krystalynn03

Roamwald, Summary C1-3 An unnamed presence, apparently not human, observes the town from the forested mountain-side. He worries over the strange weather, the river, and his own safety in coming this close to the Humans. He recalls happier times in his own life and retreats. Jennie Fullers is worried about her family. They are getting low on food, and life is tense. She milks the family goat only to discover her uncle in the barn. He is damaged from prolonged exposure to the cold. After being sent to bed, she eavesdrops on a conversation between her uncle and her father as her uncle describes having seen a Snatcher in the forest. Notes Jenni has been changed to Jennie. Jon has been changed to Leon. Larkspur has been changed to Jessamine. (Larkspurs do grow in the Appalachia now, but I don't know when they were introduced...) Furthermore, I had better clear up some imagery and setting. I knew what I had in there was weak, but the myriad of responses I got last week showed me just how weak it was. I am working on fixing this, but I didn't want to go adding big descriptions into these next chapters to fix a problem that should have been fixed in the last chapters. So I'll fix it for the short-term in email for you guys, but fix it for the long-term for the reader in C1-3. Setting: The valley of Haventon is not in the dry southwest. The characters speak with a western accent, but their forebears actually moved back east to these mountains for reasons revealed in this update. This is not America or an alternate version of it. The feel of it is just American. If I were setting it somewhere real, it would be in a something like a cove forest or northern hardwood forest of the Appalachia, but please don't think I'm trying to emulate Appalachian culture or exact Appalachian geography. I'm not. That said, my apologies for not doing a better job on that C1-3! Thanks everyone who read and everyone who commented last week. It really got me thinking in new ways with thoughts from fresh eyes. I'm using your comments to make the narrative better (especially that setting, yeesh.) For This Update: I'd especially like some feedback on Jennie's relatives. I've always thought they felt transparent as characters. I don't want to overdevelop them because they're not critical to the plot or later books, but I do sometimes feel like they're a little thin interest-wise. How does pacing feel? Anything out place? (My alpha reader made an unintended connection to pop culture on a detail and I may need to change it if others do the same...) Interest level at end? Still going or put down? Thanks!

Good deal!

I've written five of seven, though in mixed stages of development, and I'm fonder of the later books in the series. This one starts off so simple and plain and predictable, but the others get more into society, while still holding onto the heart I set up in this little book (I hope). Roamwald: 90% compete, but still rough, with some boulders that need removing Lost Sons of Drescher: 95% complete, rough Escaping Home: old original draft, not rewritten at all yet, 0% complete since splitting its plot off from LSOD The Fifth Ward: 100% complete in its original draft, never seriously revised Into Leviathan: 80% complete--couple chapters I'm not happy with The Burning Heavens: In outline Indigo Manifesto: pictures in my head

Well, I'll be patient...or patient until Monday--if that's the same piece you threw your hand in the air to share.

Great! I look forward to it!

I'd like to submit for Monday, if there's room.

Thank you again for the positive words. For me characterization is the most important, when reading or writing. I want to read about interesting people and invent them, too. Super powers or amazing skills doesn't always make a person interesting. This book has the fewest 'interesting people' because it's so contained, but the rest of the books in the series (written books, not just ideas in my head) take the characters out of this valley and into the wide world where we see many people of different races (there are two) and different classes (many) and different livelihoods (urban, rural) and even cultural shifts because of geography (north vs south). The way real people adapt to real life circumstances and problems is what makes them interesting, I think, and so I push in a single fantasy element and then answer the question of how people would adapt and react around that, and explore the many variations thereon. I also see family as a repeating theme for me. What makes a family? How do families influence the way people act and react and who they become? What do people really need to be happy? Who gets the power and why? What do you do if you don't have a family anymore? Those are really big ideas that just influence the themes of the books, not on purpose but because they're questions I can't get away from myself. (All starting really small and simple here in Haventon...) Oof, sorry. I'll stop that going on now. I need to go back to shoring up C4-5 for next week. I mean to submit, just because I want to keep the reactions fresh chapter to chapter and not asking readers to have to remember two weeks in advance, but honestly, I could spend a whole week digesting and tweaking based on the crit I've already got and then another week polishing up other stuff. I don't think that's fair to string it out too much. I think I'll get more useful feedback if I submit consistently rather than ask people to remember what I did three weeks or a month ago. Thanks again!

