Reading Excuses - Spieles, Heir, Chapter 9 - 4.9k words

[spieles]

Last time we left off where Oz had arrived in Aurum (the big city) for the first time, reunited with his BFF Pascal, went to get some grub at the local black market, and then.... got arrested by city security. So now he faces the Board....

*One note - "Project Null" is now an intelligence program - as Robinski suggested for chapters 3-4 - so Oz would be training to be an agent. 

 

Like Mandamon, I really like Mary's ABCD method from the Writing Excuses podcast. So tell me if what is awesome, what bores you (cuts are beloved!), confuses you, or anything that engages your disbelief. 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 28, 2016 by spieles

[kais]

Overall - the chapter is clean and flows well. I've sent you LBLs, which are minimal. My one concern for the chapter is that it lacks tension. Until the end when Oz sees his apartment, as a reader I feel completely detached from the narrative. There are a lot of high stakes discussions going on with the council and yet Oz barely reacts to any of it. 

 

Awesome

Always love the living wall descriptions

 

Bores

The entire council meeting. Too much talking, not enough emotion and reacting

 

Confuses

All clear on this one

 

Disbelief

That Oz would reject blood testing. I'd think he'd be at least a little curious, enough to pause before rejecting even.

 

Welcome back!!

[Mandamon]

I also thought this was a really clean chapter.  Didn't find anything offhand that read funny except for the first line:
"When the guard activates the panel for the double doors, the board room contains two people."
It probably contained them before this point too (/snark)

pg 6: Probably just WRS, but I don't remember the specifics of Brick.  How does it know what his father was feeling?

A
The description of the plants in the house, as well as the living wall, as kaisa says.
I though the council itself was kind of awesome.  We finally get to meet the people that are responsible for all the crap that's been going on for however many years.  We also get to see some more worldbuilding with how the city works, which personally I like.

B
The stuff with the council and the board was somewhat interesting, but probably went on a little long.

C
Not sure if this is confusion or disbelief, but brick stating what Oz's father wanted for him.  Was there some record of his wishes for his son?

D
Yep, the blood testing.  I'm not sure why Oz is so violently opposed.

I don't think the chapter lacks tension, but I do agree with kaisa that Oz's reactions are bland, or at least described blandly.  I think especially the passive way you describe Oz's surprise at the board knowing his secret.

[Robinski]

Yay, Mary’s ABCs! I can work with that.

Awesome: A; Bores: B; Confuses: C; Disbelief: D; Grammar/typo: G

I continue to enjoy your story and I look forward to each submission as it drops in my email. I think you’ve got good strong characters going through the story. They all have issues going on, and these are grounded in family or personal life, which just helps to make the characters more believable.

I had some grumbles here, but nothing major. I think there are some strong emotional beats and I enjoyed the reveals, apart from one, which is that we have yet another very important person hiding in plain sight. I plucked this out of my detailed comments to put it front and centre.

(D) – “She’s the niece of Elizabeth Clarington. Clarington is the Council President.” – That’s your third, this-kid-who-you-thought-was-a-regular-Joe-is-actually-offspring-of-a-really-important-person reveal. Now, I'm just going to assume every nonspecific kid is the secret son or daughter of the president of the world.

The set-up emerging for coming chapters is pure Hunger Games / Divergent / etc. kids-go-through-arduous-training-regime-and-end-up-bonding. It’s sooooooo familiar BUT, rather than being a cliché, I think it’s an absolutely essential ingredient for constructing this sort of YA dystopian fare.

In summary, keep it coming, I'm enjoying myself here.

<R>

----------------------------------------------------------

(D) – “Siegfried Aerworks is the inventor of the modern oxygen mask.” – Really? The surname is just too convenient, to the point of being cartoonish. For me, it’s not the right tone for this rather dark story. It would be like Miles Dyson being called Miles Skinnett.

(G) – “Her frosted pixie-style borders” – I think this form needs a hyphen.

(G) – “points at the women in heels before me”

(D) – There are two teacups on a tray. I don’t see anything about her pouring tea, so I am lead to believe that the cups are full, BUT nobody pours tea to sit and cool waiting for someone to take a cup.

