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20170925 - Rey's first jobV2 - 5543 words - Mandamon


Mandamon

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Overall

Oooh, this is much improved. I really enjoyed it! Tension and pacing were great. A little quibble at the end, but I think it's mostly there. Nice work!

Re: the kickstarter - are there going to be more of these shorts, or is it just this one?

 

As I go

- props right off that bat for using a traditional female name for a male character. Love

- I'd connect more with Rey's desire to be back home (and better understand how much he hates the manual labor he currently has), if you gave a bit more detail on what some of those tasks back home involved. Right now they're abstract enough that they don't really drive empathy

- the 'we have a rodent problem' line is excellent

- page three: They were numerous, as if this was where they originated. What is the 'they' referring to in this sentence? Unclear

- page five: pace is going well. I am engaged

- page five: It was taller than him, a covered in a mass of interconnected <-- 'a' should be deleted, I think

- page eight: this was a lot more physics than I was expecting

- page 13: yup, pacing is definitely much better this time. I'm super invested

- page 15: LOL at 'more feathers than a Kirian'!

- page 16: ooh, it's getting bigger! Tension!

- ending: hmm. Almost. I feel like the story of the mentor having battled the same creature is missing a little punch. Like, it was Kheena's escaped pet or something. It's so close, just, the punch doesn't land quite right. 

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- "Known to his friends as Rey" - seems a bit expository. Maybe use it in dialogue so it doesn't stick out so much?

- I liked the idea of the Majus rodent problem.

- I like that he has to complete his task without killing the creature - this adds more difficulty.

- I like the climax - as well as the sense of danger throughout the actions.

- Overall, I thought this was a fun story. It felt much improved from its predecessor. Good work! 

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Definite improvement!  Most of what I'm noticing now is sort of version mis-match? Like bits that remind me of v1 that don't quite jive with what's going on in v2.... 

 

"Now he wished he was back home" like this one. Now that the open is more concrete, this is striking me as vague. It SOUNDS like he's saying he'd rather be home pulling spines (v1), but I think it's supposed to be him wondering what's the point of being in the nether since he can do manual labor just as well at home. Yes? Maybe? But it could also be plain homesickness, since he's name-checked all 3 of his parents in the span of a sentence? 

"We hear how energy moves...This, it is not as limiting" So, this section seems to me to imply that Potential has SOME perception of the other houses' stuff, yes? But then there're several places where it's mentioned that they can't hear any other symphonies at all period and like maybe use math to get around that, and then there're another couple parts that seem to imply all mage-people can at least see other magics' colors if not hear them outright, and I guess i'm a little confused?  The difference between his own notes and the ones he harvests from the environment is clearer, at least. And I like that he feels consequences of using his own now too. 

 

"and see what the Snakey was thinking"  This makes me think Rey's telepathic. >_>;; I understand wanting to see the face of who you're talking to, but if feels odd to say that makes one able to know what the other person is thinking... 

"dry out the little hairs that covered his fingers"  How does he grip anything?? >_>;;

", evener, " More even? Or is this more dialect?

 

"ward of pure energy around the machine"  So, in v1 he shielded the machine, but in this version he was trying to cover the hole, wasn't he? Earlier in that same sentence he anchored the spell to the floor under the hole, yes? And then it's not addressed directly again so i'm confused....

 

"back on the horn " this is a specifically telephone-related idiom, I thought. It sounds odd to me here. Like, he has telephones where he's from? 

 

"discover a solution in time" I thought that's what he just did? Since he changed the frequency, and it seemed permanent.... wouldn't that fix the problem?  I mean, ignoring evolution, which would take at least one more iteration, wouldn't it? Since the baby critters wouldn't know to evolve until they tried the higher-frequency juice? So he's bought them like 60 to 100 years at least? 

 

Also, I agree with @kais here, in that the extended story kind of knocks the knees out of the momentum of the end here. Kind of turns a success into a downer ending, y'know? I don't mind the mentor character knowing the creature and having history with it, but I don't know that I need the how or the why behind the mentor know that stuff right at the end? Hah, maybe if people ask, it could be turned into anther short story! ;)

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Thanks @kais, @rdpulfer, and @industrialistDragon! Great comments.

