Robinski

Dear all, A hat trick of Monday submissions, maybe I've turned the corner at last. Here is the twenty-fourth chapter. Any comments--big or small--greatly appreciated Best, Robinski Chapter Summary: 01 - In small town in British Columbia, Q and M close out the Not-All-That-Curious Case of the Stolen Art; 02 - Q and M decide on what to do next, all the options seem to have some issue or other. Q's ex-father calls; 03 - After some political machinations, we meet EM (the administrator) and TT (the scientist) who at GX in Yellowknife, NWT; 04 - T is coerced by M into releasing the MTs. They are meant to kill her, but it does not go to plan for M. Now he has a problem 05 - Back with Q and M, they speak to R before going to meet him at the airport, but the plane crashes in 'unexpected' circumstances; 06 - Q and M are questioned at the sheriff's office then taken to the hospital to see R who they manage to speak to briefly before M appears and kills R; 07 - Q and M are in the frame for R's murder. M decides they should run. Car chase thru small town. They collect 80, 'borrow' N's plane and run; 08 - E discovers T's disappearance, is suspended by DM then goes to see the YK sheriff. He takes her to a kill site, but it's only animals, not T; 09 - After some chat about the past and Mor, Q dumps N's plane on the tarmac, QME are recovered by EMS and taken to hospital, where they escape; 10 - E runs the gauntlet of the press then releases the Vuls. Q and M progress to YK. Q gets a mystery call. K is on Q's trail and intends to make him pay; 11 - Q calls E and leaves her a message, the Five-Star gets wrecked by a bear, DM is travelling back to YK and speaks with TOM; 12 - Q learns M about a local church, Q and M encounter a bear, Mor talks to TOM; 13 - Q and M reach Golden, learn of the election's status, call EM and then learn that people are dead in YK. Their plan will get them to YK this evening. 14 - EM is interviewed by the FBI and given an ultimatum. DM seems to be working with her, but springs an ambush, tries to kill her, but she escapes. 15 - WK continues north, speaks to his office, speaks to the RCMP, considers his moves. 16 - DM takes full control of things at GX, speaks to TOM, issues orders to increase the chaos. 17 - EM escapes YK, goes to a village to abandon her tech, then makes a choice about her future. 18 - In Canmore, the press of time is getting to Q. WK spies waiting for a train north, a chase on foot ends in a one-sided shoot out. QME escape by drone 'copter. 19 - Journey to YK in drone chopper. Q and M learn how bad things are in YK. They and MC exchange views on a range of subjects. Q learns MC has been manipulating him for some time. 20 - Finally, after some prep in the chopper, Q and M arrive in YK. They meet E and a friend of her's who is helping her. They are attacked my a couple of Mts, then see a pair of VRs. 21 - Our heroes drive to BR's house, encounter a roadblock and pull a ruse on the National Guard there. At the house, they search until they are 'set upon' by more nasty T/F. 22 - After battling the Sparkles, the group is rescued by the National Guard, but taken to the YK sheriff and jailed. DM appears at the jail. 23 - Confrontation between Q and DM in the jail, Sheriffs K and K (hmm...) arrive, but DM escapes. Group released into Kr's custody, he mandates food and rest for the night.

Flash fiction prompt!!

Interesting to see themes between this and the Falcon in terms of how they deal with the design of large, flat areas. Very cool. And a furrosaurus too!

Well, you know me. Bring it on, I say. Especially since they are very familiar POVs with well known characters in the series (including novellas).

