kais

As with people, you refer to them as they refer to themselves. We are in first person, and S has referenced consistently away from the feminine, so at the very least you should not refer to S as 'her', or 'girl', or 'woman', or 'daughter'. That isn't really an excuse to not follow gender cues. Most everything I read isn't on the binary, so should I just call everyone 'zie' or 'them' because its in my comfort zone? I... It took me some time to decide how to respond to this. At the most basic reaction yes, I do mind, since this does not appear to be a failure of the writing (as in, the majority did not have difficulty picking up the gender distinction), but in the spirit of education, I'll move forward with it. “Are you her daughter then?” the short one asked. “S the…?” “The alchemist,” I finished for him. My attempt at pleasantness evaporated. There was bite to my words, though not for the reasons the guards thought, I’m sure. I was no ones daughter, and that word would stick in my chest now, for days. It would squirm there, under bindings and layers of clothes. Make me second-guess myself at the fair with every introduction and every awkward stare at my body. In that moment, I hated them, these two men, so sure in their position despite the mud and the hour. S makes it clear here that 1) the word 'daughter' should not be used to define, 2) the word is very bothersome to the point of inducing anxiety, and mentions 3) a binder under clothing, which is perhaps the most basic of tools used to conceal breasts. S's response is "I am her child," which is a direct, gender-neutral contradiction to the word 'daughter'. The guards catch on quickly, which is world building to indicate this is not an unknown phenomenon. Later they respond with The court anatomist should perhaps verify that our woman alchemist hasn’t been stealing village children.” Directly insulting S on the gender front. S reacts as one might expect: The other word, ‘woman’, burned worse than the smell of the bone oil. S has now twice rejected the feminine words. S directly addresses the issue to the readers here: my body broke no laws in the queendom. And then the final jab is here: She has a queer name... coming from one of the guards. Does that help?

Ah, another use of the 'G'. At least its not just me! Overall I think the quality of writing here is better than in Scissors and Bows, by quite a bit. There is still the tendency to heavily weight with fight scenes and to have exposition continue for too long, but you're getting better. I thought the end was really intriguing but had a hard time trying to mentally connect it with the rest. The story itself could use a more defined arc, but that's more about tweaking the front and back than the actual meat. With some edits, this could be a really nice piece! As I go - page one: the bar was close to snapping- it took me three reads to figure out you didn't mean the bar table was going to snap in half - page two: I feel like we're bouncing between authorial viewpoint and A's on this page - redundancy on 'single' on page two paragraph with 'the bartender' start - The tattoo was a signature of the Black Ice, a ruthless band of mountain bandits. This is really telly/infordumpy - the chatting and back and forth is getting a bit tiresome by page seven - page ten: the dialogue is trying now. So much info. I'm not going to retain it all - page twelve: better here, with the wolf retribution and archery - end of page 13: so are we in omniscient then? I thought limited but maybe not? - page fourteen: That A can tell they are lying would be better understood as broadcasted tells, and not described away - page 17: “It’s immune to my powers, and its This chapter seems out of place and I'm confused as to how it ties into the previous - I really like the end, but I'm blurry as to the promise it is keeping. I think it needs to perhaps be just a little more clearly spelled out. Not a lot, just a little

Don't know if its different than the last time but I'm reading anyway! Overall Much better flow this time, and I think you've added some transitions that really help. I like the starmap scene better, too! Your questions -Connection to new characters and POV. No issues here, aside from those listed below -Is Sam's anxiety believable? I don't have this flavor of anxiety, so I don't think I'm qualified to answer this. It seems logical, but that really doesn't mean much from an outside perspective -Does this answer questions about Earth vs. the Nether and homeworlds? Yes, and while info dumpy, I enjoyed it, but I also like space stuff As I go - you have some punctuation fails in that first page - At least she hadn’t been fool enough to ask Ori over the night before. That would have led places she wasn’t ready to go yet, and Ori should concentrate on that strange boy. Uh, hello random development. You need more time and description! This needs to be teased out at least another two sentences - The Council wanted her tied down with work so she couldn’t make waves around Ori’s voids. This is a solid place to expand worldbuilding - the reasons for getting Enos dumped on her are now much better defined, but I think I'd like it even more so, with more on the Ardor front. It'd be nice to see notes of fear about these people throughout all the chapters, to better lead to this - The base was carved like twisting tree trunks, holding up a flat section of wood. I realize this is probably just me, but if the thing is a centerpiece then I'd like it much more dynamically explained. - page five: still a little hesitant on the dual protector/healer roles for your two women - page seven: would he take a walk around the block back home?? That's outside... - From what Sam could tell, Majus Cyrysi thought mentally changing notes of a ghostly Symphony was a science. This would be better if Cyrysi said it. I have a hard time seeing how Sam could intuit this - page 13: LOL at intelligent bananas

