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Silk

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Posts posted by Silk

  1. “…it was close enough to fool someone if they didn’t already know the trick.” Everything else we’ve read has given me the impression the shapeshifting is fairly exact.

    The tail end of this conversation between A and H could maybe be trimmed down to a few lines: rather than A asking “how many times can you do this” jump down to “can you get me out during the day.”

    Is this not-at-all-circumspectly signed conversation with C going to get A into trouble later? I sort of hope it does. Also, if the could have done this inside and it’s only important to hide what’s being said, and not that they’re having a private conversation in general, why couldn’t they have just done this inside?

    Maybe WRS, but C’s reaction to “M can hear thoughts” seems like a non-sequitur. I’m not sure what idea C is referring to, what it has to do with psychic godlets spying on one’s thoughts, or why A reacted the way he did.

    P6 “Disgusting” seems like an overreaction to the “lover’s quarrel” comment, and I really don't understand where it's coming from given what else we've seen of the world.

    P7 “The power couldn’t be used to heal or give oneself claws or fangs…” Curious as to why this distinction exists in the worldbuilding, other than the fact that it’s narratively needed to make M’s powers seem different/more ominous. Not sure whether it will need explaining or not.

    P10 is A just standing in the street while he has this conversation with M?

    Also, this conversation feels like it runs long. I’m sure you can trim some lines here and there within it but I wonder if it’s about the way the conversation is framed as much as anything. Is there way to break it up with A doing other things that move us farther along towards the story’s goals?

    P11 “If the story was indeed true…” Does A believe it is? I don’t have a good sense of that.

    P12: Oh, more conversation with A and M. I’d definitely look for ways to trim/break up/intersperse with other things.

    P13 “Some m had trouble recognizing one of their fellows when…” This makes the plan to have H continue to wear someone else’s face seem even more tenuous.

    P14 “…the power was changing him.” I don’t think C has actually tried to have this conversation with A, have they? The dread here is good, but it’s the first time I’ve really gotten a sense of it. Also, we haven't really gotten a sense of this from A himself. Even if A is unaware that his points of view are shifting, that's something we as readers should be able to track, and so far I don't feel like we are. 

    So what is it C’s doing that’s actually foolhardy?

    “A liked making himself appear older because… C liked it because…” I really like these little details of how the two characters view their shapechanging.

     I think that, excepting the interlude, this is the first time we've gotten a POV from anyone other than A, yes? I'm wondering why now for C's POV. Right now it feels like it's only there to introduce the concern that A is changing without realizing it, and I think if this is going to be a major story thread (which it does seem the previous chapters have been positioning us for) that we need to see more evidence of it before we get a POV that can just tell us that this is a problem. 

    On 2/20/2023 at 2:58 PM, ginger_reckoning said:
    a. The conversations go on too long
    b. Some of the information may seem redundant from previous chapters. 

    a. I'm inclined to agree with this. It's hard to make suggestions about cutting dialogue without getting really prescriptive--I made one suggestion above--but mostly I think you can just look through the dialogue and trim a few lines here and there while hitting the same beats. 

    b.  I think a little bit of the information at the beginning of the conversation with M is stuff we already know, yes, but more than that I think the problem is that all of that information is given to us without really advancing other aims of the story. Can A be doing something else at the same time? Or have a really clear goal in asking the questions that he does/does not achieve? Does M have a goal in revealing the info (that A may or may not intuit)? Etc. Plus, this conversation is just fairly long, so breaking some of it up--perhaps there are multiple conversations, perhaps some of it just comes in dribs and drabs--will probably help. 

    One of the things I'm excited about is this story arc we seem to be heading towards where we watch A change/be changed without realizing it. That said, I think we really need to start seeing this change. Right now, we're only really getting this from the guards that have been assigned to watch A, and now being told from C's POV directly. Some showing rather than telling is definitely in order. And if this first POV from C is going to stay and stay where it is, we probably need some escalation as well to make C's worries carry more weight. 

  2. Sorry I'm late to this! I think I'm mostly echoing others' comments but hopefully there is something here that is helpful. 

    This may be deliberate given your setting, but I wasn’t sure – there’s a mix of very modern language and items (heck, tank top, gyms) and archaic, mostly in the way the characters structure their sentences when in dialogue. Not a stumbling block but it is noticeable.

    There are a lot of fast POV switches here within the same scene and I’m wondering as to the purpose of them. It’s unusual enough that you might want to set the scene from a single POV or have just one switch unless you have a specific reason for doing it.

    P5 “Forgive me if I hope they all have their entrails…” I stumbled here as it took me a moment to figure out who ‘they’ was. I think he means maybe the people who wrote the histories?

    P6 “She was only a teenage girl…” hmmm, I had her pegged as a little younger, if somewhat precocious. How old is she? I’d have an easier time buying, say, 13 than 17.

    Edit: Ah, answered a couple paragraphs down. Carry on!

    P7 “C giggled at his joke.” I think the giggling and laughing at what are really pretty tame jokes is what makes her read a little younger. At least, flexing for someone to make them laugh seems like a joke you’d do I front of a younger kid than a teenager.

    P8 The shift here—M acknowledging that he’s suddenly trying to protect her self-esteem, and then C acknowledging that she doesn’t treat people well—feels abrupt.

    Overall: There’s some potentially good character development here, but I agree that it’s at the least out of place. It seems strange to have this happen right after a massacre, especially when we still don’t understand the place of either scene in the larger story.  Without a better sense of the story overall I really don’t feel like I can make suggestions about where the scene should fall or whether it should be cut, but it definitely feels out of sequence here.  

  3. “end up in” makes it sound like N wasn’t intending to go back to his world.

    Maybe WRS, but I don’t remember F at all. Should we already know who she is? If not, feels like brief introduction is in order.

    The conversation with F and N again feels like we’re getting a bunch of information thrown at us without anything to contextualize it. You probably don’t need something after every line, but a sentence of explanation here and there as F and N talk, and/or some emotional cues. Right now I’m struggling to keep up.

    Also, does N know that the person who died was W’s uncle? I think hanging a lantern on this would be helpful.

