industrialistDragon

I'm not sure I understand the question? If it's something you're interested in and you want to write about it, then you should write about it, definitely.

Over all, while I like the changes to E's part of this chapter and the addition of G, I agree with the others that this many POVs barely two chapters into the story feels overwhelming. I feel like there wasn't much purpose to the PM's scene that wasn't also mostly covered by G's phone call. As I go: I am fine with this "2 days earlier" heading because this is a chapter 2 and we've already had one chapter to establish the "start" of a timeline. However, I've also have a week and some space between the two chapters. I can't say for certain if I'd be as sanguine about the second time heading in a row just two chapters in if I'd read them back-to-back, plus, like @Asmodemon noted, 48 hours isn't really that long... I am instantly skeptical of this kind of "Wag the Dog" type of scenario. It reminds me too much of goofy conspiracy theories and I find it difficult to believe. (I love the movie though, and political machinations in general. It's just the whole fake news/false flag/crisis actors conspiracy aspect that has me looking at it askant. Like, really, they're going to manufacture a crisis to cover up something and 1) be competent enough to pull it off, and 2) realistically believe it'll be kept secret? I just don't buy it.) I like the addition of G's POV, but I'm feeling a bit of POV overload in this chapter. I'm not sure the PM's office scene is really necessary, and I think i'd kind of dig starting with G's POV then moving to E's. Nanobots! hee! I am, of course, totally here for nanobots. ...but the C4 still seems like overkill. The rest of it plays out about the same for me.

Overall: A solid improvement! Definitely keep and move on. As I go: "when has [it] ever turned away" I like how this is pointed out right at the beginning now. Or at least, I'm noticing the line this time around and appreciate it. In fact, I'm liking this opening much better now. W is reading a little bit older, too. Though I'm wondering a bit why she thinks about the footprint being no big deal, then turns around and immediately tells someone who she knows is likely to freak out about it. Aww, I miss the lady hunter! The new (old) guy is fine, I'm just partial to lady hunters.

Hello and welcome to RE! I think with your question, what you are detecting in the dialogue is the repetitive nature of the placement of the dialogue markers (where there are markers). One way of addressing this issue is by adding dialogue tags, moving the tags around in the spoken part of the dialogue, and by placing more focus on the indirect conversation and body language, instead of straight spoken replies. Dialogue tags (she said, she asked, etc) can go before the spoken text: she said, "I'm going to be a psionic wrestling star when I grow up!" In the middle of the the spoken text: "That velociraptor," he said, "sure can catch a frisbee." And after the spoken text: "Less banter, more running," she said. A lot of the dialogue in this piece seems to be using action sentences in place of dialogue tags (when there's any reference to who's speaking at all), and from what I can tell, the speech-identifying action sentences seem to be coming before the spoken dialogue. Overuse of dialogue tags can get repetitive, yes, but underuse can be just as problematic. I feel like the action sentences are trying to compensate for the missing dialogue tags and not quite making it, and even in this short piece, the lack is causing some reading fatigue. There are all sorts of webpages and rules lists and tips for writing dialogue and when to use tags, but really, it comes down to one's "reading ear" to know what is right for that particular piece. That said, here are a couple of things I turned up with a quick search that might help give you some ideas for ways to mix things up a bit: Dialogue Tags: What Are They and How To Use Them -- This is a nice one that also talks about the said/said-adjective debate. (For the record I'm pro-judicious-adjective use. I like variety in my words, but too many gets distracting.) How to Write Dialogue for Narratives -- This is a short one with a good part about indirect dialogue, or using body language to convey the meaning instead of the spoken words. He Said, She Said: Dialog Tags and Using Them Effectively -- This is a longer one talking about narrative in dialogue in general, but also touches on tagging issues as well. I think adding some actual dialogue tags to this piece will take some of the weight off of the action sentences and make the narrative flow a bit better. Using actions in place of tags is a fine thing to do, as is leaving pieces of spoken text un-tagged when the identity of the speaker is clear from the surrounding text, but the trick is not to get caught in a rut and use one or two techniques for everything. As you said this was an exercise more than a story, I'll hold off on critiqing that part of it. Hope this helps!

