Robinski

Hey, welcome to Reading Excuses! We don’t get a lot of flash fiction, so I'm excited to read this. Straight on to the comments. (Intersting set-up in your comment there!) Combat · The first line doesn’t really excite me, or draw me in. The word ‘back’ is duplicated, which is a bit awkward, and the line itself, has me reading carefully as a try and picture what’s going on, instead of being drawn into the story by a short, clear, attention-grabbing line. · Three lines in and we’ve had a very precise description of how the sword is being held, but I know nothing about the man. For me, story is always, always, always about character, and that makes a strong place to start. I’m just not engaged. · “Fence!” the judge called, and the man darted forward. – I think this is a good first line. Here you have action from the beginning. · I must say I'm not bowled over. Repeating the start at the end is a neat idea, and I guess was the story’s USP going in(?). Overall impression: I’m not bowled over. It’s very mechanical, anonymous, and I don’t care about the outcome or either of the characters. This really hampers the ability of the story entertain. The first line / last line thing is the best bit. It’s a decent idea, but the story needs stakes, drama and character, I think. Sword fighting is one of the most boring things in fantasy, exactly because it is mechanical and there are a limited number of moves and permutations, and they’ve all been done. The things that make sword fights great (and they can be) are (i) characters, caring about them and the outcome; (ii) threat/stakes, by knowing that one party is much better, much stronger, is going to cheat – something to stack the odds against the ‘hero’; (iii) setting – have them fight on a burning ship, in a collapsing building – anything to set the fight apart, because the fighting itself is unlikely to do it; (iv) the unexpected – another component, the dialogue during the fight, a third party entering the fray, it starts to snow, someone sneezes – anything to make it not just a sword fight. Sorry, I’m sort of on a rant here; I realise that your story is not really about this sort of fight, but I’ve got the wind in my sails now… I’m moved to quote a recent example of an absolutely excellent fight, in my view, from The Lies of Locke Lamora. It starts about page 434 with the build-up, and continues on page 437 (after a short interlude). What makes it a great fight? Numerous things: It’s two (badies) against one (goody); The two are the best fighters in Camorr, so our hero, Jean, cannot win; The two are women; Jean doesn’t use a sword, he uses two axes Food Chain · Straight away I'm more engaged with this story. I’ve got character from the start, and an intriguing situation; we appear to be in the villain’s perspective. Nice. · “the King of the Middle School found him out of breath by a broken streetlamp” – Lol, I get the idea. Nice one. This is cool because, as a reader, I can start to project forward and imagine what is going to happen next, but will I be correct? I need to keep reading. Also, the streetlamp thing is puzzling. Is it night/dark? It’s not relevant unless you show my how it’s relevant. · “or I’ll beat the carp out of you” – Ha-ha, escalating swears – nicely done. · “ran off home to his mother, who knew nothing” – I assume you mean knew nothing about her son’s miscreation? The way you have it, you’re nasty to the mom for no reason. · “buying insurance” – lol. · “He forked over the money that had worked its way up from the elementary school kid” – you don’t need to tell me this, I've been paying attention. Letting readers work out stuff for themselves is more satisfying (for them). · The last line is a bit weak and confusing. I would rework and punch it up a fair bit. Also, I was expecting the swearing to escalate again, but the King of the High School says ‘twerp’? Nah, you’ve promised me the ‘S’ word at least. · Then, when the adult comes in, you don’t give him a line of dialogue, so I feel a bit cheated there. Also, by the law of increasing swears – would be looking for an F-bomb here, I think Overall, I thought this was a much better story, with some nice ideas and executed pretty well. Your language is smooth and easy to read – a few typos, and refinement of prose is pretty much always possible, so an edit really would benefit the story. I think the final few lines with the adult mugger are the bit that misfires, but I’m sure you can fix that. The escalating swears was tongue-in-cheek, to some extent, although I really did think that’s where you were going. Glad to have you on board! <R> p.s. Where's my cheese? I feel like I was promised cheese.