    P4 “I’m not talking to her about anything.” Confused. Didn’t N just say he was staying at his parents’ place? 

    The reveal of changelings at the end of the scene was startling; I felt a little under-prepared for it.

    P5 “…closer to human than we are to them.” Who is them in this case?

    P9 “That actually does sound right with what hints A’s given me…” I think more emotion from this conversation would be really helpful. Is N afraid of this agent? Does his grandmother seem to be? How uch of a threat is this person? And, does N believe his grandmother when she says she had nothing to do with the other person’s disappearance?

    I think we need, at the very least, some sort of relationship explainer between N and his mother (who might or might not be different than ‘ma’ who someone should have saved?) as I’m having a hard time figuring out who’s who.

    P10 “That I’m willing to go behind her back.” I wonder what would happen if you used this to frame the scene as N either coming to a decision on this, or actively working to hide it from his grandmother. We would probably have to know a little more about the ritual and its purpose up front, but it might increase the drama and make N feel active rather than an infodump.

    Random thought on p12: Is B N’s twin sister?

    Since A is a friend of N’s, I’d be curious here to see a reaction – or hang a lantern on a lack of reaction – from A that his friend is apparently in an abusive relationship. Big deal, yes?

    P14 “Our relationship was one child leaning on a friend.” Stumbled here – wasn’t sure what was meant.

    “You do?” I had a similar reaction to A here. I think you could hang a lantern on the fact that W has some sort of epiphany.

    P15 “I mask a grimace when I see his soldiers stiffen.” I think ‘soldiers’ might be the wrong word?

    “Why are you so convinced I’m jealous and insecure…” This hasn’t really been said. There was the one off-hand remark about competition but I didn’t otherwise get the impression from N’s dialogue, or W’s reaction to it, that N thought this was actually the case.

    Overall: I thought the second chapter of this sub in particular went pretty well. The relationship between W and N is progressing nicely and it deepened in a way that I thought was fairly effective. I do think that more emotional cues would be helpful throughout. For the second chapter in particular, I think my struggle was that the actual emotions were there but it felt like they were there in response to things the characters weren’t necessarily saying out loud – so we had the emotions but not quite the scaffolding to attach those emotions too.

    For the first chapter, we got a ton of information, but not always enough to contextualize it. A lot of what was presented was totally new, so I’m not invested in it right off the hop. More emotional cues about how N feels about what he’s learning (which was present in some cases but not always) would probably help, as it would give us more reason to be invented right off the top, but I also wonder if this could just be spread out in smaller doses so we’re not getting it all at once. This might help with foreshadowing too—the surprise twin sister felt a little out of the blue, especially since the story has not been leaning heavily into this kind of trope so far.

  4. It looks like we're three so far with @Ace of Hearts, @ginger_reckoning, and @Yuliya up.

    11 hours ago, Cathy Lim said:

    Just starting to look at this draft and cringe a bit- ha ha! 

    Going to second what Yuliya said: your draft is not too rough if the comments are helpful to you. If you think it would be more helpful to take the comments you've got and revise a first draft then come back, nothing wrong with that, of course! But if submitting your first draft if still helpful, then just keep going with it.

  5. Hi! Sorry I'm late! I'm hoping to start getting caught up.

    As I read: 

    “…and deal with the village to make sure they can’t harm…” is the village itself actually a threat? My understanding so far was that they were maybe threatened by MA and his ilk, but not a threat themselves. There may be an opportunity to clarify this somewhere along the line.

    (Shard added the underline, not me. I have no idea why.)

    My impression is that G knows more about this whole situation than W does. In W’s shoes I’d be quizzing her on it, but we don’t see that. It feels a bit like the narrative is withholding information from us.

    P5 “Right now, N needs my help more than I need to…” Lost opportunity to reference W’s mom here, maybe? Or not. It’s a telling detail if she doesn’t think of her mom here.

    P6 “But he lies a ten-minute walk away from a park…” wait, doesn’t he live in another world? Or is he no longer actually living in that village?

    One thing I realize I don’t know from the description so far is whether N knows that W’s been told to avoid him (by N’s brother and/or W’s amma). (I think clarifying this would be especially helpful in light of the p10 comment that W and N have agreed not to tell each other white lies.)

    P8 “ah, I’ve heard that term.” I think more of this would be helpful peppered throughout the manuscript – more hints of these really common things that N should know, but doesn’t.

    P11 “..given that C is full human even though…” I had definitely assumed she wasn’t, given the “learned to navigate earth” comment above.

    Much of this conversation with C again feels like information is being withheld, with N very carefully not thinking of the specifics of whatever is going on. I think a few more context clues would be helpful.

    Not sure if this is the correct impression, but the comments around “the ritual” make me assume that said ritual involves sex.

    There is … a lot of physical assault happening in this scene. Any reaction from W, who seems (as of mid-way through P15) to have been forgotten?

    P16 “...don’t think I’m any less angry at you.” This and the shaky exhale are the only real sense of emotion I’ve gotten from N since the fighting started.  More cues to N’s emotions throughout would be helpful.

    “Willow must see me as either evil… or pathetic.” For… breaking up with someone? Again, this is a spot where I feel like we don’t have the context to understand the discussion. Without more information, comments like this one feel like overstated reactions.

    P18 “Oh. Guess I shouldn’t have assumed they already knew about me…” Feels like a missed opportunity here. Maybe W admits that her family doesn’t want her around him, or she gets caught in a white lie by trying not to tell N about this at all, or even tells N something that we the readers know is untrue even though N doesn’t. It just seems like a missed opportunity for tension.

    Overall: I think the pacing was stronger in this chapter, and I’m still enjoying reading and looking forward to the next bit. I think my biggest struggles were that it feels like we’re doing a lot of telling instead of showing, particularly when it comes to the character’s emotions. I’d love to see more emotional tells from the different characters… voices shaking, biting lips, what have you, something to give us a better sense of how the characters are actually feeling.

    The other thing I had trouble with is that it feels like a lot of information is being withheld from us still and I think maybe … you don’t always need to do that? Sometimes revealing information can create more tension than keeping it secret, and especially with N’s narration I think you might have an opportunity to do some of this.

