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[TheTrinary]

Well probably ages 10-14 or so as after that comes the teen romance novels, keep in mind this would be a cartoon series on the lines of Avatar the last airbender or a comic book if I could draw LOL!
But I can't, so it's a story (for now) one day hope to have it a comic and a cartoon in the future but for now this will do.
I know I use one or two big words for this age range, but I am working with the tools I got

Okay. 10 - 14. So let's break this down.

The way your present the story and write it is all over the place in terms of age range. If youre looking at 10 - 14, you're in the range of harry potter, redwall, and chronicles of Narnia.

Let's start with the opening prologue. It's a slog regardless of age. Its pure exposition and is really bogged down by politics and history. It would be a problem aimed at an older audience. A younger audience? They don't care about the specifics on political intrigue. I actually thought aobut the Star Wars opening text crawl because that reminded me a lot about it.

Here is what was used:

It is a period of civil war.
Rebel spaceships, striking
from a hidden base, have won
their first victory against
the evil Galactic Empire.

During the battle, Rebel
spies managed to steal secret
plans to the Empire's
ultimate weapon, the DEATH
STAR, an armored space
station with enough power to
destroy an entire planet.

Pursued by the Empire's
sinister agents, Princess
Leia races home aboard her
starship, custodian of the
stolen plans that can save
her people and restore
freedom to the galaxy.…

Now here is the original that George Lucas wrote because George Lucas is a hack:

It is a period of civil wars in the galaxy. A brave alliance of underground freedom fighters has challenged the tyranny and oppression of the awesome GALACTIC EMPIRE. Striking from a fortress hidden among the billion stars of the galaxy, rebel spaceships have won their first victory in a battle with the powerful Imperial Starfleet. The EMPIRE fears that another defeat could bring a thousand more solar systems into the rebellion, and Imperial control over the galaxy would be lost forever. To crush the rebellion once and for all, the EMPIRE is constructing a sinister new battle station. Powerful enough to destroy an entire planet, its completion spells certain doom for the champions of freedom.

One is exciting and sets the stage, talks about the conflicts. The other is boring politics.

And that sort of feeling permeates a lot of your writing. There are weird focuses and a lot of stuff that just isn't right for that age group. And that goes both ways, because sometimes your writing goes the other way and is too young for the age group. When you describe his suit you say: "It was mostly gray with strips of gray on it." . . . okay? You go for super short sentences and super short paragraphs. The way you write it feels like youre writing for a younger audience.

You should read the first Harry Potter, read Narnia, read Redwall. Look how authors write to that age range and try to emulate it. It needs some sophistication. It needs a lot of fun. You got to have danger and stakes, but not too scary.

I think the idea is very good and fun and I see what you're going for. It's just matching the tone of your idea now.

 

[CadmarLegend]

So I saw this done elsewhere and thought it would be fun.


If anyone wants to volunteer, I'll read your very first chapter (not prologue or anything else) and based solely on that I'll give a quick opinion on whether or not I'd continue reading the entire work. It's like a mini review for the first chapter and the ability to hook the audience!

I can make no guarantees with how contemporaneous it will be, but I'll try and stay up with this thread the best I can.

And if it seems I missed you on the review, just send me a message. There's a lot of stuff and it's entirely possible I could accidently skip someone.


Since this thread has become pretty prolific, I figured I'd make a best of the best list. My personal favorite three starting chapters are:

1. Caninstinct https://www.scribblehub.com/series/62445/caninstinct/
2. Ange'ls Dirge https://www.scribblehub.com/series/229892/angels-dirge/
3. Queensmen https://www.scribblehub.com/series/163971/queensmen/

And no I won't be making a worst of the worst list.

Mine?


The Prolouge, specifically....

Me

 

[MadmanRB]

Okay. 10 - 14. So let's break this down.

The way your present the story and write it is all over the place in terms of age range. If youre looking at 10 - 14, you're in the range of harry potter, redwall, and chronicles of Narnia.

Let's start with the opening prologue. It's a slog regardless of age. Its pure exposition and is really bogged down by politics and history. It would be a problem aimed at an older audience. A younger audience? They don't care about the specifics on political intrigue. I actually thought aobut the Star Wars opening text crawl because that reminded me a lot about it.

Here is what was used:

It is a period of civil war.
Rebel spaceships, striking
from a hidden base, have won
their first victory against
the evil Galactic Empire.

During the battle, Rebel
spies managed to steal secret
plans to the Empire's
ultimate weapon, the DEATH
STAR, an armored space
station with enough power to
destroy an entire planet.

