Silk

I don't consider myself a Pokemon fan particularly, and I did not notice this when I was reading through it, but now that it's been mentioned I also appreciate this.

Not an acronym, just slang, at least as far as I know. Goodness knows where it came from. Ah! These are typically operated by the provinces/territories, not the RCMP and are, as you note, more about courtroom security than being out in the field. Since this chapter is an active investigation, it should probably be covered by police, not sheriffs (I say that without any real research into the day-to-day activities of sheriff services). Think of it this way, RCMP is investigation and enforcement; sheriffs' service seems to be more about prisoner logistics, and civil matters. What Canadian readers will be familiar with: RCMP provides federal policing. It has a contract with most provinces and territories for provincial-level policing, and contracts with a number of cities to provide municipal policing (Creston included). Fair enough! In that case we do need to know that extreme longevity is a thing, though. I don't think TOM's age comes up until after Buble is mentioned. and I don't know that it's crucial that more info does come out at that particular spot, or any particular spot. It's just that TOM is going to have to be one heck of a villain to match the larger-than-life pictures that Q and Mor are painting of him. Just in general, I should note that it feels like the narrative plays coy with its readers a lot. It often feels like you're trying to build up the intrigue and keep us interested by not telling us things when, at least in my opinion, the most interesting stories often do things the other way around. That would help. A few clues to let us know that's something's not right going into the scene, even if we only recognize them in hindsight, are probably all you need here.

100% agree. Who's next? Thanks for this point. I do try really hard to avoid "filler" language in my songwriting and I think both you and @Robinski are spot on in thinking that it might dilute the meaning of the line, but there might be something I can do rhythmically and/or melodically to ameliorate this somewhat. Same might be true for the line break you mention in the chorus later on. Guilty. Not sure what those more meaningful words are, but totally guilty. You know... I'd been thinking of this as a performance problem. It somehow never occurred to me to just write the line away. I do like the power of "peace" compared to something like "relaxing" though. "Every night is peaceful with you lying next to me..."? Robinski's suggestion of "dreams" scans and keeps the internal rhyme, but doesn't mean quite the same thing. Oh man, speaking of intonation. Funny story about the last line of the bridge, ask me about it sometime As for Robinski's comments: 1. Hm. This might be a performance thing again. I think if I were to change it from "griefs" to "need" I'd need to change the rest of the line. Which could potentially happen. 2. It's never been my favourite line either so maybe I need to revisit it. 3. I'll noodle around with this a bit. Definitely not the interpretation I was going for. This is an excellent catch, thank you. I just tried it this way and you're absolutely right. There's probably more that can be finessed here, now that you've called my attention to it, but this is a very achievable improvement. I actually got some feedback on this song recently and have been struggling with how--or indeed whether--to action it, so I needed some fresh eyes. I'll likely come back to this thread with some specific questions, but I wanted you folks to have a crack at it first without colouring your opinions. I'm also looking to record some professional demos starting as early as this autumn and am considering some sort of semi-public release, and this is most likely the first piece that I'd record. Also, especially as a primarily live artist, I get almost no feedback on how my songs are actually received by an audience--I can gauge audience reactions as I'm playing, but they're reacting to my stage presence as much as my music, and a half-decent stage presence means you can pretty much get away with murder. So, I really have no idea how individual songs are received unless someone mentions a specific piece to me after a show. SPACESHIPS NEED REASONABLE STANDARDS FOR ROMANCE TOO Have fun! I look forward to the cover videos.