    On 2/13/2023 at 5:58 AM, Ace of Hearts said:
    Additional warning for abusive relationships (will be kind of a thing from here on out so I won't mark this every chapter)
     
    Hi everyone,
     
    Thanks for all of your feedback so far! :) I have a couple specific questions for this sub:
    1. How does the slower pace of the first chapter read? Is it good to get some downtime and relationship-building for N and W or does it seem to drag with no point?
    2. How does C come across in the second chapter? Abusive relationships are a difficult topic to tackle and I want to make sure it comes across the right way.
     
    Besides that, any and all feedback is appreciated, especially prescriptive suggestions!

    1. Overall, yes, I think the slower pace was helpful. I did wonder though if the two scenes with N could be combined into one. 

    2. I think that having more of that emotional punch I was talking about would really help here, that having N have more of reaction to her (whatever that reaction is) would help contextualize it. Without that I'm a little more inclined to wonder "hey, what's her problem?" I also think that @Mandamon was right on the money with his comments. 

    Housekeeping note, I think it's worth continuing to flag C's chapters as you did in this sub, actually. We have a lot of new folks right now and know that people also jump in and out of manuscripts on here sometimes. 

  6. Shard is doing the thing where it won't let me tag everyone, so today's confirmation of the roster will be a multiquoting disaster. I did have to do some juggling this time as it's a busy week! Submitting we have: Ginger Reckoning, Yuliya, kais, Flowergirl, and Cathy Lim.

    On 2/17/2023 at 6:44 AM, ginger_reckoning said:

    I would also like a spot this week please!

     

     

    On 2/17/2023 at 7:48 AM, Yuliya said:

    Me too, if possible!

     

    15 hours ago, kais said:

    I'd like a slot for Monday if there's one. Finally have time to submit again.

     

    3 hours ago, FlowerGirl said:

    If there's space, I'd like to submit as well.

    Plus @Cathy Lim,who DMed me so I can't quote her but also can't tag her here, because Shard is so helpful :rolleyes:

    On 2/11/2023 at 7:40 AM, Ace of Hearts said:

    I'll take a slot for this Monday if there's room, please! Though if we end up being full I don't mind sitting a week out.

    I singled you out this time because I think you're the only one who hasn't missed a week in the last few weeks. I'll aim to have you in next time! (But remind me, because I have a brain like a goldfish these days.)

  7. Thanks for the new submission! As a note, I realize that not every sub will fit neatly within 5k words, but really once a submission goes more than a couple hundred words over you should split your submission. The previous instances you’ve seen of longer submissions were always where someone cleared it with the group ahead of time and in slower periods. The really long ones, like the ones that are 1k over, are typically where someone asked to take more than one slot, which we can only allow in very specific circumstances. The volume just gets overwhelming otherwise. Thanks!

    As I read:

    P1 “he barely had time to pull the dirty soft shoes…” initially I thought B had already been here for a while.

    P3 “It never would.” Not totally sure what this sentence is referring back to.

    P4 “The least R could do… was keep his face neutral” ah, so we’re finally given the explanation to this; I was wondering. Maybe put this and the initial comment about keeping a neutral expression closer together?

    “Five repetitions should be enough…” Now confused. How does she know this if she can’t hear what’s being done?

    P7 “He would have to trust us not to divulge…” if he was with them when he placed the tablets, wouldn’t they have access to the tablets anyway?

    P8 “The effort is worth the knowledge.” At first, due to paragraph break, I thought this was R speaking, but the following paragraph suggests it was actually N? Not certain.

    P14 “Do you intend to go to another heist?” struck me as an odd question. Isn’t R in the driver’s seat of whether B gets to go on another one or not?

    P15 “It was the tel’s kindness…” I’ve been wondering about this. In the last chapter the tels were presented as animals, albeit maybe smart ones, but the way they’ve been talked about in this chapter suggests they’re sentient.

    P16 “…lose years … or abandon my research?” I think information like this needs to be moved up, possibly way up, last chapter even. This is the most sense of personal stakes I’ve gotten so far.

    P17 “You don’t like my uncle…” this seemed really abrupt until the next line when it’s revealed that K is B’s uncle. I still don’t understand how this gives more B about the EC, and this question is dropped after this.

    Overall: My biggest stumbling block was the political intrigue/family drama that cropped up in the last couple pages. I wasn’t prepared for this to suddenly become apparently a large part of the story – up until it’s been focused on B’s fate with the heisters and, to a lesser extent, whatever he’s trying to achieve with his research – and we have almost no specifics about what this plot thread actually entails.

    I also think it would be helpful to have a better sense of what B is actually doing and hoping to achieve with the tablets. There was a lot of talk about them but I so far don’t understand what the purpose is. Really with both of these points, my challenge is that I don’t yet know why these things matter, so it’s harder to get invested in B’s success.

  8. Congratulations on your first submission!

    On 2/6/2023 at 9:04 PM, ginger_reckoning said:

    With that being said, do not let criticisms of the work get you down; they don't reflect you or the quality of your work, they are simply suggestions and experiences while reading.

    Yes, exactly this. 

    On 2/7/2023 at 4:31 AM, K. Preston said:

    You caught so many little things that my mind had just started reading over without picking up bad punctuation or loss of prose

    Oh this happens so easily. A couple things that I do to help me focus on those types of things when I'm finalizing: I'll print off a copy and read and mark up a paper copy, and/or - these days mostly this one - I'll read it out loud. Makes me focus on the words on the page rather than the ones in my head. I still don't catch everything, but it helps! 

    I've also seen people suggest to read something backwards but I've never been able to make myself do that. 

    As I read.

    “A theory he intended to put to the test tonight.” Ah, good. This is the first hint of goals or stakes. I’m not sure it needs to be moved up, necessarily (though it’s worth considering) but I definitely wouldn’t want to see it appear any later than it does.

    P2: the princess Cress.. as in Troilus and Cress? Do I spot a Chaucer reference?

    I didn’t realize this was actually a POV switch until the last sentence of the first paragraph of the new scene.

    Something in this memory sequence made me wonder if the princess adopted?

    P4 “…would never be married.” Interesting, but wouldn’t the death of your betrothed null the betrothal? It seems more likely that if they needed to preserve the treaty, they’d just marry her off to someone else.

