Hobbit

Yep, zero concern. It's just on my mind because I recently started reading a book that had an almost-rape scene in the first chapter (a woman coercing a man, so... different). It was disappointing. 3/4 of a sex scene sounds good to me!

What a cool story! Present tense definitely worked for me. I loved the voice of the MC - he reminds me of my grandpa-in-law who is ex-military. I was a little confused by his age at the start, I think because he seems to expect he will get out of the nursing home. I know people often go to nursing homes just to recover from a surgery, but it's not my first thought when I think of nursing homes. And the paragraph about getting a kitten calendar for a housewarming present made me think this was going to be a permanent thing, like he can't take care of himself anymore. But once I had a better idea of what was going on, I was really able to connect with him. My only other suggestion story telling-wise is that I was never quite sure if Frank really didn't remember anything else about his accident, or if he was faking a lack of memory whenever he talked about it. I think he really didn't remember until he underwent the hypnosis, but still don't know for sure. Overall I thought it was very compelling and enjoyable.

Yeah, I'm basically the same. I will say that having one explicit scene per book does not bother me. I usually just start skimming at that point and pick up once it's over. I did have an awkward situation when listening to the audiobook of Mercedes Lackey's Gwenhwyfar when I was a lab tech... I hit the sex scene while working in a sterile hood. I'm sure I turned beet red before managing to extract myself and pause the audio! If the explicit scene is too early, though, I can get thrown out of the story. It leads me to assume that the book will be full of them, and I'll have to skim a lot. And if it's coerced sex or consent is in question, it's upsetting enough that I usually stop reading, though sometimes I can get past it if I'm already really invested in the story. But I'm not anticipating any of that from the story you're writing.

Ain't that the truth. We love you, Brandon. Not sure exactly what you mean by this (humanoid reproduction or magic bacteria reproduction?) but it sounds interesting. Bacteria are cool because they already manipulate our bodies in lots of ways. Spores are cool because they are sooooooo hard to destroy!!! And for other reasons of course. Indeed! Is it coming out anytime soon? Or is it in need of a beta read that would conveniently let me read the whole story?

Interesting. Here are my first few thoughts. If someone is anticipating getting powers from their open wound, would their excitement about getting the magic give them more endorphins, which would in turn give them less magic? Do people who are not "trying" to get magic actually end up with more power? Can people collect spores in bandages? Could you have special magic spore bandaids? Maybe some people can afford these, but others can't... Maybe they're hard to make. Maybe they were just discovered. Also, what are doctors like in this world? If you come to the ER with a giant gash, are the doctors like, "Oh, would you like us to fix this or not? Did you sign a waiver for treatment of open wounds?" Are there reverse doctors, people who assist you in cutting yourself in ways that aren't dangerous? And can magic heal an open wound? If people don't know what they're doing and they get cut, would their body instinctually use the magic to heal their cut, therefore cutting off any more magic? Hmmm.... Well, that's where my brain went. This is fun!

If you don't get to it, no worries - I already got a lot of really useful feedback!

