Appol PhD

Yeah I definitely think this helps characterization! I think it could be good to have more specifics on this even in this chapter, like if A means genuine armed resistance vs. smuggling people out, etc.

I think foreshadowing could be a solution, especially for plot elements, though I don't think foreshadowing alone is enough to make the scenes feel cohesive as part of a larger story (though I could be wrong about that depending on what the foreshadowing looks like). The way I think about it is that I don't really feel from the scenes like I know what the story is about, which makes it hard for the scenes to feel cohesive. Let's start with A wanting to take on the whole galaxy. Where does that come from? What makes her uniquely in a position to take on the galaxy that justifies the story's focus on her? If that's what the story wants to focus on, then the scenes need to tie into that. And honestly, I don't get a great sense of A wanting to take on the galaxy from the text. It feels more like she's been trying to survive with no concrete idea of how to leave or challenge the system. Hope that helps!

All right, time to get reading! Overall: I think the strongest part here is J using his curse as a power to retrieve the orb, since it uses a well-established narrative piece in a clever way with clear rules and limitations. The dynamic between A and J reads well enough, though I think there’s room to make it more distinct. Wanting a quiet, curse-free life together isn’t that specific as characterization. I think the story’s trying to connect it to A’s ideas around hope, but it doesn’t feel like the pieces are fully there. Though overall I think this scene is on the right track. I don’t think the dynamic is overshadowed by the action, and that instead the action is a good opportunity to bring out more of their characterization. Now the tricky part is to fully realize that opportunity. Pg 1-2. So far I think this balances action and character well Pg 3. The moment between them feels a bit out of the blue, and also not super character-specific -Okay I do like how it leads into A feeling helpless about her curse Pg 5. Is the dragon actually down? I don’t trust that Pg 7. New Ss appearing, even if it’s established they can do that, feels a bit arbitrary and makes the scene feel a bit less tight Pg 9. I’m not sure how much trouble J is actually in, since doesn’t he burn up every night anyways? I’m not sure how much more dangerous it is for him to be going into the dragon like this. Pg 10. Okay so we do get an explanation. Might be good to know that while it’s happening, or find some way for A’s narration to spin it so we know what to track.

This is going to be a broad answer and I touch on this in the next critique as well, but for me it's less an issue of one element and more that I need a bit more on how everything fits together. I don't dislike the characters, but I'm also not clear on what their dynamics mean for the larger story. There is stuff happening in the scenes and I wouldn't describe the pacing as necessarily being too slow, but I'm not sure why the story is choosing to focus on these particular scenes as being important enough to show us. Which makes it hard to know what the story needs, from orienting the story more around a few central ideas to establishing a tighter sense of cause and effect in the plot to having the characters feel like their stories expand our understanding of the world... but hopefully it's still helpful to hear.

And now onto the next one! Overall: It’s good that we get motion here, and the ship provides a good sense of mystery. Right now my main hangup is that I don’t get a good feeling for what the story is about or where it’s taking us. Good for the characters that they potentially escape their endless toil to escape on this ship and uncover its secrets, but I’m not sure how that connects to the larger ideas of the story. We have some broad strokes of worldbuilding dynamics such as how capitalism and religion keep the masses down and how people struggle to exist within those confines but I don’t have a great idea of what distinct angle the story is taking on these issues. It's the kind of thing that is hard to just go in and improve, but hopefully it's still helpful to hear. As I go: Pg 1. I think I need a bit more about these new characters for them to stand out Pg 3. It’s good to have this character conflict with T acting weird, but I’m not sure enough of what it means to be worried about her. I think my biggest hangup so far is that I don’t feel like I know what the story is really about, so it’s hard to see how this connects. Pg 6. This is another character moment where I’m not quite in-sync with the characters. The setup is good for exploring why A and R are willing to risk their lives by going through the field and I think I need more characterization on that. Pg 9. I’m glad to see that things are progressing, though it still feels like A and the others aren’t super active as characters. Not always a bad thing, but so far it feels like this works better if they have to execute a plan to get on here instead of stumbling upon it. Pg 11. Good to have interpersonal conflict here with the cleric though the characterization here still feels a bit simple so far. Pg 14-15. If they’re curious why the computer listens to them couldn’t they ask here? And it seems like they’d benefit from asking what the ship is and what happened to the previous inhabitants.

