Can you review and spork my story?

[ssbob90]

Is it ok if I post my story (to which I want to publish once completed) for review/sporking

https://www.wattpad.com/story/154904336-arkalion-of-iron-and-mystic-obscuraAny critism and praise are welcome (if I can't post it here please direct me to a proper posting group and I will delete this entry

Comments

[cmdrnemo]

Oh, generally a convoy is ships. A caravan is on land. This isn't super solid and may be a local thing. Suffice to say I had a moment of confusion when the convoy peeps were in a forest.

So they followed the people a short distance. We know the people are moving away from the magus and his goblins. Because people do not walk towards the blood they left behind in the woods. Yet somehow the goblins are setting up an ambush? Magus and co didn't walk by the peeps. He scried them from behind. How the heck do you ambush someone who is moving away from you? That's not how ambushes work. He should be giving chase. And if the goblins can be smelled coming from a mile away why the heck did he think an ambush could possibly work anyways? This whole ambush scene just makes your magus look like an idiot. I know you were going for badass and evil. Completely did not work. He warped space and time and still screwed everything up.

The "Shpiel (spell)" thing is really annoying. Please make that go away. The woman has no need to warn her companions. Dude just shouted his spell. What was she going to do that could possibly be more warning than someone shouting "Magic Missile" at you? You like the number 5. It's a good number. But, it does leave me asking. What are the other 15 goblins doing?

Again incompetent minions are usually seen as a sign of an incompetent leader. Poor job performance is a sign of poor training. This just makes the magus look like an idiot. If you want him to be an inept goof this is fine. Otherwise you may want to decrease the number of goblins and make them less stupid. High kill counts are for video games.

Why can't he catch up to the mage? Is he, a master swordsman, in worse physical condition than her? In general men can out sprint women by a bit. In the Olympics in 2016 the fastest female athlete in the 100m sprint came in at 10.90 seconds. The fastest man made it in 9.81 and the 8th place finalist, the lowest number I could find, was 10.06. Olympics do not represent the average population. But, these differences do represent the differences between the sexes you will see in the general population. There's no reason he can't catch up. This just says more bad things about your magus. Stonewall is a pretty good spell. You'd have gotten better dramatic results here by having him catch up. Then cast stonewall. So she'd be screwed, look to freedom, and bam! Freedom is a wall of stone now.

Okay, I should have mentioned this earlier. An estoc is not a weapon for throwing. It's a beautiful sword. It's also a highly specialized weapon. Very highly specialized. And so far no one in this story is wearing the sort of armour it was specifically designed to counter. I've got to ask why he's using one? Because pulling out the wrong tool for the job implies crippling overspecialization. Or he rushed out here and no other weapon was handy. Except this one is magic. Can he only afford the one magic item? So we're looking at a level 5 ish magus. Stonewall is a pretty high level spell for him then. Shame the wizard didn't have colour spray. Couple of casts of that and she could have walked out of here.

Going to be super nitpicky here for a moment. He should grab or grasp her by the collar. Hold is a little on the gentle side for the image you want. And she didn't take it anywhere. She sent it somewhere. If she took it there she'd have gone with it. Also.


Ain't nobody takes big no seriously anymore. Vader ruined that for you.

[cmdrnemo]

Do goblins actually shrink in terror? Ant-goblins of fear? That's pretty silly. Oh, goblin should be plural there. Right now only one of the goblins shrinks. Which is even sillier. And magus dude, either kill the goblin or don't. Don't threaten it and stop just shy. Speaking of Vader, you know why he was such a great villain? Many reasons. Big one. Dude would commit. He didn't stop choking people just because. Once he set about starting to kill someone it took some force to stop him. This story feels like you are going for a Vader but, all you've got is Stewie in a goth costume.

Mentioning the six goblins is an obvious effort to maintain continuity. Which I approve of. But, this story is very lacking in other details. You are precise where you can afford to be vague and vague where you need to be precise. So the result of that final number just tells me you can count.

[ssbob90]

Thank for the constructed critisms I'll put in into use. Here are some bit of context
The magus and his warband was actually beside them at least 10 feet away (I blame myself for not giving that in the chapter)
The estoc is actually guided by his familiar(the dark aura was his familiar in the blade I should have explained that better)

And can you give me some advice on how should i make the spell system work then?

[cmdrnemo]

That's way way to close. 10 feet away isn't tracking range. It's "oh hi how are you?" range. You can't ambush someone who is standing right there anymore than you can someone who is walking away.
That detailed certainly needed to be in there somewhere. I default to a hexcrafter magus over bladebound. Is there a particular reason for the estoc? Or did you just like the sword?

You have your spell names. Just use those. Kill the brackets. You tend to immediately describe what the spell does after it is cast.

[ssbob90]

Thanks for the suggestions earlier and I am bad at distance calculation and I made it an estoc to make him stand out and also because he can throw it due to his magic(a giant dart if you will). But I didn't intend to make him vader

Note: I have rewritten that chapter what are your new opinions? (if you read it)

[cmdrnemo]

Better, keep trying. There's still a lot of technical problems. Those'll go away with practice. Which is not just writing, you also have to put the effort in to better understand the rules. Also, when you read look for stuff where you understand exactly what is going on and other books where you aren't sure you understood what happened. Compare which details are mentioned in both. And learn more about distances and spacing. It's not a bad idea to use a map or storyboards or something to help sort out what is happening where and in what order.