Paul SB

Hello again. At this point A is recovered, though bummed that she has to give up on her plan to raid the biggest labor production facility in the galaxy and slink off to Twilight's Rift. She still makes a bid for the aliens to help the Underground, but one average ship captain can't reasonably make that decision. Still, the aliens are impressed by the fact that they were willing to bring their citizen back even though it derailed their plans. It does go a little long, so if there are any details that seem unneeded I would appreciate the help. Thanks a bunch!

More fun for Monday, 10/20/25/

What worked: Chapter 17 The more sedate reactions from G shows that he is not a cardboard character. There’s more going on in there. “He should know that I’m practical and happy to seek him out when he can actually help rather than being some stubborn teenager stereotype.” Good line of thought I love how you didn’t go for the fairy-tale magical transformation when K called L’s name. “Funny how near-death experiences can turn even me into someone who strips down to her underwear to share a bed with a cute guy she’s only known for a week.” Believe it or not, there’s actually a good scientific basis for that, though it’s unlikely K would know. “Because he is a monster who must remain docile and subservient to humans in order to exit. A monster who must provide and educate and forgive while never ever taking. A monster who becomes a violent creature simply by reaching out for another person’s touch.” Another really solid observation. Chapter 18 “If he considers the time before now his second lease on life then this reasoning must be what’s kept him going so far, but I’m not sure how much longer it can last.” Another very astute observation for a teenager. What does this girl read? What didn’t work: Chapter 17 The opening paragraph seems a little over the top. She just rescued the guy, so why wouldn’t he be smiling? Nonetheless, a first aid kit in a car is just a smart thing to do. Given G’s Asian parent paranoia, I wouldn’t think he would let K be alone with L when he knows he will turn out naked when he transforms back to human. I would think that being a warm body would be important, but insufficient by itself. K & L like each other for who they are, not only what they are. Otherwise, anybody would do. Chapter 18 The text conversation was cute, but maybe a bit longer than it needed to be. You might cut the bit about outdated slang. Otherwise I think the chapter pretty much did what it needed to do.

I asked a published author I know (not face-to-face, only by email, and having read most of their novels) about this. They suggested that I simply began the narrative too soon in the story, which is pretty common with beginning authors. After I read that, I got some 3x5 cards and wrote down each entry, the narrator, date, and a quick note about what happens. I used different colors for Acts 1, 2, & 3, then laid them out on my dining table. After looking them over, it seemed like the best place to start the story might not be the midpoint, but the very end of Act 1, where they make their first attempt to steal the crystal. Much of the previous material will have to be incorporated in there somehow, and a lot of it can just be dumped. The hard part is going to be to figure out how to work the necessary info without overloading the audience with flashbacks. Some of it could come up in conversation, but there are going to be a lot of things that the characters would have no reason to bring up what they already know. It'll be fun, and it will be a big interruption of my work on the fifth book in the trilogy, but if it works it will be worth it. Hopefully more people will chime in. Where's that ginger dwarf guy? He gives good critique, too. Thanks again.

I think Im forgetting my attachments. I made sure this time by sending a second email. Sorry for any confusion. This submission gets to the nadir of the story, where our intrepid crew feels they have to give up their objective entirely, tuck their tails between their legs, and go hide under a rock. I hope you understand not only why they reach this conclusion, but why there isn't any real argument about it. It's immediately obvious to all of them because of their own life experiences. However, if you think something in there isn't realistic, let me know what you think.

Your main point on this one is pretty much right on the nose. I'm pretty sure that everything from the midpoint on is pretty solid, but Act 1 especially is pretty slow. There's important stuff in there, but it really feels like a Slow-Start Sally. The one somewhat drastic thing I can think of to do is to start the story from the midpoint and get the earlier material in flashback. It would read a bit like Anne Leckei's "Ancillary Justice." There's two problems with that approach, though. One is that overusing flashbacks gets confusing, the other is that overusing flashbacks gets really boring. That's the big problem, and the Dev Ed I paid to help me out here said absolutely nothing. I'm very open to suggestions.

I'm almost afraid to ask about Monday the 13th. I always thought Monday the 13th should be much more scary than Friday.