(C) – “I’d be a fool to trust any of them” – why? You’ve not sold his reaction to me.

(D) – “My experiments wouldn’t be necessary if your Brides” – This is not a valid scientific reaction, but maybe that’s okay if she’s not a scientist. Even if the Brides wiped out the Rex, a scientist would still pursue a cure against the possibility that the infection could recur.

(G) – “Midge’s lips press,” – compress, I think.

(C) – “Because I knew better than to trust anyone from this city” – Again, is it WRS on my part? I don’t recall where his cynicism comes from.

(G) – “but it’s not much worse than riding a bike” – any harder, I think, but it’s dialogue, so maybe Oz just has poor grammar ;op

(D) – “By the scalding sensation on my palm,” – Again, without seeing the tea being poured into an empty teacup, this does not convince me.

(C) – “and then higher blood cell counts” – red or white? This, for me, is imprecise.

(A) – The paragraph where Siegfried describes how Oz came to be, and the less fortunate subject is quite a gut punch, well done, then there is the double whammy of the virus being created from his bio-stuff!! Wowza. The following sections of Oz going to the loo and exploring his background worked really well for me.

(A) – “If anything, I’ve mastered the opposite: to obscure, to evade, to turn trash into tools.” – great line. Indeed, this whole self-examination where he measures himself against his father’s goals is very well done. You’ve built up a strong enough character for Oz that I am totally convinced by his assessment of how he ‘fails’ in this comparison.

(C) – “And we couldn’t blow it up before,” Krieger says accusingly at Midge. “Women and children were there,” Midge says.” – I got a bit lost here. Blow up where? Why were there women and children not ‘converted’? Also, how does natural booby-trapping work? Not sure what was meant by that.

(C) – “If he dies, the Council will have free reign.” I forget what council this is, and are some of these people not on it? Maybe it’s WRS.

(D) – “For a second, I don’t grasp her meaning” – Oz is a pretty smart cookie, but not following their line of thought is really dense. I don’t believe he would not see where they were going with this.

(G) – “easy workarounds” – Spellchecker tells me this is a word, although I was heading to commenting that it should be hyphenated, imho.

(C) – My WRS is kicking in again. So I get that it’s the Citizens’ Council, but what is this the Board of?

(C) – “an elaborate ruse for Eleanor to face her own son” – I'm confused by the use of the word ‘face’ here, does it mean ‘meet’?

(C) – Bah, more WRS, I can’t remember who the Greens are.

(A) – “but Midge is already interfering on my behalf” – lol.

(D) – “I assume that friend is Fara Pascal” – Ooh, weird. The way you have been calling her Pascal from the start, I had that fixed in my head as her forename, but it’s her surname? It’s a bit crass for Oz to refer to his best friend by her surname.

(A) – Great zinger to end the section, as if I needed a hook to keep reading.

(G) – “we’ve identified some of the reason’s”

(G) – “We’re trying to run tests to sort it out” – Are they running tests or not? I feel like ‘We’re running tests to try and sort it out.’ would be a more likely sentence.

(B) – “Oz, there’s something you need to know–” – I'm just presuming now that Violet is his sister.

 

 

Edited June 29, 2016 by Robinski

[spieles]

With regard to Oz's reactions to the Board being bland -

To all of you - and other readers -  I feel like this is a problem of me having read this scene 10 too many times. I'm curious what you'd expect his reaction to be (especially when the Board lays out they know his secret) - I feel like I mainly focused on his shock, but I'm thinking that's the wrong emotional beat. Should he argue more? 

Also, any other specific parts (besides the secret) where you can point me to where you think his reactions are off or on the dull side? 

Much, much appreciated.

[spieles]

4 hours ago, kaisa said:

Overall - the chapter is clean and flows well. I've sent you LBLs, which are minimal. My one concern for the chapter is that it lacks tension. Until the end when Oz sees his apartment, as a reader I feel completely detached from the narrative. There are a lot of high stakes discussions going on with the council and yet Oz barely reacts to any of it. 

