Robinski

This is the sort of thing you need to hang a lantern on, I think, by just flat out telling the reader via Isr--'s interiority. For example: She could not remember the last time he had shown up in her rooms like this, and in such an uncertain state. Most unusual. How about this, as a test exercise, just spitballing. Start with the blank file then paste in paragraphs from Chp.1, Rev.2 that are essential to make sense of only that chapter, nothing else that has happened before, or after. Only once you have a file that is internally consistent with itself (and nothing else), then consider what is essential knowledge required to foreshadow Chapter 2, paste that in, maybe in a different colour? Just an idea.

Just for everyone's info, there is no 'early'. You can request a slot at any time, just not (usually) more than one slot at a time. We've had people say 'I don't want a slot this week, but my 'thing' will be ready for the following week'.

Me too.

You're going to need a bigger goat...

Cornucopia.

I shouldn't have said skimming, my bad. I apologise. My version of skimming is ignoring grammar, syntax, and other such details, but I'm still reading all the words. I don't have a 'high speed' setting! That's all you need to say, IMO. In fact, if you just had something like, she piled the twelfth textbook on the chair, we can imagine 12 thick books in a stack. This is the bit that is hard to believe. The palace is full of maids and butlers and valets who sorts people stuff out for them. The example is there in that Is's water jug is replaced silently in moments. So I find it really hard to believe that keeping people's stuff separate is so difficult for trained servants. This detail about the room really does feel like it's a darling. I know you'll tell me it's important later on, but it feels like there are lots of little nuanced details, but were missing the big picture components of story that take the reader through the book, like inciting incident just after the start of the book; chapter arcs; plot progression; character motivation. To summarise though. I'm not trying to force you to change this. I know my feedback can be direct, and I'm sorry if it come over prescriptive. All I'm saying is, I don't believe this. As the author, you get paid the big bucks (figuratively speaking ) to figure out what to do with that information. I guess having been through all the learning that we have in this group over many, many years, we get enthusiastic about trying to get our points over about what's not working, because we've all been through it so many times (the process of writing and finishing a work). Sometimes, it's okay just to say 'the queen', which leaves not room for misinterpretation. They key is variation, I think, but minimising names is good practice. If someone is not relevant to a scene, I'd recommend not mentioning them. I'm not saying the queen is not relevant, and I'm sure if I was reading this under normal circumstances (and not gritting a handful of other things at the same time), I'd be able to absorb more names. Short answer, every time you use a name, ask yourself if it really needs to be there. I did get some of that, and there is no rule against having a weak(ash) king, of course. If nothing else it gives the opportunity for other people, especially the M/C, to have more agency, which of course is good. I did get some of that sense. I think it could be clearer in places. I didn't get this so clearly. I would suggest that there is always a case, especially when a story or chapter is complicated, for just coming out a straight telling the reader certain things. So here, if the first reference to Lord H said 'her former tutor, Lord H', I'd be completely find with that. There are things you want the reader to be puzzling over, and other things you don't, because they will distract from the main story. So, the untidy room and mixed up belongings, for example, I think is a distraction. Right. Maybe there is some WRS here, since it's so long ago (relatively) that I read the prologue, compared to having read it the previous day. I do vaguely remember the conflict. Let's put this one down to Weekly Reader Syndrome (WRS - the unnatural gap between reading subs) on my part. See, this is something I always struggle with, and @Snakenaps knows this, because I moaned about it to her a fair bit at the start when was alpha reading her book. We are in Isr--'s POV, and Est is her mother. If I'm in my own head, I don't think about my mother as 'Vi', I think about her as Mum. Characters thinking about their parents by their names is weird and unnatural, IMO, and it always disorients my perspective. I'm going back to check this...... (Not that I don't believe you! For my own benefit.) Yeah, okay, my bad. I think maybe it was lost in my trying to get my head around all the other information. I think we end up talking around details, but there are still structural issues like inciting incident, main plot, conflict and motivations that are getting lost in all the background and detail at the beginning. I think you said you had an outline. Would you be willing to share that? Also, did you also say that this is your first book? I took 17 years to finish the first draft of my first book (admittedly, with some fairly large gaps), then produced four consequent drafts with absolutely no external advice, critique, learning, or anything. All I had to go on 'copying' from the books that I read. I've never subbed it, or head it critiqued, because I had almost no idea what is was doing, and it's bound to be full of bad practice. (Maybe one day, I sub it.) My point being that I shelved it, because it has many flaws, and does hit many of the basic marks. I wrote another two novels, still not knowing any of the principles of writing fiction, before I discovered Writing Excuses and finally started to assemble the tools of the trade, and understand what was happening, and who components I needed to assemble an effective novel that someone might buy, or at least read and it be in the write sort of ballpark. I'm not trying to dissuade from writing this novel. What I'm trying to say is that sometimes we're too close to something, and need to take step back, do some learning, try something else, different approaches, different techniques, even different genres (SF, Space Opera, adventure, whatever), write short stories to practice in the storytelling skills that we learn from sources like Writing Excuses. Your prose is really very serviceable, and makes it easy to read your stuff, but sometimes the way to fix something is not to keep tweaking and tweaking, but to get some distance. I'd be really interested to see your outline for the novel, your synopsis, if you have one (essentially for submitting to agents/publishers). How long is it (the novel)? What is your plan for publishing, in the sense of where do you go from here? What is the goal of the process you're in now? I ask these questions because my feeling was, instead of us picking away at chapters without being able to see the whole picture, maybe we could offer a different kind of comment if we could see the outline, the big picture, as it were. There really is a lot of good stuff in there, and some promising conflicts and relationships, Maybe the way forward is to strip back (the discussion) to the core elements.

