Eagle of the Forest Path

Quaestors are indeed lawkeepers, specifically the investigative side of things; the beat-cop aspect is fulfilled by the lictors. Atramancy is fully legal, Laurea was going to arrest Janus for impersonating a cop. For your other comments, I don't have a response right now, but they are going on the things-to-watch-out-for list. Thanks for the feedback. * * * I sorted your comments by theme, Mandamon. I'll get rid of Celsitudum, that's one name that I'm not particularly attached to. Maybe I can figure something out for Cedrinalia as well, but I'm not completely convinced I'll need to. For it to be effective as what? I think you might have gotten something else out of the scene than I wanted to put in. Good points on the flirting, especially the suggestion to have Laurea respond more, this is exactly the sort of thing I need to improve my writing. Thanks for the feedback, Mandamon. * * * I'll probably be shunting another chapter in front of this one, so it might be less important, but I'll try this out. You're in a definite minority there, I'm sorry to say. Thanks for your feedback, rdpulfer. * * * For the interest of 'kick', I'm thinking about moving chapter 2 up to chapter 1 (it's a different POV character, so I can do that without messing up the timeline), stay tuned to see if that works out. I'll most certainly keep this in mind for the next version (and for more than just fear of you hunting me down, even if I didn't fridge anyone ), I need Janus to be a player, not a creep, and it looks like I've got my work cut out for me to get him there. Maybe it's better if I just cut the wheelbarrow thing out entirely? Thanks for the feedback, Kaisa, it's always spot-on. I hope the pie was good. * * * Thanks! It's not too navel-gazey, then? In a big way, yes. That's a problem, well half a problem: she's supposed to be bad at it, but he shouldn't be. I could tell you plausible reasons for each of those things, but since I wouldn't be able to work them into the story, there's no point. I'll just cut the scene, it didn't really add much to the overall story anyway. I'll try to fix it, but it's going to take a lot of work. Thanks for the feedback, Vreeah. * * * I hear you, and I've got a possible solution in the works. The first bit is what she's supposed to be, but also pretty bad at social interaction. I've apparently not got a good enough handle yet on how to get that on paper. Thanks TKWade, I will. Thank you for the feedback.

Tis the season to be Ookla, after all.

This feels like a good start to a story: it's obvious from the world-building what the conflict is going to be, but there's no clue as to how Maykn and Alaxtrim are going to be involved in it, which keeps the reader wanting more. However, having read the first chapter, I wonder what the point of the prologue was. The prologue seemed to revolve about the letter which had to be read in 500 years. You made a point of saying the letter couldn't survive if it didn't make it to the temple, which it didn't. So if the letter won't be making an appearance in the main story, why do we need it as focus of the prologue? (There could be other reasons for the prologue, of course.) P4. "Sword training every day you agreed to play Knights" - Shouldn't that be the other way around? P5. "If you could sell it then you could probably find a vendor on Lorli trying to sell it." - Repetition of "sell it" in the same sentence. Right beneath that, you have "watchful eye" two times in as many lines. P6. Lumos: I really like the concept of rechargeable coins with variable value. Now I'm wondering how a full lumos becomes a half one. P7. For the sound of the heartbeat, you could also go with a simple "whump" or "woosh". Unless I actually had my ear pressed up against something, I don't think I've ever heard the double-beat @kaisa describes. P7. "It's like sixty-five degrees outside.It's beautiful." - Fahrenheit or Celsius? Because it's beautiful I assume it's a warm day, meaning it would be normal for Maykn to sweat. Personally, I try to avoid using any real-world units, unless it's really clear what I mean by them. P12. "From what? Our lives suck, man." - That's exactly the sort of thing oppressors want to distract their people from. If their lives didn't suck, there would be no need for distractions. P13 to 18. The Vorin starts off talking rather brutish ("What are doing?") but he ends up talking in full sentences with some rather big words, it feels inconsistent to me. The world is intriguing, on the one hand you've got surveillance cameras and explosives, on the other hand, people are still fighting with swords. I hope to see more soon. PS Sorry, it's off topic, but I have to ask: did this happen at a Terry Pratchett convention?

Hello again, Here's the first chapter of Jet Black Medium. Any advice or comments are welcome, but in particular I'd like to hear what you think of the dialogue/flirting. This is something I really struggle with, and I'll want to rewrite this several dozen times, so any feedback will make that go smoother. Did I move over anything too quickly? In the previous version, there were comments that I used some unfamiliar terms without explaining them (quaestor, lictor, ...). This time, I tried to insert a general idea of what they do into the text without actually spelling it out. Is this sufficient explanation for you, or do you still feel the need to grab a dictionary? Eagerly awaiting your comments, Eagle.

