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060115 - supersoup - Glass Skies, Ch. 4


supersoup

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Glass Skies Ch. 3 summary:

King Belisefe Driganeen inspects a newly opened factory in the city, and has a secret meeting within with Taelmera, head of the King's Arms. He's pleased, but disappointed to note corruption already present, and ponders how to differentiate his own legacy from that of his father--most of his reign has been characterized by fulfilling the promises of his forebears.

Lianye and Rendevere gather information from the common folk in the merchant's square of Laendelvae, where they learn of a grand ball where they may see to the next steps of the plan. They begin to work out the details of how to infiltrate the ball, given that Lianye is likely to be recognized there--though Rendevere may move about freely, he doesn't have enough influence to "play the game". Lianye reveals to Rendevere that she has returned to the city in the hopes of wresting the throng from King Driganeen.

Devoleane steals an experimental formula from Master Yvole's office while "the old man is out on errands", dragging Pendiwille into his caper. Dev hopes that by solving the formula for the headmaster, he could perhaps earn a spot on the expedition for himself and perhaps even his friend. Yvole returns sooner than expected, sending the two into a mad rush to return the formula before they are discovered. As they are shocked to find out, a King's Arm had been waiting in Yvole's office, and confronts them with what she saw. Devoleane stays behind to receive his punishment.

Enter Ch. 4, in which the king meets with a tevretor, Devoleane is given an opportunity for redemption, and assassins make a move.

EDIT: Yes, I already caught the misspelled "vaulted" and more since I sent it off. I've written and rewritten these scenes so many times I lost count. It was all I could do to remind myself that it's a first Draft and let go so I could move on. Some little sloppy bits got through my net as a result. Sorry about that.

Fun Fact:

The two schools of Song, Harmonic and Dissonant, essentially break down to two basic concepts. Harmonic Song is driven by Invitation, while Dissonant Song is driven by Demand. Song use is limited by one's ability to memorize the different Songs, and whether one is able to breathe or otherwise vocalize them.

Edited by supersoup
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I'll start with comments as I read:

 

pg 1: "“Titles will be sufficient.” 

“Very well,” Kellic bowed deeply. "
--This seemed weird because you say you're going to use his title, and then use his name.
 
pg 1: "“What may be less well known, your highness, is that the Neren’tev predicted this collapse before even your father’s father drew breath. Disorder inevitably follows an overextension of power.”"
--I like that the dire predictions here are not based on some arcane prophesy, but on a
 political prediction.  I see a future Marxist society trying to emerge...
--And then the king refers to it as a prophesy.  I like it.
 
pg 2: "Belisefe frowned again. The prototype was fast becoming his last, desperate option, which unsettled him. All pawns were already in play, but the game was still young. If he couldn’t see alternatives, he would have to make them. "
--this last section seems very generic and doesn't really add anything. The previous paragraph had a better closing statement.
 
pg 3: "that tavern"
--why not give it a name?
 
pg 4: "Lianye felt at ease within the unadorned wooden walls, a feeling she had long since forgotten, and reasoned that after another night here they would seek other accommodations."
--So why does she think they will move if she's finally comfortable?
 
pg 5: I like the misdirection with the exploding pouch
 
pg 6: "Should I sing, she wondered."
--Should I sing? she wondered.
--Also, I think this is the first mention of some sort of magic, three chapters in, so I was a little confused.
 
Also, unless the explosions happened at exactly the same time, which is hard to do, either Rend would have heard something upstairs or Lianye downstairs.  Sounds like Rend's happened slightly before, from your description.
 
pg 7: okay, did not realize that it was Dev who did part of that.
 
pg 9: why did Lianye hide from Rend?  She seemed to trust him pretty well.
 
pg 10: fire is a very serious business.  There should be people coming to help put out the flames, if only for a sense of preservation so the fire won't spread to buildings they own.
 
