Mandamon

Congrats! I'll be getting one in a moment. I'll have to check out the audio book too. It'll be cool to hear what voices she puts to N and E. Oh, by the way, the kindle and print versions aren't linked on Amazon yet--they'll probably catch it in a few days, but you may want to send in a request just in case.

Thanks @AviatrixAway! Good comments on the cultural changes. I have a few hints stuck in there, but I can certainly pull it out more. Well, that's two votes for it! Maybe N and A will need to go off on another adventure together... Heh--this is actually addressed in some of the other books, and I plan on having a full novella about it in the future. Cool. I can accentuate this as well, in the next editing pass.

I think I need to start writing these down so I know how many slash fics to expect...

This is a very good point. I'll have to take a look at this part again. There is definitely some more of this is the last section, so let me know what you think, and if it resolves as-is. Everything's about romance with you, isn't it? ;-) But seriously, I wrote this more as a "friend" thing since it is mid-grade. Are you picking up a more specific romance vibes at certain points? Not that it can't go that way, but I think if so, I need to make it bigger...

Well, doing so made my stories more interesting already, so I'm sure it will help here too! Lol--sorry! I meant that you'd finally submitted to a pub for the first time, not that it was a first book!

Welcome @shatteredsmooth! Another Ninestar writer--I assume @kais had something to do with this then? ;-) Looking forward to reading your submissions!

Yeah...sorry about that...and thanks a bunch for all the edits! I'm going to start incorporating those today. Annnd...I guess since I'm in here, I'll put my name in for next week for the final section of Journey. I'll actually be on a cruise in Alaska (!) but I'll will do my darndest to get critiques submitted on time with probably terrible internet.

Says the guy who just submitted his first work in December... ;-)

That's the one! Thanks @Eagle of the Forest Path. I couldn't remember enough of the book to even google it.

Thanks @AviatrixAway! Yep, this is something I really need to ramp up. I modeled this species on heavily dimorphic bird species, so I was going for the males to be very eye catching and stunning, whether you want to bring perceived beauty into it or not. I try to leave absolute terms of "beauty" in the eye of the reader, so to speak.

I'm always in favor of giving the story how it is with no explanation. If it can't stand up on it's own, then it needs revision. I'd focus on M, rather than events. You can make a lack of plot interesting with a good character, but it's much harder vice-versa. Also, since you've already told us this is a villain origin story, your opening hook could be something like "I am a villain," or "You will hate me after you read this," or something along that vein so we are prepped for a tragic arc rather than a positive one. Showing us M's character after that, as a pleasant person, can make the reader feel smart about "oh, I know that she'll change." I'd clear it up at the beginning. Just a habit of speech. It certainly could be a chapter, but I think the beginning requires enough rewriting that's not a big question at the moment.

Thanks @Jorville! No, it's good to mention this again. I'm noticing this a lot more as I go through feedback. I'll be fleshing out the descriptions a lot. Yeah--also need to flesh this out a bit... Let me know what you think of the last section, and whether it works. It is mid-grade, so I didn't want to get too technical Hm. Also need to amp this up, I see.

Pacing is good here, and I think this is one of the most connected interludes so far. Sam has a much better intro, and makes it a lot easier to connect the clues. I think S is still believable. However, with this interlude, now I'm wondering about Sam's age. I assume a year or so older, since S doesn't recognize him or remember him being born. This means he's 15-16, which sort off strains S calling him "boy" rather than "young man" especially in comparison to a 5 year old girl. Notes while reading: pg 2: "or in this case, a boy" --Did anyone actually assume that yet? pg 2: "“You’re a boy. A boy can’t be an heir" --ok, now Sam does. Maybe an editing artifact? pg 3, first paragraph: This is a good explanation and starts to get to S's motivations. pg 3: "She’d probably already spoken to the guilders" --didn't we find out last chapter that there weren't any guilders in the city? Or is that WRS? pg 4: "I ran directly into the spirit house" --this is a small house, correct? Might be good to have a quick size tag. pg 4: "man almost my exact height, with the same loose black curls falling into his eyes" --yes, this connects a lot better now. pg 4: "Each tiny shingle " --yep, need a note on size above. pg 6: "as I tried to remember where I had met this man before" --this is coming across as sort of a disconnect now, since we just read the interlude. Was S beaten up so much that S doesn't remember the interlude? If so, then need to state that. --ok, S remembers a few paragraphs later, but it still reads a little weird. pg 8: "stirred another amorphous memory—so hazy I couldn’t quite pin it down." --is this coming into play later? I don't remember anything about it before. (Edit--we didn't get anything about this by the end of the chapter, but I think there was another reference to the smell, so now I'm confused about it.) pg 8: S's recognition reads well this time. I'm probably not a good test subject since I've read this so much, but the revelation seems surprising and inevitable to me. pg 9: "I couldn’t hear anything, except the faint sound of a chair scraping across the floor." --(With a priori knowledge) I like this setup better... pg 10: "But I wasn’t afraid, right? It was just a witch." --this again. I'm still not sure what to think. We've been shown that witches are dangerous, already. pg 11: "Missing a head seemed unnecessary. " --yeeesss...which makes me wonder why it's happening. pg 12: Good last sentence!

