Hobbit

Oh. Aha. So I have one of those brains that tends towards "innocent," which means I either read nothing into the text whatsoever, or overcompensate for my innocence and read so much more into it than the author intended. Yeah, I just missed this part. That would have made things a lot clearer. Again, I probably just missed it. I will say, though, that if I'd realized that the senator was setting Lasila up with his guard, not as dates, but literally as sexual partners, I would have been waaaaaaaaay more creeped out by that scene. Way. More. Though that kind of plays into my next point - in this culture, it seems like people are pretty okay with sleeping around, and sex doesn't seem to have much bonding significance. So maybe it's not supposed to be super offensive and scary to have some dude come up to you and be like, "I think you should sleep with my guard! No, really, you'd be a great couple!" It was clear that Savae wasn't going to be finding any sexual partners that they would be comfortable with. I suppose... hmm. It came across on the level of, "Well, crap, I think wool is really itchy and there are only wool sweaters in this store!" But Savae isn't super gushy about their feelings, so I think because I was trying so hard to figure out the sexual norms at play here, I was just hoping for more clues than maybe Savae is going to give me.

Just now catching up on your chapters! I enjoyed the description of dresses and makeup on page 1 - it's pretty! Page 2 had me a little confused. I had trouble being confident in my reading of the subtext in the conversation, like Mandamon, but what was really tripping me up was that I thought Lasila didn't want to be going to the party with this guy, and she just seemed much more okay with it than I was expecting. He seemed slightly annoyed but willing to be polite. She seemed much more, "Oh, well, I guess he's attractive so this is fine." I would have expected her to be more conflicted; attracted warring with dislike. Does that make sense? I think having her emotions come across more clearly would give me more of a foundation for the subtextiness of the conversation. I also was surprised at how open she was about her nervousness. I guess she's getting all rosy-eyed for this guy, because she usually seems much more guarded with people she doesn't know, especially politically significant figures. "Do I seem that nervous?" she says. "I think it's just been too long." Since she went to a big party, or since she had sex? I see. I thought these were the earrings, but then was looking for some confirmation from Savae about how hard they were to make or how the design might fail at an inappropriate time. The lack of Savae's reaction made me doubt they were the same earrings. I had the same hang-up here. Lasila wonders if she should take this as her cue to slip away. She hardly needs to witness this, and surely she can find some lovely mysterious stranger. I was not expecting her to come to this party looking for some sexy time. I never got the impression she was "on the market" or sexually motivated. I just don't remember her thinking about this before. Page 8: So is sex in this society inherently casual, even outside of religious rituals? Both Savae and Lasila seem fairly confident that they can get some, in some form, in a sort of "I could wander over to the bar and get a drink" sort of way. They just seem rather unconcerned about it. Kind of like how sometimes it's nice to paint your nails, but you don't think about it very often and it's not that big of a deal. A whim seizes them, and now they understand why they so idly worked with their glass before. Not sure what you mean here. Okay, so the trapped cordial is holding backwash - I didn't get that before. "Why Riruna, anyway?" Savae asks. They stretch out on the chaise, looking up at the ceiling. Seems casual for Savae. Are the drugs getting to them this fast?

Hello everyone, I submitted this short story last year, and I'm very much looking forward to your comments on the revised version. On one hand, I've been working on improving both main characters, so please comment on your impressions of both the narrator and her conversation companion. On the other hand, I think I may have accidentally edited the life out of the story. For those of you who read the original, it was super snappy, and now I think the story has bloated, so comments about pacing and tone, if it stands out as a problem, would be appreciated. Finally, the ending didn't quite work the first time. Does it work any better now? I'm still struggling with how to "stick" it. Since I'm working at the edge of my editing skills here, I'm going to ask something unusual. Maybe this is a faux pas, but if you have any prescriptive advice, I would actually be happy to hear it. I know sometimes people try to avoid telling a writer how to fix their work, but in this case I'm trying to learn how to edit better and I'm at a place with this story where I'm spinning my wheels. Thank you!