    That said, I like this take on arranged marriages. It’s a break from the usual trope, which is refreshing. Just maybe needs a bit more explanation/worldbuilding to support it.

    P5 There is a what feels like a long pause after the assassin is discovered and the soldiers rush in. Plus, C’s reaction is quite analytical. Taken together it reduces the feeling of urgency for the situation.

    P6 Not sure what is meant by “silk-like attacks”

    The way the emotions and action are being described, I’m not sure where C is in all of this. It actually reads like this scene is being told from a collective point of view rather than the POV of a specific person, which could be interesting, but it’s a switch from how the scene began).

    P8 “…he swatted the blade away with his own” he’s been doing this consistently over the course of the scene, so I don’t understand why C thinks that her own attack will have a different result than anyone else, since it’s clear they’re all highly trained

    P10 “There would be no strategic advantage to gain.” Why not? This feels like a good time for specifics. I think maybe the next paragraph is supposed to explain this but it took me a moment to realize. Maybe move the bit about “the coveted seat” up in the paragraph?

    P14 The way C tries (and fails) to embed herself in everything and then finds herself at loose ends is a good expression of grief, but at this point into the scene my attention is starting to wander. I m starting to get more engaged again now, at the bottom of p14, where it seems like is now driving towards a specific purpose. I think we can get here sooner.

    “Most of the combat techniques used were the very same ones…” this doesn’t strike me as especially unusual unless these characters are using a specialized fighting style or something.

    Overall: All right! So you’ve got a solid inciting here which is always good to build on in the rest of the book. I don’t think you need to include the prologue-ish elements you mentioned in the book; I was a bit curious as to why the people of these worlds decided on monarchy for their form of government, but the setup itself was perfectly clear.

    I think the biggest two things I wanted were: more emotions, especially from C’s brother, but even from C herself. This can be a really helpful way of grounding us not just in what is happening but why it matters. The second thing I wanted was a little more specifics around what is actually happening. Especially, I’m thinking of M’s comments around the politics and C formulating a mysterious plan at the end of the chapter. Obviously we don’t need all of the information, but I think a little more can help, again, with grounding – and I don’t think you need to be afraid of revealing a bit more information, it can actually help keep the tension up if we know a little more about what they’re planning.

    I wasn’t sure C’s age. There was a line in there somewhere that indicated she was an adult, but she often came off as fairly young to me.

    On a grammatical note, you use a lot of sentence fragments. This can be fine as a stylistic choice (it’s one I’ve used myself) but it’s happening often enough that, even within the first page, it’s quite noticeable.

    So far so good though. Keep going!

  9. P1 “But every time my mom loses her energy…” I wonder if we shouldn’t be seeing this in a scene rather than in summary. Or get the summary, the text conversation, and then W waffles a bit and we have a scene before she decides to go ahead with the dangerous thing.

    “Mr. A wants to talk to you…” I may be mixing up my drafts, but I think we’ve only seen him mentioned once in this draft and it is brief. I wonder if we need a little more in the text before now to support this being a dangerous/ominous thing.

    P3 “My amma said she…” thought this was referring to amma for a moment and was thrown. Maybe have W refer to G’s mom by name rather than pronoun here.

    “I’m staying away from N to avoid the conflict in his village…” Another thing we’ve been told but haven’t really seen. I think this can be made more of as an obstacle; right now we’re not really seeing it happen.

    P4 “…something strange and unnerving about B.” We’ve seen a tiny bit in her manner just now, but mostly this is something else I feel like I’m being told rather than shown. Although I snort-laughed (not necessarily a bad thing) at “tortures squirrels for fun.”

    P6 “But I’m hoping this can be mutually beneficial.” Why not make demands, rather than requests?
                  Edit: Oh, it’s a plot point. Carry on.

     I think I want/expect a greater sense of menace from this scene, but I’m not sure how to accomplish that offhand. I think maybe if we feel more of W’s desperation going into it, that would help. And maybe hang more of a lantern on the fact that this is easier than W expected – for example, have her be surprised that he has requests but is just giving her a vial, wonder what the catch is but not be able to come up with anything, etc.

    P7 I was taken aback to see yet another POV, not sure why. Remind me, are you intending this to be YA? The age of the characters would line up with that, but multiple POVs aren’t as common in YA, I don’t think.

    I think there is an opportunity during the conversation between A and W to provide us a little more information.

    Same with the conversation between A and his grandfather (even more so, I think). Right now it seems to be here to build up a sense of menace, but it’s not actually telling us much about what’s happening. I think if this conversation isn’t an opportunity to give us more information then it can probably be cut.

    I’m not 100% bought in to the conversation between A and B yet, I think because I don’t fully have a sense of either characters’ emotions yet, but it feels like a real opportunity. I think you could really lean into the characters’ emotions here—is B really totally resigned to her fate, does she really not care, etc. On A’s side I’d love to have more of a sense of what he is going to do. Your characters right now are spending a lot of time reacting rather than acting and this scene feels like no exception.

    You could really lean into the body horror aspect too. Changing hair colour is good, but it’s pretty mild. If you wanted to up the “ick” factor here you could have her do something (instead or in addition, as an escalation) like change her breast size.

    Also… just a thought. What would happen if, instead of getting this scene from A’s point of view, we got it from W’s POV as she overheard it instead?

    Overall: I think my biggest comment is that we’re getting a lot of things in summary that it feels like we should be seeing actually happen in scenes: W’s mom’s health declining and driving W to act out of desperation and the various things at play keeping her and N apart. I think you could really up the threat level around the latter, for example if we see that W’s broken promise to her amma has the potential to threaten their relationship, or if N is in danger of getting caught in some crossfire, etc.

    Just in general, at this point I think I want to see more tangible examples of threat in general, like having a better sense of the conflict around N’s village that N is being drawn into, confirmation that Grandpa CEO was responsible for G’s parents being dead/murdered, and so forth.

    On 2/6/2023 at 6:08 AM, Ace of Hearts said:
    Hope everyone's doing well!
     
