Mandamon

Generally agree with @Robinski and @industrialistDragon that the escape from the mob is a little too easy, though the reasons for Sam coming along are a lot better. I'm still not convinced they would threaten their rulers, either, if only in fear of bringing retribution down on them. I think you could correct it with a few well places sentences, but it needs a little more. I have a much better idea of traveling on a glacier now, so I'm eager to see the next few sections! Notes while reading: pg 1: "“They’re demanding to speak with you,” K said. “I’m not surprised. S, stay close, but visible." --This took me two reads to figure out who wanted to talk to who pg 2: "They’re going to kill you." -> "ready to scream out loud at the witch who would not get out of my head." --It was not immediately apparent from the first italics that it was the witch talking, and not just S being pessimistic. Moving something like the last line will help. pg 3: "didn’t look like M royal blood wasn’t going to be enough to do it." --I'm still very surprised a village would even consider hanging a royal heir. Aren't they concerned about guards coming around later and torching their village? pg 3: "You know how I dealt with the king’s witches, don’t you? The king’s alchemists?" --This is a nice subtle dig at something I know is coming...;-) pg 4: "No heir of I would protect a witch or alchemist. They are vile." --This is a good edge into why witches aren't liked. I think we need more of this earlier to explain why they're hated. pg 4: "You don’t speak for her" --I mean, technically that's exactly what M does. She's the royal daughter... pg 5: "for being our only way out" --Ah, much better reason for having Sam along... pg 7: "Acceptable, Master Carpenter.” --Hmmm...I'm not sure the crowd who's going to lynch royalty is going to listen to Sam, just like that. I feel like there needs to be another few sentences here. pg 8: "M would release me from my guild once we finished our trip." --Huh? I think this is the first time this has come up. From the woodcutter's guild? I thought S wasn't guilded? pg 9: "the tiny things were so bright I almost had to look away" --very interesting. Did S just do magic? pg 11: "and thick" --and so thick? pg 12: "I saw blues and purples mixed with dirty greys, and of course, the omnipresent white." --I got some great pictures on one of the flights in Alaska of the blue ice pg 13: "Because I’ve waited a long time to talk to you" --Interesting. There's a lot more purpose to Sam, now. I'm looking forward to finding out what he wants to talk about.

Thanks @Tariniel and @kais! Glad this wasn't too confusing. You have some great notes where you did get confused, which will help me iron this out a little for people coming in fresh. That's the usual problem with prequels, where the character appears whole in another work. I can try to punch this up some more. Just M. The species has been around for a long time. Interesting. I'm not sure if this is good or bad. I'll have to think about it. Yeah, this got creepier as I wrote it. I probably should have put some tags on it, but I always forget to do that...

The first part of this didn't really grab me. It was mainly a listing of prison yard bullies, and this close to the beginning of the story, I want more character building for J, and setting the scene. However I'll agree with @shatteredsmooth that the voice is good. Things get going around page 9, where C starts being a player. My main problem was I couldn't see why J would trust her. He goes from being cagey that she knows he's a caster to infatuated with her. You could strip the first half of the chapter to a couple sentences about the gangs, and spend the rest of the time building the relationship, since we'll be with these characters for a while. I'd also like some bigger reason for J to join the gang. Basically he's falling in with whoever offers him a job, but if it is because of infatuation (through a character flaw on J's part?) or because C has dirt on him, that would make it a lot more believable, and also set up some friction inside the crew. Right now it's just the friction with G+J, which is giving me more creeper vibes than any sort of good M/M possibilities. I'm hoping this doesn't just go down the path of "straight man spurns gay man." pg 9: "If a mouse, I could add to my memory" --Meaning mice bones aid memory specifically? or something else? --ok, yes, this seems to be the case, as defined by the owl. Interesting. pg 9: "another hurried sucking" --Another magic term? I'd rather just one general term. pg 10: "In that moment, I thought I would follow C. into the beast’s maw" --Why this unerring loyalty to C? There doesn't seem to be a strong reason for it besides not getting beaten up, but that wouldn't inspire this sort of attention. pg 10: "Maybe he thought he had a chance with C. Maybe I would put him straight on that." --So J is attracted to C then. I didn't get that so much as he saw a useful ally. pg 11: "Did that mean I couldn’t trust her?" --I haven't seen any reason J *could* trust her yet. They are in prison, after all. pg 13: “I’m in.” --This isn't a big revelation for me. J doesn't have much choice right now, so he's taking whatever job is available.

Weird. I looked at my sent mail and the document is attached. Anyone else have a problem?

