Eagle of the Forest Path

Actually, I think someone did note the confusion between character names all the different honourifics in a previous chapter. It's just that there are so many honourifics that Ilia just didn't get a specific mention. For the sake of clarity, personally I feel that having both Ilia and Ilea makes it seem that one of them is an oft-repeated typo. As for Savae, I like the character, but since you're advertising... them... as the foreign POV, I suggest that the character could benefit from a name that is obviously different from the others, as an additional highlight of their immigrant status.

Actually, they do have slaves on Thalas. But only as a legal punishment/criminal sentence, since they don't really have any space for prisons other than short-term lock-up. I worked out a whole thing, but it won't really come up in the story a lot. (I had a choice between slavery and corporal punishment. Now, I like a good flogging in my fiction as much as the next guy, but this way I got rowers for the triremes if I ever needed them. ) The tech for spire construction is mostly dependent on Atramancy. I'm not an engineer (so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) but the ability to seamlessly fuse together massive chunks of granite should allow them to build some pretty enormous structures. If they can manage to find the right foundations, of course ... and enough granite.

Thanks for the feedback LT. (My sympathies about the demotion.)

Not to mention the sewage system.

It's cat. The pages aren't brittle - yet - the paper for patron Dhé usually gets treated with chemicals (lacquer or varnish etc.) to increase longevity. The current incarnation of Aelura has been around for about 80 years (but that's irrelevant to the story as I imagine it at the moment). I'll remember about the section breaks when switching characters. I have no problems accepting suggestions, but I don't feel that having Laurea guessing about Probitus' motivations at this point in the story would make much sense, she doesn't even know yet that he's actively trying to get rid of her, only that he doesn't seem to like her. Gotcha on both points. It's not WRS, I haven't gone into Probitus' internal conflict yet, this is actually his first POV. Shape: She's a cat, I should have added something about pointed ears, but I thought that would have been too obvious. Likeable: That's a relief, to be honest. Conflict: I'm considering that, but I need to figure out a way to do it without him becoming too whiny. Ah, that's bad. I was picturing standard crazy cat lady in bathrobe with cigarette... only without cats, bathrobes or cigarettes. I'm sorry to hear about your gay-shifter-induced trauma. However, on an ocean world, I'm not going to include heraldry (or sigils, symbols etc.) like lions, horses and wolves (unless there's a convincing in-story reason). So I'm sticking to marine life for that. I hope to work that into the rewrite. The restructured story will probably have Probitus as main POV in the first chapter (or the second, depending on whether I keep calling the prologue a prologue) so that should give me more opportunity. Thanks for the feedback, both of you. E.

The village?

I tried another writing prompt, and it seemed to fit a magic system I've been thinking on. It doesn't completely follow the assignment, but what the heck, right? The assignment The Room got turned into The Library

Hänkel? Von Schlesswich-Liebherr? Franken?

Hello again, This will be the last chapter of JBM for a while, as I'm in the process of restructuring my story line. Once that's done I'll be submitting from the beginning again. Previously In the prologue we had a mysterious man hiring a priestess to summon a "paper golem" meant to harass a certain Burrus Clupean. In Chapter 1 Laurea arrives in Celsitudum, gets flirted with, meets her new boss and gets intimidated by her new mentor. Things I'm already aware of. Infodump, basically the first couple of pages, sorry. I'm kind of overly fond of my setting. Low tension, this is why I'm restructuring. Run-on sentences, tried to fix that in this chapter, don't know if I succeeded entirely. POV jump, justified I think, we start with Laurea and then jump to Probitus in the last two blocks of text. It might bother some people, but I don't think it's actually a problem. Thoughts? Questions. Is Aelura's shape obvious to everyone? I couldn't just come out and say what shape she is, because that particular animal is unknown on Thalas, and the only quadrupeds they do know are rats and crocodiles. Does Laurea get any more likable? What do you think about the progression of the conflict between Probitus and Laurea? Even though it's the last submission for now, I hope you enjoy. E.

Awakening might not be so consistent after all. When Vasher mind-wiped the little kidnapped girl, that was most likely also a form of Awakening, I might be missing something but that doesn't seem like animating anything.