    I'm interested to hear people's suggestions for this sub since I keep waffling on how important some of the dynamics here are for the story. Any and all feedback welcome as usual, and prescriptive suggestions are especially appreciated!

    I'd echo @Mandamon's thoughts here. It feels like it's a good point to start tying things together, but that isn't happening yet. Without knowing the whole shape of the story it's hard to guess at what should be kept or cut, but my instinct is that the chapter could be kept but trimmed (A's interaction with his grandfather comes to mind as something that could be cut).

  10. P2 “Children have been worked to death…” so the narrator and L are the same age, right? I’m having trouble placing how old these kids are. Early teenagehood?

    This is a good inciting incident, and “it’s breaking my rules” helps, but I feel like we could use a tiny bit more prep before getting to the narrator having magic powers.

    “The floor sways beneath me…” This is a pretty big emotional reaction. I’m on board with the narrator’s justification of why they did it, but they (not sure of pronouns) don’t seem to have taken any precautions to actually hide what they’re doing in what is apparently a crowded setting, when discovery is apparently a really big deal. Having the narrator make a little more effort to be stealthy could also be one way to prep the readers for the narrator having magical powers.

    P3 “There’s a substitute there.” Hasn’t it only been like 5-10 minutes? Where did the sub come from?

    P5 I like the stark class division as a worldbuilding piece, but I’m surprised the different classes are allowed to associate so freely with one another.

    P6 “What are they doing to do?” This seems awfully cavalier of J considering that it’s already been pointed out her friends could get in trouble for it, and she seems to genuinely care about them.

    P7 “Starvation would skyrocket…” The lunch she was served didn’t seem like we were in “starvation” territory.

    P8 “I’m fairly certain that I’m being watched…” The sense of menace is good but the repetition risks losing its impact without change or escalation. I think more information about what could actually happen as a result is helpful.

    “L teases me a couple of times…” is she not also worried about the situation?

    “The sooner I’m back in my own horse…” lol. Should be “house,” I imagine.

    So… she’s going to get inside and find the government waiting, right?

    P9 “…wiping their hands on their pants…” This gesture is getting repeated a lot – the narrator herself does it again a couple paragraphs down. As a personal nervous tic, that makes sense, but I’d then find different gestures for the parents.

    “If I’m careful I might be able to dodge this somehow.” I wasn’t expecting this possibility, but I don’t know how realistic it is that the character may be able to wriggle their way out of this.

    P10 “At least this way I have a day to figure out…” It doesn’t seem that way since B just said he needs an answer now. Unless “ok” was K’s actual acceptance of the job ‘offer’? I read it as general acknowledgement.

    P11 “Join the resistance…” This just took a turn I really wasn’t expecting. I think we might need more foreshadowing to prepare us for this moment.

    P12: Teleporting based off a map seems like a huge jump in power, relatively, from mending a backpack. Also, feels like it could take a lot of the tension out of an escape, though I’m not sure an escape is what is planned.

    Overall: You’ve got a really solid start here, with very clearly defined conflict and a good inciting incident that happens right off the hop (though there may be room to support the inciting incident with a little more worldbuilding just before it happens, even a line or two). I was quite engaged especially with the first half of the story although I think there are opportunities to escalate rather than just repeat the danger throughout.

    I had a harder time engaging with the second half of the story, because I didn’t feel prepared for the main character to be shuffled off to a resistance. Structurally, I felt like I was being prepared for a story in which the POV character is taken by the government and has to find a way to survive (or escape, but survival felt most likely through most of this). So I think you do need to do some massaging to support the events that actually happen. That said, you have a lot of opportunities to do this. I’m looking forward to finding out what happens next!

  11. P2 “there was his two personal…” should be were.

    Halfway down p2 and I’m pretty engaged so far, though I spent mental energy at the start trying to place where and whether I should know this character before ultimately deciding that I shouldn’t. But also, at this point in the narrative I am becoming curious as to what G thinks happened to his missing apprentice, whether or not it’s an actual cause for concern (for the apprentice or G himself), etc.

    P3 “A single mango was not nearly enough to eat.” Stumbled over this. At first I was just confused since I didn’t think breakfast was the actual aim here, and then the continuing paragraph made what is obviously supposed to be a villain sound like a nagging father, before landing on the last line that seems to bring G back to type. Though I’m not sure how disordered eating could be useful (or improve anyone’s magic skills).

    “Do I have something in my teeth or something?” While funny and good piece of characterization, I was quite surprised to see that G apparently allows his apprentices to back-talk him, which seems to be belied by the comment a bit later about him cultivating an intimidating air.

    “…who knew what horrible, depraved mutilations the mysterious sorcerers were capable of?” This is the first time we’ve seen b-mages presented in a negative light, but the wording makes it sound like common knowledge/perception.

    So… the apprentice is the one who arranged for an imposter? Again, I think it would be useful to have a hint of what the actual situation is up front.

    P6 “I am so sorry.” Why is he apologizing? Is it a legitimate apology? I have no idea what the answer to either of these questions is.

    “It would delegitimize the position he held…” Unsure if “he” here refers to G himself or the apprentice.

    P7 Getting a sense of some of the other gangs and such is good, but I think I’d like to see them for the first time before an interlude.

    P8 Why is “investigation” capitalized?

    So… the villain is against the gang that raided the home our protagonist? Having multiple threads is not a bad thing, of course. But although the scene is building a sense of menace, which is good, it seems to be directed at the people opposing our protagonist rather than the protagonist himself, which is not what I would have expected. And I’m not super invested in the apprentice being in danger, since I never met him and he seems to be set against both of the POV characters we’ve met so far.

    As a general note, I usually expect interludes to be short and punchy, not a three-scenes-over-three-days affair. I’m enjoying the individual scenes just fine, but it feels more like a full chapter than an interlude. For whatever that’s worth.

    P8/9 “It shall eat the White God…” I immediately thought “why didn’t we get this first?!” I’m surprised more engaged with a prophecy that he thought for a while was about him. Plus it provides an immediate link back to our protagonist that we don’t otherwise get at a remove (since A is presumably the actual object of the prophecy).

    The description of G walking through the streets’ and people’s reaction to him has reminded me how little we actually know about where G and/or his role actually fit in the overall world.

