Need crit: Herald of the Anti-god
Need crit: Herald of the Anti-god
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» Need crit: Herald of the Anti-god
This is your captain speaking. We're experiencing minor delays. Crit will be ready for take off in T-minus… erm, soon. (if I don't get to this in 1-2 business days, scream at me).
Hello! I know submitting a draft to the masses can be a scary deal. Could I offer you some unsolicited advice for your crit forum posts in the future? You really wanna ask questions: hit some bullet points. Don't be afraid to ask for specifics! Formatting a critique request like:
Hi! Here's a link to my sandbox, and the name of the work I want critted. Maybe include a word count/estimate. Here's some things I want checked up on:
- Here's a problem I foresee
- Here's something else I want you to give critique on
But they don't neccesarily need be in bullet points. You could just state in text: "Hey, I want a quick comb through looking at characters" or "I just want a general critique" or whathaveyou.
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Let's begin with a quick grammar comb-through.
Ultar was tied to a wooden stake placed near a hole with a pool of purple water in the hole.
There's quite a few errors like this. Redundancies and whatnot. Rephrase them to be more concise: say the most in the least amount of words. "Ultar was tied to a wooden stake placed near a hole with purple water in it," to start you off. But phrasing could be better throughout.
Around Ultar were countless other people in his tribe, but they had no intention of saving him, instead they desire to sacrifice him to the gods through the puddle of water in the hole.
Fix some tense issues. Replace the comma after 'him' with a semicolon, and then place a colon after 'instead', i.e.: "they had no intention of saving him; instead, they desired to sacrifice him to the gods through the puddle[…]" Also, word choice in general could be much better. Words like 'puddle,' 'hole,' 'people,' are okay, but not exemplary. Fixing word choice would greatly benefit the work.
But why they do that? Ultar did something evil and this is his punishment? No.
A missing 'did' after 'they': "But why did they do that?" The next sentence needs to be phrased as a question. Rn it's not. "Did Ultar do something evil[…]" Restructuring advised.
In ancient times, there existed gods, and they used their power to give knowledge to help humans develop. These gods included: Lambur, mixos, and guss.
First sentence needs to be restructured for comprehension. The final god's name in the list ought to be capitalized.
But every gift has its price, the gods force people to follow their harsh orders, with requests for sacrifices of cattle, poultry, sometimes even humans (with the human sacrifices were kept secret by members of the royal family) to satisfy their hunger.
Some review of punctuation is advised. Read through this a few times, out loud, and record yourself. Play it back and see if there are any problems.
Ultar still alive and when he woke up, he found himself extremely strange. His skin tone, horns all over his body, teeth, claws, and eyes are the biggest changes on his body.
Another thing: try to elaborate on things. Reading this, I have no real idea as to what the changes to his body really are..? Be clear in your writing.
I am the Anti-God.
Distinguish this voice from the narration, either with quotes or some other method (color, font, italics, bold, etc)
That'll be my primary grammar review for now, lets move on to conceptual stuff.
The story here is intriguing, and I can tell you're really trying to send a message. But I think it needs more refinement: what are you trying to say? Your theme, that is. Build on that. What does Ultar represent? The gods? This could be a cool concept if given some new life. Similarly, the plot is interesting, but nearly incompressible. Clarify, and use transitions to guide the reader along with the plot. Major overhaul is required, but it shows promise. Don't be disheartened.
Alright! PM or reply or whatnot when you have your next draft.
—Oli
Fires rage just below the surface of the ice.
This story wants to say: Not every order's gods are good, they can always help us for some reason, and those reasons may be worship and rule, but Who knows what they will do to us when they rule us? kill? sacrifice? or eat us, but no matter what, they are clever liars who tell lies in the name of goodness and for something. Ultar was a human who believed in the lies of the gods, because he loved and admired humans, and believed that the gods would bring them happiness, and so he did not worshiping gods, but worshiping humans, but when realizing the lies of the gods, the appreciation and love for that human becomes even higher, because the lies of the gods are clamped down on their potential, and now he wants to free humans from the gods.
note: I also added more information about the three gods in the story.
/forum/t-16755130/need-crit:herald-of-the-anti-god#post-