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[Quote (Mr. Traveler)]

After

After, is an epic I'm writing that takes place in a far future and tells the story of a family who's on a constant journey across the country. I'm writing the epic with each chapter being more or less episodic with a few following into each other.

Updates will vary, as I have a more strict epic I'm finishing up in the Epics forum, but I'm going to try to post a new chapter every two weeks or so. Below you can find the chapters posted so far, and further below is a soundtrack added that I feel helps match with the story! Please enjoy and if you've read, I'd love to read any comments or questions you have!



Table of Contents:

1. While I'm Away

2. Rainy Days:

The Safeguard

A Knocking on the Door

In the Kitchen with Dinah

_____

After Soundtrack

1. About Today by The National (While I'm Away)
2. Thorn in my Pride by The Black Crows (The Safeguard)
3. All You Ever Wanted by The Black Keys (In the Kitchen with Dinah)

Edited by Quote (Mr. Traveler), Nov 04 2012 - 01:25 PM.

[Aderia]

Hello friend =3. This review is kinda sorta a lot overdue. But this story deserves a review, so better later than never, right?

So anyways, as per usual, let's get the superficial nitpicky stuff out of the way first, then we can talk about the actual story.


From Chapter 1:

The dust glowed like fireflies in the light and she walk under it.

Forgot your verb ending there, methinks.

About three or four a clock, she figure the time was.

The error I had highlighted on my hard copy was 'figure' to 'figured', but typing it up I saw that, 'a clock' should be "o'clock".

Her sobs went unnoticed by the rest of the house, but it was the first time she had cried over her brother, so she was grateful she had some privacy. She thought she was anyway.

Your verb agreement in these two sentences was off. Both of them should be 'had'. Or maybe you had like "She was grateful she was alone. She thought she was anyways." or something, then it got changed? Either way, the two different verbs read funny to me, so I thought I'd point it out.

Sarah wasn’t sure though of what would come later, of what would happen after…

Mmm, this may just be a personal preference thing on my part, but I think that putting commas around 'though' would be better, since the word kind of splits up the sentence.

From Chapter 2:

Wasn’t there supposed to be more people as they headed west, not fewer?

Okay, this nitpick gave me trouble, because I wasn't sure if there was anything actually wrong with it, besides it reading aloud funny. I almost wrote it off as dialect or something. But when you expand the contraction, it reads "Was not there supposed to be more people as they headed west, not fewer?" And it reads better as "Were not there supposed to be more people as they headed west, not there supposed to be more people as they headed west, not fewer?" Or "Weren't,".

Both kids had a slight slang to their voices that was thicker than most in this town. They may have lived in this area all their lives, Isaac noted.

Word choice here. 'twang', maybe?

“My dad has taught me how to use a gun. It’s good for hunting fowl, like the birds in that bad. It’s delicious when cooked right."

'bad' to 'bag'.

I’m sorry, she worded, her expression humble. Rain pelted against the windows, so they couldn’t hear him reply the thank you.

Another word choice nitpick, but this one kind of gave me trouble, because I know what you meant by 'worded'. But to use 'word' as a verb, this is what Google definitons gave me.


So In this case, I think the word 'mouthed' or something might work better?

From Chapter 3:

The paint was pealing and the revealed wood was rotting.

Silly Grant, bells 'peal'. Paint 'peels'. =P

“Yes! It’s just me. I saw the lights from the house and the windows are blocked off, I was hoping I could reside for the night. I won’t ask for anything but one night’s sleep.”

Hey! I like literally just read the scene in Huck Finn like this, where he's trying to get in to a house, but the people need to know if he's absolutely alone and not dangerous! But anyways, and tell me if I'm being overly critical or anything, but were I in that situation, I wouldn't use the word 'reside' in my speech. Or even in my head. It just seemed like a really formal word for the occasion. 'stay' or 'sleep' may work better in this instance.

Sarah wasn’t this way. Suspiciousness had only begun to worm its way into [???] mind over the past few years, but it was always just a thought or an idea. Lately, it was constantly on the mind.

Even though my Microsoft Word Document says 'suspiciousness' a word, I say that 'suspicion' would actually work better here. And also, you seem to be missing a word between 'into' and 'mind'. Either 'her' or 'the'. I'd probably use 'the' for the sake of agreement, since you said "Lately, it was constantly on the mind." later in the same paragraph, unless you want to change both to 'her mind'.

