JWerner

I would also like a slot, but if there's someone who hasn't gotten to submit for a while, I'm cool with waiting a week.

Hi Hawkedup, I definitely liked this more than the previous submission; it's a more clear, concise and overall enjoyable entry into your story. Z serves as a better gateway character, with a simple motivations (she wants to see the meeting) to help ease us into the story. I have never read a Latinx fantasy, so I'm definitely intrigued on how you continue telling the story and building the world from this particular thread. Mechanics-wise, I noticed you have a problem with run-on sentences—you have a lot that are in desperate needs of commas—and you tend to have single-line paragraphs that are not dramatic enough to warrant being such. I'd pay close attention to both from here on out. Notes below: (page 2): -“You know how picky your family is about their posole. If you mess up the red chile, you’ll never hear the end of it.”—But aren't they his family too, if he's her father? Confusing. -She loved the way it warmed her on a cold night—Added an a. -There were always leftovers—Corrected was to were. The day started out great.—I don't think you need to give us an indicator of impending doom. It suggests an omniscient narrator and saps some tension out of the story. (page 3): -providing enough light to see by—Corrected provided to providing. -A fire burned in the iron stove for warmth—This is what I mean regarding single-sentence paragraphs. This is not important enough on its own. “E,” Señora E said. “I’m glad you’re home.”—I'd change Señora E to 'the woman' to give P saying her actual name a bit more punch. Though I suppose if Z already knows her name, that wouldn't make much sense. Up to you! “Señora E,” P said, stepping to the side and gesturing for the woman to enter—I would change 'the woman' to 'her.' (page 4): “Also, I’ve asked you to call me A, at least when we’re not at the farm."—Can you reword this? It's clunky exposition. Señora E was one of the few people in the pueblo who was still outwardly kind to P and Z, which was strange since her kid was an cremhole.—I don't see how the kid being an cremhole has anything to do with her own treatment of them. (page 5): and even though most of the the pueblo—Extra 'the' (page 6): I’ll find you after the council meeting is over, tonight, and we’ll spend all day together tomorrow if you want to. I promise.”—If he survives the next couple chapters, I will be genuinely shocked. (page 7): “Oh, great, it’s the orphan girl.—Cheesy line. And as already pointed out, the insult isn't very good, either. Is there another way you can portray animosity between these two? (page 8): The friends Z had turned on her—I'd change to 'Z's friends turned on her' (page 9): “Oh my broken heart,” Z said. “It’s a deal.” Z checked the knot.—This should be one paragraph. (page 10): The rope on this side went taught—'Taut' (page 12): had walking staffs or cains—'canes'

@Mandamon and @kais, thank you muchly for your critiques! I'll make more edits accordingly to improve. This is a re-occurring point here, and my best explanation is that the walls were just ordinary wood in older drafts, and I forgot to edit out the part about them being thin. Boring explanation, I know. Aye, I see that. What I think I'll do is restore an older scene of P going to the store, and show some raiders being mean and nasty therein. Though that will definitely extend the chapter beyond 6000 words, which I'm wary of. A: Could you edit out his name, please? Thank you. B: I agree with you. He's not the best doctor, but he's certainly the best for miles. That definitely was not my intent, though it'd be easy to replace that element with something else to make them visually distinct. I'd hate to offend, so I'll look the tattoos over again. Thank you for bringing that up. Again, thanks to you both! Much appreciated.

Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out Scrivener's compiler function. Also, could please you edit her name and D's name below? Thank you. I get what you're saying; I might try to add a quick scene like that in, though I'm afraid of making this chapter absurdly long. Thank you for the critique!

Thank you both for your critiques! The continuity errors are honestly really embarrassing, considering that I went through this chapter several times before submission. But I'm also glad you both like G! I was afraid that I sapped personality out of him in the edits.

First off, I apologize for this chapter's length; I did try to cut down as much as I could and I considered omitting the third scene to use as the start of chapter 3 instead, but this chapter wouldn't have ended on as strong a note, in my mind at least. My re-write of chapter 1 caused me to revise a significant amount in this chapter, in some cases I think for the better, but for the worse in others. I'm definitely interested in hearing all of your feedback. With that, I hope you enjoy. And if not, feel free to tell me so in the most brutal of fashions. Tuesday edit: I be fool. I forgot to include a summary. In chapter 1, while on the road to a town populated by reavers, sword-wielder L encountered three of them. She kills two, sustaining a wound to her left shoulder in the process. Sensing that the remaining reaver, P, may not be a threat, she orders him to lead her to his home town.

