Reading Exuses - 6/26/17 - Wisps of Aether - AetherRealm ch. 3 and 4

[Ace of Hearts]

Hey, everyone. Sorry I'm a day late on this. Thanks to everyone who critiqued my first submission for AetherRealm. These chapters go from where we left off with a new PoV.

 

Summary: Lyra and her friend Gerald get caught in the midst of an invasion and need to figure out how to survive a foreign occupation. Lyra looks for hidden food stores and meets a mysterious woman who goes by Lady Ashaya. 

 

For these chapters, I'm wondering how the characters of Gerald and Lady Ashaya come off. I've rewritten Ashaya multiple times so that her actions and affiliations (or lack thereof) would make more sense in the context of the overall setting. I'm not sure if it left any rough edges around her character. Gerald is a combination of two characters from earlier drafts with vastly different personalities, so I want to see if he stays consistent.

 

And as always, feel free to talk about anything else you see.

 

Cheers,

Wisps    

[kais]

Overall

I had some... large issues with this submission. I almost couldn't finish it. The story is potentially intriguing, but there were two large red flags that went up. 

1) race relations: you've got a potential 'light skin good, dark skin bad' thing going on, which is problematic. I suggest maybe looking at implicit bias, or taking some of these quizzes (and helping science at the same time!), and maybe thinking a bit about how we portray protagonists and antagonists in fiction:

clicky clicky for implicit bias testing

2) rape: It's not a plot device. It's not something to use in place of descriptive writing. It's not something to write about at all unless you understand the ramifications of it, and it is definitely something you put a content warning in for when you sub. We have guidelines on this for a reason, because rape, attempted rape, issues of non-consent, they are super triggering for people, especially survivors. It's existence in your sub was almost...flippant, and that is not a good way to go with rape. I suggest reading some articles about this subject and considering removing it from your piece altogether.

I encourage you to keep writing and developing this piece. We only get better by keeping at it.

 

As I go

- general agent advice I have received is that you don't want to change up POV characters so early in a story. Let us get invested in one set for several chapters before moving to another, especially if you are an early writer

- No, Lyra thought. They might even… force themselves upon me. Technically, they might rape either of them. That's not a strictly female victim thing. Regardless, I'd expect much more emotional reaction after having that thought.

- “In fact, we’re only invading their homes because General Kron allowed it. If he didn’t explicitly say that it was okay…” Show, don't tell

- page two: and Lyra again makes a comment about rape, and has no emotional reaction to it

- page four: the interchange between Lyra and the boy falls a bit flat. I don't feel any real danger or menace because Lyra isn't reacting, and there isn't enough description of the invader solider people to make me feel afraid

- end of page five: took too long to actually look outside. At this point I'm getting dialogue fatigue.

- page six: need a LOT more description if we are in a new plane of existence. Wow me!

- page seven: how old is Gerald? Lyra calls him her best friend, but he acts and talks sort of like a little brother, maybe six or seven

- page seven: what does the town look like? What do the buildings look like? What are they made from? 

- page eight: so Lyra has very real fears of being raped, but goes out into town to get food, and then has no plan for how to avoid soldiers? Also, I'm just not feeling her fear, or the menace.

- page nine: I'm going to ask you to put a content warning on this, because the scene is devolving and you have no (V) or (NC) tags to denote rape, or attempted rape. And you are certainly alluding to it. 

- page ten: Lady Ashaya doesn't seem to emote much, either. Harassing? That was clearly more than harassing. Followed by a command to 'get lost'? Stronger words are needed here, I think.

- page ten: Okay, let's take a break and cover some basic rape/rape culture/survivor stuff. Lyra was clearly being assaulted by a group of men, with intent to rape. Lady A sees this. After dismissing the men, her first words are:

“Sorry about that,” Lady Ashaya said. She put on a friendly smile, which looked surprisingly...

