kais

I still don't know why my email ate your email. So weird. Overall I love the idea of this story, and the whole thing with the kid was gripping. I'm not sure the end had as much punch as it could have. I think the formation of the two house society (I assume that's what you were going for?) could have a lot more urgency behind it, which would really make this story have punch. But generally, I really enjoyed it! As I go - I read those first three lines in movie preview voice - the Moor have only been sentient for 50 cycles? I have so many questions - 'scurrying creature' is redundant at the bottom of page two - page four: I've read all the stuff you've put out in this universe and it still didn't occur to me that the vine might be an Arido - bottom of page four: I am very concerned for the state of this wood board and its apparent ring shake - page six: I'm pretty hooked at this point. You've often alluded to what someone with three houses could do so it's neat to see it - page eight: well that was... disturbing

@Mandamon I didn’t get your sub in my email. Could you send again?

L for mild language In this section I'm mostly concerned about if the tension of M and S being chased from the town works (ie is it believable) and if their reasons for taking Sam along seem natural (and/or make sense). This section has been rewritten so many times basically everything in it is invisible to me. Any help would be much appreciated.

I also did not know this.

Really sorry to hear that, @Jorville. I'm up for sub on Monday, but only if there's space

Yup. I could get behind this as well. As always, #iagreewithmandamon

Yay! I'm so glad you came over to the dark side! Overall Generally, I'm intrigued by the story and look forward to reading more. I found the first section of the first chapter really off-putting though, and if I'd picked this up in a bookstore I'd have likely put it back. I think you should consider cutting that first section and leading with the second, as it makes me much more interested in M. The henchmen, on the other hand, were more immediately appealing (if not somewhat inconsistent). I like where their story is headed, especially if they continue the sort of not-entirely-serious bit (interpretive dance! WOOO!) But anyway, great first sub! Looking forward to seeing more from you! As I go - oof, that cold open sentence is really adjective heavy - the second paragraph confuses me--I think it's hopping too much. The 'she fought weakened and blind' part, especially, seems at odds with the rest of the paragraph - page one: 'probably' talking about self in third person? Aren't they definitely doing so? - the last paragraph on the first page confuses me, too. Are there typos? Or is that just how this person talks? - our protag is just really over the top. Is that intentional? - finishing the first segment, and I'm more put off by our protag than anything else. I haven't been given anything that would drive me to empathy for her, and since she doesn't appear afraid of anything, the stakes don't mean much to me. Unsure at this point, but I wonder if this whole first scene couldn't be cut and the narrative started later in the piece? - page three: yes, I already like this Mes much better! - page four: her letting out that laugh as they gas her basically does the trick of that whole first section. You could definitely cut it all and lead with this segment - page five: I think I have personality whiplash. I see what you're going for, but I think you might want to keep some of that vulnerability, maybe just in M's thoughts, when she starts attacking. Because I've lost that connection now I had with her at the start of this section - page six: She hadn't taken his hand.... woah woah! This was a neat scene! I wanted more of it! The summary doesn't seem to have a transition, and is abrupt. Suggest drawing out their first scene, then maybe summarizing follow ups. The summarizing kills the good momentum you had going - page seven: You were spared because you're special doesn't tell me as much as something like You were spared because that whistle you do through your teeth melted the president or something akin. 'Special' makes it sound like a bad superhero origin story. Specifics!! Specifics would be awesome - page eight: those last few lines don't really feel like a chapter end. I think you might want something with a bit more kick, like why he wants to listen to her monologue. I also can't tell if this is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek or not. - page ten: LOL I love the henchmen - page eleven: only six months incarceration? Seemed like a lot longer - page thirteen: why are they so quick to think she's gone good? With all the talk of how evil she is, couldn't this just be an extended ruse? - page thirteen: the point where she offers to give up the coordinates to her lair would be a better place for them to realize she might be good after all. Better shock value - page fifteen: the narrative dragged a bit as they made their escape, and then sped up so fast at the end I didn't know what happened! Suggest maybe reworking the flow in these last two pages.

