3/31/25 - ginger_reckoning - a song for silence sub 17 - L, V, 3007 words

[ginger_reckoning]

Hey all! Here is the rest of the chapter from last week. Again, same questions, just looking to see how people take to the new characters (will probably introduce them earlier in later drafts or cut them altogether) and if the pairing up of B and L makes sense at all. Tags this time for Language and mild violence. Thanks!

 

 

[Little_Dagger she/her]

Hi, it’s odd to dive into a story on Chapter 22, but I’m excited to try!

As I go:

P1. The POV in the beginning change feels abrupt. If it’s intentional, I hope the format is well-established previously.

Having a magic allergy is a cool idea!

“Oh, my child…” paragraph: a minor point, but the word “thing” is used four times and feels at best ineloquent by the character

“obviously something is going on” feels a bit on the nose

Also, it might have been set up in previous chapters, but I don’t know what the setting is here. Where are these characters? Is M bodily with them or is she in some outside realm? Where is Fi and how do they all hear each other?

P2. “to stay within her love” is a nice phrase

P3. “Well, I’ve gathered…” The sentence is awkwardly phrased

P4. “Roger” jumps out at me. I wasn’t aware there’s radio in your world so it felt a bit out of place

“more important than a lamp” – haha, yeah

“out its eye sockets” – cool imagery

P5. Using “sucked” when describing L’s feeling somehow makes her feel less… Lady of Darkness. Until then, I imagined her to be more distinguished.

P6. Never mind, L appears to be using slang quite a bit. I must have formed incorrect expectations about her in the first few pages.

“A very complicated one” and then “Well, it’s complicated” feels repetitive

P8. Would be nice to have a line or two of the setting at this point (a crackle of the fire, or some such) to help the reader visualize the conversation

P9. Frog tree? That sounds fun

P11. I like that the chapter ends with a promise. I’m curious about “what first” too.

Overall: It’s been a while since I commented on your work, so it was great to read in your voice again. I liked the pace of the chapter: the dialogue flowed naturally and I was always excited to find out what came next. I was confused by the POV change in the beginning, but I’m guessing it’s something that was established earlier in the book, so perhaps it only felt jarring to me (I’m still not sure who the “I” in the beginning is). Other than that, you have very interesting characters and you clearly know where you are going with the plot and why. While I might not have understood some references, I still had a lot of fun. Good job!

[ginger_reckoning]

2 hours ago, Little_Dagger said:

P1. The POV in the beginning change feels abrupt. If it’s intentional, I hope the format is well-established previously.

Yeah, I won't lie, this might be the single worst spot to come in as a new reader, so thanks for doing this anyway haha!

 

2 hours ago, Little_Dagger said:

“Oh, my child…” paragraph: a minor point, but the word “thing” is used four times and feels at best ineloquent by the character

Good to know, thanks for catching this! One of those things that reading over this like three or four times myself doesn't help with haha

2 hours ago, Little_Dagger said:

“obviously something is going on” feels a bit on the nose

2 hours ago, Little_Dagger said:

Roger” jumps out at me. I wasn’t aware there’s radio in your world so it felt a bit out of place

2 hours ago, Little_Dagger said:

Using “sucked” when describing L’s feeling somehow makes her feel less… Lady of Darkness. Until then, I imagined her to be more distinguished.

P6. Never mind, L appears to be using slang quite a bit. I must have formed incorrect expectations about her in the first few pages.

these are interesting for me to hear, because yes, this is kind of the style I've established throughout. I hope it works, I sometimes worry it sounds too much like a marvel movie 

Anyway, thanks for reading and thanks for the feedback!

 

[Appol PhD they/he]

Overall: My gut reaction is that we need to learn more about PU in this chapter instead of more vague warnings (or really that we needed to learn more about them a while ago), but I think the core issue is that the vague mystery feels like all there really is right now. I think the story can keep its cards about PU close to its chest if necessary, but it could use a more defined sense of progression either about PU or something else.

As I go:

Pg 1-2. I can see the intent of setting up a new dynamic for L, but it feels more like we’re getting exposition about why things are going bad for her

Pg 5. It doesn’t feel like I really know what’s going on either, which is making it hard to be fully engaged

Pg 6. I think it’s good that B isn’t giving this as exposition but it also feels a bit drawn out to make L figure it out

Pg 7. So the issue is just that PU could mess up the spell and blow up the world? It feels like that doesn’t give the story a ton to grapple with

Pg 8. At risk of repeating myself, it feels like there’s not enough going on for this mystery to hold my attention. It seemed like we were going to get answers here but after multiple pages of talking it feels like all we have are more vague hints.

Pg 10. Is L actually going with this plan of turning herself in? It would be good to have more of a defined plot arc for her which that could provide, but I’m also not sure why she isn’t just running away and hiding since that seems to be her characterization thus far. Maybe an opportunity to dig into her character more?