Hello all, This is the short story that goes along with the two novellas I'm putting out. It won't spoil anything past the first 20 pages or so of Society, but if you're not familiar with the magic system, this may be a bit of a jump. Still, I think you'll still be able to enjoy it. Let me know any comments you have!

One of our cats drools all the time when he's sleeping!

Yes.

I can see that. Part of this was me seeing I had 44k words in a 40k word novella and trying to wrap it up. I think I need to accept this is a short book, and not a novella! Another good point. I think I need to do some major reworking of the end, to bring in guards with W. gun, and make the main chars more proactive. I think you're the third or fourth to say this, so that section will definitely be moving to the very end! Thanks @industrialistDragon!

I'll also put my name in for next week, unless we have too many people. I'm planning to submit the short story that will go along with the two novellas. I need some eyes to see if this is working at all.

Very sorry to hear that @Jorville. Let us know if we can help in any way.

It only takes a cruise to Alaska to get @Robinski to post before me! Overall, I thought this was good. Some confusion as I got started, because the chapter break here is pretty abrupt. However, it contains one of my favorite scenes, with S throwing the power at the invisible witch! Some more guild/factory confusion while reading, which I've noted below. The only other thing was that M's reactions at the end seemed a little off. Notes while reading: pg 1: WRS, but it took me a while to connect the beginning of this chapter with zinger at the end of the last one. pg 1: "water frames" --still not really sure what these are. Might be good to define, especially in a YA book. pg 1: "M isn’t a part of this" --Wait, S is still talking with the witch? Yeah, definitely need a bigger bridge between these chapters. pg 2: I've always loved this part-glad it's back in, and extended! pg 3: "I hissed to the filmy whiteness that lay like a cheesecloth over my vision." --I assumed S was out of the magic, so need some other indication that she's still feeling the effects. pg 4: “Unbound.” --If these people are commoners, and not bound to a guild, then why do they care if S is unbound? pg 5: "No unbound guilds!” --yeah, still don't get this, if they're working in a factory and subsuming the guild anyway. pg 6: "the snow sickness" --eh? Is this is a thing? I don't remember it. pg 7: "all I really remembered about him were hushed whispers and black curls." I'm not sure this fits with the flashback and the other information we know about Sam. How much does S remember? pg 7: "How many years had I longed for a sibling to ease the isolation of the Thujan woods?" --S did? We've never heard anything about this before. pg 8: "my elder brother, and I don’t think he is happy to see me.” --This is good, but I think it could have more punch if we knew a little more about the dynamics of guild legacy. Right now, I think we've been told only females can inerit, so what does Sam have to be mad about? pg 9: "it felt like she was mad at me" --I think this needs to be bumped up more. M seems annoyed, but not particularly mad at S. Especially with the chapter break, it loses some of the tension. pg 9: "even my mother" --is the queen also guiled? To who? Seems like public information. pg 9: "a handful of bewildered guilders with no memory of their trade" --what now? This is new information. --ah, good. You address it next paragraph. pg 10: Is Gas. Fle. the name of the old kingdom? I'd like some confirmation of that. pg 10: "It felt like sheets of ice compressed my chest. I felt cold, though the sun was warm on my face. “Factories,” I whispered." --I don't quite follow. Are the factories on the glacier? What connection has S made? pg 11: "Her arm moved tight around my waist..." --this section doesn't seem so much like one person interrogating another. It's a little too intimate. Especially with "she was the royal daughter, grown and angry" later on. pg 11: “Did you find the Grandmaster of Glass?” --who what? Were they looking? This seems like a non-sequitor. pg 12: "The only safe place is Th." --that seems...doubtful. Maybe the witch is not informed, but it also makes it a less effective threat. pg 12: "factory has been running in secret" --Can a factory run in secret? That seems like it would take too many people to conceal. pg 13: "You can be real quick to threaten burning," --if this is a thing, I'd like another sentence earlier in the book to bolster the fact. pg 15: "I get that you have a blind spot when it comes to guilds" --this is a good section, but could be bolstered by something earlier on. pg 15: "Magda slapped at the doorframe..." --This section is also good, in that it answers questions we've had the whole time. However, to make it sound less like an infodump and more like a revelation, it needs to be crystal clear that S has been in the dark. pg 16: "she whispered into my ear as she passed." --I like the moment, but it seems a quick change from M just being mad at S.

