Mandamon

I think this chapter gave some good information, but there are some specifics with the disease I don't quite get yet. I'm also not really sure about the A's choice to basically commit suicide? Like, why are they sabotaging the one place where they're still safe? Do the others have any idea of where they would go instead, especially since the other species seem to be carrying the disease? However, this was a better intro for Ar. than the first one I read. Notes while reading: pg 1: "It was like going glare blind on the ice" --nice analogy pg 1: "left the S struggling to catch up to the other young Kinds." --Which begs the question of why the S are the ones to care for the A. pg 2: "Idiots trying to break out of Quarantine was enough stress, thank you." --indeed! pg 2: "wrapped around his arms and neck" --is A "they" or "him?" --"made them easy to spot" --ah. "Them." pg 3: “That was easy, anything else?” --D wasn't actually looking for help when they got there, just looking for A. pg 3: "The Artist" --Is this the other A with Ar? First it sounds like D doesn't know them, then it sounds like they do. pg 3: "But it was too strange a sight for their hosts" --Also, this seems a bit weird for a collection of alien species. They're put off by a lot of fingers, but not by silicon life forms? pg 3: "approached the bench, eye level for once" --who is sitting and why does that make them eye level? Is D very short? pg 4: "wiping out the A home world only a day after colonies fifty worlds away" --one, I'm glad it's called out that this travels faster than it should and two, why does it arriving on the S homeworld matter (or any other world, for that matter) since it only affects A's? pg 4: "so far out as to not have been affected" --except it was just mentioned that the disease travels faster than light, so why would it have not affected farther colonies either? pg 5: "but at least now we can move forward" --did something change? pg 6: "It doesn't surprise me that YOUR students would use it though." --D has students? I'm surprised any stay around them that long... pg 6: "Not alone, and there's no like minds to buffer for me." --good detail pg 7: the middle part of this page is hard to follow. I think it's a retrospection on what the two had been doing, but it sort of drifts in and out of it without much signal. pg 7: "since every S carried the Z" --ah, so the other species carry it, but just don't suffer from it. "to be involved in finding a vaccine" --yeah, doesn't seem like a great idea if they're not actively working on it. pg 8: "Next time if F wanted something broken, they were going to have to work for it." --I'm not quite sure what they're doing. Are they fixing something? Making it harder to break? How will this stop the others?

Similar thoughts to the others. I though the poem was good, but missed some connections between the beginning and the end. I think the first two paragraphs can be deleted or incorporated elsewhere. The prologue...didn't really do anything for me. It had a lot of things happening, but I didn't know why or what the stakes were, or even who the people were. It could probably be cut easily to get to the inciting incident for the story. Seashell: "All the shell does is act as a wall" --I think this sentence could be condensed for clarity, to something like, "A shell only acts as a wall." --in fact, that whole paragraph (stanza? I'm not good at poems) seems like it doesn't convey much. Sometimes this thing happens. Sometimes it doesn't. "I was very young when my grandmother became a seashell" --This seems like a much more effective opening to the poem. --Yes, you repeat this sentiment at the end, so it should also be at the beginning. "becoming little more than an eho board" --echo? I like the metaphor with the grandmother and Alzheimer's and the seashell. It's a good analogy. I think the first two stanzas can be deleted and some of the lines can be shortened just a little for word choice. Blue and Orange: Interesting first paragraph "millenia-old logs" --wondering what these are... "They arrived and settled into their places in the circle" --I assume she got where she was going then? "She sat proudly at the head of the council circle." --okay, so she's at the council now. "let her claws slide out an inch" --interesting. She has claws and wings? "scrape the ice below" --below what? "tail-switching" --and tails. Who/what are these people? "the gift of breathing fire" --are they...dragons? So, the prologue is interesting, but it doesn't really tell us anything. I don't even know who these people are, or why they're meeting. We don't know how many people are at the council, or if they are all the same or not. So I have to say this doesn't really give us any information and doesn't draw me into whatever the book will be about.

Overall, this was a good chapter in the center of all the action! Things happened! I still have some reservations about how big the revolutionary group is and why they think the BK is doing a bad job. There's also some confusion over who the BK is fighting. Is it C? Is it the revolutionaries? Have they joined forces? I don't mind the POV switches as much, but yes, I'll also agree that W's POV is the weakest of the three. Good to know some more backstory about him though. Note while reading: pg 1: "imitation of the Fey legends" --Fey dress in all black? pg 1: "Sweat dripping down" -> "Sweat dripped down" pg 1: "They both knew that if O went out again, that the arriving air navy would catch her." --has she gone out before? Did the Navy recognize a certain dragon? How is she marked? pg 2: "Yet, there were no bodies lying on the dock. The city guard was not so inaccurate." --Not so accurate because there were no bodies? Or not so inaccurate--compared to...what? pg 2: "The drills the Revolutionaries beat into her seemed to slip away like water." --I guess they didn't beat them in enough, then. pg 3: "forcing them to raise shields." --this sounds like they're on the Enterprise. Maybe "raise their shields?" pg 3: “They’re Pem-ans.” --I think this is a really good comment, especially to contrast the reasonable thinking about what they want in a government, above. It shows they're still pretty close-minded about countries and how they should work together. pg 4: "the barking masses of two M. soldiers" --are they dog therios? What masses? pg 4: "Why had the soldiers not killed them? Why the nets? Why the chains? Surely the protests would be enough to fill the jails?" --really? She's concerned that the occupying force isn't killing her fellow citizens? Basically, this just cements the democratic revolutionary as worse off for people than the monarch. pg 6: "Intimidation tactics saved lives on both sides." --and the monarchy is already showing they're better at this than the revolutionaries. pg 7: "The direwolf runt and unicorn half-breed had found answers in each other even though life had separated them soon after. When W, broken, lost, grieving, heard of a black unicorn..." --okay, now I want a W/B.K. side story. pg 8: "The people of Bor." --wait, I thought they were Pems? Still very confused on this. pg 10: "Triangles for the air force. Squares for the army. Circles for the navy." --is this all for the revolutionaries? How big is this? I didn't there were that many of them. --Or is this an attack by Cr.? pg 10: "“Wasn’t your name-knower supposed to prevent this?” --what could she have done? She hasn't been placed anywhere where she might do some good yet. pg 11: "“His vision for this country may seem like insanity" --It's seemed pretty practical to me so far... pg 11: "had sent out a pecker formation" --this seems...humorously named... pg 13: "the general’s brilliant battle plans that had forced P. to surrender. That brought B. into the slavery it was in now." --Okay, so here P. and B. are both in the same sentence and I still don't know which each signifies. pg 14: "There was only one obstacle, and he was mortal." --Weren't they already planning to kill the BK?

