12/11/23 - Ace of Hearts - Everlasting Sunset sub 13, 4860 words (VL)

[Appol PhD they/he]

Hi everyone!

 

Thanks for the comments last week. I have similar questions/concerns this week about the pacing/cohesion given that the focus here is on smaller character moments.

 

Thanks!

[Mandamon he/him]

This is starting to get to some interesting topics, and I'm looking forward to the journey coming next time, but yes, I think the pacing and characters here don't quite work. It's partially because we had a break in November, but I'm having a lot of trouble remembering what each soldier's "thing" is and what problems they're dealing with. So a lot of the small character moments here fell flat. I was too busy trying to remember who everyone was, along with the healer, the deserters, etc. This goes back to what I said with the first few submissions that the soldiers need to be really clear for the reader. I think there might be too many to focus on emotional growth with each one. Maybe having one or two soldiers to be the "example" for the others will help narrow things down?

 

Notes while reading:

pg 1: "The whole room was only the size of I’s house"
--but I don't know how big the house is.

pg 2: This takes a bit to get going in the first couple pages. Could probably be condensed a bit.

pg 3: "Not the only island"
--Did we know this yet? If not, I think this warrants a bit more response from everyone. It's a big secret that's been revealed, right?

pg 5: "Near identical to P.L.’s explanation"
--Ah, so I guess we have gotten this information before. WRS, I guess?

pg 5: "We cannot allow the imperial patriarchy to be reborn"
--Is this something we know about? I feel like we're getting into deep matters that haven't been mentioned yet.

pg 6: "but decided not to challenge S"
--Am I missing a part here? Isn't S one of A's soldiers? Why is she deferring to him?

pg 9: Still getting confused will all the names here. I'm having trouble remembering what each person does and what their trauma is.

pg 11: Having trouble connecting with the emotional content here because I can't keep the soldiers straight. Part of it is WRS and missing a month, but part is because there's so many characters.

pg 16: Interesting. So Am does seem to be a different person that A.

[Robinski he/him]

Hi! I’m not sure I have ever read your stuff, and I apologise for that, but I think you joined just as I was stepping away? Or, I’ve just completely forgotten. Either way, I’m looking forward to it

I read the previous chapter summaries; very useful, thank you.

OVERALL SUMMARY

The first thing that strikes me is that your style is direct, there’s no drifting around. I like that. I think the prose is economical, which really keeps things moving. In that sense, pacing is really good. The down side of that is that there is very little, almost no, description of anything, how anyone looks, the landscape, the textures, sounds, smells, etc. This means everything if focused on the people.

That leads me to my second may point. The whole chapter is people talking to each other, talking about things that have already happened, or are going to happen. Because everything is talking, there are actually very few actions or activities, and that has the sense of dragging, waiting for something to happen. I know I haven’t read the other chapters, so I’m especially interested to come back next week and read what happens when they reach Ix. In a pacing sense, while the chapter is easy to read, it doesn’t really seem to progress the story.

Third point, there are a lot of characters, and they all seem to get a bit of screen time, sometimes with very short mentions that don’t seem important at all to the plot/story. The result of having all these characters on the page, to me, is that no one feels substantial or gets a chance to have any depth. Even A, I’m not really sure how she feels about some of the stuff that’s going on.

I may be suffering from not having the background of twelve previous submissions, so I have to bear that in mind, but these are my impressions of this sub. I hope they are helpful.

DETAILS (also have email a tracked comments file)

I’m a bit puzzled that the military commander is not supposed to know how to fight. I get that they would be expected not to go into the front lines, because their role is different. Unless all is lost, but to not be expected to know how to fight seems very odd. How are they qualified then to lead? This is the kind of problem, militarily, that leads to disasters like the Charge of the Light Brigade. However, maybe there is background that I don’t have from previous chapters.

The tone of the meeting is strange to me. The queen seems to be given almost no respect in terms of her position, and the way she’s addressed, not just by the characters, but by the narrative. Referring to a queen by their first name, especially when shared by another character mention in the scene. She doesn’t really feel like a queen to me.

