Robinski

Hey, thanks for reading, Mandamon I'll need to need to re-examine these changes. Yeah, there's something amiss with their discussion. I see it now, thanks. There is something wrong with his presentation of the situation. I've done some rewording, which I think improves it, good catch. Also, I've tried to balance E's b-ness with her showing more vulnerability. I've tweaked here and their to retain reminders of how she was in previous chapters. Nothing. I've smoothed the transition. It ties in directly to her first statement now. He does have experience of covert operations. E has something of a defensive mindset in any case, certainly when it comes to M. I think you may well be right that she has a descent chance keeping her job, but she'll know she's up against M. Well, she did storm out of his office. The second sign in's a bit lame though. I've tried to address that without changing it completely. It's a security thing. I've tweaked this. I've expanded this argument a bit. I think it plays better from the point of view of E showing more resistance, and M defending his position more. I think it's better, thanks! (As per previous answer.) For one, I've removed handwringing: you're right, that's not E. Also, I've hung a lantern on her not staying to be dragged out physically, due to the instant loss of any credibility. Another good catch Well, M suspended her on the 16th, she didn't go out on the 17th, and afternoon of the 18th she's going to see the sheriff, but yes, you're right to a degree. This part was intended to show E being laid low and then starting to fight back, BUT, it was also to bridge the gap in the time lines. I think doing both is possible, provided that E's scenes are compelling/involving enough. Clearly you are not finding them so! It's worked for others though. So, I'm looking to introduce more fight in E, more activity, reducing the moping time. I think it's better now, and am obliged to you for calling it. After they did the inspection on Saturday (14th), 4 days ago. I have clarified the wording here. I've tried to draw out a bit better that E only 'missed' T on Monday morning; okay, she lost Tuesday, although I've tried to draw out that she still was active online trying to source information, keep abreast of events (admittedly without actually learning anything). There is mention of officers and equipment being deployed, just not in an active search capacity, but I've tried to pull that out a little more. I like to think he's in control of himself, rather than calm, but I've looked to add a couple of hints that he's tense. I've tried to highlight that, with respect to M, E has no authority, hence his power in this situation, as a man from parent company HQ. Should be 'found'. Okay, I'll consider this point. It's not that long a drive, and I'm trying to portray Not as hard, but fair, trying to flush out a reaction from a corporate body that he does not trust, but his hands are tied, to large degree. I've introduced an order to Kot from the mayor in relation to the investigation, and permitting Gen the chance to do their job in an area they specialise in. Really great, testing, comments--thank you Mandamon. I can always trust you not to let me off with anything! <R>

I like the poison ivy smoke, because it feels like you've used smoke already, and there's a bit of a theme there (a bit). But actually poison ivy itself, I tend to agree with Mandamon. I can see that ghosts might avoid the plants because maybe they give off some kind of chemical, but it can't actually do a ghost real harm unless it's burned and produces the 'deadly' smoke? Yeah, that made me pause. Maybe mention need something about them using gloves and throwing them away. They could have put the stuff in hessian sacks so they could set them alight to produce the smoke. It could be a short sword, but yes, point about consistency #LBLedit Yeah, I liked the reveal; the deduction was good with some strengthening.