I thought the grumpy engineer was actually pretty spot on. Often just saying someone is doing something technical is a good way to convey that. More detail just means there's more for people to pick apart, so sometimes, less is more.

Ok, so this is me trying to show-not-tell a kinda complicated concept. There are only seven "stars" visible from Ix, four of which are actually planets, so the three stars are more likely to appear at this time of year, and are more likely to be visible through the night. Is there a better way to describe this? I think you could tell this a little more plainly, because it is a complicated concept. The characters aren't used to thousands of stars, so they aren't going to have a reference to how we view the sky. You could say something like "all three stars were out tonight," which gets across the strangeness and also doesn't seem too out of place for this planet.

Two pretty good chapters, though I think they could probably be combined into one. I agree with @ima willshaper on the "flip-flop" part. I didn't mark it down, but it was kind of annoying. I'll also agree with @Sarah B that the ending to Ch 5 is pretty anticlimactic. I'm expecting A and S will do something cool together since they're both telekinetics now, but maybe they could put up a little resistance here? Notes while reading: pg 1: "his brother was alive" --did his family think he was dead? pg 1: "It had been three years" --repetition pg 1: "A chuckled, running his hand through his short, black hair." --wasn't A all nervous about meeting his family again last chapter? Not a lot to comment on, but a pretty good scene. We find out why A is apprehensive, though I think it could be made clearer earlier that it's just his father he's nervous about meeting, not the whole family. Ch 5 pg 2: "That was the minimum, if the stars decided to appear at all." --not sure what this means. That they're only considered stars if three or more appear? Or that at least three stars came out at once? pg 2: Not a lot happening in this chapter so far. Some good retrospection from A on the first page, but I feel like we've gotten this information about the army before. pg 3: Good that S and A are meeting up, but we also know this information already, so it's not really progressing the plot. Most everything in this chapter is on pgs 4-6. I wonder if this could be a brief interlude at the end of the last chapter, to make the sequel to that scene.

@TKWade: Glad things are starting to go better. As to writing, I'm fond of Howard Tayler's BICHOK: Butt in Chair, Hands on Keyboard. You might try setting a timer for 10 minutes and not letting yourself stop typing until it goes off. Or you could try NaNoWriMo this year, but if the wordcount is daunting, do a lower wordcount every day. You'll notice I haven't said anything about what to write! The main thing is to get in the habit. You could even write out what happened that day. But if you're trying to write a story, don't worry about where it's going or whether the plot works. Just write every day and see how it comes out. Then if you get a bunch of chapters and want to submit something, you can take a look back over what you wrote and see if it makes sense or where you need to tweak it. Personally, I have at least 60% of a book done before I submit anything here. That lets me figure out from early comments if it's going in the right direction, because I have more story to compare against. Don't know if this helps or not, but it helps me out.

This was certainly a lot easier to follow than the first time around. We have some better description about why the Z is dangerous to D's species, though I could use a little more description to up the danger. I also appreciate that we get better explanation of why D thinks differently than the rest of their species. There could be a little more explanation of why the general is so suicidal to sink the hook fully at the end of the chapter, but it still makes me want to read on. There were several pronoun slips at the beginning and a couple strange sentences here and there. I'm sure they'll get ironed out in later edits. Notes while reading: pg 2: "D was not a standard A. " --except he is physically, right? He's just got a different personality from most of his species. pg 2: "A thin white shirt and pants the only protection" --"pants was their" pg 2: "when he put it on." -> they pg 3: "D twisted his neck" -> their pg 3: "brushed his exposed left" -> their pg 3: "warnings at him." -> them pg 4: "D laid his left palm" -> their pg 4: "Which saying wasn’t much." -> "Which wasn’t saying much." pg 4: "Did it get in?” --is the disease dangerous to non-A's? pg 6: "bulk and claw tipped hands" --bulky? pg 6: "last surviving one" --one what? political? pg 7: "had nearly forgotten being" --forgotten about being? pg 10: "giving in the to impulse" -> "giving in to the impulse "

