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Heir - Chapter 10 Revised - Spieles August 1 2016 (V) 2.3k


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Reading Excuses – Spieles – August 1, 2016 - Chapter 10 Revised – some violence

In the last version of this you saw Oz going to Turner Hospital and being directed by the city’s AI (“Brick”) Oz to find Calgary – but in this revision, Oz has to figure out where his foster father is without Brick’s help.

Other changes to note:

*Krieger wants Oz to infiltrate the Rex and find Eleanor – the other two Board members DO NOT

*Project Null is axed – Oz is being assigned to “repair duty” so that he has a job in the city

Questions:

What I'm especially interested in feedback wise.... Oz protags way more in this version of the chapter. In a sense, his playing with the bombs here replaces his playing with the bombs in chapter 2. I'm hoping it's a more interesting play-with-bombs moment.

Opinion on Dion? 

Is it believable that Oz and Dion would break into the clinic this way? There is a specific reason that no guards show up, but if there's too much suspension of disbelief I can have Brick or Dion come up with some additional support.

Is this version of the chapter better or at least a step in the right direction?

This takes place right after Oz storms away from Mira Midge, head of Turner, who wants him to help with creating a cure for the Rex….

Edited by spieles
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I sent the LBLs to your e-mail.

loved this chapter. I felt more engaged and connected with Oz than I have in any other chapter I've read. He always comes alive more when Dion is around, and I believe I have already expressed my great love of Dion. Brick, as always, delivers great dialogue. The pace is steady, and there were only a few bumps, which I pointed out in the LBLs. Overall, AWESOME!

Believability - you know, the action and dialogue were so spot on that I didn't even question the lack of guards. To me, it read more as a quarantine unit where they don't really expect anyone to break in, cause who'd want to be exposed to that? 

Dion - always. love. Dion.

 

 

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Yeah--agree with kaisa.  I don't have much to say about this chapter because it works so well.  I also didn't think about guards because I wanted to see what would happen.  Maybe they see a nurse or something in a corridor and avoid them?


pg 1: the exchange with Brick being reluctant to give info is much better.  Makes Oz proactive.

pg 3-4: much better intro for Dion as well.  I'm interested to find out more about him, rather than being mildly annoyed about him hitting on a girl.

pg 4: "MY CLEANING BOT DID NOTHING TO YOU."
--lol

The ending is much better.  Things are moving forward fast.  Now Oz has incentive to also find a cure...

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21 hours ago, kaisa said:

loved this chapter. I felt more engaged and connected with Oz than I have in any other chapter I've read. He always comes alive more when Dion is around, and I believe I have already expressed my great love of Dion. Brick, as always, delivers great dialogue. The pace is steady, and there were only a few bumps, which I pointed out in the LBLs. Overall, AWESOME!

Dion - always. love. Dion.

OH GOOD. At this point in revisions, I'm just following the big FIX THIS list and hoping it results in something better so yaaaay - this chapter is an improvement! 

 

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5 hours ago, Mandamon said:

Yeah--agree with kaisa.  I don't have much to say about this chapter because it works so well.  I also didn't think about guards because I wanted to see what would happen.  Maybe they see a nurse or something in a corridor and avoid them?


pg 1: the exchange with Brick being reluctant to give info is much better.  Makes Oz proactive.

pg 3-4: much better intro for Dion as well.  I'm interested to find out more about him, rather than being mildly annoyed about him hitting on a girl. Yeah, now that you say that, I didn't particularly like his intro with the girl either...

pg 4: "MY CLEANING BOT DID NOTHING TO YOU."
--lol I also really enjoy writing Brick. Really, I love having an excuse to write in all caps....

The ending is much better.  Things are moving forward fast.  Now Oz has incentive to also find a cure... Yes, he does! And his feelings about the Rex are about to get so much more complicated... Okay, I'm so glad this is a better chapter. :)

 

Edited by spieles
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MRK’s ABCD, yaddah, yaddah, (A) = Awesome; (B) = Boring; (C) = Confusing; and (D) = Disbelief (-inducing), plus (G) Grammar/typo.

I enjoyed this version more than the last but, for me, it was not without flaws. I won’t replicate detailed comments below, but the biggest let down for me was Dion. I think he feels like stock NPC, and has no character. I am just at the point in RE Season 10 about characters the one of the exercises I’ve just completed was about taking a secondary character and making them the m/c. RE have mentioned before the danger of making a secondary character (POV) too interesting, but I think you could have written this same scene having Oz bounce off Brick and nothing would be lost.

