EPT[Update] New novel featuring SC2 available now! - Page 6
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mrpink
United States27 Posts
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suspiciousbear
Canada112 Posts
On June 22 2011 12:39 Chef wrote: I'm going to tell you something that upsets every writer the first time they hear it: Don't start sentences this way. It is always more effective to write directly. "He cracked his knuckles and set his fingers to work on the keyboard." Maybe that sounds like the same thing, but trust me if you replace every sentence you wrote this way your book will read about 100 times better. If you're genuinely interested in becoming better at writing, please consider rewriting some of the paragraphs this way, and rereading them for yourself to see if it helps. I can't help you have better ideas, but I can tell you that this is one of the first things regular readers groan at when reading amateur fiction. Once you start noticing it it's horrible. This completely sums up why I find the writing itself to be so hard to stomach. A ridiculously disproportionate amount of the text is written this way. This makes everything so disjointed for me, it's not a pleasant read at all. I love that the writer found an interest in Starcraft 2 and wanted to write a story based around it, but even the best plot (which isn't present in this book) wouldn't be able to do it for me if it's being hampered by such viscous writing. | ||
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Ryalnos
United States1946 Posts
There are, of course, good posts like Chef's. With a healthy, improvement-oriented mindset I can imagine that this feedback may prove helpful for future projects. It's always good to be able to shrug off the vitriol of criticism in order to pick out useful information. Btw, $5 ~= movie theater matinee. | ||
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MaestroSC
United States2073 Posts
Seriously let me give my interpretation of this book. Cheesy cliche'ed government story that you have seen/read 5000 times. Oh and some esports to try to get some sort of fan-base because straight up this is nothing interesting, and needs a last minute gimmick. Written by: amateur writer who knows nothing about esports....but needed a gimmick to make it somewhat appealing to anyone possible. Hype hype hype And whoever said "its fiction it doesn't have to be realistic". It does if its set in a real setting. And at least has to be accurate/coherent in its own setting. Fictional crime stories set in the early 1900'! Will never have "and then ronald reagan killed the terminator with a heat seeking missile shot out of his ball point pen". So there is still an argument for realism/coherency in fictional pieces. But naybe I'm the only one reading it as "loads of bad but it has an esports gimmick"... Next piece: fbi loses control of double agent at the professional bowling world championships... will the terrorist succeed in his goal of killing america's best bowler?!?! I hope my criticism is somewhat helpful. I just don't like the idea of "pay for this me cause its for the benefit of esports". Seriously bandwagoner how about you sell your ideas for their content instead of trying to piggyback off of esports and say "its for the scene! You should buy it to promote esports!" Idk in my honest opinion this is like selling a plain white shirt with "esports rules" written in permanent marker. "But its for the benefit of esports. If you don't buy it you hate esports and want them to fail by not promoting esports with ur money." | ||
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Lesser
Canada33 Posts
Sean "Boxer"? Could you have made that anymore obvious? | ||
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CursOr
United States6335 Posts
I'm a slow, uneducated reader myself, which might help me not notice some of the problems- but with everything that has been said about this, I really can't spend any time with it. It takes me 10X the time to read anything it takes a normal person. While I suppose the effort is appreciated, I hate to think of the warped picture a book like this might give someone who doesn't know anything about Starcraft to begin with. They might think we all live in this mundane, thoughtless world. (See the review I mentioned.) Lots of comments in the thread, while quite blunt and crass (always characteristic of the internet) seem to be nearly 100% true in this case. | ||
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Pandepic
Australia219 Posts
Some people could say I shouldn't judge a book by the first 2 chapters, but realistically when I read a book if the first 2 chapters are this bad there is no way I'm going to continue reading it, and having been provided with this sample I wont be buying the book. If your interest in e sports is genuine and you are determined to become a published author then I hope one day you will find a way to write a story based on e sports that doesn't come out as silly as this one, the idea of somebody training for GSL by playing team games really is absurd and it would have taken very little research for you to know that and leave it out of the book. Those things can seem like small details but in fact they are not small and they really can be off putting to people that realize how silly it is, on top of everything else. Sorry to be so harsh but when you post something like this on a website dedicated to Starcraft then you really are going to get some very harsh criticism. | ||
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Fus
Sweden1112 Posts
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Cel.erity
United States4890 Posts
