ASD - Chapter 3 (again) and 5 (new) - kaisa 8/22/16 (L, V, S) 5,643 words

[kais]

Our 'S' here is for sexual tension. All very angst at this point. Nothing tangible. Be ye not afraid.

I reworked chapter three, and would like to hear your thoughts on if it. I am primarily concerned with the ending - do you get a feel of impending doom (or something akin) with the ships massing? Should I spend more time there? 

Between chapters three and five there is a substantial uptick in sexual tension. I think. I hope. I have a romance critique group I just joined just to deal with this book (a romance writer I am not), and they’re pleased with the progression. So my question now is, does it work for a SFF audience? 

Things should be getting smoother with the writing now, as I’ve just moved to draft four. LBLs are greatly appreciated at this stage, along with hard core comments on character development. I’m also always after help with tension.

[spieles]

Chapter 3 Notes

So I did LBLs and then forgot that my job has security that rips out track changes unless you code it not too - so I'll see if I can resend tomorrow. In the meantime, my comments on Chapter 3...

- Nicholas's physical comfort level with Em seems to come out of the blue right now, given that she's, like, right out of puberty with newly bouncy reproductive organs. I'd expect to have much more tension and discomfort between the two of them as Em discovers her sexuality. Note: I LOVE characters figuring out their sexuality.  Even if Em still views him as a brother or uncle-figure and wants that affection, I'd expect Nicholas to try and give her a certain degree of space that would be natural for an adult-adult relationship as opposed to an adult - child relationship - or at least for them to have exchanges to discuss the discuss comfort, e.g. "It feels weird sitting next to you. Two months ago I could lift you with one arm, and now,  you're ... full grown." To which Em adamantly declares that nothing has changed and she wants CUDDLES okay?

- I felt like there were too many interludes of interiority - especially with the bang bang over the head romance - that slowed down the tension when they were in the middle of a space battle. 

- The romance at this stage is a little too obvious for me. I want to be teased and flirted with. I want so much delicious awkwardness - and I tried to point out where you were banging the drum too hard.

- I hated the section where Ne got whiny over her not being able to a thing on the ship. Anger. Frustration. Yes Complaining unprompted? No. 

- When we get to the part where Ne colors and is embarrassed - I'm so confused by it. Just because she's been avoiding Em? It feels very wishy washy and out of character right now. I'd expect Ne to want to leave and shutdown all over again - except that the high stakes of the situation would stop her from leaving the room. Not become bashful.

- With the hundred ships, I didn't really get an impending sense of doom. I'm was too confused by the setup and trying to figure it out. The reader needs more step-by-step spelling out of the stakes here – ideally with dialogue.The assumption based on the previous book is that the Mnuggl, etc. would be attacking Risal. Instead they’re collaborating.Some back and forth dialogue with accompanying disbelief from the characters would be good to give a sense of the galactic stakes here.

[kais]

@spieles With the delay in posting your thread I thought perhaps baby was on the way! Thank you, as always, for the thorough feedback.

Re: Nick - I've been edging on how to develop him as a sexual being for a long time, and realized a few weeks ago (when going through past versions where there was Nick / M adolescent amusement) that 1) that sort of interaction juvenilizes M when in fact she is more 'adult' now than Nick, and 2) I seem to be getting pushback from Nick on that type of interplay. Nick might be asexual, or at least, only marginally sexual. Anyway, I'm toying with their interplay, trying to decide what best to do. I like them more as conspirators, somewhat childish in that regard. Basically I'm unsure at this point if I want to get into the potential interplay between them, because I've dallied in that area, and it had unexpected consequences. 

I agree on the interiority interludes. I need to find a way to get the log information integrated in a better way. Hmm. 

Re: romance - I do want blatant, aggressive attraction from M. Her lack of background in pretty much anything, along with Hello! adulthood, gives her a very strong push to pursue. Maybe in contrast then I should scale back Ne's response to next to nothing? Would that help balance it better? I want Ne to play the avoidance game until about halfway through the book, but still understand that she does have these feelings. 

3 hours ago, spieles said:

Ne got whiny over her not being able to a thing on the ship

Is this the food printer section?

3 hours ago, spieles said:

where Ne colors and is embarrassed - I'm so confused by it

The one in the first chapter or the second? The one in the second chapter is so mild, and could be misconstrued as being part of the captain issue. The first chapter one is clearly romance induced, but I could see Ne's reaction being also one of just anger. It depends I think on how deeply M is affecting her at any given time. If it's a real effect, the reaction would be more of bashfulness, as Ne is inherently an internal being, which she covers with bravado and cursing. If it's an effect mild enough that she can shrug it off, if it doesn't penetrate her physical barriers, anger would be an appropriate response. In the first chapter, M's jibe is childish enough to go either way on Ne. Would the anger reaction work better for you?

