Robinski

I would like to submit on Monday, please, if there is a spot available.

Lol, yes.

Hello and welcome to submitting. I hope you have as much fun here as I do. I LOVE time travel stories, and it’s nice to get a short to critique, as mostly we seem to have novel chapters. I hope these comments are useful; sorry they are so late in the week. I like the idea of the piano music being seasoning for the conversation. ‘melting pot’ tripped me up at first, but on second reading, I guess so. I’m not quite sure how to picture what the pianist is wearing. ‘muslin’, to me, is just a big cloth, mostly sheer, but not all that thick. But, is it a dress, a wrap? I’m a page in: I like to take stock at that point. I find your writing easy to read and quietly engaging. This doesn’t strike me as a story full of fireworks, and seems to aim fort subtlety to engage the reader; mood and character, which I can get on board with for sure. I like the fact that the setting is very simple (so far), and there are only two characters (so far). Similarly, the ideas are simple, so far, giving the reader time to ease into the story and what are some big concepts once you start to bat them around. Good job so far. The POV is drifting, it seems. “But you can do it and know?” – This line wasn’t clear, for me. I’m assuming a contemporary setting, approximately. I found the mocking formality of this line “I’m afraid you jest with me, sir” rather off-putting. The dialogue has been largely without ‘ticks’ so far. This line didn’t hit the mark for me… The heckler using the word ‘pleasant’ seemed off to me. …then with “common room to the tavern’s door” suddenly I'm not sure what kind of setting I'm in. If it was contemporary I'd expect to hear about a pub or bar. “the only person on earth” – Earth, as it’s the name of the planet. “He imagines it as clear as he possibly can” – grammar: ‘clearly’ “Flicker” – aw, yes; I love how time travel works, that is excellent. Yes; POV is moving again. You talk about W seeming nervous, which is not in his POV, and yet the rest is. “How he discovered what he could do, his theory behind it, his search for others like himself.” I like how you just lay this all out an essential tell the reader to accept it. I think that’s fine in a short story like this. Certainty and accuracy: to me, words like ‘reddish’ are weak, especially in a short. Compare this to saying ‘auburn’ and moving past it. I don’t think you want the reader mulling on what colour her hair is. The exchange on Page 8, when W tells her about the mugging, felt off to me. I thought the dialogue was cumbersome. W turning away seems out of character, considering he’s trying to save her. “You play too good for this place” – Gah: grammar. W strikes me as being fairly well educated. So, I think he would know that she plays too ‘well’, or is too ‘skilled’ for the inn. Also, ‘this place’ clashed for me, because they are not in the place anymore. “Do you have a plan?” – my first reaction was that this line is horribly clichéd; then it did occur to me that, having believe his time travel story, she reasonably could expect that he might, and therefore the question becomes legitimate. I think you might find a more interesting and entertaining way to phrase the question. I don’t mean in a snarky ‘Hollywood’ way, just something a bit more interesting. I like the pacing of the story, the ramping up of the violence and the stakes as we near the end. I’m on Page 10 when W shifts back again, and this time the stakes are increased. I’m very much engaged in finding out how this ends. “looks around herself wearily” – I know, it’s wordsmithing, and this is a first draft, but I just can’t read past some things; sorry. It’s more than danger, it seems to me, it’s death. The POV shifting kind of spoiled this for me, but it’s easy enough to fix, I don’t think there’s any instance of it that cannot firmly be put back in W’s POV. I found the style easy to read, perhaps a bit functional, but that’s not necessary a bad thing in a short which is an idea story. And it’s a first draft, so really good for being that, when you have ‘all’ those later drafts to insert craft and wordsmithing, etc. For a time travel story, the plot here is simple, but I think that makes it more effective. Some t/t stories get weighed down with paradox and theory, and can end up becoming cluttered. I like that you concentrate on character. I think the story would benefit from developing those main characters some more, not in terms of background, but depth of reaction. And I don’t mean adding adjectives; but more refining the consistency of reaction. The ending: it’s fine, and I get how you end up there, but I'm not sure you’ve sold it to me. In part, I think this is down to the characters needing to be a bit more compelling. I don’t really know what their hopes and dreams are, apart from the one of W’s that features in the story. I’d like to feel more emotion in it, I don’t think the payoff quite hits the spot. Summing up though, I think you have a really decent first draft here, and that it deserves few edits to see how good it can be. Nice job. <R>

Thanks guys. I really appreciate the feedback. I guess I knew the answer to this already. The thing is, Chapter 6, which you haven't read, is now Chapter 4, and Chapter 7, unread by yoos, is now Chapter 2! I think I need to start again. For your forbearance

It's a pity about your data allowance, because you can get Brandon's lecture series on line, on You Tube. The videos are free, but not the data, of course. How about going to a cafe with free wifi, would that work? I admire your optimism. Scotland (and the UK) has just been forecast with quite a severe cold front coming in for the next week or so. May not get above '0' for a week

So... I hope I have addressed the last comments on TCC by rearranging the first few chapters and adding some material (also taking some out). I am unsure now whether to start at the beginning again, or offer up this initial seven chapters (about 25,000 words) for beta reading, since you've seen them quite recently. Any thoughts?

