7/15/24 - Ace of Hearts - Everlasting Sunset sub 30, 2986 words (L)

[Appol PhD they/he]

Hi everyone,

 

Thanks for the feedback last time! Today we're heading to the buildup to the climax with a bit of a shorter submission--there are probably four or five submissions left after this one. Thanks!

[MyDude she/her]

It was a nice chapter! I especially liked the end part when they realised the urgency of the situation because Bell was coming.

 

What I think could have helped this chapter was if it was longer, however. Some scenes went by so fast it felt quite rushed. A’s goodbye to her mother and Lil flashed by like it didn’t mean much. Moments like those seem emotionally significant enough to A that we want to see how they play out. 

 

As these chapters are about building up to the climax of the story I’m not certain that having the details of how the technology works fits here. It breaks from building the tension and didn’t help me feel any connection to the characters. 

 

But like I said towards the end the tension grew stronger and I felt like I was in the character's shoes. 

 

Good work!

[Silk she/her]

Sorry I’ve been slow, I’ve had my head down on another project.

As I read:

Maybe WRS, but as Xan and C sit here talking about whether C is to be allowed to come with, I have no idea what Xan’s actual plan is or where he’s going.

P3   “…young, stupid, and after something other than vengeance.” Lol. Great line.

P5 “He wanted to come… and he has as much right…” There’s an opportunity for him to assert himself even more clearly here, depending on how you want to characterize this moment – he could say something like “I told him he could” if you really wanted to emphasize the growth here.

P7/8 “A’s soldiers broke into formation and engaged them” wait, I though A and M were handling the monsters and that the soldiers would be splitting off.

P8 having a hard time picturing the layout here – are they inside or outside of the sphere? If there is a tunnel connecting the sphere to the ocean, why is the sphere not full of water? How do M and A get into the sphere?

P9 “She did want to inform Xan” – so Xan is far enough away that he can’t track her visually? But also, she hasn’t really gotten anything to inform him of, aside from the fact that H is baiting her Unless they weren’t expecting him to be here.

               Edit: Ah, it looks like it’s the latter.

So wait, if H already knows where she is, enough to figure out what she’s doing, why is him tracking her a concern? Or is A thinking this is actually a bluff and he doesn’t know what she’s up to right now?

Overall: The first few pages of the chapter dragged for me, it felt like we were spending a lot of time on preparations and goodbyes, but without getting terribly specific. The second half of the chapter worked better, but I was surprised that A and crew seemed to be surprised themselves when G showed up. A little more establishing of the expectations in the early bits—like they weren’t expecting the bad guys to show up because the bad guys were off doing XYZ, or they were expecting them but now they’re here and the situation is so much more desperate than they expected, or so forth—might make the end of the chapter hit a little harder.

[Mandamon he/him]

Apologies again! This summer has been super busy and I haven't had a lot of time to critique.

Generally the same response as @Silk. There's a lot of setup here, but not a lot happening. A lot of these conversations are about character building, and we're way far into the book to do that. We should know what all these characters do by now, so much that we know and understand what actions they will take. Assuming that for the reader will take a lot out of these chapters and the rest can be applied to strategic points in other chapters to keep the pacing strong here.

Notes while reading:

Pg 4: this is an interesting discussion, but I'm not sure it needs a whole half of a chapter around it. This could probably be condensed to a few paragraphs in another chapter. We're late in the book to be doing much character development so this slows the tension down.

pg 7: This second section too, is a lot of preparation, that could probably condensed and combined with another. There's not a lot going on here.

pg 7: "saw the glowing around the corner first"
--They're already there? Where are they? This was an abrupt transition.

pg 10: So this chapter seems to be a lot of setup, but we don't actually have many exciting parts here. This is another one I think could be split up and condensed into different chapters to keep the tension up this near to the end of the book.