Aug 27 2012 – Asmodemon – Maiden of Thorns Chapter 19

[Asmodemon]

A week later than I planned, but here is the next chapter for Maiden of Thorns. In this chapter, Black Rose stumbles away from the wreckage of her own creation, coming eye to eye with the source of her debilitating weakness.

[Trizee]

Ok, first of all, I haven't read any of the previous chapters, but even so I managed to get interested while reading this chapter, even though its chapter 19. I think that's commendable.

Since I haven't read what comes before this I'm not going to comment much on the plot, but rather on the writing style.

Feel of the chapter: I think you managed quite well to get across the feeling of the destroyed place, and the citizens terror also came across very well- especially in the scene with the two kids. However, I don't think that Black Rose felt afraid enough. She isn't as "powerful" as she used to be, and is faced with some serious enemy, but she doesn't for a moment feel any worry or fear about her situation- though this may just be part of her character that I don't understand due to not reading the prior chapters.

Hemlock's weakness:You did a good job of saying how strong Hemlock should have been- which I think was well done, but we don't really seehis weakness- we just have to take Black Rose's word for it. If you could show a fight scene where Hemlock isn't doing well, I think it would add a lot.

Ending Nice!

Now, you had a few things plotwise that I thought were confusing...

-You have Hemlock leaping ahead of the fire to get to the pavilion, but I got the impression that the fire wasn't near Hemlock- The Flamewalker runs out of the path Hemlock just made, and then shoots fire at Black Rose who is just entering the path- so why is Hemlock "leaping ahead of the fire"? It wasn't even shot in his direction.

-Also, you say Hemlock didn't know the spears were invested- why doesn't he? can't he see they're glowing? And even if he doesn't, how does Black Rose know that?

-When the Alliance sergeant suddenly pressess Black Rose- it isn't really sudden- she's been retreating for a while.

-Lastly, when Black Rose uses the Path of Darkness to make herself see only darkness, she can see again a moment later- does the darkness go away? You should explain this.

Now for a few grammatical stuff:

-You say "No, not flee, pulled, drawn"- I think it makes more sense to say "be pulled" and "be drawn".

-"His scorched flank heaved, the beast breathed heavily"- repetetive

-When Black Rose tells the kids "Now run and don't look back" you should probably add a "she said" or something.

[Mandamon]

This is another good chapter and I don't have any problems with the plot or pacing. There's some good action and it keeps my attention.

I think the main problem I saw was the same confusion Trizee had (and I have read the rest of this ;-).

You've showed some good action with the magic system by now, but I'm still not very sure what it is and how it works. This is apparent in the scene where Black Rose uses the Path of Darkness. I couldn't figure out why putting darkness in front of Black Rose's eyes would convince others she was stumbling.

So far I've seen the Paths of Fire, Earth, Light, and Darkness, and maybe a few others in the prologue. I've seen stone skin, moving earth, throwing fire, and doing things with darkness and light. It feels like you have a system in place, but I'm not sure what it is. It's far enough in the book that it's starting to annoy me when I read that I don't understand why these things are happening.

Now, I don't think you should derail the good action and tension you have in here to make a big explanation, but maybe add a few choice phrases here and there when Black Rose is throwing magic around. Give us a hint of the worldbuilding behind it.

I have the same problem with the Shifters, in that you say that they are weaker than they were before, but we don't have anything to compare to. I can see how much weaker Black Rose is compared to the prologue. Describe that same comparison for Hemlock.

[cjhuitt]

I liked it. That's not going to stop me from picking a few nits, however.

The weakness from Black Rose at the start of the chapter was unexpected for me, but it is welcome nonetheless. Even so, it felt just a touch drawn out. I think there might be some subtle repetition in there, between her staggering, seeing stars, stumbling, with a haze clouding her mind. Possibly not, if you intended a breathing break, but I was expecting this chapter to be more of the intense action, and it mostly was.

(On a related note, I don't know that you've ever said how long this is -- and it isn't incredibly important to me -- but this feels like we're getting to either the end of the story, or to the turning point for act 3. There has been enough buildup, and now our characters are starting to collide, that it makes me feel this way. If that's not the case, it might be some cause for confusion.)

I was also concerned about the statement about it taking an eternity to settle down right at the beginning. For someone who had actually spent an eternity, the feeling might be reminiscent, but I doubt it would feel the same. You might actually do better to contrast it with her wait from before, rather than liken it.

Why were her arrows decapitated? If it was important, it seems like she should have examined them in more detail. If not, would she even know? (That has something to do with how they are carried. Modern quivers and classic movie quivers tend to have the head down. Really classic quivers might rather have them wrapped instead of in a tube. I don't know how she carries hers, but she might not be able to see their heads without taking them out.) It seems to me that she would toss the arrows regardless, without a bow, so why even check on them?

I know that Black Rose isn't familiar with the city, but to me it seems like she'd at least know if she was wondering in circles, and it appears she did so. That is, in the last chapter when the stairs collapsed, the group was fighting a certain shifter in the square. She starts this chapter in the square, then runs off chasing Rosalin -- the shifter can care for himself. So far so good. She gets distracting helping a kid (more on that later). Hemlock burst in on her, then runs off, and she's confronted with soldiers, one of whose explosion sent her through a tent. (*)At that point, she is in the square again? The text says "to the centre of the camp", and Hemlock is there fighting. She's forced to retreat by fighting the sergeant, (*)but when she is done she is still in the square.

The two places I starred struck me as not being what I expected. The first in particular, as it seems like she couldn't have been far from the camp at all, despite all that she saw and the people she interacted with between heading off and this happening. I counted on her being within a couple of blocks, sure, but not just one tent away from the square. The second may be more of a semantic thing, that when she was forced to retreat, I thought it meant away from the square. This could be a very simple fix, of course.

This sentence confused me. I think you might be missing some punctuation:

When he did she leapt hitting him in the face with the flat of her sword.

(I warned you: they're nits.)

I'm with Trizee in wondering why Hemlock wouldn't know about the spears, and with Mandamon in wanting just a bit more detail about the usage of the paths in this chapter. Here we have the POV of an actual practitioner, so it would be nice to get a few of the details. Especially ones that might play out in the climax, so we don't need to have them there.

I liked the overall interaction with Hemlock in this chapter, and the way she both seems to dislike him and yet helps him (possibly for his own help in return). I also liked the tension of them arguing at the end, but I would rather have seen it play out as they were escaping, not after. Save the change and the "I can track anything" for after they (think they) have escaped.

Finally, Black Rose helping the kid. I saw you had her try to reason herself into not bothering with the kids, then helped them anyway. Normally I would applaud a tool like this, but in this case I thought it fell a little flat. I think most of my reason is because I didn't see anything in her that would make her want to stop and help them. She just stops and does it. I kind of wanted some sort of reason for her -- big bad mean Black Rose, the Thorn of the West, to stop and do so when she had more important objectives to be working on. However, give me that -- plus maybe even crank up the reasons why she shouldn't by putting a personal fear there, the fire for instances -- and I'll be right there with you on this one.