Accessing the hospital is much better, but the lack of people is awful convenient. I liked before that Oz needed to circumvent a person, but just wasn’t convinced by the way you did it. And please don’t have him dress up as an orderly that is SOOOOOO overdone.

I think that mural is a darling you need to kill, it still doesn’t make sense.

The big win for me is the scene at the end, I like Oz’s discombobulation under Calgary’s attack – I think you could make that part more intense, play it up more. And I love Hayden’s intervention – again I think you could intensify it. The image of her at the end, windswept clutching these unconventional weapons is fantastic – get a good a good artist and put it on the cover!! Except she’s not the m/c – oops...

Nice job – it’s definitely better.

<R>

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

(G) – “Brick,” I say lowly” – I know what you mean, but it sounds weird. What’s wrong with ‘quietly’?

(C) – “which gives access to a bay directly between Turner and Krieger.” – do you mean between their offices?

(C) – “my heart pounds and my legs are stiff” – why?

(G) – “I wait for the east bound train” – one word, eastbound

(D) – “Cleaning bots sweep the floor in neat lines while the people wear suits or Penton uniforms” – wouldn’t the bots have to weave around the people walking through, or do they stop? I feel like it’s a recipe for passengers to trip over these things. How many bots are there? Seems like walking might be awkward.

(C) – “For as long I can grasp it, this is my new life” – not sure what is meant by this phrasing. Do you mean as long as he can take / bear it? ‘Grasp’ sounds more commonly used to mean ‘believe’. I don’t think it’s clear.

(C) – “The painting starts with” – do you mean the mural? You’ve just mentioned the previous painting, so this threw me off a bit.

(G) – “Only the for the second clam”

(D) – “In the center of the violent cycle, the gold-leafed Turner logo is garishly civilized” – I’ll say again, for this image to be displayed anywhere in a hospital is highly questionable. For me, this has a strong feeling of a darling that you need to kill. I don’t see how it serves any purpose.

(G) – “I find the source of the sounds coming from a utility closet” – the source doesn’t ‘come from’ the closet, the source is in the closet, the sounds come from the closet.

(C) – “Dion looks back and forth” – Oz doesn’t know his name yet.

(D) – “MY CLEANING BOT DID NOTHING TO YOU” – since when does Brick have a personality? I'm not sure we’ve seen this previously. Previous response (that I can remember) all seem very mechanical and logical.

(D) – “Robots have feelings too” – he’s being funny though, right? I'm now starting to doubt me assumptions about Brick.

(G) – “The sound is thankfully less of a bang and more of a pop, but when I open the closet door, the smoke is minimal.” – but’s not right here. I think minimal smoke is consistent with the pop, not at odds with it, but using ‘but’ suggests that the second does not follow from the first. I think ‘and’ the smoke is minimal is more appropriate.

(C) – “Dry ice ready?” – I don’t understand. Ah, okay, but feels disjointed. Where did they get the dry ice from? Hey, maybe they could have used the dry ice to make the metal of the grate brittle and then just snapped it out instead of causing an explosion. And again, where on earth did the dry ice come from?

(D) – “We’ve still yet to run into any security personnel.” – or any persons at all, the absence of people gets increasingly unbelievable the longer it goes on.

(C) – Why do they need masks to go in and see Calgary? I forget now what’s happened to him. Is he infected? If so, I‘ve also forgotten whether the thing is infectious. I thought it was to do with the air.

(C) – “Dion says something else, but the stairs lead down, and I take them two at a time,” – this is unclear to me. Why can’t Oz hear what Dion says, since it’s said before Oz goes down the stairs? I’d be much happier to hear Dion say, ‘I'm going the other way,’ or something like that.

(D) – “a glass hallway that rings a sunlit courtyard” – okay, so this is why they needed masks, but you didn’t reveal before that they were going to have to go outside. How did they now that? And I think you need to tell the reader so that the mask comment makes sense.

(G) – “a smiling conquering my face” – ‘a smile’, and conquering, really? That suggests the smile is fighting with something else. It seems a rather overblown phrase.

(G) – “You raised him.”

(G) – “In one hand she wields a taser” – to me, wields is the act of using the thing, as in she has just wielded the taser, but now is only holding it.

(G) – I really like the image of Hayden standing in a hospital gown holding these unusual weapons as the wind swirls around, but I don’t think you’ve quite sold it as well as you could. I think it could have a bigger visual impact. I also really like the way you cut the ‘glowing’ image off with her comment about his lack of a mask, that’s a nice zinger to end the chapter. I wonder if it would have more punch if you mention, very briefly, that she is masked, like ‘A masked Hayden throws herself between me and Calgary’ – not drawing too much attention, but just to remind the reader that people outside should be masked. Sorry, this smacks a bit of editorial, but I would really enthused by the scene and how it could be punched up.