All right time to dig in! Overall: Similar thoughts to last submission. The good news is that it reads pretty well overall, and the contrast between the PoVs of labor and citizens continues to work well. I can have a hard time picturing what’s going on in a lot of sci-fi and I don’t have that problem as much here. Constructive comments are also similar. I don’t see any glaring errors, but there’s also not a lot hooking me in right now. The worldbuilding has some cool elements, but there’s also not anything that fully pulls me in and I don’t have a good sense of the overall plot/story. As I go: Pg 1-2. This does a good job helping us understand the setting a bit better, though I think I need a clearer idea of where the story is taking us in terms of the plot Pg 4-5. I like the idea of the priest trying to be a good person while still reinforcing power structures. Would be great to see more of that in specific plot situations Pg 6. Overall this first part reads pretty well but feels a bit nonessential. Not an infodump in a boring way but in a way where it feels like it’s here to give us more info rather than moving the story along. Pg 7-8. Similar thoughts here. Reads well with a clear focus but I think the story needs to do a bit more to justify why this is important. Pg 11. Good to get motion here since there’s been a lot of talking. I think my issue is that I’m still not feeling invested with what our PoV character is doing.

The suggestion isn't to tune him down, but rather to identify the story dynamic that isn't generic and make that the focus after the creep is established. Good to hear the context, though for me knowing this doesn't really change my comment. If homophobia is going to be a focus, it's good for the story to delve into specific reasons and mechanisms why. If the story doesn't want to go into that, then the homophobia can still be mentioned but is probably better as a background detail we're not supposed to focus on. I did get a lot of this, and my comment is about once this is established there's not a lot else I get from what the story is showing us. Maybe it's a matter of trimming down the length and streamlining the plan? Or another thought experiment is considering how much of the plan we actually need to know right now. And I hope this goes without saying, but while I'm happy to clarify my comments you absolutely don't have to address or take all of them if you think they're not helpful for the story.

I think once it's clear who he is, there doesn't need to be much focus on him. I'd suggest identifying the dynamic with complexity that we're supposed to care about and focus the details on that instead. Yeah, I agree that the future doesn't necessarily mean queerness is normalized, though if the story's going down that route I think it could benefit from specific insights into how things ended up this way. I'm not going to argue with the accuracy of religions thriving on scapegoating, but it's also pretty broad and doesn't help this setting stand out. How does this specific religion arrive at scapegoating queerness? No physical altercations needed. I think what I'm feeling is that a plan developing isn't the same thing as a story dynamic. What's the major conflict I should be tracking here, and how is it developing? Answering those questions could help the story feel less stagnant here.

All right, time to dig in! Overall: From what we’ve talked about I can see the potential for the pieces to line up, and I think a lot of the larger ideas focused on here like A’s apathy and S’s musing about life actually having meaning are good for the story. Right now I think the biggest issue is that the character arcs don’t feel super tight, so right now it doesn’t feel like these moments are all important for the larger story. Especially for slower scenes (and I do think it makes sense to have some quieter calm before the storm scenes here), the story needs to justify why we’re getting this now and how it informs the larger story as a whole. For example, right now J’s backstory doesn’t feel necessary for understanding A’s arc, and it also doesn’t feel like it has a lot of specific insight into that arc. Imo tightening things up in this way is the hardest part of writing, but I do think a lot of the pieces are there in this case. As I go: Pg 1. I don’t think the musing here quite works for me because it feels a bit stagnant Pg 3. I see why S is reflecting on this stuff but I think we need more of a defined arc. Right now there’s not a lot of stakes to what S’s internality settles on. Pg 5. I think we need more to S’s dynamic with J for this goodwill to feel compelling Pg 7. Similar comments to the above so far. I see why it’s important for A and S to butt heads here but it doesn’t feel like the outcome of this matters much for the immediate story. Pg 9. A bit of backstory exposition for J here is okay, but it feels like a bit much when I’m not sure why this matters for the story Pg 10. This does raise questions about how sexuality in general is treated in this world. Given that the tongue and cheek narration is perfectly capable of addressing it directly, it feels like we should know more about this before now