Okay, sorry for the delay on this. The flight home/return to work hit me much harder than I expected. Overall, I second the comments that this is a much stronger and cleaner draft. It has entirely lost the "gimmicky" feel that I was experiencing in the first draft. I do think @shatteredsmooth is onto something with the comments about what's at stake for Y. personally, in terms of demotion points, keeping his streak, etc. I'm willing to wait to find out more details, but I think it would still be helpful to have at least some sense of what Y.'s investment in the corp is. Money? Professional pride? Or is this a straight-up dystopia where this is literally life or death? Actually, now that I think about it, I think it's the sense of how important this is to Y. that really matters to the reader (or at least this reader). The details can wait. I had no trouble with Tourist Y. and get what he's doing there, but I think @kais is spot-on in saying that the ending doesn't pack the punch it could, because we're still not entirely clear on the plot twist. I get the gist of it--that the one corp has better technology than Y. expected and that the one Y. is attached to himself seems to be holding out on him--but I don't know why or why it matters. And while I don't mind waiting for the details, I do think it robs the ending of some of its impact. Finally, re: which 1000-word section: I do think the beginning is a stronger contender now (though I'm not convinced that "access port" is the line you'd want to end on) but I'm still leaning towards something early-ish in the fight scene. I'm leaning towards either the section @Robinski has pinned or the Option 2 you identified above. Option 2 is pretty strong, but I think Robinski is correct in saying that the first bit of text from the hijacked feed would be hard to identify for readers with no other context. As I read: P1: "Sending an A. spy like him..." I suspect this is one of those shared-world terms that may or may not make sense to readers based on whether or not they've read other shorts in the anthology that may explain it, but without that context, since the term isn't explained in the text of this story it's impossible for it to do any real work. P1: "He'd used several of N.'s innovations..." If he's passing as a tourist, why does he need tech innovations to move through the inhabited sectors? Or is he already bypassing systems at this point, not just people? P3: "...N. would retain some of M.'s most loyal customer base..." This seems like a high-risk strategy for what is apparently an opening gambit for N (or close to it) or at least one with a somewhat dubious chance of success. Not sure this needs to be dealt with now, but I'm certainly curious to see what other strategies N. has. P4: The first one comes up on page 4, but just in general I'm having a hard time with the curses. These may be a shared-world thing and out of your hands, but pretty much all of them throw me for a loop when they appear. Partially it is because many of them are rather lengthy, whereas actual curses tend to be short and percussive. As I read through the fight scene, custom nanos, etc., I find myself wondering how much of this tech is wearable vs. how much is actual implants. When we talk about compromising systems, are we talking about compromising suits that come off? Or tech that is integrated with the person? P8: "He was already getting warnings from his HUD..." I know a comment was made about the "he might as well fight back" line, but I think this paragraph actually made more sense with it. P11: "The jerk up his leg..." This sentence took me a couple of tries to parse. P16: "Supernova smile" is a great description, btw. Also a strong contender for the title of a love song.

Hah, I've been compared to other songwriters occasionally but I think this is the first time I've been compared to a poet! I'd be curious to see what your initial complaints were about the structure of the chorus. It sounds like the song eventually landed for you exactly where I was hoping it would, but those initial reactions could be telling, too. Hah, I forgot about that! My guitar is tuned a semi-tone down from standard, which is common for 12-string players and actually works better for me vocally, so I typically go without a capo unless I'm playing with other people. Thanks for the feedback! And hey, welcome (back) to the forums. It's been a while!

And now, for something a little different… It probably never would have occurred to me to submit song lyrics to this group if I hadn’t been egged on by certain individuals, who shall go unnamed but who were totally Robinski and Mandamon. I realize that this is well off the beaten path for most of you. If you’re only comfortable commenting on the lyrics, that’s totally fine! The usual things apply: Structure, clarity, emotional resonance, line-by-line writing, etc. That being said, for those of you who are willing to check out the audio track, I’m also totally open to feedback to feedback about any other aspects of the song: rhythm, melody, and arrangement (the instrumental accompaniment) are all fair game as far as I’m concerned. If you’re interested in commenting on that, I’ve provided the audio as well (with apologies for the quality of the recording). Thanks for entertaining this rather unusual submission! (And for those of you who I still owe critiques to, never fear, I'm still working on catching up! Slowly.)

Well, I'm one of them now for whatever that's worth, but I do try to minimize my engagement with Facebook as much as possible, so...

I did not!

Adding @hawkedup to the list for Monday. Anyone for the last slot?

I second @kais's comments about some of the great lines in this chapter. Also, I don't think I actually said this, so: the action and tension in this chapter really are great! I enjoyed it quite a bit. I just would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't also spent the whole chapter hollering "WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS" while fellow travelers and airport security looked at me askance.* *Okay, this last bit might have only happened in my head...