On June 22 2011 16:07 cursor wrote: I'd copy and paste the Negative review of it from Amazon here, but you guys can go check it out for yourselves. It is very poignant and almost antagonistic, because it's obviously made to both criticize the writing style and be better written that the book. Interestingly, I checked out the Amazon reviews for the book, and found one positive 5-star review. I quote: "Read this book when it came out based on a facebook recommendation. I really liked it! Was lots of fun ". This review was submitted by one Wesley Mitchell. Hmmmmmmmmmm......I dunno, I just find it a bit disingenuous to market your book this way, especially on the most hardcore Starcraft forum in the western world, where people are going to nitpick at absolutely every detail within. It's kind of like how every chess forum makes fun of the movies where the actors move some pieces around and go "Aha! Checkmate!". Stuff like that just doesn't happen, and yes, you need to be addicted to Starcraft to notice it. From what I read of the writing itself, I'm going to give you some very constructive criticism, from one writer to another: use less adjectives. Adjectives and adverbs are powerful descriptive tools, but reliance on them often shows insecurity in your writing ability, and it seems that you use them in a rather overabundance. Once you describe the character as having curly hair, or whatever, you don't really need to address him later in the book by saying that "His curly locks swayed majestically in the breeze as his feet carried him with unyielding swiftness to the coffee shop". There are more elegant ways of getting your point across. Try getting inside the head of your main character rather than reiterating what a random passerby might see if they were looking at him for the first time. You're creating a distance from your character with phrases like these. | ||
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billiebrightside
United States150 Posts
On June 22 2011 09:17 ErikaMitchell wrote: Ah, that would have been a great angle except how likely would it be for an outsider to eventually rise to the ranks of the GSL?! I'm a total outsider (I never even played Super Mario Bros as a kid) and I'd say there's exactly no chance at all that I'd ever be good enough at SC2 to make it to the GSL. But yes, that would have been a fun angle! This is an interesting point. Although your argument is reasonable, we (the community) have lived several moment that have taught us not to judge outsiders as forever noobs. Thorzain was fairly unknown before he amazed us all in his TSL3 victory. I praise you very much for your courage and effort put into this book. I know there must be a love for the game if you're going yo write 76,000 words about it. However, I would have recommended more personal interaction of you with the community before finishing the novel. We already had a discussion of whether it was "colossuses" or "colossi" or etc. It was pretty big, and most casters began referring to them as "Collosi". The fact that you referred to them as colosusses is a deal-breaker for me. Good luck with this book and future endeavors! | ||
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pookadin
Australia422 Posts
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ExTerminator
United States22 Posts
On June 22 2011 04:30 fearlessparagon wrote: Sounds like Enders game ...Not at all. Ender's game was about a kid being played by the system. This seems to be about a 20-something year old guy fighting against the bull shit of bureaucratic procedure, and corruption in the pro gaming scene.... as the description says. Will definitely read this. | ||
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HoMM
Estonia636 Posts
When I first announced that PWNED was coming out, a friend of mine, in the interest of being a good friend, asked me if it was ready. If it was the best it could possibly be. At the time I answered yes, because I thought (and still think) that it’s a great story. Now, though, I’m inclined to think it’s not the best it could possibly be. The reason being that I’m not as good at writing as I will ever be. I could keep every book I write cloistered on my computer for decades, and just work through them with a fine-toothed comb every time I learn a new technique. I could spend my entire life re-writing and revising them, convinced they’re not ready because of my fear of what I don’t know. I’m not interested in doing that. This is me fully admitting that I’m a writing noob. PWNED is not the Great American Novel, and I fully admit to having room to learn and grow. What I also fully admit to is loving the story, the characters, and the plot. I had so much fun writing this book, and it shows. I’m steeling myself for the inevitable bad reviews on the horizon (because trolls are everywhere and I’d be foolish to think they’ll ignore me) but I’m also just really excited to share the story with whoever is interested in reading it. Doesn't sound too promising + money leaving esports scene and going to book companies and authors isn't what I like. | ||
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FlyingDJ
Germany153 Posts
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Slakter
Sweden1947 Posts
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pookadin
Australia422 Posts
On June 22 2011 17:24 HoMM wrote: Doesn't sound too promising + money leaving esports scene and going to book companies and authors isn't what I like. At least they payed for a sponsored thread on TL..at least thats some money going back to the scene. I wouldnt worry about any money leaving the esports scene because noones going to be giving up their GSL subscription and buying this instead  | ||
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iRk
Sweden83 Posts
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Lesser
Canada33 Posts
DURRR DURRRR DURRRRR. | ||
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vengee
Canada52 Posts
Gotta support amazing ideas like this =) | ||
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Kielbasa
Australia67 Posts
On June 22 2011 18:49 Lesser wrote: "Sean sent his tall, leggy Colossuses" DURRR DURRRR DURRRRR. I'm gonna get turned on every time I see a collosus now. | ||
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