I am very interested in this section now, in a way that I wasn't before with previous sections. I think this is mostly due to the plot however, and not the characters. Ma has a bit more personality this time around, but still feels pretty generic to me. His friend strikes me as a pretty typical sidekick for this sort of adventure. Mo is Mo, and since they're not spouting weird conspiracy theories I don't really have an opinion of them one way or another. The action moves along nicely, and the deductions section made it feel more like a mystery to me than the previous sections did. The ending was really good! As I go: "unbalance the species " -- I am unclear what this means? My first thought is vertigo, but it can't be that literal... "something wickedly sharp" -- er, yes. That is very obvious. I cringed a little bit at this line. It's the sort of thing that gets put in crime drama TV shows a lot, but I think that's so that you can follow the deduction scene even if you were out getting snacks during the scene with the body. We just read a description of the wounds so we already are caught up with how they look. (Also, aside, things that are as sharp as or sharper than kitchen knives: sewing shears! haircutting and barber's blades! Animal grooming tools! Probably certain woodworking tools that are used for high detail or fine cuts! Hunting/carcass dressing tools! The specific nature of not just knives, but "kitchen knives" makes me immediately wonder where they are in relation to the kitchen, and why/how they knew just from looking at the marks it left behind that it was that kind of blade and not any other of the myriad things that could hold a smooth keen knife-edge) I am much more interested in this section than I have been with previous parts. The descriptions of the symphonies feel more dynamic and natural in the deductions section as well.

Overall: I enjoyed this again! Like the others, however, I had some difficulty with the protagonist's age matching up with her behavior, and was confused by the lack of urgency about the footprint. I'm still having a bit of trouble getting a sense of personality from W, but I can tell there have been improvements. She seems innocent, naive, and maybe a touch timid to me. The world is interesting, and do want to read more. As I go: All right, so she's sneaking out into the forest alone, and it's the "alone" part that's getting her into trouble? That at least makes more sense this time around. It's still feeling a little odd to me, though, like it's easy to miss if you're not paying attention. Maybe the huntress or the gate guard should hammer on it a bit more? I liked the urgency about the footprint, but as soon as she steps into town, she seems to forget about it. It makes her feel very young, and I wonder then if the footprint was such a big deal after all, which is disappointing. Okay, so she's sneaking out, alone, to gather ingredients for making an illicit anti-nomming potion so she can go scavenge the ghost town next door for sweet vintage dodads? I can get on board with that. I enjoy reading about abandoned magical ruins so this will be fun! It still feels a bit odd that she's just kind of dropped the whole "giant-titan-stomping-near-the-village" thing, though. I was picturing her much MUCH younger than she apparently is? I think others have covered it pretty well, but all this talk of the boy's age is really confusing to me, too. One would presume an older teen or adult person, no matter how innocent, sheltered, or timid, would not get so distracted from reporting evidence of an immanent threat. ... ... ... Okay no, I take that back. I have to math this out, sorry. If L is "of age" at 10, then W is 16 or 17 If L is "of age" at 13, then W is 18 or 19 If L is "of age" at 16, then W is 22 or 23 If L is "of age" at 18, then W is 24 or 25 If L is "of age" at 21, then W is 27 or 28 If L is "of age" at 24, then W is 30 or 31 And... like... none of those are really fitting what I'm understanding of the story. The young end of that range is a little squicky, to be honest. She's a middle/late teenager romantically interested in a prepubescent 9- or 10-year-old and that just makes me kind of shudder and go "eww" and I start to seriously reconsider what I thought I knew about W (especially in light of the fact that she used to babysit him)... But the ages seem to match with the behaviors I've read about so far, so it would at least make sense there. (but a NINE-YEAR-OLD?? gah! Even an eleven-year-old... yeesh.) The older end of the range, while not as squicky to me, doesn't seem to jive with either of their behaviors in the story previous to this point. 6 years is a big age gap for young adults in general, I think, and the whole thing pushed me out of the story and left me very confused. That seems like a large jump in logic, to go from "here's a footprint I need to warn the town" to "this is clearly a new kind of monster that thinks like a person and wouldn't want to hurt us." I think I need her to show her work a bit more on that one...

