10/7/24-ginger_reckoning-hivemind buddycop book-sub 5- l, v, g- 4737 words

[ginger_reckoning]

Hey all! Thanks again for providing feedback. Tags this time for violence against a child, along iwht language and some fantastical gore. 

 

There's a rather long joke at the beginning of this one. It's a reference in good fun, though I wonder what yall's reaction to it is, or if it begins to stray too far into, well, just plagiarism. (I am almost certain it would be fair use but you never know) 

 

I'm also considering the title "A Song for Silence". What do you think about it? Is it too serious for the tone of the book? Too tropey with the word "song" in it?

 

Anyway, thank you all again!

[Appol PhD they/he]

Excited to dig in! I think the title is really good—I think it’s fine for stories with more humorous to have serious names like that. Just recently I read Brandon Sanderson’s Tress of the Emerald Sea recently which is pretty serious in both title and summary despite the tongue and cheek tone—though honestly I think in some ways this story honestly uses that sort of tone better, especially for the social commentary.

Overall: While I enjoyed some of the character moments, this was the first time in the story it felt like it was hard for me to keep up with what was going on for most of it. What’s actually at the heart of the chapter is L’s characterization, since the reveal is that she has the power to destroy S with magic but doesn’t because she wants it to reform. As a result, the actual fight doesn’t feel that meaningful because the real difference maker is L’s fancy magic, and it also means that there’s more work that needs to be put into her personal philosophy with how important it is in shaping the story. The idea that S potentially reforming is worth sacrificing thousands of innocent lives for isn’t something that makes sense for conventional morality, but that’s also what gives L’s characterization the opportunity to be distinct. But like I said, I think there needs to be more work put into establishing why L is this way. If she cares about redemption regardless of the cost in lives, why did she take A in at all? Why is S more important to reform than the thousands of people it kills who have their own issues L could force them to be better about?

As I go:

Pg 1. I tend to like this sort of the narration in the story, but this one felt a bit hard to parse through for me. I can tell it’s intentional in pulling us out mid-fight but I don’t follow the meaning behind it.

Pg 2. Didn’t the last chapter end with A charging S? I’m confused how we got from there to here.

Pg 4. The tone gives you a bit of leeway, but this feels like too much talking for what’s supposed to be an active conflict.  

Pg 6. There’s a lot of exposition needed to explain what’s going on and it makes me wonder if there needs to be more setup beforehand for how this is going to go.

Pg 8-9. There’s some cool characterization here though it’s getting harder to picture what’s going on as more and more magic gets thrown around.

Pg 10. Even though S calls out that L’s plan doesn’t make a lot of sense it still feels off to me. What does she have up her sleeve to make S get better? If she has something that she’s hiding from us, I think we at least need hints.

Pg 15. I think we can skip to the part where S gets incapacitated since we know it’s coming.

[Mandamon he/him]

Similar thoughts to @Ace of Hearts on this one. There was a lot that happened, but I don't think it was really supported by the characterization. Maybe fleshing out that part a couple chapters back with the training montage to add some more backstory to L would help out here? You could give some hints to her power and what she can do with it.

Notes while reading:

pg 1: This first part is a little confusing

pg 2: Hm. The Omelas thing again. I feel like this should have a bigger meaning, but I don't think it does?

pg 7: There's a lot of focus on one mana, but we don't really know what thayt does or what it means.

pg 12: I didn't understand all of what was going on through here. L seems overly powerful. I don't think we've seen any hint of this yet?

pg 15: I don't know if this part with A fighting is really necessary. We were told this was what happened.

[ginger_reckoning]

On 10/13/2024 at 6:28 PM, Ace of Hearts said:

Pg 1. I tend to like this sort of the narration in the story, but this one felt a bit hard to parse through for me. I can tell it’s intentional in pulling us out mid-fight but I don’t follow the meaning behind it.

