C_Vallion

1. I was a little less engaged during the argument with A and the why N likes W conversation here than I was for the related conversations previously, but I definitely liked that you brought in the flowers more centrally in this version. 2 & 3: I like parts of both (details below), though I think having the two separate chapters makes it a lot easier to carry things longer than they need to be (I know that’s what I always do), so a few more things here seemed like they could use trimming back. 4. Still feel similarly. I feel like this version makes me feel like W has less reason to cut off her friendship with A, though. Yeah, the stuff with N is bad, but there wasn’t as much sense that the gap between them has been building up over a long time like we got with the conversation between A and W last time. I still like W, but I feel like some of the romance hints between her and N could be adjusted to fit her character a little better. Chapter 5: I think the conversation between A and W could be trimmed back or smoothed over more. Part of it feels like it goes on longer than it needs to, which I think isn’t helped by the scene change. Pg 1: I think I preferred the disconnect between A and W in the previous version better. It seemed to push more in the direction of showing how the two of them have grown in different directions, which doesn’t come across as clearly here. Pg 2: I like this additional detail about her understanding of what happened with E and how it’s changed since previous chapters. I like that this conversation is held in person this time around, and that W specifically reflects on the history of her friendship with A, but do think the conflict would be stronger with both the acknowledgment of their history that we get here and the signs of how they’ve grown in different directions that we’d gotten from A not understanding why she would want to eat on her own last time around. Pg 3: “Have fun on your own” If A’s going off to hang out with B and friends, this line seems strange. Pg 4: W’s too dialogue lines at the bottom of the page seem like they’re mostly there to split up blocks of A’s dialogue, but I feel like chiming in there makes it seem a little less like natural conversation. Seems like W is trying to help the conversation along, to prompt A to speak, but I hadn’t gotten the feeling that A needed that prompting. Pg 5: The dialogue on 5 seems a little off in a couple places as well, but I’m not sure what exactly is giving that impression. Might just be a matter of it being a rewrite that hasn’t had as many revisions yet. Pg 6: “Then I guess this is it” like @ redblue said, I think this decision should have more anger behind it. Especially if W is sometimes prone to anger (we haven’t seen that side of her, but it’s been mentioned a couple times). It seems strangely sudden if we don’t see how upset she actually is (and I think this is where the first couple of pages focusing a little more on how they’ve grown in different directions and don’t really understand each other anymore would at a lot of strength.) Chapter 6: Pg 7: Seconding @redblue’s question about why we’re lying to Mom. They seem to have a pretty good relationship, so it seems like an odd thing to keep from her. Pg 8: I’d taken from the end of the last chapter that she was planning to tell N what had happened. So it seems odd that she’s avoiding reminders of him here. And why would she have gone that way in the first place if she knew it would remind her of him and she was avoiding such thoughts. Mesmerizing feels like an odd word choice here. Or too strong. Or something. I like that his focus is the thing that jumps out as being attractive. That fits the understanding I have of W. The wanting to bolt seems a little off as well. Nervousness jumpiness, sure, but if she’s planning to tell him about what she’s found out, it seems out of place. “tension and rage has fled” I’d expect the tension to have just shifted to jittery nervousness instead of fleeing. Page 9: I’d expect her to be thrown more off-balance by his saying he cares about her. It fits his character to say it, even though they don’t know each other that well. But what does she think he means by that? The clarifying who is in what math class seems like it could be trimmed or cut without losing anything. Him knowing she’s way ahead of her doesn’t lose the opportunity to mention her parent’s wisdom. Pg 11: Her instructing here doesn’t hit as well as it did previously, but I’m not sure why. Pg 12: “to do a bit more digging” This sentence sounds a little weirdly prying and invasive. Like she’s expecting to have to trick him into answering, when she’s just trying to find answers. “real feelings for each other…groundwork is there.” Something about this paragraph feels off to me. I like the line that love is more about effort than emotion. But then what exactly are the flowers supposed to be recognizing? What’s that “groundwork” supposed to mean? It seems like it has to be more than general compatibility, or just that there are feelings there. Do they stop sparkling during the rough points in a relationship when there’s a lot more effort required than fuzzy feelings? Partly, the magic flowers seem to push a sort of soulmate concept, which the effort vs. emotion line contradicts to some extent. If it’s not a magic soulmate indicator, I’d almost want to have W interpret it as such and have N clarify. Pg 12-17 The rest of this covers all of the key points, but I think the individual sub-topics each go on a little too long, so there seems like there’s a lot that could be trimmed back and/or streamlined.

Would also like a spot for Monday if there's space

I'd probably suggest going with "mysterious dark metal" or something similar. I'd assume most people would think of iron as heavy/bulky/dirty, not as the sort of majestic streamlined mech you seem to be describing. ooooo. Fancy. I like it. That checks out. I had considered the height difference possibility, but the airships skew my perception of what to expect as "normal" even if it's "medieval." I mostly just don't generally think of daggers as being that long.

