't mean to just be negative here, I mean this as sincere constructive criticism, but honestly I do not want to continue reading your book. I will try to get back to it. I am an aspiring writer myself and so I would like to help you with some constructive criticism if possible. I also don't want to just say negative things.

I should explain my reaction though (in case I do not actually get back to your book).

First: The introduction was cute (positive point there for you). The problem was that there was an introduction, then an introduction to a list of stuff, the list of stuff, a list wrap up, and THEN the story begins. Sort of a jolting start up there.

Second: The list of stuff. Listing off characters and events which have no immediate relevance is a sure fire way of boring a reader and being bored means that they are highly unlikely to remember the information. Considering that the point seems to have been to furnish information to the reader it becomes sort of self defeating. You can perhaps get away with this sort of thing but you would necessarily need to make the presentation much more interesting. As it was written it came off very flat. There is also the apology for the info dump and the mentions of withholding information along with an apology for doing so... basically if you are apologizing to your reader for the manner in which you are writing your book you should probably take that as a hint to yourself, from yourself, that you are doing something wrong.

Third: As already mentioned, the adverbs. We are generally told that when we write we should vary our wording. This makes the continuous use of "he said"/"she said"/"I said"/ect look like a glaringly bad case of repetitiveness. If you notice though, when you actually read a book, all of those saids just sort of disappear. We tend to gloss over them as a sort of cue for stage direction that doesn't require much notice. When you start adding all of the descriptors though the breaks in dialog become painfully noticeable and destroy the continuity.

One more thing that I did enjoy though...
?War is just a better version of chess. You can cheat, lie, deceive and sacrifice everyone on the
board. Even the king, or in this case the president. All for the greater good of course.?
Chairman Augustus Draken, intimate diary

A pretty good line that. I'll try to get back to this if I can.