Robinski

Yeah, I almost commented on use of the phrase 'mental hospital' being problematic. It's the sort of thing one editor might call out and another might let go, maybe?

Hey, interested to read this revised version. (LBL's sent by email.) Sorry I'm a bit late getting to this version. In summary, as with the first time, I liked a lot about it, and when they action comes, it moves quickly, and is exciting. The scene setting is interesting, I just think there is too much, and it slows the opening down too much, and there is quite a bit of repetition about the hair. I definitely think this has good potential though. Specific comments. (p1) - Good first line, I think. Not spectacular, but really interesting, giving info and posing questions. I like the opening paragraph too. It gives the MC a goal, and also explains key things about the world: Ghosts are real; heroes are not. I've emailed a tracked document with line-by-line comments, which I hope are useful. Of course, they are all suggestions, but it takes too long to say "This is just a suggestion" every time! So, they come across quite direct, sorry! The more you use exclamation marks, the less effective they are, the less impactful. A search of the document shows me there are 38 instances of "!" That is an awful lot. I really got quite annoyed by them, quite quickly. Often, when you used them, the dialogue tag also said "she shouted" or something like that, so there also was a doubling up of emphasis. (p4) - I wasn't convinced that the bus driver would be so invested in the hood thing that he would 'fume', also, it really threw me that people were smoking on the bus. And the driver wasn't bothered about that, students smoking on the bus? I struggled to believe that, and it didn't seem relevant (more on that later). (p6) - I don't know what 'scratch paper' is. "Overhead, jagged scars..." - I'm finding it slow. There's a lot of description that I don't think is really serving the atmosphere. I get that it's winter, it's dark and it's cold. For me, you only need to say that a couple of time. Seems to me this is a pretty long chapter for YA, and that the forgoing scene setting stuff could be clipped fairly hard. (p9) - "she asked before taking a sip of water from an odd glass they'd bought at the thrift store" - If this water is used as a weapon to fight the monster then fine, but if it isn't important it, and a lot of the other incidental detail in the 8 pages preceding this, I think, should be cut down pretty hard. Colour and setting are important, but minor/unimportant details are deadweight that slow the reader down from getting to the drama, etc. [p.s. I didn't see the water being used so, while it's a nice detail, it doesn't really serve any purpose, for me: It doesn't add to character, or setting, and just ends up being more words, IMO.] (p11) - "white hair being marred with every color her fellow students had in their pockets and more" - I'm getting pretty bored of this; it's really being flogged. This must be the fourth separate time it's come up. Not necessary to dwell on it so much. We get, we remember what happend a few pages bach, it doesn't need to be fully repeated. Trust the reader to be able to remember stuff. (p12) - "NO!" Oliv cried" - This is where the action kicks off, the excitement, the drama, and just a bit earlier, the tension dwelling as the ghost appeared. There is good stuff in the opening 10 pages or so, but I still think it just takes too long to get here, and that the opening would be more tense, more dramatic, if much more attention was paid to pacing, and less to repeating set up. I think there might be some darlings in the opening that maybe need to be slayen, or some details that could be moved to after this first encouter. (p14) - Oliv's head bounces off the wall three of four times, to the point where it becomes noticeably repetitive. Personally, I would change it up a bit and have different parts of her being hurt. I feel like two head bashes would be plenty. Also, repeated blows to the head make concussion much, much more likely. Braille - neat, and total works in context, but does it say anything? Is it an Easter egg for readers that know Braille? The second scene... For me, it's a complete bomb site. I have no idea what is going on, and I think it's really unclear how many characters are in the scene, what they are doing, how they are releasing to each other and what the scene looks like. I got pretty frustrated at this point, to the point that I might well have stopped reading. I think it needs to be much clearer what is happening in this scene. Hope this is useful

p.s. As you'll have gathered, I'm going to try and catch up for your subs here, and they others too Sorry for being way late.

