Ria Raen

I am game for this! I work Mon-Fri so weekends work best, but if there is enough notice I can book a day off in the week

I have to say I really liked this. I actually really appreciated the quirky movie cast element in the character description, it made me automatically make an association with how these people look without needing a mass of physical description. What isnt clear though is that this is Jaime's line of thought until it comes to him thinking on not casting himself. It seems more like the narrator is establishing the characters and then you switch to Jaime who gives an indication that these are his opinions but there is no real clarity on this. As Mandamon pointed out one of the things that confused me was why they had to wait before they could leave, you include so much information with regards to everything else but on this only part of the information is provided. In particular I really enjoyed the style, you kept a humorous edge with dialogue that made me much more appreciative of the characters development. I wasn't particularly phased by any info dumping as I felt you kept a good balance with action and dialogue. The story also kept pace so I wasn't clogged down in the story at any one time. What I did wonder was how the jester discovered Kara Howill, by accident? or is there a story to build out around this as well. Just seemed a bit odd that he would watch someone for 3 days without giving an indication as to how he came to know of her existence. Overall I think this story has masses of potential, It felt original and interesting. It was nice to read something that exists outside of the generic set up for sci-fi/fantasy if that makes sense. The different style of writing was a definite plus, it made the tale fresh and I didn't feel like I was reading someone trying to copy a notable writer. The style is your own. Keep going!

Well i'm stepping in a bit later here, and to be honest most of the points i was going to raise have already been touched on. But I agree with everyone when I say that I really enjoyed the narrative and style of this piece (excluding the info dump). You had me engaged and allowed me to follow the story in a humorous and well crafted way. I agree with debate on age. He is just too young for me to be invested in him as a character. I agree with the points above that you can make Peter and his brother older without losing the jealous dynamic. His brother will have had years of envy so in fact by making them older you are only increasing the potential for hostility. I have to admit there is one word in the story i really struggled with and I think that has more to do with the fact you told me in your email introduction that this is a cyberfunk urban fantasy. if I did not know this It probably wouldn't bother me so much. But the word is magician. I guess I assume that in a futuristic society any ability to control the environment or perform 'magic' would be viewed a more gentic/ mutant ability. Sorry to get all x-men on you haha. The issue of the millions is his pocket could to be easily be solved by perhaps extending the sentence to include "I only have a few million dollars with me, anyway, barely enough to buy a sandwich" or something similar? But all in all I like this story and with an older protagonist to compensate for the mature use of language and confidence I would definitely continue reading.

Sorry its taken so long for me to give feedback! So here are my thoughts as they came: If men and women do not communicate with each why do they have a parents office... indicating they share it....on the same note if head mother and head father share this office why would she be surprised to find both of them there. Surely there would be an office for head mother and one for father, if they keep all their affairs separate. But on the premise you would want to keep "Parents Office" I had wondered if when Teree enters she could say "Lei! Head Mother send for you now." That way when she enters the parents office and head father it has more meaning. During the scene when she feeds the snowcat you seem to skip from her holding the meat to suddenly she has done it. This seems like a moment that could be given more attention. Again I agree with Mandamon X-2 doesnt fit as a name... its just to sci-fi or phone model Why does the merchant seem so disinterested in the death of rebecca "the merchant shrugged" I was a little confused about if this animal transformation was a normal part of Lei's society as she doesn't seem at all shocked by the fact she has magically transformed into... some kind of black cat. I would have liked to see some more physical descriptions of characters I couldn't really imagine the scene fully without some guidance on that. I enjoyed the story but feel some of the core themes could be tightened, i entered the story believing that the snowcat was integral to the merchants mission since they had taken the trouble to hire Lei but then it switches to being focused on the X-2 I didn't grasp how these two situations were linked. it was easy to read and i would definitely read more. Sorry if this is a bit brief, I have to get back to work!

I shall certainly make some time to work my way through any work posted in there. Only fair as I will be bombarding you all soon with chapter submissions on the forum.

