Mandamon

This is an interesting concept, but I think the characters need to be defined a lot better. That may give you some ideas of where to go with this. Right now, I'm completely turned off from N. She's knows what she's doing and seems to be okay with aiding literal evil in taking people's souls. Why? How did she get here? Why does she seem so normal? R I can understand. He's a demon, and following his assigned path. I could see this as being a sort of Good Omens type story, but again, N's character needs to have a very good reason for doing what she's doing. Right now she just seems to be a terrible person, and L is fully justified in trying to keep her from helping a demon. There were also a lot of sections where this went between present tense and past tense, and also a lot of questions sentences without question marks. There are also a lot of places where N says she's keeping personal details from R, but the story is loaded with them. I assume R knows all about her. Notes while reading: pg 1: "no indication of my personality" --I don't think that's right. The MC even has pictures up. That's going to tell people something. pg 1: "Something hard settles into my stomach." --good line, but this is in present tense when the rest is in past. pg 3: "I stalk through my bedroom, careful not to recreate 9/11" --eesh. I'd maybe chance that metaphor. pg 3: "skin feel like it’s" -> "skin feel like it was" pg 3: "The demon towers" --more mixed tense. pg 4: "Who dares summon me" --Did the MC actually summon the demon? It seemed like there was just a pentagram on the floor, but no actual summoning... pg 4: "What idiot decided that summoning rituals" --Wait, why is N doing the summoning after the demon is there? That's not how it works. pg 4: "He returned the gesture" --cool twist! pg 5: "giving R personal information" --hmmm...I feel like the demon has plenty of personal information. pg 5: "three ornate pieces of china I had inherited from my grandfather." -more personal information. pg 7: "I barely shuddered that time." --I'm a little confused. N seems to like the demon as a friend, but is routinely horrified by the demon-like things he does? pg 7: “Why does it not surprise me that you’ve been to France?” --just saying a French word doesn't mean you've been there. pg 8: "Then she froze." --why? pg 8: “I’m not going to, so you may as well stop.” --going to what? pg 11: "as I turned the pink phone" --what phone? I thought they were looking at files? --oh, files on the phone. Probably needs an identifier. pg 12: "I resisted the urge to change my shirt," --there's no possible way to do this, so it's pretty easy to resist... pg 13: "I’d bet that at least five of those have the most unimpeachable alibis.” --why? to get out of gather souls? I'm a little lost. pg 14: "I have some work I need" --repeated from the line above. pg 14: "it was hard to look at him the same as all your other friends. Then again, he was nothing like my other friends." --yeah, I'm sort of confused/concerned that her friend is a demon. Half the time she seems put off by him, and half the time doesn't care that he's a literal embodiment of evil. pg 17: "He’s not my boyfriend." --she never said he was... pg 17: "He sees you as a means to own more souls.” --yeah, this is sort of what's been bothering me the whole time. pg 18: "I may not like the idea much more than trafficking people, but it’s legal and pays well.” --...that's really reprehensible. N is a terrible person. pg 18: "The import of the situation crashed down on me" --what about all the "look behind you?" I thought something was happening? pg 19: "He pulled me away from near the restaurant to the passenger seat of my car." --and? This is sort of an abrupt end to the chapter. What's the punchline, so to speak?

Glad to help! Also, yay for Wado-Ryu! Out of curiosity, which school is it? Based from the Chelmsford branch? If you give me the website, I might be able to tell you where the instructor was taught and by who.

*large inhale* Soooo...I've been teaching Wado Ryu karate for about 11 years now, and practicing for about 17. I have opinions, but to boil it down: Tai-Jutsu: seems to be a general term for Japanese martial arts, so I'm not sure what discipline that is. If it's a good school, it could be very good, or it could be people who are undecided as to what they should practice. Taekwondo: Unless it's a very good instructor and you don't have other options, I personally wouldn't take this one. It's about 80% kicks, and a lot of the techniques are not practical (though people will probably shout at me about this). It's been watered down a lot to competition training over the years. Karate: Again, this is a very general term, which means it's probably Shotokan style. Other styles are Shito-Ryu, Wado Ryu (like mine), Goju-Ryu... It's generally balanced between hand and feet techniques, and if you have a good instructor, you can learn a lot of practical application. Aikido: This is my second choice for a discipline. Good Aikido is using your opponent's momentum against them. Has a lot of cool joint locks, but also easy to injure wrists. Has some mat work, and if you don't like rolling around on the floor with sweaty people, you might not like that part. It doesn't focus on punches or kicks. Judo and Jujitsu: These two are similar in many ways. Both have some really good holding and grappling techniques, but it's largely mat work. No punches or kicks, though Judo has more throws. Even more rolling around than Aikido. As to practicing in our new world here, most all places are shut down (I've been teaching on Zoom with my class) and that eliminates a lot of the good feedback you get from hitting bags or working hand to hand with others. Overall, though, talk with the instructor! If you get the feeling at all that they are in it to show off their techniques or intimidate students, stay far away. Ask questions about practical application, and if they can't answer, that means they're following the moves of the discipline, but don't understand why it's used. Especially for Karate, Tai-Jutsu, and Taikwando, make sure they practice forms or kata. If they don't, they're missing a huge part of the discipline. Anyway, that's my ten or twenty cents worth. I'm happy to answer other questions, especially if you want to run a particular instructor/school by me for whether you think if would be good.

