Robinski

Hey toomsta, really appreciate your comments. Yeah, good point, and I hope I've improved this. It's not Dan Brown (lol), but hopefully it's better... than it was! Not than Dan Brown... obvs. Quirk must be a bit gullible then (check!). I don't make 'em up, I just lay 'em down Thank you, Mr. Pot Sorry, I couldn't resist that one. Much obliged. Hey, please don't feel you can't fire at will. Have at it! No offence taken. This is a good point, and I will strike through it and see how I feel next time I read through. I'm just finished Book 6 of The Dresden Files (which I just, love). Jim Butcher does this stuff all the time. It's like a stream of unconscious (actions). Now, he's Jim Butcher, and no doubt can make it work, or doesn't give a r*t's *ss either way. I guess it's more a part of the noir style that he employs, which I'm not really tapping heavily if at all. (a) I'll confirm that they do; (b) that there is atmosphere created is pleasing Lol, but it's a real thing. Volkswagen Audi Group. There are no VAG branded cars now, but the future, who knows. I'd say mission accomplished, but boring the reader was not my mission, so, changed up, as per my reply to Kais. Thanks again, toomsta, really appreciate those comments

Hey Kais, thanks so much for the comments. Apologies for the delay in responding, I wanted to get through my critiques first, and there were a whole FOUR!! Good shout. I've cut a page of background and added 1.5 pages of another conversation with Rowland, including some background. Hopefully will improve these points. Cut. Hmm, good point. I'll take a look at that. Directly from my own experience of a mere -28C in southern Canada. Thanks again; feels improved. I cannot ask for more

I feel bad about being harsh now!! I've got to say it kind of shows, but, in that short time, you've certainly developed some skill. Don't stop know! Reading is absolutely the 2nd best possible thing you can do to learn to learn to become a writer; other than writing, of course! I've tried to rectify this tear in the space time continuum Dun, dun, DUNNNN! I go along with most of what the others say in relation to points of interest and confusion. Hey, you submitted this before? How did I miss it? I don't remember it all?! Sorry about that.

