Snakenaps

I like to use the Grandma Scale for language, gore, violence, etc. Would your submission upset this sweet, cookie-toting Grandma? If your submission has her clutching her pearls or, worse, fainting...you probably need to tag it.

Pg 6, “Then I can finally take a nap.” I feel this to my core. Pg 9, “Tongs!” This got an out-loud laugh from me. Dang dude, if only my own revisions had such a fast and obviously-improved turn around time. I found Ek much more sympathetic this round, a character that I connect with more and can totally root for. I echo those who mention the "ultra idiot" lines and I know that you have a wicked sense of humor and can do better. I'm going to push you there. I have a little less trouble with El's name, mostly because I assumed she was given a nickname that was easier to pronounce than her full name, which explains why she has a human name while everyone else has an alien name. I don't know if that was actually your plan, but that's what my brain did. I'm curious to see if Ek is happy to remain figurehead or pushes for more. I think your first chapter was especially strong, but the second one saw a massive improvement as well. I'm really curious to see where you take this.

Thoughts as I go: Pg 1, " during the wars a century early," Do you mean earlier? I'm not going to pay much attention to grammar and such since you are after the big picture. Pg 1, "composed of nothing except" Unsure how this makes it half graveyard? Pg 1, "collapsing it and then returning it into his pocket." I feel like you don't need this, as I think most people know that when you are pocketing a telescope, you aren't shoving it extended into your pocket. Pg 2, "what we find on the end of it. What sane man" I don't think it's a man. A man can't just cut grooves through metal piles. Pg 2, "Now it seemed the work they had put in had paid off." You could cut down your word count by simplifying several of your sentences. Consider: "Now it seemed their work had paid off." Eight words versus twelve, without the double repeat of "had." That's minor stuff though, and just goes with cleaning up a manuscript. Pg 2, " the crew followed his instructions," Is it normal for a captain to join the scavenger crew rather than staying on the main ship? Or is W unusual? Pg 6, "Captain, are you sure that’s wise?" Completely agree. Pg 6, "he smoked his pipe" If this man trips and has his teeth busted out by his pipe, I shall have little sympathy. Don't walk over unstable ground with a pipe in your mouth! Pg 6, "slammed his left arm" His arm??? Pg 7, "A new weapon, perhaps?" In which case, who let their new toy go without supervision? Unless they are still hunting it down? Pg 7, "main guns would struggle to do this" This makes the ship sound more like a military ship rather than a salvage ship. Pg 7/8, " identical to the one that the giant knight was wielding" Is this steampunk Pacific Rim? Because I would absolutely read that. Pg 8, " calmly checked the young man’s" Man, if only I had a measure of this man nonchalance. Pg 8, "He’s alive. Good." I'm unsure if W is talking to himself (which I do a lot) or the spirit. . . . Same. I will also echo this. I'm a massive sucker for 1) steampunk 2) unshakeable captains (I hope he sticks around, maybe be the traditional mentor figure?) 3) magic. The last part raised enough questions (what is the machine for? Who is the dude?) that I want more. I second this. I've read very few satisfying amnesiac stories. I think the last one I enjoyed was a dude pretending to have amnesia to spy on these people. That was hilarious. But definitely few and far between.

Thanks. I'm hella dense sometimes. Can't believe I didn't just think of this before. Reading Excuses Revision Outline: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hgTGPtOIcxQZzKNwIPrvG7KrCKxetMfnlHO5-Cy3rKU/edit?usp=sharing

Because I am an idiot and simply didn't think about it. Should I post them here or under The Business of Writing and Publishing?

Shoot me a PM so I don't forget. I'm not at my computer at the moment.

PMed you both. For ease, I stuck both the revision outline and the arc checklist into one document.

May I have a slot for Monday, January 4th please?