Congrats on your first submission! Now get ready for all the red ink... Overall, I think the main character can be interesting, but the events in this chapter are not, particularly. This reads develops more into a romance as it goes along than a fantasy. Not that that is bad, but was not what I was expecting when I started out. Right now, I have no idea where it's headed. I don't really get any sense of the magic as yet. It's been mentioned, but there's no demonstration, or really anything past saying that there is magic. My biggest problem is: What is the hook that gets us into the story? Why do we care about this character? What exciting events are happening? We start out with getting a dress for a ball, where even in romance, you need to connect with the character first to care why she is going to the ball. Looks like you have an arc for this in mind with the villain story. What's the inciting incident that leads to that arc? Pg 1: The opening is not that captivating--just a woman walking along a street. What's the draw to make us care about her? pg 2: "She had come home from the ball her father had arranged for her to attend crying" --She'd come home crying from the ball... pg 3: There's been a lot of description so far, but not a lot to actively catch my interest. pg 3: "They had fought for a few moments" --this section has some...strange family dynamics... pg 4: "Back among her own tribe" --ok, so she's not native to this place. That might be good to bring out more earlier. pg 7: "She however was the daughter of the richest man in the entire city" --so she is a native then? Or did her father move from the tribe? Or was she raised in the tribe and came to this city recently? pg 7: "called out in a clear voice" --She's not winning any sympathetic points. pg 9: "Fetch it and we shall see if it meets my standards." --Not getting any more attached to M... pg 10, top: All this is a big tell about M. Can you show us this competency and skill instead?

Welcome to Reading Excuses, @Dearius! Great to have you aboard. Try some critiques for a the next couple weeks to get a feel for things, and maybe that will help you get some more writing out there.

Great! Let us know if you're planning on doing touring things as we get closer. My wife is going to put together some options, possibly with some group rates.

Well yes, but @Jorville will also have a hardcopy. Half of me would want to edit while transcribing, just to save time, the other half wants to make sure I have a copy that's the same...

Second to last section! 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. Looking for all comments as usual. We're also getting toward the end, so let me know if there are any promises made at the beginning that haven't been fulfilled. Thanks!

Thanks @kais! Glad this one was solid. I've had another reader say the same, so it's nice to have confirmation! Wait until next week... ;-) So this novella will have an illustration featuring the Eff! I'm really pleased with it too. Also, he'll get a lot more screen time in the next Seeds novel...

Yes, more learning that nonbinary exists in this world, rather than that nonbinary exists.

Throwing my name in for next week. Second to last sub for this novella!

I took a gander at it and came up with some notes... "This is a series of novellas; so, not (as) long to write" --I'm coming off of writing two novellas in 5-6 months...*gasp* *wheeze* It's basically taken all my free time. On magic: is it only bones that can be used? That seems to be the case. You talk about animal bones and levels of magic use, so my mind automatically jumped to eating human bones as one of the top tiers (if fantastical animals are not included), but something that is extremely frowned upon (for obvious reasons). This reminds me of another series. I can't remember the name, but I think it was urban fantasy and involved magicians eating rare animals and/or other magic users to take their magic. Might do some research to find out what it was to avoid overlap. Characters: Backgrounds and descriptions all seem fine. However, I notice you have a 4/2 male/female split, and no LGBTQ rep. What if the women start coming on to Gar, but he's after Jeh? (Edit: yes, I came up with this before reading the summary...) Plot: Scene 1: "The women in here are all ugly" --eh, this sort of thing no longer entices me. Scene 2: For a novella, you're going to have to move fast. The "time passes in jail" part screams instant slow-down to me. You've shown a chase scene at the beginning, now need to keep up the pace. Maybe J runs into C (who already has a crew) getting away from being arrested, rather than being thrown into jail? dunno. Needs something to move it along. "Burglary of country houses?" --so is this a heist? That has a very definite story structure. Scene 3: I actually wouldn't mind a Locke Lamora fanfic... hmm..so this still seems to be all planning. Can you combine this part with scene 2 and achieve both at one time? Or is this more character building? Still, especially in a novella, you need to do both at once. Scene 4: How many POVs in this? For a novella, you should restrict to 1, or maaaaybe 2. Scene 5/6: There's a lot of "going to" and "learning about" in this writeup, and it's starting to sound more like a novel than a novella. You might be able to skip directly to Scene 7... Scene 7: This is the first action since the beginning of the book... Scene 8/9: This is starting to get to the meat of the story. I think this can come sooner and you can cut some of the above. Scene 10/11: denouement seems good... Lol--I would like to note that I totally called Gar out before getting to this point. Although I'd rather see him out at the beginning and chasing after Jeh (returned or not). "Revealing" that someone is gay is sort of passe. Most pub houses (I'm guessing) are going to want the LGBTQ characters up front. @kais may be able to advise more. Scene 12: Definitely can set this up as the first job in a sequence. Questions: -Are the stakes high enough? --probably, but you need to start a lot closer to the meat of the story in a novella. -Do the characters and their interactions sound interesting/engaging? --yes, I think you have some well-defined character motivations. Just don't take too long to develop them. -Do the setting and the set-up sound interesting? Takes too long to get there, but yes. -What about the magic system? I like it. Overall: This could certainly work, but I think (knowing your writing style) you'd really need to focus on getting to the plot objective as soon as possible. Any character development has to come while events are happening. If anything, my challenge to you writing would be this: Can you throw us into the thick of things, where the group is already assembled, except for maybe one or two characters, and learn about them as they act?

I think, especially considering some of S's ignorance in later chapters, we need a solid buy-in early on showing S's ignorance of guilds, or a good reason why she's out of touch.

@Jorville I'll send you the Beta Reader copy. I've got your email address, so you may want to edit and remove it from above, for security.

Thanks @Jorville! Good catch on the city. I can add some more description there. The language thing might be cleared up by reading the rest--not sure. Glad it was easy to follow, even coming in late. if you do want to read the rest, I can certainly send it to you.