First off, welcome to Reading Excuses, and congrats on putting this out there! As you can see from the responses so far, we don't pull any punches, but don't get disheartened! I'm amazed at how much this forum has helped my writing over the years. Alright...down to business. As usual, I think @kais has the right of it. There isn't a whole lot of meat to this chapter and a lot of it is an infodump. It's very much traditional fantasy, so I'm looking for things that make this stand out. Finding a special blade that talks is a good first chapter hook, but I think we need to get there a lot faster and still know why it's so special. I think the general concept is there, and I really enjoyed O and M's bickering, but I think you could cut a lot of the rest of it to get to the point faster. I'll be a counter-point to this that I really enjoyed the sister's descriptions. It was the only deep characterization in the chapter and it's a good trope-subverter for this type of word and sorcery fantasy. The word 'lechery' was strong but I assumed it would be subverted later when we got more into her character. So as a lesbian who is an avid reader of lesbian SFF, I really enjoyed this. I could change my mind later if the character remains two dimensional, but right now I found it refreshing and it is the one thing that would keep me reading into the next chapter. Which is a good demonstration that queer people aren't a monolith so do your best, and get a sensitivity reader or three if you want to publish. On the LGBTQ aspect, I generally agree with @kais. I liked that there was some content, and wasn't really bothered that M was pretty aggressive. It kept me interested when most of the other stuff didn't. I will agree that "lechery" was probably not a good word to use, though. Definitely keep the character aspect in, even if it needs to be tweaked a bit. Also, halloo to a fellow bi, @ginger_reckoning! Dialogue is...choppy at best, as is the sentence structure. Saying what you write out loud is a great way to hear how someone else would read it and hearing any awkward parts. There are a lot of places where you can combine two or three short sentences to make one more impactful sentence. Anyway, interested to see where this goes! It reminds me a lot of Saberhagen's Lost Sword series so far. Notes while reading: pg 1: "V was upset." --There are several statements through the first few paragraphs like this. It's just a straight tell, and it would be much more effective to show us that V is upset, which might give some character for him as well. pg 1: third paragraph is just hero description. I don't care about that yet because nothing has happened yet. pg 2: Still nothing happening yet. Just a lot of description of V doing forms. pg 4: " He thought again about that woman. He had an uneasy feeling about that one. " --there are multiple sentences like this than can be combined and shortened. The first sentence doesn't actually do anything it could be completely deleted and move "that woman" to the second sentence. pg 5: ""Oh but I made sure that the daughter was..." -- +1 for LGBTQ content! pg 6: still nothing really happening yet. You could probably start with V finding the siblings and cut the first few pages. pg 6: "a time called the Age of Relics by some. The Lost Age by others" --legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the age that gave it birth comes again... ;-) pg 7: This story is turning into an infodump... pg 8: "You guys aren't getting too chummy now, are you?" --where did this come from? V and M just exchanged a few words. pg 8: "I need to get back home for Thirds." --I thought they came here to eat? pg 8: "I can't even with you guys." --pretty anachronistic compared with the rest of the dialogue pg 9: "What does she want with me? I don't know who she is. I don't know anything about her. I need to know more. " --thoughts like this should be in italics. pg 9: "His father was already finishing up fixing the meal as he entered the kitchen. --wait, what about the woman? Was she in his house? Why did he just ignore her? pg 10: most of this dialogue is a rehash of what's already happened. pg 12: "He looked over to where his father slept. Except. He was not there." "But there was no time. Not right now. --I don't have any sense of urgency here. Seems much more important to see why his father is missing. pg 12: "But he couldn't shake the feeling that there was danger out there in the dark night" --this sounds like he's starting out on some quest. He's just going for a walk. pg 14: "There was never supposed to be a Blade." --supposed to...where? Under a tree? I thought this was from a dream?

Overall, I'm not really sure what the first chapter does. You can see my notes below, but I think it can really be summed up in a couple paragraphs. The second chapter has some good emotion, but we don't get any reason for A's reticence to come home and it makes reading the chapter frustrating. I keep looking for the big revelation, but then everything's fine when he meets family members. Notes while reading: Chapter 2 pg 1: I had to look back at the last chapter to figure out what this bird was they were talking about. I think there's some connection missing here. At the end of Chapter 1, A had just spotted a bird. Now they're panicking in case it takes off, because it can lead them somewhere. We need a little more connection as to why to make the reactions work. pg 1: "A didn’t know why the dove was all the way out here." --It may be better to start the chapter with something like this to give some context. pg 1: ", and they would be free." --from what exactly? From the army they were in? From the desert? pg 2: “I…no. Let’s just stand here.” --I'm still pretty confused about why this bird is their only hope and what they hope to gain from following it. pg 3: "but they had to. They had to." --We keep getting told that there are stakes, but not shown them. pg 3: I'm sort of confused as to what this chapter was trying to achieve. I think we need a little more setup and a more definite arc of what's happening. Most of what's going on is just description about following the bird, but we need more context. Chapter 3 pg 1: "The derelict group of soldiers stumbled into the town..." --Really, I think is where you want to start the next part of the story. Having 2-3 paragraphs about how they followed a bird and made sure it was really leading them is all that's pertinent from the last chapter. pg 1: "The brownish-red rock sloped upward to multiple flat levels..." --I'm expecting to see somewhere in this description that there are birds nesting on the rock, but there isn't. pg 1: "Hundreds more of the little gray-brown birds did the same all around them." --okay, here it is finally. Sort of buried the lede. I think if you have a town named "Birdrock" and you describe a giant rock, putting the description of the birds is also pretty important. pg 2: "It was easy to affect a cheerful tone; he had lots of practice." --good line. Putting a little of this in the earlier chapters will help the jokes land, I think. pg 3: "Why had he reacted so loudly against seeing his family?" --also wondering about that. I thought he had a reason. pg 3: "Better to just avoid them altogether. It wouldn’t hurt them if they didn’t know he had ever been here." --good insight, but is this in relation to him being in the army, or something else? pg 4: "“I don’t like her,” “She’s seems pretty similar to you.” --I don't think we really have enough character for F and H yet to appreciate this conversation. pg 5: "sparkin’ army was finally able to put some muscle on ya," --okay, I guess the family wasn't mad at him for joining the army. Not sure what his deal is, then. pg 6: “You have finally flown home!” --We keep getting told A is anxious to see his family, but their reaction keeps being completely normal. I don't understand why he's so reticent. It's pulling me out of the story. pg 6: "For just a moment, it was nice to just be held." --this sort of thing. A couple paragraphs ago, he thought "Three years wasn’t nearly long enough to prepare for this." They seem in direct contrast. pg 7: "I don’t see why we can’t just let them believe that for one more night.” --Nope. I still don't get what A's problem is. It's really pulling me out of the story trying to figure it out. pg 7: ", but thoughts of having to face his brother and father" --okay, so his brother and father are angry at him? Need some context.

