02/19/2023 - Kais - MM - Chapter 2 (L) - 3471 words

[kais Scadrian Waffle Cook]

Finally back with chapter two! This chapter is actually over 6K words so I’ve done an artificial break halfway through so you’re only reading about 3500. This is still draft format so any and all feedback welcome. Also, I submit on Sunday nights since my Mondays are booked solid. Feel free to ignore until you have time.

[Ace of Hearts Misting]

Overall: I like D and Y’s dynamic a lot more here, where D seems annoyed by Y but doesn’t hate her guts, and we see that Y gets to be helpful even while being annoying (remembering the laptop). My main constructive comment is that I’m not sure what this does for the main plot/conflict, especially the last scene. It’s been a sec since I read the first chapter but wasn’t the hook about Y and P? Not sure what I learn from this family and I didn’t feel like the stakes were there even in the moment, since while the characters had beef with each other I didn’t feel the threat of things getting worse. Also, I feel like the story’s distance from D in PoV could be looked at again. I don’t hate the idea of a distant 3^rd here, but we do seem pretty close to D at the start when she’s mentally commenting on Y’s drink and I like that more than the story telling us that she doesn’t like surprises/complications from later on in a way that’s disconnected from her emotions.

As I go:

Pg 1. D mentally dunking on Y for her beverage choice reads a lot better for their antagonism than their dynamic last chapter

Pg 2. Same goes for Y not cleaning up the spill. Makes her seem annoying but not hatred-invoking which reads better to me. I do think the dialogue here can be cut down a bit though

Pg 3. D being frustrated/angry about the situation doesn’t do much for me since we already know that’s her default state around Y

Pg 5-6. Talk about the city feels disconnected from the rest of the story

Pg 7. I like the detail about her being thrown off by the unexpected and I’d like more of a reaction than the text telling us she doesn’t care for it

Pg 9-11. Need more on where the tension/conflict is in this scene besides people being kind of annoyed

[kais Scadrian Waffle Cook]

7 hours ago, Ace of Hearts said:

My main constructive comment is that I’m not sure what this does for the main plot/conflict, especially the last scene.

Ah, that's probably because this is only half a chapter. It was too long to sub together. You're missing the back half of the action. It was too long anyway so I'll spend some time retooling it so it makes more sense as a shorter sub. The threat getting worse should have come across from there being a whole dildo wholesaler warehouse situation, but looks like that needs more emotional resonance. Will revisit. Thank you!

[ginger_reckoning Stormwarden]

Not too many comments on this one. I can see that the point of this section was to introduce what I'm guessing will be one of the main conflicts of the story (evil dildo factory) but I'm wondering why exactly D went to visit G in the first place. Was it to confiscate the dildos? But wasn't eh grandma not supposed to be there? Was it just to check up on G and C? Possibly WRS I guess. 

I really don't have much to say. Everything felt very functional and the characters are well written. 

Interested to see where this goes!

 

P1

“d refused to point it out” nice lol

P2

“straddled it backwards” classic

P3

“changing the destination to B” there’s an extra quotation mark here

P4

“that she did indeed, often forget things” I think the comma after “indeed” is unnecessary

P5

“restaraunts and roundabouts” nice

P6

“fancy video doorbells” sidenote: I hate those things

P9

I never thought I would feel a sense of dread from learning about a dildo catalogue’s existence lol

[Mandamon Listener]

I think I was also missing some of the emotional connection, but I'm not sure it was because of the half-chapter. The beginning seems a little long, and I'm not sure what P's intro does here as the focus is on the check-up and discovering the factory. Other than that, and enjoyable read. Grandma is...just no. On the plus side, she make me hate Y less, so that's probably good. Making Y a necessary addition by remembering things is a good way to up the proactivity/capability scale when the sympathetic one is down to the floor.

 

Notes while reading:

pg 1/2: the banter is fun but maybe a little long through here.

pg 2: Was P introduced before? Can't remember. I feel like we're getting a lot of new characters through here, but none of them are the client.

pg 5: “I haven’t really thought about it"
--she was literally just thinking about it...

[Yuliya Gyorn]

I am a little late to the party, but here are my thoughts. 

First, I truly enjoy D’s voice. It is off-handedly sarcastic and got a lot of semi-chuckles out of me.

Second, I liked that we got not just one case (the one with the silicon dildo), but also bigger threat coming up that is more of a moral obligation than a paid job.

Third, I liked the hook about Y’s secret problems. It added depth to her and made me less critical of her.

There were also a few things that did not work very well for me. 

I was a little confused by whether grandma’s crime was premediated or not. In the beginning of the chapter, Y says that grandma knew that the wood was toxic – and I took it as “knew all along”. But then later everyone seems to suggest it was an accident and even Y says, “It was an accident, right?”. It is a minor thing, but I actually had to come back and reread it again.

There was also some talk about the city that seemed like a filler. Perhaps, it would be useful later (there would be a scene with Garlic Press or smth) but so far it seemed a bit out of place.

Also, a dildo subscription seems a bit extra for N. Like, one-time gift for her grandson seems eccentric enough, but having seven more? If she knew they were toxic, she would not order them for herself, and hoping to give multiple to G and C doesn’t seem realistic.

Overall, I am enjoying the unusual take on the detective story. That’s certainly something none of the hundred Sherlock Holmes spin-offs did, haha.

[kais Scadrian Waffle Cook]

On 2/20/2023 at 7:15 PM, ginger_reckoning said:

but I'm wondering why exactly D went to visit G in the first place

D had to check up on the old clients. It was a thing in chapter one but it's been almost a month since then. With that said, noting everyone's comments it looks like I need to tie this scene better into the main plot. People are getting lost.

I'm curious about the feedback around city descriptions. The crime books like this that I read always had a deep fondness for their city, and a sizable portion of the narrative is how the lead interacts with their city. In this particular instance, this town exists and the descriptions around it showcase the growing pains of this middling midwest city. I'm not sure if people are bouncing off it because I'm not doing it well, if I'm breaking a genre rule, or if there's unfamiliarity with this part of the genre. Help?

Edited February 27 by kais

[Mandamon Listener]

On 2/26/2023 at 7:38 PM, kais said:

D had to check up on the old clients. It was a thing in chapter one but it's been almost a month since then. With that said, noting everyone's comments it looks like I need to tie this scene better into the main plot. People are getting lost.

I'm curious about the feedback around city descriptions. The crime books like this that I read always had a deep fondness for their city, and a sizable portion of the narrative is how the lead interacts with their city. In this particular instance, this town exists and the descriptions around it showcase the growing pains of this middling midwest city. I'm not sure if people are bouncing off it because I'm not doing it well, if I'm breaking a genre rule, or if there's unfamiliarity with this part of the genre. Help?

I agree that's part of the genre, but maybe it needs to come later? We don't have a deep enough grasp on the MC's reasoning for things yet, and also in this section it wasn't really tied in with the plot. It might be better to add this sort of thing in when she's looking for the warehouse?

Basically, I think there needs to be a plot element involved, not just "hey, look at the city."