Robinski

Perfect, thank you!

Hey, really chuffed to have you reading this Asmodemon. Thank you! <does Snoopy's happy dance> Yeah, it's not really fun writing it, feels like an obligation. I too see the need, for new readers as well as previous ones. I think maybe I'm just not very good at it for one thing, as I've never actually done it before! I will work on it. I think your suggestion there is the way to go. Pare it back. I try to do that now when I'm fixing comments from your guys, not rip the whole thing to pieces, but make small changes, to see if a little is enough to solve the problem. That way, a bigger change can always be made in the next edit if there is till a problem. Awesome! It was one of the criticisms of TMM (rightly so) that there was insufficient QM 'on screen' together in the second half, or certainly the ending. I kind of think this story might well be stronger than the first for this very reason, that hopefully I've figured out (with invaluable help) how to write them. Although, meetings and 'getting-to-know-you's can be awkward anyway, I guess. Ha-ha. I feel a between books novella coming on Really? Why so? I'm not averse to capitalisation, but I'm not quite seeing this one. Really helpful comments. Thank you so much.

Hey, thanks for reading, Mandamon, (Every time I see your avatar, I remember I have to go a watch you reading Seeds chapters to me!! Must get to that! What an awesome idea ) I'm really excited by your comments, because several of these things are things that I was actually trying to achieve!!! Like I did something good on purpose. Woop, woop!! Right, I'll attend to that. Although reassured that it nearly worked. Lol. If Disney ever did that, I'd be onto them for royalties. I even looked on GMaps for sites where they might be able to put a resort. Engineers just can't not do that stuff. Soooo pleased that worked for you. It was one of my deliberate ploys. The previous version of this chapter had no arc, and I realised it was because there was only one case option and Q already had decided to take it at the start of the chapter. Then, when I was trying to add tension and 'action' I realised that the choice of case could/should be the arc, and therefore added the options and the warning at the end #feelinglikeawriter This actually was quite ridiculous. I realised that I should have Ggld the character names, and when I did, discovered that M was 'real' (sort of)!! But when I read into the character, I practically fell off my chair when I discovered her boss was one of Q's ancestors (obvs). I'm going to need you guys to testify on my behalf if I get taken to court by Graham and Marjory Shakespeare (wonder if Willie has descendants?) in some kind of copyright case. Many, many thanks for reading. Some good fixes there and great encouragement.

Ha-ha, Lucy Skywalker!! Hero's journey was overdone for many, many years. I don't think it's quite as bad now, because more pro writers, I think, keep away from that clichéd territory. As I said, I think you need more novel elements, because some readers will just think 'Hero's journey; read it all before.' "I agree with @Mandamon"(C). If you're going to write a clichéd element, it needs to be incredibly strong and insanely well-written for it to entertain readers who have read it a bazillion times before, or have a new or less-used element. Maybe all the heroes are female. Maybe they are all in the 80's. Dunno, something. I do agree about the prologue comments too. Why not just have it as Chapter 1? There is some decent conflict in that opening, and there is absolutely no law against having short chapters. I'm already concerned that Arw's section is only half her chapter.