(Page 1) - “For there is one aspect of portals that speak of.” - missing word. - “Some of the other maji” - A Man POV! Excellent. Having the whole SoTH group together is potentially challenging. When this ensemble stuff if done well it can be stellar (I think of Reservoir Dogs, Firefly, The Avengers, FoTR). The challenge of giving everyone a voice, yes, but also giving them something to do other than stand around and wait for the leader to direct them. I’m encouraged here because they are alL ranging around independently looks for signs, not waiting for orders. I hope their personalities remain distinct. - “random spot in space” - something odd about this. A spot in space is what it is. What makes it random? It is the very particular spot that the signal came from, surely. (page 2) - “no one to initiate the reaction” - so, does that mean this is a void? Unclear, to me. - The arrival of the worms could be sharpened up, for me. Who are the two young Meth maj? When you say young meth maj, I automatically think of S. - “Ten seconds passed, tense.” - Eh?! No!! Take charge!! Surely Man would assume this was a threat and react. Surely he would not stand around for 10 seconds(!!!), a huge time in a combat situation, and just wait for the enemy to act. And even if Man did (which I don’t believe), surely the other SoTH members would not, would they? (page 3) - “The young meth” - but there are two, right? As an aside, it’s been established that humans are analogous to meth so, when a meth comes on screen, I automatically identify a bit more closely with them. - Yeah, and then they are stuck being reactive when the critters run. Disappointed in Man here. Ten seconds is a long time. - “Other maji followed the first two” - this is what I’m concerned about with the group: the group ends up acting and reacting like a homogenous ‘lump’ of maj. - “keeping an eye out in case the creatures came back” - why in the rings of heck would they come back? For me this is closing the loop of a weak reaction after the antagonist has bolted. It make the group sound lame. - “He wanted to run with the other maji and chase down the creatures” - but they’re not chasing the creatures. The maj all came back. - Man’s got gammy knees (a detail I enjoy, I can relate to!), but I feel that it would make him all the more conscious of the need to think quickly, rather than stand around for 10 seconds. (page 4) - I got confused between the meth bystander and the young meth maj. Does the bystander have to be meth? - "to block their path" - so this pronoun is used in this case because man does not know the sex of the meth passerby. It caught me slightly here because 'they' is used in causes of non-binary races or individuals so I am on the look out for it, as it were, and quite sensitive to the pronoun. To put it another way, if it had said 'blocked the young man's path' (for example), if would not have hesitated at all. - "It was hard to see from this distance, but he caught a flash of bright orange stripes on dark flesh, like they had seen on the creatures in the Assembly. Was it the same one? Or were there are more here? Had more voids appeared and birthed these creatures?" - I would like certainty here. It's a big orange blob, I don't think there can be any doubt it's the same type of creature. This doesn't seem worthy of being made a kind of mystery / mini-reveal. (page 5) - "Several others followed" - homogenising again. "and the older maji" - and again. - "that ain’t natural" - this line it not worthy of the scientific mind that is G. Clearly, it's natural for the creature. This line is just a nothing: kind of clichéd, if I'm honest. - "unplugging the stone keeping a Th in its den for winter" - I get it, but the line falls flat for me because I don't know what a Th is, or why it's kept in its den. - "Is it our fault?" - Hang on, first he accepts G's point then, immediately after that, in his next breath, he questions it. This seems wildly inconsistent / indecisive. - "There is little doubt there is more going on, but I cannot say what part we played" - I find the dialogue very loose in this chapter, and man in particular is not very leader-y. I expect him to be more competent and commanding. - "de facto leader" - he's the actual leader, is he not? Moor was the leader of the SOTH and they handed it on to man, didn't they? (Or did they? Maybe I'm misremembering.) - "but he valued the others’ opinions. That was why he had asked them" - Again, I want man's internal monolog to be more insightful than this. It feel obvious and not worthy of internal scrutiny in narrative. Did he not also want them to join because they were some of the only/few THM available? (page 6) - I like the recounting of the failings of the council. I feel that man's leaving is suitable dramatic as to deserve more of real moment. (We didn't know this already, did we?) - "He could tell merely from the doleful stairs of the two that something was very, very wrong, though the pair either wouldn’t disclose what they knew, even to a member of the Council, or were ignorant themselves." - (1) Typo: stares (obvs). I do now want to write a short story about doleful stairs though. Sounds like a location in LOTR or GOT; (2) comma (sorry ); (3) Contradiction. Man can tell from the indicators of the creatures that something's wrong. Ergo, they know something is wrong. Ergo, they have something to disclose. So, they cannot be ignorant. - "to get from the palace" - got/get is the least evocative word in the English language. My English teacher chided me for using it stating, very