Robinski

Hell's teeth!! @kais, I had typed this really quite detailed response to your comments and Safari just crashed and I've lost it Ergo, this will be shorter than the original intended version, because I LOATHE going back to try and recreate stuff that I've sweated over once already. So, I do remember starting with how I eagerly anticipated, but also slightly feared reading your comments each week. This week is no expiation, but these are of course most excellent comments and exceptionally helpful. I'm glad the 'flashback' and POV things worked. The POV thing was very conscious. I really learned that lesson pretty well on TMM, I think. E is edited now. She's not fully card-carrying member of the lesbian sorority, more the ambitious, power-hungry type. Thanks for your guidance on 'L' words. I did know most of them, but not the 'P' word. I was trying to avoid using one of those pejorative terms, and ended up fluffing it complete. I think it was a lazy attempt at some kind of mixed-metaphor, but just ends up plain lazy. So, I've used the 'D' word instead, because I wanted to not attract too much attention to the word itself, to make it sound like a natural thing for E to do. Am interested in whether you saw particular things that pointed you to E being the villain, or whether it was a vague notion from nothing specific? I've edited the 'daddy issue' bit, changing the sense a bit, I think, without removing the phrase. "Hey, Bob, these things just aren't mean enough." "Okay, Tani. I've got a five gallon drum of cassowary in the store. Let's dump that in. What's the worst that can happen?" I've tweaked her internal description of M, and also I'm adding another scene. I've punched up the arc by planting a very clear and strong motivation in E at the beginning and played that through the chapter to the new (short) scene at the end. I went into TCC with the very clear goal of being much strong on chapter arcs, which I didn't even consciously consider in TMM. This was the first chapter that I submitted without editing beforehand, and, clearly, it showed! Thanks for calling me on this.\ E is intended to be somewhere between power femme and female Q. Maybe the comparison is too heavy handed, dunno. Let's see, shall we? Awesome comments. Really appreciated. I may come back to you on the lesbian thing, thanks for the offer. I'll see how it plays going forward.

Awesome to have your comments, @Asmodemon, as always! I'm really glad you enjoyed it despite of the flashback 'warning'. I note what you say about putting this chapter first, like a prologue (but not called Prologue--no, no--I've learned that lesson!!). My problem there was that Book 1 (TMM) an NPC opening (albeit it was the antagonist), and I quite rightly got some brickbats about not getting to the main characters until later, and them not meeting for some time. So, my approach to TCC was to avoid that. It does produce this situation of the flashback. I wanted a great big sign on the front because I suspect a lot of people don't read the dates and times, or skim over them at least. I'm going to leave it as is for now, but will be monitoring the situation. Thanks for flagging it. Awesome, so we're good. I take your point that the time is kind of irrelevant, and it's not really a flashback, as these characters are not in a contemporaneous time stream, presently. Continuing... Excellent! A vote for E. She's fun to write. Dah-dah dah dah dah. Da-da-da dah dah daah daaaaah... <thumbs up> Gotcha! Closed box = massive promise to the reader = loaded gun = ? Thanks again. Really helpful

Hey, thank you for reading. I appreciate you haven't read earlier chapters and this is not the primary POV. That's not meant to be an excuse, but I totally respect something not being your thing. I copied scientific name format from Wiki. I expect the good people of RE will haul me over the coals if I have it wrong. I'll sit back an await an avalanche of learned opinion That's perfect, thanks! And an excellent example of valuable critique of a story not having read other chapters or being aware of the story threads, etc. Hey, I've made a 'career' on here of being hypocritical. It's the cornerstone of good critiquing. 'Don't do as I do, do as I say.' My point being, don't feel guilty on my account; feel free to lay into all the typos you like, should you read any of my other stuff down the road Great to have you onboard.

Seems to me the best way to do that is to show it starkly against the backdrop of at least one main female character. Is /could the prof leading the dig be female?

Loved your role-play interjections, above, @kais. Sounds like you're a hard(/long-suffering!) task-person. You don't get very good odds on that these days!

Hey Man, thanks for reading. It is now explained a little more in TMM (which is Book 1 for those that don't know). Some guy discovered FTL and donated it to the UN, empowering an organisation that was increasingly marginalised through the first century of the millennium. Hmm, okay, I'll need to watch that. Don't want to overdo that. There is a bit of telling in relation to her background. No doubt this first draft will be tweaked along the way. I'm taking that as a plus, thanks! I've watched, but never read the Expanse. Yeah, I was experimenting with the experiment. I doubt it will last longer than this draft. Ha, me neither. I've subbed 'that was in theory'. Don't now quite what I had intended originally Thanks for the typos too. Very helpful, ta! <R>

Get used to it if you plan to submit your work; I believe it's very popular with publishers, enough to say that it's industry standard (@kais?).

