Reading Excuses - 4/25/16 - aeromancer - Twin Moon chapters 3-4 (5124 words)

[aeromancer]

Okay, I went slightly over by 124 words, but really, what's 124 words between friends critics acquaintances?

Anyways, I am looking for impressions on the Twin Moon ritual, the flow of conversation between Moon / Salane, whether or not the dialogue is getting flat, and really anything else that jumps at you.

[king007]

Ok, so, last time I enjoyed your submission. We got to meet George, the kebab guy, and I liked the interaction with him. We also met Salane and it was funny how she and Moon played with each other. Then we went through the forest and we got to evade a moonwolf. That was exciting. Then Salane surprised us by showing up before Moon starts the climb and after that we climb and Salane almost falls but she's saved and then we reach the top and we meet this mysterious guy Eclipse who shouldn't be trusted and we end the chapter there. There was a lot of stuff going on. Interactions, characters, action, humor...

 

But this time..it was just so slow. We achieved nothing. Moon just started shining and combining energy from the moons, a process I wasn't the least bit interest in to be honest because it was long and elaborated-on too much, so I just read without focusing on that part. In my mind he was just drawing energy and playing with it in his body. He faints, wakes up, Salane throws a tantrum, Eclipse warns them, they "tantrumly" discuss how to climb down, they "tantrumly" fall down, they "tantrumly" walk through the forest, then they "tantrumly" end the chapter...Do you where I'm getting at here? Salane grows so annoying this submission. She's complaining and overreacting to everything which after a certain point becomes so dull and irritating.

 

Also, the dialogue (if you call that a dialogue) seems like a huge info-dump. There is no progression to the story whatsoever.I couldn't feel interested at all. Last time I was. Last time there were flashes here and there. Last time Moon was moving around, doing stuff. But not this time. This time it was just mind-numbing.

 

But you know what? I read it all and with quite an ease. Because I was drawn by the first person and present tense combination. I really enjoyed reading your submission even if i wasn't emotionally invested this time in the content.

 

I think this is like the third time in RE where I enjoy the first submission of a story and then utterly hate then following one. Weird. But, yeah don't get discouraged, alright! I just wanted to let you know as a reader how I felt going through your writing. Maybe you'd benefit from the input and make wonderful changes. Or maybe the other guys will like it and I turn out to be just a dry weed in a pile of green grass!

 

Anyway, better luck for the next submission. Your story still holds my interest and I'd like to see more out of it!

[ecohansen]

I'll disagree with King a bit.  I enjoyed this submission a good bit more than the last one  To me, it showcased more of your strengths.  I like the magic system: it's simple and clear, and has strong inbuilt limitations.  You have to reduce your power to zero before you can get more, and you get a fairly fixed amount with each ritual.  'Hard' magic systems usually reduce the fun and mystery of reading about magic, since they're thoroughly thought-out and logical.  However, you keep happens at the height of the ritual a mystery, so that the magic remains mysterious and, well, magical.  Well done.

 

I feel like you and I have similar strengths and weaknesses.  I'm usually pretty proud of my worlds, but I always struggle with dialogue.  Right now, I'm not very drawn in by your dialogue. Even though Moon and Salane are obviously feeling different emotions, they somehow sound similar to me.  As an exercise, you might want to try writing  long conversation without any speaker tags, and focus on making each speaker sound different enough that you're sure readers will always know who's talking.  If you have a favorite movie or play, read the screenplay to see how a real pro manages dialogue.  Those things have helped me a bit, although my dialogue definitely still has a long way to go.

[spieles]

The beginning bounced around a little bit for me. Suddenly Eclipse is talking - and we never really got properly introduced to him in the last chapter did we? We just found out who he was. Anyway, the arguing about whether or not Salane should have known could be cut down a little - your main point here - that our protagonist is doing something magically complex and BAMF should take center stage.

 

His drawing power from the two moons is really freaking cool. Really well written too with his hair changing colors and the balance in his palms.

 

Except I thought the protagonist was older? But the phrase "This is amazing!" made me rethink that. I don't think you need that line given that he is flying for the first time. Also, as a reader I really hate exclamation points. 9/10 times they make me think a character is shrill - which is not attractive.