On 10/29/2024 at 8:54 AM, Mandamon said:

pg 1: This first part is a little confusing

First of all thanks for the critiques! These first couple of paragraphs are actually a little tongue in cheek reference to the prologue of "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss (which is also reference by the line when S talks about seeing what's behind the doors of stone). While it isn't a super obvious reference, I do wonder if it is in good taste or not haha. There's already been a number of references to other works in this story and there will be more in the future, so I'm curious as to what your thoughts are. 

 

On 10/13/2024 at 6:28 PM, Ace of Hearts said:

though honestly I think in some ways this story honestly uses that sort of tone better, especially for the social commentary.

Well thank you! That's a very big compliment and it made my day!

 

On 10/13/2024 at 6:28 PM, Ace of Hearts said:

g 6. There’s a lot of exposition needed to explain what’s going on and it makes me wonder if there needs to be more setup beforehand for how this is going to go.

On 10/29/2024 at 8:54 AM, Mandamon said:

pg 7: There's a lot of focus on one mana, but we don't really know what thayt does or what it means.

pg 12: I didn't understand all of what was going on through here. L seems overly powerful. I don't think we've seen any hint of this yet?

That's super fair, I definitely think that this needs more setup and will be something I will work on in the second draft. 

 

On 10/29/2024 at 8:54 AM, Mandamon said:

Maybe fleshing out that part a couple chapters back with the training montage to add some more backstory to L would help out here? You could give some hints to her power and what she can do with it.

I think this would be a good idea. I'm considering make the montage into more of an actual couple of chapters, but I do worry about taking too long to getting to the point. I've been a little lenient since I think what has happened so far has been interesting, but it is still taking like 150 pages to get to what I consider the main hook haha. 

 

On 10/29/2024 at 8:54 AM, Mandamon said:

pg 2: Hm. The Omelas thing again. I feel like this should have a bigger meaning, but I don't think it does?

yep lol, it used to have a bigger meaning but I decided to cut the subplot because it felt a little too derivative to me. And it didn't actually add all that much. Originally it was going to include L saving thirteen orphans from the palace as well, but it was too unwieldy a set piece to work around. 

 

On 10/29/2024 at 8:54 AM, Mandamon said:

pg 15: I don't know if this part with A fighting is really necessary. We were told this was what happened.

On 10/29/2024 at 8:54 AM, Mandamon said:

pg 15: I don't know if this part with A fighting is really necessary. We were told this was what happened.

You know, that's super fair! 

Thanks again for the critiques!

[Silk she/her]

Similar thoughts to @Ace of Hearts and @Mandamon this time around...

 I’m not a copyright lawyer, but I have a very hard time imagining anyone getting issued a DMCA for this joke. As for the joke itself, I like the concept, but it does feel like it’s relying a heavily on the irreverent tone more than the actual content (funny descriptions/contrast to the original/what have you). It does feel too long for the substance that’s there, especially in the first couple paragraphs. The third paragraph was more engaging but I’d sort of forgotten about the joke by the callback at the end.

P4 Okay, I appreciate the “four quick shots broke the silence. They didn’t break S” line.  

So S is letting L reload her weapon because… it doesn’t think she’s a threat?

P5 “unable to focus and thus aim for the throat” lost the thread of the action here and had to double-check to see who was aiming for whose throat…

I’m getting a little more invested as this fight goes on and S seems to be slowly twigging to the fact that it might lose, but in the early part of the chapter it was so confident it was hard to feel tension—especially without knowing anything about whether L and the rest of the group had a particular plan.

L’s villain monologue—and it really does feel like a villain monologue—is fun with some good lines, but goes on a bit long. I started to wander by the end of it.

Overall: The showdown between S and L is interesting, but by the end of the chapter I wasn’t really sure who I should be rooting for. And I’m struggling a bit with L’s plans for S—I think partially because it’s rather abstract (does she have a plan beyond “you will redeem yourself”?), and partially because we don’t really have a sense of the horrible things she has to atone for and why she thinks this will somehow achieve that.