Robinski

Thanks for reading, @Eagle of the Forest Path, appreciate your comments. Yeah - it's like a curtain between the reader the characters, isn't it? Good point.

Excellent - I'm going to call that mission accomplished. Kind of proves @kaisa's point about engaging readers (and others) early with the Q/M banter. Also, you make a good point about 'regret' and the lack of clarity in that sentence. Thanks, King - much appreciated

Q & M bonus material!! So, @kaisa made a brilliant point in a critique of one of my chapters, which was that an editor or agent asking for the first 50 pages or three chapters or whatever of TMM, would not actually encounter any of the 'sparkling' (depending on your opinion) interaction between Q and M, since they don't meet until Chapter 7 and don't really interact until Chapter 8. Ergo, I wrote this scene in response to that latest WE writing prompt (S12, Ep11). I'm thinking of it as a framing scene, which would appear at the start of the story. If you have the chance and inclination to read, I'd welcome your thoughts on this as the first introduction to the 'main' characters in the story. Oh, and it's written in mock screenplay format - affectation or engaging? Also, certain swears have been replaced to protect the sensitive. <R> [Text removed by RCMD]

Oh, frell - I go through my critique posts and check for pronouns, but these have slipped through - apologies. As you can see, I still type them in the first instance sometimes - those 50 years of conditioning continue to try and hang on :-/ Err, the second pronoun instance was me too..., not @Mandamon

You mean..., you haven't read..., Lord of the..., Rings?

Hmm, yeah, the problem becomes that the 'G' rating gets diluted and it's application becomes meaningless; it's a tricky one for sure.

Hello everyone, Soooo, please do ignore until tomorrow, but I've got a heavy day ahead, so thought no one would mind if I just 'slipped this under the door' a bit early and ran away. If you do have time to read this coming week, I'm just looking for anything that occurs to you. I'm ramping up the pace a bit with a 'full' submission. Interested to know if it holds your interest for two chapter and 5,000 words. Thank you for your consideration. Cheers, Robinski

Ah, right.

That's what I thought So, how did you feel about the violence in K's submission? I sense from your answer that you would not have flagged this as gore, maybe?

I could not agree less. Just because that is the way most fantasy is, doesn't mean all fantasy has to be, or should be, that way. Perhaps it's because I am only barely able to consider this story 'fantasy' at all, and I mean that as high praise. I think's it's treading the lines between genres in a very interesting way. So what? Any story is about character first. Character trumps everything. For me, this chapter is about the character realising that they cannot achieve what they want to, the investigation of what they believe alchemy should be, within the redundant strictures of a discipline organised (and therefore defined), by individuals whose image of the profession is hackneyed and reductionist. The worst thing possible for the story (character) would have been them becoming apprenticed to the heid bummer, although probably they would have come to intellectual 'blows' soon enough. I don't see it this way. He believes in an alchemy that has nothing in it for Sor. It seems to be he can't conceive of what their interpretation of alchemy is or can achieve. His branch of alchemy must produce results, and he must be at the epitome of that area of expertise, with proven mastery, I presume - unless he's just a politician. I don't read it that she's more competent than him, but that she has a better understanding of one area of the discipline. Disagree. In Sor's last fight they were captured and down and only just managed to get away. I don't think you can call it 'one hit' what they did to the wake Queensguard. Here, they managed to hit a barn door, only just. In no way did they come across as competent at fighting. I think it's clear that they were lucky, and that they know it. Sor used the only thing available, applied wits and got the result. I think that's a good thing. I think it's clear that in no way does Sor think that every fight will be easy, quite the opposite. Personally, I think this would be a mistake. I think you need to underline the alchemical aspects of this story at every opportunity in the early parts. Sure, have pigments fail, but I think it's too soon for that. Have them fail next time. Beating the not-Ent with a rock? Seriously? That's going to be a comedy moment, imo. For what it's worth, this reader thinks the scene is great the way it is. You have wonder, you have tension, you have violence (btw wrt Gore - do we now have to flag any personal injury inflicted by another entity as Gore? Blood is red, whether it's a wound or a nosebleed). Yes, this right here. He did? I didn't think that. He was scrabbling around in the leaves and I'm sure there's a reference to him becoming increasingly frantic. @kaisa, have you finished Draft Zero? I would urge your not to change this chapter until you've finished the story?