Now I'm imagining a silicone-based lifeform...

I have similar thoughts to @ginger_reckoning. It's an interesting concept, but I think the lack of description of an alien POV and some confusing terms in the first few pages made this hard to follow. There is also some awkward sentence structure, some of which I've noted below, which made things even more confusing. I think drilling down into the motivations for the characters will help a lot to lay out a clear case of who has done what and why. Then we can see why the tension is so high in these starting chapters. It's there, but it's buried behind a confusing overlay. Interested to read more, however. Notes while reading: pg 2: "and crept towards him along the floor" --Is the guard creeping or the vapor? pg 2/3" Some of D's rantings are a little hard to follow since there are a lot of embedded quotes and stops and starts. Could be streamlined some, but I am enjoying it (especially as an engineer...). pg 4: "at the cold and the warming of the cold " --not sure what this means pg 4: "which fools he" --they? pg 5: "even the fact that the also steel frame triple level beds were painted a hideous brown color was meant to show consideration " --awkward sentence. pg 5: "D huffed out a puff of air, permanent guests" --I think this sort of sentence construction is what is confusing me. pg 5: "why worry about something that was only fatal to the one silicon based in the alliance?" --silicon based species? Also, a bit confused. The disease D was fixing the wall containment panel for only affects his species? pg 5: “Do you know where the General is?” --I think D just asked the above question basically twice without waiting for an answer? pg 7: "the only occupant who never left the tank" --I got confused during this paragraph. I thought F. was the one in the tank at first. pg 8: "If you all have decided to die, there are better ways to do it." --So the general was trying to kill everyone to...get the other alien out of the tank? Except all the others would die? I'm not completely sure what's going on here. pg 9: ok, so the general is trying to kill everyone except the Al. on the ship? pg 10: "even with their permission, was beyond illegal" --so it's illegal to find out how to cure the one species suffering from this plague? That seems plotful... pg 10: "A healthy population takes more than a couple hundred individuals, assuming that their reproduction was anything like most other species." --except they're obviously very different from other species, so how does he know? pg 11: "There just wasn’t any president" -> "precedent" pg 12: "A. didn’t answer, didn’t need to." --wait, is this in A's POV or Ks? I thought it was K. pg 12: "A. to be locked into general quarters from a lab he helped design with a lock built based on technology given to them by D. years before" --Also very awkward and confusing sentence.

