AnAirSickFool - 12/22/2025 - Ruin Of Kingdom sub 3, 3245

[AnAirSickFool]

This is for the second chapter of the book. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[Paul SB]

Hitting the Inciting Incident in Chapter 2 looks like good pacing, and A's characterization comes off pretty well. So far so good, but like before your punctuation and diction errors are very distracting, and likely fatal to getting it published.

What Worked:

A’s one-track mind and plotting behind his grandfather’s back is very age-appropriate.

 

Hitting your Inciting Event in Chapter 2 is probably good pacing. How many words do you expect this story to take up? Are you using any kind of planning chart to plot out this story?

 

 

Not So Much:

“… imported from the southern region of the empire.” — It would help to give the name of the province. Otherwise it looks like you didn’t put much effort into world-building.

 

“The man could not possibl(y) e have been skilled in its use considering the way he looked.” — What, specifically made this guy look like he couldn’t be competent with a sword? Did he have weenie arms, was he old and bent, too weak to swing the thing, did he have a crippled hand, or did he look like some powderpuff courtier?

 

“Sir Titus …” — The combination of the Medieval title with the Roman name is a bit jarring. Takes the reader right out of the story.

 

While Grampa’s angry pacifism is completely understandable, the way he speaks to his grandson makes him look more like a jerk and a bad parent/grandparent. If you have him explain his reasoning to A with a little more patience he would come across as a better person. It would also make it more impactful when A defies him.

 

You vastly overuse the words “though” and “seemed”.

[AnAirSickFool]

12 hours ago, Paul SB said:

Hitting the Inciting Incident in Chapter 2 looks like good pacing, and A's characterization comes off pretty well. So far so good, but like before your punctuation and diction errors are very distracting, and likely fatal to getting it published.

What Worked:

A’s one-track mind and plotting behind his grandfather’s back is very age-appropriate.

 

Hitting your Inciting Event in Chapter 2 is probably good pacing. How many words do you expect this story to take up? Are you using any kind of planning chart to plot out this story?

 

 

Not So Much:

“… imported from the southern region of the empire.” — It would help to give the name of the province. Otherwise it looks like you didn’t put much effort into world-building.

 

“The man could not possibl(y) e have been skilled in its use considering the way he looked.” — What, specifically made this guy look like he couldn’t be competent with a sword? Did he have weenie arms, was he old and bent, too weak to swing the thing, did he have a crippled hand, or did he look like some powderpuff courtier?

 

“Sir Titus …” — The combination of the Medieval title with the Roman name is a bit jarring. Takes the reader right out of the story.

 

While Grampa’s angry pacifism is completely understandable, the way he speaks to his grandson makes him look more like a jerk and a bad parent/grandparent. If you have him explain his reasoning to A with a little more patience he would come across as a better person. It would also make it more impactful when A defies him.

 

You vastly overuse the words “though” and “seemed”.

Thank you for your response.

For the total number of words I would have to check. the current draft is about 90,000 words but there are parts that are being cut so probably a little less. For planning I just used a basic outline format.

If the grampa is coming across as a jerk then I do need to rewrite a few things. I was aiming more for frustration at the constant desire to be a killer as well as this just not being the right time to bring it up again since there was just an emotional meeting.

The title of Sir was a deliberate anachronism since Romans were not actually big on honorifics in peoples names. The closest "correct" title would probably be something like Domine or Erus but neither really works and would require some explanation for the readers to know what it means. If others see it as a major issue then I could probably just remove it entirely though.

[Paul SB]

If you're interested, I lifted an outline format for a 3-act structure from K.M. Weiland's website which I've found pretty useful. 

[Appol PhD they/he]

I'm doing quick read-throughs and comments to get caught up for next week. With this one, I like that we get some of the conflict emerging between A and his grandfather due to their different views on war, and that A has a plan for how to go against his grandfather. This feels like it has more meat to it than how the order is delivered. It feels like the first half of the chapter could be summarized into a paragraph and we'd get all the info we need.