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The first story in what I hope is to be many. The undead wolf Jack is raised by the mysterious Nefyst, promising Jack his dead wife if he serves him. This may prove difficult as Jack's first target is illusive and even the ability to regenerate almost instantly doesn't help him. Twenty years later, Jack's called in to defend a man he hates with good reason against a superior assassin who's out to teach Jack that that there is still a lot to lose even after he's lost his life.
This story has seen many changes. It was written twice and deleted before taking the shape it's in. And that's after I took three years writing it in my head over and over again. After the failure that Wulf Demon became, I decided to go ahead and put this one out there.
I know it's one in the morning and it's unlikely this thing will be seen by anybody, much less that anyone will feel up to reading through it because it doesn't have vore or sex or even tits really, but I worked hard on this and I'm posting it here anyway.
Comments, critiques, whatever accepted
Edit: Version 2 has the following changes made to it:
-All mention of Sariel has been wiped out
-An explanation of Benders and a history of furries (for the world at least) has been added
This story has seen many changes. It was written twice and deleted before taking the shape it's in. And that's after I took three years writing it in my head over and over again. After the failure that Wulf Demon became, I decided to go ahead and put this one out there.
I know it's one in the morning and it's unlikely this thing will be seen by anybody, much less that anyone will feel up to reading through it because it doesn't have vore or sex or even tits really, but I worked hard on this and I'm posting it here anyway.
Comments, critiques, whatever accepted
Edit: Version 2 has the following changes made to it:
-All mention of Sariel has been wiped out
-An explanation of Benders and a history of furries (for the world at least) has been added
Category Story / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 50 x 50px
File Size 155 kB
Late-night critique, aw yeah! Fucking 6:17AM here, anyway...
First thing that I'll say is that you have good pacing. There wasn't any part of this that I had trouble finishing, and my eyes didn't start to skim along... that's actually really huge, since I have a tendency to do such things when it comes to written work, and the final fight scene was handled rather well. No skimming to be found there either, so kudos for that.
Moving right along to more valuable stuff now:
Some of your paragraphs, the first two in particular, need to have better flow to them I feel. There's so many full stops that everything feels disjointed, and there's a lot of opportunities to unify your sentences and make them flow, which would add a lot considering you're describing Jack, the main character. The opening overall feels a little... weak, not with the idea of Jack conversing with Nefyst, but just the scene itself. I didn't really get too much of a feel for the environment around them, however small it was, and during their whole bit of interaction they feel very... distant, stiff. I think there are places where you could add more actions to supplement their words, or even describe what's going on outside of the vehicle. It's simply lacklustre. Also: Jack's reaction to Rita (both before her name is actively stated and once it is). Given his emotional attachment to this character as seen later in this piece, it doesn't carry the impact you think it would, I mean, this is Nefyst's way of controlling Jack, yet it comes across as very "Meh" or even brushed aside.
Neyfst also, I feel, could use a little more intimidation to set his character, right around the point where he mentions he know's about Jack's future. The TV bit was actually great, but I feel something else is needed to follow up. He's a smug character, right? Very confident? Why not have him rub it in just how powerful and fucking smug he is, only to show off?
The next quick bit for me was the Man-Eaters. Jack obviously reacts very violently to the mention of their name, and despite the impact it has on HIM, it didn't really carry any weight to me. It needs something more... a memory, general idea or explanation that makes the reader go "Oh, okay" or conversely "Oh... oh shit, that sounds bad." Without substance, it's just a title, just a name.
I'll take this opportunity to mention that you have a nice knack for describing facial features, or setting the scene when you develop everything enough. Price's description really sold the character for me, and I was able to imagine the others in their suited roles. Quite fun, actually. I'll just quickly add that the second interaction between Nefyst and Jack is something I really loved (second excluding that minor train bit), the bit about attempting to justify his killings.
Going back to the grindstone, your dialogue feels really weak in some parts, solely because of how broken it is. Quick line. Quick line. Quick line. Physical motion. SPACE. That person's dialogue. It needs better flow to it, and the first step in my mind is to link the dialogue and the action.
Example:
The human raised his hands in a disarming fashion.
“Hey, I’m just saying that you tend to eat a lot more than I do. That’s all.”
Directly as quoted, and... that line in particular (as well as some others following this pattern) really hurt the flow for me. You could easily patch that with something like the following:
"Hey, I'm just saying that you tend to eat a lot more than I do. That's all." The human said as he raised his hands disarmingly.
A lot of the dialogue goes back to what I said about Nefyst and Jack's little bit in the car together: It feels disjointed and lacks character movement/interaction besides stares.
The last bit that struck me as very odd is the 20 year time different. That is... QUITE a hefty amount of time, and given that, Jack is... very upset over ONE incident, in fact, that's all he has against Price. Because of that time difference certain questions are brought up: Wouldn't he have gone after Price? If so, why aren't these things stated? Does Nefyst forbid it, and if he does what is his way of remaining true to his threats? With THAT MUCH time span, there needs to be A LOT more content as to what has been going on and how that fuck-up affected the characters (i.e. jack's bitterness, price's confidence, nefyst's behaviour, etc.), or the time difference itself needs to be toned back. Honestly, I feel it could use a mix of those two options, but that's just my opinion.
Everything else I was quite pleased with and enjoyed reading, minus the same dialogue issues I stated. And I'll end by saying I loved Jack's "death" and re-animation scene, as well as describing the interior of Nefyst's office.
DONE. DONE! Fucking time for sleep.
First thing that I'll say is that you have good pacing. There wasn't any part of this that I had trouble finishing, and my eyes didn't start to skim along... that's actually really huge, since I have a tendency to do such things when it comes to written work, and the final fight scene was handled rather well. No skimming to be found there either, so kudos for that.
