Robinski

Err, I think that might push @Mandamon over the edge That's great to hear...thanks again!

Combat I think this is better than first time around. It feels a bit more personal, and that means there’s more at stake. The point of view seems to jump around a bit. I’m not that familiar with flash fiction so I don’t know if that’s a thing, but I felt it somewhat disorienting. The last line worked for me, but overall, I don’t really feel like I've learned anything, or been surprised or shocked. Food Chain Lol, now you’re talking. I got a nice laugh out of the ending of this story. That was nicely done; a heavy dollop of irony goes a long way. I still think it would chime nicely to have escalating stakes in the beatings. I would swap tar and crap. Seems to me going from Snot to Tar to Crap is better than going to crap in the middle. Tar seems out of place and weak as a swear for the King of the High School. Who Wants to be Super? Ooh, fresh material – excellent. Ha-ha, intriguing opening. I like the premise and it’s quickly summarised at the beginning. Also, an interesting moral quandary. Not exactly original, but because it is so basic, the concept of the needs of the many, etc., it remains effective. This story did make me think more than the other two, and I would not object to reading the reunion scene between the super and his wife. That would not be as satisfying as a narrative arc, but it would be a challenge to write for sure. Nice job with these. I still enjoy Food Chain, and I liked the new one too. Combat still leaves me rather cold. I’m just not sure what the point of it is. The other two have either a message or a punchline, but Combat, while it has a cliff-hanger, lacks the satisfaction of having any kind of resolution. I hope that these thoughts are helpful <R>

Thanks for reading Mandamon, I'll apologise straight away for this sub starting with more travelling!! Yeah, fair comment. I'll try to pare that bit back hard. Argh, okay. I was trying to hide it as the tourist introduction to L'ville. For me, this is a pretty standard phrase to express someone losing their temper. Interested to see if anyone else trips up on it. Okay - have added a little. Ahhhhh......I've tweaked that a bit; fair point. Ah-ha, lol. This is based on the coffee shop where I write in the morning, which has an automatic door which sometimes refuses to operate correctly. How would my reader know that? I've edited accordingly. Also, replaced 'better than' with 'above' I'll tidy this up. The email from Paulson, which Quirk reads on Page 127, attached a contract. Quirk and Moth here are signing a Non-discolosure Agreement (NDA). I'll refer to it in Paulson's email. I'm very glad that you stayed with it through all the travelling. We're here now!! I hope I can make it worth the journey so far. Thanks so much for reading <R>

Excellent! Thanks for reading, Wisps - much appreciated. You'll likely not have picked this up due to missing early chapters, so I'll recap here, but you make a fair point, that I may need to do more to remind the reader about what actually is going on here. Gregor Callan is a human miner who was paralysed by a mining accident and is now a paraplegic. He is part of an experiment headed by Dr. John Mills, who has found a way to map the human consciousness and implant it into an android. The android is not an AI, but it is in these scenes being operated by a human intelligence, Callan's. In the mean time, Callan's body is on life support in a hospital bed in the Androcon Building on the Moon. Isn't it? not mine unfortunately. Hmm, interesting. I think you have touched on something which chimes somewhat with certain other comments. That Quirk's thoughts sometimes stop short of conveying what he's actually feeling. I'll think on that. Awesome Well this is just the perfect compliment, especially you coming in at this stage. Although having said that, as Kais says, the story (plot) really only gets going in this submission. I'm really pleased that you found some of the characterisation effective. I've tried to give all of the side chrs a personality, so to hear that some of that is coming through is sweet indeed. Thanks so much for reading, @Wisps of Aether <R>

Hey, thanks for reading, @kais, as ever I look forward to your comment, but am also slightly trepidatious to read them!! Your overalls are as I would have expected. I'm going to 'spruce up' Quirk's character as one of the major elements of Edit #2. Travelling is..., travelling. I did my best! Yes, I'll look at where I can trim that, or change it up. Glad that you were on board at the end I'll call this out better. The miner's name is Mr. Gregor Callan. Callan is conventionally a surname where I come from. Yep, well, in this largely unprecedented situation, which no one has ever really been in before. The android has whatever moral base it's programming permits it to have. Callan is very much feeling his way around at this point. You could say he has partial control. There's a town on the moon and it sits under a big plass dome. They're just arriving there? Yeah - I would say he's uncommitted. He knows he likes the ladies, but he likes some men too. I don't see him having consummated his male attractions. Thanks, Kais, really helpful comments here. Comments have been pretty consistent about travel, Quirk's tone, etc. which gives me real confidence to make changes in these areas in the next edit. Thank you so much. And yes, finally we've arrived at the town under the dome on the Moon. Stuff will happen now, consistently I hope, and in an exciting way, I hope. For what it's worth, you're a chapter off half way through the story. Thanks for reading! <R>

I feel totally disenfranchised... Seriously though, what a pleasing outcome.

