9/16/2024-ginger_reckoning-hivemind buddycop book, sub 3-L, V, G-4162 words

[ginger_reckoning]

Hey! So this submission has the last section of chapter 3, and then chapter 4, then the start of chapter 5. Going to tag for some pretty heavy violence and some possibly disturbing circumstances of the violence in this one, including alluded-to violence against children. 

 

I don't have many overarching comments, I just want to see what you think about these chapters. Thanks for reading!

[Mandamon he/him]

There was a strange end to chapter 3 and beginning to chapter 5 with this one. I'd just submit full chapters in the future, even if it's under the total word limit. I can't really give meaningful feedback on a couple pages.

Chapter 4 is...interesting. There's a lot of over-the-top action and we see S doing many incredible things. I'm not sure what it achieves though. We're told he destroys the city at the beginning. Is this giving us any more information? I don't know why the city is important, or what destroying it will do. I'd love to know more about his motivation.

Notes while reading:

pg 1: "But over the years, S had always eluded her"
--So what does the montage in the last chapter actually achieve? Can we just start with these characters both being awesome and chasing S? I feel like we haven't actually gotten to the story yet.

pg 2: Oh, this was the end of the last chapter. Right. So same comments apply from last submission then.

pg 4: “Sorry I’m late, I got exploded on the commute” 
--Lol

pg 6: “Man, we have so many left,” 
--There are some funny interludes here, but I'm not sure where this is going.

pg 11: lots of fighting through here, but again, I'm not very connected to the characters. Why is S destroying the city?

pg 12: So the dragon is cool, but there's no buildup to it, and we didn't see it get captured, so it just sort of appears, accentuating that S has all the power.

pg 13: I think defining the stakes here would help a lot with impact. C is a big city, but what will destroying it do? Does it affect the rest of the country? Is it a country? A continent? World? What is S trying to achieve?

Pg 16: not really enough of this chapter to comment yet. Might be better to keep to whole chapters when submitting.

[ginger_reckoning]

19 hours ago, Mandamon said:

There was a strange end to chapter 3 and beginning to chapter 5 with this one. I'd just submit full chapters in the future, even if it's under the total word limit. I can't really give meaningful feedback on a couple pages.

For sure, will do in the future. The chapter 3 part was just because the last submission was going to be too long otherwise, but yeah I could have done without the chapter 5 this week. Though, to be fair, the rest of chapter five doesn't have A and L in it either, so maybe I should just stick that part to the end of chapter 4 instead

19 hours ago, Mandamon said:

I don't know why the city is important, or what destroying it will do. I'd love to know more about his motivation.

19 hours ago, Mandamon said:

pg 12: So the dragon is cool, but there's no buildup to it, and we didn't see it get captured, so it just sort of appears, accentuating that S has all the power.

pg 13: I think defining the stakes here would help a lot with impact. C is a big city, but what will destroying it do? Does it affect the rest of the country? Is it a country? A continent? World? What is S trying to achieve?

That's good to know! Yeah, looking back the stakes aren't very well defined other than "destroying the city is bad". I'll need to work on that for sure.

I am a little hesitant to just start the story with the attack on the city because I feel like starting there gives even less chance for the reader to be connected to A and L, and it sounds like that's an issue even with the chapters in place. Hmm. I'll need to ponder this. 

Thanks for the feedback!

 

 

[Appol PhD they/he]

Overall: My reaction to this feels similar to the prologue where I really like the societal worldbuilding and tone used to describe the city of C but it ends up not feeling relevant for what S does. For example, I enjoyed poking fun at the guard worship but it looks like C is about to fall to something not really related to any of its societal flaws so it ends up feeling like it doesn’t really matter.

As I go:

Pg 1. Even though last sub I said I wanted more context for the timeskip I’m not sure the summary here is necessary. I’d rather us jump right into the new plot hook and fill in details along the way.

Pg 3. Can’t believe you hit us with the “So true, bestie.” Again I do think the colloquial language works well here.

Pg 4. I also think the social commentary here is the right tone—tongue and cheek while still feeling poignant.

Pg 5-7. I like the slower pace we get for a few pages to characterize and worldbuild and think the conflict comes in at the right time.

Pg 8-10. My engagement here wavers a bit because S seems so powerful that this all feels inevitable. Because there’s seemingly no chance for it to fail I don’t get a feeling of stakes.

Pg 11. This continues even as S faces setbacks, because I don’t really believe it can be stopped by any of this.

Pg 15-16. Feels like good setup for killing the mentor; excited to keep reading!

[Silk she/her]

Love the ending line of Ch3. It almost feels like everything up to now should be a prologue or at least a Ch1 though—the end of the first chapter could have been an inciting incident, and now we’ve hit something again that feels like it could be an inciting incident, because this is the moment the characters decide they’re finally ready to take on the monster (or at least, it’s the first attempt worth showing on the page).

Ch4 – I’m enjoying the tone here, but it’s definitely a shift, much more akin to what was in the prologue than the last few chapters.

P3 but, I love the detail of people applauding “diligently”

 P6 This person laughing at the people coming into the gate sets him up as a not terribly sympathetic character. But also, I sort of have the impression he just let someone doing something illicit get by him?

P7 “…to revoke the light’s healing powers on this creep” I don’t quite know what that means.

Edit: But, considering what happens to this guy, I guess it doesn’t matter much.

Overall: I’m really eager for A to get to actually fighting S and see what happens. It feels like we’ve been driving towards that for a while now, but haven’t yet actually arrived!

The biggest thing I noticed was the shift in tone between the two POVs. I enjoy the humour of the chapters that feature S, but it’s definitely inconsistent with the chapters from A’s POV… and stands out a little more now that the “humorous” tone seems to happen in chapters that feature S regardless of whether S is actually a POV character at the time. I’m not sure yet if there is a larger picture about who is narrating or not, but I’m interested to find out.