Overall: As a general note, forgive my engineering brain jumping in with comments that no one else would be concerned about. They aren’t complaints or issues with my enjoying the story so much as poking at world cohesiveness. Having spent a good deal of time in the prosthetics/exoskeleton R&D field, I really like the idea of things like mech armor, but I’m also more nitpicky about things like that than most would be. Especially when there are fantasy elements that allow you to overlook some more standard machining limitations. In regard to the chapter as a whole, I agree with @kais that this seems like a far more fitting opening for the story than what we’ve seen previously. Getting these details about C’s past and motivation would be far more helpful from the start than the vague mysterious, troubled past feel we were getting before. You still get to hang on to some of that here, where we don’t know all of the details regarding his leaving the kingdom, but we have more to hang on to and a better idea of where things are going. I think a good deal of the Arthurian lore is probably going over my head. I have picked up vague, basic details of the lore over the years, but it’s never been something I’d say I know a lot about. So if it’s really important for following plot or character dynamics, I’d make sure you aren’t assuming the reader knows those things coming into the story. The conflict between C and A here is clear enough that I don’t really need additional information on why they’re angry at each other, though there’s probably more depth to it that I’m not aware of. But they’re referencing some events as if we should be aware of specifics on them that I don’t know if we need to have going into it or if they’ll be explained when they’re more directly relevant. Pg 1: Ten seconds doesn’t seem like that much time to have to wait if they really think running is the safest bet (what are safe/reasonable acceleration rates for an airship where no one is secured to the ship? How far would they have ascended in those ten seconds anyway without injuring or losing anyone in the jerk of taking off? It doesn’t really seem like they make a habit of tying themselves down for quick maneuvers.) Especially if they can make some ground laterally during that time. Might be better to have vaguer details regarding the take-off delay if this is a fight and not a chase (where the times would be the bigger tension point). Really, I think trimming back before the appearance of the knight could be helpful. Make it clear that they’re stuck then have the knight show up. I like the introduction of the knight. Specifically the “no beauty…alive” line. Pg 2: Why iron and not steel or, for that matter, some mysterious super strong alloy that only the knights’ machine spirits can create? If the machine spirits are rebuilding the knights when they are destroyed, is that done at the molecular level? Stronger metals are generally more difficult to form and machine, so that might provide an argument for a weaker metal over a stronger one, but if they’re not actually being machined by any traditional human methods, why iron? I can’t remember what C’s knight was made of (if there’s some elemental association). Do the machine spirits strengthen the metals of the knights? If the knights are iron, I assume the spirits would have to be actively “rebuilding” to avoid rusting out. These aren’t questions that needs answers, but they occurred to me while reading and now I’m far more curious about the material composition of the knights than is likely to be in any way relevant to the story. “The similarities ended there.” Is this saying that the construction of C’s knight was similar (size/construction/material)? I’d read it as being a specific description of the new knight, not knights in general, but then I’m not sure what similarities you’re referring to. “The knight C had been found in” this makes it seem like we aren’t in C’s pov, which I am pretty sure we are? I’d imagine C would universally consider that knight “his”, not just the one he had been found in. “armor that was light and thin” but also iron? “given the scale” 30 ft knight scaled down to a 6 ft human? So a 6-12” dagger scaled back up would give us 30-60” or 2.5-5 feet. Still pretty big, but not quite “a small mast” “your armaments won’t scratch it.” So, yes on the machine spirits strengthening the metals? “can cut the ship to ribbons” Can slash right through the hull of it, but the blade length isn’t going to cut that far into it. Still going to be a massive problem for the ship if they can’t get away, but “ribbons” seems excessive. I’d also rather see the knight’s strength/durability in action than just have C’s summary on it. Pg 3: “Calm and measured response” vs. “maybe…I thought I was dead.” Okay, but what about all of his new friends who he is so insistent about being grateful to for saving his life? Is he not concerned about them? Pg 4-6: This conversation goes on a long time, and it’s a little too wordy and informational to feel natural. It feels a little like everyone standing around watching two people on stage go through a set of careful, precise lines of dialogue, not like two people who are actually angry at each other. Could be trimmed back a decent amount without losing the key points. Pg 7: “spear…impaled the knight” and “smashing it even further into the earth” this seems way too easy for all the conversation leading into it. C’s complete lack of concern doesn’t help that. “tearing gouges” Why not just run him through with the spear? He should be able to do that while still staying significantly outside the range of the Assassin’s dagger if the scales are consistent from knight to knight. Spears aren’t really gouge-tearing weapons. “strength lies in stealth and speed” yeah, I was wondering why he got himself locked into arguing with C when it seemed like a very un-assassin-like way to approach an opponent. If he knew he was out there to destroy the ship, why didn’t he just do that from the start? Pg 8: C’s physical removal from the battle doesn’t really help with the tension issues here. His knight has the upper hand and he can just stand on the ship and have his argument with A, who also doesn’t seem all that concerned about his well-being, even though he’s getting crushed. “It was then the E raised his left hand” Still not sure why he didn’t just run him through. A having the gun as a reason for the ship to think it isn’t worth trying to escape makes sense, and C/E taking it makes sense, but I don’t think we had enough tie-in to the gun as a threat to make this switch seem significant. Whey didn’t A reach for it when the dagger vs. spear reach problem was putting him in trouble? Pg 8-9: I feel like some of the Arthurian references are going over my head. If they become more directly plot relevant later and are explained at that point in time, that’s fine, but if we are expected to have that knowledge going into it, that’s going to be a problem. Pg 9-10: “felt his legs give out from under him.” This seems to come out of nowhere. I assume it’s from some mental strain of “piloting” (for lack of a better term) the knight, but we didn’t really get any indication of it being all that taxing on him during the battle, which is when it would have been really helpful to have clear signs of the difficulty of it (I’d think it would at least make it much harder to hold a coherent conversation during the battle. Especially a conversation as wordy as this one was) As someone who often has too many extra characters in my scenes who end up standing around doing nothing, I’m a little concerned about having this many characters in a debrief conversation. Why are Sh and Sa there? If Ir is there in human-appearance form, I feel like she should be involved in the conversation, but if she’s there in flower form like we’ve seen a few times (not sure of her reasons for switching back and forth or what she’s doing when she’s not running the ship) it would make sense for her to just be there (possibly even without C being aware of it) until things specifically relevant to her (the Im Drives) come up. I’m also not sure what behavior Sh finds reckless. 11-19: Some of this is important knowledge to have, but could be trimmed back to key points or provided over time. At this point, I’d assume V would mostly want to know the key points that are currently relevant to C, not just the knights’ history. What is V hoping to get out of the conversation? Is he worried about people continuing to chase him? Just wants to know what was going on with the battle for curiosity’s sake? Does he want C to join his crew so he can put C’s knight to use? Even if he’s a nice guy, he’s going to have his own angle and motivations for asking questions. But I don’t know what his long-term goals are. What would he have been doing if he hadn’t gotten into C’s adventure. The back and forth about owing each other goes on way too long. And I don’t see why V is so insistent about going along for the ride. And I don’t think he needs to sign up to be 100% onboard for the quest at this precise moment. Their back and forth here is a pretty clear “Are you in or out?” sort of thing, but a middle ground of “Let me at least get you as far as our next salvage site” seems more feasible for a guy who wants to be helpful but isn’t necessarily up for sending his crew off on a random adventure that he has no way of knowing the outcome of. For him to fully jump in on the adventure, I’d expect a really strong personal motivation for him to take the physical and financial risk of abandoning his salvage work to go on an adventure.

Chapter 5 Adjustments: I like the idea of this change in direction for their conversation, as it fits C’s character really well and gives us a little more reason for why she tries so hard to think the best of people. But I do think it could be streamlined a bit. Chapter 6: Pg 3: “He is a good mop” MD deserves a pat on the head. “travesty of nature…calls to him.” Hah. Pg 4: “four tiny beds” !!! Pg 6: “Something to do with J and the owning of dogs.” The curse strikes again! Pg 7: I like seeing this conflict with T. Especially after the new part of Chapter 5 talking about wanting to be friendly with everyone and think the best of people. GM certainly knows how to hit where it hurts. Pg 9: I was not expecting E to come to the rescue. We haven’t seen much about him since the opening scene, but this fits what was set up there, with him being enthusiastic and not necessarily looking ahead to the consequences of his choices. “boisterous in a way that would tire C out if she were to try it” Man. Relatable. Overall: Not a ton to say on this one. I like having MD thrown in, both for the spotlight on Mom’s strangeness and because the voice is fun. I do feel like I need to read through from the start to get a feel for the overall pacing of the story. In many ways it feels like we are adding depth to the problem of the curse, and getting a broader explanation of what it does and how it effects the town, but aren’t necessarily moving forward toward solving it. There are a few clear steps, for sure, but I think the week to week submission setup makes it harder to get a sense of the forward progress, especially when the chapters aren’t super long (though that definitely makes sense for MG). Do you have a percentage estimate of how far into the story we are at this point? Also, would you be able to send me a document with the most up to date version of chapters 1-5 so I can get a better feel for the pacing? 1. I think it’s better, but could still use some streamlining of the conversation. Parts of it feel a little stilted as is. 2. Nope 3. I think it comes across pretty well. The one thing I would wonder at this point would be to ask the people who are more familiar with middle grade writing if there would be issues with as many points of view as we’ve had. I like multiple povs when they aren't adding unnecessary confusion, but I don’t know if there are any sorts of guidelines when considering what an agent or publisher might be concerned by. 4. I think it does. I thought it made a lot of sense for T’s irritation with C not showing up over the weekend to make her more willing to listen to whatever GM told her.

