Silk

Sorry I’ve been slow, I’ve had my head down on another project. As I read: Maybe WRS, but as Xan and C sit here talking about whether C is to be allowed to come with, I have no idea what Xan’s actual plan is or where he’s going. P3 “…young, stupid, and after something other than vengeance.” Lol. Great line. P5 “He wanted to come… and he has as much right…” There’s an opportunity for him to assert himself even more clearly here, depending on how you want to characterize this moment – he could say something like “I told him he could” if you really wanted to emphasize the growth here. P7/8 “A’s soldiers broke into formation and engaged them” wait, I though A and M were handling the monsters and that the soldiers would be splitting off. P8 having a hard time picturing the layout here – are they inside or outside of the sphere? If there is a tunnel connecting the sphere to the ocean, why is the sphere not full of water? How do M and A get into the sphere? P9 “She did want to inform Xan” – so Xan is far enough away that he can’t track her visually? But also, she hasn’t really gotten anything to inform him of, aside from the fact that H is baiting her Unless they weren’t expecting him to be here. Edit: Ah, it looks like it’s the latter. So wait, if H already knows where she is, enough to figure out what she’s doing, why is him tracking her a concern? Or is A thinking this is actually a bluff and he doesn’t know what she’s up to right now? Overall: The first few pages of the chapter dragged for me, it felt like we were spending a lot of time on preparations and goodbyes, but without getting terribly specific. The second half of the chapter worked better, but I was surprised that A and crew seemed to be surprised themselves when G showed up. A little more establishing of the expectations in the early bits—like they weren’t expecting the bad guys to show up because the bad guys were off doing XYZ, or they were expecting them but now they’re here and the situation is so much more desperate than they expected, or so forth—might make the end of the chapter hit a little harder.

Sounds good!

Welcome! I know you messaged me about joining a while ago, but it's good to see you around

@strange24 Please do. Any other takers?

I also agree.

I'd echo @Mandamon and @strange24 this time around P1 the note that A had to learn to interface with the doors made me realize/reminded me that there’s still thing I feel like I don’t know about the psionics and who has access to what – it’s mentioned that the doors are a bureaucratic secret, but isn’t A a bureaucrat? And since it seems like a lot of people have access to psionics even if we don’t necessarily expect them to (see: G’s summoning in the previous chapter) those doors seem like they may not be terribly secure… Edit: Ah, you hung a lantern on it pretty much immediately after I had the thought. This moment of joy from the soldiers is great, but I actually had no idea the console was the thing placing limits on what they could and couldn’t do, as opposed to being a matter of training. The lifespan piece works better because we knew something was restricting their lives unnecessarily. (I assumed someone wasn’t going around and offing all these soldiers, ahem, manually, but didn’t know other than that.) If the soldiers were actually sickening and dying and a certain point, that might be interesting to play up more. In-world, I wonder what the justification for this restriction is, if there is one. P3 “Xan rand a hand through T’s hair…” are they an item? P4 “One rogue overseer could free us all…” Mm, yeah, that’s actually a good point Makes me wonder how this has stood for so long especially if the enemies aren't particularly smart. If nothing else, I‘m surprised nobody has tried to use this for their own ends. P8 Took me a second to remember what “the body” was referring to. I’m… surprised at the notion that B might have been puppeting dead bodies in monster forms for… reasons? I always assumed he was alive at first. P12 “T flashed a polite smile.” She seems less on board with some of the stuff she’s experiencing now than in the first chapters of the book, when she seemed just fine to help soldiers etc. I’m curious about the difference. Overall: this feels a bit like the breathing room we were talking about needing after the last chapter ended! Although it addresses some different things – it’s still weird to me that we haven’t talked about the Queen’s death basically at all, except briefly to propose (and then reject) propping A up in her place. As for the relationship between M and A, it feels like a nice moment, but again like we don’t have all the setup that supports it. There has been some contention between M and A but on the page, it’s mostly been in-the-moment stuff. We know that there was a previous relationship between M and A when M was P, but don’t have much information on what that relationship was. Plus, the previous A/P relationship plot thread seemed to drop off when P died after the duel, and even after we learned who M was, it hasn’t really been brought to the fore again. As for your comment about this relationship supporting the defeat of B more, you’re probably right there. One way to explore this further might be to give readers a better understanding of this rebellion that A has stumbled into—it seems like it’s pre-existing and M has been a part of it, but we don’t really know to what extent or what’s been in place before A got here. Sort of touched on this, but agree. Not to get too prescriptive but THIS would be a really interesting thing to be able to explore, and could may be do some of that tying back to the main plot that you were asking about. Good call. All of the ministers we've seen have been leading soldiers, pretty much, even if they don't fight themselves.