It coming up early on about C sounds vaguely familiar, actually. I think for it to avoid being unoriginal the story needs to find something new to say about the situation, though like I mentioned my bigger issue is that right now I don't feel like it slots in thematically to expand our understanding of the story. To me the main thematic throughline I get is that extreme pessimism and extreme optimism are two sides of the same coin that are used to brush aside the reality of suffering. I think there's a potential connection the Omelas thing can make to that, but so far the story hasn't done the groundwork (or maybe it's supposed to slot in a different way that I'm not seeing).

Overall: I think the sex at the end is fine, though it’s a bit nonspecific. I feel like a dark witch could come up with something a bit more unique even if it still involves sex (I read a lot of sex scenes in romance novels and as an ace person I find most of them horribly basic and uninteresting). I think the general beats here work, though I’m not getting a big sense of the building tension like I think the story wants me to. I think we could use more specifics on the plan here and how it connects to the specific situations and characters at play, or maybe just increase the pace by trimming some of this down and moving into the next phase more quickly. I think part of the issue too is that the Omelas thing doesn't feel super integrated into the tone of the world so it feels a bit like a moral gotcha to explain why PU is actually bad. The one part I like is how B uses it to poke at centrist "wisdom" so that's an option for making it feel more connected to the satirical tone the story takes at points. As I go: Pg 1-3. There are a lot of technical details here that I feel like could be cut down a bit, since for the most part the story isn’t really about this practical problem solving Pg 4. I believe you’ve mentioned Omelas before (in author’s notes, not directly in the story), but this does feel a little on the nose especially as a revelation so late in that’s revealed without the characters working for it Pg 5-6. I’m not super engaged by the grappling with Omelas conflict here because it feel a bit disconnected from the story. The idea of the collective benefiting from individual suffering isn’t really something that has been used to make important plot/character decisions. Pg 8. I like the idea of the aesthetics tying into magic for plot reveals, but this also feels a bit disconnected from the story right now. Pg 9-11. I think we need more specifics on what L is doing and the progress she’s making. Right now this reads as mostly exposition. Pg 13-14. It’s good that they have an actual plan, since it felt like they lacked that before. I’d like to see more specifics though since the conversation still meanders more than probably necessary.

Congrats on your first submission! It can be pretty daunting (definitely was for me), but it’s helped me a lot and I hope it will do the same for you! Oh, and in case you aren’t aware we generally advise to send out submissions through email instead of posting them on the site, since anyone could download and steal your writing from the site. There should be instructions on the introduction thread for how to do that. Overall: I’m happy to say that this reads well overall, and this is coming from someone who has an issue with even a lot of published sci-fi because I can’t get picture what’s going on. I think the strongest part of this submission is how the two chapters complement each other, showing the people who have nothing before going into the schemes of the powerful for contrast. There weren’t any super major flaws in these scenes, but if I have one critique I’d say it’s that the individual scenes don’t have a lot of complexity and don’t move that much. In the first chapter it focuses on the creep being creepy which we get an idea of very quickly without a lot of push and pull for what the protagonists actually want. The second scene reads a bit better in this regard because the masculinity and capitalism are clearly satirical so it’s acceptable for it to be a bit more over the top, though I still feel like the conversation ends up feeling like a lot of exposition without a lot of pieces moving. As I go: Pg 1. A bit of a nitpick is that I usually see it recommended to not start in dialogue because it’s jarring to zoom out and set the scene afterwards. Pg 4-5. There’s some good stuff here, and I like that we have a clear idea of what a fail state looks like (panic attack), but this should definitely have a content warning for sexual assault Pg 6. Working with a creep to get something they want is a good conflict, but because there’s not a lot of character complexity in the guy it feels like it’s running its course quickly. By this point I’m more than ready to be done. Pg 8-9. Is the same-sex thing worse if it’s just assault, or generally sexual? It feels like the pacing falters for the story to bring it up here. Pg 14. I like the tone shift from the last chapter to this one, though by this point it feels like the momentum’s falling off a bit.