Overall, this was a good selection.  Lots of things happened, and the different stories started to come together.  I'm interested by the Song, but a little confused that no one has mentioned it before--or am I just forgetting things?
Anyway, most of my comments are up above.  Looking forward to the net submission!
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Haha, I didn't even notice the thing about the name vs. the title until you pointed it out. I'll take note of that.

 

Neren'tev is certainly a blend of religion and how it can be used for gain on a wider scale. Almost a cult, really.

 

Yeah, and cutting that last paragraph may be necessary to retool a plot line I have simmering on the backburner for now. I just hope that it doesn't seem the king is thinking about Lianye too much. But, her plot and how it ties to the king will be an integral part of the story.

 

Ah, something else I simply didn't notice. I really should give the tavern a name. Far less awkward to reference.

 

She never meant to stay more than one night. Lianye is wise enough to know thel onger you stay in one place, especially when that place is in hostile territory, you run the risk of having a trap laid around you. She ignored the little voice that told her to change hideouts in favor of seemingly innocuous and familiar surroundings.

 

I do have Lianye introduce the idea that magic is in the world with the prologue, but I'm deliberately vague on the specifics. I have a rudimentary set of rules of how it functions, but most of those won't come into play until later.

 

Another issue I had with all my rewrites of this batch of scenes in weaving Devoleane's scene in and out at appropriate times. Something I'll have to hit in the next draft, I suppose.

 

I try not to make too great of leaps in logic, but another prereader voiced her confusion that Lianye would hide from Rend. In my mind, she's scared, and clearly she's not as safe as she thought. Only two people truly knew her at the tavern, though the King's Arms and their informants know where she is through other means. As I sit here and try to explain it, I can feel it falling apart further than I expected. I'll likely retool that to have them escape the tavern together in a future draft, but they will end up at the same place by chapter's end.

 

More of a city response to the flames could add another measure of excitement to their escape. I think that's worth investigating, as it's clearly something I hadn't considered. I often miss the simple things, and the more human, obvious reactions to something like a fire.

 

Song has been mentioned before, but only briefly. It will play a greater role moving forward, though I'm determined to be responsible with it's usage. Nothing can yank a reader out of a book like magic poorly used, and I hope to avoid that issue.

 

Thank you for your feedback Mandamon! =)

Sorry for the late reply, been dealing with a lot.

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Detailed comments below, but a fair few of my comments on previous submissions remain valid (from my pov). Dev and Pen’s section retain a more whimsical and adventurous tone which sets it apart from the others which, for me, have a more generic fantasy tone that doesn’t really stand out all the much from similar stories, whereas Pen’s section does for me. I get that the different threads set the scale wider, but I think you have a ‘boy’s own’ adventure yarn with Pen and Dev on their own which is stronger than what you have with the other two threads included.

 

That said, it’s your story!! So, to continue on that basis, it’s good to see some cross over between the threads, but I wasn’t convinced about the relevance of Dev’s involvement in the assassin’s scheme, to me it felt shoe-horned in for plot reasons.

 

As for the king’s thread, I think it is comfortably the inferior of the three. Comments on Pen and Dev apart, Lianye and Dev’s thread is very active and dynamic in this submission, whereas the king’s thread does not, for me, deliver enough plotting and subterfuge, but rather seems a fairly prosaic way of setting out necessary information on the wider political situation, without really engaging the reader (me anyway).

 

I'm certainly interested to read more, but I fear that the boy’s adventure yarn of exploration, both of the mysterious new aerland and the mysteries of the fairer sex, is going to be diluted by more generic fantasy fare.

 

I guess this is quite negative criticism, but I don’t want to leave that as the prevailing tone of my comments. I am enjoying the story, and could totally accept the whole as you envisage it and go with that, but to summarise ( A ) Pen and Dev = enjoyable and entertaining; ( B )* Lianye and Ren = interesting, but could be more exciting and engaging with rewriting; ( C ) the king > really needs punched up several notches, for my part.

 

Good work, keep it coming!

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------

 

“bestowing an ethereal ambiance to on the meeting” – I think.