Comments? Well, I almost thought I was going to read right through without having any. As it happens… “The fog was like a cream-soup almost, and it sat heavily on my tongue as I breathed, tasting of decaying plant matter.” …I'm only stopping to declare my admiration for this highly descriptive sentence, nice work. Numerous went before it, but this is the one that made me stop (in a good way). “Gods, the tree was walking”- fascinating. So utterly unlike an Ent as to feel completely original (in my experience, anyway). “My aim was terrible " – This account of experimenting mixed with lack of competence in certain skills is packed full of character. Excellent work. Also, the threat, which is very real, but not especially violent, seems very true to nature. I'm sure your experience is much great than mine, although I have some from engineering. Nature is not spiteful, but if you get in its way, it will kill you. “The mud was coppery with his blood” – the vivid description in this story is only one of the aspects that sets it (well) above AWD, imho. “That helped calm me” I mean that is great characterisation. He’s the wounded one, but they are the one in a panic; true to character. “He was shorter than me by several handspans, and had a light frame” – Lol, a criticism at last – I think you need to foreshadow this once or twice, maybe thrice. I have this habit of picturing males in authority as big fellas, either in height or girth or both. It seems here like the situation is being formulated in order to make it possible for them to carry him. This is an excellent chapter, probably the best yet, imho. It has tension; vivid description of the forest at night; nice verbal sparring between the two characters; disappointment; redemption and character growth, culminating in a lovely subversion of the potential cliché at the end. After having ‘taken a thorn from the lion’s paw’ so to speak, Sor rejects what she went into the chapter, and the whole story, wanting so badly in order to strike out on her own. The story has a strong sense of the other for me deriving from the ‘alchemical’ details, which really do give the story a unique flavour, imo. There’s a bunch of grammar and style stuff that needs tidying up, but no point in trawling over that here. Nice work; more please. <R>

I agree with Mandamon (hurray!) - I think you can cut down quite hard on Chuck and Larry's stuff. Yeah, totally. I agree with Kaisa (hurrah!) - I never considered Chuck as the m/c - always Barb. Chuck's a cut-out, I think. I think that was the point - but I found it heavy-handed. Really?