3 hours ago, spieles said:

I'm was too confused by the setup and trying to figure it out

Yup. Upon read through today I came to the same conclusion. There's a mental interplay now between Ne and M to discuss the past situation and the broader weapons implication. 

Thank you so much! Hope you are getting a bit of sleep these days!

[Hobbit]

In Chapter 3, my brain spent most of its energy dealing with the learning curve, so I don’t have a lot of feedback.  I didn’t get a sense of doom at the end of chapter 3, but again, I didn’t really understand what’s going on (still kind of unclear on who’s who and what their relationships are to each other), which might be due to the fact that this is the beginning of book 3 in a series, right?  Although it sounds like spieles had the same problem.  But keep in mind that I don’t read a lot of science fiction, so I’m a little farther behind than probably most of your readers will be.

I thought the sexual tension works well in both chapters.  It was a little blatant, but I still thought it was well done.  I like how you incorporate their telepathic link into it.  As a reader, I expect you to continue to take the attraction + telepathy in creative directions.

I only have two specific comments:

Ne winced at the title… I didn’t expect her to be wincing at the title here - but I did expect her to wince at the inviting comment from Em.  

The name of Captain Ef keeps throwing me.  It’s the same way people spell “F-ing” when they don't want to actually use the f-word, and unfortunately I didn’t get over it as I read.   

[kais]

Thank you for reading, @Hobbit!

11 hours ago, Hobbit said:

didn’t get a sense of doom at the end of chapter 3,

I've since fixed this per @spieles's suggestion. Adding dialogue really helped.

11 hours ago, Hobbit said:

It was a little blatant,

Yes. Last version it was so subtle it was hard to define what type of tension it even was. I need to work on an in-between.

11 hours ago, Hobbit said:

As a reader, I expect you to continue to take the attraction + telepathy in creative directions.

Aheheheheheh....

11 hours ago, Hobbit said:

I didn’t expect her to be wincing at the title here

I'll be curious to see if other's catch here. The death of their captain should hang heavily on everyone still, and taking the captain title should be a thing hesitantly done. So if that isn't coming through I clearly need to lay better groundwork.

11 hours ago, Hobbit said:

The name of Captain Ef keeps throwing me.

LOL! That never occurred to me. Well, don't worry. We don't meet him again this book.

 

Again, thank you!

[spieles]

Sending you LBLs separately...

Big Comments on Chapter 5 - 

Hrm. My main thought with this chapter is that not much happens other than Ne rubs Em with a cloth, Ne angst a lot over the captain title, and they get permission to land on the planet. None of this is bad, but in toto with the pattern of the three previous chapters, I think it's too slow to hold the reader. We've spent a lot of time on the ship at the point with a lot of character stuff. It's a repeat of the last two chapters: they show up, they see ships, they try to send messages, get a response (though obviously this time the response is better than being fired at). I'm not sure we need any of that, really. I'd definitely consider having them directly receive landing permissions and get down on the planet. Action!

I'm not liking Ne's reaction to being called "Captain." It's overblown - especially for someone who has gone through military training and is as strong as she is. Having her feel some sadness or wanting to poo-poo the title would be one thing, but the melodrama with her complaining and Em apologizing makes Ne come off as immature and makes me like her less. Also, I didn't necessarily buy that in a crew of only three members there would be this insistent need to call Ne "captain" outside of formal situations. It came off as a little forced from that direction too.

[kais]

2 hours ago, spieles said:

My main thought with this chapter is that not much happens

I'd been going back and forth with this for a while, so it's nice to hear some confirmation. Chapter 5 was once the beginning of chapter 7, wherein they do land on the planet. But the chapter was way long, and I thought I'd best break it into two parts. Unfortunately the first part now does not stand on its own. I'm going to put them back together, trim the first bit down to bones, and do another read through. I think that will solve the slowness issue.

2 hours ago, spieles said:

I'm not liking Ne's reaction to being called "Captain

Ne's reluctance to lead when M is even remotely involved is an important theme for the book. Basically, I had three goals for this chapter. Maybe people can comment on how well they came through?

1) Ne is reluctant to lead in anything even remotely involving M

2) Nick shows growth of comfortability in being able to jab Ne publicly

3) Reinforcement of the friendship between M and Nick as M joins the much-needed ribbing of Neek

If Ne is coming off a little immature here, I'm OK with that. She gets to do a  lot of growing up in this book, but the events that force that are only just coming in to play.

thank you, spieles!