I think this was better. I like that we get to see more of Eleanor, and I think Marcus’s friendship seems just as well-established as before. Aetna herself definitely felt more fleshed out. I did feel like you were more in a groove writing about Marcus than you were about Eleanor. Marcus’s actions read as very natural to me - he tries to approach helping Aetna from different angles, which shows that he’s a good friend but also familiar with her needs. And the fact that we see his statue later in the chapter was a cool moment for me, even reading it the second time. It’s like, “Wow, this person is way cooler and more important than I realized.” The juxtaposition between his kind, casual demeanor with Aetna and his statue gives me as a reader a lot of character depth to look forward to. Eleanor’s character wasn’t as clear for me. She’s certainly seems like a caring sister, and she seems mildly annoyed that Aetna’s not paying attention to her plans, but I wish I had a better handle on her. Is she like Marcus, primarily concerned with Aenta’s well-being? Or is there more to her? Aenta’s character also seems better done here. She’s still clearly tortured by her past experiences, but I like that you showed different aspects of that - she expresses her intellectual guilt to her sister, she expresses her desire for vengeance to Marcus, and she experiences visceral psychological effects once back in her room. Between those things and her inner narration about the city and how she would like to fix it, she definitely felt more like a full character. As a reader, I’m hoping that in the next few chapters I get to see her resist and/or fight with her inner demons in creative ways (even if she loses). A few more specific suggestions: Part of my trouble with Eleanor was I was always unclear about her age relationship to Aetna. You call her “young” on the first page and a “sleeping girl” later on, but then you also are characterizing her as an accomplished engineer and show her carrying Aetna back to bed. Is she an adult or a child? Is she older or younger? Because that can make such a huge difference in sibling relationships. During the entire first page, I was picturing them outside, only to discover they were in an office! Nice job! Looking forward to more, as usual.

Hello again, Vreeah! I think the other reviews covered my reactions pretty well. I really enjoyed these two chapters, especially the vivid, dynamic magic system. It's fun to spend mental time in a world where it seems like anything is possible! I'll agree with the other reviews and start by saying that the initial battle scene got too long for me. The awesome dream monsters and cool armor/weapons carried my interest and attention to the top of page 3. After that, I felt satiated, and I was ready for more world-building information and/or character development. I think just focusing the battle on building for the spider wouldn't quite do it for me here, though I'm sure it would be awesome. You've got my attention - now I want to know some why's and who's! A smaller thing: I was also kind of confused by the second paragraph in your second chapter. Do the kids watch the sentries fight? Do they usually swarm the sentries that they think are cool? And what does it take to impress these kids? Because I thought the fight sounded pretty impressive. And I hadn't realized that Ellis was trying to play it safe until you said so here. I felt similar at the end. I would like to feel more invested in the school, or the characters, or the kids, or all three before the attack. I think you can easily build this in with another revision, though - there's a lot of opportunities to show off Ellis's character. Overall I really enjoyed it! I hope we get to know more about this world, because it sounds really interesting!

I really liked these chapters! They were super fun. I'm excited to read more. Most of my comments are just places were I was confused about blocking. Grandpa turned for the house and said... When did he start working with her? I thought she was by herself. The samurais were eager to begin but, remembering their honor, waited patiently. Hahaha, love this line! To any observer, Sira was alone in the woods... I think this line takes away some of the magic of the moment. I was already clear that this was all in her head, so I didn't need the reminder. ...leaving her suspended horizontally over the earth. I had a hard time picturing how she got stuck. If this is a vine situation like kaisa said, I think I need more specific description, since I was picturing her in a North-eastern deciduous forest where it's harder to get stuck like this. Sira felt a confusion as a newborn... Something isn't working grammatically for me here. Loops of golden thread rested on her legs. I wasn't sure what happened here. Did the red person gather it there for her? ...looking like someone in need of a good psychiatrist. Seems like an odd thought for a 14 year old to have. Again, I really liked these chapters! I was a little disappointed that we didn’t learn more about the red person, but I’ll wait a little more. I loved the part where she was stuck to the cloud, and where she's playing inside her imagination. I think I started needing and wearing deodorant at age 12, to give you a benchmark.