Sometimes, I find the phrasing a bit unclear, or wordy. Generally, I enjoy how smooth the reading is, but sometimes I stumble on certain phrasing. One example, just to illustrate: “And once we fall, they can march in and take our land”. This sounds to me like Lilac is more concerned about the land being taken, because the fall of Jac is not phrased as the most important part of the sentence, it’s almost like an afterthought, in passing. The way I hear the intent of the line is something like ‘Once we are all dead, they’ll be able to take our land!’.

I got quite confused over who was in charge. Often, Sp spoke for As, and made decisions for As. I see later that he seems to command her, but I didn’t get that to begin with.

Then I got completely thrown by him telling her the base was under attack. Why didn’t he tell the Queen? Why did the Queen not know? Does she not have an intelligence network? Maybe it’s because I'm jumping in where I am, but if the Queen is their leader, and Sp is keeping tactical information from her I don’t understand why.

Why on earth would they expect deserters to show up? Very odd. Deserters desert, that’s kind of the whole point. I really did not understand that. Then it sounds like As is taking the deserters on the mission?! But that’s not what deserters do, surely? The definition of deserter is someone who absconds, leaves, etc. If they are still present then I don’t think they can be considered deserters in a military sense. Then “That you don’t think they’ll try to murder us like they did before?” – Why would they take the deserters?! What value do they have? I am struggling severely to understand this. Normal reaction to deserters is to imprison them or, in times of war (historically?), shoot them as traitors. I feel I have to be missing something here.

 

Hope there is something useful in here. Thanks for sharing!  

[Appol PhD they/he]

Thanks for the comments! Since I'm guessing @Robinski will be critiquing the submission for this upcoming week, I'll give some more context

On 12/14/2023 at 12:05 PM, Robinski said:

I’m a bit puzzled that the military commander is not supposed to know how to fight.

This is something specific to the society being set up in an unconventional way. The founding principles are that people in power should stay away from all aspects of violence/war to prevent military rule. To accomplish this, soldiers are kept as an oppressed class to limit any power/agency they might have. A is stuck in an awkward middle position where she's managing soldiers but is expected not to engage with war/violence in any way (this also brushes against the gender issues).

On 12/14/2023 at 12:05 PM, Robinski said:

I got quite confused over who was in charge. Often, Sp spoke for As, and made decisions for As. I see later that he seems to command her, but I didn’t get that to begin with.

A is in charge; S is just blunt and direct, saying what he thinks A should do like it's a command. A wants the soldiers to be less subservient to her in general so she doesn't discourage that behavior. Another note that might help understand the context here is that most of the soldiers are teenagers while A is in her early twenties, so the intention is for S to come across as having teenage attitude. 

On 12/14/2023 at 12:05 PM, Robinski said:

Why didn’t he tell the Queen? Why did the Queen not know? Does she not have an intelligence network? Maybe it’s because I'm jumping in where I am, but if the Queen is their leader, and Sp is keeping tactical information from her I don’t understand why.

The monster attacks are fairly routine and would both be beneath the notice of someone like the queen and would come across as very improper to bring up. A is an anomaly for taking the attacks seriously and actually trying to protect her soldiers.

On 12/14/2023 at 12:05 PM, Robinski said:

Why on earth would they expect deserters to show up? Very odd. Deserters desert, that’s kind of the whole point. I really did not understand that. Then it sounds like As is taking the deserters on the mission?! But that’s not what deserters do, surely? The definition of deserter is someone who absconds, leaves, etc. If they are still present then I don’t think they can be considered deserters in a military sense. Then “That you don’t think they’ll try to murder us like they did before?” – Why would they take the deserters?! What value do they have? I am struggling severely to understand this. Normal reaction to deserters is to imprison them or, in times of war (historically?), shoot them as traitors. I feel I have to be missing something here.

Some of the soldiers A is currently commanding (Am, D, G, and X) are deserters from another base turned revolutionaries. They fought A and she struck a deal after killing their leader to spare them if they surrendered. Or at least, that's the story A is going with to the authorities. She believes (especially as someone who used to be a soldier and transitioned into a minister) that the way soldiers are treated is fundamentally wrong and doesn't blame them for deserting/rebelling, but at the same time feels like she needs to use her authority within that flawed system to protect them.

