C_Vallion

I thought there were other comments along these lines as well, but can't find them right now. I had been hoping there would be a way to set this up where the reveal at the end is more effective. To have the implication that she's doing something she shouldn't be, then convey enough through the conversation with her father to have some inkling of what she is actually planning to do with the stone. But the conversation is too bogged down with information for that to have any chance of working right now. Note made for when I get back to this chapter. Hopefully a long while from now. This is another thing I need to figure out how to make clearer. The fact that him showing up unexpectedly is unusual in and of itself. And that his uncertainty is even more unusual. Where Is- would immediately assume there's a reason for him being there himself instead of sending someone for the book or with the memo about Al-. I think she needs to just call that out. That he usually has everything under control, but something has gotten to him, and he wouldn't be there if it didn't somehow involve her. He uses the excuse of Al- and getting the book, but there needs to be a stronger indication that he's avoiding whatever he came there for. Right now the part of that I did include is too vague and bogged down in politics. Which either of them would be likely to divert to as a safer topic of conversation while Is- is avoiding anything that might touch on her spellstone charging and the king is avoiding discussion of his mystery plans. But it's incredibly unhelpful to a reader at this point. The Judge being one of the gods. Which is not called out at all in this version. *facepalm* The fire spell is used by the magistrates for judicial/religious rituals, so there are a good number of citizens who don't see the fire spell used in any other ways who get the impression that it gives you some ability to manipulate the gods to do what you ask them to. Specifically the Judge, who, when He's seen interacting with the world, is doing a lot more striking people dead or burning them to a crisp than anything else. Which isn't a power they want the heir to the throne to have at his hands if their interests don't align perfectly with his. This (and the related comments that everyone has made) is obviously a thing I am miserable at. Even when I am intentionally focusing on it. I don't know why my idea of what is important now is so skewed. But it is. Blargh.

This is actually something I was considering here. All of the uses of Est- are when her father is talking about his wife. Because on one hand it doesn't seem too strange for him to call Est- "your mother" now and then, but to do so all the time seems odd as well. Yes and no. Chapters 1-10 or so still include far too much from Version 1, which I could safely call my first book, since anything before that was either a disaster or didn't quite get completed. And that's what's leading to most of our problems. Because those 10 chapters should probably be like 6 chapters at most, and aren't really tied together. But it's the beginning, and it's what needs the most work. I'll put together a more useful outline than what I currently have and share that, because I think that will help with part of all of this (or at least explain why I seem stuck where I am). If I try to squish it into a Hero's Journey setup (which it doesn't follow exactly, but I think is close enough for the discussion), the ordinary world/Call/Refusal/etc. is too long, not gripping enough (the call is not all that demanding until too far in), and just generally meandering all around. After she leaves, we're following both what is going on at home (through Ala- and R-) and what she's accomplishing, until their goals end up going in the same direction. There are people she has to interact with before the world falls apart, but those things not being dynamic doesn't help anything.

I was mostly referring to Robinski opening the post with "I'm going to be going in intending to skim fast, and concentrate on overall impression" Because looking for an overall impression seems inherently likely to miss character names being called out.

I know I'm still horrible at cutting back information. But I'm not convinced that some of it is as unnecessary as it might seem. Poorly presented? Probably. But not unnecessary. It's not illegal. But it's not something she's supposed to know. Page 9 goes over this when she's asking whether it really would have been such a big deal for R- to have learned it. Dad has no concept that she's not the perfectly obedient daughter. Which is how she wants to be seen. Letting up on that destroys a lot of character motivation and conflict down the road. If that was how spellstones worked, they would have been banned along with everything else during the post-rebellion panic. There's a little space for wiggle room within the definition of the magic system, but that's not one of those spots. The fire spell is legal, and the only one she knows. The only reason it was in the one book is because its place within the magic system makes it a safe training spell for students to practice basic techniques. I will probably send you a message about this, since you have more perspective on where things are going after reading through Part 1 as it exists.