Go to the link at the bottom of ID's inserted image - 'Episode Transcripts'. There are text versions of many of the series, but I'm not sure if they go all the way back to the beginning

And remember it's a 5,000 word limit; also, you're usually good to +10% (5,500 or so) without needing to ask for acceptance to go longer

Aaaaaaaaaannnnddddd, we’re back. Where the hell have you been?! Let’s get into this. I think you’re 642nd version of the first line and first paragraph are strong Start with the smoking gun; crate mystery, tension, doubt, intrigue. Excellent. I think you could make it one paragraph, personally. “If they survived the attacked” – typo. “she could not take a step without” – another step? Or, could hardly take a step? The original phrasing suggests to me she’s standing still. “looming, jagged forms” – comma, please; as it’s a list, albeit a short one. “the region of their known landscape” – this phrasing was complicated for me; I didn’t get a clear sense of the geography Curious. The giant standing there must have squished all the grass down. So, presumably we’re to think that this happened some time ago? Secondly, if water started running into the footprint immediately, would the grass grow back quick enough to beat the rising level of the growing pool? Nice imagery whatever the case. “inky eyes regarding her as intently as the woman’s” – i.e. the woman’s eyes, I guess, not regarding the woman. “a hand full of lady’s” – I know this isn’t wrong, but I wanted to make it ‘handful’. Also, shake the water off the plant or it’s going to make the basket wet, and any herbs already in the basket, and the basket might get mouldy if not left to air out properly “What could have unsettled her like this?” – The giant’s footprint? Wait, how did she not see the footprint, if it’s big enough for W to lie down in? “through the gate with the huge black deer” – missing word, or rephrase I like the tension here, and the mystery, but then I always did. I think it needs to be more convincing about how F didn’t see the footprint. Good characterisation so far. W’s inquisitive mind is engaging, and clearly she’s not beyond a bit of deception, and potentially there is something deeper going on. “and the dull of chipping of metal on rock” – missing word. Also, when does rock become stone? I kind of feel that once it’s been quarried, and is being worked on by a mason in their yard, it’s stone, but that may not be the distinction after all. How long is this tunnel? It feels a bit odd. Is it not just an archway in the wall? What purpose does it serve? It wasn’t there in previous drafts, was it? Transport engineer response: The main entrance to the town coming into a small courtyard doesn’t compute for me. How do they deal with large volumes of people? What if they have to evacuate, if there’s a fire or some such? How to wagons make turns or pass each other in a small courtyard? I think this needs to be a bigger space. Look at the example of medieval towns in England, I bet they have arrival ‘spaces’. A small courtyard, to me, is maybe 10m square at most. “patches of barely” – barley, presumably. “not been born her” – typo “being merely hard working ” – ‘hardworking’, I think “through the smoke filled air” – I think this, and various other instances of compound adjectives, need to be hyphenated, or the sense of the phrase changes. I like how we get a clear introduction to W’s goal, her aim, to become accepted in the village. I’ve been trying to work on that in my own writing. It’s nice to see it done effectively. “A gust of wind blow” – typo You repeat ‘Green Ocean’ twice close together near the bottom of Page 9. I always think such repetition sounds ‘off’. “there were an adequate number” – ‘was’, number is singular For what it’s worth, I’ve heard of nerves being frayed, but not spirits. Perhaps that’s my problem, expecting to hear the more conventional phrase, but I think that’s why conventional phrases work, in part, because they are familiar, we can relate to them, understand them from our experience rather than just through reading them. Good job. I’m on board, but then I always was. I expect to see the next bit next week, okay? In my view, there is nothing here that is ‘broken’, so no need to go back (or forward) changing a bunch of stuff, in my view. Just keep going!! It’s good to have you back <R>

Ah, there was an email clear out a little while ago. Is it the email address you use for our correspondence? I can add that back in.

