New Challenge.

[Starchaser3000]

I need participants to post select paragraphs of their preferred fantasy/fiction books/authors such as action scenes, racy innuendo scenes, word heavy serious scenes, or a humorous WTF? scene. Then I will match it with a select paragraph that I deem comparable. And that is when you guys/girls can pick me apart so that we can discuss. Just trying to see how much I'm influenced by established fantasy/fiction authors.

 

[eclair]

I'll play. Match these for their story setting skillage.

Lord of the Rings - J R R Tolkien.

When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

Bilbo was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the wonder of the Shire for sixty years, ever since his remarkable disappearance and unexpected return. The riches he had brought back from his travels had now become a local legend, and it was popularly believed, whatever the old folk might say, that the Hill at Bag End was full of tunnels stuffed with treasure. And if that was not enough for fame, there was also his prolonged vigour to marvel at. Time wore on, but it seemed to have little effect on Mr. Baggins. At ninety he was much the same as at fifty. At ninety-nine they began to call him well-preserved; but unchanged would have been nearer the mark. There were some that shook their heads and thought this was too much of a good thing; it seemed unfair that anyone should possess (apparently) perpetual youth as well as (reputedly) inexhaustible wealth.

‘It will have to be paid for,’ they said. ‘It isn’t natural, and trouble will come of it!’

The Lions of Al-Rassan - Guy Gavriel Kay.

Always remember that they come from the desert.

Back in the days before Jehane had begun her own practice, in that time when her father could still talk to her, and teach, he had offered those words to her over and again, speaking of the ruling Asharites among whom they dwelt on sufferance, and labored -- as the scattered tribes of the Kindath did everywhere -- to create a small space in the world of safety and a measure of repose.

"But we have the desert in our own history, don't we?" she could remember asking once, the question thrown back as a challenge. She had never been an easy pupil, not for him, not for anyone.

 

[Starchaser3000]

Character introduction huh?? As promised.

Shit’s story in connection to the cat-god was of spite and loathing, but at the same time, awe and admiration. It would seem that Shit’s resentment of the cat god was his own personal outlook on the misery of his ongoing life and the intense boredom he had endured in recent decades. Somehow his overall demonic appearance of warty reptilian scaly skin, pupil-less silver eyes that glowed in the dark, disheveled black hair, peculiar doggy ears, along with his offensively rude obnoxious behavior in the presence of the cat god’s imperial court eventually made him an outcast from the social élite that had the privilege to speak to the cat god on a regular basis.
But despite Shit’s regrets on the shortcomings of his life, he was grateful he had a handful of good friends and numerous acquaintances that made the drudgery of everyday life bearable outside the great city walls of the mighty catgod Louie.

Dope was one of those friends. Dope was a fair looking young lad who had an aristocratic upbringing in the cat god’s imperial court. Years ago Dope’s father was Shit’s weapon teacher, and so Dope first met Shit when he was a little boy. On a regular basis he would make fun of Shit’s odd unnatural appearance, which would comically cause him to fail in many training sessions with his father. Oddly enough, Dope’s father would encourage his son’s distracting heckling, whether for his own sheer amusement, or owing to special training methods, is, to this day, unclear. One thing for sure is that it was a happier time for Dope with his father, mother, three older sisters and his big brother, Thug. Shit and Thug had a sometimes friendly and sometimes bitter rivalry, so that Dope and his father enjoyed conspiring together to instigate conflict between the two back then.

 

[eclair]

What now? Do I give you more excerpts? Offer you a critique on this one? Or just howl at the moon?

 

[Starchaser3000]

Howl at the moon of course. Seriously, give me suggestions on better sentence structure and word usage, or you can inquire that I elaborate more on what the heck this is about. After that you post your own writing and me or whoever will try to do the same.

 

[eclair]

OWW-wwwwwww.......

Please do elaborate more, if you feel comfortable doing so. Just to double check, this is the opening to the story?

I don't write. Am willing to have a go though, perhaps it'll works as an exercise in how not to do it.

 

[Starchaser3000]

Its not the opening to the story. But this is where the two main characters are introduced. My book is a parody/spoof of the fiction/fantasy genre, hence the intentionally absurd names. But it has moments of extreme violence and other adult themes. Can't post most of it here. But I can post plot and narration parts that has nothing obscene.

 

[eclair]

Okay, my two cents for what it's worth.
It feels like you have too much going on. In those two paragraphs we're told about Shit's appearance, his dissatisfaction with his life, his place/lack of at the cat god's court, his childhood training sessions with Dope Sr, his friendship with Dope, Dope's mother, sisters and brother Thug. It doesn't feel like a completely natural flow of information, especially the addition of Dope's mother/sisters.
If these two are the main characters and their friendship is going to be the central element of your work, then their meeting deserves not to be rushed over.

Somehow his overall demonic appearance of warty reptilian scaly skin, pupil-less silver eyes that glowed in the dark, disheveled black hair, peculiar doggy ears, along with his offensively rude obnoxious behavior in the presence of the cat god’s imperial court eventually made him an outcast from the social élite that had the privilege to speak to the cat god on a regular basis.

IMO the over use of adjectives makes that sentence a little awkward. If the skin is reptilian then you don't really need scaly. Doggy ears in this instant are peculiar in themselves and so the use of peculiar is redundant. I'm not sold on pupil-less either.

A handful of good friends making everday life bearable makes sense, but how do acquaintances help?

On the positive side, I like the feel of fun this has. You have fun ideas, the writing of them just needs a little more chiselling.

 

[Starchaser3000]

Yeah, I use a lot of adjectives and adverbs in my writing. People have told me to reduce them, but I like the way it sounds and reads even if it means commercial death and it will turn off most readers. Being a parody/spoof where I use a lot of descriptive words, I think it fits to what I am doing, though many have disagreed with this. Your assessment is spot on with what others have told me. The acquaintances are the many common people and beast people that live in the forest. I go into more detail in what they mean to the protagonist later in the story.

 

[eclair]

If you're happy with it, then you're happy with it. I wish you all the very best with it. : )