Syme

This is the second half of my novelette. Let me know what you think.

I'd like to submit as well on Monday. However, I'm happy to give up my spot to someone else in case there's more than five people wanting to submit. After all, I've already submitted every week for the past two months.

Thanks everyone for your critiques.

Just for clarification, Vasco is not a king. His title is marquis and he's the ruler of the city of Rabira, which is part of a larger kingdom-

I'm really interested to see where this is headed. I was impressed by how you were able to worldbuild so effectively using mostly dialogue and brief descriptions. It keeps things flowing nicely and is a great example of 'showing' rather than 'telling.'

Thanks, glad you liked it.

From your phrasing, I got the impression that this is a world in which women have a hard time gaining power. It is understandable for the wizard to be a woman as I'm assuming those talents are genetic rather than a learned skill. I do wonder how a woman like Sence (despite being incredibly clever) could have risen in esteem so highly before being a much older woman. Perhaps you could add something that helps show why she is esteemed so highly by the king and by others while being a 30-40ish year old woman.

It's really a combination of factors. First of all, she's an only child and inherited the business from her father. Her father was already a quite successful merchant, but Sence manged to expand his business and become even more profitable. Then there's the fact that Sence is intelligent, rational and well educated. She's basically been trained for this responsibility since she was a little girl. And lastly, there's the fact that many of her buisiness partners are poquats, who don't care about her sex. For them, the only real difference between the sexes is in reproduction and most of the wealthy poquats who Sence does business with have memories of being both sexes anyway.

Another scene that gave me pause was the discussion between Vasco and Sence where she tries to convince him to take the risk. She is obviously very passionate about the subject, yet she behaves much more logically than most people I have met would be capable of. The situation is dire, so a little illogical behavior seems more likely to me.

Sence is a very rational person. I don't think this is out of character for her.

I really really really loved the idea of being able to transfer memories and the discussion that went with it. It actually made me sit here for five minutes trying to decide who was right. That is a very good sign.

I had a big grin on my face when I read this for the first time This was exactly the reaction I was hoping for.

I liked the overall principle of your story with memory transfer and an alien race. I also liked the setting. There were two very long philosophical/mathematical conversations here that I think need to be cut down a bit. this is still the first chapter and you're already investigating problems that have plagued human society for thousands of years, re: the price of a life and mind vs. soul. even one of these will be a little heady for a first chapter, but having both set the tone as more of a philosophical book rather than a fantasy. If you are planning to have a very philosophical book, fine (and I'd warn your readers about it upfront), but otherwise I'd move those conversations a bit later. You say this is a novellete, so the story is shorter and you need to get to the point faster, but I still think it's too early.

Don't know why, but the first sentence almost made me set the story down immediately. I think because it was such a generic fantasy image. The story is fine afterward.

I want to read more, although I'd be wary if there are more long and involved philosophical discussions. If you want to approach the subject, I'd do it in smaller chunks or with subtler situations.

Thanks for the comments. Yes, you're right, I need to cut down on the two philosophical discussions. Any ideas on what parts specifically seemed extraneous to you?

And don't worry, the second half will be more fast paced and have considerably less philosophy.

Sence: Part of the problem with me losing interest is Sence’s perspective in the first four pages. She doesn’t really do anything – the other characters act and, with the exception of a few comments, she doesn’t have much of a presence here. It gets better when she tries to reach a decision on the portal and subsequently convincing the king. These scenes show she’s intelligent and capable, though she knows her decision could have grave consequences she’s not afraid to take the risk, as doing nothing is also destructive.

I don't really buy into the idea that main characters need to be active all the time. In this story, Sence is presented with a problem she doesn't understand, so being a rational and smart person, she first gathers information and considers the problem until she comes to a decision. Only then does she act decisively. Too often in fiction the heroes just stumble headlong into adventure without proper consideration or preparation that any reasonable person would do.