Good to have you back and read something else from you. “hulls coruscating” – Hmm, I'm not convinced about iron coruscating. Shiny iron = steel, doesn’t it? Otherwise, iron is pretty dull, isn’t it? “and the ships neared” – blocking: I'm not sure which ship(s) is (are) in motion and which not. But she was able to see two hulls, so the other ship was visible, surely? “It was small, dark against the morning sky” – I thought the unlicensed ship was one of the coruscating hulls. “The sun rose and the ships neared” – Surely, the ships close very much quicker than the sun rises. “with such vibrance” – vibrancy. Vibrance not a word. “a perfect model of repose” – repose means rest and relaxation. Maybe composure? “heading sixty degrees south of east” – engineering quibble. This is the same as thirty degrees north (or east?) of south. There isn’t much logic in referencing a bearing by the longer distance from one of two datum points. Comments aside, after a page, I am engaged in the story. I'm not sure if the opening lines are quite strong enough, but I'm intrigued to find out what the ship is doing, and the main character seems authoritative and inquiring. If their heading was across empty ocean, how would they have been stopping here for food? “and backing down would indicate weakness” – word missing? Why would the captive woman have the same rank? That seemed odd to me. I don’t see why something like that would translate. Also, it seems odd that the young woman would have a military title (as it sounds). Is this not clearly a crew of civilians? “on the other side of the boiling sea” – Is this the name of the sea? If so, it should be capitalised. “nomadic Barbarians would roam so far, “What” – Why is barbarians capitalised; is it the name of race? Seems inappropriate, as it’s a generic term. Also, new sentence before dialogue. “The woman had an earnesty to her” – not a word. Earnestness. Why don’t you show the barbarian word for book. It’s odd to explain something that isn’t on the page, if you see what I mean. “Mother? I wouldn’t assume” – imo, ‘presume’ would be more appropriate here. “a single thread of falsehood woven into a tapestry of truths” – superb line; very elegant and thought-provoking. “The white-haired woman grabbed the book from the table” – I know that this is a cultural difference between USA and UK, however I will raise it, because I don’t think I'm wrong in saying that this word isn’t the best for conveying tone. To me, ‘grabbed’ is an urgent, almost violent, gesture. Oxford Living Dictionary defines it as “Grasp or seize suddenly and roughly”. Even if you don’t accept that meaning, I think it still sounds like the secondary meaning of grab, which is casual, relaxed, informal—which I think still does not fit the tone, personally. Half way through and I remain engaged, curious, without being enthralled. It’s an interesting story and I'm keen to get to the end to find out what happens. I'm also hoping that the pace picks up a bit, but I realise that it might not, as it seems to be an idea story, rather than conflict-based, so far! “watched in interest” = phrasing. I think it’s more natural to say ‘with interest’, or ‘in earnest’—although that doesn’t fit so well. “and continued. “6.” Six of what?” – did someone speak the word ‘six’? Some of the punctuation is puzzling and makes me stop reading to try and figure out what’s going on. “She read it to herself, Q, A, D. Pronounced, that would be, “Q.” The realization hit her, “K.”” – again, I'm left swimming in punctuation and not able to follow whether someone is speaking or not. “believe in L’s more than all her previous explainations had” – missing word, and typo. “pointed it straight upward, and pulled the trigger twice” – I know this is great drama but, surely, an experienced soldier would not to this, especially not a commander. There much be a risk that someone could be standing on the roof of the enclosure they are in, especially on a boat. More importantly, D is breaking her own rules and revealing the strength of her nation to a women who she suspected could be lying to her only moment before, or at least was conscious of the possibility, in setting very specific rules, which D has just breached herself. It’s clear that D is not stupid, from the way she has approached the situation. This broke my belief in D. “never splitting because truth does not have multiple endpoints, it does not contradict itself” – Hmm, are you sure about that? This is an interesting philosophical debate in itself. I like the basis for the Course as a nation named after its beliefs, and the idea of those beliefs themselves is interesting, differently expressed if not necessarily unique. “middle line between north and south” the equator, “is very hot.” – again, I really don’t know what’s happening with the punctuation. Is this just a typo? I'm two-thirds of the way through a story, only for another story to start. I did not react well to this, but ill kept going in the hope that this is not going to be a long interlude. “seasons ago,” just over two-hundred and fifty years, “The tribe came across a dying man” – seriously, this punctuation is weird. Is the definition of the length of time supposed to be an internal thought, an author’s note? I think it would be much better for D just to speak this out loud. It might be a little strange, but she could be saying it for her own benefit, as if checking her math, but with the hidden purpose of giving the reader information. Even putting it in brackets would be better than this. “I walk the Course of Aeons” – missing word? “On his way there, his ship crashed” – not a very nautical word. Ships more often are described as being wrecked, or run aground, capsized, sunk, etc. “empires would have risen and fell fallen” – tense I’m confused. Who got shot at the end. I guess it was L, but I don’t think it’s entirely clear. Interesting story, I'm glad to have read it. Nice how you brought it around to the phrase about making truths from a lie. There was portions that felt a little slow, not least the story about the man in the desert. Clearly, that is a central part of the story, but there is a risk in introducing a completely new element that late in a short story. I would suggest that it might be cut down a bit, which usually is easy enough to do. Nice job. <R>

Hmm...this should have come across in Seeds, too. Maybe I need to read those convos again. Pixies tend toward very clipped speech, sort of like shorthand notes. For what it's worth, I was fine with this, as I remembered that pixies talk 'funny' in this manner.