Guten tag Molah, I think there are two prevalent issues here. The first is that I'm having trouble visually picturing the story. For instance, D. D is a robot. Cool! But what does it look like? Tall? Thin? Stocky? What does it sound like? D is a heavy robot with a needle, and that's all we know about it. I'm also having trouble with this cavern. If the dome is resting on a rise, is there a dome within another cavern? The wording of it is just somewhat confusing. Also, the story doesn't make much sense to me. This is a world with intelligent robots and magical artifacts, but the notion of magic is summarily dismissed? Also, how did M find this artifact? What led her there? Why is she convinced of magic in the first place? I think having the story be this short does it a disservice. It deserves to be longer in order to flesh out the tale, and the world. Here are my notes from while I was reading: pg. 1: placing his steel feet carefully on the slippery ground. I think that ‘Treading carefully’ would sound better. "Placing carefully" doesn't sound like walking to me. “He. He. He.” "Heh heh heh" might make it clearer that that's supposed to be laughter. Water dripped slowly in the distance At a slow rate? pg. 2: The ceiling was maybe sixty feet above and full of stalactites reaching out for her, mirrored by the floor, where stalagmites reached up like pale fingers. There's a repetition of the idea of reaching here. pg. 3: ...her surrounding... Correct to 'surroundings.' “Have you been putting on weight?” She giggled at her own remark. D’s body was as heavy as she’d designed it. This should be one paragraph. pg. 4: “Ah, no. Nevermind." Change to 'never mind.' pg. 4-5: Look, I don’t want to do this...something new. Flashback dialogue needs apostrophes to keep it consistent. pg. 5: This had to be one of the fountains of magic she’d predicted would exist. I think it would be better to say that she theorized it. 'Predicted' makes it sound like this was prophesized. “I am sorry.” Change to 'I’m.' "I am" sounds a little too formal. pg. 6: M stood up and rehearsed her plan. Such a quick recovery contradicts the notion that the drug made her lose her will to do anything. pg. 7: “Mommy, what’s taken you so long?” Okay, I get for what you're going for here—sweet and tragic—but the sheer abruptness of it made it feel more like black comedy to me. (I know, I'm a sick person.) It would work as such, if the tone up until now hadn't been so somber. There's also little payoff in this ending—M finds magical artifact, decides it's a better idea to blow up the rocks that are sealing it instead of coming back with better equipment, and technically gets what she wants anyways. Not only that, we didn't get to see what made it so magical! In short, I think it ought to be revised; build it up a little more for a better, more tonally consistent payoff.

I would like to submit for this coming Monday, please.

Hallo hawkedup, Read your piece, read the previous feedback. Your pacing is much improved, brisk and to the point. Other than that, there's really no other new criticism I can provide that hasn't already been said, so on that note, I'm just going to post the few notes I've taken below, which mostly regard mechanics. Sorry that my critique is brief; everyone else has covered the prevailing issues better than I could have, regarding depictions of race and neural atypathy. pg. 1: "From the suicide note of Princess Z." Now that's a hook. pg. 3: "L said, instead." I would delete instead. pg. 6: "At the back of practice yard was a hedge wall about twenty feet tall. This wall separated the regular training yard from the archery range." I would combine these two sentences. "b-line." Spell as beeline. pg. 7: "morning and" Add a comma between these two. pg. 8: "“Woah, hold it there, friend,” J said, grabbing her around the waist and holding her back." The paragraph break preceding this sentence is unnecessary. pg. 10: "hiding the light from gem." I think you're missing a 'the' here. pg. 12: "big not-so-friendly giant" It's redundant to describe a giant as big. pg. 13: "That’s because their leaders use compulsion" Is compulsion in this case a proper noun, for which it should be capitalized? Or are their leaders being compelled? "If this is true" Add a comma after 'true.'