Thank you again for excellent feedback, Mandamon. That's exactly the effect I was shooting for when I thought to slide C1 into the narrative. There are a lot of things about the story that I want to feel really familiar, even predictable, but then there are some ways I want to twist tropes just a little to make things not quite the reader expected. I was hoping for a lot of metacognition out of advanced readers (Ah, so this is the Snatcher, and oh, isn't it ironic that the people all think he's a bad guy. New reason for reading: find out how that strange relationship is going to resolve, rather than be surprised by something that's not really a surprise anyway.) And I hope the effect on younger readers (like actual children) is that they might not make the connection at all until later in the book. Believe me, I teach mostly struggling readers and some advanced readers, and there's a very wide spectrum of what comprehension looks like. Thanks also for the encouragment. I will try to be brave as far as sharing goes. I could just say what the only element of fantasy is, but I want to wait and see what effect the cannon descriptions and plot convey and how that goes over on raw readings of it with little no no pre-loading. I mean, if this book had a cover and a jacket already, you'd probably know what Roamwald is already. (Another reason I don't think C1 should be a huge problem in theory--a book cover and a jacket would spoil the tension anyway in its effort to reach the target audience) I hope Robinski gets a sub in soon. I look forward to his material. Space stories are hardest for me to connect to, but if you write interesting characters I'll read your book or anyone's book, regardless of the setting. Do you plan to sub soon?

I look forward to your submission, and maybe an explanation at some point of what waifs and strays are.

I get what you mean. I haven't experienced that frustration via critique group, but reading fiction in different places around the internet, I know what you mean. You get a little invested...and then left hanging. I've had that happen with online comics, too, where the creators dropped doing a really good thing and I never got the satisfaction of an ending. I have an entire manuscript's worth of story to submit, preferably in small chunks, so I can see a play by play of what's working and what's breaking down. For me, sharing out the work isn't as much about petering out on energy or dedication to this particular project. It's more about wavering ability to trust others to accept an odd juxtaposition. I was part of a real life writer's group in my city, but I never submitted because I always felt what I wrote was too odd to share. (They were all romance/mystery writers--no fantasy writers in the group.) I know this is a fantasy group, and I'm trying to convince myself to share here, but I still think what I've done is a little bit of the odd man out. Roamwald is not high fantasy, or urban fantasy, or Sci-Fi, so I'm afraid that my 1800's fantasy is going to be hard for people to buy into since I'm not playing 100% by historical fiction rules or 100% by fantasy rules.

There are not too many days left of March. I look forward to your submission! Are you putting it on the alpha thread or the normal thread?

Do you think the alpha reader thread is where I should be? Does this particular group here lend itself better toward unfinished works? I don't know how I feel about handing someone a complete manuscript to look at. That seems like an awful lot of time investment to ask of people I don't know. I mean, I know people read for fun, so given general feedback of 'I didn't like this section here' or 'the ending bothered me' might not be 'work' per se for some people, but it still seems pretty big to me.

I'd noticed you were a very active critter and wondered how you got time to participate so often and so thoroughly...now I know! It seems pretty gracious to me that you give up a very limited resource that you need to invest in others. Very cool. Maybe someone will make calendars relabeled as just a countdown to the 11th month...

