Robinski

No reason not to that I can see, Rohyu. So..., - Majestic Fox - Kammererite - Rohyu, and - Robinski's daughter (via the Robinski leg-up-over-the-back-fence initiative) ...to submit tomorrow.

Well, I can't play the trombone, but it seems to me that, so far, for submission tomorrow we have: - Majestic Fox - Kammererite - Robinski's daughter (via the Robinski submission surrogacy)

But there's no "unspeakable, unimaginable horror beyond the mind's ability to contemplate..." :oD

I enjoyed this. Very effective, I thought. I quite happily read on past the first paragraph, critiquing or not. I actually found that I didn't feel a great driving need to know more, which I think might be a good thing with flash fiction? I don't know. Maybe that was because I had read your earlier piece and knew something of what is (probably) going on. I enjoyed the formal, rather outmoded form of expression, as you might expect from reading my stories 'The Tontine Inn' by the Shore and 'The Mathematical Bridge'! This said, for a story involving space travel and colonisation, it did seems a bit out of place. As for extra words. I've marked in my SRN comments. I bet you could take 5% out of it if you tried! Looking at the other comments, I'm interested that two or three people picked out weather control as a particular interest, even a main strand of the story. It's important as a plot element because its where Protag works, but the concept itself it pretty run-of-the-mill to me. It's been around in SF for a long time, especially in controlled environments of man-made colonies, etc. I'm going to disagree about the sentence “I would soon track down the miscalculation in my department.”. I read almost no flash fiction, but I would have thought that this kind of sideways hinting would be good. He thinks it's some kind of systematic failure, but by this point, the reader already suspects that there are malevolent forces at work. I think this sentence goes to the plot and leads towards the reveal. Good job. An enjoyable piece.

Nothing like getting in early, I'd like to submit the first circa 2,000 words of a short story that my daughter is writing, if you don't mind a 'sponsored' submission. It's her first semi-serious foray into writing fiction. If she catches the bug, I'll make her sign up! Deal?

I wasn't interested in the how the boat was constructed / steered - for me, it takes away momentum from the chase. I tend to doubt the protag is sitting there thinking about how the boat works, he's surely concentrated on the pursuit, desperate to catch up with the captives and make some attempt to free them. I don't think you need to cut the boat. You could talk about him sailing it incautiously because he's so concentrated on being fast - even talk about near-misses and sailing on the edge of control because he's taking big risks to make ground. I reckon that sort of approach lets you show time and distance passing, but in an exciting / tension-filled way.

I started doing a 'tracked changes' (suggestions) on the Word file, but now that I've read the other comments, I reckon that the others have pretty much nailed it, apart from: "planes" should be plains, as in wide open plains; "adorned with spikes" - presumably; There are some instances where the capitlisation is off, in my view: "Tornak Village" - it's the name of the village, so should be capitalised; You've been capitalising Neetut throughout, I think, but there is an uncapitalised one in there (top of Page 4); Bottom of Page 1, I see no basis to capitalise warlock - it's just a warlock, not a named one.

The submission started promisingly as protag discovers the wake of the attack, but I quickly became annoyed by his asking himself questions and answering them in thought, or vice versa. I really don’t think I could endure that for an entire novel. I found it annoying. The lack of any thought for his father, who he arrived with, surprised me. I found that I couldn’t remember if his father was dead or captured. This may just be weekly reader syndrome however. Later on, I found myself skimming. There is a lot of description of how he sails the boat, combined with this magical stuff that he’s doing at the same time. I found it all rather confusing and, to be honest, a bit boring. At the end, I tried to sum up what happened in this section. He discover another massacre, shoots a couple of gryphons, which is dealt with very dismissively, then spends the rest of the section steering a boat (badly) and doing some magical stuff. I’ve enjoyed earlier submissions. There has been some good action, but this one pretty much left me cold. I'm keen to see next week’s now, where I find myself hoping he will encounter more people, and therefore will hopefully not be talking and thinking to himself. ------------------------------------------------------ “hyperventilate” – A modern word, it might be accurate, but it threw me out of the story. I found protag talking to himself combined with an internal monologue awkward. It smacks of trying to be writer-ly, but I didn’t think it worked, personally. When protag leaves the manor I'm thinking, what happened to his father? He’s dead, right? But I'm surprised that protag is not considering how he is leaving his father’s body behind, given that they arrived in that place together. Or does he think his father captured? I forget. Unless you are writing a technical paper, I don’t think you should be using numerals in prose. “thirty to forty minutes” is more appropriate, I think. Okay, this thinking and talking out loud is horribly awkward. Is that going to be the case through the rest of the story? If so, I would be thinking about putting the book down right about now. I have never seen that before. It’s weird behaviour and naive too. He’s trying to evade or follow these creatures, but he could easily alert them to his presence. I get the impression he is an outdoorsy sort, so I have real difficulty convincing myself that he act this way in the wild. Do we know already what ‘Olemus’ means? I must admit, I don’t remember. And whoa, what are the nine senses? I do not care how to the ice boat is steered. I found the about the ropes rather boring, and unnecessary. Nobody says “phew” or “Uh-oh” to themselves. It’s weird. Even him thinking it would be better than saying these things out loud.