LOL. Well, that wouldn't be too out of character! Yes, but S lost the bandolier early on, and has them on the belt now. It's awkward I've been toying with how best to deliver this line, because there are a dozen ways to say it poorly, and not any way, just yet, to say it with the punch I want without problematic language. I'll keep at it Yeah, this is one of the new edits. Sorry about that! Ack. Artifact from previous draft. Thanks! LOL. Yes. Feelings. Feeeeeeeeeelings..... Due to edits in earlier chapters, this is actually the first time we now get the full story, although slightly edited for S's sensibilities. Will revisit Is it horrible that this is actually what I was going for? There's a certain aspect to lesbian culture that this really sort of borrows from (THINGS! but okay what about FEELINGS! but we're in danger! YES BUT FEELINGS!!) You've seen similar in Ard make out or sex scenes, just not to this same degree. Still, I'll look into streamlining a bit, because the last thing I want is for it to drag! Thank you! And awesome on being first! We're on top of our game this week! I'm not even behind anymore.

Pronouns are hard! I get it. No worries. I've been thinking about this most of the day today, and I think I actually sort of like it. With S's sheltering, I could see there being a much more distinct age difference (even though it's still just one year). It will also help fuel Sam's rage later. I think I'll let this hang for now and see if it persists in being weird, or if it works later on. It was a great hatchet job! Much better flow now! I've tried to clean this up a bit. Thank you for the help!

It should be fairly in-character for M, but coming in the middle of the story (thank you for your bravery!) it would look weird, for sure. The short of it is that M has no confidence in S's abilities at the moment, and taking S into a loaded situation, especially noting S's alchemical affiliation, would be a terrible idea. Fair. How guild lineage works was defined in the previous chapters. Only a firstborn daughter can inherit. All children before are sent off to be fostered to other guild houses. S's mother fostered out S's older brother, we find here, but in chapter one it is established that the mother never took any children in return--thus furthering S's isolation. This is actually dealt with in a fair bit of detail in a few chapters! Well wahoo, something worked out! Thank you for commenting, and welcome to RE! And a brave, brave person you are for doing so! *happy dance* Looks like you hit some of the kiddie codes when typing that comment, so I don't quite understand the question. Generally though, Sam is about a year older than S. This is definitely the slowest chapter start I have. It's coming off a chapter that was almost entirely about breasts, however, so I think it works in context (and the context is needed), as there actually hasn't been a chance to have an in-depth look at S's binder or the logic behind it. I'd be curious to see how you feel about this start after you read the first ten chapters, for sure! LOL, this is actually the whole point of the book, so I'll take it. Oh, this is a good problem! Hoorah! Yes! A festival introduced a few chapters ago. Fair, and an easy fix Entirely secondary world. I just like the word (and yes, like Puget Sound) These were awesome! Thank you! Everyone had issues with the house. I've cleaned the section up The hair and skin are color are fairly common, but not necessarily in that combination. I'll have to think on this one. LOL. fair. And with that I'm....caught up? Really? Did hell freeze over?

