Robinski

Comments (page 2) - "She’d stay up all night and replay every recent encounter" - "they had barely spoken a few words to each other" - But they have spoken a few words. (page 3) - "He nodded; apparently, he had already known this about M." - Unnecessary, imo. It's clear from the nod, that's all the confirmation the reader needs, imo. (page 4) - "a couple hours behind you" - That's a loooong way, barely following at all. The kids could have turned off and M would take 2 hours to get to the point they turned off. That's not really following in any kind of active way, imo. - "before we tell her anything. If we tell her anything" - I'm getting tetchy about the italics. The more you use them, the less effective they become in stressing dialogue. There are nine instances on this page alone. (page 5) - "wiping a droplet from her cheek" - missing word. - "and the topic was tabled" - tabling something is the point at which you begin discussing it. I think this should be 'shelved'. (page 6) - "awkwardly, slowly, trying to use her injured leg as little as possible" - comma here, imo. - "endless round tunnel, both the ends of which" - You use 'both' quite a bit and most of the time, I think it's unnecessary. Like here, when you used it before referring to both M and R. If you say M and R, then obviously it's both of them. It was getting repetitive in the last page or so. - "masterfully bricked all the way around" - Depending on when this tunnel was built, I'm really surprised that it's brick. If it was built before the collapse of our civilisation it would be concrete, IMO. I tend to doubt they would have the skills post crash to build it afterwards from what you're saying, or that it would last from older historical times intact and useable. Ooh, and it's got two-way tracks, wow. Just makes me way more skeptical about the brick construction. (page 7) - "her broken leg" - there seemed to be doubt about its being broken before. - "matter-of-factly" - needs to be hyphenated, I think. - "Straight as an arrow so far as I can tell" - generally, this is not how a tunnel that long would be built, subject to the terrain, rivers, gorges, etc. The land would need to be dead flat, which seems unlikely over that sort of distance. (page 9) - "the first time she had ever felt stupid" (page 10) - "Why did you have to leave" - but Z knows the reason given, the theft of the book. So, would she not question that rather than asking for a reason when she has one? (page 11) - "and are hereby placed under arrest" - "their father died at the Front" - but... (page 12) - "Their father fights to maintain custody of the children" - These statements seem pretty clearly contradictory. - I like the Charge, Verdict, Sentence construction That worked for me. But, I think you can cut off there. I feel that the bit about marriage, love and Z being born is unnecessary, and just a bit twee for the nature for the story. (page 13) - "bundle of joy" - Yah, cliché, and again, stuck on the fluffing end tone of the flashback that I really don't want at this point. And we go on to all this kidding and joking around. It's bringing up the tone of the chapter in a way that does not suit this point in the story, IMO, or the tone you've been building and will want to maintain, I presume. (page 14) - "Her She and the rest of the pueblo" - grammar. (page 15) - "stick you in foster care, too just like what happened to me when I was a kid" - This feels like repetition: we've just heard about it. Suggest cutting. (page 18) - "but R didn’t give her a chance" - but it's M who speaks the next line. - I don't understand M's positioning herself behind Z in that way. - "rabitting" > rabbiting. This means blathering on in UK English, not running away. That's confuse European readers, I expect. - Ah, okay. This wedge formation is awkward on the page, and physically in setting. I think it's more powerful if her friends stand at her shoulder, side by side in advertising, etc. (page 19) - "throw words like friend around with far less weight more casually than they should" - When they're saying it, they're more likely to say 'friend' imo. Hence this suggested adjustment, which I think is more powerful. Also, I find phrasing around less weight confusing and kind of wordy. Suggest this is simpler and clearer. (page 21) - I still don't like the last line. The train has no impact just dropped in out of nowhere like this, casually, without emphasis. Overall I think it's better. I do find the chapter long though, especially in the last third. I think go good, hard line edit could chop out a good number of words without changing the content much at all, especially in that last third, where all the dialogue about trusting Ma and then friendship, I think, is a bit rambling. Some good fixing done there. Good job

