03/04/2013 - AubreyWrites - MoonStruck - Chapter 6

[AubreyWrites she/her]

So looking for all the usual stuff. Character building, world building, structure/plot issues.

When I submitted chapter 2 it had an awful info dump-which i have since removed. This will be the first time therefore that we really get a little bit of a sense of the history of the world. How does it work? Is it a little better?

Thanks!

[Mandamon he/him]

The heart of this chapter was good, but I think the execution here was a little shaky. To start, there were a few grammatical things in the interlude (which was fine except for that)

1) Ms Lila-she keeping telling me to call her Granna but I still think of her as Ms Lila in my mind, was very adamant about our behavior today.

2) Ms Lila--she keeping telling me to call her Granna but I still think of her as Ms Lila in my mind--was very adamant about our behavior today.

-use an em dash, not an en dash, and make sure you come out of your comment. Otherwise I get confused as to where the sentence is ending.

1) Ms Lila-Granna had

2) Ms Lila--Granna--had

-Here too. There's a couple other places during the chapter.

1) There is no concern in her face just irritation

2) There is no concern in her face, just irritation

Comma.

Pg7: is Eliza a different person than Elizabeth? Sounds like this is one of Rowana's friends in context. Also, where did the party come from? Did I just miss it, or was there suddenly a party Saturday night?

Pg11: you mention that Elizabeth is expecting David, and I remember now vaguely something about inviting him to a party. Of course I have a week or more between chapters, but you might want to add a reminder in there somewhere of why they're having the party, who's invited, etc.

Pg 12: "She turned, facing burning, to lead them into the house. She felt someone else behind her and a voice whispered in her ear. “Still friends?” Again her stomach jumped. She fluttered a weak smile and looked up to see the teasing set fade from David’s lips."

-This paragraph is a little awkward. First, it's not someone else, it's David. he was right there. Second, I thought they were friends now? Why does he feel the need to make sure? Last, "teasing set" doesn't really work for me.

pg 16: Some of David's speech is coming across overly refined now, even more than you mean.

"We did not have time for trivial pleasures like this when I was a child. I spent most of my time in more instructive methods.”

-I would have had to had to say something to this, but no one else notices. I get he's a weird character, but was he raised by resistance fighters? This goes into nutso camo-covered survivalist territory. I don't think he would say something like this in mixed company unless he's a lot stupider than I thought.

pg 17: “About two years into the war the Eastern Axis got tired of the fact that western missiles were pounding them into rubble and created a virus that successfully immobilized satellite communications. That's when pretty much everything descended into chaos. The west eventually figured out how to return the favor but by that time the damage was already done.” ... Within a month the economy had crashed to an irrecoverable degree.”

-and no one's fixed this since? All it requires is a software reset. They should still have satellite communications unless something a lot worse went on. It would be extremely hard to infect everything. I can't buy this unless you give some better reasons.

Also, Christian's consipracy theory is a little too ridiculous sounding, even for a conspiracy. It also sort of comes out of nowhere and is based on thinking the moon landing was faked? Sending an entire colony to the moon is a little harder to fake than the first ever moon landing with 3 people.

Pg 21: Who's Mr. Joe? did I miss this earlier?

Pg22: "as if Benedict really had volunteered on his own" This is redundant. Let the joke stand by itself.

There's a lot of little typos in this chapter: He/he's, Their for They're, Then for Than (several times)

This chapter is a little less refined than the others. The story is a much better way to give information, but the real heart of the chapter is the conflict between David and James. I want to find out more about that, and then it's completely dropped for the rest of the chapter for Angela's story. Again, the story is much better than the infodump, but you should probably make one more comment about the animosity between David and James before the end of the chapter to keep the interest going. Also, if this is now the first we hear of the history of the war, I think it's too late. If you've removed the info dump completely, you need to drop earlier hints.