Dwayne’s Comments (group member since Apr 01, 2017)

Dwayne’s comments from the Support for Indie Authors group.

Comment deleted for bookwhacking, for including a link, and for pandering for reviews.

Comment below it deleted as it contained the link to the same book.

Grayson wrote: "I've published my book ..."

Directing people to look up your book is not allowed.

Hey, Asper? This is a public forum. You might want to remove the email address or subject yourself to a lot of Spam.

"Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person — a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one."

-- John Steinbeck

Haru wrote: "This reader also didn't like first person point of view. "

Some readers don't. Yet, some stories demand to be in first person. I use it frequently.

I'm not crazy about stories written in present tense. There are a lot of writers that like to write that way, though. I don't expect them to change just to suit my taste.

Oh. And we need to be mad about something in this thread.

Okay, drifting back to yesterday... car repair shops who shuttle you off to a nearby coffee shop and then kinda forget about you and then indicate they might not be able to come back and get you? Yeah, they suck.

Just a reminder, something we have to bring up now and then, friends and family are not a built in audience. If they choose to read and review your work, fine. Don't expect it.

I've been writing all my life. Sunday will be the first time in fifty-two years I shove one of my stories at my parents and say, "Read this. I wrote it for you." And I believe it will be the first thing of mine they'll ever have read.

I think it would be better to discuss what we as authors like to do in our writing, not what we want to see in other people's books.

This is one of those things that is a matter of personal taste. If you enjoy writing long descriptions go for it. If you do not, keep them simple. In one of my novels, I have a description of a character that goes on for about a page and a half (it's meant to be ridiculously long). In at one short story you get no description of the main character at all.

As for the feedback you received, take it with a grain of salt as you would any other feedback. Mull it over. If it feels legit and useful, use it. If it goes against whatever your style is and what you want to accomplish, forget the advice. There are many adults who enjoy simple writing and it's a bit ageist to assume only children would want a book written that way.

C.J. wrote: "I tend to pack a lot into a few pages. People tell me my stories "really move". So, for me to write longer books, I would have to include a lot of filler and I don't like to read that sort of thing, ergo, I don't write that way."

It's not really a question of how you write or what your style is. What concerns me is who is going to pay for a series of short stories at two or three dollars a pop? Combining three short books into one would not mean your writing would stop moving. It would not mean you'd have to put in a lot of "filler". It comes down to how are the books selling?

Savita wrote: "Wishing our moderators and all the members a ( belated ) Merry Christmas , and also a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year ! God Bless ."

Thank you so much!

225 pages is a fairly short novel. Not sure why you separated it into a series in the first place. I'd combine it as one novel in paperback and e-book.

P wrote: "Dear Rader

Please read my new books "

I don't know who Rader is, but you might contact them directly instead of using our group to Spam your work. Thanks.

The only other reason I can think of is if someone deletes their own comment.

Something I haven't done in a while. I'm gonna go through this paragraph by paragraph and give you my thoughts before I move to the next.

Claviger of Qataban. The Bloody Harridan. Paladinne. Demon Dealer. Annihilator of Armies. The Black Marid. Her friends just call her Zax. Which will she be called most in the book? Stick with that. I don't know this character at all, yet, and don't really care about all her nicknames. Choppy sentence fragments always bother me, too.

When the God of Luck asks for some help to hide a relic so it can be found at the right time by the right person, Zax accepts the job. What's so special about Zax that she can do what a god cannot?

Restoring a Tree of Life, moving an entire palace through the Betwixt, foiling the plans of a sorcerer bent on human sacrifices to gain power, and having a dragon drop a mountain on her are all in a day's work. I don't know what a Tree of Life is in the context of your story. I don't know what a Betwixt is. I don't know if this sorcerer was powerful or weak. All in all, I don't know anything about Zax or this world she's in, so I'm not sure if this is supposed to be impressive.

On returning home, she discovers the hundred foot smoke demon that came out of the tree was the least of her problems. Returning home from where? She's already had five or six adventures in a very short time here. If this smoke demon is not a big concern, why mention it?

A chest full of relics that can destroy entire civilizations and bring down gods has been lost; the map that leads to it has been stolen, and the man with the key is psychotic. And... we're into another adventure. And... instead of dragons or demons, which apparently are cake walks for Zax, she's up against a man. Ho hum.

