2016-06-20 - EotFP - Jet Black Medium Ch.2

[Eagle of the Forest Path]

Hello again,

 

This will be the last chapter of JBM for a while, as I'm in the process of restructuring my story line.

Once that's done I'll be submitting from the beginning again.

 

Previously

In the prologue we had a mysterious man hiring a priestess to summon a "paper golem" meant to harass a certain Burrus Clupean.

In Chapter 1 Laurea arrives in Celsitudum, gets flirted with, meets her new boss and gets intimidated by her new mentor.

 

Things I'm already aware of.

• Infodump, basically the first couple of pages, sorry. I'm kind of overly fond of my setting.
• Low tension, this is why I'm restructuring.
• Run-on sentences, tried to fix that in this chapter, don't know if I succeeded entirely.
• POV jump, justified I think, we start with Laurea and then jump to Probitus in the last two blocks of text. It might bother some people, but I don't think it's actually a problem. Thoughts?

Questions.

• Is Aelura's shape obvious to everyone? I couldn't just come out and say what shape she is, because that particular animal is unknown on Thalas, and the only quadrupeds they do know are rats and crocodiles.
• Does Laurea get any more likable?
• What do you think about the progression of the conflict between Probitus and Laurea?

Even though it's the last submission for now, I hope you enjoy.

 

 

E.

[Mandamon]

pg 1, on the infodump:  I think the first paragraph is fine, but I want something to keep me going after that.  2 pages is definitely too long to get to the hag blocking her door.

pg 6: The argument with the landlady is great.  She's a good (awful) character.  However after that, it slows down a lot while Laurea examines various random items, including the fibula.  I don't really care about them at this point, to be honest.

pg 7: Aelura's shape:  Not really distinct.  I'm guessing dog or cat, but it's not clear to me.  I do like that you show how a paper golem works, though.  I like the fact that the pages are old and yellow.  Are the brittle as well, like an old book?

Pg 8: Yes, the break to Probitus is sudden. Maybe put in a section break?   Also, I'm not sure he should be the focus here.  You're telling us at great length what's wrong with him and how he's not as good as he was.  I like where this will go as a setup and it builds Probitus as a better character, but I feel like it can be shown to greater effect.
Being prescriptive here, but what if you show Laurea's competence by starting to guess at these things? 

I don't have a problem with Laurea.  I like her as a character, because she's proactive and competent, and I think those are enough to overcome any lack of sympathy from her.  She does spend a lot of time examining object, though ;-)

Ready to read more, whenever it's available!

[kais]

Overall

Possibly WRS here, but I don't remember why Probitus has this internal conflict. That is making his back and forth about whether or not to torture Laurea hard to follow. It also seems really sudden. I think a bit more of a work up on his internal conflict would help a lot.

I agree with Mandamon on the info dump. The first part was fine, and I was OK for maybe the first page. After that I had to force myself to keep reading instead of skimming. 

 

Your Questions

The shape: No, I have no idea what she is. At the first description I thought giraffe, but then the head shape threw me.

Likable: I like her in this chapter just fine.

Conflict: See both above and below. It feels forced and not well developed. I think it could be rectified easily with a bit more inner monologue work.

 

As I go

- page 1: recommend, generally, against using 'rule of thumb'. It's colloquial, and has a bad history.

- page 3: not sure 'hag' fits with how you describe her. I get the picture of a fiery older woman, secure in herself. 'Hag', to me, means more screechy banshee lady, or witchy.

- page 5, and I still don't feel the names Laurea is calling the older lady fit her personality. It's like your MC is seeing a different person than the audience

- page 6: cuttlefish, eh? I ready a really, truly, terrible book that involved gay male shifters and cuttlefish once....bad memories

- page 8: POV change here is jarring. A --- would help a lot

- page 9: I'd like more backstory before Probitus starts his thoughts on why he wants to make Laurea find a new mentor. Right now it seems sudden, a little staged, and I'm not feeling invested.

[Eagle of the Forest Path]

18 hours ago, Mandamon said:

pg 7: Aelura's shape:  Not really distinct.  I'm guessing dog or cat, but it's not clear to me.  I do like that you show how a paper golem works, though.  I like the fact that the pages are old and yellow.  Are the brittle as well, like an old book?

It's cat. The pages aren't brittle - yet - the paper for patron Dhé usually gets treated with chemicals (lacquer or varnish etc.) to increase longevity. The current incarnation of Aelura has been around for about 80 years (but that's irrelevant to the story as I imagine it at the moment).