I love the introduction, I can feel the thinness just from the description, and there is good atmosphere. It seems unlikely to me there are two railroads here, but two tracks, which is not the same as a whole different railroad. There is great emotion in this opening, and it really adds to character. Okay, Ari feels a bit miserable, and difficult to engage with, but I'm confident that will change, so it is in not way putting me off. I don't think a record would be on repeat, although I think you could/can get turntables that do that, I think. This sounds like more of a digital thing, though. Would they not think of the dog by its name? I thought the scream arriving on page 4 was good timing; I was about ready for something to happen. Ten minutes felt like a long time running to me, given that they had not been walking very long. I got confused about the description of people dragging other people towards the veil, but also away from it. I think the blocking needs to be quite a bit clearer around there. The same applies when Ar arrives at the struggle: they are running then they just arrive with no blocking about their approach, slowing down, etc. There is mention of a field of purple flowers then there is no description after that. I don’t get a great sense of place after they arrive. The banishment being over exactly to the year seems very easy, and convenient for the story. I feel it almost would have been better if it had been 320 years in faerie, just not bang on the dot; OR, there had been some ofther specific sign of the end of banishment that Ari had missed. “A jumped away from A” – this sounded weird to me, like them jumping two feet in the air: quite unnatural. This is a good detail about the veil rejecting Ar, but I think we need to know it in the moment Ar is grabbing the kid, so we know Ar expects not to get dragged through, and that is the basis of their plan, then they go through unexpectedly. I think the whole portal thing would work better if that’s established beforehand, the banishment etc., then it becomes a twist. The description of blue hair and blue eyes is okay, but I had an issue when the same form is repeated soon after. That really clanged for me. There seems to be contradiction between monarchy and government. They can’t both be in ultimate charge and making the decisions, which is how it sounds. Seems to bounce between the two here. I did not buy that Ae would go against the court to save a couple of kids, even for Ar. If Ae really is going to risk being banished, I need to be much more convinced of Ae’s investment with Ar, like they owe Ar a debt, or they were due to be married, something to justify Ae risking their future for Ar/the kids. How is the ball dangerous? Okay, it’s the end of the chapter, but it comes from nowhere. I’m hoping to learn the nature of the danger early in the next chapter, otherwise I’m being asked to accept something based on telling, but I’m not being allowed to judge. It’s hard to accept a statement like that in the absence of evidence. Conclusion There’s good stuff in here, some good action, although it needs tidied up IMO. It’s a good opening, and I love a fae story (as you may recall!!), so I’m keen to read more. I’d like to be more invested in rescuing the kids. At the moment I don’t feel much for this one, and haven’t met the other one at all. (Line-by-lines emailed.) Thanks for sharing!

Interesting. My challenge would be to standardise that approach, and then to remember what the letters meant, but yeah. I don't mind long file names, and I can see at a glance, but they ain't pretty like yours!

Happy thanksgiving!

Well, we're both missing it if there is Yeah, I think what feels right is the key.

Hurray! Thanks for posting here. I love to chat about the process of writing, hence the thread! I suspect it's probably "All of the above". TBH, it never really occurred to me that a draft would have to fulfil any particular characteristics to qualify as any particular level of draft, so I would say there is no definition of First Draft, Second Draft, third Draft, etc. Except... Probably something that everyone could agree on is that first draft has to contain the whole story from beginning to end, even if the end and the beginning change later; get cut or expanded. But what is 'Draft Zero' then, which is a term I've heard now and again? I have always thought that would be a skeleton of the story, maybe even a complete outline? And yet no, because that would be an outline, surely. So, I guess Zeroth draft would be a version of the story that you know has scenes, chapters, even a character POV missing, but still goes from the start to the end? For me, the next draft is just the one after I've revised from the previous one. So, if I pick up second draft of my story and edit it, it becomes the third draft, and that then becomes the fourth, fifth, eighth, whatever. However, if I do a minor edit, I'll call that Draft 2a (or Xa, X = whatever draft number it started as), because I've maybe only edited some targeted editor clarifications, rather than changing anything particularly substantive. BUT, when I get to the end, I'll have what might be called a Final Draft (regardless of what number it is) that goes to the publisher, or gets submitted to a market, and when (if) I get that back with copyedits, or maybe even small-scale developmental edits, I've already dropped the numbering, because the story is in its final shape. At this point, file names tend to get a bit silly, like "10 The World of Juno - Gxx ox Txx Hxxxx - Robin C.M. Duncan (draft 2a)_WCT edits_RCMD" etc. (Bad example, because this one is still a numbered draft, and it's about to become "draft 3", and I'll drop all those tags. What about you, @FlowerGirl, how do you deal with these things?