Moving right along to more valuable stuff now:
Some of your paragraphs, the first two in particular, need to have better flow to them I feel. There's so many full stops that everything feels disjointed, and there's a lot of opportunities to unify your sentences and make them flow, which would add a lot considering you're describing Jack, the main character. The opening overall feels a little... weak, not with the idea of Jack conversing with Nefyst, but just the scene itself. I didn't really get too much of a feel for the environment around them, however small it was, and during their whole bit of interaction they feel very... distant, stiff. I think there are places where you could add more actions to supplement their words, or even describe what's going on outside of the vehicle. It's simply lacklustre. Also: Jack's reaction to Rita (both before her name is actively stated and once it is). Given his emotional attachment to this character as seen later in this piece, it doesn't carry the impact you think it would, I mean, this is Nefyst's way of controlling Jack, yet it comes across as very "Meh" or even brushed aside.
Neyfst also, I feel, could use a little more intimidation to set his character, right around the point where he mentions he know's about Jack's future. The TV bit was actually great, but I feel something else is needed to follow up. He's a smug character, right? Very confident? Why not have him rub it in just how powerful and fucking smug he is, only to show off?
The next quick bit for me was the Man-Eaters. Jack obviously reacts very violently to the mention of their name, and despite the impact it has on HIM, it didn't really carry any weight to me. It needs something more... a memory, general idea or explanation that makes the reader go "Oh, okay" or conversely "Oh... oh shit, that sounds bad." Without substance, it's just a title, just a name.
I'll take this opportunity to mention that you have a nice knack for describing facial features, or setting the scene when you develop everything enough. Price's description really sold the character for me, and I was able to imagine the others in their suited roles. Quite fun, actually. I'll just quickly add that the second interaction between Nefyst and Jack is something I really loved (second excluding that minor train bit), the bit about attempting to justify his killings.
Going back to the grindstone, your dialogue feels really weak in some parts, solely because of how broken it is. Quick line. Quick line. Quick line. Physical motion. SPACE. That person's dialogue. It needs better flow to it, and the first step in my mind is to link the dialogue and the action.
Example:
The human raised his hands in a disarming fashion.
“Hey, I’m just saying that you tend to eat a lot more than I do. That’s all.”
Directly as quoted, and... that line in particular (as well as some others following this pattern) really hurt the flow for me. You could easily patch that with something like the following:
"Hey, I'm just saying that you tend to eat a lot more than I do. That's all." The human said as he raised his hands disarmingly.
A lot of the dialogue goes back to what I said about Nefyst and Jack's little bit in the car together: It feels disjointed and lacks character movement/interaction besides stares.
The last bit that struck me as very odd is the 20 year time different. That is... QUITE a hefty amount of time, and given that, Jack is... very upset over ONE incident, in fact, that's all he has against Price. Because of that time difference certain questions are brought up: Wouldn't he have gone after Price? If so, why aren't these things stated? Does Nefyst forbid it, and if he does what is his way of remaining true to his threats? With THAT MUCH time span, there needs to be A LOT more content as to what has been going on and how that fuck-up affected the characters (i.e. jack's bitterness, price's confidence, nefyst's behaviour, etc.), or the time difference itself needs to be toned back. Honestly, I feel it could use a mix of those two options, but that's just my opinion.
Everything else I was quite pleased with and enjoyed reading, minus the same dialogue issues I stated. And I'll end by saying I loved Jack's "death" and re-animation scene, as well as describing the interior of Nefyst's office.
DONE. DONE! Fucking time for sleep.
To respond to a couple of your comments... Nefyst is not smug. That was intentional although I probably should have made it more obvious that Nefyst has no emotions. The Man-Eaters connection is actually thrown in there for people who'd read Wulf Demon, but it will be elaborated on later. You do make a good point though, that hasn't been set up as well as I could have hoped. Beyond that, yes I understand all the rest and I kind of see where they're coming from, I'll keep an eye on them in the future.
As for the twenty years... that wasn't handled as well as I wanted to but I can't drop it. Most of my characters weren't grown up before that point. However, I made a point to say that Price could disappear easily. Jack's doings during those twenty years are going to be elaborated on later.
Finally, the reanimation scene was done three times and I wound up going with the second because of length, and because I don't think anyone wants to see dendrites reforming on a molecular level...
As for the twenty years... that wasn't handled as well as I wanted to but I can't drop it. Most of my characters weren't grown up before that point. However, I made a point to say that Price could disappear easily. Jack's doings during those twenty years are going to be elaborated on later.
Finally, the reanimation scene was done three times and I wound up going with the second because of length, and because I don't think anyone wants to see dendrites reforming on a molecular level...
I'll just chock up my misinterpretation of Nefyst's character up to the time of night or something. I'd probably catch it better if I took a second run through the story. And I can see now that the twenty years thing is important, at least in some manner... And yes, I do believe Price's potential to disappear was a passing comment. I'm not 100% sure.
I think you made a good call on the reanimation bit, honestly. There is such a thing as going too much in depth (I find this a lot when I try to read Stephen King's work) and you seemed to find the sweet spot when writing the scene for the second time.
So yeah, there we go. Little bit of back and forth.
Good luck writing it, don't get discouraged. I'll likely end up reading the other episodes of The Hourglass as they arrive.
I think you made a good call on the reanimation bit, honestly. There is such a thing as going too much in depth (I find this a lot when I try to read Stephen King's work) and you seemed to find the sweet spot when writing the scene for the second time.
So yeah, there we go. Little bit of back and forth.
Good luck writing it, don't get discouraged. I'll likely end up reading the other episodes of The Hourglass as they arrive.
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