I've got to say I'm hesitant to read a third version of this. I'm going to be going in intending to skim fast, and concentrate on overall impression. - Okay, this is better, IMO. Is- has agency, she is doing something risking, and I'm expecting her to fall and break her neck, so good tension. What I do want is a clearer picture of what she's doing. I'm not convinced that I have is pictured right, and what I'm picturing is not practical, I think. How tall is the pile of books? I think that would go a long way to solving my confusion. I mean, she can't climb up a pile of books, so I'm presuming one step will put her on top of the pile? - Another thing I like is that we see her father much sooner, and she has some meaningful interaction with him, unlike at the ball, when they almost ignored each other. - I don't think I know Lord R at this point, so I don't get the context. Is Al staying with them in the king's palace? I get confused around here. Yeah, it's getting overcomplicated, all this talk of separating thing from other things, I don't understand it. It seems trivial, and therefore worthy of cutting. The room's not ready, leave it at that, IMO. - Two days for what? To get him a room? To separate some belongings?. That can't be right. It's far too long. I would think she would be expecting two hours, put lots of servants on the job. He can't have brought that much stuff. This aspect is unbelievable, IMO. - "Any implication of a relationship with you" - Where does this come from? It's quite obscure. I don't think it can clearly be implied from the obscure exchange between them. - Argh. Lots of names creeping in again. Who is Est? Someone else I don't know / can't remember. - "the conflict about the magic laws" - What is the conflict? It's mentioned a lot but never clearly explained. Without using a bunch of names, I think we need to understand this thing about the laws as soon as possible in the story. This seems like the ideal opportunity to lay it out, in high-level bullet points, without a single name (please!). - "To legalize more basic spells" - This helps, but I need a baseline. Are there any legal spells? - "If they could bring back real healing magic" - Okay, this is useful. I'm getting the picture. - "He opened his mouth, then shut it again" - The king doesn't come over very regal in this scene. I appreciate that his daughter may be able to boss him, but I'd expect him still to have the mannerisms of command, but he seems quite hesitant, doubting his own path, which isn't very kingly. - "something like fear in his expression" - Yeah, this. He seems weak, and okay, kings can be weak, but I would expect other people (like the POV character) to be aware of that, and call it out from time to time. - A fairly significant thing occurs to me, but I'll save it for the summary at the end. It's about motivation, and it arose here, during this conversation about spells. - "relieved breath escaped her" - Why is she relieved? What would have been wrong with Or taking the stone to recharge it? We've not, I think, been shown or told Isr motivation in getting the spell stone down. Was her plan for it something other than just recharging it? This comes under the same heading as my main point relating to the change in the laws. - "Do you know why he switched them?" - And again. This seems to be something that happened some time ago? I presume it did. That's how it reads, IMO. - "Maybe he thought R would read ahead" - Who thought? Who are we talking about? Lord H? Unclear. I need to know who Lord H is/was, and what his role was if I am to remember him. This sounds like background that you know, but the reader needs enough to remember him as we continue through the chapter. A name is no use to me, as there are many names already. - "It would be too easy for the nobles to keep the knowledge from reaching those it’s intended to help" - I'm confused. I feel like there are mixed messages about magic, and I still don't have a c lear idea of who had outlawed magic, when and why. We need a clear picture, conveyed within context in the prologue or in chapter one that explains the basics of what the situation is, and why. - "To change things, you need to win over Duke Al" - Why? I thought Al was a hermit with no control over anything. Who is in charge? What is the set-up of the world? I don't understand. - "I’ll see if there’s anything in here that I’m not remembering" - Why is she the expert? Why isn't mother capable of doing this on her own? - "Asking Est for books is a dangerous hobby" - Why? Who is Est? What authority does she have? Since this conversation began, I feel like every sentence raised more unanswered questions and confuses me more than I was from the previous sentence. - "what her father was trying to do and resentment that she was not meant to be part of it" - I don't think it's clear what her father is trying to do. Also, he has given her a task, so she is part of it, surely? More confused. - "where her knowledge might be helpful" - What is her knowledge? Unclear. We haven't been told (clearly). - "to learn the legal spells" - What spells are legal and what spells are not? I come back again to the fact that the baseline and the character goals are not clear. - "pull the stone off of the desk and into her lap" - This is not good style, IMO. The 'of' is redundant. If you want your prose to sound universal (as opposed to American), I would strongly recommend not using this form. - "pressed her thumb to the linked spell stone" - this seems weird to me, weird clunky. If it's a mental command that activates the stone, why on earth do they need a wall switch? There is some kind of link between the stones, so why not between the mind and the light stone directly? Seems unnecessarily complicated. - "revise the magic laws" - I've moaned about this for sometime now, but it just occurs to me how to very easily address my main complaint. This phrase doesn't mean much, because it gives very little away. I want more clarity. I suggest when you use a phrase like this, make it clearer. So for example here, if you said her father wanted to 'relax the magic laws', it's immediately clearer what he is trying to achieve, in general terms at least, because 'revise' could mean make them harsher, change a few spells in and out. It could mean anything. - I very much like how you brought the chapter round to the same place it started, with her needing access to the high up sconce. That's good technique, I think. However, this "A possible future of learning magic" - this is her personal motivation. This is what I've needed since I first met Isr, a clear statement of what it is she wants from life, and what drives and influences all her actions (basically). Overall Okay, I think this is better. I think there are still flaws, but I like that Isr has more agency, there's more tension, at least at the start of the chapter. Once her father and she start talking about spells, all the momentum evaporates, and we are into dry research, and statements that I don't understand, because the baseline of the story isn't clear, and the characters' motivation arena's clear, or at least sufficiently communicated. From that point, I just get more and more confused. The story is still too complicated, I think, urging the reader to run before they can walk, because the simple building blocks that form a picture of the baseline situation are still missing. My (other) 'main point' is this: Why are they only now trying to change the laws? What made them try and do it now (Because it feels to like that are just starting on this quest)? This is the problem with not having the inciting incident at the beginning. Why do we join the story at this point? There is a good phrase, defining a technique of plotting (essentially) which is 'in late, out early'. It feels like we are either in really, really, early, or that we've missed the boat (HMS Inciting Incident) entirely. It's not the right place to start the story, IMO. I think this is why 'we' are struggling to the degree that we are.

Comments: - Ooh, I like these heading '17 years before...' etc. I will totally pay attention to these, indeed I think they are highly necessary for continuing readers to connect with the events at the start of this book. (Well, me anyway.) - Great first line(s). - "Long crimson hair fanned down her back as she returned to her own ship" - These two clauses seem unrelated. - "neatly landed on a compact stream bank" - super awkward phrasing: hard to parse. - "slip and fall into the river" - missing word, also, LOL. - Ten ships doesn't seem that many, but I can't recall earlier references to the HG and how many ships might be implied by those. - "She could literally reach the heavens, reach Ard" - So, was Ard a known thing at this time? I thought it disappeared hundreds of years ago? This reference makes it sound to me like reaching it is a viable thing that she might do. Okay, it's clarified later, but still. - "stood a confused looking girl" - LOL, excellent. I remember enough to know who this is. - "robe bashed against the crimson" - word choice. - "Little bit scary to grow up" - Missing inverted commas at the start of the line. - Good basic background here. Very useful to put all this into context. - "supposed to be memorizing versus" - typo: verses. - "kid playing dress up" - 'dress-up', IMO. - "May this would be better" - typo: maybe - "She opened the thrusters as much as she could" - 'far' its more evocative and descriptive, IMO. - Good ending. Good tension towards the end. Good banter between the two characters. Overall This is a good chapter, I think an excellent opening chapter, because it reminded me of some of the most important stakes of the first trilogy, it reminded me where At came from, it plays out a scene that is referred to in the first trilogy (I'm sure it does). I think this would make a perfect first chapter, and it is certainly not too long. There's no fat in it, it seems to me, at a paragraph level, and it doesn't weigh the reader down with too much information. Opening with this chapte would mean that all the readers, continuing and new, were starting in the same place, with a character that they don't know. Also, this seems to be the first scene in the timeline, another good reason to start with this, so that time flows 'forward'. A) - Yes, necessary; B) Yes, I think it should be the opening chapter; C) Perfect length, nothing would add to the impression it gives of exploration, adventure, and dreams. Nice work

I think the way to approach this sort of thing actually might be to cut way back on it. Mention it, but don't dwell on it. A casual one line aside to the state of the room, and/or the mending is actually likely to be more memorable than a treatise about it, subject to how it's done. That's okay if the inciting incident is in Chapter One or Two, but we're rolling into Chapter Four now and there's still nothing. Glad to be of help

Comments. I'm interested--from a craft viewpoint--to see how far in I get before encountering an inciting incident - The word 'room' three times in the first sentence. No smooth. - I'm glad to hear a snarky conversation between Is and Ron. It was almost promised in the first chapter, but didn't happen. Indeed I don't think he even spoke. - "Are you sure you want an answer to that?" - Good, more tension and the suggestion of impropriety. I like that. - "Only if jitters and nausea are the first signs" - More good dialogue. The sister is convincing so far, and I can see she has a different character to Is, seems more brittle. - "wasn’t used to expecting" - cluttered grammar. Unusual to find this! - There a whole page about dresses, then another whole page of people greeting each other. This stuff has got to be cut down, You cannot include every nod of the head, a polite remark. These things are uniformly cut out of published works, because they have no significance to plot or story. - "Today is a day of celebration" - There is very little of any really importance in the five pages before this speech, it could all be boiled down into a page, maybe a page-and-a-half. The speech itself isn't important, but it's a reasonable opening to a chapter, because something it happening, the king is making a speech. - "shoulders stiffened as the big man joined the group" - Here is some tension, on page 8. It just takes far too long to get to these bits where something interesting happens, but it doesn't pay of on its potential. The awkward moment dies away, and we're back to nothing happening. - Is has no agency. She plays no active part in anything in this chapter, and that's pretty dull. All she's doing is standing around listening to other people. - "A stab of panic hit her" - Good, but again, way too late in the chapter, and again she's passive. How will she deal with this, I wonder? No, passive. Tension falls away. Then..."she preferred watching at larger events" - passive again. - "amusement to soften his expression" - I'm confused. I thought these two didn't like each other, like were quite bristly and antagonistic. Suddenly, they seem quite amiable, which seems out of character. More than that, Is is now contradicting her position by dancing when she said that she doesn't like to do so. More contradiction, it seems to me. - "R might have been a source of endless frustration in most situations, but she trusted his lead when it came to the dance floor" - See, this is a decent bit of character for R, but it says nothing about Is. I think Is's character is actually the blankest of most of the characters. What do I know about her? She's loyal and dedicated to her family, seems to be smart enough to understand politics at quite a young age. But what are her flaws? What makes her an interesting character to spend a whole book in her company? - And the end of the chapter is, meh, nothing. There no tension, no momentum into the next chapter. Why would I read on? What is there to know, to find out, what mystery or tension is there? What objective does the main character have? Nothing. Overall It's another chapter where nothing happens. There are a couple of moment where it looks like there is some tension, but it dies back very quickly. When I get to the end, well, see above, but there is no incentive for the reader to move on to the next chapter. This really does need serious cutting. Where we are now, and what we have gone through in the first three chapters is barely enough to fill the first half of one chapter, IMO. Oh, look what I've just been reviewing my notes from at this very moment as I work back through Season 15 of Writing Excuses! https://writingexcuses.com/2020/01/26/15-04-revision-with-patrick-rothfuss/ Sorry not to be more positive, but I suspect I will not be the only voice saying this sort of thing.