Overall, chapter 1 is much better and I think just needs some adjustment on A's joking. Chapter 2...needs work S is also very jokey, like A, and reads a lot younger than his younger brother. There's another drawn out fight that doesn't really progress the story. I want to read more about A at this point, since he just gained an ability. Instead, we're following his (also) quirky brother who (also) has a power and is (also) learning about it. D has an interesting last name. Is she supposed to be related to the one in the prologue, or is this a reuse of a name? In any case, she comes across as very male-gazey, which admittedly does fit with S's juvenile worldview, but comes across as a pretty trope-filled powerful-beautiful-female-who-somehow-loves-the-loser-guy-and-has-to-save-his-skin-all-the-time... Considering the excellent work you've done editing the first few chapters, I don't see any problem in fixing this one up, and/or moving it a little later in the story to give A some more screen time. S may need to develop a little to be different than his brother, though. Notes while reading Chapter 1 pg 2: the rice practical joke is still...weird. F is also confused about it. Is there some cultural significance to rice? Especially 1 page into the book, this just confuses me. pg 3: the desert/deserter joke is also...bad. pg 4: I do like that A feels compelled to help, but I wonder if that's a personality thing, or if he is being prepared by a god or something. pg 9: “Well, I suddenly crave the taste of human flesh,” --This joke lands better (as did the spitting in the water), because it's situationally based. The deserter one is...alright, but a bad pun. I think starting with the rice joke, which really doesn't have anything to do with anything, sort of throws of A's personality, one page in, and then the reader has to come back to terms with it over the course of the chapter. Chapter 2 pg 1: "Whatever it was, he found it hilarious." --hmmm...another "funny" character... pg 1: "like boulders that looked like ducks." --I think having S be a quirky character right after A being a quirky character (and in the first draft, J being a quirky character in the prologue) is too much. Someone needs to be serious because the story isn't a comedy. pg 3: "didn’t actually have a third hand" --I got this from context. We already know there's magic in the world. pg 3: "younger brother, A" --aha. pg 3: Lots of discussion about how a third hand works. I can imagine a telekinetic hand easily. pg 5: I'm not actually that interested in a fight with a giant bird. I like a lot of POVs, but I think we need another chapter or two with A before we switch to someone else, especially since he just got a power and now we're switching to someone else developing a power. pg 6: "It was D.K., his girlfriend. I am a lucky man, S. thought. In more ways than one." --1) interesting name, 2) why does he first regard this as "a woman" when it's a person he knows well and 3) where has she been the rest of the chapter? Surely he knew she was out here too. pg 6/7 lots of male gaze with D.K. in these pages. pg 7: "You’re not acting like yourself." --The whole dialogue after this is very strange and stilted. Also, A is his younger brother? Because S reads as a lot younger than him. pg 8: “Are we still good to go for tomorrow night?” --Is this like a date, or what? --ok, reading farther down I guess they're leaving? I don't know how or why that ties into him trying to kill Big Bird and why they can't just refer to it as "going away" or something. There's no one else out here to hear them. pg 9: "when your stock barely survived each session" --eh? Why is it different in captivity than in the wild? I would think they could control the variables better in captivity and there would be less...death???...while they're trying to reproduce? This species seems prone to extinction.

I think these chapters expand well on the world, but like @ginger_reckoning, I have trouble with the back and forth on the BK is evil/not evil. Ir. even says he's a warmonger in one paragraph and then praises him in the next. There's also some good chances to develop the relationship between Ir. and J during these chapters, but nothing happens. It's sort of assumed they're together, but the don't actually talk about it. Notes while reading: pg 1: "that the registry would begin on the first" --Why would the king not keep his word? pg 1: "as he passionately instructed her family" --J is coming over, and there's lots of description of him interacting with the family, but is he talking to her as well? This seems like a really good place to have an interaction between the two of them, but it's overshadowed by all the other description. pg 2: "never even known that her mother wanted to visit C." --Along with a better breakdown of the geography, I think there needs to be some statement about travel somewhere in here. A lot of these people act like they've never been out of their hometown, but then a lot of other people are from other cities. How often do people move around? Do they go to live in different places? Immigrate or emigrate? --especially as this statement is immediately followed by concern over being "corrupted" by foreigners... pg 3: "his words were proving true" --Except an official was killed...was there consequences for that? pg 3: "had never felt so dangerous" --again, the protests have been peaceful, right? pg 4: "shuttered" -> "shuddered" pg 6: "took out a heavy gold necklace" --again, telepathically, I assume. So more he floated it out of the drawer? pg 7: "in his very own writing" --So the illustrations are of Fey words the king wrote? But regular people wouldn't know his handwriting, and they've surely seen him before, so why does saying his eyes are yellow and mouth like a dragon prove anything? I feel like the pamphlet isn't really saying anything people wouldn't already know. It's still an attack, but I'm wondering how many it would convince he was Fey, who didn't already believe it. pg 8: "This was a high breach of security" --ah, yes, that there's a breach in his translators is more worrying. pg 9: "there was a high chance he could repeat history for a fourth time. There was no certainty of him winning, either" --These seem contradictory... pg 10: "He had little doubt that they had purposefully planned the propaganda so that it had landed when his census was already making a stir." --Maybe this needs to be brought out more? He jumps to C being the antagonist very quickly, but there's been no really mention of them before. pg 12: "but couldn’t read any letters that weren’t a foot tall." --It would be slow, but couldn't they trace out the shapes of the letters big enough so J could read what it said? pg 15: "Fey cannot leave the Feylands, and the desire to see the world denied to them was overwhelming." --I feel like there needs to be a followup to this sentence. Are they doing something about it? pg 15: "the Feylands rises just beyond the Barrier" --not sure what this means. Before, it said the barrier rises up "beyond the heavens." pg 16: "who could destroy an entire city..." --This is definitely tense, but I feel we need a lot more buildup of the Fey before now to make this really land. pg 16: "He was a warmonger, imperialistic." --except this is disproved two paragraphs later... pg 17: "no warm kitchen could sew her broken heart together." --I feel like she's waffling a lot on the BK. She praises him one moment and says he ruined everything the next. pg 18: too much description of cooking here, especially after the tension of the rest of the chapter. pg 19: "crop onions" -> "chop onions"

I think it would be much more interesting for the reader to slowly find out about the gods and the powers they grant as the book goes along. We don't need a POV from the lady in the prologue, because she's now dead and (I assume) doesn't show up again. This leads into some of the comments that the characters in the prologue were overpowered. Building up to what the magic can do is a lot more interesting that getting it splashed across the first few pages.