Like @TheDwarfyOne, I think your writing is quite beautiful and descriptive, and that was what pulled me through reading the story. As to the content...I'm really not sure what happened. I think it was about the transformation of the goblin from neutral, to good, to evil, but especially the last few pages I got really lost. All the characters seem to act randomly and violently, and I didn't get good reasons from any of them. I think this could be tightened up quite a bit, and I'll second that you could take out Ro's POV at the end and not lose anything. Introducing a new character at the end of a short story just causes too much confusion. Thanks for submitting! Notes while reading: pg 1: "a few are more unanimous," "All of listed were both true and false" --these two sentences are a little confusing. I think the first one is saying either "a few are unanimous," or "few are more unanimous." The second one is missing or has extra words: "All listed were both true and false," or "All of the qualities listed were both true and false" pg 2: "he had tried them all. He would nurse them back to life," --The first sentence sounds like he's eating them, while the second sentence sounds like he's helping them. pg 2: "left One more hideous than ever" --does this mean they left his house seeming more hideous, or they made One look more hideous? pg 2: "an older, more experienced" --the aging hunter is younger than the one that caught him? pg 4: I like the line about the storm being offended. pg 4: "tip of his index" -> "tip of his index finger" pg 5: "It was carefully taken" --what? I'm guessing the plate, but it sounds like he's taking her blood. pg 6: the ingredient list is a little confusing. Is he lying about what the ingredients are to make her feel better? Why is that? pg 7: Not sure why he suddenly volunteered the color of his eyes. er, except I guess he lied about it? Why? pg 8: The thing with the mouse is weird. Did the girl kill it? Why? pg 10: This page is kind of unclear. She tried to kill him? Why? pg 13: Okay, so I think she transformed him into a human over time, but what did that have to do with stabbing him? pg 14-15: Not sure what's happening here. Did the man kill his parents? Why is he so blase about them being killed? pg 16: Still not quite sure what happened. Is this the same goblin? Why is he a monster now instead of a boy?

Since it was easier to make corrections in the document, I sent you back edits by email.

Notes on worldbuilding: Having read quite a bit ahead now (up to around chapter 28), I think the biggest part of this needs to be the characterization of the Fey. We've been told a lot how they're uncaring and bad, but I think that's going to be really hard to show in the story unless we can actually see one of them interact with another character, or at least have a very specific story about how they act. Just saying they're incapable of compassion doesn't get across the same fear everyone has of them in the book. Maybe someone could tell about what happened the one time they visited a village inside their lands, or something? This would also help the characterization of the B.K., if he's really supposed to be so bad. So far, he seems one of the more reasonable characters in the book. Chapter 9 notes: The kitchen tour has been expanded a bit to show things off, and some of the weird animal associations removed, which is good, but having read ahead, I'm wondering if there's just too much focus on cooking in this first part. The kitchen doesn't come up again up to where I've read. Is it actually important to the story? The big thing we get out of this is seeing the spy, however except for the one interlude, they haven't come up again either, up to where I've read. Ch 10 notes: pg 9: the telepathic stuff should be in italics. pg 10: "his telekinesis pulling out papers from a drawer" --ah, glad this is in here. There are some confusing parts in later chapters where it sounds like he opens them with a hoof or something. pg 11: "they were sure that odd situations would have continued to line up until he knew W’s name." --I think this is saying the B.K. contrived to learn their name? Except in the next paragraph, it said he doesn't know their name. pg 12: "If Ireen were to meet me, her magic would call me the B.K." --Except he knows she knows his actual name, right? (or is that that next chapter...). At any rate, it seems weird he would assume I's magic wouldn't know their real names. pg 12: the crystal thing is different and interesting... I didn't have much extra on the rest of the chapter, except I think the last line could be bulked up a bit. She knows who the door leads to. It's nothing new and doesn't really drag us onward. What is the uncertainty? Maybe that she doesn't know if she'll keep her job, or ever her life?