Without a doubt. If anything came to pass from it, I would put his name first, in bigger letters I would send anyone looking for world building advice to read Jack Vance in a heartbeat. I pick a book from my shelf at random, Lyonesse (1 - Suldrun's Garden). First line: 'On a dreary winter's day, with rain sweeping across Lyonesse Town, Queen Solace went into labor.' BOOM You've got setting, atmosphere, political structure, the start of character and the beginning of a time-line (its winter) - all in 16 words. The man was a master, and yet is underserved by history when others, less able but more 'fortunate', became synonymous with the genre. I will name no names. Thanks for your thoughts, Eagle. I will keep my powder dry until I have finished Edit #1 of TMM.

Hey Wisps, apologies it’s taken me so long to get to your story, but I'm always excited to read a first submission, especially since it’s a short, and SF too. Feels to me like both those elements are a bit rarer around here. Diving straight in then!! It’s an intriguing start to the story, the mini prologue; not flashy, but solid and thought-provoking. It also flags several important things for the reader, like genre (SF), theme (time/space travel) and setting. Not to mention some good character cues. Nice work. The first page is thoughtful, and I find it pulls me in. The rather vague companion works fine, because I find myself asking question about them. Also, the fact that Jim and Apollo are arguing is a nice touch; something a bit different, and conveys more character. I’m happy giving impressions right now, and don’t want to stop for grammar. There are some drafting things though. Maybe I’ll come back to them. Some of the dialogue is a bit exposition-y, and formal too. “Everyone I knew know is eight years older” – He still knows them, they’re just 8 year older. Oh, protag is Jason; I assumed he was Jiarm. “gears of his mind” – so, Apollo’s a droid of some sort? Ah, so he’s not. I that case, he comes over as rather devoid of personality, bland. “apartment number 234152” – ha ha, I’m in this stage as part of the edit of my story, assigning addresses (story locations) to the map that I’ve made of Lunaville. At a practical level, why is the apartment number so high? The system we have now arose for good practical reasons. Once you get into the thousands, even 10’s of thousands, you’ve lost any kind of practical traceability for the purposes of navigation, hence the reason for street names and neighbourhoods. 234152 implies to me that there is no practical aspect to the social organisation on this planet. “I watch him walk off into the nameless crowds” – blocking problem. I’ve got no sense of there being crowds around here. No description of noise, clamour, bustle, etc. Actually, there is very little description at all. I think the story would benefit immensely from just the odd highlight now and then. “ready to swallow me whole once I step inside the door” – Not the most startling metaphor. “but I take the elevator up to the 12th floor without running into any more problems” – I haven’t seen anything that could be described as a problem yet. “it shakes uncontrollably” – Really? This reaction, to me, is disproportionate with the emotional response that you’ve described up to now. J is nervous, but ‘uncontrollable’ seems over the top to me. “round facial shape” – awkward, can you just say ‘face’? “The similarities and differences combined” – nice phrase, evocative of the essence of those 8 years. “I swear that there’s a tsunami every other week. On Earth, people go in the ocean and swim because they know that the waves won’t hurt them. What would that be like?” – I like the tsunami line. The line about waves on Earth? I’m not sure that ‘know’ is the right word. Trust? It’s just that waves on Earth can hurt, they don’t have to be tsunamis. “Yeah, it’s too bad that our parents left to live here” – kind of clunky and tell-y. “Still, Aunt Chrys and Uncle Jeff weren’t ever really close to us” – yeah, I think this is just flat out maid-and-butler. “I know that I’m not.” – here’s what I mean about the dialogue. Very few people use ‘that’ when speaking – even though it’s correct grammatically. “I remember holding the blade of a knife up to my eye, so close that it turns turned blurry” – If it’s a memory, I'd suggest selling it by using past tense. “Nothing I do is ever enough. The only way to end the pain is… is…” – You’ve not sold me on this level of emotion turmoil within Jason. I’m just not convinced by this sudden angst. “She always viewed her tendency to cry as a weakness, but I never do. Her sadness was moving, compelling” – the tenses are mixed up here. “You’ve been slitting your wrists” – Phew, I've got to say this, for me, is a clunker. It’s soooo obvious from the previous line; it’s not even a question. Also, I think ‘self-harming’ is a far more contemporary and accurate word. Slitting wrists, to me, implies a suicide attempt, implies much more than self-harm. “Oh no.” – Ach, I just think some of these lines feel really forced, like bad amateur dramatics. “took over while I watched” – how can she take over her own task? Sounded off to me. “just another dinosaur diorama that she needs to struggle through” – great line. “Was looking at the stars enough to silence the voices in my head?” – Again, still not sold on the inner torment. Well, I enjoyed reading that, but ultimately, I am left rather frustrated. I had various issues, as follows: (1) The dialogue is really rather dry, too grammatically correct and verging on info-dump in places. There was one instance of pretty clear maid-and-butler, I thought, and other instances of telling. I think you could really improve the story by doing a pass where you read your dialogue out loud – it helps a lot with rhythm and conviction (if you will). (2) Description is very light. I know it’s a short, but just a dash of ‘colour’ here and there would make a big difference, I think. You mention things that have form, like a steel building, but that could be anything. What colour is it? What does the sky look like? Does this lane/street smell like anything? What sounds can Jason hear when he’s in his contemplation? It doesn’t take much to put the reader in the location, and handful of words on each page can do it. The proof of the pudding is where you mention the street being crowded and I had absolutely no sense of that at all. (3) About 3 or 4 pages from the end, you veer away from the interesting time/interstellar travel theme into pure melodrama of the brother/sister relationship. There an interesting note of how she is now the big sister – which is great, but you lay on all this stuff about Jason’s angst and I don’t think it comes across at all. There are some notes about what he does because of the pain he’s feeling; holding the knife to his eye, but where is the pain, where did it come from? I enjoy your style, you have a nice turn of phrase. I think there’s good potential in this story, but I think there are a number of ways that you can punch it up into a piece that really grabs and holds the reader. Nice work! Some more work to do <R>