I think the emotions land pretty well for the most part. The problem, as I see it, is that your narrators both spend way too much time contemplating life, the universe, and everything during a fight. I think all the musing should be trimmed, then brought back in conversation in the aftermath. What Works: “… I can understand desperate young women not wanting to risk it on their own.” An insight that makes sense coming from a girl, and no surprise the boy doesn’t get it. “Guess how that went,” he says.” Good teen sarcasm “In China, white is the color of bone. The color of death. The color of villains.” This is well done, especially separating the last sentence. “I’ve never watched someone die before, and even with the way vampires are more dead than alive in some ways it’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that a person who exists one minute doesn’t the next.” Good dumbstruck reflection. It shows well how being a thrall for a long time changed the character’s perspective, but was in essence still a person. What Doesn’t: “… its branches extend in a hundred-yard radius with no other dead trees or shrubs beneath.” A tree that huge these days would be spotted by satellites and likely investigated. It’s a little hard to fathom why DX would go to the charade of untying B if it was her intention to kill them anyway. “But that’s a mystery for later.” Exactly. This is a fight scene. Not only should K not have time to think these things, the musings take the reader right out of the scene. It would work better if you saved most of the thinking for the aftermath. Nearly four feet tall sounds kind of little for a dire wolf. P. 13 you have Mei tell herself to give her the gun? How does N carry an unconscious werewolf and a bound and gagged vampire on the back of her motorcycle? Why doesn’t N use a pistol crossbow? LXs musings seem to drag on a bit.

I was so tired yesterday I completely spaced this out. Better late than never, I guess (I hope). These two entries contain two major revelations. Plot wise I couldn't change those revelations, but there's always the presentation to deal with. Thanks for looking, and I hope you're enjoying this saga.

There's a painting or two by surreal artist Rafal Olbinski that might work: r O

10/06/25 Et moi?

Thanks! I was wondering if it was just going to be one single critique partner. P. 4 – ‘The genies’ is presumably an in-universe way of saying ‘genetics?’ — genetic engineers ‘When labour came’ – labourers? Or a subcategory of ship crew like ‘engineering’? — This is a civilization without government. Everything is run by corporations. Labor is the common euphemism for slave. P. 5 – ‘A miracle happened! She spoke.’ The sudden ecstasy after the serious-talk is a bit jarring. — Have you ever seen the movie “Amadeus”? P. 6 – ‘Her diagnosis’ – I am interested in what this is and what it means for R, which means I have already built some attachment to her as a character. Good job! — My favorite character, but that's mostly a matter of my own issues. A is more the heroic one. R is her sidekick who turned into her love interest. She was diagnosed with a form of depression when she was 16. You are quite welcome to go back and read the rest, if you like (and have time).

It occurred to me that you might not be familiar with Non-Overlapping Magisteria, so here's the original article from paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The idea was first proposed back in the 18th Century, but it didn't gain much traction until Gould resurrected it. https://www.bennington.edu/sites/default/files/sources/docs/Gould non-overlapping magisteria.pdf

Jacques Cousteau, who else? You know, the guy who invented SCUBA, made half a million underwater TV shows ... https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jacques-Cousteau I'll go back and edit those things out of quotes, though I don't really get why it's an issue. I've never seen that before coming here.

Thanks for the input. I made a solid change to the interaction on p.10, and added a little to ME's thoughts about why she was coming to acceptance only after R saved her life. Most people would have a serious change of heart if they mistreated someone who then saved their life. It can take a lot to break a lifetime of indoctrination. I grew up surrounded by violent homophobes, so I've heard all the slanders. Both of your first two LBLs would require a lot more explanation to really address, especially the Non-Overlapping Magesteria statement. I simplified that as much as I could, because any more would lead to a prolonged exchange that would divert readers from the purpose of the chapter.

I really enjoyed this, and I'm not really a big fan of fantasy. This is fun, the VPC is an interesting choice, and it makes me excited to read more. What Worked: Chapter One The opening scene, which is nearly all dialogue, does a great job of evoking fairy tales. “ … the castle jutted into Lake N like a proud, obstinate chin” — Great description The description that opened the third part of the chapter was sorely needed. If the whole story was written like the opening section it would seriously drag. “The coals shifted, but H remained, staring into the stone.” — Great way to end the chapter. It grabs attention and gets the reader speculating about justice and revenge. Chapter Two The fact that G doesn’t use the axe stand given him by the king is a nice bit of characterization — maybe even foreshadowing. “The Lord M smiled.” — The fact that he included this detail says a lot about his mindset at the time. Very good touch. “He didn’t know what he would do yet. But he did know one thing. He could not write another name in his ledger without being sure it belonged there.” — Another very good ending. It sets the internal conflict in motion, but without saying too much about the external conflict. Chapter Three I very much like how the situation changed with the patrons of the tavern after the fight was broken up. This is much more real than what you would expect in a typical fantasy story. You seem to be very good at endings. No obvious cliffhangers, but endings that lead right into the next chapter. What Didn’t Work: Chapter One “ … It was a sturdy oaken door banded in steel …” — If you are trying to get the flavor of Medieval Europe, these would have been iron. Steel was way too expensive to waste on a door. “ … but it was fair …” — Everything I have read about the craft of writing says that you shouldn’t have to emphasize words in dialogue with underlining, bold text, or italics. Let the words themselves suggest the emphasis to the reader. I think you need to give more of an impression of how big this city is, some sense of scale. I wouldn’t list a population figure, just give a general idea, Are there thousands of citizens who might rise up against the king? Tens of thousands? Is this a metropolis like Medieval Rome or London? Chapter Two Okay, now I see you are using underling to indicate thoughts, as opposed to spoken words. There’s no hard and fast rule here, but the more typical convention is to use italics. The underling is confusing. “It melted quickly.” — I think you can leave this line out. “Jacque Costeau” — This name sounds too much like the famous scuba diver, or is it a joke I’m missing? “ … the M’s satisfaction with striking at the unions.” — You should probably use the word “guilds” instead of “unions.” It sounds anachronistic. Chapter Three “No one seemed to care he was there.” — This statement contradicts the previous statements about people watching him and sex workers cursing him. “‘Stone, aye,’ she grunted. ‘Older than the pub, some say, though of course I wasn’t around to tell you true.’” — I’m not sure why the barkeep would notice or say anything about the composition of the bar. “ … thump-thump-thump, a familiar pattern.” — This takes the reader out of the moment.