Comments Chapter 11 (part) (page 1) - "over the edge" - edge of what? the trail? It sounds to me like a vertical feature though (page 2) - "a little bit fast" - one word will suffice here very well, like 'skipping', or some such. - Nice, spooky description of the road and the trees. - The prose could stand some tidying up: and incomplete sentence here, and repeated word there. My offer of complete LBL read through stands! (page 3) - There are typos and some phrasing on this page that make the narrative feel jerky. Also, the old man pops up delivers his exposition and leaves, that was pretty clunky for me. (page 4) - "accidentally set her free" - this is good background, I like getting some explanation about how we got here. - "The faded print on the spines was covered in too much dust to read from a distance" - Yeah, a good language pass would really tidy things up. Not a criticism, 'cause that will be a following step, but here - for example, there's a much clearer version to be had, 'The spines were too dusty to read the faded print.' That's the jot of editing (page 5) - "a ghost of someone who wasn’t entirely human" - Huh? I don't follow. "girls at tea parties" - no, wait, it's okay; WRS. I remember now. (page 7) - The poison ivy 'reveal' is good, but I'm getting a lot of WRS around the references that E makes, which makes it harder to have the 'oh, yes' moment that comes with a satisfying reveal. I remember poison ivy being mentioned before, but I don't recall the specifics like that missing ingredient that provide the clues. Maybe it's WRS, or maybe in those early mentions it needs to be flagged just a touch more, or maybe there needs to be something in the previous chapter reminding us that these are small mysteries: 'if only they could figure out Mom's missing ingredient...' sort of thing. (page 8) - "can make you a ghost" - Erm, doesn't think just mean kill you? - Nice to end the chapter on a hopeful note, and cunning plan, and good, heart-wrenching thought about not being able to go home without Mom <chokes up> - Good stuff in this part of the previous chapter, but needs work for reason above. I think it will flow smoother once the language is tidied up. Chapter 12 (page 9) - "town that hadn’t quite woken" - love that image. For me, this is how you describe a setting really effectively without a big paragraph about, last remnants or mist on the grass (maybe dew), nobody on the streets, maybe a cat wandering by, papers still lying on the stoop. I think you get all that from the five words. Nice job. - more great descriptive work on the old house. (page 11) - "a wave of it blurred my vision" - I don't follow this. - "Rivers might be there" - ooooh! - "floor disappeared" - Waaaahh! - "slowed to a half" - a half what? - "pulling his weight this time" - I think this is too much. I think it's obvious, but then I'm an adult. I this is, what, Junior grade / YA? I forget. Then maybe not. (page 12) - "D’s arm brushed mine" - unsure what I'm to take from this. - "Santa Clause" - sorry, I said I wasn't doing typos, but this is an old favourite (page 13) - "I’m never going to look at Christmas the same again" - I agree we need a punchline here, but this is kind of wordy, and maybe a tad pedestrians and predictable. (page 14) - D's dialogue here is really exposition-y and heavily ghost-splaining. I think it needs to be more informal, clipped, casual, and urgent. E's back to here is better. (page 15) - "A big thing" - wouldn't E with their enticing experience, know what this is? (Not saying I do, but there must be a name for it, Swedish dresser or something)? - I feel like there are too many things staring at them. The army of heads is good, but the nutcracker is kind of a good guy, isn't he? I thought army of doll heads would have more impact on its own. Overall Good stuff. I feel like there is good tension and thread in this chapter, and that M feels a bit more cornered, like they have found her lair. The glimpse of the family worked well for me. Lots of drafting tidy-up required. I'd love to get my teeth into that some time (no pressure), but I enjoyed the pacing, the reveals (subject to comments), and the agency of the M/Cs. A was good and active. Stressing that maybe he ran out of puff would not do any harm. Well he be able to help again, or does he now need to rest for several hours? Thanks for subbing. I'm looking forward to the next bit, but only in your own time

Take your time. We'll still be here, ready to read your subs and receive your comments. Twice as many classes sounds pretty rough. That's going to take so assimilation. In fact, maybe that's the solution, just Borg all those students and teach them through the hive mind! Seriously though, no pressure here

Project 75192: Update 17 - Bags No.13 - "All in all, it's just another wedge in the pie" Covering over sections at the back. There are well established themes, running through these bags, as you can see from the pictures! There are some fun and novel bits coming up. The last chapter is in sight as we come down towards the glitzy stuff like canons and the antenna

It's already gone <cue for a song>, as per response to Kais.