I understand not being excited about reading a third version of chapter 1, and understanding the skimming approach, but it does make it hard to know what things are there, but seem like you might have skimmed over them (who Est- and Lord H are. What's allowed by the magic laws), and what things are actually missing. It's a pile of probably-textbook-sized books on a chair. Knee height or so from the chair surface, so getting up that high isn't a problem, but trying to balance on a book-sized platform when there's nothing else to hang on to is precarious (think standing at the very top of a ladder and reaching for something). I need to think of a clearer way to explain it, since it's not exactly something that jumps out as a dangerous pastime. Yeah. I was trying to figure out how to deal with this as well. Because on one hand, I know it's too confusing. And that I'm probably overthinking it. For general setup, most of the nobles have a suite of rooms in the palace specifically set aside for their use. "The room's not ready." seems inadequate when it implies that it's just a matter of airing out linens. Whereas the rooms have been lived in by another person for over a decade while Ras- has been using them as the duchy's representative in the capital. So his things are all mixed in among the things that would have been left there by the duke's mother before she died. Some of those would be Ras-'s personal things that would go with him to wherever his new rooms end up. Some would be things belonging to the duke's family. All of that was supposed to be sorted out before they arrived so that Al- could move in. And they could sort through any books or paperwork or whatever that they might both need later. I know the intricate details of most of that aren't important, but haven't been able to figure out a good way to briefly convey what is going on. The queen. It's mentioned half a page up or so , but may have gotten drowned out in the housing confusion. He shouldn't come over as regal here, necessarily. Partly because he's more at ease here than in a more public setting. And partly because Is- knows him well enough to see past some of his mannerisms. I was hoping to portray that better through contrast with how he's interacting when the maid is there, but maybe that didn't work well. That's especially the case with Is- noticing the unease/fear, which is extremely unusual from him. This is supposed to suggest that there are other things more directly related to the question of why he came to talk to her about things that bother him more deeply. Mostly that he'd planned to give her more information, then chickened out because he knows it's going to hurt. Same thing later when she outright asks to be involved and he shuts the idea down. Does this make more sense at the end? I was trying to imply throughout that she wasn't planning to go about things exactly by the book, and that she has more knowledge than she probably should, but I also know that I tend to jump back and forth enthusiastically between overexplaining and vaguely implying. So I'm not sure where exactly things fell on that line through the chapter. Does the shift from beginning to end seem to work as a sort of reveal? Or does it just seem like a roundabout way of conveying information that fails to add anything extra? Both of these are referring to Lord H, who was one of her and R's instructors. It's mentioned above that his instruction touched on magic and the laws. Was that not clear enough? The timeline for that wasn't implied, though. It should imply that it's been a while. Urgh. The line up above where Al-'s support will help smooth over some of the conflict within the court. Because it would be a sign of both moving past the offenses that lay on both sides in Al-'s parents' conflict with V's father. Which should have been addressed in the prologue, but that was enough of a mess that it's quite possible that they weren't. She had proper instruction on that book specifically and the topic in general, and her mother didn't Does the detail of Est- being her mother clarify this at all? That's mentioned at the top of page 6 Fire and sleep spells are legal. Spellstones are legal. Everything else is banned. This is called out on page 7 Him wanting to change the laws isn't clear enough? And he hasn't given her a task. She's taken on a task, but that's her finding her own way to be involved despite his outright dismissal of her request to help. This is part of what is ultimately driving her to want to be useful and competent. Because she knows he's going to run himself into the ground if he doesn't break down and trust other people to help him. Especially when she can see that there's more going on than he's telling her, and is getting the impression that he'd intended to involve her in some way. They aren't only now trying to change the laws, but the duke's arrival is the first change in a long time that has led to any chance of progress. There have been things going on behind the scenes since Al-'s parents' deaths, mostly with Queen Est-'s research. But when so many of the nobles still have strong feelings about the death of one of their own (either blaming magic or the lack of knowledge about magic, depending on the side), the tensions are too high to make any progress until that gets smoothed over. I think if we jump straight to the inciting incident, it will make it all the more confusing.

