Robinski

It's certainly sad. In today's market, there is no way Firefly would have been cancelled. I reckon someone would have bought it (thinking of the example of the Expanse). I'd pull up short of horrifying. I think it remains a bit niche, even among SFF fans, and not everyone thinks that Joss Whedon's scripts are tracts of genius handed down from the mount. Now this is horrifying . I guess that partly it's an age thing though, much as we would not like to admit it. Also, had a total bloke crush on Dr. Jones. Raiders... is a pretty much perfect movie, IMO. Oh, Silk. Oh, Silk! How can we rectify this? It's available on Prime-Video. Yup. If anything, I think it was a show before its time, because I guess that time does not come around without those shows that break the ground.

Brandon refers to said-bookisms in lectures in a WE, from time to time. I think, like everything in life, it's about balance. I probably use too many said-bookisms, and should lean on 'said' and bit harder, but in the end, it doesn't change the comma rule. I like the image posted, and completely agree with it. Say, where's the...oh, there it is. Meh, you haven't met M-o-t-h, have you? However, as to "as a writer, I should be able to put my punctuation wherever..." I can't accept that. There are limits, beyond which the nature of the work is changed in ways that--I think--the author doesn't want or intend. I come back to the linchpin of my evidence on this point, which is this; if anyone can find a single example of a sentence in a work published by any reputable author or publishing house in which there is a sentence in the form 'Said John.' I will eat my hat.

Yup. Been there. They can work with a sheet of cardboard in the bottom and another on the top then the tape wrapped all way around (numerous times), but I'm sensing that didn't happen on this occasion. - that scores three on the rolleyometer. I know the type. Five rolleyes = Uh-huh, that's an -face. Ooh - ( = 7 rolleyes) Mmm - she didn't clean (enough)? Of course not.... With a grand total score of 27 on the rolleyometer, you are well shot of your roommate. Hang in there. Serenity will descend*; you will get there; and harmony will be restored. ( * How cool would that be? The Serenity landing in your parking lot? Mal Reynolds strides across the lot and says something pithy like "Let's aim to misbehave.")

Lol. Love the Alot! That's excellent. I did that in school, well, sort of. I went up and asked the teacher how to spell 'alot', naturally figuring it was like about, allow, above, among, etc. Hah! Ended up writing it out ten times (or was it twenty?). If only I'd known more, I could have covered my tracks by saying that I meant 'allot', but I was 7 or 8 at the time. Hmm, the tag might fly under the radar when reading, yes--agree, but I don't think the punctuation does, because that is how the reader knows how to pace their reading, and what words to group together.

Rude. Oh, no! So, how often are they supposed to eat? Also......your roommate definitely moved out, right? I mean there's a possible explanation for why she didn't tidy up. Did she move in 153 days ago?

Oops. That should have been my first assumption, but we were talking about Belfast, after all

Huh. Yes, I remember Meg-an. I'd say that name was different enough that I didn't have the issue, although I did notice, just didn't 'bounce'. Would I with Emma? Probably not so much certainly as with a familiar surname, I think that's what really drove it home. I knew a guy in my professional called Stu. Turn. And the name (O')Con--r kind of resonates in genre fiction: Terminator and Highlander.

Yeah. Him agreeing to help is important, but I think ending with something more focused in Re would complete the arc better. I think the N helping thing really lands when Ri is confronted with him when he arrived in the Imp with the others. I would not mind if that scene was played up more. I feel like in a movie Ri would be up in his face with her knife out. I know it's not a movie, just saying the reaction, the threat/conflict in that scene probably could be higher.

No need, it's fine really, I was just interested. Ah. I think it's maybe WRS on my part too, from the start of the book, where I think maybe you did set this out. But the 'studying medicine' did throw me. Cool. I'm not sure if anyone else is commenting, but I was starting to feel almost like she was skipping school, because there was so little reference to it. Fair enough Of course not! Just wondered. I thought I did, but in this particular scene, I think my idea of what he wants is a little fuzzy, and if I think more about it and figure it out, the chapter will be easier to fix. Interesting. I think I was starting to feel that, or suspect it. It's not that there's anything wrong with that, but it must make it more challenging to write, and keep it on message.