Comments (page 1) - Half way down the page, it's already a good deal better, imo. Clearer, so much clearer. - "had a swarm of drones" - Words like 'had' are not our friend. It's so bland and none descriptive. 'Had' does not pull its own weight, even in orbit. For example, here, I suggest 'operated a swarm of drones', but there must be various words that would be more involving in this context. (page 2) - "cannon loomed. It was why he’d taken the stairs" - ROFL. - "would have been be turned" - can be more immediate, to increase conflict. - "the sound wouldn’t travel anyway" - Slightly unclear, I think. I wonder if all readers will get that this is because of the vacuum. The default is probably imagining a pressurised spacesuit with a helmet, in which sound would travel to a mic and therefore be transmitted to his team 'audibly'. - "he intended to keep maintain his streak" - I don't think you 'keep' a streak. You keep it going, but I think 'maintain' is the 'righ't word. (page 3) - "100 exabyte cycle speeds" - a speed, of course, would be measured as 'per second', unless it was a frequency in hertz, which has the time factor built in. I get that, likely, professionals would abbreviate to avoid using the full cumbersome unit of measurement, but it reads odd to me to see a speed without the time factor in the unit. It would be like saying 'the car speed forward at 100 miles'. - "Not even one chip was sacrificial" - Something about the grammar here is tripping me, but for once I don't have a suggestion what it is! Also, I wonder if the word is 'redundant' instead of 'sacrificial'. I know 'sacrificial' can apply in engineering terms, particularly in physical manufacturing, but I think 'redundant' is closer to the pure meaning in this context. Sacrificial implies the system coming under attacks, whereas redundancy is more of passive or default thing, imo. (page 4) - "they got your intel" - isn't it their intel? I.e. their intel about the fact that Naj would be there. - "passed all the checkpoints" - to me, this sounds like he successfully went through them all, but then his comment is that he avoided them all. - "HUD mapped its trajectory" - yes. I was just about to moan about the chip still being too small the reader to believe it can be handled manually, but I like how you fixed that. (page 5) - "Gleaming" - This did make me think of the use of 'shiny' from Firefly, but it's sufficiently different, logical and appropriate that I have no problem with it. - "now a good ten meters from him" - Now, to me, 'a good ten meters' implies that the distance is a positive, but is it not that case that this is uncomfortably close? I think it should be, in which case I suggest rephrasing (Now only ten metres from him). - "Radiation... glinted" - I know it sounds more SF, but it's light, and I think 'light' will always be more evocative of the image than 'radiation'. - "caught the light dramatically" - What colour is the light? I think there's an opportunity with few additional words, to invoke a stronger mental image for the reader, if you want to. - "almost without outwith his control" - imo. (p.s. In Scotland, this is one word.) - "should be able to swipe the wireless" - to me, this phrasing is slightly unclear. What does 'swipe' mean here? It sounds to me like 'take over control'. - "flipped another pose" - 'struck a pose' is the more typical phrasing, of course. 'flipped another pose' makes me think of 'flipping the bird', which makes me think the h/m is doing something with his hands/fingers which in turn is less about posing and more about gesturing, I think. - "spun out to the media" - 'their media'? (page 6) - "Fast movement would decrement the time even faster" - Repetition of fast. - "trouble N went to" - 'had gone to' sounds clearer and more precise to me, in terms of phrasing. - Y dived for the chip, be we didn't hear if he got it. Next thing they're chasing around the planetoid. That sounds like going a fair distance around. What happened to the chip? (page 7) - Is an eye flick in fact a blink? - "N sludge" - still think some of the swears are rather lame. I forget what age this is aimed at. (page 8) - "pushed off course" - 'pushed is a bit weak', how about kicked or butted or booted: something a bit more violent? - "shaking from the effects" - so he got infected with the kick? Not completely clear. - "trying to pin it with two fingers" - I thought he had special 'sticky' gloves for handling the chip. Wasn't that mentioned before? (page 9) - "His cloud of drones" - unclear whose 'his' is until further into the sentence. - How would spinning in a circle in full G knock him out? Don't get it. (page 10) - Why does he only have one chance to place the chip? Is it because of the air, or the damage or the infection, or all three? - "Something contacted his shoulder" - I guess it's subverting expectation to say 'contacted', but I feel like the line still would land better with 'slammed' or 'hammered into his shoulder'. (page 11) - Oh, that flurry of contradictory percentages is MUCH better. Good job. - "finger gun gesture" - This feels cast adrift from the original line and didn't work here for me. - "...hit him with?" And for me, this line would be better before the line that precedes I.e. 