I'm on Draft Four of my first completed book, to give you an idea of where I'm at/skill level. Although, this actually version eight (?) of this particular story. My biggest mistake was thinking the perfect way to revise was to...retype the entire book. This was starting Draft Two, before I joined RE. I got five chapters in and realized that was bull. When starting Draft Two, I only went off of what I had heard from my mother/sister and what was in my head. So outside of the romance being scrapped, almost nothing changed because I didn't have the experience/knowledge/resources to know what the hell I was doing. I knew things were wrong, but I didn't know why, let alone how to fix them. Then I joined RE and earned enough street cred to convince @Robinski to do line-by-lines (LBL's) for the entire Draft Two, which became my main base for Draft Three, along with the weekly critiques from the entire group. I revised about a chapter or two ahead of my submissions for the most part until November/early December, when I surged ahead. Now I'm in Draft Four, and I'm really going at it. I keep four documents open at once: Scrivener with the manuscript, @shatteredsmooth's customized revision outline (which I can send you a copy if you are interested), @kais's arc checklist, and the comments from RE. I'm an outliner, so I work well if I can analyze and diagnose what is going on. Which is important, because my gut can often tell me that something is wrong, but I'm still gaining the knowledge to be able to tell what. Now I can literally look and go "Ah, no wonder this part sucked. Ir was being her not-proactive self and I wrote eleven straight chapters with no stakes." I edit my manuscript directly, but what is nice about Scrivener is that I have these "Snapshots" of the previous versions that I can look back on any time, copy and paste from, or even restore if I want. Another part of Scrivener I appreciate is that it allows me to move scenes just by dragging them into different chapter folders. There's also Scrivener's flash cards, its keywords, its meta-data, its notepad, its comments...there's a lot to that program, and I am using only the touch of the iceberg. There's a ton of podcasts on Writing Excuses on revision: https://writingexcuses.com/?s=revision Good luck!

Better not be teasing me...

Ha, it's barely been set up at all. The plot by far is the weakest part of the story because it's so jumbled and having such a bad identity crisis. I have eleven straight chapters with no stakes. I've got the threads to weave myself a good tapestry, but I've got a hell of a lot of knots to untangle if not cut first.

This is definitely the catalyst to the end! It begins! Thank you @ginger_reckoning!

I'm not sure...Windows version 3 isn't out yet.

Scrivener on Windows! I love Scrivener, although I wish you could hop easily from computer to computer with it like Google Drive. Scrivener is perfect for my extremely organized tendencies. I used to use Google Docs but after 60+ pages it started taking forever to load, and I refuse to pay for Word's subscription. Already pay too much for my Adobe subscription.

Good points, great points. I took the easy way out. Don't take the first idea off of the shelf... how can I push myself further? Hmmmm...

I did not know this! So, no, she wouldn't! This is a very valid point I have to fix. I didn't make the Revolutionaries an actual threat this draft. If anything I continued to undermine them. I've revamped both them and the former+present governments and I'm hoping that will help somewhat. But more importantly, just like Ir, I have to make the Revolutionaries more proactive and powerful too. Thank you @Sarah B

Gasp! It's like seeing a unicorn in real life! A miracle!

I had other ideas but then realized they wouldn't work by the time I reached this chapter. I never originally planned on W taking the crystal either but went *shrug* let's try this out. I'm just throwing spaghetti at the wall. This was definitely a case of me going "Look, I've learned all this stuff about wildflowers and I'm going to show off my knowledge!" Then bogged down the story. This is actually one of the things I'm changing for Draft Four! The BK will always be Az in his POV for Draft Four. Sadly, you won't see it in this draft because I'm trying to work forward and not backwards. Thank you @karamel!