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On 01/08/2016 at 11:05 PM, kaisa said:

Dion - always. love. Dion.

Really, why? I'm really interested to know what you latched onto about him. For me, he has a couple of vaguely lighthearted retorts, but otherwise does next to nothing. As noted above, I'm not sure why he's in this chapter other than to be introduced for later, but I would really like more character from him if he's going to be sticking around. To me, he's just going to get in the way of much more entertaining exchanges between Oz and Hayden or maybe Oz and Pascal.

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Hey Spieles,

This chapter reads great. I've got nothing to fuss over! I loved the "MY BOT DID NOTHING TO YOU" line. That's great characterization and comic relief. So much of this story is Oz taking himself seriously and those around him too because their world is so serious; moments of comic relief like this come off really well.

I agree with Robinski:

7 hours ago, Robinski said:

I think you could make that part more intense, play it up more.

Dion is way better, too. Instead of feeling like a distraction from the plot, he's adding to it. Nicely done!

Hope the next submission carries the story forward. These have been some really strong content improvements and I'm excited to see where it's leading next!

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12 hours ago, Robinski said:

Really, why?

Probably because I've read the whole thing, and this is my second time through. It's not that I love Dion the character, it's that I love what he brings to Oz. In the narrative I read, Oz came alive every time Dion was around. Dialogue flowed. Everything was crisper. I was engaged with the story line, really actively engaged with Oz. @spieles knows this genre and age group isn't my fav, so it can be hard for me to get involved with these types of stories. But every time Dion was in a chapter, I was right there

That's why I love him.

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Cool, that's good. Thinking back on this, I can see that Oz does respond somewhat differently ot different NPCs. Yeah, I guess maybe Oz was a bit more energised and active in this chapter. I had not immediately associated that with Dion. I'll be watching out for his positive influence now!

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All right, let's take a look here. Really sorry I let you slip last week, I just got tied up with a bunch of other things.

IIRC I liked the previous version of this one better than most. Let's see here~

page 1

I've missed enough of this story that this could very well be just me not having missed it-- but are there televised trials (fictional or otherwise) anymore in this setting? I'm probably a bit tangled; I don't have a great image of the infrastructure outside this city. That, I'm not going to call your fault, but it sticks out.

p.2

Still got a wonky sentence here: "Only the for the second clam to lie dead' Starting off a sentence with 'only' pretty much always feels a bit weird, and then there's some sorta typo or something going on there, I'm not 100% what you're getting at.

Should also be 'sacs' for the spider, yeah?

'stare at it in recognition' feels a bit off too, I feel like there's probably a better way to frame that.

There's something weird too, I think, about the way this mural is described-- it is a static picture, yeah? Something about the way time is being used in the description here is leading me to read it as a moving image.

'forks' into his hair? Not sure I get the vernacular here, though I can loosely extrapolate the meaning. The description of him is a bit odd tensewise, though. 'clutches a small tablet' is simple present and 'forks into his short afro' is present continuous; the result is a weird tangle of describing his state of being (clutching the tablet) and what he's doing (going for the hair). Probably best to break it up a little.

p.3

'has wired' I think that 'has' is sort of throwing off the casual tone of the voice here. he's or he'd wired might work better?

'Brick-- I mean the AI--' feels a little bit as-you-already-know here? Is there a reason the hacker wouldn't assume someone he's talking to would associate Brick with the AI?

p.4

You start using the name before he introduces himself.

'have not stopped buzzing' again, contracting would fit the voice better, I think; I don't think there's any appreciable emphasis added by separating them here (there is in the subsequent dialogue)

'Patient chair' seems like a weird word for it, idk.

p.5

Again, 'have cut', though the clause that ends the sentence would also benefit from a verb too, I think.

p.6

'The wind knocked out of me etc' this sentence goes on way too long, I think, and in too many directions. Probably better breaking it up a little, I think?

second raise should be past tense.

'Gapes at me with wide eyes' feels a bit redundant. I think here's a case where you could cut narration, though too, I think you'd want to contract; decontracting "where's" to "where is" is a little deliberate for the sort of shock you want here.

Otherwise, yeah, I was a little iffy at the prospect of revision on this beforehand, but this flows a lot more smoothly even than before. Much more in the way of actual character work than before. Much better than previous.

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- I really still like the back-talking from Brick.

- The painting you've described at the beginning of the page break seems way too complex to be a painting - there's too much implied motion.

- "Calgary from my trading post." seems a bit awkward.

- I like the action between Calgary, Oz and Hayden - and the reveal at the end.

