kais

@neongrey hit all the points really well, so I'll not rehash them and just say I agree completely. But this, above, might be something worth talking about. Women have a very, very wide variety of body sizes and shapes. Now, images of women, from classic paintings to modern models, have a very male gaze body. In imagery meant for hetero male consumption, the women most certainly would not cross their arms over their breasts. They would put them below, and that forces the breasts up. When I cross my arms, I cross right over my nipples. Women with large breasts would likely cross well above the nipple (due to lower hanging breasts). Small breasts I could see the cross going under the nipple, especially if young. By saying all women do it the same way, you ascribe that male gaze on the female form, and put all women into this easily defined little box of how bodies are supposed to be shaped. And when you describe a female doing something like crossing her arms below her breasts, readers familiar with breast dynamics (which should be a field of study for sure) get a very specific image. Another thing to consider is this: Neon and I fully understand your frustration, and are trying our best to help you understand it, but at the core, here, you are arguing, you, who does not have 'female' breasts, with two people who do. You are telling us how we cross our arms, and how we should feel (or not feel) about how our anatomy is portrayed in media. And I point this out because I can see how upset you are, and I want you to see how the way you frame the discussion also leads to the reactions that Neon and I have. This is a great forum to have the discussion, because its public and you're asking questions that I'm sure other people have. We all want to help, and understand each other, but sometimes just the framing of a question can ruffle feathers, especially when it inserts a POV over another. It's, in a way, very akin to the 'stay in your lane' discussion we've had recently. Heh.

No issues on my end, either, @Silk

I'd like to sub on the 26th.

@Tsidqiyah I am so sorry to hear about the scare, but sounds like all is well? CONGRATULATIONS on your son! Make sure mom gets lots of rest, and we look forward to seeing you on the board again when things settle.

I have some time to do another alpha read, especially if someone is looking to do a swap. PM me if interested. Quick reminder, however, to be sure to do a few crits on the board before getting into the alpha stuff. Critiquing is hard to do, and hard to read on your own work. Getting a feel for the community and how we work can be very beneficial in helping interpret critique feedback.

I'm at the same place as @Mandamon. The story doesn't seem to have a plot, and so we're wandering through it. Without a plot its next to impossible to keep tension, and even when tension forms, you seem to inadvertently kill it only a sentence or two later. I think it might be best to lay out the story and figure out what the through-plot is, then write down the sub-plots. Then figure out how each chapter is going to advance both the overarching plot and any sub-plots. Still love the concept! As I go - is the fade in on the first page just my copy? Intentional? - He felt the changes he made to the dream, which stood out like knots on a string: reduced size, absence of water, gauntlet shape, and controllable growth. Clunky and confusing - by the end of page one, the word 'roots' is highly redundant - up until the last paragraph of the first page, I'm not really invested in the imagery. I'm having a hard time imagining it - page four, and I'm still not sure of the point or direction of this chapter - bottom of page four is when we hit the meat of the chapter. Suggest cutting everything until maybe two paragraphs before this, and starting chapter there. Otherwise, it's just narrative wandering - Actually, I take that back. Start the chapter here: "It's an eye!" Sofia shouted. Good tension hook - gah! And then it ends! Tension held for like half a page. - page eight: still looking for direction or hook - tension happens again: "Your sister is in danger," the nurse said, then dies almost immediately after with "She'll be fine," Ellis said, standing up.

Overall It's a neat scene, but I had a hard time making sense of it. The first half is pretty clear and I always love a Savae chapter. The second half seems to jump to tension very suddenly, and I'm confused in the interactions and politics talk. I want to point out specific sentences, as you requested, but after the Lady leaves the dialogue confuses me enough that I don't know what to suggest for cuts, because I don't really understand what they are talking about. I did love the doodle incident, however. Ah, apprentices. As I go - The second paragraph is a little stilted. It doesn't flow quite right. None of the sentences are strange, but I think how they are put together doesn't read... quite right. Just a little tweaking needed, I think. - They are placed-- not where the eye falls naturally, but near to it. They compel the onlooker, lure the eye from its own inclination. The alternative is to give glory unto the current style in its last moments. Suggest to cut one of these sentences. One works. Two is alright, three and I start to wander. And I like jewelry. After these sentences the talk moves towards world building and jewelry, which is very attention holding. - and these opals would be the very mirror of your tears, well heck, I'd buy it! - . It's really nothing to do with you, other than that if I get beaten to death, you're homeless. This sentence is confusing and seems a bit off-beat - Save some trouble, keep Varael storming Ashana from pissing after even more of my time." Same here. Unsure what you're trying to say - page two: wait, I missed a transition somewhere. Was Savae originally considering kill the husband? Did this thought just occur to them? - After the quote above, I get lost. I understand that Important Things are being discussed, but they're.... muddled and I'm having a hard time parsing them out.

