20170213 - The Seeds of Dissolution - Ch4 - Mandamon - 3318

[Mandamon]

Hello all,
Here is chapter 4, dealing with the Council of the Maji

Previously:
Ch1: Sam gets very cold, loses his aunt, and gets sucked through a hole
Ch2: Sam has a big freakout at the new world he's in, meets a strange alien
Ch3: Origon is baffled by Earth, Sam has a trip through the Imperium

Looking for:
-Connection to the characters
-are you interested in the story and different POVs?
-anything else you see

[neongrey]

P.1

This is a lot of unvarnished will-you-explain-x-yes-i-will back and forth; it's not terribly interesting.

P.2

Wrong 'capital'; Otherwise this page is better than the last.

P.3

Though I have to say, 'nether' sounds a bit unfortunate, given how much it's been co-opted by bad sex writers for half of a euphemism. I think you're probably spending too much time on the description, though, it's kind of getting old by now.

P.4

Your description on Lobath is pretty fatphobic; all of it is devoted to describing his weight and how his weight is what makes him look unpleasant. Surely, if you wish him to be both fat and unappealing to look upon, and viewed by someone who doesn't like him, you can find a more creative and less marginalizing way to do that.

Otherwise you've still got an issue with direct handouts of information both in dialogue (at the top of the page) and in narration (at the bottom).

P.5

There's honestly not much difference in narrative voice between your POV characters and there really ought to be. If you're in POV they really ought to be sounding like they're different people in capacities beyond what information they're needing to witness and are able to convey. If not for the fact that Origon knows who these people are and is explaining them (a little heavy-handedly), his narration doesn't really sound any different from Sam, in terms of things like word choice, sentence structure, diction, etc. They're very different people, clearly, but that's not in the POV.

P.6

"de'Eden" as a name is awfully on the nose. Also it doesn't really follow any orthographic convention that I'm familiar with; if you must, either "d'Eden" or "de Eden" would be correct, but honestly, this is the sort of name that hearkens back to my days in high school when every name of every character I invented needed to have some deep and portentious name. It reads on about that level.

The argument here really loses steam because it keeps side-tracking to add in more information.

P.7

As above, but your attempts to do dialect subtly are really starting to fray here; I let Origon slide before now but as this is coming up more and more, but you're kind of pulling a Robert Jordan with this and the result is pretty painful. That double copula sticks out like a sore thumb. I would either take some time out to research how dialects form and work and can be eased into a text not written in that dialect, or dispense with that and just have the characters actually speak distinctly from one another in terms of actual phrasing and structure.

P.8

You're doing a lot of this thing that I really hate in fiction, which is referring to characters by epithets; traditionally you see things like 'the big man' but here youre doing it by species. I get the notion is trying to avoid repetition, but it sucks the life and distinction out of characters by reducing them in this way. the message here is that the primary distinctive feature of Freshta, eg, is that she's a pixie. Once or twice it's not gonna hurt a lot but the whole scene is laced with these and at this point and used in this way the message I take away from this is that none of these people are important in any meaningful way.

P.9

Origon might be holding his breath, but I'm not-- the way the scene has been structured (see as above) and with how this has been shotgunned there's no real tension here.

p.10

Nothing new, but my previous comments stand.

p.11

--

Overall, I mean, I'm not finding much if anything to sink my teeth into here. There's a ton of stuff being told to me but not much for me to do with that information. The characters and POVs are very indistinct; Sam is a little bit better but mostly it seems like the primary means of conveying his discomfort through dialogue is that 'Oh'; otherwise there's not a lot of distinction between anyone. This feels pretty muddy to read.

[Hobbit]

This chapter generally held my interest, though I thought it was a little rough.  It's just really hard to do council meetings well when we don't know the council members yet.  I got the impression that the council members are going to be important as the story goes on, but in your effort to make them distinct and easy to remember, I think they started to feel a little flat.  Plus, there's enough of them being introduced at once that it's going to be hard to remember no matter what.  It seems like an important scene, but the tension got muddled in the details for me.