Thanks for everyone's really helpful feedback. @kaisa, I got your PM and replied - it was amazingly helpful. Other notes of thanks: Seems to be a problem for lots of people. Consider it gone. I'll scatter its ashes in other places. Woo! And @Ernei, your following comments about the next few paragraphs here were awesome. Lots of great brainstorming and worldbuilding ensued. Both great ideas. I'll try to work something out. @AuthorityHellas16, I'll just respond to a few of your many helpful comments: Never be sorry about this. It's all helpful, and besides, you know I'm writing everyone else essays. I pulled some of this out in an effort to slim the chapter down a bit, but I'll try adding more back in. Thanks for helping me calibrate! Yes, this last line is giving me a lot of trouble. I'm an avid WE listener, so I'm definitely familiar with that analogy from Brandon. I'm actually not planning on showing the events that occur that evening - I'm planning on jumping a few days forward to Aurem having a discussion with his father about it. I'm not sure if I should let the context of that discussion reveal that his parents said no, or if I need to establish that before Chapter 2 begins. Maybe I can just make the last line more concrete, rather than sounding so mysterious. Yeah... I really like these kinds of stories. But I'm definitely hoping to find a unique spin. I actually tried to check out the WoT stories from the library again, to make sure I wasn't just marching down the same exact Act 1 path as Robert Jordan, but the library in this tiny town doesn't have them!!! Anyway, I'm sure you will all hold me accountable. I'm not as worried about things looking like Wot or LoTR later in the story, but I'm open to any and all suggestions on how to spin the first third to be more interesting. This is definitely something I need to improve in my story structure. I'm glad it there haven't been too many unanswered questions yet, but I'm anticipating this will be a problem soon. I'm 95% sure I'm going to cut the prologue at this point, so that will help with the question overload. Would you (and anyone else) mind listing your current questions/expectations/promises I've made? One thing I know I need help on is learning to identify these.

I think that would actually be really helpful, if you wouldn't mind. Thanks!

Don't be sorry. I was worried about this. I thought I might be mishandling it, and it turns that I was right. Your reads on the character's comments ("at least equal to stealing," "why hadn't she come forward," etc.) are correct, in the sense that I was going for some disturbing layers of the characters there. But maybe I'm trying to put down too many layers here in the beginning before there's more context. I'm here to learn, so I appreciate you pointing this out. Feel free to PM me or just take over this thread if there's more you want to say about how I could do this better in this chapter, or about this topic in general. Although I didn't mean to imply that Helia was dead (not sure if that's the 'dead woman' you're talking about), only that for the purposes of the Elder's discussion with the boys, he wanted them to assume that they would not be able to use her as a witness. And I'll just go ahead and make it clear that I am really, really, really upset by abuse of any kind. It's horrible and disturbing and wrong and awful, and I do not want to make light of it in anything I write. My writing tends to be overly rosy about just about everything, which is especially bad in cases like this... so again, thanks for being honest. I know it's not fun to have to call people out on these things all the time.

