Kuiper

Thanks very much for your feedback, everyone. There are definitely some things that will require significant revamp in revision, mostly stuff related to logistics which I definitely agree are problematic at certain points, especially in chapter 3 with the flooding sequence. There are also some things that I hoped people would pick up on that I will probably make more explicit in the rewrite. I apologize for not addressing all questions and points directly—I'm sort of trying to intentionally avoid addressing specific things right now, since I'd like to see people's feedback on each part without me interupting between chapters to explain/justify the world and its workings. The next installment is shaping up to be the last, so once I've submitted that, I'll be able to speak more candidly about my intent with certain sections and answer specific questions people have had. Hopefully the upcoming chapters themselves will also help to clarify certain things as well.

Here's the second installment of The Wasting Room, which consists of chapters 3 and 4. Your feedback is appreciated--what worked, what didn't, and what parts just didn't make sense. Brief summary of what has happened so far: In chapter 1, the unnamed protagonist uses his magical abilities as an air adept to eavesdrop on a meeting between two suspicious men, and becomes witness to a murder when one of the men double-crosses the other. In chapter 2, the protagonist meets with an information broker named Eril, and learns the identities of the men he saw earlier. The victim was a nobleman named Lord Rolondo, and the killer is Cole, a charismatic criminal who is new to the city. Protagonist requests that Eril arrange a meeting with Cole, under the pretense of recruiting Cole for a criminal operation.

@LerroyJenkins: Thanks for taking the time to read. I'll try to preserve the elements you enjoyed during subsequent revisions. @manaheim: No problem, PM me with your email address and I'll send a copy your way.

I'd like to submit the week of March 10.

On the first page, I was left with the question of how exactly Candace was able to identify the plainclothes cop as such. An explanation like "she was able to identify the cop because she is skilled at identifying cops" comes across as circular and doesn't really satisfy my curiosity. Something as simple as "The way he walked" would have sufficed to address this concern, but having no explanation left me a bit distracted by the lingering question. There are certain segments which are more "tell" than "show," and in these places it feels like the scene is really broken by extensive summary. An example: "...spoke with an air of familiarity to the girl behind it. Pleantries were entangled with a coffee order...He tahnked her with a smile, and a nice tip." Some degree of summary is okay. For example, "the cop ordered a coffee" without an explicit recounting of all the actions that implies is fine, as it succinctly communicates a point. However, when summary goes on and on, describing the rapport the cop has with the barista, that draws me out of the scene. If this information is really important in building up the cop as a character, then maybe it part of the scene, rather than summary. And if it's not really important, then condense it. As it is, it just feels verbose. During the officer's approach, I felt a dissonance in Candice's mental state/behavior. We get a picture of Candice being paranoid in a state of frenzied panic, trying to devise an escape plan on the fly, yet at the same time she comes across as very contemplative, observant, and sarcastic, based on the lengthy descriptions of the cop's behavior and features and her constant eye rolling. Minor annoyances: Candice rolls her eyes with distracting frequency. "Thirty second glance" seems like a contradiction in terms. I found myself enjoying the story significantly more after the encounter with the cop. Candice's decision to help the Italian lady and the ensuing exchange speak volumes louder about her character than most of her internal monologuing. Ditto for the sequence with her tipping the college age girl, wanting to be generous, but not give too much to avoid drawing attention to herself. I want to see Candice in action, because when she's engaging with the world around her and not just living inside her head, she really seems like an interesting and likable character.

@Mandamon: After reading the chapter with Eril again, I agree that there may be too much left to speculation regarding the protagonist's identity. My intention was to avoid giving the protagonist too much description since these details, for the most part, simply don't matter for the story I'm trying to tell. However, lack of information can also be distracting, and perhaps leaving the protagonist's gender up for question is going a bit too far. As a side note, the original draft of the story actually included Eril and the protagonist addressing each other by name, but after I decided that the nature of their relationship was such that they would probably be inclined to avoid addressing each other by name in a public setting. @Robinski: I agree that the dialog is a definite weak point, both in terms of the characters' language and diction choice seeming somewhat unwieldy (during the eavesdropping sequence) and the info dumps (during the meeting with Eril). As the story isn't yet complete, I'm still figuring out some of the characters, and there may be significant changes in character voice in subsequent draft. I'll definitely go over the portions you highlighted in detail during the revision process. For future stories, I'll consider writing a more substantial amount and then going back to revise for dialog and character building before I begin submitting. In this case, the first two chapters actually represent a fairly significant portion of the story (roughly 1/3 at the rate I'm writing) so I wanted to get feedback sooner rather than later about what was working and what wasn't. Based on your feedback, it sounds like I was able to do most of what I set out to achieve in the first couple chapters, so thanks very much for taking time to read and critique.