I totally acknowledge this, and I'm glad you think it's good. I hope it's not too much of the hard shift, it needs to be believable, of course. I will decline to confirm or deny your postulation. I loooove the scene where she does, if I say so myself. Grinning like a Cheshire Cat right now! It was a thinking about how they built a great building, but don't give a sh1t about the access road, which tends to ruin the whole effect. It's the worst kind of traffic engineer polemic and will almost certainly get cut. I guess the question is, is it unrealistic, or unbelievable. I will review right now... I've had a look, made a couple of tweaks. I think it's better. Yup, thanks. Awesome! Thanks so much for reading.

Yay, back to being three weeks behind... Awesome! That's got to be near the ultimate compliment <3 On the scenery, I'm conscious of that too. This was the first chapter where I really got into St-view for describing YK. I think we can expect that scenery to be fairly heavily pruned. Might have been a remnant of an idea that I can't now remember, or it might be mis-wording. I think I meant that if E hadn't kept her pants on that one night, she would have been with T and therefore could have saved her. Now corrected. Thanks. Awesome. There's even whisky. Perfect! <punches air> Thanks so much for reading.

Pretty big change, but I'll think on it. I have put in a short Mor POV that puts him under the sheet. I'll see how it plays on the next read through.

Hey Hawk, thank you so much for reading, I will go look at the GDrive file, me having fallen behind again. Love me some OW. This is great! Cool. Please don't worry about timescale. I'm just delighted you're still on board Okay. It'll get more edits before this goes anywhere near an agent/publisher. I'll trust in my spidey sense to pick up places to improve clarity. Good point, and @Mandamon mentioned this too above, and I started to comment on it, then I think got distracted. Q does take the driver's handset, but I've flagged the significance of that in relation to immobilisation. Also, I've dropped 'remote immobiliser'. The cops now have a vehicle(ular) taser <muah-hah-ha!>. Kr not willing to take the chance on Q shooting Nat. I hoped that would be convincing. Well, on that basis, we shall have some bystanders! Always, always helpful. Thank you so much. I'm right behind you... sort of.

Hey, Mandamon, thanks for reading. I'm sure the comment quality is a as high as ever, and hope that work settled down! Right. I'm happy to accept that chapter's not quite there yet, but I think it's improving, judging from the comments. Still many passes to 'cross', no doubt. Right. I'll ponder what to do about that. Gasp! Okay, so this is a split decision, so far. I have tinkered a little. Maybe I won't tinker anymore at the moment. I've moved one a bit further on. Good catch. Mission accomplished! Good point, changed. Yes, the vial was, not something 'else'. I think previously he took his handkerchief out. Yellow stuff, check. Mor put it there. Yeah, the more I think about this... His gun was called out as having a silencer before, which I deleted, but that does contribute to this problem, I think. Also, Mot crumples backwards rather than being slammed, but the door itself is slammed by her falling on it. I did think that even someone slumping against a door would have the effect of slamming it closed quite forcefully, but maybe the word 'slamming' is giving the (wrong) impression of her being thrown backwards. Yeah, this bit was always a little iffy. I've kind of flip-flopped between Mor being under the sheet with a dead body, and Mor being under the sheet and the dead body being on the floor, which is really pretty lame. I'll admit there is some handwavium going on here. Q and M could have shot each other with darts, I suppose... heh, that's pretty convoluted even for this scene. I might have to have Kr call a general 'I'm going to hold you because you're all I've got at this point' sort of deal. I had in mind that they were not like normal pumps, but I didn't go down that line - quotes removed. It was supposed to show that Kr again Mor was a mismatch, but I gather from others I've been painting Mor as quite deadly enough, so I've deleted this. That's a good engineering point, and I agree. I'll continue to rely on the chemical properties of handwavium for now. Tweaked for clarity. Thanks. Good point. I'm going to change this... Heh, yes. They kind of are right. Let'd blame Mth. It's Wayne. His nickname is S h r e k. There was a scene (now cut) when nat was interviewed in the police station and it was clear that she and Kre went to school together. I guess this is kind of lost now. Done. There is a bit of disconnect here. When Q/M left the diner after breakfast, it was noted that 80 was going to be packing. I'll leave it to the first full alpha and see if it snags then. Great comments, as always. Thanks so much!