Awesome Always love the living wall descriptions hah - I shouldn't be surprised that you like them. <3

Bores The entire council meeting. Too much talking, not enough emotion and reacting Yeah, I'm going to go through this again. As I said in the comment above any point where you want to pinpoint a target - I'm all ears.

Confuses All clear on this one

Disbelief That Oz would reject blood testing. I'd think he'd be at least a little curious, enough to pause before rejecting even. I think a pause could be could, even if it's just to give the reader the reason he's being (possibly) irrational here. Makes sense.

Welcome back!! Glad to be back.

 

[spieles]

28 minutes ago, Mandamon said:

I also thought this was a really clean chapter.  Didn't find anything offhand that read funny except for the first line:
"When the guard activates the panel for the double doors, the board room contains two people."
It probably contained them before this point too (/snark)

pg 6: Probably just WRS, but I don't remember the specifics of Brick.  How does it know what his father was feeling?

A The description of the plants in the house, as well as the living wall, as kaisa says. I though the council itself was kind of awesome.  We finally get to meet the people that are responsible for all the crap that's been going on for however many years.  We also get to see some more worldbuilding with how the city works, which personally I like. Very cool.

B The stuff with the council and the board was somewhat interesting, but probably went on a little long. Yeah, I actually blinked when I saw the word count for this chapter. I'll see if I can't just go through and strategically hack....

C
Not sure if this is confusion or disbelief, but brick stating what Oz's father wanted for him.  Was there some record of his wishes for his son? Brick is the city's AI and his programming makes him loyal to the Pentons. I could make this clearer. In fact, maybe it should come up in the meeting rather than just after.

D Yep, the blood testing.  I'm not sure why Oz is so violently opposed. I'm on this.

I don't think the chapter lacks tension, but I do agree with kaisa that Oz's reactions are bland, or at least described blandly.  I think especially the passive way you describe Oz's surprise at the board knowing his secret. Yeah, I have him being "overwhelmed" in my head, but I think I could maybe show a bit more anger?

 

[spieles]

24 minutes ago, Robinski said:

Yay, Mary’s ABCs! I can work with that. I adore the fact that you CODED all of your responses. It's amazeballs.

Awesome: A; Bores: B; Confuses: C; Disbelief: D; Grammar/typo: G

I continue to enjoy your story and I look forward to each submission as it drops in my email. I think you’ve got good strong characters going through the story. They all have issues going on, and these are grounded in family or personal life, which just helps to make the characters more believable.

I had some grumbles here, but nothing major. I think there are some strong emotional beats and I enjoyed the reveals, apart from one, which is that we have yet another very important person hiding in plain sight. I plucked this out of my detailed comments to put it front and centre.

(D) – “She’s the niece of Elizabeth Clarington. Clarington is the Council President.” – That’s your third, this-kid-who-you-thought-was-a-regular-Joe-is-actually-offspring-of-a-really-important-person reveal. Now, I'm just going to assume every nonspecific kid is the secret son or daughter of the president of the world.

Hah, it's interesting - the Council is so powerless that I don't think of her as being that important, but now that you say it, I see your point. Going to think on how to make this not too on the nose. I'm not sure that her aunt actually needs to be the Council president. Maybe she can just be a regular representative. That would take it down a notch.

The set-up emerging for coming chapters is pure Hunger Games / Divergent / etc. kids-go-through-arduous-training-regime-and-end-up-bonding. It’s sooooooo familiar BUT, rather than being a cliché, I think it’s an absolutely essential ingredient for constructing this sort of YA dystopian fare.

In summary, keep it coming, I'm enjoying myself here. 

<R>

----------------------------------------------------------

(D) – “Siegfried Aerworks is the inventor of the modern oxygen mask.” – Really? The surname is just too convenient, to the point of being cartoonish. For me, it’s not the right tone for this rather dark story. It would be like Miles Dyson being called Miles Skinnett. Yeah, I feel like a sarcastic line got cut where Aerworks makes fun of his choosing his company's name for his last name. Going to think on this one. I'm also considering making Aerworks way shadier in a mad scientist way. 

