Mandamon

Thanks @Sarah B! Good point. This is the close of this set of chapters, moving to a new POV, but I'll see if I can make it tie into the next set of S/E/I chapters better.

All of this is very much improved over last time--good job on the rewrite! I'll agree with @kais on pretty much all points. Need character buy-in for a long fight scene, and still need to trim this down a lot to get rid of extra fluff. This could be a really good 5-6 page intro chapter to hook people into the story. Also, there's a lot of punctuation hiccups, between commas missing, dialogue in the wrong place, run-on sentences, and so on. If you haven't, I'd give Strunk and White's The Elements of Style a read. It's a small book, but really useful, even though it's about 100 years old. I recommend it to any starting writing because it helps you leap over the easy stuff and arrive at much cleaner prose. Notes while reading: Pg 1: much better starting paragraph, but it still gets bogged down with all the specifics. Ma's fighting Mu, she has a greatsword, wants to get the sun in her eyes. Done. Also, might not want to have to "m" names fighting each other. pg 2: missing a lot of commas, apostrophes, and periods. pg 3: lots of names at the top of the page. I don't know who any of them are. pg 4: "After history had finally been struggled through without falling asleep" --this is almost painfully passive voice. --this whole paragraph is doing better, describing the meal, but is still sort of an info dump. When it finally get to the five elements, that piques my interest, but then it goes to a different topic. pg 5: they keep talking about Approval, but I'm not really sure what it is or does. Is it passing a course? Mastery in a subject? Is the a choice, that M decided to challenge I? Could she have challenged someone else? pg 5: "this wasn't the test, this could be repeated if needed" --I'm still confused as to what is and isn't needed to get Approval. This sort of takes the tension out of things, because there aren't any stakes here. They can fail and it doesn't really do anything. pg 5: "This was a test for Approval" --But you just said this wasn't the test...confused. pg 6: "I will fight with only my fists unless I can disarm one of you" --If he disarms them then does he start to fight with weapons?? pg 6: "running her mind through what it meant to be a Black Thorn." --stares in InfoDump. pg 8: Confused on who is taking ranged and who is taking melee. If two people speak, it needs to be in different paragraphs. pg 8-9: too much about choosing the weapons. This can be cut down a lot. It takes from page 5 to 10 to actually start the fight, once in I's presence. This should be a couple paragraphs at most, to keep things moving. And the fight is page 10-13, but at this point I'm skimming. It's a very blow-by-blow account. One secret of fight scenes in books is that we don't actually care that much about what the participants are doing. The reader cares about how the character is affected by the fight. You can strip out a lot of the X did Y by Z and add more emotion of how M felt by being trounced by I, and how K couldn't help. The tense part isn't how hurt they get, it's whether they pass or fail the test. pg 14: "and by doing so, my debt to you has been paid" --this is more interesting to me than the entire fight. pg 15: "You have got my Approval to take the test." --much better arc to the chapter, but I'm still confused about testing. This was just to get approval to test? Then what's the test? How does that tie in with the rest of their learning?

Thanks @kais! Glad this one worked better. It was fun to get more depth into the Ari society, and I think that will set up better for dinner and such in the next set of chapters. hmm...yeah, I'll try to express this better. Good catch. I'll try to tidy it up.

Thanks @Sarah B! Glad it's clearer. There will likely always be some confusing parts for a someone coming in at this point, since it's a third book, but thanks for pointing out those spots. I'll see what I can do to clarify them without sacrificing pacing.

This double posted for some reason. @Silk can you remove it?

Chapter 3, which is a combination of the old chapters 2 and 7, with some new stuff. I've moved I's POV up, and worked on his personality, which last time was too much like S's. Let me know what you think, and how the rewrite works. Previously: S/E/I arrive in the other facet with their news of the Elg. The Eff and court are there, E has problems with trust, and E/I learn about their folks. The Eff faints shortly thereafter. E battles the voices inside her as they travel to the Ari, and attacks S.