I had some trouble getting into the first few pages, as the MC has a pretty juvenile sense of humor, and the first few jokes ran on a long time. Past that, this was a pretty interesting chapter, and had a good hook to bring the reader into the book. Having now read this, I don't think your prologue is necessary, nor are the first few pages of the first chapter. You could start with hiding in the cave and the old woman, and that would still give a lot of personality for A. as well as get to the meat of the hook a lot sooner. Interested to read more! Notes while reading: pg 2: “It’s more desert!” --I get the joke, but this also negates the tension raised in the first sentence. The reader's engagement is now suspended on the strength of the joke, rather than the story. pg 2: "Um, well from basically " --the dialog here is pretty juvenile-sounding. Are these all children? pg 3: hmm...ok, we get to the resolution of the joke and there is actual information, but I'm sort of disengaged with the story now. pg 3: "Birdrock, his home" --he already said "hometown" so this is redundant. pg 4: "The man was huge" --ok, at least two of the group is men. I'm wondering if A is younger. pg 5: "He could feel sweat forming on the edges of his hair." --like, at the tips of the hair? I don't think that's how sweat works. pg 5: “My thoughts exactly,” --coming to the end of this first section, I'm now guessing A is about the same age as the others, or at least adult. I am getting a good sense of his personality, but I was thrown off by the sort of forced joking at the beginning. I think maybe pulling back from that just a bit at the beginning will help draw the reader in more. pg 7: “Yeah, well just so you know, I spit in the water. So ha. Joke’s on you.” --well, it was a touching moment...I'm sort of irritated by A's sense of humor. pg 13: The rest of this is pretty engaging, actually. I'm glad to see a tie-in with the prologue, though I'm not completely sure how needed it is. I think the first part of this could be cut down, really to the point where they're finding shelter in the cave and escaping bandits. Then the old woman giving him her light is a really good hook for the story.

Definitely heading in the right direction. I had much less desire to skim with the fight scene. I'm fine with the shifting POV, but others might not be. I think the largest positive is the extra tension at the end, which gives us a lot of stakes for gods and the reincarnated gifted. Al's new POV makes this into more of a definite prologue. At this point, I'm interested to start the story and see what the first couple chapters are like, vs. this part which is coming before. Notes while reading: pg 1: "with this makeup on her dark brown skin" --what makeup? Is it making her look more or less brown? The way this is constructed looks like it's just there to call out her skin color. pg 3: "And as Supreme Gifted, it is our duty to protect the people, should things get ugly." --this is pretty Maid and Butler. They all know that's their duty. Is there a way to show this so it doesn't sound so obvious? pg 3: "Why had A. left her?" --In the previous paragraph, it seems like A. drew away because she cracked down on the protesters. pg 13: Much better tension with C begging to be let into J's mind. Good stakes with the god losing parts of themself as well. pg 14: Also some better stakes at the end. This makes it sound a lot more like a prologue.

Overall, this reads better than last time. I noticed a few cleaned-up spots throughout, and also some additions and clarifications at the end. The biggest changes seem to be in the last couple of pages. I think it's definitely clearer what happened to the kid. I only have a couple of comments: pg 14: Giving S some agency to negotiate with the dragons I think makes her more effective. Good addition. pg 17: "The creature flailed and sliced off the meat’s head," "The old man laid dead alongside the" --So the creature cut off the old man's head, right? But A doesn't make any mention of it. Something like that is usually noted. pg 17: the added section with the journeyman helps. I think it gives some closure to S's tale.

Welcome to Reading Excuses! Thanks for submitting--it's always hard to put your work out there for others to tear apart. Overall, you have pretty solid prose. I think there's too much description and not enough tension in this chapter, but it's a good start. Is this whole thing a prologue? As in, are we going to be following these characters through the book, or other characters? The others will tell you that prologues are not really "in" right now, but it also depends on the book. In any case, just keep it in mind that you're not setting up characters we're not going to see for a long time (a prologue) or that these characters are going to continue through the book (which means this can just be chapter 1). To your questions: I didn't have any problem with the POV switch, but then I don't mind them. Others might object. I suspected Ch might be controlling him, given that he's moving without meaning to, but I wasn't complete sure. I think this may have too much explanation of powers and fighting. I'd like to learn more about the characters and their interactions rather than wading through a fight, assuming we're going to follow them the rest of the book. As to a hook, I think this could work if we have more information about how bad the bad thing is. Right now I want to see what happened, but I can't guess what damage has been done or whether the spell fizzled and exploded, or half-worked and exploded. Notes while reading: pg 1: first line is good! pg 1: "At the age of twenty-three, G. was a full-grown man" --I think we can guess he's full-grown pg 2: "Since the Quorum had long been down to five members" --It's been sort of infodumpy, or at least over-explainy, since the second paragraph to here. Some of this could be broken up in favor of more motion to the story. pg 2: “Yeah!” J. said, grinning. “There’ll probably be lots of girls there!” --Generally 11yo boys who are interested in girls are in the "yuck cooties" stage at this age. pg 3: "She hadn’t thought he’d tell them about this" --she'd tell them about this? I'm not sure who "he" is referring to. pg 3: "violet" vs. "violent" is a little confusing pg 4: I like the description, but it maybe goes on a bit too long. pg 5: "10 years" --numbers are written out. pg 6: J is really obsessed with girls, for some reason. pg 7: “They wouldn’t even know how to run a country properly without our help,” --hmm...yeah, these two are not endearing themselves to me. pg 9: Charm has female pronouns, but is one of the seven fathers? pg 9: the bonding here reminds me a lot of Stormlight Archive. pg 11: I think the combination of J saying the fight is boring, plus the fight going on for a few pages while describing different magic powers does actually make it a bit boring. I'm not really remembering the magic, and there's not much tension because I sure these three can handle the robots, if an 11 yo boy can take down four so far. pg 12: J also uses (or thinks) a lot of big words. He could be very smart, but it also makes him seem older, like 14-15. pg 12: "He had never tried anything like this before" --I'm not really interested in more magic uses right now. I'm looking for more tension in the chapter. pg 12: I keep reading "Al" as the abbreviation for Artificial Intelligence, rather than a nickname. pg 14: "Doing so bumped the man’s finger as he drew, causing an errant line in the pattern." --that's what I suspected. I was wondering why J didn't just swipe a hand through the drawing and smear it to defeat the bad spell.