I've just been provided with a major distraction by my mother-in-law who, in clearing out after my father-in-law's death in May last year, has sent me an envelope containing some of his correspondence with Arthur C. Clarke, and with Poul and Karen Anderson. My father-in-law Dr. Er!k T. P*terson (the T is not for Tiberius), was a GP in Canada, but also a keen astronomer, SF author (unpublished) and fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, as was Sir Arthur. He met Poul Anderson on an organised trip to South America and they corresponded for many years. The really fascinating element that I came across in just skimming the letters was a reply from Poul on reviewing one of Er!k's manuscripts - his masterwork, and an immense tome at some 300,000 words. Apart from the length, Poul recommended more action and less talking!! Some things never change. I was also delighted that he cited Jack Vance as an example of how to convey chilling cruelty without resorting to violence and gore. Vance is probably still my favourite author, criminally underrated and unappreciated, imho. This quandary of spending the weekend reading through the correspondence is not the real issue though. I have access to my father-in-law's work, a considerable collection of about 6 to 10 novels, 20 odd shorts stories and outlines for many more novels and stories. Part of me is just itching to wade in there and try an edit... I mean taking notes from Poul Anderson, even secondhand, from beyond the grave... Also, as I've never been good at doing the hard yards on the science side, I feel like my love for style, attempts at flare and penchant for pithy dialogue (I hope), might marry really well with Er!k's greater interest in the science. I think I might try a short as an experiment. Opinions, any?

I feel like there's a 'trick' to be played by working 'alchemy' into the title - but having a double meaning in relation to gender. - S*rin's Alchemy - (meh, maybe too on-the-nose, but you could spin in into titles for series, S*rin's Return, S*rin's Revenge, S*rin Strikes Back, etc.) - S*rin's Journey - (meh, not very interesting) - The Alchemical Daughter - (meh, bit unwieldy, and still contains 'daughter', which might remain misleading for those who don't think back to the title. First impressions, etc.) - The Alchemist's Mother - (ah ha, the old switcheroo. But of course Mother is not the m/c, so perhaps misleading in a different way) - A Guild of One - (not knowing how the story goes, this might be totes inapplicable. And I may have stolen from Conspiracy of One by The Offspring, the again, a little light larceny never really hurt anyone, did it?) - Alchemy - (apart from being the name of a Dire Straits live album, there must be a million novels with this title... Yes, pretty much, along with The Alchemist. - Alchemy's End - (I stole this one from The End of Alchemy, which is an awesome title!! But already used by Mervyn King, former governor of the Bank of England after we stole Mark Carney from the Canucks!! (Sigh) As an economist, Mark Carney is just dreamy. - Woodcutting vs. Alchemy: Dawn of Poultice - yeah, ok, I was joking that time...