Me too for the 21st, please.

This is a great story. It could use some polishing, but there are some powerful elements in there, especially for something that was originally written in high school. There are a number of unresolved questions, but that is kind of the point in this type of story, isn't it? It gives off a slight "David Lynch"-vibe. She knew all too well that better was only the difference between dead and dying. This is such an awesome line. I agree with rdpulfer, though, that you should put better between quotes; as it is, it makes the sentence somewhat harder to read. On the downside, on several occasions you use wrong words for things, like you picked them from a thesaurus. For example on page 1: causation: just use "reason" patrons: "guests", since she isn't offering services in her apartment and on page 9 (because this one really bothered me) albeit: "except" or "besides" or "but"... I also suggest you do a thorough punctuation revision. There are a number of dependent clauses that would be better between em dashes than commas IMO. As a final thought, while I can't offer advice on doing further stories in this setting (since I don't really know anything about the setting), I counsel against continuing this particular story, I have a feeling it works much better as a standalone short story than as a chapter in a novel(-ette, -la). edit: this is just my opinion based on this single chapter, for all I know, continuing Charlotte's story could be more incredible than I can even imagine.

The simple answer is writing a character whose only purpose is getting killed off as motivation for your protagonist. You can find a full explanation on fridging here. (WARNING! this is a link to tvtropes.org, only click if you've got about 6 hours to spare)

There's a little story about the composer Brahms that I think would be appropriate here. One day, Brahms was walking along a beach with a friend. The friend complained that all good music had already been written. Brahms pointed out to sea and replied: "Oh look! There's the last wave ever."

@aeromancer, Have you ever read the manga "Psychometrer Eiji" (or the reboot "Psychometrer")? Character B-1's powers are the same, so it might give you some inspiration. The manga is about solving crimes, though, so that's completely different. Your story idea sounds interesting, I'd love to read it.

A bit late to chip in, but here I go: This shows promise as the start of a story, but IMO you're going too fast. There's the info-dumping to begin with, and related to that, revealing that Alex is related to Peter right now has basically no impact whatsoever. If you postpone it until the reader knows more about Peter, Alex's relation to him will be a bigger deal. Then, you're overloading on promises: the religious conflict, the secret group in the hidden chamber, probably a slave rebellion...; you can spread these out a little more. In the first 3 sections you appear to be using 3rd person limited, but at the start of Alex's second POV you suddenly switch to 3rd person omniscient. I hope I'm not too harsh in this, but your use of commas is atrocious. You put in commas where they have no right to be and leave them out where they are actually needed. There are too many places where you do this to begin listing them. I won't mention spelling errors, since those would get caught by a proofreader anyway, but adding or losing commas can really change the meaning of a sentence, and it's not always clear which meaning is correct. You also have a tendency to... I don't know if there is a proper term for this... "switch negatives". For example: “We will let him live for now but neither will we help him." should be either “We won't kill him for now but neither will we help him." or “We will let him live for now but we won't help him either." On the plus side, I really liked the bit of scripture. It feels authentic and it's fun that they have different interpretations. Finally, I agree with Kaisa that this lacks a good hook. It think that's why it feels more like the start of an RPG than of a book to me. You're building good characters and have the start of a good setting, but while there are hints at a conflict, you're lacking something to make the reader care about the conflict. I'd like to read more of this.

Official theme song of the Trump administration

Thanks, Hobbit, you bring up a lot of good points, which I'll have to think about at some length. Quickly about the setting/magic: Dhé get summoned by priests (called Dhéonomists) and fulfil a lot of different functions (there's one that turns cider into liquor, for example). Some Dhéonomists occasionally moonlight as Fury Priests, summoning Dhé that cause mental or physical harm to people, and that's the illegal part. I'll have to mention the "legal priests" somewhere around that part of the prologue. I guess there are some similarities to Rithmatics, the ten cent description of my system is actually "creating semi-sentient paper golems through ink drawings," which might be like 3D chalklings, in a weird way, maybe. There's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes though, so to speak. (*mumble grumble* Rithmatics! *mutter mutter* nothing like it! *grumble mumble*) I'm kind of rushed right now, but I'll go through the specific feedback later.