LOL, ah yes. The one with the book festival and more bookshops than residents? Some people called it WorldCon 2019, but for us it was REcon 1. We knows this, because we have the T-shirts Living in Glasgow, I've been to Belfast numerous times, last time as part of a round the UK cruise. I like the architecture. The Titanic museum I can take or leave, but there are other boats / ships around the docks, which I enjoyed walking around. I had been wondering since you joined if your avatar was the red hand of Ulster...I guess I can stop wondering

Thank you. I will not forget that

Sentence structure with dialogue - “Not my emotions.” Z clarified. I've read this form in a piece for the second time this week, and that's why I'm putting it up here. And maybe it's just a typo, and I've commented in LBLs on the other instance, but it's kind of why I thought having this 'nook' was a good idea. It's the tag that attracted my attention. 'Z clarified.', in this instance I think, is intended as a tag for the previous piece of dialogue. In that case, the tag is part of the (previous) sentence. A separate clause, I guess (see, I'm not that theoretical. School of life, and all that)? In which case, this would be "Not my emotions," Z clarified. Am I barking mad? All I would say is, look at whatever book you are reading that has been through any kind of professional process, and "I'm willing to bet that dialogue ends in a comma, followed by the tag," said Robinski. I see one or two others have tagged it in the thread, so maybe I'm not going mad.

