Line by line:
There are a few places where the narrative references “I/my/me” instead of sticking with third person: see top of pg1, bottom of pg3, twice on p14
P1 “small white mushroom cloud” I like the description here, it’s nicely ominous.
p2: Does the apartment have smoke alarms? If it does I would assume they would be going off given the description on p2.
P2 “Two pairs of baleful blue eyes” typo or does this demon actually have four eyes? I mean, I’m on board with the latter.
For the most part the demon is referred to with male pronouns, but occasionally “it” is used. May be worth going over for consistency. Similarly the terms demon and devil are used more or less interchangeably, which might be just fine but is going to give us as readers a different sense of your worldbuilding.
“…to obey the spirit and not the letter.” Ah, a nice little reversal of what we usually see in these sorts of stories! I could see this still going disastrously wrong. I like this a lot.
Top of p5: if N has taken pains to remove anything from the room that might give away information about her personality, why did she leave the china in the living room where it could potentially get wrecked, if it’s important to her?
“An older man caught N’s eye…” was a bit thrown by this as the description here makes it sound like he’s in pretty close proximity, but they sought the booth out for privacy.
Where is N spending these ancient coins?
P10 “...as R readjusted his teeth…” oh, that’s a fantastic detail.
“…for a moment he seemed to know what she was doing…” I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. N is not being particularly subtle here.
P13 I get that N is fishing for information, that’s fine, but R is surprisingly forthcoming considering the information he’s giving away is apparently rather important.
P14 “resisted the urge to change her shirt” I like the sentiment, it’s a nice detail about how N feels about this, but the way it’s worded definitely struck me as odd, because yes, it would involve taking off her shirt in the middle of a restaurant and presumably having another one to change into.
If N and R are meeting again in a month, does that mean the circle of baby powder has to stay in her living room until then?
Overall:
There are a lot of things I like about the way this demon-summoning thing plays with our expectations somewhat: the fact that that the actual act of summoning and waiting for something to show up is actually kind of boring, the meta-humour about how ridiculous the binding sounds, and especially the fact that N and R actually know each other and are on relatively good terms is intriguing. That said, I struggled with it a bit as well: sometimes it felt like the narrative was playing with my expectations deliberately, and other times it just felt like I as a reader was missing information that I should have or be able to glean. (Or getting mixed messaging, in some cases - I think it's totally possible to have two people, or a person and a demon in this case, who are very friendly with each other but don't always like each or trust each other, but this draft didn't quite hit that balance, it felt more like contradiction than tension to me.)
I think part of this is that I often (not always, there are places where it works well!) don’t have a very good sense of how N feels about things or what the stakes are for the conversations that are happening here.
On a micro level, the interpersonal dynamic between the two of them is working fairly well for me – although I’m curious to know how much of N’s initial happy-to-see-you attitude was genuine. On a macro level I don’t feel I quite have enough to fully pull me into the chapter. This pretty much reads like a normal conversation about accounting between two people, if one of them happened to be a demon. We have some sense that the information she’s fishing for is important only because N is fishing for it, but we don’t know why or have any sense of scale for the potential conflict here. Obviously you don’t need to tell us exactly what it is, but it would be good to have some hints: is N’s interest personal? Is there a broader conflict that may affect bigger parts of the world? Etc.
And yes, as @kais and @Mandamon have said, we need an inciting incident, or to be clearer on what the inciting incident is.
Agree. Or, since N is trying to hide her reactions from him to some degree, she could be resisting the urge to roll up her sleeves or some such.
Absolutely it does.
In reference to the aged baby powder, I believe.
I actually appreciated that the French wasn't italicised. Writing and publishing types have actually been having some discussions about this in the last few years. Traditionally italicizing non-English languages has been the convention, but there's been some discussion cropping up in the last few years pointing out that that can be, well, kind of ridiculous and have effects that you don't intend. So there are at least some places that are starting to get away from that.
Personally I'm generally in favour of leaving the languages non-italicized, but if you end up getting traditionally published maybe be prepared to fight your copy editor for it.