Yes, as in joker and jokee - not a real word, I think, but a logical deduction. It didn't bother me. Detailed comments below, but in summary, I enjoyed this. There are things that bugged me (most being edit details). Like the first submission, there was a huge amount of telling, massive slugs of background and history that I'm not especially interested in. For me, you only got away with that because of the characters being engaging. I did enjoy the banter between Relvaris and Ponsing. I think the story has a nice, breezy, comedic style that makes it easy to read. Chapter 4 more than the Theavis section, as I'm less interested in him. I think it’s because he seems ineffectual, whereas these guys are out in the world exploring it and having fun doing it. Looking forward to the next submission, more than I was after last week, I must say, thanks to Relvaris and Ponsing. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3 “It's a long trip east fer yer short legs” – Every fibre of my being says that McTuggard should be as annoying as hell, but I can’t help liking him. Enjoyed this line, among others. I don’t get that everything is a secret. McTuggard has told him various facts about this and that. Theavis’ question seems inconsistent. The general had already told Theavis that Brock was a geoglomite. Him asking again felt repetitious. ‘Tennis’ threw me out of the story. Do they have tennis in this world? I'm guessing not, in which case the joke is out of place. “Consoling a rock was not within his skill-set” – I'm still not sure what the tone of this piece is. There are some moments of straight up broad comedy – like this one, and yet there also seems to be a serious set up going on. Talking of which, the loss of memory thing worked for me in the first chapter, but now Theavis’ companions are laying down some major slabs of exposition and I'm kind of glazing over. I find I don’t care about the past of a place when I know very little about the present. “W-What is that?” – I find I don’t really have a sense of Theavis’ character. He comes across scared here, and yet he’s been belligerent elsewhere, I think. Chapter 4 Sometimes the word choice makes me stop. Like in the first sentence here. “The small aura of light...” I can’t help feeling that small isn’t a very evocative/descriptive word, it doesn’t really tell us much about the aura. It makes me think, is it a pale aura, what colour is it (just white?). I have no idea how you sharpen a sunbeam, but it’s a cool, rather zany image. Like, it makes no sense scientifically, but I don’t care. I'm going to harp on some more about capitalisation. You capitalised ‘Warden’ when you were using it in the sense of any old warden, i.e. Relvaris is a ‘warden’, whereas if it’s his title ‘Warden Relvaris’, I would expect it to be capitalised. But when you say ‘Achinian’, which is the name of a people, I would expect it to be capitalised, i.e. the German people enjoy sausages. Why do you capitalise ‘forest’? I can’t see any basis for doing that. It almost seems random. “a bunch of lumpy sticks glued together” – Excellent description – I am laughing quite frequently in reading this, I hope that the intention. The tone is light-hearted and fantastical. I'm enjoying the banter between these two. I could do with a little help on their situation though. Are they on the other side of the wall of mountains that Theavis is contemplating, or are they somewhere else entirely? “for 6 years” – In narrative, ‘six years’, I would say. Have you ever seen Brandon use a numeral for a number of years? “4 teams each consisting of 25 geoglomites” – again, this is not a technical book, I think you’ll find good form is to use words. Here, you capitalise Trellites, but not rusticulans. Like I said, I don’t see the logic that you’re applying to capitalisation. This section, as with much of Theavis section, seems like a massive info dump. I can see that you’re seeking to disguise it with the gaps in Relvaris’s knowledge. The problem, I think, is that it’s still a massive chunk of information, to the point of being like a history book instead of a story. This early in a story, I don’t care about all this background, I want to get to know the characters and how they interact, and about the situation in the world. What is the challenge/threat that faces them? The black hole, right? I don’t really follow why Ponsing is insulted by the creatures in the wood. “weary Ponsing lied about” – wary “the entire Forest shined” – shone “You're lecturing again” – He is, isn’t he? I would still prefer less teaching (telling) and more forward motion. “one foot tall Warden had to wait for the 11 foot tall achinian” – eleven foot tall. Also, with this disparity in height, I doubt that Relvaris would pat Ponsing on the back of the knee. Relvaris’ reach is going to be another third (assuming human proportions), so 18 inches, whereas Ponsing’s knee (again assuming human proportions) is going to be about 2.5 to 3 feet up. Nice multipurpose application of the sunbeam technology – Relvaris doesn’t need a flashlight! Neat. “I have never seen a demonstration...”