'What had D hit him with, and who attached a weapon to a finger... anyway?" - "made him let go" - Rather weak again, compared to "almost broke his grip" or "tore his grip apart" or something. - "His foot snapped down onto(?) the asteroid’s surface" - word missing, imo. Also, how does this work? Because of some really high iron composition in the asteroid's materiel, or is there metal plating / construction here? Unclear. (page 12) - Why would D's ship be cloaked? Okay, for the element of surprise, I guess? Seems redundant now, as they are the establishment, are they not? How will Y deal with it later? Surely they'll be getting the heck out of Dodge now? - "defeated D's?" - He seemed normal when back in the station, and yet his system was fried. This seems inconsistent, or certainly an unrealistically quick turned around, imo. (page 13) - "but not past beyond what Y could handle" - IMO. - "which his HUD was insisting insisted it was" - repetition of 'was'. - "The station took three hours to traverse" - 'He took three hours to traverse the station', imo. Otherwise, it sounds like the station is doing the traversing, imo. (page 14) - "The lack absence of more system failures" - 'lack' sounds like its something he wants to happen, imo. - Hmm, I'm surprised that he's in charge of the mission. It wasn't that way before, I believe, but fair enough. - "his goggles' HUD fixed"- possessive, I think. - "HUD on his arm display" - kind of confused by this. I've also taken Heads-Up Display to be something viewed through an optical device whether that is glasses, goggles and windshield to even in-eye optics. How does that work with an arm? - His assessment of the potential threat from this supposedly inert material seems naive to me. Surely he would consider the possibility that it was a sleeper system, designed to take over his system at a critical time that suited Mag? (page 15) - "pixelated" - I thought it was his goggle feed that got pixelated. I may be miss remembering. Was it A that reported the pixelisation? Maybe is was. - "REPLAY VIDEO" - confused. He's going into the system with the intention to playing video footage, so how is REPLAY FOOTAGE not already an option on his menu.If it's not, how was he planning to watching the footage? - How can the 'symbiotic' system be inert if it's fooling his system? That seems to me to be contradictory. (page 16) - If they sent him to deal with D, they may not have known about the plan, but they knew where D was at a any given time. Is that the thrust of what he's thinking? I think it could be a bit clearer. - "A ping alerted him that a new" - missing word. - "the fight was sufficiently in their favor enough to go public" - flow / phrasing. (page 17) - "couldn’t have stolen their drone’s drone feed" - the way it was presented before, there was a cloud of drone, not just a single one. So, grammar here would be more general, I think. - "Looking To Take Taking On The Massive..." - more immediate and involving, I think. - "the crew was at their stations" - singular / plural disagreement. 'crew were at their stations', because 'crew' here is short for 'crew members'. (page 18) - "His D's voice was as smooth as the skin the holo-man was wearing" - this is D speaking right? - "before their stocks tank stock tanks" - corporation stock would be referred to as singular, I feel. If you refer to someone's stocks, that's more likely to be their (personal) investment portfolio. - Ooh, I don't like the last line. I don't think he's startled, surprised or nervous enough: I don't feel like it's a satisfying emotion payoff. It's too cocky, it doesn't make me want to read on as much as it should, because it doesn't speak of conflict. Overall Much better than the first run, many good fixes there. Not sure I've got much to add over what's noted above. I more invested now than I was before. I don't get much character from Y. What does he want? What are his motivations other than just to do his job? I think the internal logic of his thoughts in the last couple of pages can stand a tidy-up, and tightening up. Otherwise, this is a good, solid leap forward from the last version. As to the most suitable 1,000 words for submission... Option 1: from the beginning until “Access hatch on your six!” - I think this is my favoured of the three 'preset' options. Option 2: From “We’ve got their feed,” to "It was done." - I think this section's a bit confusing on its own, because I'm not sure the reader could pick up easily whose eyes they were looking out of. Option 3: from "All his systems" until the end of the piece. - I don't think bit has enough context (from what precedes it) to work on its own. Option 4: Actually, I think this is better: From "We’ve got three clouds..." to 'Y thought D gave a tiny nod.' I think there's good action there and it sits well enough logically that the tails can be exptrapoloated. It's 1,016 words, but I'm sure you could cut 16 words out easily, if you felt that was necessary.