Philosophy: The second part of what made this harder to read than it should be is the philosophy. I don’t mind characters waxing philosophically, but it’s too soon. The pacing really drops to zero when she talks about identity with Quoras and without being hooked to the story that’s a sure way to lose your audience. It didn’t help, for me, that I didn’t really buy into Sence’s side of the argument.

Yeah, I especially need to cut down that conversation. When you say you didn't buy into Sences arguments, does that mean you merely disagree with her or do you find her arguments to be stupid?

I'd be perfectly happy with the first, but the second one would be a problem.

Riot: This bothered me a little, why is the wizard outside the palace during a riot? The chances of Sence and Alina meeting just when Sence is being knocked to the ground are astronomical. Serendipity and all that, but it’s too convenient to feel real. Maybe it wouldn’t bother me so much save for the fact that the wizard shouldn’t have been out there, and neither should Sence, come to think of it. Also, the fact that they are able to have a quiet conversation in that place runs counter to what you stated before, that there is a real chance of being trampled to death.

Yeah, that scene isn't quite right. I'll have to rework that one.

Naïve King: For a merchant king of a merchant city-state I thought Vasco was terribly naïve in his arguments with Sence. He sounds like a youth who doesn’t understand the way the world works yet and is in for a rough awakening. He doesn’t sound like a king at all. The argument between him and Sence didn’t resonate with me because of that.

I agree that Vascos arguments are naive, but it's the same kind of naivety that's usually lauded in fictional heroes (the most recent example I've read is Dalinar Kholin from Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings) and in those few real world heroes that actually succeed with that sort of idealistic outlook (such as Mahatma Ghandi or Martin Luther King).

He's been able to maintain that level of idealism despite being in a position of power because his city was very prosperous and far from the borders of the kingdom, so they weren't directly involved in any wars. This is the first major crisis the city has faced in his lifetime.

Nitpick: There is a perspective error on page 12. “I told Quaros. She didn’t agree with him, but she couldn’t come up with…” Should be something like “I didn’t agree with him.”

Thanks for catching that. When switching between writing first person and third person I sometimes get mixed up and write whole paragraphs from the wrong perspective. I usually catch those pretty quickyl, but this one must have slipped through the cracks.

First sentence: I’ll agree with Mandamon that the first sentence reads a little like a generic fantasy opening, but I still liked it. That’s due to the second sentence “That much was to be expected”. It sets the cliché on its head, since even your characters know it’s a cliché.

Good, that's what I was going for.

I like those two chapters. The story moves along at a nice pace and we see some cool uses of magic.

Nothing too terribly exciting happens, but this is still quite early in the story so it's okay.

One thing I noticed is that you kept italizising kelhiv. Is there any particular reason for that? It really makes the word stand out a lot, which is probably not a good thing.

Another thing which also irritated me in the first chapter was Origon's strange speech pattern. It gives him flavour and makes him stand out, but after reading it for thirty pages, I already find it annoying. I don't want to read him speaking like that for another 600 pages. It's fine to have a side character speak in a way like that, but when it's the main character it gets old quick.

I would suggest having double spacing in your manuscript to make it easier to read.

Overall a solid two chapters and I look forward to reading the next chapter.

I can shorten up the beginning a bit to get into the story quicker (and take out some of the invented words at the same time). I'm aiming for epic fantasy length, which always seems to take a lengthier view, showing the setting. Would you have the same opinion if you picked up a 500-page book in a bookstore and read this first chapter?

Yes, I would. If the book were highly recommended to me or it's by an author I like, I'd be willing to slog through a slow beginning, but with a new writer I've never heard of before, I definitely would put down the book.

In the past you could get away with starting your fantasy epic with a birthday party, but fantasy has come a long way since then and readers rightfully expect a book to be interesting from page one.

Now if you're Brandon Sanderson, you can get away with having a book with three prologues, but until you have a few bestsellers under your belt, you probably shouldn't try that.

Yeah, that's a darling I need to kill. Oddly, I've never had problems with "Sasthssn," compared to some of the other names I created. Any others particularly rile you?