Nope, I missed this too.
Line by line: There are a few places where the narrative references “I/my/me” instead of sticking with third person: see top of pg1, bottom of pg3, twice on p14 P1 “small white mushroom cloud” I like the description here, it’s nicely ominous. p2: Does the apartment have smoke alarms? If it does I would assume they would be going off given the description on p2. P2 “Two pairs of baleful blue eyes” typo or does this demon actually have four eyes? I mean, I’m on board with the latter. For the most part the demon is referred to with male pronouns, but occasionally “it” is used. May be worth going over for consistency. Similarly the terms demon and devil are used more or less interchangeably, which might be just fine but is going to give us as readers a different sense of your worldbuilding. “…to obey the spirit and not the letter.” Ah, a nice little reversal of what we usually see in these sorts of stories! I could see this still going disastrously wrong. I like this a lot. Top of p5: if N has taken pains to remove anything from the room that might give away information about her personality, why did she leave the china in the living room where it could potentially get wrecked, if it’s important to her? “An older man caught N’s eye…” was a bit thrown by this as the description here makes it sound like he’s in pretty close proximity, but they sought the booth out for privacy. Where is N spending these ancient coins? P10 “...as R readjusted his teeth…” oh, that’s a fantastic detail. “…for a moment he seemed to know what she was doing…” I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. N is not being particularly subtle here. P13 I get that N is fishing for information, that’s fine, but R is surprisingly forthcoming considering the information he’s giving away is apparently rather important. P14 “resisted the urge to change her shirt” I like the sentiment, it’s a nice detail about how N feels about this, but the way it’s worded definitely struck me as odd, because yes, it would involve taking off her shirt in the middle of a restaurant and presumably having another one to change into. If N and R are meeting again in a month, does that mean the circle of baby powder has to stay in her living room until then? Overall: There are a lot of things I like about the way this demon-summoning thing plays with our expectations somewhat: the fact that that the actual act of summoning and waiting for something to show up is actually kind of boring, the meta-humour about how ridiculous the binding sounds, and especially the fact that N and R actually know each other and are on relatively good terms is intriguing. That said, I struggled with it a bit as well: sometimes it felt like the narrative was playing with my expectations deliberately, and other times it just felt like I as a reader was missing information that I should have or be able to glean. (Or getting mixed messaging, in some cases - I think it's totally possible to have two people, or a person and a demon in this case, who are very friendly with each other but don't always like each or trust each other, but this draft didn't quite hit that balance, it felt more like contradiction than tension to me.) I think part of this is that I often (not always, there are places where it works well!) don’t have a very good sense of how N feels about things or what the stakes are for the conversations that are happening here. On a micro level, the interpersonal dynamic between the two of them is working fairly well for me – although I’m curious to know how much of N’s initial happy-to-see-you attitude was genuine. On a macro level I don’t feel I quite have enough to fully pull me into the chapter. This pretty much reads like a normal conversation about accounting between two people, if one of them happened to be a demon. We have some sense that the information she’s fishing for is important only because N is fishing for it, but we don’t know why or have any sense of scale for the potential conflict here. Obviously you don’t need to tell us exactly what it is, but it would be good to have some hints: is N’s interest personal? Is there a broader conflict that may affect bigger parts of the world? Etc. And yes, as @kais and @Mandamon have said, we need an inciting incident, or to be clearer on what the inciting incident is. Agree. Or, since N is trying to hide her reactions from him to some degree, she could be resisting the urge to roll up her sleeves or some such. Absolutely it does. In reference to the aged baby powder, I believe. I actually appreciated that the French wasn't italicised. Writing and publishing types have actually been having some discussions about this in the last few years. Traditionally italicizing non-English languages has been the convention, but there's been some discussion cropping up in the last few years pointing out that that can be, well, kind of ridiculous and have effects that you don't intend. So there are at least some places that are starting to get away from that. Personally I'm generally in favour of leaving the languages non-italicized, but if you end up getting traditionally published maybe be prepared to fight your copy editor for it. Nope, I missed this too.