There was a lot I liked about this chapter. You are building a world that is very vivid - magical runes of light, floating armor, demons that all look different, characters who fly, sparkly rainbow snowflake void travel... It all sounds awesome! I'd like to see the characters interacting with these things emotionally to give all the stuff more story life, rather than just visual life. Hopefully that makes sense. Right now it feels like set dressing (really cool set dressing, don't get me wrong) rather than part of an immersive experience. Is it boring? I didn't think so. I never scrolled ahead thinking, "How long is this?" so that's a good sign. But I definitely think it could be improved. I enjoyed reading the battle scene, mostly for the descriptions of the monsters and the fighting, but it wasn't a high-stakes moment for me. I agree with kaisa that I want to know more about the war first. Here's a (kind of long, sorry) list of questions I have: If the monsters can't get through the void, then why do they need to go fight them at all? It sounds like they have to fight the monsters often, but why is that? Are the monsters trying purposefully to attack their city, or are these just neighbor squabbles? And how does this connect to the conflict that Aenta fought in before, that she keeps having flashbacks about and where her friends died? If Aenta looses this battle, what does that mean (I assume they can retreat back into the void, but maybe not)? And I know she's not going to die this early on, so what does it mean politically? Silvanus obviously thinks she can screw up, but what does "screwing up" look like? Just losing men? New character: After reading, I could tell that Aetna has bad blood with Silvanus, but I wouldn't have characterized him as petty from this one scene. I got the impression that he really doesn't like Aetna, but he does like playing with her emotions, and that he is a typical stuck-up noble character who hates being around peasants. He is basically who I expected him to be (a lot like Sadeas from The Way of Kings), but for a first impression I don't mind if a character seems a little expected, as long as they prove more fleshed out as the story progresses. I'm not sure I've met Cronus yet, so I can't compare to him. Old characters: I'm having trouble relating/connecting to Aetna. I think my main problem is that she's always frustrated or angry, and it's starting to feel a little flat. I'd like to see a little more emotional range from her to maker her feel more real. I'm also not buying into her PTSD episodes yet. I think kaisa is right in that we don't understand her backstory well enough yet to understand her actions. I think the backstory is there, developed, as you've mentioned pieces of it, but we as readers need still more context. I do think you do a good job of describing her emotions (I really liked the: Now that she was free to think rather than react... paragraph on page 6), but these episodes just don't mean as much as you want them to yet. A few specifics: I really enjoyed the first page. The scene is set quickly, and we have a conflict almost immediately. I like Aetna's attitude towards the messenger and Eleanor's response. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Well, I can’t stop you going. Just make sure you come back. Got it?’ This felt a little wooden to me. I think it's too on the nose. ...the way he drew out his words carried an air of insufferable arrogance. Loved this line. It's a great POV line from Aetna. You can tell how much she hates him already. Atena released Silvanus and backed away... She didn't even hesitate? I wouldn't have expected her to listen to Marcus that quickly. ‘Come on,’ Atena said... ‘Good point,’ he eventually said with a grin. This also feels wooden to me. Atena led her army through the Void... Awesome paragraph, but it felt out of place tone-wise with the rest of the chapter. Suddenly we were talking about souls and the passage of time, and I was like, "Whoa, this got deep real fast!" Maybe ease this information in a little more gradually? These navigators were experts at phasing whole armies in and out of the Void. You don't need to tell me this - you're about to show me in the next few paragraphs. ...blade through its crusted head. You just used the word "crusted" in the previous line, so this one stands out too much to me. ...diving to the ground like hawks... Again, their name already has the word "hawks" in it - no repeats! I’ll beat you so black and blue you won’t be able to show your face in public ever again. Awww, I was hoping she was going to make a heavier threat. I also loved both sections where Aetna gets upset at the remembarancers. Very fun. Looking forward to Chapter 3!