For me, it's mornings. I set my alarm for 5:45, and that gives me an hour or so to work till I have to get ready to work my day job (as opposed to early morning job?) During my first year of teaching, I tried to write in evenings (the time of day I used to write), but it was so hard. After my second year of teaching, I gave up trying. I started writing on just Saturdays and Sundays for long rounds, but that was hard too because the text and my ideas got cold over the week in between. Last year I decided to take a risk. I knew that my problem with writing daily was that I'm mentally exhausted at the end of the day. I love my job--a lot. I work with underprivileged children in the poorest neighborhood of my city, and I get to spend every day teaching them how to read in their second language. Anyway, that's cool and all, and we have so much fun, but every moment of my thinking time is spoken for when I'm at work, and I work a lot. So, I knew the only time my brain really had power was in the quiet before going to work.I hadn't tried getting up early because I was afraid I would fail, but I took a risk and tried it. And it worked. My routine is get up really early, not even leave the bed when it's winter, and write right there. It means I have a lot of sleepy typos to fix later, but it also means I've been able to make writing a daily part of my life again, even with a full-time career I'm invested in.

That is a really interesting idea that I hadn't considered at all! Thanks for thinking up a potential win-win.

Robinski It’s nice to meet everyone, too! Thank you for the balance of commentary on pros and cons of the narrative so far. I’m glad to know what did work for you as well as what didn’t. Thanks for explaining why C1 worked for you. It had the intended effect for you (making you want to know that character more), though that didn’t work for everyone else. I’m going to have think really hard at end of all this as to whether it helps or hurts the story, because I’m seeing it going both ways for a lot of folks. In previous drafts the opening chapters had a lot more description to push the setting. The characters’ clothes were more specific and their home was better described, but in this version I tried to push the narrative along as quickly as I could. I think if I put in a few phrases here or there, then it’ll hopefully convey a little more imagery without slowing down too much. As far as to how ‘done’ this is, I’d say the first draft is 90% done. There’s one chapter I skipped writing, because I just didn’t want to write it, because I feel like it draws the tension down and slows the plot toward the end of the book, but I haven’t figured out a way to just get rid of it completely, and then I haven’t written the very last chapter. I’ve written the resolution, yes, but the narrative calls for a bit of denouement, I hate writing the 'happy bits' in stories... Your comment on the cats made me smile. Barn cats can be pretty feral if you don’t purposefully catch and handle them. I’ll check in with my buddy who grew up on a dairy farm and see about that. I’ve never thought about Jenni cuddling the baby kittens into friendliness, but she certainly could. Seems my friend mentioned that being friends with barn cats could be kind of traumatic because they disappear so often—eaten by wild things and the like. Your comment on Howard and Mary gave me a grin. I really didn’t name the animals that on purpose. I just wanted a short name for Dan, and for Wells—he’s Wells for H.G. Wells because I’m still mad at him for what he did to Caddles. Thanks again so much for all the suggested fixes and areas for improvement!

Rdpulfer Hi there! Thanks for reading and commenting. Getting so many different perspectives and really good crit is helping me get my mind to see old material in a new way. I asked Mandamon, too, but for some people the C1 perspective worked and for others it didn’t. For the people that it bothered, they explained that it messed up the tension for them in following chapters. If you have time, can you tell me why it worked for you? I don’t have to decide anytime soon whether to drop it (easy as hitting delete), but I’m trying to weigh out the effect it has on the narrative. Would you feel alright with Jennie with the –e back? Would you recognize that as an 1800’s name? Thank you so much for reading and giving me thoughts on what to improve!

Mandamon Thank you for reading and commenting! I appreciate you mentioning that you agree with previous comments because that helps me see what really jumped out as problems in the narrative and voice. If you don’t mind me bothering you with one more question, I’d like to probe one of your comments a little bit. You seemed okay with the C1, more than some other feedback I got. Did you feel like the C1 interrupted the tension or your ability to connect with the characters in a negative way? As far as foreshadowing goes—nobody has mentioned what I'm referring (the Snatcher isn't the foreshadowing), which is good, because it’s meant to be a throwaway which is only obvious at the end the of the book, so thank you for looking anyway. I know that question asks the reader to go back and potentially reread to answer. I would definitely appreciate a ‘heads-up’ on dialogue if it presses any of your buttons too hard. I know language can be good or bad depending on the regional context. I come from a rural southern background, so even though this isn’t quite the slang we use or my grandparents used, it’s not too far from it, either. I expect people who grew around other dialects might hear the characters’ accents harder. I want to be sensitive that, and not push it too far. Thank you for mentioning it. I have worried over it. Thanks for the edit notes too!