Issues in this scene are as follows: 1) lack of emotion (I don't get a feeling that anyone took this scene seriously, because I see no emotion); 2) lack of urgency (do rapes just happen everyday? This event is treated like someone spit in her hair); 3) response 

We have already hit on one and two, so let's talk about three. If you were walking in an alley, and saw a woman surrounded by men who were coming towards her, and she wasn't outright encouraging them ("Hey yeah! I've always dreamed of a group thing! Let's go back to my place, gentlemen, and get you some leather collars...) how would you react? After the men left, you would probably first ask the woman if she was alright. She was the one almost raped, and it was for her wellbeing that you intervened. So first one would inquire about her state of being. Next, you would probably offer to take her somewhere safe, or escort her to her destination. Again, concern for the person. 

Apologizing for the actions of the people (assuming they were under your command, or just members of your gender), would be... not wise at any stage. When you apologize for them, you partially dismiss their actions as not really entirely all their fault. The only ones who should apologize in this scenario are the would-be rapists. 

In the end, rape isn't a plot device to be batted around so that an author can lend severity to a situation without doing any work. Rape is a real thing, with real world context, and when it gets used as just a 'thing that sorta happens and no one takes it too seriously', you delegitimize the experience of rape victims. 

My suggestions would be to either remove it entirely, or give it the weight it deserves in the narrative. Either would work just fine.

- “I know that it’s hard, but try not to blame them too harshly.” No apologetic language, please, unless there is a real reason for your character doing so (if it is 'in character', that is fine, but this doesn't seem to be)

- page 11: it is not okay to equate rape to schoolyard bullying. Ever. How quickly the event is being rationalized is highly troublesome

- page 13: If Lyra is really that concerned about rape, I don't think she would so easily send her one defender away. Why not ask the lady to escort her to the food and then back home, since she seems so sympathetic?

- page 13-14: so she just carries on with her day, no problem, despite everything that has happened?

[rdpulfer]

- Saying Lyra's father "relied on orders" doesn't really make him sound that competent, any more then having experience watching people die. I understand Lyra is totally unprepared for this situation, but you might want to find other reasons for it. 

- "If we put up resistance, maybe they'll get bored and go somewhere else." Okay, this is a really funny line . . . if it's made to be funny. But in the middle of the current situation, it feels very serious, and doesn't quite fit.

- I do like the last line of Chapter 3, and in general I like to see how Lyra is reacting to everything.

- One general note: the characters - in particular the Xirans - seem way too forthright, telling their names to the people they are invading and even apologizing for their character faults (in the case of Lady Ashaya). I like that you give them personalities, but it seems a bit . . . weird.

 

 

[industrialistDragon]

I am... confused and troubled by this submission. 

The confused part is mostly to do with plot. Much like last time, it's very hard for me to figure out what's going on, or more importantly, WHY it's going on. 

"We’re not here for them"  I am very VERY confused by the logic in this line. 

Grammar-wise... 

 

". If you cooperate…" There are 3 trailing sentences in the span of 9 lines here, all performing more or less the same function, then two more within a couple paragraphs of each other on the next page. It's not a bad formation per se, but three in close proximity are the kind of grammar oddity that throws people (like me) right out of a narrative. People trail off all the time in real conversations, but unfortunately, in prose the dialogue is expected to resolve itself much more often. 

 

These chapters are also a bit too dialogue-heavy, as were the previous ones you submitted, so I'm sure you know about that already. I'm noticing more repetitiveness in the exchanges between the two characters. Again, I lack a good deal of description, or any sense of grounding in a place. The two protagonists start out a bit better than the first ones, because Gerald in particular showed a reaction to the events that were happening to them and around them. This gets lost a bit as the chapters progress, however.  

 

I would really have loved to have had that end line been worked into the weave of the story more, been shown the bird and how Lyra comes to realize what it's doing. It sounds very interesting and I want more of it! 

 

Most of this is relatively easy to fix, either through more chapters, more description, or more grammar-focused editing passes.

The troubling parts are trickier. 

 

I am troubled by the description of Lady A as light-skinned, especially in comparison to the rest of the "bad" guys being described as being darker.  Descriptions are good! And there's nothing wrong with Lady A being light-skinned. However, given the lack of description elsewhere, and in the context of the rest of this submission and the previous one, there are some unfortunate implications with the way things are currently set up. @kais is spot-on about this. 