Not necessarily, but I feel like I've read three chapters (I'm including the prologue), and we still haven't had an inciting incident. The prologue at least had tension in the aftermath of the explosion. There was death, upheaval, change in governance / inheritance of the child. The opening two chapter have been very slow. For example, if the inciting incident is something like Is receives the wrong present, activates a magical stone in the midst of her birthday party and blows out the wall of the great hall, I would say that could be at the end of the first chapter, but something like that looks a long, long way away from where we are here.

Honestly, I think this is perhaps that most useful thing that any of us can learn, and I think there is no easy way to learn it but to keep going, and listen to the feedback you are getting, even if it is difficult to take, and act upon. Sorry for the delay, and I know there is water under the bridge, but I'd like to catch up. There's no way I could take on the alpha read, I'm afraid, but if you've got @kais on the...case, you don't need me. Ergo, comments on this sub. Chapter 1 - A lot of crunchy detail at the start. From what I've read so far, I am still not engaged by this character, and that is where any story should start, IMO. Why would I put any store in the internal thoughts of a character that I am not engaged with? I thought we were going to get this engagement with the hawk scene, and there was a little bit of character in her exchanges with the maid, but by the time we got the library and her exchange with her mother, it was all political detail and very little if anything at all of character. No amount of political detail is more less interesting than a good, solid, engaging and interesting character. - Okay, the library scene is different, and it's shorter, that's good but, noting my point above, I don't think the message is getting through. I feel that the reader must be engaged with the character, and preferably the setting as well, before all this heavy, heavy, detail lands on them (the reader). Countries, nations, factions, none of it matters without a personal perspective, and we still don't have that. I know that there is mention of Is-a's motivation to help her father, but that's quite generic. What are her hopes and dreams, hers, not her father's or mother's, what does she want from life, what is she striving towards? What type of person is she? What are her faults? Her flaws? - "He raised his eyebrow at the sight of her and smirked before making some comment to her mother" - This is the first time I've been shown a conflict instead of being told about it. There is a massive difference between telling the reader that this nation or faction is in conflict with that country or party, and showing them a conflict and letting them experience it. - "he meant to hold the knowledge over her" - Why is this significant? - "likely snooped through my notes while you were there" - I'm absolutely incredulous that the queen would leave private political notes lying around in the library. It is mind-bogglingly naive, and makes me think she's an idiot, and would deserve any and all bad things that happened to her as a result of an enemy seeing those notes. In actual fact, what it reads like is the author making something happen to affect the plot, but those things have to be plausible, have to be consistent with character, and this leaving out of private notes did not seem that to me. - "Then who will help him? Because you know he won’t ask" - Here is a small glint of character. - "But there are things I could get away with then that I can’t now" - Why? I don't follow. - "If she’d had time to think ahead, she would have expected that" - Expected what? I don't understand. - "I don’t have the time I used to" - Eh?! She doesn't have the time to deal with the world-encompassing issue? That does not seem plausible. - "One that had apparently been burning steadily for the past fifteen years" - Eh? - Last line is decent, but there are starting to be introduced jumps in logic, people making decisions for reason that I don't understand. I think that plot here at the start is far too complex to be understood by anyone who does not have all the background that your have in your head or in your notes. Consider Lord of the Rings as an example, or indeed Wheel of Time, and maybe Mistborn too, and I'll try to illustrate my point. None of those three stories attempts to describe the entire world in the first chapter, laying out all the factions and intrigues and conflicts and threats. In fact, they all do completely the opposite. They largely eschew references to politics (maybe the odd point notes in passing) all together. Instead they focus completely and utterly on establishing character, and maybe setting to a degree. There is a reason that JRR Tolkien, Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson do that, and it's because loading plot into the start of a story doesn't work. It doesn't engage the reader, because they need to have a character to root for, and a foothold in the setting that they understand, can feel solid in before plot details are fed in gradually. I feel that you are desperate to spool out as much plot as possible as soon as possible but that does, not, work. I would encourage you to look at stories you have read recently and study how the authors open those stories. I would wager that it is closer to the template of establishing character and location before any complex plot details appear, and when they do they are fed in gradually. Chapter 2 - I reckon a pendant goes around the neck, and the bracelet around the wrist. I guess something can hang from a bracelet, but it's confusing. - Obviously, Al is essentially a new character, as he was a child in the prologue, but I'm struggling to remember if Trev is the old advisor, or the younger(?) steward crawling in the rubble trying to free Al's father. A wee reminder here would be good, just a word or two. - Okay, the opening to this chapter is okay. It's a little slow maybe, but I feel it's establishing Al as a character (a little, not a lot), it's reminding me about Trev, and it showing something about magic, also a little tension/conflict over the gift. A fair start, but I want it to move on quickly no, after the first page. - Okay, Al is reasonably decisive. I was concerned that he was going to fay about and need someone else to solve the problem for him, but he seems to have some agency. - "Servants stood on ladders in the gardens below, securing swaths of blue fabric" - Nice bit of colour (literally), just enough to establish setting, and show the preparations for the party. - Because so many countries have been mentioned, I can't remember which one Tra is. - Who's working as hard as they can? I'm getting confused. Who is Was again? Is any of this relevant to the plot? Cut. - "head of the duke’s serving staff" - Nope. This is a butler, who would not leave the duke's own seat, and certainly would not be in charge of arrangements, IMO. The chap who make travel arrangements, accompanies the duke of visits, etc. would surely be a chief steward. The implication here is that he's the same chap that directs the staff serving the duke's meals. I don't buy that at all. - I'm confused, what was the hiss of pain about? Did he stab himself with the needle? Unclear. Also, no way does the heard steward sew the duke's clothes for him. Also, this is boring. Cut. - Who is Ras? I'm confused. - "ran his thumb across each stone in turn" - If it's that easy to check, it's all the more unbelievable that they didn't do it before packing all these things. - This chapter is eight pages long, and the only thing that actually happens is that Al changes his mind over which gift to give one princess and the other. That's all that happens. Overall Okay, this is way, way too confusing. There is far too much detail that has no bearing at all on plot, or character, and needs to be cut, hard cut. Dan Wells (I think), during some season of of Writing Excuses exposed the theory (I think it was Dan, might have been Howard) that sometimes a writer does not have the skill to writer the story they are trying to write, and need to defer it, practice, hone the craft and the other facets of writing skill (including self-regulartion), and then come back to it after having practised on other things, shorts, novellas, whatever, and come back to their passion project with a new perspective. It's clear that you have skills in relation to language, and world-building, but--I think--there is no self-regulation in terms of what should be in the story and what should not. In Elements of Style, by Strunk and White--something of a seminal work in writing about the craft of writing--the authors say 'Cut all unnecessary words'. Stephen King, in his memoir On Writing (which I'm reading at the moment) quotes Strunk, and he also cites the example of his first writing job on the local newspaper, when his editor said (on submission of King's first two pieces) "When you write the story, you're telling it to yourself. When you re-write, your main job is taking out the bits that are not the story." I think what you need to do--as a test exercise--is go through the MS with track changes on and cut out all the bits that do not affect the plot. The man servant hisses in pain, dirty shirt, clothes all around, doesn't affect the plot. The servants hanging the bunting, establishes the party, and the ceremony, probably okay. The stuff about the jewellery looks like it might be relevant further on, foreshadowing, probably fine. The long-serving nature of the Trev? We';ve had that in the prologue, haven't we? All the stuff about rooms being too small, clothes being unpacked. All that can be summed up in a couple of lines, and I have a strong feeling that none of it is going to be relevant to the plot. You might not have much left, but that's fine. I get the impression that you are tinkering with the MS, when what's needed is a major re-write. Another thing that contributed to my confusion is that the narrative is fragmented. They are talking about the rooms, then they are talking about the gift, then they are talking about Was, and none of these 'thoughts' or conversations is finished before they go on to another topic. It's too complicated and too confusing. I suggest finishing with one topic in the chapter, resolve it, and move on to the next.