I really messed up Sue this entire draft. She's practically bipolar the way that she bounces between love and hate. I have weakened her character considerably and I have to fix that. I'm already making steps - instead of Sue saying she and T are going to join the Revolutionaries in Chapter 1, now I am having Sue flat out say they already joined. I think having made a visible list of Sue's motivations to always focus on and call back to will also help. Sue may start out worried about Ir...but by this part of the story, both sisters need to consider each other traitors and lost causes. The white spaces were probably caused from me copying and pasting from Scrivener and then forgetting to double check the formatting...kind of like how I forgot to attach the document to the email *sigh*

I won't be. I'm talking about things like that one entire chapter that can be summarized as "Ir practiced her music." And those quiet, reflective parts can be more powerful and drive the plot forward in other ways. There needs to be a moment of quiet in this chapter before the next few (the finale) for the reader to rest, but that doesn't mean that that moment of rest can't be more efficient.

THANK YOU EVERYONE! Saw this, went "Yeeeeeup," and am figuring out what will stay. Definitely Sue's invitation...but I think everything else can be incorporated into other scenes and Sue can move to the next chapter to create an arc. Possibly... Dude, I'm going through @kais's arc checklist and it is becoming very apparent that I have these "catch all" chapters where I kind of just throw together all these scenes that I felt were necessary into one disorganized pile. And you know how many of the scenes in catch-all chapters are necessary? Few, it turns out. Very few. I'm so proud of myself for recognizing this now because before I thought that this was just an oddly boring chapter but didn't know why. Now I have that checklist and it makes my life fantastically miserable. Dude. Dude. Combining your checklist with @shatteredsmooth's revision outline has made this book's flaws so glaringly obvious it is hilarious how blind I have been. I completely agree. To the point where your comment distracted me for a large chunk of Christmas (in a good way). This manuscript is definitely in the process of evolving from slice-of-life fantasy to...epic fantasy? Political intrigue? A fantasy spy novel? Obviously, there's still a huge identity crisis going on that I need to settle on with an iron fist before switching from the revision outline to revising itself. There's this disconnect going on, and I need to thread everything together. I am hoping that a lot of my issues will disappear as I make Ir a proactive protagonist that affects the plot rather than being affected by everyone else. And not a good sandwich at all! It's like a peanut butter, meatball, and cheese sandwich with pickles. It's true, I didn't change much, when I should have just cut. On the other hand, it was really good practice for transforming a passive chapter to a slightly more proactive chapter. Thanks for the praise. This stuff is obnoxiously frustrating sometimes and occasionally I feel like I'm holding all this knotted yarn and trying to figure out how to make it into a tapestry. Once I figure out how to actually carry a plot and fix this poor leaky ship up, I feel like I'll have something actually good looking on my hands, especially for a first book. But I actually have to repair these holes instead of ignoring them or slapping duck tape on them like I have been. Your revision outline is getting looooooooong.

I know we've had a lot of new people join recently and I'd like to say I apologize that you're entering in towards the end of this manuscript. Just do what you can. All input is valuable input, especially since I'm working on Draft Four.

