Reading Excuses - 08.08.16 - AuthorityHellas16 - The Thousand Yard Stare - Chapter 2, Resubmit [V, L]

[AuthorityHellas16]

Hi all, 

 

So,  for the second straight week, I’m resubmitting a chapter; this time it’s chapter 2. The main reason for this is that I’ve been told a few times in the past that the battles lack consequences, or that Atena seems to win too easily. While this was partially deliberate to show how good she is at her job, I did take it a bit too far, to the point of removing the credibility of the nightspawn altogether. 

I’ve tried to address those issues, as well as a few questions brought up in previous chapters, with this one. 

I also took the chance to introduce a new character, Vulcan, who I intend to be a counterpoint to Atena, as a man of few words who is soft-spoken and considerate, rather than the emotional responses that our protagonist regularly exhibits. He only gets a cameo here, but let me know what you think.

 

Thanks again!

[kais]

Overall

I like this much better than the last version! Still wanted to skim some areas, but less than before. Some bumps, noted below. I like Vulcan thus far, and his calm and low word count set him up to be a viable love interest should Atena swing for the men. 

Nice work!

 

 As I go

- page one: still not convinced about this 'it's just something I have to do' thing. Why??

- page eight: 'fungus-covered head': so if these spores give a sickness, one would think they were bacterial spores. Here you have fungi things, so are the spores fungal??

- page five: so I'm now having to force myself to not skim BUT with these battle scenes I usually have to force myself to not skim much earlier in the narrative. You're keeping my attention longer, and I am more invested in the battle now that I have some idea of what is going on and who the players are. Nice work!

- page six: ooh, consequences and Atena is frozen. Love it

- page eight: hmm, I would ship Vulcan/Atena

- page eight: I was ready to be really engaged when Atena said she needed time away, and then she just asked for a week. Would love to see her really try to leave the fighting behind. Recognize her own limitations, say 'I need to leave it forever' or something like that, then get reluctantly pulled back in when something happens she just can't ignore. That'd be amazing.

[Hobbit]

I agree - this chapter was definitely more engaging than the previous version.  I felt the improvement especially in the dialogue scenes before the battle started.  Before they felt slow, but this time they felt snappy and exciting.  We still get a window into Aetna's relationships with Eleanor and Marcus, but the tension built throughout.  Nicely done!

The battle felt more real as well, and I was way more into it - the stakes were clearer, there were more consequences, and Aetna's emotional reactions felt more natural.  I still feel like it was a little long, but I think the parts that feel slow are the parts where you are describing action in a way that seems omniscient and less from Aetna's viewpoint.  If you could tighten her viewpoint in those sections, I think it would improve.  (It's already more in her viewpoint than it was in the first version - but I want more!!)  Then again, other readers might really like the detailed battle descriptions for their own sake, so it depends on what you're going for.

A just a few in-line suggestions:

• She turned and saw Eleanor holding Peacemaker in its sling and the sleeveless, white robe...
  This line confused me.  At first I thought Eleanor was wearing the white robe and that Eleanor was a field martial.
• ...infect their victims with the mutating disease known as the Rot
  I think this line would be stronger if you removed the "mutating disease" line and told us about that later.  Right now it feels jarring, too much like a tell.

I'm going to expand on kaisa's point about wanting Aenta to leave forever - for me, I think this would feel contrived here, given what we know about her personality.  My read on the "it's just something I've got to do, Ellie" line is that Aetna is using physical fights to try to fight her demons (even though battles aggravate her PTSD), and if she gives up fighting forever, it would be like giving up on conquering her PTSD.  From my reader perspective, I would need more than two chapters of events, and more than two civilian deaths, to be convinced that Aetna would want to leave forever.  Though I do agree that her trying to leave forever would be really interesting at a some point in the story.  Maybe an "I don't know how long I'll need" would be more satisfying than her giving Marcus an actual length of time?

Nice job punching up this chapter!!  Woo for editing and making things more awesome!