Well, "Sureriaj" is a bit problematic as well. If you read it very carefully, you can make out how it's probably pronounced, but it sort of breaks up the flow of reading.

That's been on my list to read. I haven't read any China Meiville yet, but that one just got moved to the top!

It wasn't really meant as a recommendation, merely an observation. Im about 60% into the book now and I'm not quite sure if I actually like it. To me, it's one of those books that you really want to like, but that for some reason fall short of being genuinely enjoyable. One of those books that you very much like having read but not necessarily like reading all that much.

I liked this chapter. You do a good job of introducing your protagonist and her family and you do some nice world building without overdoing it.

One thing you need to watch out for is POV. I noticed two POV errors in this one. The first one is on page 5:

“Your turn, miss.”

Emily woke up suddenly.

As you wrote it, the World Order guy speaks and then Emily wakes up. How did she hear him?

The second one is on page 8:

And then she lost consciousness.

If she loses consciousness, she can't describe losing consciousness. If she did indeed lose consciousness, she would notice it only after waking up.

I think the family dinner scene is a bit too long. Uncle Chris came off as a bit pretentious with his whole life lesson thing; not sure if that was intentional.

One thing that irritated me about that scene was that people kept talking about going to Europa or going to Asia, etc. as if those were homogenous places, instead of continents with dozens of diverse countries with different languages, cultures, ethnicities and climates. But this seems to be an American quirk (I don't think it's mentioned in the story, but I presume it's set in the USA), so I suppose you can't be blamed for that.

Overall I liked this first chapter and hope to read more from you.

I agree with the others, the big problem here are the POV errors in Elizabeth's part.

I question whether it's really necessary to have three view points in this chapter. Presumably, you want those three to also be your POV characters later in the story, but even if that's the case I think it's better to just concentrate on one of the children at the start and then get the other POVs in the later chapters. Establishing a compelling character is one of the most important tasks you need to accomplish at the start of a story; splitting the prologue into three makes that much harder.

I did understand that the mother was outside the ship and was killed in the end, but there are two issues I do have with that scene. First of all, why does the mother even leave the ship in the first place. Couldn't she just talk to the man who killed her husband from inside the ship? It seems like she hates and fears him from the start, so why leave the ship to have a nice little chat?

The second thing is that from what I understood, the mother was facing away from the children to speak with the man. How does Elizabeth see her facial expressions?

Nevertheless, this is an interesting beginning and I'm curious to see where you go from there.

This is the topic for my novelette Sweet Nectar of Memory.

I have one major complaint about this story: the main character is a complete idiot. To me, the final revelation was painfully obvious quite early on in the story. I first suspected it when the woman and girl ran away at the start and from there it quickly turned into certainty. Now I did have some help from the story's title, but then again Jack presumably should be quite knowledgeable about dealing with alien species, whereas all I know about that is based on pure conjecture.

Throughout the story, Jack continues to make unfounded and unreasonable assumptions about the aliens that would be understandable mistakes for the average person today to make, but are completely unreasonable to see in an astronaut who lives in a world where contact with aliens is nothing new at all. Those unfounded assumptions include assigning sex and age to the aliens based on the way humans of different ages and sexes look, assuming shared body langague (the big one here is of course the smiling and laughing for anger and fear and frowning and crying for joy, but there is for instance also the assumption that nodding indicates assent and head shaking indicates dissent, which isn't even true in all human cultures), and assuming that their food is edible and non-poisonous to humans and doesn't contain any deadly germs.

Frankly, at the end of the piece I was glad that the blundering idiot got killed for his stupidity.

Another thing you might want to look at is the beginning. Having a story start with the protagonist waking up and having to figure out where he is and what happened is somewhat of a cliché and may turn off more experienced readers who've read similar scenes many times before Wditors, agents and judges of writing contests are among the most experienced readers you will find, so having a clichéd beginning decreases the chances that they'll get past the first page.

