Silk

Hah! Fantastic. Awww! I would have thought it would have zeroed in on the CGs, though, unless those were also still hanging around.

Fair enough, I guess it's just a question of whether or not the cultural zeitgeist has changed enough by then! Anyone else feel a sudden, overwhelming urge to start writing stories about petticoat duels? No? Just me? I mean, if this is existing protocol and nobody's done it at this point, maybe E should start to wonder why not. Might help to lay the groundwork for the later scene too.

That's actually pretty much how I finished NaNo the year I did it, yeah. Something like 24k, and it was pretty much literally a midnight-to-midnight thing. The only thing that made it even possible was by that point, I had a really solid outline. The fact that I was about ten years younger at the time also helped.

M eating the muffin: I have no idea what she is actually trying to say. “Well thank you, Professor Starched-briefs.” Hah. 0 “Could they trust Mystery Caller?” A fair enough question, but since they haven’t heard from Mystery caller it hardly seems to matter. Might make more sense to have Q wonder if this person is going to get in touch again, and if they’re going to provide anything useful when they do. Wait, and now Mystery Caller reappears just as Q is thinking about him, in a “speak of the Devil” sort of way? I think this is only the second time we’ve heard from MC—unless I missed a call?—but Q reacts (looking at the android’s features) like this is something that happens all the time. It also seems odd that MC immediately begins to berate them. “She had seen the lie too.” Maybe WRS, but I have no idea what the lie is, although I get the impression that I should. P9 “M reached out an hammered” should be “and” P10 – Okay, putting my “cop’s kid” hat on for a second: It’s possible that they just missed, but police don’t fire warning shots (certainly not in a crowded area!) An officer doesn’t pull the trigger unless they mean to deal lethal force – it’s how they’re trained. Q would work with police enough in his profession that I assume he would know this – although British police don’t use guns, so maybe he doesn’t, I guess? Same page, “snapped E briskly” – this is absolutely a nitpick, bud I’d go with either “snapped” or “briskly” here. No need for both and it feels clunky. “beeline” is usually written as one word, not two. Top of p11 “Q’s clown clothes layers padded somewhat him” – might want to take a look at the order your here of words. Heat of the moment and all, but throwing himself under the truck, unless maybe he was trying to take cover from continuing gunfire, seems like a really bad idea in a foot chase. I thought K had only put out a general APB? If so why the (I’m assuming) helicopter? Q sees harnesses being thrown down from the helicopter, and then thinks about the mystery caller and I don’t quite get the connection. Unless it’s not a police helicopter? I’m only making that conclusion because Q seems to be thinking of it as an escape route. “The spectators saw guns and began to fire…” Okay but there have been multiple shots fired already. I’m loving the “khaki brigade” description. Also the Tweedle twins. In fact, pretty much all of these nicknames are great. That being said, there are rather a lot of them… Overall, I enjoyed the chapter – the pacing was good and the blocking was clear. I am also very glad that it seems to have ended with Q&M moving towards something, rather than being another obstacle that keeps them from their ultimate goal (although I was concerned for a while that things were going to grind to a halt again in the aftermath, being arrested tends to do that. Ahem, or so I've been told anyway.) My major concern is that the groundwork doesn’t seem to have been laid for the appearance of the helicopter. I assumed that it was a police helicopter and only changed that assumption because Q decided it was a rescue and, in what seemed to me like quite the leap of logic, assumed it was connected to Mystery Caller, who really has not been that much of a presence in the story as of yet. If this is indeed the caller’s doing, then I think we need a little more from MC before it happens. MC's made two phone calls, one of which made vague promises of help but didn't share any actual information, and one of which promised no help at all but did pass on message that Q&M both thought was false. I'm not sure that quite gets us to "sends a helicopter into a firefight with law enforcement" territory. I have a theory about who MC might be. It's half-baked and probably dead-wrong, but it's nice to feel that I now have enough information to start forming theories! (Or, from some of the other comments upthread, maybe I'm less dead wrong than I thought...) Speaking of that firefight, I alluded to this in my comments above, but there is a whole lot of reckless gunfire going on. Aside from the “no warning shots” bit, it seems terribly reckless to be firing into a crowded area unless there’s some sort of immediate threat, which Q&M really don’t present. They run from the police but offer very little in the way of actual violence (and Q seems to come from a place of relative privilege, to boot). Absolutely they’d be chased if they ran from police, but tasers, pepper spray, and K9 units are more probably the order of the day. Also, and this isn’t related to this chapter in specific, but I have been starting to wonder what TT has been doing this whole time. I realise she’s probably been badly hurt, but surely she (and/or BR’s wife) have some sort of agency in this? Who knows, maybe in the next chapter we’ll find out who’s in the helicopter and I’ll have to eat my words! I had to read this a couple of times before realizing it was a memory. I assumed so, and didn't have a problem with it not being made explicit. WRS, I think. Worked for me, anyway - I assume we mean J and Q's son. Yeah, this struck me as a bit odd to think of, it's not a reference from this book I don't think - maybe book 1? - and this is the first time we've heard of her. I stumbled on this too. I mean, I know the expression, but I had no idea why Ei was saying it until I read @industrialistDragon's comment about the catchphrase, about which I had forgotten. Also LOOK AT ME I COMPLETED A CRITIQUE ACTUALLY KIND OF ON TIME What am I going to do now that I don't have a huge backlog of stuff to get through (er, with the exception of hawkedup, sorry, I am still working on that!) I might have to start actually writing or something. Madness I say...