Overall Still entertaining. Slow in a few places, and I had a major hangup on the cop's words without context, but the rest was enjoyable. The pacing is good thus far, and I'm not finding myself wandering despite the number of POV characters or the setting. Nice! As I go - page three: the jasmine smell is overdone, in my opinion, but the fact that it took me three pages to find a minor quibble is fantastic! - Quirk watched his companion leave and smiled, appreciating the way gravity and musculoskeletal movement combined to make the hem of her skirt sway. In terms of flow, I think this needs a follow up sentence, otherwise it seems out of place and not performing much - page four: the 'b-face' curse seems very un-Quirk like. I'd expect him to have more refined curses. Definitely curse, but A) not with derogatory female ones and B.) with some inherent flare and showmanship - “Ah’m a gay, Italo-Nigerian police officer with a limp" What has this got to do with anything? Very off-putting sentence. On page seven now it still is utterly out of place. I would likely put this book down at this point. It's not that you can't or shouldn't write lines like this, but they have to be part of a character and we have to understand why they are part of the character. Otherwise it's like just leaving a giant racial homophobic slur in your writing for funsies. - page eight is sort of floating out in space for me right now, without any context - page nine: I know, I know, but I still really don't know who Grimes is or why I care about him - page eleven: I'm always wary of scene recaps from another POV, because the information is stale, but this one I think I'm okay with - the conversation at the end was getting long and my attention was wandering, but everything came back with the negotiations

@neongrey I think what I have to decide is if pyridine is already in the world (and therefore named), or if S has discovered it. If its already in the world (and I want to line up time periods appropriately here, too), then I also have to make a decision about whether or not S would know about it, since there is no alchemical training set forth. Such work over one word!

Oh ho, it’s chapter two! Meant to be a breather and world building chapter before the plot kicks back up too much. Most interested to know if the tension is holding, even though I’m trying to ease back from the shock of chapter one. This is also the ‘if-you-completely-missed-the-deal-with-S-in-chapter-one-now-you-get-beat-over-the-head-with-it’ chapter. You’re welcome. TWD, which is likely not its final title, is dark adult fantasy. This is draft zero. I’m sorry for that. Everything and anything is open to edits, but at this stage LBLs are less useful than overall feelings about tension, character development, text flow, etc. This is also my first experiment with first person, so be warned there. Also be warned that I am delving much deeper into #ownvoices land with the protag than I usually do. This chapter is gore free, @Ernei. It doesn't really have language or violence in it, either, but I kind of feel like those tags should just always be on my work, especially the language one.

Nope, but I want S to be... clearly not great with the physical. If the door jam issue ends up being your biggest quibble with the book, I'll call it a win! These are mostly voice and stylistic differences. Another thing I'm working on in my writing is voice. Since this is first person, the voice is going to be S's, which means the voice is going to be technical and occasionally oblique. I'm good with this for now. Of course, this is draft zero, so the book could be on a completely different planet in a few months. Unsure myself. This is adult fantasy. My current editor hasn't struck down any double punctuation yet, although she does get particular about what order they come in. I think you may have missed the world building in this chapter. S is definitely not a girl. Urp, good point. Not a reaction! BWAHAHAHA! #fungalchemistry Thank you for the feedback!