ETA: Whoops, Ernei just posted and it reminded me I forgot to talk about Vulcan.  I got confused when his army joined the battle - it wasn't clear to me that these weren't Aetna's own forces until later.  Other than that, I like him, and he seems like an intriguing character - like Ernei says, I'm curious why he doesn't want to go back to the city.  The whole thing felt a little Deus ex Machina, but I think that's okay given that you're showing how Aenta needs rescue even though she doesn't want it.

Edited September 20, 2016 by Hobbit

[M.Puddles]

 

Hi AuthorityHellas,

 

Thank you for letting me read your story.  You’ve put a lot of work into this.  Although I’m jumping into Chapter 2 cold, it’s obvious that you have a clear view of your world and how the technology works. 

 

I read that you have submitted these pieces before so I will give you my thoughts and small things that pulled me from your story.  Before I start, you should know that this is good. With the caveat, here we go!

 

‘Didn’t you hear it?’ Atena grunted back.

 

The word grunted pulled me out.  I tend to grunt when I have to lift something heavy and not when I reply to someone…unless I’m lifting something heavy.

 

‘Thanks, sis,’ Atena said, smiling thinly at her sister as she slipped into

 

You repeat the word sister here.

 

It’s just something I’ve got to do, Ellie.’ Eleanor pursed her lips, but nodded, more a gesture of defeat than acceptance.

 

This feels overwritten.

 

She waved a had over her shoulder and a map

 

Because spell check won’t catch it.

 

 

‘Let’s hope,’ Atena murmured, half to herself.

 

Crisper if you cut it off at murmured.

 

I think that we an afford to hypothesise about the motivations of a raging sociopath another time

 

Another one invisible to a spell check.

 

‘They know to let us to their job as long as we let them do theirs. So long as we keep off each other’s toes, everything should be fine.’

 

They know to let us do our…

 

‘Maybe they only think that because you make it look so easy,’ Marcus retorted with a saccharine grin.

Saccharine didn’t feel like the right word here.

Streams of rainbow-coloured snowflakes danced around her, like petals blown by cosmic winds that affected the very passage of time.

 

Double meaning in this sentence. Do the rainbow flakes affect time or does the snow fall like petals that affect time. 

 

‘Good thing we spent all those years mapping out these time currents,’ Marcus replied. ‘Otherwise it could be years before we made it out again.’

 

This felt too much like ‘maid and butler’.  Why would they say this?  They know it.   I’d try to rework it so you can world build and make the dialogue more believable.

 

The four navigators raised their hands. Above them, the endless black split open like a dehiscing wound.

 

I love discovering new words. And dehiscing is a new one for me.  Cool.  But is this vocabulary appropriate for your audience?

 

‘And here I was hoping to at least stay dry, today,’ she groused.

I don’t know what groused means in this context.

 

‘We’ll make it work,’ Marcus reassured her. ‘Let’s get to it.’ Atena and Michael pulled on their full-face helmets, meant to protect against the spores constantly released by Shar’s minions to infect their victims with the mutating disease known as the Rot.

 

I got pulled out of the story here.  Is this a point of view error?  It reads like you slipped to Omniscient to describe the helmet. If that isn’t it, if still reads oddly.

 

The fiend gurgled something unintelligible through is crusted, fungus-covered head but showed no sign that it felt its intestines dragging along the ground. Atena grimaced and shoved her blade through its crusted head.

 

Through his crusted….

You reuse the word ‘crusted’ within two sentences.

 

Rather than falling, the sammael wrapped its enormous hands around her throat and began to squeeze.

Okay. While I was reading the story I realized I didn’t really care about Atena yet. I really wanted to know what she was feeling here.  Being choked is a traumatic thing.  She doesn’t really have a any reaction to it at all.  No fear, no physiological worry.   Just an automated response to pull at the hands and then to blast it.   You say she is acting in desperation, but as a reader you never made me feel it.

 

Custodians flashed and the Steel Hawks slaughtered every plaguegiver, rotlord and unclean in a thirty yard radius of their landing zone.