Yes, I think this is why I was so glad to see the reunion, but it didn't provide quite the space we needed to come down from the last chapter. It makes the events of last chapter feel less significant.

Congratulations on your first submission! We're mostly about craft here, so we're not bothered by looking at IP stuff as long as you're in it to improve Keep in mind that you wouldn't be able to submit it for publication anywhere (no idea if that's something you're interested in) but as an exercise there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing that. I will say that of those who comment here, many of us publish or are seeking to publish are works so we tend to be a little more professionally oriented and our feedback reflects that. if there's a specific kind of feedback you're looking for, let us know and we can try to adjust our feedback to something that works for you. Comments P1 I enjoyed the description of the armour etc. in the opening paragraph. I missed this kind of description in other places in the story – I couldn’t quite tell what sort of world the character was in, what it looked like, whether she was in space or on land etc. One of my biggest questions as I move through the early pages is what the conflict is. The POV character references a battle, but likens it to an errand she has to run. Is the battle important to her? Is she here because she wants to be, or some other reason? What are the stakes? These are the questions I have reading the first scene. P3: In the second scene, my attention is piqued because people are feeling afraid. I’m interested in the sense of emotion we’re getting! But when the end of the scene rolls around I still don’t really know why people are feeling what they’re feeling. P6 “The presence of his mother’s soul…” this is interesting, since his mother doesn’t seem to be actually here, I assume this is something to do with the stones that were mentioned earlier? I also like the description of the body as alien, but it has me wondering what the POV characters look like. Especially from the description of the armour, I had assumed they were themselves humanoid, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. “You said you would change your path…” Ah, now this is interesting. Gives me a sense of what’s at stake for the characters. Until now all I know is that there’s been or is going to be a battle somewhere and that a kid wants his mother. So… D has been replaced by a banshee? Or is “banshee” the name of her troop? Overall: I enjoyed some of the description and worldbuilding here (note, I'm not a person who is terribly familiar with Warhammer). It took a while, until the end of the chapter, to get to what felt like the inciting incident, the thing that changes everything for the story going forward, and I wasn’t sure how the first two scenes connected with the last one or how necessary they were to the chapter. But my main thought is – I think we need to know more about what’s going on and what the scenario is. Some of the description and emotion you have can help ground the story for readers a bit more. The biggest things I was looking for reading this were clarity about what was happening and what was at stake. Keep writing!

Go for it, it's been quiet

Sorry I'm a bit late getting to this one @Ace of Hearts - I had my head down all week on another project. But here now, so let’s get to it! As I read Hah. Okay. I admit it. I’m enjoying this moment of G getting all angry and flustered when faced with the inevitable consequences of her actions. “When they were about to hit she both summoned…” thought this was referring to A at first, but I think it’s actually G doing the action? P2 So was A telling M to wait because she expected the monster/some variety of trap? P3 “how had it broken down their exoskeleton so quickly?” I had a similar question, since M is supposed to be more-than-usually competent at things, I think. P4 A reacts to the appearance of the new clone like it it’s surprising or a reveal, but then we don’t seem to follow up on it, instead focusing on H running away and the logistics that follow. P5 “Not the first word I thought of…” another chuckle here. P6 “I nearly got us killed but comming L.” “By comming” ? P7 “Plus, I have to see real outdoor soil” – wait. Did they not have that at home? Some of it could be WRS, granted, but every now and then a remark comes up like this that makes me realize I have very little idea what a lot of these places look like. P11 “She could give L a pass for today…” considering the stakes, I was a bit surprised that A let this talk of a plan go quite this easily. Overall: It was good to see the reunion in this chapter and start bringing the threads together, but considering what we’ve seen from some of the previous chapters I was expecting/hoping for a little more of it here. N and T in particular seemed skimmed over in favour of a lot of the philosophical discussion – which I’m still struggling with but I think that’s the result of needing the setup, etc. that we’ve talked about before. The other piece I’m still looking for as we progress is a sense of what specifically A is going to need to do to defeat (or fail to defeat, I suppose) B and the system. We’ve gotten comments at a few points about A needing to defeat B’s ideology rather than B herself, and we’ve had some more philosophical discussions related to that, but I don’t have a better sense of what the answer is now than I did three or four chapters ago.

Please do! Just remember we ask for at least one crit for every item you submit, so make sure you tag onto one of the recent or upcoming submissions as well. Any other takers for Monday?

Hope you had a great vacation! Please do. I'll probably have a couple things to submit myself in a couple of weeks, once I'm ready to shift gears from the current WIP...