Comments. - "Now Pru was blown up" - Clang: grammar. Had been blown up, or (e.g.) was nothing but dust and debris. - "only detached eyeballs and bloated corpses" - This makes no sense to me. How would corpses remain intact from a planet exploding? How is it that everything is not incinerated? - "Some were clearly bipedal" - 'some' here is still attached to the debris in the previous sentence, which is singular, so 'were' disagrees with that. I don't want to do LBLs. I takes too long. There are lots of grammar issues: 'nuff said. - "plan to rescue Exile" - Confused: what is Exlie? A person? A DVD borrowed from the local library? - "hit her ship’s sensor" - A space ship won't have just one sensor, IMO, it will have a bank of sensors detecting different things, radiation, temperature, near objections, etc. It would possibly have a singular sensor array. - "warning about perpetual small impact damage" - potential? - "less cellulose in her biomaterials than when she’d left" - I wonder if you don't need a bit more explanation of the role of the cellulose in the ship. This reads a bit like it's fuel. - "Hence, her only view now came from a small, square film stuck to the wall just in front of her" - Why would she cover up her external view, making her atmospheric ability so much worse? - "complete component makeup" - Confusing. Something like 'complete chemical breakdown' would be more easily comprehensible, more natural, IMO. - "Unknowns were not the friend of intergalactic travel" - This contradicts the line before which points out her shielding is full of unknown filaments. - "further into the planetary silage" - This is the wrong word, IMO. Silage is feed, this is debris of no discernible use, it's not going to feed anything. - "Cellulose further degraded in the printer" - This doesn't make sense to me. What is degrading the cellulose when there is no discernible external factor? More to the point, however, her reaction makes no sense to me. Why isn't she worried about unexplained cellulose degradation? - "Weapons array from an unknown ship, did she want to pick it up even though it was larger than her hold?" - I cannot understand this sentence in its current context. Doesn't seem to relate to any of the narrative around it. - "Redundant computers and their failure to grasp the importance of her arrival." - Her arrival? But the only computer 'in shot' is the computer in her ship. This makes not sense to me. - "It was a picture of Exile" - Oh, this was Ne? I did not get that, mostly because no one every used the term as a name is the previous books, did they? - "O didn’t know what she’d been called before joining" - I thought that all juvenile Ne were called Ne. Ne was always referred to as Ne in the previous books, wasn't she? I'm sure that she gave up her childhood name at some point. - "Just to see your smile" - So wait, O is in love with Ne/At? How did that happen? Wasn't Ne a child when she first met O? So, presumably O did not fall in love with her then. When did O ever see Ne other than that? Shouting and waving across the gap between to the two ships in the prologue? Something about this feels wrong. I can't understand how O formed an attachment to Ne. - "If the science you demanded exists, I will find it" - I don't remember this. How would science have saved Ne from exile? - "nor did it absolve her of the gnawing guilt" - And that's O's motivation for abandoning her planet a soaring around the galaxy looking for...something. I don't understand O's motivation. - "warned that the cellulose in her hull was dangerously low, though she had no idea what that meant in practice" - I don't understand how the cellulose is being depleted. - "If her ship wasn’t in danger of falling apart" - She doesn't know that. The computer's announcements have not specified the danger that goes with cellulose depletion, which seems like a shortcoming. Also, as an ace pilot, how does O not know this about her own ship? - "When that only exacerbated" - What is 'that'? - "weeping from her apparent anxiety" - This is phrased like the place the stk is leaking from. Would be clearer as 'weeping due to her apparent anxiety'. Also, 'apparent' feels like a POV cheat, or at least someone else's POV. - "which she’d be passing by in another half hour at her current coast" - Disbelief suspension critical!! Abort, abort!! Coasting suggests going very slow. That's fine. I presume this debris is going slowly, drifting However, if she's only going to coast for half and hour, the planet must be in sight already. There is a logical disparity here. - "I could use some assistance" - Super plot convenient. I can see the author moving pieces around. - "so I think I might be too far out to be relevant" - Hilarious!! Great line. - "One passenger—the pilot" - The pilot is not a passenger. IMO, be definition, a passenger has not function relating to the ship, whereas a pilot definitely does. - "I’m looking for long shot genetic cousins" - Long lost cousins? I don't think it's clear what a long shot cousin is. - "I need at least three more samples before I can leave" - Why three? Unclear. - "neither of us need to be tied up with scrappers" - I didn't get the sense of this. Like entangled? Entangled is a better word. - "glistened with a stk-like substance" - I think you should let the reader have this reveal. Don't tell us it's like stk. If you say 'glistening with some sticking substance', the reader will make the connection straight away. - "you’re leaving a cellulose trail" - How? Why? This needs to be explained way at the start of the chapter. What is the mechanism that is causing the cellulose lose? It's increasingly frustrating not to know this. - "wouldn’t do her any good without proof" - But the pilot of the FkArd is the proof she needs. She can just get samples from them, can't she? Her reasoning seems a bit sub par to me. I would have through she would be more resourceful. - "I have to stay" - Yeah, I'm losing it now, and she's stammering? This is not the G4 is was hoping for. - "The questions?" - I don't get what FkArd would press her in this situation. There is nothing it for him if he's leaving. - "bring back proof of two genetic cousins" - Right, okay. So this is the reason that she still wants the floating samples? But those samples are not essential, surely. She would still have proof of one genetic cousin, the pilot of the FkArd. Before the encounter with the FkArd, she only expected/hoped to find one genetic cousin in the wreckage of Pru, ergo, her logic here is not good. She can got with the FkArd and have no less than should would have had if the FkArd had not conveniently appeared. - "These were the details that remade worlds" - I fail to see why two sample does this and better than one sample. - "got her planet’s biggest heretic returned to her family" - I also don't buy O's investment in this. I don't get what Ne is to her. - "it lists the following" - Wait, what? So, she (and every other Ne) knows that Ke is a thing, and she knew that Pru was a thing before the planet exploded. But, was it not the case that At (was it At that receive the transmission about the explosion? I forget) already knew that Pru was a planet? No, wait, it's more confusing. Pru exploded in the present, didn't it, the present when At is an Ard? So why is O still searching for proof to bring Ne back, when Ne is already back? I'm so confused. Some of this will be me, but there has been so much hopping around in time and POV recently that I've completely the place. - "tiny spaceship for over five years" - I badly need to understand why O would give up 5 years of her life for Ne/At. I don't understand. - "You’ve been in transit for half a decade" - How does he know that? - "but bringing back coordinates to Ar had to get her full repatriation" - yeah, I don't understand the time line. - Is the message from the dredgers? I don't understand the message. She accepted it, but it sounds like conversation between two other parties that she is not supposed to overhear. I'm really confused now. - "with her real name on her lips" - Why would she not use her real name? Confused. - Tense ending, but. The tension didn't really build up the evenly at the end. Why would dredgers be armed? They are working boats, they dredge up silt. In no sense is a dredgers a combat craft. OVERALL I like plenty about this chapter, O seems a pretty good character. The reveal of the creature flying the F--k Ard is nicely done, and very satisfying, however, it's sooooo convenient to the plot, it's like great big hand of author intervention to make the plot work. Quit annoying. I think I would have handled it better if O had retained agency through the search. What if the FkArd was win trouble. O spends long hours failing to find the evidence she wants, is getting mad a frustrated, when she happens across a damaged ship and low and behold, here is exactly what she's looking for. She retains agency and doesn't seem weak and kind of clueless for not understanding what\ wrong with her ship. Just a notion. Anyway, my overwhelming emotion by the end was that of confusion. Maybe I have forgotten too much from the original books, but it seems to me that, not only is there a bunch of POV hopping at the start of this story, but it is also a lot for TIME hopping, and that is crashing by understanding but hard. These initial chapters need to be a lot clearer, IMO, this one especially. One of your issues was to ensure that new readers could follow what was going on? Well, I think there is pretty much no chance of that on the basis of this chapter, if I'm honest

