shatteredsmooth

I'm wondering if you could so a little more with the instances where you switch to the BK's POV? It seems like the narrative pulls back really distant when it shifts to his POV, with all these stunning yet distant descriptions that happen before we get to the meat of it and the scenes purpose, like revealing that he hates the wealth but has a use for it and the people who love it. These little snippets and I's interactions hint he's a really interesting character, and I want to see more of it. The chapter with the concert was nice. It was well written with clearly conveyed emotion, and culminated in another character moment. But Plot? Something is missing to connect to the bigger things going on. I had expected her to actually need to use her ability. The next chapter had more plot. Things got nice and tense when S and J started talking about barrier. Then it kind of dropped off. I wonder if I missed something with the last little political talk at the end, because that seemed to come a little out of nowhere. The comment about the BK and peaceful protests rubbed me the wrong way, but that has to do with politics, which I won't get into here. Overall, there was lots of good writing and beautiful prose. Lots of emotion. I'm looking forward to the next chapter.

Congratulations!! Are you talking about the one from the alpha reader thread? I have been so overwhelmed with work and my other WIPs that I have not gotten a chance to revise that one yet.

Ok, I think I get it. The state she is in and bad decision making essentially nullifies everything that happens there in terms of the relationship. OK. I will either tone it down or take 90% of it out. The things that weren't said in those moments were he avoids talking or thinking things. This was supposed to be a reveal but I get why it isn't working. Yes. :-) This was actually in Power Surge. Though it has been further modified by then. Honestly, after reading the feedback, seeing that it probably hurts the WLW thread more than anything and all the other issues, it might be better to just start from scratch with this chapter instead of trying to fix it. I'll wait and see what other feedback comes in before I start rewriting, but your comments make a lot of sense and I expect everyone else will probably agree. Thank you!

Content Warning: Language I did not tag this with V since there is no actual violence in the chapter, but it is somewhat focused on the aftermath of the previous chapters violence. Hi! Sending this now because tomorrow is going to be super busy and I am afraid I'll forget. The last chapter was a big change, so the one that came after got rewritten. This chapter replaces the one you read as Ch. 9. Originally, M had gone home after the fight with the CD, and then drove back to school. But since she was responding to a threat against A and T, not her mom, there was no reason for her to go home. This chapter is the new version. There may be a few familiar sentences, but it is mostly new content. There are many intentional sentence fragments in the narrative voice and M's dialogue, especially in the first half of the chapter. Any kind of feedback is welcome, but I do have a couple questions. I see this chapter as M pulling away from Mi and gravitating towards A and T, being more positive towards them than him. If you see it differently, can you please let me know and point out specifics to help me understand the way you see it? Is it clear that M is Not Okay and not quite thinking clearly a consequence of the psychic fight with the Demon? Thank you!! Sara Changes since last time: -A and T are not mad at M when chapter 12 starts out, but they are going to a party, and M isn't. Everyone is okay with this because they like parties and doesn't usually drink. -M half-explains why she's leaving as she rushes away from Mi in 12. Just long enough for him to glance at her phone before she runs away. -If we go way back, the chapter with M going home to get her costume is gone. Instead we see the masquerade, and M gets called away from there due to a dire family situation with demons and potentially fatal injuries. Recap Ch. 1: M saves a guy from a demon. Ch. 2: Healing on a school night was a bad idea. But it has some perks, like falling into the lap of a sweet girl named T. But the guy she saved is her TA, Mi. Oh no! Ch. 3: M follows Mi and figures out he doesn't recognize her, but is a paranormal investigator with a fascinating mind. She goes out with T, and her roommate, A. There is laughter and cuddles and fandom. Ch. 4: Two weeks later, M is trying to figure out how much Mi knows about the paranormal, and learns he has more secrets than extracurricular ghost hunting. Ch. 5: M leaves Mi to check on T after a skateboarding incident. They almost kiss, but a broken bone compels M to heal it, and she almost passes out on T. The next morning, M makes plans to go to a masquerade, which is a month away. Ch. 6: A month later, Mel goes to a masquerade with A & T but is called away because of a family hunting emergency. Ch. 7: Mel fights demons and heals people. She almost dies. Ch. 8: Back at school. Mi reveals his PI friends survived. M hears what she needs from him and finds A and T, who tell her all about what she missed at the masquerade. Ch. 9: Pizza and flirting with the girls is cut short by Mi putting himself in danger. Again. Ch. 10: After almost getting hit by a car, M and Mi spend the night together, talking about the paranormal, gaming, and falling asleep. Ch. 11: M tries to earn A and T's forgiveness. Things get spicy. M's shields fail. Intimacy with no shields means there will be an exchange of energies which the girls haven't consented to, so M has to leave. (this whole chapter might change. It might not. Uncertain). Ch. 12 (last time): A and T go to a party. She goes out with Mi, but ditches him when she thinks the girls are in danger. It's a trap! A demon is waiting for Mel. They have a telepathic battle and M gets hurt. Ch. 13 (This time): M isn't doing so good after the fight with the Crossroads Demon.