 

17 hours ago, kais said:

Re: the kickstarter - are there going to be more of these shorts, or is it just this one?

Just this one. There was a second story farther down in the stretch goals, but didn't quite get there. Not that I won't write more Dissolutionverse short stories...

17 hours ago, kais said:

page eight: this was a lot more physics than I was expecting

Blame @Robinski ;-)

 

17 hours ago, kais said:

I'd connect more with Rey's desire to be back home...

 

15 hours ago, industrialistDragon said:

Now that the open is more concrete, this is striking me as vague.

Hmm...yep, I'll prop up the beginning a little more with some specifics about life back home.

Also, thanks to @industrialistDragon for the v1 vs v2 mismatches. I'll fix those.

 

17 hours ago, kais said:

ending: hmm. Almost. I feel like the story of the mentor having battled the same creature is missing a little punch.

 

15 hours ago, industrialistDragon said:

the extended story kind of knocks the knees out of the momentum of the end here.

Interesting. I liked how it was cyclic, but seems I'm missing something. Would it help if I added a few more hints at the beginning that K. has more relationship with the issue than he's letting on?

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1 hour ago, Mandamon said:

Would it help if I added a few more hints at the beginning that K. has more relationship with the issue than he's letting on?

 

Hmmm... I don't think so? I mean, I felt like it was pretty obvious he knew what he was assigning R to do. Maybe if there was less of the story of his attempt at the end? I felt like it ran a little long, the denouement, i mean.  

Or... maybe if he showed more appreciation for what R did? Because, like, we go from R being all "yeah i figured junk out and did stuff on my own and fixed things and want to be a mage now and yay!" to hissyface going "*sad sigh* Well at least you didn't kill the poor thing. Maybe someone else will be smarter than you or I when it comes back."  and then it flops back to R "Well I guess there's a beer story outta all this. maybe I should be pulling turnips after all or whatever" and that's kind of a sad, defeated place to be, especially after the triumph of figuring out the problem.  Maybe? 

 

[ETA:] Or, like, maybe, more emphasis on the cyclical nature of the problem? like with older senators or whatever being like "dude I thought you fixed this thing why does it always come up during an election" or whatever? Or with some kinda apprentice graffiti hints scratched into the walls from all the frosh who've tried to lick this problem once and for all? something to show it's a longrunning recurrent problem? I mean, if the cyclical thing is important, maybe? 

Edited by industrialistDragon
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Comments.