Hooray! More Q&M! Please excuse any typos in the below, I am working with an extremely awkward setup at a chair at an airport gate. “...her pale, unpainted lips” seems an odd detail to appear just at the moment. Q thinks: ”This was bad, this was Mor bad.” Again, you’re building up the antagonists—the old man and now Mor—a fair bit, but I still have no idea what Q’s connection to Mor is, or why Mor does the things he does. Obviously Mor is a real piece of work, but without a sense of the stakes it is a little hard to take him too seriously. If the police have Q pegged as any sort of potential threat, they should have secured him fist before checking on any of the victims, and they certainly should have made sure the scene was secure before sending in civilian medics. Especially in a world as technologically advanced as this one is, i’s not entirely credible to me that there would be absolutely no evidence of Mor’s appearance. Surely there are CCTV cameras or something somewhere in the hospital? Mor had to get in somehow. How does 2099 feel about state surveillance? Again, a lot of building up of Mor here, but what we’ve seen of D so far doesn’t really suggest that he;s an airtight planner, only that he thinks he is. Also seems to contradict Q’s own earlier thought that MOr would have framed him on impulse. M is obviously impetuous and antagonistic, but this is the first time she’s done something that strikes me as, well, really rather stupid. Violently fleeing from police is not a good way to help your court case. And Q is ... going along with it. This scene is tons of fun, not gonna lie, but I am deeply annoyed with both of them for making this so much harder on themselves. So... whether or not they find Mor and actually end up getting out of the under charge, they are wracking up a ton of extra ones here. Resisting arrest, assaulting a peace officer (possibly aggravated assault, since at one point Q almost runs over K with a car), regular assault of the driver, dangerous driving, and from Q’s current line of thinking, at least two counts of theft... p.10: “if I know Mor, he’ll be making a bee-line to his target, namely Mor’s wife” should be R’s wife, I think? Is it nontrivial for the cops (or who ever) to activate a relocate vehicle immobilizer? T his chase has gone on fora few minutes now. So Q told the cops exactly where he’s going, and the cops now have plenty of time to organize a helicopter. Or just have folks waiting on the ground in Yellowknife. Q’s thought about that, right? Right? Oh, so Q DOES realize that he’s now landed himself in much deeper crap than he started out in. I’m glad that the narrative acknowledges this. Okay, if it;s feasible for the cops to attempt to take over the plane that Q is flying, remotely, then I’d think there really MUST be security systems in that hospital that would prove that Mor (or someone who shoudn’t have been, at the very least) was there. I will echo @shatteredsmooth‘s comment about originally thinking M had been shot by a bullet, and @Asmodemon makes a good point about them waking up at a narratively convenient time. Since the police were just charging into the room at the time presumably they were both unconscious for quite a short while, which is ... not usually the point of a tranquilizer. So, I;m enjoying all the tings that I’ve already mentioned enjoying about this chapter, as well as the increased action here. It’s definitely time for the pace to pick up a bit, I think. That being said, you’ll see from my comments that I am having a bit of a hard time getting past the fact that this is objectively a really dumb idea. Q acknowledges this towards the end of the scene which helps. hat being said, I think to buy into this scene fully, I need either to be much more convinced that Mor is as scary as Q thinks he is, or to have a much better sense of Q’s personal involvement with Mor. The latter, I think, is much more important. WE do get an explanation towards the end of the chapter, which, again, helps, but I would like to see more hints of Q’s emotional involvement with this whole situation earlier on.

Keep playing, and hope they aren’t fermented! Especially after three weeks in Ireland, where I think I’ve had all the fermented things I can handle... Edit: just to recap before my life is swallowed by transatlantic flight for the next day or so, we currently have @shatteredsmooth, @Robinski, and me up for next Monday. Only two slots left already!

One of them, yes. (Which you, in fact, have already heard!) Still may or may not submit the in-progress one that I’ve been moaning about. Just need to convince myself that submitting what little I have will actually be useful. But there’ll be one for sure. Considering how far off the beaten path this submission is going to be for most of you (it will be a first for me too, I’ve never tried submitting songs to any sort of critique group before—mostly I just play them in public and hope nobody throws fruit) one may be enough!

Oh dear—I seem to have started something... You didn’t think I’d forgotten, did you? Offer’s on the table now—you’re not getting out of this one that easily... Edit: I am working to catch up on everybody's stuff. Bear with me, though, as it'll take some time.

I’ve got you! Full roster is: @kais, @shatteredsmooth, @Robinski, @Mandamon, and @hawkedup. Given how quickly these slots seem to be filling lately, and that my world is shortly going to be consumed by my return trip home, perhaps I’d better be proactive and throw my hat in the ring for a slot for next Monday right now...

@hawkedup, @Mandamon, confirmed.