After reading your comments on other things, including your very helpful contribution to my own submission, I'm very interested to read your own stuff. So, without further ado: “the Bull of Aur…” – is that a typo? What’s a Sk*l? Not knowing is really hampering my understanding. There are a lot of names in that first paragraph—seven including the titles—so it’s hard for me to get hooked by the story as I'm trying to parse all the unfamiliar stuff. The second paragraph is much better, more atmospheric and portentous. I would consider merging the two, and ditching as many of the names as you can, saving them for later. The word is ‘gait’, and how can a gait (stride) by dour? He’s in the inn now, I think, and I still don’t know what a Sk*l is. It’s getting frustrating now. Is it another race? An animal? A slave? I don’t know what ‘souring his lips’ would look like. “Two endless seas” – no apostrophe; just seas, plural. For me, some of the language is a bit untidy in the phrasing. Imprecise rather. For example (and this is by no means something that is unusual), “but already boasted a fierce reputation”. I think the correct phrasing is ‘a reputation for ferocity’. Otherwise, the ferocity is attached to the reputation, not the person. This is not exactly heinous, but I think that working on the accuracy of our phrasing and grammar (and punctuation) is something that we all would profit from. “though his own Sk*l didn’t move” – so the plural of Sk*l is Sk*l. “What’s say…” I've never seen this phrasing before. I’m fair sure it’s “What say…” as in an abbreviation of “What say you that I…” “She must be wondering what other power…” “The room had been quiet before, but the lack of sound at the mention of D--- made the silence feel deadly. Each of the Sk*l in the room losing their usually confident demeanour.” This is the third of fourth time I’ve noticed this. These are not separate sentences. The second one is not a complete sentence, because of the word ‘losing’, being the present participle. If you sub in ‘lost’, the second sentence would work on its own. Or, combined into one sentence, “…silence feel deadly, each of the…” I only mention because there are multiple of these. “If only your reasoning…” The Sk*l’s statement about ‘alive’ contradicts Bald’s. I’ve got to say when I see the word ‘recreant’ I think ‘replicant’. “Their leather Armor, over gold tunics” – Why is ‘armor’ capitalised? There’s no reason for it whatever. If it’s supposed to convey that the armor is special, and different from normal armor, then you need to do that here to justify the use of capitals. The only purpose capitalisation of generis words serves is the cause the reader to stop and wonder why it’s capitalised. I feel quite strongly about this, sorry for ranting, but it’s completely unnecessary and pointless, imho. Why not capitalise ‘uniform’ or ‘caster’. It’s a typo, isn’t it? #headslap The barking of orders is going to alert the child, is it not? Doesn’t seem like good tactics anyway. “Their one weakness…” The wink seems completely out of character. I've got no sense of even a single drop of humour from Bald so far. “She gasped for air like a drowning man breaching the surface, the sudden jerk bringing on a fit of coughing.” – Sorry for repeating the point, but this is really annoying. “from day’s first light” I'm going to stop mentioning typos now; it’s slowing me down when I want to try and concentrate on the story, but there are numerous. “This, at least, was real.” – Arrgghh, I can’t do it. Grammar issue here. “The long single-edged knife whispered to her, a dark story, one of blood and vengeance.” – As a Michael Moorcock fan, I'm very much on board with this, but it sounds a bit (lot) like Elric black blade, Stormbringer. So far, I'm enjoying the girl’s viewpoint considerable more than the other one. Bald’s isn’t bad, but the girl has way more at stake. Also, I'm struggling with her age a bit. Her inner monologue suggests maybe 12/13? The anchor scraping the bottom on the sea still has a purpose; it’s trying to anchor the ship. Just because it is not succeeding, doesn’t mean it does not have a purpose. “she smelled something” – In my opinion, which you're welcome to :), ‘smelt’ sounds wrong here. It sounds more like the metalworking process. Each to their own, of course. “And how are you going to pay…” “Go away, Ast”- comma required. “she unsettled her” – awkward. Again, “She saw her own habits reflected in her Ast’s movements.” – Personally, I would never to follow a pronoun with another that didn’t refer to the same person, because of the confusion that results. I think, when you change the character you're referring to, it’s better to use the name to distinguish. “she reached in the void and energy free from it” – grammar issue, not sure of the sense of the phrase. I don’t know who has long, knotted braids of white hair. Pretty sure there was no description earlier. “pole-like” – needs a hyphen. “made lightning arc along” “locked the eyes with her attacker” I don’t like ‘bantered’. If there is banter, and it’s done well, it will appear as banter. If you need to tell us it’s banter, you’ve already lost the spontaneity of it, if that makes any sense. “but the woman rammed a knife into her thigh” – here; it sounds like the woman stabs her own thigh. This is what I meant about use of pronouns. Repetition of ‘the limb’ is awkward. Okay, major issue. Where are all the Sk*ls when the fight between the females is going on? This is classic holiday unreality, where villains attack one at a time. The whole point of superior numbers is to smother the enemy. I must say, this is where I lost patience and stopped reading. The numerous typos and grammar issues really got my goat after a bit, and kind of set me again the story. I think there is a good character to be had in Il, but I didn’t really feel any sympathy towards her; something about her haughty attitude, I think. I would have enjoyed this more if typos had been edited out. Do you use spellchecker and grammar-checker? The former isn’t the issue, but grammar-checker will pick up all the instances of the wrong word (spelled correctly), and the incomplete sentences, missing words, etc. Far from stifling creativity, live grammar-checker is the writer’s friend. I liked seeing the magic system at work in the fight, but I found the fight too long, and not especially interesting, because I felt little with any of the characters. Putting characters in jeopardy really only works when the reader cares about them, and I don’t know enough about them yet to care. Sorry not to be more positive. <R>

Well, given the choice, as some later readers might be, I might have read the prequel stories before the main trilogy. Mm, I just didn't get jokery as a running theme in the stories, but it's certainly absurdist, I can't deny that Fair enough. How I do always remember my science teacher in elementary school taking issue with the tripods in War of the Worlds being able to create the tech that they did, because they didn't have opposable thumbs. How do you build a space-faring empire with claws? By first building claw-friendly tools, I suppose. You say that like it's a bad thing. If Y's story is interesting enough, why not? I guess I always identified more with him as an overweight bloke of a certain age. I know, right?