I. Am. Excited. Just clearing out my mind attic… go! “ability to drive new innovation and progress” – innovation is new, by definition, imo. I really like this epigram. I don’t always like them, but this one is really effective in setting the scene for the story, simply and directly. Nice job. I guess I probably appreciate it a bit more than someone who’s never read a D-verse story, but that just makes me feel special “into common use of among/by the people” – sounded off to me. “a single gash at (deep) in the Etanela’s throat” – I feel this could have more impact. ‘at’ sounds really quite bland, like it’s a rather tasteless cravat, or something. After Page 1, I'm on board. I think you’ve snagged my interest very nicely. I'm okay accepting that the m/c is rather sociopathic, and perhaps does not react to finding a dead body as one might expect. “fundamental music that underlies the universe” The last sentence at the bottom of the second page is a bit rambling. “His desk was clean clear save for a writing mat” – I feel that the point here is not cleanliness, but clutter. “was a low, sustained note in this area” “undisturbed by any other energy source” – suggest: for flow, and possibility of more than just one other energy source. “hinting at the Society’s existence” – I think you could place a bigger stress on the secret here. From the start, I'm not clear on what the beasts do, or their significance, which I’d like to in order to better appreciate the need for secrecy. “the second Symphony I could hear” – this is an awkward phrase, for me. Would it be wrong for him to say ‘my second symphony’? “a well-kept secret” – Is it just the society that is a secret, or the fact of hearing two symphonies too? Capitalisation. You capitalise in ‘House of Pot.”, and also in one stand-alone instance ‘my House’. But, you don’t then capitalise in ‘my second house’. So, inconsistency, it seems to me. In my view, ‘H. of P.’ absolutely should be capitalised, as it’s a name. After that, I would suggest nothing else does. “something to which most maji are oblivious” – I think we’re oblivious too something external (but ignorant of something. Hmm, interesting.) “flow of many individuals who passed this way” – are these individuals there now? I don’t get enough description to feel the presence of other people. It’s like he’s still sensing previous passage of people this way. Surely, there are a multitude of indentations in the writing mat. How can he pick out the newest set? “followed the music along its length” – not keen on the word ‘length’, but also the length of what: the music, the mat, the writing? “what had been important enough for someone to kill the Speaker” “Why would this have the name the Society used for one of my two houses?” – There are one or two of these; unspecific words, words that confuse instead of clarifying. By ‘this’, I presume you mean the list, but it’s not totally clear. Also, this is a nothing word where there is an opportunity to be more colourful, descriptive, drive plot. E.g. ‘Why would the Speaker reveal the name…’ Secondly, the houses are Healing and Potential, but the list says Investigator. Surely, that is not one of his two houses? “the door to the chamber the Council of the Maji used” – awkward, compared say to ‘Council chamber of the Maji’ “M. could be prone to paranoia” – I don’t mind the reminder of this, in fact, I appreciate it, but this is phrased like the first statement of the fact, and therefore felt repetitive. It could be phrased instead like Man. Citing a confidence he has already shared with the reader, like ‘his familiar paranoia showing’. Lol – nice reference to the beasts in the basement “walnut-colored exterior” – I think the best test for whether something should be a compound adjective is to put a comma in, which is how it could be read in the original form—as a list, so ‘walnut, coloured exterior’. Clearly wrong, ergo > walnut-coloured. “with a creak like a teak tree shifting in the wind” – awesome image. I wouldn’t know a teak tree if it fell on me (Woodsman pun, @kais?), but this is a lovely description. “so the N. translated for me” – I'm fine with this, but new readers are likely to be confused, I would think. Page 9 – halfway down +2 lines, typo in Moot’s name. “straight-legged” – imo “like someone snapping kindling into pieces” – awesome! “direct me to where the list had been and, to some extent, where it had been” – repetition. Sorry, I guess everyone is picking these! “That one came here first” – I'm struggling with the Ben calling Man ‘that one’. If there were two guests in the room, and he talked to Man about the other, would he not say ‘that one’. It seems to me the phrase clearly refers to someone other than Man. I suppose the Ben might refer to himself as ‘this one’? What if the Ben called himself ‘one’, as one would, if one was speaking properly formal English. Then, he could call Man ‘this one’, i.e. the one in front of him. Sorry if I'm meddling: ‘that one’ was not working for me. “There had been even less than that before” – fewer!!!!! > “Society of Two Houses” – It’s all the name, I really think ‘two’ needs caps. Yeah, why all the secrecy? That’s starting to pick at me. “had no sexual characteristics to hide” – I don’t think people wear pants to hide whether they are male or female. Is this perhaps one of those rare occasions when ‘genitals’ is the right word? “all travel reported back to the Council” – really? That must be a really boring read. Surely, it’s 99.9% people commuting back and forth from home or restaurants, shops, etc. Lot for the governing body to have to deal with. Is there in fact a processing centre somewhere to goes through the data drudgery? “I heard the music connecting the portal to the House of Healing” – I just want that precision of the details not being omitted. Nice job, I'm totally on board with the story. I think it feels like a first draft, maybe second, but that’s why we’re here, obvs. So, I think this can be a lot smoother, with the issues (as I see them) ironed out. Plot wise, I'm not sure I'm totally sold on the stakes. I don’t understand the consequences of the society becoming known: they don’t seem particularly dire. In fact, I don’t know what they are, and man doesn’t either, which doesn’t help. I think that needs to be punched up quite significantly, and placed front and centre, nearer the beginning, if at all possible? Still, good read. I’d like more of Man’s character, having seen him in later life. I’d like to see him experience more emotion, even if only internally, but there are some nice beats here, and a nice small cast to keep us concentrated. Some of the description is really nice (specifically of Ben) which makes me want a few more such nuggets along the way to ground me in the feel of the locations. Next bit, please! <R>

