Robinski

Lol - mission accomplished. Yeah, no issue, just WRS.

Apropos of nothing very much, and not trying to excuse any part of anything, I can relate to the 'difficulty' in correctly interpreting some references on first encountering this subject. Over the last year(?) I have had the privilege of some very patient tutoring on the subject of gender from two very erudite voices, and I still feel like sometimes I'm not reaching a position of clarity in my understanding. Closer no doubt, but still... I was where I think Shadowkissed is now; I knew that there were people in the world whose gender was not M or F, but I had absolutely no contact with such an individual, and knew nothing beyond that one basic fact. Stick with it @shadowkissed, and be open to the fact that your automatic perceptions on certain elements of certain stories will be wrong - I know mine were at first, and sometimes still are. Goodness knows I try to tread more carefully now, if nothing else, I hope. I would also caution against straining too hard to understand and question - even with the best of intentions - which I tended to do at first, but which can send the wrong message. Steady as xie goes, captain.

Hey Eagle, thanks for reading. Awesome, I could not have hoped for a better reaction Good point - I can see this. I'll see how the others react then pick this up now rather than waiting, I think. Yeah, there's an issue there. Q. does a calculation based on his daily rate, but T. is basically saying, you don't get your full rate under this contract. I've flagged Q's maths by making it clear that he's applying his own rate, before T. makes what essentially is a counter offer. It is rinse-and-repeat, so if that's not showing, I will need to clarify, which I will do. Lol - what will happen in 2106? Good question!! No - that's a blooper on my part - although I suppose I could justify it as them not wanting to contaminate their clothes. I will tidy that up. Thanks for the great comments, some super catches here, definitely better now. Really glad you're enjoying it

I’m nowhere near gouging my eyes out; I'm enjoying it. Sor is at the same time feisty/combative, and yet also vulnerable. Maybe there is a bit of inconsistency in that, but both are compelling traits, for very different reasons, obvs. Anyway, I haven’t even started reading yet!! “Everything was still empty” – it was the house that was still empty, surely. At best, ‘everywhere was still empty’. Wait, super confused. They opened the door, and then they stood…? They last thing I want when the guards are discovered is a flashback to how Sor felt when they stood up. “dressed for the fair against regulation” – either I don’t remember or I don’t know in the first place; regardless, I'm still confused. ‘grand master’ is bothering me – two words or hyphenated or one word? All are acceptable, it seems. “She took a meeting with the queen at the palace, and neither came back out. Vanished.” – I think this is a great set-up, a good, strong mystery to power the first part of the story. This aspect I also find more compelling than the early plot driver(s) in AFD. It’s clean, uncomplicated (at its core, setting aside the queen’s apparently kidnapping) and easy to identify with. “He was well-shaven” – did you mean clean-shaven? ‘well’ is a phrase I’ve never heard. “The line of his mouth kept changing, a stronger visual indication than he perhaps wanted” – Indication of what? We aren’t told. “I held no substantial nostalgia for” – that’s some awkward language right there. “and sidestepped into the alley” – no, the blocking’s lost me now. The two were in the alley before, were they not? “could make my torso somehow smaller” – Is the torso not below the chest? Even if it’s the whole trunk from neck to navel, isn’t it only the chest that they want to make smaller? “There was the level-headedness of the guard that I expected” – I’m really pleased with how you’ve dealt with the Queens-guard, making them competent and respected, such a good change from the Keystone Cops approach that it so common in fantasy, either that or the Wermacht. This makes a nice change. “It was still a master of the Eastgate mason guild” – masterpiece? I can’t remember who Mag is, but I recall her being mentioned before. Maybe just WRS. Another solid chapter for me; usual tidying up, but I enjoyed the progress. More of a sequel in terms of pace and consideration of their new situation, but no worse for that. Not getting a strong impression of Mag’s character at this point, and Sor is really quite passive in this one, being led from pillar to post (to pub), but we shall see. <R>