 

I am also troubled by the interactions Lyra has with the soldiers, both in her home and out in the world. @kais described the issue better than I could, so I would just add a few things. First being to ask "why" -- WHY are these interactions included in the story? What purpose do they serve? They're not moving the plot-about-the-portal forward, nor do they expand on the why-Lyra-is-special plot (we're merely told, twice, in an offhand way that she is special. the actual events are irrelevant to these statements. The lines could have been delivered just as well over tea and biscuits). The scenes lack the description necessary for them to serve as useful sketches of culture, village life, or character development for either the protagonists or the antagonists. The first, in the house, feels like its an obligatory armies-must-pillage scene (we know from last chapter they're not staying long -- they didn't even bring any supply chain with them. Is discipline so bad they can't even keep control of their soldiers for this short a period?), and the second feels gratuitous, a way to show that the villains are bad guys (and Lady A *Is Different* by comparison, but then she goes on that apologist monologue and I did have to go away from the piece for a little bit at that. There are better places to show how mob mentality makes decent people do terrible things. Directly after an assault is not one of them).

 

if you want to avoid unfortunate implications like these, one of the best things to do with a work is figure out the "whys" of a character, and figure out how they are like and unlike (but primarily unlike) the stereotypes they're based on.  It's okay to use stereotypes as a starting point if you have to, but no one is 100% the archetype they embody. 

[Mandamon]

Yep - @kais and @industrialistDragon hit a big point I was going to make, and much better, so I'll just second that the whole rape thing did not work very well. In general, there's still lots of Maid and Butler, when L and G tell each other the things that they both know. Lots of telling as well. Show us L's reactions and feelings. part of the disconnect I get while reading this is because I don't have any reaction from L, or very static/telling ones.

Notes while reading:

pg 2: those are very polite soldiers. It takes away from the tension for a bunch of soldiers to burst in, and then effectively ask to borrow a cup of flour, if they have it available.

pg 3: Why does the boy solider need a walking stick?

Pg 4: and back to the soldiers being very polite, this time about the very suspicious bok of gold. I think it's because the boy doesn't have a lot of emotion, so I can't say if he's calmly saying these things, or what expression he has, or if he's even interested if the search.

pg 4: Why does L need to know the boy's name?

pg 5: “How did you stand up to the Xirans? I thought that they were going to kill us.”
--I didn't get this impression. In fact they specifically said they wouldn't hurt L and G.

“Trust me, my heart was nearly pounding out of my chest.”
--also didn't see any sign of this from L

pg 5/6: and then they talk about how they're great friends and what they should do now. I don't get any feeling of urgency from reading this. What is the hook to keep me reading?

pg 6: They've just been transported into a fantastic golden realm of five suns and floating islands and they're talking about where to find food? I don't think they're in danger of starving right at the moment. Like @kais says, now's the time to wow me.

pg 7: “But I thought that you’d want to check in on your family.”
--yeah, maybe something like this first.

pg 8 "Trapped. L froze in place, her heart pounding in the chest."
--has there been any indication the soldiers are hostile?

pg 8: “What’s a young lady like you doing out here alone?” One of the Xiran soldiers asked, leaning in with a catlike grin. “We can’t have that, now can we?”
--Okay, here's some threat finally. Need this a lot sooner

pg 11: So Lady A scares off the soldiers and then starts giving L a lesson in bullying? This is strange. Still not really holding my attention.

pg 11: "What if I gave you and a group of friends over a helpless person and told you that it was okay to hurt them?"
--I...dont' think this has anything to do with the situation.

pg 12: “What sort of target?” 
--is that...even necessary? The point of a target is to draw attention to someone. Doesn't matter what type it is. There's a lot of this unnecessary stuff dragging the narrative down.

pg 13:  “You’re welcome,” she said. “And thank you for listening to what I have to say. I’m sorry if I ever come off as self-important or condescending. It’s the mask that I wear so that people don’t give me trouble.”
“I didn’t think you seemed that way at all. I could tell that you’re a good person at heart.”
--people don't talk like this.

pg 13: "The rest of L’s mission went suspiciously smoothly"
--what mission?

[Ace of Hearts]

Hey, sorry it took me so long to respond to these. I've been sick for a while and writing is kind of the last thing on my mind. 