Thanks for the feedback! The idea is that it's going to be separate from the actual novel but tie into it, so ideally it both stands on its own and could hook someone into reading A Bond of Wildflowers.

Excited to dig in! Overall: I get pretty prescriptive in LBLs here; as always these are more there to get an idea of how I’m picturing the story than saying that this is the best way to revise. I think the thematic dynamics here are executed well, with most of my wanting PU to have more to grapple with earlier on wanting something like this. We have enough info to put together pieces of how the chorus relates to S, but there’s a lot of room for more specifics to be revealed down the line. I don't think this has to be established upfront, but I think that doing so is one of the easier ways that PU could appear more connected to the conflict right away. It does feel like she’s going along with the plan too willingly here. My issue is less that it doesn’t make sense and more that it simplifies her emotional state even though we know it’s not good for her to be clinging onto T like this. It feels a bit strange for her to have reservations throughout the conversation but none in the actual agreement to the plan. As a thought experiment, is there a reason why A can't look for the orb while not yet knowing what she'll do with it? That keeps the tension around what she'll choose active. There are a couple of minor points that I think could be tightened up on a plot level as well. The emotions discussed here are good, but I’m not sure why A and T share their secrets so openly (T especially, as much as I like them admitting to being a hivemind) when it doesn’t feel like there’s a clear reason to. It’s a minor complaint, but one that I think could help the story flow more naturally. As I go: Pg 1. This reads well, though I think there’s room to hit a bit harder by including things more specific to her character. Maybe this is the time to bring in her fixation on pain as something to make her improve and how this makes it feel meaningless instead? Pg 2. Fun reveal about L’s motivations. I think waiting this long to reveal this is fine, though getting a sense that S is a piece in L’s plans early on could contextualize it earlier without giving this away. -I like A calling the prophecy an ass-pull. I think this story is at its best where it appears chaotic to the characters but does have internal logic, and this does a good job highlighting that in a way that feels better than when stories poke fun at their own weaknesses. Pg 3. I think we need a bit more for A’s apathy to feel compelling (a difficult task in any story). This is a big blow to A’s worldview, but it feels like we’re arriving at “nothing matters” rather quickly. Pg 4. Why is A going out of her way to confide in T here? I think the story needs to do a bit more work for this to feel like her natural choice instead of what the plot needs her to do. Pg 5. I like awesomesauce layer, and I don’t think we need A to explain that it sounds fake on the next page. I'm used to mixing big stakes with goofiness in this story and I think it works well overall. Pg 7. I like T admitting to being a hivemind. Gives the opportunity for A to make more complicated decisions. Pg 9. I’m starting to see the pieces about how T’s view of the world as good and S’s view of the world as evil are equal and opposite, with neither being desirable. I think this is a great theme to focus on and should be present from the very beginning through the narration, even if the plot itself doesn’t change. Pg 10. I like the idea of T taking advantage of A by being her last vestige of hope, but this choice feels a little fast.

Thanks for the feedback across the whole book! It does help me to bring this up whenever you see it--usually with dialogue I focus on what it does for the story first and foremost rather than how it sounds (or in another way, my goal is to make none of it feel pointless more than than making all of it sound natural in the first draft), so it's good to see the points where I need to take another look at the phrasing.

Additional content warning for abusive relationships. Hi everyone, This is a prequel short story for my YA paranormal romance novel A Bond of Wildflowers. It follows the perspective of the love interest a few months before the novel, since he has more going on in the background at this point than the protagonist. I tried to balance it so it both feels like a cohesive story while also acting as a hook to A Bond of Wildflowers without revealing too many of the twists in the novel, which is a tricky thing to balance. For readers who have read A Bond of Wildflowers, I'd love to hear if this feels like a proper tie-in. Thanks!

I'll have a slot for Monday please!

