aeromancer

Thoughts As I Go: Pg. 1 – I’ve decided I really like the ‘scholars and children’ line. Pg. 3 – Perspective shift, and I have no idea what’s going on now. All I know is that sand must be important. Pg. 5 – And now I’m getting White Sand vibes. Pg. 6-7 are unavailable to load…? Pg. 6 – And we’re back, I had to download it. That’s odd, wonder if it happened to anyone else. Pg. 9 – Too much exposition, take it from someone who runs with the same problem. Pg. 10 – We’re back to D, who is flying. Not sure how’s he’s doing that, or how he survived getting stabbed in the leg. Pg. 13 – Never mind, dream sequence. Overall: I’m interested in more. We have a mystery combined with an ominous vision, and those are two ingredients I enjoy in my fantasy. That said, the D perspective shifts were a bit stilted (I think that’s the word I want) in terms of connecting to the flow of S’s segments, and the backstory was lacking in D’s, while information was repeated in S. This also seems like a good chapter to use as a prologue, or maybe add it to the prologue.

I have not, though (after doing a quick check) the book does look interesting, but I can't guarantee I'll read it. (Side note: It was classified under 'Hard Fantasy' as the genre. I mean, it's not recent, but I'm happy Hard Fantasy is becoming more of a thing, even if it doesn't build off of Golden Age Science Fiction.) The painting is actually the one thing which isn't stolen. J pays for it and takes it. There's, well, a lot of double crossing, and a lot of GOTCHA moments, yes. (I like those, but I think a good lesson from the feedback is that maybe I should limit it to like one per chapter, if that.) And yes, everyone does appear to be male. (Spoiler: Someone isn't. Because I like GOTCHAs.) Judging from everyone comments, if this gets resubmitted, Lord E will probably become the mastermind of everything and even get a scene where he gets to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose with two fingers and says 'Just according to keikaku'. (I am possibly joking on the last part.) It was going to be tetrodotoxin, (that stuff is nasty) but last minutes swaps made it not viable, so I needed a substitute. And yes, Princess Bride. Because it's awesome. Message received.

I can't say this was completely unintentional, but not to the degree you describe. Now I feel like I want to flip it around, and try doing the story solely from E's perspective. Which probably isn't going to happen, as this was just an exercise I did to see how I could write a heist scene. Thanks for the feedback, definitely a unique perspective. Thanks for the comments. I know this sounds weird, but the team did hit setbacks - they just were never mentioned, which is the equivalent of it not happening. E is not harmless though, much as he would have you believe. I tried to hint towards that, but didn't do such a good job. Also a good point. There was a whole side scene about halfway through where it got introduced! -And that got cut because of the perspective-change feedback I got from Part I. I need to pay more attention when updating stories. Hmmm. I think you've made a good point with the last sentence. Heh. I mean, that wasn't, but the numbers everyone uses refers to members of Wraith Squadron's original roster. (For reference, S is Runt, J is Face, A is Piggy, G is Grinder, and Y is Tyria.) Thematically, rather than personality wise. This was unclear, too. The only book that was removed is a book called One with Nothing, by A. (This is a MTG reference, incidentally.) Originally was the Directors, swapped to J's. Technically, no, but people will but a placeholder for sale, i.e. sell a cheap statue through the auction, but really be selling a smuggled cache of weapons, or something of that nature. I dropped a line early on in Part I, but obviously this should have been made clearer. They are. Saying it now. I find that working in only one world makes it easier for me to write stories, rather than creating the rules new for every short I do from scratch. The problem, of course, is what you are saying, i.e. there's way too much context that gets left out of stories. Glad to hear most of that sentence, and I'll work on the rest.

I could send you it, if you want. A lot of things might make a lot more sense. Heterochromia (having two different eye colors) is hardly infrequent, but it's usually missed because it's just a light shading difference. In J's case, he has two completely different colors! And one of them isn't a normal human eye color. No, but Spellcheck agreed with you. I'm using 'lesser' as shorthand for 'lesser master' (such as, say, Salieri to Mozart). It's a bit clunky, I'll grant that. Knife hand. Might've been more clear on that. Yah, standard expodump problem. Still rough around the edges with those. It was mentioned in the first part. Thanks! The dialogue might work a bit better if you read part 1, though. Oh, a newcomer. Welcome to Reading Excuses, it's great to have more people around. Can't wait to read your first submission. Also, the 'cross-arms' in a knife-disarming technique I've modified to work with spear. I've just done a bad job. See earlier comment, long story short, yes but it's riskier. That guard is Stan, he smuggled it in. Success! Thanks for the feedback.