Yes, #iagreewithkais

Comments; finally! And apologies, I think I should have gone to in-line and emailed you a file back, sorry for the length of this. “those with social and commitment issues such as myself” – social covers a broad range of issues, but ‘commitment’ seems to belong to the group of issues covered by ‘social’. My writer-brain is screaming ‘behavioural’ at me as an alternative to ‘commitment’. “and that would require knowledge revelation of my situation in the Society” – suggested for clarity “nicknamed” – this seems quite casual, which isn’t the tone of the epigraph, overall. “I walked, slowly, down the corridors of the mansion in P” – fantastic first line. “found ST dead in the first case place” – somehow, case sounded wrong to my. Not sure why, but still. “before I even entered the room” – repetition of ‘even’ soon after. “The workshop I shared with the F and the P” – repetition of the same form of phrase from a paragraph ago. I feel like ‘we shared’ would suffice. “our constant inventions and tinkerings” – it’s not the inventions that are constant, but the inventing, I think. The method of working sounds really unprofessional. I'm not sure how they achieve anything. The first half of this second page, for me, is really rambling and a bit messy. I think it needs sharpening up a fair bit. “Was anticipating you back soon” – ‘sooner’, presumably? “half lifted by her wings” – is that not flying? Phrasing seems unnecessarily complicated. “limiting us from speaking about the Society” – isn’t it preventing? Somehow, limiting doesn’t sound so absolute, as if there are limits, within which they can mention the society. “There was a silence, as both…” – what purpose does ‘a’ serve apart from complicating the phrasing? “and the warnings the Benish had told me about” – I think warnings, usually, are ‘given’. How is K one step ahead, when she is asking where they start? This didn’t make sense to me. “one of the slowly dying scientist class” – sounds like the scientists are dying. How about declining? “nearly a lifetimes for” – typo. K sounds pretty belligerent to me. “see if any others were taken” – any other what? I need a reminder here. “The two others considered” – one of these is redundant. Repetition of ‘information’. “she said. House of Grace” – missing “ “This will still take time,” I said. “That will require,” – awkward phrasing. Repetition of ‘I could tell’. “I did a quick sum on my fingers” – It sounds like Man can’t do this sum without counting on his fingers. I presume he can do it in his head, but it’s the phrasing that makes him look a bit dense. “there has to be at least two or three of each” – have? How about ‘must be’? “Would some specific title be more suspect?” It was a pointless exercise” – I don’t know what this means. Also, what is ‘it’? Investigating? I'm starting to glaze over when the beginning explaining all the combination and the titles. Is this relevant? If the reason for the killing is about some minutiae associated with a particular combination of houses, I'm concerned that I won’t care enough to remain invested. We’re delving into some very fine detail here, but I’m not sure I'm really feeling the stakes. What are the stakes? Members of the society being reprimanded? The society being disbanded? I’m not sure I'm invested enough at this point. “I wonder if the other Councilors even know they have two houses?” – Don’t think I understand how they could not. Wouldn’t they hear things? “Now you mentioned a couple other m on the list” – Surely they all were m on the list? It’s just the phrasing. “I doubt she’s harmed more than a hot meal in cycles” - ?? “turned our steps to one of higher floors” – typo “most of those in the Society preferred to stay in the obscurity of P” – sorry, I know it’s wordsmithing, but I can’t help myself. “painted red door” – red painted? “covered the m to knees” – her knees, the knees? Sas have knees? I always pictured them more snaky than that, I think. “against my leg, leaving a white smear on my pant leg” – repetition of ‘leg’. “lolling in silent F laugher” – typo “waved a wizened arm, and I could barely stop myself from staring at the loose scaly skin on her arm” – repetition of ‘arm’, not necessary, imo. “must have requested her baffles opened all the way” - ?? “around one earhole” – I do believe this might be one word. “would not help with the murdered Speaker” – Stakes. Suggest: ‘Would not help track the murderer.’ “Who’s was the last name on the list” – this kind of makes it sound like they’ve been through an exhaustive list, when they’ve only tracked one person. “at the last big meeting” – this sounds rather underwhelming. These are scientists, are they not? And it isn’t as if they are speaking in a foreign language, so I would expect their phrasing to be more sophisticated, like maybe symposium, or convocation. “The one about how all the members of the Society had to pull together and work together? Sounded like generic noise. Uninspired. I guess belonging to the house of Communication doesn’t guarantee good speaking skills” – First sentence, again, rather unsophisticated, compared to ‘On the theme of cooperation within the Society?’ Second underline, ‘oratory’? “but neither did it sound like one who would betray the Society” – It > him? or is it the lecture? “was a short Lob” – As in ‘short for a Lob?’ “with wide, surprised eyes” – Two items still is a list, imo. “We had a few questions” – they still do. “the names of Society members leaking out to the general public” – But they don’t know this yet. Man is presenting it as if it has already happened. They don’t know this for a fact yet, do they? “spouses were staring in horror” – the tense diminishes the shock, imo, compared to spouses stared in horror “may be an attempt to bring the Society specifically into the open” – again, stakes. ‘Expose the society’ is more urgent and emotive, I think. “Our friends in the Imp all know I have two houses” – does he mean two domiciles? I thought the people didn’t know about Ma with two houses, that they forgot over time? “could expound theories of the universe any better than regular people” – I think this phrasing is used when someone can’t do anything ‘any better than’ some group. “It was reaching late in the afternoon by this point” – suggest for directness. “We’ll let you know as soon as we hear a thing” – anything? “walked down the hallways of the mansion for a few minutes” – where are they going? “He can’t have had anything to do with this” – Why not? What makes them think this? They don’t seem to consider the possibility that someone could lie to them. “There’s no seeming connection between the names, save ours” – I don’t find this all that clear, because of the breaking of the phrase. ‘Seemingly, there’s no connection’ to me, is much more direct. I forgot who Ae was and what he was. Maybe WRS though. “the theft in the records” – of the records? “to see if anything else was stolen” – was anything stolen? I thought the list was created by someone, not part of an official register, so, the list didn’t really belong to the Society, did it? Therefore, nothing physical was stolen, but rather information. “in one of the upper levels” – suggest ‘on’ Very nice punchline. I suppose I should have suspected that, but I didn’t, so nice job. This part flows well enough, but I want the stakes to be higher. I don’t think that needs to mean end of the world, but I just don’t feel much urgency or danger. It was slow in places, and I think some cutting and condensing language would serve the piece well where ‘they’ lapse into quite fine detail that steals any momentum that is built up. I enjoyed the characters and the dynamics of the relationships. Others have said it, as have I in the (distant!) past, but perhaps not enough recently: the depth of the world; the systems; the setting; the background; the ‘magic’, is just so deep, colourful, immersive and so very, very satisfying. Even when the plot is not quite singing, it is still very enjoyable to read. All the more reason, of course, to strive to hone the plot to be the best it can be. <R>

