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Old 01-15-2016, 10:25 AM   #12
pdurrant
The Grand Mouse 高貴的老鼠
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Just for fun, a critique of your first five paragraphs. I was really thrown by your cutesy use of 'The fall'/'fell' in the first sentence. After that I just commented on anything that seemed odd or wrong to me in a quick read-through.

"The fall always fell quickly in the Northern Lands, especially in the east. The ocean winds would blow inland, sending deer into a frenzy to escape the hunters as winter began to creep up on the unsuspecting countryside. Still, it was always a few weeks before any real hunting began; most of the hunters in the east were farmers, and would spend their days harvesting the crops they had tended to all summer long."

The fall/fell first sentence is too cutsy. The fall doesn't fall. Leaves fall, but the fall comes in.

Deer don't go into a frenzy to escape hunters. Which is clear in your next sentence, as the hunters aren't hunting yet.

The fall fell quickly, but winter is creeping?


"Still, the Northern Lands were hosting fewer and fewer farmers in recent years. The Church was growing in both size and power, and with their new-found popularity came their impressive new techniques. Now, what had taken ten farmers to grow could be managed on a single plot of land. Prices on produce were at an all-time low, causing much fanfare towards God and his servants. After all, this was a modern-day miracle to most people, even if it spelled ruin for most of the farmers in the region."

You are overly fond of "Still".

Surely their new techniques caused their popularity?

'what had taken ten farmers to grow could be managed on a single plot of land' - are you talking about labour or land area or both - best to make this clear.

'much fanfare towards'? I don't think that works.

"So, as the number of farmers in each town began to dip into the single digits, ex-farmhands and landowners alike packed up and set off to find their fortune. Some made the simple switch from raising crops to ranching animals in their now-barren fields, but that still only accounted for half of the now-jobless workforce. The future looked bleak, but the people who called the Northern Lands home were resilient. They were determined to make back their fortunes any way they could. So when riches began falling from the sky, the future began to brighten."

Their fields aren't barren - they just can't compete economically with the new producers.

Have you considered that in a pre-industrial society, at least 90% of the population will be working the land to grow food? That's a lot of people suddenly unemployed. I think the dislocation in your society may be greater than you think if the number needed in agriculture drops from 90% to 9% in a few years.

"One only had to look up to realize how to secure their future. High above the planet's surface, resting on inconceivably large pillars, was The Shell. Formed in several hundred-dozen polygonal structures and connected by bridge-like arches, The Shell was a planetary exoskeleton built long before the great war. Its purpose had been two-fold; each polygonal structure housed a generator, which when combined with the others powered a massive energy shield that protected the earth from possible meteor strikes. At the same time, the exoskeleton had been brokered in chunks to the world's wealthiest and most powerful."

Just look up? But The Shell has been there for centuries.

"Formed in" - 'Formed of'

"several hundred-dozen" - Unless you're going to justify this on the basis of a planetary duo-decimal numbering system, just use 'thousands'.

"the exoskeleton had been brokered in chunks to the world's wealthiest and most powerful" - I just don't understand what this means at all, especially as one of two purposes.

"Still, that was all before The Great War, and the nuclear holocaust that had sent the world back to the stone ages. Everyone who lived below on the surface knew The Shell was home to humans far wealthier and wiser than they. It wasn't that the two groups hated each other, but each knew so little of the other that they might as well had been different species. So it was only natural that when ships crashed from above, scavengers would come running."

'Still' - cough.

'Great War' - consistent capitalisation, please. Earlier it was 'great war'.

'stone ages' - both Paleolithic and Neolithic? I think you mean stone age. But do you really? Did they really lose all forms of metalworking?

The two groups didn't hate each other? When the desperate survivors below knew that the people above were still living in luxury, but not helping them in their desperate plight? I find that very unlikely.

So the new feature is crashing ships? Perhaps that detail should come a little earlier, and fill in where they're from later?

Good luck.
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