Heist - II is the conclusion to last week's submission. As indicated by the title, this is a 'heist' style story. I'm looking for overall feedback, but specifically on possible plotholes, viewpoint jumping, and pacing.

I'd like to submit again Monday. Seems quite, so there shouldn't be a problem.

I see. Add alcohol to please kais. Noted. On a serious note, yes, I was worried amount the amount of characters (I actually wanted to throw in the team's fifth member as well.) I had an internal debate about starting late, and using flashbacks and infodumps to explain what characters got where, or to just write out all the set-up, and then have the action come fast and fierce. I opted for the later. On the downside - yes, it's boring. On the plus side - next submission is going to be much more exciting. Good news: You were invested. I see your point, though. Cuts can, and should be made. (Would just removing all of G's scenes work? I think it might.) Thank you, it's nice to hear that. (I did have a character sheet for everyone, with notes on personalities, but it got lost. Unfortunate.) Most of your 'as I go' is similar to your previous points, which are fair and I will address. This is also a valid point. I kind of just whipped this up, because it's an adequate solution from a game theory perspective to punish cheaters - but it's not how things would actually work, you're right about that. Primary goal achieved. First, I'll take a moment to appreciate your member title, as I don't think I have before. Hello, Yrael, who'd you convince to remove your collar? Second, yes, points are valid, as noted by kais as well. My current move is just to remove all scenes involving G, especially if you find the shift jarring. Will hopefully be submitted next Monday. Look forward! Wow, you've read my mind in advance. That is spooky. As I've noted responding to the previous feedback, and some reflection, yes the plot can very well be advanced using just the pair of J and A. Now to respond to your in-depth analysis: It does mean alcohol, yes. I have a tendency to use archaic terms. This scene was originally also going to also be used to poke fun at wine connoisseurs, (the super-rich ones, specifically, I have nothing against people who enjoy a good glass of wine.) That just got abandoned as the dialogue didn't really work for it. Two valid points, and I'm usually a stickler for this. Both are technically feasible, but there are much easier ways to accomplish both of them. Actually, the optimal strategies heavily depend on a lot of factors which aren't fully explained, but E was not incorrect in stating his assumed price. At a normal auction (which this is) the players aren't playing against the rule setter (E, in this case) but each other, which means that E's statement doesn't matter. As long as someone is underbidding what the item should be worth, someone else is willing to bid on that item. For instance, if I auction off 1 dollar, I fully expect the highest bid to be either 99 cents or 1 dollar, regardless of what I announce the 'price I expect' before hand. (It works kind of like free market forces, in a sense.) (If there were, say, a silent auction, then E's statement of 'initial price' would have more of a profound effect.) So E's statement is mostly useless. The reason he gave the minute (and the price) is to give all the players time to decide how much they'd be willing to put in, most auctions have listings beforehand 1: E is. RAFO in the next segment. 2: I thought I mentioned that J was an agent. Must not have been noticeable then. 3. J has a plan. RAFO in the next segment. Thank you for all the other comments as well.

Thoughts As I Go: The opening few paragraphs read like a character bio, especially the sixth paragraph. -I also don’t remember M being an elf, was that added? Also, does she have pointy ears? (It’s a pretty standard trope, so just wondering.) -pg. 2 – I remember doing an energy conversion calculation in a short story I wrote for the rough amount of calories it would take to cure people from wounds. I can try dredging it up from memory if you want. -pg. 2 – paternal or maternal cousin? -pg. 5 – I’m slightly happier with this version of M’s relationship with E. -pg. 6 – The foreshadowing is a good addition, but maybe it’d be a bit better if it didn’t intrude into M’s conversation so much? -pg. 6 – the pronouns are an issue, oddly enough. If I was a first time reader (and didn’t know that B prefers ‘they’ as a pronoun) I’d think E was referring to the pair of them (both B and C), then get confused later. -pg. 9 – I’m calling out M again. First rule of being a civilian first responder to an emergency – do not put your own life in danger under any circumstances. (Second rule is call 9-1-1. Yes, that’s the second rule.) Overall: This is a good introduction, and I don’t have a lot of the same complaints I had on the first LMM submission. That said, I think B and C have a little too much focus, as I mentioned earlier.

