kais

Apparently this got buried in my email. Whoops! I need to get back into the swing of things here. Overall I see that most had the same reaction as I did, so I'll not get back into it. In general, much more interesting, but your sixty year old is behaving too young for her age. Would love to see how this story evolves. Keep at it! Yup. I also had this issue As I go - first paragraph I'm already much more invested in this story. You never get stories about aging female swords masters. I want this woman's story now - oh, she's dying. Boo. Was hoping for more than just last gasping breaths - this 60 year old woman is acting like a ten year old orphan. With that level of age comes experience and steel. I'd find it much more believable if she took a moment of silence, we got some internal monologue about loss of friends and ephemeral nature of life, then she picked up a sword that was fine in her prime, but now a little too heavy but darn it she's not going to let that stop her, and she goes out into the night, seeking vengeance and also some tea

Please abbreviate all names (planets, people), and thank you all for going through a draft zero. It's never pretty, but always useful! Edit: Apparently I sent the draft document instead of just the first story. SORRY! PLEASE ignore everything except that first section. Nothing else was even remotely ready to go out yet.

Contractions? Let me know if you want help!

I think it depends on its state of editing. I think the story is delightful and very publishable. I remember though that the beginning was slow and there was some wandering near the end. Have you done revisions since you subbed it here? Do you have a CP who could go over it? The deadline isn't until the 31st and I think that would be plenty of time to get it tightened up!!

Welcome back! I loved following your adventures on Twitter!

I believe what you meant to write was challenge accepted! Good luck to everyone who enters! Let us know if you do so we can maybe have a commiseration thread.

@Master OoklaJack I have no idea why the tagging doesn't always work for me. Secret conspiracy? For pronouns, I'm nonbinary and don't really care what you use. I sort of uniformly hate them all.

*cries*

A reminder to everyone that Angry Robot is having its open door period now. You can submit without an agent. They do this once every two to three years, so if you have a manuscript ready, why not give it a go? Link here. You can follow along with the crowd on the Absolute Write tracker here. Also @Mandamon, maybe for Fruits????

Throwing my hat in for next week because things have finally settled down and I'm drafting again!

Hi! Glad to see you sub again! Overall While I found the start of this piece to be more engaging than the last, the very persistent issues with female representation, male gaze, and harmful tropes was a huge turn off. If I read this in a published book I would not read the author again. If you need links for any of the tropes discussed before, the Sexy Lampshade Test, etc, do let me know and I will link them. I agree with @Mandamon entirely. I wondered about this a lot, too. They don't seem like they would be strong enough for one person, let alone four. #iagreewiththis Me too! Maybe @MasterJack will write it? Please? As I go - by the second paragraph, I am already more engaged with this sub than the last one - what are 'bottom's thighs'? - page two: my fridge sense is tingling... The dead mother isn't helping - wait... you can't just figure out how to swim. If you don't know how to swim, you drown. - page three: while I appreciate that Sarran (again with the household names...swifter, Sarran..) is alive, the hero saving the girl trope isn't much better, especially since she hasn't even passed the Sexy Lampshade Test. Also, Denar is coming off as a super creeper holding a drowning girl longer than necessary. I do not like this character. - he has to help her up by lifting her around the waist? Ugh. Super creeper - wait WHAT. He takes off his shirt and she gets mostly naked? This is super gross male gaze right now, and it makes me not want to read any farther. - oh wait no, apparently never too late for a fridging. *sigh* Please don't use this trope. It's tired and incredibly sexist.

Welcome to RE! It's great that you've taken the plunge to critique. Keep in mind that sometimes comments may seem harsh, but we're critiquing the work, not the writer. We all just want to help each other get better! Also, it's great to have new blood here! Overall I couldn't get into this story. I don't know enough about the stakes or the MC to care about what happens. The names were also... pretty silly, and kept throwing me from the narrative. Swifter sounds too much like Swiffer, Thumper will forever be the rabbit from Bambi, etc. This. This exactly. It read very much like a video game. THIS. Tropes are great and all, but an all male cast unrealistic. Women make up 51% of the population, give or take (if you ignore nonbinary people). They should therefore make up 50% of your characters, unless you're writing in a gender specific arena, like an all boys school or something (and even then, they still have mothers and sisters and such). PoC also appear to be lacking, which is also vitally important. And tough old women fighting would be really fun and fresh! Golden Girls in sci fi I could so get behind. As a final note, if you're writing this for fun, carry on! If you're looking to get published, know that prologues are pretty much dead. Agents won't even let you sub them anymore, so this could very well be cut and never even read. You might consider if it is truly necessary for the narrative and if so, turning it into chapter one. As I go - the slasher monastery? Every slasher movie ever is flashing in front of my eyes. Ninja slashers? Slashing the monastery decorations? Who is doing the slashing, why are they doing the slashing, and what purpose does the slashing serve? What is being slashed? I have so many questions. - Swifter sounds an awful lot like swiffer... - page three: I'm unclear what is happening. Also I don't know enough about our MC to care that things are happening to him. I need more stakes. - page four: the dialogue is coming out as mostly stock phrases and cliche. Suggest trying to make it more normal - Slasher, Thumper, and Swifter...these names are not super convincing and seem like basic household products. Consider renaming - the sword turned into a pole.... just...imagery...