Err, no thanks. Assistant inciter of mobs gets more days off

Yup. Plenty of slots available. Please go ahead. That's two filled. Any more for any more?

Please go ahead! Sorry I have not caught up on recent subs, but I'm going to have a bit more capacity soon, honest!

Bah, ha-ha-ha! That's hilarious.

Ooh, I don't think I sent that file yet. [Moments later...] Sent!

Yeah, this is a brilliant group, the first writing group I ever joined, back in 2013 (although I've been writing for decades). I've improved greatly from being in this group, to the point of being published a couple of times now, with more in the pipeline. The feedback here is direct, which is so important: the worst thing is a group that doesn't tell you (for whatever reason) what you need to hear. You can put short stories through this group, or whole novels (a bit at a time!) - it's very flexible and there are folks here at various stages of a writing career, and also with varying interests, personalities and life experience, which is valuable too in getting a range of feedback.

Hi, welcome to RE and thanks for sharing, I'll email you tracked comments in the file, but here are the headlines from me. Generally, I like a lot about this. You've got an interesting character there, and she is in an interesting setting, has plenty of conflicts and challenges, which is always good. The narrative itself flows pretty well, I think, however there are issues, and my reaction to hearing that you're going to publish this year was one of... trepidation. I found that there were a lot of instances where I was confused, where statements weren't clear, or weren't supported by enough explanation for me to know what was going on, and why someone acted in a particular way. Examples, and other comments as I read through: A) I like the first line, but it could be smoother, the first paragraph too, but both engaged me, raised my curiosity. B) I like what you did with the different types of mobile phone. C) "Hood down, miss!" - Why does the driver say that? No context and no explanation. D) The bus zig-zags off down the street, then there are various actions described from the bus, after it's already off down the street. Continuity issue there. E) "Who got you?" - There is no context for, or explanation of J's question, and the reply from O "All of them" - I don't understand it. It's not at all clear from the first page what happened to her, and it's critical I think for the reader to understand that, because the 'tagging' which I barely got when she sort of explains to her mom, underscores the whole emotional state of the main character in the first chapter. There's a tendency for inexperienced writers--and forgive me, I don't know how experienced you are, and I'm not exactly Terry Pratchett over here, but take it as a general comment, please--to hide things from the reader, thinking that it adds mystery. Of course books need some degree of mystery to permit reveals at dramatic moments, but the things that are hidden should be limited to the right things, not information that aids the reader's understanding of the character's situation, or the nature of the world, at the start of the story. I've been there myself more than once, plenty of times, hiding details thinking I was creating mystery, but all I was doing was hampering the readers' ability to gain a foothold in my story and my world. In this case, I would tell the reader exactly what has happened to O on the page 1. Not all the detail, but the basics, her hair got sprayed by a bunch of mean classmates. That really would have helped me feel I had a solid footing at the start of this story, and make I easier for me to accept other details. F) "Perhaps The Machine was human after all." - Not a clue what this means. Is the machine a robot, a computer, a TV character? I don't have any frame of reference for the statement, so I don't know how to understand it, all I can do is more on a hope it's not important. I've heard advice from various sources in relation to mystery, and the thing is that, if the character knows the information, and we're in close first person POV, the the character is deliberately not thinking about something that they are intimately familiar with, which gets frustrating quickly for me as a reader. G) Characters studying themselves in the mirror is a major cliché nowadays. I know the example here isn't a lingering, detailed description, which is the most heinous kind of example, but it did enough to make me roll my eyes. H) "If today's experiment panned out" - No idea what this refers to. I kept it in mind for the rest of the chapter, but saw no other reference to experimentation, that I noticed anyway. And if it's sitting in the diary entry, well, more on that later. I) Where does her sister go? J is O's sister, right? J just disappears from the chapter, and I don't know where she went. That bothered me for at least a page. J) I found it really odd that her mom didn't talk to her when O arrived. In fact, the mom appears from nowhere. There is something strange about the blocking when O walks into that room. I would have expected the mom to like mouth something to her daughter, like with you in a minute, or some such. I didn't get from the narrative that the mom was finishing off a line of something, or whatever. I felt to me like the two just ignored each other. Later, we find out that the mom is blind, but I absolutely needed to know that at the first point of encounter. Seems to my