Welcome to Reading Excuses and congrats on the first submission! Overall, I quite enjoyed this. Your writing style is very readable, and it's very funny. You'll notice before I was confused for most of the first chapter. I think it had some funny bits as well, but it was very overshadowed by the fact that I had no idea what was going on until the end. However, the second chapter was great, and had me laughing! Honestly, I'd scrap the first chapter entirely. The second one is gripping, funny, and gives us pretty much all the information the first one was lacking. Looking forward to more! Notes while reading: pg 1: "I know" --Sort of a strange starting sentence. Sounds like we're in the middle of a conversation. pg 1: "She lashed out as the figure muscled her to the floor and pulled a musty bag over her head." --Wait, what? She was just having a conversation or something, and now is getting attacked. I need some sort of transition. pg 1: who is the guard? The one that attacked her. I think I just need some blocking/description to set the scene. pg 1: "Of course she didn’t trust him" --same thing here. This is like the second half of a paragraph, except we never got the first half. pg 2: "Her shade would await Omega’s, the arrogant arm of the law who’d thwarted her, coming upon him like a lightning bolt as he sauntered toward eternity." --okay, I'm sort of enjoying this just on the fact that the writing is good and flows well, but I have absolutely no idea what's going on. pg 2: "It was like the hole she’d come from" --But we don't know what that was like, so we have no comparison. You describe it afterwards, but that first sentence pulls me out. pg 3: "a squat robot used metal tongs" --and now I'm thrown again. I was thinking this was historical, or secondary world, but now it sounds like scifi? I need some setting in here to ground my expectations. pg 3: "Then people, nameless and faceless, came." --actually, or figuratively? At this point, I don't know what to expect. pg 4: "Rolling eyes of unrelieved onyx" --like, her eyes are completely black? pg 5: I'm starting to get the hand of this now, but you could probably start when the man comes into the room. Everything before that didn't add anything to my understanding. pg 6: "but he’d come back over and over," --I think we need a larger break here to denote lots of time passing. Otherwise when she cuts him off, it sounds like the same conversation. pg 7: "It’s been the policy of the organization that I work for, and it’s recently become national law, that supervillains are not to be killed." --Okay, here's the 'thesis' of your story, so to speak, but it's buried seven pages in. This needs to be a lot closer to the top to set the scene. Pg 8: Chapter 1 was rocky to get started, but now it has, I'm enjoying it. I think we just need a clearer idea of what's going on, earlier. pg 9: Now this is a good opening. Much better than chapter 1. pg 11: I'm still with you on this chapter. It's really good, and you almost could cut the whole first chapter without losing anything... pg 12: "Never start a relationship with a grad student when you’re the occupying force on her campus" --lol pg 15: the cat is great.

Overall, I'm still looking for the direction of the story. These sections are still mostly setup, and not a lot happenening. I think this and the first section could be combined or eliminated, if the ball is what really starts he story. We only start to get there at the end of the section. Really, you could even start the book with M meeting her father. It would give us some worldbuilding, we'd find out what M's situation was, and then the story could progress. Notes while reading: pg 1: "once again reminded" twice in one paragraph pg 1: I don't remember who A is from the first sections. Probably WRS. pg 1: there's a big discussion about culture here, but I'm not really sure what M's goal is. Is she going somewhere in particular? pg 2: M is only 14? pg 2: Oh yes, A is the ambassador. I remember now. pg 2: "From there the conversation continued about her father and her people." --yes, but I'm stil not sure what they're doing. Is M just out for a stroll? Does she have some objective? pg 2: "She hadn’t invited him" --yep, agree with M. She didn't actually invite him. I feel like an ambassador should be more in touch with social niceties? pg 3: "She stumbled forward before tripping and falling in the dusty street and rolling several times before hearing a large ripping sound and stopping." --very awkward sentence. pg 3: "shoving her like that she was the daughter of a Chieftain" --eh? I would think the daughter of a chieftain would be a person of note. pg 3: "carriage gently roll to a stop" --I think you mean it almost hit her, but rolling gently doesn't give me that impression. It should be screeching to a halt, or maybe crashing into something. pg 3: There's a lot of changing from proper names to descriptors, and it makes it hard to tell who's speaking and what POV we're in. Generally, the POV character doesn't get descriptors, since they know who they are. --"the warrior woman" --"The Alte. woman" pg 3: "some kind of moronic fool" --This seems over the top. pg 3: "sorcerer" --I thought he was an ambassador? pg 4: "The carriage took off rumbling back home." --I want a little more from this section. What is M trying to achieve? Does she change at all from this encounter? Is there a point to the conversation besides worldbuilding? pg 5-6: A lot of this is just transition, and nothing really happens. I feel like most of this could be cut down or eliminated. pg 8: This section lacks punch at the ending. We don't know enough about M's relation to the tribe and what leaving it means to her. Also, I'm not sure why she needs to leave. Some of the previous section where she's wandering around the house could be used to develop that.