Fair point. I'll tag that for the next full edit.

When life gives you lemons... No, no--I'm just joking, that was too good to pass up. Mrs. Robinski and I thoroughly enjoyed your concert at WorldCon, and I think the rest of the audience did too. I've had three or four of those songs pop into my head in the week since. (OMG, is it only a week since the RECon-ers shared that meal? ) (Why is there no single-tear-rolling-down-cheek-for-absent-friends emoji?)

So this is the songs, right?

Thanks all, I will get to all these excellent and most helpful comments ASAP: I'm pushing on now, I promise! (Also, this is a reminder to self to check @hawkedup's in-line comments on the G**gle doc upload [Done, to date]. Sorry I've not been across that, HU, I will get there as soon as I can )

So, heh, apologies for this one. Normally, I have an edit run at the chapter before I submit it, but that's just making me late and top of my list presently is to be more productive. That isn't a problem this week(!!), as this submission is rather long. Sorry about that. I hope it's not too long. All I can hope is that I can carry forward the 'spare' I've had the last few weeks and rely upon your good will <grovel, grovel> Usual stuff. Do with it as you will. 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-X-Trk in Yellowknife, NWT; 04 - T is coerced by More into releasing the MTs. They are meant to kill her, but it does not go to plan for Mor. 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 More appears and kills R; Cheers, Robinski

Err, I guess I'll put my hand up for next Monday, too , please. I have a long way to go with this thing.

Awesome!

I would not go too far into explaining this in the narrative. I think it's obvious if the reader spends any amount of time (moments) thinking about what non-binary actually means. Some readers may come to the story without any knowledge, but even the most cursory investigation would lead to a functional understanding, I would think, for the purposes of this story at least. How you explain that to a binary 12-year-old in fictional narrative pitched at that level? Well, I don't know, that's why you're the writer. I trust that you will do it For me, the story would be the poorer for that, and would lean towards a more standard kid's mystery romp, but we've got loads of those, which is what makes this so much more interesting, imo.

Me too please, please.

Right. That's a high risk strategy because of what I said about having the reader invest in the character. I would suggest people will not read many volumes if they don't like the first one, or the first chapter, or the first page. Okay. Thanks for clarifying. I would tend to struggle with that as it's not really my thing. Well, I won't make any promises as I am so freakin' busy at the moment before I even start on my day job, but lets see where the road takes us