La la la only a week behind now... Argh, you're right. I think I'm going to have to back these ages up quite a bit, since someone else commented now that S is younger, there isn't much of an age gap, and S should be able to recognize Sam easily since he'd already been into puberty at this point. I wanted the interludes to go in order of age, but with shuffling things around, I think I may have to come up with a different strategy. It's supposed to be implied by the actions and world. If S isn't being recognized as a girl, then the only other option is boy There are the confused ones. There have been so many edits to this that I apologize. Size tag added! I don't really know what to do about this. There needs to be a moment of disconnect, and it's only a few lines. Maybe I'll put him in more clothes, due to the weather, and that will hide his features more or something. It's an old artifact. I've changed it to make it more about the brother reveal thing now I've tried to make this more about S's misconceptions about what witches can do than anything else Thank you! Solid comments, as always Sam recognizes S pretty instantly. S may need some work. I think I'll for sure have to have them bundled more heavily against the cold or something. It used to be way earlier and no one connected the two. So I may need to live with convenient so as to not lose impact When I originally wrote this they were all a lot younger, and S in the main narrative was older. I've cleaned it up as much as I can within the constraints of when I need things to happen, aged up some of the kids, and made Sam's age clearer. S can't really provide any real protection though, at least not in M's eyes. I was going for more M being more patronizing than anything else. Likely WRS. How S feels about breasts is consistent but somewhat nuanced (and is part of the focus of the narrative, in fact). This is an edit problem. There was more about it in earlier drafts, in earlier chapters, but that all got cut. There really isn't a place anymore, for binder discussions earlier than this. Although I could perhaps mention that the reason S can run through the town is because the binder is loose and waterlogged... In fact, I think I will do just that. I've cleared this up. This one is supposed to be referencing the king's old magic system. It used to be 'go sit on a sword hilt,' but I took that bit out during the adult to YA conversion, and made the magic moving skills from people to people based on just running someone through with an imbued sword, instead of raping them with one. (This was dark fantasy, originally, a long, long time ago). But yeah, 'go run yourself through with a sword' doesn't have nearly as much punch It's supposed to be referring to the water frames, since its a textile factory. Possibly too obscure a reference. I'll revisit it Argh! Good catch! Will edit. I'm not doing a very good job with this. They are, but S isn't going to see them as such due to that myopic upbringing. I need to make this more clear. By design, so hopefully confusing but also intriguing. Thank you so much for the comments! Very helpful.

Overall A nice wrap up to the novella. Some of the sentences were a little choppy with flow, but that's minor. It read easily, and I think if I had the book to read straight through I wouldn't have struggled as much with the twist with the Eff and the contract signing. This ended up being a fun story and I really enjoyed it! As do I, because I want the results of A's molt, and to see if we get a buddy action flick, or a romance, or something inbetween all while being chased by sea monsters. As I go - I like the kicker - page two: OMG IS THAT SAM!?!?!? - I had to read pages six and seven twice to figure out what had happened, but when I finally got it, it was good! Although I think some WRS may have contributed to my confusion - page seven: In the days that followed, there had been... seems like a funny tense change?? - page eight: "Yet," I said... AWWWWW - little sad we didn't get to see the results of A's molt but I'm willing to wait for a sequel. The ending is cute, but I think it might end even snappier with a line like "Dads! You will never guess where we've been!" or something like that.