This is definitely part of the problem in the early chapters as they exist now. Though I think it's more a lack of tension in any form, especially because what is supposed to be there doesn't stick, because it's not tied to anything central. Hoping to do a much better job of this as I resubmit these early chapters. Though there is still also too much exposition. Really, just too many words altogether. This is an entirely acceptable excuse. As currently written? It doesn't. I think my initial thought for a lot of these early chapters back when they were originally written (when the whole story was something very different) was that it was a really good idea to meet everyone and give all of the information, so that when things are happening, people have those things in the back of their head. Turns out, this was not a good idea. Especially when all of said information isn't tied together at all. I could tell the chapters were slow, and knew there was something to be improved about them, but I hadn't really noticed just how many problems they had until I had more useful eyes on them. Turns out the friends who I've had reading through before are far too patient with badly written openings. Yeah. That was not a useful piece of information to have provided in the other draft, as it's a holdover from the previous version of the full story and I hadn't realized 1. How misleading it was and 2. That it's pretty much the only thing she mentions having any real opinions on. Ultimately, Is- is oversimplifying to brush off the topic and get him to shut up here. But that's not really indicated. And I don't think there's a clear enough picture of her personality in current drafts to make it clear. She would freely admit that fashion and political statement are closely tied together, but as someone who has some pride issues and is self-conscious about being at the center of things, she'd rather be dismissive of the topic as a whole than admit that she might be bad at something, or that something she had tried to do had gone badly (see also, her brushing off the conversation about Ais-) Is any of that portrayed clearly? No, not really. I'm hoping to get some of those sorts of things across better in this round of submissions now that I have a better focus on what these chapters need to do, but I have a feeling this is going to take more work to deal with the subtleties of. Trying to figure out how to portray that on most topics, Is- knows what she's talking about, but that she's not the most reliable narrator when it comes to things she's sensitive about. And that when she's intentionally brushing something aside, it's probably because she's avoiding addressing deeper feelings about things. I think this would have come across better if Is- had been actively looking for M, instead of having M stumble across her (but why have Is- do something herself when things can just happen *facepalm*). Ultimately, M is sort of her extrovert-shield to survive big social events. Because every introvert has one of those. But it also basically just gives her an excuse to be passive. Which creates problems. Yep. That sounds about right... Originally, this chapter had been a whole monster of a 7k word "These are some of the characters we should have some familiarity with" chapter, back before the first version of the story was trunked when I was in college. And while I tossed almost everything after the inciting incident and started from scratch a couple years ago, for whatever reason, I didn't rewrite the early chapters then. And the longer they stuck around, the more I could tell that they desperately needed work, but got too caught up in them needing to convey certain pieces of information, and just sort of made minor adjustments instead of scrapping and rewriting. I ended up splitting this one in half (and doing very little to give it useful structure after that...ugh), but what little actually tied into the plot was all in the second part. Her not really enjoying being there when she could be doing something productive elsewhere. Her actually finding the people she wants to talk to about relevant things (though even there, it's not as focused as it should be). Some background for why she and R can't help but get on each others' nerves (though that's still only implied and not super clear). It wasn't done very well in said second part, so no one is missing too much by not getting an extra 3500 words of wandering text, but it makes this part that much more painful when it's not tied even to the things in the second part that might have brought some reason for things. I have a good start on revising to make everything far more focused on what is actually important. And I greatly appreciate your patience and everyone else's while I've been getting that figured out.

Hello, All! Instead of continuing on the vague, unfocused path that we were on previously, I’m going to be resubmitting starting from chapter 1. I’m pretty confident that everything falls into place once we hit the inciting incident, but it’s too far in, with very little of what happened before then doing anything useful. Hopefully this round, I’ll be able to fix a good deal of that, and find some new, better mistakes to make. So, on that front: Does this give you a better sense of who Is- is and what she and the story are going to be aiming for? A million thanks to @kais for reading through Part 1 and helping me figure out a bunch of the overall approach issues that were causing problems. And to everyone else who read through the previous submissions and provided feedback! Thanks!