Aw man I love being first - probably because I happened so rarely Comments. No need to capitalise ‘uncle’. In that sentence, he’s just an uncle. I like this introduction to the character. At first I thought, ‘Oh no, not another training scene’, but I think it’s well described with the dust and the sensation of impact. Not saying it’s perfect, but you can get away with anything if you do it well enough. Okay, his uncle’s got a training room, palms sweating again, and I found the bit about rocks and sand a bit boring. And what does he care about bruises, is he a swimsuit model? I feel like you’re using his name too much, but I do like the uncle, no messing around, throwing rocks, cool, like him more than Pet so far. I like Stones, cool idea, nice story colour. I know it’s awkward when you’ve got two males in a scene and they’re both active, but there’s a lot a name repetition going on. I won’t mention it again, but unless it’s Uncle Lan, ditch the capitalisation of ‘uncle’, imho. I would seriously try and drop some of the names/uncles and use he’s or alternate names and hes, because it sounds clumsy. The arrival of an unknown rider is always portentous – nice. I don’t care if it verges on cliché. “A few desperate trees sprawled over the edge…” – big run-on sentence. I get confused and a bit bored with all the talk about bolts, I think that could do with tidying up, it gets repetitive. And what has ‘girl’ got to do with anything? The first time they use the word it comes from nowhere and I can’t make sense of it. As the situation develops, I get confused about why the rider came to get Lan, why Lan wasn’t with them in the first place. I don’t get the dynamic of the situation. I don’t feel I've been given enough set-up. “Petro liked the reassuring pressure and hated the coddling at the same time” – I'm pretty well convinced about Pet’s age. I like this line, for example. Wha…? His uncle’s words make no sense to me. What girl is he going to have with him? He said he was going to drop a rope down, but now he’s bringing back a captive? Confused again. I found myself warming to Pet as the chapter went by. He seems determined and brave, but he’s flawed in the sense that he is still learning, which makes him vulnerable. I rather like the combination. His uncle seems competent, and respected by the soldiers. Again, good. Seems to be the classical mentor character, and therefore is probably going to die in the first five chapters. Bad things. The writing is pretty untidy in places in terms of grammar and language – usual edit stuff that can be tidied up easily, so I'm not going to flag it all. The set-up is confusing. I don’t know why anyone is doing anything, so it makes it hard to follow, and therefore impossible to get invested in the situation. That really needs attention. If I don’t know why anyone is doing what they are doing, I'm going to lose interest real quick. I liked the pacing, and I got a sense of tension and urgency from it, but that is going to be undermined by the lack of coherent set-up / plot pretty quickly. Good job with the main characters; plenty of scope for this to be improved, I think. With work, I think you have a decent start here. Another question, is this part of the same story of Gem of Worlds? They seem like completely different situations, characters and set-ups; it’s hard to see how they are in the same word in any way. This may because of the almost complete lack of setting / background in this second submission however. <R>

Hey All, Here is Chapter 7of TMM in which stuff happens. Super keen as ever to hear your reactions. Hope you enjoy and really look forward to getting and all comments you see fit. Cheers, Robinski

Lol - not the Academy, apparently...

I like the sounds of you plot shift, seems more dynamic. And yeah, young man/woman is more awkward, but seems to me strikes the right tone, from what you describe. Formal? I dunno, in dialogue, yes I think you're right, but in narrative seems just like a statement of fact.