Didn't get the Frozen reference at all. I think you need to be cautious about that sort of stuff, it really dates a story and in 10 years, no one will get it. And welcome back Asmodemon!!!

Why is she struggling to hold the Coke? What makes an opulent white? I'm not sure what to picture. I can’t remember who Elsa is, so I didn’t get the ‘ice fortress’ comment. Maybe just weekly reader syndrome. Why does she dread to think about the places the sweat is accumulating, or indeed any other places that sweat would accumulate? My armpits are not my best feature, but I don’t feel that strongly about them. (Pop quiz, do you know the word oxter?) You use the word ‘office’ 4 times in four lines – ouch! Stephanie comes across whiny in this section. She does not seem to be motivated to serve the great good, or to protect and serve. Maybe that’s her personality, but I didn’t take that from her first sections. ‘Office’ again, 3 times in 5 lines this time. I find it hard to care about what the office (damnation!) smells like, it seems petty. First World problems. I struggled with the first section. It’s all navel-gazing, nothing really happens, and Stephanie’s (presumably sweaty) navel is not that interesting. If she was thinking about the situation, or the people we have met already, that might offer something, but her philosophising about the lack of smell doesn’t seem to do any work in relation to the plot or the characters. There are four ‘Sean’s in the first paragraph, which feels repetitive. After the first one, I think you could use ‘he’ without fear of the reader getting confused. In the same way as ‘he said’, I would say the word ‘he’ is invisible – as the WE crew has it. I laughed at the Ernest Borgnine line, but the memorabilia turned it a bit weird / creepy. Again, ‘conference’ three times in one paragraph seems like overkill to me. Hmm, so we have Stephanie, Sean, Stephen and Seward all mentioned in the one paragraph. So, Sean Van Helsing is her uncle? I'm confused. I can’t keep track of all these names. I think it might be because few of them actually do anything, so I don’t have much to remember them by. Renfield, I can pretty much keep straight, and Hank Irving is the guy who has dealing underhand behind Stephanie’s back, to do with her dreams? I thought Sean was already in the room, but he enters it again? And he was waiting for Seward, then he announces that Seward’s not coming, and he already knows the reason why. This seems like a continuity error. Ha, ha – the drone tracking the ex is funny. Why does Stephanie conclude it’s something to do with money and investors? I didn’t get that from anything Sean said, so far. If it’s privately owned by him, or his family (including Stephanie?) then what investors would there be? What?! With all the security and bars on the window, Seward keeps a key under the mat?! Sorry, that just blew me right out of the story with a vengeance. In summary, I'm afraid I was kind of skimming by the end. There’s a lot of writing, but very little happens. Some of the character reactions seem strange, and I struggle with the sheer number of characters, there are so many and few of them seem to contribute to the plot or events. Maybe it’s just not my kind of story, and I'm looking to learn about the depths of one of two characters rather than having a cast of thousands who are only dealt with superficially.