Overall: It's getting better all the time, but I think some judicious adjective pruning might be in order this time around. Some of the sentences felt very ... stuffed. I got confused a couple times, trying to keep track of the sentences. Plot-wise, still a little wobbly around the wolves, but the ending of this chapter has always been, and continues to be, great. As I go: I too am thrown off by that "6 weeks later" right as the first thing I'm seeing in a book. It makes me wonder if I've gotten a factory defect and pages have gone missing or have fallen out... Factory errors in books happen more often than you'd think... "long story" -- who's M talking to? Maybe if the sentiment needed to stay in, then something like "that whole mess was too kittening confusing to even think about" or just... something that's more M talking to herself? "(it's a ) long story" is usually addressed to someone other than the speaker themselves, so it stands out in an internal monologue that's not breaking the narrative fourth wall. So she's directing the "long story" comments to god? That really didn't come across until the end. If that's what she's doing, I feel like maybe she should start with something to point it out, so readers know she's in "telling someone else" mode and not just a regular internal monologue. "real wolves do not behave this way" -- thank you for that. The scene with the robowolves is getting a lot better, however, I think some of the bits describing the 'bots and their movements got cut somewhere along the line. They go from "what are these distant grey shapes" to "5 robowolves surrounded her" and I don't know what they look like or how they got near enough for her definitively say they're wolves. ... I think I'm just a little confused by the blocking in general with the wolves, but the description and the logic of it go much better. Mo also shows more emotion, which I like. "gnarled apple, black tree branches" -- Gnarled, black, apple tree branches? Unless they're a species of black trees... " the deep indigo fabric of his olive-green pinstriped suit" -- This is confusing me pretty badly, I'm afraid. I did a quick poll of some friends to make sure it wasn't just my extra, fabric-related expertise messing me up, and while everyone understood it eventually (indigo ground, with thin green lines on top, the lines running in parallel to each other), they all had some problems with it. It's just a lot of very specific adjectives to work into one small clause, especially when the rest of that sentence is added into the mix. "Worsted" isn't capitalized when referring to fabric/thread/yarn (also, if it's on a chair and wool, it better the heck be worsted, lol.)

Welcome back! This is my first time reading your work, so I'm excited. So I enjoyed this, but it did take a couple pages for me to get interested in the story. Partially I think it's because I just finished a book recently with a similar set up to this one, but also it's something else. I can't quite put my finger on what was keeping me from getting invested though. Maybe all the uncertainty in the first part? I'm very interested in the acolytes and the deer-riding hunter, less so about the protagonist. She's fairly generic to me at the moment, but not unpleasantly so. I'm willing to wait a bit to see what she does. I want to hear more about the forest, that is very intriguing to me. I caught some grammar errors and skipped words here and there, but not enough to seriously derail me (Plus, I think between @Mandamon and @Robinski most of them have been covered ). I think I will need to see a larger section of the story before I can make more helpful suggestions, sorry. Looking forward to the next part!

Overall: Many of the critiques I had for this chapter are the same ones that I had for the previous chapters. There is a kernel of a story I'm interested in here (really, all you have to do to sign me up is mention dragons), but I can't stay interested enough in the rest of it to keep reading to the end. For this particular chapter, I was left confused by the sudden mention of magic and hidden family powers. I would REALLY have liked to read about those before now! The powers and the reason they have to be kept secret is really interesting! As I go: I'm seeing a lot of tense and grammar issues here up front, more than in previous chapters. I'm also notice the same comma splices as @Mandamon. A grammar pass would probably be helpful. A lot of these pages and paragraphs feel like they are all jumbled up in time. Like, they go forward, then summarize something in the past, then forwards a tiny bit again, then loop around to the beginning to add something else and, while I'm not having a terrible time following it, it is exacerbating the feeling I have of the story not going anywhere. I am very interested in dragons, especially friendly dragons! I am excited about the dragons, but so far, that's the only thing I'm excited about. I am a little confused how she knows so much about dragons if nobody around her knew anything about them and she doesn't have any books about dragons in her house. Many of the critiques I have for the rest of the chapter are the same as the ones from the previous chapters. The interesting tidbits of story and worldbuilding are lost amongst the weeds of a very pastoral but somewhat rambling slice-of-life romance. There's nothing wrong with being a slice-of-life romance, but it's not a genre I can get into very well. If this is not intended to be that sort of story, then for me at least, having the magic and secret abilities coming into play much sooner and more prominently would help a lot. I know it can be discouraging to hear these kinds of critiques, but don't give up! Mary Robinette Kowal has this great infographic about critiques and decoding what critiquers mean when they say things like "I skimmed here" and "I was bored." She also has the great blog post about some of the catchphrases and shorthand advice that gets thrown around a lot here. Editing and rewriting are some of the most important aspects of novel creation, so keep at it!

