4/14/25 - K. Preston - Ghosts Among the Galaxies, 5101 words (V,S)

[K. Preston]

Hope this finds everyone well. It's been a week. Hope you like it. 

[MyDude she/her]

Hi again!

Chap 6

One chapter did I understood what the environment looked like. It helped grounding the scene and make the whole scene feel more immersive. 

The tension of what happened in the previous chapter contrasts with the normalness of the guards. You could tell something awful was gonna happen even if nothing seemed wrong.
Mixed on detail that the ve’s teachers are the same that trained Cre. It’s a disturbing thought that her teacher also trained her father's killer but the Ve themself lose some of the mystery around them if their training something wider spread. 

The short POV from the Veil himself was a neat send-off to the chapter. 

This story has really fast passing, which is not a bad or good thing, just an observation.

 

Chap 7

So this chapter as a breather was a breath of fresh air. It really highlighted Mar as the character I feel the most invested in. There is the cold pragmatic side to him and there is the more human part of him. Layers like an onion. He also seems to have a more solid grip on the situation which is a more interesting POV than Cres, imo. Feel i've read about alot of characters like Cres already and I feel nothing for the king so her grief over him isn't something I feel connected to. Yet, at least, feel she will grow into something more. 

I liked the narrative tool of Mar talking to his mom's portrait to reveal the more vulnerable part and past of his. It might have crossed the line where he felt crazy for how intensely he spoke to it, but that might have been the point.

 

Nice chapters! Can’t wait to read more!

 

 

[K. Preston]

Thank you MD,

Between this critique and your previous, I have a good idea where to turn back and revise. 

A quick backstory. I wrote this book over two years ago. I was fairly new to writing and very unfamiliar with show versus tell, immersion, and flow. It seems obvious now when I read the originals and see a ton of unnecessary exposition, sudden shifts, and random details jump out at me. I realize this doesn't make me good, I am just more aware. However, I still suffer from a writer's viewpoint and can be blind to things that truly make a story interesting. I love my characters, tropes and all, and very seldom am able to see them as boring or bland. Cress is my MC and although I think I eventually get her to a point that readers would care, I didn't see how slow that progression was. So, to all who have been reading, my sincerest apologies. Yet, ANOTHER chapter 1 (along with a few others) will be worked on. Lol, no biggie. These will lean more to something a few of you have mentioned. A few fully revised scenes that, I hope, will make her character competent, proactive, and deep.

Proof of my growth, in a way, is Chapter 7 was written recently. I wanted to expound on M, and integrate more of him into the book. Oh, how I loved his direction and added quirks. Your comments on him are both welcome and satisfying. They make me consider him much more closely fleshed out. I feel I hit my Marc. (Pun intended) 

This has left me in a difficult place. I am integrating scenes and chapters into a story that I feel needed heavy revision. I took this challenge on and began pushing through chapter after chapter. Cutting, fixing, and revising so many boggy points till I felt I had gotten the book closer to a readable degree. I have a few betas, mostly family, that have enjoyed it with their admittedly filtered lenses. Their feedback is mildly helpful. I then started submitting some of this into this forum. Your feedback (all of you) has been difficult to swallow at times. I appreciate everyone's line by line, but honestly, I NEED big picture comments. Do the characters draw you to them? Do you feel immersed in the scene? Where are you losing interest? It can be difficult to filter through a breakdown when I am constantly saying "that's a red herring", "that is part of the mystery.", "I can't change or answer that, because it gives away the plot", etc..."

So, I truly appreciate everyone's taking the time to read and comment. For the time being, I am going to stop submitting scenes from GAtG. I will still submit in upcoming weeks. I have a story I am working on (a few actually), that hopefully will suffice till I feel my book is back on track. 

Thank you for giving me a perspective that opens up my vision. I needed it.

Sincerely,

KP

[Appol PhD they/he]

All right time to get into this week’s submission!

Overall: Mostly similar comments as before. I think the different factions/people with their different perspectives and plans are good for setting up a complicated situation, though I noted a few times in the LBLs where we could use more context. In particular, I think it’s important to get some insight on what the kidnappers are after.

My biggest hangup continues to be C’s characterization, particularly as a protagonist. The chapter where she’s kidnapped highlights the fact that she hasn’t gotten to do much proactive the entire story so far, and it feels like the events of the story mostly happen the same way regardless of what kind of person she is, meaning there’s not a lot of reason to be engaged with her characterization.

As I go:

Pg 1. I’m confused how we got from the end of ch 5 to here

-Oh is she like virtually out here? Still not 100% sure what’s happening

Pg 2. Does that mean C was also trained as an assassin, or are the V elite warriors in a broader sense? Either way, her reactions and actions so far haven’t struck me as belonging to someone with elite weapons training

Pg 4. I think I need more details about why this is happening to be fully invested

Pg 5. Similar thoughts here. I like the idea of the mystery around his mission, but I need more to grapple with upfront

Pg 7-8. I’m reading this as a mundane picture, but because it’s SFF I’m not quite sure. Either way, the fact that we don’t know much about M’s relationship to his mom makes it feel like he’s mostly externalizing thoughts about C that we mostly already understand by now. I like the bits we do get about his mom though.

Pg 10-11. I’m not getting much out of this conversation. Some of it we already know, and some we don’t have the context for so even if it does become important later I won’t know to focus on it.

Pg 12-14. The only active characters right now are the kidnappers, who don’t have super engaging characterization right now. Also I’d recommend sexual assault content tags for scenes like this even though it doesn’t fully get there.

Pg 15-16. Again, the lack of context (intentional or not) means it’s hard to be fully engaged when I don’t know who could be attacking the kidnappers or why. Maybe it’s the V to keep things on rails but shouldn’t he be capable of just killing them right away?

[ginger_reckoning]

I have thoughts similar to ace of hearts here, mainly that I thought C kind of lacked much of anything to do in these chapters. She tried to investigate, but it didn't seem like that really did much to reveal information, and then she was just lying there having stuff happen to her for the rest of the scene. Other than that, I liked the chapter with M and it will be interesting to see what happens with the V now that he has met C. Thanks for submitting!

 

 

Pg1 Possibly weekly-reading-syndrome, but I forgot what her plan was

 

Pg 2 Oh, interesting, I didn’t know she had training. It might be a cool opportunity to show that off even more when she tried to fight off the assassin

 

Pg 4 Oh no! I was not expecting that. My first thought when she felt a needle was a poison dart, but I’m guessing it was a syringe from the guard?

 

Pg5 I’m not sure if this is the same guy as the assassin or not

 

Pg 9 I liked this short chapter, it makes M seem not quite as sociopathic as the other chapters did, gives him some depth. 

 

Personally, I am very tired of the threat of SA in fantasy and scifi. I know it’s a real thing that people experience, but it make me very weary whenever I read it. I don’t think this scene is very graphic, that being said, but like, in my opinion the threat against her life is sufficient to get across the horror she feels

 

Pg 15 “like your supposed to” should be you’re