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20170327 - The Seeds of Dissolution - Ch5 v2 - Mandamon - 4242


Mandamon

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Hello all,
Almost up to new stuff. Here is a new version of chapter 5, reorganized from the first time around. Sam confronts the loss of his home and how big the universe is, has some anxiety problems as usual.

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 learns more about Sam
Ch4: Sam, on magic meds, sees the Imperium with Origon and Rilan. They dodge a protest against the maji and ride a tram the rest of the way to the Spire of the Maji.
Looking for:

-Does Sam's anxiety work (as usual)?
-Does this address Sam's separation from Earth successfully?
-Do you feel more "in" Sam's head?
-Anything else you see
 

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Overall

Better and better each time! As an aside, Tuning the Symphony is right here next to me, waiting to be read tonight!

As I go

- page three, this line confuses me: Sure. Mentally changing notes of a ghostly Symphony is a science. Keep thinking that.

- page four: This is what, the fourth time I've read the star map scene? I still love it to death. It's so easy to picture in my mind. If anything, I'd encourage more detail, because I want to live in this world right here. It is visually engaging more than any other scene I have encountered in this book

- page six: so this just occurred to me but... wouldn't a key characteristic be the yellow sun? Surely some of the other systems have different suns? Or more than one?

- I think I'd like the decision to become a majus strung out just a little longer. It still seems a little rushed 

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Off we go.

  • “the Councilor” – previous instance not capitalised.

  • “the column it hugged for support” – darn my engineering ‘spidey’ sense. I had in my head that this column was in the corner of the Nether, which made me quest how the building could ‘hug’ it. Even if the column isn’t in the corner with walls leading up to it (preventing hugging), I still tend to question whether the building is actually wrapped around the column, hugging it, or rather is attached to the column, but not actually hugging it.

  • “how close he was already” – close to what?

  • “sweet-smelling hedge” – imho

  • “but the expression felt like it would slide off his face” – great line, I'm wondering though if the expression has feelings.

  • “The wall sparkled iridescent, reminding Sam of the sea behind a lighthouse.” – great image.

  • How is there weather” – I enjoyed the ‘sculpture garden’, cool, and this.

  • “Though here” – through

  • It’s some sort of information, but what?” – I don’t buy this. Sam’s an educated guy; he seems inquisitive. Surely, he must have seen pictures from the Hubble, or been on the NASA website or some such, to know what galaxies look like. “It’s like an astronomy app” – Ha! I knew it.

  • “maybe the Big Dipper” – I feel like it’s the name of the constellation – necessary capitalisation in fiction :)

  • “made the view zoomed out and back in” – I would suggest something like ‘zoomed the view out and back in’, for ease of flow.

  • “slid the view back as the he pushed buttons” – typo.

  • “Large swathes of space” – I feel like this is the word.

  • very far from Aunt Martha” – Who’s dead – so I'm not exactly sure why he thinks in this way, since I feel like he already has accepted this as fact.

  • “a strange look on the old man” – Hmm, I've never thought of Ori as (that) old.

  • I need to can get home " – typo.

I liked this version better. I did feel it verging on repetitious at certain moments in the search for Earth, but overall I felt that Sam and Ori did bond to some extent. I got a good sense of hope that they were going to find Earth this time, even though I knew they wouldn’t, but I still enjoyed the dynamic of the scene.

I’ve never been great at going over the same ground in recent memory, but this worked for me.

<R>

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Thanks to @kais and @Robinski!

On 3/27/2017 at 10:35 PM, kais said:

- page six: so this just occurred to me but... wouldn't a key characteristic be the yellow sun? Surely some of the other systems have different suns? Or more than one?

Aha--I'd been trying to think of other simple things Sam could reference. I'll see if I can work this in.

On 3/27/2017 at 10:35 PM, kais said:

- I think I'd like the decision to become a majus strung out just a little longer. It still seems a little rushed 

I'll work on it.

15 hours ago, Robinski said:

“the column it hugged for support”

I waffled on this too. The columns are dispersed through the Nether, so not near the walls. But good point on the building. "Attached" is a better term than "hugging."

15 hours ago, Robinski said:

I liked this version better. I did feel it verging on repetitious at certain moments in the search for Earth, but overall I felt that Sam and Ori did bond to some extent.

Glad this is working better, and good catches on the rest of the chapter!

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Mostly RAEBNC from me again. I honestly couldn't tell that much difference from the previous version, one way or the other. 

 

just a few as-I-gos:

 

"sparkled iridescent" sparkled iridescentLY. adverbs, yo.

 
"Several were mobile" mobile as in moving around, ambulatory; or MOBILES, as in having dangly hanging bits that move freely in the air and stuff?
 
"“Though here,” " through
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- I'm really like the concept of the Nether and how it makes the Imperium easy to traverse. 

- "It's supposed to be smaller, inside buildings" sounds either really vague or a lot like the TARDIS. 

- A lot of good world-building, but I am a bit worried about the lack of plot movement so far. I do like that we at least get a sense of Sam's desperation to return home. 

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