Again, welcome to Reading Excuses. I am always excited to dive into a new writer’s work. So here goes, I hope these comments are of some use. Also, before I get started, I apologise if there is some nit-picky grammar stuff in my comments, but I struggle not to mention these things, even in early edits Paragraph 1—first impressions: I like that we are coming into the story after something momentous has happened, the end of exile, defeat of an enemy, and it’s good that we are told the cost. The language itself flows pretty well, I thought, but the punctuation seems off in several places. Also, some of the phrasing is a bit wordy, but still not hard to follow. “…hearing citizens’ concerns.” – possessive of multiple citizens. “There was were always a lot…” – of concerns, plural. “Lady U,” the herald said…” – the tag is part of the same sentence. Yeah, there are quite a few grammar issues, such as: “She didn’t care of the gossip this would cause” – I would say ‘didn’t care what gossip this would cause’ or ‘didn’t care if this caused gossip’. Missing words, too. I've noted several. It becomes really quite distracting after a bit. Anytime you add “said XXX”, it’s part of the same sentence as the preceding (or following) dialogue. Look at those tags at the moment, read them in isolation: they are not complete sentences. “she wanted to hold the man” – You said earlier he was a dwarf? So, he’s not a man, right? “She was a dwarven woman” – maybe it’s may problem, not the story’s, but this clashes with my Tolkienesque upbringing, which dictates that man/woman is a separate race from dwarf/female dwarf. HOWEVER, thinking back, I do believe that Tolkien himself may have used the terms ‘dwarf women’. Anyway, it confuses me when I see a character referred to as a man, then a dwarf. Two pages in, I like the conflict going on, and the tension between the character is good. I would be drawn in even more if all the line editing and grammar stuff was fixed, which really would ease the flow of the reading. Have you read this out loud to yourself? You’d be amazed (I always am) how many issues this technique flags up with language, grammar and punctuation: it’s an invaluable tool. “he was saddened by her decision” “yet his own actions were what was driving her away” – here’s a good example of wordiness. I think it’s a valuable discipline to have as you are writing to have an antenna that spots wordiness like this a simplifies phrasing. I have the same issue sometimes. Trimming this excess really helps the reader progress and become absorbed by narrative if they are not weighed down by extraneous words. Ah, so the dwarves have recaptured their ancestral home? This is very similar to events on which The Hobbit is based around. I'd be wary about that, and try and distance your plot from that. You don't have a dark lord in the mix, do you? I know very little about shepherding. Do they keep the rams with that sheep? Does she not have a dog? Grammar issues again. I'm going to stop flagging them, but I would strongly suggest turning on spellchecker and grammar checking as-you-type. WPs provide the tools to remove these annoying issues from even your first drafts. It will really help the comments you get from alpha readers. Some readers get really p'd off with this stuff "Arw--na" - really? This name is virtually straight out of Tolkien. Oh, and The Vale is a named and fairly prominent location in Game of Thrones. The phrase “Huge unmarred land” threw me a bit. Is that a field? A big garden? It kind of lacks definition. What’s a “member of the Vale”? The term makes it sound like there is a cooperative maybe? More than just a resident, which is what I took it to mean at first. I don’t like the use of the slash in “well maintained herb/flower garden”, not in fantasy anyway. You might get away with it in SF. It just seems off tone. Is there any reason not to say ‘herb and flower garden’? For the same reason of pseudo-historical fantasy tone, I think using kilometres sounds very odd. Imagine reading Tolkien and Gandalf said, ‘Yes, only two kilometres left to go.’ “good-naturedly” needs to be hyphenated. There were some other instances previously where words needed to be hyphenated to make compound adverbs or adjectives, but I haven’t flagged them all. The F-F and M-M ‘reveal’ being so close together felt a bit odd. The bit about Arw’s feelings for Rok was fine. I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting it, as we had been in very standard hero’s journey territory before that. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issue, and I like how you casually dropped it in without fanfare. What I though was a bit odd was how the legend of the M-M hero’s tragedy book came along so quickly after. Really like the bit about the book being passed around the families. This is the sort of small detail that really grounds a setting and the NPC’s in that setting. It creates a lot of goodwill from me in believing the setting. Another detail I like is the father darning socks. Everyone on the farm mucks in to whatever jobs need doing, and has diverse range of skills. No pride about something being women’s work. Good job. Gw. seems a very unfeminine name, to me. Perhaps it has a root in tradition? Is it Welsh, like Gwyneth? The thing is, for me, it looks a lot like dwarf, which is a small, hairy male. It just created a difficult impression for me that I struggle to associated with a motherly figure. I know I moaned a lot about details, but there were plenty of positives for me. I don’t mind a slow opening, and Arw’s chapter was pretty slow, but it was good to get to know her and her situation and the setting of her home. You do mention that this is only half of Chapter 1? I would strongly advise splitting it up. If you’re going to have an opening chapter without action, I would suggest it should not be overly long. There a perfectly decent chapter break point here at the end, especially if she is about to go into a dream sequence, which I thought might what was coming from the end bit there. The language, punctuation, grammar and some of the word choice (occasional) really needs to be tidied up, but that is easily enough done. I would say that the setting and plot are very typical epic fantasy. There are so many such stories that I would suggest you need to be very careful to keep inserting novel elements so that it does not become cliché. In terms of voice however, I enjoyed what I read. I thought there was a confident flow to it (grammar, etc. notwithstanding), and I enjoyed that. I'd be interested to reading more, certainly. <R>

Not much to say specifically. Any comments that you may have will be most welcome. Usual stuff; flow, entertainment, typos, whatever. One thing I am trying to concentrate on this time around is chapter arcs, so you might watch out for that. Cheers, Robinski

Hey, thanks for the comments Asmodemon, much appreciate! Good points too, thank you. I shall address.