Allo Daughter of Calimari, Velcome! And thank you muchly for submitting. I'm gonna add a disclaimer real quick here before I get into your story: the only sci-fi I intake nowadays comes from comic books and manga. I will give this story credit for its considerably brisk pace, but other than that, I did not find a lot to keep me interested. Like Alderant said, I see a lot of Star Trek in here, with the whole formula of discovering planets, a captain protagonist and most of the side-characters being officers of particular importance/rank. The main crux of the story here is that there's not much to get invested in emotionally, and no major problem other than what can be boiled down to, "Our ship broke down." Not only that, but every conflict concluded much too neatly. Ship gets stranded? Ship gets un-stranded. Running low on food? We'll just drug everyone so they're not as hungry. Crew member assaulted? Perpetrators demoted. Nothing is lost, nothing is gained. There are no real consequences; the characters (none of whom we particularly get to know, not even Captain S.) don't change. Everything wrapped too neatly. Also, while the idea of a sentient star can be interesting, you have to do more with that idea than just having it talk to the captain. Sentient interstellar bodies have been done before (see Sto-Oa, Mogo, Ego) and they usually have some sort of personality to humanize them. If you're going to make E an emotionally detached entity, I would go into why E is detached. Is it due to their vastness? Their age? Beyond "Wow, we're talking to a planet," there wasn't enough spectacle there to make it seem wondrous. In summation, I think you need to do more with the idea of a living star and give actual, tangible consequences to either your characters' actions, or events beyond their own control. Otherwise, the story has no teeth. Here are my page by page notes. pg. 1: "Had the system truly been abandoned for uncounted centuries, the signal they’d detected the last cry of a long-dead civilization? Or was he about to make one of the most momentous discoveries in human history?" I think it would be a momentous discovery either way. "But no star would naturally pulse in the Fibonacci sequence or the first ten digits of pi." I have no idea what that means or why it's important. pg. 2: "In its exploration of space, humanity had found life on any number of worlds." I'd rephrase. That's not a definitive number. It's 'whatever number you want it to be.' "J’s people had physiology that was compatible with serving on the same ships as humans." Could you describe what they looked like? Also, there is a noticeable repetition of the word 'only' in this paragraph that I would try to cut down on. "The two thumbs on each of his hands were no shorter or thicker than the two fingers, but humans called them “thumbs” because they were opposed to the other digits." The quotation marks are unnecessary. pg. 3: "The blaring intercom interrupted A’s dinner. “Answer call.”" This transition is much too abrupt. Could you find a better way to segue into it? “A species capable of manipulating the total energy output of a star!” I can't see how their conversation could have lead to this conclusion. “If they’re friendly and willing to share their technology, it could represent a quantum leap forward for the I.C." This dialogue is expository and cliché. It would come off better as A's inner thoughts. pg. 4: "Since that’s our primary method of detecting other ships..." Here's more exposition. You have a lot of dialogue where you have characters telling each other info they all ought to know. pg. 5: "A wasn’t supposed to be awake, but he couldn’t bear to sleep through the moment that would change humanity’s course forever." This is another abrupt transition. It also takes until the end of the paragraph for me to figure out where he is. "He cringed at his own melodramatic phrasing..." This doesn't really work unless the previous sentence is an actual inner thought. Because they're not his words, they're yours. pg. 6: "He was glad they weren’t sending visual imagery, since he was sure he had a silly grin on his face." I think first contact with a new species ought to elicit a more visceral reaction than a grin. "“Sir,” M suggested." That's not a suggestion yet. “If they’ve sent out a lone explorer into deep space, and that explorer is still capable of functioning, they must have a very different psychology than any of the six known sapients.” This really confuses me. First off, why would the explorer not be capable of function. And two, if the explorer is capable of functioning, how exactly does that lead this character to assume this new species has a different psychology from the six sapients? "Or at least, not the wrong thing." I'm pretty sure that would also be the right thing. pg. 7: "Human is a name for me, for many of the other people on this ship, and for the people on Earth and at Tau Ceti. It’s a name for all of us together." Wouldn't it just be easier for him to say his species is called humanity? pg. 8: "There was a long pause, uncharacteristic for the energetic communications officer." This is more unnecessary exposition that you could probably do without. "Call an emergency meeting of the senior staff." Why doesn't A ask how the laser was damaged? "The night shift commander shook her head, blond braid swinging back and forth." That sounds like one violent head shake. pg. 10: “You’re my ship’s doctor. Anything related to the health of the crew, whether physical or mental, is your purview.” Pretty sure a ship's doctor would already know this. "She lived through the worst of the time when they were cut off from the rest of the IC by the design flaw in the FTL drives." I would at least have A react with surprise to this expository dialogue. That way, it has an impact. pg. 11: "None of the scientists on board thought it was likely that E would be able to produce the intensity or coherence of light needed replicate the K laser’s function..." How exactly do we know this? Did they tell A this? pg. 12: "A’s thoughts had been consumed with the fate of his crew, but E’s words made him feel a spike of sorrow for the other being." I have trouble believing he'd feel sympathy for an interstellar body that talks in a monotone. "The CR—technically the PSDF..." I don't think that the CR sounds like it needs to be capitalized, while the PSDF is too long and formal to be just a 'technical' name. "Those s’s didn’t sound right." I think it would be a lot simpler if A just thought there was something off about M's voice. pg. 13: "As one, the bridge crew swiveled in their seats to face A." I feel like that's too dramatic of a collective reaction to hearing someone got punched. "White-knuckled grips on chair arms." Same issue. "He didn’t fidget, and he only broke eye contact with one to gaze at the other." Why not just "he looked at them both"? "He counted in his head and switched every thirty seconds." That sounds more funny than it does intimidating. "E had glared at C when he broke their silence," I feel like this would work better if placed when C talks to the first time. I apologize if I come across as harsh. I want to see your story improve, and if you choose to revise it, I would absolutely read it. Please keep submitting! And thank you for doing so.