Hello and welcome to RE! Thank you for letting us be the first ones to see your work outside of your friends. I know how tough that can be! Overall, I liked this story. Yes, I knew where it was going, but I enjoyed getting there. As I go: I'm catching some awkward phrasing here and there but in general the grammar and technical aspects seem quite good to me. I'm not really a fan of present tense, but (awkwardness here and there aside) this flows well and I'm not minding the tense as much. I stumbled over "you play too good" as well. Maybe "You're too good for this place?" Or "You play well?" You're too talented? I don't know. It sticks out as it is right now though. While it is a pretty stereotypical story, and the ending is not a surprise, I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. Tropes done well can be just as enjoyable as a surprise (moreso to me than if the surprise is contrived), and I liked both of the main characters and the tropes being used here. Definitely try a few things out if you want to, but I don't think it's worth worrying over if you end up not changing much. I'd expect more out of a longer work, but it's not a longer work. It's a good little enjoyable story.

Overall, good improvement! I am connecting with the main character much more in this one. I don't know that there's more challenge, but he does seem to earn his discoveries a bit better, so I'm willing to go along with it. I actually felt like there was a bit more infodumping, but it was better incorporated, so I minded it less. It might be my foreknowledge, but it still feels like a suspense rather than a mystery. I'm not feeling duped anymore, though, so again, I'm fine with it. The story probably could still benefit from another pass or two to just tighten in it general, but this is much better than it had been. As I go: Header text already makes more sense, coming from Mo, than it did before. Off to a good start! "The Speaker had been an E" -- was? Nitpick, sorry. But he presumably didn't change species on death, so wouldn't he still be an E? He says he's been near violent death so he's cool with it, but then two lines later he's being grateful for uni dissection classes or else he'd not be able to handle it. I kind of think that the violent death would obviate the need to mention the uni classes... The information about the society and the geas comes out more naturally now, and I like that there's a mention of Mo's paranoia early on to seed it for later. I feel like it's a bit longish for an aside early on though. Maybe only a little bit of trimming? "This murdered Speaker was our façade" -- would have been? Certainly he's not anymore: he's a corpse. lol'd at the unknown unknowns. I do feel like the society is better-defined now Oh, good. Thanks for the lampshade on his implication in the murder. The rest seems to go similarly to the first version, but with better flow.

Maybe have them arguing over something that's not what they're working on, while their actions are obviously those of people who work together well? Or have them arguing over something petty about the project while sharing something easily? Or have them agree-arguing? I don't really know... I feel like, right now, they're arguing over basic level things you'd have to have worked out if you're going to collaborate with someone, like sharing tools, and they're meaning it. It didn't feel like playful teasing or banter to me.

This did not grab me the way it did for the others. It definitely got long for me in the middle too. I was much more interested in the travelers than I was in the POV character and her country. It wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, and I didn't dislike it, I just don't really have much to say about it.

If you go to the Writing Excuses website, there is a link at the bottom of the left-hand column for transcripts. Additionally, you can go to the Writing Excuses search bar and type the search "transcript" to pull up blog posts of the transcripts.

I'm still having trouble with this story. I don't really sympathize with M and he still feels fairly generic to me. I don't really care for M's two collaborators. While they have more personality than M, and I might like them individually, they don't seem like either friends or colleagues to me. They feel very antagonistic, and I'm not really sold on the idea that they could work together enough to make anything. I'm reminded of my least favorite office coworker dynamics. They also feel shallow to me. They're suffering from the "the death of a person matters less than a list of names" problem that the rest of the work seems to be, but with the added hyper-focus on their individual proposal. I know people like that exist, especially in academia, but I think it's exacerbated by basically none of the characters thus far displaying much empathy. Shouldn't somebody care about the dead guy? "It was why the two of them clashed so often. They shared a House" -- I'm confused here, but maybe it's my lack of background. Shouldn't the same houses get along? I mean, that's why they're in houses yes? Like, with that logic wouldn't one-talent people from the same house be twice as likely to have insurmountable personality issues, since they don't have a second house to mitigate whatever makes shared houses clash? I am unfortunately not really invested enough in M or the other one to care a whole lot about the people they are interviewing right now. The elderly snake lady was amusing, though, and the second body has my interest perking up a bit finally. Maybe they'll care more about this one?