 

Hm. I don't like so much that he's hard on himself for not informing Salane when her interference is a serious breach of privacy. I feel like "Next time I'll leave you at the bottom of a cliff" is a more normal response. Before now, he's been so gruff (which I liked). Also, I was really enjoying how powerful and BAMF he was - and his apologizing to Salane really takes away from that. Then again, is this part of the ritual? Does the process weaken his will?

 

Oh wait. They're flirting. That explains some things, but I was imagining Salane as quite matronly. We need more description of her throughout - especially if she is attractive. If she's hot - he'd definitely have thoughts about that when he's helping her up the cliff. Their relationship has seemed non-sexual/non-romantic up until now.

 

Hrm. This will not affect your male readers as much, but I personally am chafing a bit already at the taming-of-the-shrew trope. Salane goes from being feisty and bullheaded as anything to wanting to be carried back to the village? It's so uncomfortable (and demeaning) to be carried unless she's injured. Escorted, maybe, but... I don't like the carrying at all - especially coming from her. And now Salane is crying over a benign comment about his father? *I'm side-eyeing you* 

 

Wait! How is he going to use his super cool new powers? The flying aka controlled falling was very quick. His going on a journey makes sense but I want a demonstration. Honestly, as they're walking back would be a great time for a real fight against a dark wolf. The pace really slows down when they just talk. Then again there's always next chapter...

 

Excited to read more.

[rdpulfer]

- The conversation between Moon, Eclispe and Salene feels a little disjointed with him talking to Moon and explaining stuff to Salene at the same time. It makes the infodump stand out a bit.

 

- That said, I really do like the concept of equilibrium.

 

- Still struggling to understand the world, and the relationship between Guardians, Witches, etc.

 

- I do like Moon's denseness, especially with Salene's sarcasm.

 

- Interested to read more!  

[aeromancer]

@King007: I am aware that Chapter 4 is essentially exposition. Thank you for your honest input, it looks like Salane will need some major dialogue changes. I am glad that even though you seem to not enjoy my work, you enjoy the style of my writing, as this is my first attempt in writing first person. (That makes it sound like I have a lot of experience writing third person, which I don't.)

 

@ecohansen: Good. These chapters are meant are more worldbuilding chapters than anything else, a glimpse at the magic system, a faint omen of doom, nothing exciting was intended to happen, just a slow build. Did you get that? I feel that if readers have to wait between exciting parts that builds them better than say, a constant thriller. Of course, the in-betweens need to be well-written too, and like I said earlier, I have dialogue work to do. *sigh*

 

@spieles:Thank you! I'm very glad to hear you enjoyed my writing of the ritual. I do know the end needs slightly more work, but I like moving on during rough drafts, or I just get stuck, so I submitted anyway. Salane, well, she was concepted as more tsundere (hard exterior, soft interior) to Moon, and a sarcastic snob to everyone else. I do thank you very much for the perspective, an understanding of the female psyche is something I have a profound lack of. Male, slightly, psyche in general, yes, female, no. Obviously, four is going to undergo a re-write and, rest assured, things will be changed.

 

@rdpulfer: I know about the infodump. About your confusion, can I please have specific questions, so I know if I'm forgetting to explain something, or you have questions on something I want to be vague about?

 

So, I assume all of you know what an "eclipse" is, so the question is: what do you think is going to happen upon the night of the eclipse? I like this as a plot point, because it means the readers can have a sense of foreboding that the characters don't have without making the characters look clueless. Does anyone have strong feelings agreeing/disagreeing with this?

Also, I acknowledge that chapter four has the potential to not exist. I am considering throwing it upon my writing board, and dissecting it for the parts, and then pack them into the more "action" chapters. However, this will means a fair bit of exposition will be pushed off, so I would like to know if, as readers, you would be confused without the exposition dump of chapter four. I do suppose the answer is "Depends on what happens next" but anything you say could be helpful.

Edited April 27, 2016 by aeromancer

[ecohansen]

Personally, I mostly read F/SF for the worlds--I usually want as much exposition as I can get.  So I'd put in a strong plug for keeping chapter 4. 