This is a good way of putting it. That gives me something to think about. I will look again at this chapter with 'WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?' in mind. Thanks!

Awesome!! After just being hauled over the coals by @Silk (very fairly, I would add!), this is just the tonic I needed. I do agree with your agreement my response to Silk: Yaaasss. Vote for M jumping out the window! I'm relieved. I think I've tweaked this up a bit, but might have to do more in the next edit. Yargh, yes. When I go back and read, it does sound entirely too much like he's addressing a pet Labrador <shudder>. My apologies, now changed to 'Good work'. Thanks so much for this comments, Kais. Very helpful and encouraging.

Hey Silk, really glad to have your comments! Yeah, I changed this line in editing. I actually use the term later in relation to an NPC, and that's a once per book detail! I'll play the stakes up more here. Hmm, yeah, okay. I'm maybe relying on some license here, and on it being a local sheriff sort of deal. I'll see how this play over all the comments. Okay, that is spot on. I'm relying on the urgency of the situation, initially, but I will need to come up with an answer for this one. The answer, almost certainly, will be that there is some indication of his presence, even it it's only that he 'nuked' the whole hospital IT network to cover his tracks escaping. Okay. I mean it's possible Q is just wrong, but I appreciate that the more incorrect conclusion the m/cs drawing the more jumbled the narrative can seem. I'll look at this. True. I'll see how the majority view plays out. My concern would be that if they do the sensible thing, the story could end up with them being interviewed for 400 pages That's okay. Fun + annoyed is good, I think! I think the reader being frustrated by characters choices is okay if the choices are convincing as ones the characters would make. Lol - it's almost as if you have read page 108 already Argh, yes thanks! I felt like it was clear that he had. He says something else about leading them after Mor, so hopefully that's communicated. There are later scenes where it's discussed. Yup, I'm including for this now. Thanks for calling it out. Dammit, Silk, I'm a writer not a brain-surgeon! Okay, yes, this is a bit convenient, but look over here... <hand-wave, hand-wave>, a car chase!! This is a good point, and I've tried to do that in the edit I've just done. I tend to think it might not go far enough. There is more call out of the Qu-Mor relationship, but it comes a bit later because they are in full flight. I'll need to think of how to get it into this chapter in a way that doesn't rupture the flow, given that this already is a long chapter - although I cut 300+ words this edit (whoop, whoop!). I'm really pleased there are many elements that are working, and confident I can fix most of the other stuff, hopefully get it down a level that the reader is just a bit made at Mot and Qu without being annoyed at the writing. Thank you so much for commenting

Aloha, Well, I'm still way behind responding to comments, sorry about that. Things should improve now that I'm done the novel critique I was doing. Any and all comments very much appreciated on this tenth submission. There isn't really much gore, but better safe than sorry. Chapter recap: 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 Gen Ex Trick 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 DM, Q dumps N's plane on the tarmac, QME are recovered by EMS and taken to hospital, where they escape Cheers, Robinski

It's probably me. I have a bad habit of making assumptions before I get to the end of the sentence (sometimes).

Me for tomorrow too, please.

For the most part, I think you get away with it, but a bit more description would be good. It doesn't have to be super intricate. Cool. Seems to me that is more reasonable. And a cemetery!! Bonus Totally. It's served me well with W and S.