Language is funny, isn't it? In Thai, the word for breast is the same as the word for milk, which makes total sense, but therefore carries an entirely different cart of baggage.

OMG this would be amazing. ....and then people would be all 'why do the men have breasts?' And then you'd have to sit them down and be all, 'look, that's the PROPER WORD FOR THAT AREA, CHECK YOUR MALE GAZE!' and it would start this spiral of breast awareness and the world would just be a better place. It's a beautiful dream.

So the thing is, men have breasts too. It's fine if you want to use the word, but use it evenly. So if the sister crosses her arms under her breasts, then the men should do that, too. 'Chest' is the generic word of choice, usually, as it is generally the upper half of anyone's torso. Breasts are the sections of tissue around the nipples, that stretches into the armpit. A woman would cross her arms under her chest, versus a man across his chest, in theory, if her breasts were large enough. Where that size delineation is I don't know. I just did a test, and I definitely go across my chest, not under it. I realize it can seem like silly semantics, but words have a lot of power to direct how the reader views a character. Your choice to use breasts instead of chest, when breasts is solely directed at female characters, does set a tone for how we are readers should view the female characters. Well, no. There are many reasons to use the word. Writing, say a YA tale with teens where body changes are always on the mind is a good example. Using it to build characters in how your POV character sees women works (POV character doesn't have to sexualize them, but s/he may notice them because, say, the shirt is too tight, or the woman is lactating and leaking, etc). Maybe think of it like this. If you were in a room of people, and you wanted to point out a woman in the corner to a male friend, would you say the woman has her arms crossed under her breasts? Would you use that same descriptor if you were speaking to a female friend? What if you were speaking to your boss? That word carries something with it, and when you point it out, you drag baggage along, too. Now, for funsies, I think it would be delightful if you used the word across the board with males and females. That would be awesome.

You have him vomiting at the treatment of the humans, and then having him talk about going to live amongst them as teenaged rebellion. These motivations clash, and clash horribly. One is empathy, perhaps even the start of motivation to seek social change. One is the rebellion and self-absorbtion that comes with teenager to adult transition. Empathic and self-absorbed, in a character we barely know, strike against one another. These two scenes read like two different characters, and two different books. I'm going to pray no one throws anything at me for saying this but... you know who the biggest fans of Robert Jordan books are? White males. Male gaze. White male author. Yes, many authors sell books with this stuff in it, because it sells. Sex sells. Male gaze sells. And sometimes it is appropriate. If you're writing a lecherous character and he notices boobs everywhere, that works. If your male twin had the hots for the female twin, it would work (and that would be a great, subtle way of letting us know that). But otherwise, it's sexualization of the female body and seeing women only for their attributes that men (or those attracted to women, to be inclusive) find valuable aesthetically. We all copy wording from our favorite authors. I just wish editors of these big-name books would take some responsibility for this, because it really does impress the writing style into newbie authors, and the cycle continues. As something to contrast (and perhaps I've mentioned this before), my editor had to ask me if Ne had breasts. In the entirety of book one, not a single reference is made to her chest. She isn't viewed as a sexual object in book one (this of course changes with M POV in book two), and in her own POV her breasts would never come up (I never think about mine. Like, ever, unless I slam one into a wall or something). All things considered though, I remember the male gaze issues from your very first sub and you have just exploded in terms of skill with female characters since then. Keep at it!

At this point, @Mandamon, it's starting to look like we share a brain.

Eeeeeh. But there are plenty of wood species that do not require frequent maintenance, and a door isn't in ground contact so it wouldn't actively decay. Basically 25 years in a door would not have any real decay. If you're hitting it with a rocket launcher, fine, but it's not 'weak' wood. It's just wood that's been hit with a rocket launcher. See, some people here have physics. Some have chemistry. I have... wood.

The problem with this is I have no hook. So if I am an agent or a reader at a store, without a hook or stakes I have no motivation to keep reading. I would put the book down without ever giving it a chance. So, I'll give you the advice @spieles once gave me. Witty banter is fun. We all like it. But it kills tension. It has its place, and its place is to give the audience a breather after something tough. Without tension, you have no buy-in. Cut the banter until you have your fight scenes down and smoothed out. Then add it back in, sparingly, when you need the characters to have a bonding moment or recovery from something grave. Tension always >> banter. Well heck, let's get nerdy! Are you trying to imply that the person who did the construction was crap at their job, or just that the trees that grow in the area don't have great wood? For the first, you use a frame and panel wood door of something like aspen or birch. For the second something like alder would work. Make the color light, not dark. Lighter woods are usually weaker woods.