That is fine with me.

Could I please submit on Monday Sept. 14?

The slots have been by word count, not chapters, so your fine. You could've been submitting more all along. And if you go over a little over 5,000 words, well, I can't speak for the others, but I think you can get away with it because your other chapters have been so short. Some weeks, if your chapters are these short, you might even be able to squeeze in three and still only take up one slot, but if it was quiet and you wanted to get ahead, I'd be cool with you taking a double slot and sending 10,000 words... I admit, when I send things to this group, I am for chapters to be around 5,000 words and then end up dividing a majority of them into shorter chapters later on. Now, to the feedback. We got more plot in this one. I wasn't sure about that little opening bit with the BK. It was a lot of description of him to be from his point of view and there was just a small little reveal of information. I loved the lines about the rain. I was a little confused about the Owl. So, she didn't say it's real name, but did she say any name at all? Did she pretend she hadn't seen it before it left the room? Did she give a different name? Somehow know the one it was using? This wasn't quite clear to me. I did like the emotion around her not telling Pem. There were also intense feelings with the sister later. "shared her birthday with four of them" So does that mean it was a littler of five puppies, including her? The cat part was interesting. Certainly adds a layer to the plot. There was so much emotion in the scene with the dad. I almost cried. But even as she clings to her family and world, I can see her opinions about everything changing. There has been a lot of character growth, even if things have been a little light on the plot side.

There was a ton of world building here, and it was really interesting to learn all about the politics from the point of view of the M's. I liked their different takes on the BK, some more positive than others. I think after you've revised the earlier parts in the book to have a tighter plot, this will be a nice relaxing chapter. It's not super tense, but not every chapter has to be. There is nice emotion. Beautiful imagery. Great little bits of flirting between I and J. The imagery at the end, about dancing home, really was working for me. The problem is that most of the chapters have been low key like this one, but I think you've heard that a million times already. This is one I'd keep as a catch your breath chapter after you add more tension and plot to some others, I think. Others may disagree, but I love this party on the beach.

Thanks for pointing this out. Yup. Not sure if you remember from one of the earlier chapters, but the other hunters do fight demons with firearms too. Mel just really likes blades and hates guns. This replaced the one where Mel went to help her mom. That is a very good question, and one I do not have an answer for. I had not noticed the blank pages until I saw this comment. Thank you very much for the feedback!

That's fair. I was a little uncertain about it to begin with and I'll plan to change it. I think I'll take out the summary. Currently, Mi is not in the chapter before this one at all. Do you think it would be better to include a full scene with the girls in this chapter, or keep whatever information I need to convey about them in the previous chapter? Yay! At least it's getting a little closer.

