Revengers Epic, ongoing story

I started an ongoing Christian fiction story, mainly action/adventure at this point but some supernatural elements in the works for story #4 and 5. I want to expose young men and women to scripture through entertaining and easy to read/consume stories. See below for a link, I would love some feedback! If you are interesting in reading stories before they come out on the site just let me know and I can share them with you before I publish.

www.RevengersEpic.com

Sure, I'll have a look at it. My internet access is limited, so I don't have time to sit and read it now, but I've saved it for later reading.

Three questions first, though:

1) Are these stories intended to stay in written format, or are they a script for audio fiction or some other dramatic form?

2) Do you want serious critical feedback, or just a quick first impression?

Rohelf wrote:Sure, I'll have a look at it.  My internet access is limited, so I don't have time to sit and read it now, but I've saved it for later reading.

Three questions first, though:

1) Are these stories intended to stay in written format, or are they a script for audio fiction or some other dramatic form?

2) Do you want serious critical feedback, or just a quick first impression?

Awesome, much appreciated!
1. For now they are going to be in written format but I would love to adapt into an audio format, possibly a weekly podcast. (In all honesty I initially wanted to write a comic but I can't draw and was having difficulty finding an artist so I just started putting it out as a written story)
2. Either is fine, whatever you have time for! An initial impression would be great to start.

Thank you!

Okay, I’m going to be straight with you. This needs a lot of work. If this is only your first or second draft, I wouldn’t be too worried. Sometimes you have to throw a lot of different ideas at the wall before you get some to stick, and it’s better to have something on the page that you can work with, rather than staring at a blank screen until you can come up with the perfect words. But I think this is at least two revisions away from being ready for public consumption.

I’m not sure I have the time to give your work the sort of intense attention and work it would need right now (this is actually something I do as a side job), but here are three of the most foundational issues that I think you need to resolve before going any further.

The Format

You seem to be writing this story as an odd hybrid of script and novel. Either can work, but you need to pick one and stick to it, at least for the time being. You can convert to a different format later if necessary, but you shouldn’t mix them like this. Right now, the dialogue seems to be largely in script format, but then you have large chunks of exposition, description, and action between these dialogue sections. In an audio drama, who would read these paragraphs? One of the characters as an internal monologue? An omniscient narrator? Or would they be portrayed via sound effects as much as possible? If you’re not sure, and you think the info in these paragraphs is important to keep, maybe you should stick to novel format for now, and convert the dialogue appropriately.

The Audience

Your initial post above says that you intend this story to “expose young men and women to scripture.” I have to say, though, this story feels much more geared towards guys than girls. I’m not a very traditionally girly person, and I like a lot of guy-intended stories, but I feel about this story very similarly to how I felt about Mark Carver’s novel Beast; it puts so much emphasis on traditional masculinity that it feels alienating to me. And just like I said about Beast, if this is dude-ish enough to put me off, it’s probably going to be off-putting to most women and even some men. If you’re okay with a smaller, more targeted audience, that’s fine, but if you do want cross-gender appeal for this piece, I think you need to significantly dial back the emphasis on manliness and physical prowess and dial up the characterization.

The Title

How attached are you to the name Revengers? If you don’t have a particular reason to keep it, I’d highly recommend that you go with something else, because Revengers (a) doesn’t accurately reflect the sort of work the characters actually do, (b) doesn’t seem like the sort of thing such vocally Christian characters would pursue or endorse, and (c) sounds an awful lot like the name of another currently popular team of heroes, which may lead people to accuse you of copying, even if that isn’t actually where you got the idea.

Once you’ve decided on those things, you should have a clearer idea of where you want to go (and, just as importantly, not go) in your next draft.

Rohelf wrote:Okay, I’m going to be straight with you.  This needs a lot of work.  If this is only your first or second draft, I wouldn’t be too worried.  Sometimes you have to throw a lot of different ideas at the wall before you get some to stick, and it’s better to have something on the page that you can work with, rather than staring at a blank screen until you can come up with the perfect words.  But I think this is at least two revisions away from being ready for public consumption.

I’m not sure I have the time to give your work the sort of intense attention and work it would need right now (this is actually something I do as a side job), but here are three of the most foundational issues that I think you need to resolve before going any further.

The Format

You seem to be writing this story as an odd hybrid of script and novel.  Either can work, but you need to pick one and stick to it, at least for the time being.  You can convert to a different format later if necessary, but you shouldn’t mix them like this.  Right now, the dialogue seems to be largely in script format, but then you have large chunks of exposition, description, and action between these dialogue sections.  In an audio drama, who would read these paragraphs?  One of the characters as an internal monologue?  An omniscient narrator?  Or would they be portrayed via sound effects as much as possible?  If you’re not sure, and you think the info in these paragraphs is important to keep, maybe you should stick to novel format for now, and convert the dialogue appropriately.

The Audience

Your initial post above says that you intend this story to “expose young men and women to scripture.”  I have to say, though, this story feels much more geared towards guys than girls.  I’m not a very traditionally girly person, and I like a lot of guy-intended stories, but I feel about this story very similarly to how I felt about Mark Carver’s novel Beast; it puts so much emphasis on traditional masculinity that it feels alienating to me.  And just like I said about Beast, if this is dude-ish enough to put me off, it’s probably going to be off-putting to most women and even some men.  If you’re okay with a smaller, more targeted audience, that’s fine, but if you do want cross-gender appeal for this piece, I think you need to significantly dial back the emphasis on manliness and physical prowess and dial up the characterization.

The Title

How attached are you to the name Revengers?  If you don’t have a particular reason to keep it, I’d highly recommend that you go with something else, because Revengers (a) doesn’t accurately reflect the sort of work the characters actually do, (b) doesn’t seem like the sort of thing such vocally Christian characters would pursue or endorse, and (c) sounds an awful lot like the name of another currently popular team of heroes, which may lead people to accuse you of copying, even if that isn’t actually where you got the idea.

Once you’ve decided on those things, you should have a clearer idea of where you want to go (and, just as importantly, not go) in your next draft.

Thank you for your in depth feedback, it is greatly appreciated! I am going to take all of these suggestions into consideration moving forward.

Thanks again!