Hi everyone, If you happen to have the time and inclination to read this, I am very grateful. I am also interested in just about anything you have to say about it, so please do comment on anything you like. Previously on TMM... Best, Robinski

Yes, the join the 'attack queue', ugh. Lol - in this thread maybe, but midsize compared to many - as you will discover, so nothing to worry about

Lol - I feel like this is a challenge. Light refracts, of course, but only when passing from one transmitting medium into another, so there would need to be a serious of different media close together, which would just be silly, because how would you walk, fight, breathe, etc. in it/them. Then there's diffraction, bending light around an obstacle or through a slit. The Wiki page actually cites the example of diffraction "when a light wave travels through a medium with a varying refractive index", but it's still not going to produce the desired effect for the purposes of an actual lightsaber. So, lightsword then...

Uh huh.

Hey DJ, top tip. I would recommend being a bit more 'grabby' with the slots. If you want to submit, throw your hat in the ring (assuming you're critiquing, of course). It's unlikely that you'll get a guilt-edged invitation, so get those elbows working

If there's a slot for the 3rd, I would be pleased as punch to submit thereon. Thanks!

Yeah - I'm not entirely surprised to hear this comment. Noted - I'll see what I can do. Fake hair, but yes, you're right. There is a bit in Chapter 1, but it's never tied down very well. More work required. Lol - not sentient luggage. Not spiritually uplifted I'll reword. I'll prune back hard. Hmm, I'll think on that. I was trying to make progress and skip it for once, but I'll revisit this. It's a (British, I guess) expression meaning to nag / criticise about something specific. "I haven't forgotten when you broke that vase, you know." "Oh sure, cast that up again." - I'll change it. Perhaps not entirely definitively. I will review. Indeed I did - not fixed. I added a bit about Toni getting her to sign a bunch of stuff, in a silent partner sort of way. Fair comment. I've tweaked this bit in any case, but I can see your point. Thanks for those comments, Mandamon. I can always trust you to ask me some difficult questions. The travelling is a thing, and I'll need to take that onboard at some point. The biggest part is over, the remainder is in summary, essentially. Thanks again, much appreciated