It looks to me like it's working fairly well, though if the midpoint is coming up already then the story must be on the short side. What Works: Chapter 13 K’s easy understanding of L’s position regarding her mother shows that she is a thoughtful, empathic chararcter. “That humanization is how we build bridges and make real progress.” - K is clearly a person who thinks outside of the boxes most people put each other into. She has a broader horizon of inclusion than most. “I don’t especially care.” — In spite of showing empathy and emotional intelligence (which some see as a weakness), she is also firm and determined. “Everything I said about Guang is true, and someone needs to let him know it’s not okay. But then again, Jiahao was nicer when challenging me about my mom than I’ve been to him or Brennan.” — It’s great how you show that conflict between the juvenile mindset (It’s all true!) and the adult mindset (It often works better to not piss people off.) in a character who’s on the cusp of adulthood. Chapter 14 “ … they could have grabbed someone off the street and threatened them into heading in and inviting the thralls in.” — There’s an interesting thought. I don’t read a lot of vampire fiction, but this is an implication of the ‘rules’ I’ve never seen. “We’re in this together.” — This is a much better ending. It resolves the issue while setting up the conflict for the next chapter nicely. What Doesn’t: Chapter 13 It gets confusing when you go back and forth between using a character’s English and Chinese names. “It’s not fair how his points actually make sense compared to the left-wing radicals I see making internet posts.” — Like right-wing radicals make any more sense? “You know it’s not that simple. I could still tell her at any point what I did.” — More to the point, if K’s mother is just using her, why would she stop even if she no longer has the scanner when she could use her to get it back? You use dashes and/or hyphens were you should be using ellipses. “… grabbing Brennan and keeping a hand clasped over his mouth.” — After a while cliffhanger endings start to feel predictable. Like any gimmick, they can be effective but are easily overused. In most cases, the ending of a scene does two things: it resolves the tension the scene began with, and it sets up the conflict for the next scene. Chapter 14 “Specifically young Asian women like the ones you saw,” Jiahao says.” You indicated in the heading that this chapter is being narrated by Jiahao, so the speech tag should say “I say …” “but they do take out their phone and call their parents. He tells us …” — Pronoun inconsistency is a little distracting. “ … what’s probably undiagnosed autism that I fit all of the textbook symptoms for …” — He seems awfully astute for someone with ASD. I have two kids in that boat.

Go for it! Any ideas for artwork? A tall ship falling off the edge of the earth comes to mind, but I'm sure we could come up with something better. Portrait of the Donner Party?

Here we go again, This is the aftermath of the snag, in which R sits deathwatch over A, and ME experiences a change of heart. The second entry gets weird, and I hope it's more intriguing than confusing. It's also where you get your first hint that the Mc Guffin isn't actually a Mc Guffin.

It's good we'll have another participant. The more the merrier. Before I was a teacher I did field archaeology, so I worked with climate data all the time. It's fun running into right-wing reality deniers who tell me it's a hoax, and even when I explain that I used to both use and gather the kind of data that shows that they are lying, they still keep arguing, and feeding me photoshopped pictures that they think disprove climate change. If it was all made up then the data would be wildly inconsistent. It isn't. Persistence is a great thing when you're right, but a really, really bad thing when you're dead wrong.

Monday has come around again, I'm in the same old place, same old faces always watching me. Who knows how long I'll have to stay Could be a hundred years sweating tears The rate that I get paid. A slot for Monday 9/29/2025?