Kaisa I will fix the cedar thing. Thanks! The quiet baby Dan is an interesting thought, a spooky one. I’m not sure if it would work though. Readers are really glomming onto the family’s food problem, which is good, but I don’t want to push it too hard, because it’s not the main plot. It’s an ignition for Jenni’s actions. So, I’ll definitely think about it some more, but I’m not sure if I would be misleading the reader to make them even more afraid for the family if I do that. I wondered about the C1. I’ve never had that in there before, and I put it in as an experiment. I wondered if it would have the effect you described or if would driver readers to read because of dramatic irony. You seem to feel pretty strongly about it, and fixing it as easy as hitting a delete button for me, no tears shed. Thank you. This is exactly what I needed to know. As far as Jenni’s sister, this is probably the most surprising comment out of all. I’ve never considered May as important or thought that a reader would connect quite like that to her so quickly with so little dialogue or plot. If spending time with May the rest of the book is the factor for you here, then the book’s going back on the shelf because May isn’t a major player. Thank you so much for your specific commentary and useful insights. Sorry it might not be the kind of book you like, though--still gives me plenty of food for thought.

So, I totally wrote a lot of replies, then my oh-so-loving nineteen year old cat wanting snuggles and warm place to sit, oh-so-lovingly nudges my hand causing an accidental back-button push, and here we are typing this again. J Shadowfax Thank you for so many very specific comments. I got some perspectives from you that pushed me out of my normal lens of seeing things, which is super useful. Firstly, I had tried to change Jenni’s name to Jennie some time ago, but my beta readers didn’t want me to. They were accustomed to Jenni without the ‘e’, and I didn’t fight them on it. I wanted to change it because I was afraid of the very reaction you described. I do have a reason why she spells it without an ‘e’ but it’s not worth the narrative time to describe. Rdpulfer also mentions the modern names jumped at him, but I hope to assure you both that Jennie with an –e really was a popular in the 1880’s according to US censuses. Jon used to be Jonathan, and I just have the characters always calling him by nickname. These things make sense to me, but considering they’re the first things a reader sees, then I don’t necessarily want to make that distraction. Luckily, that’s as easy a control-replace button. As far as naming conventions go in general, however, I’m afraid I can’t change all their names to some fantasy language. It’s a nontraditional fantasy background, and the overarching themes of the series and beliefs of the characters are American. It isn’t America, but I want it to feel American in spirit. If I have the characters doing something as American as hitching up their wagon and setting out across a prairie, I think it’s makes less sense to have [insert Fantasy Name] do so. It would make the names look out of place. Inventing names and languages has its place in high fantasy and sci-fi, but it’s not going to work for what I’m doing in long scheme here. There are other characters of other races, but I color their names with other real languages. Thank you also for the nature feedback. I live in a coastal forest, not the mountains, and there are no mountains nearby, nor do I have mountain friends to consult. Googling information and books do not fill in that kind of personal insight. I’ll try to put some more specific clothing mentions back into the narrative carefully, and I think that’ll help a little bit with the level of tech. I’m not trying to get too specific with the decade of the era because it’s not historical fiction at all. It’s just fantasy with a nontraditional setting. Thank you again for so many thoughts. I know that much thought took time to pick through and write up!

Thank you both for replying with so many thoughts and suggestions. I'm chewing on your critiques like to reply more in depth, but we've got parent night where I work tonight, and I might not have time to get back to you till tomorrow, so I want to say a quick thanks now before heading off to work.