What I've found over the years is that readers don't really care that much if stuff is out of order. Going back a few days, or even a couple weeks, for another POV is fine if you either make it clear by a date or event, or if it doesn't matter to the storyline. If you actually track the POVs in Wheel of Time, there are characters that are months out of order from others, but as a reader, you don't notice it. The same thing happens in Stormlight archive. It's more important to connect with the character's story than exactly when everything happens. I always keep a time spreadsheet for my books, so even if the reader doesn't notice things are out of order, they still work out correctly.

The two usual ways to handle this are either not to mention it at all, so the reader doesn't think about it, or hang lantern it it (like you do with the religious beliefs and vestal chickens) and say, yep, this is weird, but it's how the world works. I'm thinking that's the better choice in this case.

I was a little confused through most of this. None of these characters seem to have anything to do with the ones in the first two chapters, and the first scene leans heavily toward P, where I'm guessing H is the character we're going to see more of. I feel like I have more characterization of P. I'm also not sure what punching a priest has to do with anything when P was speaking out against worker's wages. Was it that he asked for donations? I feel like P would probably know how "voluntary" the donations are. In the second part, there are a lot of hints about someone who hurt H's father in some way, which is why he wants revenge, but I think in this case, more information is actually better. The motivation here is revenge, which doesn't work as well if we don't know why. If you tell that an old foreman broke dad's legs and the never worked right after, we're willing to forgive a lot more dumb behavior on his part because we empathize with his reasons for revenge, even if they're not logical or sufficient. Right now, he just seems like a bitter old man who's abusing his daughter. Notes while reading: Pg 1: is P the dead man's brother? I had to reread the first paragraphs a couple times trying to figure out who's POV this was. pg 1: "red bandanna ducking as she frowned" --Not sure what this means. pg1: I feel like the POV is H's, but the scene is P's. As I don't know either of the characters, it's hard to connect to either of them. pg 3: "Is this an appropriate time, father?” --For...a donation?? pg 3: why is P punching priests at his brother's funeral? pg 4: “Priests fall as easily as us! As easily as my brother!” --I thought this was about better wages for workers, not priests? pg 5: “You did not secure his help then?” --oh, I thought she was talking to herself for some reason. The beginning of this section seems like H is apologizing to a dead relative or something. pg 5: "An arm caught her across the face and she cried out." --no one seems to acknowledge that he hit her. I can't tell from the text if it was an accident or on purpose. pg 5: "erupting upwards...She kept her head bowed as she repositioned his legs." --So I gather that he has some problem with his legs but I'm unsure about the level of mobility. pg 6: "You’ll have to infiltrate the stronghold yourself and get the swords.” --I'm confused as to what's going on. There are a lot of hints at things, but nothing concrete. I think you can show off the plot a little more. Right now it's just an abusive father trying to get his daughter to steal swords for...money? And revenge?

Pretty much the same thoughts at @Robinski for this chapter. It should either be condensed into an aside or a flashback, or expanded into its own sub-arc with a tiny plot progressions. Probably cutting will be cleaner. Major thoughts for this chapter: There was a lot in the first section that made me think too much about how animals and people work in this world. My note on "plucking mundane chickens" was to question whether there are non-mundane chickens, or are all them non-sentient? I’m picturing a goose plucking a chicken or something (because you did have a sentient goose earlier), and it’s like a human preparing a gorilla to eat… Then with the ovens, If one of the sentients fell in, would they even know? I’m thinking of murder mysteries, where they just disguise the body as non-sentient. Yes, unnecessary cow POV is unnecessary. I was then very confused with the omniscient section. I thought it was in G's POV for a moment, but it switches back to I. The chapter is pretty unfinished, so I think it could definitely be edited down and added to the next chapter. In other news, I'm back to reading ahead on this one! Hoping to get a couple chapters done today.

@Sarah B It is a lot of work, and especially for the first book, it ill be a challenge. That said, from what I can tell, trad publishing nowadays is really not doing all that much for the author, unless you're published through one of the big five and have a well-selling book. It also does require a monetary investment, probably $500 to $800 on the low side. They might have recordings of the panels, not sure. But I'll be around here too!

I know @Mandamon has experience in this Yep. @Sarah B I've been through three cover artists and a cover layout company. It depends greatly on what you're willing to spend and what quality you want. That said, if you're going to self-pub, quality and content on book covers very much matters. You can spend anywhere from $150 on a passable cover to $2000+ on something incredible. As usual, the best value is probably somewhere in between.