Okay, I'm speed critiquing because I am so behind. General impressions, no fine detail or LBLs. - "dropped from the air. All of them" - Excellent inciting incident for the chapter, good tension, and I'm intrigued to learn more about this. - "revealed the Resistance to the entire galaxy" - More big stakes for the story and loads of potential for conflict. I remain skeptical that the news of the Res would not have got out by now, but putting that aside, good. - "was, in fact, dead" - This is a handy reminder of the situation, and just loads on more stakes. There are three plots strands here, and I really like how you've kind of summarised that last X-number of pages for the reader (especially helpful for me, having missed a week and having strong case of WRS). - "stacks of paper" - Really? This is very dating, IMO. - "No ship can teleport within twenty astronomical units of the station" - Why is that? It's been mentioned before, I think, but I'm not sure if there ever was an explanation. - A servant would not use their supervisor's first name in this very familiar way. Unless 'K_e_x' is a title, but assumed it was a name. - At the end of Page 1, I'm enjoying being in KT's POV. They have loads of attitude, loads of stress, trying to manage all these stresses. It's good. I feel their pain. - Just because I'm not calling LBL stuff, I wouldn't want you to think that there were not a bunch of grammar, word choice, etc. issues with this chapter, because there are - I like the conflict here, the argument between KT and Gy. There are still 'foundational' elements to the story that I struggle with. I have never been convicted as to why they chose Ek as a figure head. Her POV chapters did nothing to convince me that she was suitable, and no logical explanation was ever proffered that stood up to any examination, IMO. - "to make of big show of his subservience" - I've never been aware of anything like this from Gy, not in the slightest that I can remember. He's always been quite high-handed, IMO. - "jaw thrust forward" - See? This is the opposite of him being subservient. - "A swap—brought on by the stress" - Excellent detail, completely logical in the circumstances. I like it, and then the section rounds off nicely. What I don't get from this though is much sense of plot progression. This scene set up some nice details, and had some nice character moments, but it didn't really do much to move the plot on. Okay, they're going to have another meeting, having just had a meeting. Ek has for of resigned, but hasn't. As a I say, not a lot of forward motion, but I did enjoy TK's POV. Her first, I think? - "his feathers a vibrant, masculine green" - Okay, confused now. Isn't orange the masculine colour? Having multiple colours for the same thing is confusing, or having two races doing the same thing but with different colours, also confusing. - "I was never good at being male" - This is an excellent line. I like it. It's humorous, and yet also poignant and carries meaning for the character, and background for the species. - "You test the bounds of my apology" - Another enjoyable line. - "looking out of place in the space station" - Uh-oh...hidden assassin!!! - "as they slumped in their seats" - This is not so great, as it lumps them all together and describes them with one characteristic. It's very unlikely that the humans are all equally tired, so this comes across to me like lazy description. - "shook himself from his reverie" - Pretty clichéd, IMO. - "Ek is God in their mind now" - This bit lacks impact for me, because there were loads of names flying around, names that I either (a) could not remember from previous subs (my bad), or; (b) haven't really been introduced, and therefore the reader cannot really react with any great knowledge. One of those things admittedly would be my fault to some degree. - "Running mediator.exe" - You...can't... be serious! They are running Windows????!!!!!! My immersion in the story just went blue screen and the real world intruded, dumping me out of the scene. - "Who’s ready for an emergency meeting?" - LMAO 'Good morning, Vietnam!!' - "TT leaned forward. The famous human enod? This would be interesting." - Hmm. I kind of underwhelmed by his reaction. Is this not more surprising? He was thinking how subservient the En were (wasn't he?), so is the fact of one taking the lead here not more surprising, like jaw on the floor surprising? - "admired most about his mate" - Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Nothing in KT's reaction to Z in this chapter suggested a reaction to a mate, and nothing in KT's inner monologue indicated that Z was his/her mate until now. That feels like withholding to me. I think that needs to be up front. I don't think it's plausible that KT would not think of Z are his/her mate during the chapter, before now. - PROBLEM: "something must be done" - You've skipped the argument at the meeting, so I don't know how to react to anything now. It feels like things are being deliberately withheld from me for dramatic effect, and I don't appreciate that. It feels very artificial. - Okay, so what happened is now described in retrospect, which is always less compelling and involving that seeing it play out. 'Here's what you missed' doesn't seem fair when I was right here, and didn't go anywhere, but did have the opportunity to see the tension play out. A more important problem, IMO, is that I never felt any tension around Ek being removed. I'm not invested in her being the leader, and never have been, so the fact or her being removed is like...meh, whatever. It feels like the least important thing that's going on right now. I was enthused at the start by all these big galaxy-spanning issue they have to deal with and, as I say, this seems like the least interesting thing going on right now. - "Religion shouldn’t have a place in politics" - naive. - "I am not disagreeing with you, dear" - See, this is what I meant. I feel that this was withheld in earlier dialogue. I don't think there was any reason to do that. I think it should be upfront that these two a hitched. If my wife walks into the room, that's my wife walking into the room, not a fellow delegate. - "Just helping you be objective" - - "And should the need arise…find a way to neutralize her" - Nope, hang on. He's just asked Z to investigate her. If you're investigating her, the need to neutralise here will NEVERE ARISE. It has not part in investigating someone, it's a whole other thing. I'm not saying you can't have this end to the chapter, I'm just saying that the instruction from TK to Z needs to be something that would logically encompass neutralising her. Something like, 'Monitor her activities, we must ensure she doesn't make any more pan-galactic pronouncements. If it looks like she will, neutralise her.' - "would not let that human burn it all to the ground" - This is a neat way to finish, but because it brings the focus back to the lack of buy-in that I have to the central conceit of the story. I still don't believe that or under why the rebels would set Ek up as their figurehead. It makes no sense. It's not plausible, IMO, the way things are set up at the moment, and that undermines everything else for me. Thanks for sharing. Hope these comments are still of some use

Working towards it! Salice has always been borderline autism-coded so I'm hoping to showcase this relationship well enough that you can see that while she isn't the best at emoting, the emotions are still rich and deep on the inside Cool Excellent. <thumbs up>

Yes, come, come... <holds out basket full of puppies> Have as many POVs as you like, no one will mind

Comments. (page 1) - "Yesterday it had exploded...it" - POW, this is great line. Also, I like the opening. Nice amount of background, and a little character voice. I know who Sal is, so I feel a certain amount of grounding. To harp back to your email/intro post though, I don't carry much of anything about Pru from the prologue. I seem to remember an see about it in passing, but it didn't seem to have any significance for the events in the prologue. - "recorded in sterile words" - Where did Sal get these words from, the news feed, the net? Who reported it, and where? - "the transmission feed" - What's this then? If there was no warning from Pru, who published these words? - "She shouldn’t have been" - Why should she not be doing these things? - "flush with every kind" - - "a creature of comfort and a creature of habit" - Only LBL this page for me, so let me have this one! 'a creature of comfort, and of habit', IMO, is smoother. (page 2) - "and he had more cushioning than Sal who, with her factory-installed genetics, had ever managed" - typo. - "Were they another subspecies? Were they slaves" - The reference was to the planet, not the race or people living on it. For 'they' to follow, it would need to be 'who knows what history the people of Pru had?', surely. - "They’d just left the planet" - What, they'd just left Pru? Confused. I thought they were on Ard. (page 3) - "firm CT" - Was it always spelt 'Cell'? I feel like it used to be 'Cel'. I always pronounced it 'kel'. - "SOLD TO AN UNNAMED SHIP CAPTAIN" - BOOM! Plot ahoy, captain. I'm in for this. Excellent personal motivation. (page 4) - "I hate you." - Awesome line, great character moment. Confused though, why did the Mark contact in this apparently philanthropic gesture? Is that not most unlike a Ris, and especially a Mark? > "TO ATONE" - Ah, okay. - "partner-type-thing" - I really like Y and S together, so it's a little disheartening to see her quite dismissive attitude towards him. One of my imagined promises from the author therefore, is to see her be more loving towards him, provided that he deserves it, of course. - "SYSTEM REPRESENTS A THREAT" - But how, it's just been obliterated? - "WE NEED A CS PRESENCE THERE" - Hah, ha. So he (they?) does (do?) want something. (page 5) - "THE BREEDING AND ENGINEERING FACILITIES ON K" - Ooh, he's offering her the chance to find the other rejects and take up residence in the forming breeding facilities. This is a joke right? 'Step into to parlour said the spider to the fly...' - "DO NOT CROSS THE VOID" Seriously though, I hope I'm not meant to understand this line, because I have about a dozen question about it. (page 6) - "moved our wilt rate to storming zero" - I find the swear rather harsh and inappropriate. He's talking to his lady love here, not Ne. - "every alien head they could find" - - "she headed knowingly towards" - not required. She can't head for it unknowingly, IMO. - "if I even bring it up" - Please define 'it': unclear. - "went off in search of a puddle" - not table service? (page 8) - "for an activity I’m sure I’m too old for" - Him and me both. (page 9) - "resigned herself to another handful of months in space" I just assumed they normally lived on the ship, in space. Overall Excellent. Very clean, interesting, engaging. Sal is a great character, and Y is in the picture. Nick, I still find a bit much but he doesn't get much to do, so that's fine. I think my issue with him is that he seems only to have one setting. He's kind of always there, but he doesn't seem to develop, grow, get much to do. He's like a piece of noisy furniture to me. Looking forward to the next paragraph I don't see any need to pad this one. I mean, padding, by definition, is bad, right?

