[jallenw]

It's backwards.

By that I mean, of course, that it is inside out.

Let me see if I can make myself more clear.

At the begining, I am completely unaware of anything. All is mysterious and strange. As a fantasy reader, I usually like my strange to come in easy-to-swallow doses. Instead you give me a cornucopia of strange at outset and I am forced to roll it around in my mouth like some unwieldy bit of food that was biten off too big. Just as I have managed to digest enough of the strange to be able to taste the flavor, you pluck it from my mouth. I knew these creatures were talking about humans much too soon. By the time you reveal at the end, all my strange is gone and my mouth is left watering.

This does not sit well with me as a reader. I want a taste at the beginning, not a buffet. I want the buffet only once you have wetted my apetite. Instead, you have gluttoned me, stolen my candy, and starved me with a mere page of text.

I am only critical because this passage could be so much better. I see a wonderful voice and writing talent just screaming to be let out. Your passage was akin to discovering a pegasus, but then finding it was only a mighty stallion with plastic wings glued on.

Please, I beg you, find it within yourself to rewrite this piece from bow to stern. Give me the details of these wolves in smaller doses, spread out over the passage, not in a mass at the start. Cloud their language so that it is not so obvious that they stalk humans. Have them call our scientists shamans or somesuch. Have them talk of technology without using the very word itself. Perhaps you can refer to it only as wealth or power. Have them call Earth by another name, so that it is kept untill the last that their targets are you and me.

Truely, I desperately want to see you wonderful creatures slaughter many men, women, and children of mankind, but please, do not endeavor to slaughter your own voice at the same time. It feels as if you are attempting to emulate someone else's writing, and that is only hindering your effort. Let free your bonds. Ignore how novels should be written and tell me your story freely, unfettered by the chains of your own uncertainty.

I look forward to seeing what wonderful prose you unleash upon me next.

Never stop writing. You have the spark, make it a flame.

J. Allen Wentworth