The pixies alone might not be, but the other demon hunters are there too. Though the Demon has a human in the room set to attack the girls, not another Demon. It's one of the paranormal investigators, but neither Mel nor reader knows that yet. So the pixies might actually be enough. They could snatch away the needles and stab the attacker with them or snatch the needles and just create general chaos that would result in him getting injured and/or booted out of the party.

Sounds good. I had more, then took them out, then after I sent it, I realized how abrupt it seemed. I will definitely add more. Good point. Yay! Hmm I think you may have uncovered a whole in my logic here. This is what I had been thinking happened. I can either try to make it clearer or change it. What do you think? So, I had added an epithet very early saying the pixies have a big telepathic range for communicating with each other. I've added a little more about them earlier, but essentially, pre-Mi inventing demon detection devices and an app to monitor it, like the hunters had in PS, the pixies were the alert system for Demon activity. So as soon as M steps away from Mike, she sends C a telepathic message and C relays it to the other pixies. The net work gets the messages in minutes and conveys it to P and Jr (the other two Boston area hunters. They've been in one chapter, so far, in the background. Mel mostly texts them). The pixies locate T & A at the party but don't tell M because my now, the Demon is near her, and they are afraid of it's telepathic powers and not quite aware that the Demon also fears them. By the time the Demon shows Mel the third video, the other hunters are zoning in on T & A along with the pixies. The pixies don't fully show up on camera, but Mel can see where they blur light and have snuck bits of cake. She can see the other hunters in the background. They would've also used Between to get there as most hybrid hyrbid can access Between, not just Angel-hybrids (Basically all the hunters but J). So basically, M puts her trust in the others to keep T & A safe and decides to take on the Demon herself. And being a telepath, she is better equipped to fight it than the other hunters. If she hadn't been so low on energy, she might have won. But she hasn't recovered from the weekend, and while she gets the Demon away before it does as much damage as it wanted to, she is pretty beat and her head is messed up. If this logic works, I will try to make clearer in the text. If it doesn't, then I'll make different changes. Thank you, @Mandamon.

Hmmm You make a good point though. Talking about boundaries is something she needs to do with them. And she needs to be honest with herself about these boundaries. But yes, people don't always talk about things the way they should and the awkwardness is real. I was just emptying the dishwasher while thinking about your comments, and left the dishwasher half-empty to reply, because I thought of something. I could just take out the sexy chapter and have them still be mad at her about ditching them on Monday. Though If I do that, there is a pretty big swarth of Mi centric chapters before the girls are back...hmm...lots to think about. I knew people were going to jump right to British Columbia, but Boston College has a reputation for being a big party school... is it realistic for students to go to parties at near by colleges that aren't the one they're attending? As you noticed, I spelled it out right in the next line. I just didn't think someone would spell out the whole thing in a text. LOL You always find a way to make me laugh with your comments. I don't know if it's real...but maybe it should be. It just popped into my head...what if when your character gets hurt, you have to take a drink or something? I was going more for a "this s the suit it had the last time it was summoned to earth eighty years ago" vibe, but didn't want to spend too many sentences describing the suit. Thrift store works in its own way though. Happy to hear it!

I am considering go back and have her tell Grandpa that she's skipping, and then go the masquerade. But then M finds out he got hurt, and leaves to check on him, and it's only after that she realizes how it was all related to Mi and his paranormal investigator. That way she does not ditch the girls for Mi, had a chance to move forward with them a little, and then when she does leave, it's not for Mi. I'm not entirely sure this would work in the big picture, but I'm keeping it on the back burner as an idea in case things don't balance out in the end with her leaving Mi for them an equal amount of times as she leaves them for him.

Thank you @kais @Snakenaps @Robinski @killersquid @Mandamon @Turin Turambar @PiedPeterPiper for all your comments! I had gone and made changes to this chapter based on most of the suggestions above, but kept the original structure and events. Later, I realized keeping as much as I did only fixed a portion of the issues. So I deleted a huge chunk of it, and wrote something different, which I'm submitting this week.