Hooray! You made it to subbing! Congrats on that first big step. I hope you love the group as much as I do. We're squirrelly sometimes, but in that lovable way (I hope). Overall I think this chapter has good bones, but needs the muscle rearranged. There is some critical buy-in worldbuilding missing, and some scenes that I think aren't needed yet. I've left notes below. The writing was mostly smooth (some typos, but that's not unusual), but I did feel like I lacked buy-in with our main character. But I think with a bit more worldbuilding and backstory, especially in relation to what mom does and the business, I'd be fine. This gives me a sort of space western vibe. Is that what you were going for? Saloons with aliens? I can get behind that! Your Questions How well do I introduce the world? I'd like both more and less worldbuilding, in various places. I've pointed those out in the section below. Where is there too much detail or not enough? Generally, not enough to get me invested wholly in the narrative What do you think of the pacing? Too slow to start, but the second chapter seemed to find its rythym Do you see a connection between what happens in the begining of chapter 1 and the end of chapter 2? No... missed that Does the voice work? The voice seems appropriate for the age of the protagonist Are there any obvious, obnoxious sentence level issues? I pointed out the big one below. I think you could clip a number of sentences down, but that's something can be gotten to in LBLs at a later date. I had the same issue here. I need more about this drug, and the world it inhabits, much earlier on As I go - that second sentence has so much punch, I'd suggest deleting the first one and leading with the second. - "It was even worse..." this sentence is a bear. Consider reworking, because right now it is hard to read and I think we lost impact because of that. - glow like a halo, perhaps? - two enbies on the first page. Okay fine, you have my attention - end of page two: I'm antsy. There's no real urgency in these first two pages, and the banter isn't snappy enough to hold my attention. I suspect the better hook opening to this chapter might be farther down a ways - page three: I don't know what SE is, so the debate about it is meaningless at this point - page four: than a Martian dust bunny? - page four: so if you kept the second line on the first page, then started at "three knocks shook the...," I think your pacing would be a lot better. Waiting, boredom, etc., aren't great hooks for starting books, at least not so much anymore. - "Are you okay, human..." then your protag could follow with some indignation about not being completely human, thus getting at some of the worldbuilding you'd have cut earlier. Also indignation is a good hook emotion - page six: a bit of a pull from the narrative here, as I had assumed we were in the future, but the not having the enby bathroom thing figured out yet seems unlikely in a future where there is level of tech already described. It wouldn't be enough to get me to put down the book, though, just something that snags right now - page eight: "Not everyone could sense or..." is there a typo in this sentence? - page 10: still not sure what the SE are. Police? - page 11: so an agent once gave me this advice: start and end each chapter with a hook, to keep the reader reading. In chapter two, your opening chapter states how doing what most of us would consider an exciting thing is in fact, not exciting. This doesn't really hook me into reading any more of the chapter. If it isn't exciting, and I'm not yet invested in our protag, why do I care what they are doing? - page 13: while I like the conversation here, and the warning to stay away from mom's dealings, I don't understand where the question about channeling this drug comes from. I feel like I'm missing some backstory, or critical worldbuilding, and I also don't know why our protag cares about it, or why they are hunting up this information - page 14: It's three hundred years in the future, give or take fifty, and there still aren't gender neutral bathrooms on Earth? Is it just where our protag lives?? I don't know if I can suspend disbelief this much. With aliens on world, who all cannot possibly prescribe to a gender binary, wouldn't there at least be alien gender bathrooms that could be used? Single user bathrooms are common across the USA already, even if intended for lactating parents and such. I find my disbelief stretching a bit too far here. - there is some good tension at the end, but I'm not sure I understand enough of the world for it to carry me

Overall Hey hey, welcome back! Generally, I wasn't engaged with this until about the last two chapters, which is where I think your story really begins. Some notes below. I'm still put-off by the dark-skinned savage and the white default thing you've got going on, but both are pretty easy fixes if you go into the early chapters and do things like note skin tones for everyone, and put in a few more people of color in day-to-day things. There's a reasonable hook there at the end, in trying to decide between two worlds, but I think it took too long to get to. That's not uncommon in first drafts, however, so don't be discouraged. While not many of us are super big fans of editing, we certainly all old hats at it. As I go - generally, descriptions of the weather aren't strong enough for chapter openers - she's being 'struck' by a lot of things in these opening paragraphs. Watch the redundancy - M is 14??? - 'sun bronzed cheeks' okay, but what color skin does the ambassador have? Watch the white default. I note that at the end of page two, when you describe him, you only describe his build and hair, not his skin tone - A basically invited himself to this ball, and M is okay with that? Being brought up in a strong matriarchy, I'd think she'd at least be offended he assumed. Same deal with the curtesy. Would a (young) woman from a matriarchy curtsey to man she barely knew, who wasn't of equal rank? - page three, paragraph that starts with 'the man looked...' This paragraph confused me a lot. I think it needs to be crisper. 'The warrior from the XXX' is also a hard tag to use when we barely know M. Suggest just sticking with her name for now - I think I need more blocking on this carriage incident, because right now, M just seems like she has a really short fuse but also is easily subdued - page four: the dress has a rough texture?? Isn't she a noble of some sort? Wouldn't she want soft fabrics? Or wait, is it the wrapping paper that is rough? - page five: marble isn't a proper noun - page seven: no skin tone note on the father, either, which, again, serves to further the 'otherness' of our protagonist, the violent, spear-wielding, tropical woman with the darker skin - page seven: I feel like this page, here, is where the narrative actually starts. The concept of leaving one family for another, of being mixed race, is a strong one, and serves as a good hook for a book. You might consider cutting the previous chapters (in late, out early, as it were) and really starting the book here, where M comes to visit her father and he suggests she try living in his world for a while. That, I think, would be a very engaging book, especially if you could keep the 'otherness' at bay in terms of skin tone