another example of withholding intrinsic information from the reader in a way that only cause confusion, for me, at least. K) "O set it aside with shaking hands." - Why?! We're in her head, and nothing is gained by withholding from the reader for almost a page that the letter is from the school. That's what causes O's reaction, but I'm left confused for a page not understanding why she is so affected by an envelope, when O knows it right away, but keeps it from me, even though I'm in her head. L) I live in Scotland, I know almost nothing about the US education system, so most if the stuff about the schooling I find difficult to understand. M) Prime example of how I was left confused by the narrative in various places: "They were transfer papers. Her hair was ruined, but maybe she could still salvage the day. All she had to do was ask." - First sentence, okay, I get that, it's a clear indication of what is in the envelope, and that's good. The hair, I've been struggling with that for most of the chapter, because it's not clear (IMO) at the beginning. Also, hair and transfer papers are not (directly) related, so the line from one sentence to the next is tenuous. Second sentence makes sense in itself, but then the third... ask who? Ask them what? I think there are well into double figures of instances where I can see there's an assumption made that I understand a particular statement, but I don't, so I feel I'm left behind by the narrative. N) "She tried not to think about her long white hair being marred" - If this had been on page one, instead of page nine, I would have had a crystal clear understanding of what had happened to her, which underscores her emotional state for the whole first part of the chapter (before the attack), and I would have been much less confused. O) I'm at page 10, and I'm suffering a lot of confusion by this point, but then... the action kicks off. I think the action is (generally) excellent. It has energy, and tension, and it's dynamic, not without confusion in places (for me), but really clips along at an excellent pace. I think there are places it could be improved. I thought mom's injuries were undersold, almost conversational in the way they're described, but I really was hauled through these closing pages by bright, colourful, energetic passages. P) "The rusty blade" - It seems hugely unlikely to me that a letter opener would be rusty. But my biggest problem is that the letter opener is described in great detail when it appears, how it's engraved with the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, but there is no mention at all of it being rusty. In fact, it's described as intricately engraving, but rust would quite quickly obliterate fine detail, I feel. Q) Page 12 of 14 and things are still rattling along in the action sequence. There are pieces of wording that I think are redundant or contradictory, which I've tagged in the tracked comments emailed. E.g. it's stated that the rain the roof drowns out everything, but a sentence (or two) later it's stated that O still can hear "the music and the storm", so, the music is not drowned out then: contradiction. Details like this are so important for retaining reader engagement, and reader trust. R) The mirror is described variously as cracked, shattered and fractured. To me, each of these things is completely different from the others: cracked, maybe one of two cracks; fractured, not too far different, I suppose, although it suggests to me pieces have fallen out; shattered, the whole things is a pile of shards on the floor. S) I think the diary entry reads very convincingly as a diary entry, good job with that. I would strongly recommend putting the title at the top of that section, as I had no idea what I was reading at first, and there's no need for any reader to be disoriented. The title at the top is perfectly standard. But, it's just a big old info dump. There is a lot of technical detail, but I'm barely engaged with the character and the story at this point. By the end of the chapter, having just had a pretty satisfying (once polished) action section, I want to move into the next chapter and feel that I have an understanding of the world and what the main character is dealing with. What I'm not keen to receive is big pile of technical information that I don't know what to do with. I feel that it just distances me from the world, makes me feel there is so much I don't know, and do I really want to get into all this? Overall, I liked a lot of this, but I just want it to be much clearer. There's no good reason that I can see to hide any of the things that are hidden from the reader by the main character, whether it's deliberate or not, but that aside, I think there is an exciting and satisfying (probably, early days) story here, with an interesting protagonist. When you talk about it being published soon, how many edits have you done? Who all has read it? If I'm honest, I think it needs probably another two or three edits (two plus a proofread?), based on the first chapter. Usually, the first chapter is the one that is the tightest, because folks tend to go over projects multiple times before they are finished, and therefore the first chapter gets the most edits. Just curious. It's an interesting read, and I think it deserves to be tighter and clearer before it gets out there. The whole series (I'm presuming it's series, because everything's a series nowadays) stands and falls on the first book. Thanks for subbing

