ginger_reckoning

Congratulations on finishing the first draft! That's a huge accomplishment! I didn't really have any LBL's, and since you said you'll be rewriting it anyway, I figured that would be okay. It definitely feels as if there is more to this story, like a sequel is being set up without too much of a huge cliffhanger. (At least, that's my hope haha, I would like to see these soldiers continue to develop their friendships) and it seems like there is still a lot of tension between the ministers and soldiers. That being said, it does feel like a pretty good wrap-up. I liked the detail of A missing the simplicity of a time that was pretty objectively bad. I also thought it was wild that they didn't even have clothes and just used the exoskeletons the whole time. I also don't see something like the big property transfer described there going smoothly. The comment about siblings not wanting to know each other's sex lives felt weird to me because it felt more like they were talking about crushes in a pretty innocent way That's about all I had for the epilogue. Again, congrats, and good luck on the next draft!

Hey all! Thanks again for providing feedback. Tags this time for violence against a child, along iwht language and some fantastical gore. There's a rather long joke at the beginning of this one. It's a reference in good fun, though I wonder what yall's reaction to it is, or if it begins to stray too far into, well, just plagiarism. (I am almost certain it would be fair use but you never know) I'm also considering the title "A Song for Silence". What do you think about it? Is it too serious for the tone of the book? Too tropey with the word "song" in it? Anyway, thank you all again!

I would also like a slot please!

Hope everything is well! I'll hold off on this week to not get too far ahead. (And to the apparently over 500 people who viewed the submission, feel free to also leave a critique, even if you don't feel qualified!)

Hey all! Tags this time for suicide--concerns a man contemplating ending his life for most of a chapter, then deciding to go through with it. Also later, some heavy gore but in a "horde of zombies" kind of way. Other than that, standard tags for language and violence. My main concerns this chapter are with the characters of S and A. Do they work? Are they interesting? Is there enough build up before this point to be interested in them? A in particular, I'm picking up that she's feeling a little flat. (Though this chapter is mostly action with her lol) Anyway, thank you all again!

I'd like a spot agian for this week please!

For sure, will do in the future. The chapter 3 part was just because the last submission was going to be too long otherwise, but yeah I could have done without the chapter 5 this week. Though, to be fair, the rest of chapter five doesn't have A and L in it either, so maybe I should just stick that part to the end of chapter 4 instead That's good to know! Yeah, looking back the stakes aren't very well defined other than "destroying the city is bad". I'll need to work on that for sure. I am a little hesitant to just start the story with the attack on the city because I feel like starting there gives even less chance for the reader to be connected to A and L, and it sounds like that's an issue even with the chapters in place. Hmm. I'll need to ponder this. Thanks for the feedback!

Welllll.....I actually did write like 20k words of this story haha, but it just felt too much like a dnd campaign to me, so I never finished it. Maybe I will go back someday that's good to know I'm going to be honest, I mainly use this as a shorthand because I didn't want to actually come up with a whole magic system (magic systems tend to be my least favorite thing, I know, shocking for a Sanderson fan haha), and I felt like most readers would be trope-aware enough for it to be useful. Yes, it does come up later. Idk, multiple people have mentioned it now, does it seem too tropey? Thanks for the feedback! Based on what everyone says, I think I will do a major rewrite on this chapter on my second draft

Well, the parts with X were definitely my favorite part of the chapter, so I think you're doing something right! That being said, like I said last time, I was a little disappointed by the fight with the monsters being wrapped up so easily since it seems the previous submission was basically the last scene with the battle. With the debate with B so fleshed out, the battle half felt like it was missing a final beat to me. I'm a sucker for the found family trope so I really liked the scene with X at the end. As far as analysis goes, it seems to me like his role in the soldier caste has had some serious impacts on his mental state, and the fact that he was raised to hate and fear himself is a pretty compelling thing to overcome imo. Still working on catching up through the rest of the book so I won't comment too much on his character, but I personally think having to examine things through a lens of "things that come from the specific mindset I was given as a soldier" vs. "things I should still hold myself personally accountable for" is very interesting. I did a few lbl's anyway. Sorry Pg2. I mean, surely they know what it means to reform something? I feel like they could use context clues to know what reformists are Pg 3. Again, I like how the conflict comes from someone with 0 intersectionality, it’s very interesting to me and poignant Pg 6 “the scares that he bore” the scars? Pg10 “cool bugs you find, right.” should have “?” I think. Also, I love this interaction a lot haha

Hey! So this submission has the last section of chapter 3, and then chapter 4, then the start of chapter 5. Going to tag for some pretty heavy violence and some possibly disturbing circumstances of the violence in this one, including alluded-to violence against children. I don't have many overarching comments, I just want to see what you think about these chapters. Thanks for reading!

