APOSTLE'S CREED - a zombie story

[TheAverageFan]

Apologies for the belated reply:

Spoiler Alert!

Originally Posted by TGRF

I want to start with the things I liked about this story. This goes beyond the normal elements of pacing, tension, twists, and all that. These are things I specifically noticed as done well.

Firstly, there was a plethora of good imaginative descriptions. I noted several of them, but there are quite a few more I didn't note, simply because there were so many. I really appreciated the use of inventive language in this element, although I will note that it backfired a couple times and it took me a second to figure out what you meant. On the whole though, really good descriptions.

I'm surprised to see the descriptions as a positive given that prose has never been a strong suit of mine whatsoever. Even the descriptions in this that I like are much too few and far between for a book of this size, and are paltry compared to a lot of other works I've read.

Originally Posted by TGRF

Some smaller things which I thought were especially good: Firstly, the very first chapter (actually the introduction I think), with Thomas in the hospital. I feel like that was probably the best chapter in the entire story. The descriptions were on point, the atmosphere was conveyed flawlessly, interest was held. But the best thing about it was the complete believability in Thomas losing his faith. I mentioned it before, but I'll say it again: that is NOT easy to do, and you absolutely nailed it.

Similarly the praise for the prologue is essentially a negative for me as the author because it also means the book is all downhill from the very beginning. Writing Thomas losing his faith was relatively easy because I too have lost my faith in myself as a writer. But I am glad there's one chapter you unequivocally liked. All of Thomas' hopes, circumstances, and choices in the prologue echo throughout the rest of the entire story.

Originally Posted by TGRF

Another small detail which I think was good in retrospect is Reed as an antagonist. Now granted, it kind of comes out of nowhere, as I recall him not being belligerent in TMHW, just kind of a grumpy loner. But that added group tension really helped the story in several places, and it helped Reed's character immensely, making him far more memorable and interesting. What you would call agency.

I'm curious if you could elaborate on what you mean as Reed being an antagonist. He's mostly consistent with how he is in the first book, save for a reveal or two.

Originally Posted by TGRF

Silvin was also done well. I have my issues with his character, which I'll get into, but he is legitimately fun to read with the way he views everything, and more time spent with him was an added bonus.

Your comments on Silvin serve to me as proof that charisma is indeed the biggest ingredient for making the audience like an evil character. All the other antagonists are mostly joyless.

Originally Posted by TGRF

I feel like this story suffered in two areas. One was a plethora of smaller things, which I'll get to. The other was free indirect speech.

If I am being brutally honest, I have to say that if there is one thing which detracted from this story more than anything else (by a lot), it's free indirect speech. I've expounded on this before, so I'll just keep this short, but I think it is important.

If we had stuck with Thomas as our main PoV, and been limited to his thoughts, the story would have been miles better. Obviously there would have been some scenes and chapters with different PoVs, like Stacey and King and Elias and Nazar, and that's fine. But we should have just stuck with Thomas for the majority.

Here's why. When Stacey got captured, you were forced to stay in her head. You didn't show what Silvin was thinking, and aside from switching to the group now and then, it was Stacey all the way. The result: I started to heavily root for Stacey. I even said I was more invested in her than Thomas at one point. Now that investment went down once she got injured and spent several chapters absent, but it illustrates my point: if we had stayed in Thomas' head, investment in him would have skyrocketed.

I cannot overstate how important that investment is. If you care about the character, you care about their problems, thus the main conflict, thus the stakes of the story have real weight. It's all connected, and it all starts with that character investment. And it just wasn't there.

Why? Because we kept jumping around, hearing the thoughts of everyone in the group. This might seem like a small thing, but it really does have a massive impact. By simply not staying in Thomas' head, I could never get truly invested in him (or anyone else), and as a result, my interest was low for basically the entire story. At any point, I could have easily gone and read something else.

At one point I asked why you employed free indirect speech, and what specific advantages it gave the story, and there wasn't really an answer. I would like to pose the same question again: why free indirect speech?

Regarding the free indirect speech, you seem to have misinterpreted it as just having different PoV's. As I've explained previously, free indirect speech is simply incorporating a character's perspective into the 3rd person narration. The PoV can also shift quite freely, though the point remains that even if Thomas was the only PoV in the entire story FIS would still be used. You've probably used it yourself even unintentionally.

