Vreeah

T minus one day. Time to get all those gears ready to roll! For music, I love some Lindsey Stirling, EDM genre tracks, some Eminem songs when I really want something to feel fast paced, Grace VanderWaal when I want to feel joy, and classic or romantic songs when I'm moving steadily.

I think I'll go for NaNo this year. The month has enough leisure time for it, and I'm thinking about doing a loosely connected short story collection. Want to partner up for some back and forth updates, Robinski?

So sparkly! Oh it's wonderful.

I'm still firmly rooted in California, but feel free to hit me up whenever there's a Hollywood excursion in the calender. Till then, I'll also be saving on my end for big trips.

How the mental magic works seems central to this story. I feel like some opportunity to really see it in action near the beginning would increase the impact of the ideas at the end. Knowing what Le is thinking without diving into her head also feels important to the character, though, so maybe an external use of some sort. Something like looking out a window and reading the mind of a town/city/province crier who's always there in the morning as a way to get daily news. Some major whiplash between the first paragraph and the second paragraph—from grounded to abstract. The "royally stormed" was a nice, casual intro tone, but the second paragraph starts so poetically that I lost track of what was going on. Does the end imply that she is going to deafen herself? It's not clear, but the "...hear things not meant for..." part combined with the last few of her lines make me suspect a bit.

The chapter went through quite a lot. Out of everything, I think the horrifying aspect was the most memorable, and the inner turmoil was a close second. In the first few pages, S feels pride, accomplishment, and hope. That was pretty nice, but then there were knocks upon the door, and S responded with lots of internalized annoyance. Between the knocks and opening the door, there was what I visualized as one long eye roll. S references how several large commissions were unfinished. S was certain that possible customers would have to be turned away, disappointed, and yet the only commission that ends up being referenced is a big, finished one. Oh hey, explosion! Hm, that means a big part of my prediction is a flop. The place is already blown up and burnt down. On that note, I feel that the pacing of the action going on in this chapter is very similar to the pacing of everything else. The first one and a half pages in the chapter described a tense but peaceful alchemical process. Throwing the third pouch's contents onto NG2, and the violent suffering sequence afterward, lasted roughly the same amount of reading time. From this, I would guess that the story doesn't revolve much around urgency—there is always time to think, feel, and react. S briefly thinks about how the house contains dangerous solvents that could be used to melt NG1 and NG2, but doesn't refer to the pouches with substances that we see do practically the same thing—worse, actually. I get a fearless vibe from S. The knocks came late enough for there to be a, "At this hour?", but S didn't even consider the possibility of danger. Likewise, S was careful with the pouches, but never had enough doubt to hesitate—the consequences of accidentally spilling the extract onto oneself was never considered hard or long enough for it to be described. This also speaks about how much confidence is placed in S's own expertise.

Oh nice! The world could do with more data production. My formula result for Dreamt and Lost is as follows: U = 100 * (8+1+0+65+(0.5*158)) / 28524 0.53 Wait, that doesn't feel quite right. I don't use the words "possibly" or "possible"? I regularly say those words aloud. Double checked. I guess not. I do use the word "probably" a handful of times. Also, the word "maybe" never appeared more than once in a chapter, except for one recent instance where a character had a habit of speaking like a broken mirror. I have the data necessary to do this formula for The Bird and the Sword by Amy Harmon, which has a tone that I think is similar to mine despite having a different point of view, so I'll also run that below: U = 100 * (57 + 8 + 23 + 410 + (0.5*550)) / 104160 0.74 Notably, 19 out of the 23 uses of "possibl" were the word "impossible" or "impossibly". It doesn't make a big difference in the U, but it caught my attention. Do different story tones make a huge difference in the use of these words? Do the stories I like to read have similar scores? I wish I had more sources to try this out on. It's a fun set of ideas!

That was a pretty intense chapter. I'd call it thrilling. I'm glad S caught on to the witch thing with some hindsight instead of drawing that revelation out. I wouldn't say the monologue put anything new into perspective, but that's mostly because I'm already familiar with the subject matter. Instead, I think it's good at showing the frustrations S is wrestling with. It frames S's hopes, fears, and disappointments—since this entire monologue wasn't explained directly to Ma, that means there's hope remaining. If Ma returns and aids in a way that fulfills S's hopes, it'd be a huge emotional payoff. Wild speculation! It's a favorite thing of mine to do, though it'll be a challenge to get anywhere close with only a couple chapters read. The huge emotional payoff of Ma intuitively knowing what S wholeheartedly wants is on the path of a happy ending. Since this is a dark adult fantasy, I'd say this is a hope that's probably meant to be shattered. Sawdust and heat. The card has been drawn, and so I expect to see it in play. An important explosion shall surely grace us. Home sounds like the ground zero. Sa seems likely to live and inherit what is being forced unto S. Since Qu is involved, Ma will be the one standing at the end of that. So, in short, for the ending I expect everyone to converge in the village/town/city that is S's home. An explosion would be a decent way for S to break away from Am, Qu, and the rest. Ma and Sa rejoining S after that feels fitting. They'd have to bring any tools and materials to S that were likely introduced earlier in the story. S's alchemy can come into play with those materials and anything regained at home. S will reject Am. A part of that rejection will include getting an opportunity to magically erase the mark left this chapter, but refusing. Am will likely die, which would be horrifying for S despite everything that has happened. In the aftermath of an explosion, there's going to be a lot of witnesses gathered, so the resolution will be widely known. Sa'll will more than likely have an opportunity to prove his worthiness—probably by utilizing the carpentry that Am looked down upon in this chapter. No idea what parts Ma will play. I wouldn't be surprised if Ma fulfilled S's hopes right before heroically dying in an act that takes out Qu. That'd be a vital turnaround moment. That's about all I can piece together with my current puzzle pieces.

