kais

Interested in everyone's opinions on this, too.

I can certainly stop reading if you'd like. I find beta reactions to narratives they don't like often more helpful than from those that do like it, but I understand that view might not be held widely. It's not that I don't have sympathy for Jennie. I do. I don't, however, find that the sexism drives more sympathy for Jennie. She gets upset about her uncle calling her useless, but other characters have done the same thing and she isn't equally motivated. Is it because she doesn't like her uncle (/doesn't trust her uncle)? The sexism is a strong stick to wield, so when it keeps popping up it makes me wonder if it is a plot device of some form. When/if Jennie goes after the Snatcher, it would be more satisfying to me if she was uniformly rebelling against all her naysayers, not just her uncle. Build the frustration each time it happens. Have Jennie react to it and internalize it each time. That would make it compelling and really set a strong stage for her going off and doing whatever it is you are building towards.

I'm excited to read something from you! As I go comments - I like the title. It's active and already fills my imagination. Bonus, I see the 'S' tag, which means I'm already on board with the narrative. - need commas: ... and its stink, mercifully, was absent too - ...unseen ax HAD hacked... delete 'had'. Same with next sentence. Minimize passive voice - ...side of a road through a short valley.' reads awkward. - 'The flanking hills...' sentence is a run-on. - 'Harth was picking...' suggest 'Harth picked himself...' - "He was tall, grey-haired and walked with confidence, was unarmed that Harth could see, and favoured his left side. Harth felt good, strong, like he could take this man with his bare hands, but he did not seem like an enemy. " Why didn't he seem like an enemy? Noting the description I can't get a feeling either way. - I thought Harth didn't know where he was? The banter with the other man makes it seem like Harth knows exactly where he is - "... had been a whore- her rough..." suggest dash instead of ellipse. - I don't understand...is there a choice being given? Harth can either go to hell or go with the man to do more battle? If so, noting Harth's strong reaction to not being done with fighting, wouldn't he choose hell? - The paragraph that begins with 'Replenished with the likes of him...' I find confusing. Is Harth part of the hoard? Is he wondering why he isn't manning the other side of...the bridge to heaven? Other side of what bridge? - "I might as well have passed hell's gates." Wasn't this made clear when he was offered the choice? I don't understand why he didn't just go to hell. - "...silenced Harth as they walked on in silence." Redundant - I feel like the narrative finds its stride about page nine - hooray for female warriors! - "...but all the victims of war." Oooh, haunting. - "The sitting room was spacious..." sentence needs some punctuation - The buildup to the hoard fight seems long. I started skimming because the paragraphs seemed the same. Might want to shorten - "...and black mass of bodies..." black mass? Is it black because the lighting is poor? 'Dark' would be a better choice. - I have feels about the end scene with Magdi. Harth notes her meekness and what seems like hesitancy. He notes how different she seems in death. I know she seeks him out for 'feeling something', but personally I'd be uncomfortable getting it on with someone presenting like that. Seems like she is being taken advantage of, when what she really might need is just a hug or some uplifting words. Are you entertained? Yes and no. The beginning was confusing, but the title caught enough of my attention that I wanted to persist. The middle really picked up and I was very engaged, but then the continuing description of the advancing hoard made my mind wander. I perked back up when it was revealed that some moved on after the battle, and was with the narrative then until the end with Magdi. I do want to read more!