Isaac shook his head and stood up, slowly walking over to the coach where she slept.

Your couch is missing 'u'. ...Heh, its kinda punny! XD But yeah, 'coach' to 'couch'

Sarah looked up to Delilah, while Isaac sat up on the floor.

Looking up to someone implies admiration, and given the situation, I would not say that Sarah looks up to Delilah. 'Sarah looked up at Delilah' would probably be more appropriate.

“Maybe we all needed [???] break, and we’re fully realizing how far we took things before. Maybe it’s best we don’t have any contact with others for a while. After all, I can’t even tell you who we went to war with and who pulled the trigger first.”

Missing 'a' between 'needed' and 'break'.

***

Okay, so with that out of the way, now we get to the fun stuff =D

I like your writing. That’s not exactly a secret or anything, I actually think it’s kind of obvious, but I see no reason why it shouldn’t be said again. You have this knack for creating real character within characters, if it makes sense. The way you portray your characters is realistic and relatable. Because of that, your plot and dialog, everything reads quite enjoyably. In fact, in my notes on my print off, when Sarah has found Joseph’s re-hidden gun, I have written next to those paragraphs, “Good internal conflict, very realistic.”

As someone who’s been making the shift from Bionicle fanfiction to original COT works, I have to say, it’s really nice to see a familiar pen over in COT. And tackling a COT -epic- , nonetheless. I have to applaud you. Those are a rarity. But seriously, you’re doing wonderfully, keep it up! Since you’re only three chapters in, I really have no criticisms yet. If I had one complaint, it would be that this story doesn’t deserve to be drowned in all the COT topics about Minecraft and bronies =/

Hrmm, I wish my review could have been more helpful, besides picking through for typoes. But I guess it’s a good thing, that the
worst error I found was a misspelled word.

Keep up the good work Grant =)

[The Inquisitive Automaton]

Hey there, ECC intern Sechs here with one freshly baked courtesy review! =)

Well, first off are the formalities, I believe, which take the form of looking for spelling and grammar mistakes. Which I would list, but it seems Eponine has beaten me to it, having quoted all the misspellings that I found. So once again the opportunity to do so has been snatched away from me, but besides from the obvious few errors that have been listed I do have a couple of back-up things to point out, just in case such an event might’ve occurred.

He continued to watch them both easily

To start off with, there are times when your choice of words can appear quite odd in context. For example in the quoted excerpt you describe David as looking over his two children “easily”. Is it often difficult to regard your own kids? I can see why you wanted to include an adverb in that particular sentence, though perhaps one such as “warmly” or “tenderly” might have been appropriate?

He knew his son hadn’t stolen them, because his son knew the punishment if he got caught, would be far worse from his father, than from the man he would give them back to.

Your usage of commas can also at times appear excessive, such as in the above excerpt. All of the commas that were there needn’t have been although, again, I can see why you added them as even I paused at each of those moments before continuing on. However, might I suggest perhaps reading passages aloud every now and then, emphasising the breaks created by the commas as that would highlight just what sounds natural and where each is necessary.

However, that’s not to say your writing is bad because it certainly isn’t. My favourite moments of your epic were the dialogue heavy scenes as you convey so much personality through each individual character that it’s easy to distinguish one from another. My favourite scene was likely the one that occurred midway through chapter 2 when Isaac is asking David if he’s upset with Sarah for taking the gun. It worked wonderfully as a quiet moment where you manage to get across dialogue, characterisation and actions all in a few spoken exchanges and it really highlighted the relationship between father and son.

Anyway, now that that’s over with I can comment on the actual story. I’ll start by saying that I have something of a soft spot with stories that follow “after the end”, detailing how people cope with a breakdown of society. To emphasise that, some of my favourite pieces of fiction consist of The Road, The Broken Empire trilogy and (typically ) NieR. Therefore, I found your hints at the difficulties of survival highly enjoyable and assisted in mapping out the fragmented world you’re constructing. However, at the same time whilst each allusion is enjoyable in the grand scheme of things they are also unfortunately very vague. Up until the end of chapter 3, I had very little of an idea just what the situation that your protagonists are going through. I gathered that some kind of war had occurred, which pushed people to travel around a lot, has caused multiple deaths and appear to have shorted the food supply leading to hunting. Beyond that knowledge is minimal, though I gather that for the most part that is your intention, to slowly feed in bits of apocalyptic information until the reader sees the whole picture. Even so, I feel that for now you could do with a little more world-building, just so we can fully get an idea of a few of the missing details of this world. What’s the population of this area like? Does technology still run or was it somehow all wiped out? How long ago was the war? Is hunting game the only way of acquiring food or do people ransack houses in the hopes of finding something canned?