No, I’m not really sure where I was either. “berth three thousand five hundred and four, docking bay nine, aft hangar” – there’s an argument to say these are names, and could be capitalised. I dunno: that’s a lot of CAPS. It would be interesting to know what an editor thought of it, but I wouldn’t ask one if I knew one as, probably, such trivia would rile them up something good. “frigates, liners, cutters, dredgers, and shuttles” – to me, a shuttle, by definition, is a small vessel that runs back and forth to larger vessels, and so tends to be quite small itself. We know already that the Pledge is a former Russian Buran, the equivalent of the Space Shuttle. So, I don’t but that ‘shuttles’ would dwarf the Pledge. “It showed 12/29” – what time format is this? I don’t follow. The alien-ness of the time, I think, would be better shown by a time like 25:12, for example. 12/29 looks like a date to me. If this is supposed to be almost 12:30, then 12:29 is more conventional time format. I get a bit disoriented by some of the terminology. You refer to berth, then to a bay. I’m happy enough with that. Then, comes hangar. If you look at existing airports, a hangar might contain a handful of smaller planes, or one big one. A space as big as you describe here, I think, is far too big to be described as a hangar, which will set most readers’ expectations at a much smaller space, I think. The description sort of sounds like the whole spaceport, rather than just one hangar. “one language representation” – not keen on this phrase. ‘Primary language’ I think is clearer, but today there is talk about ‘universal language’. Not sure how that applies when there are actually other races in the universe, but a universal language for humankind anyway. “which was better than the almost-vomiting flips he’d had experienced in the docking bay” – not keen on the repetition of ‘flips’. ‘almost-vomit flips’ is not a clear phrase, imo. “was built on the backs back of N an plantation farming” – farming is singular. “M?” he asked. “Cause the blue tunic-” – does he need to speak the second bit out loud? Why would he? He certainly doesn’t need to explain to the R. “You understand that is illegal. All of it” – This really doesn’t help my understanding of what is illegal and what isn’t. I’m back to being confused. Maybe it’s WRS by now. “The worse worst the m would do would was…” – the double ‘would’ is pretty ugly too. “but only in relation to for the Rs themselves” – suggest for directness “He leaned against the back of his chair” – awkward, compared to ‘He leaned back in his chair.’ There’s a line about reader not seeing the writing. The writing is visible here. “Some cheap, grocery store checkout lane” – comma, or is sounds like a cheap grocery store. “Keep me busy instead of incarceration incarcerated” – suggested for clarity/flow “The copious hair on Y’s arm raised rose for a moment” “has exactly the format of climate controlled the exact format of climate control required for live tree shipment” – sorry, I know I’m suggesting wordsmithing, I just get riled really easily by this stuff. “on the table top of the table” – flow “seriousness” – this is not a nice word, how about ‘calmness’, ‘sobriety’, ‘resolve’? “When we are seeking to carrying harvested plantation trees from the N System, yes I agree with you.” “Sign where indicated here and you are free to go” – for impact “find some other cremhole to run it, . Not unless the R was willing…” – for clarity “You can’t afford what I want” – but they could afford any of those requests, so I guess this shows his lack of awareness of the Rs? “Revulsion rose in his throat before everything got still” – not elegant phrasing. “responsible for the invasive peace” – is this the word? I feel distanced from Y again. World peace is not to be sneezed at. I think we would all take it right now, maybe? “raped one of the few remaining old growth forests on Earth” – I thought you’d fixed this to make Y less unsympathetic? I’m about ready for him to be executed now. “Because he was a criminal, if a petty one, and that didn’t bother him” – I don’t think destroying the last old growth on earth is petty. Haunted childhood, boo-hoo. Lots of people have sht childhoods and make the best of themselves without feeling they have some God-given right to destroy the Earth’s natural heritage. “we don’t care” – Surely, this is a massive reveal. I’ve haven’t read the trilogy all the way through, but this undermines the whole galactic peace thing, doesn’t it? Revealing that the Rs’ motives are not in the interests of peace at all? I want to follow this thread up now. “will pay whatever your price you want” “or not being able to get a toy” – huh? By the time I get to the end, I don’t want Y to have fun, I want him to be punished. He’s just ‘raped’ my planet and taken a good deal of relish in it. All very well starting out a novel, or a trilogy with a morally repugnant character, but ending a short with one is something I'm not convinced about. You do set up the mystery quite nicely. The R’s line and behaviour certainly conveyed that there was something underlying, but I felt that I was quite distracted by my increasing loathing for a character that I had enjoyed and identified with in the trilogy, and at the beginning of this story, to a lesser extent. I’m going to be interested to see how other reacted to this. I think there’s a line that is difficult to walk when it comes to characters displaying criminality. I hate gangster movies, because gangsters prey on innocents and therefore should be ended at the first opportunity. There is no such thing as a victimless crime, but it’s possible to display criminality in characters if they are stealing from the rich, or other criminals. Stealing from big business is a grey area, because the customer pays for the losses in the end, similarly with insurance fraud. So, blathering aside, my big take-away is now feeling down on Y, where I was in a good place with him before <R>