    P10 “An unfortunate misuse of his powers…” So what’s the plan for the actual, non-imposter apprentice? I assume G doesn’t expect him to just obligingly disappear. Unless he does, in which case that’s worth making clear. Is he making any attempt to find out what his apprentice was up to, even if only to make sure that H’s actions don’t cause him problems down the line? (I’m sort of assuming that the missing apprentice is the one A killed a few chapters ago, but as far as I can tell G has no reason to know this.)

    P11  “…that wasn’t the purpose of his visit.” So… what is?

    P14/15 attention starting to drift here. I don’t understand what G’s purpose is or why, and now we no longer have the immediate goal of him ferreting out an imposter that we did in the first scene.

    “Who would have the biggest reason to kill…” Confused now; G seems to have done his homework, so wouldn’t he know that the RTs launched an attack? Dead gang members seems like a pretty predictable consequence thereof.

    “…and decades of declining public opinion” again, I feel like we’ve buried the lede on this. But also, this plan doesn’t seem particularly convincing. So far, he’s seemed ambitious, but possibly within his own competencies. This seems… less reasonable.

     Who is the general? Should we know who she is?

    Overall: The first half of this chapter especially was the most engaged I've been with the story so far. Something—and I can’t quite articulate what—pulled me along in a way that the earlier chapters hadn’t. That said, I often felt like I didn’t understand very much what our narrator was thinking and feeling about things. It’s fine for him to be emotionally distant, but I didn’t always understand what he was trying to do or why he was trying to do it. This became more of a stumbling block for me in the latter half of the chapter, once we lost the immediate aim of ferreting out the imposter apprentice.

    I’m still struggling with the information that we are and aren’t getting over the course of the book. Right now it feels like we’re getting both too much and not enough. The problem of the declining public opinion, the general, whatever presumably villainous things G’s done, are all thrown at us without developing any of this information further. Meanwhile we are maybe seeing some of the gang stuff for the second time from a new perspective, but not really getting anything new about them.

    There are a lot of threads here, I suspect that the chapter can be distilled down to one or two key threads but I think it's a solid addition to the story.

  12. 7 hours ago, ginger_reckoning said:

    I'll take a slot!

     

    2 hours ago, FlowerGirl said:

    I'd like a slot as well.

    Okay then, please do! That means we're a full house for this week, with Ace of Hearts, Yuliya, and K Preston also submitting.

    Looks like we're heading into another busy season, so folks, assume you won't be able to submit every week and plan accordingly. If people can get their requests in a day or two early, that will help me juggle slots so that everyone gets a turn in a reasonable amount of time instead of first-come first-served.

  13. 5 hours ago, Ace of Hearts said:

    Thanks, this is super helpful, especially because I'm learning my brain gets overwhelmed by feedback but interprets suggestions like these as fun possibilities to explore. I like the idea about W going for the flowers at the pond first, and I'll definitely highlight the potion not being the perfect solution.

    Good to know, I'll remember that for future critiques (and I work similarly so feel free to throw prescriptive feedback back at me the next time I submit). Glad it was helpful! 

  14. On 1/31/2023 at 8:14 PM, ginger_reckoning said:

    I'll make sure to make this more clear (or maybe just cut it? would it be frustrating to not have this information brought up yet?)

    I think I'd have to read the clarified version to take a stab at answering this question, honestly. Right now don't think I'm getting enough information from the exchange to be frustrated by its absence.

    In general, I haven't really been feeling frustrated that we don't have a bunch of this larger-scale information yet, because A has been understandably busy and things have been moving along without that info. It does feel like we're arriving at a point where introducing more big-picture info will be necessary.

    On 1/31/2023 at 8:14 PM, ginger_reckoning said:

    This was mainly a scouting mission. I'll make sure to make that (and the reasons why they are doing it) more clear in the next draft

    Ah. Yeah, I did not get this.

  15. As I read:

    At first I was confused as to who the POV character was – the first line made me wonder if there had been a switch, and I wasn’t able to ground myself in R’s POV until about halfway down the page (“Swallowing hard, R…”)

    “F blushed and shrugged.” Ooh, does someone have a crush?

    P2: This is much more engaging now that we have an immediate assignment, and might be a good place to actually start the story.

    “Unfortunately the powerful child of the inbreeding…” I had trouble parsing this statement.

    I like that we’re starting to get a better sense of the world. It seems like a fairly strict social hierarchy based on who does (or does not) have magic.

    “These are the records which the team requires…” It seems like R isn’t being given a ton of direction at the start of this assignment even before considering that it’s her first job. Is she supposed to be working with particular people? Associating with the mysterious patron directly? Is she just pulling items off the shelves and handing them over to someone? A better sense of what she actually has to do would be helpful.

    P4 “There were three of them.” I think you mean patrons but wasn’t sure – there’s no antecedent. 

    P5 “really heavy on the stereotype then.” What’s the stereotype?

    There is a really abrupt shift to formal dialogue here. Very different than the narrative tone and also R’s dialogue with her friends. Some of that could be down to the work setting, of course, but absent further context it feels extreme.

    “We must bring him documents that support his claims…” what the patron is actually looking for feels a little nebulous at this point. Getting a little more detail now—or having R dig for it—would be helpful.

    P6 “object’s room” I think this should be “objects room,” like it’s a display of some sort of actual collection. Minor I know, but I stumbled on it and had to re-read a few times (and still not sure I have the right idea?)

    The end of this scene feels very similar to the last one, with R seeking her friend’s help but not really moving forward since last scene.

    P8 the transition from family tree research to where B is living feels very abrupt.

    P9 Interesting detail here, that R thinks someone’s been assigned to follow her around. Assigned by whom? Why? Even if this is stuff from the last book, mentioning one of those details will probably be a helpful reminder.

    Do we know who S is? Maybe a reminder (since they presumably appeared in the last book) before the note?

    P11 “Had the ‘them’ he was always talking about” this is helpful, because it gives us an emotional read on how R is feeling about this note. Any chance this could be moved up and/or we could get other tidbits like this sooner?

    P12: He has named the wolves, but still wails on them with a big stick? I’m judging him.

