06/13/16 - neongrey - Waning ch. 4 (s*)

[neongrey]

The S at present is less anything suggestive in this particular chapter, and more that the chapter, effectively, warns that suggestive content is coming. It's gonna be a fun party.

 

Previously: The city of Ilidria's living goddess is dead, and the only remaining member of seventeen-year-old Lasila Vahendra's family must leave the war in order to insist with peace talks. Lasila attends the display of the goddess' body and finds herself invited by a mysterious priestess to attend the rise of the new goddess.

 

Having no access to anyone appropriate herself, Lasila requests that her brother find an escort for her; he does so, and though the man is apparently a good ten years her senior, he is a senator's brother. His standing is far too high for this to be anything other than formalities, but if she can take advantage of the company it will do well for her business prospects later. She finds that she will need all the help she can get: the predominant religion of  the city still disdains women doing much of anything at all, and while her finances are sufficient to keep her homed and fed, they won't be nearly enough for her to finish her education in any timely manner.

 

And then her brother brings home a kitten for her, because of course he does.

 

This time: Lasila sees to getting fitted for a dress.

 

I suspect this may not be everyone's cup of tea, and I'm quite sure it does drag for at least a bit when she gets to the shop so I've already got part of this slated for rework. But Lasila does care quite a great lot about how people are dressed (and this is also our first look at all at male fashion) so I suspect this is going to be less about cuts (which are probably still necessary, ofc) and more rearranging things so they 'feel' less heavy.

 

I suspect people might twinge onto the word 'lunatic' near the end; it is, in this case, a technical term which is going to have a very very swift payoff...

Edited June 15, 2016 by neongrey
well that was a weird typo

[Mandamon]

 

I was a little afraid going into this chapter, but it did keep my interest, for all that it was about trying on clothes.  I'll make a distinction, though. Figuring out what Lasila was going to wear was interesting.  The paragraphs describing in length what characters were already wearing (Lasila, the boy, Sirie) was not interesting, and I started to skim these.

I did like the concept of dyeing wings and that they are different colors, like hair.  At this point, though, I'm not sure of any more detail.  How large are they, and what purpose do they serve?  I'm guessing they are not functional, or people would be flying around.

On names, especially here, the combination of unfamilar names and unfamiliar titles makes this hard to read.  There seems to be a title for every station, but we're never told what, especially when it gets into student/teacher relationships.

pg 5: fourth and fifth pps, "time" is repeated a lot.

In all, I found this the second most interesting chapter after the meeting with the priestess, mainly for the political intrigue. Lasila is doing something interesting, rather than just performing errands like fetching water or going to the bank.
 

[neongrey]

Pretty much all your questions about the wings have already been answered and I'm not particularly intending to emphasize this further except, perhaps, the story of what happened to them, which is liable to influence some religious rhetoric later on. (they're vestigial and non-functioning; they flew... once) The present state of things is normative to Lasila's eyes (and our upcoming other POV has grown accustomed) and so not uniquely called attention to by those who are used to them any more than hands or hair, and what happened is, well, ancient history. They have wings because, among other things, they are absolutely and definitively not human.

A chart exists for the honorifics which is intended to be provided, but I have been holding off on providing it to see how people deal; I believe the only one that isn't explained on first usage is Endera which is left to context (it's for workplace inferiors). Otherwise the honorifics are regular in how they gender, though this is the first time we've seen how the ungendered forms are styled. (Ilia/Ilien/Ilie)

That early bit at the shop before the fitting room deffo needs some work, though it should be by this point very clear Lasila assesses people by how they dress, and walking through how she selects pieces for herself should offer the tools to see how she does so when she looks at others. And there's some fairly thick... I think foreshadowing's not the word, but there's definitely brickwork for a plot laid in that section too.

Edited June 15, 2016 by neongrey

[Asmodemon]

For the most part I only have one critical note with this chapter, and it’s the same as the last chapter: nothing that happens in the chapter seems to progress the plot in any way. Lasila buys a dress, and that’s basically it. So yeah, like you said, not my cup of tea. I’d really like to know where this story is going.

 

More characters: There are also a lot of new characters which may or may not return, and you spend a lot of time describing them.

 

Cat: A bird-woman owning a cat…it’s an interesting picture. I think it’s also been a while since you really mentioned that Lasila has wings. A couple more reminders in the earlier chapters might help cement the image more.