Hey Aero, glad to be ab le to reciprocate by critiquing something new of yours, and excited to read another short when we haven’t had many for a while. Then they all come along at once! Nothing like starting at the beginning. The title made me pause, not ‘Quenched by Fire’? “Once this is done, the sword will harden shortly”- I think this line has more bite if it’s more direct. “Any imperfections made in the quench will stay” – I feel like the imperfections don’t occur in the quench, but are fixed by it. Surely the weakness is part of the prior beating/forming process. “As short recently as three years ago” I thought there was a pov slip, when we heard that Rachel was shocked and the still got the driver’s thoughts, but I guess the first line could be in his pov. “I’ve seen more expensive cities” – unusual measure of a city, as it implies the cost of goods and services. It would be more usual to consider a city grand or modern, rather than the cost of it to build or to live in - which I think is what you meant. Back to the pov thing; if we’re in the driver’s pov, it’s strange that he knows her name. “The day was a market day” – awkward, compared to simply ‘It was market day’. I think two out of three stories on here (mine are not immune) have a bustling market with vendors calling their wares. I think we as a group need to look at different ways to convey the bustle in a city. “Corr-level products” – another line about the city that sounds off to me. I think you could convey more in this statement, talking about Corr quality or standard. “Gold, unasked for, always spells misfortune” – Cool. Yeah, the pov’s making me uncomfortable. I don’t know if you’re going to omnipotent, but whatever it is, I’m find it disorienting. “As she watched, a peasant walked in front of her to a stand selling various breads. He picked up a large loaf, haggled for less than thirty seconds, paid and then left. That was what the driver had missed” – This passage is rather messy for me. The description doesn’t convey how the vendor moves, which way they’re facing and even whether they’re trying to sell the bread to Rachel. Using ’30 seconds’ is a hard crash on my fantasy vibe – off tone, I think. ‘Various breads’ is awkward. It’s a minor detail, why draw attention to it with novel phrasing? “But, it was different than from other towns” I’m finding the phrasing unnecessarily complicated, even excluding the many typos. “To her, lying was no different than telling the truth” – This is a great line, and I feel like it’s central to the USP / heart of the story. I think you need this line WAY up front in the story. So far, I’ve got to say, there has been nothing to excite or really interest me that much. The opening is very dry and lacks any kind of wonder or intrigue. A woman gets a taxi, walks through a market… meh. This line right here is clever and it contains more character than the first two pages. “Any information that you could have is easily worth coin” – This line is way too unspecific. Would you go up to someone in the street and say, “Give me information about your town.” “I found that explanation satisfactory” – By this point, the discussion with the pie-seller, I am starting to be intrigued, but again, this comes way too late for me. I would consider cutting back hard on the first 3 or 4 pages. What purpose does the cab driver serve? I think you could cut him down to less than a page. “small street urchin” – this is another trope on the fantasy story checklist. So far, all the currency has been silver and gold. Even throwing silver around seems pretty remarkable. I’m willing to accept that Corr is the equivalent of Norway or Switzerland, or something, so silver is the norm for small consumable items, but I still think you need to call it out more. “Rachel sat in silence atop the local inn” – You say this is normal, is she on the slates? I can’t believe that’s normal. Is she not on a roof terrace or something, a balcony or walk-way? The lack of blocking stops me in my tracks here. “The rooftop was empty, save for Rachel. Rachel attributed the reason” – This is not the first time you’ve used her name close to another instance. I think it sounds so awkward. I hope others mention this, because sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that sees how clumsy it sounds, when it’s so easy to use ‘she’ for the second one and make the prose so much smoother. I feel it sounds like someone calling them-self by their name in conversation. "Hi, I'm Robin. Robin is going to sit down. Would Robin like a drink? Robin would, thank you!" “Riddle me this” – I like this line, and generally, I like Rach’s voice, but I don’t think there is enough of it. I think she has good potential, but I find the narrative too dense and sometimes start skipping, looking for dialogue. “Rachel spun around and used her second sight” – I know you’ve foreshadowed Rachel being special, but this was a kick in the plausibles for me. I would prefer something specific in foreshadowing this. “Like you’re a missing piece that doesn’t fit?” – Yep, I’m enjoying the interplay with the urchin. And I did enjoy the description of her second sight, I just felt you hadn’t really earned any wonder at the reveal, because of the foreshadowing issue – it felt a bit offhand to me. I like the feeling around Rachel of her being a supernatural gumshoe – she can be the real strength of this story, I think, if you pare back some of the blurb narrative and give us more character. “you had a year or two to build them up” – I'm confused by her exposition here. I think there’s confusion between immunity, which the kid could have built up, and merchants coming in. Surely, they are not immune, so would be affected. But the kid isn’t? I think this section could be clearer. “Dest’s only used it for good so far, but that remains to be seen” – These two phrases are contradictory. She makes a statement, then say it remains to be ‘proven’. If she said ‘I think Dest has only used it for good so far, but that remains to be seen.’ – I.e. there is something still to be proven in the statement. Her spilling the plot to the urchin felt a bit tell-y. I would prefer she told him reluctantly, like he forced it out of her. I think your dialogue would be uplifted by an out-loud read through, from a mistrusting perspective. If it is the case that Rach is innately trustworthy, and that is why people are totally (and unusually) honest with her, then I think you need to foreshadow that. “She’ll know what to do.” – I like this bit, sending the kid to safety. It feels like a Western, the lone hero sending a loved one away. ‘I gotta do this. I’ll come back for you.’ Nice. “landing in the building’s shadows fifty feet below” – Yeah, I don’t think you treating these abilities she had with enough wonder. I don’t feel you’ve sold me / convinced me on them. “After all, you did build this town up from scratch” – Huh? I didn’t get this before. Is this new information? I think you need to foreshadow this somehow before springing it here. M, “Handshake to seal the deal?” – What deal? I'm not aware that she’s offered him a deal. Sorry, but the dynamics of this fight sound like that standard bad Hollywood fight scene where the hoods attack the hero one at a time. Counting them off really accentuates it, but what I really want is for them all to attack at once, because that way SOMEONE gets a strike in. That’s what happens in the real world, surely. All the world’s hoods cannot be that stupid. I like the collapsing of the inn, that was unexpected. “Another moment or two, and he’d be able to restore the inn back before it fell” – not required, imho. “The Shadows don’t enjoy being stopped, host of an Order, so they created me” – what is this bit? I don’t get it. “this is my rune ax. Die” – first time, I thought the axe was called ‘Die’. “only to see the dagger behind” – Huh? Word missing? Behind what? “Dest gave one last look at the burning city” – The city’s on fire too quickly for me. The typos, wrong and missing words really affect my ability to judge some passages. I find some of the language in the debate rather muddy, confusing, and I find it hard to extract the point that’s being made. “Once you can or can’t be a bad person, that’s all the cause I need” – I just don’t know what she’s trying to say. “seeking more hosts of Order” – I just don’t get the grammar of this at all. The Order? Also, I'm confused now about whose Order it is, his or hers. I enjoyed parts of the story, but was confused and frustrated by others. The typos are killer. Have you been through an edit of this before you posted it? Do you use grammar checker? It would make it easier for critiques to run over it with a checker. I think you’ve got a good story here. Rachel’s a good character, I think, but Dest came off a bit of a cut-out. The henchmen attacking came off lame to me, for reasons above. To close though, I think it would be worth working this through a few more times. I would work on the flow, of both language and references/plot – both of which could definitely be stronger. Interesting stuff though, thanks for sharing. <R>