Hey Asmodemon! Great to have your comments on this. That's good. I'm happy with that. There does seem to be more work for me to do there at the beginning. That's great. I'm glad you're willing to suspend any potential disbelief. Mor is supposed to be competent, so I'm glad that's reasonably convincing. There's some dramatic license in relation to the waking up time, certainly. I just need to hope the reader won't look too closely at that. You're right of course, I think this is the biggest hole in the chapter. I'm keen not to have another scene which shows how Mor got into the room, although, it could be really dramatic if the reader knows that Mor is under that cover, but Q. and M. do not. It's tempting, but it's yet another POV in the chapter. I reckon I can get him into the room by having him throw on a doctor's coat, that can get him past Parks. I think I can have him kill the other patient, simply by injecting air into his blood stream (first putting the patient's monitors on Mor's own wrist). The issue is R seeing him and recognising him. >>>>>>>> A day later, and I have written that other scene, just showing Mor's thoughts revealing how he did it. It's 128 words I could have done with out, but I think it might ramp up the tension. We'll see when I can some poor sap into doing to full alpha read. Heh, I guess I could switch part of the scene to Mor's POV from under the cover, but I'm not sure about that. Arguably, because TOM knows that Q is in C-r-e-s-t-o-n, so does Mor, although we don't see that being conveyed on screen. Similarly, there is history between Mor and Q, as has been flagged already, but it's open to question whether it was TOM's orders not to kill Q or Mor's own 'issues', whatever they might be. I'll need to bring that out, and have Mth ask the question about why Mor didn't kill them. Oooh, you've challenged me good on this one. Thank you, I appreciate that! I'm going to need to ponder it pretty closely.

Hang on, it seems to have worked. The instances of M in your post are gone

Huh, weird. It worked for me about an hour ago. Maybe I've got some lingering admin superpowers. @Silk? I can't edit someone else's post in an old thread, can I? (Thanks for looking, Kais.)

Thanks for reading as always, ID. So, what I was aiming for with the cops was that Q and M had been interviewed by them before after the conclusion of the Gren affair in Chapter 01, but off-screen. So, when the crash happens in Chapter 05, Q and the sheriff have some familiarity: they've met. So, in this chapter, Q and M are going through another interrogation in the same place they were two of three days ago. However, we have not actually seen the police on-screen before Chapter 05. Sheriff K appears in Chp.5, as does Beck. So, no, you're not supposed to remember then other than from Chp.5 when we met them briefly and got very little character. Please don't worry about it. Sounds like a full day!!

Hey @kais and @toomsta, I wonder if I could trouble you to edit your posts in this thread to abbreviate the names of Q--and--M. I don't know what made me do it, but I did a G**gle search and this page came up on the like the 5th page in. Still, if you would not mind, would be really appreciated. Cheers, Robin p.s. Hey @toomsta, how the heck are you? Still writing?