Something short after being gone for awhile. This chapter is a bit of a reunion. It's meant to be a little show of how everyone is feeling, and what Lilium is like.

Oh, I'm here. I'm just tuckered out from some Father's day dinner celebrations and bad work news this morning. Wanted to put some finishing touches on the chapter I'm submitting after I get home, but of course I'm also going to pick someone up from the airport after work, so it'll be on the late end of the spectrum. I'm sure everyone else is also right around the corner. Probably holiday lag as well.

Oh yes, hordes are gathering. In for the 19th, as well.

My interpretation of the gist of S's explanation is to adore the whole person, and not the part that's familiar or preferred. Perfectly understandable if that's truly the case. --- About halfway through, I grew tired of being told how the architecture everywhere was skillfully made, or how it was done in certain ways by certain organizations. I got the point, but didn't feel it. I haven't read the previous chapters, so I'm not sure if it makes sense for S to be so familiar with all these things, but all the mentions so far were highly specific and noticeable. When the girl at the inn justified the high price, it was a bit of a surprise how easily everyone accepted it. The description of the town up to this point was festive, but not crowded. How crowded it'd be was explained a few paragraphs later. I saw a mention of how it was someone's turn to "...tend a wound." However, that didn't come up again. The wound was just wrapped in the same cloth as before. I wondered if anyone tried to ask for spare cloth or bandages from the inn.

Welcome back! Glad to see you again, and I'm so happy to hear that the publishing gears are turning well on your end! I was gone the entire time, so I've mostly been completely lost.

I like what this foreshadows. The cover is enough for me, since I usually don't buy the cool extras until I'm already a fan. That said, I'm attracted to pretty or durable display objects. Metal wire art/figurines, paperweights (or anything with some weight to it), and jewelry are my favorites. They don't really need to be for sale to draw me over. I wander by and idle if there's something uncommon. Some nice atmospheric music is a big plus. A short blurb printed on the walls would be convenient—something that tells me more about the genre and story without having me crack open a book.

Oh yay, congrats Silk! I'm always happy to see Asiatic examination. --- I like trains. Underwater tunnels scare me a little bit, but otherwise, the feeling of the world zipping beneath my feet without end is wonderful.

Hm. Genre has some effect on it. I don't read a big enough pool of different genres to comment any more on that, though. --- Personally My written conversations tend to revolve around two people at a time. If it's an extended conversation, I abandon the tags soon after they get going. Don't really need anything colorful if none of the characters are being sarcastic, or saying lines that have multiple meanings in the current context. Most of the time, though, I have dialogue taking place while there are other things going on. After the characters speak a few lines, I write their actions and dialogue together. It relies a bit on line structure, but works. When someone doesn't answer with any words or actions, I need to use "said" to show that the same character is speaking. If it's still an extended conversation, but more than two people are involved, I have to use "said" a lot while the characters are talking irregularly. I can abandon the tags if they talk long enough for the speaker to be obvious every time, but I'm not good enough yet to do this very much. I also insert "said" into the middle of a line of dialogue when I want a long pause there. Punctuation does the same job, and I switch between the two at random. For short bursts of dialogue that pop in like dandelions, I use descriptive tags more often. Its easier to write emotions from dialogue alone if I have enough to work with, but many of my readers interpret short bits of dialogue very differently from one another. A "she snapped back" saves me from having a third my readers think a character is angry, another third think that same character was being kind, and the remaining third with some more interpretations I never considered. No tags when crowds are shouting a bunch of things. It's confusing and impersonal in real life, so it feels right when it's also happening in a story. --- Observations Funny enough, I'm currently reading a fantasy/romance story with a magically mute main character (The Bird and the Sword, by Amy Harmon), so analyzing how tags are used in that might be counterproductive. There are plenty of descriptive tags in here, though, for the record. The dialogue format of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is direct. From what I can tell, the tags are often dropped once characters start talking predictably, taking turns. Most tags are the simple sort (said, asked, shrugged, grinned, and told). When lots of peopel are talking, "said" is sprinkled everywhere. Some chapters start off with an exchange that has no name or tags, so you need to guess at who's talking. Oh! He doesn't used "replied" in this book, I never noticed that. Cool. Probably not a good idea to apply what's in Jane Austen's books, with how much the market has definitely changed since then. That said, it isn't all that different. There's more "said she, warmly" and "he warmly replied" rather than the modern "she said, softly" and such. In fact, I think the word "warmly" is nonexistent in both The Bird and the Sword and Ender's Game. It's used in The Star-Touched Queen and The Name of the Wind, but never to describe dialogue. In the same way, "softly" doesn't exist in Sense and Sensibility, but it does mention how hearts soften. I wonder if using "warmly" to describe a voice has mostly died out, though I doubt it. Anyway, digging a bit too deep into the rabbit hole. I'll leave it here for now.