Hmm yeah, I think this could work. I do a little of this in the last section of the chapter, which I cut for length this week. I wonder if it would work better throughout the chapter, but there is quite a bit going on in this chapter and I would need to find other ways to get the information across. Hmmm. This could work too, but in the next couple of chapters it does immediately go into a big action scene and I think a little characterization before that is still helpful, since its already kind of sparse. I'll have to think more about this Thanks for the suggestions!

I'd like another slot for this week please!

The latter. thanks for pointing that out! good point Yes, the intention was to have it be more like a montage. Any suggestions to make it more like one? Would tags before each section like "5 ears and four months ago" etc be helpful, do you think? hmmm yeah this is also a good point Yeah, they simply didn't have the means. I think i should specify that good to know! Haha believe it or not, neither do I, and I kind of poke fun at the concept later. But i also kind of play it straight too, so maybe I can't really say anything I was kind of going off that assumption, since it seemed to me like bard is a pretty ubiquitous archetype, but based on everyone's comments I think I should do a little more showing what a bard is and can do? I think I can combine that with a little bit more of showing what A was up to before the monster attack too Hmm I'll need to think on how to do this Thank you for the responses! They are super helpful

Hey all, here’s the next few chapters. Nothing much to look for specifically, though I do wonder if the structure of chapter 3 works. Also just so you know, I did cut the last section of chapter 3 out to make it fit the word count (I know it’s still a little over, sorry) so just be aware there’s one more section in chapter 3 in which silence starts attacking the city and they go to save it Tags for violence, I think some gore in this one, language, and just a general warning for self harm and psychosis throughout this whole book Thank you so much everyone!

I'd like a slot for monday please!

Yeah, I guess comedic grimdark might be a good way of putting it! (grim dark may be a little much, idk what actually qaulifeies something as grimdark so probably just 'dark' but idk) and thank you!! Okay, I do swear that the sunglasses do become very important later on, but yeah that is my biggest concern with the prologue. It is kind of just an introduction to a lot of concepts, which I hoped to make interesting with the comedy, but I worry that it will just be distracting. To be fair, they do end up in C city pretty quickly, but yeah. And no, S destroying the city is kind of the inciting incident for the story, even more so than this chapter That's good to know, I do worry that it might be too much. There is going to be a lot of pain throughout the story because her curse isn't going away, so just let me know if you think its getting to egregious That is interesting to hear! Hmm, the tone is definitely a hard balance for this story already

No, please, be blunt! This is what I am here for. And congrats on first critique, there's no right or wrong way to do it! Noted Hmm yeah I'll have to think about this. And thanks for catching that! I personally thought they were interchangeable, it was just the style in which they were played that differentiated them. I will have to look into this further Thanks, these are all good points! Something I've noticed is that I've been drifting in and out of limited 3rd person through a lot of the chapters, which hopefully doesn't become too confusing, but I think works with the voice I've set up? Obviousy if it is too confusing I'll need to work on it Likewise, there are some chapters where there is a lot less emphasis on the humor than others. So far the first part of the prologue is the strongest section in that regard, which is why I'm still debating on keeping it. Seeing your comments that you thought it worked does make me happy though! I did reference in the first paragraph that her music could make flowers grow. Do you think another reference at another point would be helpful? Oh, I can see how that would be confusing, I didn't even think about that! I'll have to add some kind of line like "tongiht was that night though she didn't know it" or something Thank! I'm really tempted to call it "Hivemind Earl and the Bone-Hurting Girl"...but I don't think I will, for obvious reasons Thank you both!

Overall, seems like a good wrap up to the climax. Like before, I don't have a lot of context, but I do have a few thoughts. I think its interesting that B could have used her powers to control everyone, but chose not to because she sees herself as a good person. Very interesting stuff, and it seems like she will still be back later to do stuff. I'm not sure why charging the cards was important, and it doesn't seem to come up again. Also, I'm not sure if the soldiers fighting the monsters will be resolved later, or if it already pretty much resolved. If the latter, I would like a little more of a final moment on that part of the battle, personally. Again, congrats on wrapping up the book! I want to go back and read the rest of this. P1 “No D and N’s exoskeleton” I found this sentence to be confusing. Maybe “no D and the weakness of N’s exoskeleton” Could be lack of context, but why was X trying to make more cards if T is the expert? Why not let T do it instead? P3 I think I mentioned this in the last sub, but I’ll mention it again, the interuption trope with the em-dash is noticeable (at least to me) “Of being powerful than one of” more powerful than one of? P5 “blinking in an out” in and out? “Jerked her head” this makes me think she is dodging something, but it seems like she is just looking at something? I like this scene debating B. Very interesting stuff. P 11 “Killing blow” the words killing blow have been used before, in reference to a different point, so this comes across as repetitive. P13 “another bubble” this seems like a really big assumption to make, and has a lot of ramifications for all the people living in J haha