Any guesses? Fortunately for all of us (except @kais who already had to slog through everything leading up to it), I'm going to go ahead and tear Part 1 apart for trimming and restructuring before submitting past this one. Because variations on the same problems continue otherwise. I'll have to check out that WE. I don't think I've gotten quite to season 15 in my listening through the episodes. And no apologies necessary. They're problems that have all needed to be pointed out. Now to see if I can properly fix them... Or at least make better ones.

I'd also like a spot for Monday if available. Thanks!

No problem. @kais is very much on the case. It's the queen's private study off of the library, with a posted guard. But it's also not relevant in the new revision. So we can avoid that altogether. Some of this is correct and unnecessary (or at the very least, far more time is spent on it than necessary), but a lot of the details that are just coming across as weird tidbits of detached information are plot relevant and/or foreshadowing. They're just not presented well, or the weird thing-that-happens tidbit (Al- leaving half-sewn shirts lying around) drown out what's meant to be the actually relevant part (3/4 of a page later when Al- is mentioning his anxiety about everything that's going on and that patching a shirt is a small, achievable, repetitive task that helps get his mind settled. And that Tre- is concerned when Al- mentions the anxiety spike). So it ends up looking like just a weird thing that happens instead of giving the character insight it's supposed to. The number of these occurrences that people have called out as weird or confusing is definitely proof that I'm approaching them very incorrectly. But I'm not sure how to fix it. And some of them are foreshadowing things that are too far out for them to be kept in mind anyway. Which is a whole other issue. In many ways, the tension of the prologue was supposed to carry through to allow for a quieter opening before the true inciting incident. But the opening chapters have too many other issues, and there are too many of them that go on too long for it to actually work. Especially when said prologue has it's own significant issues. Thanks for your thoughts! They are a huge help in figuring out the right sorts of things to ask for feedback on.

That's a good point. She probably wouldn't think about it in those terms, even if as someone living in a time/place where social dancing is common, she'd probably be more aware of it than the average non-musician today. Interesting. I assume that the combination of mostly dancing follow and mostly swing dancing (a lot of East Coast swing that isn't lindy still starts with an open frame. At least at social dances) probably keeps those things farther off my radar than they'd be for leads. Which means I get to blame my husband for not catching it . And the combination of a pandemic and a small living room that's made dancing far more difficult in the past year

I guess the main implication I was getting at was related more to style, not tempo, specifically (though, you know, since I did in fact use the word tempo, I suppose it makes sense that that wasn't clear). Contrasting it to the march/processional that they had walked in to. So likely more of a meter change than a tempo change. I think I was intentionally vague beyond that to avoid tying it to a specific real-world dance style. Is- is the one who makes the request and offers her hand, so there is that. Which I figure most cultures would leave to the lead. And it seems like it would be odd to do so palm down just from a comfortable gesture standpoint. So she's already sort of smudging the line of proper form. I was picturing the process of moving to the dance floor as taking enough time for them to adjust into a more natural form, whatever the initial hand hold. I have far more experience with swing dance (where lead/follow formalities and dance-requesting protocols are a little looser than other forms) than with other ballroom styles. And usually when I'm doing other ballroom dances, it's with the swing dance social circle, so it still ends up being a little less formal than most more formal ballroom-focused settings. So that has probably skewed my thoughts on this a little. Pedantic thoughts appreciated I wouldn't have pressed the question if my musician/dancer sensitivities weren't bothered by the possibility that I might have missed something significant that I shouldn't have. For some reason, the box below won't go away in the mobile form of the commenting box...so I guess that's just stuck there.

I'm pretty sure this used to be like an 8k word chapter and I cut it in half because that was unreasonable. Because that's obviously a better choice than trimming out unhelpful bits *facepalm* I've realized through @kais helping read through Part 1 and calling this out, just how much of the first bunch of chapters are confused holdovers from the first version of this from like 2012 was trunked. At that point, this was far more YA-romance. It shouldn't be that now, but please continue to call out where it feels that way as I revise things. Also, I haven't figured out what will stick around for the final version, but would be curious to know what stuck out as being funny about the dancing.

Very nearly. There's some minor trimming of the ceremony, but not any significant changes.

