Shrike76

Your idea sounds very good for a starting point. I thought of a similar idea, but I was leaning towards making it lean more towards the horror and hard science-fiction side of things and I didn't feel like I had the skills to pull it off, so it's sitting in a trunk

Well if there's going to be an obscene bar tab I want in!

I'm jealous, but glad to see that the two of you seem to have made the most of your time there. The retreat itself is something I'd love to attend, but a week on open water surrounded by hungry sharks? I just don't think I have it in me.

Silk! Glad to have you back, and I'm glad to see there wasn't anything too serious going on. We were getting worried about you. If you need help with something, don't be afraid to ask.

I think that that's a perfectly normal writerly state. It's like a twelve-step program where nine of the steps are "panic" or "worry" or "tearful gibbering". On an unrelated note - I CAN BREATHE! I've been sick for the better part of two weeks and getting nothing done that doesn't involve sleeping or emptying boxes of Kleenex. Hopefully March will see me get through the things I wanted to get done in February.

"before moon is dark" - I didn't understand what this was supposed to mean. Is this moonset (not during the day I assume) or is this a new moon? "a worthy blade, all silver" - I assumed that it was made of actual silver, but it occurs to me that that isn't the case and that you were just describing the colour. I assume the cutting blade needs to be steel in order to work the way it needs to? I enjoyed this quite a bitt, though I think it could be quite a bit better. The tone of the story worked for me, and so did the one-sided conversation, though I felt that it ran long for a flash story. A little less back and forth between the buyer and the smith would do well to speed this along to its conclusion (especially since the wordless smith appears to protest, but in the end produces at least three weapons). If I could suggest, cutting out anything where the buyer comes down hard on the smith might help, because we don't get a chance to develop why the character would look down on this person in the first place. Such as the following paragraphs: - "Do not speak that word to me again... bring me a blade fit for my station" - "Take that tone with me again, villain..." I'm not sure if this was just supposed to advertise the fickle nature of the buyer, but that was what I enjoyed the least in this piece. It works as character development, but makes me dislike the speaking character, and so I cared less about the twist at the end because I wasn't overly invested in his (albeit short) revenge arc. In the end, the fact that he's fae is important, but the real twist feels like "He's buying this blade for revenge" which isn't much of a twist when someone's buying a knife in a hurry with too much money. Something to punch up the "He's a fae" twist would sell this much more strongly (and especially, something to punch up why this smith in particular, and what the repercussions will be for the man after this deal).

My oldest is turning 12, and he's read the first few of the Harry Potter books, but we'd already seen the movies so I think he lost interest from knowing more or less what was coming. My younger son is 10, and he's currently reading Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series and enjoying it immensely. When he's done that he wants to read Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams, which is one of my all-time favourites. When I was their age I was entirely into Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels, but my sons aren't at all as interested as I was.

As a follow-up to Mandamon's last point - Also keep in mind that it's a great formula for keeping people interested when you need them to sit their butt down in a dark room with nothing but popcorn for 90-150 minutes, but it isn't what's best for all books. Your book can be good without being shoehorned into this format.

Glad you liked the app! It's helped me break through a few rough patches. I do all my writing and outlining on computer, through I do have some writing exercises I prefer to do longhand. My writing problems are largely time-based - I'm a slow writer and I din't have as much time to set aside for it as I'd like, so I write on computer to optimize my speed. I do think my longhand is better, but then I'd have to take the time to transcribe everything, and I'd probably just quit.

Scrivener FTW! There are a bunch of Youtube videos for Scrivener to show you how to do individual things, making better use of the tools it provides. I too mostly just use it as a filing system for all my story parts, and don't use many of the advanced features. I only do my writing on one laptop, so I don't have issues synching files from one place to another. I have a separate laptop for work but I don't keep or do any personal stuff on it. Aside from that I think the only specialized tool I use is Story Dice, for when I have an idea that's just missing a little something. Often it'll give me the hint of something that helps my brain come up with what I need. For those unfamiliar, Story Dice is a set of dice with fairly basic pictures on them. You grab a few random ones, roll them, and see what the pictures tell you. If you don't like it, try again. Available as physical dice (Rory's Story Cubes) or as an app (Again, as Rory's Story Cubes or a free alternative called Story Dice).

Yes there has been some flash fiction submitted here. I think Mandamon sent the last one I saw, but I could be wrong.

Trivium - In Waves

Yep. Even when acting without thinking he can still realize, having done it, that he needs to dial it back. Or at least take a deep breath.

To a certain extent Ender's Game does this. The Walking Dead does it frequently (The most recent episode is a prime example). Saving Private Ryan. 13th Warrior. The Last Samurai. Lots of fictionalized historical accounts come to mind (300, The Alamo, Zulu) If you're looking for an example of how to do it with the express purpose of making me throw a book across the room in a fit of rage, there's Stephen King's The Stand. ARGH!

For the ghost, that's my male reader bias kicking in I guess. You didn't describe the sex of the ghost that was military and checked down the shirt of the woman whose body it was inhabiting, so I assumed it was a guy because of course I would. It might be worth clarifying the point up front, especially if the gender is obvious and/or important later. For the destructive wind at the end, you should make those points clearer. It felt like the wind was obeying him at first ("His quiet command called forth a howl of wind"), but there was nothing in him that showed a knowledge of how to control it, or any sort of worry about what he was doing. His thoughts on why things are happening, and whether he wants more or less of it happening would tell us a lot about him.