I agree with @kais on pretty much everything. The character emotions and actions are good, but I was so confused by the end of the chapter I had no idea what was going on. I'm also very concerned about the military competency of these planets. They seem...unprepared at best. I think a much deeper dive into what story you're trying to tell and what the plot progression is like will help immensely. Notes while reading: pg 1: "but she needed practice, and this was a good way to get it." --Didn't all these people see her talk with her sister, who's obviously not from Venus? I feel like her cover is not very good. pg 2: "(you never knew who was watching)" --hmm...See above comment. pg 2: "offering his hand in greeting...middle of a busy spaceport" --sooo...he's posing as her uncle but he's introducing himself as if they've never met? pg 2: "and Cassa stifled a small laugh" --why? pg 2: "but I’m afraid I’ll be terribly busy" --This conversation is weird. Half of it reads like they've never met and half is like they are acutally family. pg 3: “I’m sorry it was unpleasant for you.” --the dialogue is kind of forced through here. pg 3: "because she had never heard of..." --does the minister of defense not do a background check on new employees? For this being a covert operation, it's all very lax. pg 3: "an inflamed skull" --this sounds like an incredibly poor decision... pg 4: "internally berated herself" --this sounds like all the dialogue was internal, which certainly seem more likely for a minister... pg 4: "they could learn on the job" --ahh...learning on the job is one thing. This is more verbal abuse. pg 5: "friends were great conversationalists" --This reads like enough time has passed for C to make friends and settle in. Quite a big jump from the last section. pg 6: This chapter just sort of leaves off after half an explanation of clothing fashions. Was there supposed to be more? I'm not sure what the point of this chapter was either. It started out about C settling in, but then jumped over a lot of time and just ended... pg 7: "things around the house that they needed to discuss" --I'm not sure what this means. pg 7: Soooo...who is this person and what's happening? pg 8: "tentative diplomatic endeavors" is all lowercase and poorly written?? I'm growing concerned about the competency of the militaries on all these planets. pg 9: "eight of them" --eight of who? what happened to the message? pg 9: "under the Earth" --we're on Earth now? pg 9: there's a deal with Luna, greenhouse lamps, and math degrees within one paragraph. I'm struggling to keep up with what's going on. pg 9: "standing at attention as he winked " --Eh? Because of the message? pg 10: "announced to the room" --weren't there, like eight of them in here? pg 10: "his husband shook his head." --okay, so they're married. What was all that with offending colleagues then? I was thinking this was some affair. pg 11: "You’re not going to choose R over your dad." --what now??? There are some weird vibes going on here. pg 13: sorry. Completely lost now. I have no idea what's going on. pg 16: So...A is J's father, except he has a different real name, and is married to R, and...something happened on Saturn? I'm really not sure what happened.

So now that you're taking a break to revise, I think you've got the hang of this one! I enjoyed this chapter I think the most out of any. We finally get communication between the two, and I'm ready for M and Mi to go out demon hunting together. I didn't have a lot of notes because I was enjoying the chapter so much. My only problem was the sort of trope-y breakup at the end. I guess this is halfway through the book or so? I'm ready for them to join forces, not separate.I want them to use their strengths together... Anyway, interested to see what you do with this! Notes while reading: pg 1: "crash of rhinoceroses" --I am exceedingly happy you used this. pg 1: "one particular soft throw blanket" --Should we know about this blanket? It sounds like it has a history. pg 1: "she’d regained some energy while she slept, her head felt worse. She had hoped that her head would’ve healed while she slept, but now it felt worse." --repetition pg 1: "had broken something in her head" --this seems a lot more serious that what happened a couple chapters ago. pg 2: There are a lot of short choppy description sentences at the top of the page. Is this signifying something? Otherwise, it's sort of dragging down the tension. pg 2: "if he read her texts, he’d probably be able to piece together what she was." --I'm almost hoping this is true, so they can move forward. pg 2: “What else did I say?” --He only said she said one thing, so I feel like this should be "did I say anything else." pg 3: “So you decided to go through my phone.” --oh, ok, so these two things are related. The conclusion was a little hard to get to. pg 3: "after all time she’d spent unknowingly reading his mind...this was earned payback." --yep. Except communicating with each other would have been a lot easier. So it goes... pg 4: Aha! Things are coming unraveled! pg 5: "You couldn’t not read my mind" Ah. I was going to say it was a stretch he concludes she can read minds, but I guess he read that too. pg 8: Lol. I had to un-redact your note just too see what was under it. pg 9: Really enjoying this chapter, then got to the "I can't be with you because I'll put you in danger" trope and...meh? I was really rooting for them to go kick some demon butt now they were aligned, but then within the space of half a page, they're broken up. I think this needs to have more buildup if they're going to separate. I guess it depends on how things go in the next few chapters.