reasonably, that there is always a more descriptive, interesting and engaging word to use in its place. I often forget this myself (just searched TCC, 192 'got'), but this one smacked me in the face. Can they not walk, trudge, hurry or dash? (page 7) - "They caught glances, along the way, of people fleeing" - I though there was no one around, and the guards were lone people. - "A group of seventeen maj was an intimidating force, and they strung out along the blocks" - How many?! This is crazy unwieldy. I just can't picture it. Also, it's crazy that they have not split up. ALSO, it strikes me as odd that they are not operating like a military unit (with man in command), as being the only way to wrangle so many independent minds together and make them all go in the same direction. I'm drawn back to the scene where the creatures appear. So, there were 17 maj standing around for 10 seconds doing nothing? Impossible. - "was certain there were more than just the two or three they had encountered" - This chapter is not holding together for me in the terms of the logic. There are no people around, like maybe a dozen. The Imp has been depopulated and this has been attributed by these maj (posited by someone, and accepted by man) that it was the creatures that did it, and we have seen them do it: thus, prove. They saw two of the creatures appear, ergo, those creatures were not there before. They have seen and heard the signs of multiple entities as they've walked. So, I can't wrap my head around why man can take so long to make this pretty obvious deduction. Personally, I think this chapter could be electrifying if the whole thing was reorganised a bit. I've already mentioned how the maj were basically completely impotent when he creatures appeared. Why did the creatures not attack? Maybe one of the maj gets 'absorbed'? With 17 you've got maj to spare pumps up the stakes immediately. Then they get outside a realise the population of the Imp has been decimated, maybe they just seen the evidence of multiple creatures running around and they realise immediately that it's an invasion - and that they may have caused it. Sorry for the trail of suggestions, but I feel the pacing is kind of random (good coming from me, I know). (page 8) - "was not that unlikely" - a positive would be more engaging than a double negative here, IMO. - I forget who Y is. - "portal ground in the spire grounds to do so" - repetition of 'ground' is awkward. Also, there is no preceding statement corresponding to 'do so'. (page 9) - "Pass the word around. Some of the others should go on to the medical ward" - I come back to my point about the size of the group. Passing the word around will be awkward and time-consuming, and the chances are that at least one of 17 individuals will wander close to the creature and 'trigger' it. Again, if they have options of places to go, and there are 17 of them, it seems crazy not to divide up tasks, split into a at least two. Much more manageable. The physical area alone that 17 people will take up be not standing next to each other, walking a little apart to chat to someone... it's so unwieldy from a practical viewpoint. - "crackled in a passable whisper" - There are some lovely character details for those known to the reader, but most of the 127 are anonymous. I'll add here that I am really starting to like Meg. More detail on her would be good. I hope she's not a red shirt!! (page 11) - "large predatory fish" - good, effective description. Like. - "Faster than a cheetah" - Yikes! (page 12) - The pace of the chapter has really picked up in the last couple of pages, which is great. I would have liked more tension in the first section. I think there is scope for it to be ramped up, and for the group to behave more logically/be led more effectively (by man). - "positioned the portal sideways" - typo, I think. Also, not sure 'purposefully' is the right word here. I think 'deliberately' is more accurate. To me doing something 'on purpose' (i.e not accidentally) is different from doing it 'purposefully' (carefully, determinedly). Or 'purposely', that would work. (page 13) - "The other fell short at his feet" - the thing is almost on top of him, and is travelling at cheetah speeds (~60mph). With that amount of momentum, I would think the part of the creature would carry past him or into him from that distance. Exciting scene though, thrilling and clever solution, well foreshadowed. - "off balance" - Err, it was cut in half, I don't think this phrase is sufficiently dramatic to describe it's attempts to movement. I get vertigo sometimes, I can off balance. This thing is missing half its body weight. - "What was left was nothing but two divots" - Very wordy and awkward. 'Only two divots remained.' I know it's drafting, but this especially stood out. - "deep enough the next person who stepped in one" - this implies to me that there has been a first person to step in one, which I didn't see. (page 14) - "voice shilled upward" - 'shrilled'? Not a verb. (page 15) - "the ones no longer taught" - I like the form of the ending, but I think it could have a bit more punch. Overall Definitely a strong chapter in terms of arc and content, and an exciting second part as we get into the action. I wanted more from the first part. I felt the dialogue was often patchy and some of the logic was, some choices were, questionable. My biggest issues is having a group of 17 maj trouping around. I struggled throughout trying to accept how awkward that would be. Looking forwards to the next one. Things are taking shape nicely

