8/14/23 - Ace of Hearts - Everlasting Subset sub 4, 4103 words (V)

[Ace of Hearts]

Hope everyone's doing well!

 

Thanks for the feedback last week. I knew that there were probably going to be points of confusion, and I'll focus on getting those cleaned up for the next draft. This is the chapter where I'm hoping the character story between A and P gets kicked off a bit more, but we'll see how it lands.

 

Thanks as always!

[Demiurgess she/her]

Hi, Ace of Hearts!

 

Here are some thoughts on Ch.4 of Everlasting Sunset.

 

I really liked how you continue - in small bits and pieces - to develop the topic of being a soldier. Clearly, A. considers it all to be bad and painful (perhaps, we could see some more memories of hers to feel it fully and empathise with her more). And P. is changing his mind about it, growing onto it? It's a bit shady, but there is definitely the dynamics.

The part about A. dying in the C.O. was really cool, and we finally know more about her.

P. and A. teamwork and P.'s temporary trust in her worked really well.

And the oranges scene for me was very vivid. Also, a superb characteristic of how harsh their world is if they are usually denied fruits and need to be very practical.

 

Some page-by-page comments:

P.1: You say that the monsters are expected the next day, though in Ch.3 it was said the prognosis showed nothing for the next couple of days. I get it - the whole forecast isn't that accurate, but could we possibly know more about it then?

P1: “If she made a mistake in training today or leading tomorrow, somebody was going to die." I was wondering about it in the previous chapters a bit too, but here, with such a powerful sentence, it struck me - how did they survive all this time before? Belladonna wasn't the best of supervisors, but does it mean they had a lot of casualties? Both curious and a bit confused here.

P4: when A. talks about her death in the C.O. she mentions seeing and talking to somebody, but not remembering anymore. However, I thought it could be cool if there was at least one detail about that person or talk, a clue for the future, and a way to make it less general.

P4-5: What was the point of L. making A. reveal she remembers her past? To warn her? Or out of curiosity and desire to show she can? As a reader, we already know that A. remembers. I just thought motivation here was important for it not to look like an exposition type of dialogue. maybe, the warning could be a bit stronger?

A few grammar/tense mistakes:

P 5: "and she lost myself in the rhythm of the tiny" - lost herself

P 5: "Some of the soldiers are still asleep when Ash arrived," - were still asleep

 

P 10: When P. says he's going to chase the shark into the C.O, I'd like to see more of A. inner thoughts about it, not just silence. Later on, you reveal P. ran into C.O to desert, so A. should feel uneasy at this moment. It would be good to see it.

P.11: mention of asteroids for comparison didn't quite work for me. I often find that such comparisons when the characters say something is like something they saw in the book or the like, feel slightly artificial. I was thinking, surely they have hills and mountains and just huge buildings it could have been compared to in size. Unless, it is a clue for something else I missed.

P12: when P. delivers the final blow to the shark ("The impact sent cracks through the calamity crystal, and the shark fell apart the next second") it feels rather sudden. Before he had to hit it quite a few times and nothing happened. Maybe, you could mention that he stroke at the old cracks at this moment?

 

P. 12: "and she only barely to calm the shaking in her legs" - I guess some of the grammar was lost at the editing stage

 

And some final words about P.  He appears quite a mystery figure himself, but unlike A. we don't get his POV. It's great to have an enigma guy and probably an unreliable narrator of sorts, but at times I want to see more of him. Also, I got a bit confused with his desertion in the past life. In this chapter you mentioned he ran in the C.O, before (Ch.2)  you said soldiers were sent after him. Into the C.O?

 

All in all, good job! There is nice fighting here and I like how A. and P. are slowly getting closer. But I feel the need to learn more about this world. The reincarnation and the switch between soldiers and ministers is still a big mystery. And now there is an addition to it about dying in the C.O. There is also the major theme of turning soldiers into ministers, but we don't know so much about this war/threat. We see the monsters creeping onto human territory and attacking. From A. words, we know it is dangerous, and the fighting is tough at the moments. But I I would like to start getting a bigger picture of what is behind it and why it is as it is. After all, if the threat is unrelenting, they can't have all soldiers turned into ministers.

 

[Mandamon he/him]

Similar thoughts to @Demiurgess on this one. It has good action, but I'm still a little confused on motivation and what happens when a soldier dies, etc. 

The fight at the beginning could use more stakes. We're told A is nervous, but then that the little group of fish is not a big threat. There are some interesting mechanics, but I don't know enough about the soldiers to really care about them. This got better when we were focusing on just P, but I still need more stakes for him and A as to what he's trying to escape from and why he walked out into the ocean.

It's a good start with the connection between them. I think giving us a little more danger if they fail will help ramp up the tension and connect the reader to the characters more.

Looking forward to the next one!