Overall: I think the biggest thing that interfered with my enjoying the chapter is that I haven’t read the other books, so I’m not hugely invested in Ata by the part in the chapter where she’s processing her own discovery of Ard and what it will mean to Or, and what a BIG DEAL that is. More specific thoughts on that below. There are a lot of little details that I liked: The frustration of cleaning up after the fungi. A sense of the tedium of the daily life of an eld. General world setup and character details that tie me into the world better. But as a whole, it felt a little disconnected from our current storyline until we get to where she's actually getting the note that Or was reaching out. Pg 1: Are we supposed to know who/what gatoi are? “many kinds of urgent” : I like these contrasts of urgent. Pg 2: I’m having trouble picturing the ambassador here. For the most part, the paragraph at the end of pg 1 is helpful for getting the sentient-fungus-species idea, which is enough to interpret hyphae as a fungus-related term, but I could use another visual cue to help visualize this. The “fluffy stalk of hyphae” is helpful, but I’m struggling to match that up with the “tannish colored mat” mentioned later. “They’d never get that color out of the floor.” This line does a pretty great job of portraying Ata’s sheer exhaustion with this meeting. The message from E read as either three separate messages or a back and forth, which made me have to pause to reread that section. Pg 3: “as apologetic as she could on three hours of sleep.” Oh man. I feel this pain. Still having trouble picturing the ambassador here. Pg 4: “Mind awash…take better care of herself” I think this might be confusing to people who haven’t read the previous books? I’ve read enough comments from people who have read the other books to have noted that the trees communicate with them, but can’t remember if/where it’s been mentioned in the text of this one. So I’m not sure if I would have had the context to understand this if I was just reading through. Similar response to the switch from verbal communication to telepathy at the end of page 4. Is this the first time we’ve seen someone both speaking and communicating telepathically? I think it’s a good, clear introduction to how conversations would work for people who can communicate in both ways, but my first thought upon seeing italics was that it was a thought in the narrative, not further communication from E. If this isn’t the first time we’re seeing this sort of communication, that’s probably just my fault for reading it too late last night, but if we haven’t seen it before, it might be helpful to clarify to keep it from being jarring or confusing. Pg 7-10 I feel like there’s a whole lot of page time spent trying to get in touch with the others. I think it could be trimmed back a bit and still get the point across that there seems to be no way of getting in touch and it’s really strange and a little concerning. Pg 11: “crossed her arms and pulled the small blanket” Are these supposed to be simultaneous movements? I’d assume pulling the blanket into place would have to come before the arm-crossing. Pg 13: “shouldn’t there be …crew?” This and the following paragraphs are really helpful for knowing how strange Or’s situation is, and what is more normal for Ne people. I assume the other books deal a lot more directly with Ne’s culture and social setup, but we haven’t had too much of that here yet. Pg 14: Are biofilms at risk of breaking when being dropped? Also, E then “gently takes” it, which to me implies that it was still in her hand. Ata calls Or a hero, but Or seemed to be of the opinion that she was still working to achieve hero status. Should we be aware of what Or has done to so concretely earn that title to Ata? Or is it more that Ata personally considers her a hero because of the impact she’s had on her? Knowing that there’s a big long stretch of events that Or knows nothing about makes me think that something she’d done before leaving had earned her official hero status while she was gone? If that’s not the case, it might be helpful to clarify that it’s Ata’s regard for her that earns the term. I imagine this page would hit pretty hard for people who’ve read the other books, but I definitely feel like I’m not getting as much of the emotional impact as I’m supposed to because I haven’t spent that much time with Ata. I can see that this is a big deal for her, but when the main interaction I’ve had with her as she is now (as opposed to where she is in the intro) is that she’s been in a lot of meetings and is tired of it (relatable, but not hugely engaging) and that she’s more concerned about getting E into bed than she is about her friends’ well-being (she hopes they’re fine and has good reasons to believe they’re probably alright, but it’s still not the most appealing first impression). I’m just not entirely invested in her character at the moment. But I also don’t know how you introduce three books worth of context into the first half of a chapter in a way to feel the full impact of what she’s dealing with here. (insert helpless shrug emoji here) Pg 15: “Ata’s head fell back against the wall.” What wall? Pg 16: So E seems to interpret Ata’s description of Or as her childhood hero, which I’m assuming is more accurate than having something she’d done earn her hero status after she’d left Ne. It might be helpful to make that a little clearer above. “First… then send a ship.” This is not really helping my engagement with Ata and E. But I don’t know enough about the characters to know what makes sense. I almost want to see Ata say “no, I need to go take care of getting G4 here” as a sign that yeah, seducing E was the most important thing to do that day, but this has shaken her priorities. She’s just had this realization that is a BIG DEAL, where she knows she’s just about the only person who can walk Or through the world-shattering, life-changing knowledge she’s about to receive, but alright. Off to bed. I don’t know enough about E or Ata to know what fits their characters, but this ending isn’t exactly earning them points in my mind.

I'd like a spot for Monday, please

Welcome back! I enjoyed this chapter a lot. As someone who hasn’t read the other books, I think this was helpful for getting the basics of what’s been going on elsewhere. Especially in the sense of knowing where Or-‘s expectations and goals match up with what’s actually happening. And also what she’ll be walking into when she manages to get in touch with At-. Pg 2: “other stats she didn’t understand.” Stats seems like an odd word choice here. I like that they basically have their own form of the annoying helpful paperclip from Word. “Noting that, she sat up” missing comma, I think? Also, animal fur dress and booties? I have questions. Why does she think they’re a hologram? “…hologram, well, she…” The way I’m interpreting her thought process here, I’m thinking it’s the sort of change of thought direction that would want an ellipses or em-dash. Or some physical reaction that’s signifying a change in thought direction. Or something. Something about it seems a little off. Pg 3-4: I assume the “hologram humor” on 4 is a reference to the repetition of “for research”? I think there is a little too much text in-between for that to be intuitive. Also, she’s now officially assuming they’re a hologram? But I’m still not sure why, or what that means to her. Oh, the annoying cheerfulness of animated user-interface-assistants. Pg 6-10: The helpless floundering through her thoughts and emotions on the call and desperately trying to process the information that’s being thrown at her is really great. Pg 12: “The call disconnected.” Ouch. Man. Just. Ouch.

