Mandamon

I'm back from the WX16 cruise and trying to figure out what I'm doing again! Had an awesome time, got to meet more cool writers and old friends from last year, talk with the podcast crew again, sit in on WX recording sessions for the rest of this year, and got to meet an agent and an editor. They had a whole lot more diversity-centered programming this year, which was very helpful, and I got to attend a "writing the other" class which will be very helpful for the current work I'm finishing up. The focus was a lot more on the publishing side this time, and many of us got have our pitches critiqued by the agent who attended. There's a lot more stuff that happened, including being on one of the largest cruise ships in the world! I may or may not be critiquing again this coming week, depending on how much work I need to catch up on, so apologies if I'm still scarce. I'll be putting together a blog post soon with my thoughts on the cruise, as I get them in order.

Yep, except not the G. She expressly doesn't want that.

Heh...so I suppose I shouldn't mention I'm also beta reading a book for Mary...

Okay folks, I'm going to have to bow out of critiquing for a couple weeks at least. The WXR retreat cruise is coming up, and I'll be doing some critiquing for them. I'll try to keep an eye on the forums though.

Seems like I have similar comments to everyone else. There were a couple issues with blocking and placing the character, but for the most part this was very light and enjoyable. pg 1: Loved the Work Ethic speech. pg 2: "stuck to him by this ladder' --Not sure what this means. Ok, later on you're talking about working with a stepladder. Both this and the sentence about slapping a pig's butt don't have description leading up to them, so they're a little confusing. pg 8: The blocking is not quite there when she's shooting the triangulator. I'm not sure where she's sitting vs. the hill and the tree. pg 9: is the thing she's attached to moving or stationary? This high up,any small movement will put her far away from the farm. (Edit: did not get that this was a cloud. I thought it was a spaceship of some sort) Strange cut-off for chapter 9. I was also a little confused that there was no transition between falling 8 feet to the ground and waking up from sleep. I thought she was waking up from being knocked out at first.

Starting with a meeting is not the most exciting beginning to a book. I have to admit I skimmed through some of this, as there wasn't much to keep me reading. Gender dynamics and violence aside, I just wasn't very pulled into the world. The LoTR and WoT vibes were so strong I was already calling Kaltus "Mat" in my mind. I think AH16 has the right of it with "you can't afford to have "filler" chapters." This may have a place later on, but as a first chapter, it's not holding my attention. The writing and grammar were fine, and I enjoyed your last submission with lots of action and a challenge for the character to overcome. Here, Aurem and Telethas aren't really doing anything that progresses their characters. They're complaining about a trial verdict. If they were training to become lawyers, or were going to be elders very soon, then I could understand it. Right now it seems like they were bored with shepherding and decided to bug the elder for something to do. The end of the chapter starts to get into more interesting territory. What is the Crossing ceremony and why does Aurem get special treatment? Why would his parents disapprove? Why is magic outlawed? I want to read more of this part, but not the first half, debating a ruling which really doesn't affect Aurem and Telethas one way or the other.

<pats himself on the back...>

Similar comments to kaisa and Ernei. (Oh, and @Ernei--you're doing great in the reviews I've read so far. You have some good critique!) pg 1: "The armour floated off the mannequin" --I'd watch the 'ease of magic' pitfall here. If it uses less energy to make armor float and dress someone that it does to get dressed, then why aren't the forgers tied up in moving cargo around to feed the city? pg 1: Eleanor is an interesting counterpoint, and gives us a look at the non-martial folk (I'm assuming). So what does she do? Can you slip it into the introduction to tell us why we should care about Eleanor? pg 2: "Atena lashed out and grabbed Silvanus by his collar." --Which one? Did she hit him or grab him? pg 2: Okay, Silvanus is a bit over the top--Draco Malfoy in the first couple books. pg 3: "The High Inquisitor turned beetroot" --someone with his presence is not going to get embarrassed by an implied insult. pg 3: "‘There’s only one screw up in this room, Silvanus,’ Atena retorted." --this makes Atena seem childish pg 4: The walk through the void was a little boring. You could perhaps cut some from it. pg 4: "Soldier stared at traitor. Traitor stared back." --Didn't get this. Did part of the army turn traitor?? pg 6: yep, the fighting is pretty boring. I don't have any connection to the soldiers, and they're fighting standard Horrible Monsters. What emotions do you want to get across here? How does this fight progress the story? So to your questions: 1) Is it boring? Unfortunately, yes. The remembrancers give it a sort of Hunger Games vibe, which is not necessarily bad, but they are not evident in the fight, and then pop up to say it was crap. Which makes me think, "yeah that sort of was a crap fight." What are you aiming for in the section? Maybe if one of the remembrancers gets in the way of the fighting and Atena has to go rescue him, it will give us some more connection. 2) Silvanus: Good start, but a little over the top nasty. You can probably dial him back a little, but keep some of the snide comments. He's a strong character. 3) Old characters: Fine, but I still don't have a big connection to Marcus. Atena is consistent, at least, but she seems to lash out more than a commander of an army should. I think the rest of the characters were new.