Hey Shadowfax, I'm not going to do any particular line edits, seeing as how these are excerpts from a project you might just trash anyway. However, I will give you some general impression. Time of Men: I know your comment mentioned that you had to put this in somewhere (author heart strings visible, much?), but you really don't. If I found this at the front of a book or even in the first few chapters, it would be grounds for me not to buy it or carry it to the check out. It may be important to you, but it's not important to the reader. I wouldn't even 'splice it in.' If it's truly prevalent in the story's plot, then it'll become apparent either through interesting, pertinent dialogue or through events or setting. Bedtime Story The first two paragraphs are hard to visualize and I really don't care for them as expo-bombs, either. Why is Centre capitalized? I liked the horses used as description of size. That part was fun to visualize for me. This is the source of all magic in the world, and it is the responsibility of the family to care for it through all generations. Huh? On to the characters--I was quite excited that I was actually going to see characters. For me, characters drive a book completely. Even if the plot is interesting or the world well-developed, if I don't invest or connect to the characters I drop it. "Mama, tell me again! Again! You know it's my favourite!" I wish I'd had a visual of the setting before you jumped to dialogue. I can hear a character speaking, but I can't see where she is. A hut? A townhouse? The bedroom on a cold night? The sweltering summer on a castle's ledge? I don't know. (Also, your spellings of 'favourite' and 'centre' are suggesting Britain to me, so I hope you're British or Australian or setting this in Europe...but the Eastern Europe/Russian(???) style naming later on doesn't really suggest anything British, so I hope then you're market is British.) Petra chuckled Chuckled has always felt masculine to me. I guess because it's a throatier laugh. She kept her barrel of loose-spun cotton and her knitting needles near, and took them up after tapping her finger to the golden brown hued blown-glass orb that rested on a metal cylinder base on the side table. This would read better if you put it in sequential order, especially considering you're asking the imagination to piece together pictures of your fictional techno-magic thing. subdued golden brown light I have mixed feelings on this imagery. I can sort of picture it, but sort of not. Petra took up her needles as she made shushing, cooing noises at the girl Why is she shushing? The little girl hasn't spoken in a paragraph at least, nor has the narrator indicated Lusya is making other noises. Also, cooing is for babies. I don't have the impression that Lusya is so small that baby-talk is appropriate for her. deftly moving her fingers by rote If she's doing it deftly, it's by rote. If she's doing it by rote, she's already deft at it. Lusya smiled and her eyes fluttered, but the story was not a short one and Petra knew the child would not sleep until the end, so the she spoke on, Start this sentence with Petra's reaction to keep the narrator closer to her. Otherwise, I feel like Lusya is about to take significant reaction to the dialogue and I feel like a paragraph change should have happened. Put Petra back in control of the sentence. Prorochitsa Please, please do something with this word. The visual 'roro' in the middle makes my eyes spin and slows down my fluency every time I see it in text. I'm sure you have a reason for inventing/borrowing it from somewhere, but as a reader trying to get into the story, it's doing nothing but slow me down and make me backtrack to remember the difference between a Prorochitsa, a Korolev, and a Lusya. If they were introduced more gradually, I'd feel more accepting of them as a reader. and the Tonyi - the three sisters who guard the Sphere If these aren't important soon, can you mention them later? It's another word I don't want to put into my short term memory while I'm still struggling with Prorochitsa. (I'm trilingual, so don't think I'm afraid of unfamiliar or new words--I'm not.) the 5 since then have been comely It's stylistically more acceptable to spell out your numbers when they're small Did you know he is the only male who has ever risen to be a scribe? Yes, yes it's true. This isn't surprising to me because I have no background knowledge of the world. Also, a child that small (???) wouldn't be surprised either. Children think the world around them is normal even if their circumstances aren't. Yes, I was still inside my mama's belly I liked this bit. It made the magic feel real, not just world-building info. "Anyway, she