Nice to read a short (I presume!), we don’t get that many these days. “kick-starting dead skin tissue” – kicking-starting it into what? “an overwriting survival instinct” – did you mean overriding? ‘loved ones’ doesn’t fit with ‘her’ lawyer. Some good strong lines in the first section. I like the kind of patchwork approach with these small snapshots. I enjoyed the introduction of Barb. I get some character from these simple actions and statements, and I did not feel I was getting dumped on. “There were two kinds of career paths which always made for long hours” – I enjoyed Indy’s [some] survey last week, and now my Dissembler Detector is rebooted. “Barb outstretched both hands” – this was weird for me. In my mind, it’s an adjective, not a verb. “The outbreaks all happen in places where burial customs leave corpses susceptible to the infection,” For said.” – For me, this be crossed the line into info-dump. I feel his language is to formulaic, and that it would better broken into more colloquial language. After Barb, being back in Kirk’s pov was jarring. This is a short, right? I’d be perfectly happy to be in Barb’s pov the whole time. Also, “guberment” – I don’t get. As in ‘gooberment’? At least ‘gubberment’ sounds like the source word. Main problem though for me is that I don’t know if he’s backward or trying to be funny. Yeah, Kirk and Rhod’s section is slow and spends a certain amount of time drawing obvious conclusions from pretty bland statement, imo. I think this content could be covered in about half a page. True or not, I feel like I'm being reminded of stuff that happened a few pages ago. Kirk divorced, “it’s impossible to overreact to a zombie apocalypse” – ROFL. “Chuck turned to see a security guard striding towards Rhodes. He’d been spotted.” This is SOOO obvious, stating it feels like a slap in the face for the reader. “He’d drawn a gun in a hospital. They weren’t going to take that lightly.” – Here’s a similar line. I think if these obvious statements are going to remain, they need to be either funny or insightful, i.e. entertaining or thought-provoking / informative. “other doomsday-related prepping items have also increased dramatically” – I feel like there’s a laugh to be had there. “Barb didn’t know what to expect, at once transfixed by the color of Francine’s eyes” – I'm sure this construction is intended to splice two things together, there are two things going on ‘at once’. So like ‘at once transfixed by Francie’s eyes and her appetite’ or something like that. “with only crimson pigments only from eyes bloodshot with from stress and lack of sleep” – Sorry I keep doing that, but I’ve always liked your turn of phrase, which drives to offer lbls when is see grammar and repeated words. Barb and Brad close together is awkward. I'm hoping Hopper doesn’t appear too much. “Francine gave a barely noticeable shrug, barely noticeable even within the hospital bed” – I’ll stop; that’s the next stage, right? I think you need to work that rap quite a bit harder. It scan’s like a sack of potatoes. I worry for Mana’s career. Why is there only one cop on duty? I don’t think that’s credible. “Patient Zero’s hospital room light was on” – how did he find out the room number? I’m having hard blocking issues as Kirk approaches the room. It’s like he’s down the corridor, but he can see Francie, but you don’t describe her coming out of the room. Viewpoint feels messy around here. “He was walking against the surge of people.” – Nope, this comes from nowhere. How can he see Francie in a chair if the corridor’s full of people, or even see ‘the cop’? I don’t buy it. I’m calling the one cop thing again as well. This is the kind of stuff that happens on bad TV shows. There is a (inter)nationally reported incident and very publicly known patient in a hospital and there’s only one cop on her room, or in the buildilng? And that cop has just walked away when the shooting starts? I can’t get past this. If I was reading this in a collection or online daily fiction, I would be turning to something else at this point. “Chuck removed the Glock from its holster” – Where are all those crowds? I don’t know if they’re coming or going. “He burst into Patient Zero’s room” – Nope; there’s more than one cop behind him and he didn’t put her (them) down. Unless he’s about to get shot in the back, I don’t buy this at all. “I’m going to save the world, but to do that, I have to put you down” – Oh god no, not another villain expositioning instead of just pulling the trigger. “Surprisingly, the bleeding-heart woman cop didn’t stand down. They always did in the movies.” “Maybe she was a…”– I guess you’re trying to show that Kirk has all the wrong gender politics. I was unhappy about all his protesting before that the cop was a woman. Honestly, I think that’s just getting in the way of your story. I don’t think that’s what the story’s about and you’re in danger of derailing it by trying to tackle a much bigger issue in an off-hand way. “or will all with the cops down at the end of the hall” – Nope, why on earth would they still be at the end of the hall – and all in the one place? Plausibility gap again. “He was impressed Rhodes hadn’t shot him, but then again, since his friend was never that great of shot” – This is the wrong sense, these phrases are not opposites. The random blocking is hurting my head. “Two more deputies rounded the other corner” – Chuck’s in the room, isn’t he? He can’t see down two corridors at once. “squawking radio chatter from her shoulder every five minutes” – Too long. “Francine looked at Barb fearfully with a certain amount of fear” – Call-back to the imprecise language point. “The death toll for necrorescuitation stands at one hundred and thirty-two” – (1) necro… is a really awkward word to decode/read; (2) compound numbers should be hyphenated; (3) the body count does not seem high enough, I don’t see that it would take long to contain at that scale. “either side of the bus” – ambulance, surely? The language in the penultimate paragraph is messy. I enjoyed the story. I liked the ending, which was somewhat unexpected until the last couple of pages. There are some good lines and a good tone throughout, which I expect from you, but I'm glad it’s still there! Problems for me. (1) The police procedures are laughable; I think you need to rework that, because I did not think their deployment is credible; (2) the blocking around Chuck engaging with PZ in the corridor, in the room and what he can see from the room, I think, is all over the place; (3) I didn’t like how the gender politics was dealt with. I think it’s cursory and that you don’t have space in a short to deal with it properly. It’s a cheap way to make Chuck more evil. I think it needs a rethink. There’s a good story in here, I hope you keep working it, I want to read it again a couple of edits or more down the line. Glad to have you back RD! <R>

Okay, purely for the purposes of assisting Silk when we get to the sharp end of the weekend, I reckon we now have... @neongrey @Wisps of Aether @aeromancer @Djarskublar and @Robinski ...for Monday 20th

Hey, welcome to RE. This is the best question, and I am confident in answering 'yes' to that one. As to the 20th, well, you are the 6th request, but sometimes these things have a way of working themselves out. Watch this space... Silk will adjudicate, but might be Sunday.

Wow - I do believe we are full on a Friday night (GMT ) - awesome!

Oh, sure, pick the one week in two months when I'm not in competition!! Well, I went ahead and counted mine up from the week before, and I had 0 'some-whatsis' and 5 'some' [word]s over 16 pages. Hey, that's fun, can we do it every week? Seriously though, I've commented about this before, imprecise language really kills momentum and involvement of the reader. Like @Mandamon, I've been working on it for about a year now and it really pays off. Great work @industrialistDragon!!