Sorry for the late feedback - playing a little catch-up here. I don't think I read the original version of this story, so consider my impressions fresh. Overall I enjoyed the story. I agree with others that the initial state, a woman with cancer, needs a bit more of a hook. Is there something unusual about her doctor, maybe? There's got to be, if the doctor is giving out these "choice" pills. I started to get really invested when she started to feel funny after taking the pill. I could feel her urgency as she struggled against its effects and things just got more interesting from there. I actually like the current title. But I'm not a very inspired person when it comes to titles, so if there's a better title out there, I'm probably not going to be the one to find it. This summarized my feelings about the end exactly. Her choice to accept death and save people is expected, but feels too sudden and a little unearned or unexplained. I also found a number of sentences with comma problems. I wasn't sure if you were intentionally going for a style where the character's voice sounds more monotone or something, but the comma misuses were throwing me each time. If you are using the commas in a weird way intentionally, please ignore lots of the comments below! Specifics: She knew all too well that better was only the difference between dead and dying. Nice line. It had been only four months since they told Charlotte she had only three months Remove one of the "only" 's She wasn't surprised, liver cancer ran in the family, nor was she hopeful. Commas are not the punctuation you're looking for here. She fought the cancer not because she thought she could win, she had three tumors in her liver. Comma misuse The anger was okay, useful even, the sadness was a not. The second comma is weird. Try a "..." or "-" or ";" or a full sentence break. ...she was still more fit than most people her age. Not sure what her age has to do with this. What was worse, Charlotte thought, I think her thoughts should be in the present tense It wasn’t that she hated these people, it was the opposite, she loved them Comma issues She didn’t see it as a depressing mentality, in fact, bending to it was the most freeing thing she had ever done. First comma is misused Charlotte stood up and began to pick up scattered paper plates, she had given up on dishes Comma As the pain retreated to a low dull ache so that other senses could find and audience in Charlotte's brain. This sentence is missing a main part! ...irregular patterns broken up by the word choice. Maybe put the word "choice" in quotes? Otherwise it sounds like you're saying "word choice." Things get really exciting for lots of pages! ...can go on living the rest of your life in perfect bliss. "Perfect bliss?" Meaning she's guaranteed a happy life after she goes back?

I just read this to prep for reading your new Chapter 2 and thought I'd give my comments. (I think I read that right, that you're resubmitting Chapter 2 soon - if not, I'll read your old Chapter 2 before I read Chapter 3!) I have to say I had mixed feelings about the epigraph. I like how it prepped me for interpreting the sudden extreme cold as a new manifestation of magic. However, it felt a little awkward. It didn't have the usual dramatic flair of epigraphs - it read very much like a textbook - and I was confused if Sam was actually reading those words once you mentioned that he had a book. I'm definitely interested in the hook, both with the situation and the character. I'm a little sad that Sam was sucked out of the world so fast, and I don't get to watch him struggle against the environment more. Otherwise, I think Sam is really interesting. I'm excited to get to know him and see how his fear of the outside affects him. And the way he's super obedient to his aunt feels like he's got some submissive tendencies. I thought his situation came across well. I like his collection of outside "relics." My biggest point of confusion/disbelief is about Martha's death. It made me confused about Sam's relationship to her, since he didn't seem upset about her death. And I assume she died of the cold after reading the whole chapter, but at the time, the way you describe it, it seems like she might be dying of natural causes, due to being frailer than she lets on. A few specifics: His room had boxes with books... There's so much going on in this sentence that I had to read it twice, but the reveal at the end came across nicely. This far south it should only get this cold... A little repetitive considering the beginning of the previous paragraph. If the power outage kept up, he couldn’t log in... Again, enough going on that I had to read twice. He snuck a glance up at his aunt, but she only watched... The aunt has officially made the turn towards creepy. ...suddenly aware of how much willpower she had to keep going this long. Against the cold, or her age?

I'd also like to submit this Monday. I have a revised draft of the short story I submitted here a while back.

So this isn't about something I read, but you know how there's this cultural thing where "he" has sort of been the catch-all pronoun, and if you don't mention a character's gender, lots of people assume it's male? (My brain still usually assumes male.) Well this week was the first time I wrote something where I knew the opposite would be true, and it was a very cool experience! I wrote an extended journal of my experience at the Women's March in DC, and I realized as I was writing that any readers would assume everyone was female, and if a person was male, I needed to specify. Yay for gender norm breaking! It made my brain happy.