Heh. I've moved up the primate reference to hopefully deal with this. Disturbing, and now I kind of want there to be fingers woven into it... but alas, I've cleaned up the language. No one did, apparently. Berry bush fail! A few people have caught on the age, so I will be interested to see thoughts going forward. I did deliberately pick this age for a reason, so hopefully that will become clearer later. Did you know it's a real thing!! Like, not to the extent of damage here in the book, but my plan was to take the creepy stuff in nature and just sort of stretch it a bit. I'm about halfway through writing this book, and S has filmed just this one person. This is what I am struggling with. Lay readers want a certain amount of voice, but this is first person from a proto-chemist. I need to find a way to strike a balance between the matter-of-factness of S and the ability to capture reader empathy from those not in the sciences. Thank you so much! This new two book set (this one and then the sequel) are my hope at getting an agent. My departure from scifi is due to my complete ineptitude with physics. I love space opera, but I really struggle with spaceships and lasers and all that jazz. I work in forests, so I figured I should probably write about forests, especially since forests are creepy as all get out. Likely this will go under a different pen name though, since generally authors don't switch genres without casualties. *mutters about the darn berry bushes* I'm trying very hard to work on the descriptive language. Being in a forest instead of a spaceship very much helps with this Chemistry nuggets are left in for those well-versed in the field. I've cleaned this up. The flesh is unimportant. It's the bone stuff that boils off to make bone oil, from which pyridine was distilled in less-modern times. Also, due to reader confusion, I've changed all references of pyridine, which is a modern word, to just 'bone oil', which is simultaneously more creepy and less exact. It bothers the scientist in me, because the oil still needs to be distilled, but whatever. It's draft zero. LOL. Well some readers would have picked up on it anyway, but @Mandamon suggested a bit more beating over the head in this first chapter, so I have. Edited, although I have tripped and messed up my ankle on a door jam one too many times to count. That... would be because of edits. Previous references to night were deleted. Grrr. Also a theme I'm trying to run with! I can't believe you caught up with the entire backlog!!! Thank you for the comments! I'm looking forward to subbing chapter two. I think my writing must have really developed over this past year, because I can remember subbing AFD chapter one on here to a much bloodier display (deserved, of course).

Another of my beta readers brought this up, for different reasons. I'm toying around with them now. Bonus, bone oil sounds way cooler than pyridine. Yeah, I go back and forth on this. Time period wise, it's accurate (especially since S works with fungi). But maybe not appropriate for the setting so much. If you are around a few chapters from now I'd like your thoughts on the age then. I had the higher age on purpose, but if it pulls too much here I will need to adjust. Thank you! If it was interesting and held your attention, then that is half the battle. Clean up I can do, especially noting this is draft zero and clunk is inevitable. Thank you for the feedback!

Bah, exploration of gender and/or sexuality is always welcome in my threads! Again, I don't know about the resources available in Poland, but I can send you links to stuff if you want to explore the ace spectrum more (and it is a pretty big, interesting spectrum).

My 'plan' was to keep the magic stuff up in the air until about halfway or so through the book. We'll see how that goes. Heh.

Also for the 20th, pending space and newbie excitement.

I'm actually trying to be historically accurate, in terms of alchemy (well, to a point anyway), specifically focusing on 1700s-ish Western alchemy. There is a very specific point at which chemistry breaks from alchemy, and for about fifty years or leading up to this, alchemists were incredible chemists (well, some were. Some were just 'turn lead to gold' people). Anyway, S is lurking in that time frame but you are correct in that this is more chemistry than transmutation. For now. It is fantasy, after all. Oh, there's magic, which is another reason why the alchemy has to skew more chemistry. Otherwise there really isn't a clear distinction. But it looks like I need to toy with this chapter for a while before we continue on. Thank you so much for the feedback!

Overall No real quibbles. It was a thick chapter, and not in terms of word length. I think, with it being a party, that I expected a bit less in terms of intense plot and world building and a bit more, I don't know, airiness? The kissing and sexual tension in general kept the chapter moving, which I did appreciate. I'm not a fan of political intrigue, so this had enough other 'stuff' to hold my attention. Although after the part with Maranthe wanting to hire Lasila, that felt more like the end of the chapter. It was strong. It was hard to get invested in anything after, because what I really wanted was more of the magic stuff and less about Lasila's brother. As I go - hello hands! - chests together *fans self* - lawyer, bah. Live a little! It's a festival! - page two: GAH CUTAWAYS! Don't make go write fan fiction. I WILL DO IT! - page three: 'line of her pelvis': not quite sure where that is. - page six and I'm growing a bit weary of the back and forth between Lasila and Maranthe. It's not as engaging as I would like it to be, considering the information being provided - page six: with that said, once I hit the part with Maranthe wanting to hire Lasila as a lawyer, I was back in and ready to go - quite the kiss there, Maranthe! - My, Lasila is certainly a lot more bold after that kiss with Maranthe!