As I read... p3 Does “the reds” refer to the RCMP…? Very top of p4, “hospital room” needs a closing quote mark. K’s comment about “reminds me if you in grade nine” and “I’d have locked you up” strikes me as weirdly paternalistic. Which is fine if that’s the characterization you’re going for. Isn’t it winter? Why is the car’s air conditioning on? (More likely regionally to be abbreviated as “AC” or “air” than “air con.”) Wait, so the MTs have attacked five people, but haven’t managed to kill anyone? (If they’re still in hospital…) Still wondering why the VLs are wandering around the service bay if they’re programmed to hunt other GMO animals, when the CGs are presumably long-gone. Also, releasing a small number of MTs to cause a panic makes sense to me, but I’m not really sure what is gained by now releasing everything and the kitchen sink? I mean, more panic, yes, but it seemed like the panic that we already had was working well enough to further the election plot. This just seems like it would be harder for Gen to wash its hands of its involvement after the fact. And if the plan was to release all of the animals, why didn't that just happen when the first set of MTs was released? If the plan has changed, why? Side note: all of these animals are going to wreak havoc on the ecosystem. Something for book 3? On the other hand, I’m glad to see that J and V are in on it. That negates a lot of my comments in the previous chapter about there being witnesses to the Mor/E scene. I’m guessing the other comments have picked up on this already, but there’s something very weird going on with the italicization throughout this sub. P10 “disuade” should be “dissuade” Overall I don’t have much to add that isn’t a rehash of what’s been said about previous chapters. @Mandamon makes a good point that we’re still getting a lot of various characters (including E and K, in this sub) travelling from point A to B – I remain anxious for things to start coming together in some sort of a way. I was a little bit concerned, too, that E at this point seems to be heading away from the plot. I'd also agree that the POV section from K didn’t really add much in terms of new information. I don’t think having a reminder that he’s out there chasing Q&M is necessarily a bad thing, but yes, the scene should bring something new to the table. New information or a complication for one of the main storylines. I was kind of glad to see this, actually. I think I mentioned this in the thread concerning that particular chapter, but given the overwhelming surveillance tech we have today, I can only imagine that 2099 would be more of the same. What's odd is that it's only just coming up now; you would think it would have come up at the time, or, perhaps, in K's first POV where he's decided to chase them (which might also help justify his decision; his motivations at the moment feel a little thin). 100% agree. Yeah, those references are there, but this is the first indication that we've had that this is something Mor cares about. I think this is 100% what needs to happen. I'd sort of assumed they were plants, but you're right, it's not entirely clear. That said, I don't know that it's something I need to know as a reader, personally.