But if there’s anything Zax likes more than a good fight, it’s a convoluted plan full of skullduggery and shenanigans. She’s got one of those, and she’s had it for longer than even she knows. Plan for what?

Bottom line... This is a problem I'm seeing in a lot of blurbs lately. It feels like you're cramming enough plot to fill seven books into this one blurb, yet you're leaving us ignorant of who or what Zax is. Is she a god? Is she a super-powered human being? Some other kind of creature?

Along with letting us know a little something about Zax, focus on the main plot. At this point I'm expecting a book full of choppy little adventures that never really take off. I'm also getting the impression that nothing is challenging for Zax, which is going to make her a boring character to read about. It feels like she's some kind of all-powerful being with no chance of losing anything. Characters must struggle.

M.A. wrote: "Greetings!"

Yeah, hi. I'd like to return this Christmas gift as it breaks several of our rules, such as no self-promotions, no soliciting for reviews, no links, etc.

Ian wrote: "The blurb is not the place for some descriptive writing..."

This prompted me to add something to what I said earlier. I do like your style of writing. It's got a pulse. If I were to read your book up to B and C, I would probably like those passages. However, without the context behind them, they're hard to follow. So, yes, Ian is right. Descriptive writing, which you are good at, belongs in your prose. This should be a bare bones description of what your book is about.

Justin wrote: "One thing that sucks about any Word program is sometimes you write out a word that you know is a real word and you know you've 100% spelled it right but yet Word still doesn't know what it is and u..."

Even scarier... I just bought a new laptop and am working with the current version of Word. It recognized the word McRib. Eek.

Cassie is extraordinary, and not a little messed up. I suppose we're all extraordinary in some way and we're probably all messed up in a way.

Thank heavens for hallucinogenic drugs. They keep the worst of her nightmares at bay. Until now, at least. Okay. Now we're getting somewhere. She has issues with drugs and possibly a mental illness.

She wakes up in a stranger’s apartment, a thirty-hour hole in her memory and virtually certain she’s been roofied, not raped. Not sure why we need the clarification of her not being raped. Also, I had to look up "roofied". (I'm a little slow when it comes to modern slang).

Who did this to her, who for, for what reason and what’s next? Knowing so little about her, its impossible to speculate.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. This line made me laugh. Probably not a good thing. It's just that... I'm sure no one wants to be "roofied". No one plans for it. I'm not sure why the line is there.

She was going to come to terms with her demons, not run away from them. The things she sees have to be hysterical figments of a sick mind, not paranormal phenomena. Totally lost now. I don't have any idea what this story is about. A drug addict? A mentally ill girl? A victim of a crime? Now it might be about literal demons?

Maybe the time has come. Again. Time for what?

A different city, a different country. Unwanted glimpses of the future tend to have that effect on her. She can’t let her loved ones get hurt. So... she thinks she's clairvoyant or she is...

I'm lost.

You really need to focus on what the book is about. I have not commented until now, but have been reading the thread since your first post. I was confused then as to what the book is about and I still am. is it about actual demons? Is Cassie the victim of some crime? Is all this actually in her head? You want to get people to open the book and this blurb is so confusing people are going to assume they'll never really know what's going on with Cassie.

I have used excerpts as a blurb before. If you want to go that route, pick something that clearly represents the story you're trying to tell. The scenes you offer are nicely written, but they don't tell me anything more about the story than the blurb above. Just more of the same - a girl that may be mentally ill, may be facing literal demons, might be abusing drugs...

I'm sure your book is fascinating. But, for the blurb don't play it coy with us. We want to know what the book is about.

Ian wrote: "My only concern is that the first sentence gives too much away (even though the event takes place in Chapter 3."

That may or may not be a problem, depending on how deep into the book Chapter 3 is. It's its well within the first 25% of the book or so, I think it's fine.

Shanna wrote: "I agree with not giving away our work for free, but doesn't KDP select require that your book be free 5 days out of the 90 day period?"

Not exactly. You can have your book(s) free for up to five days in a ninety day period. You are not required to do so. All my work is in KDP Select, yet some has never been free. I have fifty plus works out there and generally only have two or three free scattered through a month, if that.