 

As for guessing what happens during an eclipse, I can see it going a couple ways.  One is that the Guardians simply lose the power of whatever moon is in eclipse.  However, it seems that they've already harvested and stored a set amount of power during the ritual.  If that is the case, then they become the only available source of that moon's power for the duration of the eclipse.  So, if the disorder/aggression moon is in eclipse, there is only order in the world, and, for example, predators are unable to kill prey, and therefore starve, unless a Guardian gives them a bit of disorder to allow them to feed.  I can also see their magic going haywire: if 50% of their stored power is ae and 50% is iu, but the external environment is now 100%iu and 0% ae, then there is greater osmotic pressure for ae to leave them than iu.  Therefore, whenever they attempt to do something with iu, only ae will come out until they are back in equilibrium with their environment.  Since their internal balance no longer matches the external balance, I could even see an involuntary explosive discharge of whatever energy is now in abundance.

Edited April 27, 2016 by ecohansen

[aeromancer]

Just a bit of scientific clarification: The world of Twin Moon has a four week rotation, so seven days after twin moon, Ae will be full, seven more days another Twin Moon, seven more days Iu will be full, etc.Oh, and Eclipses can only happen during full moons, which means that one moon would be available.

 

EDIT: This is me posting as my hard sci-fi self, actually, not my author-of-this-work self.

Edited April 27, 2016 by aeromancer

[ecohansen]

One question about the eclipse.

 

On earth, with one moon, lunar eclipses occur when the earth is between the sun and the moon, and thus the moon is in the earth's shadow.  On your world, this type of eclipse would also occur.  But it seems like there's the possibility of a second type of eclipse, when one of the moons falls in the shadow of the other moon.  Is there a difference in the effect on magic when a moon is in the planet's shadow as against being in the other moon's shadow?

[aeromancer]

The moons are in the same orbit, moving at the same speed, 180 degrees from each other. They cannot eclipse each other.

[ecohansen]

Since L3 is an unstable Lagrange point, wouldn't any small perturbation in one of the moons' orbits would cause the 180-degree alignment to disappear?  Is there a force maintaining the arrangement of the moons?

[aeromancer]

EDIT: Your point is good, but I think you are using the wrong terminology. Yes, it is possible to shake the perfect orbit with just about any interference, so magic and perfect circles is going to be my answer.

Edited April 27, 2016 by aeromancer

[kais]

Hooray for the next set!

As I go

- page 1: I'm unsure on the personality of Eclipse. I remember him being mysterious, maybe a bit haughty. Here he is offering to keep an eye on the witch. I can't get a read on his personality

- "...cleanse myself in time if I had done that." Done what?

- page 2: if he likes silence so much, why is he putting up with her? If these two are romance bound, which I thought it did seem like from the first chunk you submitted, the tone now of 'blissful silence' grates a bit. It's a little too 'women don't shut up and are naggy', instead of what could be cute YA romance tension

- Also not a fan of Salane whining. Why is anyone putting up with her at this point?

- She's ranting. She has shown no indication of being scared. Why does he tell her not to be scared? Their interaction is going from cute to *head pat* very quickly

- page 3: I don't understand what is going on with his hair. It tuns all white, but the moons are balanced in it? Shouldn't it still be partially the original color then?

- How does the MC know his eyes are all white? Has he done this before, in front of a mirror?

- His vision goes stark white, but his vision was already white, wasn't it?

- last paragraph on page 4: I'd be glaring, too. Salane is only working with the information she has. MC isn't making good information choices.

- page 5: I'm wondering what the point of doing these rituals is? They get all that power and do...what? Other guardians were out maybe that night, OK, but why?

- page 5: why does Salane slap him?

- page 6 dialogue at the end of the page - I am now completely lost. Why is Eclipse apologizing?

- page 7, third to last paragraph - I'm getting whiplash from Salane here. I can't pin down her personality. Is she sarcastic? Weak? Afraid? Aggressive?

- page 10: the dialogue between Salane and the MC is getting rigid here. They're bantering like adolescents.

- 14: 'Honor System'? Where did this come from?

- 17: science point - light kills this fungus? It kills the fruiting form, or the whole mycelium? Suggest that light makes the fruiting form shrivel instead and lose potency or something akin

- 17: why does she want to be walked home so badly? She went after him into the forest. NOW she is scared?

- 18: First indication of age. He's 19, which would put this in NA. The interactions trend heavily YA, possibly even MG. Might consider either lowering their ages, or changing up the dialogue.

 

 

Overall

While I am still intrigued by the premise, this section didn't hold my attention. The interactions with Eclipse were anticlimactic, and the persistent juvenile banter between the MC and Salane (and her bouncing from yelling to simpering every page) only made me irritated at the characters.