Probably unsurprisingly, I have similar thoughts to @Mandamon here. I like this idea. I think it's potentially fine to have G as sort of a stupid villain as long as we have someone scary, but H is presented as mostly a tool of other people rather than a villain as such, while B isn't here, so with G being presented this way in this scene it feels like there's no one to really drive the tension. As I read: P1: The conversation between M and A about the queen sending soldiers to their deaths – still wondering why the queen doesn’t have more power than she does and how B exerts this influence over this whole institution. P2: “…the truth is that it was caused by the military complex that he was the mere figurehead of.” Maybe WRS, but was this actually stated at any point? This feels like new information. Also, again has me wondering about how little power the purported rulers seem to hold. “But don’t think I’m expecting you to get through to B with words.” So does A actually have a plan? A hasn’t said much and M isn’t asking for specifics. P5 “I’m capable of putting my faith in people I try to help.” That’s all well and good, but C really has no training or anything on this, so it feels like A’s allowing him to tag along and put himself in danger for no good reason. P7: A has already acknowledged that she’s freely walking into a trap, so the conversation with H here feels like it’s dragging. Maybe a shortened version of the conversation to show the other side is ready for them/heighten the feeling of danger somehow without spending too long on it? Right now it mostly serves to remind us how twisted H’s point of view is, which we already know. P12 “It’s to prevent psionics… you need to have free hands to use them.” Two questions – one, did A not know this already? And two, why is she now thinking about defeating B in a fight, given her earlier talk about needing to defeat B’s ideology (especially when B isn’t even here)? Overall: My thoughts are really a continuation of what I’ve been feeling for the last couple chapters, which is that I’m still trying to understand how the ministry/soldierly institutions work, why they hold so much power over the queens/emperors of the setting, and the nuances of the gender ideologies of the different characters. I like that we have chapters ending on reveals and/or twists as we build toward the conclusion, I can definitely see the structure of how things are escalating, but I’m still struggling to get a feel for all these big-picture things, so while the bones are there, the reveals and twists are hitting less hard than they could.

Please do! Sorry for my slow reply, I’m actually at a Writing Excuses retreat right now and t’s been sort of a full day! I may (or may not) be slow at responding this time. We’ll see how it goes!

Hey look! I'm responding reasonably promptly for once! Ads I read: The opening sentence of this chapter is a bit of a bear, I had to read it a couple of times to fully follow. “And then came the biggest surprise. Young boys…” I’m surprised by how easily most of the characters seem to integrate this concept of gender into their own thoughts since it’s been presented as foreign to them But also, I thought Xan actually noticed this last chapter as well? P3 “I know that better than anyone.” So presumably Princess L is from a line of clones, but are those clones all trans? This seems contrary to what you set up with A and Am. P4 Referring to the queen as an “insurgent” seems inaccurate. If there is a power structure outside the queen, I don’t understand it well enough to understand what she is rebelling against. Edit: Ditto the later comment about occupying a factory. Can’t the queen just have it shut down? P6 “What about the fact that they’re all going to get their memories wiped…” Wait, so what actually is the plan here? I had assumed it was close the factory and cut the ministry off from this labour source all together, at least at this specific factory, but apparently they’re still going to get turned into soldiers regardless? Edit: I actually think the “we need soldiers, we have to keep some of this system in place for the greater good” is a really interesting conflict to pull on. What I’m not understanding is the practicalities of this factory occupation and what (and how) it’s supposed to achieve. P12 “Not everything we figure out is gifted to us…” Yeah, that line from I struck me sort of oddly, pretty much for the reason Xan says. Glad it’s called out here. “Give the kids easier hour and make up the labour with teenage soldiers…” I’m still not understanding how the factory works and what the insurgents are actually looing to change. Also wondering why Xan being born at the same time as Zo meant that one of them was supposed to have been killed? Wouldn’t the extra soldier just have been put to work? I think this could be as simple as “we only have resources for one and view you all as interchangeable/replacable” but there needs to be a reason. Overall: There’s some interesting stuff in this chapter, but it went on a little long without much happening—it felt more focused on explaining stuff that had happened before than setting up the stakes for what comes next, which is probably why it felt a little dense. For me, it also meant the development at the end of the chapter (which is great as a thing that happens) comes as a total surprise. The “bureaucracy” as a force really hasn’t had much development, so I don’t understand what the specific aims of the characters are in this chapter—which I touched on a couple of places—or how much danger there is in them doing it. Is the development at the end of the chapter viewed by the characters as an inevitability, but one worth whatever specific end they’re hoping to achieve? Or is it a real danger but one that may or may not happen? Those two things will have a very different feel, and I think understanding that better will help the chapter land more powerfully.