cjhuitt

I thought the first few paragraphs didn't quite work. I think I can see what you're going for, with the litany of pains, but I wasn't really feeling it until I got to the paragraph about it not being spring. I wonder if you started out with Coil cataloguing the pain, and used each item of pain to show a part about what he's doing, if it might not work better. Something like starting with his feet where one was numb as snow had worked it's way in while he trudged through the snow. Rubbing at his hip, where the unaccustomed weight of the sword rested. The snot, not quite freezing. The lashes of his pack, weighted down. Then his arms, clutching a bundle tight against his chest, that he refused to think of as painful. I'm loving the part about the plants and winter being their dormant time, however. The mood and scene you set with the paragraph on the grass is very good, and the trees add their own bit to the setting. You describe Sight's End as it "spanned the convex length of all five Watches". This part confused me, as I tried to figure out what you were describing. Part of it was because I wasn't quite clear what a Watch was, although by reading a few paragraphs more I'm starting to think it's the area watched over by one of the large stone guardians. I also don't recall what significance Vern is, if it had even been mentioned yet. I wonder if having another paragraph describing the overall setup here might help. The "it" here is too vague for me, since there is no specific precedent. I imagine you might be trying to keep part of the whole problem a mystery, to keep the reader going, but you may want to reconsider here, or reword the sentence somehow. Something similar happened when Coil first saw Im: "Well, it would be harder than that after all." The immediate previous clause was Im moving ashes with a stick, so right at first I thought something was going to be harder than moving ashes with a stick, but that clearly didn't fit. I think you are trying to say that leaving wasn't going to be as easy as he had hoped, but I don't read it that way. You refer to Im as "bundled and mailed", which made me think of wrapping something up and putting it in a mailbox to ship somewhere. A minor tweak to phrasing out to help. Just don't mention he had been posted to the watchtower. I thought the initial description and interaction with Im was awkward, and not as in it conveyed the awkwardness well, but that the text became more difficult to read there. I think a lot of that is from how it is initially set up. For instance, right after Im is described, their fast friendship is mentioned. That sets the basis for what I thought both the scene was going to be, and of how I thought Coil viewed him. I think this made the later hints and revelations more disconcerting than they ought to be. Also, Coil thinking that his smile was always irritating was a really odd contrast to the statement of friendship, but it could work if developed -- either an irritation born out of friendship, or the friendship really being based on being the only two of an age, instead of the fastness Coil thought. Again, once we know a bit more behind it, the description kind of makes sense, but on a fresh read, I was having problems reconciling everything. One of those items to reconcile was my expectations regarding the scene, after how it was presented. Right at first, I thought two things might happen. A) I expected Im to figure out what Coil was up to, somehow, if they were really fast friends. That would lead to the obvious offer to help, and is kind of what happened. B ) the other option was that Im may or may not figure it out, but would stand his ground and Coil would be forced to fight him. This expectation is reinforced by Im needing to be told what Coil is doing, and by his initial reaction -- dismissing the notion, plus having a hard voice and annoyance in his eyes. So I was set in my expectation, and ready for you to twist it slightly, which appeared to be happening. Im realizes Coil was going to permanently leave without him, and starts protesting and making plans to join him (so it appears to twist back to option a). Then the commander rode up, and I'm suddenly certain that it is going to be option b, with the twist that Im is forced to fight Coil due to the presence of his sergeant. So, conflict. Great, conflict is what makes stories move, and I'm all ready for a fight. Only, then it doesn't happen. The sergeant just rides on out, and the other person suddenly dispenses wisdom and aid, and off they go with no fight. No fight? I'm taking a little time to explain how my expectations built up (and exaggerating them slightly) so you can see how it might be misleading, and take whatever steps you think need to be done to resolve that part of the chapter. Also, with Coil asking Im what he would do had Fen been the one to die made me equate Fen and Rae in age as well, so I was surprised to find Fen acting older and with a lot more knowledge of what was going on, both in the watch and between Coil and Im. She may or may not be older; I don't think the text actually says, but I feel as if she's older, and that was a little jarring as well. I did like the world building and personality of Fen otherwise, however. It was another good point to the story, and another promise of conflict in the future. Finally, I thought the end of the chapter dragged on a little long. You set up that they need to be quick, and where they can find supplies. I'd find a way to cut it off there, with perhaps the line about saying goodbye -- we can imagine the rest of the action. Also, unless there is no place to show it later or there is another reason to be quick with confirmation of the relationship between Coil and Im, you might want to wait a bit to reveal it. I'm not sure if it's the right answer or not, but right now you've got me attached to Coil, while I don't feel anything much for Im (other than a slight annoyance that he didn't follow my invisible script for his behavior earlier in the chapter), so the relationship between them feels like just another data point, or something as background to be gotten out of the way. Looking back, I can see how it informs their actions, but I didn't feel it through the chapter, so it feels kind of... flat, or something. I don't know, and I'm probably not at my most comprehensible right now, so I'll just leave it there and hope you can pull some useful information out of all these ramblings.

