Mandamon

I'll throw in my hat for next week since it seems to only be Fox so far.

Yeah, I think that's why I went with what I did the first time around. I wonder if I can put a little more "Sugoooiii!" in a few places, although it seems to be going in a different direction now as I do edits. I'll do another submit next week, since it seems pretty light so far.

Generally agree with @Asmodemon that this is reading better, though I think ch 5 could be cut down significantly to increase the pace/tension. I'm also not a big fan of M's POV in ch 6. I have some notes at the bottom, but basically, with what we find out this whole chapter could be summarized fairly easily by R telling Q this information (unless R is dead). I also like the new info on The Old Man, but I want more! Hopefully we will find out some more tidbits soon. Notes while reading: pg 3: "And there were plenty, now and then" --this took me a second read to figure out. Doesn't follow well from the last sentence. pg 3: Long intro to this chapter. I think the first couple pages could be cut down to get to the dialogue quicker. pg 5: "Feeling that, once again, he’d been bested by a fourteen-year-old" --there's a lot of text in here to not actually give the reader any background about either character... pg 5: "still had self-drive cars" --I read this as "cars that drive themselves" first, and got confused. pg 6-7: lots of stuff in here about roads and local elections that don't seem to have much to do with the plot. pg 8: "beamed at him" --probably need a name here so we know it's Q and not a video call with R. pg 9: "she knew how to hurt someone" --How? By calling him "dad?" Isn't Q old enough to be her father, and her ward to boot? Seems pretty accurate to me. pg 9: "Q reckoned it was because, often, he felt like a missing person himself," --this is a new angle, but I don't know if there's story to support it so far. pg 9: "Message R and tell him we’ll take the case, please" --Wait, I though they already took the case? pg 12: "That’s one you owe me, boss.” --not sure what this means. bottom of pg 14: missing question marks when Q is asking N about the crash. pg 15: "But now there was a contract" --eh, that's very convenient. It would be less suspicious if they had accepted the contract from the beginning. Unless it's supposed to be suspicious timing. pg 16: "He’s called the Old Man because..." --Finally, some background! This is great, as is the end of the chapter. I just felt like it took a while to get there. pg 17: "She would have known that, after being fed not once..." --this whole sentence is very convoluted and took me several tries to figure out. pg 18: "the Old Man managed to take a swipe at his competitors" --the same one as called Q, I suppose. Makes a good connection. pg 18: Lots of explaining/telling for M. Maybe some can be shown instead? pg 20: "Increasingly, M abandoned stealth. This was becoming a race." --It doesn't feel like it. M hasn't seen anything of the beasts, and seems to be talking himself into beleving things are going badly. Chapter 6: This felt confusing to me. There wasn't a lot of description of M's position, just a feeling of movement. He didn't actually spot the beasts, but somehow determined that T was not dead. I finally remembered it was 4 days prior at the end, where things start to come together. But now we know that, I'm wondering if this chapter is even needed. If we find out R found T's body, then we can basically assume the rest.

Awesome! Thanks @Truthweaver, and glad it's working better. There's some more description soon after this, and I'll try to post the next section next week, so let me know if that helps out, and if I need to bring it forward.

To me, S is acting about 17 here, but I always felt S acted young in previous drafts as well. Pacing is better here, but still a bit long in Ch 3. Notes are below. However, S is reading as more active and competent, which is good. Ch 2: better motivation for not going to the house. Works for me. Ch 3: Nothing too specific on this section, but it reads as overly long. I'm not sure why S runs toward the forest. There's a lot of description of the things S is passing, but not why. When people start calling to S to stop, I would think there would be some internal signal to adjust S's direction. Thus it ends up as a bit plotful that S runs into the forest and straight to the master alchemist, by accident. I would think S would recognize the trees once S gets to that area. pg 7: "“Master R!” I yelled it, hoping to get the palm’s attention" --If S is trying to get the palm's attention I would think S would call to it, not to the master. pg 9: "and although roots now hovered near his shoulders, he remained still" --why isn't the palm still attacking him? Because he's still? pg 9: “That’s an old amulet. Old magic." --I like that there's a force behind the tree now. pg 11: "tried to reach the knife, to pull it from the wound," --I thought the knife shot out of the tree at S? pg 13: Good that R starts asking S about alchemy now. That flows more smoothly. pg 16: The ending of this works better too. R offering S the apprenticeship makes a lot more sense and underlines that S is competent in the field, which as I recall was a problem in the previous draft.