 

It might be worth the exercise, at this point, to decide what audience you are writing for here. Is this a YA book? NA? You could then write dialogue for character ages accordingly. 

Questions

Twin Moon Ritual

It was interesting, but I don't understand its purpose. Why does he do it? Why does it matter?

 

Conversation Flow

I found it to be stilted and juvenile in most places. The banter was cute in the first section, but it isn't evolving, which makes it stagnate and become boring.

 

Other Things

I have a lot of the same comments as King007. I really liked your first entry, but this one fell flat. I'd like to see more action or suspense, and far less whining.

Looking forward to what you have for next week!

[krystalynn03]

This review's going to be short, but honestly, in some ways it's a lot harder to give than some long reviews I've done.

 

Last week, there were some quirks in the narrative that stood out as sequences of text that need to be fixed, but those problems have gone deeper in this submission rather than going away. The things that I didn't care for about Moon and Salane have become their defining features in this next chapter, making me dislike both of them. Eclipse himself has gotten such a varied description between Moon's dialogue previously and then his rather blah presence in the scene that I'm not interested in him at all anymore.

 

The magic system is still interesting, and the promise of an interesting world to adventure through sounds great, but delving into a fantasy book with characters that annoy me isn't going to keep me going. I thought last week, perhaps, that your characters were going to have weaknesses inherent to being young, naiive, and self-absorbed, but the author was going to keep that in check somehow, but I'm not sensing that anymore. By the time Moon and Salane were bickering/whining at each other about how to get down at the end of the chapter, I was done with the characters. I scanned through the comments other people had left already on the board to see if the next chapter improved, but it seems that it's an exbo-bomb, so I checked out.

 

This is hard feedback for me to leave, but it's honest and constructive.

 

If you work Moon into an interesting character and make Salane not whiny and weak or at least make their flaws feel purposeful, then I'd come back to the story, but right now this is not something I'd keep reading. Characters are the biggest thing for me in a book and they've crossed over the line into do-not-like territory.

 

Keep writing. Just because I don't like this iteration doesn't mean revisions can't turn it into something I'd give a very different of.

[aeromancer]

Questions

Twin Moon Ritual

It was interesting, but I don't understand its purpose. Why does he do it? Why does it matter?

Conversation Flow

I found it to be stilted and juvenile in most places. The banter was cute in the first section, but it isn't evolving, which makes it stagnate and become boring.

Other Things

I have a lot of the same comments as King007. I really liked your first entry, but this one fell flat. I'd like to see more action or suspense, and far less whining.

Twin Moon: The main purpose is mentioned (I think), it's really just a training exercise of sorts for Guardians.

Conversation Flow: Thunk. You hear that? That's another nail in the coffin for the dialogue of Chapters 3-4. I honestly wanted to do a complete rewrite, but I didn't have the time, and I wanted to progress, so I submitted as is.

Other things: Chapter Five should have a lot more MC solitary scenes, and (hopefully) showcase some of his personality better, as well as action.

 

@krystalynn3: Another nail, but please keep giving me honest reviews. Thank you. And, to be honest, yeah Chapter Four is kind of an expo-dump, but there is an important (if poorly written) dialogue between Moon and Salane at the very end. I do suppose it was the wrong time to talk of many things, so Chapter Four will be lugged to my carving board. Guardian monologue will be an introspective, honor system (that's 'well met by moonlight', I have yet to give it a better name) and the fungus scene can be added to later parts, and the rest will have to be chiseled in ... somehow.

[Mandamon]

Put me on the side of king, kaisa, and krystalynn.  I was interested in the magic system, but having so much information on it between pg 2-4 felt like an info-dump.  At this point, I'm not that interested in the specifics yet, because Moon hasn't actually used his immense powers for anything useful except floating up and down a big rock.  I assume we'll get to that eventually, but I don't need to be told for three chapters "just wait, this is going to be awesome" before finally getting to it.  I'm ready to get to it now.

 

On the dialogue...yeah...not working.  The excess of exclamations makes it sound like everyone is pretty young, and very overawed by how big and powerful Moon is.  I said it last time, but it bears repeating.  I'm not yet sure where this character can grow in this story.

To be honest, I skimmed the last eight or so pages, because the (as king puts it) "tantrumly" dialogue was getting to me.

 

Interested to see more of the story, but I felt like most of these two chapters didn't add a lot, as a whole.