Disclaimer: I don't read sci-fi prose literature anymore. Any sci-fi reading I do nowadays will be comic books (i.e. Transmetropolitan, Crowded, Inuyashiki). So take my opinions with a grain of salt, as I'm not your target audience. Mechanics-wise, I didn't find much in the way of issues, and whatever I did find has already been pointed out. Your prose is wonderfully descriptive without edging into purple prose. Though for me, the abundance of description did bog down the pacing. Story-wise, there wasn't all that much to hook me. I read the story once and then scanned it a second time, and I am not sure what Q's goals are; I don't know what's driving him in this story. I also think that his conversation with the mysterious man, the dramatic focal point of this chapter, would be a better point to end on than his encounter with the woman with the precise skirt. I also only knew Q was a PI because I read your synopsis; maybe I missed something, but I left this chapter off thinking he was a criminal. I am also not sure about the nickname of Q***k, just because (to me at least) not only does that sound really on-the-nose, it also seems like something that would fit better on a YA novel protagonist. But I think the fact that he is fashion-conscious is a fabulous character trait; it suggests a man who is fussy and vain, very focused on maintaining his appearance. Which seems very out-of-place for a PI, considering that in their line of work, they probably don't want to be noticed. So that has me interested. In short, you write beautifully, Q is interesting, and I think that there needs to be a stronger hook somewhere in this chapter. Something to increase the stakes and drama.

Thanks everyone! The additional feedback is most helpful. Probably gonna skip submitting this week because I need to catch up on writing my own critiques, and some more time to spruce up chapter 2. Yeah, that was me WILDLY overcompensating for some of the feedback on the last version. I was going for 'emotionally relatable' and like you said, it created inconsistency. My bad.

I'm afraid not. The technology doesn't exist, nor is there a magical alternative. Never heard of them. There's an English band called the Dire Straits; do you mean them? Okay. Brief, gruesome story. There's this documentary called "Life in a Day" that I believe is still on Youtube; it's a bunch of people's videos stitched together from around the planet, chronicling a single day. And during the happy-peppy ending montage, suddenly out of nowhere there's a goat getting its throat slit and screaming. It's kinda stuck with me, unfortunately. Thank you! The feedback from the previous post was super-helpful. Glad you both liked this better, and I'll take your suggestions to mind as I take another look through the passage.