Hey look! I’m finally catching up on things! Worth noting, I did read the first 5 chapters, but haven’t read the first book. Hopefully that is a useful perspective. Keep in mind that my experience of the pacing, etc. will by coloured by the fact that I read these chapters over a few days instead of six weeks. Also, as a general note I have to say that I am extremely into Q and M. Seriously, I am enjoying this a lot. That being said... Comments! Michael Buble tickets? In 2099? Really? “Time of the old lead pipe massage...” Um, is this M speaking? I don’t think I quite grok what’s being said here. “The man’s khakis bulged at his biceps and triceps” - wait, aren’t khakis pants? Unless this is maybe a regional thing. “Q thought he might have a decent package between his ears though.” I snorted out loud at this line and the bartender looked at me funny. (Listen, I’m still in Ireland, and it is more comfortable than our postage stamp-sized hotel room.) Q’s thoughts on J and the son seem a little bit out of place here—possibly just because it’s a long tangent for Q to be thinking along while having an entirely unrelated conversation. Nice that we’re finally starting to see the connection between the various POVs though, and now we finally have enough information to start speculating on what those connections might be. Okay, so we also have Inspector Gadget and Pokémon, and they are prominent enough that a 14-year-old in 2099 is familiar with them? Future pop culture is a tough one, admittedly, but right now the references feel a little ... eclectic. Hey, um, how do child labour laws work in 2099? “He really was unencumbered by a consistent thought process.” While funny, this line strikes me as more Q’s type of humour than M’s. Lots of references to deputies in this chapter. Rank-and-file RCMP are constables. Unless these aren’t RCMP, of course. “...said R patiently, possibly because of his chest bandage...” I feel like there’s a joke or something here, but don’t quite get the connection. “Because of the missing person, a person someone was willing to kill R over...” Okay, I get this, Q’s following the thought K spoke out loud through to its conclusion. The way the sentence was structured threw me for a loop the first time, though. Okay, I know you telegraphed the time jump between T’s sections and Q’s sections through the stamps at the top of each chapter. I didn’t think too much of it at the time, but structurally, having the two chapters with the inciting incident come between Q and M’s first and second chapters is a bit odd. It might still be justified if there’s going to be more switching POVs as the book goes on, less so if M and T’s chapters were just a device to explain the inciting incident to us. I get that the novel should start with the titular Q and M characters, but I do wonder if there is any room to move the order of the chapters around? The Old Man is being built up quite a lot. It may be a tall order to fill the character out to readers’ expectations when/if he appears on the page. Some more information about Q’s relationship with him - basically something that makes him human - might help here. More understanding of the two corporations, their relationships with each other and the world, might also help us understand what’s at stake here. Either DM has somehow managed to pass himself off as a patient, which seems exceptionally unlikely, or the police are in cahoots with him. I love intrigue, but there seems to be a LOT of double-crossing and whatnot going on here, and honestly, encounters with DM in previous chapters have NOT lead me to think that he’s this competent a planner. Okay, so, overall. I really like the Q and M dynamic and the wry humour with which the story, particularly those Q & M sections, are written. (Though at times it does become a little overwritten. It’s hard to point to specific examples because the line-by-line writing is so strong, but there are definitely places where you could trim back the writing if you were so inclined. This might help a little bit with the way some of the chapters feel a little slow.) I also like the way the story is escalating and the fact that we’re finally seeing connections between the two sections. That said, I do think both of those things need to happen quicker, and I think that might happen if the story was a little less stingy with the information it gives us about what’s happening and why. Having skimmed the thread, I’d also echo comments about the hospital scene seeming to move things further and faster than the jail scene. I don’t think you should lose the scene with Q and M both independently deciding to antagonize the cops, and I do think we get some information out of that scene, but it could probably be shorter than it is.

I actually thought the system seeming to clear back up worked pretty well. It seemed pretty clear to me that, even if it WAS truly repairing itself, that all was not yet right in Wonderland, and I thought it helped keep the tension up during the final scene when Y. is debating whether watching this new video is safe. A much smaller thing, but “ridge hand” also worked for me. I’m not familiar with the term, but could pretty clearly picture what was happening and assumed it was, if not a real martial arts term, something out of Y.’s training. Urgh. You wrote that on the back of the bus? My stomach heaves in sympathy...

Roger that! Anyone for the last slot? They seem to be filling quickly!

So @kais, @shatteredsmooth, and @Robinski for Monday. Anyone else... ?