Thanks @Robinski! It's the butterfly people. I'll make it clearer Now I can't remember if I expressly said it stopped. In any case, yes, it can definitely plod on while they talk. I'll change it. Cool. Interested to see what everyone thinks of the next one! Glad they're working better.

Thanks @Robinski! Less structural problems this time and more line edits, so I'll count that a win! I'll try to make this smoother. Trying to reintroduce the species at the same time. I can cut it if it's just distracting. Hmm...that was the comment I got last time. Tried to make it more natural, but will give it another shot. Ah, I can see that. I may be able to move some stuff around so it happens more naturally. Thanks again!

Putting my name in for 03/16 with a new and improved chapter 3. Edit: evidently this chapter got bigger than I thought! It's 5500 words, if that's ok with everyone. I really like the new stuff in it, though!

Thanks @killersquid! I'll take a look back how S is interacting in this chapter. He's got some other baggage from the previous two books, so I'll try to make things mesh better.

Yuck. Stay safe everyone. I have a couple cons coming up in March and I'm guessing at this point they may well be rescheduled. My day job so far hasn't made any firm ruling, but I'm going to try to work from home at least one day a week. More, if possible.

Similar response to @shatteredsmooth. Very tense chapter, with a lot of great action. I also got confused on the same two points: How the habitats were arranged, and habitat 8 vs. 3. I'm also unsure on the whole going down an extra level when they basically end up in front of the same crowd they would have seen exiting on level five. It seems like they just waste the raptors. I thought the ending was good, and definitely makes N more suspicious. Not sure that cliche is fully appropriate, though. Looking forward to the last three chapters! Notes while reading. pg 2: "the soldiers attempts to riddle them with bullets" -> "the soldiers riddling them with bullets" --They are definitely riddling them. pg 3: "He remembered her story" --most likely WRS. But I'm not sure which story he's referring to in relation to flashing amber lights. pg 3: "The plumber held his pistol" --should have named him Mario... ;-) pg 3: "E moaned." --in response to the MTs coming up the elevator before? pg 4: "the doors slid open on a sprawling pastoral scene" --I feel like we learned about this a long time ago, but it was where all the critters roamed free. Isn't this fantastically dangerous? pg 4: "We’re here." --we, or I? Are there others with N? --edit, realized later this is the women. WRS. pg 5: "This must be what DM wanted, mustn’t it" --But wasn't the whole deal that Q went down an extra level, and they were expecting them a level above? pg 6: “Never, gonna use a, handset..." --why? pg 6: "“This’ll be the sharp end then" --of what? pg 7: “With no guide bars out,” "The raptors won’t fit, which is the point" --Not sure of blocking here. the chute is meant to transport the creatures down to the lower level, right? So why are they blocked from getting out? pg 7: "The raptors moved up behind them" --but I thought they couldn't go anywhere? also why turn off the app? Can't they just tell them to go back down the chute to the level below? pg 8: bidding the raptors goodbye and the name reveal is very poignant! pg 9: "The raptors slipped past her into the habitat" --ah, this makes more sense now. Putting some part of this above would help out. pg 10: "Five figures stood at the end of the long, white viewing gallery." --wasn't the whole point of going down a level to avoid straight on conflict? Except now they're still facing a lot of guns and have lost the raptors. Before, they could have at least told the raptors to charge out of the elevator on floor five. pg 10: "that he noticed the fifth form" --confused. There are five standing, but four robots. DM is on the floor. Who's the fifth standing? Typo? pg 10: "DM was dead" --hmm...that's...anticlimactic. pg 11: "N had admitted faking all but the first call" --I'm getting the feeling N is more in control than we thought. pg 12: "Habitat Three" --huh? I thought they were in eight? pg 12:. “You haven’t saved me yet.” --I mean, give him a chance. He's still at the controls, right? I'm not sure why the robots suddenly decide to attack now, unless, as I suspect, they are under N's control and he's making a dramatic entrance. Still, why not just let Q open the enclosure and then step out? pg 12: "A dark, humanoid form" --so, not human? pg 12: “Did you miss me?” --ehhh, I feel like this is too cliched to have the right impact as a closing line. Plus, Q didn't miss his son. He didn't even know him until a few days ago.