Notes while reading:

pg 3: “Simple psionics?”
--if this is going to be a technique they use, I think a little more on what is involved with it would help.

pg 3: "so obviously you can’t summon a perfect weapon on your first try.”
--weren't all ministers once soldiers, or am I misremembering that?

pg 4: Ah, glad we get some backstory finally for A

pg 5: "do that again."
--summon weapons or tell how she died? Sounds like an important clarification to make.

pg 5: "a past where ministers and soldiers both waged war across the galaxy were starting to make more sense."
--it doesn't to me yet. Not sure what this means.

pg 6: There's a lot here about how the fish aren't difficult to fight, which is at odds with A being nervous about the fight.

pg 8 This reads like a LOL or DOTA game, but we don't have stakes. I don't really care about the mechanics of what's happening, because I don't have a connection to the people, and there isn't a big risk. Even if they die, we know they get reincarnated as a minister, right? So that's actually a benefit...

pg 10: “I’m going in.”
--There's better tension here because we're focused on a character who's had lines. What's the cost though? How long does it take them to heal up? What will happen if P's body is killed?

pg 12: cool triumph over the shark!

pg 14: “That you’re planning to bolt? It’s crossed my mind.”
--wait, not sure what this means. I think I missed something. So P basically wandered off before? Do we have a reason why? What is he escaping from?

[Ace of Hearts]

On 8/18/2023 at 8:53 PM, Mandamon said:

what happens when a soldier dies

This isn't something that's super well explained anywhere in the current draft, so I'll give an overview to catch people up to speed. What the characters would say is:

-Soldiers have vague memories of just appearing at biological age 12 with basic language/motor functions and are immediately escorted to the base that they'll be assigned to for their life. When they die, they get reincarnated back into the 12-year-old body (usually years later).

-Ministers who receive a blessing from the queen become pregnant and eventually give birth to a baby who will grow up to be a minister. The spirit of the child born can be a former soldier who escaped the reincarnation cycle by rejecting their (supposedly) natural violent tendencies.

@Demiurgess I can't remember if you also made comments along these lines but here's the explanation.

Edited August 28, 2023 by Ace of Hearts

[Mandamon he/him]

18 hours ago, Ace of Hearts said:

This isn't something that's super well explained anywhere in the current draft, so I'll give an overview to catch people up to speed. What the characters would say is:

-Soldiers have vague memories of just appearing at biological age 12 with basic language/motor functions and are immediately escorted to the base that they'll be assigned to for their life. When they die, they get reincarnated back into the 12-year-old body (usually years later).

-Ministers who receive a blessing from the queen become pregnant and eventually give birth to a baby who will grow up to be a minister. The spirit of the child born can be a former soldier who escaped the reincarnation cycle by rejecting their (supposedly) natural violent tendencies.

@Demiurgess I can't remember if you also made comments along these lines but here's the explanation.

Thanks for explaining! I think this would be great to plunk down in the first or second chapter on a rewrite, maybe when A is thinking about it or something.

[Silk she/her]

As I go: 

Hmm, how reliable is this forecasting tool? A seems to rely on it a lot. And I’m still wondering who monitors it when she doesn’t.

P3 “…it was common knowledge that ministers couldn’t fight…” I wonder if this line need to be moved up a bit to the first point where L points out she can summon her weapons. Also, and this may well be deliberate, but seriously has no one tried this before? How is the government keeping any sort of lid on this?

               Edit: Hm, this may be explained by A having her memories when apparently no one else does.

P4 “Someone out there set me up to fail.” This is really interesting, but I think the first notion of this that we’ve gotten?

Also, I’m confused about whose attention A thinks she is/is not attracting by having this conversation.

“A had no idea what was going to  happen if people found out…” There might be an opportunity for A to take some initiative here in figuring out if there are others like her.

P5 I like the detail of her painting her nails to relax before battle. But also, I wondered about “real” battle; she’s been in real battles before, yes?

“L was also here for emotional support.” Tense seems to have switched into present for the last couple sentences, but also, this seems like a dangerous place for her to be.

P7 “It will be a faster fight overall if…” The anticipation/anxiety going into the fight as good, but these few pages of the fight itself actually feel fairly routine. I wonder if maybe seeing some more close calls would help. A mentions some rookie mistakes, but most of what we’re actually seeing is the soldiers following orders.

P10 “I could chase it into the… ocean.” What is the actual objective? I thought it was to repel the attack, but apparently it’s more about actually killing the monsters. Which seems a bit odd, since apparently these monsters can just spawn at any time.

“I didn’t want to force you to enter…” Is A surprised that he suggested this? Pleased? Etc? Was she just hoping that this soldier would not only b willing to take the risk but would make the tactically correct choice despite not knowing tactics?

P12 “growing fruits is a waste of water.” Are food/water scarce resources in this setting?

“…and then one day without warning” I was briefly confused here. When I read “how good of a soldier was I,” I thought P was referring to the battle that just happened rather than his previous life.

“He used her name.” As a snappy last line, this works. Yet I wasn’t totally sure what I was supposed to be feeling here. Is this a reflection of new trust in her? Or is this him recognizing her from a previous life? A little more setup to clarify the intent here and I think this will work well.

Overall: So far so good! The biggest thing for me was that the emotions felt a little muted throughout a lot of this – the fight scene in particular, but also leading up to it – especially when A was thinking about being set up to fail/not supported by the ministry etc. For the fight scene in particular, I think clarifying the actual tactical aims and showing some of the near misses could help. For the bits of the chapter leading up to that, a lot of A's anxiety fight was clear, but there was less emotion when thinking about the bigger picture things (being set up to fail, etc). The end of the chapter worked fairly well for me. 

And, I would echo Mandamon and Demiurgess that more information about how some of those pieces of the world work would be helpful.