Wow! That's so cool!!!!!

@kaisa What are ARCs??

I think the minutia of publishing are VERY exciting! Woo!

I'm with @kaisa here that I'd like this context to be clearer, at least at the start. The way it's worded now, my first impressions are that her mother is objecting to her clothes. I found the comparison much clearer later in the chapter. I also agree with @neongrey that I like the wandering narrative, and I hope you don't cut that too much. Overall I had good character buy-in. I like the idea of someone trying to help any way they can, even with very few resources. I thought there were interesting reveals throughout, like her coinpurse being empty, and the fact that she sent money to her mother outside the walls. She has a complex and compelling perspective on her current situation, and that makes the whole thing interesting. Like everyone else, the last line thew me, but then I remembered your first submission on this story had really strong narrative voice, so I thought maybe it would work if you kept that heavy voice in your other chapters. You had a few clunky sentences - let me know if you're interested in the specific ones I saw. Since you said this is just a draft, though, I understand if it's not helpful. For a "rough" chapter, I really enjoyed it. Lyan's character comes across strong and interesting to me, even if it didn't feel that way to you writing it!

I think this has been a really awesome discussion. So I had to jump in - sorry to drag up a discussion that's been dormant for a while - but in the interest of data collection (@kaisa's aforementioned field study), I wanted to give you (and anyone else following this) another data point. I'm one of those smaller-chested people, and although I'm short I have a long torso, so when I cross my arms, they do fall under my breasts - actually my arms barely touch them. No pushing up, and no cleavage-enhancement, which could be a non-issue anyway depending on the neckline of your character's clothing. Anyway, I couldn't help myself. And, as an aside, I am one of those female writers who has been fortunate enough to be corrected on this forum for gender issues in my writing. If we don't get corrected here, where will we be corrected? On to the submission itself... Chapter 2 The aftermath of the torture is awesome. Very convincing. He tried to rise again, this time slower, moving his arms under his body for more support and pushing himself up. Time moved slowly, and he tried not to think about how much had gone by. Overall the end of chapter 2 reads much better. Nice edits. Chapter 3 Who's saying the first line? I thought it was Stephain but after the rest of the first page, I wasn't sure. The shame he would bring to his family would make getting caught almost worth all the trouble. Nice line. It makes me like him and gives me a good window into his relationship with his family. Your grammar and sentence structure is getting a lot better! He hated her, he hated everything about her. He couldn't understand how they could be siblings. The use of the gifted humans to create Tah energy is interesting and disturbing. It's a reveal that keeps me invested. How are Stephain and his sisters different than humans? It's probably WRS, but you haven't mentioned anything in this chapter that makes them look physically different than humans. Is there anything, or do they look the same? That's hair?" Stephain asked glumly. And there's the difference - no hair. Alright, I found my own answer. And I like how he thinks of it as "fur." Could we have another description of Phearisan eyes? Again, it might just be WRS. I'm getting a tiny bit annoyed at Landin's speech tics - "ya" and "gonna" and such. ETA: Oops you already mentioned that you're fixing this. Sorry! I'm also not sure why they're not more worried about Nessian outing him. Stephain couldn't help smiling just a little bit. She never changes. Accepting defeat, Stephain slumped down on a small wooden chair. Stephain looked up at his sister. "Coreen." Overall I found this enjoyable. My main concern is that this seems like a game to Stephain. He doesn't actually seem that worried about getting caught, or things going wrong. I can believe that he might have an overly rosy idea of his chances of success, if he's lived a cushy life thus far, but everyone around him seems to share his confidence. The beginning of Chapter 3 had less of this - things felt more serious when they were talking in the palace - but as the chapter went on the seriousness decreased. It's still engaging, though I'm more engaged with Makyn than I am with any of the characters in Chapter 3.

Yay for more menstruation mentions in fantasy!!! Just wanted to mention that I'm finally back from visiting family over the holidays - and visiting your family and your in-laws at the same time in the same town for two weeks does NOT leave much free time. So sorry in advance for the late/missed critiques!