In my opinion, there are several ways to do it. (a) give more personal background about the character. So, when you mention the dark things that happened to Illy before, but don't reveal them; you could consider instead actually revealing them. Not in huge detail, but just give us something more than hints. E.g. the last time there was a war with the slaves, they came to Illy's farm and slaughtered all his animals, maybe they hanged his elderly parents; his aunt and uncle - for example. CAUTION: Beware of fridging. Don't make up a female character just so you can kill her off to create sympathy for Illy. That is textbook fridging. I am not the expert on this subject, but it's about respecting female characters and roles, treating them equally to male characters, making them real people who affect the story and don't just exist to influence the reader's feelings about the main (male) character. (b) show the m/c doing something incredibly capable, like the slave general speaks in sign language to his lieutenant, but Illy memorises the signs so he can discuss them with Send afterwards. I don't know, I'm making stuff up on the hoof. Also, you could allude to significant weakness in the m/c. Maybe the last time there was a war, he failed in some way, made some mistake that cost the lives of two hundred troops. The king forgave him, but he never forgave himself. What I mean is show us his biggest flaw, make him seem fragile, without being incompetent. (c) show us something that he is aspiring towards, some personal goal. He promised his father he was going to return the estate to profit and success, and he's darned if this revolt is going to make him break his promise to his dying/dead father. (d) show us a major conflict or secret that he has not shared with his colleagues. If he's a general, I figure maybe he also is a slave owner himself, or his family is. Maybe they treat their slaves well, and are respected by them, and respect them in return. Maybe he promised his slaves to speak for change, but this revolt will end up making enemies of people who he almost considers his friends. (e) is he married? If he's not, maybe he is having a secret relationship with one of his slaves, and he was going to leave the country and take his love with him, bolt to somewhere far away where they could live in peace as equals, but this war will throw the whole thing into jeopardy and possibly lead to his love being imprisoned or even under threat of death, or capture / freeing by the slave general. CAUTION: this one could be straying into fridging territory. In this scenario, his love would need to be strong and independent, and not just an object of his affection, but a character that influenced the story, imo. These are some very, very quick-fire illustrations of ways to give something to hang character on. In summary, what I'm saying, I think, is to give us some interesting detail to latch onto, something that defines what Illy is about, what makes him do the things he does. We don't need paragraph after paragraph about it, just enough of a hook to judge his actions and reactions by. That's my tuppence-worth! Hope it helps

Interesting... My first thought about that prompt was the danger of 'fridging', which is a thing that happens all the time, and more often than it should.