Does that mean you could use a pair of scissors' Purpose, i.e. to cut, and use it to slice open a bank vault (or equally sturdy target) or split the atom? Or are there limitations you haven't mentioned yet (teleportation from any door you want already seems kind of OP)? Ahhhh, that must be where the Potential comes in? What determines whether an object that had its Purpose taken is rendered useless or turned opposite? Is there a defining factor or is it random? To use my scissors example, going useless would likely be the same as being blunt, but going opposite would make the scissors... glue things together? Thinking on it, would a gun (Purpose=to kill) that went opposite be able to revive the dead? I really like your notion of Purpose, Intention and Potential (PIP for short?), you can probably do a lot with that in a story.

The Shawshank Redemption? Saving Private Ryan?

It's got options, but the idea needs a lot of fleshing out before I can comment any further. It avoids the "4 classical elements + one more" thing, though, which can only be good IMO. I've been working on this system where the users extract phlogiston from objects (or substances) and insert it in others. (real-world) Phlogiston was a theoretical element that was suggested in the 17th century that explained why stuff burned. Because of some early-scientific observations, they deduced that phlogiston had to have negative mass. So for my system I have two linked properties that can be extracted from one substance and inserted into another (or the same one): flammability and mass/weight. When a magic user makes something less flammable, it also has to become heavier. If they want to make something lighter, it's coupled with increased risk of fire. This becomes rather more interesting when you know I plan to use zeppelins in the setting. I'm stuck however, because I want to add one or more additional pairs of attributes that can be manipulated. I've been racking my brain for months now, and nothing seems to work. I've thought about magnetism, acidity coupled with solubility, but everything sort of falls flat after a while. I'd love any suggestions anyone could give me.

Léon was my first thought as well from "assassin teaches orphan", but I got stuck on the farm animal part.

I'd like to submit another chapter of Jet Black Medium on the 20th, if there are no objections.

In general, I like the story, and I hope to read the rest of it soon. The Sureri dialogue is eminently readable, and it is passably believable. The only (small) issue I have is that, compared to the vocabulary they use at first, there are some rather big words toward the end of the dialogue. "Viable" instead of "Good" and such. For me, the amount of background on the universe is just right (now I only have to watch out for the 3 bears coming home, or possibly 3 Festuour). LBLs p1 -"worse inhabitable land", should probably be "least inhabitable land" p5 -"wasn't no longer certain", double negative. Should be either "was no longer certain" or "wasn't certain any more/longer" -"I need the money to move it." p8 -18 hours, no more and no less. Why not less? I'd think the sooner the better. -that "messing the floor" insult is pure gold! p11 you need a full stop after "shop on Methiem"

neongray Robinski FormlessFox rdpulfer Kammererite krystalynn03 Phew, that took a while! Thanks again to everyone who gave feedback, this will be a big help moving forward. E. edit: I've tried it once before JBM, but I got hasty, skipped a few steps and ended up writing myself into a corner I couldn't get out of.

Thanks for the suggestion Krystalynn. I've got another chapter ready to submit - which I fully intend to do - and one I'm still writing. Re-inventing the chapters once I've got the complete story down is an option, of course, but I think not a very good one in this case. There's some issues in the story's structure, such as the lack of tension mentioned above, that would probably be best remedied by reorganising my timeline. If I continue on my current course there are still two chapters that have relatively little to do with the main conflict*, which is the entire first quarter of the book (I'd planned fourteen chapters, including the prologue and a short post-climax 'wrap-up' at the end). The method I'm using is the snowflake method. Meaning I'd have quite a bit of material left for reconstruction even if the all text I've actually submitted so far goes into the trash (which I'm hoping to avoid). Now it's on to earlier feedback replies in the next post... *they are more relevant to Laurea's character growth, but as a reader that's probably less interesting unless it's mixed in with the conflict.

I was going to joke that I did it myself because I wanted first-hand experience of police procedure for JBM, but decided against it since there won't be arson in the book anyway, so the joke wouldn't make sense. Next time I have to do a job interview and they ask me what I think my 'best quality' is, I'm answering that I can laugh at my misfortunes.

So I'm back from the worst _ holiday _ ever. During the three days I spent at the Belgian seaboard, my car got burgled the first night (not stolen, though they did take my GPS) and then torched the second. And when I say torched, I mean literal burned-to-a-crisp, arson-for-the-fun-of-it, total-loss-I-need-to-buy-a-new-car torched. Right now I'll just thank you all for the feedback, it really is much appreciated, but I think you'll understand that I'm not in the right headspace at the moment to address any individual comments. I'll work through them at my own pace, though from a first quick look it seems like I might be better off starting over from page one. If there's a flaw in the story's outline, sometimes there's no other choice. And if nothing else, at least I can salvage some of the worldbuilding. Thanks again, E.