"Call me Ishmael." - Herman Melville, Moby Dick (Yes, it's already been posted here by @Darkness Ascendant, but it's such a classic!) "It began with my father not wanting to see the Last Rabbit, and ended up with me being eaten by a carnivorous plant." - Jasper Fforde, Shades of Grey edit: Oh! If epigraphs count, then I have to add: "I am, unfortunately, the Hero of Ages." - The Hero of Ages, Brandon Sanderson

Hey there, all. I held off on replying to your comments until the end of the week to lessen the risk of me justifying/defending myself. Yeah, I didn't think of that. I don't really know why I put the * in there; I must have had a reason at the time, right? I think I felt that the getting to the meeting and the meeting itself were two separate scenes (and thus needed to be separated), but if it's confusing I'll leave out the section break. I... don't really get what you mean here. I think it's grammatically correct: both "faked" and "female" can (and do) refer to "croak". Just wondering, where would you put "voice"? Glad you liked it, Ernei. I wasn't too sure about part of the summoning sequence myself, the other half (with the moving paper) is the only part in the chapter that I actually reused from the first version. No need to remember how the Dhé is named, I barely remember myself most of the time (though if you're talking about the word Dhé itself, I might have a problem) Thank you for the feedback. * * * Thanks! Glad to be back. I get you on the urgency part, but I don't know how to fix it yet. I'll probably go over it again countless times for the tweaking and filling in, but right now, I'm going to focus on getting the entire story on paper. Semi-intentional: I wanted a bottom-feeder vibe for him. I like when people notice things like this, to me, they're kind of like jokes. Probably. The society is somewhat gender-biased, but I think not as much as you might assume. It's not discussed directly in the story, so I'll say it here: Women have access to higher education (which is an important aspect of Thalan society) and aren't (legally) barred from any occupation. One of my protagonists is a female police detective, for example. The culture is more classist than sexist, really. Gotcha, I'll try to fix that. The message here is supposed to be that Fury Priests are paranoid that anyone could find out who they were. They have to cover up anything that could reveal.. well... anything about themselves. If they think a client guessing their approximate age could give away their real identity, they have to cover up anything that's a clue to how old they are. It's also the reason she talks funny... I'll consider that. Thanks for the feedback, Kaisa. * * * Burrus will make his appearance in chapter... 3, I think. I'm finding it hard to find a balance, I don't want to give away too much too soon, or I'll spoil one of my revelations. I'm planning that the readers can work it out for themselves, but the prologue would be insanely soon for that. On the other hand, it does drop the involvement. I'll try to tone back the Yoda. I'll have to experiment with it for a while, so it's not too much, but she doesn't talk normally, either. I hope I can hang onto the atmosphere after the prologue. I'm glad you like the magic system, since I'm rather proud of it myself. I'm just sorry I don't have an opportunity to get into the mechanics behind it. Thank you for the feedback, Mandamon. * * * Not at all similar to the Rithmatist (at least, IMO). The mask thing is only in the prologue, though, I hope you're not too disappointed? In media res, mate! -Would "parts" be better? -How about "A large turtle - whose creator had chosen to depict in an unlikely purple - told the man to follow"? Though the grammar is a bit more problematic like that. I'll work on it. -A bit awkward, yeah. -"Halting", "shivering", "hesitant", ... ? I know what I mean, but I'm not sure how to put it on paper. -Maybe. To me, "cramped shut" sounds more involuntary than "clamped". I'll keep this on ice for a while, look at it fresh later. For the investment (or would "investiture" be more appropriate here? ) in the characters, I'll refer to earlier in this post. Clues will follow. I'm happy you want to read more, you won't be disappointed (meaning I'll submit more chapters, I can't guarantee you won't be disappointed about what's in them.) Thank you for the feedback, Coop. * * * I guess that's it for now. Stay tuned for more Jet Black Medium, same Jet Black time, same Jet Black station. Eagle.