Pg 1: I know it’s an established thing at this point, but I still can’t help but imagine flying sofas every time I see “settee.” Even though I have already gone through and discovered that the term has ship connections as well. Do you have any sort of ship descriptions/sketches somewhere so that I can try to replace the current image in my head with what it should actually look like? [edit: the description later is helpful] “She had no…bursts.” The structure of this sentence is a little confusing. “she’d gotten only…corpses.” That’s gotta be a disappointing outcome. “Debris floated…bipedal.” I think even knowing what a good deal of the debris is made up of, the second sentence’s implied “Some [of the debris] were…” is jarring. Seems like the sort of thing that could be intentionally jarring, to imply a disconnect between the "debris" and the people the debris once was. But my first instinct is to see it as grammar being off. Pg 2: “There was no…magic.” Calling out the tech’s capabilities and limitations. Check. (it was not…) : I think the full phrase in the parentheses seems like too complete a thought to fit comfortably into the rest of this line. Cutting it to (not the Ne-) seems like it might flow better as a sort of side-thought addition to the description. But then, my own biases against parentheses doesn’t help. Biases in reading them anyway. I balance that out by using far too many in other areas. Oops. Pg 3: “no wormholes to where…” Wondering if it makes more sense to cut “to” out of this, or if this is a more common way to refer to this travel than I’m aware of. I generally think of the wormholes in terms of end points marking the path in-between, not the path itself. The path would go to some other point, but I don’t think of the wormhole itself as being directional in that way. Not sure if that makes sense. I might be overthinking it, but it jumped out as being off. “…her arrival. She turned her attention…” Why is she suddenly turning to look at the picture? It seems like an odd course of action to pursue immediately following some whining about technology. Reaching for the “turn off the sensor, I don’t care if the ship is falling apart” button? Which happens to be next to the picture? Pg 6: “There was a long pause…” I have…concerns. Pg 8: “I have to stay.” Now I have different concerns (I’d been expecting unfriendliness from our mystery ship). And also, questions. Wasn’t she going to go do repairs and come back anyway? Why not just get towed out and come back later? Her goal of gathering biological materials seems to have a solution in going with him. She mentions needing “proof,” but I have no idea what that means, when it seemed like her plan was to gather up the samples and find her proof in them later after they’d been analyzed. I didn’t get the idea that she was looking for any other proof that would be more important than living to search another day. Pg 10: “You’ve been in transit for half a decade…haven’t got time for more.” He’s obviously in a rush to get out of there, knowing that he’s leaving her helpless and in the targets of whatever it is that he’s running away from. But he’s still talking about what she’ll find when she gets some news updates and can process what’s going on? The urgency to get out of there and the practical information for the future don’t seem to match up. Unless he’s already in the process of dragging her out of there even though she has told him not to (though I assume the message coming from deep space later implies this is not what happened). And if that’s the case, I would have expected more arguing with her decision to stay there before ignoring her opinion. If her being left there with a broken ship isn’t practically a death sentence, why is he in such a rush to get out? He seems like he was willing to be helpful. But not so helpful that he is going to say anything to make her change her mind when she wants to stay behind in her broken ship. Helpful enough to help her start working through the philosophical/religious/etc. significance of what she has already found, even without the samples she wants. But not so helpful that he’s going to strongly recommend leaving the area so that she gets a chance to actually process those things. So… I’m not sure if I’m missing something significant that makes these things line up better, but right now there seems to be disconnect between how he’s interacting with her and what the stakes seem to be. If sticking around is a death sentence, why isn’t he suggesting she change her mind? Unless he just isn’t that concerned, in which case his interactions seem too friendly. If there aren’t significant risks to sticking around, why is he in such a rush to get out? And why can’t she just go back to her previous plan of coming back later for more samples? Pg 11: “The computer’s …alarm” This seems like a practical alarm to have. Overall: Pages 1-6 or so seem clear enough and interesting. Good introduction of a new viewpoint. I definitely think the overall ties to Pr- are clear enough to tie it all together well, and don’t feel lost by the change. I think my comments about on 6-10/11 or so cover my main concerns/confusion with the chapter. I don’t have any problem with the multiple new PoVs one after another. I like getting a handful of perspectives when there’s good reason for it, and usually think it’s weirder to find that out once I’ve gotten further into the story. If we’re going to have a number of PoVs, I’d rather have that established in the first few chapters. My bigger concern is usually more related to making sure that the jumping-back-in points are smooth. If, for an entirely random example, a chapter ends on someone about to be blasted out of space, I’m more concerned about where we’re going to pick up that viewpoint again to make sure that I’m able to follow any time/place jumps if there were PoV jumps in-between.

