Robinski

In relation to the cult? I must say I didn't recognise the two groupings as connected, although I really should have...

Awesome!! Where's the background picture of your cover, I wonder? I feel that would draw the eye better. This is great, so do peeps vote, or what?

I will probably take you up on that... ;-) Me too!!

I’m keen to be back into this. I feel like the episodic nature is adding to the enjoyment and the tension, a little bit like the old serials of yesteryear, like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers (the originals, mind, where spaceships flew on strings, as they are supposed to). Once again, I will send LBLs by email, but I will paste the (reasonably) substantive comments in here, for discussion. The last section submitted has some nice tension building, but this one dissipated a fair amount of that with the discussion of domestic detail in the S household, and also the philosophical elements. For me, it would be better to get through that more quickly to keep the tension up, or at least prevent it falling too far before you pick it up again. It’s only after 3 pages, when we get the reveal about Maj L having been here, that I really feel any of the tension and excitement of the last section. “this one with a free slab of wood to place in front for privacy” – it’s a doorway, surely it has a door, not a slab of wood. The entrance to the house has a door, why does it sound suddenly as if they live in a cave? “That was not how F smiled.” – ROFL, she’s a Kzin!!!! “then imposed the new music over that in the drop of blood” – Confused. What is the new music? If he's been following K, then her music isn't new (not to mention he’s been working with her for some time), and his music certainly is not new to him, so where has this new refrain come from? “She may have passed close by this house, but not inside” – I'm surprised that they could not tell this from following the trail as they were originally. I thought that the method was accurate enough to know which way K turned at the gate, knowing the difference between going past and going in. Ah, okay, she was that close by. “I found a clue to K’s location” – Hmm, I dispute this. He found a clue that she had passed. That is not the same as having the faintest idea where she is. “Maybe now we would get to the bottom of this” – This line seems a bit simplistic. Surely, there will be stages to 'getting to the bottom of it', and it will not be so simple as just coming across a single, neat answer. Or will it? “fingers of one paw” – I still have a problem with this. Does a paw not have pads (or something), and a hand fingers? “Is that?” – I think there is a POV issue at this point. We are in M’s POV, and yet he ‘deliberately’ doesn’t reveal to the reader what he sees until his colleague has seen it. It felt wrong to me. Mabye it's the pixie-speak, but the last line doesn't really zing for me. I’m in way too deep to not enjoy the submission, but I think there are issues, as noted, and some LBLs. At this late stage, I think more ‘punch’ and ‘zing’ are required, and the tension well off a fair bit in this submission, certainly in the front half, or more. I’m not saying we need all breathless action, but if you’re going to have an interlude in the Sa house, I think it needs to work harder in terms of mystery, intrigue and possibly creepiness(?), or at least otherness, maybe the suggestion of threat in some form. <R>

Righto: Chapter 2. “The ox bellowed and ran” – but it’s still attached to the cart, is it not? Unclear. “inserts of my manacles” – what are the inserts? Unclear. The ending felt strange to me. I struggled with S not going back to the house, S’s home for goodness knows how many years. I appreciate that the urge to be away from it, but to dismiss it from thought so quickly felt wrong to me. This is a very peculiar chapter. It is very clearly the culmination of Chapter 1, not a separate chapter on its own. To carve it off like this feels wholly artificial. What’s the big deal with another 6 pages? A 20-year-old can’t read another 6 pages? I know I’m being bl—dy-minded, but still. I feel maybe there is a better split earlier in the chapter? Dunno. I’ve sent some LBLs, but not many. I felt that some of the action felt more disjointed than in previous versions. Maybe it’s because I'm grumpy this morning. <R>

It's pretty much directly equivalent to Jules Verne's 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth'. Not saying that's good, bad or indifferent. - Does it give away the ending? Maybe not. - Bit wordy. - I don't get the Minecraft reference, but I'm not 12. - Suggestions: Climb! - (Go the other way, brief and to the point, with some urgency) (The) Impossible Ascent Don't Look Down! - (Danger!) - Nope, there are handfuls of books with this title on Amaz*n Impossible Heights The Roof of the World Climb the Crystal Wall Fear of Falling - nope, a few terrible-looking romance novels already got there The Height of the World [character name]'s Climb To Climb the Nether Climbing the Walls

Ah, I understand.