[Robinski]

Somewhere in amongst the confusing dialogue and slow plot development, there may be an interesting story, but I'm just not seeing it. The interaction between Salane and Moon annoys me, because I don’t believe anyone speaks that way. To me, there is way more dialogue than is necessary to convey a given thought and it slows everything down to a crawl. It would be different if it was funny and charming, but I don’t find it either of those.

 

Considering the events that have taken place, we are introduced to the character of Moon, we meet Salane and the make a trip into the forest to go up a tower. The ritual itself was pretty short so, in the end, I think you could quite easily cover the ground we’ve been over so far in one introductory chapter, by tightening up the dialogue significantly, which would not hurt it.

 

Such is my opinion, I hope there is something of use in there. Reading the others' comments now, I see that I'm not alone here!

 

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

 

 “and almost killed myself”

 

“Of course I don’t?!”

 

“do you know the significance of equilibrium in reference to the moon’s energy?” – or moons’ if it’s both.

 

“Yeah, why? it means that the is in...”

 

I don’t understand the triangle with the sun. If it’s night, the sun is nowhere to be seen, and yet both moons are visible, so what kind of triangle are we talking about?

 

“My black hair turns shock white. My hair is the exemption exception, Ae and Iu hairs intermingle within it.” – These sentences seem mutually exclusive.

 

“Just like Father father taught me how to” – If he’s just referring to his biological father, there’s no reason to capilatise this. If he is referring a priest, use of the capital is in the sense of a title and requires the name with it, because it’s a reference to a particular priest, otherwise it would just be ‘father’.

 

“I can see, but only in shades of white” – there are no shades of white, but grey surely.

 

“I’ve never done that before.” – That’s never happened before.

 

“I feel power courses through me” – Or, I feel power coursing through me.

 

[i'm stopping flagging typos here, there are too many.]

 

“I refuse it, and stand up, slowly. Eclipse nods at my show of strength” – That is not a show of strength, it’s a show of ‘I don’t like you. If Eclipse’s respect is so easily won, it’s not worth having.

 

“but was rather impressed by my stupidity” – That just doesn’t make sense.

 

The dialogue is confusing here, and overcomplicated, I think. They are not saying anything that is important, that I can tell.

[Kammererite]

Triangle with sun....Wait , isn't this night right? Or are you speaking astrological here. If so you need to hint this more by showing the sociality astrological sophistication or else hoe could they know.

 

"Hair intermingled wit energy". Why?.

 

Ae and Iu switching sides, so it wasn't before?

 

In the ritual you implied to me the balls were there in the paragraph before the begin to form.

"I feel really bad about my self now" show this don't tell

 

Banter- starting to get on my nerves by the  end. Salane flies off the handle at everything and Moon is just clueless. It didn't work for me

 

Magic- This is still the highlight but i wish we say more action in these chapter using it. Ritual was interesting but a little convoluted  (to much description in think) for me.

 

Walk- So there was a lot of info dumping here that while interesting we probably could subsist without till you sliver it in later.

 

Over all i still like the world and the premise. The promise of an adventure and a mysterious eclipse are interesting but the characters are starting to grate. 

Edited May 4, 2016 by Kammererite

[aeromancer]

Triangle with sun....Wait , isn't this night right? Or are you speaking astrological here. If so you need to hint this more by showing the sociality astrological sophistication or else hoe could they know.

Both you and Robinski brought this us. Yeah, it's astrological. As in, a triangle formed by the sun and moon's position. It's actually an isosceles triangle, not a perfect one. In regards to knowledge of astrology - essentially this: They are aware of that the solar system  is heliocentric, but not of eclipses. If I feel like it, I can even give them a rough knowledge of distances, which is calculatable with basic triginometry.

 

 

“Just like Father father taught me how to” – If he’s just referring to his biological father, there’s no reason to capilatise this. If he is referring a priest, use of the capital is in the sense of a title and requires the name with it, because it’s a reference to a particular priest, otherwise it would just be ‘father’.

 

I'm going to address this too. Moon is referring to his biological father, but Moon has a relationship with him more akin master-disciple than anything else. I felt that because of this, Moon would think of his father in a much more formal tone, also because Moon is very formal as person. If this goes against normal writing conventions, please tell me.

 

And thank you both for your feedback! It'll be put to good use.