This is a good summary of how I felt. Your first chapter didn't give me a sense of stakes. What is in this for Se? I know a little more now, after this chapter - he disagreed with some things happening in the military so he left - but I don't know enough to really root for him. He seems likable enough, but I want to know what will happen to him if this mission fails, or if things don't work out with Sin's Swarm, or why he cares about joining them in particular over just becoming a potato farmer or a guard or something. I'd also like a better sense of what the stakes are for your world if this mission fails. Who's the ambassador? Or if you want that to be a fun reveal later, then just tell us more about what will happen to Sin's Swarm if they fail. Do they really need money and won't be able to repair their ship if they lose? Will they lose face and break their record of 49 straight successful missions? Just throwing out ideas, but I need some reason to care, or else the story has no tension. As it is, people never seem worried or scared (and if they do, it's in a vague sense), and therefore I never feel worried or scared. The combat has good potential, with fun reveals and good pacing. My main issue is that I feel like people are jumping around on a stage with no setting. I'm really aching for set dressing, blocking, and details. Without them, I can't fully appreciate their battle antics or picture what's going on. Here's some specifics: I thought we were in Se's POV, but you have details that he can't possibly be seeing, such as: Fy looked up from his meditation within his private chamber... “Three years in prison for wielding a sword..." Loved this paragraph. It was fun. Here's an example of a place where I would have benefitted from more set dressing and blocking: You're going for a surprise here, but I was still unsure of what was happening until I read it twice. I don't realize that Kob was yelling at the ambassador at first. Maybe add some details about where Kob is looking (at the ambassador), or Se realizing that the ambassador is not where they'd left him. My confusion is increased because I didn't realize his ship was waiting nearby. And as a side note, if the ship is already in the air, how does Kob think the Admiral is going to stop him? Also, should I be picturing a spaceship here? A dirigible? A plane? My brain fills in the Millennium Falcon because when I read "people running up a ramp onto a ship" it's the most vivid image I've got. “Relax, it can’t hit us on the ground.” Why not? Here's another place where I could have used more detail, but in a POV kind of way: Here we have good strategy detail, but I still feel bored. The reason is because I don't feel like I'm experiencing this through Se's POV. First of all, is he freaked out at all to be carried by the wind? Or is he just like, "Whatever, this happens all the time." Because this seems like a big display of cool magic (if it was common, wouldn't their enemy be using wind magic?) but our main character has no reaction to it whatsoever. When he hears Fy's voice in his ear, is he surprised? Does he jump? As far as we know, he responds like it's a normal conversation. Since as a reader, I don't believe that he would just take this like it's ho-hum, it throws me out of the story. The rest of the Swarm quickly entered, Se slamming shut the hatch behind him. “Defensive perimeter!” Kob barked, as the Swarm formed a defensive circle. Here I'd like more blocking. When one jumps into a ship (without further detail, my brain has filled in the Red October), I'm expecting them to be in a hallway. So how do they have room to make a circle? You give us no idea what it looks like in here. Is there cover? Is it dark? Red lighting? Corners that we don't now what's around? Metal floors? Canvas walls? Pictures of the Imperial Queen? I want to know! Partly because it's fun to picture things, but also because if there's going to be a battle scene, I want to be able to anticipate and appreciate how they use the setting to their advantage. This is something the WE cast has talked about - good fight scenes use the setting. Let me know if you want me to dig up the specific episode. Hopefully the above examples help illustrate ways you can enrich your story. You have a cool setup, it just needs more detail! And more stakes! (Steaks?) Also, if we're going to be rescued by dragons, I need to have a hint there are dragons sooner than the end of the chapter! Otherwise it feels like a hack.

I didn't read the new chapter 5 (sorry!) but I did read Chapter 7 and I thought it had great tension and pacing. I was super interested and I really enjoyed getting to see behind the curtain a bit, especially after how weird it was in the last chapter that Adrichel set Lasila and Eshrin up to go to this dance. Is this what's happening? It wasn't that clear to me. But I tend to assume so much innocence into these introductory scenes that you might have to whack me over the head for me to be 100% sure. I agree. I see what you're saying in your response - this is a conditioned behavior - but I think the line "Adrichel will not bring her into this discussion. Eshrin will not permit it" led me to expect that he was going to stand up for himself, and then he didn't, and instead of thinking "Oh, he's super under Adrichel's thumb" I was thinking "Hmm I don't get this person." I think it's just the small details that didn't gel. Otherwise I thought it was a fascinating relationship and I loved learning about the background and behind-the-scenes workings. Everything was interesting in a mysterious way. Some parts I had to re-read but otherwise none of it gave me the "I'm lost" feeling.