Hi Ben, here are my thoughts. Now I can appreciate the way you tackled the opening to the story. Getting directly into the dialogue and letting it unfold as it goes. Now this is great, but as much as no one likes an info dump I do feel like more information is needed. Just some brief exposition inserted here and there to help bolster the questions that are immediately raised in the dialogue. Or even just a build out in the dialogue itself. I struggled to identify with the sociological situation, how this world functions. I got glimpses from what was being said but not enough.... so I started to lose interest. Took me a while to clock what AC was. Perhaps just use the full term. I enjoyed the cornwall section of dialogue this felt natural and was good to have a bit of humour to lift the story a little. Ok you have this great piece about Carl in here, I have to say I found this the most natural and engaging part of the chapter. It seemed to flow a lot more than the other sections. But it does feel a little like it's just plopped in the middle. I know you are giving reference as Chloe and Jerome are discussing him but it doesn't quite sit right with me. Especially as you have already switch POV on me once. A second time just snags me right out the story line. The section on Carl and end section of the chapter work a lot better than the beginning. It feels like you found your style more. Now I am not great with punctuation and grammar and I appreciate first drafts will not be perfect but there is a lot of work to be done on spelling and structure. Just a few things I picked up on: ". He was nondescript, aggressively so in a cheap suit" being aggressively nondescript .... this doesn't work for me at all its seems like a bit of contradiction. "unfeeling bureaucracy had much to recommend it in Jerome's opinion." this sentence had no meaning to me at all. "hair brunette always dyed either blond or red," it seems the reference to her being a brunette is redundant since she has died hair and you wouldn't be able to tell anyway. It makes the description confusing and stands in the way of building a character profile in your mind. I like where this story is going, you obviously have a firm idea of the world and politics which are intriguing from what you have written so far. I think you just need to communicate those ideas more concisely and give a better build out as an introduction to a story. I look forward to reading more

Ok so here are my thoughts as I found them: Part 1: I appreciate you are setting the scene and there is always so much information to impart but it did feel like an information dump and I found myself having to push through a lot of 'telling' before I reached something that got me involved in the story. Saying that you did have some quirky observations that helped that push, in particular "Luther had spent a good week trying to understand this strange dance but it remained a mystery. He had even tried sitting on a pedestal himself as an experiment, ending up bemusing rather than offending the Irnans. " this tickled me greatly. I did feel that his observations whilst walking up the sloping street of Toth could maybe be moved or condensed as again its half a page of telling that didn't really help move the story along I would use that extra space to maybe elaborate more on the pulses. The story really grabbed me as the dialogue started, I divulged more about your character in this conversation than I had in the previous 4 pages of introduction. Part 2: What a difference! I felt like your writing/style just suddenly became more comfortable and you easily combined descriptive narrative with action. The whole scene just flowed better. But I am a little confused about this pulsing! "That was one of the light pairings" I have no idea what this means, if you don't intend to clarify what this means soon (before I read so much more of the story I forget) then its really a redundant statement. aha now I see your previous observation with the slapping was to contrast their anger in this moment. Nice. and we are back to all this pulsing business, and bracelets, and a ninth pulse, and, and, and I have no idea! Very intriguing ending, I particularly enjoyed the dialogue between teacher and student and all the hints at future problems in the story because of this moment. I really enjoyed part 2, it felt like a well balanced story. The only snags where the gaps of information regarding the pulses. It is hard to imagine a scene and play it in your mind (which is how I read) when you don't understand the mechanics of it. I have taken magic systems on faith before but that is normally when it is a basic concept, but you have hinted at a much larger system that really needs some explaining. Perhaps a prologue to this effect. Part 1 felt very rusty to me, quite broken. More like chunks of description that standing alone hold up very well but there are too many of them all together. But I look forward to reading more!

Helloooo I wont go into too much detail as your ploughing through with more chapters. I enjoyed the prologue but for me it was just to much action all crammed into one space with a lot of heavy description. I know prologues are tricky (mine is a constant fail) but with third person I always struggle with lack of character investment. I found the ending paragraphs the most engaging as it wasnt just a flow of sword swings and battle talk, you gave a good concise conclusion to what had happened and to me that information was what made the prologue work.

I actually really enjoyed this. But I did find that certain areas got carried away and became a little repetitive. In the snippet of chapter two you imply that Fen already suspects Loriyya betrayed his father Yet you have it occurring to Fen as a new thought (and general surprise at the idea of his Father being betrayed) which confused me somewhat as to what Fen actually thought about the whole situation! During his thought process of contemplating Loriyya being a traitor you use the word relationship four times. It started to irk me how many times this word was used as well as Loriyya's name. It just pulled me right out of the moment (at which point I decided to count the number of times it came up!) I especially liked your explanation of the Ki Sain it was nice and simple as well as interesting. When Fen is noting the names on the gravestones I found this odd Now I haven't read the previous chapters in which there may be a character called Aken? but if there is no character with this name I couldn't understand why this was just dropped in so randomly. I'm not sure that's what I would call walking to your fathers grave, leisurely interferes with the serious tone your trying to set.I especially like the relationship you have set up with Fen and Loriyya it's something a bit different and I think it has so much scope for story development and a good sub plot. One point I will make is that some of the names used are a little..... wordy (for lack of a better word)in particular King Morintaign’s ..... I still don't know how to say it!