(D) – There are two teacups on a tray. I don’t see anything about her pouring tea, so I am lead to believe that the cups are full, BUT nobody pours tea to sit and cool waiting for someone to take a cup. LOL. Point. Now that you say it, it's so maddeningly obvious. I feel like a line got cut.

(C) – “I’d be a fool to trust any of them” – why? You’ve not sold his reaction to me. Yeah, they need to be creepier.

(D) – “My experiments wouldn’t be necessary if your Brides” – This is not a valid scientific reaction, but maybe that’s okay if she’s not a scientist. Even if the Brides wiped out the Rex, a scientist would still pursue a cure against the possibility that the infection could recur.

(G) – “Midge’s lips press,” – compress, I think. 

(C) – “Because I knew better than to trust anyone from this city” – Again, is it WRS on my part? I don’t recall where his cynicism comes from. Yeah, most of it is from how they arrested him, part of it is from Pascal's sentiment that the Board is evil. I think this could be better developed. Everytime I read it, it feels awkward.

(G) – “but it’s not much worse than riding a bike” – any harder, I think, but it’s dialogue, so maybe Oz just has poor grammar ;op

(D) – “By the scalding sensation on my palm,” – Again, without seeing the tea being poured into an empty teacup, this does not convince me.

(C) – “and then higher blood cell counts” – red or white? This, for me, is imprecise. Red definitely.

(A) – The paragraph where Siegfried describes how Oz came to be, and the less fortunate subject is quite a gut punch, well done, then there is the double whammy of the virus being created from his bio-stuff!! Wowza. The following sections of Oz going to the loo and exploring his background worked really well for me.

(A) – “If anything, I’ve mastered the opposite: to obscure, to evade, to turn trash into tools.” – great line. Indeed, this whole self-examination where he measures himself against his father’s goals is very well done. You’ve built up a strong enough character for Oz that I am totally convinced by his assessment of how he ‘fails’ in this comparison.

(C) – “And we couldn’t blow it up before,” Krieger says accusingly at Midge. “Women and children were there,” Midge says.” – I got a bit lost here. Blow up where? Why were there women and children not ‘converted’? Also, how does natural booby-trapping work? Not sure what was meant by that.

(C) – “If he dies, the Council will have free reign.” I forget what council this is, and are some of these people not on it? Maybe it’s WRS.Yeah, this needs to be clearer.

(D) – “For a second, I don’t grasp her meaning” – Oz is a pretty smart cookie, but not following their line of thought is really dense. I don’t believe he would not see where they were going with this. Point.

(G) – “easy workarounds” – Spellchecker tells me this is a word, although I was heading to commenting that it should be hyphenated, imho.

(C) – My WRS is kicking in again. So I get that it’s the Citizens’ Council, but what is this the Board of? The board is made up of the companies that own the city - whereas the Citizen's Council - that has no power - is an elected body.

(C) – “an elaborate ruse for Eleanor to face her own son” – I'm confused by the use of the word ‘face’ here, does it mean ‘meet’?

(C) – Bah, more WRS, I can’t remember who the Greens are.

(A) – “but Midge is already interfering on my behalf” – lol.

(D) – “I assume that friend is Fara Pascal” – Ooh, weird. The way you have been calling her Pascal from the start, I had that fixed in my head as her forename, but it’s her surname? It’s a bit crass for Oz to refer to his best friend by her surname. Hah. I wonder if this is cultural. I loved it when male friends called me by my last name. 

(A) – Great zinger to end the section, as if I needed a hook to keep reading.

(G) – “we’ve identified some of the reason’s”

(G) – “We’re trying to run tests to sort it out” – Are they running tests or not? I feel like ‘We’re running tests to try and sort it out.’ would be a more likely sentence.

(B) – “Oz, there’s something you need to know–” – I'm just presuming now that Violet is his sister. Fascinating. We meet her of course, so you'll find out.

 

 

 

[neongrey]

Oh, geez, I knew I was forgetting someone, sorry. Let's see here:

p.1 I feel like the initial narration is a little bit formal relative to my previous understanding of  Oz's voice. It's a different situation, and it's been a number of weeks so this might not actually be an issue, but it did stick up from the get-go. I might opt for less formal/passive words/constructions than 'contains', 'transparent fascination', "for he's", and swap in some contractions where you use full words (doesn't appear remotely rather than does not, eg). But I wouldn't necessarily sweat it here either.