Hey Chuck, great to have you back with us. Consulting my extensive records, I see that you last submitted in September 2015!! I hope you don’t mind, but I've taken a bit of a liberty by pasting the text into a Word file so I could do line-by-line comments. I really hope these ore of some use, apologies if I've overstepped the mark. I’ll leave all the grammar and stuff in there and email it to you. Garg... – ROFL, LMAO I remember the story from two years ago almost instantly, and where it went in the couple of submission that we got (if my records are correct). I have one issue now that I'm pretty sure I had then without checking my previous comments. I find it hard to tell the characters apart, and I didn’t get the sense that Sam was not in the room, even though you tell us that. I think referring to ‘Sam’s voice’ might help. Is there an opportunity to describe the friends physically early on? Otherwise, it’s a lot of male voices chiming together, and hard to distinguish them. I know that is a real thing in a room full of blokes, but as a reader, I can’t see them, so I need help in some other way to distinguish them. Yeah, see, when they start talking about the email, I don’t have a good sense that Sam’s not in the room. I know that can be the reality of a good Sk*pe line, or whatever, but if I'm trying to picture the scene, I want some kind of reference point to know he’s not there physically. “White people are cavemen” – I come back to my description point. In the absence of physical description, I'm not sure quite how to read this, but it does suggestion that two of the group are not white. I would like positive confirmation of that by some ‘physical’ description very early, so I can distinguish them better in my head. The debate about the origins of man is moving pretty quickly, and is pretty specialised. I don’t think I'm following it much if at all. Having said that, I don’t know that I mind much, because what I am getting is a clear sense of these guys all being competent in their field. More competent than me, anyway, so that I will believe that they are competent when future discussions happen. That’s good, in my book, even if I don’t follow it fully, I'm willing to go with it. “I’m standing right next to you, Sam” – Yeah, see this kind of line really confuses me. Is it about the game characters? Because Sam is in Europe, right? Yeah, out in the hall, many male voices that I can’t tell apart from their dialogue or from a clear visual distinction between them. I don’t think it would take much to fix, or have fewer people speaking at the same time until we have enough cues to tell them apart. Their style of speech also should be different, I think. I know they are all students, but I would suggest some simple adjustments, like having one of them not use speech contractions, or have a lisp, something. That last one’s too extreme, I think, but you see what I mean. I enjoyed this, but I have some complaints which, glancing at the other comments now, seem to be a common thread. I think all the fixes are pretty easy, if you go along with these being issues, of course In terms of reading, I found it easy to skip through, the style dragged me in and the differentiation of the characters was the only real issue I had with style. I really want to read much further into the story than we did before, I hope you're going to stick around, dude!! We need more ‘old’ people around here (cough). Seriously though, do you have a complete draft? Is the book finished? Interested and hopeful that we’re going to get a good long run of submission from you! <R>

I agree with Mandamon... Hail, fellow old guy, well met!! Yeah, must say I had this problem too. It's not the character's fault, but it does distract in the reading. I don't think you'd need to change much, just one letter probably. Say, the 'i'. All praise the mighty kitten gods, lest Earth be batted around like a bowl of wool.