E14: I definitely liked all of them. I think I actually like Quirk's section the best. I really like mysteries, and this one had a clear mystery - a mysterious intrigue-y dead drop, ordered at gunpoint by a cop! Our main character already seems in over his head. Maybe it's not fair, since that section was the longest, and I may have been just as hooked by the others if they went further. But I liked Quirk. He got to show a range of emotions across the section and I already felt a connection with him. There were also a lot of great lines in this one: I loved "eyelids dragged themselves across gravel." And I could smell/feel the "hot, sickly fuel-spiced air." Ugh. My second favorite was Moth's. She is just such an interesting character to have in a convent. She's spunky and blunt, which is really fun. My Catholic-raised self was (still is) mortified at the mention of other uses for discarded tissues!! The only thing that ruined it for me was the end, where she prepares to go do something presumably mean to the crying nun. It made me sad. But I'm a softie, so others might not have that problem. Last but not least is the android's section. I agree with kaisa that the most "touching" part of the piece was scrotum part (oh dear, did I just do that?). I also got the impression that the doctor is rather emotionless (mostly from the last paragraph), which makes me not like him. I feel bad for the person who used the android, but I didn't have anyone that I really connected with in that section. It was still very interesting, just not as compelling. E16: Android section: Lines 1-4: I thought at first there were three "people" here: a human, a syRen, and an andriod. Turns out the syRen is the android. I also think these lines are a little clunky. Lines 5-8: I'm not sure who Bourbon is, or what it has to do with the voice. Once we start talking about Morgan Freeman I have something to hang my hat on, though I'm still not sure what the android is talking about. Lines 9-10: Ah, now I've got enough context to start putting things together. An immobile person watching movies in a sick bed. Also, there's something called "Expansion" which tells me we're far from these references. Line 11: Now things are getting really interesting. The films made the journey - so we're on a different planet? Shooting data into veins sounds really fascinating - how does that work? Why did the data have to come that way? Lines 12-13: Now I'm understanding stuff and getting context. Yep, different planet. Still not sure what was happening up in lines 1-8 though. Quirk's section: Line 1: I assume this "other man" must not be that important, since he didn't get a name. Line 2-3: We're on a junky spaceship! Always fun. Line 4: Haha. Now I'm getting the impression that this person is more important than the first line gave him credit for. Line 5-7: I miss my oxford comma! But now I know we're near Earth and that these two guys are friends (at least friendly). Line 8-10: So this guy does have a name. Why didn't it get used before? Also re-grown teeth sound awesome. So we've got awesome medical tech in this place, or else Pies is a shark. Line 11: It's so much more fun when things break down! Line 12-13: Not sure what we're talking about here, but it sounds like we're going to Italy. Moth's section: Line 1: great image. Dark bob makes me picture her as edgy already. Line 2-6: So we're in a convent. Interesting. I wonder if convents are much different in 2099? And it sounds like Moth is a pupil here, with lots of boring manual labor with spiritual significance, which she hates. Sounds good. Lots of potential. Line 7: I'm having a hard time picturing Moth thinking this. First of all, I don't get the impression that she would think of herself in her own head as "a fourteen year-old orphan." Second, it seems like a generally odd thought to have. I could see her thinking, "I can take care of myself, I don't need to know about nurture" or something like that, but thinking "orphan" and "doesn't need to know about nurture" in the same sentence seems off. Line 8-12: Oh do I relate to this situation. I spent a summer as an intern at a university garden. Weeding towards the shade, indeed. The problem is that the shade is always moving! Also I hate picking tiny weeds. Line 12: More swearing = more edginess = more interesting in a convent! E17: Gee-whiz factors for Android: Really interesting new medical technology that could change lots of people's lives. Interesting colonization methods (movies in your veins??), with something intense happening on Earth. I definitely want to see a person or people being really happy when they get their bodies back. And there's a potential for a robot takeover situation. Gee-whiz factors for Quirk: Secret agent-y intrigue mystery stuff! The characters also sound interesting here. The world sounds really vivid and I'm looking forward to beautiful space travel scenes. Gee-whiz factors for Moth: It's all about character here. And naughty nuns. But mostly Moth is going to cause trouble, and probably grow up a bit along the way. Hopefully there's something helpful in all that!

Here's Howard Talyer's short explanation from the website:

Hello again! Everyone's suggestions last time were super helpful. I'm excited to hear what you think of chapter 1! This chapter occurs roughly six months prior to the events in the prologue. I forgot to mention last time that I'm writing this with a YA audience in mind. Though I hope it will still be interesting to all of us "old and mature" people as well. Again, any and all comments are great. I'll just give one caveat: As we go forward, you will continue to find that I have quite the love of tropes. (Example A: My main character is a shepherd. Please don't stone me.) I do realize that a super tropey story is unlikely to get published, so if you hate these tropes and they distract from the story, please go ahead and say so, since I can certainly change them if I groom this story for publication down the line. But at this point in my development as a writer I'm trying to learn good story mechanics, and I'm not super focused on being original. Not that those two things are mutually exclusive, but hey... one step at a time. Maybe I'll make some trope bingo cards to make things more interesting... Again, thanks for reading!

No link trouble for me. Hahaha, @Mandamon, those are beautiful pictures. I love them! How in the world did you get them all to stay still?

Just wanted to throw out there that it's not only a male problem: I'm a woman, but I've been just as socially conditioned as the men, and I've had to deal with some messed up gender narratives in my own writing. I think we all do it. Bleh. But yes, thank you kaisa and everyone else for keeping us alert!