Part 1 v2: I aged up the MC, and redid the personality. I'm feeling a lot better about this version, thanks to your comments. Let me know how this one reads. Same questions as last time: 1) Do you engage with the main character, or think a kid/teen would? 2)How is the character's voice? 3) Who do you think will engage gender-wise? 4) Can you also enjoy this as an adult? 5) problems with plot/setting, etc. (Does it fit the "Jules Verne" mold?) Thanks!

Interesting. I hadn't heard of Planetside before, but you could totally do it. I think the theme is common enough so that if you changed the names around, you'd be alright. There are enough other FPS that have similarities.

@mrwizard70 no problem. I'm getting some beta feedback now, so if you want to just wait 2-3 weeks, I can probably send you the next draft instead. Could be interesting. LitRPG is becoming a more popular genre!

I'm a tentative for next week, depending on how writing goes tomorrow. I'll update this after I write. Edit: I'm in for Monday. It's reading a lot better to me, so I need to have you guys tear it apart.

Thanks @Robinski. That seems to tie in with what the others were saying. However, I've been doing some more plotting this week and I think I may have a solution. I'm going to do some rewriting hopefully tomorrow and maybe get this intro working better. Might try to re-submit next week if I can get something better by tomorrow. if not, I'll hold off. Now that I'm writing the end, I think this can work--I just need to set a flamethrower to the beginning.

Thanks @kais! That helps me place where I need to age things up. I'm writing the end of it now, and I think I've aged her up a bit by the end, so I'll try to go back and replicate that at the beginning.

Great comments! Thanks to @industrialistDragon and @mrwizard70. I'll go back and try to whip this into shape with an eye to your examples.

Thanks @industrialistDragon! I guess I erred too much on the simplistic side, but it's certainly easier for me to scale up the difficulty than down. I might have gotten the voice a little better later on, so I'll go back in and fill in the blanks here. Any specific examples or suggestions for what to change? Is it that I'm telling more than showing? Or just lack of personality? Lol, depending on your measurements, yes.

@Majestic Fox Very nice submission! I still have trouble with W's relationship with L (comments below) but once she gets out into the forest, the rest of the submission is just enchanting. Very much looking forward to the next part, and finding out more about the forest gods! pg 3: "It was a cruel thing, making him believe she reciprocated his feelings for her, but she had not yet found a way to stop" --this is still not working for me, and tanks my sympathy for W. Hopefully we'll get some explanation through this chapter. pg 3: "whose love was locked beneath an iron blanket" --what does this mean? pg 4: "Could you love someone like that?" --If W is stringing L along, then why does she think this? Seems more like she's deceiving herself (which I can understand better). pg 7: "but the shovelling the night soil no longer seemed such a heavy task as it had before." --More thoughts on W + L. I think what's bugging me is that W is acting like she's attracted to and appreciates L, both mentally and physically, but then calls out that she isn't when it's obviously false. She's spent years in his company. Either she's planning the longest con ever at this kid's expense, or she genuinely cares for him. If it's the former, then I have no sympathy for her. pg 8: "right now it blissfully soft." --missing a word. pg 10: "their trunks degged with deep moss" --Never heard of "degged" before. It means something like spotted? pg 11: I love the descriptions of the spirits. pg 11: "enormous crag that lay at its roots" --"crag" seems to mean a rock face, but the description here makes me thing it's a boulder. pg 15: very cool ending. Glad to see W's got some ability, and I looking forward to finding out more about it.

Great. I think this was one of the main questions we had.

Didn't have a whole lot of notes for this. It was a solid read. To your questions: Worldbuilding: The beginning of this is much better without the boat ride--getting right into the city, as well as the hints about industrialization. I didn't feel any worldbuilding was lacking, and I think there were actually more hints about the new machines driving guilds out of jobs. Protag Age: I'm thinking 17 is a much better age for this character. You get to angst it up, which then allows more description on how S reacts to others calling S a female, which helps bring the reader into the story. I didn't see any place where S acted too old. S is thinking a lot about mothers, and friends, and is looking to Mother to get back control of the guild. Pacing: I the pacing here is a lot better. I remember the boat ride as taking a long time, so cutting it helps S get to the woodcutter's guild a lot faster. General notes: pg 6: better hints on the gentleman. It makes it easier for everyone to get the picture. The interlude at the end of this fits a lot better than the last time I read, and helps with the worldbuilding as well.