  • I remember the first line being smoother before. Do we need his whole name? Or, do we need to get the explanation of his nickname in the first line? Feels a bit unwieldy. I think you could say the whole name, or just R but both there is troubling me.
  • Aren’t the first two things he mentions chores too? Sounds like they are not, from the wording.
  • shortly?” he asked” – seems redundant.
  • This, it is not as limiting as hearing the music defining the realm of communication or strength” – I find this somewhat confusing, but there’s no explanation of why the HoP (lol) is better.
  • how great their Symphony was” – Err, but isn’t there only one symphony? Or is that the great symphony, and there are individual symphonies for each of the houses? Maybe I’ve been away from it too long, and ORS (Occasional Reader Syndrome) has kicked in, or maybe I haven’t been paying attention all those other times!
  • transfer it elseways” – lovely phrase, just joyful.
  • You do not think of complexities” – Lol, I had an engineer working for me who had the same problem. I sympathise!
  • He could do his sums, but nothing like MK” – this seems blatantly obvious, he’s a pupil. This line feels like a place holder. In a short, WE would say (I'm sure) that every line has to do something, preferably two things. I don’t feel like this contributes enough.
  • We canna hear the music of the other houses, but yer say we can still move along their melodies” – Hmm, really not sure how this works. I’m trying to envisage designing a road but not knowing anything about the traffic that uses it. Does answer my question about the symphonies though, I guess.
  • It gets very technical about halfway down the second page. I’m trying to picture myself as a newbie to the D’verse and how well I would cope with some of this stuff and remain engaged in the story. Honestly, I don’t know the answer.
  • The low, sprawling house was connected” – this is not the first instance. I’ve managed to pick up somewhere along the way, that if listing out different facets of a thing, they should be separated by commas, even if there are only two. I think there are two different sounds to this sentence, and perhaps two different meanings. To my ear, with the comma, ‘low’ applies to the house as does ‘sprawling’. Without the comma, I think ‘low’ applies to ‘sprawling’, describing how the house is sprawling, rather than the house being low.
  • used to power geared and kinetic devices” – area geared devices not kinetic too? Seems redundant.
  • His all black garb” – Hmm, I think ‘all’ is redundant. If not, is it not hyphenated? Sounds off to me this way.
  • but at least it at least reflected off his scaled head” – suggest un-splitting the infinitive to ease / flow.
  • Oh, good grief. Sorry, I'm in a really pedantic frame of mind these evening, and you are the lucky recipient of all the ‘benefits’ :O/  “The musical phrases play in contrast with the harmonic filter” – I would have said that one things is in contrast ‘to’ another, or in harmony ‘with’ it. Maybe it’s just me.
  • break the music phrases into” – ‘musical’, or delete, since you explain the phrases are broken into scales. Sounded clunky to me.
  • her new arts funding” – This sounds a bit like she’s getting the funding for her arts. Is it an arts funding ‘initiative’?
  • MK says that his work (‘they’) would be good practice for R; but isn’t he assigning R to the plumbing? This seems contradictory.
  • He gestured down and Rey, with a sigh, entered the dim staircase” – I think the phrasing makes this sound less active than it should.
  • It was taller than him, and covered in a mass” – typo.
  • the result was an incomprehensible block of notes” – does the symphony sound different in different circumstances? I don’t mean the volume, but the actual music. I never really thought about it in this level of detail. Is it on a loop, constantly repeating and always at the same point everywhere in the D’verse, or is it playing in different places at different locations?
  • So, he can sense the presence of the other scales for the other houses, just not actually hear them?
  • Well, that was flippin’ easy.” – I don’t buy him thinking that’s the issue dealt with. Why does he think there is only one, and why would he think that, because it scuttles under something, it’s not going to come back? I'm sure we’ve all seen a spider run under the sofa. Would you chase it out then leave it in your house? Maybe it’s just me, but that hairy-legged fella’s going in a glass and out to the garden! I feel like R would know implicitly that the task is to remove the creature from the vicinity, not just chase it under a crate.
  • slide downhill to him” – great phrase.
  • and keep that critter from coming back” – Yeah, kind of stating the blindingly obvious. I a short, I think you can cut the thought process between here and him seeing the creature, and jump instantly to the knowledge that he needs a longer-term solution.
  • Now or never” – why is that?
  • it supplies half of HI’s Systems” – I'm suspending my disbelief that a machine this size can do that; water, power, ‘momentum’… But it’s ‘magic’, not physics, after all.
  • I’ve mentioned that, lately, I’m on a mission to go boldly forth and ‘expose’ the splitting of infinitives. So… “He could technically use that chaos” for me sounds cleaner and smoother as ‘Technically, he could use that chaos’.
  • tried to block the hole” – I like very much how you’ve taken the crate and used it to show how (maybe?) the previous apprentice failed, making the crate already part of the story before R uses it. I think it was just lying around before?
  • Then he threw it across the room” – I did like the bit last time where he converted his biological energy into potential energy in the crate by carrying it up the stairs then dropping it to release and harvest the energy. This version seems less elegant, somehow. BUT, I then see that his harvesting of the crates kinetic energy affects and truncates its flight (I presume), I do like that.
  • and ran down the stairs” – wait, when did he go back up the stairs? Did I miss that?
  • unpleasant pulling and tearing” – excellent to get a sense of how this feels.
  • Nothing for it but to try again.” – I wonder if there needs to be an acknowledgment that this problem could be solved physically with a board and some nails, once the creature has returned to its hole, but that the point is for R to learn how to use his skills to do it.
  • was tighter, evener” – is that a word, compared to ‘more even’?
  • Oof” – what happened to dissipate the system that time? I couldn’t see the failure mechanism.
  • Mayhaps he could spend” – this is a brilliant word, but I feel it should be in R’s dialogue. The narrative voice has been consistently unaccented until now, I feel.
  • It formed a ward of pure energy around the machine” – I feel like there is a smidge of contradiction here. It sounds like he’s going to block the whole, but then it sounds like he’s placing a barrier around the whole machine.
  • not inviting it to take up residence” – lol, I like the addition of this section with the Et complaining.
  • to shrink in to the floor” – ‘into’, surely.
  • favored by the Symphony” – this feels like a clue, as R has not yet twigged, I think, the ‘affinity’ of the creature with the Symphony.
  • eatin’ the music” – it’s a nice reveal, and adds to the world very effectively, I think.
  • machine’s clanking faltered, gears grinding” – I like how this raise the stakes.
  • It was going to eat him” – I feel I need a more dramatic idea of its growth, and what size it is now. If it’s going to eat him it must, suddenly, be much, much bigger, surely.
  • It backed away from the machine, and gave him a scathing look. It tried again to fasten its mouth to the side” – These seem contradictory.
  • It was the size of a packbeast” – Like a cow? In this small space, how does that work? I’d like to feel a bit more physical threat to R’s person, and also the practicalities / blocking of the room + machine + creature + R.
  • There was certainly some other objects” – Grammar (plural disagreement)
  • suction cups it what was obviously” – ‘in’, I presume.
  • opened the hole in the brick wall” – I'm not really feeling this. I think perhaps there’s a lack of description in places. Here, I imagine bricks grinding, thumping as they fall, dust in the air, the smell of line mortar (maybe).
  • much the same stalemate” – excellent to link this back to a past event. I like how this resonates, and has symmetry of a sort.
  • until it bears forth” – this don’t sound right to my ear – not just ‘births’?
  • I’m not sure about the last line. I’d consider dropping it. We’ve heard nothing of the twins for the whole story, so this is new information in the last line. I’m not keen on that at all. Those who have read the previous stories will know about the twins, therefore not need the line. Those who haven’t will be put out by this, I think. For me, you could generalise it by taking out the reference to the twins.