Comments. First para does a good job of setting mood and tension, I thought. Well, maybe not tension, but unease certainly. I think the burst of action works well as a release to P’s tension. His uncle is there and gone, barely seen at all, which I enjoyed and then P is interacting with the girl. “he felt her fingertips flutter over his hand” I though you did a good job of raising more tension through her resistance. Even these little notes add greatly to character and therefore enjoyment. It’s easy to say he grabs her hand and they go off and hide. I think these touches of the unexpected are a great addition to any piece. “the girl stepped with surprisingly soft feet” – really? Not sure why it’s surprising. “a Crispen Bush” – I’m still waging war on unnecessary capitals. Why capitalise ‘bush’? You don’t say ‘Oak Tree’. This here is distracting, it looks like a person’s name. “anger at the sight of the blade. Sacrilege.” – I know this was mentioned in the first chapter, but I don’t feel I have a strong enough sense of why carrying a sword is a sin. I think you use P’s name too much sometimes; I feel it sounds awkward, but also slows the narrative down. “The man spat out a tooth” – Don’t see why he would lose a tooth from a punch on the chin – a punch in the mouth, maybe. “landed a kick to the man's fruits” – Sorry, maybe it’s just my coarse northern sensibilities, but this seemed lame to me; we’re in the midst of a fight and it’s just so polite. If you don’t want to say ‘balls’, you could use ‘sack’, not really rude, surely, but less lame, imho. The magic leaves me kind of cold. We read so much magic on hear and this variety doesn’t stand out for me, it feels rather generic. What I do like if P continually reminding himself, pushing himself to focus, because it’s not natural for him, because he’s new and learning. I think that works well. “Relief flooded the girls face” – This statement is rather anonymous, because you’ve given no description of her. You described her before in terms of breathing, fingers, etc. when they were hiding and it was dark, but when you describe a character looking at someone’s face, I kind of expect, something. Not long description, but the eyes are the window to the soul, apparently, so there is so much character in the face that I just expect to learn something when a face is ‘viewed’ – if you see what I mean. “He pulled her close and looked about” – This makes no sense to me. Why does he do that? He’s just restricting his own movement (and the girl’s) when he could be attacked again at any moment. “He led the girl” – just before he leads her into the clearing, P spent about half a page running, but there was no description of the girl running with him or him leading her. I was like he had left her behind. “Don't leave me again” – Okay, damsels in distress, clearly, they exist, but it’s very generic. Sassy, belligerent females also exist and are becoming a cliché very quickly. So, what am I saying? I think you need something to set the girl apart from generic damsel in distress. Anything to give her some character, because she really is pushing all the stereotype buttons here. Sure, she can be scared, she can be unable to fight, but give her some better lines, I would suggest. I do like that P does the ‘hero’ lines, I will return to save you, then falls over; that’s good, a bit different. Overall, I enjoyed this, I think it’s a good continuation of the story and I like P’s voice, I can root for him as a beginner. He’s not super competent, but he’s trying, which is a great aspect for a hero, attitude before competence. I think the girl and the magic need some work, for similar reasons, to make them more interesting and engaging. Nice job though, I feel like this can go places. <R>

Comments. “the wooden walls of the alley” – two months later, this has bubbled to the surface for me. Given the engineering wonders of the Nether, I'm quite puzzled why there are wooden buildings here. It kinda throws my image of the city. “was lost to sight” – duplicated phrase. “They exited the alley” – is this another alley? I didn’t notice them go into a second alley. “took up the story” – I'm not sure about this directly drawing attention to the discussion as a ‘story’. For me it seems a bit deliberate, if that makes any sense. “convinced the Aridori and are real” – typo. Yeah, I found this better than the first version. It felt more directed and I like the protest to add some tension and relieve the flow of information. I’m happy enough with Sam’s emotions through the chapter, and the arc of his ‘treatment’ wearing off. Looking forward to the next instalment. <R>

Ha, yes, Eagle rightly identified that I didn't answer the question!! I would agree and say 'no'; the forum is much more about exploring the ideas once you have them. Best source of ideas? Life. What angers you, what fills you with hope, what makes you smile / cry / scream? Pick a genre that you're familiar with/love, develop some good characters than start kicking them, especially when they're down - then see what happens

Hey Wisp, welcome to Reading Excuses. This forum operates as a weekly writing group. There is a Welcome... thread that contains the guidelines for how we operate. To summarise, (1) ask Silk to add your email address to the submission list; (2) each week you receive up to 5 writing submissions of up to 5,000 words from members of the forum; (3) read and critique of other people's work (it's not mandatory to read everything); (4) after a week or two, make a request on the Submissions thread to submit your own work the following week (Monday); (5) when the time comes, email out your submission and set up a new thread on the forum for people to submit critiques to you. It's all in the guidance on the Welcome thread, which is pinned at the top. You might find that Silk is not around a huge amount maybe only on the weekend, so best message as soon as possible to be added to the list.

Well that don't seem fair, but is very generous of both of you. I don't think I warrant special treatment. I'll happily take a slot on 20th - we've all got a fair way to go in our stories, I think

I'd like to book a place for the 20th, as we are full for Monday 13th even before any newbies are counted.

Lol