An interesting story. Overall I thought your pacing and tension were good. I moved through the story quickly, and I enjoyed reading it. It was fun to wait and see how the two plot lines would come together in the end. After reading the comments, I realize that I misinterpreted your ending. I thought that the original humans had ended up surviving, that Sadie and the NovaGear people were all original humans, but that they had forgotten about the androids that they had created long ago and were about to do the same thing again. Now I realize that Sadie is one of the generation 2 androids, and they're about to make generation 3. I like your actual meaning better than the meaning I came up with - it's a much more interesting idea. I see that this is in there now that you mention it, but I think it needs a little more emphasis. So just to be clear, adaptation and evolution are two different things. If we're talking about biological evolution, like Darwin stuff, you have to remember that stuff doesn't evolve because it "needs" to. Evolution happens by random chance: Sometimes a creature gets really lucky and is born with a beneficial genetic mutation (and then has lots of babies), but most of the time those genetic mutations suck. An organism never thought, "Gee, it would be great to be faster so I wasn't eaten by the scary alligators," and then ended up getting faster. So forgetfulness can't evolve because it needs to - evolution is always, functionally, an accident. But, I don't think this is a problem for your story because you establish that forgetfulness was part of how the gen2 androids were created. No evolution needed. This bothered me as well. Early on, the italic sections are very generic. Once I realize this is someone writing a record, and someone who might be in a rush because he/she might be hunted to death at any moment, I got kind of annoyed that they spent their first few paragraphs being vague. They got better as the story went on. I agree with this as well. I think Dane's existence ends up making Sadie feel less competent, because his only role early on is to have told her stuff that she needs to know. When I'm first getting to know Sadie's character, that makes her seem like a newbie. One last nit-picky thing: The robots were unable to adapt, and—as programming them with the ability to perform every task was impossible—the company viewed them as nearly useless. What is NovaGear planning to use the androids for? Because there's a difference between physical adaptation and cognitive flexibility (and "adapt" could imply either one). The way the x-tech discovery is described, it sounds like their problem was one of physical adaptation, one that can be solved by having cool enough hardware. However, here you suggest that they've been trying to solve their problem with programming, which would imply they were having more of a software problem. And as an aside, when programming complex processes, programmers are already abandoning the idea that they can program computers to perform every task individually. There are several programming methods for machine learning already in use (like Deep Learning!) that allow computers to perform tasks that they weren't directly programmed to do. So I ended up nerding out in my feedback twice. Thanks for humoring me!

Just found this article about writing trans characters and thought I'd share: http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/writing-better-trans-characters/#comment-4222 The author gives a clear argument against the "shock reveal" narrative: "A major problem that trans people face is that so many cis people think that gender is somehow fixed at birth. Thus, they say, even though I live happily as a woman, and identify strongly as a woman, to them I am "really" a man who is "disguised" as a woman. Cis men often use this as an excuse for murdering trans women, claiming that they had been tricked into "becoming gay" because they found one of us sexually attractive. ... Because of this, if you do a shock reveal in your book, you are playing into this narrative of deception. You are encouraging your readers to think that trans people are somehow out to trick them. Please don't do that. It is an idea that gets us killed."

Hmmm thanks for posting that thread. I think the hesitation to mention that a character is trans comes from the fear that it will come off as sensational when it's not supposed to be. But I think that's controlled more by how you write it than whether or not you try.