 

This is personal preference.  But I think it reads more snappy if you chop the sentence at ‘radius’.

 

Barely-suppressed memories clawed for her attention, trying to drag her back to  the afternoon that Altaiire had been razed to the ground.

 

Extra space between ‘to’ and ‘the’.  This scene is important.  We begin to crack her skull and see who she is.  I think this needs to come sooner in this chapter.  Here she is watching something and that triggers her memory.  Fine. But you might need to move the scene where she is choked so that it happens after this one.  I want this reaction sooner in the chapter. It builds a connection between Atena and the reader.

This is where I began to feel sympathy.

 

‘Okay,’ Atena muttered, refocussing. The rancour below she no longer seemed as terrifying, the flashes of Forging not as blinding. ‘Now from the north.’

 

The rancour below no longer….(remove ‘she’)

 

When the nightspawn began to fight back, the Firebirds scattered and reformed like a school of fish, resuming their attack from another direction. The Steel Hawks flashed over the battlefield on another attack run, further confusing and disorienting the nightspawn.

 

Unneeded repetition of the word ‘attack’.

 

the Steel Hawks and remainder of the First Company emerged from the gloom and threw themselves at the surviving nightspawn.

 

Missing the word ‘the’ before remainder.

 

She clenched her teeth and screwed her eyes shut, thankful that the alcohol still dulled the sounds.

 

This alcohol is either a quick acting version,  or her metabolism is ultra quick or she was drinking before she launched.

 

Like a broken down dam, the nightspawn’s rigid formation quickly broke down and the battle devolved into a thousand small battles.

 

Watch the word choice.

 

Summary

 

This is a good chapter.  You use your voice well and your narrative is effective.  Except for the maid and butler part, the dialogue was good and I never had trouble identifying who was speaking.

 

The flashbacks worked, but I think you need to get to it sooner.  The ending was fun and made me want to read the next chapter. 

 

If you want to develop Atena’s character you should create sympathy for her sooner. You mentioned that in an earlier draft she came across as too powerful.  She comes across as competent, but she also messes the exit point and hesitates on the field a bit. I don’t think she came across as over competent, although you made it clear that when she is in her right mind, she is an effective commander. 

 

I hope this helps.  Good luck.

 

If you don’t’ mind:

  Let me know what parts of this critique you found helpful and what parts weren’t. I’m trying to become a more effective, and more skilled at offering feedback and I’d appreciate your thoughts. 

 

All the best,

Matt

[AuthorityHellas16]

As always, thanks for the wonderful feedback, everyone. I'm thrilled majority of it is positive, and as usual, you all raise some great points. As always, I take all of it in, but I'll discuss the one point that seems to have evoked a bit of discussion, which is Atena's request for some leave.

Without spoiling much, I'll say that I had the same idea as kaisa and Ernei and have incorporated it into Atena's background; a while ago, she abandoned her post and left her people behind. Subsequently a cataclysm befell her home and she still feels guilty about not being there to defend it. That's why she continues to fight, and when things get to the point where she starts faltering, she takes some time to piece herself back together just enough so she can get back to the fight. It's a major part of why she is so damaged, as well as a big part of why she is so close to Marcus; because he understands her pain. 

As always, thanks for the feedback. And special thanks to Matt; I really liked your great attention to detail while keeping an eye on the bigger picture. I'd love it if you stayed on for the rest of this crazy journey. 

P.S. For Matt and Ernei, I've attached the first two chapters below in case you would like to get caught up. If you have any burning critiques, feel free to message me. 

Reading Excuses - 08.08.16 - AuthorityHellas16 - The Thousand Yard Stare - Chapter 1, Resubmit [V, L].docx

Reading Excuses - 08.08.16 - AuthorityHellas16 - When Good Angels Do Nothing (redux)- Prologue [V, L].docx

[M.Puddles]

Thanks AuthorityHellas16.  

I've had a busy week, but I'll try to go through Chapter 1 by the weeked.