Again, welcome to Reading Excuses. I’m always excited to read the work of a new submitter. Off we go! Hey, I’m Scottish, so you go ahead and spell words correctly and never apologise for doing it, after all, they were our words first! On the double space thing, what Word Processor are you using? In Word, the double line spacing option sits in the ‘Paragraph’ menu. I’m sure the software’s ‘Help’ function will make it easy enough to track down. I don’t mind so much on here, but publishers will tend to reject immediately on opening the file, from all I've heard. I like the opening paragraph. It’s a bit standard fantasy, so doesn’t hook me by being unusual and unexpected, still it’s solid enough to keep me reading. There’s a kind of oversized reality vibe that I think might be a thing, and I can go with that. And then the second paragraph introduced the idea of conflict and weakness where there was strength. Nice. Those are really big campfires. Not sure about that effect, but I'm suspending my disbelief, because it’s a nice image. In reality, I think a fire would need to be enormous to do that. Usually, it’s the smoke that reaches the sky. Seven thousand doesn’t seem enough men to shatter a kingdom, which makes we think it must be a tiny kingdom. I suggest G**ling some of the historic battles of our times in sizing your army. Battle of Bannockburn (1314): 2,000 English cavalry and 15,000 troops versus 7,000 to 10,000 Scots. Battle of Naseby (1645) – English civil war: Parliamentarians (Cromwell’s lot) 14,000 men versus Charles I’s Royalists 7,400 men. First battle of Bull Run (1861): Abe Lincoln’s Union 35,000 troops, plus a side force of 18,000 which were ‘not engaged’ (says Wiki), so total of 53,000 troops. Confederate States 34,000 troops, although only 18,000 were engaged, apparently. When you get to WWI and WWII you count military strength in the millions of soldiers. Admittedly, that’s multiple nations, so not the same thing. My point is to always do some research so that you have a plausible explanation for the numbers and facts that you make up, just so you can explain them to people if they question why it’s the way that you’ve set it out. Doesn’t need to be a lot of research. The simple answer might be that it’s a small kingdom, but the point is, when it comes to a whole kingdom being overthrown, a big proportion of the population will take up arms to defend themselves, so 7,000 men is unlikely to be enough to overthrow a country of population in the 100,000’s. “He still found their size incredible.” – As per above, not really all that incredible, in my view I’m questioning too why they’ve send Ill to negotiate. Do they have no politicians or statesmen? Seems a bit unusual. As an experience soldier however, I would expect Ill to have some ideas about why he was sent. Have you listened to any of the Writing Excuses podcasts? There are some good ones on character sliders, the different components most frequently used to control how a character comes across in a story. Competence is one of the sliders, so, how good the character is at their job, at fighting, magic, detecting, whatever. I would expect an experienced soldier to be competent at strategy, enough to have an opinion about why he was in a particular situation. Those slider podcasts are really useful for character development. Worth a look if you haven’t already. “They think that could happen at this meeting.” – missing word, I guess. I’m just noting that your paragraph indenting is kind of all over the place. What are you writing on, software-wise? The lines of colour sound interesting, but the text kind of breaks down there. Missing words and such. I would have thought they would know about the progress of the fault lines over time, if they live there, or he would think it’s something to do with the newcomers/invaders. Pausing at this point to talk about style, I find your writing solid. I’m having very few grammar issues, which is an excellent foundation for any writer, and really lets you concentrate on character, plot and setting without being weighed down by wrestling with the raw material of writing. I’m not having a trouble reading your story, and I can concentrate my thoughts on the ideas. That certainly makes the critiquing more pleasurable In terms of the story, I'm interested without being blown away or enthralled. I would hope in this situation that I knew more about the character, so I can identify with them and start to care about what happens to them. Ill is pretty much a blank slate at this point, although it’s good to know that he doesn’t know why he’s been picked for this job. I’d like to see him churning that over and looking more competent rather than asking others to answer his questions. I know it’s a mechanism for conveying the information, but you could make Ill the one who had the answers. There a danger by making Send look more competent that the reader identifies more with him than Ill. Certainly, your telling more about his character traits than Ill, it seems. (page 3) “It was unusual. Send was definitely right.” – beware of repeating yourself. This second bit is redundant, it’s not serving any purpose (Ha, like I just did!) “knife bayonets fixed” – a bayonet is a specialised knife. “let out an inward a sigh” – ah, really awkward and kind of contradictory, (in/out?). “unobtainable” – unattainable is a better word here, I believe. “The slave ruler wore steel plate and sat astride a horse” – You’ve already told us he has rode forward, so this is redundant. Again, Send dominates Ill, and I’m wondering