Awesome

Ahem, yeah, I can't concentrate for longer than about half an hour at a time without needing to step away. I used to be able to. My smartphone has totally transformed my ability to concentrate, and not in a good way. I firmly believe that future generations will be practically disabled in their ability to concentrate as a result. It's happening already, been happening for a while.

Comments. Really interested to see how this is looking now. - "minor wilt had turned to major decay" - Super. Stakes in the first paragraph. A failure. Again. All good. - "I don’t get it" - And a problem (although Y doesn't seem to think so). It's not a major mystery begging a solution really, but it adds to tension, to conflict. That's good. - "stuck flying derelict Terran shuttles" - There's more than one? - "Get down there" - I thought N was in the hold already? Isn't she already 'down there'? - "mating of an amphibian and a fruit salad" - (Five minutes later, Robinski recovers from rolling around on the floor.) - "when she tossed the last pot into the bay" - This seems to contradict her caring concern for the sappling before. Sounds careless and uncaring. - "The gate doors" - One of the other surely. Oh, loading gate doors? Still, if it's already a gate, how come it has doors? (And not, you know, a gate?) - "I thought you were going to try bags?" - Excellent. I always like implied history. Really smooth establishing touch. - "it might be the quality of his JY" - Eh? How could the be? Confused. - "I am nineteen years old" - Oh. I was thinking of Nick. I forgot Ne was the JY. The first statement could be worded more unequivocally. - "Those ratios are unacceptable" - What ratios? - "you’d get no more an" - Could they not just go to someone else? I don't understand how Y has a monopoly on this trade. - "Three times our yearly salary, in one lump sum" - Is Ne authorised by Y to negotiate, or is she being uppity here? It doesn't affect the scene, but it affects my perception of Ne as a character at this point. - "If she spoke again she risked insulting the mark"- This doesn't sound right, she's been insulting hir since xe arrived. - "toe j" - Ew. What a marvellous phrase. I like the pacing. We did not linger in the first scene and are straight into a new location. - "a slender Terran gave her a toothy smile" - It's not clear, IMO, that the Terran is AU. I thought at first the Terran was walking in the other direction. - Confused over AU's dialogue about the Pru ship. This seems a key moment, and it's not clear to me. Is the scan of the shop different from the design? Are those the same thing? Wording unclear. Are the Pru a different, undiscovered race? I don't know what's happening here and what I'm to take from this. - "It’s a prototype for one of the new model" - A prototype of what? I'm confused. What is this ball? A battery? A capacitor? A power core? I can't relate to this scene unless I know what it is the Ne is buying. The why of it I can probably live without for now, but AU is working with this thing an Ne wants it, but for all I know it's a paperweight. - "can’t handle this level upgrade" - Upgrade of what? Where is Ne going to stick this when she gets it back to the ship? - "twice the size of her head" - This remains really incongruous to me. The way they talk about it, and hand it back and forth, it sounds easy, but something this size would be awkward to handle, surely. I think that bothers me most is the word ball. A ball is something sport is played with, in its most common usage, and is of a certain size: a football (soccer); a 'pigskin' (gridiron football); basket ball; golf ball; tennis ball; squash ball; netball ball; volleyball ball; rugby ball; waterpolo ball; snooker ball; pool ball; billiard ball; you get the idea. They are all small, maybe as big as a head in certain cases, but none on the scale being described. Ergo, I would not call what they are talking about a ball. To me, it's a sphere. - "With the wideness of her grip, each contacted the metal" - I can't picture what this thing looks like. - "to boost that communication and thereby keep the saplings alive" - But why can't they communicate? They are packed right close together, are they not? Is it not a simple as having a soil link between them? What else do they need in their natural habitat? - "sell me three of them" - I have not really explanation why this tech I making these things. If they come from Ris ships, are they not only fit for use in Ris ships? - "I have access to Y's bank accounts" - Eh?! How the heck can that be? Seems crazy and plot convenient. - "With a ball in each hand" - How, they are twice the size of her head? - "Keeping saplings alive meant more hauls for the R" - How? If they take the dead plants anyway. The only way this can follow, surely, is if they fly slower to try and keep saplings alive. I don't understand. - "She was so, so close" - clear stakes and I do get a clear sense of personal motivation. The thing is, I know what happens after this, and I know that these stakes are...somewhat superfluous. That is an issue for me: I'm not as invested as I would like to be at the start of a novel. What is this prolog doing that can't be done in the novel proper? One of the aims, I seem to remember, (the primary aim?) was to introduce G4, but we are many, many pages in and only the vaguest, most passing reference to the HG, and not to G4 directly. Would the way to introduce G4 not be to write a G4 short for the prologue? Also, to sum up so far at this break point--notwithstanding the comments above--I think this is clearer and more engaging than previous versions. Pacing is better, and the things that are confusing me are details, although there are quite a few of those, IMO. - "racing stripes, maybe, along its hull" - 'maybe' is not engaging/compelling. She can be definitive about this, surely? Ne is quite aggressive about her opinions, I don't see why she would not be here also. - "YOU’D HAVE LOOKED REALLY NICE IN GOLD" - I don't understand this, but I know what happens later, so, I'm confused. There is not context for this statement in this story. - "This reeks of an object lesson" - How so? I don't understand. I'm not following the logic around here, on this page. - "Not even a tit** roamed the city-fields" - For new readers, or for old readers with YRS, what is a tit** anyway, in general terms? Is it a beast of burden, domestic companion, food crop animal? Context required, IMO. - What is the shape of st*k? Confused. - "I WILL COME FOR YOU, SOME DAY. I PROMISE. YOUR WORDS ARE NOT FORGOTTEN, NOR ARE YOU" - What words? Why would G4 bother coming for Ne? So confused. - "I don’t think these saplings are legal" - Confused. I thought the whole point was that the Ris had made arrangements for the MP to land and pick up the saplings. How do they usually get them? I may have missed that bit. The whole thing seems really quite confused, and just a way to get to have this particular scene, when I'm not convinced it makes senes logically. Either I'm missing significance in the set-up, or that significance/logic is not there. Not sure which. - "fruit basket" - - "a skirting of a line just far enough to be irritating" - 'close enough', IMO. To me, 'far enough' relates more obviously to distance of travel. Lines (or acceptability) are something you come close to, I reckon. - "of indeterminant material" - indeterminate. Indeterminant is not a word, I think, or at best, is a noun not an adjective. - "both from their one-time flight together" - simpler is clearer, IMO. - "She mouthed the word ‘At" - Huh?! How can she know that? Confused. - Good character emotion here at the end. - "a container balanced on each hip" - Why? Surely they belong in the hold? - "had hand-delivered her and seeds" - Wait, I thought they were saplings? There was earth spilling in the hold. - "G4 said she looked good in gold" - No, what she said would 'Would have looked good in gold.' - "Maybe her little rebellion hadn’t died with her exile" - This is bothering me too. Why would the president go to all this trouble over one rebellious Ne? Okay, Ne did something bad enough for them to go to the trouble of exiling them in the first place, but what makes Ne so important, such a threat to the governance of an entire planet, as to justify this level of attention? It's not clear from the prologue to a new reader, IMO, and it's not really clear to me. - "known, academically, for a long time" - I think the word is 'subconsciously'. How does academically work? That's a different thing, IMO, and does fit here, I reckon. Overall There are a lot of things in this that confuse me, that I think are unclear, or not explained, and the premise of this prologue is not especially compelling to me because I know what happens. Sure, there is some good emotion, pacing is okay, but I feel that the logic of various points is confusing, and I don't see how it propels me into the novel that I'm sitting holding in my hands (metaphorically speaking). Honestly, I don't understand the need to have Book 4 (actually 5) of a series be a starting point for new readers. since the overarching narrative of many series (Dresden, Potter, Wheel of Time, Dune) is basically continuous, why would anyone start reading at Book 4? Mistborn is actually the one (that I can think of in the 5 minutes I've been considering this) example that maybe sort of fits the model, but it's with completely different characters, and it not a continuation of the same timeframe arc, which it seems to me this story is. Thanks for sharing. I'll be interested to read the start of the story