1 (and sort of 2 as well). I was pretty well engaged throughout. I think some of the conversations could use some trimming and smoothing (or, in this case, un-smoothing, to add in some of the social awkwardness and emotion to fit a high school romance), but I was glad to see W confront N about what was going on and to see her put her foot down in regard to A’s social scheming. I like the changes in character dynamics that those conversations bring about and think the progress W is making in regard to figuring out her emotions and feelings about all involved (N and E are both nicer and more trustworthy than we thought. A is…not.) is great. 3. Some parts definitely do, and others are on the right track, but it could use a little more work. I included my thoughts on specific sections of the conversations below. Pg 1: On one hand I don’t think we need the transition away from the beach party. But I do like the observations about the changes and the “growing up” she sees from E. I wonder if adding that aspect into her conversation with E at the beach would give this chapter a cleaner opening jumping right into moving forward? I like the conversation between W and A going into page 2, but think it might go on longer than it needs to. I think it does a good job in stressing the disconnect between their personalities, where A just doesn’t even seem to really understand W’s introverted tendencies. I get the sense that they aren’t as close as they used to be and have sort of grown in different directions and don’t really know how to deal with it. And while I don’t think that needs to be brought in here, if you keep the observations about E’s growing and maturing at the beginning, it seems like it might be a fitting place for W to acknowledge some of that. Especially since she is reaching the point of being fed up with A's social manipulations. Pg 2: I’m confused about what the final paragraph here is trying to say. Just some typos/misplaced words. Pg 3: I like that this conversation takes place in a setting that shows W’s strengths, where usually she seems off-balance in social situations. Even if it’s mostly of a reason to have them run into each other. It makes sense for her to be more comfortable talking to him “on her ground” than out somewhere else. In regard to romance here, I do think there could be a little more emphasis on W being a little nervous about him suddenly appearing, if she’s been thinking about him a lot but hasn’t quite figured out what she feels about him. Even if it’s just a brief moment of nervous embarrassment before burying herself in comfortable math explanations to avoid the things she is having trouble processing. Also, it says “prom” here, but I thought it had been homecoming. Pg 4/5: Once N compliments W here, it makes sense for her to get pulled back out of being math-focused and getting a little more nervous and embarrassed again. Though I might suggest adding a line stressing that she doesn’t know what to make of him complimenting her. It’s implied to some extent, but mentioning that she’s only really used to compliments from E and her parents could suggest general self-conscious nervousness instead of attraction-specific nervousness. The “it’s kind of awkward to say.”/ “no pressure, then” exchange seems a little out of place here. Both because I don’t think of N as finding too many things awkward to say and because “But I am curious,” seems like it contradicts the “no pressure” comment. It flow a little more smoothly to cut those two lines. And I had a similar thought with “Are you saying…?”/ “What do you think…?” Jumping straight to “You didn’t ask anyone else out?” and internalizing her confusion would probably convey her shock better. Through this whole section, I think the surprise and confusion on both sides would be conveyed better by shortening some of their sentences. The longer, more well-thought out sentences seem too calm and collected for the nervousness and tension I’d expect between them while they’re trying to get on the same page. I’d expect a little more uncomfortable blurting out of thoughts than carefully precise sentences. Pg 7: “If you’re curious, I didn’t do it” He seems far less concerned about what she thinks than I’d expect if he likes her. Pg 8: Having her actually say “It’s still hard to believe nobody lies where you’re from” seems a little awkward. I think it would work to have her jump straight to “that’s not the point” or internalize some sort of confused disbelief instead of saying it. “go through my Taekwondo…” this is the mindset I would have expected above when she first sees N as well. The sort of “I don’t know how to handle emotions about boys, but I do understand math.” Pg 9: “…I’m amazed anyone at all is able to make it through.” Hah. Yeah. I’m with ya, W. Dumb emotions. Making life difficult for perfectly practical people. The urgency in her call with A here does a much better job of conveying her emotions/distraction/etc. than her conversation with N before. There’s probably more frustration and sass here due to their history (and less internalizing/overthinking what a boy might be thinking) but I think the shorter sentences/blunter responses/etc. would be beneficial above as well to show W’s emotion in her conversation with N. Pg 10: “I could go through why the lack of stigma…” Hah. This response is pretty much exactly the sort of thing I’d expect from her. “…beep of the call dropping.” Ugh. Relatable. I don’t think W needs to chime in to comment and prompt A to continue quite as much as she does. Pg 11: “…convinced myself that E and N were going to leave if I trusted them…” I’m not sure what she’s saying here. If she trusted them with what? Pg 12: “cool off steam” should be either “cool off” or “blow off steam” I believe. “accidentally called him and was too scared to try it again.” Hah. Also relatable. Dumb phones. I feel like W’s voice at the beginning of her call with E doesn’t quite fit what we usually see from her. “…ran out of patience…” and “…before anxiety eats me alive.” Chalk up two more on the relatable tally. Pg 13 Goofy smile at the beginning of the call with N is good on the romantic interest front. Would also expect some other physical nervous response. Both from the romantic interest front and the apologizing for making rude assumptions about people front. Fidgeting, sweating, heart racing. Something along those lines. Pg 14: “Aren’t you angry?” I’d expect him to at least be irritated, if only because it damaged W’s opinion of him. Even if he is aggressively understanding of A’s rumors. “Anything else you want to talk about” seems almost like passive-aggressive prompting to explain some other mysterious conflict between them. I think the transition between his relief and her asking him to homecoming could be a little smoother from a verbal standpoint. And I think the shift from nervousness about asking to his nervous response to both of them talking calmly and rationally is a little too sudden. I’d expect to see more of that nervous fidgeting/bluntness/etc. here if they’re both nervous and shy and excited about the dance. “I’m looking forward to it” doesn’t seem all that formal, but I do like the idea of the rational side of her brain kicking in to blurt out some overly formal closing to the conversation then continuing with the overthinking of it on 15.

You certainly don't need to delve into all of those questions. When I go into critique mode, I tend to wander into world-building-pondering mode and just ask a million questions about how the world works. But there's no feasible way to actually answer them all in the text. Mostly I just toss them out there as a sort of brainstorming prompt or something. Depending on what you're trying to convey to the reader, they may be useful for you as the creator of said world to think about. And they may be entirely irrelevant to the story you're trying to tell, in which case you're welcome to just ignore them I've found in my own writing that it can be helpful to spend some time thinking about how those sorts of questions might shape the characters and provide opportunities to add bits of color and definition to the world, to make the characters feel more real. The detail of this or that distant relative owning the company where employees are about 90% vampires is one point where I think this is done well here. It gives an automatic sense of how the vampire community tends to stick among itself and look out for its own without a ton of page time away from the main story you're trying to tell. I think that came across pretty well. I didn't comment on it because I think a lot of other people here will have more helpful feedback on how its presented than I would (and because I had already rambled on about a lot of things). I did have a sort of concern (though concern feels like too strong of a word...) about the sleepover memory, where it's addressing both D's human vs. vampire conflict and the aro vs. alloromantic conflict (is that the right term? Someone please correct me if not.) and I would be cautious about conflating those things. The way things are set up now, that's going to be difficult to do, because the way they're set out falls along similar lines. I'd almost want to see someone from the human community pointed out as a contrast to her vampire community. A human friend who is aro, but it's accepted by their community. D still might feel alienated from the person based on other human vs. vampire cultural misunderstandings, and alienated from other vampires because of her disconnect with their soulmates thing, but I think having a contrast between those two conflicts (or to focus in on one and not try to deal with both) is important.