Okay, Chapter 1 - I don't know what's happening. There is a lot of flowery language going on here and it's rather purple. I get the gist that, he's delirious, or suffering a PTSD episode, I think. It's hard to get a handle on what's happening. Or rather, I can trace the simple events that are occurring (He's told to calm down; he asks to be released; he says he can't pay), basically the things in dialogue, but the narrative is difficult, confusing. - The line the doctor says about the glasses: how do they know that? How can they know that? I don't understand. - The interweaving of the castle imagery and the medical discussion is, frustrating to me. I'm passingly interested in the conflict of the man getting out of the hospital, but the castle narrative is getting in the way for me. - Clicks, guns, saws and chains. Too much for me, too purple. Like ivory writs and sapphire dams, it's clever if a bit obscure, and it's not really engaging me. - "He swings at her" - this is hateful. This is where I stopped reading. I've bee unable to invest anything in this character because of his anonymity. I'm deliberately kept at a distance from him by his lack of identity and the other things I mentioned above. Here, however, he goes beyond blankness in a way that I find distasteful. Okay, he's not responsible for his actions, I suppose, because he's suffering from mental illness, but I'm not interested in reading about a character, responsible or not, trying to violently assault hospital staff who are trying to help him. Not to mention the verbal abuse which he was dishing out before he became physically violent. I skimmed though to the end, but I don't see anything that changers my view expressed previously. This is not a story I would read any further with then maybe the prologue, if I had picked it up in a bookstore in search of something to read. Another thing, and it's important I think. What genre is this story in? There's nothing to tell me that. There's nothing obviously fantastical or SF about it. If it is either of those things, you have to show that on the first page to confirm to the reader what kind of story they are reading. There's some good writing here, I don't want that to go inside. There is obvious developing skill here, but I think it's pointing in the wrong direction in various places in this extract. The absolute central element of any story is character. You can have a brilliant setting, plot, explosive dialogue, etc., but if you don't have a character or characters that engage the reader, and make the reader root for them your going to struggle to find any kind of outlet for your stories. My advice as someone who has finished 6 novels, 2 novellas, 3 novelettes and 13 short stories (one long-listed for an SF award), is to go back and think about character and how the engage the reader rather than keeping them at a distance and putting barriers between the reader and your character, which is honestly what I think you are doing here. I wish you the very best with this project. Nothing in writing is easy; nothing. I think this is 'better' (by which I mean more accessible and more interesting, imo) than the play of yours that I started reading last year around this time. I think it's worth pursuing, and I gather you have a whole idea behind it, which is great, and I'm sure deserves to be developed. Good luck!

Okay, I'm reading. Prologue - The POV bothers me a bit. I guess this is omnipotent present. I'm not a huge fan of omnipotent in the first place, but more so here, because you're dealing with a main character (I'm presuming he is) who is blind, and yet we get to see every reaction and sign and sight. For me, this diluted the impact on the story of him being blind. - The prose is written well enough for the most part, flows fairly well in a somewhat formal and rather style tending towards dry. I was less keen on the dialogue, which comes over rather stilted, I thought. It's not bad, imo, but it's not all that convincing as a mode in which real people would speak in this situation, it seemed to me. - To home in on the prose though, there are some word choices and some phrases that did not come over well for me. E.g. "so unremarkable that... of a truly depraved mind" - Why? I don't follow. Is this intended as humour? If so then irony, clearly. The trouble is irony is difficult to get across in narrative, I think, especially if its humour value is on the low side to begin with, which this was for me. Humour is such a subjective thing. The way you find out if it works is to have folk read it, of course, so well done on that score - The description is good, for me. I like the level of it, not too much, and when it's there it's convincing, like when he pukes, for example. I get a reasonable feeling of being there, which is good. - When he starts wondering around, where did the dog go? Why doesn't he think about the dog? The dog has been his whole window on the world. I don't think it's likely he would completely forget it, even with this revelation. - I don't buy the cannonball strike. If the soldiers are standing close enough to splash him in gore, but the cannonball is too high to hit him, it just be dropping very steeply. I don't think that would happen. There is a limit to cannon trajectory, which would be flatter than that of a mortar, which throws projectiles in a high are to drop down on the enemy. - Another thing to mention, I don't feel any great connection with the man, because he is anonymous. We've go no name, and we don't have a great deal of access to his thoughts. We get some sense of emotion, sure, but no deduction, no analysis, no motivation. This make the story feel very impersonal, imo, which is not an engaging position to be in. My hope is that (seeing Chapter 1 coming up), as would be the case with most prologues, we will be transported to the story propose, where there is an inner monologue (or outer dialogue) that I can connect with and invest in at a character level. Okay, my day just kicked off. I'll need to come back to this later, but at least I'm on the board!