I also would like to submit on the 27th, as I've forgotten who was the last person to say, 'After you, Claude.' (No, I'm not that old.)

Awesome! I'm excited to get your comments - another perspective is always valuable. Yeah - it's word count after the first bit, isn't it? I'll almost certainly cut some. Hmm, well that is how Moth is, but I'll try your suggestion and see what I think Good point - I'm changing it a little so that 'Moth closed her mouth.' Moth made for the stairs if anything, I think. But you make a fair point. I think I'll save this one for the next edit. It's certainly a bit wordy, and there's a word missing 'that would attract attention' Yes, I'll buy that. I actually took the tag away completely. This line attracted several comments. I'm still going to leave it until the next edit. It's supposed to shock, but... hmm. It might be a bit too harsh. Hmm, I'll think on that. Yeah, paper tissue, and I note what you say about habit, but I'm going to go with the majority on that one - I don't think anyone else had a difficulty with it. I take your point about it being the first time you've heard the word though. Ha-ha. The pronoun thing. I started with no capital letters and changed it after another comment on the forum. I'm not sure now. I liked the original with no capitals. I'll see how I feel on the edit. I'm gonna say 'good thing'!! I'm glad you somewhat enjoyed this one, but especially that you're liking Moth. That's great. Really looking forward to future comments, if you get the time! Best, R