told my mama that inside was a scribe and the maker of cloth. At the time, everyone was joyous that mama would have a daughter with 2 professional trades; I feel like I'm being picky, and I don't know how much you've revised or really worked with these characters, but this lady sounds like the narrator talking through, not like a mother talking to her child. next scribe for the Kreshmoi - the holy Book of Utterances Could you just call it the Book of Utterances? the Traditions The use of capitalizations on standarn nouns seems like a stand-in fantasy cliche. I'd have felt the meaning of the sentence better without it. Lusya was sitting upright and perched on the edge of her cot, eyes wide and a smile showing her few missing teeth in front. Missing teeth in front? She's definitely between 6-8. First graders are notorious for that winsome, toothless smile! Cooing is definitely not appropriate communication for a six year old. consider herself old, she's seen the season cycle on the island from dry to wet only a dozen times - the season changes once every two rotations of the Sphere - but the average lifespan on Buyan was only about 17 to 20 cycles. This is a frustrating description. I want to calculate quickly the mother's age, but the narrator is slowing me down. Do the people on this island birth young and die young? If so, how young? And if they're dying young, why? That's more interesting. "Tell me more, mama." Capitalize mama when it's used as a name, not a title. The Proprochitsa Speaks The description is okay, but I'm much more interested in why they're making her look just like the blankets she's sitting in than the exact details of it. The part where the scribe notes down what she said and hurries off was the first time I really felt engaged as a reader. brown-gold orbs golden-brown thought, as he massaged his sore rump. All of this elegant tone, destroyed by the word rump. If you meant a comedic effect, ramp it up to make it obvious, or describe it differently to change the tone. Koroleva's Orders Start your book right here. Seriously. If I read this in the first chapter, I would take the book with me, but not if it started with the Mama giving the girl of indeterminate age a history lesson at bedtime. That's not quite cliched...well, yeah, it is. come to Mertvy before the sun is I did not like not knowing till after the fact that a Mertvy is a funeral... Also, if she's grieving, she should be weeping. If she's weeping, she's not telling stories. A woman, wrapped in furs and robes, emerged from the giant wooden doors of the mountainous building. Mountainous, indeed, as it was built against the bottom of the largest of all in the Middle Mountains range, partially dug into its side. Only those who entered ever saw the true size of it. Plenty of info here, but nothing for me to actually visualize. In the spirit of honesty, you lost me at Amala, Jace and Tera. Those pieces might work in a book, but as a reader getting bits, I spent so long making connections with Domochev, Kolo(??? forgot the title), the Prorochitsia and Lusya, that I don't want to do the footwork to figure out why these next people are interesting or worth investing my time in. If you present them at some point in context, I'd be willing to look at them, but not now. I read them all once through, but I didn't get anything to retain from them. I did like the “Child, I am not the one you should fear.” bear and child bit, if just for the great moment of having a bear say such a thing! I want to know more about that particular plot Tenses You jumped frequently between past and present tense. This pushed me out of the story and forced me to question the narrator each time it happened. Please make a choice and fix this. Example: It stood as tall as 5 grown horses stacked upon one another's backs and was perfectly white and smooth. The Sphere never grows dirty or old or needs repaired I feel like I was pretty critical, but you did ask to pick it apart. I hope I gave you a few useful things and a few things to think about. I hope you don't toss this project completely since you're only considering reviving it. I just want a character and conflict to invest in. The most compelling part for me was really the queen ordering the deaths. That set up a mystery with an emotional note that sparked my curiosity. Thanks, and I do hope you submit more!

Ah, I wasn't sure since I didn't hear back on the thread yet. I didn't think it would send out until it was okayed and forwarded. Hopefully I haven't committed a terrible faux pas...

Sorry I didn't post the topic thread sooner. I wasn't sure if I needed an 'ok' to submit first. Thanks.

I would like to submit, if there's still a slot open. Thanks.