The purpose of this group is to provide long term continuous crits on works that are significantly beyond the "crit my first 13" point and could use some high-level critting of the work as a whole.

We work at a pace of 10000K words every two weeks for each work you're critting. This is open to all, but please be planning on sticking with the WIPs you crit for the long haul if you join - even if the work you're critting is longer than your own work by a significant margin.

The intent of this group is to crit at a high level; for the most part you should be beyond wanting advice on grammar. You shouldn't need to go through line-by-line to crit these works. Read the sample, think about it, highlight a few areas you liked or didn't, and then give your impression of the sample as a whole and how it relates to the rest of the work that you've already read.

More details to follow.
 

FYI - I like the FPNA nomenclature!

[This message has been edited by DRaney (edited June 17, 2010).]
 

So far the operating procedures look to be the following:
- Each member is responsible for critting 10000 words of two other members' WIPs per two weeks. We'll stagger it so that on odd weeks you'll be reviewing one, and on even weeks another.

- We'll do our best to come up with a time every week / 2 weeks / month or so that we can have a live webchat focused on each author. We span from east to west coasts of the US, so timing will be a little tricky. I'm hoping for sometime on a Saturday, perhaps in the early afternoon EST / late morning PST so we can all participate (or at least the two people critting the author in question). I had tentatively planned to use the extraordinary technological abilities of google chat to do that. We can do google wave if you want to get all fancy.

I was thinking a good first step would be for us all to email around a brief synopsis of our WIPs stating genre, length, a plot hook/summary, and a target audience. You can then email me the two works you find most intriguing, and I'll assign them as best I can according to your desires. The target audience bit should also include a movie rating of sorts; I'm generally fine with anything, but if any of you find some cursing and or brief "book nudity" objectionable, you can tell me so and I'll make sure you aren't assigned that book.

 

City of Magi
Fantasy, set in not-quite-modern times (technology circa 1930s).
Word count stands at 104K right now.
The target audience is adult fantasy (that's "adult" as in normal/non-YA, not "adult" as in erotica).
Movie rating: Probably PG-13 as it stands, but I reserve the right to make it an R. People will occasionally get laid in a few chapters yet to be written, and I might spare it a few sentences (not terribly graphic). Generally mild profanity, light violence, psychological stress & situations that come with scenes set in something like war, and briefly in a prison. Bad people say and do bad things.

Hook: Grayson Kearney is every man and no man - a spy, and a magus that lives and breathes in the shadows of Dein Astos, the legendary City of Magi. Zia Locke, heir to the prestigious house of Locke and a strong young magi knight in her own right, finds herself thrust into a web of intrigue and backstabbing, both political and physical. She and Grayson may be the last chance Astosen has to avoid plunging the continent into a fourth Great War that would spell the end of the free world. She'll have to step into the shadows and he into the light if they're going to have any chance of unraveling the mystery that starts with the assassination of her father and goes further down the old family trees than either of them realized to begin with.
 

With both kinds of magic united in one person for the first time, strange things start to happen to Vatar. Some may be the result of a synergy between the two kinds of magic. Others seem to be some very ancient magics that have not been seen in hundreds of years. The most disturbing is a voice that only Vatar hears.

Vatar has to find out the cause of all of these phenomena to prove to himself that he is neither insane nor possessed by an Evil Spirit. At the same time, he has to continue to keep his magic secret from his people, carry on a life split between his plains tribe and the city, and try to help his new bride settle into his crazy life. Other than that, he hasn't got a problem in the world, unless you count the powerful woman who wants to kill him or imprison him for no better reason than he's his father's son.

 

Kamiko Hoshi and Siruis of Marjan are Sisters of the First Order, bonded together in the service of God. Kamiko struggles under the burden of fame, a wild popularity spread across the Kingdom as the greatest warrior in all the land while Siruis is seen only as Kamiko’s trusted sidekick. Truth is often reversed in the minds of the masses. Kamiko’s sworn duty and sole mission in life is to serve and protect her younger Sister of the faith. For it is through Siruis’ eyes and by her words that the Kingdom will survive or perish. And her visions are that of destruction. Together with two mighty giants, the aged Bartol and his youthful charge Jerim, the Sisters plunge into the mysterious and sudden rise of war in the lands sharing the western border of the Kingdom. There they find the envisioned seeds of destruction… already in full bloom.

[This message has been edited by DRaney (edited June 22, 2010).]
 

I am perfectly willing to prove my dedication by reviewing before my own work goes on the table for review.

For that reason, it feels presumptuous to present my current work, but since that seems the methodology...

Summary

FRAGILE GODS is a 50,000 word heroic fantasy (finished first draft). It is intended to be a no-frills ride of a few character's lives. There is a minor steampunk element. I would rate it PG-13 for a scene that some readers said was particularly disturbing. The scene involves nudity but no sex, but the nudity wasn't the disturbing part.

Copy

When protectors become killers…

For thousands of years, elemental titans known as the Drim have guarded and served the Dolmec people. Now, for the first time in history, they have turned violent, and not even the priests who follow them understand why.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Damek is annoyed when his older brother, Azai, advises him to abandon a quiet scholarly life for the chance to help Azai to stop a war. Though Damek does not share his brother’s ambition and arrogance, he realizes his existence has become tepid and stale. But when Azai instead incites lifelong pacifists to take up arms, Damek is forced to question his brother’s motives.

The penalty for success…

The proud general Shoji has won every battle he’s ever faced, and is determined to spend what’s left of his life quietly with his family. But the Emperor-god he serves has other plans.

At every turn, the lives of mortals are driven by the deities they love or fear. But what happens when the gods themselves fail?

[This message has been edited by Jason R. Peters (edited October 06, 2010).]

[This message has been edited by Jason R. Peters (edited October 06, 2010).]

[This message has been edited by Jason R. Peters (edited October 06, 2010).]