(a) - do they allow 'it' to go over the side in the Amazon? (b) - you seem to be confusing reality and fiction Fine by me. Let's go

Looking forward to continuing down the path. I am enjoying the epigraphs once again. There is a lovely travelogue sort of tone to them which, I think first time around, I likened somewhat to the work of Jack Vance, which I adore. If anyone wants to bull-up their description, they could do a lot worse than reading Vance, maybe Araminta Station (space opera) or Lyonesse (fantasy). “as Fres buzzed off” – lol. “As she chewed, she watched the woman, who watched her back” – Are you referring to Eno as a woman? I’m going to have a big problem with that. Maybe it’s my perspective from where I’m sitting, but I’m not getting a strong enough message from her description to label her woman. Keeping her short, like she was when I read this before makes it twice as hard for me not to think of Eno as a girl. Even if she’s older than 20, I think young woman would be necessary. Also, kind of old to be an apprentice, or to use that word anyway. “in the girl’s posture” – or is it the line I have wrong, was the woman Rilan? Confused. “Caro was a solid person, a member of the Ben” – This makes Ben sound like a club or society rather than a race, I think. “Was the Nether getting into his head, keeping him from panicking? Possible, but he chose to believe his brain was rebooted, in a way.” – Okay, I can buy this. At this point, I wouldn’t mind if his culture shock was a bit stronger, but I accept that it could be a bit boring having Sam astonished all the time. While I’m on the subject, I thought Ril might be angrier at Fres, she seemed to accept her apprentice quite easily. The search for Earth with the starmap could do with some tightening up, I think, started to run a bit long, I thought. I believe the frustration, but maybe not so good if I'm starting to become frustrated myself. I too was more interested in Ril’s encounter than Ori/Sam’s, but I don’t think you could (or would want to) avoid have the guys search for Earth, it’s a necessary step, since they are both invested in finding it. Very much a building chapter, which is fine by me. <R>

Well, since there are only two names up so far, I will hold my hand up (tentatively) for submitting on Monday, please.

I.e. - I still think they haven't got it quite right on the UK website anyway.

Really looking forward to this second instalment, I'm going to come right out and say that, so far, I'm enjoying this more than I did AFD at the same stage. “he simply handed me a small blue bucket and grunted” – awesome. But to they only have to bail because they can’t pay? The young couple ain’t bailing. “the earlywood well sunk against the latewood” – don’t know what this means. “I wasn’t going to remove either of them to put on my head” – lol. “There was visible blood on my shirt” – as opposed to invisible? Just a phrasing issue. “There was something beautiful about belonging so long to one profession” – The old lady could have started yesterday – I don’t see where they get this conclusion. “My binding chafed” – what binding? And are they still bailing? I've lost the sense of that. “If you have to piss, do it in your pants. We don’t need to be attracting attention from the lake” – Nope – I don’t believe this. It’s a sparky line, but there’s no way he doesn’t have a bucket for a 4-hour boat ride. “Pray the ruddermaster holds” – don’t understand this. Is it the old lady, or a god he’s invoking? A piece of equipment? “It was an event Mother would have celebrated” – really? Hmm. Not sure I've got a handle on ‘Mother’s’ character yet. “the coupled-man rebutted to his partner” – repetition of ‘rebut’ from paragraph before. “There are systems in place” – still toiling a bit with the time period when there are modern words included, like your scientific terms from Chapter 1, and this. Are we alternative world, post-apocalyptic? “so I moved back to my original seat” – I feel like it’s going to be really obvious they are ‘earie-wigging’ this conversation. I’m confused, how did they end up in the water? Plus, I like what you did with the ruddermaster showing her guild mark and it being a question, very subtle, nicely done. Good job on the description of the dock/port, I get a nice feeling for the place, if perhaps not it’s layout, but that’s okay – I can picture Generic Dock No.2. “I’d made it to my destination, if not albeit far wetter than I had planned” Oh, since when do we know Tel-ia? “several meters away another cart vendor” – ‘metres’ sounds weird in fantasy, but I don’t know if it’s fantasy or not, from what I've read. I think yards sounds more in keeping to fantasy. There’s something I’m not getting a handle on yet. You’ve been clear they are ‘not a woman’, and the binding is to disguise their chest. You mentioned “every awkward stare at my body” in Chapter 1, and yet I feel like the kidnappers and the ruddermaster assumed they were female. So, what I’m not exactly sure is, if they are commonly mistaken for female, why do they feel the need to disguise their chest? Some if this may be my problem, but I’m not convinced there’s a clear line on this point, which might tend to hamper some readers getting a handle on the character. Apologies if you feel there is anything insensitive in this point. You talk about them lying down on the floor, and yet they are outside. For me, floors are inside and ground is outside. Saying floor when outside is disorienting for the reader, imho. Good job, I like how things are developing; I like the level of intrigue, but that there is also action, tension and the increasing feeling of pursuit. Good pacing. Increasingly, I find myself agreeing with neongrey about mushiness of the text, but that’s just editing, I'm sure. More please. <R>