And I'd like to submit on Monday, please, if there is a slot available.

<claps hands> Excited!!!

Okay, I stand (or possibly lounge) corrected.

Once you've added the image to the post, if you double click it, you get image options, one of what is to resize the image (retaining original proportions or otherwise). I found that with 225 pixels in width, I could get four landscape images to a line in the post. I put a couple of space between the images, as I found that inserting one image after another sometimes overwrote the prior image (if on the same line). In other news, thanks for sharing this. You are great!! Edit: this Christmas, Tara and I made the Lego gingerbread house that I got as a freebie last year when I got my X-wing I must post a photo, if I can find it.

I'm not sure that's canon...

Straight in, (epigraph) - I find it a bit oblique. Not sure it really flows, and what is the final message, in what what way do the Ar behave in the reverse? Unclear, I thought. (page 1) - "though it was at the expense of her tenure with the LC" - the word 'tenure' to me implies a longstanding / permanent arrangement, but E was with them for such a short time, really. It rang untrue to me. - "months or cycles" - so, do they have months? They have ten days, and they have cycles (years?), so it seems odd that they use a human measure in there. (page 2) - "He deserves you" - This seems contradictory. It seems the presence is suggesting that E and S should be together, but is it not only interested in E killing S, killing everything? It seems weird it would be interested n her love life. - "Will you come through with us?" - Eh? Why on earth would they? They were trying to talk them into staying here. It seems very naive for E to ask this. - "proficient at offense or defense" - clunky phrase, IMO. (page 3) - "The Symphony can be used for anything" - Whose thought is this? And surely it isn't true. A house is completely restricted by the limits of its symphony. This implies the H of Time can heal, for example. - "ask S about his new confidence" - why would she ask now? Not an appropriate time, it seems to me. - "trying to put enough" - does she or does she not? Vagueness not compelling. This is a matter of fact, surely. (page 4) - Good tension in this exchange. It reads a bit jerky to me, but that all editing. - "When she first met him, her rejection would have been enough to keep him in his shell" - this bit is particularly wordy, but not all that clear. I feel it can and should be more pithy, direct. Something like 'A month ago, her rejection would have left him a quivering wreck.' (page 5) - "though he never displayed that attribute" - how would she know if he never displayed it? I wonder if it's not 'utilised that attribute' or 'used'. - "her kiss fierce on his lips" - This page/moment is a wonderful emotional payoff so early in the story. I greatly approve! It gives the reader some emotional certainty which has been fairly scarce in previous books. It gives us relationship anchor, a restore point, if you will. - "he was back to being submissive. So not everything had changed about him" - I don't like this thought. It reduces personality to a level of certainty that just does not exist. It's naive of E to think that he would have changed absolutely with no possibility of any scintilla of his former personality remaining. (page 6) - "bovine-like behemoths" - Since bovine means cow-like, I feel that this reads 'cow-like-like', which strikes my ear as wrong. - "the long-limbed symbionts on their backs moving as fast as their rides moved slowly" - How can this be? They must be moving at the same speed, surely? - "so prevalent they had been active" - I find her logic a bit muddy in this paragraph. - "wide slatted fence " - I think 'wide-slatted' means the slats are wide, 'wide slatted' means the fence is wide, and slatted (but the slat width is unknown). (page 7) - "They were here voluntarily" - I feel like this deserves to have more punch. I wanted it to say 'They were penned up voluntarily.' I feel that E should have more of an attitude towards the set up. - "backed away from the opening" - confused here. First, it's a doorway, but it has a gate (not a door), then, the Ari backs away, but there's nothing about them opening the gate: I had pictured them looking through it, not opening it. And the phrase 'opening' suggest neither door nor gate to me, but an unbarred opening. - "The inside of the fenced area contained houses" - redundant. I know, line edits not really needed at this stage. Oh, well! While I'm at it "rather than the organic substances in the rest of this facet". - "her parents' caravan" - missing apostrophe. - "I told you of one of them when he last visited" - pretty maid-and-butler exposition clunky around here. - "It was strange not to know the body language of her own species" - but would the N not translate? It translated the inanimate signs on the fence. I'm sure body language is translated in the Imp. (page 8) - "as if they should be familiar with it" - the assassins spoke just to her (didn't they?), so would this not be 'she'? - "His simple concern had driven them away" - I feel like this is belittling the emotion that S displayed, the feeling was much stronger than something simple, certainly, in E's reaction. - "concerned at I’s non-answer" - This is vague. I feel like there is another emotion that could go here that would better evoke what the reader should feel / what I is feeling. - "I certainly hope the Blessed have not grown rampant" - This word, IMO, undermines the impact this comment should have. It makes me feel 'I do hope it's not going to rain' levels of concern. (page 9) - "group we belong to" - I think this would have more impact in the present tense, it's still undetermined, after all. - "M was close to them in an instant" - this sounds like magic to me. Also a bit clunky. 'was beside them in an instant' - although could M not just examine them closely without moving? - "We were both captured by the species which held a group of Ar in secret" - but surely it was not the Sa that captured them, not the whole species, it was the LC, which is not one species. Why does he not just say LC at this point. - "to remove the trappings of the B teachings" - for me, the trappings are just superficial aspects, decoration, symbolism. This is not the same as removing the actual teachings, just the signs of the teachings. - "Such advanced age" - This feels to me like a sudden segue into a completely different topic to the war. (page 10) - Confused, so I know who the bless are, but who are the pill? - "inherited his diadem" - hang on though, it doesn't belong to E. Surely they are just in possession of it until they can get it back to the authorities in their facet. Surely it belongs to the new eff in their facet, when they are appointed. - And then the next bit. Confused. So only Ari can use the diadem? So every eff ever must have been an Ari, and only an Ari can be eff? This is... weird. It implies to me, quite strongly, that the Ari must have set up the nether, or at least must have set up the structure of governance that rules it. (page 13) - "sucking in moisture from the air and inflating until they were healthy green succulents" - I feel that inflating, specifically, is associated with air or other gaseous substances, not liquids. Also, the term succulent in botanical terms does not I think applies to vines, which do not store water in their leaves (@kais?). - "How had they not heard each other’s music before" - But surely they never could, and never should have expected to? I thought it was fact that different houses could not hear each other's music. E speaks as if she would always have expected to hear I's music, which doesn't make sense to me. (page 14) - "of an Ari maji" - majus, surely? - "Perhaps that is why there are none around. There are simply too rare." - this is self-evident, does not need to be stated. There are so few because they are rare - tautology. - "we may be too late for the D" - too late to stop the D, surely. (page 15) - "reemergence of a lost aspect of a species" - I don't know what this is referring to. Oh, wait, is it S? Is he an aspect of Meth? (page 16) - "That if you are certain you will be well" - grammar/typo? - "The death of her other..." - I don't feel there is any foreshadowing of this in the chapter, so this collapse seems sudden, unearned. - "if you are willing" - so wait, they don't have any maj in this facet? No, they do, so it doesn't need to be E and I that do it. This seems quite convenient from a plot viewpoint, although they had already decided to stay. This last bit just feels forced to me. Overall Lots of good stuff in this chapter, but I feel it has issues that need to be ironed out. There are some bits that feel quite clunky. I enjoyed it though. Decent dynamic between the three, and a top class emotional payoff, although it fell away quite quickly after it happened (almost instantly).