Regarding jumping around the PoVs so much, it's a fair point I suppose. Perhaps I as a reader just don't require so much time in exchange for my investment, and so give limited PoV to each character (even Thomas) in turn. Once something endears me to a character I am more or less locked in from there. I also want to see things through the eyes of others in the group, because they are important. I just imagined it'd stick better, and having your reaction being just indifference to various gut-punch moments hurts the story immeasurably. I'd even incorporated your TMHW feedback to give the characters more "strong" actions, choices, and introductions, though it doesn't seem to have helped much.

Originally Posted by TGRF

There were some questionable decisions. I mentioned most of these, but towards the end I kind of stopped doing that because they just kept coming. These questionable plans or actions always pulled me out of the story as I questioned them, especially when everyone just went along with them like it was the obvious choice.

One of I risks I knew going in with this was that the characters stop making good decisions. In TMHW they mostly make sound decisions given the circumstances, but that is not the case in this book and it carried problems with the reader even if it was intentional.

Originally Posted by TGRF

Apostle misses shots. Obviously this is there for a reason. However, with no hint of a reason - or even that it is a symptom of some grander plan - I'm left with the basic facts: these guys can't hit at point blank range. This basically sucks all threat out of them - at one point I thought to myself that the group should just walk up to them amidst a hail of fire and take them out calmly one by one. If they had been more plentiful, they would have been akin to stormtroopers - something for the heroes to mow down, but never really a threat anyone takes seriously.

Yes, Apostle misses shots but they're not real soldiers so it's kind of a moot point. One wounds Irene, one wounds Stacey, and one kills Montag and that's about it. I guess I could've added a character specifically to get killed by them early on to establish threat but eh...

Originally Posted by TGRF

As with TMHW, there was a lot which seemed to serve no purpose. Again, this could be resolved in the final entry, and again, without that entry I can only work with what I have. A lot of what happened in this tale seems unnecessary. The gist is the transition surrounding Thomas, Brooke, and Nazar, and obviously you need time to make that happen. But it seems like a lot could have been cut. For instance, Stacey being captured. She gets captured, James gets found, she escapes, the group storms Silvin's base - nothing really happens except that Stacey now is mad at Thorn (which she forgives later). Why is that whole sequence there? What did it do for the story? Things like that seemed plentiful.

Stacey being captured is actually very important as it leads to the events that reveal Brooke's immunity, as well as a whole myriad of other factors and plot points ranging from Stacey's backstory to Thorn's flaws to the moving the zombies to the coasts to how Apostle's cure kills certain people and more.

Originally Posted by TGRF

There wasn't a true sense of progression. I mentioned this before, but with the goal remaining as 'get to place X', but with no solid indication of exactly how far that was, the story came down to a lot of traveling, with a feeling like you the author could have them arrive at any given time. It sucked any sort of anticipation of arrival from the chapters, because I knew that everything that needed to happen before they arrived, would happen. And then they would likely start another journey.

This is a valid criticism as distances to places are rarely mentioned. Both books are the journey more than the destinations, but still.

Originally Posted by TGRF

Sometimes there was too much flowery language. I pointed this out at one point. I am a fan of witty or poetic lines, and a lot of what you had was great. Sometimes though I think you had too much at once. I pointed this out I think in chapter 1 paragraph 1, where you had a ton bunched up together, and it just made reading hard. The reader naturally needs to slow down to read the poetry, just like certain foods are harder to digest and take longer. So if you have too much too quickly - especially in one sentence - things just stop working.

This is fair: long-winded can describe much of the book as a whole. You didn't even mention that 90% of the book is dialogue.

Originally Posted by TGRF

Three truly minor things: both Nazar and the military have helicopters (we see chinooks), but they never even think to use them to airlift the group where they clearly want them to be. Silvin and Elias describing themselves as 'evil' and 'bad guys' felt off - everyone is the hero if their own story. There were a few scenes where people acted oddly out of character: Stacey spilled her guts to Silvin (which I already mentioned and you answered), Thorn dropping everything to go after Silvin (again mentioned previously), and finally Header at the very end. The way he treats Thomas and suddenly takes Nazar's side seems completely out of the blue. I get Nazar is his commanding officer, but Header has literally questioned Nazar's loyalty before, and he's being uncharacteristically rough and 'big picture' with Thomas, where he never was before. I would expect a restraining hand, not a shove and a gun barrel. Something isn't right there.

The first point with the helicopters is fair though moot as the earliest Nazar could do so while knowing where Brooke is at would be when the group captures the bridge with Oakerley's company and by then nothing would change other than her dying faster. Oakerley's company taking her to VACC via armored transport is arguably safer than an airlift at that point anyway.