Ok I don't know why (perhaps I am not normal) but I really feel like you need to mention Ricks family earlier on. Because when I read the first paragraph for some reason my mind placed Rick elsewhere.... not with his family. In fact when I came to the sentence about him being in the car with his family I then went back and re-read the first paragraph and said "right ok, I get it" because before this point I didn't know who "they" were. This is probably because I am slow on the uptake.... or I have an over active imagination and jump the gun. Using the Eiffel Tower as a height reference didn't really work for me, as it isn't all that tall in comparison to a lot of the high rise buildings across the world. I would personally use a famous skyscraper as a reference if its a feeling of immense height your after. Unless of course the Eiffel tower in the future is massive I'm not going to lie.... and it could just be me.... but I did not understand what this paragraph meant at all: "If he was able to consciously be able to think about the assassination, remaining unknowing of the others who were assassinated, he would have assumed it was because he hacked into every electronic device able to be hacked into, disconnected communication with Earth when the EEST Traveler I was near asteroid belt—causing them to believe the ship had blown up—and deactivated all HelpBots on board, with a code only he knew able to reactivate them. When he explained it to his wife, he told her, "People are getting too lazy." His wife, parents, and brother, along with 1/4 of the rest of the ships population, originally 10,000 people, were killed." Ok well I kind of understand it... but trying to deconstruct the sentencing really confused me. It could do with being a lot simpler. It felt strange to me that the initial introduction of Panther was tacked onto the end of the Prologue, when it felt like it should be part of chapter one. I am a little confused about whether Panther can communicate to Valcar through thought? It seems in their initial interaction that Valcar can hear the thoughts Panther is throwing at him, but later as they discuss the saboteurs Panther is writing his thoughts down...... Aha ok that point is cleared up much later on. I would maybe lift that to the first interaction they have, so it is clear from the beginning. When Panther initially hears the saboteurs they believe Panther knows of their plan, yet Panther seems utterly clueless. I didn't really understand why they would think this. It also seems to put Panther in a position of authority on the ship (to me) which of course is then disregarded when he has to pretend to be a hostage at the end of the chapter. There doesn't seem to be much speculation at the end of the chapter as to why they were trying to blow up the ship. This seemed to me to be the big plot question, What was driving me forward to read, an unsolved mystery etc etc yet no one really seems to care. But I enjoyed the story, I think there are lots of little quirks you have worked in that are original and fresh. I would definitely read more. I hope what I have said helps in some way.... I don't have much knowledge of sci-fi (other than stargate SG-1!) so it isn't really my area!

Thank you for the help guys you have given me lots to ponder! This chapter is meant to be Thomas's POV I was aiming for Third Person limited. But now I can see some fatal errors. Hadera does indeed seem to be putting in his pennies worth thought wise, so I am going to have to fix that. Thank you for clearing up the POV errors I will go back to the beginning and try to tie it all into Thomas's POV properly. Its amazing how when you are writing away these things don't jump out at you!

Hey guys thank you for reading @Stroniax: Thank you for the feedback, I was wondering which part became close to talking to much about a specific thing? one of my big chunks if exposition i'm guessing! I will try and trim the fat on those parts, get the pace goinga bit more. I didn't receive your story, i'm not sure I was added to the list in time. I will pm you my email if you want to send it over for some feedback. @Mandamon: Thank you for the POV error, I think I have re-read this piece to many times now and that one completely escaped me!I am a grammar fail, once I have added some more to the piece I will get it all corrected (by a less grammar fail friend). But thank you for pointing out which bits as it helps me learn. I can see what you mean about the exposition vs dialogue, I am going to take a go at integrating the two later, see what happens! I find I go through phases of being able to write one or the other and thus large chunks are born. I am glad the story kept you, hopefully the next piece will keep your interest and answer some questions! Thanks for taking the time peeps, helps so much

Hello, well I hope some of you managed to read a little without it burning your eyes out :)Please give this a good going over, I need all the help I can get... feeling a little lost right now and I need some stern stern guidance.

Wow it was hard work finding this place again! Been about a year and half since I was part of this group..... but I am back! Is there any space left for a submission on Monday? its only a small thing.