why Ill is sent in preference to Send. Just because Ill is the commander? So, why is he the commander and not Send? I would enjoy this more if I had a better grounding in the character and knew more about him, just through hints, and short asides: it doesn’t need to be a big explanation, which would slow things down a lot. There’s some nice banter between Ill and Send, and it reveals more about Ill’s character, but I think it comes at the wrong time, or it goes on too long when the slave ruler is sitting waiting. UNLESS, you make a joke out them making him wait while they conduct this rather inane, certainly irrelevant dialogue., i.e. make more of a deliberate joke about it. At the moment, it tends to look like bad judgement on Ill’s part, which I don’t think you want at this point. If you keep the dialogue here and don’t make it deliberate to frustrate the slave ruler, I would stop it after Send’s poet line, which is a nice punchline to end on before Ill moves forward. “Red Sword” – I think we need to know what this is much earlier, so we understand why Ill is the centre of attention, and why he has to do this, even though he is less qualified. References to Ser’s eyes get a bit repetitive. The contact between Ill and Send surely must be visible to Ser too? It makes Ill look very weak to the reader, and maybe to Ser if he can see it. Certainly, he can see Ill turn, which looks weak in itself, like Ill is not in charge. Maybe you want Ill to look weak? At the moment, I’m not sure where my sympathies lie. Slavery being bad and all. I rather like the moral ambivalence going on here between the two sides. Double ‘that’ is awkward for the reader. I would rephrase, personally. The dialogue and I think some of the logic around the discussion about surrender is confusing. I think that at least one of them speaks two lines of dialogue without interruption? If that’s the case, they should be part of the same paragraph, even if separated by a dialogue tag. I think the talk about surrender is rather simplistic. They are both talking about the other surrendering, I think, which is what confuses it. The thing about the heir was confusing and seemed to come out of nowhere. However, you then explain it. Fair enough. The boy being like a son to Ill confuses me, because I felt that Ill behaved like he was quite young, maybe 25 or so. He doesn’t come over particularly mature/adult. Yeah, there are way too many paragraphs which really breaks up the flow. “Ill felt his throat…” and the next three lines can all be the same paragraph. I would strongly suggest, especially when in a discussion like this, only changing paragraphs when you change from one person to the other, otherwise it’s hard for the reader to keep track of what’s going on. I like the stakes presented for opening the city gates. It’s an impossible situation for Ill, and that creates excellent conflict, I'm very interested to see what he does now. Whoa now. How does Ill know it’s a bluff? I’ve seen nothing to indicate that. I don’t mind him taking a chance, but I'd rather he wasn’t so certain about the bluff, that just seems foolhardy, and it robs the situation of some tension, if Ill believe his ply will be successful. I think he should show more doubt and understanding that he’s risking the enemy killing the heir. “He might as well ask the sea to be still.” – Good line, like it. The K has impact, but Ill’s reaction is rather naïve, linked to what I though before about his foolhardiness. I’ve got to say it smacks of stupidity in Ill. Repetition of ‘earthquake’ is awkward, and robs Send’s line of its impact, I think. Peace is off?” – typo. “Kill them. Kill them all” – Sorry, but this line is now a massive cliché. I swear to you I've read or heard it three times this week, in different places. This is, I think, a case of low hanging fruit, i.e. going to the first, easiest option, and not looking beyond it to find a new and different form of the same phrase. I agree you need a punchy line here, but why not try some others. Try thinking of another five variations on the original line and seeing if you get something better, or at least as good, but different. Okay, see that last line? At that moment, I lost any sympathy or feeling that I had for Ill. So, he is the kind of general who sits in his high tower and orders others to their deaths? I know that what generals traditionally do, but that doesn’t mean the reader has to like it. I think the reader wants someone to root for, and Ill really hasn’t presented any likeable or honourable traits in this opening. I have to say that, so far, I think I'm on the side of the slaves. So, I really rather enjoyed your submission. I know I had loads to say about it, and I'm sorry this is such a huge wedge of comment, but I usually only go off on one like this when I'm drawn into a story and want to try and help make it better. It’s your story, of course, but I think there are issues with it, as described. However, I think your prose style is very easy to read, not overly fussy, direct, and pretty tidy. There was a lack of description, as I didn’t have much feeling for the location, or the appearance of the characters. I would recommend working in aspects of description using all the senses. Smell, for example, can be a really powerful one, and sound, but even sight could be included more. It doesn’t mean give a big list of descriptions that takes away from the action, just a hint of ‘colour’ here and there, to make the reader feel the setting. Nice work. I hope you're going to submit some more stuff. <R>