AHHHHHHHHHHH!! I'm not sure that was clear.

Old decay smells different than new decay... this is the microbiologist in me. Is it too confusing? But you used the word 'death' not decay. Decay would be clearer. It's in yellow because it's not meant to stay there. It's a dating placeholder for me. I think it was only the 12 years bit that was in yellow, but the whole line about the aliens arriving, for me, is a bit like someone telling me that there's a planet caller Mars. No.... should I? (is admitting this going to be like the time I admitted to never having read any of the LofR books?) Sorry, my oblique way of saying maid-and-butler again! The humans giving up their arms sounded very m-&-b, to me. I've never watched an episode of Downton myself. Yes. The -- breaks are meant as small time jumps. Think I should make that clearer? This jump was rather harsh for me, seemed like he was just talking about getting the wood, then it's in the shuttle. I'd like to 'hear' him at least thinking of the logistics. I mean how the heck did they get all that wood into the museum without anyone noticing? That's a whole story in itself. Whaaaaaaa...? I guess the siding they use in houses has been treated to detoxify it then? I'm glad you don't dwell on that, because it seems even more unbelievable than the shoe thing. For one thing, someone felled that cedar, so they broke the law, surely? Some people might have dropped little, even accidentally--isn't that breaking the law in some places? What is the law? is it the criminal code, or does it include town ordinances? Jaywalking: I bet someone in the whole of human existence has jaywalked since the aliens arrived. I just have this plausibility gap on this point. Underage drinking, for example. So, nowhere in human existence has a 15-year-old snuck a beer at a party? OR, is it the fact that no one has been caught, or certainly not prosecuted, but rather given a stern lecture then the matter swept under the carpet by the R's? It's the absolutely certainty of the statement, beside the absolute unknowability of it actually being true. So, how irritating is this? I was trying to set up the frustrating nature of sudden peace, The thing is, I think there is confusion between peace and lawbreaking, which are completely different things. For one thing, war is not against the law. For another, as I've noted, I think absolutely lack of crime is impossible, because some low-level crime happens by accident, without the 'criminal' knowing.