Hi Aero, I'll send you LBLs by email, just to keep this post clear of anything very minor. Interested to read more from you, and more from these characters. (page 1) - "knowing that the town was close by" - We already know by this that he's on the outskirts, so, this felt a bit repetitive to me. - The description of Te, I start to think, is really convoluted and wordy, but by the end I'm chuckling, because there are so many touch-points for what the creature looks like that it becomes amusing. I liked that. - "Z creased his brow" - I've mentioned this somewhere else this week. I feel like these little body ticks and responses are more natural than someone thinking deliberately of doing them on purpose before they happen. I feel that they are naturally instinctive. To me "Z's brow creased" (using this as an example) is more natural, more like reality. I'm not saying I would not crease my brown on purpose, but I don't think I word form a thought that would register in may head (i.e. like narration) while doing it. (page 2) - My Glasgow group had a discussion about formatting this week, and so it's in my head, otherwise I probably wouldn't mention it (sorry), but I see you have double space, of course, but then there is an addition paragraph spacing? - "his eyes were nocturnal" - This implies to me that his eyes are only active at night. He can still see during the day, right? And then "but the forest was still filled with shadows" - I'm not sure what the point is. So, despite being nocturnal (and presumably seeing in the dark), he can't see into the shadows? (page 3) - "but he made it in ten" - I'm not really sure why he goes running to the village. He establishes that it's not urgent, because there's no fear, but he runs anyway. I don't really follow his logic. - "skidded to halt" - I feel that running people don't actually do this, not adults anyway. This is the sort go things a kid would do, IMO. - "we need every useful pair of hands we can get" - So, they're saying he is not useful. But not why. (page 5) - "T doesn’t like witches" - Confused. I thought it was Z who was accused of being a witch, but I seem to remember he is not one. Does this mean the woman is a witch? (page 6) - "I know he’s a S--ker" - I think you need to assume that someone is reading this story who has not read the first one. I'd say it is especially the case with shorts, but also good practice with novels, to reintroduce key background aspects. Even if someone has read the first story, it may have been some time ago. I don't remember what a S--ker is, or what's special about them, or how they are considered by society, so all these references are kind of frustrating, because everyone gets it apart from me. - "don’t use moon’s light" - Don't use it for what? That doesn't mean they can't do things. He could bandage the injured, he could be a lookout, fetch and carry, do all sorts. I still don't understand the prejudice. - "even when his beliefs permitted it" - So, he's allowed to lie about some things? Seems a bit odd, but I'll roll with it. - "they undoubtedly didn’t" - Didn't what? I don't understand. (page 7) - "Come on, wolf" - What or who is wolf? I don't understand. (page 8) - I like the town wounded analogy. Nicely done. The only bit I thought undercut it a little was 'a few houses in a shambles'. This to me means a bit untidy, in a bit of a tiz. My house is a shambles, it needs a good tidy. I just the effects might be more dramatic, or everyone would be in a shambles. - "this village’s crop of fighters..." - Loooooong sentence without punctuation. (page 9) - "throwing shade at me" - What does this mean? - "threaten innocent women" - Did this happen? is it s reference to him sitting on her shoulder? Didn't seem threatening, although the guards overreacted. - "would make you better at talking to people" - LOL. - "to know why you would have a grudge against Witches" - But I don't. - "shouldn’t matter to you right now, should it?" - What's a sha-she? There just seem to be more and more things I don't understand being introduced, without any of the existing questions being answered. - "What kind of work do you want me to do?" - I thin maybe linked to my difficulty of not understanding a lot of things about the world, is the fact that we have lost Z's internal monologue. It's there at the start, when he's alone with T, but once we get top the town, it's all dialogue with R and we don't know what he's thinking, therefore we don't know why he does or says anything, or how he feels about what she says, really. It's harder to be invested with events when one is held at a distance by not being allowed in MC's head. (page 10) - "from her use of moon’s light" - but what is she using it for? I can't tell. It's difficult to see what magic does. There's been no obvious use of it that I can see. - "All work and no play make Jack a dull boy" - I don't know the world, but this is a very Earth-based expression, IMO. I popped out of the story for a second. I think you explained in the notes that this was a colony world or some such? But there seem to be no other trappings of Earth civilisation, and where did humans get magic from? - "he who pays the piper" - I think I'm quibbling too much about these 'human' phrases, tbh, but they do make me wonder... (page 11) - "since no one is paying..." - ...however, this is a great line, so it does kind of win me over. - "but please allow me to play just one song" - I thought this discussion was over. It's little jarring to still be in it when I thought they were walking away. - "my lack of payers" - Giving or receiving? - Honestly, the song is not bad, I thought . I found that I could 'sing it' as I read, so the lyrics can be made to scan, reasonably well. My only real issue is rhyme and rime. Rime is a type of frost, nothing to do with music. Assuming that 'rime' is a typo, there is still the issue of repeating the same word as the the rhyme for, well, rhyme. Rime is then repeated a second time (three over all) in the next line. That is awkward from a lyrical viewpoint, but--honestly--for a song made up on the spot by K, this isn't at all bad. (page 12) - "any sword apprentice into a tactical master" - Since the effects are purely mental, I would suggest that the swordsman would not be able to master all the physical aspects of exterp swordsmanship, because they would not have the strength or muscle development, the muscle memory, of a true master. They would still be limited to the mental aspects, would they not? - "she’d no doubt cobbled together the lyrics in minutes and used a basic tune for it" - Per my comment above, I think the lyrics sound a bit like that, and so it's entirely appropriate!! (page 13) - "With a few deft strokes of her lyre...sleep." - This sentence here is short, simple, and completely clear. And it also has a poetic ring to it, that really helps to emphasise the message. The paragraph or two before this are really quite wordy, and long-winded. I think you can cut a lot of the stuff before. This one line makes the message completely clear. (page 14) - "fanatical belief" - Really? He doesn't really behave fanatical, IMO. - I'm two-thirds of the way through this first part of the story, and I don't know what it's about. I don't really know what Z's goal is, I don't really know what the stakes are. Is it just about protecting the village from the beasts? I don't get much sense of threat. You mention it's a whodunnit, but I don't know what 'it' is yet. It doesn't seem to have happened. It almost feels as it we're marking time, waiting for something to happen, as Z does not seem particularly invested in what's happening, or anything else. (page 15) - "blew himself away" - This is weird. Sounds like he shot himself. - "Suddenly the pain stopped" - This is out of POV. Z doesn't know the pain has stopped, he can only make a judgement from D's reactions that he sees. So like 'D relaxed: the pain must have stopped', for example. - "attention was to the witch" - I feel that the capitalisation is inconsistent. (page 16) - How is it that R explains to D what it is that Z & T do? How does she know? I'm trying to recall if he's explained it to her, but I don't recall it. - "Thought you lot were useless. Suppose that every rule does have exceptions" - See, I don't know that rules. So, a normal S--ker can't share emotion? What do they do then? Why are they perceived as useless? - "Just a bit different in execution, because my circumstances are different." - How, and how? (page 17) - "If they get damaged" - Is it not normal practice to change the bandages anyway after, what, 24/48 hours, when there is an infection? - "I used T to share some of it with you" - This has already been explained a couple of pages ago. This feels repetitive. - "Do I recognize that voice…?" - Who's line is this? - "look towards Z, who shrugged" - So who recognised the voice? Confused. (page 18) - "HA'A" - Great name. - "rock-hard muscle all the way through" - Hmm, well apart from organs and bones, etc. (page 19) - "I haven’t done much" - This is true. I still don't know why he's here. What is the arc of the story? Where does it start? There is no mystery to solve yet, so how can it be a whodunnit? I'm perplexed. - "seeping out light into it" - Something counterintuitive or contradictory-sounding here. - "You do not want to get involved in this" - Get involved in what? The shadows have been mopped up. what is there to get involved with? Still confused about what the story is. (page 20) - "T doesn’t have a choice" - This feels vague to me. I feel a more compelling way to put it would be 'it spills overs', 'T can't contain it', something like that. This phrasing is quite weak, passive. (page 21) - See, this is the story here, I think. This is where the arc of the plot starts, IMO. Everything that has come before now is incidental. I've been presuming this is a short story, is that right? If that's the case, we really need to have the plot starting on page one or two. I need to know why I'm reading from the start. For a short story, this is really late for the plot to make an appearance. Considering the plot itself, we've seen no signs of this suicidal behaviour before now, so it's not as if we've had anything to puzzle over before now. - "A memory surfaced, unbidden, in his memory" - - "I just got to the city tonight" - It has been a town for most of the story. - "already knows who it is" - We didn't even know what the mystery was until page 20. This implies to me that Z has been an unreliable narrator for pretty much the whole first part, because he knew something was wrong, which the reader didn't, and we were really never in his thoughts so we didn't know what he was thinking. OVERALL A bit frustrated from not knowing what the story was, and from all the information that apparently was withheld by the main character during this first part. I don't really know what a S--ker is, either this one, or a proper version of one (I think?). I've sent LBLs separately by email, which I hope are of some use. Also posted in Craft Nook in relation to dialogue tags as part of the previous sentence, since I've run into this twice now in recent times. Thanks for sharing.