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Suggestion: How about there is a period of say 48 hours for the winner to respond, after which the honour opens up to first person in?

Introduce yourself! 8 17th Shard Discussion 1 The Coppermind Wiki 8 General Brandon Discussion 10 Events and Signings 10 Interview Database 10 Cosmere Theories 10 Mistborn 2 Elantris and Emperor's Soul 10 Warbreaker 8 Cosmere Short Stories 10 The Reckoners 10 (includes both Firefight and Calamity boards) The Rithmatist 10 Alcatraz 10 Other Stories 10 (includes Skin Deep board) The Wheel of Time 10 Writing Excuses 8 Reading Excuses 19 TWG Archive 8 General Discussion 10 AMAs 7 Entertainment Discussion 12 Tech Discussion 4 Creator's Corner 10 (includes Sanderson Fan Fiction board) Role Playing 10 (includes Inactive RPs) Mistborn: The Inquisition 10 Reckoners RPG 19 Social Groups, Clans, and Guilds 9

The last Oasis world tour?

lol

That sounds like a very balance approach. I suppose I'm trying to do that in my critiques here by putting details below the line in my posts - which I guess few other people read but the submitter (I hope!). I'm more concerned that I'm missing wider things by stopping for detail. I should really read things twice, as you suggest, even for online critiquing. I like your regime. One of the guys on my online group reckoned that a couple of use were reading as writers, not as readers. I think that's probably inevitable. It's a reasonable point, but I'm not sure how you toggle reader/writer, or really if we should at all. I'm sure almost everyone has another source of reader reviews - I think both perspectives are valuable, indeed essential.

Yeah, the first part of the cure is recognising you have a problem - which I have! I am getting better - not having enough time helps with that! I think it's reasonable to comment on something grammatical that throws you (as a reader) out of the story. It's much easier to do online, I reckon. I can't imagine line editing in an actual living, breathing writing group. I can see how that would be..., uncomfortable.

I don't mind the word fog, but it appears a lot. I think it would help if, just once or twice, you used a different word, just to space out the instances of 'fog'. 'Polished' - yes, really just as you've taken it. I don't know if you've tried it, but reading your work out loud is very helpful to refine your narrative and your dialogue. I think you'll find (as I do) that each pass of reading through your work will make it smoother. Look for unnecessary words and simpler ways to say things (where appropriate) and I think you would find the results more effective.

Interesting set up, I enjoyed it. The description seems a bit much sometimes, too literal, with unnecessary words, I found it a bit distracting. Also, there was the odd detail that seemed miscalculated (the water drinking thing – noted below - way too much). I also got a wee bit tired a hearing about the fog in his brain, thinking there must be an alternative word. I liked the strangeness of the ‘alien’ characters, and there is an epic feel to the story, which I am enjoying. I also quite like the memory loss thing, which is a good rational for the others to be able to tell him things, although it could start to get a bit annoying, if it comes across as too much of a device. Despite the fact that I often don’t like accents, I find I don’t mind McTuggard’s. The problem with it is, how does an alien on some far distant planet speak like a Scotsman? That’s what I'm hearing anyway, and no one else has an accent, it seems. Overall, I'm intrigued and I'm entertained, so far. I would enjoy it more if the writing was a bit more polished, but we could probably all say that about many of the pieces submitted. Looking forward to next submission. --------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1 To me, gulping is an action associated with the mouth. “Sat up on the fluffy mattress” – I think. Surely, thought originates in his mind, so can they disappear into it, which I think implies they are outside it? As you may have gathered by now, I'm a pedant, sorry. But because of that, I love the line “He couldn't remember what he didn't remember.” That really tickled me. “...covered in dirt and dried blood” – Hmm, interesting. “Clipped to the man's belt was a filled wooden quiver. Thin conical ears twitched from the sides of his oblong head. A small tuft of yellow hair, matching his robe, sat atop his head.” The description of the character felt a bit sterile to me – a shopping list of physical attributes which didn’t really engage me. This was the case with several of the descriptions. “The walls and floor were the color of unstained copper” – So, they were copper coloured then. The description is somewhat overdone in places, I think. “and grabbed a pitcher” – Mandamon knows what I'm going to say here. The definition of ‘grab’ (online) is to grasp or seize suddenly and roughly. If that is what he is doing, then fine, but if it’s not a violent action, why not just say ‘took’ or ‘lifted’? I apologise to the editorial comment, but that is a massive pet peeve of mine. Theavis’ memory loss allows you to get some substantial telling-not-showing / info-dumpery in there. I’m trying to decide if it distracted me or not. People’s yelling is a bit weird. It seems quiet around them. It seems unnecessary. “fancy spell flingin” – excellent! Chapter 2 I don’t know where Theavis gets the idea he’s a prisoner, nothing anyone has done suggested that to me. They all seemed to be trying to help him. I doubt he is 'dying' of thirst. ‘assumably’ is not a word – ‘presumably’ is what you’re looking for, I think. What! Impossible for a human to drink 20 gallons of what. Are you saying Theavis is not human? Even then, it seems ridiculous. Also, it would take him much longer than a few minutes to scoop up 20 gallons of water only using his hands. ‘General would only be capitalised when it’s part of the name, i.e. a title. Like ‘I am General McTuggard’, otherwise it’s just ‘the general’. So, the general is more than three times taller than Theavis? Wow, seems like that will makes thing awkward down the line. To pat Theavis on the back he would need to bend way down. All the rooms must be massively tall or he would need to hunch way down, but fair enough. I just didn’t get the impression that he was so tall/massive before.