Can I just add that I am an idiot, and did not read your email properly? I think it can! (sorry...)

The 8th?

Cool. I'll make a space on my shelf for my copy of Seeds

Woop, woop!! Just signed up. Yes haw. Roll on 2019 Presently, there are some 1520 members, however 568 of these are supporting members so, presumably, not attending. Ahhhh... and then there are 13 subscribers; 28 Superfriends; 360 Friends; 9 Young Friends; 770 Pre-supporting; 70 Backers. So..... That's 2770 individuals with 568 subscribers only, but I guess somer of the pre-supporters and backers may not turn up. Dunno. I have no idea how many register for these things. The blurb on the website says they reckon they can accommodate 4,500 to 5,000 members. And yes, I have started planning already

...AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Which I was getting earlier, but maybe not with as much passion as might have been expected earlier on. Maybe? Unsure. Yay! Huh?

Thank you, Silk. I just feel so attached to all those 'hard' weeks of submission and revision. Let me come back to you on that. Minor trumpet blowing; I just finished catching up with Writing Excuses, after about 3 years (I think), so have just now started going through the Dave Farland Writing Tips emails that I've been received now for about 2.3 years. I have 153 to catch up on!! The funny thing is, it made me thing how TMM can be better still (which I knew in my water) even as I pressed the 'submit' button to the Open Door. I guess "no project is ever finished", as they say, but a small part of me hopes that they don't accept it!!!

Hey, ID - thank you for reading. Sorry, I was slow on the response there. Hmm, okay. I think you are 1-of-4 to mention this, so I'll let it ride for the moment, see how far I get down the road in future drafts, but thanks for raising. Yup, I've changed it. Good spot. Wrong word entirely. Oh, please do quibble. I love it when you quibble And I want it to be closer to right than it probably is at the moment. These are the opinions of Monsieur G. and do not necessarily represent the views of the author. Some modern art intrigues me, makes me think, helps me see the world in a different ways. Some of it however, is just sensationalist taxidermy, with a plausible-sounding cover story, imho. Thank you so much for the comments!!

I too would also like to submit on Monday as well, please--in addition to Rogueshar.

Notes Yes, much better opening, I think. I get a decent sense of her starting to panic, even though her life was saved. It’s not immediately clear that N was in the gold coffin. I would like the acknowledgement that death was the likely outcome somewhere on the first page. You mention rotting, but that is kind of removed from the concept of death. Rotting, I think, is more a light-hearted term. On Page 2, all the ‘yours’ turned me off. I wanted the stakes to be more personal. Also, I struggle with N’s summation at the end of that paragraph. I mean really, are we to believe she is suicidal? So, what happened to the pod? Was it still mobile? Was it not an asset that she could have sold, even for scrap? Did the M’s just keep it? Okay, I get that print=food, but I struggle to remember that, because it's an unatural association for me. Also, would people oin the future not have come up with another work for it, to distinguish printing food from printing anything else? So, it's not cooking, because that is still done in some places, probably. Prooking? I can see now where the term 'fast print shop' comes from, but nothing in that label says 'food', which seems an unlikely approach to advertising the product. I thought the b-film was some kind of translator, but it’s just a book? Lack of shoes is very unsanitary. I don’t understand. The arm hair line is funny, but it's really wordy for someone who has just been bashed about, smashed into the grounfd, and been kicked in the head. Oh, goody, a punctuation controversy!!! “Do you…belong here?” Now then, it seems that there are various variations and opinions on how to use the ellipsis. I favour what I have just discovered is The University of Oxford Style Guide approach, which is that there is no space before the ellipsis, but a space after. Hence why I've been correcting this in the LBLs I've been sending (sorry!). I think other the sources agree that, where ellipsis is used to represent a pause… it should be used thusly. Where it is used to represent text being omitted…thusly, or … thusly. I realise that you probably hate me now… but I don’t care!!! “Maybe she should turn terrorist.” – WHAT?!!!!!!!!!! I really don't buy this at all. “I can find both without your help” – Huh? I don't understand. This feels like a sudden change in mindset. “How old?” - But N already said 15 rotations. Was that in N? I'm losing track of the language being spoken. Also, this encounter feels a lot longer than it did before. I fear it’s lost some of its directness, and feels like it’s becoming rather rambling. It feels like we’ve gone around on the communication breakdown loop more than once, particularly on the ‘adult’ thing. “Answer your com.” – This is the point at which I really start to feel the tension around the call, which almost becomes the driving force of the whole story here. I know she’s been pursuing it since the beginning, but I'm not sure I have felt quite the same passion or need in her until this point. But, surely, she would try calling with a different label other than 'Exile', which must be a red flag? I like the ending. It’s very out-early. I’m presuming this is the last entry in this episode? I kind of hope it is. I like this version a lot better than the last one, subject to the usual list of quibbles, of course Nice work. (LBL file emailed separately.)