I think this still has some of the issues I noted when I read the previous draft, mainly involving the political situation. The more I think about it, the more I think you could easily remove the first 6 pages and start with the actual concert. That would give you space to show a lot more of Ir's reaction during the performance, and like @shatteredsmooth said, even have a chance for her to use her powers. It would also give a little more to expand on the BK. His character is very interesting, but I don't think we see enough during the book to really understand his motives. The second chapter has some strange contradictions for me, in that their society is based on hospitality, and people from other countries are presumably able to visit on a regular basis. I don't understand why they are so antagonistic based just on country of origin. I'll also second the comment about protests didn't really land right, especially given the past several months. That might be more dependent on topical news, but also monarchies generally don't get along well with protests or questioning rulers. Notes while reading: Ch 19 pg 1: Yes, I think the first page of this can go, starting with S braiding Ir's hair. The worldbuilding is interesting, but having it scattered around a little, like L eating raindrop cookies during a different scene, would present the information better. pg 2: wait, why would she lose the restaurant if she didn't play well enough? Was that ever a threat? pg 3: Hmmm...okay, you could actually cut that whole scene until the break, and maybe have Ir. think of a few key images like S braiding her hair and her father bringing the pins home while they're walking her to the gate. Really, you could cut that too and start with Ir smoothing her costume. Hey! I found your 1000 words to cut for this sub ;-) pg 6: Some good emotion in here, but still waiting to get to the performance. pg 8: Well, we really only get a page of Ir. dealing with the actual concert before switching to BK's POV. I'd like to see more of her actually dealing with the nerves. pg 8: "Four hundred gallons of water" --what will water do specifically? I appreciate he can manipulate it, but I'm not sure why it's specifically presented here. Aside from getting an assassin wet, what is it going to achieve? pg 10: I appreciate BK's assessment of Ir., but I'd like to see just a bit more of her struggling with playing well and how much effort she put into it. pg 10: "those who had put their careers on the line" --I never really got the threat for their careers. It seemed to be more imagined on their part. I'd like to see more of a direct threat. I think the celebration afterward would have a lot more impact that way. Ch 20 pg 11: Again, there's a lot of celebrating, but we didn't see the struggle pg 12: "not because of his loyalties.” --I feel like we haven't really seen racial or country-based tensions like this before, but suddenly it's a big deal to invite someone from another country to their house. pg 14: "Hospitality was everything in T" --yeah, see this directly conflicts with their suspicion of having a foreigner in their home. pg 17: "massive, shadowy murderers" --Are the Fey also very large? Did we know that before? pg 20: "But that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to criticize my monarch." --This continues to be a sticking point for me. It basically rebuffs any complaints that the Bk is running a bad government in any way. For a monarch to allow subjects to publicly criticize it is one of the hallmarks of modern reform, which immediately makes me turn against the revolutionaries as not knowing what they're getting into. pg 22: “It’s why I didn’t want either of them to know about the project up north. It’s just another thing to worry them.” --Except J warned them off a bad situation. Otherwise, T might have been tempted to take the job. I'd much rather face a few unpleasant facts that barrel headlong into a situation where I don't know the undercurrents.

Congratulations!!

I really liked this story! The wild weird theme was very cool and despite you saying the characterization was lacking, I think it was well done. The language could probably be tightened up just a little. It gets a western vibe is some parts, but not others. I think you could lean into it more since it fits with the theme and add a bit more dialect. Two nitpicks for me: 1) I'd have liked a little more through-line to the vignettes. I got lost in the middle as to what they were actually doing, so a few more references to "this is a journey" and what the destination was might help. 2) The end was disjointed for me, just because it was hard to understand what happened. I think the progression of events is fine, just need some better blocking in the last couple pages. I think this could definitely end up in a magazine somewhere. Are you planning on submitting it anywhere? Notes while reading: pg 1: traveler people--I'm interested. pg 1: "he would tell her more stories for another night" --delete "for" pg 2: cool magic. pg 4/5: The ghost bit is interesting, but I don't know what it adds yet. Her story is told in a sort of rushed manner like all the information needs to be on the page quickly. (edit after finishing: this is one of the longer vignettes, but I don't think it adds much. It could be shortened in favor of more emphasis at the end, or another brief vignette, if wordcount is an issue.) pgs 6-7: This part seems to be sort of slice of life/traveling. I'm really enjoying it, but I'm also waiting to get to the main plot. (edit after finishing: This is where a couple reminders would be helpful) pg 16: unclear on where the knives came from with the girl at the gate. I think the old man got possessed and then tried to kill the girl? I'm not sure what happened to the creature that was following them either. Did it kill the old man, or did something else happen? pg 17: Nice message of hope for the end. It could be a little more definite, but overall, I really enjoyed this story!