Hi Hawkedup. First of all, as a fellow (relative) newcomer, welcome to Reading Excuses and thank you for submitting your piece! My critique follows, and I hope you'll bear with me, because this has its strengths and its issues. First of all, I like your writing style. It's very descriptive while usually avoiding floweriness (read: usually) that really paints your world quite vividly. 'Globe' in particular really brought me into the world; it also brought 'Little Match Girl' to mind for me. You make it quite clear that R City is not the sort of place you'd want to live in, and that circumstances are quite dire. However, you have problems with pacing. First off, you have two vague prologues. The first prologue itself isn't really a prologue; it's more like an epigraph to the real prologue, 'Globe.' (Which makes me wonder why the epigraph-prologue, which is literally written as an address to someone else, is not italicized while 'Globe' is.) And 'Globe', while very atmospheric, does not move forward much story forward that I can see. And calling the viewpoint character 'the girl' constantly makes me think she is either completely unimportant, or you're deliberately hiding her name from us. More on that latter method later on why that's a bit of a problem. And then we get to L, which is where the pacing problems become even more evident. You take six entire pages to describe L's morning routine, with way more detail than is necessary. While I can't speak for others, I'm not exactly interested in what angle she wakes up in, what she had for dinner last night, or three paragraphs of yoga. The parts of this that do make me wonder about L (odd voices, magic, etc.) that sound really interesting are bogged down by way too much detail and meandering. I would suggest considering which of the details are really necessary to furthering the plot, describing L's character and painting the world, and cutting out those that aren't. I am definitely interested in how you subvert the whole 'So Beautiful, it's a Curse' trope. Whose face has L stolen from? Is this person dead? Is L basically a Faceless Woman? What's a 'spec'? The mystery abounds, but it takes a while to get to that point of enrapture. My (admittedly few) notes are below. pg. 6: "This light was the girl’s soul lantern, which she had named F." I would just call her L by this point. There's no need to keep her name a mystery for another whole page. "No, the Voice again." Add 'said'. pg. 8: "After another long set of moments, she put her arm down, and let her eyes adjust." I'd change this to 'after a few seconds.' "Her eyes adjusted but Firefly got brighter and brighter until it was too bright to look at directly." You already said in the previous sentence that her eyes had adjusted. "He headache faded a bit, too, thank the God King." Change he to her. pg. 10: "She raised her hands to the heavens, palms upward, arching her back, then bent to touch her toes." I'd suggest replacing with 'ceilingward.' pg. 11: "She moaned with near ecstasy as the knots loosened." I'd say 'she sighed happily.' Having 'moaned' and 'ecstasy' in the same sentence immediately creates a sexual connotation. But if this was your intention, leave as is. "Chambermaids were not allow to keep sharp objects in their rooms--too many “accidents”." Now that is an interesting world-building detail. pg. 11-12: "The hair dissolved into mist (like a dead man’s snow globe) before reaching the floor." Someone brought up 'author intrusion' to me the other day, and this is definitely that. It really took me out of the story when you spoke directly to me to remind me of something I'd just read about a few pages back. This also goes back to 'Globe'; keeping the girl's name from us is the same issue. If keeping her identity a secret is really that important, I would not tell the prologue from her POV.

Right-o, I've done my best to fix the issues pointed out to me by you wonderfully brutal folks. If you think said issues are still present, or if new issues have cropped up that you wish to let me know about, have at me. I think the one thing I must forewarn people of (if they haven't read it in the e-mail yet) is that this chapter is now approximately 500 words longer. And I deleted the second scene to use it in chapter 3 instead. Just so ya know.

I've fenced myself! It's been a while since I last picked up a foil and I got my butt kicked all the time, but I've done it. As for your other criticism (and everyone else's), I hope I've already addressed most of the issues pointed you've all pointed out, in my revisions. If I'm in for Monday, hopefully you'll find the revised version of the chapter more palatable.