Hey, no worries. 'Real life' is about to recommence for me as I go back to work tomorrow after the holidays, ergo, I can relate! (...and my daughter got married in May. I did not make any pie this year, I did eat some though...)

Hey Man, thank you for reading again, much appreciated. Hmm, I was going for 'in late, out early'. Maybe overdid it a bit. I'll think on that. Have done so. Also, I have edited the whole sequence for references to the N--P and her run in with the wolves. (Would you mind terribly editing your reference to the N--P?) Actually, I just G--gled us and there is a thing called a Nuclear EMP, so probably I will need to change mine anyway. Really appreciate the great comments. Thanks!

Hey toomsta, really chuffed to have your comments Yeah, I'll buy that. It was the biggest problem first time and it's not yet fixed. I've had another go. Not permanently, but I've given her smart lenses linked to her handset. Thanks for flagging that, as others have too. That needed a fix. Yeah. Fixed that in the first book, but not here before submitting. I felt this was a call back to things that happened before the story started. Maybe that doesn't work, for atmosphere. Thanks, yeah, I've tried to tidy this up by reviewing M's whole POV there. Awesome, thanks I hope so, love Magnum P.I. - almost as much as I love The Rockford Files, but Jimbo was the first tec that I discovered, so he is original and best, for me. So pleased that you found some good stuff in there. Thanks so much for reading, toomsta. p.s. Can I trouble you to edit your post and abbreviate the reference to N--P, please? Ta.

OMG - I've sort of been saving them, but will go back sometime, but I love knowing they are there. (In-house secret ) Done. Ah, now, this is a change to the end of TMM. X-xxx8, became X-xxx8a, if you remember, so 'Eighty' is the corresponding nickname of the new model. I've spelled out more of them; all but the complex ones, like 9.81, and the years. I'm always conflicted about this. She now has data from her smartlenses via link to her handset. Yes, but I need to call it out. Thanks! I will rework. Yeah. We went through this when first I subbed this chapter back in June. But thanks!! I've tried to do that. Purrrrrrrfect I'm doing my best here!!! Thank you so much for commenting. It's such a buzz getting good feedback. Never underestimate the value of positive reinforcement.

Thank you for the comments I'll come back to you on these tomorrow.

And... please do not use on this forum the unique / proper names for tech or characters that are mentioned in the story. i.e. I'd prefer if you abbreviate to Q and M. Obvs if a character is called 'Dave' than that's fine Place names too are fairly rare, so if you could avoid using them that would be super. Sorry for the hassle

Hey folks, A very Happy New Year to you all. Here is the first chapter of my current project, TCC, which is Book 2 and sequel to the last novel that I submitted over 16 separate weeks on RE. Some of you will have read TMM, some will not, an I will value your comments equally and very highly, of course! So, any and all comment very welcome. If the old hands feel there is something missing or not explained from previously, that would be very valuable. If the Q&M newcomers pick up references that don't land because of not having read that first one, that's important to know, although I do not necessary believe that a complete retread of every note of Book 1 is necessary. LANGUAGE WARNING: One of the characters is a bit sweary--make that a lot sweary, but it's okay, she's a 14-year-old girl. Many thanks for your consideration. Robinski

ROFL, sorry one of my main characters is a 14-yr-old girl, but there's no comparison. 10 is very young to have so much independent thought, but then an upbringing on the street would of course force her to grow up quickly. Still, even 12-yr-old would be more 'comfortable', I think for reader buy-in.