As I read: p3 "lacky" should be "lackey" top of p4, "sometimes today" should be "sometime" "We're just too busy to process you..." Is she being arrested? If so, shouldn't that just be said outright - and if they don't, shouldn't E be making a rather big deal of that? Ah, I see she IS doing that. Good. I was just expecting her to ask if she was free to leave before throwing an attorney into the mix. Really, if they were going to start arresting people for this - and they probably should - there was nothing stopping them from doing it sooner. There might be some additional charges now, is all. Now E's thinking about her suspension, and I'm not entirely certain why? We've already established that it was Mor acting alone, and presumably if she didn't still have resources she'd already know it, since she's been back at work for a couple of days. "Apologies for eyebrows..." great description. Do people still use "put it to the sword" in 2099? p6: "He seemed to coral his temper" should be "corral." Because of course there are velociraptors. Of course. In all seriousness, though, even without the assumption that Mor has messed with the coding, I'm a little surprised it didn't take more for Mor to convince E that this was a good idea? It seems like a bad PR move, and they have ... not a lot of time for this to shake out the way they hope it does. Also, I was surprised and maybe a little disappointed that the Armageddon option was "let's do the same thing, only different." p11 "...whatever them stumbles across" - "whatever they stumbled across?" I was also really hoping to see E start to cotton on to Mor before the revelation that that happens with the VLs. I think you were part of the way there with some of the stuff in this chapter, the emergency protocols and E asking Mor where he was, but the latter just seems like interpersonal tension during a difficult time and we don't really understand the significance of the former until it's revealed, so I think we're losing a bit of the buildup here--and we haven't really seen it elsewhere, except for Mor suspending E in the first place (which she doesn't seem to waste a lot of thought on). A fun way to get at this a bit might be E flashing back to having reviewed the footage of T’s incident with Mor. The reader is already experiencing some déjà vu (or at least, I certainly was) which I imagine is intentional; having E remember the footage of the first instance could be a great way to cue that what we think is happening is happening, although E doesn’t realise it quite yet. Or, she could start to have some totally unreasonable suspicions at this point based on the same. p15 “Do you think T every dreamed…” should be “ever.” Also p15, second instance of “CGs” – you’ve misspelled as “grators.” As a change of pace, this chapter works really well. We spent a long time with Q and M in the previous chapter which had a very different feel, so it’s good to get back to this part of the story. It was a bit of a jolt coming back to E having been more or less arrested, but I think I can chalk this one up to WRS (see! I used the acronym!) since some kind of throwdown with the cops was pretty much inevitable the moment the bodies were discovered. My biggest comment is that the Gen chapters feel, structurally, like they’re at a very different place than the Q&M chapters. Q&M still feel like they’re heading towards a beginning, while this scene between E and Mor feels climatic, or nearly so. On a more granular level, I don’t quite understand what Mor gets out of attempting to kill E at this particular moment, aside from the fact that he just got back into town. E’s released the vuds and had chats with Q and some cops, but doesn’t seem to have done or learned anything that would warrant her death, especially given the high public scrutiny that Gen would be experiencing right now. E had to batter down the door with the truck in order to escape, so presumably his plan wasn’t just to let her escape and release the VLs or CGs onto the world. And concealing a gory death in the Gen basement with animals that never should have been out of the loading dock seems like it would be difficult to conceal at the best of times; this is not the best of times, and now there are android and human witnesses that saw him and E go down there just prior to that. This all seems very high-risk for very little reward. This is an excellent point. To be fair, there is also the plot thread with Q's son, but at the moment we have only vague hints about how that's going to come together (and aside from Q occasionally thinking about meeting his son, the last of those hints, if I recall correctly, came quite some time ago). I see @industrialistDragon also called this one out. I stumbled too. The name sounds at somewhat familiar so probably WRS, but I did have the same reaction. I had the same assumption. And yeah, the VLs didn't seem all that ... Armageddon-y. Actually, I'm going to stop ease off on the quoting, I see that @Mandamelon, @industrialistDragon and I are on the same page about just about everything. I was okay with this. Most likely an external emergency number would only arrive in time to clean up the bodies. I was also okay with this. It's been fairly well-established that as far as modified beasties go, they pretty much have everything and the kitchen sink down there. That much I understood, and it was made clear early on, though a reminder couldn't hurt considering how much the political plotline is playing second fiddle. (Or third, or fourth.) What's missing for, me, personally, is what Mor and TOM actually get out of doing that, of which there has been, as far as I can tell. This worked, I thought, but I wanted more of it. Yeah, this is a good catch. I'm going to have to cut this short, I'll review the rest of the comments at next opportunity to see if there's anything else I can muddy up contribute to.