Oh god no, please don't, the pacing is just fine and I am perfectly happy with the level of world-building so far. Lol I've got to voice my disagreement. If you start every chapter with something as jarring as a severed hand, it will sound one-tone. After a point, there has to be the assumption of sufficient reader trust that they are engaged with the story, and are not just 'severed-hand junkies', are invested in the character and their progress and are sophisticated enough to handle more than one tone and one pace.

Hey @kaisa, here the title of my order confirmation email. Your Amazon.co.uk order of "Ardulum: First Don: Volume 1"

That makes sense to me, as publisher can maintenance profit but give more away. I bet making the book is a big proportion of the total for hard copy.

Different prices on the eBook and Physical book too? @kaisa it was about 10.5 hours ago. This morning for me

Interested to read something new from you, and nice to have a short among the ongoing my projects. On we go. - Hmm, a story set in an inn; gotta say that's really overdone. I got 'hell' from 'someone' for having an in my novel Waifs and Strays. Okay, I had 3 inns, but still... - "The bard idly plucked a string" - on what? - "Almost too short to tell" - curious about what a short legend might look like, but I must say the framing story hasn't bowled me over. I don't get much sense of place. - "I can handle it." - What's your audience? This line is kind of pat, meh, like the sort of line someone would use if they were trying to appear experienced, but were not. - Names. Ari is non-committal, but Jackson sounds modern. I have no indication yet of genre or sett my which, for a short, is an issue I think. - "Ariane hadn’t expected it to silence a room full of men double her twenty-three years into silence" - this doesn't tell me anything about her aura, just the effect it had, so I'm none the wiser, and actually more disbelieving than anything. - "She stuck out like a sore thumb" - why? This is getting quit annoying. - "drained the glass in a single gulp" - Do you drink yourself? I ask because people mostly buy drink because they like the taste, the effect and to take up time. I feel here that she wants to pass the time. Draining a drink in one gulp is a huge cliché, imho, and not convincing or interesting when I'm trying I got to get a handle on a character I don't know. - "It wouldn’t get her drunk, but it might set the bar on edge enough for some idiot to throw a punch at her" - It might not get her drunk, but it will affect her judgement. In the real world, I feel this is naïve. And why would her taking a drink make someone punch her? I just don't understand. If she's drinkin', she ain't fightin'. - "Ariane forced herself to wait six months without hearing from him before she acted. She tapped the usual sources, and Jackson had made no effort to cover his tracks when he left to the north. That worried her, more than anything. If Jackson wasn’t being careful…" - This is the first paragraph that I found properly convincing. - "shot a lightning jab into the man’s solar plexus" - Why, he hadn't done anything? - "I’ve got too few time" - Too little time. - Change of PoV in a short, why? Having said that, I felt little for Ari - generic tough with no personality. Maybe K will be better. - A thought strikes me here. Why on earth would the hard tell this story? There's nothing by heroic or amazing about it, nothing remotely legendary. He would never get away with this and keep an audience rapt. - I'm reading about all these people and their aims, but you haven't made me care about any of them. - "The Kase siblings" - who is this, our PoVs? I think you need to introduce it much sooner. And the appearance of the wolves is not given proper place, I don't think. Curse at best. It could feel special. - "special forces" - this is a modern term. Feels out of place to me. - "A chǽmira" - I felt this came out of nowhere. You might build a legend out if two people going up against a huge unbeatable beast - that would be something to centre the story around. All this skirmishing with bandits is very un-legendary to me. It must happen ever week of the year in some parts. - "challenged the beast to a duel, after which, nothing was heard from" - something off here. I feel like the spirit of it is 'challenged the beast to a duel, about which nothing further was heard'. - I don't get the ending. So she's not the same girl, but just resembles her? Pretty poor reason to go off and risk death. And I feel like the story is set up to be the telling of a legend and it's not, so I feel cheated. Overall, the issues I had were (1) I never had any interest in the characters, who I'm afraid I found dull; (2) There was no threat or jeopardy; and (3) There was no legend suggested by the title and the opening. Sorry to not have much positive. <R>