Hello, All! Here is Chapter 3 of my epic fantasy, Price of Peace. No content tags for this chapter. After all of the helpful back and forth from people last week, I’ve come up with a new way to start Chapter 1, using the news about the duke’s arrival to focus in on her frustration with parts of the magic laws that don’t seem to make sense and the related frustration that the current laws interfere with her wishes to understand magic better. But we’ll see where that ends up in a couple weeks. I’m ultimately planning to combine this chapter with the next one, once I’ve figured out what things to trim back and what things to emphasize, but all thoughts here are appreciated in the meantime. Thanks!

I'd like a spot for Monday too, if possible.

Somehow I missed this comment entirely. Good thing I went back to check. Thanks! I'll send a message.

I got the impression that there was some sort of problematic theocracy going on, but it wasn't clear what/where that government was since we haven't seen that part of their motivation yet. That's an entirely fair reason for Tik- to be jaded, but I think it would be helpful to make sure it's called out. Just to make sure it's based in something instead of coming across as being flippantly dismissive of any culture or species with a religious worldview. There were some descriptions, but I didn't have an actual character to tie it to. So I had vaguely been aware that the sad- were a thing and a species of that description was a thing, but had them in two separate spots in my brain. I figured they were probably the same one after reading this chapter, but that was more because we only seem to have the four different species at the moment than because I remembered it.

Trying to think of whether it fits the drug use scenario (I'm also in the US, so I'm familiar with that particular example...unfortunately). It definitely leans more toward the political manipulation to keep the "correct" people in power aspect of that. Or at least an attempt to keep certain groups at a disadvantage. There are some aspects of the rebellion itself that I do think add strength to the reasons, but they are things that get worked out through the full story. Having information suppressed (intentionally or unintentionally) over 150 years would, I think, do a whole lot of damage to a society's understanding of the truth of something, though. And if anything, I'd say the people in power have become the least connected with the question itself because they've fallen into believing their ancestors' rhetoric. Whereas, places farther from the capital are more concerned about the practicality of keeping their families alive than they are about the fact that the old king's hatred of magic meant that the nobles now don't really even use spellstones because it went out of fashion. There is a sort of underground pro-magic group that is more informed, but that's not something our MCs are aware of at this point. Your thoughts are greatly appreciated. I literally have a google doc that is just these sorts of conversations as I keep track of or work out the reasons that things are the way they are or what things still have big gaping holes in them. Highlighting things that are going to need more explanation in-story, or which things people are more concerned/confused about. This subject does still have some holes in it, but I don't think they're as big as they seem at the moment... probably better to check in on that a little further into the story.