I have been to "the middle bits," and this is 100% a fair point. A fact which I may or may not use to irk my friends and family who are from there at every opportunity.

Sounds good. Any other takers?

Yeah, the one time I actually did NaNoWriMo I worked on a story that was already in progress. Totally worth it and I ended up having tons of fun. We'll see. I have a LOT of work to be done before I could actually start drafting, and all those songs that I should be writing instead are calling my name... and looking very annoyed. But hey, the last time I did NaNo I did 40k words of it in the last week, so, you know, anything's possible right? Also who doesn't want to be the person writing an album and a novel at the same time?

Meanwhile, it's solidly November 2nd over here, and I'm still tinkering with these notes and deciding whether I want to do it...

Well, I'm still not convinced I can do anything in time for NaNoWriMo, but I just downloaded six articles on extraterrestrial geophysics anyway. JUST IN CASE.

Aw, is it really that bad? *glances at dissertation-length prior posts* Ahem. Don't answer that. I more or less got your meaning, it's just a bit awkward with the last call having happened a fair bit ago in the text. You've probably seen more of Canada than I have! It happens. That's why we have this group! Haha, don't hold your breath, I'll barely even be home between now and Hallowe'en, let alone costume-making. Maybe next year?

Yeah, um, sorry about that. Rule number 1: Never believe Silk when she says she has nothing to say. She's lying, if only to herself. It wasn't that it was a dumb idea so much as they didn't seem to have a reason to get out of the car to begin with. But I mean, if Q was just rattled by almost hitting the deer or something, that's an easy fix. Never mind, the trucker offered them a ride to Revelstoke, which I suppose is in the wrong direction... I'm not advocating this scene for this story, necessarily, but I would 100% read this. Yeah, this will help, possibly quite a bit. And I wonder if there is an opportunity to make some of those things that do happen, happen sooner? It's not so much about the individual things happening or not, those were just suggestions that seem plausible from my perspective, it's more about giving Q and M more changes to engage with the storyline, and do so actively.

So… “Hojo” is a Howard Johnson’s, I’m guessing? Is that something that’s regularly abbreviated in places that aren’t BC, Canada? Because I had to Google it to figure it out. Out of nowhere, it occurs to me: All of this driving through Canada and we haven’t seen one lonely Tim Horton’s. p24 (again, my consolidated copy), during the newscast: “Sheriff DK has implemented a curfew...” This would more likely be the job of municipal government, I’d imagine. As an aside, I think you mentioned you’re going with a fictional “North American Federation” policing structure so you may not want to pay this comment much mind, but as a Canadian reader it is still extremely jarring to read about sheriffs doing much of anything here. It’s not a particularly visible office, at the very least not in either of the BC locations that I’ve lived. P25 “Q didn’t give a good gosh darn...” Q strikes me as the type more likely to just say “damnation.” It’s a relatively dignified swear word. Also, isn’t he potentially tipping off TOM or DM to T’s location by asking for T first? Top of p28: “...glinted like sundogs.” I know you’re referring to the meteorological phenomenon here but it took me a hot moment to get to the correct mental image. I like it now that I’m there, but it was certainly a stumbling block at first. “Rocking up” is a pretty distinctly regional phrase, IMO. It’s one of those odd ones that’s somehow used in Europe and Australia but never made it over to Canada. In reference to PL preparing the National Guard, he’s called the “president.” Is there one president of the North American Federation then? Canada’s chief public office is Prime Minister. “M tried to like the girl...” Wouldn’t the waitress be at least as old as M herself? My overall comments here remain very similar to the previous few sections. I’m very glad that things seem to be picking up again, but I share the antsy feeling that @kaismentioned, and I think it’s exactly what @industrialistDragon describes, a problem of accretion. It’s not that the individual sections are particularly problematic, at least not in the revised version that I’m reading, it’s just that there’s a lot of it. I suspect that the cutting and cleanup that you’ve done has helped, but the fact that it feels like a whole lot of road trip is more a function of the structure than of the number of words we actually spend on it. It’s been interesting to read the group’s comments about the political storyline. I was actually glad to see its appearance here, because it’s a reminder of the broader stakes. I’m going to go out on a limb here: I wonder if we actually need more of it for it to be effective. We know that the political storyline is, in fact, directly connected to TOM and whatever he’s doing with Gen and E-C. However, we get very few reminders of this fact. More than that, we don’t really understand what it means; what does TOM get out of it? What does it mean for companies like Gen and E-C? What does it mean for regular people living in the country? What does it mean for Q&M? Yeah, this worked just fine for me. I think this has been adjusted in the version I'm reading, and it certainly didn't stick out to me, but as a general note I don't think it's a bad think if Q focuses on the ultimate objective even with some logistical concerns still between him and said objective. He seems like a "big picture" kind of character for the most part. I think this revision worked. I assumed it was a new kill site. I think this is more a problem of accretion than anything. The last few chapters have been introspection-heavy all around.