Hey all, Another submission on a Monday!! It'll never last. Here is the twenty-third chapter. Many thanks for any comments--big or small--you have to spare for this Best, Robinski Chapter Summary: 01 - In small town in British Columbia, Q and M close out the Not-All-That-Curious Case of the Stolen Art; 02 - Q and M decide on what to do next, all the options seem to have some issue or other. Q's ex-father calls; 03 - After some political machinations, we meet EM (the administrator) and TT (the scientist) who at GX in Yellowknife, NWT; 04 - T is coerced by M into releasing the MTs. They are meant to kill her, but it does not go to plan for M. Now he has a problem 05 - Back with Q and M, they speak to R before going to meet him at the airport, but the plane crashes in 'unexpected' circumstances; 06 - Q and M are questioned at the sheriff's office then taken to the hospital to see R who they manage to speak to briefly before M appears and kills R; 07 - Q and M are in the frame for R's murder. M decides they should run. Car chase thru small town. They collect 80, 'borrow' N's plane and run; 08 - E discovers T's disappearance, is suspended by DM then goes to see the YK sheriff. He takes her to a kill site, but it's only animals, not T; 09 - After some chat about the past and Mor, Q dumps N's plane on the tarmac, QME are recovered by EMS and taken to hospital, where they escape; 10 - E runs the gauntlet of the press then releases the Vuls. Q and M progress to YK. Q gets a mystery call. K is on Q's trail and intends to make him pay; 11 - Q calls E and leaves her a message, the Five-Star gets wrecked by a bear, DM is travelling back to YK and speaks with TOM; 12 - Q learns M about a local church, Q and M encounter a bear, Mor talks to TOM; 13 - Q and M reach Golden, learn of the election's status, call EM and then learn that people are dead in YK. Their plan will get them to YK this evening. 14 - EM is interviewed by the FBI and given an ultimatum. DM seems to be working with her, but springs an ambush, tries to kill her, but she escapes. 15 - WK continues north, speaks to his office, speaks to the RCMP, considers his moves. 16 - DM takes full control of things at GX, speaks to TOM, issues orders to increase the chaos. 17 - EM escapes YK, goes to a village to abandon her tech, then makes a choice about her future. 18 - In Canmore, the press of time is getting to Q. WK spies waiting for a train north, a chase on foot ends in a one-sided shoot out. QME escape by drone 'copter. 19 - Journey to YK in drone chopper. Q and M learn how bad things are in YK. They and MC exchange views on a range of subjects. Q learns MC has been manipulating him for some time. 20 - Finally, after some prep in the chopper, Q and M arrive in YK. They meet E and a friend of her's who is helping her. They are attacked my a couple of Mts, then see a pair of VRs. 21 - Our heroes drive to BR's house, encounter a roadblock and pull a ruse on the National Guard there. At the house, they search until they are 'set upon' by more nasty T/F. 22 - After battling the Sparkles, the group is rescued by the National Guard, but taken to the YK sheriff and jailed. DM appears at the jail.

But every snowflake is unique! *ahem* Okay, silly responses aside, just noting that I didn't have a problem with this description. One of those YMMV things. Okay, I'll give you that, but granular, to me, implies hard like sand, or coffee, or sugar - something that acts like a granular substance, which snow I would say does not, not in the same way as sand, or coffee, or sugar.

Hmm. My Prime is £7.99 a month, but I guess it's only been 2 or 3 months.

Nah, I’m going to cut it. I think there’s enough E character without it. Thanks!

£40, (~$53?)

Heh, so I was a bit tardy finishing the Seeds audiobook because I forgot I had not completely the appendices! Anyway, review left on Goodreads. I tried to paste it into Amazon, but apparently I have not spent enough money in the last 12 months, so am not eligible. F**king outrageous. My views are less valid because I have not filled Mr. Bez's pockets enough?! Anyway, nice job @Mandamon