LOL. Yes!! Factor of Safety, fine. Tolerance? Gaaaaaahhhhhh! LOL. Right, right. That's on me. Let's call it WRS. I thought I'd read something like this before. Sorry about being so ranty. I guess I really did not bounce of it so hard. I feel like the context must have been stronger before? I'm trying to think of the names of Met characters now: so, Man Fel; Ri Aya; Bo Pal; En and In; (going back to Seeds) Tej, Adit Bas. I appreciate that Seeds didn't have placed names in that way, but the names well much more like constructed fantasy names. Ay-ma, for example, crops up quite a bit on a net search, and Fel-o seems to be Polish in origin, IRL. I think why K O'Co----r and Stu Turn hit me so hard is that these are very much Anglo-Saxon names from my backyard, they are very, very familiar and recognisable. Also, I think the place they are here, in the middle of the battle is more significant than previous entries, maybe? Maybe not. I appreciate they are in passing, and then they are gone, but I just don't get how those names can come to be on a completely different planet than Earth, when the origin of those names are very much enshrined in my culture and history. And from there, I get to my conspiracy theories about other travellers from Earth. I'm sure if they were associated with Nigerian (like Ay-ma; https://forebears.io/surnames/ayama ) or Polish (like Fel; https://forebears.io/surnames/feldo) I would not have bounced off at all, so it's on me, really.