I believe authors, publishers, agents and editors asking for PoC's opinions should be an indispensable part of the review process when dealing with race themes in a book (or stories in any other medium). However, actually putting in place a system to ensure that it happens is straying a bit too close to censorship for my peace of mind. It sucks that books with (subconscious or otherwise) racist messages still get written and published, but from my (admittedly white middle class) perspective, forbidding them from being published* would be even worse on principle. *in the form the authors envisaged them

Hello everyone, I've been reworking the story structure of Jet Black Medium for a while, trying to incorporate the feedback you gave on the chapters I'd previously submitted (we'll see if I did it right), and thought it was time to start submitting again, so here's the prologue. Things I feel require special mention here: -The Fury Priest's speech patterns. I wanted her to speak oddly, with sentence structure that was technically correct but rather convoluted (it came out a bit more Yoda than I like). There are reasons for her choosing to speak like that, but it's not essential to the story. So do you feel it's more of a plus to the story or a bother while reading? -I won't list all of the suggestions I received the first time around, but I'd like to mention the mask. The advice was to describe it in more detail. I went the other way, "less is more" and all that. I think it leaves the reader more free to imagine what the scary mask looks like. I'd like to hear what your opinions are. Things I feel do NOT need to be discussed: -Prologues. I choose to call this chapter a prologue, knowing that the publishing industry currently has an issue with them. The events described here take place before the point in time I consider to be the start of the story, with characters that are not in the main cast. To me this means that this is a prologue, and not chapter 1. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the read and look forward to your thoughts.

When you're waiting for your train that's already twenty minutes late at the end of a long day and all you can think about is jumping on the tracks... ... and steelpushing your way back home.

It's been a while, but I'd like to submit Monday the 31st.

Because of wibbly-wobbly in the timey-wimey?

See page one of this thread.

The Star Wars neutrino thing is moronic indeed. Stretching the limits of plausibility to tailor expressions to a setting should be avoided. Swearing and profanity are a whole different argument IMO. Don't those cutesy, made-up swearwords exist specifically to avoid profanity? So as not to get an "unsuited for impressionable minds" sticker slapped on your book? Okay, so that didn't happen to HP to my knowledge, but some people get kind of insane with that sort of thing. I'm reminded of a Terry Pratchett anecdote: In his novel The Truth, there's a character who says "-ing" a lot (literally, I'm not cleaning that up for the forum, in case you're not familiar with the novel). Some of the children (or teens) who read it started saying "-ing" too. Terry Pratchett was flooded with letters from parents complaining that he'd encouraged their children to swear and he should be ashamed of himself (I'm assuming the suggestions of what he should do got a lot more violent in a significant fraction of those letters). Supposedly, his reaction was basically that "-ing" was emphatically (and intentionally) not a swearword and what in darn heck were they getting all worked up about? Just to say that you can find people who'd probably make trouble even about "storming", imagine the ruckus they could cause if Brandon had used the real f-word instead. To me, the point of fantasy swears (profantasies?) isn't so much that they are shocking or disgusting in meaning, but that they be recognizable as a swearword (through context in most cases) and so give indications about the character, speech patterns or current feelings of the person saying them. If an author wants to do that without the risk of offending family values nutjobs (by which I don't mean everyone who has family values, just the people who take it too far), they've got my support. If they want to write their dialogue like an especially offensive episode of South Park, that's -ing fine by me too.

Has anyone given any thought yet about the tropics? On earth, they're called the tropic of cancer and tropic of capricorn. The point is that as your arctic circles move toward the equator the tropics move away from it, so that if your axial tilt is 45° they're the same thing. No idea how that affects the climate or even much of day length, I just wanted to remind people that it's not just about the arctic circles, there are other factors at play. No idea if the following suggestion is viable, but what if the story is set on a moon? If the planet the moon orbits is extremely reflective, it might act as a second sun in some respects, without the whole binary star-system problematic. And the cold season is when the moon passes behind the night-side of the planet, with the two-week night period being when the planet blocks the sunlight (moon is on an orbit with a steep angle to the elliptic), the two week sun period is when the moon is directly between the planet and the sun, so the direct daylight and the planet-reflected daylight cover (nearly) the entire surface. Can't help with the biology, but everyone's suggestion of watching documentaries is probably a good one.

My personal mantra is "nearly everything can be improved by the addition of bacon." So you could have your invisible reptiles smell like bacon, that's pretty weird, right?

@Spoolofwhool 800 miles of lake at around 10 miles per hour means 80 hours of sailing, not 80 days. But since that's not relevant any more... Crossing the continent by land would be time-consuming, since your civilisation doesn't have steam-power yet, they don't have railroads. Transportation would have to rely on regular roads with wagons drawn by horses or whatever beast of burden you fancy having on your world. This would be further complicated by terrain such as mountains, forests or swampland. Under those conditions, 2400 miles would be a challenge, but not an insurmountable one. And again: time-consuming, so don't transport perishables.

It's actually the Aon Seo from Elantris, it only resembles a swastika. As to whether it should be changed, I wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot shardblade.