Nope, haven't seen this one before. This chapter read well, but I'm having some problems believing T would actually do this, as the consequences for releasing the beasts (multiple murders, T herself in danger, backlash for her place of work and reputation) are greater than the punishment of admitting to an affair with a coworker. It also seems like M is very competent and could let the beasts loose himself. I get that T is a deflection, but might need to tell us why M couldn't fake the records just as well and point toward T or E without having to blackmail them. T tripping in the snow while running was a bit of a trope at the end--at least she didn't have on high-heels! But really, I just wanted to ask her if she had ever watched any horror movies. Think through the consequences of blackmail before doing something even worse! pg 5: "The truck adjusted the tyre spikes automatically." --what are tire spikes? pg 6: "E would know what to do, but that would drag her into this mess. She would not do that. This was her problem." --isn't it both of their problems? M's going to report both of them... pg 6: "Blank moments later" --as in she was blank? or didn't remember? The phrasing just seems weird. pg 7: "She got out on Four where there were more inactive androids." --If M can do all this stuff remotely, I'm not sure why T is needed. I guess I need to see what he's blackmailing her to do. pg 7: "Why doesn’t M just do it himself?" --ah, well, glad she's asking, then. Though her answers are not really satisfactory. I guessing there's some other reason? pg 7: "and then how much she did not want to die" --not sure how this jives with the constant suicidal thoughts. pg 7: "It all became clear...because M. needed her to face the music" --okay. Not yet clear to me. pg 8: "log-in for that intern " --Does M know she has this? It doesn't seem like he does. pg 8: "then her assistant’s details to access the cameras on Level Five" --missing a word? pg 9: "snap and bore and fight" --is 'bore' the word you meant? I'm not sure what it means in this context. pg 9: "the end of her life as she knew it" --This seems too much. I mean, it was an affair, and I'm not defending her, but it's not like she killed someone. In fact, letting the beasts loose seems like it could heap a whole lot more punishment on her than admitting she and E are a thing. pg 10: "M’s control was complete, but some record of this fateful dead would remain, surely." --hmm...yeah, still not sure why he couldn't do this himself.

That would be very helpful!

Sounds good. @industrialistDragon and @Silk as tentative. Anyone else? I'll set up a DM chat soon.

To those planning on meeting up at our REcon in Dublin 2019, my wife is starting to look at sightseeing and tours around the same time, and can potentially get group rates (as a travel agent) if we want to join forces. Not sure if we would tour before or after the con. We can take the discussion to email/DM for details, but I wanted to see who was definitely interested in going. I know @kais and @Robinski are. Who else for REcon 2019?? Also, if you haven't registered yet, prices go up April 3rd! The con will be August 15-19, 2019. https://dublin2019.com/

Hello all, This is the first part of the second novella I'm writing in the Dissolutionverse. This one is a Jules Verne style adventure, and it's a mid-grade novel, so I'm mainly looking for comments on the voice, and a few other things: From most to least important: 1) Do you engage with the main character, or at least think a kid/teen might engage? 2)How is the character's voice? Does it need to be more snarky? less? something else? 3) Who do you think will engage gender-wise? 4) Can you also enjoy this as an adult? (also, if you have experience with YA/MG, I'd love to hear if you think this works at all) 5) problems with plot/setting, etc. (Does it fit the "Jules Verne" mold?)

hmm...I could do something with this. Smoky skies in Poler? Also a cool idea! Thanks @Robinski!

Oooo! Excellent!

Yeah--I realized this on the last read through, but I'm not sure what to add. I added the one (subtle) thing about the maji being venerated here, where in Seed's time, they looked at with suspicion. Any other thoughts on speech and dress without overly complicating a novella? Everyone wears hats? Tunics instead of suits? Flowerpots on heads?

yep--that's right. I think it's a little more clear at the end...