This is part one of a two-part short of a heist short story I tried out, for variety. Because I intend to submit the Part II next week, I may not be able to answer / address all the points as they may relate to spoilers, so I apologize for that in advance. That said, all feedback is welcome. I'm looking for, specifically, how the buildup went. I've tried to do my best attempt at Chekov's Gun, so if anything jumps at you as important for later, I'd really appreciate you pointing it out.

Thoughts As I Go: -It seems kind of cliché that B doesn’t recall the previous five minutes where M explicitly said that they’re about to do the alternate universe thing. I mean, sure there’s a list of reasonable explanations, but none are mentioned. -The ‘everything is now terrible’ is written well, but more on that later. -Seeing massive ‘For want of a nail’. -Saying ‘no one can change time’ when M just pretended she could is kind of weird. -Do we know how the scam account payback worked? I mean, did M meat-puppet them, or hacked them for a funds transfer, or what? -Ending is kind of deus ex machina. Overall: I kind of feel bad for saying this, but (and remember this is just my personal opinion) I kind of think this is the wrong ending to this kind of a story. I mean, it works well, but it kind of defies my expectations for it. M spends too much early story explanation how mental illnesses do not get solved in real life the same magical way they do in movies and how the movie version wouldn’t work at all. Then M pretty much does the same thing. Sure, it gets window-dressed to make it look better, and it works as a nice inspirational story. I guess what I expected was perhaps the world-reset turning out to be equal to the real word, or just slightly less as good, perhaps with some things working our better. Then M would have more or less the same conversation, and it would end on a more neutral note. This could just be because I prefer my fairy tales dark, though. (Neal Shusterman’s Dark Fusion series is a favorite of mine, if you’re familiar with it.) In other words, I do think this was written well, but I just expected something a bit different.

I might have something to submit tomorrow, assuming I can chop up a 10,000 word short into two manageable bits by then.

Seconded, by the way. I never watched the movie, so I had to look up the plot summary on Wikipedia to get what was going on.

This probably won't be much of a problem, seeing how the prerequisite for this website is reading at least one of Brandon's weighty tomes, but I do kind of concur. While that is true, and I try doing shorts in other genres occasionally, I think, as a whole, we're more suited for critiquing SFF than any other genre. I mean, sure I technically can critique a horror story, but I fair a lot better when dealing with SFF. (Mostly SF, if I'm being honest.) I wouldn't vote to change the 'all genres welcome' line, but it's more along the first reason I mentioned, I don't think it'll be much of a problem.

Currently it says: "An online writing group by the fans, for the fans. Inspired by the popular podcast Writing Excuses." I suppose we'd want something along the lines of: "An online writing group, focused on peer-critiqued work. All Sharders welcomed, regardless. Inspired by the popular podcast Writing Excuses." Though, if we're being honest, we have very little connection to the Writing Excuses podcast (besides the fact that the probable majority of us listen to it). Aside from the handful of times someone uses an episode to bring in a point, it's not mentioned much, nor do we do the writing prompts. Or, any writing prompts, for that matter. (Which may be something to consider - I'd be all for using a week of submissions to do some form of a group prompt.) That said, we'd also have to consider how exactly the rules would work if we let non-RE members submit. I will state now that I am not against the idea - in fact, I'm all for it, but there's a reason we have the '3 critiques to 1 submission' rule of thumb in place. I can brainstorm a decent set of placeholders, if needed.

It's kind of gambling, I guess. The concept behind this is 'How do you beat someone who can't lose a game of chance at a game of chance?' It's not gambling, so much as changing the meta of the game so that chance isn't being used to win. Now, on to the new comments: Rah and boo, then. I am glad that I managed to improve, but hearing that the story lacks stakes is kind of problematic. I will see what I can do, but there's kind of a problem, in that J needs to have everything planned out to a T beforehand. The idea was that C would provide the stakes, because she had no knowledge of anything. And that plan kind of backfired, judging from what you said. I will see what I can do. (waves hand) S T E A M P U N K needs no explanation. I will admit to ludicrously cherry-picking for the setting, but I've seen far worse from steampunk. Also, J/N removes his jacket just to annoy people by standing out. I keep getting this. Noted. In the event I do submit next time, it'll probably be in a better chronological order. Yay, success! Again, a lot of people have commented on the numbers, and rereading it, it's hard to juggle all the tallies in my head without the dice in front of me, so I notice the point. I'm just not sure I want my narrator POV to comment on the game, though, so that's probably not going to happen either. Thanks for the comments!

