7/07/25_PaulSB_Twilight'sRiftsub03_4903 words

[Paul SB]

I think these two entries don't have anything in them particularly triggering. 01.03 is the major turning point of Act 1 and I hope I made it mysterious enough. 01.04 is exploration, and a bit of a hint as one of the character's otherwise hidden agenda. My question for this entry is how much of it is necessary vs. how much can be summarized. I like the exploration aspect, but maybe others will be bored by it.

[Appol PhD they/he]

And now onto the next one!

Overall:  It’s good that we get motion here, and the ship provides a good sense of mystery. Right now my main hangup is that I don’t get a good feeling for what the story is about or where it’s taking us. Good for the characters that they potentially escape their endless toil to escape on this ship and uncover its secrets, but I’m not sure how that connects to the larger ideas of the story. We have some broad strokes of worldbuilding dynamics such as how capitalism and religion keep the masses down and how people struggle to exist within those confines but I don’t have a great idea of what distinct angle the story is taking on these issues. It's the kind of thing that is hard to just go in and improve, but hopefully it's still helpful to hear.

As I go:

Pg 1. I think I need a bit more about these new characters for them to stand out

Pg 3. It’s good to have this character conflict with T acting weird, but I’m not sure enough of what it means to be worried about her. I think my biggest hangup so far is that I don’t feel like I know what the story is really about, so it’s hard to see how this connects.

Pg 6. This is another character moment where I’m not quite in-sync with the characters. The setup is good for exploring why A and R are willing to risk their lives by going through the field and I think I need more characterization on that.

Pg 9. I’m glad to see that things are progressing, though it still feels like A and the others aren’t super active as characters. Not always a bad thing, but so far it feels like this works better if they have to execute a plan to get on here instead of stumbling upon it.

Pg 11. Good to have interpersonal conflict here with the cleric though the characterization here still feels a bit simple so far.

Pg 14-15. If they’re curious why the computer listens to them couldn’t they ask here? And it seems like they’d benefit from asking what the ship is and what happened to the previous inhabitants.

[Paul SB]

I added this to the end of Entry 01.03, after A contemplates the problems they might face. "But another voice in my mind was already cooking up ways we could use this ship to strike back at the Meritocracy, and free more people from their Labor contracts." Does this give you a better feel for where this is going?

[Appol PhD they/he]

28 minutes ago, Paul SB said:

I added this to the end of Entry 01.03, after A contemplates the problems they might face. "But another voice in my mind was already cooking up ways we could use this ship to strike back at the Meritocracy, and free more people from their Labor contracts." Does this give you a better feel for where this is going?

Yeah I definitely think this helps characterization! I think it could be good to have more specifics on this even in this chapter, like if A means genuine armed resistance vs. smuggling people out, etc.

[Paul SB]

15 minutes ago, Ace of Hearts said:

Yeah I definitely think this helps characterization! I think it could be good to have more specifics on this even in this chapter, like if A means genuine armed resistance vs. smuggling people out, etc.

It's kind of amazing how many people have read this and none of them were able to pull this out like you did, even the dev ed I paid a ton of money to. (Wife's mad about that. Money out, nothing in.)