Okey-dokey, let's get... something that rhymes with 'okey'. (Pokey? Possibly. But possibly not.) Line-by-line comments emailed, because that's how I roll. (Just checking you received the first lot okay?) Summary/headlines here: - The epigraphs are hard to read like that, one after another, out of context. I found them dry, and a bit confusing. Seems to me these are the main vehicles for delivering the promise of threat, and even for identifying who are the big bags in the story, and I don't think they really work for that, at the moment. I felt they were kind of anonymous and a bit hard to contextualise. - I enjoyed Chapter 3 more than the first two. I liked where Sal was in the last book, but without the foil of Yo, and in the local context of her family, and that world she's on, I didn't enjoy that stuff. Keeping all the planes straight, and in context, and getting invested in all that twisty-turny stuff right at the start of the book, I think that's a tough ask: it is for me, anyway. Soooo, cut to Fo and Be, who are brilliant together, and it really felt for me that this is where my engagement started. The landing, the devastation, encountering the surviving locals, the starving and the kids, and then... shock the MARKINGS. The whole chapter just felt like a really nicely balanced unspooling reveal, very atmospheric, and effectively described*. - Although, the description of the stone building is a bit of a car crash, IMO. I had no idea WTF was going on, if it was up, down, left, right. Very confusing, IMO. - However, the addition of Ther is excellent, I really enjoyed zir as a character. Grumpy teenagers are just the best (characters), aren't they?

I completely agree with Mandamon summation points here. I had quite a bit of disorientation with the first chapter, and found it harder to get engaged with that Sal than the second one, whose situation I remember much more clearly from the previous book. The first Sal... I didn't have much sympathy for her; all that angst over a step, jeez, just watch where you put your feet. I had issues with Yor and N thinking it was a good idea to make Sal a family. Neither of them is that emotionally naive, surely? Can they have been paying that little attention? For me, the realisation that You is her home comes too late in the chapter. Was it present in the last book? I've always felt that Sal was a bit remote in her regard for Yor, but this brings the realisation home. I think it could be pushed up. (Full comments sent by email.)

Yep, I'll read it.

That's LMAO hilarious

Hey, thank you so much @Sarah B, @C_Vallion, @karamel, and @Mandamon for reading the openings. I am so sorry that I did not get back here until now. Long story short, in October '21, I had a relapse of the medical condition that put me in hospital last June. Turns out that I have the chronic form of GBS, which is called CIDP. I got all my gains back after a second course of treatment, and am 95% recovered (and stable) but I definitely did not have the spoons to deal with much of anything for a month or so near the end of last year. The good news is that I think I fixed almost all of these comments: thank you very much for calling the issues out. The Glasgow SF Writers' Circle had a go at the same submission and tagged a lot of the same things. All that anatomical stuff, and the businessman, etc. is gone. The even better news is that my novel is schedule for release on August, 9th by Space Wizard Science Fantasy! https://spacewizardsciencefantasy.com/coming-soon/ The opening did end up as something of a mash-up of v1 and v2, with little or nothing of v3

Sorry folks, I've been away for...er, 9 months, it seems. Honestly? I thought it was longer. Anyway for what it's worth, I'm sort of back, and will try and keep an eye on requests on a regular basis.