As ever, I am interested to see where the story takes me this week! Good first line, draws me in like the first line of the story did. “regretted so docilely handing over” – bit of a tongue-twister. “The shepherd guild was held by Puget” – or reverse the terms. “She handed me the reins to a horse, which who was twice my height.” – surely. “It was thick conifer forests through the road and pass” – grammar. “Enough to identify our glass grandmaster because of that mole of his on the chin,” – For what little it’s worth, I’ve forgotten this bit. “and knocked arrows” – nocked. “I’d be relegated to my backside for every minor skirmish” – I know Sor thinks of this in terms of being useful to Mag, but it does tend to run against the thought Sor just had about being a source of death. “standing in swirling snow” – I didn’t get a sense of this from previous description. Having said that, I’m really enjoying the action of the encounter, which came on unexpectedly. The revelation of Mother is interesting, as it runs certain significant risks for the story – in particular, Sor losing any agency. Quick!! Back to the action. “It was automatic, to heed her directions” – uh huh. “desperate to stay quite” – quiet. “It should have been branch with a cluster of needles at one end…” – The missing word confused the whole sentence for me. I think it’s compounded by the use of ‘it’ – which I think would better be replaced with ‘the tattoo’. I’m trying to get rid of these non-specific words myself, as they often add to confusion unless used in close proximity to the subject. “I needed to define the boundary between reality and dreams.” – there have been lots of good lines, but this one made me stop to comment. Really nice. “to trail a finger along my neck, where my guild mark should have been” – I feel like Mother has her(?) guild mark in a different place from Sor. Sor can see Mother’s mark, so it must be on the front or side of her neck, whereas Sor’s should be on the back of their neck – both Mother’s can’t be there, because Sor can see it. Then this trailing of the finger – that should be on the back of Sor’s neck, but it doesn’t sound that way to me. “I grabbed my third pouch and yanked it from my belt. Keeping my arms low, I pulled at the ties, making sure to keep the opening pointed away. There was no wind. This close to the conjuring, it deflected around the both of us. Even a small throw would work. “Get away from me,” I stuttered at the thing as it reached for me. I raised the pouch and tilted, ready to empty the contents.“ – It’s just so horribly, horribly awkward. I thought Sor had little ‘grenades’ (cloth-wrapped parcels) to be thrown intact? Also, I don’t feel like wind ‘deflects’. Worse (for me) ‘small throw’ sounds way off, as a phrase. When describing a throw, you have to either (a) relate it to the distance, or (b) convey strength through description of the scale of the action. I might say ‘short throw’ – but that’s still too long, I think. Maybe ‘gentle throw/toss’, a flick even, because they are so close together. If hope you won’t be offended, but I can’t resist this pun(?) – You ‘throw’ like a girl!! <laughs at own joke> “It was real” – ‘It had been real’, surely. Better to convey that it’s past. “tried to rake the snow and bits of thorn from my clothes” – ‘brush’, ‘dust’? I don’t feel like raking would have the right effect. Raking is intended more to spread or mix, I think, not remove, unless leaving a finer material behind. “They’re all poison, of a kind,” I said, wiping my face with my sleeve again.” – So, there’s no chance any of the dust spilled on Sor’s sleeve, when handling the open pouch. Just a little bit of dust escaping, into an open wound (blister)? Arrgghh. Sor would need to be so careful. “They’d gathered the horses into a chain and were mounted, ready to leave” – I feel like the knights would recover the bodies or their fallen comrade-in-arms and tie them to the horses. I can’t see them just leaving the bodies in the forest. “It’ll clot.” – Is clot the word? Congeal, heal, scab?? “She knew the damage those words caused” – I don’t remember Sor being stung when the conjuring said ‘daughter’. I don’t remember a strong reaction. “It was just delirium” – This feels like an author’s interjection, like Sor is withholding this for story/plot reasons. What other reason does Sor have to withhold it? Is it the old, everyone will think I’m mad, trope? That feels tired as a rationale to regulate plot progress. Then they’ll have as secret between them that will come to dominate their interactions. I don’t see a reason to avoid openness when they’re on the same quest, essentially. “One conjuring versus the intel” – I feel strongly that this is a modern word that makes your story sound like The Bourne Alchemy. “as we continued the gradual ??? uphill” – Word missing, methinks. “Not all the masters were missing, it seemed. At least one was following us, and was very interested in me” – I don’t get this conclusion from what has passed in this chapter. How does Sor deduce that the master is following? The master could be waiting up ahead. I just loved this chapter. I had some really nice action, well described, and a very enjoyable / suitably scary supernatural encounter. You sold me nicely on the conjuring being Mother; I was convinced to start with. I felt peril without getting or needing the usual crash-bang-wallop of people hitting and getting hit by swords. Sor was satisfyingly clumsy in the ‘combat’ situation. There were some nice touches of scene/setting description, but I think you could and should go further. Falling snow is just awesome for atmosphere; I think you could dial it up a bit further to greater effect. Maybe mention the muffling effect it was on sound. I always think things sound closer in snow, thick snow anyway. I felt the central relationship (in the narrative anyway) really settled into place here, in a way that I wasn’t quite feeling it before. That’s okay in that Mag was a new character before, although I've noted that I wasn’t completely sold by her introduction. Still, the easy closeness that Sor and Mag fell into was lovely. Contrary to any impression you might have gained on here, I am in fact an old romantic, and I thought this (re)budding relationship was convincing in a way that I never quite felt with Atal and Em. For me, this continues to be your best work yet. Keep it coming. <R>

Off we go. “the Councilor” – previous instance not capitalised. “the column it hugged for support” – darn my engineering ‘spidey’ sense. I had in my head that this column was in the corner of the Nether, which made me quest how the building could ‘hug’ it. Even if the column isn’t in the corner with walls leading up to it (preventing hugging), I still tend to question whether the building is actually wrapped around the column, hugging it, or rather is attached to the column, but not actually hugging it. “how close he was already” – close to what? “sweet-smelling hedge” – imho “but the expression felt like it would slide off his face” – great line, I'm wondering though if the expression has feelings. “The wall sparkled iridescent, reminding Sam of the sea behind a lighthouse.” – great image. “How is there weather” – I enjoyed the ‘sculpture garden’, cool, and this. “Though here” – through “It’s some sort of information, but what?” – I don’t buy this. Sam’s an educated guy; he seems inquisitive. Surely, he must have seen pictures from the Hubble, or been on the NASA website or some such, to know what galaxies look like. “It’s like an astronomy app” – Ha! I knew it. “maybe the Big Dipper” – I feel like it’s the name of the constellation – necessary capitalisation in fiction “made the view zoomed out and back in” – I would suggest something like ‘zoomed the view out and back in’, for ease of flow. “slid the view back as the he pushed buttons” – typo. “Large swathes of space” – I feel like this is the word. “very far from Aunt Martha” – Who’s dead – so I'm not exactly sure why he thinks in this way, since I feel like he already has accepted this as fact. “a strange look on the old man” – Hmm, I've never thought of Ori as (that) old. “I need to can get home " – typo. I liked this version better. I did feel it verging on repetitious at certain moments in the search for Earth, but overall I felt that Sam and Ori did bond to some extent. I got a good sense of hope that they were going to find Earth this time, even though I knew they wouldn’t, but I still enjoyed the dynamic of the scene. I’ve never been great at going over the same ground in recent memory, but this worked for me. <R>