[Silk she/her]

“So far, not a fan of clothes” – um, so they haven’t been wearing clothes under their armor? Wouldn’t that chafe?

Edit: Wait, wait, hold up. These folks frequently de-summon their exoskeletons, do they just walk around nude otherwise? Because that is definitely not what I have been picturing.

 “…walk up to the throne and sit down.” Where did she come from? I don’t have a very good sense of the layout in the room.

P3 “…So you’re saying I was supposed to let Z…” I’d be curious to get any sort of reaction from the Queen here, even if that reaction is no rection. A is being fairly heated, but G and S are both being fairly understated and we don’t get anything from the queen at all.

P4 Possibly WRS since I don’t remember whether this info has been raised before, but I’m not sure if the revelation that there’s another island is a surprise to A.

P7 “I need to get out of these clothes and…” His base is under attack and his priority is to get out of his clothes?!

P8 “‘Where were you?’ L snapped” – we’ve already established that L was aware of A’s meeting with the queen

P9 “Remember how I faced all of them down?” she’s going to have a hard time doing that again if she’s leaving. Or, wait, is she bringing the deserters with her? Who’s protecting the base?

P10 “If people think you’re on the loose…” Confused here. He’s not a prisoner.

P11 I’m not feeling hugely invested in the argument between N and T here. I think because we are basically watching A watch them talk? She doesn’t really participate much.

P16 “being a woman” – this seems strange since we’ve established that “man” and “woman” are foreign concepts to A. It seems to me that the text is trying to establish that this is a discussion about being trans, and I get why you’d go for a clearer confirmation of that here, but it feels like a bit of a break from A’s POV and I’m not totally sure the confirmation is needed?

Overall: I felt antsy while reading a lot of this chapter. I think the main thrust—being handed a new and different mission—is a good and important beat to have, but I wonder if a lot of this could be whittled down to a single scene that establishes that, rather than a full chapter.

I’m totally on board with small character moments, but a lot of it fell flat for me this time. I think it’s partly the break we had from this story, partially that the cast is pretty large to begin with, and partially that it felt a bit like this chapter was spending time whittling the cast down to a more manageable level.

Another thing is that the previous part had some strong, specific throughlines – saving P, and saving the base from the rebel attack – but both of those have been resolved, and they haven’t yet been replaced by anything new. A has learned some fun twists but her goals at this point are pretty nebulous. Can she decide she wants to do something specific (rather than just “treat soldiers better”) or find some specific information? Can the queen give her more specifics about the mission she’s being sent on? Etc.

On 12/13/2023 at 12:53 PM, Mandamon said:

Maybe having one or two soldiers to be the "example" for the others will help narrow things down?

I think this is a good thought. I'd also second that I was having particular trouble remembering the deserters and the healer--so the newer characters. The other ones I had an easier time following. 

On 12/17/2023 at 7:11 AM, Ace of Hearts said:

(Am, D, G, and X)

For a second I thought we'd somehow shifted gears to talk about musical chord sequences (until you got to 'X' )

[Robinski he/him]

On 12/17/2023 at 3:11 PM, Ace of Hearts said:

Thanks for the comments! Since I'm guessing @Robinski will be critiquing the submission for this upcoming week, I'll give some more context

Thank you for the context! Yes, these are all things that I would of course have known if I'd been reading from the start 

I will certainly be reading this week, and it will be very useful to have this guidance. Thanks for your continued patience with me "bumbling around" in around in your story! 

On 12/18/2023 at 11:46 PM, Silk said:

For a second I thought we'd somehow shifted gears to talk about musical chord sequences (until you got to 'X' )

Elon has discovered the lost chord!!!

Edited December 21, 2023 by Robinski

[Silk she/her]

22 hours ago, Robinski said:

Elon has discovered the lost chord!!!

But you don't really care for Twitter, do ya?

 

Edited December 22, 2023 by Silk

[Robinski he/him]

14 hours ago, Silk said:

But you don't really care for Twitter, do ya?

The Lost Chord is dissonant, and I reject it! (Haven't been on it in ages, but still mean to go back and check my contact list before deleting the app.)