Overall The first half was interesting, but the second half wandered to... I don't know where. I'm still not certain what even happened in the second half, other than our main guy went to a barber. The chapter seems to wander in places, and pack too much into others. There's a solid story here, I can see it, but I think the fat probably needs to be trimmed as it were. As I go - I'd delete that first sentence and let the second one start. The first sentence isn't a great hook, the second is better. - That first paragraph is... dense for a start. It makes me want to skim because it's mostly moving and navel-gazing. - the information on the dead woman is interesting, and engaging. How old is she though? Girl would be pretty young, but she's a priest? Later she is called a woman so... girl just being used by the speaker? That's cool, if it's how the speaker would refer to a woman. Tells a lot about the character. - bottom of page three repeats information we already know - back into it middle of page four. The addition of the apprentice is interesting - page five: ack, too much moving around again. I want this to be snappier - page six: you're trying to pack too much, I think, into this chapter. So much backstory and character and world building and its all starting to blur here - also still not a fan of 'olyve', in that it jars me from the narrative

Oh @Ernei, so sorry about the melting person! It was so clinical to me that I didn't see much horror in it, but looking back now it is pretty gross. New warning established! This is my perpetual issue. I really wanted to get the science right here, but it means we have no idea who the person is. *headdesk* In the sciences, we use metric, even in the USA! I need clarification. Are you referring to not liking how S kicked a guard between the legs? Sexuality hasn't been established yet so your comment has confused me. As an aside, I have a number of asexual friends so if you're looking to explore the community... In fact you will see a number of Polish names in most of my works, because I have a surprisingly large number of Polish friends. In fact, the one the character is named after once sent me moonshine vodka in the mail in an old Gatorade bottle, taped to the inside of a child's wood climbing structure. Like, if that doesn't earn you a character naming, I don't know what does. It's sporadic through the book at this point, but I will definitely be sure to mark future chapters with the G as it applies. Sorry! Thank you for the feedback!

Overall It seems early for WRS, but I'm confused. There is the envelope drop, so why does she hook up with Grimes? Is that just to pass without being suspicious? If it's part of some plan that might need just a sentence or two of lay out. Looks like @Mandamon has said something similar. Some clarifying could really help. Still love Moth, and all her expletives. As I go - so wait, is she helping out the passenger to blend in? yes? - the second to last paragraph on page three is muddled. I'm not sure what you're trying to say - second to last paragraph on page four - what is trying to be said here? The businessmen are looking at her for an unknown reason so she slouches. Something inappropriate? - page seven - I think I'd like a bit more tension building on the train. It's vaguely interesting in that I like Moth, but then Grimes and the drop-off is really anticlimactic and leaves me now with a 'why did I read that' feeling - page eleven: into her pants to protect her pantyhose... you mean her underpants? - the end is good!

Thank you everyone, for the responses! I've skimmed through a number of my favorite books and there doesn't seem to be a real consensus at all. Guess I'll keep on keeping on with the standby of 'do what your editor wants.'

Maybe something more simple, like V+ ? I'd be okay with G, too.

A start to something new, in which I attempt first person and a deeper exploration of ownvoices. Fantasy, probably pretty dark in places, and draft zero so potential for your eyes to bleed is like, 75%. All comments much appreciated. G=gore, per @Ernei's suggestion.

Just finished The Steerswoman and The Outskirter's Secret, by Rosemary Kirstein. These were recommended to me by a friend due to similarity in writing style to my own. I enjoy the more clinical aspect of it, so in that it was easy to read. The sentence length, however, really got to me. There were so many clauses in the sentences that it was very difficult to not skim three lines in, on the same sentence still. It's interesting to read something that is both abrupt and verbose. The plot builds well, but slowly. It's slow enough that I likely won't read any more in this series. It's interesting to note, in terms of reading and writing, that voice can make for any easy read, and an intuitive read, but if you can't keep the reader's interest, voice can only hold for so long.

I'd love to hear opinions on these. I remember @spieles (whom I miss!), when she was doing an alpha of AFD, commenting that I should use mostly the generic 'saids' and 'asks', because they're neutral and invisible. Save the more intricate stuff for when really needed. I changed a lot of my original ones around, and then it was one of the first things my editor commented on ("why do you have so many bland tags? Mix it up. No need to just use said all the time!") Then today I made my way into season two of Writing Excuses, and I heard the 'use said as much as you can' advice from the crew there. Confused, I went home and scanned a mess of fiction books and found it was exceptionally difficult to find stand alone 'saids' and 'asks' in any of the books I own. So, I bring the question to you, RE. Simple dialogue tags or descriptive ones? Obviously there will always be a mixture of both but do you prioritize one over the other?

Super weird. I'll e-mail them and ask. In more publishing minutia, the pre-game is amping up for pre-sales. For digital stuff you're supposed to do a lot of blog interviews and such, so today they began.

There is not. I have to have @Silk delete my threads so that people don't search for my book and end up here, seeing all the stuff that didn't work. Heh.

Yeah, that's not right. I'll go poke them. The other books by my publisher have the publisher listed.