Hey! Glad to be back here. Sorry I also forgot to post yesterday! Tags for violence, self harm, suicide, language, and sexual references with this one. This time I'm trying something a little different. It's less ambitious than other projects I've tried, and I think will have a better chance at being published than the other one's I've done. That being said, it's still kind of a hard sell I think haha, since its intended to be a somewhat humorous story about an ex-member of an evil hivemind and an accursed girl working together to try to catch the evil hivemind. Still working on the title. My biggest concern is whether the prologue works here, or if it should be cut. I personally think that it sets the tone I'm trying for pretty well, and I think its interesting enough to be the first introduction to the book but it's not necessarily the same type of hook I normally try to go for. Idk, let me know what you think. Again, thank you all so much!

Oh that is good to know, thanks Also good to know. Kinda like the original story, I wanted it to not really have a clear right or wrong answer, though I did want to show the main POV character as being somewhat sympathetic so she didn't come across as just a monster, haha. I actually did read this when I decided I wanted to write something based off of omelas. It is very very good! (But I wanted to show with this one that killing a child was not necessary lol)

Okay! I'll plan on submitting next monday then

Hey! If it's not to late, could I take a spot? It won't be ready to submit until Wednesday, though

Thanks for the replies! My biggest overall comment is that it feels like the story lacks focus. We go from wallowing in prison to jailbreak to parenting to a philosophical discussion of Omelas to E showing violence as a way of reclaiming her humanity. Yeah, I think I'll end up just starting with them already at the cabin. It's hard for me to have sympathy for the two characters at the end since we've already sort of fallen into the Omelas trap in our society (at least in the US). Children are ignored, abused, and mistreated so that others can live privileged lives Yes, definitely, that was one of my reasons for writing this (and because I love leguin so much) Thanks for the notes @Ace of Hearts @Mandamon! I'll see what I can do to make it more cohesive

So I haven't read the rest of this book obviously, but since you gave my short story a critique I thought I would give this a look Overall, don't have much context but I really like it! The psychic powers are very cool, and the characters and setting seem very unique. I was also not expecting the debate on gender issues and the complexities of the oppressed becoming oppressors in turn, but I really liked it. My main thing overall is that I wasn't getting as much of a sense of strong emotion as it seemed the events warranted. Now that could just be because I haven't read the rest and I am not as emotionally invested in the characters, but it seemed like there was just a lot of logical statements of facts from characters, and there were very few descriptors of facial expressions or dialogue tags other than "said" even when it seems like a shout or a cry would be appropriate. Now this could just be because they are supposed to be stoic soldiers but personally I think a few gasps of shock or growls of anger or whatever thrown in would make me more invested in how dangerous these events are for the characters. Overall though, I think it's very cool! And congrats on getting to the end of a book! Okay, so I haven’t read the rest of the book, so I’ll try to make sure that my comments reflect that and probably just focus on the LBL stuff, anyways, hopping in (Also I don't know why its bold but it's not letting me change it lol) P1- First off, the names are unique, but they look to all be 3+ syllables, which at least for me can get a little mentally tiring. I think that especially in a tense situation like this they might shorten some of these longer names to a single syllable? Sorry, very nitpicky I know “Maybe he could-” second paragraph in a row ended in an em dash break. “X, what do we do?” hahaha okay I see the nickname thing is addressed (unrelated but every time I see G’s name it makes me imagine Glados from portal) P2 “right thing to do” very nice P3 “As dodged most of them” typo here on A’s name P4”it’s really me here?” you can cut the word “here”, second use is extraneous P5 “For accepting that I might…” damn. Felt that P8” get attacked” XD P12 “these lines you’ve drawn…” nice Was not expecting this debate on gender and social issues but I like it

Hey everyone! Glad to be back, long time no see. This is a short story that is very heavily inspired by "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula K. Leguin. This is going to be going into a zine published by a friend of mine, which does not have a lot of page space, so my main concern here is to try to cut down the word count (perhaps even considerably!) and to really make the story pop. Nitpicking is encouraged! Thank you all so much! Tags for language and mild violence