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Based off of Piers Anthony's "On a Pale Horse", this story follows Zane's successor as HE tries to adjust to the new job as Death.
(No author's note)
So the overall idea works, people becoming death has been done before of course, but a good modern version could certainly be fun. My main complain is that this first chapter is focusing on the details of the plot and how everything works that we're left knowing almost nothing about the characters themselves. Who is Alaric? What are his thoughts as he's finding out this new information? Does he think the watch is cool, or old fashion and broke, confusing? Is he married, single, have a girlfriend? Is he happy about this new life, etc.? Just take what you have and sprinkle in some more character building. The bones are good (pun really not intended), but give it a little bit more
No complaints at this point, but it's hard to say with just the first chapter. I would say that I'm not completley drawn in yet, but like I note in the first point, that's more character driven, not plot driven.
Once again, I don't really see any problem with the continuity, just with the character development. It does feel just a little bit disjointed, but I think that's because there's more to find out about each area. What does the house look like, what does the woman look like other than she's attractive?For example, the guy at the end who dies from falling off the 45th floor, the reader shouldn't find out that it's such a large building after the guide falls down. Alaric should note something about the building, or being surprised he can hear voices from the top of such a huge ediface, or something of that sort.
All of the alliteration was cool to see. The beginning has a very "The Santa Clause" feel to it, which I liked. I also don't believe that he'd understand so quickly, but I have not read the previous books that you are basing this on so I'm afraid I'm working off of what I see before me. It seems like Alaric almost accepts what's happening as real too quickly.There he goes again, taking random things and putting them on because a strange woman told him so. Nitpicking, 47%, you say people can't see him but he is visible. Change the wording, maybe no one will recognize you?I love the connections, ha! The mention of Thanatos really got me. Pacing seems really really fast.
Plot seems great. I have a soft spot for novels about supernatural beings that exist in folklore, you'll even see that my current novel is also based on Death. This almost reminds me of Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdoms series.
I'm afraid I can't comment on continuity much as I haven't read On a Pale Horse. Within the context of the story everything seems fine so far.
First of all I've only really the first chapter, before I decided to critque from there since I think the issues I'm seeing will probably be continuous anyway, so better to say them now. The prose seem very flat. I get the feeling that this is meant to be a rather fast paced scene, especially at the start, but the prose make it seem very slow and flat.I've never been one to like catch all phrases and such, there are no hard and fast ways to write of course, but I do think there is too much showing rather than telling. The opening section lacks a lot of immediacy. It feels like we're standing back, having a scene described to us from an objective stand point, thats not what you want, you want immersion, to feel what the character is feeling. Also the heavy emphasis on dialogue, especially seemingly emphasised on showing every aspect Alaric's new job as Death is very tiring, and lacks immediacy and immersion as mentioned before. As a result it ends up being more than a little tedious, something you most definetly don't want in your opening chapter. There is no need to have all this explained in great depth, have Alaric find out about it via learning, by trying, some times he'll mess up, some times he'll do well, its more interesting than having it all explained to the reader. This will more than likely just end up boring them. If I'm honest this feels more like a tutorial and/or info dump rather than the catchy introduction to a book. I'd try adding some immediacy to the scene, short sharp sentances, or limiting description to what the characters actually see. For example there is no real reason to have both Zane and Alaric's viewpoints. You could limit it Alaric being startled awake in the night, and his terrified search of the house before killing Zane. I also wouldn't have so much explained to Alaric. Throw him in at the deep end and don't give him waders, the reader, and even the writer sometimes learn more about their characters from seeing them struggle, rather than seeming get told what to do.
Personally I'm not that big a fan of the whole 'someone becomes Death' thing, the same way I'm never really a fan of 'suddenly you're this! This being werewolf/vampire/magic user/ Pigmie Squid from the Planet Piemacakecron. It may be personal preferance, I'm sure some people like it, so don't take my oponion on plot too heavily.
Not really much to say on this to be honest, I haven't really read enough to make commenting fair. I'll comment on this in a review of a later draft.
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