 

Lera: Maybe it’s weekly reader syndrome, but I can’t get used to the odd ways the characters address each other.

[krystalynn03]

4 hours ago, neongrey said:

Pretty much all your questions about the wings have already been answered

I know it's tempting to write off comments like this when you know something was in text, but sometimes it's good to question why the information was missed. Sometimes it's WRS (weekly reader syndrome) but sometimes it might be that important information wasn't hit in a way that really got it across to the reader. However, it could be that the reader just flat-out missed it. Do what you want, but I'd ask the critique giver for further information to make sure there isn't a narrative issue to investigate.

IMHO.

 

 

[neongrey]

You're not wrong, but while there probably c/should be a few more explicit references to them, I feel like when I'm already overloading description on plot-relevant stuff, diverting into worldbuilding for its own sake feels like a clear mistake. There's only so much ancient history that's even relevant to Lasila's mindset at present.

Like, I know why it gets missed; we're in the head of someone who completely takes their existence for granted and so references to them are very casually placed; if people are losing them it's less the fault of the references themselves and more to the surrounding text which apparently is losing people. So, you know, I see what needs done. Just in this case, the specific questions absolutely have already been answered.

 

[kais]

I am SO ready!

Overall

I like the rich imagery, as always, but the chapter does start out slow. It'd be nice to have some small scene that sets some conflict or tension before the dress shop. The interplay itself in the dress shop I enjoy, although I'd have delighted in the dress maker flirting subtly, or making some small inappropriate comment. This book is setting up more as a coming-of-age political intrigue, which makes it inherently slower at the start. This is alright, as long as you sustain some level of tension (the character tension is working, but a bit more would help keep it from stagnating in places). 

My mind keeps coming back to Kushiel's Dart, which is clearly more boom-chika-bow-wow than this (at least at the moment), but I think the level of heat-tension you need to set to keep readers engaged should come closer to that (doesn't necessarily need the same level of pay-off, but the tension holds). 

I'm also having some issues seeing what the stakes are as of yet, but I'd still be reading at this point because I want Lasila to get that mega awesome dress and go get her patron. 

As I go

- Love the idea of wing dyeing. Why not?

- "...she was seventeen, and she had been invited to an orgy." Yes. We have anticipation building.

- page 6: LOL! She's getting all hot and bothered over rayon? The wood nerd in me catches here, because I've made rayon, so my perception of the whole world is morphing. Where are the bulk digesters kept? Why is this such a high end fabric? Why in the world would it be more expensive than silk. If you wanted to go with rare, why not spider silk from golden orb spiders? I just... it's rayon. Bamboo rayon maybe, or dicot rayon? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS THAT ARE NOT RELEVANT!

- I don't care for the end line. Something a little more catchy would work better. Maybe something like: "What was she going to do if Maranthe ...." something something like 'took extra interest' .... something to convey interest and some trepidation about the fun times ahead.

[neongrey]

18 minutes ago, kaisa said:

I am SO ready!

Overall

I like the rich imagery, as always, but the chapter does start out slow. It'd be nice to have some small scene that sets some conflict or tension before the dress shop. The interplay itself in the dress shop I enjoy, although I'd have delighted in the dress maker flirting subtly, or making some small inappropriate comment. This book is setting up more as a coming-of-age political intrigue, which makes it inherently slower at the start. This is alright, as long as you sustain some level of tension (the character tension is working, but a bit more would help keep it from stagnating in places). 

Yeah, that's the thing here; this early section is never exactly going to be fast-paced but what's also going on is a whole lot of plot assembly that I don't necessarily want visible. Definitely want Lasila chafing more prior to this; the thing with the bank last chapter is effectively a denial of what she wants initially. And it doesn't devastate her, no, because she's the sort of person who will immediately think of what else to do, but I think we're not established enough by that point for it to be very obvious that all that's what's going on.

27 minutes ago, kaisa said:

My mind keeps coming back to Kushiel's Dart, which is clearly more boom-chika-bow-wow than this (at least at the moment), but I think the level of heat-tension you need to set to keep readers engaged should come closer to that (doesn't necessarily need the same level of pay-off, but the tension holds). 

That's not actually wholly unintended, though I prefer my prose a little more restrained and I'm not intending to border quite as closely on erotica. The culture is very very different, but there's definitely... similarities. 

46 minutes ago, kaisa said:

I'm also having some issues seeing what the stakes are as of yet, but I'd still be reading at this point because I want Lasila to get that mega awesome dress and go get her patron. 