1) I see this chapter as M pulling away from Mi and gravitating towards A and T, being more positive towards them than him. If you see it differently, can you please let me know and point out specifics to help me understand the way you see it? --I clarified some points below where I still don't think this is the case, but basically it comes down to that M's switch in affections comes at the same time as she's dealing with trauma, so it's doesn't read as genuine, so much so that T&A even recognize it and send her back to Mi. If they had recognized what was happening and offered to leave the party with M and take care of her, or if Mi wasn't so obviously protective, it might read differently. 2) Is it clear that M is Not Okay and not quite thinking clearly a consequence of the psychic fight with the Demon? --I think it might be overkill. M is blurred and not thinking clearly to the point where it's hard to understand parts of the chapter, and other characters tend to arrive as if by magic. I think maybe toning it down, or only showing where it specifically affects talking with people or navigating might make it less intrusive. Notes while reading: pg 2: "The trail titled until water was a wall on her right." --titled -> tilted. Took me a moment to understand the sentence. pg 2: "“It shouldn’t be this hard to heal me.” --I'd say "to heal myself" or just "to heal." pg 2: I don't remember the immediate aftereffects of the fight with the demon being as bad as what M is going through here. I looked back at last week and it sort of ends with her in pain, but not this close to being incapacitated. Might be partially WRS. pg 3: Wait--where did Mi come from? Is M hallucinating? pg 5: Now M's just ignoring Mi? pg 5: “What did you just say?” --is this in reference to Blackout Protocol, or that a demon had a mind fight with her? --edit: I guess both, from the next page? pg 7: Lol. Mi drives a delorean? pg 8: I know M isn't thinking straight, but a lot of this chapter seems disjointed. I'm not sure where Mi came from and we're suddenly finding out a lot more about him that we haven't learned in the first seven chapters. pg 10: I think this is where you say M is pulling away from Mi, but I'm not really seeing it. She is concerned about T&A, but that seems natural based on what just happened. However Mi is still the one who comes to her aid and helps her. They share secrets. They have a lot more chemistry together than M with T&A. pg 11: There's attraction shown between T and M here, and if there was more setup before now, I'd probably believe it. Right now it just reads as weird since M hasn't been doing stuff like this the whole book. pg 12: “What happened to pizza?” --not sure what this is referring to. pg 13: “Are you high?” --yeah, I'd probably be asking that too. M is NOT acting normally at all, which also undermines her wanting to be with T instead of Mi. pg 17: "“Going to a party and getting drunk for the first time ever is not the thing to do after getting mugged at knife-point." --Hard agree. I think this is the problem here. All of M's affections toward T&A feel like a product of her impaired mental ability right now, not like anything genuine. Hmmm...and this end with M back with Mi. T&A recognize that her affections are also not real, and put her back where she should be.

I did catch the implications that the pixies were in the room, but I didn't know they were capable of fully protecting T&A. A couple sentences about that will likely clear things up.

Yes. Definitely too quickly. I made a note below. Speaking from experience at a party school... YES. In fact, that's why Pioneer Days got banned in this city. And why Halloween pulls in at least three to five different towns' police forces. Kids - *hem* young adults - will legit drive from my hometown an hour and twenty minutes south just to come to my city to party on days that aren't Labor Day/Halloween/Saint Patrick's/Caesar Chavez Day. Party central is literally nicknamed "The Zoo." So I found this to be perfectly realistic. I didn't go to a party school--I went to a boring engineering school. But a lot of students would make the 30 minute drive to the nearest party college. So yes, realistic. Overall, this chapter is a lot better. The switch from Mom to T&A works really well and makes a bigger connection between them and M. I also like the new look for the demon. Much scarier. I am left wondering what happens to T&A since M called the demon's bluff. It's not a great decision on her part and we're left without a resolution until at least the next chapter. As I said above, I was frustrated with how M skips out of Mi, especially when he's so vulnerable, but I think can be fixed with a few more sentences. Notes while reading: pg 1: "why she’d just ran away when they started having sex" --I think this may be where some of the awkwardness comes from in the first few paragraphs. It's a tell of feelings rather than a show, such as in the next couple sentences. pg 1: "she’d gone as far as blurting out the truth" --would she really do this? I'm not convinced. pg 3: "He stared at the ground. “Because it’s happened before.” “M, why did—.” “Please don’t ask.” --Still frustrated with these sorts of exchanges. "Here's an important piece of information directly connected to why I'm in danger. I'm telling you that it exists, but I don't want to talk about it." pg 6: "It was nice, but she missed the softness of" --These still feel like afterthoughts. Like T&A are nice to be around, but M is really into Mi. pg 7: "She clutched her phone to her chest. “Mi, I need to go. I’m sorry.” --Why is she incapable of saying "Some friends need my help?" She doesn't even need to explain anything about them, but give some indication of why she's running off. pg 8: "She tore her hands apart" --sounds like she's tearing her hands, not the air. pg 10: "It walked over to a bench and sat down, looking out at the water." --I think T&A being in danger work better than with her mom. I also like the "talking" demon better than the "fighting" one, especially if this will be a mental battle. pg 16: the demon battle is a lot clearer this time in how the two are fighting each other. I'm left wondering what's happening to T&A though. I can imagine the fight might have taken less than thee minutes, but M seems to be out afterward. Is she just letting the demon have them?