Hah, no. That was my LAST book. This one will be on studio woodturning, highlighting the US legacy established in the 1960s. It's super nerdy. I'm very proud.

Welcome to RE! Sorry about getting to this so late. Life has been beating me about the head recently. Overall It is an interesting idea, but I found the execution wanting. Tense was all over the place, the sentences were hard to read, and I never got invested in the why do I care about the troll issue. I think this has a lot of potential, just needs some tightening. This. I agree completely. As I go - the way this is written I find hard to read. I had to really slow down to understand the first paragrpah - tense jumps everywhere in this. Past, present, future. Definitely need to tie that down - the ending is...confusing. Seems forced

I'm here still, I swear! So many cons and books and LIFE! I can finally talk about one thing--I signed a contract for a new nonfiction book that I'm really excited about. More exciting things to come, soon, hopefully. Carry on, RE!

Better late than never? Maybe? I dunno, my brain is lost in the bajillion cons I've been at this autumn. TO THE CRITIQUE! Overall I liked it! I'm a bit confused as to why this zygote having Huntington's matters so much to our MC, but I can suspend that disbelief. I liked the ramping of the tension and the issues at hand. Compelling, and well done! I had no problem understanding any of it, but I'm also a scientist so, take that with a grain of salt. This. I think I understand why they're there, but its muddled. This contrast between how our MC values life, in order to give more weight to her feelings for her brother, needs to be better defined. As I go - redundancy on door in the first sentence, and again in second sentence - and then door again next paragraph. I'm cutting you off. No more door usage in this sub - page 1: LOL at sister problems - you have a few minor typos on page 2 - page three: white is not a proper noun - page five: I'm definitely invested in this story now

Little bit of this, little bit of that, some things I can't talk about yet...

Sorry! Life is crazy hectic right now and I maybe just agreed to do two new books...

So do we get a discount if we shop there then?? Asking for a friend...

If a lot of people are doing it here on RE, we could have an accountability thread or something? Special NaNo thread? Cheer each other on?

Sorry for the delay on this! Last week was all kinds of hectic, but you are not forgotten! Overall This was perfect! Pacing is good, tension is good, ending is satisfying. I really have no complaints anymore. Well done! As I go - love the mention of nostalgia on page 3 - also love the ending on page three. Solid work there - random thought on page six: I want a short where Sam finds one of the Nether computers, and its an old Apple IIe or something, and he's like, hey everyone, let me show you how to use Paint and play Space Whiskey - I still have no idea how the crate falling down stairs works with the Symphony and note generation. This is my lack of physics talking, probably - page thirteen and the flow is good. Loving it. - I love the little (big) creature - end of page 18: solid. Good mystery here! - ending: yes. All the yes

And I'm so freaking proud of you, @TKWade! You (and your writing now) make my heart happy.

Apologies all, I'm not going to sub this week after all. Between DVpit and the book launch for ASD, I can barely think straight.

In for Monday.

That was the original idea, but it didn't land quite right on initial alpha readthroughs. I've tweaked it a bit because I did want to try to draw parallels between it and the nonbinary gender, in that both exist but (at this time) aren't really 'legit'. I dunno. We'll see if it works as you get farther into the story. I've done more with explaining S's isolation in early chapters, so hopefully with those edits, this makes more sense @industrialistDragon agreed with you, so the morels stay! LOL! I'm not here to be praised. I need harsh criticisms, STAT! So pick away, no worries! There's a follow up next chapter so I'll be interested to know if that 'seals the deal' Are we going to do fanfic again??? Thank you so much!! I think this is super solid advice. I'm going to start a new version now and try to add that in from the start. Thank you!