18 hours ago, Mandamon said:

Pg 8: Yes, the break to Probitus is sudden. Maybe put in a section break?   Also, I'm not sure he should be the focus here.  You're telling us at great length what's wrong with him and how he's not as good as he was.  I like where this will go as a setup and it builds Probitus as a better character, but I feel like it can be shown to greater effect.
Being prescriptive here, but what if you show Laurea's competence by starting to guess at these things? 

I don't have a problem with Laurea.  I like her as a character, because she's proactive and competent, and I think those are enough to overcome any lack of sympathy from her.  She does spend a lot of time examining object, though ;-)

Ready to read more, whenever it's available!

I'll remember about the section breaks when switching characters.
I have no problems accepting suggestions, but I don't feel that having Laurea guessing about Probitus' motivations at this point in the story would make much sense, she doesn't even know yet that he's actively trying to get rid of her, only that he doesn't seem to like her.

 

1 hour ago, kaisa said:

Overall

Possibly WRS here, but I don't remember why Probitus has this internal conflict. That is making his back and forth about whether or not to torture Laurea hard to follow. It also seems really sudden. I think a bit more of a work up on his internal conflict would help a lot.

I agree with Mandamon on the info dump. The first part was fine, and I was OK for maybe the first page. After that I had to force myself to keep reading instead of skimming. 

Gotcha on both points. It's not WRS, I haven't gone into Probitus' internal conflict yet, this is actually his first POV.

 

1 hour ago, kaisa said:

The shape: No, I have no idea what she is. At the first description I thought giraffe, but then the head shape threw me.

Likable: I like her in this chapter just fine.

Conflict: See both above and below. It feels forced and not well developed. I think it could be rectified easily with a bit more inner monologue work.

Shape: She's a cat, I should have added something about pointed ears, but I thought that would have been too obvious.
Likeable: That's a relief, to be honest.
Conflict: I'm considering that, but I need to figure out a way to do it without him becoming too whiny.

1 hour ago, kaisa said:

- page 3: not sure 'hag' fits with how you describe her. I get the picture of a fiery older woman, secure in herself. 'Hag', to me, means more screechy banshee lady, or witchy.

Ah, that's bad. I was picturing standard crazy cat lady in bathrobe with cigarette... only without cats, bathrobes or cigarettes. 

1 hour ago, kaisa said:

- page 6: cuttlefish, eh? I ready a really, truly, terrible book that involved gay male shifters and cuttlefish once....bad memories

I'm sorry to hear about your gay-shifter-induced trauma. However, on an ocean world, I'm not going to include heraldry (or sigils, symbols etc.) like lions, horses and wolves (unless there's a convincing in-story reason). So I'm sticking to marine life for that.

1 hour ago, kaisa said:

- page 9: I'd like more backstory before Probitus starts his thoughts on why he wants to make Laurea find a new mentor. Right now it seems sudden, a little staged, and I'm not feeling invested.

I hope to work that into the rewrite. The restructured story will probably have Probitus as main POV in the first chapter (or the second, depending on whether I keep calling the prologue a prologue) so that should give me more opportunity.

Thanks for the feedback, both of you.

 

E.

[Robinski]

I enjoyed the human relationships in this submission. The landlady seemed like a bit of a caricature, but an amusing one. Probitus’ thought process was more interesting since, at the base of his nasty behaviour, there is weakness and vulnerability, which gives the reader hope for his redemption.

My main difficulty with this submission was the amount of description. There is a great deal about the building that, for me, was not interesting. I think you could cut that down considerably. It’s a big building with lots of stuff it in, but at the end of the day, all Laurea does is got to her apartment and unpack. The description and background to her Dhe was interesting though.

I'm on board, and interested to read more. Is Laurea more sympathetic? For me, yes, for the reasons that Mandamon states. But we don't know that about her at the start, so the first impression she makes is not good, imho.

<R>

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

“reaching from the bowels below the waterline up to the highest reaches” – repetition

There’s a lot of description on the first page. I started skimming half way down, as I'm more interested in learning more about Laurea.

“The eighteenth floor was wedged between two levels dedicated to industry, but thankfully nothing that generated uncomfortable odours” – This strikes me a spectacularly bad urban planning, which is the industry I work in. I struggle to believe that any kind of modern society would build like this.

“could be even less civilized than the average drunken dockworker” – this is a rather harsh stereotype. I'm sure there must be some dockworkers who work very hard for their families.

