Silk

Go ahead.

Welcome back. Shoot me a PM to remind me of your email and I will. So, we have @JWerner and @shatteredsmooth for tomorrow.

Please do!

Any takers for tomorrow?

Pretty much just nodding along here. I try to save a copy of each draft where I've made substantive changes, so I as far as I'm concerned the next draft is just once I've gotten from beginning to end and made all the changes I intended to with that specific revision pass. I might do one or two developmental edits that are draft one and two, a draft where I'm still adding or deleting things but not making huge structural changes, a cleanup pass where I look for continuity issues I've inevitably introduced during the developmental revision process () and a line editing pass - which for me is actually usually two passes, one specifically to trim word count because I tend to be wordy off the hop and one actual line edit pass where I'm reading for things like prosody and voice. I'll then do a final copy edit too, before sending it to publisher/market/etc, but those things generally aren't substantive enough for me to bother preserving in different drafts. That's only about what I do or don't feel like keeping, though. Certainly no hard and fast rules here. But @Robinski, I may have the solution to your file naming problem! I letter my drafts before finalization and switch to numerals once they're finalized. So I might have, say: JackofDiamonds-RevA JackofDiamonds-RevB JackofDiamonds-Rev0 JackofDiamonds-Rev1 where Rev0 was what I submitted to the publisher and Rev1 was the changes I made after getting comments back.

Thank you both!

Please go ahead! Sorry for the late reply, Canadian Thanksgiving here.

P1 “As they followed him…” I think this is referring to Aer, but Aer’s used “xe” pronouns in other places. “pristinely preserved teenage bodies…” at first I was imagining, you know, corpses, but a sentence or two later and I see that’s not what you’re going for. “What would they think of A… A had tried to find their friends from here on the other side…” I like this, and I wonder if it might be a way of upping the tension that some of us are feeling we’re not getting quite enough of, without reverting back to the standard “A doesn’t want to go to Faerie” trope. P3 I was sort of expecting a revelation here as to who the human guard was, but it didn’t happen. I like the discovery of the murals, but for a place that is the “epitome of excess,” can we get a bit more description of the structure? Other lavish furnishings? Etc? P6 Ah, here’s the lantern I was looking for on the fact that the guard recognized A but not the other way around. Maybe move this up so that you can come back to it at the end of the chapter? Overall: I don't have much to add that I didn't just mention. I do wonder if maybe the strange things Aer has mentioned could be explored a little more here--it might give A the chance to ask more questions and maybe help with the feeling @FlowerGirl mentioned about A feeling passive (which to be completely fair, I didn't feel so much, as we do have A addressing the queen, but it is a short segment and giving them the chance to do more wouldn't hurt).

Congrats on your first sub! I am terrible at titling things in general, but especially since it's a longer work, hopefully something will eventually suggest itself! If I come up with any suggestions you'll be the first to know. 1. The gifted control everything including food supply and are essentially thought-police. Nobody is supposed to have an unkind or uncharitable thought about anyone else. 2. The narrator seems to have a hard time swallowing change and also all the rules they're supposed to live with; not sure yet how much of the latter is them vs. the rules themselves being unreasonable. J seems to be the cool friend who wants to give her friend room to express themself without actually getting into trouble herself. A is essentially a nice cop, but still a cop first. I don't have strong reads on any of the others. 3. The result of the trial will take the narrator away from their family, since that seems to be the main thing they want to protect, but beyond that I'm not sure. As I read: Three pages in, there is a lot of repetition of things that might get the narrator reported, enough that the threat is starting to lose its impact. P6: Also losing its impact: the narrator’s distaste for A. I was hoping we would get a bit more explanation of this during the narrator’s discussion with J, but she (? not sure the narrator’s pronouns) pretty much reiterated the “I don’t want things to change” comment from before. Which is understandable, but thin enough that the narrator’s strong reaction to A coming over for dinner feels exaggerated. P8: So the narrator’s parents do know that A is gifted? Narrator had been under the impression the parents did not know this, but they don’t react to that here so I wasn’t sure if it was a continuity error or not. P9 by now I really want some explanation of what “reporting” means. The threat keeps coming up and it seems from everyone’s reactions to be a big deal. Two or three pages I’m okay with coasting on the assumption that being reported is probably bad, by 9 pages in I want a little more info. P12: It seems odd to me that K would plan to marry someone but not plan to move into a separate home with them. Overall: You have some interesting worldbuilding and what feels like it could become a solid inciting incident at the end of the first chapter here. I think the same thing I’ve been commenting on in my LBLs is what’s keeping me from being fully invested – I don’t really understand what the threat of being reported and the trial means, so I’m not as worried about it/the narrator as I otherwise would be. Especially without that information, I’m also having a hard time taking it as seriously as I’d like to as a threat because it seems so easy for people to slip up – the narrator themself is doing it constantly, but always around very common things. Is this a case of the government (presumably) being so overbearing that people get reported and taken to trial all the time? Or is the narrator particularly bad at keeping their head down? I can’t tell which is which. One of my other main questions right now is how old the narrator is. Their outsized reaction to their sister getting married and moving away makes me wonder if they’re very young, but I didn’t get that impression elsewhere in the narrative… plus they have a sister old enough to get married, unless they’re quite a bit younger than her. Some cues here might be helpful as well. But that said, I think you’ve got a solid start. Keep at it!

I definitely need to incite more mobs if you're still getting any of those! Ahem. I'll stop now, so as not to scare anybody off...