Chapter the last. Comments. (page 11) Bringing the story full circle back to Car's make complete sense, and is very satisfying. I like that. However...I have significant issues with this. "I really want to, but I don’t know about leaving my family" - It's written as if Ir have changed her mind AGAIN. She's already made this decision in the last chapter, so, presenting it here as if the decision is still to be made seriously narked me. This is WAAAAAAAAAY too drawn out. It feels like this decision has taken her five chapters to make. There is no way these should be two chapter, IMO. I think they should be cut down to one chapter. Too drawn out, tooooooo drawn out. Still. Drawn out. Too much. Already. - "What would happen to them without me?" - Passive. I know it's tied into the decision, but if you absolutely have to present the decision as still open, I would write this as 'what will happen to them if I go': it in the present/future. (page 12) -"She laid out the BK’s" - AGAIN, for the third time. It's way, way too much. Need to cut this down into one chapter so bad, and avoid these repetitive notes. We don't need to see her telling every single different person she knows the same information, leading them through the same conflict and decision process. - "What are you going to do" - She made this decision in the last chapter already. (page 13) - Too many exclamation marks. I've read good advice (although I admit I have not always taken it!!) that one should only being using one or two per chapter, if not per novel. It's the old dilution of effect thing. The more you use them, etc., etc. - "The BK scanned her note, before letting a small smile cross his face. She had accepted the offer" - pronoun issue: the first 'her' is Pe, right? But, the 'she' is Ir. So, issue arises. - The BK's internal monologue is jumbled (in terms of language), IMO; not a clear and concise relaying of the facts. - "with two weeks to spare" - I'm so glad it did not go down to the last day. Strike my earlier comment about artificial tension-maintaining, ticking clock. - "Relief sent a shiver down his spine" - Why? He's never been anything but cold-blooded about using people. I don't think he would have this sort of physical reaction just from Ir saying yes. I imagine he might be relieved at not having to bother with all the rigmarole of trying to force her through these other means, but he surely had not emotional attachment to the decision? (page 14) - "was never a favorite of his" - weird phrasing, not his voice, IMO. Too casual. - "although destroying a career had become second nature by now" - careers. If it's second nature, needs to be plural. - "but that meant nothing if they were not perfect" - They who? Don't get this. - "Each piece had to be prepared" - Oh, oh, oh, is he putting a team together? Pleeeeease tell me he's putting team together in Book 2. I love it when there's a team (page 15) - "The wagon train began to leave" - really passive phrasing. a lot of the style needs tidied up in this chapter, IMO. - "without losing rhythm" - Cool to see that her musical abilities have progressed to this point. This is actually a neat and satisfying way to show how much she has change from the start of the book. - "She smiled at them, and them at her" - Awkward. (page 16) - Oh, the ending is really quite lame. I want a satisfying last line that somehow underpins all the emotion, the changes, the new friends, the new romance, and the changes in Ir, wraps it all up with a bow and makes me feel so glad I read this. The last couple of lines need to be stronger, IMO. I don't mean more powerful, momentous, or anything like that, I mean satisfying. Overall I've ranted about it already, so won't belabour the point, but these last two chapters need to be cut back into one chapter. The ending is way too drawn out, and Ir's decision is described and made (then unmade again) three, four, fives times. That needs to be addressed. Thanks for sharing

Comments. (page 1) - "kissing him in by the way of greeting" - (a) by way of greeting, IMO; (b) kissing him where? A kiss is a big thing, and where it lands is an even bigger one. - "on the Scales bag" - what is this? Oh, a game. - "smiling faces of the musicians around her" - At this point in the story, i.e. the end, I feel like the musicians should have made the transition from musicians to friends. Friends first, musicians second. - "Especially when it came towards J" - just 'came to J', not towards, IMO. That sounds like the anchor is moving towards him. - "as he was crushing hers" - How so? Seems harsh, Surely it's the decision that is crushing her's, not J. (page 2) - "Her gaze drifted from the Scales board(?) to the busy streets outside" - unclear, IMO. Makes Scales sound like a person. I don't think it should be capitalised either. Would you capitalise chessboard in this scenario? - "Then you’re two j-s richer" - I like the quite, gentle character moments here. What I am wary about is how far we are from the end and whether my investment levels will be maintained. I'm invested in the characters, and the decision to be made, so it's okay at the moment, but...I'm concerned it might be drawn out. (page 3) - "J wouldn’t even need his magic to tell" - This never seemed to be a thing in the story. Okay, I get that j wasn't a player in the plot, so that's fine, and it was important that he wasn't, because he would have taken agency away from Ir, it's just that his magic was explained, but never used, almost like an unfired Chekov's gun. - "The jangle of the cafe" - off word to use. Is everyone carrying keys in their hand? - "What does the job entail" - Right, I think this is the point at which we get into too much detail. The reader already knows what it entails, we know all the issues, the heart-wrenching of leaving family. I don't think we need this to be played once when the BK makes the offer; twice, here with the musicians (friends!); thrice, with her family (I'm anticipating that coming next), before--on the fourth, or maybe fifth retreading of the same internal debate, she finally makes a decision. (page 4) - I agree it's important to have a scene with the musicians, but I would suggest cutting and pasting it into a separate document and slashing it hard of everything that the reader already knows. Keep the good lines, but cut anything we already know. The bit about her not having told her family, that's fine, but let's get to that and get on to the family ASAP. (page 5) - "I needed to beat you all so bad you’ll flee to the F" - past tense!! Passive!! Suggest more active 'I'm going to beat you all so bad...' (page 6) - "and the smile slipped at the thought of the musicians and their conversation two weeks ago" - Bah, too long. I think it undermines the scene with her friends if she doesn't follow through for 2 weeks. Running the decision right down to the wire seems kind of like an artificial attempt to maintain tension that doesn't exist, IMO. - "The loss of T, and Sue’s exile" - need a comma here, or you read right through this phrase, and it sounds like T & S's exile has been misplaced. - "I could never leave you all" - I like this moment, and you might even play up a little more the fact that she has made her decision, and it is that she will stay. - "With a rush, as if the words burned her mouth like silver, Ir spat out the details" - there are some rough and ugly words here. I didn't like the tone of this, it sounds almost like she's attacking her family, resenting them. - "they gazed back as if she had..." - I don't understand the reaction here, I don't understand their emotion, the cause of it. (page 7) - "that talked over each other until nothing could be heard over the din" - Don't describe something that they are not doing, it's not compelling, and is kind of misleading to the reader, IMO. I was confused here. - "once-and-a-life-time" - one word, lifetime. - "There had been enough fights, enough guilt slung around" - Really? I find this slightly hard to believe. None of this was on the page, from what I recall. - "for her eldest daughter’s…slavery" - No, it's not slavery, IMO. Sue broke the law. We can talk about the punishment being unreasonably harsh, but 'slavery' implies to me that the person is innocent and pressed into service illegally. (page 8) - Ant has put a hand on Ir's shoulder, grabbed her shoulder and now squeezed her shoulder. Nothing wrong with any of that, but it's getting repetitive. Seems to me her Mom would do more than just 'pat' her shoulder all the time. (page 9) - "I don’t want anything to do with the BK" - hashtag futurerebel. (page 10) - "She felt her parents’ eyes on her back as she closed the door behind her" - not required and dilutes the impact, IMO. Putting this up now because I'm going to pause before reading the last chapter.