I liked this a lot more than Jeweled Songbirds. The looser magic means you can do a lot more with it before people start asking questions. My main concern was that there were a lot of passive sentences: pg 2: "A black thorn with a crimson tip, the lance of Ellis's sister" --I took me a minute to realize you're talking about Sofia, not Ellis. I thought Ellis was using his sister's spear. "Shining strips were released from the incinerated weeds and sucked up by the metal spider" "When the snacks were taken out of the pitcher" End of ch 1: they defeated the spider very easily. I Would have liked to see more challenge for them. It's a great chance to show us Sofia and Ellis' personalities under duress and show why these nightmares are such a big deal. pg 6: "primal school" --primary? or wild? I see what you're doing, but the word choice makes me think the latter definition. pg 7: I assume Sofia is sitting next to Ellis, but she sort of disappeared from the conversation . What's her reaction to Rima, or is she involved with the children? I also thought it strange that it's better for the dreams to rampage around outside rather than be contained in the school. I like Ernei's suggestion of waking the children in groups. Obviously we don't know much about the world yet, but so far it doesn't seem to hard to be a sentinel. I was a little concerned we were getting into fridging territory when Sofia got attacked by the snake. I'm sure kaisa will probably have something to say, but why is Sofia the one endangered? She seemed to be more competent in battle. Seemed very much like the brother going to rescue the weaker sister. The chapter ending is a little abrupt, so I',m interested to see what happens next. In all, good start to a story. Currently I'm more interested in this one than Songbirds.

Interesting pieces. I'm with kaisa on this one that I didn't enjoy Quirk nearly as much as before. His section was rougher than the others in blocking and description, and I much prefer suave!Quirk rather than brash!Quirk. So that leaves Moth and the Android tied as my favorites. I'm getting more into Moth the more I read of her, though I was similarly put off by her prospect of fun at someone else's expense. The android was both depressing, and optimistic. I got the impression that the "gee-whiz" might be tele-operated androids. As in the original individual might be a terminal or bed-bound patient that is uploaded to a new body? I think Moth wins again for the 13-line challenge, followed by the android, and then Quirk. I think the last could probably be compressed even more to get us into Quirk's character quicker. Interested to see some chapters!

Heh--everyone asks that. There was lots of dangly string involved, but the real secret is taking a LOT of pictures. Eventually you get one where they're all sitting there peacefully and not humping or biting each other or running out of their costumes.

Works for me. Anyone else having problems?

Sorry--just saw the posts! Thanks for putting it up, Vreeah! Here's one of my favorite Christmas cards: Pride and Prejudice and Pet hair.

Seems like this one's also been beat to death quite a bit, but I'll throw in my two cents. I think the character dimensionality and development have been covered a lot, so I'll focus on plot. Notes while reading: pg 3: "“Oh come now,” she said, a hint of a smile playing on her lips" --Tess seems surprisingly cheerful for having run off crying a little bit ago. OK, you do note this in the next line, but it still seems very abrupt. pg 4: fairly sure one of these people is the wolf, but not sure who. Contrary to kaisa, I like the brief interludes from its POV. It raises the tension for me, but I do agree it could be handled just as easily from Kazer's POV. pg 6: Not sure how Gemel was unconscious for so long, then fully awake, then dead. Seems more like a plot requirement. pg 7: Kazer suspecting Tess here for the first time seems off. She's been his student for a while and he's been tracking the wolf for a long time. He would have suspected before now. pg 7: wolf interlude: you call it "he" which I think gives things away. You've just planted Tess as a suspicion so this immediately gets rid of the tension. Keep it gender neutral if this interlude stays in. pg 9: “I had to bury him, Kazer. I couldn’t just leave him there.” --bury who? Gemel? I missed where she dragged him out. pg 10: This is the time to mark the wolf as a he--when Kazer has tied his only ally to a tree. pg 11: Wait...what? The wolf can't be Kazer, because from it's POV it enters the clearing and fights him. But Flint seeing Kazer with Tess' body makes me think the wolf was supposed to be him. Is this the end? If so it's a little abrupt. I was with you up until this point, but something's not right here. So I see your explanation for the wolf above. I think it really needs to be cleared up a lot more. I'm also not a fan of the logger POV at the end. It's a greater (and more satisfying) challenge to show it from Kazer's POV. This also may be one of those places where less is more. If you establish the wolf-man connection well, you can end this without the outside POV of the logger or the wolf and make a bigger emotional impact. Overall this has a lot of potential, just needs some cleanup of events, and more (not dead) females! Special thanks to @kaisa for keeping us alert to these sorts of inherent biases. We've been lacking those voices here for a while, and it makes us all better writers. The hardest part is training the selection of white males (myself included) to be alert while writing so we don't automatically assume the things that have been drilled into our heads through movies and books over the years.

