Jorville

Hey @Robinski, finished today and just got my comments in order, here they are. Overall: I thought it was pretty solid. I enjoyed the interplay between J and C. I also thought D's character came across well, no nonsense but not so strict that she was unlikeable. I thought that there wasn’t enough banter between the crew as a whole. I feel like this was a bit off a missed opportunity to get to see their interaction outside of the prison. During the reading: -First paragraph feels like it's missing something. maybe a climax or a punchline? -The part where J is playing and K walks in, you say he "played three songs" is he playing while observing K, because it's a little murky. -It threw me off when you said "woman's brazier" it threw me off. I know it's not the same spelling as brassiere but the way that was put there me off for a moment. Maybe consider a rephrasing of the sentance, could be just me? -So since only copper has been used to pay for stuff at this point I really dont know how much 33 gold is, other then a substantial sum. maybe I missed this previously maybe mention how much that could buy? -I dont know that I would say J is mooning over Cit's close its close. -I think it's weird that J is considering what D wouldn't approve of. I feel like they haven't had enough contact for that to happen. -Interesting note, when hunting a tiger in India the hunter will often put a mask on the back of their head so that if the tiger is actually stalking them it would see the face and not attack because it sees the face. No idea if that is useful but it's fun and it's a fact, it's a fun fact. -Oh so D was meeting them? I might have forgotten that or it wasn't clear. makes more sense why he would consider her opinion then. -So, J must be a real talent to see through the mask the someone as experianced as D would have. -I can follow all of what P says but "be wise to 'ee" -When they refer to D ac Captain it throws me off. I think of the rank first and I have to recall that it's her title specifically. -I find the response to G asking to be friends at odds with his earlier considerations. I understand from the outline where this is going but I feel like J's reasoning would be more along the lines of "having a 'friend' like this might make getting out of this alive more likely. It may even be that J would want a friend because he has too few but I dont feel like he would admit that, even to himself.

@kais, @industrialistDragon, I kindly and firmly disagree on a lot of what has been said by you both. I am also confident that the areas I agree with what has been stated, we would come to vastly different conclusions as to what that means or how to ensure those things are implemented. I have thus far, and will continue to, refrain from debate in this forum. I stand by all my previous comments and will discuss this no further on this thread. If you would like to continue to express your point of view to me I would appreciate moving this discussion outside the forum and would be happy to lay out my point of view in great detail as well. Perhaps then we could come to some kind of resolution on this. Here, however, I will make no further posts on this thread. As always I appreciate the discussion. If you would like to speak further please contact me privately. J

We will simply have to agree to disagree :). It's awesome that there are so many people in here with different political or cultural opinions, even if those personal opinions are vastly different or even contrary! This is what makes our world so beautiful. This is why writing is so amazing! We get to write about worlds that are in no way connected to or subjected to the 'rules' of this universe. Magic, Dragons, Space Travel... the possibilities are endless! It's great that you have a loud voice and are willing to stand up for what you believe. Good luck, my previous statement stands, and if nothing else, our disagreement on this topic is good inspiration for how M must feel when someone else approaches her with their vastly different culture. Every little bit helps!

So I know the beginning is really infodumpy. Hopefully things flow better after that. I tried to clean it up a bit, but I didn't want to do many changes. So in this part begins with a vision that M had after the blinding whiteness at the end of scene 6. Scene 8 is what happens in the morning when M wake's up, dealing with the aftermath of her father falling ill. Scene 9 is M explaining frustrations to E and they come up with a plan to help M's father. I know this is all rough and I hope things come across more clearly. I look forward to all the help that I will get in your critiques.

Thanks for the read and the comments. I feel as though there is a bit of ambiguity in this that may be causing some of the issues here. M is white, the difference here would be the difference between say Scandinavian and Greek. I won't really go into this farther than that right now as I will look over this and past subs to see where I can make things more clear. I know @Robinski commented on my sub before this questioning my use of the word civilization or civilized and he was entirely correct to do so. M comes from a highly advance but harsh and strict culture so M would likely not use the word civilized when contrasting the culture in this city to her own. Anyways, thanks for bringing this to my attention. I am still going to submit the follow on parts as I wrote them initially, but I am going to make sure I try to make the perspective on the culture clash a bit more clear in the future. J

So, Modesitt can be kind of dry and engineery(is that a word) but his work is good and the screams dont happen all the time. I was trying to sound cheeky, I should have used an emoji.

Whew, got all the comments done and organized. Now to go...relax and play some video games, lol.

Going to try a response method I have seen you use. Feels like it might take some less time. Thanks for the comments, look forward to putting them in.