I think if I work the second POV in sooner it should become clearer what level we're playing on faster, but among other things, the Ilie Alevrin will give us exactly what happened to the goddess and why, though not what that means, very nearly as soon as we get into their head. They're... a very different person from Lasila.

50 minutes ago, kaisa said:

- page 6: LOL! She's getting all hot and bothered over rayon? The wood nerd in me catches here, because I've made rayon, so my perception of the whole world is morphing. Where are the bulk digesters kept? Why is this such a high end fabric? Why in the world would it be more expensive than silk. If you wanted to go with rare, why not spider silk from golden orb spiders? I just... it's rayon. Bamboo rayon maybe, or dicot rayon? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS THAT ARE NOT RELEVANT!

Hah, I was wondering if anyone would catch this. The irrelevant, I can easily go over: the price would surely go down in a time of lesser fiscal austerity. But as far as the aelin are capable of, it takes magic to make, and moreover the type of magic required is a particular and specific combination of talents, and from there fairly precision skill to be dealing with acids is required. And if you have those particular talents, there are a lot more prestigious, practical, or socially preferred fields to go into. Pretty much anyone capable of learning it would also be capable of going into healing as a field instead, just as one example. So it's rare because there's not very many people at all who are capable of producing it; most of those who might have been both willing and capable of doing so are being pulled off to go do other things like get killed and/or stop that from occurring for other people. Wizard-based economies kind of suck.

It's not more expensive than silk, but it's not common at all and it's an appropriate fabric for the event and for the age and station of the person to be wearing it.

For the highly, highly relevant: spider silk is embargoed (and more on this will come, I think, in the scene to be inserted prior with the other pov character). This mostly comes up in the form of lace, which was mentioned, because that's what the primary producers thereof do with it (for... reasons). There's a fair bit of vintage stuff around from when trade with the shudkathra was still legal, but new imports are forbidden so obviously there's absolutely none at all ever coming into the city, right?*

*not right

[Robinski]

On 15/06/2016 at 0:09 AM, krystalynn03 said:

I know it's tempting to write off comments like this when you know something was in text, but sometimes it's good to question why the information was missed. Sometimes it's WRS (weekly reader syndrome) but sometimes it might be that important information wasn't hit in a way that really got it across to the reader. However, it could be that the reader just flat-out missed it. Do what you want, but I'd ask the critique giver for further information to make sure there isn't a narrative issue to investigate.

Yeah - I'll back this up. Remember you know all this stuff back to front, but we don't. We (readers) sometimes need reminders of things. It only takes a word or two, but it could make a big difference to how easily the reader absorbs the story.

 

[Robinski]

I enjoyed this submission. I must admit with all the fashion talk, it’s like Robert Jordan on steroids. I always had to toil through his descriptions of the dress of every melon-farming Aes Sedai in the room before he went any further, but this is the main subject of your submission, so work ways better than that.

Sorry about the Cat Lady original story quip below, but I'm tickled by the thought that, by the 10^th novel in the series, Lasila might live alone with 10 cats

The ending “What precisely had Maranthe seen in her?” I felt could have been more effective if it had contemplated what Maranthe had planned for her. I think looks forward and is more active than ‘seen’.

I'm sure you’ll get loads of comments about this being dull, but I'm on board. I like a slow burn, and I continue to enjoy the financial straits that you’ve placed Lasila in. I think you could stand to highlight that more. Maybe have a debtor coming to the door, or her inability to buy food – maybe such things are coming.

Nice job.

<R>

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

“Might as well enjoy what little laziness she could afford herself while she still could” – Rather convoluted.

“Weighting Weighing her age and that it was always wise to show deference to those who were going to dress you” – I think, as in weighing up.

“No need to encourage the kitten to run away” – I’ve got it! It’s Cat Lady: the origin story!!

“The seamstress' shop proved to be situated on a well-treed side street not far from the financial district, situated next to a glassblower's”

“and a Senator senator, say?” – it’s not Senator Jones, after all.

“No, what it created was the illusion of equality, the spectre of anonymity. Plausible deniability-- it might have been anyone. A lure for the uncautious incautious.” – Nice passage, enjoyed it, pulled me in some more.

“But that could not only be it” – Don’t know what this actually means, some kind of grammar breakdown, I think. ‘But that could not be all of it.’ (?)