Since you asked for goals/finished plots, I thought I'd use you to practice @kais 's chapter arc checklist. I need the practice Chapter One: A strong first line that moves the plot forward. Check. A strong end paragraph that hooks the reader right into the next chapter. Check. Every scene/beat does at least two things. Check? (character introduction, foreshadowing who Ek really is, minor worldbuilding) The chapter advances some part of the plot. Check. The POV character(s) interact with and advance the plot. Check. Each chapter has a beginning, a middle, and an end, acting as its own mini-story. Hmmm...this is the part I need practice on recognizing. Beginning...they arrive. Middle is the argument? End is decapitation? ... Pg 1, "metal corpses" Pg 1, "the warmth of pride" Hmmm, I am thinking then that E is not a common soldier. Leader of some kind? Pg 1, "They had died for the greatest cause she could think of." I'm thinking very much of Mandalorian 2.15, since I just rewatched that yesterday. Did the soldiers think they were heroes for this brave sacrifice? Did they think it was the greatest cause? Pg 1, "they hadn’t died in vain" Good, compassion. I like compassion in a protagonist. Pg 1, " set into a swirling nautilus shell," Then does Ek look strange too? Are they gods? I thought this was sci-fi...so maybe a modification? Pg 1, " was instantly recognizable from propaganda" Does this mean all androids have a face of crystal? Pg 1, "his eternally scornful gaze" Unsure what the Tear is...but I'm also a trifle confused here. Does this imply he had lived for a long time, or he literally can't change expressions because of his crystal face? Or both? Pg 1, "a human can take the place of God" Theme of the book? Pg 1, " I guess that makes you an ultra idiot" 6th grade me says "Ooooh, buuuuuurn." Childish, but that may be what you are looking for for Ek's character. I don't know enough about her yet. Pg 1, " an errant strand of hair" So she doesn't have a shell for a head. Pg 2, "collapsing" I know this is a first draft but the fact that you used collapse in the same sentence twice bugs me. Pg 2, "So he knew everything" Hmmm, is she a spy? Pg 2, "Something a human female is even capable of?" Racism? Check. Sexism? Check. Pg 2, "The soldiers let out a cheer." I might be biased against this from when I used to be on Reddit and read too many "and then everyone clapped" stories. Pg 2, "His face... couldn’t smirk" This answers my earlier question. Pg 2, " your majesty" I like how you kept it lowercase, to emphasize his sneer. Pg 3, "someone who doesn’t really exist?" I am intensely curious. On the other hand, her often childish remarks makes me worry she won't be a good ruler. However, this isn't a hard and fast rule. There is a monarch in the Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner who acts like a brat 110% of the time and I love him (but I would also like to smack him). Where did El go??? New Chapter, New Checklist A strong first line that moves the plot forward. She was just sitting so...I think you can push yourself farther in further drafts. A strong end paragraph that hooks the reader right into the next chapter. N/A Every scene/beat does at least two things. Might be too much of an info dump, without necessarily creating a solid foundation for so much info The chapter advances some part of the plot. Info on plot! The POV character(s) interact with and advance the plot. Yes, but not as much as previous chapter. Each chapter has a beginning, a middle, and an end, acting as its own mini-story. N/A ... Pg 5, "El floated up beside her," She returns...what is El? Pg 5, "And she would do it for G" Friend? Lover? Spouse? Child? Mentor? Pg 5, " floating at face-height" So El is short? I am very confused about her because she seems neither robot or human. Is she an alien with a very human name???? Pg 5, "species" Ah, see, knowing she wasn't human would have made life a lot easier right from the beginning. Pg 5, "I know how excited you were to finally get to see all those hidden histories" This was already said essentially... Pg 5, "placed a hand on her friend’s shell" So is El only shell and eyeballs???? Originally I was picturing someone with literally a shell for a head. Pg 5, "data-miners plugged into the main system, searching for clues" Clues for what? The big bad is dead, what are they looking for now? Pg 6, " I have just received a general message." I am assuming telepathy? Pg 6, "Her superiors" I guess her short time on the throne is over? Pg 6, "the face of the new movement" Ah, so a pretty figurehead...but will she be content as that? Pg 6, "were aware of the existence of other planets" That's definitely something important to know. Pg 8, "We have only thirty cycles" Until what now? The stakes are hinted at and then tossed so quickly aside. Pg 8, "She put the gem back in her pocket." That doesn't save you from radiation... Pg 9, "See? I’m the only one who can touch it" I would have liked to see the first one, since it appears no time happened between the chapters. Overall: I think this has good bones. Everyone else has mentioned the tone flopping between comedy and war, so check. A good trim, a bit of fleshing out...I'm curious to see where you might take this. I'm a little stuck on Ek's voice, since you asked about that, because, again, she switches between comedian and passionate rebel. Thanks for letting me use you as a guinea pig for practicing the arc checklist. If you are interested in me continuing critiquing with Kais's checklist, let me know.

Hit me up when you've finished! I have a signed first edition of Thick as Thieves that I got on a complete fluke. I'm very proud of it.

My mom is on Return of the Thief. My friend got me completely addicted to the series and I have passed along the love to everyone I can. Also, welcome!