Hey ID, thank you so much for commenting. Yes, that's how it started out, and now this is back as Chapter 2. Oops, thanks. Will do. I'm moving on now, but these things will stand out in the next round, I'm sure. You've not seen the last of that. I'm inclined towards a novella, and the cricketing ladies are a must!! (I think @kais is going to crowdfund that one ). OM_G, I've just had an amazing idea!!!!!!! I don't think Q is beyond being cringey, so I'm going to let that one ride for the moment. PC is not always in his MO. Yeah, this is untidy now, because I've been back and forth editing bits a pieces without going all the way through the chapter to clean it it. I'll fix this, thanks Hmm, now this is a teaser. Excellent suggestion. I think I might try it this way, but... the museum job is actually a set-up by the old man to try and court Q away from the R job, but I also have sort of committed to the idea of writing that episode as a novella, or collection of shorter stories. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I am keen to make your suggestion work in some form. Thanks ID!! Can we agree on royalties of 0.0005%? Super comments, I love being challenged in this way. Thank you so much

Hey Fox, thank you so much for the detailed comments, very helpful, and challenging!! I will now tackle them one at a time... Phew. That was hard work, a real test of the chapter, which is awesome. Thank you!

Hey Kais, thank you so much for commenting. Always challenging, constructive and encouraging. Deal. Noted on the arc. ???? Yeah, I've added a line from Q. Thanks Novella #1. Book 3, or Novella #2. Done, and doubled as a bit of world building Okay. I've tried to drop in a couple more thoughts, but they are treading water at this point, it's true. Great comments, Kais, thanks again

Thanks so much for those G-doc comments; some good fixes there. Much appreciated.

I'll look into that. Hey, @Mandamon, I'm a little confused. Is that the last line in the version your were looking at? The latest version has an addition at the end, the phone call from the Old Man. I'm wondering if there was a disconnect somewhere. Edit: Ah, but I see in your LBLs you are happy with the new last line, so, I think we're good Edit2: Great LBLs; thanks so much. Questions: 1. You questioned Great Slave Lake, and I wasn't sure why. It's in NWT, near Yellowknife, and appears on the map as a huge mass, which is the point I was aiming to make. 2. "Shakespeare's M is a boy." - Okay, forget all the blubbering earlier on. I missed the point, but get it now. I could call Q's weird and often insensitive sense of humour, but I don't really want to have to go into explanation to demonstrate that. So..., I'm not sure what to do there. I will forge ahead and keep in mind for editing. Thanks again!

Top man, thank you

Where do serial punners get sent? State punitentiary.

Again, thank you for that. Really helpful. I replied to the first lot, and will get onto this chapter in the next day or two. Yeah, interesting. Too much to hope that everything works for everyone, of course, but glad you have a positive reaction to Q. If you wouldn't mind, can I ask you to edit your post to replace Q's name. You'd be amazed (or maybe you wouldn't) how such things can be tracked to this forum. Although, Q is a fairly generic word, of course. Thanks again. I will respond to the G-doc

Awesome, you rock. Yeah, I'm, 93% convinced of this, my only worry with it is then having potentially having two Yellowknife chapters together, but I'll like at my chapter map and see how i can make it work Ha, and i think these is me having trimmed it a little too. Back to the letter plank... No doubt he can; thanks for calling me on this. What can I say, I'm setting up my novella series here I may well have added it - in fact, I think I did. Noted. I'll tackle this with an edit right now, I do believe. I'll look into that. Superb comments. Really helpful. Many thanks!!

Phew!

Hey @mrwizard70, thanks so much for the comments. Very helpful to get a perspective from someone not having read Book 1. I can see how that hampered things, but very pleased that Q's section worked so well Thanks again.

Agreed, and I thought the arc was fine. I think you will get away with it in the second chapter, because the first is fast paced. I think you might have more arc problems with later chapters although, that said, I tend to enjoy shorter chapters better.

Thoroughly delighted to hear your news on this. I’ve said before that, meaning no disrespect at all; I enjoyed this story a bit more than Ard. Let’s get going… I’ve gone with LBLs, since this is being subbed, so only the headlines here. LBLs emailed separately. There is some overlap between these comments and the LBLs but there are additional bits in both. Page 3 – I still don't get how a cloak can be tight. Surely their purpose is to be the opposite. Very odd place to leave a certificate. Might it be under mother's untidy mess, or something less specific than unsharpened tools? I don't follow the logic of letting the soldiers in. Surely, they will make much less mess remaining outside? I don't think the mud drips. The boots are in direct contact with the floor, there’s no gap for a drop to occur over. The capitalisation of ‘mother/Mother’ seems to be all over the place. Surely, any parafin in the rag has long since evapourated if S has not been in this shed since their mother left. The cost of the artwork sounds like a very large weight. That was my first reaction. “more than the town made in a year” – I really struggle with this. If that is the case, S and Mother should be wealthy, even from low-level commissions. I suppose maybe they are, I’m just not convinced this makes any sense in terms of econimics, and there is no way S would leave this in a doorway open to the elements. “so our woman alchemist might make a reasonable substitute” – this makes not sense to me. I need a reason why S would serve as a substitute for Mother. However, you provide the explanation later with “She’ll come for you if nothing else”, but that contradicts the earlier statement. Page 12 is the first indication, I think, that it has been night this whole time. I did not get that before. S is too far away to be blinded by a flint spark, surely. “toadstool” – I have severe concerns about this YA thing. How much are you going to have to santise the story; the language; the sex; the body issue? Dare I suggest that you might be ripping the heart out of it? This was as good as ever. I enjoyed it, but now I have this nagging worry that the story is going to be comprosmised (imho) due to a need to soften all the best bits to achieve this YA rating. I’m hoping you’ll be able to allay my fears. <R>