Thanks! Addressing the points... I do see this. There is kind of a 'game within a game' which is just hinted at (C isn't experience enough to see it.) I'm looking to redo another old submission right now, but this will probably get resubmitted. A lot of your notes translate to, roughly, that I have serious flow issues, though I am very happy that you broke down the issues, rather than just pointing it out. This will make it much either to work with. Sorry! I do this a lot, especially since I have a tendency to prioritize worldbuilding above basically everything else, so I leave threads all over the place. As it happens, that particular story would make good fodder for another submission in terms of two people playing games, so you might actually get that story. Thanks. No to both. I have read Liar Game, though, but that's apparently an obscure title so you've probably not even heard of it. I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'dramatic' introduction, could you explain? Also, yes, money is a non-issue. The amounts are never named, and the eventual stakes have nothing to do with money. As it happens, I dislike the idea of gambling with money altogether. My fault for not specifying. C doesn't solve the riddle in one shot, she knows it beforehand. That puzzle is actually the archetypal puzzle of plurality puzzles (i.e. puzzles which rely on the solvers realizing that their are larger-than less-than amounts specified within the language of the puzzle.) When done correctly, they're very fun, but I dislike that particular one because there are highly creative alternate solutions you can use for it. I just threw it in because it was the first short puzzle that came to mind which had a degree of difficulty. This short story has literally nothing to do with conventional gambling, so no. True gambling is chance. Here, both players are attempting to use victory strategies with a 100% chance of victory by bending the rules of the game they're playing. However, for J's plan to work, he needs to be playing a game with the ability to raise the stakes to an absurd amount, even when he was losing.

Thoughts As I Go: Pg. 2 – Is the woman flat-out lying about where she found it, or is she just once again proving that customers are never right? It’s kind of weird that the rest of the customers would take her seriously, though. Pg. 6 – Wait, does B have clinical depression? It didn’t seem like that from B’s narrative. Pg. 7 – Punch it, Chewie! I probably shouldn’t joke but using the ‘punch’ line just pops that clip into my memory. If you really wanted to make a depressing Star Wars reference, the asteroid debris of destroyed Alderaan would be a better comparison. Pg. 8 – Does M have stunt training? The Jeep-sunlight maneuver seems like an improbable series of events. Pg. 12 – I really can’t help but question the wisdom of lying that you bet on whether the person you’re attempting to save would attempt suicide. Pg. 13 – Nope. My suspension of disbelief checks out once we bring in VR. Notes: Ignoring grammar, and focusing on what you asked. Like my notes above say, it’s not clear whether B suffers from clinical depression (as classified by the DSM-V) or not. The whole morality thing is also kind of just sticking to me, because (not looking to get into a debate) it seems that a half-angel should have a pretty good handle on the whole ‘good & evil’ thing. (Unless angels in this world are just powerful entities that aren’t created to protect humans, as is the generally assumed reasons why angels exist, which means that the label is just misleading.) It terms of the ‘whatever else you think of’ - I’m a believer in the ‘one free pass’ rule, which is a writer gets one free pass to set up the background when writing fantasy. Using it to set up demi-angels is a valid use, but then having a different character pull out a fully-functioning immersive VR world with self-propagating algorithms to plug all the holes is too much for my feeble sci-fi mind trained exclusively on hard science fiction, especially when you used the one free pass on fantasy. If nothing else the information space necessary to hold all that information definitely exceeds the trailer they’re in. EDIT: Oh, also, is B's dog's name deliberate or is that an accidental reference?