I have finally decided to give feedback before Sunday lol. Overall: Lots of LBLs compared to my usual, but today that’s a good sign. I think this section reads quite well overall, and my main comment is just that character arcs are good but could be specific and precise in the story explaining how they’re progressing. For example, S gaining more respect for A after seeing her pain is good, but it also feels a bit nonspecific to S’s character because it’s how a lot of people would naturally react. Honing into a particular aspect of that could help the moment stand out. As for the prophecy, I think it works well for the reasons it was intended to. I think tying the brutality of it back to the humorous tone like we get a lot of early on also helps it feel consistent even though it's a new concept. As I go: Pg 1. I see the attempt to have S understand A better which I think is good, though we might need more specific reasoning from S than it seeing A in pain. Pg 2. I’m assuming that the A’s fear of being disabled is a her thing and not a perspective the story wants us to think is ideal, but I think we need more on that point to understand how we should be reading around her. Pg 3. Similar comments as page 1. It’s good that A is getting development, and it generally works well, but I think it could be even better if we get more specific reasons for why her perspective is shifting. Pg 4. This is a good discussion that orients S’s and A’s changing worldviews around a real issue, which is what I thought was missing from the bet section. That being said, the way S talks about pain and illness reads a bit modern to me, especially “chronic illness” (idk if that’s actually more common to say in modern day but that’s what I associate it with). Pg 5. I like S pointing out what J’s been doing. From J’s characterization it’s not something that he’s going to do himself, so S is really the only one who can stand up for him. That’s the sort of specificity I was talking about on pages 1 and 3. Pg 7. Even if S doesn’t know, I think we need a bit more on what specifically is triggering this change. Though maybe this clears itself up if the earlier chapters are tightened up and we know how to read around S at this point. -I do like the idea that L had a specific reason to think this would happen, since it makes the risk she took feel less callous. I think this is something we could use earlier (not necessarily the reason L feels this way but the general understanding that she has a plan beyond blindly hoping S reforms). Pg 8. This might just be my personal ideology leaking in but I feel like the idea of doing good things making up for mass murder is kind of an awkward sell because it raises a bunch of questions about how to actually make up for something so terrible. Usually I feel like it’s cleaner to go with the idea that doing good now is all that can be done. Though based on A’s response I’m also not sure if the story wants us to agree with S, so maybe it’s down to how the story wants to orient us. Pg 11. Random thing about Li with the warmongering comment—the entire book she hasn’t really read as someone with actual experience with war/conquest. -I know S set it up this way but I’m not sure if I like A’s thoughts interjecting here. As is I think this reads better as a straight flashback that A can process afterwards. Pg 13. I do like the humor here. I think the story reads best when it finds way to incorporate humor into the conflict like this. Pg 15. Li making fun of Le here is hilarious and got a laugh out of me (and I almost never laugh out loud while reading). The way Li clearly doesn't care about Le and is just using it to angst dump about her own mom is what really ties it together for me. More of it carrying into pg 16 where she delivers the prophecy could maybe help explain why Li’s being as harsh as she is, since right now the harshness feels a bit pointless and undirected.

Hi everyone, Here we have the last submission for Labyrinth of Birdcages. As previously mentioned, it's pretty much all denouement after the climax last submission. Thanks for sticking with this draft to the end!

Hi @Silk I'll take a slot for tomorrow please!