“...they could not rely on that lady’s aid again.” This sentence was a stumbling block – took me a minute to realize you meant “luck” here. I’d entirely forgotten about the election fraud thing until Q mentions it on p2 (well, p14 of my copy). Actually, there’s something else you might be able to do to alleviate the “Q and M wander through the wilderness for a really, really long time” problem a bit – radio news! Service would be spotty in some of the areas they’re going through, to be sure, but not necessarily non-existent, especially since everything seems to be satellite-based anyhow. What kind of news reports might be coming in that could have some sort of bearing on the plot? Does “Mom” never introduce herself? p.16 on my consolidated copy, “...with these distracting calls” - given what I’m seeing in the comments this must be a remnant from an earlier version of this chapter in which TOM called. That makes sense, because otherwise this seems a bit odd to mention here. Actually, now that I think about it you could probably give this chapter a closer look for remnants. There were a couple of moments that struck me as just a tad odd, like Q announcing at their roadside board meeting that TOM has probably damaged him after years of bullying. It might make sense for Q to say it or feel it, but not necessarily at this point in the text. If you’re looking to still give Q a bit of a kick in the pants/sense of renewed purpose/what have you, maybe you can tie it back to the bear incident? That sort of close call might give Q a jolt if you feel he needs one. Really, though, any major comments I want to make about this section are the same as those I made on the previous one: I remain anxious for Q and M to get to what I’m still thinking of, despite myself, as the real story, and wish they weren’t so disconnected from the rest of the plot. This section also feels a bit like a “breather” section which I’m not convinced we actually need; we had some action in the last chapter in the form of the bear, but it didn’t feel like terribly consequential action. I’m also starting to notice that Q and M rely a lot on the forebearance of strangers, and it looks like the next section is going to be more of the same in that regard. Oh, I don't know, I have some stories I could tell you... I think this is - well, I hesitate to say WRS because I have yet to figure out what that acronym actually stands for (stupid question?) - but it's a result of reading the chapters a week or two apart, yeah. I didn't have any problem with it. I had some trouble with this image too. I sort of waved it off as "fancy future tech," but yeah, I stumbled. And now, thanks to @Mandamon, I will never be able to unsee "1950s housewife Optimus Prime." Shame there's only a few days left 'til Hallowe'en. It looks like a lot of the descriptive stuff @kais mentioned around racial signifiers has been cleaned up, enough so that I actually read right over it on my first read-through. Though that might be more indicative of a failure of this reader's imagination than anything...