Pursued by the Empire's
sinister agents, Princess
Leia races home aboard her
starship, custodian of the
stolen plans that can save
her people and restore
freedom to the galaxy.…

Now here is the original that George Lucas wrote because George Lucas is a hack:

It is a period of civil wars in the galaxy. A brave alliance of underground freedom fighters has challenged the tyranny and oppression of the awesome GALACTIC EMPIRE. Striking from a fortress hidden among the billion stars of the galaxy, rebel spaceships have won their first victory in a battle with the powerful Imperial Starfleet. The EMPIRE fears that another defeat could bring a thousand more solar systems into the rebellion, and Imperial control over the galaxy would be lost forever. To crush the rebellion once and for all, the EMPIRE is constructing a sinister new battle station. Powerful enough to destroy an entire planet, its completion spells certain doom for the champions of freedom.

One is exciting and sets the stage, talks about the conflicts. The other is boring politics.

And that sort of feeling permeates a lot of your writing. There are weird focuses and a lot of stuff that just isn't right for that age group. And that goes both ways, because sometimes your writing goes the other way and is too young for the age group. When you describe his suit you say: "It was mostly gray with strips of gray on it." . . . okay? You go for super short sentences and super short paragraphs. The way you write it feels like youre writing for a younger audience.

You should read the first Harry Potter, read Narnia, read Redwall. Look how authors write to that age range and try to emulate it. It needs some sophistication. It needs a lot of fun. You got to have danger and stakes, but not too scary.

I think the idea is very good and fun and I see what you're going for. It's just matching the tone of your idea now.

Well my problem was that yes I was trying to emulate the Star Wars opening crawl, but the thing is I had so much on my plate to put down to explain my setting, my story Etc.
I mean establishing things on paper vs on camera are totally different things as camera can giver information much faster.
I did read Tolkien and the like, but I also had some tough choices to make.
Establishing universes can be a tricky thing and exposition can be a necessary evil.
And I will be honest I did have a more simplified opening crawl in my story, and I was going to simply have my heroes be cops...
But George Floyd happened, and I know cops are not really in a positive light anymore, so I had to cook something up.
Honestly this project has been in development hell and only resurrected during the pandemic because I was bored, the opening crawl now remains this way as I had to establish why in the story I have not one but two law enforcement agencies now, and I didn't want to totally revamp my characters to be firefighters or security guards.
I had an arc for them and a story to tell and my universe building would interfere even if I didn't open up with the opening crawl.
I made the only choice I had at the time: front load the backstory, so I can get my main story going as i got so meandered in trying to make my universe work again I took a shortcut.
It was not the best shortcut, but I took it as a necessary evil.
And also I had like 800 revisions of this* and zero beta readers, so errors like "It was mostly gray with strips of gray on it." are mistakes that I was hoping to get feedback for TBH and when I am the only one proofreading... oops! LOL!

But yes the opening crawl could be shorter I admit, I just had so much to cover that one cant do without artwork.
Plus I was aware that I could have adults reading this too who would point out things like plot holes and wonder how my world works.
That's why now this remains text but will hopefully have pictures and the like, so I don't have to dig so deep, but I am a crap artist and am far better at writing despite having a few hiccups or two.
So my plan goes: get some readers
Try to fix a few bugs
get some money via donations to hire an artist
make this a picture book or a comic and make it easier for my target demographic to read.
Sadly without art skills I took the only path open to me for this idea and trying to build some audience even outside my target demographic to push it in the right direction and hopefully smooth it out later on.
I hope to do that with my fellow writers and beta readers, the foundation for my story is strong it just needs a little help fixing the rough edges.

*Exaggeration but still many revisions for this chapter, so many that they blended together, and I was bound to miss an error or two, without a (human) editor and doing this without beta readers does cause hiccups now and then.

 

[TheTrinary]

Mine?


The Prolouge, specifically....

Me

It's a no from me.

70% of the prologue is just dry, matter of fact worldbuilding. You're just telling us how things are. There's no story. And frankly, a lot of the information dump is unimportant. You tell us how the undead need to be stabbed twice to die. . . but that doesn't come up. It has nothing to do with this chapter.

It reads like someone who really loves the world they created and want to talk about it, but that doesn't make for a gripping story.

The second time today I've referenced it, but go reread the first chapter of harry potter. It has the same plot to your prologue: Man finds baby on the door step. Try and spot the differences in story telling. How information is conveyed. Why information is conveyed. How much information is conveyed.

 

[MadmanRB]

It's a no from me.