Overal By the end I was invested in the Dreg situation, but not in any of the POV characters presented. The twins just sound like entitled teenagers, which does not endear me to them, and the reasoning for heading into the humans reads more like a YA adventure story than what you've presented before. Also, there is a huge clash between the memory of the Matrix and the little boy, and Stephain's motivations for going to the human camps. I'm curious, and I'd read more, but there is such discord right now between setting and characters that it is hard to stay invested in the world. Ch2 tension: better with the imagery of torture, but disbelief in some areas, detailed below. Ch2 flow: stilted near the end, but better! Ch2 wander: less wandery for sure Ch3 tension holding: no. There wasn't any, and then there was a bit with the little boy and the Matrix, and then it all crashed and burned when Stephain started talking about being his own man. Too much discord between motivations Ch3 pacing: doing alright in this chapter Ch3 character buy-in: none, as of yet. I feel no stakes for anyone presented in this chapter, and as both sisters are presented, I am marginally wary of future chapters involving them. Good work with cleanup! Keep at it! As I go - that first sentence is a but of a run-on. The third sentence is not a sentence at all - first sentence of second paragraph should be two sentences - page one: he had to see his nails to get the pain? Disbelief - page three has some spectacular run-on sentences - This thing -- is not a joiner of two sentences. What in the world needs to end with a ?, and then start a new sentence. - chapter two is indeed much better now. It has some slow points, and I'm still not really invested in the stakes for the character, but its going better than before - page six: intellectually I understand you presented all the information I need to make sense of the backstory you are trying to drop, but as a reader, I have no idea what is going on and without buy-in to the greater world, I'm left trying to place events like 'kidnapping gifted children' into a context I don't yet have. - end of page six: so... the Matrix? - page seven: unless there is some reason the brother is calling attention to his sister's breasts, she should be crossing her arms across her chest, or hugging her waist. - page eight: what was the point of having Nessian enter the room? - page eight has a lot of random tense changes - page nine: Did we change to first person at the top of the page, or did the italics just stop too soon? - page ten: so you've set up this powerful imagery of little boy in Matrix, but it clashes with Stephain's Walkabout. If Stephain was so impacted from the tour of the Matrix thingy, he should have stronger feelings about going to live with Dregs than 'being his own man' or 'doing his own thing'. Those just smack of teenager. - page 12: does the sister also get an eye pendant thingie? - 'something odd', and then the sister asks for a name? That doesn't quite work. SomeONE odd would work.

@neongrey not sure if Silk is back to full force yet so confirming your spot for Monday

@Silk welcome back!!! I have a few new people that PMed me and I've been forwarding them e-mails. I'll PM you now with their e-mails so you can get them added to the list proper. So glad you are back! I hope you make a full recovery soon!

@Ernei I believe you call it the beginnings of a world war. The same thing is happening all across the globe. It's happening here in the USA. One of our states, North Carolina, managed to strip another party (the governor, who belongs to another political party) of all their meaningful power because they don't like it that a different party won an election. Fascism is on the rise globally, and in the USA we are also falling into white nationalism (yes, Nazis. Really.). It is a very concerning time, but know that you are not alone. Many of us are experiencing the same thing. We have each other, yes?

Check. Monday the 19th: @TKWade, @Vreeah, and myself

Looks like just you and me, @Vreeah, for the 19th.

Book one comes out February 27th (it got pushed back one month due to freak out over the election). Book two comes out August 7th.

Updates for those following along on my publishing journey-- copyeditor comments. First round just finished. I found them... thoroughly enjoyable. That might be strange, but with all the 'big things' gone with the help of the main editor, this was more like moving the fridge only to find a few dust bunnies, instead of moving the fridge to find giant spiders wanting to eat your face (the latter being what I thought it might be like). So, everyone, fear not the copyeditor! (I've definitely had giant spiders fall on my face. This is not pleasant.)

In line for the 19th.

@Chaos thank you so much for your work and for the update!

I keep forgetting this thread! On recommendation from a friend I read Sword-Dancer and Sword-Singer by Jennifer Roberson. This is one of those instances where I know the books are older, so I am trying to view them fairly for the time. I understand why they are popular. They are well written, with good tension and the blocking is superb. With that said, I really disliked the first book. The way rape and male gaze was used would have had me put the book down and blacklist the author if my friend wasn't wide-eyed awaiting how much I loved the books. They did get better, as series do and as writers develop, but the problems of the first book leave me with such a coloring of the author and the characters that I don't want to pursue further works. I think this is a good thing to note for us newbie writers. Readers may judge you just on one work. You may never get them back. That's a lot of pressure!