Well, most of what I had has been covered by everyone else. I also was fairly confused by this chapter. The back half had more action, but was also confusing. Why is there an assassin? Why didn't he just kill the dude if he was worried about what the dude might know? If he wanted the injured person, why didn't he follow the dude back to his house (or, just, do some research and look up dude's address and get there first. It's not like dude's going to be moving that quickly...) As I go: "Get these juveniles out of my sight" -- M is one, Q is acting like one, yes? The line made me smile. I really don't understand why Q is continuing with this client-who's-not-a-client. It doesn't seem very like him to stick his neck out with so little either in writing, or to gain from it. I... am not following either M or Q's conversations with their police officers very well. It's like they're having two different conversations that don't interact with each other and neither one is quite lining up with what i remember from previous chapters... Having a little bit of trouble telling the two officers apart. Why is the K one saying be nice to M? He wasn't the one in with her was he? It feels like a non sequitur and I don't get it.

Yes, I did notice that, just a wee tiny smidge. I had to think about this for a bit, but I think what's throwing me is the way Ma, who is not portrayed as paranoid, just is totally on board with Mr. Paranoia's rant and is like "Yes, what you are saying is totally reasonable. I understand everything now." Like, from what I recall, he doesn't even think or internal monologue that Mr Paranoia's going a ways too far with things, and he's just, like, accepting everything like it's simply building on common knowledge. I think? If that makes sense?

Oh, whew! I posted that, then immediately worried that you'd asked your native German sister-in-law or something and I was just hallucinating idiomatic grammar formations based on uni classes I took a million billion years ago. ^^;; I did ask my friend who has more recent German experience than me, and she came up with "Da gibt es zu viel los!" but she has ALSO put in a text to an actual German SHE knows, so if you do want to keep the line, we might eventually get around to something that doesn't sound like it was thought up by a bunch of Americans. Once there's a more solid way to differentiate between the characters, the way they rag on each other feels really natural. Description-wise, the initial description of the skeletons was done well, in that I had a clear idea of what they were looking at, and what was being implied, without any of the key words (giant, ranger, paladin, etc) being used. Plot wise, and paring it down, it feels like the story of an earnest kid and his friends finding a bunch of magic how-to books. Since I haven't seen any reference to prophesies or chosen ones, then I think the vaguely illicit nature of the way they acquire the power is worth keeping. It's such a quintessential "shortsighted late teen/college kid" thing to do -- anybody younger or older would likely have gone to an authority figure instead of going "Hmm! this is probably illegal and possibly could kill us, but also looks really cool. let's all read it!" Unfortunately, to me, most everything else could potentially be on the chopping block.

Welcome back! Like @Mandamon I'd completely forgotten the dwarf prologue was even part of this piece. "What is there for me here?" Is what A asks herself and it's also pretty much what I asked myself for this entire piece. While bucolic and well put together, I ended up skimming by the end of the first page because there was nothing to catch my interest. Very little is happening. There are some hints here and there, but not enough to keep me reading all the mundane parts in between. As @Curiosity's Splinter said, not every beginning has to be filled with blood and action, however readers still need some reason to become invested in the main character. Much of this submission has felt to me that it was at a remove, that the protagonist's reactions were muted and downplayed... it's like she doesn't allow herself to feel strong emotions. The scene that ends with her running off, that was getting there, but then she talks herself out of it with a nostalgic memory and a nap. If the main, POV character doesn't feel strongly about her surroundings, why should the readers? If the character does feel strongly, even if that feeling is conflicted, I think it needs to be portrayed as such. If she is just being oblivious, then like @Chuck Hossenlopp has suggested, making the portents she is denying much more obvious would give readers the "hook" necessary to keep going. Either way, readers need something.