See, here's a major conflict/conflicts, but I get very little sense of these from the first chapter. All you need, in a brutally simplicity way (and backed throughout the chapter) is for the maid to say something like, 'But your majesty, surely there's going to be a war, how will my family survive?' The talk about invasion and civil strife isn't enough to the fore. You don't need to explain anything about why it's happening, that can come in plater chapters, just that it is happening and they're going to have a ball when EVERYTHING IS FALLING APART!!! Big, broad strokes, as per my comment above. Don't give us details, give us conflicts, tension, danger, enemies...lots of them. Don't explain the minutiae of why these things are happening (yet), the important thing is to communicate that they are. Don't she people all calm and collected. There is very little character emotion, actually, pretty much none now that I think back on it. They should be upset, at least on the inside, about what's happening all around them. Those emotions betray themselves through external signs, even if the maid id not breaking down in tears, or her mother is not throwing books around the library and her cousin is not sniping at everyone left, right and centre--although--all these things could happen in Chapter 1, as it's set up.

Hi! Very interested to see how the revisions look after the debate on the first sub. I won't be doing LBLs as I've got too much to catch up on in life, but a coupe might sneak in - You won't actually have "12 years after prologue" in the manuscript, right? You really can't mention parts of the book, IMO. It takes the reader right out of the story. It'll be "12 years later" or something like that, right? - Decent first line, I'm interested to keep reading. - Okay, we're disappearing into religious dogma here. I'm bored. I need character. Story is all about character. Someone in Writing Excuses (I think, although I can't find my note) recently quoted a famous writer who said that the reader needs a foothold int he story, somewhere to stand and contemplate what's happening. I don't get that here. I need to know who I'm with, having something to engage me with them before rolling out this background. I know we talked about establishing the simple fact of there being two gods, but not the very first thing in the book. - "an indicator of the Goddess’s blessing" - This is better. The falcon was a promising start before, IMO, but it didn't really read to any strong character establishment, which is what I'm hoping for. - "her attention darting back to the falcon often enough that she’d only turned one page in that time" - This is good character detail. This needs to be much, much higher up the page, IMO. - "She nudged the window open" - Here the character has a little agency, shows her inquisitiveness about the world. This stuff is a decent enough opening keep me engaged if it's in the first half of the first page. - "three story drop" - decent tension, I quite like this. For all I know, she might fall out of the window. This is the opening page, not all the religion stuff that I don't care about at this point. - "wiping her hands onto her nightgown to clean off the grime" - another decent character note: she's no slave to propriety, that's good. - "the girl swallowed and turned to take the tray" - Is the maid a girl? If the maid is not younger than the princess, narrative referring to her as a girl is really confusing, IMO. Ah, okay, this is angered later. I think my comment is coloured by how confident the maid is, like an older person, and I think the maid was older in the first version? Anyway, fair enough. - How does Cag relate to Yer? Are they the same? Don't follow. - "How was she ever going to be of any use in her father’s efforts" - Okay, we're getting little character motivation here, and some stakes in terms of the political landscape. This is better than the first version, although I think this political stuff comes a bit too soon. I'm still waiting to become engaged with the main character. I feel like you have a lot of stuff about the m/c in your head, reasons why you love her and writing her story excites you. You have to get that on the first page to engage the reader in the same way that you are. - "picked up her mug of tea" - This is still an issue for me. Can't bring myself to believe they have mugs in a pseudo-historical setting. Readers will have expectations about your world that you can't control, not without far too much exposition about why mugs exist (to take this as an example). Ah, now, this is interesting, and I think an excellent test. I made that comment as soon as I read mug, not continuing to read the rest of the sentence. Now that I have, I see that you did go on to provide some background to justify the use go 'mug'. And, you tied it back into the world-building about Cag, albeit loosely. Do you know, I actually think that kinda works. Not bad. As a reader/writer, this gives me some reassurance that the author is thinking about how everything works, and how it needs to be internally consistent. - "sidetracked by groundless speculation" - Doesn't sound like it's groundless. I get that father could talk the Nobel around the first time Cag took another nation, maybe the second, maybe even the third, but there comes a point at which expansionism is an established pattern and cannot be refuted. It sounds a bit too me that father is deluding himself about the intention of Cag. - "flared to life" - Good to see the use of magic, to know what kind of story I'm in, although I suppose I know that from the prologue. I wondered about this happening higher up, to bring that reminder of magic in sooner, but maybe it's not necessary. - "when there were smaller lands farther inland that would be easier to maintain" - This strikes me as politically and tactically naive. Controlling a costal area for an expansionist power, having a foothold on foreign territory on which to land your troops and resources is vital. You only have to look at the historical examples: the English occupation of parts of northern France; Russia retaining Kaliningrad on the Baltic even now, after the break up of the USSR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad_Oblast), because it is strategically important. If the aggressor attempted to take territory inland without establishing a hold on coastal land, they could be surrounded by defending forces and defeated, driven out. - "help her father" - Okay, it's good to have some kind of motivation and agency from the m/c after her introduction, although I'm not sure that I'm convinced how important a role she could perform as an 18-year old. I'm convinced that she cares about her nation, helping her family, just not that she's likely to be significant in these events (unless through strategic marriage, of course). In summary, after the first section, I think this is significantly better than the first version, but I think it has some way to go still. A lot of the fluff is gone, and that tis good. Things are clearer, there are fewer names flying around. All good. What I need now is more character engagement, higher stakes/conflict. I don't get the feeing that the invasion is necessarily the major conflict of the age. I need to know what the book is about. Basically, you need to telegraph the story. Is it about politic conflict, mainly? I'm presuming it's not about the magical conflict. There's no reference to changing the laws, or much about the different factions within the country. As a result, I assume that the political conflict, the invasion, is the main plot that the story revolves around. That being the case, I think it needs to be played up more, to feel like Gil will be invade sooner or later, and that they need to find a way to resist. - There's quite a lot of set dressing before we got to any substance. I appreciate the desire to show context, but it doesn't really add to the story (just background) when I'm still trying to get character buy-in. Put it this way, the whole of Page 7 could be cut and it would not affect anything else in the chapter. You could go straight to "She tapped lightly on the (library) door..." and nothing would be lost from the story, but the little momentum we have would be maintained. - Ron doesn't say anything, and doesn't do anything. Which is disappointing. Why is he in the scene? Just to introduce him? That's kind of pointless in Chapter 1. It's much more important to achieve full-on main character buy-in and I still don't have that. M/C is an almost completely blank slate at the moment. I do not know why I should be interested in her. I need to be compelled by the main character in the story, on Page 1, and it's not happening in this version. I certainly don't need a(another) character who doesn't do anything. I would cut Ron completely, leave him until he is needed to actually do something. Mother could still say 'Your cousin's here', if you must introduce him now, but only somewhere it fits as an aside, maybe when she's talking about the uncle. - I don't really get the ending. The duke is introduced very late in the chapter, and other starting point, detail, strand in the story, but nothing to cling to. What is the story about? Why should I be interested in this main character? What does she have at stake, and what is her role in this? Why is she compelling as a character? What makes her exciting, engaging, sympathetic? I don't have these things yet, and I need them on Page 1. Overall I think this is improved, that's there to see from the first version, now we can move on to other important things, as noted above: (a) main character buy-in/engagement; (b) personal stakes; (c) clarity of purpose. It may be that the style/shape of the story arc is that this kingdom is assailed on all side by numerous different challenges, the ruling falling apart from the strain of all these conflicts foreign and domestic, but I don't get that sense of overarching stakes, story or personal. That is another key component, along with the character, that needs to come out in this all-important first chapter. Thanks for sharing again

Yeah, me too.