Watchmen? It's so much more than that of course.

Introduce yourself! 8 17th Shard Discussion 3 The Coppermind Wiki 8 General Brandon Discussion 10 Events and Signings 10 Interview Database 10 Cosmere Theories 10 Mistborn 4 Elantris and Emperor's Soul 10 Warbreaker 8 Cosmere Short Stories 10 The Reckoners 10 (includes both Firefight and Calamity boards) The Rithmatist 10 Alcatraz 10 Other Stories 10 (includes Skin Deep board) The Wheel of Time 10 Writing Excuses 8 Reading Excuses 17 TWG Archive 8 General Discussion 10 AMAs 7 Entertainment Discussion 12 Tech Discussion 6 Creator's Corner 10 (includes Sanderson Fan Fiction board) Role Playing 10 (includes Inactive RPs) Mistborn: The Inquisition 10 Reckoners RPG 18 Social Groups, Clans, and Guilds 9

Introduce yourself! 8 17th Shard Discussion 5 Tech Support 2 The Coppermind Wiki 8 General Brandon Discussion 10 Events and Signings 10 Interview Database 10 Cosmere Theories 10 Mistborn 5 Elantris and Emperor's Soul 10 Warbreaker 10 Cosmere Short Stories 10 The Reckoners 10 (includes both Firefight and Calamity boards) The Rithmatist 10 Alcatraz 10 Other Stories 10 (includes Skin Deep board) The Wheel of Time 10 Writing Excuses 8 Reading Excuses 17 TWG Archive 8 General Discussion 10 AMAs 7 Entertainment Discussion 12 Tech Discussion 6 Creator's Corner 10 (includes Sanderson Fan Fiction board) Role Playing 10 (includes Inactive RPs) Mistborn: The Inquisition 10 Reckoners RPG 16 Social Groups, Clans, and Guilds 9

Introduce yourself! 8 17th Shard Discussion 6 Tech Support 5 The Coppermind Wiki 8 General Brandon Discussion 10 Events and Signings 10 Interview Database 10 Cosmere Theories 10 Mistborn 7 Elantris and Emperor's Soul 10 Warbreaker 10 Cosmere Short Stories 10 The Reckoners 10 (includes both Firefight and Calamity boards) The Rithmatist 10 Alcatraz 10 Other Stories 10 (includes Skin Deep board) The Wheel of Time 10 Writing Excuses 8 Reading Excuses 15 TWG Archive 8 General Discussion 10 AMAs 7 Entertainment Discussion 12 Tech Discussion 6 Creator's Corner 10 (includes Sanderson Fan Fiction board) Role Playing 10 (includes Inactive RPs) Mistborn: The Inquisition 10 Reckoners RPG 15 Social Groups, Clans, and Guilds 9