Yes, but it's a false premise, because the statement is that no one wears shoes, whereas 99% of humanity will not be rich enough to be able to not go out to work. Would you let a dentist wearing no shoes work on you? Would you dine in a restaurant where none of the staff wore shoes? Sports, construction, scientific research, bio-engineering, animal husbandry. I feel like I could go on and on presenting reasons why it makes not sense. How do you make a spacesuit air tight if there are no shoes? Also, it serves no purpose at all; so why is it there?

Comments Opening paragraph a bit wordy. Some streamlining would be good. I like the opening point though. “rank smell of oil” – the oil itself is just oil, Y brings the interpretation that makes it rank. “with a non-practicing family” “to install the components hidden under his cleaning kit” – don’t understand. “…twelve years ago” – this is rather maid-and-butler; the curator must know as well as Y when the aliens arrived, so why would he bother telling her, unless just to get the information over to the reader? “not ‘Donahue,’ and not ‘Meg,’” – lol “the last parts he needed to remove” “See you in three days” – how’s he going to do that if there are three days of work left; that leaves no time for travel? “If he could manage to shove a few chairs into the cramped cockpit, it’d be a small miracle” – See, I never got as good an impression of the Mercy from reading the original story. I seem to remember was talked about blocking and setting a lot. “Now what? It still has to mostly look like the original, or if the curator does a spot inspection, she’ll flip her rust” – no way he says this out loud, surely. He’s on his own. And why would he explain it so clearly to him, out loud. I don’t buy the whole thing about shoes. To me, it’s ridiculous; it’s a backward step (pun intended). Humans need footwear to function efficiently in some situations, and their performance will be inadequate in many occupations. Makes no sense. “Criminal today, or criminal tomorrow?” – We touched on Y personal stuff, and I was interested to hear more of about his background, but it was just a tangential point then well away, to be left with odd hints, but no knowledge of his motivations. “metal off of Earth” – ‘of’ is completely redundant here. Have you ever read this grammatical construction in published fiction? Sounds really ugly, the repletion of the same sound, serving no function. “Sure, sure” – comma. “a smile on my face and cockpit seat for a fresh young face” – repetition of ‘face’. “No, no.” – comma “in danger of vomiting in his mouth” – where else would he vomit? “wondering if the species wore pants” – lol “your résumé” – otherwise, it’s just resume, as in to recommence. “then clacked claws together” – R’s have claws?! I thought they had fingers? “I’ve got your location off the com signal” – The grammar here seems inconsistent with most of the rest of the R’s speech; inelegant and rather unsophisticated. “from what it sounded like” – I think ‘from the sound of it’ is smoother, cleaner and clearer. Fair enough. I’m engaged and interested in the sting that Y is trying to bring about. As an arc for a story in a collection of stories, it’s fine, and obviously is a key moment in the series, so all good. I have liked more of Y’s background instead of just hints; that was a bit frustrating. Maybe better, on balance, than a lengthy side shoot. I'm on for the next part. <R>

Lol. There's a trend (from Book 1) of social-media being given unprepossessing pseudonyms, like: Fameb**k, (a rude word like Twitter, but with an 'a' in it)*, and Insta-grin. It's not really supposed to be a plausible alternative, just plain old satire *(Apologies, oh great and powerful Admin One, please forgive this puny human for his earlier transgression, which was not intended to be malicious.)

Hey, toomsta, thanks for the comment, much appreciated. Nothing wrong with brief Good advice. I'll need to ponder on how I would do that. Which I will do! Hmm, okay. Will see how it reads in the next edit. I hope so! That's Q all over, but maybe it's less clear here when you haven't read TMM (the first book). I dare say it could. I'll happily inject some more interjections. Yes, okay. I wonder if it's working better for those who are familiar with Q and M, and less well for those who are not. Excellent comment, thank you. So are they all excellent comments. Thank you!!

Perfect, thanks /k. Yes, I can totally see your point with the middle section. Some of the info may well be relevant to the story, but other pieces are not. I'm so glad that that Q & M are working though, as it's easy enough to cut extraneous background. Quirk thoughts much appreciated

After 12 years of Writing Excuses, I couldn't even begin to tell you!! I'll have a go though. For me, it's got to be measured by what comes out of the prompt, because a prompt is just a means to an end, and kind of irrelevant in itself. So, I pick this one: (Writing Excuses, Season 10, Episode 5) Take three different characters and walk them through a scene. Convey their emotional states, their jobs, and their hobbies without directly stating any of those. The scene in question: walking through a marketplace, and they need to do a dead-drop. The prompt itself is pretty standard and a bit pedestrian, but, from this, I created the three characters who are the 'stars' of my current space opera series, the first volume of which I've just complete a third draft of and submitted to Angry Robot books through the Open Door for submissions in Nov./Dec. '17. The second books is 52k words and the third is summarised. I've grown to love these characters, and have received some very favourable feedback on them from the Reading Excuses writing group, and others, all growing out of this writing prompt, or certainly taking off from it, and the prompts that followed. Go Writing Excuses (and Reading Excuses)!!