Looking mostly for pacing-is it moving well, and age—is S believable as sheltered 17. I still have a lot of concerns about this section. It used to be one long chapter and has been since broken out into… four chapters? Five? So…does it all hang together? Does the guild antagonism make sense? V for threats of violence

I have removed the extra boot. Hmm. It may have to stay at this point, since it leads directly to events in the next chapter. I'll think on if there's a better way to incorporate it though. She isn't try to at all. This was meant more to show that S expects everyone to be concealing things about themselves. Sort of a subtle point, so I'm not sure it matters if it doesn't land all the time. Between genders. I cleared the wording up a bit I just removed this line. It clearly wasn't doing what I wanted it to It can't bind to water itself, but it can bind to itself in water. I'll see if I can't clear this up. This is a very real compound too, if that's interesting to anyone, with super weird properties. We work with it in my lab. Thank you for the feedback! Very helpful! I was aiming for more indignant anger that to the reader may or may not be reasonable. Does that work? I've cleaned this paragraph up I've clarified the isolation part in the first chapter now LOL! Well S isn't entirely blameless in any of this, for sure Okay, Will fix. Yup. I'll go through and delete a few She's sitting on the lip of the tub. I'll make it more clear It was mentioned earlier in the chapter, but I'll just delete this part Hmm, I'll have to mention its inert once bound somewhere, it seems I think it just needs some tidying. Thank you for blocking help!! I bow to the will of the people. M will scrub! Yes! And that is exactly what I need at this time, so it's working! Thank you for the feedback, and welcome to RE!! Woohoo! I'm about to head into your LBLs, so thank you in advance for those!

Sneaking in under the wire here I don't have any 'as I go' thoughts, because the flow was generally smooth, and the piece was short. What was really lacking, for me, was character buy-in. I don't know enough about this guy to care that he has been caught, and there isn't enough voice in the first six pages for me to root for him on, say, sarcasm or duty, alone. Is this part of your W&S universe? It reads like it, especially your main character rings familiar to me. I think we might need a touch more to the character in these intro pages, although I will say I thought the pacing was just fine and generally, the world, while generic, was not unappealing. I'm fine with waiting a bit for the magic system to be developed/shown.

Well it's also a planet on fire, so, you know, both are plot relevant. I do, too! And book three's original cover was just the smoking planet, which was gorgeous, but not great for marketing. Disembodied female heads (or headless male torsos for the M/M set) sell books. *sigh*

Blame the board gremlins? ETA: are you highlighting text and waiting for the 'quote' button to pop up? Or are you using the quote text button?

@Jorville I open my Word document and leave tracked changes on the areas people bring up. I dismiss the ones I change and then leave the ones I don't, incase I need to revisit them later.

Ahh... first draft did not have the ladies on it and I actually requested them. Since it's the book that actually, finally has some 'action,' I thought maybe it'd better be marketed that way. People at cons are much more drawn to book one's cover than book two's, so now we'll see how two women on a cover work. But yes, it, uh, is a bit racy.

This is amazing

Two weeks ago: Kid: *playing with toy people* Me: Oh! Who is that? Kid: *says some name I don't quite hear* Me: So.... are they a boy, a girl, or a nonbinary person? Kid: Nonbinary person Me: What's their name? Kid: MOMMY! Me: *dies* More recently we have learned that all toy people with short hair and hats are nonbinary to her, and I think that's just about perfect.

Look at this! It's like I'm gaining ground on critiques! But hopefully apt? Can confirm this happened after my last horse encounter. I think I need more ab muscles. Check! Double check! There's a special alert!?! I think the following sentences answer it? I'll try to make it more clear. This will henceforth be known as the three boot problem. Am fixing now. It's because they're spinning. Do I need to call this out more? Hmm. Your assumption is correct. I might need to jiggle the phrasing here. I was trying to say that M just looked like a normal person, not a princess, but since everyone tripped over this section, I just deleted it No, bad wording on my part. Fixing! They're tasty! M clearly has other ideas.... But yes, edited. Thank you so much!

Oooh, I see. I can fix those for sure.