Great! That bodes well for the next revision. Yep! I want to see what it will be as much as you do! Sneaky cameo! Good point. I'll take a look at it. Thanks @kais! Yes, I'll definitely address this. Usually that happens in the next two edits... I've had another comment about that too, so I'll see what I can do. Thanks @shatteredsmooth! Hmm...W's got it hidden. I'll make that clearer. Good catch. I'll have to revisit that. I had someone else mention this too, so I may need to move it closer to the end. Thanks @Jorville!

Thanks @Robinski! Did you send LBLs on already? I haven't received them yet, but email might be wonky with cruising. Glad the pacing worked for you...hope the last section satisfies!

Lol--I don't know-, they'd probably like it! Sneaky end promise! This one was so much fun to write, I knew I wanted to do another... Thanks @Eagle of the Forest Path!

Welcome to Reading Excuses and congrats on your first posting! I had a few extra minutes tonight, so I figured I'd get a jump on this since you sent it early. Overall, this has some potential. Right now it's pretty rough, and needs a good once-over for technical issues, but the core is there. Questions: How well do I introduce the world? Where is there too much detail or not enough? --I think it's a pretty good introduction. The biggest issue seems to be several places where you label a thing, then don't explain what it is for a while. Especially Oomph. We need to know what that does and how it works early, as it's important to the story. What do you think of the pacing? --Pretty solid. Do you see a connection between what happens in the beginning of chapter 1 and the end of chapter 2? --Yep. It works. Does the voice work? --Good voice. You could actually take it down a notch here and there. Are there any obvious, obnoxious sentence level issues? --A bunch, especially on the first page. I've noted some below. Note while reading: pg 1: "waiting for distant contact of my mom’s to deliver something" --Something missing in this sentence. "a" distant contact? pg 1: "At least this criminal" --what criminal? The distant contact? These last two sentences need to be clarified a bit. pg 1: "glow like halo" --a halo. pg 1: "HoBo" --I assume this is a car of some sort? --ah, a hovercraft, a few lines down. Might be good to switch these two so we know what it is before it's named. pg 1: "throws rows of hovercraft" --through, hovercrafts pg 1: A's name needs an apostrophe at the end. pg 1: "with smooth edges" --Why/how does clothing have smooth edges? pg 1: "backdoor" --two words. Back door. pg 2: "But you did, and you’re doing that horrid thing..." --needs a dialogue tag. I don't know who's speaking. pg 2: "A leaned forward so xir nose was almost touching mine." --why? pg 3: "The silver bus flew up" --Actually flew, or arrived quickly, or what? pg 3: "Shoving the processed, buttery, salty goodness also known as popcorn" --possibly too much detail? pg 3: "hovering boxes (HoBo)" --Ah. did not get this. Needs to be up at the beginning. pg 3: "SE" --who? Also, why would they be torturing D? We don't really know what's going on yet. pg 4: "fatter than Martian dust bunny" --are they fat? Are they even alive? dust bunnies are those piles of fuzz under the couch. I don't get a size comparison out of this. pg 4: "Unfortunately, he was in prison, on another planet, that was run by a government that would rather see Earth destroyed than do a favor for a teenager with junk food problem." --There's a lot in this one sentence, and I feel like you're burying the lede. Can you unpack this and show us instead of telling? pg 4: "L-shaped tonged" --tongue. Also, how does that work? which way does the angle go? pg 6: "admitting my frail little arms were too small..." --But doesn't D have more than human strength? Could D just pick them up differently? pg 7: "willful veins feel like they were filled with electric maggots" --this is a bit too purple compared to the rest of the text. pg 8: "something that reeked of Oomph" --did we know this before? I feel like it's an important description. pg 9: "were 50% more likely to have an Oomph sensitivity" --But D takes a suppressant. That tells me D's body manufactures Oomph, not that D can sense it. It would help if I knew what Oomph was and why it was so sought after. pg 9: "and using Oomph" --Same thing here. Using it for what? I still think "suppressant" is the wrong word. It's not suppressing the Oomph, but the ability to do things to it. pg 9: "I tried to reach towards her with my mind" --So it makes people telepathic? pg 11: "even with a boatload of “prescription” chems" --Do the chems affect her ability to focus, or to talk? pg 12: "and a dozen conversations I wasn’t supposed to have" --Good line. Builds up personality while moving the plot forward. pg 13: "Have you ever seen objects that channel Oomph?" --Where is this question coming from? I still feel like I don't know enough about it to determine what it actually does. pg 13: "growling stomach." --Is this relevant to the rest of the conversation? Pg 14: "You’re always hungry,” --Ah. This lends context to the above note, but I think you need to mention this more often between the beginning and this point if it's a big character tag. pg 15: "That didn’t they no one would try to steal the artifact for themself." --Missing a word. Also, what artifact? pg 15: "Our moms owned The Garden of Earthly Delights together." --also good to know before now. pg 16: "Oomph artifacts" --still don't know enough about this. pg 16: "type of item I just picked up for Mom" --ah, that's the artifact. Need to add something in to tie it to the package.