Hey Liz, looking forward to reading your first submission! Warning, apologies if my comments are rather low level. I will answer your questions, but I might tend a bit more toward the functional language side of things than the overarching themes (although I will not ignore those, I trust). (page 1) - I like the first sentence. Straight away, I'm asking who is she, and what is it, so that's good, I think. - I get a strong sense of the season, leaves rotting, sucking life. All good! - Fog and mist are different things, however, my understanding is they are defined (in the UK at least) by distance of visibility, so I guess conditions could vary between mist and fog. It just jumped out at me in the text. - "eyes glanced up involuntarily" - why would it be involuntary when it's a kid in the back seat? - "approaching traffic" - approaching from the back though. To me, approaching traffic is still the traffic coming towards the car, i.e. going in the opposite direction. Some of the traffic in the rear view is not approaching, because it's going slower. Okay, they're stopped at the lights, but some of the traffic behind might be stationary already. I'm just saying the word 'approaching' threw me a little. - "as the nickname implied" - Sorry, I'm in super nitpick mode for some reason, but how does the nickname 'winter' imply wounded? I didn't get that. - "the drama of girls" - I struggled with this phrase, because it sounded to me less like something that comes habitually, but something associated with very specific girls. For example, if the word had been 'girlhood', I think I would have got the sense straight away. (page 2) - "After a usual lunch" - This clunked for me as reading. 'a usual' sounds like there are various different lunches, all usual. Whereas 'the usual' would make me feel like it was more like the mundane repetition that I thought was intended. Or 'a typical lunch', maybe. - "in her tiny kitchen with a worn laminate counter" - I feel like 'the worn laminate counter' would ground me more int this being a familiar and treasured memory. Making it a particular counter makes it more personal, I think, not just any old counter. (page 3) - "the old fashioned way was a luxury" - missing word, I think. - "next to the stack" - I imagine the eggs, flour, sugar all in one big pile, which does not seem likely. - "granular like the pristine snow" - really not sure about snow being granular. By definition, it's crystalline, but also homogenous, surely? - "blending them together with the butter" - is this in reference to the scoops of sugar? It rings odd to me for sugar to be attributed 'them' instead of 'it'. (page 4) - "sneaking the traditional snitches" - I don't know what a snitch is (without looking it up). I've heard of snitching on someone. - "After I put them into the oven" - this is still referring to the cookie-cutters, which were the last objects identified. - "When I turned off the light, the pale foggy light shown in through" - close repetition of 'light' is awkward, maybe one could be swapped out. Also, 'shone' not 'shown'. - "that same gray blue light as when they stared up at me" - missing word, I think. - "I girded on my oven mitts" - I've never heard this word used in this context. Seems very archaic, perhaps because I don't know what it adds. Her putting the gloves on is not important, surely, and yet this word draws particular attention to it. Maybe the gloves will prove central to the story. I shall find out! - "emitted from the oven" - The emitter is the course of the 'thing' not the function of the emission itself, I believe. The scent could 'emanate' from the oven, or the oven could emit the scent. - "Only hadn’t we had cut out four of them and not just three?" - extra word, I think. (page 5) - "bit into the crackers" - they were making cookies, surely? - "I thought how grateful I was to have this last peaceful presence in our family" - There is an extra layer of separation here between the reader and the emotion, I feel. I believe it unnecessary to say 'I thought'. All of the narrative is in the main character's thoughts, so including that is kind of redundant. Also, I don't understand who the 'last peaceful presence' is. Is it the daughter? In what we is she the last? Is it the memory of the mother/grandmother? (page 6) - "though we were still a few days left until" - still had a few days left, surely. Or, were still a few days out from Christmas. Something unnatural about this phrasing, to me. - "ferrying ornaments between the boxes and the tree" - Confused: why not have the boxes next to the tree? - "Where’s my box?” she said. She had been too young last time to even remember decorating the tree" - It was almost a page ago that the daughter was mentioned, so I did not immediately identify 'she' as the daughter, although it cannot be anyone else. Also, if she was too young to remember decorating the tree, how does she know she has a box? - "hooks to ornaments who had mysteriously lost theirs" - which. - "in a quiet amid the rush" - A quiet what? Seems like a missing word. - "She had carefully held in her hands" - the tense change seems out of place. - 'greyish; is a word. Not sure what the hyphen is for. And I have apologies in a few lines for my nitpickery. I think I actually do it more when the writing is as good as yours, because these little niggles (for me) stand out much more starkly against the nicely flowing and involving prose. - "there was a telltale high pitched glass..." - seems to be a word missing here. - "picking red and green shards of metallic glass out of the carpet" - That's a recipe for a sticking plaster, surely that's a job for the DustBuster? - "when it was too late" - Okay, I see that this is a pretty big clue that something (bad) is about to happen, but I don't buy that the mom would forget that her daughter said she would not be there next Christmas. That is nightmare scenario for a parent; terrifying. And she just forgets? This is the first bit of the story that I've found rather unconvincing. (page 7) - I don't think 'snow globe' is one word. - "we bundled the kids into the car" - Who is we? The husband? And yet he's never mentioned specifically. (page 9) - "I realized that I had never checked her room" - 'not checked', IMO. Clearly, the mom has checked her room in the past, just not on this occasion before bolting out of the door. Overall Well, it's quite a gut punch at the end, and yet the story has led us to that point so gently, that it is not so much a painful wrench, but a melancholic 'twang'. I prefer that to some kind of grandiose heartbreak, which we be a bit heavy for such a short piece. I found that the story read really smoothly in general, and evoked convincing images of the season, and the setting very effectively. 1. Is it interesting to anyone beside me? - Yes, it's interesting to me. I didn't get any strong sense of why, but that's okay. As a mood piece, I thought it was very good. 2. Did you guess what was going to happen too soon/too late? Is it too obvious or too non-obvious? - I thought it was pretty clear what was going to happen. When the kid said she would not be there, I believe her. So, whatever page that was on. 3. General thoughts on character and description - do they fit the scope of the story? - As noted above, description very good. Character was not strongly evident, but I think that's okay in a story this short. Mom feels fairly generic to be honest, the boys are totally typical, behave as expected, and therefore do not stand out. The little girl has a fay quality, which came through well, but I'm not sure that constitutes character. I'm not sure that the story is lacking because of this feeling though. 4. Anything else you notice - Umm, just in my comments. There was really only one thing that I didn't believe, and that was the mom forgetting the girl saying she would not be there next Christmas. As a father (my daughter is 24, but darn it, still my little girl!!), I found this very hard to accept. *5. Forgot to mention I could also use title ideas, as this title is more of a place holder. * - Yeah, Winter Fog is rather bland. Even 'Winter Bird' would be better, although very on the nose. I tend to enjoy more obscure titles, perhaps more portentous. Some quick-fire ideas: (1) Last Christmas (I'd guess there are other stories out there with this title); (2) Into the Fog (meh, not sure I like that myself); (3) Her Name (aiming to play with something that I began to feel was absent from the story when 'she' / 'her' pronouns popped up without prior reference to the girl, and this alludes, I think, to the very emotive thoughts of the mother at the end when she begins to doubt that her daughter existed at all. All in all, great job. Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed reading that.