The story is otherwise solid. The prose is good, I didn't notice any grammar or spelling mistakes and the pacing is fine as well. But unfortunately, in my mind, none of that makes up for its big central flaw. The idea of having an alien race with "reverse" facial expression is solid, but unfortunately the execution is not.

If there is indeed another slot open, then I'd like to submit as well.

Thanks for the critique.

This is pretty much also what I think of the story.

As for the "runes", those are just normal letters that don't exist in modern English. Thorn (Þ, þ) is pronounced as a voiceless th (e.g. in throw) and eth (Ð, ð) is pronounced as a voiced th (e.g. in this). Both letters were once used in English (as well as in Old Norse) and are today still used in Icelandic and eth is used in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

I'm still uncertain whether including them was a good idea. To me in makes the story feel more authentic as there were lots of names back then that included a thorn or and eth and not using any of that names would feel artificial and replacing them with "th" would make them look stupid. I mean Thorthur just looks dumb for instance. But I can definitely see how it would be confusing to readers not familiar with those letters.

I like this new version a lot. The story is a lot easier to follow now and there are no more superfluous scenes in there. Right now I can't find any major flaws with this piece, so I'll just point out some of the smaller stuff that I noticed.

-I'm not quite sure why Maia argues against attacking Hokata

-In that same scene, Hirundo's anger seems to me to be a bit unbelievable

-Why the weird capitalization for "GearMan"? In my opinion, camel case should only be used in advertising and programming, so unless GearMan is some sort of brand name or something like that, the M should not be capital. I know there are a lot of speculative authors who capitalize all of their invented words, but I think this is a bad habit as it makes your neologisms stick out too much. I would just simply go with "gearman". After all, we don't use capital letters for engineers or technicians and the like.

Overall you have a really good story here. I think that with some more polish you have a professional level story on your hands.

Your world seems interesting with the interactions between the various species and the interplay between magic and technology. With the steam punkesque setting and the many different sentient species, your world reminds me a bit of Perdido Street Station, which is one of the books I'm currently reading.

There are two main problems I see with this beginning.

Number one, things are very confusing. You throw around invented words left right and centre, often without sufficient context to glean their meaning. I suggest trying to cut down on that as much as you can. Also there's some uproncouncable words(the most glaring offender is "Sasthssn"), which are almost always a bad idea.

The second thing is that it starts really slowly. For the first five or so pages, nothing happens, there is no real conflict. There's a small hint of conflict when Origon thinks that he would be better suited as pilot(?), but you don't really do anything with it here. I think you should focus more on this at the start and condense everything else.

Once we have the gunman in the picture, things start to get more interesting, but if I were an editor considering your manuscript or a potential customer browsing a bookstore or reading your sample chapter online, I'd have put down the book by then. However, I still think this story has a lot of potential and I'm looking forward to reading your next chapter.

This topic is for my short story "The Second Son".

This is an interesting chapter.

I had difficulty engaging with Filistra because I couldn't understand why she wouldn't be thinking about or emotional reacting still to the death of her family and that she is following Hyginos so readily. I'd really like to see her mental and emotional reasoning for following. Also I was curious how much time had passed since Hyginos had found her.

You're right on that, I'll fix that.

'She heard Phokas moving to one of the other corpses, in accordance to what her magical sense told her.' - I think you meant Hyginos here.

Thanks for catching that.

There's a great book called 'Wired for Story' by Lisa Cron that I would highly recommend. It talks about using brain science to hook readers. Chapter 3 deals exclusively with emotion, the cognitive secret being that "emotion determines the meaning of everything - if we're not feeling, we're not conscious". This translates in the the story secret in that "all story is emotion based - if we're not feeling, we're reading."

I hope this doesn't feel like a lecture, I just think this can be a helpful resource. I think you have good prose and the potential for a really good story, I just feel it needs to be a bit more emotive.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll go take a look at that book.

I had mostly the same thoughts as Halcyon. I also got confused at the Phokas reference, until I realized it must be a typo.