Hey toomsta, great to hear from you. Err, nope. There's more to come. Book 1 had another POV thread running through it and this book will too, to some extent. Hmm, interesting. I'm filing this one away, and will consider in the next edit from the start. I'm not sure now what you've read, but there is a personal aspect. Were you in for the call from the Old Man? If not, okay. If so, then there's a good chance I need to call that out more. x x x x x x x Okay, this is not working. Thank you all for your comments. Thank you @industrialistDragon, too for taking the time to comment. I'm going to stop here and step back. I don't want to keep going with a through-line or 'plot' that's not engaging readers correctly. I'm going to go back to the beginning and fix before submitting any more.

Very interested to have another look at this “since it’s its initial flight” – typo. “he hoped was an endearing show” – it’s not exactly Disney on Ice. Sounds more like a gesture to me. “at the rank smell of rank old oil and deteriorating plastic” – I think I mentioned this last time(?). It’s the smell that’s rank, not the oil, surely. However, I appreciate its scans better with an adjective before ‘oil’. “There was just old death” – I thought at first this meant Death the person, but that would be capitalised, obviously, so, I'm not sure what this means. Is it like good old reliable death? I don’t really get the sense of it. “memories of the high price of meat” – the price being ‘high’ doesn’t seem to warrant the strength of feeling here. I’m thinking that ‘exorbitant’ (for example) would better match the strength of Y’s reaction. “never getting into a condo because the lottery was never in their favor” – as a European, the term ‘condo’ has never really scanned for me. I’m sure that, in Poland in the 80s/90s (Y’s youth), they didn’t call them condos. Probably still don’t. I think a word like ‘apartment’ is much more universal. But isn’t it more than that? Isn’t about them getting a shitty state-built and managed dwelling? Verging on a slum? What does having kids have to do with buying toilet paper? Is the inference that he himself never used the stuff, but if he had kids he would need to start?! “Off of Earth, out of his solar system” – the day I stop calling this one is the day I’ve lost my sight. I challenge you to find a (not self-) published work that has this horrible-sounding phrase in it. “now instead of the thinly veiled racist ideology” “didn’t believe either of those came without a price, either” – is this a stress at the end, or a typo repetition. If it’s repetition for stress, I would suggest ‘either of them’ at the end; repeating the whole phrase. “other than the peace-toting Rs that came knocking at our solar door twelve years ago” – Major, major, maid-and-butler. “pay a guy to redo the wiring” – suggestion for clarity. “Apparently humans didn’t want to give up their guns when the peace treaty was signed.” – You do watch Downton Abbey, don’t you? “rip rusting metal” – this is maybe one for the Mech. Eng. Department (that’s you, @Mandamon!!), but those panels ain’t going to be rusty, surely? Would they even be corroded at all? What are shuttles made of? Admittedly, Russian ones might be different, but I'm willing to bet there is very little iron on a reusable space vehicle. “your enunciation range” – enunciation have a range? In any case, I'm not sure that’s the right word. Isn’t it pronunciation? I would say enunciation is about clarity of speech, whereas pronunciation is about speaking the sounds properly. “shores of the Madre De Dios river decayed” – aren’t they banks? And aren’t they eroded? “The trees could figure out how to take care of themselves.” – Now then. You remember how offended and disappointed I was by Y’s attitude before. You’ve fixed it just fine. I love this line. It’s no less mercenary, but somehow it’s less heartless, and you sort of explain how at least he’s saving the trees from a useless fate. He’s practically re-using! “the newly remodeled cargo hold” – the wood is already in the shuttle? “doesn’t even look drivable from the outside, much less flyable” – this phrasing makes ‘flyable’ sound like the extreme of the range of the shuttles abilities, but surely it’s designed to fly, but not to be driven. So, in fact, driving would be at the extreme? Can a shuttle even drive (i.e. taxi) at all, or does it get towed everywhere? “Hauling cedar isn’t illegal, even in Peru” – confused, maybe. I thought there was talk of smuggling earlier. So, is it because he’s stolen the cedar, or is it only stealing the shuttle that’s illegal? “black market scents trade” – but hauling cedar’s not illegal, so it’s what you do with it that might be? “R’s were an unknown commodity” – ‘quantity’, it’s the cedar that is the commodity. “He’d replaced the main throttle lever with a yoke—a black one from some old video gaming system, but it’d fit” – think this should be ‘it fit’, personally, because I read it as ‘it would’. There’s no way to tell that from ‘it had’. I feel like most people would read it as ‘it had’, but I may be wrong, of course. “in theory, the Buran would fly” – if ‘all’ he’s doing is changing the control system, would the Buran not have flown before, but it was only that no one knew how to fly it, or were there other things that he replaced preventing it from flying? “suppose supposed to break everything” “So, how to deal with his power problem?” – comma. Also, I thought it was the broken screens that he needed to deal with? “wander around a scrap yard a few countries over” – surely, every country has at least one scrapyard? Or is this special space debris that is only found in Russia? I.e. parts for a Buran? If so, surely he would just say ‘Russia’, instead of failing to name the country, which feels wrong. “There was probably something toxic in the dust and shards at his feet, so maybe he could keep her out that way. Say something just disintegrated or exploded. Really, it was a miracle the ceiling hadn’t fallen in on him yet.” – I don’t think you need to say this, because you’re explaining something that did actually just happen. “be mad and throw things and have him arrested, but wouldn’t, because of R peace” – Eh? But people still get arrest, surely?! There’s no way that no one breaks the law. That’s different from peace. “leaving only the question of how to get the hunk of metal off Earth” – Confused, what happened to the power problem? “To me, YJ, this time of directed internship and globalization, if you will, of the System’s young people has only the noblest of intentions” – I got (sub-)clause-trophobia reading this sentence …also, I'd like to know straight away that it’s Y speaking in this new section, because my expectation is that he won’t leave the Buran until it’s done, so—clearly—there’s no way this can be Y. Oh, it is. Oh, he’s in the shuttle, “smacked the metal wall of the shuttle”, or is he on the inside? Disoriented by lack of blocking of new scene. “he was on a solid footing” – or, ‘solid ground’? “His Risalian interviewer, it seemed, missed the joke.” – But they did miss the joke, it’s completely clear. “Risalian tech installed no problem” – suggest for clarity. “if she got upset about the different planetary systems origins” – suggestion: because ‘planetary systems’ isn’t clearly a reference to the equipment, I think. “not showing up for a meeting” – But, isn’t the R coming to him, like to meet at the museum? “some form of red meat that wasn’t still walking around, he’d be happy.” – Sorry, it’s crossing the line of critique, I know, but this popped into my head and I thought it might tickle your funny bone. I thought this hung together much better than the first time. I enjoyed it more, mostly from the much greater clarity, imo. Doesn’t stop me commenting, of course!! Nice work