On 6/28/2017 at 2:34 PM, kais said:

2) rape: It's not a plot device. It's not something to use in place of descriptive writing. It's not something to write about at all unless you understand the ramifications of it, and it is definitely something you put a content warning in for when you sub. We have guidelines on this for a reason, because rape, attempted rape, issues of non-consent, they are super triggering for people, especially survivors. It's existence in your sub was almost...flippant, and that is not a good way to go with rape. I suggest reading some articles about this subject and considering removing it from your piece altogether.

 

On 6/28/2017 at 5:46 PM, industrialistDragon said:

I am also troubled by the interactions Lyra has with the soldiers, both in her home and out in the world.

 

On 6/29/2017 at 10:23 AM, Mandamon said:

Yep - @kais and @industrialistDragon hit a big point I was going to make, and much better, so I'll just second that the whole rape thing did not work very well

Well, looks like a big mess-up for me there.  I made a big mistake by mentioning rape in ch. 3 (which for some reason I decided to write in and then missed during my revisions). From what I'm hearing, it sounds like I made a possibly bigger mistake in ch. 4. I didn't actually intend the soldier scene to imply rape, which is why the whole scene sounds so flippant. But of course, if three out of three people saw rape in the soldiers' words, then the fault is mine and I apologize for making you all read that scene. I'll try to make sure that it won't happen again. 

There are definitely better ways to set up one of L's arcs (feeling annoyed that nobody takes her seriously and trying to prove herself because of it) than using a situation where L feels violated, and I'll definitely rewrite it. Even without the rape, I can see why the soldier scene has serious problems with power dynamics. Thanks for pointing it out. If revising my work makes me better at recognizing and dealing with these kinds of issues, I'll gladly take the opportunity to learn.  

On 6/28/2017 at 2:34 PM, kais said:

1) race relations: you've got a potential 'light skin good, dark skin bad' thing going on, which is problematic. I suggest maybe looking at implicit bias, or taking some of these quizzes (and helping science at the same time!), and maybe thinking a bit about how we portray protagonists and antagonists in fiction:

Huh. I didn't even consider this. Ash's light skin is meant to show that she's literally half Jasuran half Xiran (but still looks Xiran to Lyra), and that Lyra's never encountered such a person before. Her description of almost being too perfect plays a plot role and is meant to act as a symbol later on (she can alter her appearance and she chooses to appear fake because she's not ready to open up yet), but I'm feeling more and more like it doesn't work.  Looks like I have a lot of revising to do. 

It's a good catch, though. The consciousness of the world this story is set in places more value on a person's "race" as a whole than their skin color in particular. Thus someone who is viewed as a part of the "Xiran race" like Ash (so far as L knows) isn't really any different from another Xiran, and her skin tone is more of a strange afterthought. But in our world, what L notices about Ash might be taken the wrong way.

I'm not ruling out the idea of a personal skin color bias in me (I think I might have a different one than the linked study suggested), and I'll keep it in mind as I write and edit. If I compound my biases with the fact that it could be reasonable for L to have a skin color bias, things could get ugly quickly. I'll try to keep a tight watch on my references to skin color. 

On 6/29/2017 at 10:23 AM, Mandamon said:

In general, there's still lots of Maid and Butler, when L and G tell each other the things that they both know. Lots of telling as well. Show us L's reactions and feelings. part of the disconnect I get while reading this is because I don't have any reaction from L, or very static/telling ones.

Noted. Maid and Butler is always difficult for me to weed out, so hopefully knowing it's there will help. I'll work on showing L's reactions and feelings as well. Are there any strategies you've come up with for describing feelings without sounding like "Character X feels happy and character Y feels sad"? Whenever I try to describe feelings, it kind of sounds like that.  

 

 

 

 

[Mandamon]

5 hours ago, Wisps of Aether said:

Are there any strategies you've come up with for describing feelings without sounding like "Character X feels happy and character Y feels sad"?

Whenever you see that in your writing, delete it and write a phrase using only the character's actions and physical description that says the same thing.

[industrialistDragon]

13 hours ago, Wisps of Aether said:

Are there any strategies you've come up with for describing feelings without sounding like "Character X feels happy and character Y feels sad"?

 

7 hours ago, Mandamon said:

delete it and write a phrase using only the character's actions and physical description that says the same thing

Yes, this.