Neither Silvin or Elias see themselves as evil but they are perfectly aware of how others view them and so describe themselves as thus. Silvin is a lot more tongue-in-cheek about it: he's been played up as a bad guy in the media for years.

Thorn's going after Silvin is contrived I will admit. It needs to happen and I did everything I could to make it organic as possible, but it does still feel not quite right.

I will strongly contest Header's actions at the end. If you felt it was out of the blue then you need to reread any of Header's earlier scenes leading up until that point.

Originally Posted by TGRF

This section is almost done, I promise. I wanted to mention two things about the format itself. Firstly, I went into this (as I did with TMHW) thinking it would conclude the story. If I had known that was not the case, I likely would not have felt confused and oddly empty upon reaching the end. I read the last line and remember thinking 'that's it?' I would suggest saying up front if something concludes the story or not in the future.

Honestly I'm surprised you didn't figure it out on both counts given the amount of unresolved stuff at the end—or even leading up to the end—of both stories. But I do promise the next entry is the last one!

Originally Posted by TGRF

I've mentioned the chapter length before, but I want to say it again. Because the chapters were so long (even with the dividers), I simply couldn't read this story that fast. This meant there were breaks and pauses and distractions, and the reading was broken up significantly as a result. If the chapters had been shorter - far shorter - I could have easily sat down, know I could read one, and then move on. Here I could never do that. I had to know I had a good solid hour to get through a chapter every time. I would again suggest you shorten the chapters as much as possible. I don't care if there are a hundred of them if I can read them in a manageable sitting. This is a technique James Patterson has employed to great success.

This is fair but I just couldn't bring myself to jump from 25 to 64 chapters between stories.

Originally Posted by TGRF

Honestly I'm glad Brooke is dead. Her character was becoming too domineering of the story, in the sense that everything and everyone revolved around her. There's nothing wrong with that, but this way things are opened up and the way forward isn't clear. I'm looking forward to seeing Thomas grow and change without Brooke to use as a crutch.

Given how invested Thomas was in Brooke I would expect to see the opposite of growth now that she's dead.

Originally Posted by TGRF

How will our characters fit in? If I were them, I would find a nice isolated island, get some shelter and canned goods, and start growing a farm. I highly doubt that's how the sequel will go however. They remain in no position to combat anything, so I'm curious how you'll pull them yet again into the center of things.

They had every chance to just stay at VACC in the first entry, and every chance to just leave the room when Elias offered in this. I don't think they'd be content sitting on an island, though that's what I'd do too.

Originally Posted by TGRF

Character-wise, I would like to see more growth from Thomas. Reed got way more agency this story; I look forward to seeing what you do there. The romance between Stacey and Thorn has never felt very organic to me, and as a result I'm actually not that interested in it, despite my earlier investment in Stacey. With her being injured, she's almost become a side character now, so I don't know what I expect to see there.

I find this curious since I actually think the Stacey/Thorn romance is superior to the Thomas/Brooke one, though that may just be preference and you never said if that one was any good either. Where any of those will lead any of them remains to be seen.

Originally Posted by TGRF

Despite Silvin being fun to read, I'm not looking forward to his resolution with Thorn. In both this story and the last one, his inclusion at all has felt odd and disconnected - he's just kind of there, with no real reason for being there I can discern. He adds practically nothing to the story, except as a plot device to get Thorn to chase after him.

I think this goes back to the fact that Silvin is Thorn's character. He's never once interacted with Thomas and just isn't really a factor in Thomas' journey. Furthermore Thorn has agreed to leave Silvin behind. Where that leaves Silvin himself remains to be seen.

Originally Posted by TGRF

I went into this story assuming Nazar would be the main villain, and I still have the same assumption. King might be the bad guy, but Nazar is the one we know, thus he should be the one in the climax (the same reason Eltuthar was a better choice for antagonist than Aranthar).

I did note similarities when reading Dilmir 3, though I will say we'll get more of King in the next entry and as such not remain as the "distant big bad who we have to defeat but know very little about personally". He only had a couple interactions with the group in this one and only the last one involved words shared between him and Thomas (but boy do those words hit a lot harder once you know how Apostle's Creed ends).

Originally Posted by TGRF

Rating: 7, closer to a 6 than an 8. There were some good things, some bad things, but honestly I think the free indirect speech really brought things down.

I can't say it's not demoralizing spending seven years writing a sequel only to get the same score (if not subtly lower) than the original, though I never expected you to love it so I can't get too upset really.