Lots of questions: 1. Is it clear what’s happening while the spell is going wrong? - I thought so. 2. How is the pacing? - Generally good, l although issues with the first few pages, IMO. 3. Does this seem like a helpful setup for understanding from the start that Most magic is illegal. - Clear enough, I thought. Although a smidge confusing the some is but some isn't. Magic can go horribly wrong. - Yup. Al’s family history is …complicated. - To a point. Not sure it's quite clear how it is complicated, and everyone's family tends to have some complication (or is that just me? I doubt it!!). 4. Are there additional questions/expectations set up here that you feel haven’t been addressed yet or should have been addressed already? - A prologue should be posing questions and making promises to the reader, but should not IMO be answering anything. 5. Any confusing/boring things? - See critique comments, to summarise: too much background in front, still, IMO. 6. Thoughts on characters/emotional connection up front? - Difficult because (as I understand it) with Br dying and not being in the book, we're not in the POV of any of the story's main characters. So, no real lasting connection. I guess the retainer will still be in, but we don't get much sense of him, other than being told he's capable, and seeing some evidence of that. I suppose I can form some bond to him as 'dependable retainer', but that's not an emotional connection. 7. Points of interest/engagement? - Honestly, not much. Al is orphaned: sad but not rare or especially engaging. Magic is illegal, but actually it's not, some magic is permitted, by some people, at certain times? Bit confusing and therefore not so much engaging. I think that strand could be clearer, and simpler would be clearer. Definitive statement at the start, something like 'All magic is illegal unless you are a court appointed mage.'

So, sorry for the delay. I hope there is something useful in the following comments. - Nice first line: I've got smuggling, and mages, and an injured mage (presumably). Decent amount of tension to keep me reading. - “little time to grieve one lost child” - But surely you just do it afterwards, as you would if anyone dies in childbirth? - "prune back one generation" - So, if there twins, everybody dies? Seems unlikely, but that's how I read this line. - “If he let too much power funnel through, it would stop her heart entirely…balance of the spell.” - This passage has tension, and good personal stakes, but it's too far from the start of the story. For me, the first page is quite dry, factual with background that does not engage as much at the start as a passage like this one. - Double space between sentences is archaic, IMO, a remnant of typewriters, I believe. Publishers / editors will excise all of these. Best to do it yourself, even if at the end, before submitting it anywhere. - "leave Al to fend for himself." - This is very low key, IMO. Like a kid havng to get their own lunch because their mom is late home. Not like both his parents dying. - The two/three pages before the POV break are urgent and exciting. I think this is much better than the first version in read. The opening few pages are still slow for me though, a lot of background much of which isn't relevant to the prologue. It doesn't sweep me away into the novel, which is what the opening should do. It's better, without a doubt, but I think this first few pages are still an issue due to their being quite 'dry'. - "Then darkness." - This is the second fade to black in the prologue. I think that's two too many (as it's a cliché), but at best, I'd go with one, as two is...repetitive. I think you could cut this last line, or even the last two. Personally, I like a line interupted, like "A moment later came noise, and--" Overall I think this is a good improvement on the previous version. I think it still could be streamlined more, especially the first few pages, but as a whole it is pacier, more direct, and the change of POV to Br is very effective. Classic application of WE's advice of putting the POV in the head of the character with the most at stake. Good job There is quite a lot of language stuff, for me; little details and wording (in some places) that is vague, noncommittal, hesitant, when it would be much more engaging to (have the character) commit to a particular thought or idea. That's all editing detail and craft fine tuning, which can come in later edits, of course. I still think there is scope to cut more background from tis prologue, only bring in details when they are absolutely needed for story or character reasons, which much of the background in the opening pages is not, IMO. I'm not sure I agree entirely with the following quote from M. John Harrison, but it's interesting food for thought, no mistake.

Go ahead, @Ace of Hearts. That's two for today