I implore you, in the future, look through your submissions and fix the spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. There were far too many and I will echo Robinski's point about being taken out of the story by them. While I have not read the entire story (just the last two parts) this one in particular I did not feel myself getting invested in. E runs through the castle(?) which is notably abandoned until they get to this control room, at which point their aunt appears pretty much from nowhere (it is only until she speaks that she's even mentioned as being in that room) and knocks her out. U, judging by her dialogue, is not particularly emotionally invested in what is going on around her. I also noticed a particular focus on blood; lots of wondering 'Is this X character's blood, or someone else's?' When it ended, I was thinking, 'Really? That's it?' Because the scope of it does make me feel as though it has the potential to be a full novel (or at least a novella). Something that focuses a lot more on court politics could be very interesting. These last two parts just felt like a lot characters running around and accomplishing very little to me. Nobody changed, nobody was seriously hurt. I did not feel like there were any consequences. E is faced with the woman who orchestrated their parents' deaths, and spares her? I don't buy it. As for your own questions, here are my thoughts: Where do you have trouble following dialogue and/or action?—I don't have a lot of trouble with either, but you skip a lot of the action. In your previous submission, you had a fight with a mechanical dragon that lasted one sentence. Here, you had E fight her aunt, and you basically skipped over it with 'a few minutes later...' What needs more description?—Again, the action scenes. Also, your protagonist is desperately in need of a stronger characterization, characterization that makes more sense. For instance, I found it very difficult to believe that someone with this great of a martial responsibility would almost cry at the sight of a childhood bedroom. I've had trouble showing my characters' reactions in the past. What do you think of E's reactions in this part of the story?—E wasted a lot of time. Again, the bedroom scene; they take the time to stop and reminisce when they think their sister is still in danger. Kinda screwy priorities there. I feel like something is missing from the end, but I'm not sure what it is. Do you have any suggestions?—Lengthen it. It was truncated and ended in what seemed like a blink of an eye. I did not come out of it feeling like much was gained or saved. Neither E nor U (who was pretty quick to make an apology) were all that much affected. What happened of consequence? A bunch of unimportant characters were saved from mechanical monsters. You need to have something happen that is of weight to the characters. In summary, write the story as though the things happening actually matter to and affect the characters. Focus on your strengths—politics and world-building. Expand the scope of the story and write more believable characters. And please use spell-check from now on. Thank you. Here are my notes from reading this week's piece. pg 2: "“She was unhurt, but didn’t say where she was going..."" Replace unhurt with fine. I have never heard anyone describe someone as 'unhurt' in a serious context. "The pieces of the suit hissed as they came apart and fell to the floor around E." The entire suit came apart? Like in Iron Man 3? Well, that's counter-intuitive. What if someone wants to suit back up again? pg. 3: "Thick carpets and tapestry muffled an explosion as E followed a trail of bloody footprints through the royal sleeping quarters." I think floors and walls would be much more likely to muffle sound. pg. 4: "Her shade was probably screaming about defiled hair as the Goddess dragged her to the afterlife." Her what was screaming? Has this been explained? Also, this Goddess does not sound like she is very hospitable to departed souls. "Father’s face was untouched and his hands still gripped the black hilt of a purple metallic blade." Aren't most blades metallic? Or have I missed something? pg. 5: "Not a single shoe appeared out of place on the hulking pyramid of boots and heels in the room’s center." I moved 'hulking.' It's an adjective, not a verb. pg. 6: "They hadn’t been in their sister’s room since they moved into the Guard Barracks. Their eyes burned." It's just a bedroom, though. As someone who returned to their old childhood bedroom after eight years and had never been in combat, I seriously doubt that E would react this way. "E’s hands curled into fist and their breaths caught on thorny vines of emotion snaking through their throat. They fell to their knees, paying homage to evidence that their sister didn’t hate them, and to the memories of a family that would not be reunited in this lifetime." This is somewhat purple-prosey. I would truncate this somewhat. "E leapt to their feet and faced the rear wall." I feel like this is a sudden emotional about-face. I'd suggest adding a transition between this paragraph and the last. pg. 7: "E stood in the dark, waiting for their eyes to adjust." They don't have a flashlight? "E opened their mouth to ask him if he was okay and how many other people he was with, but he held a finger up to his lips and beckoned E on. E followed him around the corner." I honestly think this was the best part of the chapter. It felt genuinely tense and mysterious. pg. 9: "Aunt E shouted, “E! Help!”" This sentence is Aunt E's introduction in purpose. It's out-of-nowhere; she's not even described as being in the room when E enters. "It was probably safest to play along with E charade until R and J freed K and L." What charade? How does E know this is a charade? They just ran into Aunt E. Also, as a reader who's been led to believe that U's been the bad guy and then it's suggested at the beginning that this Aunt E is the bad guy, I have absolutely no idea what Aunt E's game is supposed to be. "“With my own two eyes, I saw her lock you out of the system. She obscured the Nine from your sensors.”" Bolded part sounds cheesy. pg. 10: "“E, no.”" If this is supposed to be a tense moment, U is severely undercutting all of it with her lack of exclamation points. This is true for most of her dialogue in this scene. "Pieces of metal rained all over the chapel, bouncing off of the heads of statutes without damaging them." I find that highly unlikely. pg. 11: "It wasn’t the first time that spider had been blown to bits, but maybe this time, E and the guards could get to the pieces before they vanished." What? Is this spider-bot already known to the guard? "Aunt E bared her teeth in a rabid smile." I would just say 'grinned.' Or 'grinned evilly.' "“Shut down the #, or I will melt your brains worse than your bots melted my mother’s.”" That's not threatening. First of all, E's mother was killed. Aunt E having her brain 'melted worse' does not hold up as much of a threat. Also, "Help me or I kill you" is a counter-intuitive threat. You are not giving the threatened person any incentive to help. And E will be in the same situation if Aunt E refuses to help or dies. "E sidestepped as Aunt E’s left hand stabbed towards their gut." This action comes out of nowhere. It would help to show us what E is thinking and/or feeling when they are attacked. “Tell my why you did this and I’ll kill you quickly.” So E was going to kill their aunt anyways? E is not a good negotiator. pg. 12: "E looked at the glint of light off of their knife, a blade that would avenge their family in a minute." Replace with 'soon.' "Aunt E lunged at E. The two grappled, and Aunt E was surprisingly strong for someone E thought sat around and pushed papers all day, but after a few minutes, E had Aunt E pinned with a blade to her throat." Don't skip over the whole fight! Show us what happened! Inquiring minds wish to see! “E, stop.” U rushed back into the room. “Don’t kill her." This reads like some pretty casual pleading not to kill someone. pg. 13: "I’m sorry for ignoring you and being so cruel.” Well, that was easy.