Welcome! Always nice to have new members of the group! Overall: The writing overall (beyond my obsession with overanalyzing verb tenses) is really smooth and readable. I would say that I didn’t entirely get the feeling that the story felt complete, but I think that’s partly because I didn’t get the sense of significant change in D’s view of the world from beginning to end. She starts out being skeptical of the social pressures put on her to be with B, and at the end, she has given in to those social pressures. However, I didn’t get a good sense that it was some notable change in her beliefs or view of the world that pushed her to that, and am not entirely convinced that she is fully on board with the decision. She seems to want to do something different from what is standard for vampire culture after B has been turned, but if that’s the case, I think the more interesting question isn’t whether or not she gives into the social pressure to turn B but what happens next? Does she feel like she fits better into the vampire social structure? Does she develop the weird obsession with B that everyone expects her to have? Where’s it leave B? The question that the story covers seems relatively simple for the word count, and isn’t as interesting to me as the question of what her decision at the end means for all involved. The dialogue feels natural, but I don’t have as much sense of who the characters are as I’d like. I like the hints I get of D, but feel like I don’t really understand her all that much since the main aspect of her that we see is will she or won’t she turn B into a vampire? I think there are some really interesting worldbuilding aspects here that I would love to see dug into more. Or just to have the gaps filled in. There’s a lot of focus on the soulmate/heart transfer aspect of it, but I’d be really interested to see how that impacts the rest of vampire culture and what they’re all doing for eternity now that they’ve gotten the thing that Dad seems to think is the most important detail figured out. Pg 1: I think we need to know about the vampire involvement earlier. The cutting out of hearts (or even the more standard human reproduction process) is not something I generally associate with vampire myths, so I was just really confused and concerned about why we were performing surgery on seemingly dead babies, and how dark this was going to get with the creepy, obviously-in-denial parents, or potential cult-sacrifice-y sorts of behaviors. “measly eleven-and-a-half” I’m not sure what this phrase is supposed to imply beyond telling us her age. Pg 2: I’m not sure what to take from the paragraph about the family moving around a lot (though that on its own isn’t a problem). The warm, supportive upbringing is clear, but I don’t see where her mom picking up and going to travel the world fits into that. I feel like without some reason for the moves, it hints at a sort of restlessness or trying to escape something that seems to contradict what we’re being told. It’s hard to tell what we’re supposed to take as just D’s perception and what we’re supposed to take as actual reality. Also, the “whenever unable to approach her parents with a concern” seems like it’s referring to someone older than eleven. Also, the last sentence of that paragraph, as well as the line from her father following it, do a verb tense jump. The jump to present tense in the new scene seems a little more natural, especially starting off with the “Now an adult” clarification. I get a good feel for the “all of the vampires know all of the other vampires” sort of setting at the start of this scene, which is helpful, and makes a little more sense of some of the previous scene. Pg 3: “another employee” I assume this is saying that B is an employee at the café, but at first glance, my mind is torn between this being “another employee” at the HVAC company, in which case, how does she know that? And the line referring to D as an employee of the café, when we’ve just been told she works elsewhere. I like the initial interaction between D and B being not really between them but between D and the more abstract “her heart” “tight-lipped teeth” this comes across strangely. I assume it’s supposed to be stressing the vampire-ness of it by referring to teeth, but I can’t get past the “teeth have lips?” thought. I like the idea of using phrasing that reflects the toothiness of vampires, but combining it with tight-lipped seems distracting. You’ll want to go carefully through her remembered conversation with her father to make sure verb tenses are correct. If the whole piece here was in past tense, I’d jump up on my past-perfect-tense soapbox, but it gets a little more complicated when this portion of the piece is in present tense, referring to the conversation in the past. I think normal past tense is mostly fine (maybe? There’s a reason I don’t write present tense. The overthinking would make me crazy), but you’d at least want past-perfect for “when she had finally pried the information out…” or possibly “after she’d pried the information out…” for further clarification and accuracy. I’m not sure if the “Her father twisted his hand to demonstrate…” should have D’s thoughts in present tense, or if these were her thoughts at the time of the conversation with her father. Might want to make sure that what you’re getting at there comes across a little more clearly. You could also rework those paragraphs to make sure there’s one clear “past narrative” within the “present narrative” to simplify things. Pg 4: “if D did not meet her father later that evening” goes into the same box as above, where you might want to rework the paragraph a little to make the consistency of verb tenses simpler. Pg 5: “pack of frozen blood”: So they drink tea, but also blood? Also, this begs the question of where the blood is coming from, though that seems like it would probably be a distraction from the story you’re telling. Also, I find it a little difficult to believe that her dad’s exuberance could be put off through the process of tea-making. Dad seems far more pushy about this than I feel like he should be. Which might be the point, but I feel like there should be a clearer indication of that. I get the impression (based on Mom’s absence) that things between him and D’s mom aren’t as magically perfect as he seems to expect from these vampire matches. But Mom’s absence is only briefly mentioned and we aren’t given enough explanation or reaction to that detail for me to really be sure of that. If he is super enthusiastic about D’s match as a sort of denial of how his own life is going and hoping D will prove that the system isn’t broken, I’d want more indication of that. If he’s actually just super enthusiastic about D’s match, what’s going on between him and Mom? Are they actually on good terms? Or is he just a sort of mindless drone created by the heart transfer thing? The childish petulance described in his tone at one point seems to suggest something’s a little off beyond him being overenthusiastic. I think there is good groundwork set out for the takeaway to go in any number of directions, but as a reader I’m feeling a little lost as to what we’re supposed to be expecting at this point. Pg 8: I don’t really get a good sense of who D is outside what she does or doesn’t feel about B and what’s expected of her. And we don’t really even get that much from B. What does he think of this whole thing? He seems nice enough. Does she have friendly feelings toward B (or anyone else for that matter) outside the matter of the whole heart transfer thing? I think the main thing that bothers me about the premise is that it seems to be all or…nothing? Maybe? There isn’t really an alternative mentioned. You end up with your soulmate and bring them into the vampire family circle. Other than the point that D doesn’t really understand the girls at the sleepover (which, to be fair, I was never really comfortable with sleepover gossip either), I don’t really know how the vampires interact with the rest of the world. They go to cafes. They travel. They go to school among humans. They work with humans to some extent, even if the population percentages are pretty skewed. But there’s no mention of anyone else D interacts with beyond Dad. Where did the rest of the supportive social circle she grew up with go? It just seems like even if this is a huge thing in vampire culture, it isn’t the only thing (or what are they doing with the other 90% of their time?) and I think that makes the world feel less lived in than it could. We get interesting parts of it, but it doesn’t feel like the rest of it is filled in. Pg 9: I feel like there is supposed to be more significance to the ring than I am getting. Pg 10: “…something important you must know.” Is this just talking about the story of how Mom and Dad met? It feels like it’s a setup for something bigger. And if Dad is as obsessed about all of the vampires making their proper matches as he seems to be, I’d expect D to be well aware of the story of how they met. Pg 11: “she asks him to wait until after he’s eaten.” That just seems cruel if she (correctly) thinks the vague “Can we talk?” message might have made him anxious or set him on edge. Pg 12: “Sounds like fun. Living forever, right?” This pushes me back to the thoughts that Dad’s obsession over D’s relationship seems a little off. What about B’s family and friends and relationships? And if D isn’t really even all that sure how she feels about him, is she so willing to pull him away from the loving relationships that he already has (not so different from the ones she has with her vampire connections) with other humans? I’d like to see a little more of how this is going to effect B.

Pg 1: Might need to clarify the pov a little more at the beginning here. I’d assumed it was in C’s pov because she’s the initial person described, but as we get into the scene more, it seems to switch to V’s perspective. Pg 2: This contrast between what V sees as normal and what C sees as normal is really helpful. This is the sort of distinction I’d been thinking would be helpful in earlier versions when we needed a little more clarification on what’s strange just by virtue of being part of the town and what C finds strange even by the town’s standards because she thinks it’s the curse “the floor sparkles” I want a mopdog. Mud season is not kind to my floors. Pg 3: It’s also helpful to see C starting to recognize the strangeness of the town. Maybe starting to figure out that the curse has affected more than she thought. Would she think of her friend’s mom by her first name? I had a moment of confusion here placing the name M. “…but C is sure she’s not imagining it. But it would be rude…” A little repetitive as written. Pg 4: I appreciate that even while demanding information, C stays in character instead of shouting and making accusations. She seems to still be optimistic about the intentions of others, even when she’s gotten to the point of demanding answers. I think this comes across most clearly when she’s literally wedging her foot in the door, then apologizing for bothering G-M Pg 5: “I sleep down the hall from it.” Seems like a pretty solid reason. Soooo…the things that have had some sense of life restored are the things becoming fuzzy? I’d gotten the vague sense of that before, but this ties those things together nicely…Hmmmm…. Definitely makes me lean further into my theory that V is the hero from her school essay. “For good measure…” Hah. G-M clarifying the Mum vs. M question here makes C referring to M by her first name above seem even more out of place Pg 6: “G-M wants to tear the world apart…That’s normal.” Hah. No wonder she stresses me out. But beyond that, the calling out of what is normal and what isn’t is again really helpful. “When she becomes a hollowed-out shadow of herself…” Oh. I mean. I suppose that gives her some excuse for some general grumpiness. Pg 7: “If she must burn…” I like this line. Definitely makes the motivations for G-M’s behavior really clear. “The B parents are useless as usual…” Man. Rude much? But, you know, also pretty accurate. Pg 9: “C is smarter than that…” hooray! “snide brat…” couldn’t have said it better myself, V. I do just want to give C a pat on the head for her hopeful optimism, though. Pg 10: Unfortunately, once we’re going into in-depth discussion of how she’s going to get her perfect scores, I’m losing focus a little. I think partly because I know G-M is making up the requirements and partly because having high stakes tied into getting homework done properly is less engaging to me as an adult than it probably would have been as a kid. I think you can trim back a lot of the detail from 9-10 while keeping the key points (with V’s help, most of the subjects will be manageable, and stressing that the essay is going to be the real challenge), and that would tighten that up to get a stronger sense of her determination to succeed without getting bogged down in specific homework assignments. 1) Points of engagement? Any boring/annoying bits? Mostly mentioned above, but I was engaged pretty much up until page 10. I like seeing more distinctions of what is “normal” in the town and what is unusual enough for C to be blaming the curse. Also like that she’s recognizing some of the strangeness of things she thought were normal. 2) Any bits that were confusing or didn’t make sense? I don’t think so 3) GM? What a jerk! But, you know, in the best ways. And for reasons that definitely make a lot of sense in an MG setting. I think she works really well here and makes a good, clear antagonist for C. I don’t think she needs to be dialed up more. I’m not sure if she needs toning down or if that's just because she reminds me too much of a horrible girlfriend my brother had in high school. Plus she really pushes all of my "Why can't people just be nice to each other?!" buttons. But that's her job here, so I suppose she's doing it well. Really enjoying reading these chapters. I love the strangeness of the world and seeing the mysteries start to get unraveled bit by bit.