    Edit: wait, there are different packs of wolves. I’m having trouble tracking what’s happening. There’s also the man in the canoe who appears, and is disposed of, really abruptly.

    S is being so (seemingly) deliberately obtuse that I keep expecting R to get annoyed with him for it.

    P17 “Do I really need two protectors?” So up until R’s first comment about F being assigned to her, we hadn’t really had a hint that she was in danger. I know that some of this probably comes from the first book, but having reminders in here can also help to build up to stuff like this.

    Similarly, if R has a sense of why this stuff is happening I’d really like to know what it is. The earlier parts of the chapter had prepared me for a family mystery being solved by research, whereas the latter half of the chapter feels like it’s taken a very different tack.

    Overall:  I was much more engaged with this chapter, especially the first half, than the last one. I had a better sense of interpersonal dynamics and R had a specific task that she was working on – she wanted to do her job well and the assignment also seemed to line up with her own personal goals which did a lot to propel me along. I do think that it would be helpful to have a better understanding of the specifics of R’s role and assignment - I wasn’t sure if she was literally just pulling files off the shelves, or reading them and coming up with conclusions, or what, which I think is why some of the later library sequences felt more like telling than showing.

    The second half of the chapter I wasn’t as prepared for – it felt like the chapter transitioned suddenly to adventure/intrigue.  I’m sure a lot of it comes from the last book, but I think there still needs to be a build towards it here; it’ll make it feel more like both parts of the chapter are the same story and give a better sense of forward motion. I would like a little more information than we actually got, too. If it hadn’t been for the weirdness of the wolves, I don’t think I’d be inclined to take S’s dialogue all that seriously—it seemed over the top without much to back it up.

  16. P2 “A was too focused on not splattering against the cobblestone…”  This is starting to become really frustrating. M says something ominous and A just finds a reason to ignore it. I really wish he would pick on these things more actively, maybe even push back.

    “Do they still retain their wits?” Stumbled here. It took me a moment to realize that M was still talking about other gods.

    “Do we… need to stop them?” Another stumble here. I had thought we were still talking about the old gods but now it seems that we’re talking about something else, a different “them” to which M and “our kind” is actually opposed.

    P3 “The Ks would not forgive the mil…” for what? I’m losing track of the conversation. It’s fine that there’s lore we’re not always privy to (unless this is WRS?) but I can’t even really follow what’s being talked about.

    P4 “C could use their telekinesis on the clothes to push A around” nice detail here.

    “slothful caution” minor, but seems like an unfair assessment of N, but I think it might just be the wrong word (implying laziness instead of fear for example)

    P5 “…guaranteed to have mil he could help.”  Now this is interesting. Right now though it’s presented as mostly an afterthought to the chicken heist thing, which seems weird.

    “Onto the next one then.” The next chicken coop? I thought they were going to cut into this one at ground level.

    “…like the city was relaxing a flexed muscle.” Nice.

    So aside from the fact that A’s supposed to be under guard by his own people, what are the consequences if he fails? Getting caught by the authorities or another gang? Are the chickens supposed to feed people back home?

    P6 “…even for someone who could shape their own vocal cords.” Lol that would help! (Also: cords, not chords here)

    “tonight would probably go off without any snags.” Welp.

    I’m all for getting more plot information but the extended conversation with M when A is feeling uneasy sort of deflates the tension.

    P7 “I got most of what I wanted anyway.” Such as? Are they carrying like twenty chickens?

    Good. It’s about the right time for something like this (the fight that A leaps into with M’s help) to happen. C’s caution at the end of the chapter that “that’s not what’s going to happen” also good.

    I stumbled over C carrying them both back home, until I realized it was a reference to C’s telekinesis/flight. Maybe a different word to remind us of this bit?

    Overall: I mentioned this already, but it’s rapidly becoming my biggest stumbling block, and that’s A’s non-response to all of the ominous, “not quite right” things that M says. It’s not presented like he’s deliberately ignoring or avoiding these thoughts, he just … doesn’t seem to notice. I think it’s partly that he never seems to have even emotional reactions to these kinds of statements, even briefly, and partly that the things that distract him away never seem entirely convincing in comparison.

    Maybe WRS, but I also felt like I was being blindsided by a bunch of lore that we hadn’t been introduced to in this chapter. I think advancing this part of the plot is probably necessary by now, yes, but I was really struggling to keep up. Maybe some more context before this point? And/or, maybe A could proactively do some digging of his own going forward. He’s been fairly reactive about this particular thing in his life, and if I were him I think I would have some Questions.

    Also. The thing with the chickens. I honestly kind of love the thing with the chickens, for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. But I do need to know why he’s doing it.

  17. Okay. I suspect that you and I are similarly iterative thinkers. So I'm going to throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and you can decide if any of it should stick. Grain of salt and all that because I don't actually know the shape of your story :)

    • I think W needs to make another try for the flowers at the pond by herself before going to N. Maybe she gets there and they're all dead, maybe they've deliberately been removed, maybe somebody stops her. (Maybe she runs into B because B has been following N there?) But it seems like there should be another try/fail cycle in there. Depending on pacing, maybe she can even get more flowers in a first run and realize that she is depopulating the flowers at the pond and will need another solution.
    • Thinking about it more, I actually feel like W's decision to go back to N for help could be made more of. She has lots of places to run into him and two people warning her away from him, plus her own complicated feelings about him. There might be room to build in some more of her actively avoiding him before she decides to go back to him.
    • I mentioned the scene with W and G  also feels like it's missing a try/fail cycle. If I were W, I would have a ton of questions about this stuff. What happens if W tries and fails to get more information out of G, or G lets one crucial piece of information slip? This scene needs to feel like more than W's cousin materializing and handing her a MacGuffin.
      • Also, if there is any danger associated with the potion - because of what it does or where it came from or what have you - this would be a great time for G to let something like that slip.
    • To build on my comment about not just being handed a MacGuffin - consider what happens if W has to wrestle with herself before using it - because she doesn't know how/it might be dangerous/etc. Maybe she needs to take a scene to have a sudden realization or act out of desperation.
    • Possibly: I wonder if W getting the flowers from N and getting the potion from G are happening in the wrong order. My first instinct is to say reverse them. But this requires juggling things a lot for N to stay a nice guy who isn't pushing any boundaries, maybe more than is manageable, so maybe not.