This chapter was more enjoyable to me than the others, but there is still something lacking. We've seen five chapters now, a good 50 pages or so, and I'm starting to get a feel for your writing. Your prose is technially good, and I can tell you're starting to piece together the story you want to tell us, building it up from parts. The problem is, the story as a whole feels dead. I think it's the same thing Halycon is talking about with lack of emotional investment.

I've had to struggle with this a lot myself, and keep reminding myself that the story is about the characters and what they feel, not about the plot. The plot is just there to give the personalities of the characters something to do. You might want to check out the series of "homeworks" Cjhuitt posted for NaNoWriMo. They are taken from Jim Butcher's blog. Especially look at the Scene/Sequel parts--those helped me immensely in outlining, and covers any missing emotional reactions. Basically, I think you have the "Scene" but are missing the "Sequel."

Keep writing!

Thanks for your review. I read through all of Jim Butcher's posts and found them quite informative. I'll try to apply some of it in my own writing.

The first section, with Nikon, was decent for establishing more of the culture and setting, but also seemed to largely be there to convey information is a slightly-non-infodumpy way. In particular, I thought everything past "It's in Sarkis best interests not to negotiate with us" in that paragraph was odd to be spoken like that, especially to a 15-year-old, who in that time I would think would be nearly considered an adult. The rest does seem applicable, but it could be presented in narration form, I think, rather than spoken.

Not sure how you mean that. I think what you meant was that what Leontas said was something that would already be apparent to Nikon. If so, I disagree. I think his deductions are not obvious at all and defintely worth mentioning.

Also, while Leontas hoped Nikon went, he doesn't really show much emotion one way or another throughout the rest of the discussion. Nor does Nikon, for that matter, which leaves the dialog rather bare for the last half of the section.

You're right on that, thanks for mentioning it.

Speaking of bare, the first paragraph seems out of place with much of the rest of the story. Even in the woman's chapter (forgive me; I can't recall her name), I don't recall much overtly sexual content. Also, that was from one character's POV, where this is from a different one. The biggest thought I had from this (other than it showing the culture) is that it seems like a promise about how the rest of the book will proceed. If that is the case -- all (or most) POVs occasionally having more sexual scenes -- then the scene is fine for me how it is. If not, I'd suggest minimizing some of those aspects, for example the effect as he's being washed and result when putting on his tunic.

There are a handful of scenes with sexual content, but no full blown sex scenes. Yes, the actual sexual content is more explicit in this scene, but I really don't think it's too bad. This was never meant to be a children's book and I think the little bit of sexual content contained in this chapter and a handful of others is very mild compared to the violence.

Diocles comes off as a bit of a pompous chull -- all from his father's POV. Nicely done, if that was the intent. I'm now gleefully hoping that Diocles gets it in his head that, as the responsible party at the foundry, he is the one that is to put Prochoros in his place. On the other hand, unless it's relevant to the story, it will probably not happen in-scene, so I'll just have to cherish my own imaginings for how it would happen.

It would also be nicely done if Diocles bungles things and drives Prochoros off, resulting in the weapons not being made quickly enough or to good enough quality, resulting in more problems in the war. I don't know how much effect one foundry could realistically make, but it would be an interesting domino to push down.

A traitor! Dun dun dun! Of course it could be almost anyone. How about Diocles? Sounds fun to me.

Wow, you certainly seem to hate Diocles. I'll take it as a good sign that you're becoming emotionally involved in the story ^^

For the last section, it seemed... not extraneous, exactly. Rushed, perhaps. Or not full enough? It was good to have the information about opponents to treating with Sarkis, and what they might demand, and a bit of extra world-building and history was nicely worked in there. On the other hand, the section seemed quite brief. We only got about a page of argument interspersed with background information. It seems like this wants to be a bigger scene with more conflict, but I'm not sure how that fits into your plan for the novel.