Thanks a lot for the feedback here. Definitely helps out, ton of good stuff to work with here. Yeah, I have started to notice a lot of the telly/infodumpy stuff. I am going to start going through that and seeing what I can do. Yeah E does have a lot more forward with the personality at this point. M is more reserved, I need to find a way to get through with M's own personality a bit more. So this being a merchant society, I felt like it would be important to them so it was a natural foil. Sort of a "ha, my family one upped yours, take that!" I will try to bounce this around with @QuirkyGrandpa, also I am open to any suggestions about something to talk about. It was important for M to be able to meet them on their terms. I haven't been focusing on that but I will go for a careful read through. Yeah definitely something I will work on. So E and M are not blood relation. So E doesn't know a ton about M's culture. They met elsewhere(another story idea I had a long time ago) on another quest type thing. I will try to go through this and clear a lot of this up. It obviously didn't come across the way I wanted it to. Yeah, you are right. I agree, definitly will change that So in my efforts to appease @QuirkyGrandpa's crazy aversion to using the same word to describe someone twice per story, lol, I have ended up confusing people. this is something I definitely need to fix. hmm, I, personally don't feel there is a lot of baggage. It isn't something I want to alienate people over though, and if it is taking people out of the narrative then it really is a problem for me. I will work on something to see if I can fix this issue. I wanted to go for the feeling here that M didn't want it to be blood. But I realize from a distance wine would look dark not really red. So I will probably end up changing it to blood.

Something I noticed when looking at your map. Its not an error or anything but it reminded me of something a friend told me a long time ago. He said that a lot of fantasy authors seem to choose a setting that looks a lot like the geography where they are from. He used Eddings(from Nevada) as an example. two land masses surrounding and ocean with a land bridge in the North. For my own world the area where M is is a giant plain with a huge river in the middle and low mountains on one side and a large mountain range on the other. With your peninsula kingdom connected to a larger looking land area it got me thinking about that again. I don't bring it up because I don't like it, far from it. But it pays to be aware of what you come up with.

Overall: I thought it started out a bit rough. I get that they planned to get together and do the heist but it still feels a bit lost in the beginning, like he is wandering around and doesn’t know what to do. Though it didn’t hit its stride until the end it landed well. A few confusing parts at the end but that looks like it would be easily take care of. During the reading: -The first paragraph’s ending was a little confusing to me. Maybe released would be a better word choice then turned out? And you talk about him entering jail in the same sentence as he is being released, feels kind of off to me. -Not a bit fan of body parts doing things on their own as description, but that is likely just me -Can he actually play the instrument? I thought it was just a prop, maybe I missed something? -They took the iron? Is there some significance there? -I like how the magic is centered on the marrow. -Why is the gap to the yard important, is that where the attacker comes out? -I am not getting a lot of emotion from his brother…You said his eyes were filled with tears, other then that just hitting, seems mechanical. -Ok on page 19 I am getting some emotion, but it’s a little late, makes if feel off. Especially when they have kind of normal conversation a little later -Beer and a nip? Is that some British/Scottish thing? -I think the internal deliberation at the end of pg 20 and through pg 21 needs work. It might help if you switched the order of the thoughts. Being afraid of her first then talk about him considering his family. The whole section just felt wonky to me. -The events in pg 22, does he have a plan? Its seems like he is just going through the motions, being comfortably numb and not doing anything, if you will. -“I hove to the Captain’s Locker”? Is hove a word I am unfamiliar with, or is this some typo? -pg 23 he used a little alertness, I understand that he is using the power that the gets but the phrasing seems awkward. -Is G’s reaction to the soldiers fear or anger? I understand he looked nervous but that doesn’t tell me all that much. -J putting an arm around G seems kinda forced. Seems to intimate for the way they have been interacting until then. Maybe a hand on the shoulder? -The first full paragraph in pg 27 is confusing, not sure what “His mind moved first” means and the movement is jumbled, its hard to get through. -got easier to follow later in pg 27, last part made me laugh….idiot, lol -Not really getting the description of the caster with D…glass glove? Cloaked in rusty red? Held above his head? It rhymes but I don’t really know what that means. Doesn’t give a clear picture.

@QuirkyGrandpa says its a disgruntled look, I might have thought that it was bashful if it had a blush. lol, our society crumbles when emogies fail.

I think it would, also maybe a glimpse outside of the underworld could make it make a little more sense. I can understand the headache though, it will be difficult to get that in there without breaking the pacing and flow of the story.

Oh come on, I implied you were more qualified then I(Which is true by all accounts)! Also I appreciate it when you do it to me, but that maybe because I am masochistic.

