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Jan 7 - Syme - A King's Death Chapter 5 (V)


Syme

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This is an interesting chapter.

I had difficulty engaging with Filistra because I couldn't understand why she wouldn't be thinking about or emotional reacting still to the death of her family and that she is following Hyginos so readily. I'd really like to see her mental and emotional reasoning for following. Also I was curious how much time had passed since Hyginos had found her.

The action scene was good. It made sense and gives us a feel for what we can expect in future battles.

I liked the insight into the Yacatu's methodology around poisoning their darts.

'She heard Phokas moving to one of the other corpses, in accordance to what her magical sense told her.' - I think you meant Hyginos here.

I feel like you could sell this scene more if there was more emotional involvement in Filistra's thoughts. For example, if she uses the magic as a way to distract her from thoughts of her family, or if aspects of the magic or Hyginos' training remind her of her family.

There's a great book called 'Wired for Story' by Lisa Cron that I would highly recommend. It talks about using brain science to hook readers. Chapter 3 deals exclusively with emotion, the cognitive secret being that "emotion determines the meaning of everything - if we're not feeling, we're not conscious". This translates in the the story secret in that "all story is emotion based - if we're not feeling, we're reading."

I hope this doesn't feel like a lecture, I just think this can be a helpful resource. I think you have good prose and the potential for a really good story, I just feel it needs to be a bit more emotive.

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I had mostly the same thoughts as Halcyon. I also got confused at the Phokas reference, until I realized it must be a typo.

This chapter was more enjoyable to me than the others, but there is still something lacking. We've seen five chapters now, a good 50 pages or so, and I'm starting to get a feel for your writing. Your prose is technially good, and I can tell you're starting to piece together the story you want to tell us, building it up from parts. The problem is, the story as a whole feels dead. I think it's the same thing Halycon is talking about with lack of emotional investment.

I've had to struggle with this a lot myself, and keep reminding myself that the story is about the characters and what they feel, not about the plot. The plot is just there to give the personalities of the characters something to do. You might want to check out the series of "homeworks" Cjhuitt posted for NaNoWriMo. They are taken from Jim Butcher's blog. Especially look at the Scene/Sequel parts--those helped me immensely in outlining, and covers any missing emotional reactions. Basically, I think you have the "Scene" but are missing the "Sequel."

Keep writing!

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This is an interesting chapter.

I had difficulty engaging with Filistra because I couldn't understand why she wouldn't be thinking about or emotional reacting still to the death of her family and that she is following Hyginos so readily. I'd really like to see her mental and emotional reasoning for following. Also I was curious how much time had passed since Hyginos had found her.

You're right on that, I'll fix that.

'She heard Phokas moving to one of the other corpses, in accordance to what her magical sense told her.' - I think you meant Hyginos here.

Thanks for catching that.

There's a great book called 'Wired for Story' by Lisa Cron that I would highly recommend. It talks about using brain science to hook readers. Chapter 3 deals exclusively with emotion, the cognitive secret being that "emotion determines the meaning of everything - if we're not feeling, we're not conscious". This translates in the the story secret in that "all story is emotion based - if we're not feeling, we're reading."

I hope this doesn't feel like a lecture, I just think this can be a helpful resource. I think you have good prose and the potential for a really good story, I just feel it needs to be a bit more emotive.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll go take a look at that book.

I had mostly the same thoughts as Halcyon. I also got confused at the Phokas reference, until I realized it must be a typo.

This chapter was more enjoyable to me than the others, but there is still something lacking. We've seen five chapters now, a good 50 pages or so, and I'm starting to get a feel for your writing. Your prose is technially good, and I can tell you're starting to piece together the story you want to tell us, building it up from parts. The problem is, the story as a whole feels dead. I think it's the same thing Halycon is talking about with lack of emotional investment.

I've had to struggle with this a lot myself, and keep reminding myself that the story is about the characters and what they feel, not about the plot. The plot is just there to give the personalities of the characters something to do. You might want to check out the series of "homeworks" Cjhuitt posted for NaNoWriMo. They are taken from Jim Butcher's blog. Especially look at the Scene/Sequel parts--those helped me immensely in outlining, and covers any missing emotional reactions. Basically, I think you have the "Scene" but are missing the "Sequel."

Keep writing!

Thanks for your review. I read through all of Jim Butcher's posts and found them quite informative. I'll try to apply some of it in my own writing.

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  • 1 month later...

This may not be quite the latest I've ever reviewed something, though it's probably close.

I won't worry about what the others have said, but I'll hit a few things I saw as I was reading it to catch up.

Right at first I thought it was the princess from the previous chapter being taught, due to the discussion of politics. It only took me a bit to get my bearings, but it was a small piece of confusion. Of course, reading all the chapters in a row might help fix this some, but I also wonder if a little more grounding descriptions right at the beginning might help.

At the end of the political lecture, she beamed "even though she did not wholly deserve it." Why not? I thought that was a perfect time to revel in feeling good about being able to keep up.

The fight was well-set out and I could follow along fine, though I thought it kind of dragged just a bit. This may relate to what the others said about injecting emotion, but also I wonder if Filista, in what is (most likely) only her second exposure to combat, would be able to follow the action quite so well. I might find it a touch more realistic if she focused on just parts of it, until something interacts with her focus (like a spear flying in from elsewhere, or Hyginos spinning to foil a different attack). This would also let us see how much further she needs to go to be able to survive on her own, if she ever has to.

"When someone dies, his magic dissipates after a few minutes, so..." This makes it sound like everybody has a little bit of magic, even if they can't use it. If this is intentional, it's a nice bit of worldbuilding. If not and you don't intend that, you might consider tweaking the phrasing.

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