I have made some big changes to this chapter, which I am resubmitting this week, though because I split up some of the bigger chapters, it's called Ch. 12 instead of 8. These changes include meeting the Big Bad. I hope I didn't make it too mustache twirly, but I probably did. I'm sure you'll let me know.

Yay!! Your college sounds like a wild place! The common rooms I'm talking about are just part of the suite. So you walk into the common room, go down a hall, and there are two bedrooms, each with two people. So only four people have access to this common room, assuming the suite is a quad. Some bigger suites might have three or four rooms (6 or 8 people). I forget how big they got at this specific school. Of course I didn't actually take notes while I was reading. Before I do my final pass, I need to redo my research about undergrad housing at MIT. Also, this would be so much easier if I was just making up a fake school, but the published book mentions M and Mi having met at MIT...so for now, I'm stuck with it. LOL Thank you @Snakenaps!

Her mom is weird and not very mom like. Part of it is the hunter culture. Part of it is just a character quirk. Part of it may or may not have something to do with raising a nosy telepath who likes to know things she shouldn't. Thanks for pointing this out. :-) Great point. I am still thinking about how to fix this. Sooner or later, I'll come up with something. In this draft, this is the first time she cancels plans with them for him, but I get it. It turns into a pattern and makes it seem like she doesn't care about them. Originally, what I wanted this chapter to show was her family ruining her social life, but then the hunt seemed too much like a side quest, so I worked harder to tie it back to Mi, which now backfires because it is showing her ditching them for him. Hopefully by strengthening up other areas of the f/f relationship, altering her motive for going on the hunt, and also having her leave him for the girls an equal amount of times, this chapter can work. If not, I'll try rethinking the whole set up here. EDIT Sept. 8 1:04 p.m.est I think this chapter is just going away and being replaced by the masquerade. Thank you @kais @Mandamon and @Turin Turambar

@TheDwarfyOne Piloting a steamboat sounds fun! The lake I swim in was pretty warm for most of the summer. At one point, it had been 84F (29C). Now it's down to 73F (23C). As it keeps cooling off, I'll wear my wetsuit shirt and shorts. But I may buy a full wetsuit this year so I can keep swimming later in the year. As it is, I'm down to 2-4 days a week and half a mile instead of a full mile.

Content Warning: Language, Violence (physical and psychic), On the first page, there is a mention or two of sex, but it's about something that happened in a previous chapter. Hi! So we aren't quite back to where we left off yet. I had an "aha moment" about something and ended up making some significant changes to this chapter. Remember the time where Mel leaves Mike because her mom is in trouble? That part is all changed. I could have probably summarized, but I could really use some feedback on the new parts, especially since they introduce the big bad, and I often struggle writing villains. The opening feels awkward to me, but I'm not sure what to do with it. Cut it completely? Turn some of it into full scenes? Shorten it? Something else? After that, the first five pages will seem familiar. They've been edited based on the feedback, but the changes are minor. The bigger changes start at the bottom of six. I already sent the email, but as I'm posting this, I'm wondering if M leaves Mi too abruptly? Or if it works because she's so panicked by A & T's text and has in the past, ditched them twice for him. Any and all feedback is welcome. Thanks! Sara There is a brief recap below, and a more detailed one is attached. Ch. 1: M saves a guy from a demon. Ch. 2: Healing on a school night was a bad idea. But it has some perks, like falling into the lap of a sweet girl named T. But the guy she saved is her TA, Mi. Oh no! Ch. 3: M follows Mi and figures out he doesn't recognize her, but is a paranormal investigator with a fascinating mind. She goes out with T, and her roommate, A. There is laughter and cuddles and fandom. Ch. 4: Two weeks later, M is trying to figure out how much Mi knows about the paranormal, and learns he has more secrets than extracurricular ghost hunting. Ch. 5: M leaves Mi to check on T after a skateboarding incident. They almost kiss, but a broken bone compels M to heal it, and she almost passes out on T. The next morning, M makes plans to go to a masquerade, which is a month away. Ch. 6: A month later, M goes home to pick up the costume and gets some bad news. Ch. 7: M hunts a Demon with her family and almost dies healing them. Ch. 8: Back at school. Mi reveals his PI friends survived. M hears what she needs from him and finds A and T, who tell her all about what she missed at the masquerade. Ch. 9: Pizza and flirting with the girls is cut short by Mi putting himself in danger. Again. Ch. 10: After almost getting hit by a car, M and Mi spend the night together, talking about the paranormal, gaming, and falling asleep. Ch. 11: M tries to earn A and T's forgiveness. Things get spicy. M's shields fail. Intimacy with no shields means there will be an exchange of energies which the girls haven't consented to, so M has to leave. Ch. 12 (this time): A and T go to a party and don't invite M. She goes out with Mi, but ditches him when she thinks the girls are in danger.