After more than two pages getting to the apartment, I was flagging considerably, but things light up with the discussion with the old woman. “I had to sign for delivery. I hate signing” – lol.

“Young people these days always have an excuse” – lol, harsh, but often true.

“Don’t mention you live here, though” – rolf.

“No surprise there either, if the bathhouse owner knew Praeparcior.” – You often explain things that it’s more fun for the reader to work out for themselves. I think some of the explanation is unnecessary.

“cracked open by delinquent dockhands” – man, you've really got it in for the Stevedores Union.

“If Laurea had not managed to discover the perpetrator by then, the case would be marked in her record as an utter failure” – I think we could do with these stakes for Laurea being much further up, near where she gets the case in the first place. This would dial up the tension earlier, make it clear for the reader what is at stake for her, to start with at least.

On Page 8, there is a jarring switch to Probitus’ point of view, but you just need a text break in there.

“Until Probitus reminded himself again that was not who he was, then it was just bitter” – Something off with this line grammatically, I think. I had to read it a handful of times.

[Eagle of the Forest Path]

Thanks for the feedback LT. (My sympathies about the demotion.)

3 hours ago, Robinski said:

I enjoyed the human relationships in this submission. The landlady seemed like a bit of a caricature, but an amusing one. Probitus’ thought process was more interesting since, at the base of his nasty behaviour, there is weakness and vulnerability, which gives the reader hope for his redemption.

My main difficulty with this submission was the amount of description. There is a great deal about the building that, for me, was not interesting. I think you could cut that down considerably. It’s a big building with lots of stuff it in, but at the end of the day, all Laurea does is got to her apartment and unpack. The description and background to her Dhe was interesting though.
I'll cut back on the description from now on.

I'm on board, and interested to read more. Is Laurea more sympathetic? For me, yes, for the reasons that Mandamon states. But we don't know that about her at the start, so the first impression she makes is not good, imho.
Not making a good first impression is kind of in character for her, though.  But I guess that's not a good thing from a storyteller's POV.

<R>

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

“reaching from the bowels below the waterline up to the highest reaches” – repetition

There’s a lot of description on the first page. I started skimming half way down, as I'm more interested in learning more about Laurea.

“The eighteenth floor was wedged between two levels dedicated to industry, but thankfully nothing that generated uncomfortable odours” – This strikes me a spectacularly bad urban planning, which is the industry I work in. I struggle to believe that any kind of modern society would build like this.
They aren't any kind of modern society.

“could be even less civilized than the average drunken dockworker” – this is a rather harsh stereotype. I'm sure there must be some dockworkers who work very hard for their families.
That's true, but those dockworkers probably don't get drunk all that often. And in general it's a rougher crowd than Laurea has been used to. I'll change the simile, though.

After more than two pages getting to the apartment, I was flagging considerably, but things light up with the discussion with the old woman. “I had to sign for delivery. I hate signing” – lol.

“Young people these days always have an excuse” – lol, harsh, but often true.

“Don’t mention you live here, though” – rolf.

“No surprise there either, if the bathhouse owner knew Praeparcior.” – You often explain things that it’s more fun for the reader to work out for themselves. I think some of the explanation is unnecessary.
I'll watch out for that, thank you.

“cracked open by delinquent dockhands” – man, you've really got it in for the Stevedores Union.
Ummmm... it's Laurea who's got it in for them!  Not me, no sir! I swear.

“If Laurea had not managed to discover the perpetrator by then, the case would be marked in her record as an utter failure” – I think we could do with these stakes for Laurea being much further up, near where she gets the case in the first place. This would dial up the tension earlier, make it clear for the reader what is at stake for her, to start with at least.
Hmm, good point.

On Page 8, there is a jarring switch to Probitus’ point of view, but you just need a text break in there.

“Until Probitus reminded himself again that was not who he was, then it was just bitter” – Something off with this line grammatically, I think. I had to read it a handful of times.
You're not sure? That's worrying, is the Grammar Stick busted?  There is probably something off, as a matter of fact.
First the sight was gratifying.
Then Probitus reminded himself...
Then it (the sight) was bitter.
"Bitter" doesn't really work with "sight" in this context, though I'm not sure that's strictly grammatical in nature.

[Robinski]

I'm on board, and interested to read more. Is Laurea more sympathetic? For me, yes, for the reasons that Mandamon states. But we don't know that about her at the start, so the first impression she makes is not good, imho.
Not making a good first impression is kind of in character for her, though.  But I guess that's not a good thing from a storyteller's POV.