Great comments, thanks toomsta (What's with peeps around here not capitalising their names?). I'll come back to you in detail, as I will to the others, but lots to think about. Appreciate it

Lol. Engineers; what are we like? Aw man, my local Lego store sold out in an hour, then it was on back order for ages on the website. I stopped going back to check. It's back up now! <bagged>

Hi guys, thank you so much for the critiques, greatly appreciated. I'm going to get through my critiques before I come back to you in detail, but just wanted to say 'thanks' in the mean time

Woo, hoo; Part 2 Great intro to the spaceport. I get a nice image, not just of shiny ships (lots of them), but of the jumble and the smells, etc. Why does Y speak these thoughts? Surely, this is internal monologue: he’s never going to say that out loud, especially with someone standing next to him, who he’s negotiating with. Wait, is he talking to N? It’s just that you said ‘murmuring to self’. “this fruit company” – LOL “Lego figurine” – No, no, no, no, no!! It probably won’t surprise you to know that I’m huge Lego fan. (This is my next project, sitting in the box ready to go! https://www.lego.com/en-gb/themes/technic/products/ocean-explorer-42064 …my point being, the term is Lego minifigure Now, I realise that Y might not know that, but you will incur the wrath of all the Lego fans that ready your book. Although… I wonder what the crossover between Lego fans and queer space opera is? Probably more than we’d think! “even though it creased the spine” – damnation, Y. damnation him to hell!!! “a title given to him” – I like ‘conferred on him’. More grammatically correct I think, and because of that, I sounds less like the ship is actively giving him the title, which it’s not. “An hour local time” – This is a job for Lieutenant Pedant. To me, this phrase sounds off. I guess an hour is different on different planets? But it is only an arbitrary human division of time, and it’s not even that accurate as we know, because there is a little bit left over that means we need to add that pesky day once every four years. My complaint though is that, for example, if you are in Milan, and you say something will take an hour, it doesn’t matter what time it is, it still takes on hour. To use the same word on another planet seems anachronistic. I mean, Y won’t be able to judge how long that it, because he’ll be influenced by an Earth hour. Ok, he’s got a synched watch, but still… “Back at thirteen” – LOL “signs had Spanish and Chinese on them” – Hmm, yeah, I don’t buy this personally. I think English to too far ingrained as the international language, certainly for Spanish to appear. But, I suppose we don’t know much about your Earth. Still, maybe it’s just my prejudice, but it begs some huge questions that I suspect you're not going to answer*. (* - Yes, I know I did the same in TMM. Statement withdrawn.) “or question ask if he was lost” – Stop polluting my language with these not-nouns!! “into an office off” – double ‘off’ not smooth either. “You understand that is all illegal” – Suggest deletion for flow. The double ‘ll’ sound diminishes the impact of ‘illegal’, I think. Even if you said “…it is illegal; all of it.” Then you get a double whammy because of the pause. “three squares a day” – LOL Y’s callous disregard for the environment is abhorrent to me. I like him less now. I despise gangster films, because (proper) gangsters should all be shot or hung or something, they are not heroes, as the entertainment industry sometimes paints them. Okay, Y is not a gangster as such, but I think he’s less sympathetic now. “He was a Terran, sure, but he wasn’t an idiot” – ROFL. “he never had to see another human again” – Sign me up too. Seriously though, does his statement exclude the scantily-clad consenting ladies? “but it seemed too far in to bother with” – flow and clarity. “sold it to on the Systems black market” – a black market does not buy things itself, it’s just a vehicle for parties to operate in, I would suggest. Y’s speech demanding back his anger is excellent, but I feel there are too many questions; they get irritating after the first two, reducing the impact of the speech a little, I think. “your actions were done born out of desperation” – better grammar, and the M’s grammar should be more sophisticated than Y’s. Also, Y never felt desperate to me: perhaps that was why I didn’t feel any sympathy with his actions. It was not apparent that he had no other way out. “so how ‘bout you not piss him off” I don’t understand how it turns around to Y asking whether M agrees, when it is M’s deal that they’re talking about. It’s for Y to agree, he hasn’t made a counter proposal that I could hear. “The unease in his stomach filtered wouldn’t settle” – grammar. I don’t buy the significance of the secrets at the end here. It’s a good ending, if you can generate conviction in the stakes, but it feels like a big jump for me, at the moment, from something that is puzzling Y, to something with galaxy-spanning significance. Good job. I enjoyed this, but I'm hoping that you will take the suggested fixes forward, as I think the main ones will boost the story. I’d be very happy to read this again once it’s refined. <R>

