The Tale of Cloran Hastings -- The Novel

[Roneatek]

Well I finally edited the book version of my game so that I am satisfied (for now). I have posted two chapters from the book, the Prologue and Chapter Nine, on my website for folks to sample. So then, if you want a taste of how the book turned out, go check it out. I'm still looking for an agent to represent me though. I submitted my novel to 20+ agents and 10+ publishing houses and haven't heard anything positive yet. But I'll keep trying!

Prologue: The Lonely King of Menigah
Chapter Nine: Pale-Faced Hospitality
Part One
Part Two
Part Three

It should be mistake free. But don't quote me on that ><

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: The Tale of Cloran Hastings -- The Novel

I'm not fond of picking up stories right in the middle like this.

I'm assuming you have a stylistic approach to dialogue where you don't use quotation marks at all, unless there's something about the blog site you're using that I don't know about. Why did you decide against quotation marks?

[Roneatek]

Re: The Tale of Cloran Hastings -- The Novel

The blog I'm using does not post the quotation marks, aparently. Thanks for pointing it out to me, I'll put them in manually.

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: The Tale of Cloran Hastings -- The Novel

Ah. Yeah, that really threw me off. It's also going to annoy the hell out of you to have to go in and put all of those in. Let me know when it's done and I'll give it a read.

[Roneatek]

Re: The Tale of Cloran Hastings -- The Novel

There, fixed it. I just copied the text, pasted it into Word Pad (which got rid of the smart-quotes) and re-pasted it into the blog. I lost a little formatting during the process (I lost all indents, paragraphs are signaled by a line break and all italics switched to underline) but it is readable now

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: The Tale of Cloran Hastings -- The Novel

In essence, you may as well have just posted it here.

I'll give it a gander this afternoon some time.

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: The Tale of Cloran Hastings -- The Novel

By this afternoon, I obviously meant two days later.

The descriptions were pretty good throughout, but I lost interest about halfway through. The dialogue lacked finesse and that natural touch that is so important but difficult to obtain. Most of the time it felt like the characters were reading off of cue cards, or something.

I certainly liked the story presented. Sailor adventures are always exciting, and this one fares well in this regard. Let me ask this: What age range are you thinking this is for? By all my own judgements, it seems to me on par with the young adult lines as far as description and the haste with which things happen.

I can't say I'd purchase a novel that reads like this. But then, I liked X3.

[DK]

Re: The Tale of Cloran Hastings -- The Novel

I think it's time you let it go, Rick.

Just say it.

"I'm Big Rick Cook....and I liked X-men: The Last Stand"

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: The Tale of Cloran Hastings -- The Novel

Where's the fun in that?

[Roneatek]

Re: The Tale of Cloran Hastings -- The Novel

Yes, I wrote it as a young adult fiction novel.