Well, I got here in the end. Many apologies for the delay. (page 7) - The epigraph didn't really pop for me. For one thing, it seems long, and it's about politics / forms of government, and I just want to get on with the story. I'd suggest a (much) shorter epigraph for the first chapter. Maybe one with a bit more drama, a recounting of previous near-disasters in Books 1 and 2? Something that engages the reader quickly. Effectively, it's your first line. (page 8) - "I know how the D will start" - I think this is your first line. Just because it's Book 3, and you can expect everyone to be on board who gets this far, the first line still has to grab us by the throat. - "his fingers falling between I" - I's what? Oh, fingers. Unclear. - "her mouth open at the collection of strange creatures" - thought she was trying to eat them. - "Behind him, he let the portal they had come through close with a pop" - Okay, this is first draft, right? Okay, I'm not going to do line edits. I'm not. But... this for me was quite jumbled. I'm pushing the 'rule' of primacy and recency. Important words at the start and end of the sentence. 'Behind him' is not important. In fact, does the portal matter at all? We didn't see them use it. 'He let the portal behind them close with a pop.' It's obvious they came through it: don't need to say that. And that's the last line edit. Promise. I'll save it for the alpha read, when/if you need it. - A weird hyphenation thing is happening. - "His notes returned, like a glass of cold water" - droplets of water would be more evocative of notes than a big glass. - "while she was captured by" - to me, being captured is the action of the moment. 'while she was held captive by' is more like the time spent in captivity. - "New creatures" - Aw, fiddle, I don't remember these, I was hoping not to have to check back. I'm confused here as to what / who she is talking about. - "They are poison-ous" - I remember now, it's coming back to me, but a stronger (re)introduction of these creatures would help. (page 9) - "like the Ds did" - 'do' would be more immediate. Even though there are no Ds active, they are still a clear and present threat. - "he could only think of the oth-ers they left behind" - I don't remember. - "WW pressed" - WW's dialogue here, to me, is unnecessary/ineffective. They are just asking about things S has already said. Not very engaging. If they asked 'How do you about...' - "didn’t have enough attention" - Confused. Surely you don't need to pay specific attention, it just sounds like one's own language. Isn't that the point, there is no effort? - "compound" - Ooh, surely that's not the true nature of this place, is it? Aren't they in the E's palace, residence, or something like that? This makes me think I'm in a concrete bunker. - "let others through" - this is the first point at which I clearly remember what happened at the end of Book 2. I wonder if this could not come a bit further up? I dunno. It's hard to judge something like that, I suppose. I won't matter to anyone who has not read Book 2, but how likely is that, really? - "the P" - took me a moment to remember this is a 'class' of maj. (page 10) - "One of the big, two-headed beings lumbered forward" - I'm having blocking issues. What is the context of this meeting? How many beings are present? Is it a Council meeting? At the start, it feels more like a conference between the five being, with no one else present or listening. - "And what is that?" - somehow, this feels like taking several steps back. The reader is way past needing an explanation of what a D is, and it feels like this conversation is too. - "briefly, they explained" - I know this is kind of skipping the exposition, but it's still exposition. It's a list of the all the exposition that's happening. Is there a way to disguise it more? I'm not sure, but it came over rather stilted to me. (page 11) - IMO there is a difference between a crown and a circlet. The latter is a plane band, whereas the former would be adorned / decorated with vertical features, much more ornate. - "Another two emerged from one" - confusing. Another two could mean drains, because that was the last thing identified in the previous sentence. - "The m left through a different portal" - Which maj? Not clear. - "were who they were" - confusing phrasing. This whole section is very confusing because there are lots of pronouns flying around (they, them, their) that it's hard to attribute them. - "thought they were bringing power with them, and hoped to use it to take over" - For me, this falls into the 'villains being unrealistically naive. Was that really the reason the LC were trying to bring the Es through? Why would the Es just donate their power to the LC? - "We must prepare for them" - So wait, what? S, I and E are going to be in this facet? Who is protecting the 'main' fact? The other maj? Does this fact have an Imp? Are we in it? (page 12) - What is maj light? - "S knew she’s been chafing" - she'd - Oh, I've forgotten what the V is. I thought it was the race that WW was a member of. (page 13) - "S found someone who could teach more than he could, though it was painfully obvious S was not of the HoC" - these are two separate things. I don't think the go together like this, it feels jumbled/illogical. OK can't teach him anymore because they share neither of O's two houses. This is not contrary/in opposite to S having found a maj who can. In fact, the two things are complimentary, surely. - "Once again, S was alone" - My heart sinks. I was hoping finally he had left behind this wallowing in so-called isolation. He is not alone. Clearly and demonstrably everyone here needs him. That's what they've been talking about for the last ten minutes (essentially). - "I added" - I don't think this is an addition to what E said, it's an answer, surely. (page 14) - "What had they talked about before they ran off" - my problem with this is that 'they' are not the same theys. - "anything they learned can be used to help prepare" - 'learn', IMO. (page 15) - "They were quite eager to meet you" - presumably they still are. - "I gather it will have no use in your facet" - confused. There must be effs that are not Ar. Can't they use the power? It can't just a an Ar diadem. - "You try to bribe me" - Huh? Don't follow. - "cut out from their trio for the first time in months" - No, he felt alone about three pages back. - "of this section" - Why not facet? - "and S saw I’s eyes widen at the movement" - redundant: it's obvious. In fact, just 'S saw', because that also is implicit. Everything that happens the reader sees through S's eyes. - "nearly yelling" - vague is not engaging. (page 16) - E's outburst is strange. Why would she say that in front of others? I can see her character has changed, which makes sense. - "Blessed? Pillars?" - My reaction was the same. S's dialogue here is quite hackneyed. Not natural. - Yeah, this whole page reads pretty clunky to me, in the interaction between the three kids. (page 17) - "strip of lights" - this is a really clunky phrase when it crops up in a sentence. If you said 'lights', no one would be in any doubt. It's well established there is a strip of them. - "Less of them indicate" - fewer. - "just from sitting still a few moments" - clearly WW is not just 'sitting still'. This comment is beneath I. (page 18) - "To be cut off and alone" - is WW so? I don't remember that. WW is here now with other beings. - "ducking his head down" - sounds like he's dodging something, compared to 'bowing his head' - "I will aid you in your fight" - but it's not just their fight, the Dis threatens all the facets, surely? Conclusion The first part of this chapter had some good stuff, and got me back up to speed with the situation, but I felt the second half dropped off the pace, and ended up being a kind of vague debate about nothing very much. It felt kind of confused to me, if I'm honest, not worth the space of several pages to argue over. In the last few pages, the debate and some of the dialogue felt clunky to me, in the sense that the debate could either be ramped up, or played down and quickly resolved. Where they go first is not really up there for me in terms of stakes. Good to be back though. I can see that this will be an interesting chapter when it's 'finished'