I feel like the sentence structure is a little bit too simple here too but this is YA, yeah? I wouldn't be too concerned given that context.

'Aerworks' as a name strikes me as odd, honestly. Not a dealbreaker or a big deal, but it's noticeable.

p.2 Seigfried's using 'of course' twice pretty close together in the same sentence; might be worth rephrasing.

Are all these companies named <lastname> <industry>?

decades-plural long impression? How old is Oz? Over 20 does seem a little old for YA, but I'm not super in touch with that area.

p.4 'dropped into the conversation like they're nothing, and I'm unprepared' pretty telly on this and kind of toothless. After a bit of sort of staring at the start of the next paragraph, I guess the bit with the teacup is connected? You're kind of in the passive voice here so it feels unrelated, though.

p.5 is phenotype the correct word here? I'm actually asking, lol.

'expanding diaphragm' expanding my etc

p.6 'answering laugh' 'answering' is redundant here, given it's literally an answer.

'could not be' 'couldn't' would probably flow better

p.7 Y'know, I really don't like that such a significant threat that the Rex are offering here is rape; it's very overdone, it's been well gone-over by people better equipped to articulate the subject why it's not a great idea, it's, ehh, please don't do rapemonsters.

p.8 "there's no hiding the incredulity" pretty passively-phrased, pretty disconnected from how ludicrous a proposal this actually is

"all of its shares pass to the citizen's council" query: are we the reader supposed to agree that this is a bad thing? (because inherently I wouldn't) I feel like some narratorial thought on the subject, even if it's just an acknowledgement of ignorance, would not be out of line here.

"is nodding" again, passive voice, it really creates a weird disconnection between the actual occurences and the narration.

"10x" this is the sort of number that is kind of small to be written this way in text; I think 'ten times' would look better?

p.10 "is already protesting" passive voice again.

p.12 'is mixed' passive

p.13 the ending of this is in the family of dialogue that i really don't like, "there's something you should know", "there's no time to explain", "you need to come see this", etc, it's deliberately witholding information and it's placing future tension in the hands of poor communication, in places where it really ought to be clear. 

 

Overall I'm finding the tone of the prose a sharp change from the previous chapter (the only one I've read, I'm afraid). I'm not necessarily sure it's to this chapter's credit-- I remember getting a pretty solid feel for Oz's personality in the way he narrated before, but this is very distant in a way that I think isn't helping a lot. Early on before everything's sunk in, it's better--it's sort of  catching the surreal feeling he must be getting, but after he leaves the bathroom the prose still feels sort of disconnected to me. 

You're also falling into certain passive voice traps; I love the present tense but some of these are harder to dodge in this tense. You've got a lot of the "is verbing" rather than "verbs" construction, and I think clearing up that would go a long way alone in making the prose feel much closer up.

[krystalynn03]

Hey there Spieles,

Good to have you back!

 

LBL’s & First Impressions

·         Not sure if the ‘for’ in place of because really fits the narrative voice up until now. It changes the tone—maybe look at that later when you’re in more fine tuning stages of pass throughs.

·         “As a child, I knew you as Oz.” – Comma makes it sound like she’s referring to herself, not Oz. Maybe even move the phrase to the end to sound more like conversation and make the meaning clear.

·         Names: Siefried Aerworks (Air-works—the mask guy with ‘air’) and then Krieger (the warrior) defense of course. Most people might not be bothered by how obvious the name connections are here, but it pushed me out of the story to have two people so conveniently named to grow up to match their surnames in a row.

·         I like Krieger and Midge fussing at each other—although it might be slightly maid and butlery to have them hashing out something that obvious to each of them. Maybe you could pull in Oz to the dialogue and get him talking—make it less butlery and give Oz a little more activity at the same time. Just a thought.

·         I like Ziegfried nerding out.

·         “Did you forget who you’re talking to” –typo

·         Teacup rolling in its saucer – This image isn’t make sense. Teacups aren’t round enough to roll. Not sure what you want me to picture.