[spieles]

1 minute ago, kaisa said:

Ne's reluctance to lead when M is even remotely involved is an important theme for the book. Basically, I had three goals for this chapter. Maybe people can comment on how well they came through?

1) Ne is reluctant to lead in anything even remotely involving M

2) Nick shows growth of comfortability in being able to jab Ne publicly

3) Reinforcement of the friendship between M and Nick as M joins the much-needed ribbing of Neek

If Ne is coming off a little immature here, I'm OK with that. She gets to do a  lot of growing up in this book, but the events that force that are only just coming in to play.

Hrm. So I think none of the above are bad goals, story-wise, but I think you might be taking the competence/likability sliders a little too far in one direction in order to beef up Em and Nic. After all, I want to still like Ne and I feel like right now there's too much complaining coming from her - as opposed to some good fun arguing and sarcasm. 

Anyhoo, I'll let others way in. I think streamlining the chapter more will also help with this.

[kais]

@spieles actually, your LBLs helped a great deal with the above. I've changed the end paragraph just a bit too, to give the chapter some more relevant punch, and I think it might stand on its own now. The streamlining did help a lot. Thank you!

 

 

[Vreeah]

Here we go, from the top!

Chapter 3, Page 1

Currently have little idea what's going on. I think they're in a spaceship.

Chapter 3, Page 2

Yeah, spaceship. Ah okay, so she wasn't wounded in combat or anything. It's a control system drawback that's getting worse. Hm, she must be really determined.

Proud of her new appearance.

Chapter 3, Page 3

Eight fingered hand? I wonder how it's arranged. I'd bet it's a 4-4 clamp. Could be more than two arms, too.

Experienced and confident leader in the house.

Chapter 3, Page 4

Syncing for memories. I wonder what's the ratio for original versus secondhand memories here.

Colonized moons, so everyone seems to be high on the tech tier.

Bad history between their cultures?

Chapter 3, Page 5

It is at this point, at the mention of a past war, that I have become more aware of the exposition. The realization likely hit me because they didn't do anything I recognized as people saying hello.

The scene immediately jumped to action, though, so it was a good time to shift.

Chapter 3, Page 6

She's getting beaten into a pulp, but doesn't seem to mind. Reckless.

Chapter 3, Page 7

This is a rather messy command structure. Feels very personal.

Chapter 3, Page 8

Star travel stuff. It seems they salvaged or took control of this ship from elsewhere.

Chapter 3, Page 9

The shift from spoken to mental word threw me off a bit. Needed to reread that part when I noticed my impression of the scene was becoming lopsided.

Chapter 3, Page 10

Hm, this didn't land for me. I wonder why. First guess is that the innuendo was too subtle for the extreme reaction.

Chapter 3, Page 11

I think this reveal of the amount of ships was meant to be more shocking that it is. Feels more like a catalog than a panoramic view.

Chapter 3, Page 12

I'm guessing they don't have people to report to, if this information didn't need to get passed on to anyone.

Chapter 5, Page 1-2

Backdrop. Some unfamiliar anatomy and frustrated characters. They're not enjoying their adventure.

Chapter 5, Page 3

Not a proud captain.

Also, are they talking to each other whenever we see their thoughts, or is that little line completely internal? I can't tell for sure. I assume it's the former since we seem to be in the captain's viewpoint.

Chapter 5, Page 4

Leader without faith in herself. That should get messy, later. The break seems to be a good call, at least.

Chapter 5, Page 5

I feel like permission should've been requested from the captain in some form before the controller decided to bring up an audio connection.

Chapter 5, Page 6

I wonder what the other ship thought about the sputtering improvisation. Maybe they'll pass it off as a quirk of the different language.

Chapter 5, Page 7

Ha. Rude buggers, intentional or not. I kind of like them.

Nice, peaceful conversation. Nothing sinister at all.

Chapter 5, Page 8

How charmingly awkward.

Chapter 5, Page 9

I do not yet understand her questions enough to be curious about them, myself.

===

Hindsight

Hm. Gang of misfits in space is what I'm getting from here so far. They have traveled to and gazed upon two planets, but have only had their scenes set in the ship. Most interactions were to establish personalities, relationships, and history.

Piloting the ship is a terrible experience, yet our current pilot seems to be the only one that can do it, since the other two never offered to take the reins. She desperately wants to reach their goal location, wherever it may be.

