ob·du·rate
adj
\ˈäb-də-rət, -dyə-; äb-ˈdu̇r-ət, əb-, -ˈdyu̇r-\
Definition of OBDURATE Read more…
WARNING! MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!
Feast of Souls is the first book in the Magister Trilogy by C.S. Friedman. The story is that of the first woman to ever master the magical arts and transcend from life depleting witchery to the immortal life of a magister. Here name is Kamala. Well, that is how the story starts anyway. Later on we learn of the threat of beasts known as Soul Eaters returning.
Ok, bluntly, I was not thrilled with the way the book shifted away from Kamala’s point of view so often. The narrative did so at the expense of making her seem like a secondary, perhaps even tertiary, character in her own story. I think that most of what the other characters were used for could have been transmitted to the reader without going in and seeing it through their eyes. That feeling still sits with me even now. Read more…
Just recently, a new member came into our author’s group. She is a nice enough girl with a lot of great ideas and good critiques on other people’s work. After getting through the trial period she was allowed to beginning getting critiques on her own material. “You’re gonna love this story I wrote,” she beamed once submitting the book she has been working on. “Everyone else has,” added.
She was not so chipper after the critique of her first five chapters came back. No one was mean, but they were honest. The new girl’s face turned red with a cross between rage and embarrassment as reviews were given.
The critique centered around:
– lots of misused words that were not synonyms for what she wanted to say
– the fact that in the first five chapters (two scenes each) there were 10 different POV characters
– there appeared to be eight different plots happening with none standing out as the main one
– run-on sentences galore Read more…
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