Overall: I still like Tik-‘s PoV better than Ek-‘s, and I like getting to see their character a little better, but I don’t think there are enough concrete things going on here. We get hints of things (suspicions of this “new” Ek-. Some biological information about Tik- and friends. Tik-‘s concerns over the sad-‘s religiosity), but I’m not sue where those things are going, and there wasn’t much moving us forward along the “setting up the new government” track. I’m still curious about what’s going on and where things are going, but could have used a little more from this chapter to focus us in that direction. Pg 1: The literal vs. figurative fire issue again. I like that it’s brought back at the end of the scene, but it still needs to be clearer up front that they’re not literal. Pg 2: “Gy- continued to frown…made her sick.” I’m not sure what she means by Gy- acting grateful or making a show of subservience. He doesn’t really seem to be doing those things. Restraining his anger, maybe, but I don’t see leaving it to a vote as being subservient. It just seems to go along with the lines of the laws and committees that should be guiding their choices. Pg 3: “good at being male” I’m not sure what is implied by this either. Not good at what? Do they have different social norms they’re supposed to be holding to when either male or female? Or are they trying to hold to one constant social norm, but find it more difficult when either male or female? I’m going to leave most of the sex/gender comments to @kais, because they put already put some of that into far clearer terms than my vague sense of concern would have gotten to. But I’m not sure what being good or bad at being male is supposed to mean even before we dig into those other questions. Pg 4: Every time I see “sad-”, my brain immediately goes to these guys: https://twilight-imperium.fandom.com/wiki/Sardakk_N'orr which is not entirely your fault, but I think it’s because I don’t have a good picture of what they actually look/act like in my head yet. We’ve seen the humans. We’ve seen Tik- and his/her/their people (would they use “they” for a single individual over a stretch of time when they’ve been both male and female? Or some other pronoun?). But we haven’t interacted with these guys as directly yet. Pg 5: “Religion shouldn’t have a place…” and “…shouldn’t inform their vote…” I always get a little antsy when these sorts of comments get thrown around without context. With context detailing why the narrator’s worldview is starkly a-religion/anti-religion (or whatever the appropriate term would be) and therefore makes them naturally suspicious of anyone who is not? Sure. But right now, I don’t know enough about Tik- to get where the blanket statement is coming from. Their opposition to Ek- seems to be painting them as some sort of marginally-antagonistic force, but they seem to be the main one actually trying to get things done. Without some basis for Tik-‘s thoughts, I have concerns about the implication that the things people believe about whatever higher powers they look to can be extricated from the rest of their worldview. It just seems overly simplistic for a practical, intelligent character. Even if Tik- just really hates religions. Does it make sense that they are angry about the sad- are voting based on declared godhood? Oh yeah. But I think the anger should probably be directed at the religious beliefs themselves that are making them vote that way, not the intersection of religion and politics. If the religion itself is problematic and doesn’t have good reason to declare Ek- as a god (we assume this, but we don’t know anything about how the sad- came to this decision, so I don’t know for sure), go ahead and have them tear it apart for those reasons. That it’s inconsistent. That it’s provably false. That it’s illogical. But flatly trying to separate any and all religious beliefs from politics seems very simplistic if the world is full of various and varied religious beings. Especially when Tik- seems to have dreams of all of those varied beings working together and combining their knowledge.

There's a familiarity with what spellstones can do, but they remove all of the subtlety and precision of a cast spell. They treat spellstones as a tool, but have very little understanding of how they actually work or what active magic is capable of. Healers in most areas have access to spellstones (whether they are provided by the lord who oversees where they work or purchased out of what they charge patients probably depends on the location), so they have a sense of what they think magic can do, but they don't know how much of the information they're missing by never having seen a mage intentionally slow a wound-closing spell to reduce scar tissue around a wound. Or things like that. Some healers would know how to cast sleep or fire spells, but the nature of them doesn't leave much subtlety to be added (one of the reasons they're the legal ones. They don't go wrong as easily when someone tries to do something clever and it goes wrong). In general, the only other people who bother to learn them at all are the magistrates, because they're required in the judicial/religious rituals. And they would definitely carry a similar weird/creepy reputation to morticians. In general, they're not people you want to need. There are some records dealing with the judicial punishments of performing spells, but when Gil- mages had mostly focused on healing, and any underground magic system would follow those lines, it's not going to be as likely to get reported unless something is used maliciously or if something goes wrong. The magistrates do have a slightly better understanding of things, but it's still not very complete. For an inexact comparison (trying to think of something that it would make sense to restrict legally to create the same scenario, since I think that would sharpen the contrasts further. I'm sure it's out there, but I can't think of it right now) : In an age where we are on the edge of self-driving cars, I sort of imagine it as being similar to where we'll be a few generations after self-driving cars are made the norm. There's a tool that solves the problem of getting from A to B that the powers that be have told us is the safe and seems to get the job done. Add in a few horror stories about stubborn old-fashioned people driving themselves places and causing horrible accidents that get a lot of people killed, and it becomes a simple choice for the vast majority of people. There will still be groups of people who think it's important to know how the cars actually work, but that information is going to be more difficult to access, especially if it's going to be discouraged by the powers that be (even if not made illegal outright). There will still be places where the "lost knowledge" would be incredibly helpful to people based on where they live and their daily habits or whatever. But the longer time goes on, the more that specialized knowledge is going to be either lost or relegated to specific jobs that are looked at funny by the rest of society.