I didn't read your first draft of Chapter 2, so consider my perspective fresh. I was really looking forward to chapter 2 after what happened in chapter 1, and this did not disappoint. Plot-wise, I thought this was great. I’m very invested in your world and in your story. Things are moving forward quickly, and it seems like there’s a lot going on behind the scenes. Your weak points are in your nuts and bolts (and from skimming last week's comments, this was an issue before) - leaving out details, using vague or generic descriptions, sentence structure, etc. But you’ve got a good story here, and once you iron out your delivery, it will just get better. Is there a point where you feel like it slows down too much or does it hold interest? It held interest for me all the way through. I tried to do more showing and less telling - please let me know if I'm getting closer to the mark. I didn't feel like it was particularly tell-y. (And having not read the first version, I can't comment on the relative tell-y-ness.) I do think your descriptions still need work though - sometimes they seem off tone for the scene, and sometimes we're just missing details. I'll try to show you what I mean: A woman stood before them, another Phearisan. Maykn could tell she was Nobility by her decorative white dress and lavish jewelry. A sinuous tattooed pattern covered the entirety of her bald head. The Ortans both just stood there in shock, mouths gaping. Maykn imagined his facial expression probably looked similar. Nobles didn't enter the Dregs district. Not ever. Show us their shock before you describe the woman. The description of her seems matter-of-fact. Also, I expect Maykn's shock to register before any of the details. Maykn woke against cold stone floors... The description of Maykn waking up was, at least for me, the weakest part of the chapter. I wasn't buying into his feelings here. I'm having trouble identifying exactly why, other than you describe what he sees and what he does without including how it's making him feel. You do say things like, "His head felt like it would split at any moment," but I think I'm missing the tone of hurting in this passage. When you describe him fidgeting, I want to feel how he's trying to ignore his throbbing head while absently picking at his nails, but he's trembling so hard he can barely make two of his fingers meet. And if he's cold and hurting all over, that will affect how his thoughts come through his head. They might be slower, or more desperate, or he might have trouble putting two thoughts together. (This is a hard thing to do well!) "I'm sorry." The delicate tone whipped his head up. ... This passage just needs more details. At first I wasn't sure if he could see the woman or not, and I was never 100% sure if it was the same woman he saw earlier. I'm not sure why he thinks she's his age, either. And what makes him think of that detail here, when he's in lots of pain and really mad at her? In line comments on grammar and punctuation (not exhaustive - I'm sure I missed some things): "I can smell your discomfort." The Vasin led them to the temple with his hands clasped behind his back... She merely continued to read, focusing on what appeared to be a single passage in an old book. Her Phearisan eyes a solid black with no visible whites. (<-- missing a verb here) Maykn stood slowly, taking the chance to rub the lingering pain his neck. Maykn couldn't feel anything(no comma) but his accelerated breathing. The officers’ fingers dug into his arms and pulled them back painfully. He looked to his partner before turning back to the Nobel. A few times, you type Nobel instead of Noble. "Take the Dreg directly to the Inquisitor. I believe he just finished with the last." This seems like a comment that warrants a reaction from Maykn, but instead he just notices her hands. Maykn looked back up at her, making eye contact. She backhanded him, spraying stars across his vision. Here's a tip about when to include a comma. If you can re-work the sentence to use an "and," it needs a comma. For example, you could write, "Maykn looked up at her and made eye contact. She backhanded him and sprayed stars across his vision." When you take out the "and"s and change the verbs to "-ing" verbs, you need to add a comma as well. Some containers contained a clear liquid. Might I suggest "held" a clear liquid? The Ortan's guided him to a beat-up metal chair. They removed Maykn's hand clasps and pushed him in. They bound his hands with similar clasps attached to the chair. Maykn wriggled in the chair against the rigid, flat surface of the metal chair. Too many "chair"s! Maykn tasted the revolution in his mouth... Hehehe I think you mean "revulsion." Revolution in his mouth makes me think of a cheesy commercial for soda. Well, that ended up being really long. But that's because I liked it and I want it to be better! Hope something in there is helpful.

Hello! I'm definitely a late-comer on this one (seems to be a pattern for me...) but here are my thoughts. Most people already commented on your dialogue and how the characters were a bit flat and easy to get mixed up. The "easy to get mixed up" part was the most distracting for me in this draft. I was getting a lot of information about each one, but it wasn't coalescing into a character. The exception is Se and No. I loved their exchange on the top of page 2 and it helped things gel for me. Story-wise, think your cast has great potential. I kept being really interested in how such a seemingly-dysfunctional group of people could be so good at their job. Once you clean things up I think this will be a fun piece. I skimmed the comments here, and I don't want to repeat stuff, but don't think anyone emphasized this much. One of the biggest problems for me was that I had no idea what the stakes were for your main character. When he meets the mercenaries, is he nervous because he really needs this job? Excited because he's always wanted to do something like this? If they reject him, what will happen? And what keeps him from walking away when he realizes how dysfunctional they are? I was missing his reasons for engaging with this group, and so I missed out on a lot of potential tension and engagement. As it stands, I want to care more about what's happening but I don't know why I should. From your comments above it sounds like you've got a lot of cool story here. Also, about faces - I'm similar (though I don't have prosopagnosia, @kaisa - not sure if that's what you were thinking of). I have a really hard time picturing my character's faces. I finally broke down and made a Pinterest board for the main characters in my epic fantasy. I have an advantage, though - my characters are 17, and what happens when you're 17 in America? Senior pictures! To my surprise, it helped a lot. Not only do I know how to describe them now, for some reason it's way easier for me to make up mannerisms for them as well.