To cap off this instalment from my POV, I've found this chapter really challenging to edit. I guess that's inevitable, because the core of the plot is in here and it is quite convoluted. I want to get a good hard edit on this chapter in, maybe an out-loud read through too, before I progress to Chp.5. So, apologies if it's a day or two before I get on to the next feedback. Again, thank you very much to you all. I could do it without you, but it would not be very good, nor as much fun as it is. Y'all make this so much better

Hey ID, thank you for reading. I always appreciate your viewpoint on these things. That's good. That seems to be the view on average, provided I can explain what needs to be explained effectively somewhere else. Okay, I think I've tackled some of this, and will give it another go in the whole-chapter edit I'm about to do. As noted, E is the manipulator, rather than T, so I'm less worried on a WRS level T expresses the thought in relation to her assistant, when using is log in, that he probably has an alibi. The same thought applies to the interim, I would think, in her mind, although it's not explicitly revealed. Fair enough. I understand your concern. Here's what I said to Asmodemon on this point. Thank you for those comments. Very helpful

Hey Asmodemon, thanks for reading! I understand your concern about POVs. I'll say that, having got the establishing scenes done, we're going to resolve into three main POVs from this point. In terms of mystery, well yes, the inciting incident isn't really a mystery, but... well, I don't really want to say any more But I accept showing this happening is a risk. I guess the other way to go would be to have people disappearing in YK and nobody know why. Believe it or not, that was going to be my approach to this plot initially, that BR was neighbouring the Gen plant and Q and M came to investigate the disappearances. My concern was that it's a pretty vanilla missing persons/monster plot, and I wanted to try and do something different. Also, Book 1 (TMM) isn't a mystery either, as the reader see GC breaking down and killing people. Your point about our heroes not being on screen much also is true of course. I'm hoping to a degree it's WRS. So far we have Q and M in Ch.1 and 2, then E and T (and M) in Ch.3 and 4, and now we're going back to Q and M for three chapters up to what is nominally the end of Part 1 (Ch.7), so Q and M will have been in the majority. I'm hoping that momentum will carry people through Ch.3 and 4, which I'll trim down tight. Do you mind if I ask how you feel about that? It seems to be dividing people a bit. That's great! Fair point, and others have had the same issue. I've introduced something that M can take away from her, something that her family needs, which I think is better than purely blackmail, as you say. Good point, I feel I have answers to this, but if you're thinking it, then those answers are not coming through and I need to work on clarity and motivation [Done!]. See above I was trying to show that in the last line. TOM cares nothing for M, or anyone on the ground, he just wants the mess so that PM L can send the troops in. I appreciate your comments, they really challenge me to get this stuff as right as a I can. Thank you

Okay. Yeah, clearer would be good. It's just the odd little reference that confused me.

Hey, thanks for reading, HU. Rolling my sleeves up here. So, you're not alone in having a reaction along these lines. I've woven another strand in, attempting to increase T's stakes. Quite possible not, but as I say, I'm seeking to up the stakes for T a bit. Noted. I'll admit that liking is not really what I'm going for. It's more a case of sympathy (or not) in reaction to the way she is treated by M. I'll bear this in mind. Hmm, okay. Seems like this is working for some, but not others. That's always going to be the way, I suppose. I'll take this under advisement and see how I sit when I've been through all the comments on this chapter. Well, for what it's worth, I'm only doing it once, and it's within the same chapter. Unreliable narrator, as we know, is an established tool in fiction. I think in the worst case scenario this is withheld for seven pages. I'll see how it plays out for the other folks and review very shortly! Okay, noted. The bottom line essentially is that he was told in Chapter 3 to enact this plan, or rather to achieve a certain end result. With that in mind, I'm not averse to clarifying M's goal in this chapter [Done.] which I will seek to do. Fair enough. That's a line edit thing which I will pick up next time around. Thanks for noting. Sorry. Don't take that LOL as me poking fun: it's pure relief! I was expecting a bit of the negative dump in the summation, so this took me by surprise!! Thanks for the approbation of the chapter overall. I think I've tackled some of the issues already through the earlier comments, but I'll certainly take a look at the points you've raised. Thanks again for reading!

Uh-huh. I guess when we stop having ideas is when we really need to worry

Ah... right, hence my confusion. So previously, she was fighting in the war, and would go on a tour of duty, then come back home? This makes me wonder how long a tour was. Less than a year, I guess, other wise this time (her being away for a year) wouldn't seem that different from her being away fighting at the front. So, maybe 3 month tour? Whatever the case, I guess Z would have been used to her mom being away a fair bit over those eight years.