So, comments: (page 1) - "that these “fits” you wrote about are not malicious in any way" - this implies that the fits are acting in a malicious way, so are kind of sentient, or someone deliberately is send them to attack Ma. 'Harmful' is a more passive word. (page 2) - "The entire tunnel was vibrating!" - I would quite like this sensory input on page one, to have the immediacy of the train right at the start of the chapter, considering it was right at the end of the previous one. - "Get away from the tracks!" - Excellent urgency. Even thought that train is not loud loud, Ma knows it will be down on top of them really fast. - "it’s only a matter of minutes before it passes" - So, this is the nitty gritty again of the train. I like how you've dealt with it up to this point, and I like you are quoting concrete (approx.) timescale. I just need to advise you on what that is... Okay, (1) I'm not a railway engineer, so this is going to be really seat of the pants, and is going to be really approximate, and only to give a flavour; (2) it's a really complex subject depending on train performance, load, number of carriages, etc., in other words (3) it's only going to be sufficiently convincing to engineers and scientists, maybe even train enthusiasts such that they convinced enough not to question it!! The number of variable is pretty bewildering, and I'm not going to go anywhere near those (see first link below, which is where the graph images come from). The second link below is an actual train braking distance calculator, but I can't quite get my heard around it without reading the paper behind it, which is pretty massive, so not going there! I find that graphs tend to tell at least a thousand words, to paraphrase the old saying, so lets stick to them. https://www.arema.org/files/library/2011_Conference_Proceedings/Simple_and_Efficient_Train_Braking_Algorithm_for_PTC_Systems.pdf http://railsigintl.com/tools/BDist/ Distance to Target (DTT) seems to be about the speed you want a train to be going at a certain point (signal). This graph show deceleration from three different speeds at current position. None of these speeds is high. The actual speeds seem to be ~43, ~34 and ~31 mph. I'm pretty sure a train will still mash a human body at 43 mph, so lets consider that as the starting point. For this train, which I think is a big freight train, so very massive with lots of momentum, is taking almost 3 miles to come to a halt. I gather that your train is much shorter, 3 or 4 carriages? But the engine has the same braking 'power'. Even so, I just don't see that the thing can come to rest in much less than a mile (so 1,728 yards). But, the train itself is maybe 150 yards long? It still puts the back of the train a fair distance away. I think trains go slower in tunnels, for safety and risk reasons. The train above in the graph that is doing 31mph also seems to stop in 3 miles, which implies to me it is not braking at the the same rate as the 40mph train. The second graph shows the train stopping from 40mph in 38 seconds. I think that suits, but it's the distance that's bothersome. I think in the end, as long as the train isn't stopping on a sixpence, that you play up brakes screeching and the train travelling some distance (at least 300 / 400 metres, it probably will be believable enough, even for readers who know enough to question it. (page 3) - "tromped behind him" - still too slow, for me. 'stomped', 'paced' would sound a bit faster. (page 4) - "No way the train is going that fast" - okay, I'm not doing the research on this, but obviously the suction is real. I suspect it does happen at low speed too, but would it pull someone off their feet? I'm willing to go with it. There's also a kind of sonic boom as it comes out of the tunnel. (Not applicable in this case, I presume). (page 5) - "is going to leave her soul light shining" - Now, did you say you'd changed it so her light doesn't coalesce before the train passes, but has done before now? (page 6) - "clack-clack" - I think it could do with a few more instances of clacking on the pages preceding the train arriving, just to keep the stress up. I know it's balance, but I think it could be tipped more towards the train. At least one on each page, I would think, then increasing. (page 7) - Z's thought really are rambling. Some of them are good, but others distract me from the tension of the situation. The drawing feels like a slow, relaxing thing, and therefore out of context here, to me anyway. - "clammy and wet with perspiration" - clammy and wet are kind of mutually exclusive, I think. (page 8) - "(Mama) [No my girl" - The different brackets, I'm not quite sure what they're doing. Kind of confusing. - the paper is a neat idea, I see how it connects to the pad now. - "blorst" - what on Earth is this? And the backslashes? There is punctuation all over the place in this chapter. I'm trying to decide if I like it or loath it. Part of me definitely loathes it, bit it's the other part I'm worried about - "She opened her eyes just as the train passed" - I wonder if I'm too close to this now. If the train is travelling at the lower speeds shown in the graphs above then maybe it could take that long to reach them. I need to do the math. Let's say the train is travelling at 40mph, fast enough to mash someone up if it hit them, probably fast enough to be noisy depending on the type of tracks. 