I would not worry overly about this if it's the impression you were out to create. Some characters don't make a good first impression, but that doesn't make them bad characters to read about and follow, and there is nothing better than observing the redemption of an unsympathetic character.

 

“The eighteenth floor was wedged between two levels dedicated to industry, but thankfully nothing that generated uncomfortable odours” – This strikes me a spectacularly bad urban planning, which is the industry I work in. I struggle to believe that any kind of modern society would build like this.
They aren't any kind of modern society.

Hmm, if they have the tech to build such a tower, they should know that putting residences between industry is bad. Modern was the wrong word to use. The Romans and the Victorians knew about this stuff. Probably the Egyptians and the Greeks, the Chinese way back when these civilisations were developing. It's just that some of them probably did not care, whereas I take this to be a developed society in terms of its humanity. I mean, they don't have slaves, do they?

 

“cracked open by delinquent dockhands” – man, you've really got it in for the Stevedores Union.
Ummmm... it's Laurea who's got it in for them!  Not me, no sir! I swear.

Sorry, yes. I misspoke. I meant Laurea - I referred to you in the wider sense as creator, acting through Laurea. Anyway, she does seem to have a chip on her shoulder. There is a wider point here, and I realise that I meant to mention it first time around, but forgot. Laurea's reaction to people is very much a snap judgement and seems generally dismissive. That's her character, so clearly it's not wrong, but I'll be interested to see how she changes over the course of the story - when I get to read some more.

 

“Until Probitus reminded himself again that was not who he was, then it was just bitter” – Something off with this line grammatically, I think. I had to read it a handful of times.
You're not sure? That's worrying, is the Grammar Stick busted?  There is probably something off, as a matter of fact.

I was trying not to come right out and suggest an alternative, because I know it could be considered bad form. (Although there are some 'lucky' people on here with whom I feel comfortable enough to do that, and they have not yet banded together into a torch-wielding mob in the years that I've been making these 'helpful' suggestions.) So, in the spirit of 'helpful' suggestion > But that was not who he was. The thought left him feeling nothing but bitterness. There's very little to it really, I think it just needs simplified a bit for clarity.

 

[Eagle of the Forest Path]

2 hours ago, Robinski said:

Hmm, if they have the tech to build such a tower, they should know that putting residences between industry is bad. Modern was the wrong word to use. The Romans and the Victorians knew about this stuff. Probably the Egyptians and the Greeks, the Chinese way back when these civilisations were developing. It's just that some of them probably did not care, whereas I take this to be a developed society in terms of its humanity. I mean, they don't have slaves, do they?

Actually, they do have slaves on Thalas. But only as a legal punishment/criminal sentence, since they don't really have any space for prisons other than short-term lock-up. I worked out a whole thing, but it won't really come up in the story a lot. (I had a choice between slavery and corporal punishment. Now, I like a good flogging in my fiction as much as the next guy, but this way I got rowers for the triremes if I ever needed them.  ) 

The tech for spire construction is mostly dependent on Atramancy. I'm not an engineer (so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) but the ability to seamlessly fuse together massive chunks of granite should allow them to build some pretty enormous structures. If they can manage to find the right foundations, of course ... and enough granite.

[neongrey]

p.1 I think your info is fine but I have some concerns about sentence flow; it feels pretty choppy. The sentence starting with 'Such as the prefecture, obviously,' strikes me as a really awkward start in feel. It think it's easier to shove info down people's throats with more fluid diction; this has a lot of stop-and-go and hard pauses.

Also, the first page consists solely of two paragraphs; I sort of did a double take just looking. I think if I were looking to rework here I'd break up the paragraphs more and fiddle with sentence structure overall.

p.2 Is this the first time the sister's been mentioned? Nothing wrong if it is but shunting it into an aside feels odd.

"She left the stairwell and began..." the back half of this sentence feels clumsy, kind of overloaded, which doesn't help the passive voice here. One signs a lease for a place, not with, and the 'through correspondence' just makes the sentence feel bloated.

"She noted" redundant; her noting things is given if it's in her head.

Ending two sentences in a row with a word like environment looks kind of, ehh. The second such sentence, 'the lack of trash...', this sentence feels really passive-voice, again, sort of has a clumsy feel here.