Overall, I don't have a lot to say about this chapter that I haven't already said about earlier chapters. Still enjoying the character dynamics, still feel like this chapter was a lot of traveling and/or reflecting that didn't do a whole lot to actually move the plot forward. The bit with the bear was a nicely tense bit, pacing and action-wise, but since it seems to be a pretty clear case of "wrong place at the wrong time," it feels a bit artificial, like it's just there to throw yet another roadblock at Q and M by getting rid of their vehicle. Similarly the conversation between the Old Man and Mor doesn't quite pack the punch it needs. I think @Mandamon has hit it on the head with his comment that it doesn't actually tell us anything we don't already know. It's nice to get to know a little more of Mor's motivations, but other than that, he doesn't reveal anything to us or take any actual action to move things along. As I read: Love the "Eight-ball" nickname. "I didn't know you cared." "F*ing wildlife, you moron!" I snickered at this bit. The bit with the bears is fun and all, but I'm not entirely sure why Q and M got out of the car to begin with... Q declines the ride from the nice trucker, leaving me wondering what on earth he plans on doing to get, well, anywhere civilized? I don't know exactly what it is, but something about the clothing scene I find very effective. I was cringing in sympathy the entire time I read it. That said, they're going to have a hell of a time being taken seriously (or just not attracting attention) dressed like that... I was also fully expecting them to be MTs. I have less of a problem with the bear attacking, though; they're notoriously protective of their cubs, grizzlies (I assume from the size and location that this is a grizzly and not a brown or black bear) perhaps especially so. Getting attacked by MTs, though, could be a fun wrinkle. I don't remember if Q and M are actually aware of the release of the MTs yet? (If so, they sure don't seem to pick up on the trucker's comment about something worse in the woods.) This is a good point, too. Also, does he not know where T is? Mor mentions R's wife sticking her nose in where it doesn't belong, which implies Mor knows T is with her, but if so, shouldn't both T and R's wife be easy targets? I figured this was local colour, and didn't have a problem with it. For an alternate point of view--yes, I think this was discussed in a previous chapter, and also through some of Q's reflections. Okay, seeing the discussion in the thread about story structure, I want to throw out some ideas. As a quick note, I see your comments about trimming back some of the individual chapters, and I suspect that that will help, but not entirely fix the problem. So, some thoughts: This sounds fun, although the concept feels to me more like an exciting chapter or two than something that can be sustained long-term (hard to say that with real confidence without seeing it on the page, of course, but that’s my initial thought). My very first thought was, why can’t we have a single travel scene, and then Q and M arriving in YT at the appropriate moment? But, with a lot happening in the E/Mor storyline, this could also be pretty structurally awkward. I’m going to assume for the rest of this post that the structure of the E/Mor storyline can’t be adjusted substantially (although it may be worthwhile to leave that option on the table, too!) and throw out some suggestions for Q and M. The way I see it, the Q and M storyline has two problems: the size of the landscape they’re traveling through (Canada’s really big, yo), and the fact that they are currently isolated from the entire rest of the story. We can’t do much about the first problem if you want to stay relatively true to the landscape you’ve chosen—fair enough—so what can we do to alleviate the second one? They’ve already got one call from a mystery caller, which in my recollection doesn’t reveal much except that the mystery caller is there, and supposedly on their side. What if the caller revealed more information, deliberately or inadvertently, that neither the characters nor the reader is already aware of? Could Q and M “work” this information somehow? What if the mystery caller called again? What if Q, M, and the android were able to “crack” mystery of who called while they were traveling? Q calls Gen to talk to E, and gets an answering machine. What if he got E herself, instead? Or, depending on where Mor is at – what if he got Mor? The android’s been forcibly cut off from the Internet. What if the crew found a way to crack this—what opportunities would that give them? What dangers might it pose (them being easier to track, etc)? You already seem to be setting something along these lines up with M’s “Hey, how’d you do that?” comment in this chapter. No Internet, but Q can make calls. Does he have any favours he could call in, friends/contacts/etc who might be able to help protect T and R’s wife in the interim? Might this impose some sort of cost on Q or cause some sort of complication down the line? I’m not convinced this one’s actually a good idea, but I’ll throw it out anyway for the sake of argument. We know K is chasing them; what if he catches up? What if he’s learned something in the meantime that could move the story forward? Doesn’t have to be K either, necessarily, since other police would be out and about and could happen across them. I’ll be honest, even playing around with some of these might not entirely fix the problem, but I do think you might be able to find some opportunities for Q and M to be involved with the other storyline more often than they are. With the current structure, I think the key is to find those opportunities for the different plot lines to intersect and affect one another. The other major question here, and it’s related, is how can we turn the landscape from a slog that Q and M (and the readers) have to travel through to get to their real destination, to a genuine obstacle? I think this is what you were driving at with the bear attack, but what we’re missing from this scene is consequences. Obviously Q and M could have died, but how does that affect the narrative overall? We don’t really know, because aside from the encounter with Mor, they really haven’t had much chance to interact with the plot. But, with the right setup, the great distance Q and M have to travel could become a great race-against-the-clock scenario, for example. Where are there opportunities to turn the landscape from something working against your story into something that works for it? Where can you turn it into something that works to increase the tension rather than deflate it? I feel like I’m starting to ramble so I’m going to bring my comments to an inelegant close. Hopefully that is at least somewhat helpful. And oh yeah, LBLs – since I’m working off a consolidated document for these few submissions I’ve been doing LBLs with track changes to save a bit of time. I’ll send the whole doc your way when I’m done with it.