 

I'm not clear on the meaning of ‘tevretor’. If he’s a messenger or an envoy, why not just say so? I guess it’s an element of setting, but it seems a bit redundant. Also, he’s not very humble in his tone towards the king, but there’s nothing wrong with that. The balance of their exchange seems to clearly show the king in a diminished position, with the Neren’tev having a significant influence. I take it from the context that they are a religious body.

 

I like the chess metaphor, but I thought it was a little confused. If a game of chess is still young, there are numerous alternative strategies, so the king’s perception that he has a last desperate option doesn’t sit exactly with the chess analogy, it seems to me.

 

Once again, Dev and Pen’s section comes over fresher, more novel, than that king’s dealings. They overall scenario works well enough winding through both, but in the end, the king’s dealings with envoys and rebellion is a very common fantasy trope and for that reason I don’t think it engages as well as Pen and Dev’s burgeoning adventures and the mystery of the aerland. I think Lianye’s strand suffers in a similar way in comparison to the Pen and Dev thread, because of the familiarity of its plotting-against-the-king trope.

 

It seemed to take a long time for the grenades to go off. Maybe that’s the deal with the old-fashioned kind, I'm no expert, but I would have thought the fuse could be shortened. If the time span is accurate, they don’t seem to make very good assassin’s weapons. Did the one in the bar not go off more quickly? A detail, I suppose, but it made me think.

 

“She gritted her teeth.”

 

“He slid the body off of himself his chest/back”

 

I found reaching for the absent pistol a second time rather dense. I know Ren’s been shaken, but really.

 

One second Ren is crossing the common room toward the hallway, then he’s in the room, time seems to lurch at that point.

 

I like his repetition of “third door on the left”.

 

I struggled at first to put Dev’s original description of his appointed task with his involvement in the action, I had to go back a reread it. I guess Kaeve is the informant, but Dev’s presence seems pointless. I don’t understand what relevance there is in appearances, when Dev has kept himself hidden, unless it’s ensuring that Taelmera is not noticed, but now Kaeve has seen her. All a bit puzzling to me.

 

You capitalised ‘Sing’, but not ‘sang’ when she chooses her second song.

 

Personally, I don’t mind the rather breathless cutting between character perspectives in this paragraph. I’ll be interested to see what the others make of it.

 

I have a problem with your tenses in places. I don’t think one can put abandoning grammar down to style. For instance, “Shards of glass tore deep as he dove through the window” – this passage comes after he is already out by the stables, but it’s in present tense, so sounds completely out of order. Surely it must be “Shards of glass had torn deep when he dove through the window”.

 

“nearest hospital” – In this level of civilisation, I find it hard to imagine that there is more than one hospital in a city – unless we’re talking in terms of the size of a modern city with million(s) of inhabitants, which seems unlikely.

 

They must be really stupid if they thought there was any chance of more ale. This reaction did not ring true to me. Just because they are bystanders to the story, they don’t need to be stupid.

 

Why would Ren think that Lianye was one of them? I saw no basis for him thinking that.

 

The ‘speechless’ comment does not seem to make sense, since the very next line is him speaking.

 

Can’t the King’s Arms follow the trail of blood as well? Ren is dopey, so might not think this, but wouldn’t Lianye seeing as she was the one who used the technique? Then again, I guess they don’t know he’s injured. Okay, I’ll buy it.

 

I think the Ren and Lianye sections could do with a good edit. There are a few typos, but I felt that the flow was a bit rough in places. I like the arc of it, but I think it could do with some polish, to the prose, but also to some of the character reactions and other details, just my humble opinion.

 

* The autotext on this forum engine is rubbish, if I want a (B) I'll choose it!! Bloody programmers.

Edited by Robinski
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Reading Mandamon's comments:

 

- totally agree about naming the inn;

 

- I had no problem with Lianye being hesitant to trust Ren immediately after the attack. She was shown to be close with Kaeve and seemed to have known him longer. Also, Ren was known to the City Guard.

 

- One thing though, I never for a moment felt that Lianye was afraid - she handled herself bravely, with confidence.

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