Excited to dig in! Overall: There are a lot of good pieces here, and I think using this fight to explore A’s and S’s outlooks on the world reads a lot better to me than the bets because it ties their opinions to important snap decisions. As I comment on every week, I think some of the stuff around this in earlier could be restructured, but I really do like the core idea of using the dragon fight as a vehicle for developing the dynamic between A and S and their outlooks. That being said, there were a couple things in this section I’d take a look at: -The side characters don’t feel like they add much here. Right now, I think this section reads better if they’re not here at all and we just focus on A and S. This is also my feeling about passages that are straight action with no characterization, though we don’t get a ton of this and I’m willing to accept a bit of that as a necessary evil for a fight scene. -Music as magic ends up feeling a bit flimsy since it’s tied to A’s performance and how it gets across rather than figuring out a more specific solution to the problem. I like the feel of it, but I think it needs to be tied to A’s specific decisions (such as figuring out how to work around well-defined limitations) to feel like an actual plan. As I go: Pg 1. The 2nd person here reads pretty well despite not being present throughout the novel. The distance makes A’s shock clearer Pg 3. I like that we’re seeing S and A’s dynamic shift, but there’s still conflict based on how they look at the world Pg 5. This still reads fine but at this point my engagement is starting to dip a bit. I’m reading this story for A and S, so the other characters and dragon on their own don’t hold my interest as well Pg 6. The talk here interests me a bit more though. I think there’s a good story here about how this connects to A’s worldview but I don’t think all of the pieces in earlier chapters are quite in place. Pg 9-10. This reads pretty well too. I was worried about the fight dragging on but so far I like the characterization we’ve gotten from S and A because of it. Pg 14. A tricky thing about it is that whether or not the performance works feels a little arbitrary, being based on whether or not this one dragon is moved by song -Huh okay why is the dream skeleton here? Feels like this needs more setup Pg 17. Feels like S saying they’re wrong happens pretty abruptly right after starting to show A some goodwill

Additional content warning for torture. Sorry for the late submission! This is the big climax, with the last submission coming up being resolution. I think this section has the same problem a lot of these arcs do where it feels like the character wins by just kind of deciding to and the mind world accommodating that, and in addition I'm wondering if this section in particular should be longer to feel like more of a struggle. Beyond that, any and all comments are helpful as always. Thanks!

I'll have a slot for Monday please!

I’m glad you didn’t wait for me to critique the last one before submitting this. If I ever fall behind I’ll be planning to catch up quickly. Overall: I like the dynamic of dragon S feeling the connectedness of everything and still trying to destroy the world, and A not being able to handle that same sensation being what stops her from succeeding. However, the parts before that comes in didn’t feel that distinct or connected to the larger story—I find fight scenes tricky because they have to stand out within the story that contains them, and I don’t think this one had much to take away from until the connectedness is brought up. Beyond that, we’ve DMed about how the larger arc around S and A’s views around the world could be overhauled, and I think doing so will let this scene stand out a bit more. Essentially, I think what’s here around dragon S’s viewpoints and the connectedness A feels from the orb is a solid starting point to work around. As I go: Pg 1. Part of the reason I’m not totally on board with A putting the question of PU on hold is that the dragon threat doesn’t seem especially pressing, and we don’t get callbacks to her motivation of focusing on it. Pg 2-3. I still feel like I have a tricky time understanding what is and isn’t possible with magic in this world Pg 5-6. I think some exposition in the dialogue here is fine, but right now it doesn’t feel like the dragon has a strong reason for talking with the party like this. Pg 7. All right we get the motivation here. Maybe leading with this could help? Pg 9-10. I don’t have a hook to be engaged with what GS is doing, so his beef with A mucking up the fight isn’t the most engaging to me Pg 13-14. I think A’s emotions have potential to flesh out this fight, but they’re coming in pretty late into the game.

Time to finally get around to this! Overall: I think the broad strokes of this chapter are a bit better than the last section of debate because they’re connected to a big revelation with big implications. My main comment is that on a line by line level while the writing is fine, the storytelling seems to bounce around a lot without internal logic that I could follow. Also, we chatted a bit about there being more engaging ways to handle the reveals around PU, which I think is still true. But if there is going to be a discussion around good vs. evil, the way S and A view PU is a good way to do it because of how relevant it is to how the world ends up. Pg 1-2. I think A’s angst here reads pretty well, but it’s hard to be engaged with both that and the plot around the mercs at the same time. Pg 3. Did we know L was heading here? Feels like she’s popping up out of nowhere. Pg 4. Similar thoughts here. A’s questions and B’s questions feel a bit disconnected from each other, so it doesn’t feel like the story is being controlled about it. Pg 5. We talked about this a bit over DMs, but PU being a hivemind is a pretty big thing to drop out of nowhere. Pg 7. This is a bit more engaging of a debate about good vs evil because it’s connected to something more tangible.