I think a lot of my reaction to that section may have to do with how it starts -- which is to say, slowly. There's a lot of tell happening at the beginning of the section ("he was hosting", along with a lot of thoughts about how politics had gone downhill) before we even get to the conflict. Perhaps the conflict could be introduced sooner in the scene? Perhaps parts of that cut for later, to be worked in as smaller chunks? I'm not sure, but I do know my reading speed and my attention to the document both dropped after about a paragraph into the section, and I was tempted to skim until things got more exciting again.

This isn't to say bad things about the chapter as a whole; despite some rough patches, I think each part works well for setting up the story. The second section is actually partly to blame also, since I got so involved with what was happening with Diocles, and then the letter, that it made the drop into the beginning of the third section even more noticeable for me.

Thanks for those comments, I'll see how I can revise that section. It was added in last into the chapter and I spent the least amount of time on it, which may explain this.

Hi Syme,

This is a hard review for me to write, I think because I would have put the book down upon reading this chapter. Leontas does have a distinct voice and the prose is well written, but I can't help but wonder why we're being shown Leontas' leaving instead of Leontas' already having left. It just feels like it could use a good dose of "in late, out early". I'm not particularly interested in Leontas' personal life and would probably skip forward to find out what's happening to Filista.

Hmm, that doesn't sound good at all. Any particular reason why you don't want to learn about Leontas's personal life?

I was a little confused with the information conveyed about the traitor and the man caught crossing the lines. Was the man who was killed supposed to be delivering the message to the traitor in Thereos? I liked that Leontas questioned the the encryption and the letter, they were the same questions I was thinking about the letter and having him ask them seems to assure me I'll get those questions answered later on.

Things are a bit confusing, aren't they?

Just for non-spoiler clarification, Damianos believes the messenger carried a message for someone in Thereos (because the messenger had a map of Thereos), which is why he contacted Leontas in the first place.

As always, I'd like to submit on Monday.

This is for chapter 5 in which Filista travels alongside Hyginos and we see some magic in action.

I'd like to submit again tomorrow.

Titles I liked

The Winter Wars

A Hope for Stone

Facial Paradoxes

That Which Lurks Beneath

Cobwebs and Silhouettes

False Positives

Broken Circle

A Flickering Light

Rites

The Fifth Compendium

Grim Assignment

Shrouds

Titles I liked very much

Age to Age, We Fall

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Here are some of my titles:

Fantasy short stories

Sacrificial Rites

The Second Son / The Other Son (currently wavering between the two, tell me which you like better)

Fantasy novels

A King's Death / The Unholy Alliance / The Unholy Concord (again, tell me which you like better)

A Candle Against the Darkness

SF novelette

God's Utility Function

I liked this one better than the last chapter. It has some of the same language problems I mentioned in my last critique, so I won't repeat those.

You have some nice characters in there that are all distinct. I like the POV character, but I can't stand his sister. Not sure if that is intentional.

This chapter is also a bit heavy on the info dumping, but I don't mind it too much here since it's closely related to the characters and plot.

Unfortunately, I did not particularly like this chapter.

First of all, there were several problems with grammar and orthography. In an early draft it's of course perfectly normal to have a typo here and there, but there were several recurring things I noticed:

-Capitalization was wrong in many instances.

-If there's a sentence of dialogue, followed by a dialogue-tag, the sentence ends with a comma (or a question mark or exclamation mark), and the tag doesn't necessarily begin with a capital letter. "This is an example," the forum poster said.

-When you put the name of the person you're addressing into a sentence, it has to be separated from the rest of the sentence by a comma (commas on both sides if it's in the middle of the sentence). "This is an example, Haradion Drogon, this is how it's done."

The main problem is that nothing interesting happens. There's no real conflict, just some infodumping and a girl complaining about the info dump being boring. In an epic fantasy, not every chapter needs to be a zinger, but it should at least build up to something, which I don't really see here. If you must have the infodump, you need to find some way to make it more interesting. Show us how it relates to the characters or the plot.

So for some mysterious reason the emails got sent to one of my other email-addresses, but the important thing is that I actually got them.