The protag has to get a maguffin. More specifically, he works for someone who wants the maguffin for reasons he's not being told. Why does it matter if he gets the maguffin? Well, it doesn't matter to the reader, which was brought up last time, so this is why I threw in the counter-wager of losing an eye. As for the games, well, they're games. Everyone loves games. Yeah, I have no idea how to set up stakes. I mean, I read a good amount of this kind of literature, but I kind of skip to get to the good parts (AKA the math.) But I think I did a better job then last time. Yay! I did. I think it was supposed to be third-person during the opening, following J until the game started, then following C. That in it of itself sounds complicated now that I'm writing it, and I probably didn't stick to it as often as I liked. I mean, I originally I did have it the other way, then this stray thought entered my mind of wouldn't it be better if we started 'in media res'? See, if I start off by telling you there's a ploy, then I have no reveal. But if I don't, I have two reveals, the first being the answer to the executioner's riddle, and the second being that N isn't actually that, well, actually I'm at a loss to describe him other than 'hyper-aggressive fool'. Did it work? I am pleased to know that I managed to hit exactly what I was aiming for, but I will question the wisdom of leading with such a punch-able character. (This is also why I need to use 'narrator' for the opening, there's really no other way to sugar coat that.) Your warning is noted. I don't intend to turn C into some damsel-in-distress swooner or someone who flies off the handle at any provocation. However, C kinds of needs to be the emotional one of the group (A isn't getting a POV and J needs to be absolutely calm) because I need someone to give tension to the game at the end, though, if anything, she's the straight man (straight woman? I mean I think everyone knows the term as straight man) in this situation. Long story short, much like yourself, I do believe you aren't in the target demographic for this. I appreciate you taking the time to review this, especially since this isn't your cup of tea. Thanks. And, yeah, the ending isn't exactly climatic. I mean, there is a subtext to the entire game that J and A are playing, but that would take at least a page of direct exposition for something which isn't even that great. But I also like understanding, and being understood, so I'll try explaining A's reaction to being caught cheating and get slightly sidetracked. (I warned you about dragging me down the game theory hole.) There's an old saying in sports which I heard attributed to John McGraw (though in any event it's not something he'd disagree with even if he didn't say it): "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'." (No, I'm serious, that's a thing.) In other words, it was expected of players who wanted the win to do everything in their power to get in. Cheating means something very different to a player rather than a designer. For instance, takes the infamous Black Sox Scandal in 1919, where eight players took bribes to fix the World Series by losing deliberately. (It should be noted that one of these players, the legendary 'Shoeless Joe' Jackson, accepted money initially, but returned it and played to win.) These eight players were banned for life from baseball, and stripped of their respective achievements they already amassed. That is what a player considers cheating, because it goes against the grain of the game. Something like, saying, superfreezing baseballs so they sink short when the other team hits 'em, the classic 'hidden ball' trick to tag players on base out, or just straight up plonking is considered dirty, but understandable. (Now I note that 'plonking', aka deliberately hitting the batter, is throwing a 145g ball at around 40m/s at a human being. You will receive a 1-game ban. Unless you're Jose Ureña, who got a completely deserved 6-game ban.) Here, we have two cheaters playing each other. At that point, it's just a contest of who's better at not getting caught, (which is why I have C acting as the second). Which is what's happening. It's very clear that A manipulated the dice to roll a five. And, fortunately, A is a decent enough of a human being to admit when she gets caught.

My submission is kind of long this week. In fact's it's my single longest submission yet, by around 1000 words. I wanted to keep it short, but that didn't happen, and while it is long enough to split into two submissions, I didn't really feel there was a good halfway point to do so. TL;DR - It's long, I'd like for you to read it anyway, if it starts dragging, feel free to drop it, but give me comments. This is the second draft. I've replaced the side character to a side characters, altered the setting a bit, and apply the comments from last time. Again, no actual drugs in this submission, but gambling is a vice, and V and G are both taken. Now for the notes on all the games mentioned. Note that I just know about these games and techniques from a theoretical standpoint, so please don't actually try any of this, thank you. Also, while it may seem otherwise, aside from one roll, all of J's roll was determined by a random number generator. By which I mean this: And, as stated previously, discuss game theory with me at your own peril.

Tentative submit for Monday, if slots are open. (It's a re-submission for Raise the Stakes) ...I'm back again, by the way. Hopefully for longer than a week this time. I seem to be doing this vanishing act a lot. At least, more than I intend to.