The Wasting Room is a story I'm currently working on, and at the pace I'm going I expect the final word count to put it in the novelette range. I've plotted and outlined the broad strokes of the story, but I'm still trying to get a feel for the pacing and characters while effectively building the world. I appreciate feedback on anything you find notable, good or bad.

I'd like to submit whenever a slot is available.

This began as a fantasy story, but partway through the revision process I decided to strip out the supernatural elements so I could focus more on the other elements of the story. In particular, I'd like to hear your remarks regarding the pacing of the story, as this was my focus throughout most of the revision process.

I'd like to submit next week.

If you're trying to classify this work, it feels like magical realism to me. Overall, interesting story idea, I had fun reading it. The opening is, on its own, effective at conveying an idea, but in the context of the story it seems out of place. Fundamentally, my view on storytelling is that it is about making and fulfilling promises. The content and themes implied by the opening aren't delivered, and the story that is delivered feels disconnected from the introduction. This is especially true in short fiction, where there is no room to have a setup in chapter 1 that will pay off in chapter 10. The opening of the story left me with lots of questions regarding the circumstances of Rick's death--who was killing him, and why? Why were the grisly details of his death so important? The graphic nature of Rick's horrifying end suggests that the torture he experienced was somehow significant, yet after reading the story I feel as though the story's central plot would not have changed at all if his death had been due to disease or accident. I don't feel that the story's main plot was serviced by this opening, and it seemed like it took a long time for us to get to the point. It wasn't until page 4 of 9 that I felt I had an understanding of what kind of story I was reading. I disliked the "happy" ending, which almost felt like a non-sequitor. We open with a young man who is pondering his own mutilated flesh, and end with children singing silly birthday songs. This is not in and of itself a problem, but there's no transition between the despair and happiness. We go directly from a mother lamenting the fact that she's failed to fulfill her son's dying wish, and then immediately we jump to her grinning as she eats chocolate cake. It doesn't feel like Sarah develops; she just suddenly transitions from "before" to "after" with not a word of explanation given in between. One thing that was a bit unclear to me is that Rick's after-death appearance is described as "as she’d last seen him." This doesn't really paint a picture in my mind, because I don't know what Rick looked like the last time his mother saw him. I presume that she saw him as a healthy-looking young man, just as he would have appeared on any ordinary day, but the possibility also crossed my mind that she might have been aware of some of the conditions of his disappearance and seen his rent flesh. I find it problematic to rely on description which eludes to events outside the scope of the narrative: I as a reader was never shown the last interaction between Sarah and Rick, and consequently cannot use this as a reference point. ==== I'm not sure how experienced you are with short fiction as a format, but I feel obliged to remark a bit on this since I have quite a bit of experience with writing short fiction, much moreso than longer fiction. (All of the writing classes I've taken have focused on short fiction exclusively, and I been in writing groups that focused on nothing but short fiction.) The first two pages of the story read like a prologue that might preceed a larger work. One of the fundamental reasons that longer-form fiction will sometimes begin with a scene that does not smoothly transition into the events that follow is that it is a promise of things to come. For example, if you are writing a 400-word fantasy epic filled with massive military campaigns, it is fair to begin with a prologue that focuses on the tactical perspective on the war, even your viewpoint character for the first few chapters of the book is an unassuming and reluctant footsoldier who does not underestand the conflict at a high level. The opening prologue is a promise of things to come. In short fiction, you don't really get to do this. A few thousand words is usually only enough space to convey one idea effectively, so the impression that I get from the opening of the story should be what carries me through to the end. Obviously, there are exceptions and effective ways to subvert this, but when an entire story is only 9 pages long, it is reasonable for me to expect to know what the story is about before I reach the end of the first page. I didn't feel like the opening "prologue" of your story justified its existence, mainly for the reasons explained at the beginning of this post. I hope you find this feedback to be useful. I enjoyed reading your story, and everything I've said is with the intent of helping you to identify things which may need improvement.