Thanks for taking the time to critique my story, Kenji. I'll just kind
of jump in at the end of the thread and add my two cents.
No problem. Despite any obstacles that appeared, the story has a
lot of appeal.
I went for a less descriptive style than one might prefer for a number
of reasons. This chapter, probably more so than any future chapters,
depends heavily on setting a dark mood. The feel I'm going for is the
"picture is worth a thousand words" approach in that I'm trying to
highlight a brief period in the life of one magical girl in order to
demonstrate what life is like for magical girls in general. Hence the
title, "Ordinary Days". Certainly, there's nothing ordinary about them
even by magical girl standards, but though the specific events are
extraordinary, magical girls across the world are facing similar
challenges every day. I don't describe what most of the characters look
like in this chapter because I WANT the readers to fill in the faces
themselves. And I want the reader to focus, at least in this chapter, on
the thoughts of the characters, and to a lesser extent, the things that
are happening to them. I'll use different styles in future chapters,
depending on the mood I want to set.
Which is what I guessed after Adrian replied. I'll keep my eyes open.
Then I guess my standpoint would come more to a ratio of
monologue to action. To me, the story set out to do pull me
in and empathize with what Amber has to go through, yet it
stumbles along by displaying her in a light that assumes that I
am already quite familiar with her dilemas, internal and external.
The contrary is true, I'm flying nearly blind because of a lack of
environmental clues.
That was largely intentional. I added a few cues here and there on the
advice of my prereaders, but for the most part, we are jumping into a
story 40 years in and picking it up as we go. Think of it as walking
into a showing of an anime series at the fifth episode... you've missed
the setup and the important parts, but after a while, you can fill those
in yourself and might even enjoy the story more because you didn't have
to sit through the introduction. Record of Lodoss War did that, showing
one of the later episodes of the series first and then going back and
filling in the details. The details will be filled in as we go along...
the intent of the first chapter was really to introduce the magical girl
idea in general and set up the tone of the story as a whole.
Ack, of all the examples to pick...
Lodoss is something I STILL can't sit through to this day. It seemed to
drag endlessly to me.
But I understand what you mean, I've just never had much luck walking
in on the middle of a story.
There is speak often of the hunters as a seek-and-destroy nazi
group, but the two attacks were little more than random
occurances. This world seems to be overrun with these 'hunters',
but the only token damage seen is a wholesale decimation of
extras and what can count as an isolated incident inside a
considerably sturdy building. If nothing else, I'd hope these ideas
are brought to light in preceeding chapters. If being a magic girl is
to be a curse, I'd much like to feel that it is, like, for example,
reading
a chapter of "Variations of a Theme".
Haven't read that, I'm afraid, so I can't say whether that's what I'm
shooting for or not. But being a magical girl is not specifically a
curse... it all depends on the girl's perspective. There will be a few
magical girls in later chapters who consider their transformation a
blessing... for example, a girl who was blind from birth but can see
perfectly in magical girl form, once she learns how to interpret the
visual information properly. As for the seek-and-destroy nature of the
hunters... there will be more on that later. For the most part, their
methods are indeed inexact, as the magical girls don't spread the secret
of their identities very widely. But sometimes their intelligence
pinpoints a magical girl exactly, and she's dispatched more personally.
There's another chapter, which I've already written but not published
yet, that describes a few of these "elite" hunters.
And that's the potential I figured I was waiting for. It was hard to make
out sensibly, because the first chapter has that open/shut case feeling of
a oneshot.
As Adrian said, it's as much a world as it is a story, and trying to
describe it all at once would be like trying to summarize the Bible in a
100 word paragraph. Sure, it could be DONE, but you lose all the
significance, people won't care, and nobody can agree on what it means
anyway. Better to present the entire picture and let the reader draw
their own conclusions.
That's a problem. Chapter 1 gives us a novice soldier in a war
that's fallen people and creatures of tougher ilk. She doesn't show
any traits that I could classify with a soldier, no shellshock,
hardened
maturity and focus, no snap teamwork with her comrades. But she
feels presented as if she HAS these qualities, and the opposite is
true.
She's, in a way, a crossdressing, less introverted Shinji Ikari.
She's not particularly hardened, mature, or focused. She worries about
the fact that her life is slipping away, but she doesn't want to give up
what she is as a magical girl to pursue it. It's similar to something
that happened to me at college, but I'm not going to elaborate for
reasons that would be obvious if I did. The underlying motive is that
when she uses her power, it hurts her, which is why she hates using it.
The other magical girls realized that and promised that she would never
have to use her power again. (Obviously, as shown in the chapter, they
can't always keep that promise.) In the past, she'd always been the one
offering others help and had never been offered it in return because she
didn't need it, so being supported by others was a totally new feeling,
and she grew to like it. So she gives her friends what moral support she
can and revels (in closeted fashion) in the support she gets from them.
And they're willing to go along with feeling sorry for her... a feeling
which can become very addicting to the recipient.
Shame I didn't see all of that, but what can 'ya do? I have a different
set of eyes (and they seem to be failing on me. Gotta get me some
glasses soon).
Realistically, I'd have expected her to crack under the pressure and
damage something, likely herself.
Well, her emotions were becoming pretty destructive, just not in the
physical sense. But because of all the people who pushed her away from
being a magical girl, she was able to rein it in before things went too
far. Now, had she survived to carry out her promise, I have no doubt
that sooner or later, she'd end up becoming Yurika again when she felt
that her friends needed her (and they probably would), and the downward
spiral would continue. Some battles are lost no matter how they're
fought.
If the style didn't suit you... well, it's impossible to please
everyone. I can name two people off the top of my head who never like
anything that I like, and vice versa. There is no written work in
existence that both I and they like. So while I may look over the
chapter again and see what I can make of it with regard to your
comments, I don't think I'll be making many sweeping stylistic changes
to it. But I'll try to vary the style in the second chapter and see if
that's more to your taste.
Wouldn't want you to. I'd rather you'd be more satisfied with the final
product, as trying to please everyone is quite impossible. Regardless, I'm
keeping an eye out for followup chapters. The only other thing I could do
at the moment would be to wish you your best effort in putting this world
together. Looks to be a doozy of an event.
That was a little long for two cents... you probably owe me another
nickel or so. My agents will be by to collect shortly.
Why go through all that trouble? Check's in the mail. :)
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