Dang, you beat me to both of these this week. Do you want a promotion? (Hopefully I'll get my PC's motherboard replaced this week and be a little more around?)

I mean, if the impression I'm getting as a reader lines up with what you think you're going for, then I'd say you're a-okay! That's what I was originally thinking but... maybe not? Maybe there just needs to be more actual setup of the romance before Aer reappears so it's totally clear where the central conflict lies?

I don’t think I have much to add that isn’t in my LBLs… I’m enjoying the premise, though I should note that I feel like this is being promised as a romance first and an adventure fantasy second (not a criticism, of course, just an observation). I do think the pacing needs to be finessed. It feels like it starts slowly—see my comments about it feeling like there is a lot of reflection—and then the encounter with the fae seems to happen almost all at once. Maybe building up the horror/danger aspect of it more in the first few pages would help with this? I also wonder what if anything ties A to the mundane world. It really feels like they don’t have any problem at all getting pulled into a portal, which I think might be contributing to me viewing it as primarily a romance story. As I read I am laughing at the idea of “a goose gone wrong.” Perfection, no further comments. “A wanted to tell them to go home…” I stumbled here, because the “honking” remark in the next clause makes me think they’re talking about the geese, which … seems unlikely? So I’m not sure who specifically A is referring to here. P3 I’m really glad to see the dialogue here, as it feels like we’ve been deep in A’s own head for a while without an actual interaction or a clear goal from them. I don’t know, I know we’re only three pages in, but it feels like a lot of reflection so far. “Or maybe it just doesn’t like bikes…” is this A speaking out loud to themself? I wasn’t sure how to interpret the two separate lines of dialogue. “Maybe they weren’t teens at all…” This feels like a leap, but is also a really interesting leap for A to make. I feel more engaged now, more like we’re moving towards the inciting incident. P3: “both bikers were wearing hats” wouldn’t they also be a good distance away by now? Lots of one-sentence paragraphs towards the bottom of this page, they’re losing their impact. I like the complication of Aer, but uh, where did the kids go?

Congrats on your second sub! I didn’t have the chance to read the original submission (sorry), so I’m coming in as a pair of fresh eyes here. The interpersonal dynamics between your protag and the other students feel strong, although I do think the scene itself went on a little long. And you have what seems like a pretty solid inciting incident, though I feel like I need to understand a little more of the relationship between the supernatural and the mundane (for lack of a better term) to really get invested in it. Which was one of the big immersion breakers you asked about – I don’t understand very well how the supernatural interacts with the protagonist’s world. Some people know about it, but not many? Maybe? It feels like a day-to-day part of O’s life, but her parents maybe don’t know about it to the point they had her institutionalized? What about how O herself feels about all this? Does the supernatural stuff get the way of whatever her other goals are in terms of life, school, fitting in, etc? Or is it something she actively wants and pursues? Etc. You don’t have to answer all of these questions in the first chapter of course, but I have many questions and I think better understanding some of them would help ground me. As for disbelief, I touch on this in my comments below but – acknowledging that kids are jerks and that adults often don’t do much about this, this seems like a very … obvious form of bullying and mischief that should be acknowledged by someone, even if it doesn’t do any good. Last comment is, I wonder what audience you’re writing for? The opening scenes felt like they were meant for a young-ish audience, I think because they focused on school and home dynamics so heavily, but the POV switch at the end makes me wonder if it’s intended as adult fiction. As I read: I always giggle when people use “Canada,” no qualifiers, as shorthand for “very cold,” but I do realise that some folks actually do this… So “hairspray” in this case is actually hair dye? Yes? P2 So mental hospital/asylum is pretty dated language, even when flip phones were common, and stuck out for me as the setting seems relatively modern. P4 I think the interaction between the school kids is helpful to establish O’s position in the narrative, but it also feels like there is a lot of it for just an establishing shot. I’m looking for some forward motion at this point. It also feels like she’s been on the bus quite a while since saying “this is my stop”… “Even the grass wanted to leave” – nice. P5/6 – honestly, I’d kind of forgotten about the ghost thing, which seems to have been almost entirely dropped between the first paragraph and now except for one other reference. Is this something that is a large part of O’s life, that she spends a lot of time on? Is it something she tries to avoid? Etc. P8 Why does her mom’s braille display need headphones? Or, is she going back and forth between the braille display and a computer? Ah, I’m glad to see O’s mother react to the bullying and such at school. I know that kids are jerks, and that there is often very little teachers can/will do about it, but this sort of really obvious bullying (and general throwing dye at people, which seems like it would get expensively destructive in a hurry as far as clothes, property, etc) seems like it should garner some sort of action from the adults. Since the ghost has never appeared to people other than O before, the ghost’s attack seems like a good inciting incident. But, I think a little more setup/foreshadowing of this escalation prior to the attack would be helpful. Right now, the only time I’m feeling any actual tension re: the supernatural stuff is where the ghost actually appears.

Go for it!

Please do! Any other takers?

Do it!

Argh, no submission for me. I’m too slow Any other takers?

Please do! Any other takers? I may claim a spot for myself on Sept 19. But as I'm still finishing the story that has to be done before the one I want to sub here, we'll see how that works out for me

It looks like you're the only one, so I'd say go ahead.

Hah! This is great.

Any takers for this week? (I've been slow to respond to subs because deadlines, but I do intend on reading through the last couple weeks soon!)

Yes, we have a set format for post titles so we can easily track submissions that happen here. Thanks for flagging, but it's nothing to worry about.

Yes, since there's only two subs I think you're good.

There is indeed room. We have you and new member @Minifyre up for Monday.