“and she had been invited to an orgy” – Was this stated, directly or implied, before? If so, I'm not sure it’s been clear. I’ve caught a vague suggestion of the possibility, but I wonder if Lasila would not have thought more clearly on this subject before now, so that the reader could more fully contemplate her thoughts from the start of this chapter.

“By all means, permit the heathen priest inside” – It’s very unprofessional for her to speak so of one client in front of another, it makes me question the seamstress’s competence as a business woman.

“One of those dresses had been pink, too, with fine golden lacework. Lasila let her hand fall to her side.” – A nice poignant passage, when she recalls her mother’s dresses. Am I supposed to be able to recall what befell her parents? I can’t, but I also can’t remember if we’ve been told.

“I would go all to brass in this” – I don’t know what she means by this.

 

[neongrey]

1 hour ago, Robinski said:

I enjoyed this submission. I must admit with all the fashion talk, it’s like Robert Jordan on steroids. I always had to toil through his descriptions of the dress of every melon-farming Aes Sedai in the room before he went any further, but this is the main subject of your submission, so work ways better than that.

This is actually something I worry about a fair bit, not just in this section. I thiiink I'm on okay ground with it because clothing (and cosmetics) comprise both a lot of actual relevance to proceedings rather than just being a shorthand for character quirks; clothing in general and fashion in particular are highly significant to how you get received in the circles Lasila moves in, and it's also a huge amount of how she relates to other people. Relative social standing is significant so she's using it as markers for how she should be behaving.

And the other POV doesn't care about any of this at all so we don't get any of that. Which is another reason I think I have to move up their first appearance, just to make it crystal clear that a fair few of the oddities in Lasila's bits are pure POV.

1 hour ago, Robinski said:

Sorry about the Cat Lady original story quip below, but I'm tickled by the thought that, by the 10^th novel in the series, Lasila might live alone with 10 cats

Well, I've only got three in mind...

1 hour ago, Robinski said:

The ending “What precisely had Maranthe seen in her?” I felt could have been more effective if it had contemplated what Maranthe had planned for her. I think looks forward and is more active than ‘seen’.

Yeah that last line is clearly not good.

1 hour ago, Robinski said:

I'm sure you’ll get loads of comments about this being dull, but I'm on board. I like a slow burn, and I continue to enjoy the financial straits that you’ve placed Lasila in. I think you could stand to highlight that more. Maybe have a debtor coming to the door, or her inability to buy food – maybe such things are coming.

 

Yeah, I definitely need to hammer home more Lasila's discontent with the situation; that's a lot of what her drive here is, the fact that she could sit back and have everything be fine but fine is in no way good enough for her, and I think that's one of the biggest things I'm gonna have to work in. If she were a proper heroine I'd lean more towards her being driven by need, but the thing here is that she is choosing to do the things she does...

1 hour ago, Robinski said:

“Weighting Weighing her age and that it was always wise to show deference to those who were going to dress you” – I think, as in weighing up.

Nah, weighting as in a weighted average; Lasila likes mathematical views of things.

1 hour ago, Robinski said:

“and a Senator senator, say?” – it’s not Senator Jones, after all.

Yeah, I've got this noted but you're probably gonna see it like this until 12 or so.

1 hour ago, Robinski said:

“and she had been invited to an orgy” – Was this stated, directly or implied, before? If so, I'm not sure it’s been clear. I’ve caught a vague suggestion of the possibility, but I wonder if Lasila would not have thought more clearly on this subject before now, so that the reader could more fully contemplate her thoughts from the start of this chapter.

This is definitely the first direct statement of this, but Lasila and Ilea circumlocute around this earlier in the conversation, and it's supposed to be pretty oblique until this connection is outright drawn. The conversation is Sirie asking if Lasila knows what she's getting into, then offering to dress her solely with that aspect in mind; the night that only she would remember. One of the social graces...

1 hour ago, Robinski said:

“By all means, permit the heathen priest inside” – It’s very unprofessional for her to speak so of one client in front of another, it makes me question the seamstress’s competence as a business woman.

This isn't actually considered rude for reasons I hope will be clearer with the prior alt pov section and the upcoming one. I mean, it is rude and is very much suppose to appear as such to the reader, but it's definitely socially appropriate, for a given norm of appropriate.

1 hour ago, Robinski said:

“One of those dresses had been pink, too, with fine golden lacework. Lasila let her hand fall to her side.” – A nice poignant passage, when she recalls her mother’s dresses. Am I supposed to be able to recall what befell her parents? I can’t, but I also can’t remember if we’ve been told.