Awwwwwesome. I instantly loved the title and thought, 'That sounds really quite Sherlock Holmes-y, and lo... twas thus!! I'm so on board already. Now to the reading.

Suddenly, I feel very exposed...

Hey everyone, So, you've made it this far into TCC (I hope! Or maybe you haven't...) on the back of M&Q doing their thing. Here comes something else... 1) As usual, and for new critics, please do not use full names or unique words in your critique; 2) It's marked 'L', although I honestly can't remember if there is any language in it; 3) It's marked 'S' for sexual references, oblique ones; 4) Any and all comments welcomed. Please don't feel that, if you haven't read the other chapters, you can't read this one. Any comments on language and just the happens of one chapter out of context of the whole story are still very much appreciated. Best, Robinski

oooh, good one - hidden depths, right enough.

LOL. I look forward to it, personally. Just do have a care towards the critiquing guidelines, there's a point at which 'abrasive' crosses a line into 'detained for questioning'. Also, do be aware that, while there are some on this forum who are old, haggard and jaded--me, for example--and can dip into our salt reserves to add a pinch where necessary. However, there are also some young to very young submitters to the group. It's worth looking a people's profiles so you know how to pitch your comments.

I do. What yo you need again to line on MSGr? If you follow the link in my signature to the Reading Excuses F*cebook page, you'll see me on there as a liker of posts (Robin D-----). Linking to my Facebook will let you msg me, right? Or do you only need my email address? I'll message it to you here. It's probably just me. And just because it sounds a bit like something else, doesn't make it bad/wrong. Yeah. That's odd. I certainly find that I need to ignore it sometimes, although I hate those little blue squiggles almost as much as the red ones. Might be worth poring over the Spelling and Grammar settings. There are a lot of options, but you can really get it working for you by going through and toggling things on and off, as appropriate. What can I say, I'm a sedentary non-conformist Really, I don't think it would take a lot to convince me. If you said that the Sk*l couldn't get in to join the fight because of the narrowness of the corridor, or the 'big' hole that got blown in the floor; or maybe that they couldn't get past the woman Its is fighting, probably I would accept that. Yeah, maybe, but what I'm not very good at saying is that I don't think it's broken, just needing editing, which we all do. By all means pick away. If I can help at all ill be very happy to

Whaaat! Bl**dy Word..., I told you it was rubbish

Yikes! With great (critiquing) power, comes great responsibility...

Grammar-checker is the future! Do you use Word?

Excellent!

Pretty please may I submit on Monday, subject to space being available.

Oh, for goodness sake. Right, I see what's happened now. So, it's the same young girl from that other submission that I did not in any way put together with this one. Pah! Apologies.

Lol. Thanks for commenting, Mand. Oh no! I think I've improved things by cutting a page of description and inserting a discussion with Rowland. Also, there is more bants (English slang--to be read in the accent of Micky, Rose's pal from Doctor Who, David Tennant vintage). Awesome idea! I'll buy that for 0.000001% of my royalties. That way, you'll get your 2c Seriously, though. I am conscious of that, and Q dodging it is not very satisfying. I'm taking your advice (again!). Excellent Yep--agree. I'll buy it. Is DOMS the whole lactic acid thing? Anyway, I've modified a bit to highlight that the DOMS went away in the expected timescale, and Q's left with a pull. Thanks again. Some good improvements there. Excited with these edits