I mentioned earlier your use of dialogue to convey characters and I wanted to compliment you on your characterisation again. The stream-of-conscious style assisted massively in creating suspense that built up to the eventual revelation of Mark’s fate in chapter 1. I liked how you led the audience with Sarah’s curiosity as to why he doesn’t have his blanket and then hit us with the realisation that he’s dead at the same time she found out for herself. That then led to the great scene in which we saw Sarah realise she had to grow up, which told us a lot about her and her relationship with her family.

For the most part, the only criticism I have is on your prose and given how much more prominent those issues were in chapters 1 and 2 compared with 3, I’d say you’re capably dealing with them yourself. I had fun reading your story and do hope you continue to keep updating. So thanks for the read, and I hope you keep up the good work!

[Quote (Mr. Traveler)]

@Aderia: Man thanks a lot. For one you kinda just proofread the epic, and that is very much appreciated. It was awesome feedback, even too great really, and I'm not sure how to respond to it. =/ I'm glad you liked the characters, because that's really what I want with this epic and they'll be the main pull.

@Sechs: Geez another huge review! Thank you so much for reading this, you really didn't have to get into such detail. A few things I wanted to reply to, and that's that I'm glad you like how I've done the characters and I can't wait to expand more on the lives of Sarah and Isaac. Thanks for the comments on my writing as well, since I have been told my comma placement isn't the greatest, so I'll look out for that. ALSO, the world isn't completely clear yet or explained too much. I honestly am still working out those details, cause I'm not positive how it's formed yet. But for the few things I'm sure of already, I'll try to add more information about that. You're right it's pretty vague... I will say though, that in the world, vegetation is abundant during the spring and fall, but in the summer and winter it's a tougher.


Thank you both for the reviews, it's totally awesome to get some people reading this, and I hope you stay with it and enjoy it. =D

Edited by Quote (Mr. Traveler), Nov 07 2012 - 12:31 AM.

[Jean Valjean]

I just got done reading the first chapter, and it was some very inconvenient timing.  It's set in the middle of the night, as am I.  That means my mind is a little foggy, my imagination a little numb, and my attention span lacking.  There were moments where my mind would begin to drift as I stared at the screen.  It didn't help that at moments it felt like the character's mind was doing the same.  As such, I know I cannot read all of the posts in one sitting, so I'll stop here for the night.  Even once I get the the later chapters, however, don't expect any big, long review from me. I'm going to save that for when I'm finished with the entire epic, since I'm going to try to read this for entertainment, not as something to be dissected and criticized.

 

So comments, no criticism.  For now, I just have to say that the opening was mystic, if not a bit slow.  But slow isn't a bad thing.  I'm just saying, it was definitely slow, but it also got that emotional point off real strong so as to really establish the reality of the character and her feelings.  Hopefully, when I get started on the next chapter tomorrow, it will be faster-paced, with this dream-like scene out of the way.

 

It was haunting, kind of surreal...I hope to see that jacket in the next chapters.  Just because.  And I'm guessing that there was a biological war going on.  You told me that this was in the future, but didn't really say anything more than that.  I guess I'll find out the rest by myself.  Part of this is giving me a City of Ember vibe (or more accurately, The People of Sparks).  Good be good, could be bad.  Really, that premise can be taken either way.  Those books really weren't my favorite, since the kids didn't seem real to me, and the concept of the child protagonist was just taken in a direction that felt off, and as a child at the time I felt the author didn't really relate to me.

 

Anyway, that takes me to the thing that stands out to me the most, which is the child protagonist.  That's really cool, and I have the highest hopes here in that she's an engaging main character.  I think this is the thing that interests me in the story the most.  There's the setting, but then there's the kid in the setting, and the affairs of children in science fiction and fantasy is always something special.

 

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