- it's been a while since I've read a recent chapter, but I am really excited about the direction of this story. 

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On 8/3/2016 at 2:27 AM, Robinski said:

MRK’s ABCD, yaddah, yaddah, (A) = Awesome; (B) = Boring; (C) = Confusing; and (D) = Disbelief (-inducing), plus (G) Grammar/typo.

I enjoyed this version more than the last but, for me, it was not without flaws. I won’t replicate detailed comments below, but the biggest let down for me was Dion. I think he feels like stock NPC, and has no character. I am just at the point in RE Season 10 about characters the one of the exercises I’ve just completed was about taking a secondary character and making them the m/c. RE have mentioned before the danger of making a secondary character (POV) too interesting, but I think you could have written this same scene having Oz bounce off Brick and nothing would be lost.

Accessing the hospital is much better, but the lack of people is awful convenient. I liked before that Oz needed to circumvent a person, but just wasn’t convinced by the way you did it. And please don’t have him dress up as an orderly that is SOOOOOO overdone.

I think that mural is a darling you need to kill, it still doesn’t make sense.

The big win for me is the scene at the end, I like Oz’s discombobulation under Calgary’s attack – I think you could make that part more intense, play it up more. And I love Hayden’s intervention – again I think you could intensify it. The image of her at the end, windswept clutching these unconventional weapons is fantastic – get a good a good artist and put it on the cover!! Except she’s not the m/c – oops...

Nice job – it’s definitely better.

Ah, this week is eating me at work! Sorry for the slow response. Your line-by-lines are wonderful. Yeah, Dion isn't supposed to leap off the page necessarily in this chapter--that comes in later chapters as he develops into Oz's antagonist--but so far I think all of my beta readers would agree that he has the most compelling subplot in the novel. I'm going to add in some extra details to support the disbelief issues on the lack of people in the clinic. Yeah, I know I need to do something with the mural, but I keep changing my mind on what exactly that is, and therefore it keeps hanging out like a placeholder. We shall say. And hahaha, yeah, Hayden on the cover. Thank you so so very much.

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On 8/3/2016 at 4:57 PM, kaisa said:

Which reminds me. @spieles when this thing goes to print, you can expect my slash fiction to be 100% Oz/Dion

LOL. Oz/Dion slash fiction would be unsurprising. Lord, I don't even want to know what ideas the FF community could come up with when taking the Rex into account (which is to say, I'd expect heaps of mpreg -- but anyway...).

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On 8/3/2016 at 10:08 AM, krystalynn03 said:

Hey Spieles,

This chapter reads great. I've got nothing to fuss over! I loved the "MY BOT DID NOTHING TO YOU" line. That's great characterization and comic relief. So much of this story is Oz taking himself seriously and those around him too because their world is so serious; moments of comic relief like this come off really well.

I agree with Robinski: make that part more intense, play it up more

Dion is way better, too. Instead of feeling like a distraction from the plot, he's adding to it. Nicely done!

Hope the next submission carries the story forward. These have been some really strong content improvements and I'm excited to see where it's leading next!

Thank you for the feedback, my lovely friend! Yeah, Oz requires lots of comic relief. He's a straight character so we need people to play off of him. And this is probably one of those scenes that I need to come back to with fresh eyes again before I fluff up the emotional impact, but I see everyone's point.

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On 8/3/2016 at 9:29 PM, neongrey said:

All right, let's take a look here. Really sorry I let you slip last week, I just got tied up with a bunch of other things.

You are not the only one! I'm behind on everything while trying to catch up on all of these revisions. Ahh. 

Page 1

I've missed enough of this story that this could very well be just me not having missed it-- but are there televised trials (fictional or otherwise) anymore in this setting? I'm probably a bit tangled; I don't have a great image of the infrastructure outside this city. That, I'm not going to call your fault, but it sticks out.

The short answer is that there isn't  much. I'd say that Aurum is a modern day city-state, and that everywhere else are small homesteads in the wild west. Information from the city is free flowing internally and is disseminated in a much less consistent way for the trading posts outside.

Thank you for the fabulous line by lines! All are helpful. 

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On 8/4/2016 at 0:31 PM, rdpulfer said:

- I really still like the back-talking from Brick. heh. me too - so i'm glad it's working.

- The painting you've described at the beginning of the page break seems way too complex to be a painting - there's too much implied motion. yeah, I have to rethink it.

- "Calgary from my trading post." seems a bit awkward. point.

- I like the action between Calgary, Oz and Hayden - and the reveal at the end.

- it's been a while since I've read a recent chapter, but I am really excited about the direction of this story.  thank you so much for taking time to give feedback. :)

 

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