Like, overall this section, I don't think there's a problem with the information you're trying to convey here, but your sentence-level work, the phrasing feels off, it doesn't flow comfortably to me. I'm just pulling out the passive voice that's leaping out but there's probably more here. Not noticing comma splices yet, but going passive voice when conveying information unless you absolutely have to kind of drags things down.

P.3 'The impossibly red hair' while on the one hand the sentence right before that is good, I'm gonna point out that visible cracking in makeup (especially foundation) is not necessarily an indicator of there being too much at all; it's generally more complicated than that, owing to the formula of the makeup, the wearer's type of skin, how long they've had it on, etc. The actual sentence that I called out above-- you're running on, you've repeatedly got passive voice in here, and the beehive hairstyle dates to the 1960s. Which is itself not an issue using the hairstyle but the name thereof stands out with all the Roman-esque language. Passive voice in the following sentence too. And tbh using 'hag' here says a lot more about Laurea than it does about the landlady, and it's not flattering. Also, if that's what she's getting out of it, I'm not feeling her detective skills so much, either.

'she' after describing another woman is obfuscatory, even with the bit about Laurea being the new tenant (and tentatively is/should be implied by the phrasing, but I am very much not big on adverbs).

'protested' ehh, redundant, said-bookism

You're giving the landlady two consecutive instances of raw dialogue with no attribution or action right after some description; I feel like you could be shifting the weight from the really passively-written description to surround the dialogue some and convey what you wanted there instead. Either way it's a waste to just throw dialogue out there link a lump. You're thick with description right up until people start talking, then it drops entirely-- I'd look at balancing it out some.

'missy', is 'miss' used elsewhere? I don't recall, but without 'miss' 'missy' doesn't work.

'rude hag' is a weirdly unnatural construction. 'Laurea realized' in that same sentence can straight-up go; you're writing this from her POV, it's in her voice, by default all of this is things Laurea notes and realizes etc, and then two sentences in a row with offset asides looks very odd.

Is 'witch' an appropriate pejorative in this setting?

'A landlady can' -- you're shifting to present tense out of the past for this sentence.

p. 4 okay, three consecutive bits of dialogue from the landlady with absolutely no narration.

'harried her' again, said-bookism, conveyed by the dialogue. "don't you have any sense" is a new sentence, should be treated as such.

Carrying onto this page, nearly all your description in this one is using passive voice. I'm gonna stop calling it out here for my own health but I'd say more than anything else this needs a thorough line edit. I think making your sentences flow more smoothly will make the description go down a lot more easily.

"Based on her short experience" this sentence doesn't scan at all; the first section is again, redundant by the fact that you're inside Laurea's head and the second two parts are just repeating herself.

"We don't have a bath" period, you're splicing. Is it normal or expected to have one? If no, just go right to saying where the bathouse is.

p.5  'replied wryly' ehhhhhh, and the follow-up sort of contradicts. I think this is definitely a job for 'said'.

'Whatever' as a single-word response does feel out of place with the vernacular here.

'she eventually produced' you've got run-ons and splicing here.

'larger key' period, new sentence.

'By then Laurea' we've pretty much established that she's doing this by now, and the aside feels off.

'assured' again redundant

I feel like you're unconsciously falling into misognystic stereotyping on the landlady, and most of it's in the way Laurea's painting her; I'd clean that up along with the sentence structure.

'After a quick struggle' -- a long time ago i read something somewhere about fiction that anything contained within a parenthetical should just be deleted because by the very nature of being parenthetical it's not relevant. This doesn't hold for some styles of writing, but not this one, and your asides are basically parenthetical. I'm not sure the aside about putting the box down is adding much. The back half of the sentence 'slid open... dusty rails' is grammatically muddy; the bit about the rails is poised such that it's no longer naturally a modifier to the door.

Two rooms colon, not comma. End the sentence after 'another', start a new one.

This is only page six? I'm gonna stop commenting on sentence structure as of here too, sorry, it's ten to four in the morning, I'll be here all night, hahaha.

I didn't call this out last time but I do suspect the average reader is not going to know what a fibula pin is; you might want to slide in a general explanation somewhere.

p.7 'in laurea's opinion' - I'm not gonna go over why this is redundant again but here I'm gonna point out that framing this way actually weakens the appearance of her opinion. If it's that definitive, she should be phrasing it definitively.

'greeted her warmly as the dhe placed its front limbs' I don't know what's going on with this part of this sentence.