Do you know, I think you've hit it there, ID. One of the main building blocks of Q's character is the Merion (his suit) - which in earlier chapters is hinted at being of some personal significance than a suit. I spun this out to be the whole sartorial thing, and that nicely shaped his character initially. Since then, as the plot as strengthened, the way forward became clear to me, it seems those things have been overtaken by forward momentum and, I think to some degree, the constant sparring with Moth. So, well done! And thank you

damnation, that's good; that's 50 words out of 70,400. Your royalties are 0.071%* (* No they're not - you get nothing!!!) Seriously though, good point, well made. Either I'm in your debt or we're even

Ah, I'm editing following your comments, and I see this now. Moth referred to S-0778 as Professor Robot in a much earlier passage. Also, I cut the line about Q being M's guardian not her packhorse. And, I used the ellipses. Yeah, they're better

Hey ID, thanks for reading - I'm enjoying your critiques. Yeah - JIMS will be pretty strong on these elements when you haven't been through the earlier interludes (it's actually the main second POV). Yeah, thanks, I'll get to that Yeah, I made an assumption that S can't carry any more bags; a bit lazy on my part, and probably not true - I'll look at that. Right, that hasn't played for you. Luggage is luggage, baggage was a reference to Moth's emotional baggage. Fair comment. I might just leave that for an editor (should I get that far!), but maybe I'll try elips in Edit #2. Sort of; it's intended as a shift in Q's perspective, suddenly, he doesn't know who Moth is, and perceives her as a short woman, his perception is really messed up about now. It's supposed to be jarring, up to a point, but I was hoping the reader would be carried through it Ah, thank you so much for the all important second (third?) opinion - much appreciated! I like your suggestion, as it addresses the short discussion above about 'How do you know which pronoun to use?' I'll mull on this, but you option feels like it has a good grounding in the situation. It weakens the punchline a bit, but I'll see how it plays. To some extent this is me taking a world-building shortcut, because I don't need to explain the general parameters of the UN. How in the heck they got into that position, on what that position actually is, perhaps remains to be played out in another story, but in the mean time, I think the North American Federation is a more intriguing prospect. I guess you haven't come across that; there was a reference in the first submission. I'm almost certainly going to editing around this; Kaisa already called me out on the date - I'll work that whole segment some more. Women (and me) in uniform; what's not to like? A good fetish is a fetish forever. ROFL - This is the best comment I've every had in a critique - awesome! Also, no doubt somewhat indicative of a conflict in me in writing the character. I have great intentions for Q&M for be my (later) life's work. I feel like it's the best stuff I've done (which won't mean much to you, ID!) Sooo, I need them as a pair to be sufficiently flexible to carry a range of material, and to have different sides. Kaisa has been trying to keep me honest in relation to Quirk's tone. All I can really say at this point is that I have big flags and several of them for Edit #2 to work on Quirk's tone. The bottom line is that I need him to swear sometimes, but I will be running a close rule over his word choice. The other thing I'm going to consider is to try and have other characters call him out from time to time, perhaps, when things 'aren't like him'. No, no, no, you mustn't apologise. You comment here are down right excellent - exactly what I need a hope for. Really nice catch open the 'T-shift' thing, btw - that little runt of a typo is hard to spot!! I kind of like the feeling that you really want to like Quirk though (if I'm no presuming too much). To me, that is absolutely golden, and testament, I hope, to some good work done in earlier chapters. So, something for me to aim at big time. Thank you soooo much, @industrialistDragon, great comments, really appreciated