Hey everyone, Chapter 3 of TCC. Any comments greatly welcomed. For any new members kindly reviewing, please abbreviate character names and any 'unique' story terms, i.e. anything made up! Thank you. Best, Robinski

Wow, full house. First in some considerable time. Woop, woop!

God point. Tend to agree. Yes. ATM, I'm good with this. I was trying to walk that line between is he decent or is he scummy. Might push him closer to scummy later. It was more that has age seemed to fluctuate with this tone, if you see what I mean. At first, I thought he might be Nick.

I took this to mean that she was sort of notorious as this random N that appeared around 'local' spacestations from nowhere, and generally attracted attention by being loud and objectionable / broke and almost destitute. I second that. And this. I didn't mind Y pressing her quite hard, because he was no doubt losing patience with her attitude, but why would the other two? Thinking back, I do struggle to put a finger on what blondie's tone was. Was he gushing, impressionable young fanboy, or predatory lounge lizard? I agree with ID. I'd like to read this again once it's had some TLC.

Comments “she only had the night to kill before Captain Slick—she couldn’t pronounce its real name—was ready to leave orbit” – Little confused. So, they’re not on Mars, but above Mars? “Might as well enjoy being planetside while she could”. Ah, no, in which case, not in orbit? Or did they come down planetside in a shuttle? “The tendons in her hands hurt from the frigate’s interface” – A frigate is a naval (military) ship, that’s not what she’s piloting, is it? I guess I'm saying, don’t call it a frigate. Def: Frigate – a warship with a mixed armament, generally lighter than a destroyer (in the US navy, heavier) and of a kind originally introduced for convoy escort work. Yeah, it’s a dredger, right? That’s definitely not a frigate. CONFUSED! Seems odd to keep the food printer on the bridge. Don’t they have a galley or common room? She’s not a very good bartender, firing off all those questions instead of stringing out the conversation, and being a listener. Also, patronising is not idiotic, imo. “she might have been willing to accompany him to his room or ship or whatever” – I don’t know how to process this, as I have no idea of N’s level of experience. “She knew his voice” – From just a snort? I'm not entirely convinced. For me, the moment of meeting doesn’t quite click. I like the ‘gamble’ line, but it becomes a bit repetitive by the time it is answered, finally. I think that the language around here gets a bit wordy and could stand some tidying up. I've made some LBL suggestions. ‘epithet’ is not the right word there, I would say. Its meaning is “an adjective or phrase expressing a quality or attribute regarded as characteristic of the person or thing mentioned.” But, K’s suggestion relates to a phrase that is a direct statement. I'm finding some of the dialogue rather wordy. Good coming from me, I know, but I'm a firm believer that, when it comes to speaking, most people are lazy, and will skip or exclude as many words as they can. Y’s lack of reaction to her slumping to her knees made me think that he had gone away. I thought it was unclear that he was still there. At the end, when she’s going up into space, I felt it read really flat. It’s the conclusion of the story and I think you need a sense of crescendo, and you get that by being much more descriptive of how it feels to go up into space. The power, the sound, maybe smells. The sight from the view-screen of going into space. I’ve taken the liberty of illustrating my point in the LBLs. I feel like the last line is rather cheesey. Seems to me you could ditch it altogether and end on Neek getting into space under her own power for the first time. Good story, but I felt that there were some flat spots that could do with punching up. LBLs emailed back to you. Sorry these comments are rather late. <R>

I'd like to post Chapter 3 on Monday, if I may.

Thanks ID, hope you get your 'pep' back soon And yes, thank you, I see it now. Campaingers , campaigners Thanks, @Asmodemon

Hey @Silk, one thing you could do for me, if it's not a bother, is to delete the thread tagged 'tcc' from June, 6th 2017. I was checking into the 'Dutch' name that we were discussing there and half of only 8 Ggle returns were associated with that post!!