Hobbit

I'd also like to submit on the 5th, but I'm happy to give my place up to someone who didn't get to submit this week.

Whoa!!! So cool!

Hey @king007, thanks for reading and no worries! I appreciate the feedback. It's very helpful to hear what people think so I can calibrate my internal editor.

Thanks Tariniel! Glad to hear there were parts that worked! Yeah, this is definitely an issue. I'm toying around with alternatives to fridging the horse. Or maybe I can add some more compelling red herrings / twists in there. Thanks for the feedback! Please do lots of nitpicking. Another reader said the same thing (he's a fencer). Physics is important. I'll do another scan for those. Whoa, a throwback! I got it now. I saw those movies when I was really little and I was sooo scared. I should really read the books. Your comments are making me realize I could do some way cooler things with this than I'm doing right now. The wolves aren't the only enemy, but even so I'm interested in other ideas. These wolves aren't native to Elias's area - they are supposed to be coming from a colder climate (taiga/tundra areas). If you have suggestions, I'm happy to hear them!

Hahaha, your poor brain. For the record, I have nothing against wolves. I think they're awesome. Wolves in their natural ecosystems = healthier everything. @Tariniel Sounds good! Glad if it helps. The first person exercise is something Dan Wells suggests on WE.

Hello! Jumping in with some thoughts. I thought this had the makings of a good story. I like the twists especially. Things started to get especially interesting when it turned from a hunter story to a hunter+mystery story. I think you have a good head for plot - it's the story mechanics and characters that could use work. My main problems were similar to kaisa's - I was often confused, and I didn't have a lot of sympathy for the characters. Confusion issues first: There were a few times when I didn't follow what you meant in your descriptions, like in the paragraph where you talk about his hunting instinct: He had, however, learned to pinpoint exactly which part of him... The feeling you were describing seemed like something really specific, so at first I was thinking that maybe it was a kind of magic, but after reading the rest I realized he wasn't supposed to be magical. A lot of times, your blocking wasn't clear. For example, I was surprised when Kazer ended up inside the cabin - I had been picturing him watching from outside. Similarly, when Gemel ended up dead (at the sentence, That was likely what had killed him), I was surprised because I thought he was still alive. Though I enjoyed the twists, I'm with kaisa in that I didn't get what happened at the end. Your explanation of what you are going for is really cool though! Character issues: I agree with kaisa that the easiest thing to do to fix the fridging problem is change the genders of your characters, or shift the plot around. I know this isn't funny, but I had to laugh that kaisa had to call us both out on the same day on this one... Anyway. I didn't relate with Tess, and I was definitely annoyed with her at various points. She cried really easily. I could believe her being upset when Kazer yells at her, but crying seems like an over-the-top reaction. When Gemel dies, I could certainly believe she would cry, but if she's an experienced hunter I would expect her to be able to pull herself together enough to function. Kazer acts like she's basically helpless, and she doesn't push back or give me as a reader a reason to believe that she's not helpless. How to make her more three dimensional? Try giving her a greater range of emotions and thoughts. Especially if you can give her conflicting emotions: maybe she thinks about talking back to Kazer after he yells at her, but she's afraid of disrespecting her teacher, so she almost says something but then changes her mind and takes it. Also, she's going to seem flat if Kazer sees her as flat. If all he's thinking is "she doesn't know what she's doing, she's falling apart, she needs my help," then she'll seem more that way to the reader, too. Have you tried writing a practice piece from Tess's point of view - first person? I did that for some of my flat characters, and I was amazed at how much it helped me flesh them out. I think you could pull this off without showing us the wolf being in the tent - the fact that the stool is torn up and there's wolf hair in Tess's tent implies clearly that the wolf was there, so you don't need to actually show the wolf in the tent for us to get the idea. Hopefully that's helpful! Welcome to the group and keep up the writing!

Thanks for critiquing @kaisa! *hits head on keyboard* Yes, that makes perfect sense. It's a good thing I joined this group, so I can see how things look to people not inside my head. Whoops, that's not good. Thanks for catching. Keep telling me when you see things like this. The world definitely has a lot of traditional gender norms, and so I'm trying to do that author-writing-in-a-world-she-disagrees-with dance. Since I'm a new writer, I know I'm going to get it wrong (painfully wrong) in places. Though in this case I actually just carried over a pronoun from a previous draft. Yes, your feedback is definitely helpful! But what does ATREYU mean?

Me too.

Hello everyone! I'm so excited to be submitting! In terms of feedback, I'm looking for any and all reactions. Vreeah-style report-as-you-read's are awesome. Notes on character and believability are great. LBL's are also welcome - even if I end up changing huge chunks later, I'll still learn a lot from fine tuning now. As we go on in the story I'll want thoughts on plot pacing and whether I'm fulfilling on promises (actually, what promises I'm making would be helpful to know too), but really, tell me anything! I'm here to listen. Thanks for reading, and enjoy the story! ETA: I forgot to double space my submission... Sorry about that. Please message me if you'd like a double spaced version.