Kudos to @mrwizard70 for reappraising the earlier comments. I do think this is a good point though. Like @Mandamon, I was clear on W's desires, but the underlying 'why' is important. However, I think that you did mention this in one version of the chapter, that W is a foundling, is that correct? If so, and you did not remove the reference in one of the 9,001 earlier edits (the first version not being an edit, of course. I'm paying attention, you see?), then I think you might want to tag it again at the end, to help the reader keep that in mind. Seconded, heartily!! If you stop submitting this before the end, I'm going to come find you, and I know where you work, remember Can I be your androgynous drummer? Absolutely. I shall play electric violin. Ooh, ooh: I'll bring my guitar and bass to REcon - house band!!! *headdesk* But being after a woman doesn't qualify as being interesting? Yup, that first part was my reaction too. I must say I didn't get the f/f angle at all, but probably it just wasn't blatant enough for my blunted sensibilities. Yes, this, totally. Okay, I guess that's where the f/f angle was perceived. I didn't read past hero worship. ROFL - you are incorrigible, @kais

Since you’ve sent a Word file, I will do some in-line comments, but main points here: Again, your easy, approachable style carries my comfortably through the story. I’m quite easily able to imagine the cave. You give us enough smells and other sensations to imagine, without lapsing too much into description, I thought. I like the idea of W’s listening with the entire body. The encounter with L, on page 16, was kind of frustrating, because it was a non-encounter, seeing the person but not talking. The difficulty though, I think, is not to make the chapter any longer, since we’ve had a lot of characters already. Was confused that W was going to feed one animal, then started feeding another. W’s thought about Tim not being punished seems naïve to me. W’s conversation with L is frustrating in places. I’ve included various comments in my LBLs about being more certain and definitive in the language, and weeding out words like ‘a little surprised’. Is the character surprised or not? I think it serves the writing well to be clear, and not leave the reader uncertain. In the conversation though, W giving up after one exchange makes her look so weak and ineffectual. That’s not an attractive quality in an m/c. She’s just managed to engage this respected person in conversation then instantly wants to chuck it? I’m not even sure it’s in character. “Willow nodded, her heart sinking. She was about to explain to the hunter that she wasn’t disobedient for the sake of it, but something told her to keep quiet. There was a distant look in hunter’s eyes as she stared at the mother deer.” – Sometimes, you can let the reader fill in the emotion. I don't think you need to explain everything, or hand the reader everything. Let them work out some stuff for themself. “L’s solemn nod after W made her first kill” – It just struck me here that W’s urge to become a hunter seems at odds with her obvious love of animals. The bit where W considers being indispensible feels like repetition, but only in the phrasing of it. I don't have a problem with her thinking about being indsipensible, but she has already introduced this thread in her thinking, so I think it would be better to refer back to it. “or even a functioning gateway to J - the realm their ancestors came from” – Whoa there, what now to where now? This threw me for a loop. Dropping a new name in there right at the end of the chapter is a no-no for me. You're aiming to close the chapter our, but you're introducing a completely new idea. · I like the close of the chapter, leaving us with a clear image of the m/c's aspirations. This was good, easy to read and to follow. I have some issues however, main ones above, and many details in the LBLs. The biggest difficulty, I think, is the number of characters. It feels to me like they are being shoehorned in left, right and centre. There are some clear and clearly important NPCs, and W speaks to those people, has conflict with them, and their characters and impact on W comes out clearly. BUT, there are also names thrown in when the characters don’t appear. I would give strong consideration to cutting those, letting us focus on the people who are there. There is no way the reader is going to remember the name of a character who is not on screen, so why mention them at all when you will only need to reintroduce them. Ergo, mentioning them now doesn’t achieve anything, imho, other than taking away from the recognition of the characters who are in the chapter. It’s a good first chapter, for me, but a trifle long. I think some of the wording is unnecessary and could be cut down to make the chapter more direct and flowing. I'm happy to take a pot-shot at that in an alpha-read of the whole story, as I mentioned before. This is good. Keep going. Chapter 2 please <R>

Cruel and unusual punishment.

People who use 'less' when it should be 'fewer' Split infinitives. (Darn you, Gene Roddenberry!! )

I felt the action was rolling, then suddenly we were talking about laundry. I'm meant it's not Q we're dealing with here Cheeky whipper-snapper!! <cough, splutter> That's cool. Just based on pacing and components, I figured we must be nearing the end. Still loving the story and looking forward to reading it complete and edited down the line