Overall: I had some trouble with the basic premise for having the House exist at all. Like, it just doesn't make sense to me. I get that whole "who watches the watchers" thing, and I'm 'Merican enough to appreciate preparing for unknown unknowns and potential threats, it's just sounding very tinfoil hat to me at this point. The murder being total no-big-deal and basically an afterthought rubbed me a little wrong, too. It now reminds me less of a mystery and more of an action drama, which isn't bad (I like NCIS as much as anyone), but it's also not what I thought I was getting. I got kind of ranty in my fridge logic. Sorry! As I go: So his old master was house potential, but his new one is healing, and two-talents are still a see-krit, soo... nobody thought that was weird? Like now there's a random dude with a potential talent studying under a healing talent and apparently doing fine and nobody's thinking it's odd? Unless this is WRS and Mo is official potential too? but the way the sentence is set up, it sounds like Moo is officially healing, which, I mean, how often do masters bite it and then their students randomly switch talent houses afterwards that this is normal and not totally giving away the big two-talent see-krit? And i'm like a paragraph in and already feeling mixed up :/ I'm not sure I buy the "two talents good, three talents bad" line of thinking. Maybe it's because I haven't read the other novels, or it's the way two-talents are portrayed here, but it's never felt to me like having any number of talents would be inherently dangerous, or that somehow having two talents means having more physical power than someone with only one. Having a wider range of application for that power, sure, but more? Does having two (or three) talents somehow award the person more notes too, so they can totally automatically dominate anyone with fewer talents like it feels like it's being implied here? Also, going mad/insane does not equal going on a murderous rampage and killing everyone in an orgy of unstoppable magic-fueled destruction as he's implying here. That's kind of an awful stereotype, that insanity automatically means murderer. Also-also i'm wondering a bit how a three-talent two-year-old would be any different from a two-talent or any other kind of two year old, since it's implied earlier that secondary (or tertiary) talents can develop later in life (like our protag), which would presumably make them easier to control when they come in for the average adult wielder... Which makes me now wonder about detection, since they can apparently detect the three-talent disasters as toddlers anywhere in the worlds, but not the late-onset two-talents like the protag? Or was the "watching you for a long time" bit earlier implying that they CAN detect two-talents that young, which would presumably mean they can detect one-talents as well? And they're just withholding this ability from the general public... for reasons? Because they like to watch new mages suffer? "grind the Assembly underfoot" Again, why would they? Are two-talent mages twice as prone to conquering and destroying all of the known worlds as one-talent mages? They're one step closer to the three-talent cliff, after all. It would seem to me, that even if we allowed the three-talents-cause-instant-destructive-insanity idea, then why wouldn't the afflicted simply destroy themselves to make the insanity/pain/whatever stop? IRL people with mental disorders are more likely to be victims of violence than the cause of it.... I'm not thrilled with the reveal that this is like some see-krit CIA/homeland security department, but I'd feel better about it if they hadn't just gone through that whole rigmarole with the "evil three-talents coming to destroy us all" thing. I also feel a little like I've fallen for a bait-and-switch. I came in for a murder mystery and suddenly we're told that's not important and we're really in an episode of 24. Spy action/drama and murder procedural aren't quite the same things, though they both can start with a dead body and be entertaining. Maybe some of this feeling is WRS. I've had a week to consider it a mystery instead of a page-turn to chapter 2.

So, as I'm sure you well know by now, 7500 words is a lot to spring on people expecting a 5000 word piece. The usual etiquette is to either split the piece into smaller sections and submit over a couple weeks, or wait until there's a slow week in submissions and make sure everyone knows this one will be longer. I did end up skimming through a good portion of this, both because of the unexpected length and because this chapter 3 has the same issues that the previous two chapters had. I feel like those issues have been well covered and addressed in the previous feedback threads. The only thing additionally that stuck out here is the German. It's been a looong time since I've taken any German, but some of the phrases being used here sound slightly off to me. like.. "Zu viel passiert gerade jetzt" (too much happening right now) which is correct, but kinda really English-like? And my brain is telling me it'd be easier-in-German to say something like "gibt's zu viel jetz passieren" (give it too much now happening, or "there's too much going on right now" when you un-german the word order), but "zu viel" doesn't sound quite right either, and I can't cudgel my long-forgotten language skills enough to remember what the idiomatic equivalent for "too much" is anymore. I think? I always really liked German word order, but unfortunately I don't have too much real-world experience with it. I could ping a couple friends for a second opinion if you wanted. What I do remember though is that spoken german almost never uses a direct actiony verb when a passive helper verb and the infinitive tacked onto the end will work instead. At this point, and given what you've said about the rest of the novel, I'm wondering why the story can't just start with the artifacts already in the States? Just author fiat that the dig happened, the stuff was found, cataloged, and carted back for in-depth study, and Sam is sneaking his buddies in to the basement-offsite-storage-holding-facility-lab-whatever thingy to show off all the cool stuff he "found" while "helping" his prof at the dig. Being these guys, I'm sure stuff would get out of hand quickly, even in the relative safety of a uni storage warehouse-or-whatever. If this is where it starts to get good, this is where the book should begin. If something of the dig is needed, then, as normally against prologues as I am, a (very) short prologue with S at the dig wouldn't be horrible. You've been a real champ taking these hard crits from everyone and I look forward to reading this again once you've got it sorted out!