I apologize for my flippant use of the word "academic" "Academic" interests in magic don't really make sense in Gil- since it's been mostly outlawed for 150 years, and generally taboo to have any involvement with for probably 50-60 years. I forget when her grandfather's reign started. Most of the books available referencing magic of any sort would be history or law-related, and many paint it intentionally in a bad light (The victors have definitely written the histories here. It creates...problems). Her education involved an in-depth understanding of the subtleties of what the magic laws do and don't cover. The teacher she had for that has far more knowledge of magic as a whole than most people in Gil-, so she got a more well-rounded picture of its capabilities than most people in the kingdom would, and is mostly fascinated/puzzled/bothered by the conflict between the obvious benefits to some sorts of magic and the fact that nothing about the laws have changed in 150 years. She learned enough there to see that something was off, but not enough to know what it actually is, and she doesn't like not knowing things. Her mother is a respected historian, and she sort of puts together what she's learned from her parents' specialties of politics and history with her own fascination with magic and the magic laws. The last part being what she's especially interested in because she feels like she isn't getting the full story. Because simply by living in Gil- she's not. But stick around. Because the times, they are a-changin' And the actual academic nature of magic becomes more relevant. As do the questions you mentioned. Fortunately, they mostly have answers already (woo. Go, me!). Is it done in an interesting or understandable way? Well, we'll see, I guess. What this means for Is-'s character? Definitely that I need to tie her existing interest into the opening more. In many ways, that interest and the opening referring to the gods represent similar things in my head (her current, rather limited view of the world, even as a capable, intelligent person), so I hadn't seen a reason to put it there. And (unfortunately) I do think I know a way to do that, but it switches up the order I wanted to introduce a few Big Things in. Because I wanted to be clever. But being clever is probably not as helpful as having people actually understand and enjoy the story. Who knew? Thank you for providing a jumping off point for my aimless thoughts. It's been quite helpful

Proactivity is definitely low when there's no obvious job to be done (which, at the moment is where chapter 1 starts). But efficient practicality also mean wanting to make sure that things are done right and properly, and she'll just do them all herself if no one else is going to. So we start at a horrible place for her and a horrible place for the plot to be interesting. Just all around, not helpful. No problem on not having time right now, though I appreciate you checking back in with your thoughts. I will still be here once you're back, and probably still fighting the inevitable edits. This should at least be better by that point, so there's that.

But I'm trryyyyyying (where's the dramatic crying emoji when you need it?) See, this is part of the problem. Because of the way the timeline is, I honestly have no idea. If we move forward, we are in the middle of the ball with no idea who anyone is (which is bad enough. There are already too many people at the ball). If we skip the ball entirely? honestly we're probably at the best starting point time-wise, except that it feels like it doesn't make any sense to start there. And we don't have time to introduce the second MC who needs to be around for the inciting incident. If we move backward? We are even farther from the inciting incident with nothing of note happening in between. I sort of think that the whole thing needs to be shifted to a different timeline altogether. It would mean rewriting like 5 chapters, not 1, which I'm willing to do (But man, will I whine about it), but I would need a more solid starting point than "Uh...something different" which I currently don't have. It does. I entirely get what you're saying. This has already been through a number of very differently angled drafts. Unfortunately, far too many of those have had like 3 readers, who were aware of where things were going and apparently shrugged over the problems. It doesn't help that Is-'s character (Practical introvert. Hates conflict. Hates being the one to cause that conflict even more. Defensive of her family) is a hard MC to introduce in a grand, exciting way. I'm sure there is a way to do it. But I haven't figured it out yet.