    Obviously pretty much any of that involves extending the timeline of what's already happened so you would probably need to be making some progress towards the intrigue/mystery aspect as well, so it doesn't feel like we're stalled. But I don't think that would be a bad thing!

  18. As I go:

    P1 I’m not sure what is meant by an “appropriate” smile.

    P2 “…I hear there are some behind your school.” I’m having trouble articulating what’s not sitting quite right, so this might be really unhelpful – so the usual grain of salt applies. But, having G just pinpoint exactly what’s needed and where to find them, especially knowing W already has some pre-picked at home… it feels like there’s a try/fail cycle that’s missing here.

    It might also be partially that W really doesn’t fight G on this being magic. Has she encountered things before in her life that make her feel like this is not as farfetched as it seems, or…?

    End of the scene and I definitely still feel like we’re missing a try/fail or … something. W gets a magic cure and some information without really having to work for it.

    P6 “Though there is a way for me to get more.” Don’t they grow behind the pond? W needing N is a great setup, but only if there’s some reason she can’t just go and pick more flowers by herself.

    P7 “I do my best to change the topic after that slip of the tongue.” Kind of want to actually see this part of the conversation, even if it’s brief.

    P9 “Based on N’s reaction…” I like the dread at the end of the chapter and almost wonder if you can punch up N’s reaction to the flower thing a little more, so it feels fully earned.

    Since Ch4 is the first chapter – I think? That we get from a POV other than W’s, I wonder if we can actually have a little more lead-up into it. Even with N’s name at the top, the events move on so directly from the events of the last chapter that I almost read right over the POV switch, especially since there’s no precedent for it.

    The switch to a character we haven’t met before not being abusive feels… very abrupt. Definitely feels like we might need more of a lead into some of this.

    P12 B is the ex’s new girlfriend, right? Have we actually been introduced to her in this draft? Maybe WRS but I don’t remember her name coming up. And I know you sort of hung a lantern on it with W’s comment about timing, but her appearance does seem awfully coincidental.

    Over the whole chapter, W seems to be taking this whole “oh bee-tee-dubs there’s magic now” thing very well. Not sure that’s an issue exactly, but I noticed a couple of times. You did hang a lantern on it towards the very end of the sub with W’s comment about having had suspicions, so maybe just a bit more of that is needed?

    Overall: You’ve got what’s potentially a great setup here, with the thing W needs most being tied to the person she’s been warned away from, though we need some more explanation as to why she can’t just get more from the pond. 

    I’m still very much feeling @kais’s comment from last time that the chapter is moving both too fast and too slow. We’re getting a bun ch of information and a magical solution, but W doesn’t really have to try for either and I don’t have enough to contextualize all the information we’re getting. There’s some good stuff happening but I think it might be happening in the wrong order.

    12 hours ago, Ace of Hearts said:
    Hi everyone,
     
    Thanks for your comments last week. I'm here with the next couple of chapters of Bond of Wildflowers, with any and all feedback appreciated. In particular, I actually find prescriptive advice to be very helpful so any suggestions on what you would do with the story are greatly appreciated.
     
    Thanks! :)

    Okay, let me come back to this when I'm not being crawled over by puppies. ;)

  19. Congratulations on your first submission!

    P1 The setup with a super-hearing monster is a good way to create a hook right off the hop.

    “They can probably stop their heart if… It was almost as if they were canceling each other’s sound waves...” Wasn’t sure how to take these statements. Are they hyperbole and this is a reflection of the narrator’s character? Or can these people actually do these things?

    “…the T would have heard the noise too. So must have the entire settlement” is the whole settlement T, to hear such a quiet noise?

    P2: The comment about his mother boxing his ears makes me suspect he’s fairly young, and would probably go some way for me to explaining the hyperbolic lines I mentioned above. Maybe a marker of age on the first page?

    “He ran for a good fifteen minutes…” This is a long time to run. I would have expected something to happen before this point. And, if the T’s hearing is so good, how does it/they not hear the sound waves this group of people is regularly emitting? It makes the danger from the T feel overblown. 

    I like the acoustic/auditory method of communications – it’s neat. I do wonder if “sound wave” is the right word, I don’t have a clear picture of what they’re actually doing. Are they making clicks or whistles at certain frequencies, or…?

    P4: I’m getting antsy for something else to happen. They characters are still trying to hide themselves, but haven’t they already been discovered?

    The word “heist” is getting tossed around a lot and comes with some very specific tropes, but so far what’s being described doesn’t feel like an actual “heist.”

    P6: At this point I’m ready for better sense of stakes. What does it mean that the monster they were expecting isn’t there? Are they more or less likely to succeed with it gone?

    P10: I’d like to feel a little more danger here. I think the crew might be just too effective at keeping themselves and B out of danger.

    B seems to be stepping up to play a pivotal role in this fight at the end of the chapter, but I don’t really understand any of it. I don’t necessarily need to know all the ins and outs of the magic system but a little more preparation for B’s role – like he has a very specific skill that he’s here for (or doesn’t expect to ever use, or whatever else is appropriate) might help us prepare for him stepping into the fight at the end of the chapter.

    Overall: Good start! There’s an interesting magic system here, although I didn’t always understand who was attempting to do what or why. The major thing that was missing for me was tension. The “can’t make noise or the monster will hear us” is a good setup, but the tension is deflated on the first page when someone makes a noise… and then nothing happens as consequence for several more pages. If the major threat is “we’ll be heard” and someone makes a noise on the first page, there either needs to be an escalation (yes, and) or a twist (no, but). Alternatively, the inciting incident—the characters revealing themselves with a noise—can happen later in the story if the characters are making progress toward their goals in the meantime, and then the inevitable mistake can hang over us.

    It would also be helpful to have some hint of what the emotional arc of the story is. “Don’t screw up or we’ll die” creates an immediate hook, but by the end of the chapter I want to have a better sense of what the characters are doing and why. This can also help build tension if I have a better idea of why it matters if the characters fail.

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