Her father died when she was quite young, maybe five or six; he got called to the war and never came back. This is of some significance but I think has only been mentioned the once so far. It's probably something I should work in a little more prior to now since it does have some future relevance. Her mother died two years ago; this and Lasila's ambivalence about that is given some space in the first and I think a little bit in the second, though how exactly she died isn't mentioned. The shadow she casts is harder to see because Lasila very actively doesn't think about her except when she has to.

So you're not necessarily supposed to have the details on the tip of your tongue, beyond that they've been dead for a while.

1 hour ago, Robinski said:

“I would go all to brass in this” – I don’t know what she means by this.

She's a particular shade of golden blonde; if she were to wear copper, it would bring out the more orange-yellow tones in her hair and make it look brassy. It comes up most often when you dye your hair blonde and the undertones aren't right but in this case her hair is a warm enough shade that the copper of the dress would bring that out unpleasantly.

Colour's weird.

Thanks, to everyone!

Edited June 16, 2016 by neongrey

[Mandamon]

5 hours ago, neongrey said:

This is actually something I worry about a fair bit, not just in this section. I thiiink I'm on okay ground with it because clothing (and cosmetics) comprise both a lot of actual relevance to proceedings rather than just being a shorthand for character quirks; clothing in general and fashion in particular are highly significant to how you get received in the circles Lasila moves in, and it's also a huge amount of how she relates to other people. Relative social standing is significant so she's using it as markers for how she should be behaving.

Just a suggestion on this:  You tell us in the forum that Lasila is interested in clothing and it has a lot of relevance to her, but I haven't gotten that strong of an indication of it in the actual prose.  Could you link the clothing descriptions to something Lasila would know or react to?  You do this a little in the description of Sirie, noting how the clothing was "calculated to display that this woman knew what she was about ."  But this doesn't directly link back to Lasila.  Why does she know this?  How does she adjust her perceptions based on the other woman's clothing?  What else does she know about the woman's station?

My eyes start to glaze on the descriptions themselves, but once you tell why it's relevant, I'll pay attention.

[neongrey]

Hmmmmm. I'll keep an eye on that, thanks.

e: Sorry if I've got a bit of a brusque manner on some of this; I'm definitely paying attention to what everyone is saying and I'm definitely thinking of how to go about this when I get to redrafting, and how to incorporate it as I keep going on the initial draft in process.

Edited June 16, 2016 by neongrey

[Mandamon]

No problem!  In the end, it's your work, and all our suggestions and critiques are just that.  You don't have to take anything we say.  But on the flip side, if we bring something up, chances are some other reader will too.

[neongrey]

Yeah definitely, and the draft's got issues, no lie. And theoretically I would like to exchange this for some manner of dollars when it's done-done so cleaning out the stuff that doesn't work, well... haha, might be a good idea

[kais]

10 hours ago, Mandamon said:

No problem!  In the end, it's your work, and all our suggestions and critiques are just that.  You don't have to take anything we say.  But on the flip side, if we bring something up, chances are some other reader will too.

This ^^

I'm in the process of subbing AFD, and am at the 'end' part of that process (with R&Rs, and full requests, etc). I do find that a lot of the hand-written agent feedback I get mirrors the comments from this forum to some degree. Not everything, obviously, but I'd say about 65% of the time, the things that really get picked up by two to three people here, I see again in an R&R request from an agent. This place is great for pre-game.

[neongrey]

Yeah, I getcha, I'm just not all that great at sounding like I'm taking things seriously when I actually am, lol.

[Robinski]

Lol

[spieles]

I love kittens and kittenish behavior but I think you could cut it down a weeeee bit.

I like how you start out this line: 

So armed, she took a handbag, patted Mekesh on the head, and made her way uptown.

"review previous of our work" - missing a word here, e.g. "previous examples?"

I think you might be introducing an antagonist with  Ilie Alevrin - or trying to point out some social fissure - but since they're not directly interacting with Lasila - I know it's not going to stick with me and I might consider cutting it because it felt more distracting rather than intriguing.

I'm a girl who loves fashion and the discussion of colors wore on me. If the colors are tied to symbols in society or deeper meanings that might make it more intersting but otherwise it is a lot of description to wade through.

I like how Lasila slowly discovers the investment that's happening here and starts to wonder if there's some catch to the Maranthe's otherwise seemingly generous offer. It raises the stakes.