The extent of my knowledge of them comes from them being basically meme-ified in various gaming reviews or youtube videos by people who throw in references now and then. Which means that this fits pretty much perfectly into my very limited understanding of the games.

Can I have a slot for Monday as well?

Are we all on break this week? Seems like things have been rather active here so early in the week. A lot of my thoughts echo what other people have said, so I’ll probably try to be brief on those things. Without knowing where things are going, I’m hesitant to say that there should be more of some things or less of others. Right now, I think it’s struggling from the same sorts of things my prologue was, where it’s trying to do too many things at once (introducing the setting, some political background, some characters, a bunch of names, some lore, some magic, an important event), and the important things are getting drowned out by details that might be better to introduce in the main story. I see some of the things I think you’re trying to introduce, but there’s just a lot of it, so it ends up being overwhelming. I’ve very intentionally not touched my prologue while working on revisions to my early chapters because I want to figure out what things in those chapters aren’t coming across strong enough, or what aspects of the world and setting might be more naturally introduced apart from the main storyline. Will that be a helpful approach? I don’t know. If it is, I can let you know in a few weeks and would be glad to chat/whine/rant about figuring out how to put a useful prologue together if you’d like. Pg 1: I like the hints we’re given at the crystals/magic system, and am really looking forward to learning more about how that works. I like the hints at political intrigue that N is mentioning in regard to M, though the specifics aren’t sticking enough for me to hang onto it. Pg 2: Other than being told that seeing the RA means that K is “moving forward with the plan” it’s hard to tell what’s actually going on or what N is concerned about, and there’s no indication of why the RA signals this, or what it means to N in a practical sense (except that it seems to mean that he has to challenge his brother, but that’s not clear til the end) Pg 3: Some of the dialogue feels off. I think it’s just going a little too far in the direction of trying to accurately portray the dropped words and the sort of slang (though I don’t feel like that’s quite the right word here) of a casual conversation between people who are close. Some of that is good, but I think there’s a little too much of it here. Especially to come from royalty, where even casually, they’re probably going to reflect their education and any formality that has been trained into them. Pg 4: The description of S is one thing that makes this seem less like a prologue and more like a regular chapter. It’s detailed enough that my brain automatically adds him to a sort of “significant characters circle” that it starts to build in Chapter 1. That may be relevant in this case, since he’s one of the ones you’d asked for more feedback on, but it’s still putting my brain in Chapter 1 mindset instead of Prologue mindset, where I don’t expect as many detailed descriptions of this sort. Part of that is not having a back-of-book summary of where things are going to know what characters we’ll be following in the main story. Pg 5: Both Z and S seem to assume that N is at least considering challenging J, but I haven’t gotten any clear reason why J would be a bad/problematic/something Holy Ruler or why N would be a better one. Pg 6-7: More political intrigue details that I want to be excited about but can’t tie together clearly enough to make sense of them. 1. It’s fun to see something other than a standard vaguely-European setting, but I don’t have a clear indication of what exactly the setting will be beyond that. I get desert and head wraps and a society that is pretty gender-segregated, but I’d probably need more than that to get a good feel for what I think about it. 2. Not sure. I don’t think this prologue is necessary, but it’s possible that something different would work well, depending on what the story needs. 3. I think the clearest things are physical descriptions, but I don’t have a good sense of what any of them are trying to work toward, since most of their discussion is revolving around not wanting N to challenge J, when we aren’t sure of what reasons he would want to challenge him. What we do get is interesting, but without knowing where we’re going from here, I’m not sure what to think of them beyond that. 4. Not enough things we can grasp onto and start nailing down. 5. I expect (and am hoping for) magic, political intrigue, and some amount of focus on family dynamics. But without knowing what direction we go from here, I can’t say too much more on that front. Hah. Glad I'm not the only one who does this. "....there was a reason, I promise..." Anyway, looking forward to seeing where things go with this!

1) Do the characters and their actions make sense? I think so. Mom’s stepping in definitely blindsided me, but I think her explanation that now the men don’t have anything to fight over makes a certain motivational sense. 2) Do you feel that the plot is moving at an OK pace? For the most part. I think my biggest challenge with the pacing of the overall plot is not knowing what the goal looks like for them or how far out it is. So while there’s a feeling of more being revealed and things moving forward, I don’t have a good sense of how much farther we have to go or what needs to happen in that time. Which makes it hard to know how quickly things should be moving. 3) At the end of the chapter, do you feel like you’re starting to have an idea of what’s going on with the Wood Stove? Definitely starting to get a clearer idea. I don’t know how clear of an idea we’re supposed to have at this point, and what’s still supposed to be vague understandings, but the scene here definitely provides a clear indication of the sort of thing the wood stove is capable of. Pg 1: “the dog which belongs to JJ…” the clause here is a little wordy. Ten points for excellent dog names, though. Pg 2: “He is a very confused dog.” Aww, poor confused boy. “no amount of squaring…” hah. Pg 3: Oh. Well then. That was unexpected. But … puppers. “C isn’t sure whether that would be okay either, so she cries harder.” Man. That’s relatable. Pg 4: I like the “ball of leaky misery” description. I also like that we get more of V’s goals are. Pg 5: “It’s important to be practical…think about it too hard” and “bad smells that have a good purpose.” I like C a lot. She comes across as a little naïve at times, but I think that fits her sort of optimistic practicality, which I really like, even if she’s not always the most direct or active. I know a lot of that is my preference though, and that most readers are likely going to prefer a more active protagonist. So I don’t know what that balance is. Pg 6: “I’m going to burn some things…I want to see what happens.” The best sort of science. Pg 7: C’s energy transfer thing here is confusing to me. I am assuming it’s not supposed to be entirely clear what’s going on, but I think it needs a few more grounding details to get an idea of whether this is a mental, physical, or magical thing (or something else entirely). And maybe a better idea of what is triggering it. Is it only off-balance feeling of the previous paragraph or two that she’s dealing with? Or does it stretch farther back? We go from grabbing the mop with the intent to burn it to the twitchiness to thoughts about the curse to feeling off balance to this magic/energy/something transfer moment. So my mind had been going back to the mop and trying to figure out what was so special about that. Is it her challenging of the curse that brings on this twitchiness? Not having seen it before, I think we need a little more context with what is going on here, even if it is supposed to (to some extent) be left a little mysterious here. Pg 8: “That sounds excellent to C” Hah. Pg 9: I like our strange new friend. The loss of J is partly forgiven. I hadn't really gotten the impression that C is a farm girl. I have a number of friends who have chickens just for eggs, then send them out for processing once they're done laying. So this didn't seem all that surprising (though it probably doesn't need to be as detailed)

Can I jump in for a spot this Monday?