Could I also be in on the 27th, please?

@hawkedup Thank you for your feedback, but could you please edit your post to abbreviate the names? Thank you for editing, but you missed one. Section three.

Whoo. I should not have read this at work. I will totally own up to all the shortcomings you three have listed and will resolve to improve. I think for next week, if I can get a slot on the list, I will send in a revised version of this chapter that incorporates as much of the listed feedback as possible. However, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you all to bear with me on the italics. When the eventual reveal comes and if you all still feel the same way on that issue, I'm totally open to revising that too. That being said, thank you all for your feedback! I think I needed a good kick in the teeth. @Mandamon Mad Max + Infinity Blade was pretty much what I had in mind when I started writing. As for having lots of unhelpful beta feedback, I've had very little feedback at all. Only two people have been willing to read the whole thing start to finish, and one of them was my editor. @kais Thank you especially on your feedback on my characters; I'd feel awful if other readers despised them. I'll be paying extra attention their characterizations in my revisions.

Projecting lots of confidence, aren't I? Welp, all right then. I'll do my best to improve it and the rest. In the meantime, I will get to critiquing others' work, as they are owed.

If you don't mind being spoiled, I can just PM you an explanation; it doesn't ruin the whole book or the like. Though there is a chance you will find my explanation to be completely ridiculous. You'll at least see where I'm coming from, though.

Well, bugger. That's definitely unfortunate. In the older drafts, I explained WHY and HOW right off the bat, but I thought it would be more fun and create intrigue to create this mystery. It does clue you in that it's a mystery around chapter 3 or so, I suppose I could amend this by un-italicizing, and leaving the aforementioned line with 'speaking' in apostrophes intact to convey that something is up, but leave it brief enough so that the reader can gloss over it. Would you say that still has the effect of revealing the author? Truthfully, the idea of going through the whole manuscript to un-italicize the dialogue makes me shudder. I already had to do that once; in the old drafts, not only was it italicized, it was bolded and there were no quotation marks. Yeah, I don't know why I thought it was a good idea either. I am also concerned over diminishing a certain moment in the story that hinges on the reader's understanding that something is up about L's dialogue. As for Shadows of Self, I've read it (I've read all officially-published Cosmere), but it's been a few months, so I'm not 100% on what you're referring to. Would it happen to be something kandra-related?

Well, it's really supposed to imply something and leave you in confusion, at least for the time being. Though I guess I can't really explain without spoiling stuff. If you're willing to keep reading, I promise it will be explained. Until then, I'll just go back to editing. I'm just trying to decide now on sending an edited version of the same chapter for next week, or chapter 2 (while still factoring in your feedback).

Basically, I'll just ask you to consider this line from paragraph four of the second scene: