Shadow Reeves

to defend my self:
by picking a descriptor i mean between 'thing' and 'he'. with a scene in which people are running around and being eaten it does get confusing who 'he' is. to he then becoming a thing disrupts the flow(only my opinion).

as for the sound thing. this is a matter of opinion, and you are entitled to it. but if the author is trying to describe this horrible being from the depth of hell its self bent on destruction, that sounds "like dead hungry things" i feel is very hollow.

the third. i interpreted wrong. and apoligise.
fourth. im Australian, so i dont associate mitts with hands....just a note

DeVorn

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Windowshield (along with saddle and old fashion pumps) were just silly mistakes; also, a lot of the issues of language redundancy (Harshmellow) are just me being an incredibly redundant person. I appreciate you pointing out the specific examples; it helps, as I'm often blind to it until I return to the piece a few weeks later.

To clarify some things:

That's a relic of a first draft where he was sixty or so. I decreased his age for the inclusion of the 'ASK ME ABOUT YOUR MOM' pin.

I was trying to imply that both the girl and the guy were in a state of shock; he was smoking before he approached the body to try and gather up enough courage (I'm not sure why this draft doesn't include it, but initially he was fumbling with the cigarette and lighter, nearly dropping them).

However it's clear this isn't the impression that's being given; I'll think this over. A rewrite would probably reapproach the scenario from a different angle.

Okay, but that's not very helpful to me as a writer.

He was out camping over the weekend that it happened (this is mentioned later). They went to town to try and report the body; the town's just your casual rural offramp town (some of them seriously look like what I described, up to and including the mounted head and wooden barrels full of snacks).

D:

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Maetrix66

I liked it.

It was a little redundant in spots, but that's a problem that I struggle with as well, so I can't really fault you for it.

Things I liked-

The pace-zombies tend to force rash decisions and a frenetic escape pace.
The lack of flow-again, zombies tend to make rational thought difficult.
The girlfriend-I found myself worrying about her, and I don't even like
her.(actually, I'm not sure about that, how hot is she?)

Things that stuck out-

The writing feels like a first draft. That is to be expected, because you yourself said it was a practice novel.

At times you ranged from over-explaining to underexplaining. This is fine, but it didn't seem to correclate to the focus of the characters. Over-explaining is usually used when the character has time to smell the roses, hence they notice more detail. Usally you don't get a chance to read the fine print on a sign when you are flying by at 100MPH.

The female soldier-be careful not to over do her too much. Strong characters can move the plot along nicely, and she will likely keep the lead alive a while longer, but you don't want people to not want her around. Give her reasons, even if they are obvious, humanize her a little.

Overall it worked pretty well. You could feel the terror in the characters, you cared about them. The major things are covered, all it needs is some refinement. Which I'm sure you already know.

DeVorn

There's several chapters dedicated to fleshing her out and describing why she's like she is. However, I think (because of the nature of my own writing style) her own narrative comes off as too similar to the main character's narrative.

Anyway, I appreciate it.

I'm tremendously thankful for any feedback, but what I want is someone to read the entire novel and help me figure out what my overall strengths and weaknesses are (to help me prepare for writing an actual publishable work). Several people have all ready pointed out that the initial dialogue is weak. I think that it's really a result of a faltering beginning, and later on in the novel(la?), I believe that it becomes apparent that dialogue and characterization are my strong points, with redundancy, structure, and consistency being my weaker points. Maybe I'm wrong about this; however, I'd like to hear from someone who has read the entire work.

I realize that it's a lot to ask for you to read 40,000 words of text (hence me offering to read something of yours in exchange), and I won't get cranky if no one does. But just for the sake of clarification, that's ideally what I'm looking for.

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Necromortis

I read through the entire novel yesterday. I actually think one of your strongest points is your humor, which is helped by your characterization. I really loved both main characters, and I actually laughed out loud a few times (most notably at the "A bulldozer? You are in fact aware that you are driving a tank?" part. I just couldn't stop laughing). And I don't laugh out loud very often when I'm reading books, so major props for that.

As for dialogue - I really didn't see much wrong with it. It may have been a tad stilted here and there, but overall it was fine. I wouldn't call it extremely strong, but it most definitely wasn't bad or even neutral. It was fairly solid.

I also really liked how you developed each character's background - I really got a feel for how they think.

On to negatives:

Repetitiveness. I don't know how many times Cassidy described herself as 'a small, quiet college student with glasses.' I mean, come on. But you've already acknowledged that you're redundant.