Development is ongoing for the final entry of the trilogy, though it is still early and I have a lot to figure out when it comes to the fine-tuning of the piece and what-all exactly happens in it down to each chapter. It'll be some time before that's out to say the least. It will if nothing else wrap everything up for good so stay tuned for that. Thanks for taking all the time to read.

~TAF

[TGRF]

Spoiler Alert!

Originally Posted by TAF

I'm surprised to see the descriptions as a positive given that prose has never been a strong suit of mine whatsoever. Even the descriptions in this that I like are much too few and far between for a book of this size, and are paltry compared to a lot of other works I've read.

I would submit to you this question: what is the purpose of a description? To enable the reader to see what is happening in his head with more ease. Let me therefore say that - save for a handful of times - I could picture everything perfectly. Therefore, even if your descriptions might not be as 'prose-y' as you'd like, they certainly got the job done, and I would say that they were excellent. Remember: the goal is not fanciful language, but visualization. Your imaginative descriptions were perfectly spaced to aid in that.

Originally Posted by TAF

Similarly the praise for the prologue is essentially a negative for me as the author because it also means the book is all downhill from the very beginning. Writing Thomas losing his faith was relatively easy because I too have lost my faith in myself as a writer. But I am glad there's one chapter you unequivocally liked. All of Thomas' hopes, circumstances, and choices in the prologue echo throughout the rest of the entire story.

Well I suppose you can look at that as meaning the story is downhill from there, or as meaning that there is at least one chapter I loved without flaw, break it down, and try to emulate it in the rest of your writing. The process of becoming a better writer is about using criticism to build up, not down. If at any point my criticism has failed to point out an area for improvement, than I would consider myself a failed critic.

Originally Posted by TAF

I'm curious if you could elaborate on what you mean as Reed being an antagonist. He's mostly consistent with how he is in the first book, save for a reveal or two.

He creates conflict. Conflict in turn creates tension. Tension is good. Once Reed started acting up, I paid more attention every time he was on set, because I figured he was going to cause trouble in some way.

Perhaps 'antagonist' was a bad word, as Reed is not an antagonist the same way Silvin is.

Originally Posted by TAF

Your comments on Silvin serve to me as proof that charisma is indeed the biggest ingredient for making the audience like an evil character. All the other antagonists are mostly joyless.

I would disagree there. Charisma can certainly help a character extensively, but I - and I might and probably am alone here - do not believe that it alone can make a reader like any character. I've mentioned Oceans' Eleven before. Those characters have charisma, I liked none of them, and was bored by the entire movie as a result.

There are far more important ingredients to making reader's like - and truly care for - evil characters. Top of the list is them recognizing that they are evil and/or trying to change.

Regarding the free indirect speech, you seem to have misinterpreted it as just having different PoV's. As I've explained previously, free indirect speech is simply incorporating a character's perspective into the 3rd person narration. The PoV can also shift quite freely, though the point remains that even if Thomas was the only PoV in the entire story FIS would still be used. You've probably used it yourself even unintentionally.

Regarding jumping around the PoVs so much, it's a fair point I suppose. Perhaps I as a reader just don't require so much time in exchange for my investment, and so give limited PoV to each character (even Thomas) in turn. Once something endears me to a character I am more or less locked in from there. I also want to see things through the eyes of others in the group, because they are important. I just imagined it'd stick better, and having your reaction being just indifference to various gut-punch moments hurts the story immeasurably. I'd even incorporated your TMHW feedback to give the characters more "strong" actions, choices, and introductions, though it doesn't seem to have helped much.

I did look back at the first time I asked you about it previous to my review. In the above, I'm using 'PoV' to describe inserting a character's thoughts into the 3rd person narration. However, the effect is basically identical to shifting PoV, so this point is fairly moot.

Now it is certainly true that I require more to invest me in a character than the typical reader. I've noticed this as I've studied writing. So my comments can certainly be viewed as what is likely a minor issue blown out of proportion.

That being said, I believe there is something to showing how a character views something, through their actions and dialogue, without resorting to entering their head. This is something I have been trying to rely on more in my writing, while also making sure characters don't just say everything they think (because it's ham-fisted and unrealistic).

If I'm perfectly honest, I have to admit my lack of investment in the characters is likely a symptom of several issues, including FIS, too many characters in the group, and my own over-inflated needs for character investment.

Perhaps you could give some examples of the strong actions/choices you had the characters do? I'd be curious to see why I missed those.