Thanks @industrialistDragon! Sounds like it's getting better, though I'm interested that you almost liked the inverse of what @shatteredsmooth and @kais liked. I'll have to ponder than and see what other people say. Good thoughts on this. I think I can work with this part to provide more emotion and streamline it. Hmmm...definitely not what I intended. I'll have to read through again and see if I can find where the start of this response. I was more using it as a tie-in for the next chapter. I'll ponder this one too.

This tracks with what @shatteredsmooth said. I can boil this down. Cool. Can do. Thanks @kais!

Welcome to Reading Excuses! *Deep breath* So. In the kindest possible terms, this chapter is not where your story starts. This is an appendix on the background of casters in your world. The closest I got to an interesting hook to draw me in was the fight on page 11, but it doesn't really go anywhere. My questions for you: What inciting incident is going to shake your character out of their normal life? M is just going to class in this chapter. Why is that exciting? I was hoping the fight would turn out to be part of her test, which she would fail, putting her on some path, but that doesn't happen. Why is this character interesting? You've told me a lot about the world, and about M's physical description. She's sort of lazy at school. Why do I want to identify with her? What makes her special? I'd advise to start in the middle or right at the beginning of action. I don't think you need the prologue at all. Here are some catchy starting lines for reference: -"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." -“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” -"It was a pleasure to burn" -"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." Maybe you could start with something like... -"M. was called to fight the strongest girl in their group, though combat was her worst element, and the sun was in her eyes." Hope his help and thanks again for submitting! Notes while reading: pg 1: "trashing of the waves" --thrashing? pg 1/2 this goes into a longish discussion of how humans do/don't have magic, and what A does as a day job. It's not terribly interesting, and doesn't capture my attention. A is basically sitting under a tree for this whole time. Why are we starting the story here? what will happen to make me care about the character? pg 3: 'habit of visualising her movements before making them" --this whole paragraph is kind of confusing. I think it's saying that she felt something while preparing to turn in a direction? I think it can be summarized to a sentence or so. pg 3: "the next hour desperately searching for the cause" --I get the feeling A doesn't have a lot to do. Searching for the cause of a phantom feeling for an hour seems extravagant. pg 3: "due to the discovery" --but she hasn't actually discovered anything. pg 4: "her half of the house..." --could just say she lived in a suite of rooms making up half the house. pg 4: Confused. Is she searching for a phantom feeling in the memory of something she imagined she would do without actually doing it? pg 4: "she stepped through entirely" --the description here is very vague and hard to follow. Prologue: The others on here will also tell you that prologues are out of favor unless they do something very specific. I feel like this prologue doesn't really achieve anything. A thinks about a lot of things and then I guess disappears. All that could be summarized in a few paragraphs, or even in the main story, in order to get to the action quicker. pg 5: missing a lot of periods and commas between dialogue and description. pg 5: "it was only renamed..." --yeah, see I think with maybe one more sentence here, you could cover the whole prologue and render it unnecessary. pgp 5: "Lorekeeper T was a reference" --Why a reference? Is the Lorekeeper's name not T.? is it a nickname? pg 5: "Though not all professors..." --all this explanation isn't really necessary. We don't need the lorekeeper's character described. We want to have a connection to the main characters instead. pg 5: "thus the nicknames were born" --then I guess the lorekeeper's name isn't T.? Except we don't really know this, because we don't know their actual name, and all of this isn't really pertinent anyway. pg 6: "he counted on his fingers..." --those are strange subjects pg 6: all this is explanation of how a school works. It doesn't draw me in. I want a connection with M, or with K pg 7: more backstory explanation. I don't care about any of this unless I have a reason to. Don't give us the history of the school and subjects, make us care about the characters and why they're there. What are their goal for studying (or not)? What would they rather be doing? What exciting thing is about to happen which means this is the start of An Adventure? pg 8: more of the same. The story opens with two people not studying, and then going to bed. I'm sure there's a more exciting place to start. pg 9: "single sharp Tap" --why is tap capitalized? pg 9: Aaaannnd a mirror scene. Give us what M is doing, and you can describe her in actions, rather than static reflection. pg 9: Do not need to know how long her hair is to the inch. pg 11: "The third duel..." --this might be a better place to start your story. Open with M in action, fighting for her life! Why? We don't know...Is it for real? Is it a test? Capture the reader, and then reveal she's trying to pass a test. pg 11: Why a pretend sun? Why not put them outside with the real sun, and give them a challenge? pg 13: and then more description of far off places we don't care about yet. pg 15: the chapter ends with the students basically sleeping through a lecture, and your readers will be doing the same thing. What's the end of this arc? What struggle does M have in the first chapter? The closest I see is the fight, but even that just sort of ends. Basically, why would a reader be interested first in this character and second in this world? Draw us in with a hook to the brain that makes us unable to stop reading.