I really enjoyed this chapter! Having not read the prologue, I can't compare to that, but all by itself I thought it was great. I liked the paperwork scene for its familiarity. With the new names and new world to get to know, it was helpful to have a scene where I could anticipate and relate to things. An uptick in the interest/tension wouldn't be amiss, but I don't feel like it dragged. But the familiarity of paperwork gave me somewhere to hang my hat when you introduced wings, spires, liquid metal, alta and exim. I found your world building clear (yay, clear! My brain is tired from jumping into all these worlds in the middle, hahaha) and interesting as Aetna flew through the city. Again, you could up the tension and make it better, but it was still interesting enough to keep me reading. I did find the beginning of the PTSD episode a little confusing. I think I would have found it a lot more confusing if your intro hadn't primed me for it! Perhaps make it clearer that she knows what she's hearing is not real. Alternately, it can be kind of cool to make the reader think it's real and then subvert that, but if that's where you're going with it, I think it needs to be tweaked. Other than the clarity issues, I liked the scene. The falling action at the very end was handled really nicely too. Overall, you've set up a lot of interesting conflicts, some big and some personal, and I'm excited to keep reading!

More thoughts! There are a lot of cool things happening in this chapter. I like some of your descriptions of the magic and I especially like the plot setup in the last section. I also think you were more successful at getting in viewpoint. I think you could take it farther - show us even more of what Riley is seeing, thinking, and feeling during her viewpoint sections - but you’re on the right track! I think, AuthorityHellas, that you mistook Annika for Riley's mother, when Moria is Riley's mother and Annika is the King's guard. Did I read that right, Vreeah? I also LOL'd at this line. It just seemed so silly for some reason. I really like the visual, in a different setting. I totally agree. Riley's relationship with her parents is really interesting! You have a lot to work with here in terms of character development, and I hope we get to see you playing around with it. But I also thought the conversation wasn't super realistic, because of what @kaisa said about the mother's tone, but also because it seems odd for the mom to be talking about how they are con artists in front of the king (who we saw earlier in the chapter can eavesdrop really well). That made more sense later, once I knew that the king was going to employ Riley's parents in conning, but at the time it struck me as odd. A few LBL’s: Reginald erased the light... ...didn't cast any strange shadows. This sounds hard to do. Is it? Do they do this all the time, or is there a risk of it going wrong? Just an example of what kinds of details would be helpful for me in understanding the magic system. They're right beneath us. I'm going to blow some holes through the wall and darken the interior." Why is he saying this out loud if Linnald can hear through the ceiling? Elra condensed into a cluster of glowing spheres, fixed in place within the cube... This whole paragraph is really interesting. From the ceiling, there came the sounds of a scuffle... This is a really vivid paragraph. Three of them suddenly raised their spears—eyes narrowed—and set upon the fourth guard. This is really weird (but cool if I see where you're going with this). If I understood you right, something happened to make three of the guards suddenly turn on one of their own, maybe due to some of the mom's magic? What does Riley think of this? Is she like, "What just happened?" Or is she like, "Oh good this means my mom's here because she does that to people all the time?

Great idea @kaisa. Maybe you can show her being caring and empathetic towards other people, or even animals? Give the reader a sense that she has it in her to be less self-absorbed. Or go the Writing Excuses route and make her either funnier (which I think she already is) or really good at something interesting. I think she's close. I already enjoy reading about her. As long as she grows up soon.

This chapter was all kinds of fun. I like the AI, and I like the promise of more interpersonal relationship stuff. I want to see Oz make repairs with Channing and maybe eventually with Dion (or instead find a justifiable reason to kick him). I thought the reveals piled nicely, even considering that I knew almost nothing about what Eleanor was supposed to be doing before reading this chapter - only that she’d been captured. I didn’t understand everything about how the cities are supposed to come together, or where they want to move things. But I still thought it was a cool idea and I figure I’ll pick up the details as I go. Not getting it didn’t jar me out of the story. A few specifics: The first two paragraphs: Eeeeeewwwww this is creepy. I really squirmed as I read this. I'm glad I started last week and not this week! "But I meant it when I said... ...wrap my hands over hers. This is such a sweet moment. Channing Avidan walks in the door. Yay! I got super excited. I really want them to be friends! Girls. They mess up they shouldn’t, you know? Are you missing a word in this sentence? I don't want to believe it's Dion Krieger’s voice... Boo, I don't like this guy. THE TRADE MISSION IS A RUSE. ... Or not so secret. Hahaha, I like this AI. THE DARIEN CITY... . Yay! This is very exciting. I like secrets! YOUR WORK IS AT MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY WHEN ROMANTIC COMEDY IS PLAYING. This made me LOL. YOU SHOULD DRINK TEA NOW. HYDRATION IS POOR. Hahaha I WILL GUIDE YOUR BREATHING IN A PRELIMINARY EXERCISE. Hahahaha “What was in that tea?” I like Brick still, but now I'm a little scared of it.

