2/17/25 - Ace of Hearts - Labyrinth of Birdcages sub 6 - 4021 words (V)

[Appol PhD they/he]

Hi everyone,

 

We're moving into the meat of the second arc (out of five), which are all plotted out in a similar way to the first one. I'm most curious if anything starts to feel repetitive or overly formulaic.

 

Thanks!

[ginger_reckoning]

So overall, I think that J and V have very distinct voices, but Ks voice seems similar to J. It could be because she was missing at first, but it just seems like her personality isn’t as strong as the other two. Also, I know I've brought this up before, but I find it a little hard to believe that highschoolers would say exactly what they mean all the time. That's a little bit of an exaggeration on my part, but it does seem like everyone communicates with each other very openly and honestly, which (imo) just doesn't seem like teenagers to me. 

As far as repetition goes, it did strike me as a little repetitive with J talking to V, who doesn’t want to go, while someone else fights the pigeons. Idk how to really solve that though. 

Overall though, I'm still enjoying the story! It will be interesting to see what happens with V. 

 

Pg1 I’m a little surprised they could get into the school on a Sunday 

 

I do kind of wonder if j knows V well enough to even tell if something is significantly different?

 

“So these things don’t feed off my mind” I think this clause could be cut. This is implied I think, and I think it would make the banter flow better 

 

“But really, K” idk why but I thought this was going to be followed up by a rebuke 

 

“Through the scenery tree” I had to read this sentence a couple times to understand it

 

The anime town is a cool setting, I like that the different worlds have different visual themes 

 

 

 

[Appol PhD they/he]

On 2/19/2025 at 6:13 PM, ginger_reckoning said:

So overall, I think that J and V have very distinct voices, but Ks voice seems similar to J. It could be because she was missing at first, but it just seems like her personality isn’t as strong as the other two. Also, I know I've brought this up before, but I find it a little hard to believe that highschoolers would say exactly what they mean all the time. That's a little bit of an exaggeration on my part, but it does seem like everyone communicates with each other very openly and honestly, which (imo) just doesn't seem like teenagers to me. 

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, K's characterization has been tricky since a lot of the point is that she feels like she doesn't have a strong personality or noteworthy attributes, so I'm not too surprised to hear that I need to work on her a bit more.

On the communication, are there any particular moments where it feels jarring? I think some directness is unavoidable if I'm trying to write a YA story with fast pacing that needs to get to the point right away, but I certainly don't want it to feel inauthentic.

[ginger_reckoning]

3 hours ago, Ace of Hearts said:

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, K's characterization has been tricky since a lot of the point is that she feels like she doesn't have a strong personality or noteworthy attributes, so I'm not too surprised to hear that I need to work on her a bit more.

On the communication, are there any particular moments where it feels jarring? I think some directness is unavoidable if I'm trying to write a YA story with fast pacing that needs to get to the point right away, but I certainly don't want it to feel inauthentic.

Yeah, that's fair. It is fast-paced enought that the directness definitely helps it not get bogged down in miscommunication issues. 

One section that I noticed was on page 5 where she says something along the lines of "so I'll be trying to impress you at every opportunity". It makes sense she would be doing this, but (to me at least) I feel like this is a case of "telling" and not "showing". Same with when they are talking about J being worried about being too bossy. She tells him not to worry very explicitly, and lists her reasons why. I want to specify that I don't think that it's bad dialogue, it just seems like people who are very precise with what they mean, like they have recieved communication training. Which they might have! Like I said, I just think it makes them seem more mature than highschoolers, which, again, could be what you're going for. 

[Appol PhD they/he]

1 hour ago, ginger_reckoning said:

Yeah, that's fair. It is fast-paced enought that the directness definitely helps it not get bogged down in miscommunication issues. 

One section that I noticed was on page 5 where she says something along the lines of "so I'll be trying to impress you at every opportunity". It makes sense she would be doing this, but (to me at least) I feel like this is a case of "telling" and not "showing". Same with when they are talking about J being worried about being too bossy. She tells him not to worry very explicitly, and lists her reasons why. I want to specify that I don't think that it's bad dialogue, it just seems like people who are very precise with what they mean, like they have recieved communication training. Which they might have! Like I said, I just think it makes them seem more mature than highschoolers, which, again, could be what you're going for. 

Thanks, that helps me understand! Wording like that can definitely be improved without slowing the pacing, so I'll try to be on the lookout (though I tend to save even line edits for after the whole draft is submitted since my brain just works better if I can tackle it all at once, so you'll probably see that sort of thing continue to pop up).