Glad you submitted again! The obligatory 'as I go' comments: - 'Her hunter-trapper uncle' - wasn't this already established? Feels like info dump. - I don't care for Jennie's 'sorry-not-sorry' comment to her uncle. She comes off as flippant, and I haven't gotten that from her character before - Leon's comment about Laviana and not being good enough makes me dislike the uncle more. - 'More woman talk' (womEn talk?): nope. Definitely don't like him now. - "She felt more nervous for some reason, but then realized she felt colder, not more nervous." This sentence is awkward. - A number of the sentences start with prepositions. It's generally accepted that you can write like that informally, and speak like that to some degree, but it is generally frowned on in formal writing. - I understand why you have the father come to investigate, but I would have enjoyed it more if Jennie investigated the missing goat on her own. More risk. - "You're just a little girl". I'm set to punch Leon any time here. - '...the ride to granny Jane's house wasn't long, but it wasn't short'. OK, so how long was it? This tells me nothing. You also use the word 'long' three times in three sentences. - '...but if they could, the menfolk would protect us.' This seems strange coming from the mother. I think a mother to a child would be more likely to suggest that SHE would protect the child. I could see then the child asking who would protect the mother, and then it would make sense for the mother to suggest the menfolk. - ....they're going to fight a snatcher with a cannon? That's a big, ungainly weapon for something moving and alive. - page 13: the all around sexism in this scene is confusing to me. If you are trying to date the work to a time when society was more patriarchal, it doesn't work. In these homesteads, women worked just as hard as the men and while men were likely socially valued more, girls, even little ones, would have had to work just as hard as anyone else. Each time one of these scenes comes up, it grates rather than immerses me in the world. I don't feel sympathy for Jennie, I wonder if either A) the author is gearing up for some social statement or the inclusion at this level was not intentional - I'm wondering a lot about family dynamics. What kind of rift could happen where they would greet each other so warmly, but not share food with starving children? - With the level of hunger you introduced in the first chunk, I'm surprised Jennie doesn't steal a bit of milk or snack on some of the feed herself. Your Questions Relatives: I don't understand the family dynamic. They greet each other warmly, and the grandmother clearly loves her grandkids. Yet, that family is well to do while the other is starving. Why? How could a loving grandmother not see that the children are starving? If the world is set up as patriarchal as indicated, wouldn't the grandmother at least want to see the grandson fed? I don't find the relatives transparent, but I do find them confusing. Pacing: I didn't have any issues with the pacing Out of place: The sexism feels overdone. I have more specific comments above. The cannon also seems like a poor weapon choice, unless Snatchers don't like loud noises. Interest level: Per above, I'm very off put by sexism without purpose. I can't tell if it is vital to your narrative or not, and it isn't driving Jennie to be brave, or break rules, etc, so it drives me away from the narrative instead of into it. I would put the book down at this stage. There isn't enough interest for me in the Snatchers or Jennie to hold my interest.

Putting myself on the list for Monday submission, if there is room.

Putting myself in line to submit this upcoming Monday, should there be space. ETA: Wow, having a moment. This is not where this goes. Sorry everyone! I blame Nepal and the bird that just pooped in my hair.

Impressions as I go: - The language grabs me instantly. It makes me wary. Highly descriptive wording in such a tight paragraph always makes me step back and worry that the writer is going to drown me in flowery prose instead of writing solid storylines. - The entirety of The Time of Men is telling, not showing. If this is your intention, you're fine. If not, it needs some work - The Time of Men is basically a flowery retelling of the beginning of Genesis. Without context to determine why it just strikes me as odd and I get pulled from the narrative to consider why it is so close. I think it would work a lot better if you strayed from the standard Genesis retelling and threw in some craziness. Warm us with the familiarity of the story and then turn everything on its head. - Bedtime Story starts again as narrative telling, then jerks into dialogue. The transition was harsh. If you are going to have dialogue it would make more sense to not do narrator over-voices. - POV switch between mother and daughter in Bedtime Story is also jarring. - Part of Bedtime Story hold my attention, especially the narrative about the twins' prophetic birth. Other areas fall flat. I'd be interested in reading more of this particular section. - The Prorochista Speaks has good pacing. Some additional details of the girl would really help the imagery. - Koroleva's Orders sucker punched me in the feels. - Death of a Brother would work well together with the other Pietra narrative - The Mountain School all of these child narratives are building to a very tragic book. Without some uplifting, as a mother, I would find the continual removal of children from their mother very hard to swallow - Tora's Excavation With the unusual letters in this one and the 'wee' in the previous one, I'm starting to get the impression that we are jumping around the world with the characters. I have to ask now, though, is this all one book? If so, there are a lot of characters here and keeping them straight will be difficult. - Jace Recruits I liked this chapter. I thought the flow, the character introduction, and the reaction from the two boys was sound. Likely I liked it better too because I recognized the two main characters from above. - The Bear and the Child the age of the child seems to jump. Sometimes her dialogue is very young, sometimes older. I'm having a hard time getting a feel for her. - A Bite in the Deli This chapter didn't flow as well. I couldn't get into the narrative. The argument between brother and sister just made me irritated with them, likely because they had such solid interaction before. I felt no move to continue learning about the street performer. The dialogue didn't build her up enough. Now for your questions Is the writing good? For a first draft, I don't think it is bad. Middle ground of writing. You have word soup in some places, but some decent line by line beta work could fix most of it. Are the characters good: they have shining moments but overall I find most of them flat and unmemorable. I remember action in a number of the chapters, but not the characters themselves for most. How is the dialogue and description: As above. Some good parts, but a lot needs work. Descriptions can get wordy, and some of the dialogue really drives me out of the narrative, like in the last chapter. Interest in world: I'd say I'm interested in the weaver and her twin, and the sister/brother duo (although less so after the last chapter). I'd likely read a bit more, but unless the number of characters and settings came together, I would find it a little overwhelming. Stand outs: I think I deal with this one in my 'as I read' comments. Overall I think it is an interesting start. I'd suggest really focusing on one storyline for a while and making it amazing. You might find you don't need to so many characters and places as you develop one in its entirety. Note: I didn't comment much on grammar, spelling, that sort of thing, since you indicated this is draft zero. It will need substantial clean up before going anywhere. When it is more flushed out you might consider submitting specifically for those types of edits.