At some points I actually thought the story moved slightly too quickly. I enjoyed the fast pace of the novella, but perhaps vary the pace at least slightly in some parts of the novel. It seems that a lot of the time you leave a lot up to the reader, which is a good thing, but you can take that too far. The scene with the school and the plan where Jack gets jumped for example. For me personally, I would have liked a little bit more explanation as to what exactly the plan was, and how he got jumped. It read kind of like this: 'he put everyone on the top floor, got in the tank, he poked his head out of the thank, he got wacked in the back of the head.' You get your point across but I couldn't form a picture of that in my head, whereas for most of the rest of the novella I could.

Overall, I enjoyed reading it.

~Christian

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Maetrix66

Ok, I'll bite.

I can read the complete novel tonight, and I'll post my impressions tommorow. I've had some input on the first chapter of my novel d.o.mai.n, and have recently reposted the beginning along with a second chapter and am looking for more input.

If you could read it and let me know where you think it is thin, I'd appreciate it.

Chris

Truth-Teller

Again, the action isn't the problem.

What you lack is tension. I didn't feel any. In order to make my heart race, I need to care about your characters--relate to them, somehow. They're just filmsy cardboard cut-outs just plastered to wall to get the plot rolling.

You're on the veins of Brian Keene, and, man, let me tell you, I fucking hate Brian Keene. He's the antithesis of horror.

Greed

Juicy, very juicy. I love zombie films, books, comics, etc... Yet, i too agree with some of the posts above. You're main character is too calm for a regular guy, let him freak out a bit.

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Maetrix66

Okay, just finished it. I must say, it was definitly entertaining. Alot of fun, funny as hell.

I think it's hard to critique first person perspective, because you are essentially listening to a narrative as it rolls out of their mind. And who's to say what sentence structure and word choice is appropriate. I think the above posts have hit on alot of things that could help.

-The similarity in dialog.

With two seperate characters having chapters from their first person POV, it makes it harder to recognize that they are different people. I had to read a couple of paragraphs ( i have a very active suspension of disbelief) before I recognized that the gender of the character had changed. I feel your pain on this, it's something I have to work on as well. I make myself go through several rewrites on each chapter, each time only concentrating on one persons dialogue. It helps to keep them consistent, as well as seperate them from the other characters. I think you already got the message before my post though, so I'll move on.

-The lack of tension.

This would really help take this to the second level. The tension makes you care and empathize with the characters. If you don't think that the character can handle what is coming up next, then you worry more about them. I kept getting a Duke Nukem image in my mind when I was reading Jacks part. And Cassidy? Well, let's just say that the Duke looks weird with boobs. Okay, I'm exaggerating there alot, but my point is, if the character is perfectly willing to dive into danger headfirst, and they don't struggle mightily with the decision, then you get a false sense of security from that and the story loses a little.

I think that the rest of the story was really good. I had initially wondered why you chose to go First person, but after several jokes and humerous observations, I'm glad you did. If you rewrote the dialogue to Cassidy, found a way to segway into each character change, and added more tension/internal struggle, I think this would really pop.

I know this is more of a criitque against this story than your writing style, but my critiquing ability is far less than your writing ability. Hopefully something I said helps in some small way, and thank you for reading d.o.mai.n and giving your feedback, I appreciate it.

Candrah

Ok... In a word - Brilliant!!!=D>

I was hooked in from the outset. So maybe it is a zombie story and I don't usually like them but this is so well written Good language, strong characters, excellent pacing. Can't think of anything bad to say about it. Will definitely follow your link and have a look at the rest of it - I need to know what happens next...

Jade M

I liked this

Usually when I see the word zombie in a story, I faze out, but by the time we got to the zombies your writing had given me hope you would present it in an interesting way. You didn't dissapoint, and I read this all the way through.


One nit:

RyeCatcher24

Hey DeVorn I liked this a lot. I'm actually up to chap. 4 and plan on finishing sometime soon. I have to say that usually when I see zombie in a story I run for the hills. The only stories that I run faster from on this site are the countless vampire stories.

This, however, was a breath of fresh air. Your sense of humor was right on. I definitely agree that it lacked tension as so far I'm really not that worried when your characters come under attack, but you more than make up for it with the characterization and humor.

Great job.

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Greed

Simply wicked mate, and the dildo factory line; brilliant.

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thales

I loved how this started with the body being hit. I felt like I was watching a movie. I felt like I was really there.

I felt Jack started out strong, then became weak toward the end of the first chapter due to the introduction of heroine. I didn't feel Jack showed enough emotion toward his woman. I just wasn't convinced he really cared about her at crucial parts of the story. Specifcally, when he really had evidence of zombies. He didn't run outside, he simply asked, if those things might be outside.

Wilem

It's all been said already so I'll keep this short. I liked it, don't really agree with most of the bad stuff. 'Shit' is a very understandable thing to say when in shock, as is smoking before looking at a dead body to calm your nerves. I think its very well wrote, best of luck with your next novel.

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