krystalynn03

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!

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

Hey Seth, Firstly, thanks for letting my play catch-up. Overall, I first want to say that I enjoy your narrative voice. I didn't read it aloud (been sick this week), but I felt like would sound good if I did. It felt like it had a good rhythm while my eyes read it. I like your use of vocabulary in general. Being a reading teacher, interesting words pop out at me because I'm accustomed to 'leveling' books in my head while read as I preview them for use in my classroom. Your use of imagery is neither too nor too little. There was one bit I want to nitpick because it pushed me out of the story. The extended metaphor where the narrator thinks of his father as a giant broke the fourth wall for me because I had to go back and reread to confirm I was reading a metaphor (this being fantasy after all). As a reader, I really do read books for character. Your narrator has done nothing yet to make me invest him--hasn't shown any character quirks or so forth. So at this point, the thoughts in my head are that my investment in this book (were I to be pulling it off a shelf in a library or store) would be: "Will I like or be intrigued by this Traehearn fellow when he gets his bit on screen?" For me, that will be the breaking point for whether I bought the book (subjunctively speaking here) or not. One other thing--it's not a criticism and I don't want you to take it as one, but I don't like stories/poems inside other stories. When reading LOTR I read none of the poetry whatsoever. I feel so plot-driven when reading a book that when I see italics or break or something of the sort that I immediately hit the fast forward button and skip it. Not everybody does this, and it doesn't ruin a story for me. When Mockingjay came out and the song about coming to the tree became a hit, I had no recall of it whatsoever because I skipped even that in THG! Anywho, I guess just to think critically about the situation, if there were something obvious, some setup bit to tell me that reading the interlude was going to give me some kind key knowledge of foreshadowing for later, I might be enticed into reading it. Not saying you should do that, just playing devil's advocate against myself. Thanks again!