Thanks for letting us know! Nice! LOL LOL

I will most likely have something Monday if there is a spot. I was going to submit a brand new BOM chapter, but then last night I randomly had an idea and made big-ish change to one you've already read (it's only two or three chapters before where we left off earlier in the summer), so I might resub that one instead, to see if the change actually makes sense. Plus, the new one is rambling off into an abyss...

Content warnings: S: There is no explicit sexual content, but some of the text messages get a little spicy. L: There are usually a few swear words. Hi Everyone, Book of Mel is back from hiatus. Everything I've submitted so far has been revised based on your feedback. While I do not plan to resubmit everything, I am asking you to read one of the earlier chapters before we jump back to where we left off. One of the things I did when I revised was split some of my longer chapters into shorter ones, so the numbers had changed. The selection you are reading this week used to be part of Chapter 4. This section was rushed and a little confusing, so I expanded it and made it a separate chapter. Since a lot of it is new content, I'd love some feedback on it. Any kind of feedback is fine, including LBLs or the sentence-level stuff I usually ask you to ignore, since this is now something like draft 3.5 now. Let me know what you think! -Sara There is a brief recap below, and a more detailed one is attached. Ch. 1: M saves a guy from a demon. Ch. 2: Healing on a school night was a bad idea. But it has some perks, like falling into the lap of a sweet girl named T. But the guy she saved is her TA, Mi. Oh no! Ch. 3: M follows Mi and figures out he doesn't recognize her, but is a paranormal investigator with a fascinating mind. She goes out with T, and her roommate, A. There is laughter and cuddles and fandom. Ch. 4: Two weeks later, M is trying to figure out how much Mi knows about the paranormal, and learns he has more secrets than extracurricular ghost hunting. Ch. 5: M checks on T after a skateboarding incident. They almost kiss, but a broken bone compels M to heal it, and she almost passes out on T. The next morning, M makes plans to go to a masquerade, which is a month away. Ch. 6 (this time): A month later, M goes home to pick up the costume and gets some bad news. Ch. 7 (next time, which I'm not going to resub): Mel goes hunting.

Me! BOM is back from hiatus.

I got a little overwhelmed with all the market description. It was vivid and detailed, allowing me to picture everything clearly, but because there has been a lot of wandering, I wasn't sure how much was relevant, and found myself wanting to get through and get more sibling tension. "The news always makes me sad." So relatable! "Maybe S and T viewed things too simply" I like the realization I is coming too! "Blood running down the steps of the palace" This scene ended on a very tense note, and I wish more of the scene had the kind of tension the later section had. "It was free and she didn't have to make it." Yay! Free food I was very getting hungry while I was reading about all the food. At the party scene, I enjoyed the food and seeing I getting to like the people she once thought of as the enemy. I think it will have an even bigger impact later after you've tightened up the plot / arc in other scenes.