Thoughts As I Go: Prologue: ‘Time is like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff’ – Doctor Who. (Who else?) I’m just drawing an issue here with your protagonist being okay with a cold shoulder for preventing a cousin from committing suicide. Nope. Sure, it’d be nice if talking worked, but that’s not always the case. Now, this sounds strange typing this myself, but would you consider shifting the tense from ‘past’ to ‘present’ when your protagonist is reading thoughts? This a good integration of exposition and character development. But the real question is, is her alignment CG or LG? Notes, Overall: The concept intrigues me to be sure, a divinely-gifted mostly-human working silently to fix the world, on small problem at a time. M is interesting, decent power spread, I can’t relate to her believing she deserves her cousin’s cold shoulder. I’d also assumes that the ‘angels’ here are more akin to the D&D variety (hence the Lawful Good / Lawful Chaotic joke). Mi works as a support character, so that’s good. I can’t say I can relate to B’s thoughts, but I also see how you wouldn’t necessarily want the reader to be identifying with some of those thoughts. As a side note, I’d recommend taking a look at the book Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman. It’s a first-person narrative of someone going insane and coming back, masterfully done.

And I take a break from my other AK for this AK. (Why do you call it AK? Just idle curiosity.) I do kind of suffer from Weekly Reader Syndrome, but I’ll do by best anyway. Thoughts As I Go: J seems to be constantly eating an incredibly large amount of raw marrow and constantly having a hard time with it. Of course, seeing all the marrow I eat is cooked, I can’t confirm whether or not you can build up a tolerance for it. The horse power is weird, make no mistake. I mean, I suppose it’s symbolic of taming and riding a horse if you stretch it, but horse is usually used as a pack animal or a strength booster. Snakes makes more sense for hypnotism, but they don’t have marrow. The scene where J decides to target Lady P was well executed. Masterful use of psychology. Excellent fight scene, but it could use some touch-ups when it came to everyone’s location relevant towards each other. Overall: I don’t really have good overall comments, because this is the end of a long submission that I was on/off reading. This submission was good overall, rapid pacing and satisfying conclusion, the one complaint I have was that the horse marrow was slightly deus ex machina for J to use as well as he did.

Just a note – I’ve read both, but I’m behind, so I’m only commenting on this one: Thoughts As I Go: The mention of ‘two capitals’ immediately makes me think the divide in the Roman Empire, which only is confirmed through further reading, like the mention of village resettlement. I like the atmosphere on this piece. A’s ‘diffusion attempt’ should be in the reverse order – first to T to clarify Alex’s statement, then to Alex to give it an answer. ‘Fearless leader’ seems just a bit anachronistic for my tastes. In general, you match the era’s tone, but there is the odd slip-up. On that note, using Sultan when you’ve substituted every other word of note is also out of place. So, his sword would be a large curved cavalry blade, of course, fitting for a man on horseback. I’d assume he regularly treats the sword to keep it from rusting. Notes, overall: You’ve elected to use what seems to be the late Roman Empire as your setting, but have swapped up every single term of note. In general, I like historical fiction (so long as it’s accurate, but that’s not a problem you’ll have) but I think books should either commit to be set within the history (i.e. Romans) or, while being loosely based on real-life empires, be different enough so this wasn’t just a case of calling rabbits shmeerps. That is not to say that you are calling rabbits shmeerps, because this doesn’t give me enough of a perspective, I just wanted to make the point. In terms of your characters, A (main character) is a bit too generic at this point for me to care about him. T has her own problems, in the sense that she belongs to a unique ethnic group (which now are Genes (which just makes me think Dune)) and it bleeds very little into her character. Alex, on the other hand, is interesting because I’ve never really read a historical fantasy where the village idiot (yes, I know he’s just an outcast, but that is the stereotype) is one of the main characters. (Also, if we haven't met, I'm aeromancer, occasional poster on these forums, resident hard-sci-fi nerd.)

I'll be out of touch for most of this week, incidentally, so no rush. Negative rush, actually. I'm backlogged myself. This is my first submission without any sort of tag. What I'd like specific feedback on, of course, is how well I managed to lay out the clues, if any of you managed to solve it, and how much you enjoyed the submission.Everything else takes a backseat, though by all means I welcome that to.

Request to submit a short fairplay next Monday