·         Crazy knows crazy—ain’t that the truth?

·         Something you need to know – Oh dear. This is going to bite him in the butt, isn’t it?

Overall:

 

You pulled me into the story as hard as usual, and you’ll notice that I stopped LBLing in the last 1000 words or so because I was sucked into the dialogue of planning and so on, which is good. I didn’t want to slow down to comment.

 

Your pacing is still really good. I like that you move through the scenes in a way that’s always pushing the plot forward. You took Oz through some big steps here from not trusting his mom a chapter or so ago and now he’s going to try to save her.

 

I felt like Pascal’s mom is a little convenient, much like all the other characters’ parents. I won’t fuss; I’d hardly put down the book over that, and if suspending my belief there means the overall story is tight and keeps the pages turning I’ll overlook it.

 

The tone of your voice is different from earlier chapters, but I think you mentioned that there were some revisions going on, so I assume this is less polished that some of those first chapters. I kinda’ like it though. I’d like to see the final version (imho) somewhere between this current voice and the voice of the first chapters. Some of that techno-imagery is good and gives the whole thing a unique feel, but if the entire book is too loaded down with them, it might over season the meat, you know what I mean? Something to chew on in later revisions.

 

Thanks for submitting and I look forward to the next installment!

 

[spieles]

On 7/3/2016 at 11:34 PM, neongrey said:

Thank you for taking the time to read and crit.

p.1 I feel like the initial narration is a little bit formal relative to my previous understanding of  Oz's voice. It's a different situation, and it's been a number of weeks so this might not actually be an issue, but it did stick up from the get-go. I might opt for less formal/passive words/constructions than 'contains', 'transparent fascination', "for he's", and swap in some contractions where you use full words (doesn't appear remotely rather than does not, eg). But I wouldn't necessarily sweat it here either. Yeah, it's good to note. 

'Aerworks' as a name strikes me as odd, honestly. Not a dealbreaker or a big deal, but it's noticeable. Yeah, I'm still debating this one. I think this might be a stab the darling moment. It fit much better in a previous draft. 

decades-plural long impression? How old is Oz? Over 20 does seem a little old for YA, but I'm not super in touch with that area. He's 18 - so yeah, singular decade!

p.4 'dropped into the conversation like they're nothing, and I'm unprepared' pretty telly on this and kind of toothless. After a bit of sort of staring at the start of the next paragraph, I guess the bit with the teacup is connected? You're kind of in the passive voice here so it feels unrelated, though. Yeah, I'm going to have dig in with this one. What I was going for was him feeling shocked and overwhelmed but it doesn't seem to be working for people.

p.5 is phenotype the correct word here? I'm actually asking, lol. Phenotype is physical expression of genetic code, so yes.

'expanding diaphragm' expanding my etc 

p.6 'answering laugh' 'answering' is redundant here, given it's literally an answer. LBLs are very very helpful.

'could not be' 'couldn't' would probably flow better

p.7 Y'know, I really don't like that such a significant threat that the Rex are offering here is rape; it's very overdone, it's been well gone-over by people better equipped to articulate the subject why it's not a great idea, it's, ehh, please don't do rapemonsters. 

Yeah, this is one of those issues that people feel very differently about. I actually love revenge plot lines that include rape (see Game of Thrones and the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), but I know for other people, it's way too much. They can't enjoy the stand-up-and-cheer moment of vengeance when the heroine feeds her antagonist to his own dogs because the journey was too torturous, and I understand that. For Heir, there is no on-page rape, and how the Rex control women is complicated - more Handsmaiden's Tale with drugs versus marauding rapemonsters so I'm curious how people will react.

p.8 "there's no hiding the incredulity" pretty passively-phrased, pretty disconnected from how ludicrous a proposal this actually is. 

"all of its shares pass to the citizen's council" query: are we the reader supposed to agree that this is a bad thing? (because inherently I wouldn't) I feel like some narratorial thought on the subject, even if it's just an acknowledgement of ignorance, would not be out of line here. Yeah, I'm going to attempt to clarify this. This was definitely a case over editing carrying away essential (clarifying) details and I need to add some back in. 