Yeah, and then you and @kais pinned me to the wall about W&S!! They're 'stacked up to Newark' to use an air traffic control analogy. (I've heard a line like that in a movie, can't remember where.)

Hey, thanks so much for reading, really appreciated. Right. I'll collect up all the comments on this chapter and see where I stand, but tagged for review in the edit in any case. Awesome! I really appreciate that. Can I get "Does the homophobic slurs beautifully." as a cover quote from you? You had to read it three times... because it was good?!?! Phew, that's awesome. Gone. I am so damnation stoked that I'm starting to get such things right sometimes now. Testament to the patience and generosity of certain folks on there. Fair comment. I'm trying to convey that there is more than one strand to it (a) T is not out, so there's that aspect. Not being a socially confident person (which I've tried to convey), she is scared of that and how her family / colleagues / scientific community will react; (b) the infidelity angle / impact on her family, i.e. (i) her husband / marriage; (ii) her relationship with her son; (iii) the reaction of her parents / in-laws; (c) the impact of the exposure on E. The reader, from E's POV, will suspect (I hope) that E would say 'Eff it' and would take on all-comers, but T may not be so confident that impact on her friend lover would play out that way. So, maybe I'm not convincing enough on the burden/pressure that T feels to keep things under wraps to keep her life together as it is. It's not to say that she's right. Without stating it, I envisage society here as being more accepting of LGBTQI+ issues and realities, and that acceptance of diversity in all aspects of life has progressed (continued to progress?) so that the haters and unbelievers are in the minority, but still present (e.g. M). I guess I'm not hitting that mark yet. I shall sit quietly and consider what to do about T's motivation here. [Done!] [Edit: I've added an element to her motivation. Something concrete in her life that M has the ability to take away from her, and her family. I think it's stronger, but won't no how well it fits until I read this chapter through again post edits.] Right. I've tried to clarify. I think it's better. Thanks Yargh. Right, I think I've watered the telling down a bit; I hope. Great comments, thank you. Some really good fixes there.

Hey Mandamon, thanks for reading. Here's me replying 3+ weeks later!! But, I'm inspired now by your dedication and have redoubled my writing efforts post-WorldCon!! #thenewrobinski This is a good point, and I will seek to insert some reference to systems, or system being circumvented by M. [Done!] He could have, but disabled their destruct system. I need to better highlight what M does to the MTs, and the fact that they need to be seen out in the town [Done!], which doesn't come over clearly in this chapter. I agree there are some contradictory details in there. Awesome! I'm going to provide slightly clearer tags. [Done!] Nope, he's standing in the open doorway to the control room. I'll tidy this up [done!]. Essentially, T is closer to the MTs, and therefore is the first course. I could have him close the door at the appropriate moment (him on the other side), but I think I'll do that first, for clarity. Agree: trimmed. The system was disabled. I'll maybe restate that near the end [Done!] here. It was mentioned earlier: it's the company Barry R works for. I'll hope it's WRS and leave that one in for a complete read through to catch, or not. Really appreciate that comments. Thanks

Good point. T might be more savvy with office politics, and the politics of science, but when it comes to blackmail, not so much. She's fairly quiet and not outgoing or confident, which I think comes across in the previous chapter, BUT, I think you make a good point here. I'm going to give T another thought or two about what the turnout with M might be [Done!] in this situation. (a) Excellent ; (b) fair comment. For the most part, I'm not that bothered about the reader understanding what's going on in any great detail. The reader being a bit (but hopefully not too) confused at this point, I don't think (and I hope), is not to big problem, as I hope there is more than enough to concentrate on locally and more directly than the overarching plot. Awesome! Fair enough. There's really almost nothing to connect them at this point. I accept that. I hope it doesn't trip the reader up, but it's my job to keep them interested long enough to make a connection, of course. Okay. If you want, I can send you the first couple of chapters (I presume you read Chp.3 in E's POV, without going back to check, sorry.) Fair comment again, and I guess I won't come out and tell you what happens, but I do take your point. I'll need to just let that ride at this point, and see how thing go down overall, reader reaction-wise. Thanks so much for reading, Ace; much appreciated!