I mean, it's still not written, so apparently I don't need one, indeed Anyway, we'll see. I've been telling myself I would let myself go back to writing fiction once I was far enough along on an album to start production, but apparently I write at the pace of a glacier in an ice age, so maybe I should just do something else for a while. Yeah, that'll happen...

Please do! Anyone else?

lol, fair enough, but in this case I suspect that reasonably well-researched setting will be at least part of the appeal. Anyway, the research aspect isn't a reason not to do the project, it's just maybe a reason to not get fussed about writing 50k words on it in November. The fact that I barely have a plot, have no characters yet and it's October 26th may also be colouring my opinion there.

Oof, yeah. Can't believe it's already almost November. Funny thing, I was actually playing around with a "new" (old, but revamped) idea for a novel and the timing means I could do NaNo I suppose, but it's SF so outside my usual fantasy wheelhouse, and research-heavy. Plus I still need to write an album... Hooray! On the layouts anyway. Maybe you're less happy about the copy edits.

Anybody for tomorrow?

Ooh, I love the opening couple of sentences. I do still feel like we're getting mixed messages about how powerful M is - she's getting tired, but she can also almost bend reality. So, what is D doing while E is sword-ing all the toys? p2 - sword becomes a dagger again. p4 - "But we carefully stepped things" - this seems to be understating the danger of the apparent avalanche of cookware that is rolling towards them. In general, so far I think I'd like to see a little more danger in this chapter. The last chapter worked well with the same kind of stuff happening, but I'd like to see things escalate as we move on and it hasn't happened yet. Ah, perhaps the things that M is now throwing at our heroes (nightstands, metal rods, etc) could be that escalation, since she seems to have moved from trying to trap them to trying to kill them again. If that's the case, though, I'm not sure what triggered the change. M's mannequin becoming more realistic is a nice touch. Seconded. I think that's part of why I felt the tension could be higher in the earlier parts of the chapter. I didn't have a problem with this, possibly because it becomes pretty immediately apparent that it's not just a net, but perhaps this could be mitigated by having it be like a slashed up old bedsheet, or something similar that could be found around the house. Now that my attention has been called to it, I do wonder where M got the net in the first place. Completely agree here. Also, just in general, I'm finding that whatever has the focus of the scene is described really well, but the other parts of the scene tend to fade into the background even when they're still doing things. Robinski's example of how there should be falling crocks and whatnot is a good one. And what does Gremlin (for example) think of all this when he stops growling at the net? Related, I think that we could use some clearer blocking at the point when E is cutting the cords away from the mannequins. Is she going for specific people first (i.e. D's mom) strategically, because they need her help? Is she just freeing whomever she can get to? How is she getting to them, scrambling over couches or can she cut the cords from in front of them or...? A bit, yeah. I know there is now some setup to these lines that we haven't seen, but while I really like the idea of all the toys chanting things in unison, I do feel like the language could be finessed a bit. Seconded. I felt the same way. I know B was mentioned in a prior chapter, but I think we could have used a little more setup to prior to him actually appearing.