Hey, Kais - thanks for reading, and breaking the critiquing ground on this submission Yeah, fair enough. I can see that. I will work something more definitive in earlier on. Err, oh yes. I seem to have got away with it. I was just reading names off a map... well shucks, that means a lot from someone who's been there (proper chuffed) edited Yeah, ok. I've tweaked a bit. Lol. For what it's worth... Scottish Gaelic [Noun] bothan m (genitive singular bothain, plural bothain or bothanan) cottage hut, shed bothy shebeen Lol - excellent. I continue to strive. Maybe the next edit will see a few more of these premium quality zingers (if I can find them). There's a funny line about a cat in a 100 pages. Yeah, I agree. I'll have another go at that. The first version isn't very 'Doctor', is it? Thank you so much for reading. Always a good examination, I feel like it's better already. Much appreciated

Right, I've got a basic impression about quenching, just what you see in movies where blacksmiths plunges hot blades into what looks like water, usually. I guess that's just to make it look impressive for TV. Oil, I did not know about. Interesting. Hey, no worries! A draft is a draft. Always cool, for me. I love Michael Moorcocks books. This is what's tripping me up here, having Order(s) as a title, but it's also something your can receive (i.e. a command) AND something you can be a member of, as in a organisation. Cool - recurring characters are neat, imho.

Excellent, that sounds like a plan! I'm 40 pages from the end of Edit #1 on TMM. After that, I'll take a break from it (apart from submitting here) and start on a new story

Hello Everybody, Thank you for your consideration of my latest submission of TMM, three whole chapters this time! Any comments very welcome, as ever. Whatever you like, and whatever you don't. If commenting, and you happen to remember, and if it's not too much trouble, can I ask you to reference the document pages, which are tracking my current draft. This week's sub should start at Page 97. Don't worry about it though, if you don't get the formatting, not a biggy Best, Robinski

Yes, 10,000% better

Sorry, I was interrupted earlier, but as it turns out, I didn't have that much more to say!! Yes, I would not want to you underestimate the point about the prose. I wound your style very comfortable to read. That's not meant to be faint praise. TBH, on here, I often find myself 'battling' punctuation and grammar issues that make some pieces quite hard to get through, certainly in any kind of joined up way, but I though your piece flowed nicely and that's half the battle in winning readers over, I think. Story choices can be edited, but style takes longer to refine, so I think you're in a good place. Keep going!!

I didn't get the response to the question. it took me a bit to get that pov was saying that it was her hand that had caused the slip, not the lathe. Otherwise, nice piece of work. I can see the arc, the element of renewal, and I like how you bring in the forgiving nature of wood. I've done a little very amateur woodworking in my time, and I have some idea (very unaccomplished) of what you're on about there. There's even some sweet description in there with the likening of the curl of the wood shaving to the curl of K's hair. Good job. Nicely done. It's a comfortable and enjoyable read.

I think it sounds more natural if it becomes a question, so Rose is acknowledging that Jason knows this, but is requesting his acknowledgment of the fact. “Still, Aunt Chrys and Uncle Jeff weren’t ever really close to us, were they?” Sometimes it's as simple is naming the thing. A recent example of RE was that of a table. Don't say 'wooden table', say 'oak table'. It doesn't tell the reader anything more unless they are familiar with the patina of oak, but it feels deeper, it resonates, I think. ...sorry, need to break off. I will be back...

Any while I'm on - I'll fly the flag for Reading Excuses. When you're finished your story, @Roy, why not come see us next door and submit it for a friendly and constructive critique? We have all levels of writers over on Reading Excuses, one of whom was published in February on a 3-book deal, another is self-published and working his third book towards publication. There are plenty of others though who are leisure writers, so there's no pressure. Everyone's welcome

I would say there is no wrong and right answer. I think these are both good responses to the exercise. I am a great one for writing notes, mainly in the pre-writing stage. I tend to outline the first 1/2 to 2/3's of my stories then pants the rest. Also, I had the advantage that I was following the rationale of Season 10 from the start, so had begun outlining my story and had developed some character ideas. I wrote 70 to 90 words on each character, based on why I thought they were best for the leading role, pros and cons really. So, I guess I was more towards @CaptainRyan's approach. Good luck with the rest of Season 10. I found it an excellent idea and got a lot out of it. I've been writing for years, but I'm still catching up with RE these past 4 years. I've finished 1 to 10, then jumped 11 so I could be current with Season 12. I've learned so much - I share your enthusiasm, @Roy and gratitude to the RE team!