Thank you, @Snakenaps. That means a lot. I was not in a good place yesterday and got a bit maudlin with all the sharing. If I happened to be noisy enough to attracted attention looking in from the outside, I know you know now that there are more considered and insightful voices here, and that the team's true strength is its diversity, its commitment and its sensitivity. Which is why you fit right in We're very happy to be stuck with you, I'm sure

Well, if you're going to start a rambling thread, count me in. I too feel incredibly lucky with the life I've had. I met the right girl at the right time. She put up with a long-distance relationship for 8 years, moved to Scotland for me and we had wonderful daughter, now married herself and I hope as happy as we are. I joined a company out of university as a young graduate, and 21 years later I owned the company (with two colleagues). That's luck, but also a huge amount of hard work. Ten years later I sold my share. We had a lot of debt in the beginning, but nothing I couldn't service. I just paid off my mortgage last week. I will admit I have the fancy car. I've been a petrolhead all my life, I love cars, and I like to think it's my one extravagance. (My next car will be electric (or Hydrogen cell, if they can get that right)). Despite all that, I am not often happier than when I'm in our garden weeding (and listening to podcasts or audiobooks), planting things or trying to grow vegetables. Being in touch with the earth, it sounds corny to some maybe, but it is a powerful, healing thing. Oh, and there's writing, I suppose. I like to give back, but I don't do enough. For ten years a volunteered in a charity music shop, but I stopped and have failed to go back. I need to do more. Try harder. And while I'm in the process of baring (parts of) my soul, I'm sorry I'm such a pain in the burro sometimes on here (all the time?). I get passionate about things really quickly, like 0 to 100 in 2 seconds. I mean well. I want to help things to be the best versions of themselves, and I'm just not very good at moderating my comments sometimes. I always feel guilty after very rant, I promise you, but that doesn't help when you're on the receiving end. Again, I'm sorry. Thank you for sharing, and listening. You are all awesome.

I think in part that's down the focus flitting around, which comes back to mixed signals too, IMO.

Yes, I think I used the phrase mixed signals too. It's one thing to have a character by confused and conflicted, but it's hard for the reader to deal with when there are too such characters. Do you know what the outcome is? Do you know what Mi wants from an author perspective? Do you know what Me decides in the end? I get a sense that maybe the answers to one or more of these is 'no', which might be contributing to the issues.

Hey, Comments. (page 1) - "since he almost got run over" - Maybe WRS, but didn't they both almost get run over, or just him? I forget. - "She fully let go of M for the first time since everyone had left them" - I don't understand. Who is everyone, when did they leave? How long ago is this a call-back to? I'm not sure if it's WRS. It doesn't seem a very significant event to call back to. Surely, for the first time since they were almost killed is a more worthwhile event to call-back to. (page 2) - Formatting: only because my Glasgow writing group were talking about it yesterday, I notice that the Doc is not double spaced, but 1.5 line spaced. Is that just the form you work in? You don't actually submit like that, do you? This is really a Craft Nook question, but it is specific to this sub - "You said I wouldn't see anything exciting, but..." - LOL. (page 3) - "someone studying medicine" - She's what? Well, I can't speak for the US, but I believe the medical students in the UK don't have time to eat they are so rammed with class and coursework. Her course seems very lax and very easy. There is not mention of her going to lectures or actually doing any work out of class. This makes the fact that she's studying medicine really unconvincing to me. (page 5) - "a feeling she thought was her lips on his" - Confused. Is this a memory? That might be WRS, but it sounds like it's a desire. I'm getting very mixed messages in this scene. He doesn't want 'more' but he's touching her in a very sensual way, and she is encouraging him be lying provocatively on the floor for no good reason that I can see given the context. Surely, she can't be so naive as to think that how she's acting would not be seen by him as encouragement, whether or not he wants to act on it. And, him laying down beside her: he doesn't show any hesitance or discomfort at doing that, or at touching her, which seems contradictory to me. (page 6) - "rolled on her side, so his back was against her" - But surely he is facing her, that was the impression I got, so it doesn't matter which way she is facing, his front would still be towards her. (page 7) - "Her energy levels were dangerously low" - Even at that, I'm surprised her 'signal' is so close to human. (page 8) - "who kept dragging her back to the things she came to college to get away from" - Well, she is asking him to show her all this stuff. I know that's not quite the point, she's compelled to do that, but this thought of her's is kind of disingenuous. - "how much blood there had been" - I like how her recollections of the battle play against looking back through the recording. Good part of the scene. OVERALL Ignoring the various places where typos or word choice make the meaning hearer to get at, this chapter flowed well enough for me. There was some tension at certain moment when it looked like he might have seen her in the clearing. There was loads of romantic / sexual tension. I thought signals were rather mixed. A lot of the body language seemed to be encouraging more, tempting one or other (usually M), testing them almost. This did not run entirely consistent with M's internal monologue, I thought, but it was effective enough. I was a but frustrated by the fact that neither one seemed to know what they wanted, but it was sure enough as a portrait of teenage angst and kind of directionless longing (for something). My biggest problem by some distance is that she's a medical student, but she never does any work, or never seems to go to classes. I just don't believe that. It cannot accept that is realistic. I don't think it matters if it's the weekend, she should be rammed with study and homework, surely? So, with this as a sequel chapter to the car attack, I'm looking for some action in the next one, where it's demon action or developmemt of the romantic plot.