Good day! Whoa, I remember reading the first version, and this new beginning is more sudden. It doesn't work as well for me. Charlotte's gloomy reaction to the doctor's words was an emotion beat, but it slipped right by me when Charlotte herself wasn't established first. Like seeing a stop sign before you know you're driving. The ending is still quite sudden. There's more closure since a choice was made, but there's an odd lack of turmoil. Some of my stray, leftover questions linger with a bigger impression than the choice at the end. I wonder about the contents of the letter Charlotte left for her brother. All the crazed wall-writing also made me think this pill is a scheme to make sure that voluntary, justified murder is the last thing Charlotte does. I expected some deeper consideration. Reasons be damned, she clung to life for a long while. I didn't expect her to give up without any doubts when on the border of death. She was so ready to trust the word of a stranger offering her a dubious choice. There were two choices. One was obviously more selfless than the other, so it played like a cruel experiment. Walking straight toward the selfless choice is heroic, but this seems like a story meant more for introspection than virtue.

This is Alternatim, and its purpose is to show who Sofia is. --- It's a week for revelations. Cheers!

Oh! Hello modern era, I did not expect you to visit. You described how the aunt pronounced "house" and "out" near the beginning of the fourth page, but it looks like you took out the word "out" from her dialogue at some point. Anyway, on to the story itself. The beginning, with its emphasis on cold, made me think of ghosts. When the character's aunt showed up, I was certain one of the two was actually dead. The mentions about the collection kept by this viewpoint character was odd enough to think of something more ominous. For a time I had the impression that the viewpoint character was a killer of some sort who was haunted by victims. The Tell-Tale Heart sprang to mind. In the final two pages, though, I figured out that it wasn't such a dark story. Not dark in the way I'm thinking, at least, since the aunt is unquestionably dead. I'm expecting him to arrive in another universe that's less modern. Wild speculation on my part. Overall, it starts with a very creepy tone. The tone leaked into my impressions on the genre and the viewpoint character's personality, and I'm now unsure of how dark or light the rest of the story will be. Good overall hook. If it turns out to be a fantasy, I'd guess it's a very high stakes fantasy. From how the chapter ends, I'm almost certain that this entire universe froze over.

Sure. I'd love to pop in.

Oh my gods it's so sparkly and smooth.

Hiya, Neongrey! Mm, first off with the revisions to chapter eight. Most of it reads the same as last time. I'd say the most prominent change is how much kinder Savae comes off as. By that, I mean that they're still not kind, but a lot less outright mean. Kathalania's lines are also much easier to understand this time around, and she is noticeably less timid when she's upset. The idea that the design wasn't meant to be jewelry was outright stated this time, which replaced confusion with a question of what the design actually was. More intriguing. Chapter nine was nice and bittersweet. I felt a great well of pity when I reached the small time skip, and had a small smile by the end. I'd say the sorrow and pity outweigh the hope and joy. More bitter than sweet. Plus marks there if that's the intentional setup. Drawing attention to the melodrama and then knowingly continuing off of it definitely stirs up more pity than relief. The implication is that she desperately doesn't want things to end in an argument, so she's keeping true to her word—even though she immediately stumbled after she brought it up the first time.

Hello folks! Hope the year is off to a good start for y'all. I've written two shorter chapters this week. They're mostly here to set things up, more or less. I feel odd this week—not exactly about the chapters, but my head is light and fuzzy. I can't put my finger on why. I honestly just gave Ellis a headache because my head's in a weird place. Uh, I'm not sure why I went on about that, but there ya go. Please let me know what you think!

The character garnered plenty of sympathy. There's enough of a connection for me to feel bad about how she'll end up after the letter. I haven't seen that side of her, yet, but it's enough to hit me with a shred of dread. Other than that, the atmosphere is somber. Draining and sad. I'm pretty sure that was the idea, so I'll put a plus there as well. It is noticeably rough, as you've pointed out. There were a few parts here and there that lost me completely. I skipped those parts and began the next paragraph, and there was enough information for me to get an idea of what's going on. The parts that lost me were mostly in the first and last page. I found it odd how the slur was "outland trash". It's a bit long and too on the nose. I'm surprised there wasn't a shortened slur, and was also thrown off a bit by the chain of events involving that term. Specifically, Lyan thinks up that slur to accompany the shopkeeper's tone and expression. Then, afterwards, the boy repeats the exact slur that she thought. It counts as a coincidence, so it wasn't a bother, but it was something that caught my eye.

Hah, congratulations! I eagerly await the day I can be terrified by the same thing.