The others have mentioned this as well, but having everything in one document is a lot easier to look at than trying to figure out what order things go in. 59th of Winter: The general level of language and gore is not my usual cup of tea, especially at an opening. I don’t mind it if I’m invested in the characters and their goals, but since I usually reach for fantasy because the real world is dark and depressing enough, it can really keep me from being engaged with the characters at the start. Pg 1: A couple of odd sentence breaks in the first paragraph. A fragment here or there for pacing or emphasis is fine, but in the second sentence, it just seems jarring. And the third sentence should be split into two. “No pity…looks.” I’m not sure what this is supposed to be saying. “…the group of traitors…” should T also be referring to them as traitors in his narrative? The main sympathy I have for him at the moment is that he’s trying to go rescue his friends, but I have to assume they’re the ones I should be rooting for, and at the moment I don’t have a good reason to want one side or the other to succeed. Pg 2: “…for them to be this dense.” So how’d our friends get caught in the first place? “They were in worse shape than they looked.” If they can’t do anything to help here, how do they expect to get away without getting caught and killed along the way? The more gory murder I see from T without any understanding of what the knights are being tortured and hanged for or what horrible things the guards have done, the less sympathetic I am to him. And I didn’t know enough about him to be all that sympathetic from the start... Pg 3: “…only a few minutes...we need to disappear…” A bunch of horribly tortured prisoners seem like they would be difficult to hide in a crowd. Especially if they need to be able to move quickly. 60th of Winter: (based on your age explanation in the e-mail) P seems far more coherent and introspective than a five year old should be. And the thought of either of them understanding what a charge of treason means, or anything else of what the councilman says, is a big stretch. Especially after having undergone something so traumatic. There’s just far too much reasoning and processing and understanding of what’s going on for me to buy the age. I’d expect them to be closer to mid-teens at least for the strings of thought here. And even then, I’d expect a lot more flat out terror. The kids are more sympathetic than T was, since it’s easy enough to assume they aren’t at fault and that they are being wronged here, so you want them to get away safe. And I think that would hold if they were old enough here to make the rest of it more feasible. If they want to finish off the family, what’s stopping them from quietly doing away with two children. What benefit do they think a farcical trial and public execution of two children is going to achieve? Is there anyone standing in the kids’ defense who they have to appease? There are a lot of names being thrown around and a lot of people saying things that I don’t have good reference points for. If we are focusing on the kids’ motivations, focusing in on the specific things they are afraid of and how they think they can fix it seems like it’s going to be a stronger approach. Right now there’s a lot of information that isn’t directly relevant to their motivations that is getting in the way of things being engaging. I think it provides a clear reason for them wanting to find the knights, which is great, but I don’t know enough about where the full story is going to know if it would work better as a prologue or as a flashback later. The Last Day: I just really can’t tie enough things together here to make much sense of it. I think cryptic scenes need a more solid throughline to ground the reader in what they can know so that they are curious about what they don’t know. But without that, I mostly felt lost. I like puzzles and stringing together vague hints in stories. But I need something to suggest what pieces I need to hang on to for later and what pieces I can let slide, and I had a hard time doing that here. There’s a guy and a sword and a goddess. But I don’t know what else I’m supposed to try to keep in my head.

Definitely for the best, though. Hoping to start resubmitting this coming week or the following, so we'll see how many of the old problems the new starting point fixes. And you'll likely get to throw some of my critique points back at me

Sounds like the same thing I was dealing with in January and February. Except it made more sense in my case to just cut all of the early stuff out. So, goodbye, 20k words.

Overall: I’m really excited to finally see the start of this after jumping in in the middle last time around. I really enjoyed it, and continue to love the world and setting as well as this introduction to the characters. 1. I would definitely keep reading. The political argument at the end was a little longer than I would have liked, but I love the world and setting and always enjoy stories about complicated family dynamics. 2. I would say that Goals, Obstacles and stakes are definitely there, though they aren’t super well defined from Ir’s side. I think we get enough general sense of her wanting life to get back to some sense of normal and safety, but we haven’t gotten a good idea that she knows what that picture actually looks like at this point, since goals of “surviving” and “hoping S doesn’t get herself killed” don’t provide a really clear actionable path. Which is fine for me until we hit the inciting incident, but I am more patient at the start of books than most. That being said, the circumstances here and the threat they pose to family cohesion seem quite realistic. 3. I definitely see a lot of setup for the BK vs. Revolutionaries conflict being central, with S being solidly on one side and Ir being relatively neutral bringing that conflict into the family. Pg 1: I like the opening line a lot. “…both diverse in their species …” -> “…diverse in both their species and in their culture…” possibly. It seems a little off as is. The idea of a former mentor seems odd to me here. Even if C’s not as formally responsible for Ir as she might have been before, I would still see their relationship as a continuing mentorship. Even if they’re also friends and something closer to equals at this point. “Her mouth flattened into a firm line…” I assume this is referring to Ir, but the previous sentence is talking about C, so the pronoun reference isn’t 100% clear. “stared at each other in worry.” The phrasing of this is a little funny to me. Pg 2: The description of the restaurant could be clearer. Pg 3-4: Making it clearer that she didn’t find any tuna would be helpful. I wasn’t sure if she was still looking or had noted that it wasn’t there and moved on. Pg 5: “Despite the long trek…” The two parts of this sentence feel a little repetitive. And while I’m mostly getting that she doesn’t mind the walk because it’s some quiet before walking into a noisy home environment, the tie between those two sentences isn’t as clear as it probably should be. There are a lot of names and locations to absorb. I remembered them from the previous reading, but I think they would have been confusing read here the first time through. Pg 7-12 While I think the discussion here gives us a clear idea of the specific things that are making the people angry, which does a good job clarifying both Ir and S’s perspectives and goals and the stakes on either side, it is a lot really quick when there are a lot of new places and names and ideas to be trying to put in order in our heads. There’s the obvious challenge of trimming it back to make it a little more digestible, when it will lose some of the depth to the motivations, but it might be less overwhelming to move a little more in that direction. Pg 8: “BK could be just as bad as…” vs. “Not as bad as he could be?” in the next paragraph. It seems like S is supposed to be echoing what Ir had said, but the wording is too different for that to come across. And I’m not sure if Ir is saying that BK might “let the rich run lawless” or if she is suggesting that they all “let the rich run lawless.” I don’t quite know what she’s saying there. Pg 10: “Are you mundane?” Hah. I enjoy world-relevant insults. “…glittering with fear” It definitely seems like the sort of thing that could just be personal preference, but there are a number of “___ with *emotion*” that have caught me as sounding off. I guess ideally, the action would express the emotion clear enough to make the emotion descriptor unnecessary, but that’s obviously not always going to be possible…maybe I just caught it once and now I’m hyperaware of it, but it might be worth looking at. Pg 12: If Ir and S had been this close previously, I’d expect more excitement from Ir at seeing her when she first gets home. Confusion and worry that something was wrong, yeah, but more showing that “S had always been her closest friend” even if they’ve grown apart a little bit. I didn’t get the feeling of closeness at that introduction that I’d expect based on the description here.

Overall: 1. I really like the revisions made to this. I think it’s a much better version. There’s still a good deal of weirdness to the town that C accepts as normal, which (in my opinion) is a good thing, but we get a much clearer distinction between what is “normal for C” and what is “probably the curse”. At least from C’s perspective, which is the important thing. 2. I didn’t have as many issues with C herself as some others did previously (I’m more willing to accept passive observation in characters than most readers, as long as there are interesting things going on) but I have a feeling this version of her is going to work for a far wider audience. 3. This is definitely a stronger hook for the start, since we have a clearer idea of both what C thinks the curse looks like and the fact that she plans to get to the bottom of it. Even if we don’t know what that looks like yet. 4. A few little things mentioned below, but you made a ton of improvement on the bigger things I was having trouble with the first time through. Looking forward to seeing the additional updates going forward! Pg 1: “She steps over the line.” This already sets us up for a more active version of C. Pg 2: The descriptions of the friends here gives us a clearer picture of their personalities than I remember getting before. Specifically for T. I glanced at the old chapter to see whether that was likely due to changes or just greater familiarity with the characters, and I think it’s the needing to prove she isn’t afraid that makes it stick more this time. “going to find out whether or not the curse is real” and “I’m going to prove it” are saying the same thing as far as I can tell. Pg 3: I didn’t mind C’s quiet observation of things around her before, but she is definitely more engaging here. Pg 5-7 The school scene flows better this time. I like introducing GM slightly later than E and T, but I think if this was the first time reading it, I might have had a “wait…have we met her yet?” moment when she’s mentioned. Might be worth adding a line of description there as a sort of signal to the reader that it’s a new person. Though it’s also possible I’m overthinking that, so maybe see if it jumps out at anyone else. Page 8 I’m not sure if we need the scene break line, since we end one scene with her getting to the house and starting the next with having just gotten home. “heated primarily by wood stoves” missing an s there. This introduction of the Wood Stove works better than last time, since it justifies the capitalization right away. Pg 9: “Her father emerges from the kitchen, laden with food.” I’m not sure how to picture this. I don’t have too much problem with assuming the description of her dad is pretty literal, but the idea of him carrying food clashes with that, since limbs clash with the spherical description.