Hm, interesting. I like this one better than your old one. I think you’ve still kept the whimsical nature of the dream fighting, which is good. I liked that we get to see more of Sophia and Ellis’s character. I still got a little fatigued by the fighting with no plot yet, but that might be because I’ve read your old first chapter, so it wasn’t fresh for me. Ellis was one of the sentries stationed at the cavern gates... This whole paragraph was awesome. At the middle of page 3, I'm ready for more plot, or context, or character... fight fatigue has hit me. Most of the children in the nursery were fully awake by now... Also a great paragraph. "Ha, you'll be surprised. You're not entirely wrong, though..." At this point the discussion about fighting styles is getting old. I don't really have any context to tell me why this might matter. The discussion ends a few sentences later, so I think you were close to the sweet spot. She glanced toward the gates at her brother. Ellis had made a chair for himself... Love it. This is the kind of character-revealing action we never saw from Ellis before. Also, in general I like that the siblings anticipate each other so well. I second this. Hmm I think this is a good description of something that's always bothered me about Sophia's dialogue. She's just a little too casually removed from the situations she's in. It ends up not feeling real. However, I will say that I really like the "This post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules, this guy is a pole dance fighter??? Nooo, my brother is going to be friends with this weirdo..." line. I think with the right context in her character, that line can work well.

I think there is definitely a benefit to this. Having only ever finished one novel-length work (hey, I've finished a novel!), I found that having everything down on the page was super clarifying to me. But I think the biggest benefit was proving to myself that yes, I actually can finish something! Also, I wrote that book having already written an outline for it. Sure, things changed as I wrote it, but if I hadn't had that guiding force keeping my plot threads from getting in a knot, I don't think I could have finished without stopping and revising, like @kaisa describes. I can really relate to this. This is how I've been writing my giant epic fantasy baby. I'll describe where I am right now and maybe it will help you, or at least be interesting: Over years and years (and years) I've gotten up to 180,000 words on the epic, but the writing process is such a slog (write several chapters, go back and scrap 90%, re-write, scrap 95%, re-write my beginning again, write a new chapter, scrap it, etc...). At this point I'm only a quarter through my overarching plot line, and I finally admitted that even though I've always scoffed at the idea of outlining, I at least had to learn how to plot. So, I did some research about different plotting methods and came up with two I liked - the classic three act structure that WE always talks about, and something called spreadsheet plotting, which is JK Rowling's method. I watched some TV shows and movies and plotted them using both methods. Then I took one of my short stories that had fizzled out in the middle, and I plotted it. Voila! I suddenly saw the way forward! I wrote an outline for the second half of the short story. Using the outline, I was able to finish it. Even though it still needs work, it was done, and it felt cohesive instead of rambling! I used my newfound plotting skills to write an outline for my nanorwimo novel, and I was able to write it all the way through without going back and revising, except for adding a few sentences here and there. So, I guess what I'm saying is, I would recommend that you experiment with outlining. I think a lot of people assume it has to be restrictive, but I don't find it restrictive at all. I use it very much like a map, maybe like what @neongrey is describing: "MC goes to his PhD-weilding cousin's house and she helps him interpret the refugee resettlement applications. She confirms his suspicion that someone has been tampering with the applications. They run out for coffee to process. Next: MC calls his boss and his boss doesn't believe him, and gets mad that he broke security protocol. As they talk, he drinks more coffee and compulsively feeds treats to his cat." So I know what needs to get done in each scene (but not how to do it! That's still up to the characters), and I include a sentence or two to remind me why I'm excited about writing the scene, and how it brings out the character's awesomeness. I haven't applied this to my epic yet, but hopefully someday soon I will! All that said, if you're writing, you're improving, even if you're re-writing your beginning for the 12th time. What you do depends on what you want to work on and where you are in your process. ETA: Oof that was long. TL;DR: I like outlining (but not super detailed outlining), because otherwise I have no idea what I'm doing.