That's a better suggestion than mine, which was just: Sam's friends are all stupidly rich and since the dig is happening over a long break, they all decide to fly over to bother Sam on their own dime, and just, like, annoy him via Facetime until he's off the clock for the evening. Anyway, sorry for the lateness, but here's my feedback. I had a lot of feelings about this, but in the end, it was a struggle to finish. I had to walk away for about 4 hours and ended up skimming the last 3 or 4 pages. Most of the issues with this section are the same as the issues that were brought up with the previous section. I could really feel the characters excitement, that was conveyed very well, but unfortunately, I still barely could tell any of them apart and had little idea what it was they were so excited about. Again, the premise is interesting, the writing is clear and easy to digest, but the addition of a professor (?) whose sole purpose seems to be fawning all over his students doesn't help me differentiate anyone at all. The science and the set-up are unreal to me to the point of distraction. I had a difficult time figuring out what's going on, and the large amount of talking-head scenes didn't help me get a grip on the timeline, who was doing what, or even who was speaking sometimes. I'm disappointed, because I like urban/modern fantasy and I enjoy the heck out of "it's all true" sorts of pseudoscience, so it wouldn't take a whole lot to get me on board, and I want to be aboard. As I go -- I'm really not sure about this restatement-of-the-premise speech right at the beginning of chapter two here. Coming right after the one in ch1, where there was a speech very close to this one, it feels redundant to me. -- Were wolves ever a realistic threat to human civilization? At least, mere centuries ago? For certain dire values of wolves and certain prehistoric family group values of civilization maybe.... but ... -- I'm not sure the talking body parts really work. It's amusing, but I feel like it could be done in a way that doesn't attribute driect vocal speech to strange portions of anatomy. -- I am unsure what the inclusion of a creationist naysayer on a dig would bring to... any field research work, really. The validity of any "debate" engendered by creationist views might be a matter of opinion, but I doubt it belongs on a site whose primary purpose is to acquire data. The opining, analyzing, etc would happen back in the university I'd imagine and the debate would happen in academic journals i'd think. -- "speaks very highly of you" The professor is taking the recommendation of his grad student? This feels very odd to me. Like, if whathisname (I still can't tell them apart, sorry) was a medical resident and his doctor-in-charge agreed to let the kid's bowling buddies help on his rounds based on what the resident said about his friends, it would be very odd, wouldn't it? -- Discredited research, taking callow grad students' opinions over their own, and now claiming layperson-friendly language in a scholarly journal publication is a good and desirable thing (not to mention grad students getting anything other than a end-of-the-list-behind-et-al byline for their research, regardless of how much work they put into the report)... I am beginning to wonder if this is even a legitimate university, if professors like this are around and still getting paid field research grants... I've completely lost track of the plot at this point. I'm too busy questioning what is going on at all even. -- Like, i was under the impression that most western European nations had pretty stringent archaeological digging rules and regulations (maybe not as strict as say Egypt, but still), since their "young" cities often have a good couple centuries' worth of history underneath them (unlike here in the states, where half a century is storied and old). which makes me wonder what is actually going on here, if this is even a legitimate dig? It just seems so laissiez-faire about everything... -- Wait, they're not even archaeologists? Pre-med, engineering, and "catch bad guys" which i'm translating as criminal justice ... WHY are they on an archaeology dig again? I'm so confued -- A divining rod? That's one of those stories that go into #fieldworkFails, right? -- Can half-dug up artifacts even be dated in situ without the "heavy machinery" that's supposed to be arriving later in the week? especially with the amount of oddities going on around the rest of the site, I'd really question any field-diagnosis... -- Wait, run the DNA? how'd they do that without machinery at a field site? what is even going on here? -- Do women even exist in this world? Their lack, along with all the other weirdness makes me think that this might not be Earth? Did something happen to them? This is where I had to walk away. I don't have comments for the back 3 to 4 pages because I was struggling to finish. None of it was particularly bad or offensive to me, but my credulity had been stretched past and beyond the breaking point, even for lighthearted urban fantasy. Sorry.