"is nodding" again, passive voice, it really creates a weird disconnection between the actual occurences and the narration.

"10x" this is the sort of number that is kind of small to be written this way in text; I think 'ten times' would look better?

p.10 "is already protesting" passive voice again.

p.12 'is mixed' passive

p.13 the ending of this is in the family of dialogue that i really don't like, "there's something you should know", "there's no time to explain", "you need to come see this", etc, it's deliberately witholding information and it's placing future tension in the hands of poor communication, in places where it really ought to be clear.  

Overall I'm finding the tone of the prose a sharp change from the previous chapter (the only one I've read, I'm afraid). I'm not necessarily sure it's to this chapter's credit-- I remember getting a pretty solid feel for Oz's personality in the way he narrated before, but this is very distant in a way that I think isn't helping a lot. Early on before everything's sunk in, it's better--it's sort of  catching the surreal feeling he must be getting, but after he leaves the bathroom the prose still feels sort of disconnected to me. Yeah, the disconnection is going to be my main focus for this chapter. Pretty much everyone has commented on it, and I have a few ideas on how to fix it.

Thanks again!

 

[spieles]

23 hours ago, krystalynn03 said:

 

·         Not sure if the ‘for’ in place of because really fits the narrative voice up until now. It changes the tone—maybe look at that later when you’re in more fine tuning stages of pass throughs.

Hah. I really like "for" in the sentence clause but you're right to point out that it may not fit. 

·         “As a child, I knew you as Oz.” – Comma makes it sound like she’s referring to herself, not Oz. Maybe even move the phrase to the end to sound more like conversation and make the meaning clear.

Parallel structure fail. Thank you.

·         Names: Siefried Aerworks (Air-works—the mask guy with ‘air’) and then Krieger (the warrior) defense of course. Most people might not be bothered by how obvious the name connections are here, but it pushed me out of the story to have two people so conveniently named to grow up to match their surnames in a row.

Yeah, I either need to seed it better or change it. 

·         I like Krieger and Midge fussing at each other—although it might be slightly maid and butlery to have them hashing out something that obvious to each of them. Maybe you could pull in Oz to the dialogue and get him talking—make it less butlery and give Oz a little more activity at the same time. Just a thought.

Yeah, right now my instinct is cut that section but I do want there to be obvious tension between the two of them. 

·         I like Ziegfried nerding out.

<3

·         “Did you forget who you’re talking to” –typo LBSs. <3

Overall:

You pulled me into the story as hard as usual, and you’ll notice that I stopped LBLing in the last 1000 words or so because I was sucked into the dialogue of planning and so on, which is good. I didn’t want to slow down to comment. Your pacing is still really good. I like that you move through the scenes in a way that’s always pushing the plot forward. You took Oz through some big steps here from not trusting his mom a chapter or so ago and now he’s going to try to save her. Oh, good. I do feel like pacing is one of my strengths - however, I'm even happier to hear you liked the leap in Oz's characterization. That's always the bigger challenge for me. 

I felt like Pascal’s mom is a little convenient, much like all the other characters’ parents. I won’t fuss; I’d hardly put down the book over that, and if suspending my belief there means the overall story is tight and keeps the pages turning I’ll overlook it.  Ah, yes, the curse of young adults in a novel. Getting rid of the parents increases the characters' agency - hopefully amping the tension - but it's also a bit ridiculous at times. 

The tone of your voice is different from earlier chapters, but I think you mentioned that there were some revisions going on, so I assume this is less polished that some of those first chapters. I kinda’ like it though. I’d like to see the final version (imho) somewhere between this current voice and the voice of the first chapters. Some of that techno-imagery is good and gives the whole thing a unique feel, but if the entire book is too loaded down with them, it might over season the meat, you know what I mean? Something to chew on in later revisions. Yeah, I'm thinking the Prologue/Chapter1/Chapter2 -- all THREE of which are heavy on action ... are a bit much - no matter how short they are. That's a bigger edit, though, so I'm going to let that stew

Thanks for submitting and I look forward to the next installment! Thank you again for your feedback!