Hmmm. I liked that chapter. I read it slowly and carefully, going over things if I had to, and with a careful reading I think I followed the lawyer discussion fairly well. Here's what confused me: "I prefer three, if only because of the day and age. Even with the contractual obligation, families these days... lucky to have one, let alone two. But I suppose Iluya and Rienri’s position is rather different from that of my constituents." What I expect him to be saying here is that more children will provide both houses with more heirs, and since houses seem to be running out of those, it's a good idea to have more babies, even if it's more than the social norm right now. It just seems like this statement isn't actually saying that. If he points out that families are lucky to have one or two kids, why would he think it was reasonable to insist on three? With the part about how much money they each get for the third kid: let me double check my understanding. If Lasila had let the third child go to Linphori, Melqueth would be okay giving Judessa more more money? But since Judessa wants the third kid, she should get less money for having him/her? Either way, Judessa gets money if a third baby is born though. "Let's say if a boy to Linphori and a girl to Judessa, based on the initial assumption. And nine thousand." I think the main thing holding my understanding back is that I don't know how gender plays into inheritance. Do genders inherit equally? So is this just a way of flipping the coin? That's all that I was confused about - I think I got everything else! Now, about Adrichel... Your overall impressions of him as a person and character: He seems like a person that is using niceness to manipulate people. He gets what he wants by making people feel warm and fuzzy and then positioning them where he wants. He's not overtly nasty, but he has creepy undertones. Too watchful, too forward. If he was a character in a different story, I would think he might be honestly nice but oblivious to his creepiness. But since he's a lawyer, and based on what we heard of him from Iluya and Lasila's brother... I'm guessing he's fully aware of everything he does, including his creepiness, and that it's all purposeful. He seems easy to get along with and hard to manipulate. What you think his goal was in these exchanges with Lasila: I'm wondering if he's planning on using her as a pawn in his Women can be Lawyers hearings. Whether he actually wants women to be lawyers, or if he wants something else, remains to be seen (but let's be honest, more likely the latter). Your guess as to what his role in the overall story is: I am expecting him to be involved with Lasila's brother's quest. Maybe he's orchestrating it. And I'm fully expecting him to have some big plans.

I'm a little late to this discussion but I'll add my two cents. Overall I really enjoyed this prologue. I'm definitely excited to read the story. I loved the world setup, with Quarantine and the wardens. I'm getting a Tolkien-elf vibe with the whole "immortal land across the sea" bit, but it's been too long since I read the Silmarillion to remember how humans came about in Tolkien's mythology... anyway, just maybe check yourself that you're doing something different there. But overall, your world seems really intriguing and I want to know more! It seems like a lot of people were put off by the narrator, but I'll say that I bought into it completely around the end of page one and it carried me through to the end. I agree that the first line and the following paragraph are too abstract. I get what you're saying - it made me think of 9/ll - but I think it could be streamlined or made less abstract or something. I don't think you need to totally give up on the idea, but it needs work. I think you could streamline your prologue without sacrificing voice by looking for where you repeat. I noticed it most at the end of page 6 and the beginning of 7. You spent a lot of time emphasizing the exile thing, but I think a sentence or two would suffice to make your point. That was really the only place where I felt the drag enough to stop and write down a comment about it, but I bet there are other places where you could do the same thing. I'll also add that I liked the color thing - when you said, "those colors are real, by the way," it was a cool moment for me. Lastly, welcome back to writing after law school! It's always so rewarding to return to those stories we have burning inside of us... They never go away, do they?

Woo @Robinski! That's very exciting - the book and the engagement!! Any interest in being a Nanowrimo buddy? I'm on the Nano website as Hobbit Half-Elven if you want to add me. I'm working on a thriller (I have no business writing a thriller, since I hardly read thrillers, but hey, whatever) and it's been great discipline.