On February 14, 2017 at 3:14 AM, neongrey said:

There's honestly not much difference in narrative voice between your POV characters and there really ought to be.

I agree, and I think more of a difference in the narrative voice between Ori and Sam would really punch up the story.  It's not just the word choice, but it's also their viewpoint.  You have some differences between them, but it would be more awesome if there were even more differences, since they're clearly coming from such different backgrounds and contexts.

Right now, based on what we've read so far, the biggest thing that has grabbed my interest is: Oh no, Earth is plummeting towards absolute zero and everyone there is dying!  Part of why each chapter is not grabbing me is that I want Ori to help Sam go back and save Earth.  I think the new world is cool, but it's overshadowed by knowing that back on Earth everything is horrible, so I can't fully enjoy all the pretty buildings and huge cliffs that emit light.  It's also confusing to me that Sam isn't sharing in my panic about Earth.  So far he's been able to get very little information out of Ori about what is actually happening there, understandably because Ori doesn't know, but I expect at least a "What happens in a Drain event?" or some conversation about Earth's prospects.  Sam is clearly moving on, but what's motivating that?  Is he resigned that he doesn't want to be abandoned in a new place, so he might as well work with these people?  Is he hoping to learn magic to save Earth?  Is he so enamored with this new world that he's like, "Screw Earth, this place is way better and I never want to go back!"  What is Sam's goal right now?

TL;DR: I'm so distracted by being worried about Earth that I can't fully invest in your new world!

I think Ori's character came across much more strongly in this chapter than previously.  I saw someone mention before that Ori really likes teaching, which I hadn't gotten a strong impression of until this chapter.  Despite my comments above about the council meeting feeling muddled, it did successfully clarify Ori's position with the council, as well as showed his (adorably) protective instincts over Sam.  I'm pretty annoyed at the council for not believing Ori about the drains, and annoyed at Ori for not at least considering the Ari might be a threat, but hey, it's not like it's so unbelievable - look what's happening in our country right now!  Aaaah and I'm moving on.

A few line by line comments:

a wide space was filled with bushes and trees.
I think this is the first mention of plants, yes? Were there not parks or gardens in the other part of the city? Just trying to pick out significant details.

Once past the doors, he could see the Council—made of the head of each house of the maji—was arguing over a pile of paperwork,
I'm not really picturing this yet. Are they around a table? In tiered seating?

though Rilan was seated,
I thought she was walking. When did she sit?

behind where they sat at a curved table.
Oops. Here it is. Maybe we could have this detail earlier.  I had a hard time setting the scene without it.

Rilan has already informed us you are here about your voids again.
Wait, when did she have time to do this?

Origon let his irritation show in his crest. Surely if he had been hungry he would have asked?
I thought you said earlier that Sam was hungry. ("He was hungry for his noonday meal.") Did you mean Ori was hungry?

 

Phew, that was long, but hopefully it's helpful!

[Mandamon]

Very helpful, both @neongrey and @Hobbit!

On 2/14/2017 at 3:14 AM, neongrey said:

"de'Eden" as a name is awfully on the nose

Yep. This will be changing. Just need to find a new name.

I'll work on punching this up a bit. Sounds like the biggest problems are in character voice and lots of information in this chapter.

2 hours ago, Hobbit said:

 I'm pretty annoyed at the council for not believing Ori about the drains, and annoyed at Ori for not at least considering the Ari might be a threat, but hey, it's not like it's so unbelievable - look what's happening in our country right now!  Aaaah and I'm moving on.

This and a couple parts further on at first seemed too unreasonable to me, but then given the current state of our government...*shrugs*

2 hours ago, Hobbit said:

Part of why each chapter is not grabbing me is that I want Ori to help Sam go back and save Earth.

Hmmm...this might be a problem going forward. Sam's goal right now is definitely to get back home, though he doesn't know how. There's a fairly large section of the next chapter that might help with your concerns. Let me know what your thoughts are after you get to the end of Chapter 5. Regardless, this chapter and the one before might need to get compressed into one to get to that point sooner. Alternately, I could switch the order of events, which might make Sam's objective clearer.