Think about how you know someone else is angry IRL. they rarely say "work made me angry!" What they do is bang open the front door, stomp into the house, sling their keys at the keybowl with enough force that they lip the bowl and fly right out again, and yell a curse word at the cat when the falling keys startle it. You say "how are you feeling?" and they say "I'm FINE! ARGH!" and you know they mean exactly the opposite of that without them having to tell you anything directly. Think about how you react when you're angry. You probably don't only go around thinking "i am angry!" You think about how the person who made you angry is a kittening idiot for doing or saying That Thing and how it was dumb to even do That Thing in the first place, and how you woulda coulda shoulda told them off right there because That Thing really deserved a zinger of a comeback but you were trying to be nice and didn't grr growl grumble.  Have faith that your characters and your readers can pick up on things at least as well as you can IRL and write what the characters' emotions make them do and say. 

[Robinski]

Really sorry about how late these comments are. I’ll just say I’ve got a lot going on at the moment and leave it at that.

Chapter 3

• Straight away, I’m more engaged by the characters. L seems to be a fighter, which is certainly appealing, and you’ve got a nice sort of reversal of ‘traditional’ gender roles, where she is the strong, potentially resourceful, one and the male seems weak. That’s good.
• I’m a bit confused over what the general did and didn’t permit or specifically order.
• The narrative flows reasonably well, but the structure on the page looks strange. Imho you don’t need all those separate paragraphs. A lot of those should be together in single paragraphs in between the blocks of dialogue.
• There isn’t much description of the surroundings, but from what I imply about the shack, it would not have any kind of solid foundation anyway, assuming construction methods similar to low earth technology. If it’s not a dirt floor, and there are boards as there are here, they will always be suspended over some kind of underbuilding (hollow space), because you can’t lay boards directly onto the ground. It will never be even, and the wood will get wet when it rains and will rot very quickly.
• Another point, it seems like they take one board out. I don’t see how that leaves a big enough gap to pull a wooden chest through, even a small one.
• The logic of the discussion about the gold confuses me. So, why is he taking the gold, if not for personal gain. He’s taking it to save them from the general’s attention? It doesn’t seem to hang together for me.
• I don’t think martyr is the right word, when describing N.
• I’m unsure about L and G’s ages. L behaved in a pretty mature way, but I get the sense form some of their dialogue that they’re younger than I think (as with the previous submission). I think you should just come right out a tell the reader how old they are, or certainly L.
• I might have mentioned this in the first submission, for forgive me if I'm repeating myself, but some of the dialogue is very on-the-nose, for example “After these Xs leave, maybe we can go back to living a peaceful life” or “We’ve got each other’s backs, even when things get tough.” I would say that dialogue is one of the single best opportunities to make your writing stand out. Phrases like these are very familiar, near to being stereotypes.
•  The bit where they go outside and see the sky has genuine wonder, and I thought you built nicely to it by slipping in the absence of salt smell in the air.
• The description is pretty sparse. That’s not wrong, but it does make the world feel shallower, I think, and means that the dialogue, characters and plot need to work harder to bring the colour and sense of place. Blocking too (where we are and how thing relate) feels off sometimes. For example, “She walked up to the edge of the former shoreline and peered off the edge” – this makes the place feel tiny. It feels like L’s shack is right on the shoreline, which doesn’t seem likely. Surely, she would need to walk 10 minutes to get to the shoreline. Otherwise, they’re going to have waves breaking over the house!! That’s the way I feel about it anyway, I'm not getting the sense of what you’re picturing in your head.
• I feel like with things like this “L wasn’t used to bragging, but if it would make G feel safer than she would try her hardest to exaggerate her own skills” – you’re getting down to a more complex level of character which is good. This simple line shows a lot about L’s character; that she’s protective, not above lying, putting on a brave face, and has inner vulnerability that she’s suppressing for the good of others. I feel like L is a lot more complex than the characters we met in the first submission.