Hahaha. Wooo edits! Go kaisa! @Mandamon, I just read your post on Mary Robinette Kowal's blog. It was great! The stories sound awesome. I also hope you'll share some pictures of your pets dressed in costumes.

Welcome @M.Puddles!

This was an interesting chapter. I like Savae, and I got a good sense of their struggle to live in a society that dislikes them so much. The end of the chapter definitely caught my attention and made things much more exciting. I agree with the others that the carriage ride was problematic. For my part, I was getting so much new information about the world that I started to get fatigued by the end. The scene with Kathalania worked better for me because there was more that was familiar and the new information came more slowly. A few specifics: They remove the book from the shelf and plant their feet hard against the floor. Good enough; the mountain is close. This was confusing. After re-reading the section several times, I think it has something do do with the magic. At first I thought it meant that Savae had been floating before this sentence. The Granite Sky has everything they need... This paragraph was confusing because I wasn't sure if the "they" in the description was talking about Savae or the Granite Sky. After re-reading it a few times I think I worked out which pronouns went with which, but maybe throw in a few names to clear it up? Although I'm learning that I overuse names, so... I guess take this with a grain of salt. Varael's too useful to Savae. Interesting reversal to how I thought Savae viewed their relationship with Varael. The sister's either Kathalania's own daughter then, or adopted. Ah, bloodlines, pregnancy, adoption... so much room for so much great cultural conflict. The end of the chapter made me very excited to read more!

Thanks @Coop and @Robinski. These are both very, very helpful sets of comments. I know this is something I'm bad at - my discovery writer brain doesn't do this naturally. Every time I read Mercedes Lackey, I'm so inspired by her summarization skills! Definitely going to employ some summarizing in the edits. Hahaha, yeah, my subconscious mind is addicted to participle phrases... it's a problem. Going to make this clearer. The horse is supposed to be responding to Elias's distress, but not necessarily intentionally blocking the arrow. Except maybe he did intentionally block it... hmmm... I need to think more about this. Discovery writer problems. Yes, he did. And yes, it's magic. But I think I need to make a bigger deal out of this. No apologies necessary! I quite appreciate it. You have great suggestions when it comes to word-smithing. And many corrections, which are just as important... I think I got all the "reigns" out of there but I'm sure you'll find some I missed... Crap, crap, crap. I started WoT series maybe ten years ago, but I didn't make it all the way through (unfortunately, because I've heard Sanderson did a great job with the ending, and I love his other work). But I've had to squish too many parallels to this series in my book already. Even over ten years, my brain hung on to lots of pieces. Seems like my Elias needs a new name. Thanks for all your other suggestions, Robinski. I could say, "Oh yeah, that makes sense!" and "Great idea!" for each one, but suffice it to say that they were all very helpful. I have so much to work with. When I re-write this, it is going to be awesome.

Thanks @Mandamon. One of my many takeaways from the comments on this thread is that I didn't bring out the important bits of this prologue clearly enough. I focused too much on the action. This scene covers the aftermath of a really important plot point, and is supposed to set up some of the unique aspects of the world. But I wrote those reveals into the main story as well, so I probably don't need the prologue. There's a lot happening in the scene that got lost. For instance, the guards at the outpost were actually killed purposefully before the landslide, so they would not be able to report it, but I didn't take time to hint clearly that way (even though Elias wouldn't know this). I might resubmit it later and see what you all think, but for next week at least I'm submitting Chapter 1. And thanks again to everyone who read. Even if I didn't comment on a suggestion directly, I certainly appreciated it and found it helpful!

Good to know @kaisa. I suppose I can always re-work it into a bonus story.

Thanks @rdpulfer. I'll be interested in what you and everyone else thinks about the prologue as the story progresses. I have my ideas about what I want it to do, but we'll see if it accomplishes them. Thanks for the feedback!