6/2/25-ginger_reckoning-a song for silence sub 23, 5043 words, (V,L)

[ginger_reckoning]

Hey all! Thanks again for reading. Here we have the second part of the big dragon battle, and one of the main turning points for a certain character. Most of what I'm looking for is the same as the last sub, namely: does it go on for too long, do the character moments make sense, does it work as an action scene? The goal for it is to feel frantic, which I hope this achieves, but I'm not sure. Any notes appreciated!

 

Additional tags for torture and discussions of murder

[Appol PhD they/he]

Excited to dig in!

Overall: There are a lot of good pieces here, and I think using this fight to explore A’s and S’s outlooks on the world reads a lot better to me than the bets because it ties their opinions to important snap decisions. As I comment on every week, I think some of the stuff around this in earlier could be restructured, but I really do like the core idea of using the dragon fight as a vehicle for developing the dynamic between A and S and their outlooks. That being said, there were a couple things in this section I’d take a look at:

-The side characters don’t feel like they add much here. Right now, I think this section reads better if they’re not here at all and we just focus on A and S. This is also my feeling about passages that are straight action with no characterization, though we don’t get a ton of this and I’m willing to accept a bit of that as a necessary evil for a fight scene.

-Music as magic ends up feeling a bit flimsy since it’s tied to A’s performance and how it gets across rather than figuring out a more specific solution to the problem. I like the feel of it, but I think it needs to be tied to A’s specific decisions (such as figuring out how to work around well-defined limitations) to feel like an actual plan.

As I go:

Pg 1. The 2^nd person here reads pretty well despite not being present throughout the novel. The distance makes A’s shock clearer

Pg 3. I like that we’re seeing S and A’s dynamic shift, but there’s still conflict based on how they look at the world

Pg 5. This still reads fine but at this point my engagement is starting to dip a bit. I’m reading this story for A and S, so the other characters and dragon on their own don’t hold my interest as well

Pg 6. The talk here interests me a bit more though. I think there’s a good story here about how this connects to A’s worldview but I don’t think all of the pieces in earlier chapters are quite in place.

Pg 9-10. This reads pretty well too. I was worried about the fight dragging on but so far I like the characterization we’ve gotten from S and A because of it.

Pg 14. A tricky thing about it is that whether or not the performance works feels a little arbitrary, being based on whether or not this one dragon is moved by song

-Huh okay why is the dream skeleton here? Feels like this needs more setup

Pg 17. Feels like S saying they’re wrong happens pretty abruptly right after starting to show A some goodwill

[Paul SB]

Since this is my first time reading your work, there was a lot I was clueless about. Most of my comments have to do with phrasing, as you will see on the GooGooDocs nest time you look. I hope you find this useful.

[ginger_reckoning]

I saw them, thanks for reading and thanks for the input!

[Paul SB]

Glad you like.