40mph = 18 metres per second. Let's say they've been pootling about getting into position for 5 minutes = 300 seconds. So, the train would need to be 5,400 metres away travelling at that speed. Can they hear the train in the tunnel when it's 5.4km away?! That seems like a loooong way to me. If it was me, I'd be editing down these first eight pages to get them down as tight as possible so it really feels like they are not going to make it. There's still quite a bit of raffle, it seems to me. - It's way better definably, but I'm not totally satisfied yet. Sorry for prattling on, but I think a good proportion of engineers will scrutinise this pretty closely. Now I'm off to see what happens once the train is past them (page 9) - "cut into three sections--cars" - Forgot this: fewer cars, quicker deceleration, I think. That's good. - "Her soul lantern is about to coalesce" - Oh, okay. I'm not sure I know what this is. Foreknowledge would have been good. It's good tension though. Also, I'd suggest that R is more likely to be less wordy when shouting urgently. Wouldn't he more likely shout 'It's going to coalesce'? We already know what 'it' is. - Oh, wait. It's the difference between soul light and soul lantern? In my mind, those are pretty much interchangeable terms, hence my confusion. (page 10) - "ear splitting shriek of metal on metal" - I like this description. I think before it started almost immediately that the train passed? The problem I have here is that it sounds like the clacking is almost gone. So, when the train is past, the clacking disappears really fast, but when it's approaching it takes eight pages to get there. I think there is still a pretty large inconsistency in that. (page 11) - "it’s probably some sort of mechanism" - This goes without saying, I think. Also, I don't think it's clear that she's talking about automatically. But anyway, why would it only lock if something happened? Surely it would be locked all the time, for security reasons, if the God King or senior staff use it? (page 12) - "it’s blue flame" - 'its' obvs. (page 14) - "To Z’s eye, she could not tell" - These two expression don't work together, IMO. After the first one, normally would come a definite statement, e.g. "To Z's eye, the thing was solid gold." OR just the second expression, e.g. "She couldn't tell if it was solid gold, or not." - "Wait,” he said. “She’s awake. Look.” - This is wordy phrasing, compared to just "She's awake," which feels like a more natural thing to say. - "strange as it sounded to be comparing a skin color to food" - And yet she compared the person's skin colour to sickness, doesn't that seem strange to her too? - "The flap of the topcoat hanged unbuttoned" - There was an instance of this earlier and I wasn't going to bother but this should be 'hung'. Sorry, I really don't intend to be arsey, I just think it sounds bad. Here is the extract from the Oxford Dictionaries online... USAGE - In modern English hang has two past tense and past participle forms: hanged and hung. Hung is the normal form in most general uses, e.g. they hung out the washing; she hung around for a few minutes; he had hung the picture over the fireplace, but hanged is the form normally used in reference to execution by hanging: the prisoner was hanged. The reason for this distinction is a complex historical one: hanged, the earlier form, was superseded by hung sometime after the 16th century; it is likely that the retention of hanged for the execution sense may have to do with the tendency of archaic forms to remain in the legal language of the courts. https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/hang (page 15) - "now bathed in plausible deniability" - I don't understand. Surely there's nothing to deny, and no way to deny it. The woman knows the story. How is there any plausible deniability? - "could be no other than" - This was pretty melodramatic, IMO. Bit over the top phrasing, like dah-dah-DAHHH. (page 16) - "sitting on it backwards" - What is this? Is she trying to be cool? Down with the kids? I never liked this, it's so posy. The only instance I can think of it being useful is for a gunslinger to get a clean draw in a saloon, although they then have the back of the chair between them and their antagonist, potentially. - "Not like this candle" - the same sentence there is reference to 'that candle'. Sounded a bit weird going from this to that, when repetition of the same word can add good emphasis. - Nice thought about her having the best S/L ever. I like that, good voice for her age, and really builds the tension for this reveal. (page 17) - "or who teaser he back when" - 'teased', typo. - "Out with it already!" - It's a good reveal at the end: I did not guess that, but I think Z's internal monologue just before the reveal really gets in the way of it. It's like we have to wait for her to say hurry up before the General can say the thing. It's clunky, IMO. Overall Good chapter, I like the changes to the earlier sections although it still have my issues. The scene in the train is good. There are hints that they are in trouble, and yet Z is being well treated. Then the reveal: boom! One thing struck me as odd, which was that I never understood why the train screeched to a halt after the scream. I'm still thinking it hit someone, and yet they must have seen Z's S/L flaring. So, who screamed out? Good work, IMO. Another edit could really nail it, I reckon. <R>

Sorry I haven't responded on the train thing. I've been struggling for time with critiquing this novel for my IRL reading group. I'll build a response on that into this critique.