breath I would suggest 'unsatisfied craving', or maybe something around 'insatiable'. But it's a craving, not a crave. themes of the music Grammar's off here. I noticed before but didn't comment on the commas 'but then turning wrathful', for example. Too many commas. Commas again. 'to hear more', or 'for hearing more' perhaps The Force Awakens 'on' a quiet farm. Also, what is 'it'? The music? And Force Awakens is not about a boy, it's about a 'girl', woman really. I would say tempo, personally. Also, I would say it's rare for music to accelerate. Fairly common to have a shift in tempo, but not to' accelerate' through a number of increasing tempos, as I imply from this description. earphones, surely? Maybe that's a North American thing. And I would say 'today'. This day sounds rather high fantasy archaic. pitted, I would say This is a hard shift in viewpoint, I found it uncomfortable. Why not 'I'? so hot There's some good description there, without doubt, and I think it's clear your language has come on a huge amount in the time I've read your stuff on here. As to the piece itself, there were a couple of place I felt some repetition between the pieces, when there were fighting / battleground references, for example. I was certainly moved in places. It's difficult reading description which is just that, but I could see the arc in the piece, in terms of rediscovering the power of music. Maybe a tad disjointed in the fact that there is something of a pause in the middle when you change pieces of music. This is some good work, I think, as an experiment / exercise, and I look forward to you applying to some writing that we can see on here. What I would hope for is a subject and / or characters that have a strong original streak in it / them. Happy writing!

Right, consider it properly called. I'll PM you my email - send me something you want alpha-read

Yay! Well, I would say that you have to want to write it. Really want it. For me that means being interested in / amused by / in love with the characters first and foremost. Then you need to want to finish it, get to the end to see what happens. I know that's not always easy. I'm not sure if it helps to have a plot through to the end or not. On the one hand, it's good to know where you are going, so you know which direction to take! On the other, knowing how it's going to end can be demotivating. I tend to formulate ideas that take me to the point where the characters are in deep doo-doo and hope I will develop entertaining / satisfying ideas for the last 1/3 or so before I get there. On the old projects, unless you are capable of being very disciplined, and going back to them to finish a first draft, but NOT start editing, I would suggest not going back. If you didn't love them enough to finish them last time, why will it be different this time? If you have old projects that are finished, do you love them enough to put one up on the alpha reader thread? If not, then maybe it doesn't deserve your attention in other ways either. I know it takes effort, but learning to not edit, but just continue to the end is such a great ability to have, I'm reminded of Dan Wells saying how he reads what he wrote the day before in order to remind himself why he loves the story to motivate himself for starting a new day's writing. I guess you have to reach that place where you are more excited about going forward than you are overcome by the need to go back. Perhaps it would help to think in the way of there being no point in going back, because you'll never be able to notice all the problems yourself, or you might fix something that was good. So don't go back at all. Starting to ramble - I hope that helps somehow. Now get writing!

Thanks Aero, for going into the level of detail, really appreciate that. It's given me plenty to think about!!

Yah - me too!! Clearly, I'm going to have to start doing a search-and-replace each time before I paste my comments in from my Word file...

Ha-ha. It was the passage I thought it was, thanks. Though, if you could reference my page numbers, it would mean I didn't need to do the arithmetic. I mean, I can do the arithmetic, I'm just that lazy Yeah - I want that too. I just need to be careful to remember it. After Edit #2 for consistency, I'll look at Edit #3 for character tone alone. I'll make that may reading-out-loud edit for language in general. I'm glad you feel you can remove that complaint - I will make the flag slightly larger. In passing, why do they call it the Mile High Club? A mile is only 5,280 feet which, for an airplane, is like take off or landing - not the time to be in the WC!! Even for the right reasons!!! The Airbus A910 is cruising at 52,000ft, so it's near enough the 10 mile high club (except it's not really). Thanks for the rebuttal!

Perfect. I like to think if I had played through an imaginary scenario in my head that would have been the answer. Thank you so much for taking the time to answer this, and for all you do on here to help this Ludite to become more educated about the world.