I know exactly how this feels, and struggle with it a lot in my own stuff. It can be a lot of work, and sometimes really frustrating to try to find that balance, but it will get there in time. Keep at it!

I like this chapter as well, though I agree with the thoughts about cutting the first part of this back. There’s a little more wordiness and repetition in some of the dialogue than I’ve seen in previous chapters, but I expect a lot of that comes from multiple rewrites and the stress editing. “There are twelve of us total…the way she holds herself” This sentence could be reworded for clarity. It took a couple readings to get what it was saying. Some of the conversation between B and W on 4-7 seemed a little stilted. And a little more direct than I would expect from W. But that could just be because I relate to a lot of aspects of her character and am incorrectly assuming she would approach such circumstances the same way I would. Especially when she starts getting uncomfortable about the things B is saying. Some of this might also just be a need to revise the dialogue after stepping away from it for a couple days. Not sure what all the stress editing you'd mentioned was focusing on. I really love W’s beach-exploring-introversion. Definitely a far better use of time than hanging out with popular kids, if I do say so myself. I had similar feelings about the conversation between E and W. Like that the conversations are more bluntly personal than W should be comfortable with. I’d expect the history between E and W to allow more personal detail, but would then expect her to have some concept of his family dynamic already. She just doesn’t seem thrown off or surprised by B’s mentioning of “literal murder” or E’s “He tolerates me for reasons other than love.” I am really glad to see the concept of magic being officially brought into the picture, but E introducing it so bluntly when he and W have been at odds seems a little strange to me. I’d expect E to be more concerned about having W laugh in his face at the concept. “Nobody’s going to find out if I tell you” implies that his main concern is confidentiality, but I feel like there should be more sense of “Now, this is probably going to sound ridiculous…” if E thinks there’s anything behind the idea of searching for magic, or more of a “This is ridiculous, and maybe grandpa’s mind is starting to go…” W is obviously shocked by the mention of magic, but I don’t get a good sense of what E thinks of it. I really like that they work through some of their differences here, but I think it would make more sense for the mention of grandpa’s interest in magic to come after there’s been some of that restoration of trust. Feel free to ignore the random idea, but it might make sense for that discussion to be sparked by the discussion of W’s mom’s illness. If E thinks there’s something to the idea of magic (if he’s been hanging out with N, I assume he knows things we don’t), maybe he brings it up there as a sort of “I know this might seem like nonsense, but grandpa is looking for magic. And maybe it could turn up something that could help her.” I love the “aggressively understanding” phrase regarding N’s reaction to being turned down. It pretty much perfectly fits both the image I have in my head of N and the reaction that I’d expect W to have to him.

Overall: I liked this chapter. There are still things that need to be ironed out in regard to what the reader needs to know about the setting: What things should we be suspicious of, and what should we just accept with a shrug and carry on? The characters make sense, and I like the contrast between C and T. I didn’t quite get C’s theory that A is under the effects of the curse like she thinks she is, when it seems like just about anyone could fit that category. I don’t have a clear enough picture of what she thinks is an indicator of being cursed and what she thinks is just part of life in town. And I’m not sure what makes A stand out other than his saying he’d been somewhere else. In which case it seems odd that she’d compare her circumstances to his. No tone issues that I noticed. Pg 1: “…held together by crude stitches and fraying pride.” I really like that line. “Every Friday, C helps T…” This and what follows sort of surprised me, since I hadn’t gotten the impression that C was all that close to the other kids. Even if they’re not super close, it might be helpful to get a clearer hint early on that C and T get along better than C does with the others. “I didn’t know they came in green.” Hah. Pg 2: I’m still getting used to reading present tense, so it might just be my brain trying to change things that it’s not used to, but I think it might make a few spots a little smoother by changing “…are *verb*ing…” phrases to just “…*verb*…”. “Stray cats are nesting in a few of them” -> “Stray cats nest in a few of them.” “…so close to the television that his knees are touching the stand” -> “…so close to the television that his knees touch the stand.” Pg 3: “They don’t know whether he is aware of this.” Isn’t “whether” always supposed to have an “or” connected to it? Or is that just my habit? The “or not” is sort of implied, but I wonder if it should be “if” instead of “whether” here. “It hadn’t crossed her mind…” I don’t see the connection between “if A really had left town” and him being under the same curse as C. If anything, I would think that would draw greater distinctions between them, if she and most of the others in the town (who she hasn’t had this thought about) haven’t left the town but he has. Why would it be something that she has in common with him that she doesn’t have in common with the others? “Is C going to end up like him?” Not sure what “like him” means. Other than the disintegrating into the chair (which seems to fit a world where C’s parents look like a bowling ball and skeleton), I’d assumed that his rambling about the past had just been age-related. And while wondering if she’ll be like that when she’s old makes sense to some extent (depending on how people actually age here), she seems to directly associate it with the curse. “…some of the ice that builds up in the freezer…” This should be “had built up” since even in present tense, the ice would have built up before she’s scraping it. Similarly, “A- has drifted” should probably be “had drifted” I think, since the drifting into the story had occurred while T was doing things in the kitchen, and in the “now” (when the kitchen things have been done) he is already in the story. About his youth. Pg 4: “V…is standing at the front door.” Similar to the “are *verb*ing” comments above. Should this be “V…stands at the front door.”? I’m sure there are reasons to go one way or the other on both of these, but I haven’t worked with present tense enough to have thought about it extensively, so I’m just going by general feel. “…not enough to confirm or disprove her theory.” What theory? Just that A- might be telling the truth about his experiences outside the town? “…those windows.” What windows? I know the barn is mentioned right after, but it hadn’t been mentioned before now, and since we’re inside, “gesturing towards a barn” isn’t giving me a good sense of the physical layout. I’m not sure when in the discussion C actually goes outside, but the visual description should come after that. I’m also not sure what “normal barn” implies. Since my instinctive thought was “barns have windows?” But apparently that comes from living in an area where a bunch of old houses have old windowless barns attached to them. And where it gets cold enough that putting any holes in your walls, even to let light in, isn’t worth it from a keeping-whatever’s-inside-from-freezing perspective. I feel like this probably isn’t as big a deal as my mind is making it, but it was a sticking point, so I wanted to mention it. Pg 5: “T agrees and thinks for a few moments.” Tense error. “somebody needs to be the skeptical one.” I wouldn’t expect that to be C based on what I’ve seen from her so far. Pg 6: “…one more piece of evidence for her theory…” is it, though? If they’d just said it couldn’t have flown in without someone noticing? Pg 8: “And now that T thinks of it, C has always been…” The “And” here suggests it’s a continuation of the previous thought, but the contrast of C’s helpfulness with her being “twitchy and weird” doesn’t quite follow that. I like the contrast here between what we’ve seen of C’s character and what we now see of T’s. Where T is more responsive to the things she sees as strange and needing solved than C was. I really like the last line. Definitely makes me want to continue on from here.