Yes, first critique in [incoherent mumbling]. Mostly because I’m still catching up on everybody else’s stuff! (I might need a couple of weeks...) Navigating quote replies on iPad is awful, so I’m not going to. Re: the naming of all of the gizmos: I mean, it READ like you were having fun. Just keep all the names and pepper them throughout the longer story! Re: ‘the breathing in vacuum comment:” I thought that might be meant to be facetious, but couldn’t quite tell. The problem is we just don’t have enough information about the world yet to determine whether it’s actually possible. A little bit of tweaking and the joke would probably work. Yeah, yeah, I haven’t forgotten the song. Just gotta get home and record it first. On the other hand, there’s a guitar in the lounge of the hostel we’re currently in. How hard do you reckon one has to try to get kicked out of one of those places...?

Hello from a train! Overall, I’m pretty into this. Common wisdom aside, I actually think it’s often harder to launch a story almost immediately into a combat scene and make it interesting in any way that actually matters, but here I have a reasonable sense of what Y.’s personality is like and some idea of the stakes are (more on that in a moment), so nice work. Two larger issues, from my perspective: One is the general cyberpunk tendency to stuff a story to, ahem, the gills with gizmos that are very obviously telegraphed as, well, cool setting-establishing gizmos, which you do quite a bit of here, including one in the first line (not that there’s necessarily a way around that or needs to be, but it sure told me I was reading a cyberpunk universe right off the bat). It can make cyberpunk stories sound a little bit gimmicky, and for me this piece is nearing that line. It may land better with people who read more cyberpunk than I do, though. The second thing comes back to my comment about stakes. I appreciate the way the piece has several references to the bigger picture going on - the media battle between the two corps - but while you’re doing a good job of inserting these throughout the story, after the first couple of asides to this effect we’re not really getting new information and they just reiterate the corporate media battle idea. Towards the end of the piece I was getting anxious to discover a little more new information about either the corporations’ role in the world at large, or maybe why/how Y. is connected to them. I think you can probably give us next to nothing, information-wise, but I think it WOULD help to see something new as the first episode draws to a close. As for what to use as the writing sample, I think the first 1000 words would work. That said, I think you might also consider the last thousand words: it gives us an idea of what’s already happened AND opens up to the possibility of the larger-scale conflict in a way that the rest of the piece doesn’t. I’m just on my iPad at the moment and if Pages has a word-counting function, I haven’t, so can’t recommend an exact place to start at the moment that I know would be within the 1000-word limit... Smaller-scale comments: First page and paragraph: “... he would have been an automatic target ... had he tried to access the media systems of the asteroid from the inside.” Not sure why it would be any different from the outside? Is this just a question of hacking software vs. physical hardware access or? Also p1: “...which makes the encounter Just Like Being There In Person” - hah. Lines like this one are a great setting indicator. And I have a soft spot for characters with sardonic senses of humour. Yes please. P2: The comment about not being able to smuggle in an EVA suit makes me wonder what protective gear he’s actually wearing. Is the implant doing ALL the work? P5: “He wasn’t good at breathing vacuum on his own” seems to suggest that he CAN breathe vacuum if he has to, but this is belied by the ending. P5: “The Holo-man flipped another pose...” Capitalized here, but not elsewhere. Flagged for consistency. P6: “It was so obvious Y. was far out of D.’s range before the other man could possibly reach him.” Awkward sentence structure here. P6. I’m a little surprised Y. assumed D. wouldn’t have inbuilt thrusters, since we’ve had no indication before now that that technology is particularly unusual. Near top of P11: “retia match” should be “retina,” I’m assuming.

Yeah, if group consensus is that we’re good to go, then let’s get subs rolling again! So @shatteredsmooth, @Mandamon, @hawkedup and @Robinski ... anyone want the last slot?

Sorry for the slow reply! I blame crappy bus wifi? But yes, sounds like we should give this Monday a miss. Many of us will probably not be doing much in the way of subbing or critiquing. and yes, we are hosting “RECon 1” off of the back of Worldcon this year! In-person silliness, most of us are on panels, and we’re doing an “unofficial” podcast (RECast?) somewhere in the gaps.

So far we have @hawkedup, @Robinski and @shatteredsmooth for tomorrow. Incidentally, folks, my responses for the next couple of Sundays will probably be a little sporadic, since I am leaving for Dublin this morning. See some of you there!