11/24/25 - Appol PhD - Tooth and Claw sub 15, 3459 words (VL)

[Appol PhD they/he]

Hi everyone,

 

This is the main climax for the external plot, so it's important to get right and I'm curious to see what people think. We still have a ways to go after this though, since the relationship troubles don't get resolved here. 

 

Thanks as always! 

 

[Paul SB]

What Worked

Chapter 29:

“Does C even have a reason for thinking that’s the kind of life Kay and I want?” — Great example of projection in action.

 

 

Chapter 30:

“All it did was cause us both slow deaths from clumsy stake thrusts.” — Now this is one hell of a cliffhanger. The reader can’t really be sure if the author is actually going to let K die, or if there will be some contrived, unlikely rescue in the last second. I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes.

 

Not So Much

Chapter 29:

“… C points the scanner at me and I freeze.” — Would he think of her as C, or as K’s mom?

 

Chapter 30:

Your description of pushing back against C’s control is really vague and disappointing. What, exactly, are they doing? All we get is them thinking about resisting, then see a little bit of shaking. Are they concentrating on moving their muscles? Chanting mantras in their minds? Visualizing being able to escape? Or is there some way in which they can mentally block the control over them?

 

“… I got the courage to put my feelings about my gender into words …” — Sexuality and gender are not the same thing. Sexuality can be a part of gender, and often is, but genders can overlap both sexes and attraction states.

 

I like how the different sections with different narrators are much shorter than usual, now we’re getting into the climax. That’s a strategy I’ve read about in more than one book. However, the other trick to go with it is to shorten sentences during scenes like this. The scenes with K & J especially suffer from too much rational contemplation when they should be in panic mode. They can still have profound thoughts, but if you write them in short sentences and, better still, sentence fragments, it would give a much better impression of how dire their situation is. That would have the added bonus of making K & J appear to be remarkably resilient when they manage to succeed in spite of their thoughts racing around inside their heads like the Indy 500.

[AnAirSickFool]

My thoughts.
I liked the cliffhanger at the end. It is a good end to the chapter. the confluence of different perspectives helps with the scenario

One thing I did not like was the mental control part, but that is more for personal reasons. When mental control comes up like what was happening here I always like seeing people subverting it by being clever. Here they just kind of brute force through it because they can not all be controlled. to me if that is the path to go then it feels like the difficulty should be expressed more in the thoughts. If that is all to vague I can try and be more specific but I am still not use to writing out my thoughts.

 

[ginger_reckoning]

Cool climax! I'm hoping to see K have some emotional consequences from killing her own mom, since I think that would be a big deal even if they didn't have a great realtionship. Overall though, solid submission!

 

 

Sub 15

 

“This time, the way K walked…” Again, just saying how I would structure it so take this with a grain of salt, but I would structure this sentence so its “But the way K walked…burned into my brain, and I don’t think we’ll be able to look back…even if we can cure her…” I just think it would read a little easier this way

 

“That has to be worth one or two” I think this is supposed to be how he feels like he’s repaying her, but as it’s written it sounds more like he’s bargaining, saying if he saves her she will have to protect him. I would write “If I save her…maybe that will pay her back for…”

 

“Gay little bastards” lol, the way this is phrased makes it sound like they aren’t already gay little bastards /:P 

 

“The same control she’s using against us” I think you can just say “put her under control”

 

“Let me kill them” interesting, I wonder where she is going with this 

 

I will say her arguments for wanting to kill them are a little flimsy, but maybe if she focused a little more on wanting to be like her mom it might make sense. I guess her real motive was to get her mom to use the scanner on her, but still, if I were C I would think the argument was sus

 

Pg 12

“Take actions that will bring me harm” Well, she did know that stabbing her with a stake would do harm, right? Again I’m a little confused how these commands work