Actually, come to think of it, I don't think there is a single emotion that makes a good combination with the internet

Awesome title! That's yours, Eagle Fair point but, like Dragon's original joke, it loses impact when you explain it...

Excellent - some of the covers that came up as suggestions when I clicked on First Don are truly terrible! Also, on Amaz.co.uk it's listed as "Ard: First Don: Volume 1" - which I thought was somewhat misleading. Hey-ho

Sorry, I was pulling your leg. I know what Chekhov's gun is, I've been writing for over 30 years (of and on), not to mention listening to 11 seasons of Reading Excuses, a course of Brandon's lectures and subscribing to David Farland's online writing lessons. I'd need to have had my fingers in my ears for the last 15 years to avoid it.

So as usual it took me an age to finish the book I was reading, but I did finish Lies of Locke Lamora about a fortnight ago. I enjoyed it a good deal. I thought the interludes were bearable; just as well Lynch kept them short. There certainly were slow passages, even chapters, but he did enough to keep it going for me, if not un-put-down-able, but then almost nothing else is either, for me. One of the touches I enjoyed the most was how he worked Locke's reputation, and also made someone else the competent fighter. I'm now 70 pages into Partials. I've got to say some of the dialogue is really tell-y; downright maid-and-butler in places. I'm enjoying it so far though, pretty convincing setting and background, I think.

Hey @industrialistDragon, (That's quite a handle) thanks for commenting. Yeah, jumping at Chapter 5 might be hit-and-miss on some things, but I'm glad you did Yeah, good point on the jasmine. It shows that I spent all of 3 seconds considering that choice. If nothing else, it's a missed opportunity to show more of Quirk's 'aesthetism' by choosing a more esoteric or specific scent. I'll change. Chekhov? Is that a Star Trek reference? Yeah, I've changed up Quirk's curse there. He does curse, but rarely and only in moments of real peril / emotion (I trust). Good catch on the CCTV, that was lazy of me. Yeah, the interlude only makes any kind of sense reading from the start. There's a crippled miner / terra-former who is paralysed from the neck down. He is participating in experiments into synaptic mapping, putting his consciousness into an android. He has been undergoing these experiments for some time and may be showing signs of strain now. His name is Callan. There is background to both Grimes and Toni in the earlier chapters that might make them more interesting. I won't say much more because 'spoilers', but I note your comments. Thanks for your comments. Really appreciate you taking the chance to jump on a moving train. It's really valuable to get that totally 'cold' perspective, and super encouraging to hear that you are likain't Quirk straight off the bat

Ooh, interesting. I like the cadence of this passage, and there are some powerful images. I have a decently clear image in my mind, and I see colours and I can hear the wind in the wheat and the grass. There were a couple of pieces that made me go 'Eh?' Did you mean 'aching' hair? That was weird. And you go from 'his eyes' to 'it had them all' - the plural / singular switch threw me out. Plus, is a porch 'in' a house? And personally, I would say 'in' a rocking chair. These are tidy-ups though. Most importantly, I liked it. It made me feel something.