Very good thought! I'll include that. Hmmm...will reword again. I wonder if I need to come up with another way to represent this? I don't want to have a bunch of gimmicky fonts and styles though. Hopefully I can separate them better. Right! I'm hoping setting this up early will help E's character growth. Thanks @shatteredsmooth!

It's amazing how much I notice is lacking when I do the second draft, especially with the comments from you all.

Chapter 2 for the second time. I've split the original into two, so this is shorter than last time, but with some extra bits added. Let me know what think, and if there are any of the same problems as the first time. Previously: S/E/I arrive in the other facet with their news of the Elg. The Eff and court are there, E has problems with trust, and E/I learn about their folks. The Eff faints shortly thereafter.

This is a really good point. Part is because of the lost memories and connection between them, so I can try to make that part clearer. Aha. yes, that helps things. I can clarify how close E/I are in comparison to P/V, though that will probably end up in the second round of S/E/I POV chapters, at this rate. Oops. Thanks! Stupid lacking emotions! I'll try to en-panic him a little more. Thanks @shatteredsmooth!

Yep. I waffled about writing this part, but this section was so long already. I think shortening the rest and adding this POV in would help. Yep. All this is already working better thank to all of your comments. I should be getting back to this chapter in a week or two. Thanks @shatteredsmooth!

Thanks @shatteredsmooth! Glad you liked this one! Cool. I had a lot of fun writing this, and I think it will only get stronger the next time around. A really good idea, and might work better for fleshing things out. There's another sequence later, so I could some of that here.

Thanks @industrialistDragon! I think this is a big part of it. The first and last chapters usually get the most adjustments as I edit, so I can pare this one down some more to get right into things. Ok, progress then. I'm trying to juggle putting enough description in along with Emergency! and Save the Universe! It happened about 3/4 of the way through book 2, so probably WRS. That was about 5-6 months ago... Yep. Clunky wording. I have corrected. Lol. You were actually very helpful in showing where I need to call this out. This play directly into the next two chapters since I've now handled the introduction here. Hmmm...I definitely want to start the book from S's POV, since that's consistent with the last two. The next two chapters are from E/I's POV. I'll work on putting more of S's personality in here. Aha. Good catch. That will help me add in some more emotion. Thanks!

I'd also like a spot for 03/09 for Chapter 2 v2.

Welcome to Reading Excuses, @killersquid!

Thanks @Robinski! Great comments as usual. That will help me trim down this chapter's final form. I think this will probably become its own chapter. I'm through chapter 3 on the rewrite, and things will stay in this facet a lot longer. I'm planning to condense everything to one trip through the wall. I'm also moving chapters around. Still not sure I have the right mix of POVs, but we'll see how the latest edit is received. Glad you like this! This aspect is coming out a lot more in the rewrite.