Storm Warning: Version 2.0

[Dalton]

You did, D -- holy crap in a dorm fridge, with all the bullshit this week I totally spaced that. Sorry about that, man.

Understandable keptin.

[Rob Wilson]

Hmmm, full of Norse goodness.

Get the format typo dealt with first, you missed the start bold marker at the begining of this line "For you have never truly ceased, and perhaps you never will", just after Odin as an old man removes his cloak. And Taloned has only one 'n'.

Right that's the boring stuff over with. There's a chance you're mixing up your Woden and Odin; Woden was the Germanic representaion of the All-Father and wore a Black-brimmed hat and cloak, he was a magic-user primarily and never fought in battles, instead he commanded and used his Herfjotter to instill a paralysing panic in his enemies. His horse was never named, and he carried no weapon. He was the leader of the Great Hunt. Woden would later become One-eye and needed two Crows to be his memory and far-sight.

Odin was the Norse Representation of the All-Father, he was a shape-shifter, lead in Battle and used Gungnir, the Spear that never missed its mark, to slay his foes. His Breastplate and helmet were Gold, and his power was such that it led his foes to panic and scatter before him, deaf and blind. It was Odin that had to die and be resurrected - incidently, until he drinks the Hydromel, he will be without his wisdom, far-sight and power of verse - and he rode Sleipnir, whom no obstacle could stop (and was portrayed as both black and white depending on the situation or who was looking).

You could have Gungnir as a pistol or rifle, and I like Mjolnir as a shotgun, very nice

A good conceit and a nice intro, don't worry about people not getting the mythology straight off, a well told story and good characters will draw them in. One thing I would recommend though is getting an investment in Odin straight off. Make them feel his pain, his suffering (the closest part so far was his rage at the desecration of Vena's statue), give them an immediacy of his plight, and possibly his death in the snow. Right now Legion reads as the protaganist rather than Odin, and there's not many people that can empathise with a crow.

Excellent work, give us more or I'll take your sandwiche off you and beat you with it.

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

Rob -- good critique, that's the kind of stuff I need.

To be honest, the melding of Woden and Odin is intentional -- it's a sort of "dumbing down" as well as a modernizing reinterpretation of the original Teutonic mythologies.

I'm not sure what sort of emotion I can add to the character of Ash so early on -- to be frank, I felt I added too much already. By the way, a sneak-peek into the early revisions: the scene with Frigga (Vena in the story -- more aesthetically pleasing name to the modern ear) originally involved Gullintani, a.k.a. Heimdall. I felt that the scene didn't carry as much impact with Odin's friend as it would with his wife, thus the switch.

I don't have a lot of time online tonight, so the editing changes are noted and will be made sometime Monday.

As to wanting more... should I? If I write the full novel chapter by chapter here, would the SDN members who've read it still buy it in hardcopy?

I'll tell you what -- if at least five people request it between now and Monday morning, I'll do it.

[Rob Wilson]

Rob -- good critique, that's the kind of stuff I need.

I'm not the ASVS Fanfic Archive Senior Editor for nothing. Although work has meant I have had to bow out of editing for sometime. I could rustle up a proper critique and e-mail it to you if you wanted.

To be honest, the melding of Woden and Odin is intentional -- it's a sort of "dumbing down" as well as a modernizing reinterpretation of the original Teutonic mythologies.

Ah I wondered, as I'd expected you to do more than a cursory bit of research. Don't forget that the Woden and Odin characters have a very different set of aspects and approaches to battle.

I'm not sure what sort of emotion I can add to the character of Ash so early on -- to be frank, I felt I added too much already.

It's not so much adding more as refocusing what's there. If you'll allow the indulgence, a quick edit of the first few Paragraphs :

Wake!
He stirs in a sleep like Death, so cold. A world of which he knows nothing howls around him; he hears its voice, and to him it is the voice of the Valkyrie. Great White Crow.
Carrion Angel.
Wake now!

He came to the world lying on his side in a patch of dead thorns, half-buried beneath a blanket of snow, the pain of the thorn tips a series of fiery teeth ripping under the cold-numbed surface of his skin. His good eye shifted fitfully beneath the lid, then snapped open. Then he was on his feet, striking blind at the near-solid walls of snow the wind threw at him, his panic and rage driving him to aim killing blows at enemies who were long gone. The wind stilled, and he realized dimly that he was screaming, a scream of pure black despair, though he found he could not name its cause.

Suddenly -- perhaps from everywhere, perhaps from nowhere at all -- a double-voice like a dark tide whispered:
Be still, Father. We are with you.
He looked around him - at last a focus for his ire, something to grasp as real. "Show yourself, Demon." An icy grin burned on his face, and momentarily there was the spectre of Death within his features; "Show me your face." He spat out the words, his fists clenched and unclenched at his sides as the prospect of a battle stirred his soul and for a moment the stoop of age and the pain of rent and frozen skin was gone, and he felt his heart fill with a White-hot fire.

Hold your ire, Father, the voice rode the wind back to him. We are of you. And with these words the old man's blood turned from a torrent of fire to a frozen river of ice; the smile flickered and died on his face, and the winter chill of that alien world bit him to the bone, his stoop returning and the pain with it.

"Enough!" he roared, rallying himself from a pure driven instinct to survive -- Death stalked him, and like a fool he stood here arguing with his own ghost! Nonsense, he needed heat and food - his fingers flexed I need a weapon. His eyes swept the horizon again, not for the dead this time but for the living, for the smoke that would lead him to desperately needed shelter.

----

It's just to paint more into his perception of the world and thoughts, draw the reader in, help him see things as Ash - BTW I like the ASH part, nice tie in with his resurrection.

I don't have a lot of time online tonight, so the editing changes are noted and will be made sometime Monday.

As to wanting more... should I? If I write the full novel chapter by chapter here, would the SDN members who've read it still buy it in hardcopy?

I'll tell you what -- if at least five people request it between now and Monday morning, I'll do it.

Be evil, put up the first 2-3 chapters as a hook and then make us beg to buy the book.

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

Cool, cool stuff, Rob. My own editorial eye says it needs some slicing to avoid the dreaded plague of all writers, run-on sentences. Other than that, I'm happy to see someone who understands the Ash character (although he's still Odin here) as well as I envisioned him.

One last thing -- Ash really isn't meant to be seen as a protagonist until much later in the book -- and he's really more of a motivating character than anything else (he does turn out to be more anti-hero than hero -- his actions should never be fully sympathetic until just after the climax)

By the way, PM me, there's something I need to ask you relating to this subject.

[Rob Wilson]

Cool, cool stuff, Rob. My own editorial eye says it needs some slicing to avoid the dreaded plague of all writers, run-on sentences.

Oh god aye, that was just a quick bit thrown in to illustrate, there's no way it'd pass muster as the actual wording - it was 0600 over here when i wrote that and it was rushed to boot. It's unlikely that after the author spends hours working on each paragraph and draft that an editor is ever going to come up with something better in 5 minutes.

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

Maybe not in 5 minutes, Rob, but given 15 I'd shit fire and save matches if you couldn't come damn close.