As a younger (under 30) reader, the usage of stud didn't strike me as odd. I'm certainly familiar with the "ladies man" connotation, but I think it can be used, especially by a younger person, as another word for "attractive and awesome." The thing that confused me about the usage was that the suit doesn't sound like it would make her look very awesome - right now I'm picturing a sort of glorified golden clown suit. But if she thinks she looks awesome, then that's what counts I guess! ETA: Upon further reflection I think her use of "stud" came off to me as a young girl trying out a word she's heard but doesn't really understand yet. I also wanted to add that I really liked the last line. I agree with Robinski that it reduced the immediacy, but it left me with a funny image that made me smile and connected me with her character.

Congrats on the book coming out @Mandamon! It's pretty awesome that you have an artist and can see your ideas in pictures! Question about CP's: I assume a critique partner is someone with whom you trade books so they can look at your whole story at once. Is it usually an alpha read, beta read, or copy edit kind of read?

This is super fun! I started out not liking Sira because of the way she treats her grandpa. After learning why she acts the way she does around him, I understood her a lot better and was able to start enjoying her character. I really want to see her get over her fear of her grandpa, though, and if it doesn't start happening soon I'm going to be very disappointed in her. I really enjoy her antics, especially the way she scares herself and freaks out - I relate to that! That's why I can't read horror or watch scary movies. The part where she tries out the bronze devices is also fun. I agree that the triangulator was the most vivid of the devices she tried, but I still had fun with the other ones. Above the bed was an oversized light fixture... I found this sentence awkward. Sira's grandfather had been in... ...was coming to get her. This whole passage feels tell-y to me. The information is important and I was very interested to read it, but it would be awesome if you could either make it feel more like a flashback or work it in to her thoughts more naturally. She started to cry. This felt really abrupt to me. Give her time to worry first. Overall I really enjoyed it. I like spending time with Sira and I'm excited to read more.

Thanks @AuthorityHellas16. Things are up and running again, so I'd like to submit next week (the 29th) if that's okay.

Okay, so... I spilled juice on my computer. My files were backed up, but it looks like I lost everything since the last time I closed Scrivener. Even though it's supposed to save every time you pause, I think the files were corrupted because the program was open at the time of the crash? Luckily, I only lost four days of work. Unluckily, I'm set back so I'm not going to be ready to submit on Monday. Anyone want to take my spot?

I third this. First section is active. Engaging. Second is back to issues I had with the last draft. Just wanted to clarify - I actually enjoyed the second section with her brother more than the first section with the client. (Sorry for adding confusion.) I guess I thought the section with her brother told me a lot more about her as a character, and it had more interesting interpersonal tension. I like those things.

Silk is on vacation this week, right? So is it up to us to count to five?

Interesting comments, @neongrey. I hadn't thought through that when I read, but now that you've pointed out those gender issues I think there are a lot of cool ways the story could go to address them more thoroughly. I just wanted to add that I really liked the "scissored him a glare" phrase - I thought it was really evocative - but then again I wasn't aware of the sexual version.

Yeah if the skyscrapers are 50 stories and granite, an atoll won't work. I guess they could build smaller structures if they cleared off the dead coral and built directly on the sunken island. But I was focused more about the seaweed farming situation. Mmmm seaweed! Looking forward to reading about it!

Just randomly saw this! I'm not sure if you're still working on this idea, @Eagle of the Forest Path, but have you heard of the aging of volcanic islands to form an atoll? http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/kits/corals/media/supp_coral04a.html https://blog.tahiti.com/2012/06/14/whats-an-atoll/ It seems like a series of atolls could fit your needs pretty well.

Well, since I've never read any of the previous versions, you can consider my mind clear. Lasila read to me as someone who is complicated (definitely not flat), but I had a hard time getting a grip on her personality. I came away with pieces but I don't see how they fit together yet. She seems like a strong person who's ambitious and willing to push boundaries (for example, being a lawyer when women aren't allowed to practice in court), but when she's talking to her brother I get the impression she would rather he keep his head down and stay safe. Maybe she's more concerned for the safety and comfort of those around her than for herself? Maybe that translates into her being okay with ambition in herself but not in other people - which could be interesting. Lasila seems to like politics and intrigue, and she seems practical, willing to take advantage of situations for her own sake. I got the impression that she's not one for holding to principles for principles's sake. But the comments on the last page suggest that she doesn't really like this about herself. Finally, you made it clear that she's hardened herself to love, a fact reinforced by the way she interacts with her brother: she seems bitter with certain things about him (shoes left on the mat, feeling possessive of her tree), and she generally doesn't seem to show him much love, even though she gets upset when she thinks she would be without him. Oh, and she definitely seems dissatisfied with her current status in life (job, money). I got most of this from the discussion with her brother, rather than from her meeting with the rich client. I couldn't read much into her actions when she was with the client. Did I get it right?

That is so cool.