Originally Posted by TAF

One of I risks I knew going in with this was that the characters stop making good decisions. In TMHW they mostly make sound decisions given the circumstances, but that is not the case in this book and it carried problems with the reader even if it was intentional.

Well, questionable decisions can certainly be handled. There was one passage I pointed out where someone finally called a bad decision, and the group spent a minute explaining why they had to do it anyway. Bad decision or not, that passage worked.

Now I don't know if the character's are being caused to make bad decisions (my personal bet is possession, which also explains Header's strange shift in character), but if someone had simply pointed out the decisions, or at least questioned them, things would have been so much better. Now granted, maybe there's a plot reason you can't do that, so as I said this is a relatively minor issue.

Originally Posted by TAF

Yes, Apostle misses shots but they're not real soldiers so it's kind of a moot point. One wounds Irene, one wounds Stacey, and one kills Montag and that's about it. I guess I could've added a character specifically to get killed by them early on to establish threat but eh...

It's more the scenes where they spray bullets mere feet from their target and hit nothing. Elias does this. The Reaper does this. The CIA guys do this. I've never fired a gun in my life, but if you gave me an automatic weapon and a man-sized target ten feet away, I can practically guarantee I would hit it.

This is a valid criticism as distances to places are rarely mentioned. Both books are the journey more than the destinations, but still.

I will mention that noting actual distances is merely the easiest way to band-aid this. A better way to actually fix it would be to have a true sense of progression for the group, either with them making progress in unraveling mysteries, defeating enemies, or whatever. Mysteries are unraveled, but it is mostly all through dialogue from Nazar. The heroes mostly just stagger from place to place. At the end, they are just as capable as they were at the beginning.

Originally Posted by TAF

long-winded can describe much of the book as a whole. You didn't even mention that 90% of the book is dialogue.

It's not so much long-winded, as it is the fact that the flowery language comes in clumps. And there's nothing wrong with dialogue. An entire story can be dialogue. Dialogue doesn't make a story longer, or boring, or meandering. Sometimes it can cut what would have taken several paragraphs of prose to explain.

Neither Silvin or Elias see themselves as evil but they are perfectly aware of how others view them and so describe themselves as thus. Silvin is a lot more tongue-in-cheek about it: he's been played up as a bad guy in the media for years.

I never got the idea that Elias didn't consider himself to be a bad guy - he seemed to genuinely believe it when he said it. At least to me.

Originally Posted by TAF

I will strongly contest Header's actions at the end. If you felt it was out of the blue then you need to reread any of Header's earlier scenes leading up until that point.

Then I guess I need to reread Header's actions. It's not so much what he did, but how he did it.

This is fair but I just couldn't bring myself to jump from 25 to 64 chapters between stories.

Do it. I jumped from 16 chapters in Valkyrie to 31 in DoD and the story wasn't negatively affected (that I'm aware of).

Originally Posted by TAF

Given how invested Thomas was in Brooke I would expect to see the opposite of growth now that she's dead.

Were this real life, I would agree with you. But if by the end of all this Thomas just ends up right back where he started, I'll be surprised. Unless the whole series ends with everything destroyed and King victorious, and turns out to be some sort of observation of how we're all doomed or something. Which I'm guessing won't be the case...

Originally Posted by TAF

I find this curious since I actually think the Stacey/Thorn romance is superior to the Thomas/Brooke one, though that may just be preference and you never said if that one was any good either. Where any of those will lead any of them remains to be seen.

Well 'superior' is a subjective term here... I find Thomas/Brooke to be more believable, because they legitimately gain something from each other and I can see as a result how the attraction might start. Given Stacey's backstory, I would expect her to shun all the guys, and I'm completely flummoxed as to why Thorn is attracted to Stacey. It just seems to... have happened.

Originally Posted by TAF

I can't say it's not demoralizing spending seven years writing a sequel only to get the same score (if not subtly lower) than the original, though I never expected you to love it so I can't get too upset really.

I've been demoralized my fair share by your ratings, so you're in good company. Seriously though, I think the idea of the story is a good one, there's just a combination of factors (centered around the characters) which keep bringing it down for me. And yes, I am very overly critical, as evidenced by the difference in ratings for TMHW between me and AMIS.

I would again be glad to offer my ideas on how you could make the final entry better, but it would ultimately come down to what I think would work, and may not be indicative of readers as a whole (again, as evidenced by AMIS's rating).

~TGRF.