I'm not a fan of the setting on this one. I don't like the whole atuned with nature thing and living in harmony and all that, beacause I find it quite unrealistic. Nature and harmony really don't go well together since nature for the most part is a ruthless fight for survival. But that's of course only my personal opinion and does not mean that your setting is bad in any objective sense.

I like Arrick as a character and Oddleif seems good as well from what little we've seen so far.

The prose is good overall, the only thing I noticed is that I think you went a bit overboard on the adjectives and adverbs in the beginning of the story.

A problem I see with this piece is that it is quite low on conflict. The opening scene doesn't have any. Then we have the scene at the woodcutter's house, which does have plenty of conflict but it is resolved right away. Then we have vague hints of conflict with the consequences that Oddleif being seen might have, but I still feel that it's not enough.

The things that confused cjhutt didn't bother me, I never thought of Arrick as a ghost and I immediately assumed that the new POV would be the baby that Arrick rescued.

However, I did also notice that you named Oddleif very late in the story, which is probably a bad idea unless you have some specific purpose for it.

I've noticed you wrote "your" twice in places where it should have been "you're". That's something that always sticks out like a sore thumb to me

I still didn't get anything. However, I also didn't get the email from my own submission, so it's unlikely that the problem is on your end. Did you get the mail for my submission? If yes, the problem is probably with the email list. If not, it's most likely on my own end.

I didn't grasp this until you stated it. Now that it is said, it makes Ixtli's reasoning a lot more plausible to me. However, I didn't get that from the story itself. I wonder if I just missed it, or if you could find a way to make it a touch more clear?

Yes, I've done that in my revision.

That raises another question in my mind: did any of these magic users exist in Sarkis? Would Texcoyo's "education" there have allowed him to recognize that?

Yes, they're the same as what the Daeolians in my novel call "lykanides". However, in Sarkis (as well as in Daeolia in general) lykanides are not worshipped. Instead, they are despised outcasts, so his education in Sarkis would not have given Texcoyo much valuable information on this subject.

One thing I forgot to add, I see now, is that it might allow you a touch more leeway in explaining some of the aspects of the culture in the beginning, since you aren't locked quite so strongly into Texcoyo's words. It is a slight bending of the tight 3rd POV, but it has often been done before, to good effect, and seems to be even more accepted by readers in short stories, IMO.

I'm a big proponent of tight POV (what Orson Scott Card calls "deep penetration"), no matter whether it is 1st or 3rd person. I don't like it when authors break POV to provide background information, so I want to stay away from it in my own writing.

I think, in further hindsight, the reason it felt improbable that he would fight is because I didn't remember from the other book the increased healing powers (which aren't mentioned here until after he is wounded). I think I was actually of split minds; if they are like vampires -- traditional ones, of course -- they should be quick and strong enough to disable mere humans without much risk. However, I knew they weren't supposed to be vampires, so I think I suppressed the abilities I kind-of knew about from your other book, which would still lead them to be confident in approaching a fight, and rightly so.

It might also partially be the setting -- deep in a pyramid (read: dungeon) with two fighters and a priest -- of course the priest stays back and lets the fighters do their thing.

Well, at least there isn't a dragon in this dungeon :)/>

Passive prose: You wrpte your stpry very passsively, which is something that I fel takes away from the tension and excitement of the story. For example, you wrote: "While he had spoken, we'd come closer." If you could change that to something like "We came closer while he spoke," it would make it seem to flow better and feel more like it's hapenning now.

I agree with your general point and there are some instances where I've now made things feel more immediate through more direct language. But I think the example you chose is fine the way I wrote it. With your suggestion, I'm effectively jumping back in time, because I first have the guard speak (happening right now), but simultaneously the heroes are walking closer, so if both of these are in the simple past, then I've just jumped back in time, which I think is much worse than using past perfect.

Also, in the fight with the Priestess, after she drains Chima's life force, she seems suddenly weaker instead of stronger- she has to dodge Ixtli's red flames (which you say are weaker than blue ones) instead of blocking them like she should be able too.

I'll look into that.