Last section - and finally a short one! If you're just coming in now...uh. Sorry. No obligation to read if you don't want to. This is the very end of the story. Previously, the group rode in the balloon until their fuel ran out, and then anchored the beetle to the wall. They climbed for a few days, but the beetle hit a snag. They met another crew climbing up the wall, and started climbing together. After an accident that took one of each of the crews, the four remaining climbed through the cloud layer to find a giant waterfall forming the clouds. Above the clouds, they discovered a great waterfall, climbed below it until they crossed the vertical river, then began climbing upward again until they began to see strange white lights inside the wall. It turned out the white lights were roots, and they entered a forest, and soon after met the species who lives at the top of the Nether. A child of the first family the explorers met took them to the city, where they discovered more about the winged people, and our protagonist learned that they use spider silk and sung Nether crystal for much of their technology. Also, the species was stuck there, and didn't remember their homeworld. Finally, they set up a time to meet with the leader of the Nether to discuss the new species. While they waited, they learned more of the winged species. However, their antagonist took control shortly before they were to leave, threatening the majus with a gun. He forced the city to sign a contract granting him sole trading rights, and then the crew passed through a portal back to the floor of the Nether. Well, this is the end! Looking for all comments as usual, especially if I've fulfilled promises made at the beginning, or if there are any arcs that seem incomplete. Thanks!

@Robinski said the same thing, so I'll need to take a look at the pacing. That was sort of intentional, to mark how many days passed, but if it's annoying, I can change it. Probably the emotion. That seems to be the big issue with this story. Ah, no--he shot her in the hand, as a warning/example. I'll make this clearer. Thanks @industrialistDragon

I've been doing this for the last 5 hours on a flight to Seattle! I just open up the document with the critiques, or the relevant RE page and go through my word doc and address the comments. Easier with LBLs, but works for me either way. That way I can mark off an entice section "done" at one time. If I can address everything, I usually have a separate "notes" document with changes I need to make later.

Yay--a new story! I think this is a good start, though the beginning could be sharpened up a little. The end of the section is solid. My main complaint is the magic,and worldbuilding that goes along with it. It's still pretty undefined, and depending on who can use it, might have some larger changes that aren't in evidence yet. Notes while reading: Ooo! A map! Pg 3: The first sentence goes on a bit. Could be shorter for more impact. Pg 3: "timeously" --that's a real word, evidently... pg 4: "No, there was nothing I could use. A butcher’s bin with no bones" --I'd rather see him find something, if only to show off the magic. Right now, we don't know what bones have to do with anything. --And also, how many people have magic? If it's everyone, or even a lot, I would expect the butcher to lock up his bones. Being a butcher might even be a more lucrative profession, because of the extra money from magic users... pg 4: "chancing his arm" --what does this mean? pg 5: "spent half of my remaining clout" --Is this the term for using magic? Had to read it a few times to figure out he enhanced his hearing. --ah, you explain some the next paragraph. I'd still like it a little clearer. pg 5: "I heard—unaided" --Does this mean the magic ran out? pg 6: "remaining store of heat" --So is it heat, or clout, or magic, or what? pg 6: "casting’s not like story magic after all, unfortunately." --which begs the question, what is story magic like, here?

Thanks @Robinski! The LBLs are very helpful Interesting. I'll have to take a look at this with my next pass. For now, let me know what you think of the conclusion! Yes, a bit. I can try to beef this up. Yeah...this will be incorporated with the next pass. More emotion!

Yep. This will happen. Yeah--this is definitely written from W's POV only ;-) Interesting! Personally, I really like lavender, but I get your point. Good list of scents. I'll look into changing that around Ehhhh...this has far ranging and overarching reasons that I don't want to get into with a novella. Suffice to say, they've been there a long time, and if readers are curious, I'd direct them to read books 2 and 3 of Seeds (whenever I get to writing them). Thanks @industrialistDragon!

There is after reading your book ;-) Yes. I'd assumed spinning was due (/engineer) to heat rising/brownian motion in the bath. (end /engineer)

Lol!