I think maybe that might be the next ReCon shirt tag line. ReCon 2: Not fighting over pickles since 2009.

Of course, I appear to have miscalculated on the feta... ...and the pickles. I'm not willing to come to blows over it.

Deal! Yes. We can absolutely agree on that too. Good point Ahem, yes. I am not a fan of rollmops, or any other kind of pickled fish. Fish are for smoking, or pan frying. Hard agree. Okay, so when we meet at up WorldCon in Athens, 2038, @Snakenaps and I get all the feta, @aeromancer and I will split the pickles, and we will share the bread, olive oil and balsamic. "Casu marzu is created by leaving whole pecorino cheeses outside with part of the rind removed to allow the eggs of the cheese fly Piophila casei to be laid in the cheese." - Oh, come on people!!! I mean, clearly some poor sap discovered this by accident and, just to spare his own embarrassment, told everyone it was a delicacy. And another thing, what was the fly called before someone allowed it to lay eggs in the cheese? Or before cheese was invented?

Agree. I really hope we get to find out what makes it 'otherworldly', and that it's not just forged from handwavium. Ah, interesting. As you might be able to tell, I have never broken a limb. I suspect I would roll over and be out for hours (lightweight!). So, it's all very glib for me to make this comment. I think it probably would read better without the break anyway. Nah, probably just needs some tweaking. I can sort of see where it's going, but then in my head it becomes like two mirrors facing each other and I the meaning is just on the edge of my understanding. I'm sure it will pop when it's 'done'. Heh, I think it might just be..."Us, we will speak with the Net maj" - I think I read it first almost like 'I speak for them' or 'I have been speaking with them'.

Good point: #iagreewithmandamon

Awesome I'm a big fan of blue. Not on things, or in things, but with crackers. Mostly UK blues: Lanark, Dunsyre, Shropshire, Stilton. Not a big fan of continental blues. Cheddar, yes, sharper the better. I like a lot of French cheeses, especially the soft ones. Like Gouda, and Jarlsberg. I love feta in a Greek salad, i.e. cold. Not hot. Strangely, I don't like goats cheese at all, although Feta comes from goats, so go figure. The Greeks must have a different process. Mozzarella on my pizza, of course. Oh, and a really good grilled cheese sandwich. The last one I had was in Creston, B.C. Three cheeses. One was Monterey Jack, I forget the other two. One might have been mozzarella (for contrast, obvs). I HATE pickles. Gone wrong........in the best way possible! What is wrong with you people I love pickles. Mostly pickled beetroot it has to be said. I loooooooove beetroot, will actually drink some of the pickling vinegar left in the jar when it's done. And pickled onions. Maybe not so much the dill pickles and gherkins, to be fair, which I think are more the way in North America.