I just finished updating Chapter 17 (23), so I definitely am ready to submit on Monday!! And, while I'm on, best wishes for the festive season to all at Reading Excuses!!

I'm really glad you posted this, Liz. Thanks for sharing. As a general note to our new(er) members, 'the regulars' have developed a style that is really quite detailed. For my own part, it's just my approach to life really, to dive into detail (as an engineer), but I am always reminded when I read the comments of others that I am a bit weak on broader themes, arcs and subtitles. To my shame I feel that, often, I do not stress enough the positive responses that I have on a given piece. I think it's really important that we get the message across in the introduction to the forum that there is no expectation on the format of a critique, or its scope, or depth. In no way are line-by-line comments expected, some of us have gotten into the habit of doing that, but it is NOT an expectation. Personally, I would be (and am) just as happy to receive an overview / impression, or a few briefs lines on the feelings engendered as a detailed critique, although this still valuable, of course. @Silk, I wonder if this is something that needs to go into the guidance, just as a one-liner in terms of 'Please feel free to comment in as much detail as you want, but please note that general impressions and overall summation of response to a submission are just as valid and useful.'

They look great!

Crust Class Postage

Sorry, I won't be subbing this week. I've had a stinking headache for most of today, time I needed to finished editing the latest chapter. Hopefully, I can get it ready for next Monday, if there is a slot going free.