I usually get to you quicker, but my pineal gland hasn't been happy lately, and the heat isn't helping. Anyway, here goes: What Works Chapter 11 “His tone indicates that he is judging me for exactly that.” - This is a needed sort of observation, given how often people say “God’s the judge” when it’s really obvious that they are judging you, but nobody ever says it. “… she must have watched it dozens or even hundreds of times with the same sort of love that wears down childhood books.” - Great descriptor “And he’s the one who’s vulnerable in this power dynamic, so I’m the one who has to be the bigger person.” K is definitely a deeper thinker than most, given that she’s talking about a werewolf. Most people would never think that they had the upper hand, no matter how polite the werewolf acts. Chapter 12 The description of CZ is very telling and well-placed, though you might comment on the fact that she’s not 20. “First rule of working with law enforcement is to never talk to them unless requesting to speak with a lawyer.” - Great line. “ … teenage girls being taken advantage of in hookups is a real concern backed by real societal power dynamics that requires real precautions.” This guy is also a pretty sharp thinker. Very interesting, timely, and thoughtful conversation about dehumanizing people. I’m not decided as to whether it would be better or worse to bring in contemporary and/or historical examples of how people have rationalized atrocities by treating other groups as less than human. In this instance, though, you have to do the science fiction thing of separating personhood from humanity. Regarding same vs. different, it’s useful to look at the overlap between groups. Most of the differences we assume exist between male and female hominids overlap on the order of 75 - 80%, and there are numerous individuals of one sex that have higher values for traits that belong to the opposite sex than a majority of the individuals of that sex. The problem is categorical thinking, which is oversimplifying the complexities of reality. The annoying teenage debate is perfect! What Doesn’t Work Chapter 11 “Even when he’s angry, his words always seem to carry exactly how he wants them to.” Not being telepathic, she doesn’t actually know what he wants them to do. It might be better is she said that he always sounds confident. “When she asked if you were cute? I told her the truth and said you are. She’s nosy enough that I wasn’t going to hide it from her in the long run.” This is a spot where you have a lot of uninterrupted dialogue, which gets monotonous. It would benefit from breaking it up with some facial expressions, body language, and proxemics. Ditto the next several lines. “ … call out sexism …” This might be a better place to use the word ‘bigotry’ since she is talking about potential bigotry against cryptids (cryptism?). “ … I walk out from the abandoned buildings and sit down on the ground …” How does the ground feel? How does the air outside smell compared to being in the tunnels? Is the foliage on the ground crunchy and noisy? How does K feel about being in the open compared to being under ground? “ … “You’re making me feel safer already …” This exchange screams of stereotype. I would think K, at least, would make note of that. Chapter 12 “Her pointed black boots and thin dark jacket and leopard print glasses and red scarf and …” That’s way too many ands in one sentence. “ I’d rather run out and grab condoms than risk you being unprotected.” K should be turning red as a spanking. “… I can’t sit back and watch Kay eat up Aegis logic like this so long as she holds the scanner.” This thought really gives the impression that J is just using K, not genuinely interested in her. “ … societies with no connection or the western world …” This sentence doesn’t make sense. L gets banished, yet even his own internal monologue makes very little of it. I would think that he would have some serious worries, not just about where he’s going to sleep that night, but his future in that city. If he’s passing himself off as a human high school student and he doesn’t have parents to sign off for him at school, or to vouch for him when he tries to get an apartment, a car, financial aid for college, and many other things, he’s going to have serious problems. Then there’s the possibility that he may have just become extremely vulnerable to the local vampire clan. These things should be taking up at least as much space in his mind as the pretty girl he’s with.

I see. In the original draft the alien mercenaries make more of an appearance. Their ships were hiding in the same ring as the protagonist's ship, and they failed to look for it. What I failed to do was point that out, and have them remonstrate themselves for missing that detail. My thought was to have the ship's computer contact them to let them know that there was a drop ship incoming, so they can rush the job and kick themselves for being so focused on getting it done they didn't think enough about the other people who were trying to pull the same heist. Thanks for pointing that out.

It's funny that the women who have read and critiqued this story were unconcerned about the simple nature of the action at the midpoint. I'm not too sure what to think here, except that I lost interest in action movies decades ago. Also, remember whose plan it was. The protagonists are escaped slaves, whose only experience with a heist comes from watching movies. I also trimmed a whole lot out of it in an effort to get my 250 kiloword first draft down to around 100 kilowords. Maybe I need to watch some good heist movies and see what I can do. There are a few things that absolutely have to happen, one way or another. The psion has to die, they have to get the McGuffin, and A has to have her near-death experience. The reasons will be more clear after a couple more chapters. As far as the robot is concerned, the protagonists wouldn't know anything about it. The Meritocracy is a slave-based economy, like the Roman Empire was, and that sort of economy does little to encourage invention, since there are plenty of slaves around to do the drudge work.

Since I escaped from being a teacher I have been going 50/50 reading fiction and non-fiction. I didn't intend to spend the last several years learning so much about fascism, but it kind of felt like a necessity since 2016.