Sorry, Mand. I didn't address your specific comments. No--but have now tried to be clearer about this. Oh boy, but there is a short story in Q calling back each of those other possible cases. K was referring to the childish behaviour of both Q and M. I've fixed this. Good call. Guilty of that in TMM, but I have, I hope, made a fix here, and will try to bear that in mind for any future reference herein. Kind of. Mary Q had a Pikachu picture on her desk in TMM. Also, people making fun of Q's name has become something of a side-theme. I've adjusted this a bit. To try and make it make sense. Thank you. Great comments; good fixes

I never doubt that. Just my little joke.

Hey, Kais, thanks for reading... <buckles on kevlar vest before progressing further> Yes, this is a common problem, it seems, not assisted by the skipped week, but still. I accept this. The pick-up of the case needs to be less muddled. Excellent!! Thank you. Got it. I will keep working on this. I've tried that. Good suggestion, I think. It will tend to mean I've got two non-Q-M chapters together, but we'll see how that plays. He's 124. He's, like, the Tony Bennett of his generation. Okay, okay. Let me do something about that... <fixity, fixity, fix> <3 Yeah, okay. Very much NOT intended that way. I'll just cut it: it's a throw-away line. Perfect Thanks so much for the comments, Kais--much appreciated.

Hey Man, thank you so much for reading. I thought there might be some of this. I'll let it ride for now. Excellent. On the case, I did change that a bit, and it may have become a bit muddled. I've taken a note, and will pick up on the next edit. Good. On the M thing, I will see how the other comments play out, but I can understand this reaction. Hmm, okay. Again, I'll see what the others say. I know Brandon is a fan of giving the reveal, because it leads to further questions in the reader. I may well try this that way. Excellent comments, much appreciated. Thanks!!

Don't worry about it. You don't need to name it now. You don't need to name it till you're finished. You'll probably just change it anyway

I certainly would warn against going back to edit. The very real danger is that you get stuck in eternal editing and never finish the story. Finishing the story is soooooo important. Writers write stories, not first chapters. I'm concerned about how harsh I was. I thought that the first chapter was entertaining, and I was beginning to like who Ar seemed to be. My problem is how very slow the second half of this submission was. Another way to think of it is, 'How many of these characters will be important in the main story? If they are not, cut them. I think the problem is lack of focus, absence of surprise or creating curiosity in where the story is going. We all know how weddings go, how harvesting crops goes. I want to read about things I don't know about. The wider world you've created. Where her brother is? Politics and passion. Adventure (doesn't need to be fighting / war / battle). Going into the domesticity so very early runs a real danger of turning readers off if this is not what the story is about. How do you see it being marketed? Is it a high fantasy? That's what I'm expecting after the dwarf section, but that's not what I'm getting. in this submission. Whatever you so though, don't stop! You've got a good character. Do you have the plot mapped out? Which bits excite you? Try and get to them as quickly as possible, imo.