Joke guy has jokes and elbow nudging. No idea what he's doing here. I don't think he's much of a medic, and that flight suit wasn't made for him. The pilot is doing all the navigating. He did have a traveling method suggestion, so I'll guess engineer, even though he doesn't have tools or anything else on him to indicate that. Perhaps an unspecialized cadet?

Miss captain is jumpy. She is not in much shape to command, and is under a lot of stress. I wonder how they ended up in this situation.

[rdpulfer]

- As usual, I like your choice of opening, in particular, "You are Neek, but it does not always have to be so."

- I like Nicholas, Neek and Ermn's interaction in the third chapter.

- Nicholas telling Neek to get it together after she brings up Yorden seems unnecessarily harsh.

- i know I'm immature, but I did chuckle when I heard his name was Captain Effin. 

- Very curious to see what happens when they get planetside. 

[Robinski]

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

There some good stuff in these chapters. I'm far happier with the mood and body language between Em and Ne here compared to previous perspectives. The stuff with the dress and her awareness of the change in her body is well done. I do think there is a limit to how long two people can struggle with a relationship in such proximity, geographically and physically. The more intense the tension, the more short lived in duration, I think would apply, before something ‘breaks’.

Other details below. I'm still much less interested in the search for Ard than in their various relationships. That’s okay up to a point, but since the search is the point of everything they are doing it leaves me bored with talk of finding Ard. I think you need a much, much better reason for them to be searching for Ard, like Em is going to die in a year if they don’t find it. I dunno, something.

<R>

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

Chapter 3

(G) – “We can’t keep using it” – This sounds like they come and go from the ship. I was thinking more in terms of them being on board continuously, in which case “We need to stop using it” – would seem to be more appropriate.

(D) – “She pulled away as a streak of laser light hit the cockpit. Em fell against the interface and slid to the floor as Ne’s shoulder hit the black panelling and cracked it. Nicholas ended up on top of Em, and they had only just managed to sort out their arms and legs when a ferry dove underneath the pod, came up on the stern, and shot from the opposite direction. Nicholas and Em were tossed into the far wall.” – Ahem, we’ve been here before. The action feels weightless, kind of like CGI. There’s the streak or laser light, there’s the shot from astern. The next thing in both instances is people being thrown around, but there’s a missing link. Theirs is a reaction to a force being exerted on them. We see the cause of the force, but not the direct force itself. You need something like “...a streak of laser light hit the cockpit. The deck beneath them shuddered, and Em was pitched against the interface...” or “and shot from the opposite direction. The pod slewed left, tossing Nicholas and Em into the far wall”

(A) – “Blood vessels burst instantly, but Em didn’t bother to deal with stemming the flow” – Awesome line!

(D) – “Em crashed into the panel in front of her, her forehead and nose taking the brunt of the force” – I don’t buy this. What’s she doing with her hands? I guess maybe she doesn’t need to touch the controls, but I would have thought she’d be at least holding or leaning on the panel since she’s been thrown against it once already.

(C) – “with the scant others they’d had since her metamorphosis” – the use of ‘scant’ here tripped me up.

(G) – “Continuously disabling them” – I feel like the word here is ‘constantly’. I think ‘Continuously’ implies disabling without interruption, but that would mean the Nugs couldn’t follow them.

Chapter 5

(C) – “Now is the time to break away from Ard rule” – Huh? I don’t understand this. Does this mean there is another part of the galaxy under Ard rule?

(D) – “For a station it didn’t seem very well trafficked” – Really? Sounds like there is a fair amount of coming and going. Let’s say ‘a handful’ means 5 moving in that minute, that’s like 300 an hour. Okay, the rate won’t be constant, but even an average of 100 an hour could be 1,000 ships over 10 hours – that seems fairly well trafficked to me, certainly not poorly.

(B) – “The gesture earned her a tired smile and Emn leaned into Neek, taking advantage of the support she provided” – telling, and redundant.

(C) – “the planet does have two moons, so it seems a little unlikely this is Ard” – unlikely? I'm thinking impossible, unless the Ards decided the fancied decorating their orbit while they were here and moved a couple of moons in from somewhere.

(G) – “the travesty of Nug architecture” – something wrong with this. Travesty is defined (in one place) as ‘a false, absurd, or distorted representation of something’. But the Nug architecture is not representing anything else. If you said ‘this travesty of space ship architecture’ you are clearly saying what it is a travesty of.

(A) – “I think Yorden would appreciate the honor of having a stolen ship named after him” – lol.

(D) – “I am Captain Ef...” – He’s very free with all this information. Would you give your entire family composition to a complete stranger?