Late as seems on par for this week... Welcome to Writing Excuses, and congrats on the first submission! I think everyone's covered the main points I saw, but I have a few other comments. First, I do agree the first page or so is confusing ,and I had to read the descriptions a couple times. After that it get better. I was giving the side-eye to the maybe-fridged women as well. I guess my main question, is why didn't they come out when the town was sinking into the ground, and how did Elias avoid it, for that matter? I also had a big ARTAX! moment over the horse. I think his demise was telegraphed clearly, but I was hoping against hope he would survive. Overall, I actually enjoyed this quite a bit once I got into it. I started out expecting a lot more, but as this settled into a man V beast fight, I liked it for what it was. It reads very Tolkien-esque with one normal man alone in the big forest with the wild animals. It might have been a bit too long in all, but the action kept me reading and not asking too many questions. I'm interested to see what the rest of the story is about, and I'll echo what everyone else said on the prologue. Does it move the story forward? If not, it might indeed be best kept as a short story. I think it could work by itself fairly well, with a little polish.

Savae is always enjoyable... pg 2: "Unconventional he may be, but he's still aelin: he won't say outright what he can leave to implication" --I like this. Gives a good perspective of the aelin, and Savae's reaction to them. Interesting hints of magic with the carriage. I'm with Kaisa that this section gives us a lot of good hints into the worldbuilding. I also agree that the conversation went on too long. I had more of a problem with Varael's language--it bugged me the whole time, but that might also be because the section was too long. pg 4: "It's their people that are dying, far more than the aelin." --So where are all the other humans? I don't think we've seen any others so far, correct? (in this or the last version) I was starting to wonder where the part with Kathalania was going, right up until the last couple lines. It's a good end to the chapter, but the part before it might be a little too dense to effectively get the pointacross. If that's what you want, then it worked, but my attention was just about to wander before you got to the reveal.

Looking forward to it!

Do you have all of ASD written? I often find my stories have major problems until I do the first rewrite. Then I realize what I meant to say and can accentuate those aspects and take away from the parts that don't go anywhere. I've found I'm sort of in between an outliner and a pantser. If you haven't put the last period on the conclusion, that might be where some of the indecision on reasonings come from. I'm guessing there's an "ATD" coming later, so you have plenty of time for M and Ne to develop a relationship. Maybe it ends up not working out here. Maybe it does. Maybe they move on... Dunno. I think what you did with Ch 3 is reaching to that goal, but might need a few more chapters written before you know what they're really doing. Then you can have the TV sitcom...

Good luck @kaisa!

Quick reply: I also thought it was strange you didn't show what or where Pascal got her tattoo pg 4: you have "Bruce" instead of "Brick" The floating city idea is really cool. I'm interested to see where Channing, Dion, and Oz's relationship gets to. Brick provides a good foil to them. Overall, the chapter has interesting points, but not a whole lot happens. I see how it progresses the story, but it's a lot of sequel, and not a lot of scene. As you say, it's a rest before the storm, and I'm also not reading it right after the last one, so my perceptions might be different if I had done that. Looking forward to what's next!

I think this will help a lot. Also, if you hang a lantern on how she specifically avoids looking at her grandfather and the guilt she feels over the trauma, then the reader is prepared for something awful, and tension is building waiting for it. Then the big reveal will work better.

OK--I think this one's been beat to death, but I'll throw in my late and quick comments. Some of the dialogue still feels off for her age. Sometimes Sira sounds like she's 8, sometimes about 13-14. I think this ties into the "Stud" discussion. If she's 8 and doesn't understand the word, I can see her saying it. If she's 14, she would know to use another word. pg 8: Augh! Grandpa is terrifying! Maybe mention this sooner in the narrative? I would think Sira would note this sooner. As it was, I thought she was having some waking nightmare at first. Obviously the poor old guy can't help how he looks, but as @kaisa says, building that fear earlier, and knowing that it happened when Sira was younger and left an inpression on her will help us see why she reacts this way. pg 10: Some disconnect between ch 4 and 5. I didn't remember that she took the rod, just the clothes? --oh, they're ON the costume. Did not get that at all. Yeah, too much description here. I'm not following it. pg 12: "Eventually—impulsively—she fired into her thigh," --would she really do this? I was unclear on descriptions of the costume gadgets, and had to read a couple times to understand she was back in the bungalow. Overall still enjoyable. Just needs some rearranging of descriptions and things.

Quick reply as I get some time to comment. I think everything I saw was already covered, so I'll list the things I second where some more edits are needed: Too much magic here. I'm getting lost with who can control what and why. Lots of action, and the blocking needs some more work to be understandable. Maybe some more description of the environment? Characters--I was also lost on who Annika was. POV shift--I'm with @kaisa. Might be cool to see the whole thing through Riley's father's eyes, or Rileys. But we don't know much about the characters yet Riley and her mom--yeah, this didn't work for me either. I'm wondering why two professional thieves aren't just bringing their daughter up the same way. They could easily take her on missions, and you haven't given us anything yet to tell us she's not competent to do just that. I do still find your writing style engaging, and I want to learn more about this world and the characters. Just needs some cleaning up to make the flow better.

Quick reply as I found a couple extra minutes: I agree with @Coop that starting with paperwork is not as compelling as it could be, but as @kaisa says, the character building here is much better. Maybe a little too long spent on the PTSD at the end. You could probably cut down on some of the italics and show a little more of what it does to Atena.

Thanks! It's officially out here (paperback) and here (ebook). Amazon hasn't combined the two yet...