Hey, I focused mainly on my senses of plot and character development. There are a few mentions in there with missing words and stuff but I stopped then when I realized that likely people more qualified then I would have mentioned it already, and for those who like to do that *stares at @Robinski* Overall: Admittedly before my mom passed I hadn’t gotten farther then a page in from your first iteration. This this was way better then what I found there. I had a really hard time following that first page and this one was way easier and had a much better flow to it. I was able to follow the whole thing from start to finish. The action and motivations of the various characters were a bit hard to follow at various points, but not so badly that it couldn’t be made clear and understandable. There is a big question in my mind as to whether or not this is a police state. Some of the unclear parts would make more sense if that is the case but I didn’t find much evidence to it. This may be because your story follows the criminal element in society. You might want to make it a little bit clearer, if you did it might also up the sympathy for D and company, which right now isn’t that high with me for anyone but Z and his mom. From the reading: -The first sentence really tripped me up. It just doesn’t make sense I read it five times, did you mean shakes? -dangling arms implies lack of placement intent/awareness, but if the arms stop just before the stunner then it seems there is an awareness about the placement, kind of seems contradictory to me. -Page 3 should be “cares enough to spend” -I feel like when you should lead with R caring about D rather than him being a bouncer. D obviously cares about him, so I would think D considers him a friend first and a bouncer second. -Are A and D angry at the end of page for. When things slam shut, and people better not be late, the tenor feels like there is some tension there. -Do D and B have some sort of history? Their exchange feels more then just transactional in nature. -I feel like the timing gets lost, at the end of page six D has completed 5 deliveries in less then 20 min? that seems like a rather tall order especially with how long the last exchange takes. -I feel like it should be ‘The SE’ I don’t really imagine myself saying “if FBI saw me, I’d be dead” I would say “If the FBI saw me, I’d be dead.” It maybe personal but it feels wrong. -I think the animus for the SE showing up is a bit week. I get that you are trying to make the SE a sinister organization, but I don’t see that enough for it to make sense that they would arrest some random person who might know about something and their family and friends who likely don’t know anything about anything. That’s kind of a Soviet style move and the environment you have built doesn’t seem that way to me, the society seems too open. -How do we know the man is in a suit and sweaty if he is in the back with the pots and pans? -I think saying they draw the weapons is too early, it would feel more sudden if you just said half the people fired in the room. -are you purposely anthropomorphizing the Oomph tentacle? If not maybe say annoying instead of idiotic? -With the blasters, is the Oomph giving some sort of precog or enhanced perception? You say the bolts fly toward D but the explosion happens and kills the agents but not D and the others. -In the explanation with R, D tells him she felt the weapons, but the scene in the diner played out more as an experience, something that actually happened. -The last discussion with R and D doesn’t feel right. I would think D would have more emotion at what seems like a betrayal from R. Then D gets mad at R for talking bad about V, when she has evidenced no closeness or emotional attachment to V at all.

I would like to submit this week as well. if there is room.

So, I feel like I made a mistake with this submission. I was already over word count and I didn't want to go way over with the 680 words of the next scene. I feel like I should have presented the scene with E and M. Then next sub with the scene directly after the ball. Having said that and reading the scene again I should just have been scene 7 the ending of scene 6. C'est la vie, I fully expect some commentary to this effect on my next sub. Anyways, I appreciate the comments so far and will address them specifically where I need to for clarification and questions later. I am still in the process of reading and commenting on your guys subs right now.

I've never heard of it. it does sound interesting though. It looks like it could help alot.

Hello again, Back and ready to go! In the last scene we saw M come home with a dress and have a conversation with her father. In the comming two scenes M is paid a surprise visit from a friend and then then she goes to the ball that her father arranged for her. Thanks for the read and I look forward to your help improving this work.

I would like to submit this week as well.

Hey guys, I think I have my head on again enough to come back. I will probably throw my hat in for next week. I think I am ready for you guys to shred my soul, I mean uh, do a great job critiquing my work and helping me improve as a writer.

Not too long ago I got into a fantasy/action adventure series by Lindsay Buroker called the Dragon Blood series. I was thinking about the first book and came up with a pretty good one.

So, things have changed a bit for me. My mom passed away unexpectedly on Tuesday after I posted this. So, it follows that I probably wont be able to contribute adequately. Thus I will now out of this Monday's sub. I thank you guys for all the help so far and I will be back in a week or two after everything has settled down.

Hey, congrats on your first sub, I only have two under my belt so far but this is a great group of people. Glad to have you.These are my comments on the first chapter. I will edit in the second one later as i am out of time for now. -opening is as bit confusing. It’s a little too shifty I don’t feel like is any coherent sense of events -The shift in the character’s voice is odd, snark to self-important megalomania, maybe that’s what you are going for, but it feels a bit odd. -top of page two: did the use of the patois make her feel relief and hunger? Also, how does relief make you feeble? - Salt-patterned, did you mean the salt from sweat has made marks on her skin or something else? - Not sure why the cage was built for her. is there something about unpainted cinder blocks? -Has time passed in the scene change? If so I don’t get the sense that any has. -ok so months have passed in this new cell. Maybe use something like “The slit in the bottom of M’s door opened with a whir, once again.” -Once again between pages three and four I am having trouble following what is going on. If you are trying to a disjointed feeling you might have gone a little high and right, making it difficult to follow. -M M, might one to just say she said, it sounds weird otherwise. -her heel is in his back? Are her legs wrapped around him? I thought they were on the floor. -Her reaction feels odd. For a megalomaniac she is taking failure rather well, I would expect more rage. -the paragraph that begins with “Why am I still alive?” is that next quotations M or J? it throws off the rhythm of the conversation. -“Capacity for to do.” Should be one or the other. -concern for the ends regardless of the methods, I like that really sets off the villain vibe for me. Overall I feel that chapter one has a rough beginning. It’s a little too disjointed and its tough following clearly. It does clean up in the later half and you start getting a better sense of character from M.

I would like to submit as well, but that's 3 in a row for me, so I will bow out if someone else needs room.