I think this most certainly is better than the last version, but there are still some things that irk me, some of them new. However, there are many really nice touches and details that I enjoyed very much.

To summarise, some confusion / contradiction in places, I thought. Maybe a bit of clarity required on certain points, for me. And description would really punch-up some of the key moments, I believe.

Nice job. Great step forward. I think it could take another step.

<R>

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Thanks @Robinski! I shall delay submitting the next version until maybe tomorrow, and edit for the issues you brought up.

6 hours ago, Robinski said:

how great their Symphony was” – Err, but isn’t there only one symphony? Or is that the great symphony, and there are individual symphonies for each of the houses?

Yeah, this is a bit unclear--I need to do a pass in Seeds to bring it out more. There is the Grand Symphony, which is everything, and the individual Symphonies heard by the houses. They're all part of the same thing, but the maji make it a distinction because they can't hear everything.

6 hours ago, Robinski said:

does the symphony sound different in different circumstances? I don’t mean the volume, but the actual music. I never really thought about it in this level of detail. Is it on a loop, constantly repeating and always at the same point everywhere in the D’verse, or is it playing in different places at different locations?

There's a different section of the Symphony for different places, based on what's nearby. Thus the box dominates the theme here, but if you went upstairs, you might hear more of the music of energy in the conduits, or something else.

6 hours ago, Robinski said:

So, he can sense the presence of the other scales for the other houses, just not actually hear them?

I took a note (ha) from Jordan here, where he described the male and female Aes Sedai working with the other half of the source, even though they couldn't perceive it.

 

I'm actually glad you caught these points! I hadn't written from a POV inside the House of Potential before, so I was experimenting with how they processed things vs. the other houses.

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