[Hobbit]

21 minutes ago, Mandamon said:

Sam's goal right now is definitely to get back home, though he doesn't know how. There's a fairly large section of the next chapter that might help with your concerns. Let me know what your thoughts are after you get to the end of Chapter 5. Regardless, this chapter and the one before might need to get compressed into one to get to that point sooner. Alternately, I could switch the order of events, which might make Sam's objective clearer.

Ooo, I'm excited for the next chapter!  I'll definitely let you know what I think!

[rdpulfer]

- Might want to explain how the tram platform reminded Sam of the 19th century. How so? What specifically brought that mind?

- I like the world-building, especially how the Imperialium "feels" easy to navigate. 

- I like where this is going, especially with Origon having to take on Sam as an apprentice.

- I really enjoyed the world-building - hope to see what Origon's apartment is like - and how Sam settles into his new digs. 

[Robinski]

Woo hoo, I’m up to date with Seeds.

• “windows that let it much of the view” – ‘let in’, I guess, but somehow letting in the view didn’t sound quite right to me either.

• “the vertigo that battered at him.” – personally.

• “comprised/formed made of the head of each house of the maji” – to me ear, ‘made’ just sounded, I don’t know, off tone, somehow.

• “looked like a stuffed sausage” – lol.

• “Councilor Fres is correct, Majus Cyrysi.” Jhi carefully stressed his title” – is the name underline a typo?

• “Tell them what you told us,” Ril said, finally joining the conversation” – But she just spoke like two paragraphs before.

• “Freshta’s wings buzzed in agitation”

• “since when Rilan had been an apprentice”

• “though the boy was only a little shorter than him” – Oh, this has changed my image, I was picturing Sam shorter. I think you’ve made him older in this latest version? I always thought Ori was pretty tall – care to put feet-and-inches on it?

• “If Ril agreed to help, they covered half of the symphonies.” – I didn’t get this right away.

• “Her wings twitched in glee” – I know that Ori is evidently a pain the Council’s collective neck, but it feels like there is a slightly arch-villainous attitude towards Sam from two of the members, to the point of them seeming a bit Cruella De Ville (pantomime comical) – particularly there being two of them, one of them maybe less noticeable.

• “she had authority to call consensus votes” – since there are three candidates to apprentice Sam, I’m not exactly clear at this point what they are voting on. It’ll be clear at the end but, I think there’s a lack of clarity on the motion. I think a convincing Council and chairperson would clearly state the motion before the vote. This is the convention in any Council meetings I attend.

• “Surely if he had been hungry he would have asked?” – I feel that this is not a question, but Ori protesting to himself.

• I feel like the end of this chapter kind of fizzles out a bit*. Not that there needs to be a punch in the guts at the end of every chapter, of course, but I don’t feel like I'm hauled on to the next one, just invited, politely to proceed, if it’s not too much trouble, and I don’t have anything else to do.

No major stuff, some minor quibbles, pretty fine detail. I enjoyed it, but you knew that already. One thing maybe, I feel like I'm not quite fixed on Sam’s age. Eagerly anticipating the next instalment notwithstanding my comment about*.

<R>

 

[Mandamon]

Thanks @Robinski! 

Good catches. I'm not sure where the underline came from...

Sam age/size: He's 17-19 in this version (I haven't fixed it exactly). He's fairly normal height, but Kirians are taller than humans. Probably need to go back and make sure I'm not aging him down too much when they meet. The anxiety does make him seem younger, I feel, so I need to watch how I handle that.

Council villains: Heh--yeah, I have way too much sadistic glee writing Freshta. It is partly Pixie mentality that they're vicious, but I don't want it to come out cartoonish. Based on comments on Ch3-4, I have an idea how to rearrange these and chapter 5 to help the flow, and I think it will help the councilors as well.