The description here and going onto page 8 flows better than some of the previous stuff.

p.8 yeah please mark your pov shifts with some sort of isolated character like an asterisk or something

Starting off the pov with passive voice, ehh. And 'he didn't like what etc' is a very very telly intro to the character's head.

There's still sentence structural issues here, but you feel more confident in Probitus' POV; you write much more fluidly using it. That is, we're mostly back to comma splicing rather than overloading passive voice. Unfortunately, I'm not sure at all what this section is adding-- what do we as the reader gain by learning that he's intentionally trying to get rid of her? What do we gain by not being in her head as she gets this from him? I feel like this whole section is devoted to tell over show on the subject of what exactly he's doing here.

For myself, I'd say that pretty much all of your problems are things that would be solved by a really thorough line edit; the actual story underlying is good enough that I'd still be with it, if I weren't ramming constantly into the sentence construction.

Edited June 26, 2016 by neongrey

[spieles]

p. 1 "Laurea needed any victory" doesn't seem quite right. I get what you're sort of going for. She needs to land on her feet after an unsettling day, but the word choice is awkward.

p. 1 Starting here... "By tradition and common sense, each..." My eyes started to cross with trying to make sense of the description.

I started reading again at... "The doorway Laurea reached after a short minute’s walk clearly marked it as the thirtieth storey entrance to the western stairwell."

Lost me again until...

p. 2 "On a new quaestor’s salary, and having no extensive family funds to draw upon - most of them going towards her sister’s education - Laurea’s new home was located in a less than prestigious area of the spire." So this paragraph was good.

p. 3 Then... you lose me for the entirety of the next paragraph  until the door opens. Then I'm interested again.

p. 3 I think a lot of preserving Laurea's likability is keeping her reactions more measured. For example, calling her "an old bag" after all the other negative description just reaches the point of overkill. I felt you were good before that.

Her rubbish? Was that the way this old crab spoke of her tenants? Because that rude hag - Laurea realized - had to be her new landlady, which put her in a very uncomfortable position. Her desire at that moment was to chop this witch into chum - verbally, at least - but the mean cast of her eye told Laurea clearly that she held her grudges tight and hard. A landlady can make life pure misery for any tenant she dislikes and for some time yet Laurea wouldn’t have the means to find other lodgings. With a great effort she swallowed the tirade she longed to throw at this old bag.

Then on p. 5 "delinquent dockhands" makes her sound really classist. It's really hard to like someone who hates poor people. Better to just say that "no one had cracked open and messed with her stuff" (in your words, though, of course)

p. 5 I also felt this paragraph took her reaction too far. I really enjoy Laurea's ambition and determination and how calculated she can be. I think you want to preserve that and avoid her seeming too immature. Anyway consider chopping this:

By then Laurea was biting down on her tongue in an effort to prevent herself from biting her landlady - an impulse which was becoming less and less figurative - and it took a moment before she realized that a response was required at this point.

p. 6 You lose me from "Her quick inspection of the premises completed..." through the next paragraph. 

p. 6 When I reached, "Simple labour and idle thoughts left her mind mostly free" I was happily reading again - she's back on the quest!

p. 7 the information about the dhe is a bit of an info dump. If she could investigate at all - even simply by asking the awful landlady - that would be great. Also, I think I'd enjoy the landlady's response... LOL. It obviously doesn't have to be the land lady, just always better to show than tell.

p. 7 "carapace" is overused considering how specific the word is

End of p. 7 You lose me from "Most Dhé were summoned by a Dhéonomist..." to the end of the next paragraph "usually the patron was one of the first things to be abandoned once a family could no longer afford an estate on the heights." You have my attention back when the paragraph starts, "From the chair..."

p. 8 Hrm. Probitus is a bit of a let down here. Instead of severe, flamboyant, possibly pompous, and genius detective, he's coming across as very whiny. In my opinion, we're too inside his head. You need an antagonist for him to react to. I think the solution would be to have the scene start with him arguing with a superior officer about his assignment as Laurea's mentor. Also, I think he could use some more sympathy. How has leg injury affected him? What happened the last time he took on a mentor? Did they die? Is there some power struggle among his colleagues? Right now his reasons for being cruel to Laurea are insufficient in the context of the fame that he has built for himself; however, I think this is all very fixable.

So I liked this chapter less than the previous two - the tension plummeted - but I feel like you have loads to work with. Once you take out the unnecessary description (I know, stabbing babies), I think you'll give yourself the room you need to amp up the building mystery you've got going on.