70% of the prologue is just dry, matter of fact worldbuilding. You're just telling us how things are. There's no story. And frankly, a lot of the information dump is unimportant. You tell us how the undead need to be stabbed twice to die. . . but that doesn't come up. It has nothing to do with this chapter.

It reads like someone who really loves the world they created and want to talk about it, but that doesn't make for a gripping story.

The second time today I've referenced it, but go reread the first chapter of harry potter. It has the same plot to your prologue: Man finds baby on the door step. Try and spot the differences in story telling. How information is conveyed. Why information is conveyed. How much information is conveyed.

Yeah but here is a valid question:
What if your story doesn't involve earth?
Or Humans?
Doesn't take place in our time?
Harry Potter has a good opening don't get me wrong, but its still set on contemporary Earth and still has a human protagonist so doesn't need such drastic sharp world building.

 

[TheTrinary]

Yeah but here is a valid question:
What if your story doesn't involve earth?
Or Humans?
Doesn't take place in our time?
Harry Potter has a good opening don't get me wrong, but its still set on contemporary Earth and still has a human protagonist so doesn't need such drastic sharp world building.

I mean, I once again reference the star wars title crawl. Look at what Georg Lucas wrote, look at what someone who knew how to write wrote.

George focused on the dry world building. Did we need that? Doesn't the other title crawl work better with just focusing on the characters and conflict?

At the end of the day, there are levels of abstraction when writing. First are the characters. Characters are the most important. Second is the conflict. Finally, its the world and atmosphere. People like to point to Tolkien and the like and say its a masterful work because of the world building, but that only works BECAUSE he got the characters right. People love Gandalf. People LOOVEEEE Sam. People are invested in the ring being destroyed. If Tolkien didn't hit those notes, then it wouldn't be worth a damn how well built up his world was. No one would have cared about his story.

In terms of an epic prologue, you only need to establish enough so that your audience understands what's going on. We're talking bare bones here. Talking about animated fantasy shows for 10-14, look at the Last Airbender's opening.

Four Elements. Four Nations. CONFLICT. CHARACTER. Short and sweet. What you need to understand the world building is that it uses a four element system, check. They don't talk about the Fire Nation attacking. They don't talk about the Air Nomad genocide. They don't talk about the ticking clock element with the comet. None of that.

Here's the bare minimum you need to not be confused, now let's talk about the conflict and the characters. You get in, you get out.

So let's actually go through and apply that to your case.


On the other side of our galaxy orbiting a gas giant is the Earth-like moon of Lapinia, the home to the Lapinans, a race of technologically advanced humanoid rabbits.

In Horizon City, a group of criminals known as the Red Stars have risen to power and thrown to the populace into chaos with their crime, havoc, and fear.

The police too powerless and too corrupt to stop them, a new division is formed, the Guardian Knights. They're a group of super hero protectors who have sworn to protect the innocent and bring down the Red Stars.

Guardian Night Ralph Bunny is a long line of policemen, and it's on this day that he steps up to take his father's place. . . .


It's a rough draft, but there you go. We have everything you need to know. Every little kid knows about cops and robbers. You have super heroes. You have a conflict. And it establishes the main character and gives you a little about him. It's not 100% there, it could use some additional personal information, but I didn't have any of that off the top of my head.

 

[MadmanRB]

A viable solution actually, I could work with that.
Again I was trying to cook up for a solution to a problem outside my control.
I mean yeah I still may want to keep a few more bits to my opening you omitted, but I could use it as a base for my revised opening.
Honestly though who can blame me for wanting to cover for myself and my universe as I know my initial audience will be adults who could fund this project into something other than a written story.
And adults would have a more critical eye than my target audience and would ask questions.
It was something I did think of when writing it as an adult could be my main critic and question why XXX isnt YYY and so forth,
This is why I put so much into the world building as I knew an adult could come interested in my concept.
Even Avatar the last airbender did an exposition dump in its first episode as its creators knew it would draw in adult fans.
It really is a delicate balance as while you know what your target demographic would want you know you would draw in adult readers on the sides.

 

[CadmarLegend]

It's a no from me.

70% of the prologue is just dry, matter of fact worldbuilding. You're just telling us how things are. There's no story. And frankly, a lot of the information dump is unimportant. You tell us how the undead need to be stabbed twice to die. . . but that doesn't come up. It has nothing to do with this chapter.

It reads like someone who really loves the world they created and want to talk about it, but that doesn't make for a gripping story.

The second time today I've referenced it, but go reread the first chapter of harry potter. It has the same plot to your prologue: Man finds baby on the door step. Try and spot the differences in story telling. How information is conveyed. Why information is conveyed. How much information is conveyed.