Initial impressions as I read: - science aside: many people consider cedar smells to be very irritating (with good reason, the aromatic extractives are hella toxic). 'Cheery' would not be a word I would go to for cedar. - on page five, mention of the baby still screaming and screaming. How long have they been having low food? Most infants will cease crying out of hunger if the period has gone long enough. Just something to think about. It could be more devastating for the reader to read about a quiet baby staring blankly at nothing than a screaming one. - The passive voice and extended sentences keep pushing me out of the narrative. Many of your descriptive sentences have a few too many clauses to make them easy reads. To answer your questions: Does the foreshadowing in chapter one work: To an extent. I find it unmemorable and had to go back and reread it to answer the question. It gives some context to chapter two, but takes away from the tension chapter two should cause, since we already have empathy for the whatever. That makes the mystery and terror we should feel when we empathize with the girl less. Does the perspective change work: Yes. I had no trouble with it. Pacing: Works right now. Chapter break spacing: Seems logical. Put book down or keep going: The sister interaction is the part that has my interest. I'd be more interested if chapter one hadn't given me empathy for the scary thing. Because of chapter one, I feel like I already know where the story is going. I might give it another chapter to see if the relationships between the protag and her sister evolves, or if another secondary character comes in the engage me. It wouldn't be enough for me to buy it from a bookstore. Illogical: Sentence structure. It was hard to stay in the narrative Language: It sounds like uneducated farm people, but I don't get a decent sense of time. Moreso I get a sense of economic status and rural living.

I'm up for submitting again if there is space next week.

The first paragraph has a lot of telling and not so much showing. Could you tweak it so that Victor is surveying his room, instead of the narrator just telling us what is in it? The second paragraph dumps a lot right at the end. As a reader, I want expansion. It also brings a lot of questions to my mind immediately. A million years ago? They must have amazing record keeping. Wouldn't such a leader have been transformed through folk tale into something more like a god over that time (Gilgamesh-ed, so to speak)? What's the deal with the dangerous world? What danger? First paragraph second page - I'm getting muddled in the description and having a hard time picturing whatever it is you are describing. A lot of references to lights, seemingly natural and synthetic light? I can't tell. I dislike the last blurb. The writing is clear and the scene is fine, but I don't like the interactions between Anna and Victor. It is very stereotypical 'book smart girl, street smart (or mechanically smart or hands on smart) boy. I think these tropes are very overdone, and I find their assumptions borderline offensive. Why not mix it up? Switch them around, or broaden out their skill sets (maybe Anna is book smart AND really good with machines? Maybe Victor is whatever-smart AND good with languages?). The writing is solid enough that I didn't feel jarred just reading these excerpts, which is great! Some tightening of the narrative and thoughts on characters could make these even better.

If you want to run with any of that, feel free to PM me. Some of the rangeland fire grad students are right next to my office at my university, so I hear talk of fire on a daily basis. Also they are always setting things on fire, both on and off their burn table. My life.... yup.

My first thoughts are that it is very adjective heavy, and this makes the sentences difficult to read. I am also jarred out of the narrative by Unnecessary Capitalization. Once or twice it is effective at drawing attention to a specific title. More than that and it looks like translated German. First page, you have three sentences in a row that either start with a conjunction, or something very similar (but, because, besides). From the apprentice this type of speaking seems natural, but from a master I would expect more formal language, especially if you have little time to differentiate between them in terms of characters. 'Inspiration is humanity's greatest renewable resource', followed by 'and this inspiration is renewable?" This makes me not like the apprentice. S/he is clearly not paying attention. I assume the forest analogy is for the 'renewable resource' line? A more direct tie in would make that clearer, especially since that metaphor, with fire, seems to be the crux of the narrative. The last sentence could be tweaked to have more punch. A tie back to the forest metaphor would drive it more, I think, than the tie to inspiration. In terms of the title too, your bigger themes are inspiration and forests. Either changing the title to reflect that, or hammering the three more would help. Thinking back on the forest and fire imagery, there are so many places you could go with that. Some forest systems are fire adapted. Jack pine cones can't open without a certain level of heat. Pacific Northwest forests have to burn regularly or the coarse woody debris build to such a level that raging wildfires get out of control. When you discuss fire as death and humanity as the forest, some more in-depth metaphors could be used (even assuming readers don't have basic fire ecosystem knowledge). Jack pine knowledge is a little specialized, but most people know about needing to do controlled burns to limit forest fuel build up. Altering the line a bit to indicate the burning/killing is to thin humanity so it doesn't do something like use up Earth's resources or something like that could be very cool. Nice work!