Thanks for reading, @kaisa, I really value your input. I feel like you're my lightning rod in terms of the fine tuning of character tone. Please be assured I am putting big flags in my edit file, but I'm not going to try and adjust this too much on the hoof. I'd rather take stock of the overall reaction and adjust in Edit #2, but I'm flagging each time you call this. Yay for S-0778!! And the storyline holding is so important at this still fairly early stage, as the plot doesn't really accelerate until... well, it's coming. (I'll fix the balls thing. There will be balls.) "Aw shoot..." Is Quirk's go to phrase when something bad drops, as you may have gathered by now. It is coarse, and that's what he intends, using it as stress. Having said this, perhaps I can highlight it in some way, call it out, hang an lantern on it, as WE are fond of saying. He also uses 'Jeez' a fair bit, which I agree is sloppy and grammatically coarse. I think I'll look to change that up. Darn, I was so close!! I deliberately didn't flag this prior to submitting, of course, because it was so important to get your reaction. The first part was true, and I'm really glad that worked. The second part (the call-out, if you will) was there to enable the 'convent' punchline. I'll change the date; you're right, of course, and that was just lack of forethought/research on my part. I will make the dates much earlier and look into what the position is now (more on-the-job training for me ) As to the call-out, I take your point about it 'dating' the story, so to speak. I was trying to highlight how certain organised religion my in the future still be closed to such important things. Again, I'll need to research current faith attitudes in this area. The Anglican Church in the UK only approved the appointment of female bishops in 2015. The date of the story is 2099. I will do more work on this area. Sometimes, I feel like the pagination isn't the same, do you mean when Quirk and Moth are talking about him dying, being shocked and the neurotoxin? Also, do you guys get the page numbers I set? When I extract the text, I start the page numbering where it is in my current draft. So the footer should start at Page 76 this week? I think I might go to submitting PDF's. It doesn't override your comments about Quirk and Bernie, but they were in the washroom, did that not come over? I'll think about the scene. I understand your criticism. I think the main issue is that Quirk as I perceive him, and as you do is not quite the same person. While I need him to be intelligent, well-informed and sophisticated, I also need him to have a somewhat rougher side. Perhaps what I need to is highlight the tension between the two, rather than just flipping. We've got two guesses on the 'M' word so far, neither correct. I don't know if this is important enough for anyone to remember when it becomes more apparent - if it does. I'll let it ride for now I'll reply yo your other post separately, as this reply is pretty lengthy, and I don't want to lose it!! Thank you so much for your comments, @kaisa - they are so helpful to me in this endeavour.

Hey @aeromancer, thanks for reading. I always welcome your thoughts. Lol - yes, that would be sweet. They're not in Draft #1, but I'll note that. Might be one for a future story, but then Brandon S threw all his ideas in Mistborn, so who knows? I'll take that as a note for Edit #2. I'm just loving how much love S-0778 is getting this week. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the droid is in the story for a long time. To the end? You'll need to keep reading to find out As a machine that is programmed, I feel that there must a workaround on any fundamental issues for the operating system. Thanks for the comma - I call first draft; as to the first dan thing, yup, I'm aware. To some extent it's a throw-away line from Q. He doesn't necessarily understand (although I feel like he would) or care about the absolute authenticity of any thought that goes through his head. On the other hand, maybe he's actually First Dan. Having said, he really doesn't act as if he is a lot of the time. Maybe Moth is breaking him. Hey, that would be terrific. To some extent this aspect is the high concept of the story, so I'm not going to be slavish about the facts, given that it's The Future. In the end, I'm a lot more Space Opera than Hard SF, any commentary is always welcome Great comments, Aero, thank you so much. I love how you always challenge me on the technical aspects - it's great!!

Thank you so much for reading, RD - always appreciate your opinion. I'm so happy that it's holding your interest. The next couple of chapters will be especially interesting to me, as there is travelling involved, which can be a pitfall for a story. Thanks again!

Thanks @Ernei, really appreciate the tip. Wow, Tilden's laws are quite shocking; that's how you end up with Skynet right there. I think I will dig into this in future stories. After a brief glance through the other options, I see nothing there superior to Asimov's Laws. Those other sets seem to me all to have quite a particular slant towards the agenda of the group in question, rather than being universal. Thank you!

Hey, thanks for reading, @Ernei! He was until he hired the trolley for the bags, but it wasn't clear, I agree. I've tweaked a little and may need to clarify further when I get to Edit #2. Yes, I walked right into this one after commenting on the contra-position on another forum Thanks for pulling me up on that. Honestly? I don't know. This is a question that I've never been sure of the answer to. Hmm? Not that I'm aware of. Other people have tinkered with and referenced the laws. I might need to do more research, but they're not central. I'll post you a copy when it's published. (The positive thinking starts here...) Thanks so much for reading - I really appreciate your feedback and I'm so glad S-0778 has a fan!

Awesome - that's the most important thing, obvs; the screenplay thing was just spitballing, although I might salvage some bits an pieces from it. I'm not wedded to it by any means. And thanks for the recommendation!