Please go ahead! Any other takers?

As I read: "..a spectral fluffy tail on my peripheral vision." Um, is that the dog, or is there also a ghost dog now? A later paragraph suggests that maybe it is a ghost dog. If so, E seems awfully unconcerned about the possibility of a strange ghost dog when it first comes up. Bottom paragraph of p2: Should be Maine Coon. Just pointing it out because spellcheck won't catch it. p10 I think the sword has just become a dagger. A thought as I get towards the end of the chapter: we're told that M is stronger here, but the stuff that she's throwing at the protags don't indicate that at all. The stuff that's happening here is nicely creepy, but doesn't have the same "we're in over our heads" feeling that the previous action scene did. Especially with the comment about the rolling cans that could have killed the protags, but didn't, because M's energy is apparently flagging. D's comment about M trying to trap them does help with the above comment somewhat, I think. It's not immediately obvious that that's what's going on from the descriptions. Might be worthwhile to hang a lantern on it a little earlier in the scene, just as far as the descriptions go. This is a rather small-picture comment, but I think in later drafts it would be worth revisiting the final line, or couple of lines, of the chapter.The image that it ends on is nice, but the actual prose doesn't carry the weight that I feel it should for the end of a chapter, especially at this point of the book. I wasn't sure how they found the house either. I was also a bit surprised by the description of the barn being full of stuff. Purely as a narrative device, I think the smoke works best, but I don't want to minimize the comments around the dangers of it, especially in a middle-grade book. Presumably if you have a properly designed action scene that describes how dangerous it is, you could help mitigate that somewhat, but yeah, I don't know. I don't think it's quite the same as, say, having an MG protagonist steal a car, because there's already a general societal conviction that stealing cars is bad. On the other hand, I was today years old when I learned that it's potential fatal to inhale poison ivy. I see the reactions were pretty mixed to the poison ivy as some kind of repellent, and I have a theory as to why: We don't, in general, have a good understanding yet of how ghosts really interact with the world. They seem to fade in and out of the world as they choose and are able to manipulate or interact with bits of it; what's stopping a ghost from just going insubstantial, or just flying two feet above the ivy, or whatever it is? Why does the plant have properties that are particularly effective against the ghosts, and why can't the ghosts just avoid it when it seems like they should often be able to?

I didn't immediately realize that E.'s supsension was up, and was briefly confused as to why she would go looking for Mor. when presumably he could just throw her out again. Interesting to see her framing this as her needing Mor., though. Somewhat surprised that E, or Gen more generally, doesn't seem to be considering trying to recover the MTs. Undoubtedly the smarter course of action, but the MTs are a pretty significant asset for the corporation, and the company doesn't seem to have a lot of other inhibitions. p6 "lady's washroom" should be "ladies'", possessive plural "The suspicious, spectral voice from the unknown is gone now." Hah. Speaking of which, I like the fact that the spectral voice exists, but this particular interjection doesn't actually accomplish much. It's a good tease of information to come, but we've gotten a LOT of that so far, and I'm definitely anxious for the book to start picking up more momentum. If this IS someone we've already "met" in the narrative somewhere, what might help is having more information to connect the mystery voice back to an actual person, even hints of. Speaking of which, my first thought was honestly that it was Mor, taunting them. That's probably my biggest comment overall at this point. I'm still enjoying the chapters and there are some good complications, or potential complications in this one (like E releasing the vuls - she's very focused on solving her current problem but it would be nice to see some eventual consequences from that - I imagine the media would have a field day if nothing else) but it still feels like we are very much in the business of introducing problems, and I'd like to see us start solving them. Yeah, I'm feeling this too. Not a whole lot to add to this chapter overall. I'm still enjoying it, and I think the things that I (and others) are highlighting as issues are things that we already knew were issues. I look forward to catching up on the remaining chapters!