Overall, I think it's a good start, and the mystery complicated nicely. I didn't get much of a sense of personality from the protagonist, though. He kind of felt like "average hero, whodunnit type" to me. Mostly, I felt like I was reading the story out of order. Everything felt jumbled up, like descriptions were mismatched with the plot points they were next to, and I didn't really get any feeling of tension or worry because of it. I also didn't really see anything belonging to Chekhov here besides the paper (which was mostly resolved), but I think that might be partially wrapped up in the confusion I felt. As I go -- "I was even adept at the process, for my age" and so humble, too! It's the "for my age" that's making me "oh really?" with a skeptical eyebrow. -- I sort of feel like I'm starting this in chapter about 4, because I haven't had much background or information on either the protagonist or the place where it's happening. -- I am really interested in this startup business it sounds like the protagonist is involved in. I feel like maybe the story would flow better if it was told from that position, like Murder She Wrote, where the investigator isn't really an investigator, instead of the way it seems to me right now, with the protagonist being an investigator first. -- Ah, pg3 has the beginning descriptions i was missing. -- Wait, why can't he go to the guard? I thought he was an investigator they'd asked in, like on Psych or Mentalist or Elementary. I feel like I'm reading this out of order and I'm getting very confused. -- Why are two-talent magic people a secret in a place that seems, from the bits I've read here on RE anyway, to be open and welcoming of new innovations in magic users? And the flavor quote at the beginning says double-talents are known and not impossible, so I'm slightly puzzled. I guess, if the group wants to be see-kret that's its prerogative, but it seems kind of silly... -- Wait, the double-talent is why he can't call the cops? I mean, dude's dead, so I guess that would mean there's something on or about his decomposing corpse that would tell people about double talents? And that being outed as a double talent is bad? Or, like, this secret society is a secret so poorly kept that investigation into any of its members would reveal it? And, also, like, revealing it would be super bad horrible? I'm confused. -- Wait the third, he's an Investigator, but not an investigator, and the police are bad because he's an Investigator and nobody's supposed to know he investigates? I've had to check what page I'm on, because I feel so much like I'm reading out of order. And, I mean, I have a weird tendency to read books back-to-front, page by page, so I'm really lost here. -- "where the list had been and, to some extent, where it had been" ...?? ??? -- If the society is secret simply because one guy's paranoid about everything, does that mean it's an open secret because everyone else thinks it's silly and doesn't try very hard? I mean, that's how things like that have gone in my experience, when it's just one person whose position prevents people from blowing him off entirely who is obsessed with something everyone else realizes is silly. That'd be a nice little joke if our POV protag doesn't know everyone else knows and just humors his old mentor and he can actually go to the authorities and just be like "We can't let Old Conspira-fogey know! Oh I'm so worried!" and they'll be all "Don't worry, kid, we got ya."

Overall -- E is an interesting character (with a couple caveats, that @kais covered very well), and with a couple chapters under my belt, I don't mind the POV switch. I enjoyed it, I dig mad science created creatures (especially with dinosaurs!), however, I'm left feeling like this is only the first half of something. I don't get a good sense of any resolution, and not much direction. It feels a bit like a character exercise to me. As i go: I like the "9 days earlier" label, I like relative times in general more than specific dates but that's just me. Combined with the highly detailed chapter header, though, they both do feel a bit redundant with each other. My suggestion would be to thin out the regular chapter header, maybe to just the location information, but @Asmodemon suggestion would work just as well too, probably. I like that E is so driven and assertive, but I personally find the sex-as-career-advancement trope distasteful in any context, so that dims my enthusiasm for her by a good amount. It's the scifi space future and they're still using exploding slave collars? Can they at least have nanomachines? Nanomachines are inherently cooler. It would even solve the problem of the "ones that lack necks." I am unsure either sharks or hyenas use heat to hunt (isn't that usually snakes?), but then again, I suppose if one is already making genetic abominations of science, they might as well add a few more minor traits from elsewhere into the mix... lol, thank you for mentioning they were movie raptors. The dinosaur nerd in me appreciates the distinction. The extra kill switch for the released creatures sounds slightly redundant with the slave collars (and could be obviated by nanomachines! ).

My suggestion would be to go back to your favorite characters from television or books. Go to the character's introduction and read/watch that intro with an eye towards figuring out what the script or story is doing to make you care for or sympathize with what's going on. In this case, it's less about what the character is doing than how the story is framing it. Do we-the-readers-or-viewers get a lot of emotion right away from the character, do we see them doing cool things, are they fighting with someone we cared about earlier? Do the camera angles or descriptive passages convey anything about your favorite character, their likes or dislikes, whether they're supposed to be "good" or "bad?" What makes you, personally, care about and feel closer to Cool Character and not That Other Guy?