Chapter 4

• I think you repeat her name to frequently, to the point it becomes disjointed. I think you can use ‘she’ for most of those instances, which would really help the flow, imho.
• “something just felt off” – to me, we’ve come beyond the point of something feeling just off. That phrase sounds like we don’t know what’s wrong, but we do know now – so I think you could ‘level up’ to a more definite phrase like, ‘this was all just so wrong’. It’s not ‘something’ now – it’s being in the aether.
• I like the lines about rabbit > wolves > cats > mice. Nice imagery that shows a bit of character.
• “No matter what I say or do, they’ll find some way to turn it into something cute or funny” – This seems off to me. Surely, her greatest fear is not that they will taunt her with cute and funny comments?!!!! If we’re using animal analogies, there is an elephant in the room hear. Is she not scared they will abuse her? Is she so naïve? What age is she? I don’t have any feeling at all for that.
• “Her light skin and clear accent was were closer to Jas than” and “but she did carry possess/have the raven-black hair and blue eyes” – Sorry to go all grammatical. Actually, I think it’s a mark of what I've read so far that the language of your writing is very clean, which is great. It’s really easy to concentrate on the content, and not be constantly distracted by grammaticals.
• “The woman’s beauty was almost harsh. Her ice-cold eyes demanded L’s attention, and there almost seemed something wrong about how perfectly her body had been stitched together.” – Here’s a thing about language that I used (no longer, I hope) to do all the time. There’s a temptation to use imprecise language like this, but I would recommend avoiding it if at all possible, because often, it ends up making your writing sound uncertain, almost doubting its own conviction. Consider this passage if you take out the ‘fudge’ words; “The woman’s beauty was harsh. Her ice-cold eyes demanded L’s attention, but there was something wrong with how perfectly her body had been stitched together.” I think there is a lot to be said for directness, giving the reader definite things to consider, rather than trying to decide whether you mean it or not.
• “one of the soldiers said. “No psyching way. You wouldn’t come here. Not now.”” – back to my comments about the tone of some dialogue. This sounds like a 14-year-old sk8tr boy, really quite cheesy, imho. Throw a ‘dude’ in there and Keanu Reeves could play him in the movie (20 years ago).
• “Yep” – really? This is very out of tune with the lady’s imposing demeanour.
• I like how the lady challenges L about the bullying thing, and we get a reveal of why she now sticks by G, even though he is a real wimp. However, “My sister told me that armies that have their soldiers wear a standard uniform are ten times more likely to pillage, maim, torture, and rape than armies without uniforms” – this sounds weird to me, like straight out of a market research report. 8 out of 10 cats prefer Fishy Chow…
• “The emperor sent me here to look for something” – excellent, a mystery.
• Blocking throwing me off again here. “A steep path upwards led to the forest beyond” – I thought they only took the village itself, but this seems like they scooped up the surrounding countryside as well?
• The lady seems to open up a lot to someone she’s known for about 5 minutes.
• “we won’t starve for at least a little while” – It doesn’t sound like enough food to keep a whole town going for more than a day, maybe two. Also, the bread sounds inedible from the description, even the good stuff.
• I thought the end of the chapter was weak. Her philosophising seemed random, and the hawk appears from nowhere, so suddenly that I don’t really care about it rather than its appearance seeming threatening or suspicious.

Okay, well. I hope some of that is useful. I enjoyed many parts of this submission, although there were issues that stood out for me. The tone of the dialogue, by which I mean the phrasing largely, still seems on the immature side for the situation and some of the characters. Maybe it’s my ear trying to make the story something it’s not, but I don’t feel any real sense of threat, or stakes for that matter. It doesn’t feel to me that anyone is in danger. I think the sense of wonder could be dialled up too. A whole village has been taken away, but no one seems all that phased by it, other than that first moment of discovery by L.

The rape thing. Yes, second the very clear and unequivocal comments by others. (1) warning required in the sub/email title; (2) in a story that is almost completely vanilla in terms of language, violence, sex references – the ‘R’ word does come across as flippant – you really need to think hard about what that means. Forgive my presumption, but if you are old enough (18), you might consider watching even just the trailer Gaspar Noé’s Irrèversible, which is a film about this subject; (3) in the situation L finds herself in with the soldiers, it’s almost surprising that specific threat does not occur to L, which brings me back to how out of place it is, and the story not knowing what tone it’s going for.

It’s an interesting read, and I think it has good potential, but I want to feel more emotion from the characters, and more danger/threat. Also, I want a clear message about ages, of the character and the target audience. If this is YA, which it feels like, you cannot use the ‘R’ word.

<R>