How much are these kids books and how much YA? I'll second Nnedi Okorafor's Binti books. I really enjoyed them, but they are a little slow. They do deal with some adult themes and are only sort of YA if you squint. The Black God's Drums by P. Djèlí Clark is really good and has a young POC female character. Has some scary themes, but very good. Sanderson's Skyward series is definitely YA material with a heroine The Girl with all the Gifts is a zombie story, but is technically from a young female's POV... Rejected Princesses by Jason Porath would be an awesome book - It's a collection of something like 100+ mini-histories about bass-This post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules women in history. You could also always suggest a little book called Journey to the Top of the Nether ;-). But seriously, it does have a young female (alien) protagonist and I wrote it to be MG/YA.

Jumping in first since I have prior knowledge on this one! Although I think I'm only two chapters ahead, so I'm hoping to get back to reading this one later this week. I was a little disappointed to have Ir go haring off on a boat ride when I was more interested in if she's found any spies, but this chapter had some good character development between I and S, and we get to know the sister a little better. I'm also glad we find out more about S's revolutionary tendencies and some of what they're doing. We also learn about the name powers their family has, which are pretty cool. They could go into identity theft and password stealing and make a killing! And I was wondering why the boat suddenly capsizes. I thought they were both capable sailors? But (you knew it was coming...) This was also the first chapter I really felt was dragged down by the lack of worldbuilding around the governmental system. I know you said you're changing it, and I think this chapter actually gives a lot of good jumping-off points for how to do so. S comes across as a sort of rebel without a cause. She talks so much about bringing down the government and trying to kill off the B.K. but we have no reason why. She urges I to get out of working at the palace, but as far as I can tell, this is the best deal of I's live, even accounting for the bad parts. S talks a lot about not liking Mat. but I don't think we've ever been shown why people don't like people from that country. People in England hate people in France, because they've fought each other for more than a thousand years. People from the U.S. tend to look down on Canadians and Mexicans because the U.S. was expansionist and was stopped at those borders (among other things). There's religious disputes, border tussles, political pundits claiming sanctuary across borders...there's so many options to choose from with why one country dislikes another. I feel like this is perfect place to close on emotional buildup over the first eight chapter, but right now it falls flat because we haven't had it. We are also told why being a Fey is bad, that they are cruel and heartless, but never why. There has to be some reason that type of name-calling would start. Finally, S just seems not to know what she's doing. I basically demolishes her whole argument near the end of the chapter: "At least right now our streets don’t run red with blood. The B.K.’s taxes aren’t as bad as T’s. There aren’t daily or weekly executions. No raids on random houses." They're doing pretty well, for a 1500's equivalent city. Finally, I have one prescriptive suggestion, so feel free to use it or not. It could lead to some extra conflict in the first couple chapters. S says the B.K. has taken over other cities, so what if they were planning to overthrow the previous king (who was already established as terrible) and let the people make the laws, except the B.K. got there first and took over? That would certainly make the revolutionaries want to remove him. Glad to see your submissions again! Again, I'll try to get back on reading ahead soon.

I'd argue this has nothing to do with competency. One of the servant/secretary tropes is that they know what their employer wants before they need it. Someone can be meek or subservient and still very good at what they do.

I should probably also mention I still use Word 2010 because I really hate the newer versions.

Lol

Also, if anyone does decide to sign up, I'll be on two panels on the 30th and 31st, talking about Music in SFF, and about Self publishing.

@shatteredsmooth - I'll also have ability to read it after the 10th, if you still need it.

I've heard a lot of people say Scrivener really helps how they write. I think its methods of organization are really good. That said, I tried it, but couldn't get into it. I really disliked having to go to a different "document" for each chapter. I think it's a personal preference, as I tend to be pretty organized already, and trying to fit my organization into Scrivener just didn't work. I use good old Word, but I use a lot of the header and formatting properties, so I can easily jump to sections I want. I usually have an outline document, the book document, and another document with revisions and notes. That way I can have one document open on each screen (I have two monitors) if I need to refer to notes or feedback. I may end up with a spreadsheet or two as well, based on if I need any calculations or tables in my worldbuilding.

Yep, Vellum is only on Mac, which is a sticking point for me too. I've heard that Vellum does a lot more however. Calibre is more on the publishing side and less on the formatting. If you get as much formatting done as possible before you transfer to Calibre, it works better.

Use Calibre. It's free to download, easy to use, and can covert between docx, epub, mobi, and pdf. I use it for all my formatting. You can even make changes to the epub code directly if you want.

Congrats on the new kitty, @Snakenaps! Definitely. One of mine routinely begs to sit in my lap while I'm writing.