(G) – “What were they about to step into”

 

Edited August 30, 2016 by Robinski

[Mandamon]

Quick reply:

I had similar reactions to Robinksi (no surprise) in that I liked the extra sexual tension in Ch 3, even if it was a bit blatant.  However, I was also still confused by the ships at the end.

Ch5:
Ard. rule - interesting.  I didn't know they had an empire.

pg 15: "We could get some fast print"
--what is this?

pg 21: "Keft. Had Ard. really come here?"
--Does the ship follow the Ard signature?
 

I'll second that not a lot happens.  I'm a little lost between the search for Ard, lots of new species, and Ne vs. M vs. Nick.  Like Robinski, I'm more interested in the relationships at this point than anything else.

[kais]

@Vreeah thank you for the stream of consciousness! It's amazingly helpful as a gauge of reader reaction, especially since you are new to the story. 'Gang of misfits' is a pretty pat description. There were more crew members, originally, but a few met an untimely demise in book one. This is who remains. Much baggage.

On August 28, 2016 at 1:58 PM, rdpulfer said:

You are Neek, but it does not always have to be so."

*cough* Entire plot of series *cough*

On August 28, 2016 at 1:58 PM, rdpulfer said:

Nicholas telling Ne to get it together after she brings up Yo seems unnecessarily harsh.

This was supposed to be in reference to her pulling away from M. Clearly flubbed that. Editing.

On August 30, 2016 at 0:09 AM, Robinski said:

I do think there is a limit to how long two people can struggle with a relationship in such proximity, geographically and physically. The more intense the tension, the more short lived in duration, I think would apply, before something ‘breaks’.

You are so right. Chapter five represents the apex of this trend. It's all coasting downhill to, er, well, climax, from here on out.

On August 30, 2016 at 0:09 AM, Robinski said:

I'm still much less interested in the search for Ard than in their various relationships

I had planned on relationships driving the first quarter of the book as I lay the groundwork for the overarching plot. So if the relationships are strong, I'm happy. I've edited per our discussion in the 'serials' thread to have a brief snippet on their motivations for finding the planet, so hopefully that clears up the 'why do we care that they are doing this' question.

On August 30, 2016 at 0:09 AM, Robinski said:

Ahem, we’ve been here before

I will perpetually need called out on this. I managed, through finely tuned navigation, to avoid physics from high school through graduate school. Then I had this great idea to write a book in space. My next series is going to be in a forest. No guns. Going to stick with biology and chemistry.

On August 30, 2016 at 0:09 AM, Robinski said:

Does this mean there is another part of the galaxy under Ard rule?

So these epigraphs now should be really building the external conflict, just as they did in AFD. It'll be slow, but I think satisfying in the long run. In later parts of AFD we did learn: 

Spoiler

that the Mmnnuggls are part of a muti-system Alliance. They take orders from the Eld (who are not yet defined as 'The Eld of Ard-', which is a reveal in chapter two of ASD, and better explored in the upcoming chapter.

Other edits done. Thank you, @Robinski!

On August 30, 2016 at 9:11 AM, Mandamon said:

that I liked the extra sexual tension

Sexual tension polling well across all demographics. Solid.

On August 30, 2016 at 9:11 AM, Mandamon said:

what is this?

A running gag from book one, and dealt with a bit more in a few chapters. Cheap food can be had from 'fast print' food shops. The food is printed with perforations for easy segmenting (food printers that use cellulose are like five years away from being a real thing. I've seen prototypes). Hence, the food is called 'perf'. Fast food running joke throughout.

On August 30, 2016 at 9:11 AM, Mandamon said:

Does the ship follow the Ard signature?

@Mandamon unsure what you are asking here. Could you elaborate?

 

Thank you, everyone!

[Mandamon]

1 hour ago, kaisa said:

unsure what you are asking here. Could you elaborate?

Yep--Ne was questioning if the Ard had showed up at the station.  I wasn't sure if she was just guessing based on the farming practices, or if they had some tracker I wasn't aware of.  Especially coupled with "how close to the Neek homeworld was it possible to be?" made it sound like they had an idea of the location, but as I far as I remembered they were just blindly guessing.

[kais]

@Mandamon sounds like I need to clean up the language. She was basing it on the farming practice similarities alone, and that the planet was mentioned in one of the holy books. I'll go edit now. thank you!

[Robinski]

12 hours ago, kaisa said:

Then I had this great idea to write a book in space.

Rofl - At a basic level, it's east enough, follow the 'force' / momentum. Laser hits ship; ship's  structure 'reacts'; ship's movement acts on crew and hey presto, everyone's on their a*s.

Edited September 1, 2016 by Robinski