Thanks guys, I'll keep this in mind for the second draft. In reply to Mandamon's LBL (since Kaisa's don't really require clarification) pg1: This is indeed an ocean world. There's a single continent but it's pretty inhospitable. The spire people send out foraging parties to chop down trees and get some other raw materials, but they can't stay past nightfall (or something, I haven't completely worked out the reason yet). There aren't any real islands either, just large rock formations that form the foundations for the spires. Shell Towns were originally shacks built right up against the face of the spires when population growth meant the entire population couldn't fit in the spire proper anymore. They kept hanging more shacks onto other shacks so eventually pieces of the Shell Town started falling into the water; the rubble is below the water line but the plebs (and patrician slumlords) build new structures on top of that. Since it's not stable at all and the building material eventually rots away Shell Towns keep collapsing. So at the time of the story the spires' outlines are sort of like a tall box with a sheet spread over it. You've got the actual spire in the middle, with shacks clinging onto it directly until about a third of the way up, and the farther you get from the spire, the lower the Shell Town. Eventually you get to sea level where the shacks are likely to be old boats with walls and a roof, nailed to the street to keep it from floating away. I'll try to come up with a more accurate description. pg 8 she was indeed standing already, editing screw-up, I'd removed a section where they sat down for a bit. Thanks for the input. PS starting tomorrow I'll be on a short vacation with doubtful internet connection, so no offence is meant when I don't immediately reply to any further feedback.

Hello again, Here's the actual first chapter of Jet Black Medium. In the prologue we had a mysterious man hiring a priestess to summon a "paper golem" meant to harass a certain Burrus Clupean. A note on names: I'm using Latin rules of pronunciation for character and place names. Basically C=K and V=W. So: Laurea Celsior => law-ray-ah kell-see-or. Special requests: -Does the conversation flow naturally? -Is there too much/too little description? Please enjoy. E.

So you're hitting your readers in the face with chains?

Thanks for reading and commenting. @krystalynn: I'm getting a lot of people who dislike/distrust prologues, but I'm not quite ready to just delete this one just yet. I'm also not ready to turn it into the first chapter, because to me, this is obviously a prologue, chapter one being where the protagonist(s) is(are) introduced. You could call it chapter one, but unless the main characters are in it, in my opinion it's still actually a prologue. Also, without this prologue I'd have to explain what Fury Priests are and what they do in the middle of the story, which means either an internal monologue, or having one character explain it to another. The first is possible, but I don't like it, the second would be completely unnatural, since everybody in-world already knows about FPs. @FormlessFox: I'll rework the anonymous grudge-bearer's motivation (or at least, the motivation he gives the FP, wink wink) The foreshadowing is a good idea, but I have to be careful not to give away certain things too soon. Best if I wait with the rewrite until I have the complete first draft, maybe? The magic isn't actually about cursing people, that's just the use Fury Priests put it to. You can think of it as a blend between Roman household gods and (I weirdly only just realised this) Japanese Shikigami. You can set a Dhé to harass (or even injure someone) but the magic doesn't directly affect people, so sorry, no immortality curses. This should become clear in the following chapters. @Robinski: Glad you liked the setting. I'll do some brainstorming about a hook and will try to make the masked man less of a non-entity (maybe if I play up the nervousness and fidgeting?). My goal is for the rewrite of the prologue to be a lot more suspenseful. I'm already trying to work on the run-on sentences, but it's a struggle for me, please keep pointing it out though, it's a good motivator. The wordy descriptions might be Robert Jordan bleeding through, I was (and am currently) reading Wheel of Time when I wrote this. There was a section yesterday where there was over half a page of tangential thoughts between Aviendha making a comment and Elayne replying. When I got to the reply, I had to go back and check what the comment was. Hopefully I'll manage to avoid ever doing that. I'll take good note of your line-by-line when reworking this part. Here's hoping Chapter 1 clears up some things for everyone, and thanks again for the feedback.

There seem to be some open slots, so if there aren't any objections I'd like to submit on the 6th.