I have reread the entire series over 20 times... I'll probably read it again now. Thanks for the feedback!

 

[TheTrinary]

I have reread the entire series over 20 times... I'll probably read it again now. Thanks for the feedback!

There was no direct comparison in terms of style or audience, just in the fact that it was the same idea for a start and rowling used it to establish character and tell story rather than pure exposition.

 

[Deleted member 45782]

It basically clutters the thread with a bunch of posts made by the same user in a row for no reason. It just makes things easier for everyone if you reply to everyone in the same post.

I see. guess Businesssn deleted some comments. Could swear there was four of them, and three were...
anyhow, good to know.

 

[AliceShiki]

I see. guess Businesssn deleted some comments. Could swear there was four of them, and three were...
anyhow, good to know.

I reported tons of triple+ posts from him, so you probably saw one of those. The mods end up merging them after they get reported.

 

[CadmarLegend]

I reported tons of triple+ posts from him, so you probably saw one of those. The mods end up merging them after they get reported.

 

[Deleted member 45782]

I reported tons of triple+ posts from him, so you probably saw one of those. The mods end up merging them after they get reported.

oh i see, got it.

 

[MadmanRB]

Hey here is a revision to my opening to my story:

On the other side of our galaxy orbiting a gas giant is the Earth-like moon of Lapinia, the home to the Lapinans, a race of technologically advanced humanoid rabbits.

However, like us they face issues such as famine, bigotry, disease, crime, death, and war.

Twelve years ago the war between The Republic of New Galsa and The Kossikan Union broke out.

After an eight-year-long war, Kossik found itself defeated and now finds itself in Civil war.

Many Kossikan refugees soon fled their nation and found their way to New Galsa and its Capital of Horizon City.

Unfortunately, among them are members of the criminal group known as The Red Stars who have caused a wave of havoc and fear across the city.

Now many innocent refugees find themselves the targets of hatred by its brutal police force known as the Civil Legion.

As the city plunges into chaos, the Mayor has enlisted the Guardian Knights to protect the innocent Kossikans and bring down the Red Stars.

As events unfold, the fates of two Guardian Knights will become the center of events that will alter their destinies forever…

I still (mostly) say what I did in the original but boiled it down a bit.
Your approach was a tad too simple for my universe building and while I know I should not bog my audience down with politics I still need to have more meat on the bones of my intro I think.

 

[TheTrinary]

Hey here is a revision to my opening to my story:

On the other side of our galaxy orbiting a gas giant is the Earth-like moon of Lapinia, the home to the Lapinans, a race of technologically advanced humanoid rabbits.

However, like us they face issues such as famine, bigotry, disease, crime, death, and war.

Twelve years ago the war between The Republic of New Galsa and The Kossikan Union broke out.

After an eight-year-long war, Kossik found itself defeated and now finds itself in Civil war.

Many Kossikan refugees soon fled their nation and found their way to New Galsa and its Capital of Horizon City.

Unfortunately, among them are members of the criminal group known as The Red Stars who have caused a wave of havoc and fear across the city.

Now many innocent refugees find themselves the targets of hatred by its brutal police force known as the Civil Legion.

As the city plunges into chaos, the Mayor has enlisted the Guardian Knights to protect the innocent Kossikans and bring down the Red Stars.

As events unfold, the fates of two Guardian Knights will become the center of events that will alter their destinies forever…

I still (mostly) say what I did in the original but boiled it down a bit.
Your approach was a tad too simple for my universe building and while I know I should not bog my audience down with politics I still need to have more meat on the bones of my intro I think.

Better, punchier. It's also the perfect length (not talking about content). In screenplay format, one page equals one minute, so looking at this through the lens of a tv show, which you're trying to emulate, it hits that sweet spot for opening spiel.

 

[TheTrinary]

I reported tons of triple+ posts from him, so you probably saw one of those. The mods end up merging them after they get reported.

same

 

[MadmanRB]

Better, punchier. It's also the perfect length (not talking about content). In screenplay format, one page equals one minute, so looking at this through the lens of a tv show, which you're trying to emulate, it hits that sweet spot for opening spiel.

Good to know, I will go with that then.
Now any other possible places of improvement do you think?
Again I am aware of a few quirks, but a second pair of eyes don't hurt :D

 

[AliceShiki]

same

>.>
<.<

You shouldn't double post to say that you report people double posting... >.>

 

[CadmarLegend]

>.>
<.<

You shouldn't double post to say that you report people double posting... >.>

 

[TheTrinary]

>.>
<.<

You shouldn't double post to say that you report people double posting... >.>

exactly