The biggest reaction I had to the first part of the story was that the narration was quite distant from Heinrich. Even in the first paragraph, I feel like you could focus in closer on him and his feelings on the mission. Part of this may go along with show, don't tell -- you tell us he wasn't happy. You tell us he doesn't like flying. You could show us these things instead. This goes through the rest of the first section; for example, you mention he doesn't like the city, which is good (and I did see your comment about unreliable POV/narrators, and that is working some), but I don't ever get a good feel for him not liking the city. Make him resent it. Show us why. The city guards its tunnels so well just to spite him and make him fly, right? You had mentioned maybe cutting out the second part of the chapter and working the information in elsewhere, but you may also want to take a closer look at the rest of this chapter as well. The whole second paragraph seems like a big list of information, which I think could be spread and divvied out more. Getting in closer to Heinrich would also help with this, I think, making it easier to digest the nuggets of information by hiding them in opinions and actions. There are also some places I think you could make the text more effective by doing a bit of wordsmithing. For example, in the first paragraph, instead of "He wasn't very happy to be on this mission; it was his hundred and fortieth birthday," you could instead say something like "He wasn't happy to be on this mission; it was his birthday. One hundred and forty may not be cause for large celebration, but no man should have to toil on his birthday, let alone fly." Other places I noticed an opportunity for improvement through rephrasing are when he starts reading the dossier, when thinking about summoners going mad after talking to demons, thinking about sinking the village, thinking about how he does things that need doing despite what the heads of MIA want, etc. On the action, I think you might want to try and start a little closer to when (interesting) things happen. The chapter starts with him flying in a helicopter. Sure, he's a covert operative, but what if you started a little closer to when he left the helicopter? Besides compressing being a neat visual, it's also a strong image, and can be used to establish how much he hates flying (although is under his own magic better than the helicopter, or worse?). Heinrich's part of the chapter ends strongly, however. Others have mentioned how referring to him as "The Grumr" was odd; I would agree with them. I was curious why Heinrich didn't want to bend any of the pages of the dossier. Also, in the next paragraph, I got confused as to exactly what was happening with the magic. The most confusing part for me was a reference to a chunk of the ocean's crust, which is not something I generally associate with an ocean. I thought Keth's section started nicely, with the alarm problem. I also thought it was a nice contrast to the previous section with Dex and Keth seeming to get on well. I bought that Keth might need to know about the magic happenings (or that Dex might interpret his instructions that way, depending on how reliable Dex turns out to be in the end), but I'm a little confused, however, as to why Keth is investigating the magical happenings. What does he hope to get out of it? Is it a superhero, save-the-world sort of thing? Somehow, it doesn't seem like Keth's character to do that. Also, I notice that despite the alarm and desire to check out a suspicious energy surge, Keth takes the time to make a cup of coffee and gather things around. If this is something he does often (as implied), I would expect him to have things around already. I also thought the lack of urgency implied by the cup of coffee was odd. I was confused about the Verdrie, but I think some of that is how you constructed the sentence. At first, I thought Verdrie was a singular, and something that could be partially summoned. If you take out the "of", however, the sentence makes a lot more sense to me. Why wouldn't Dex have stood a chance in a mental confrontation? So far he seems reasonably intelligent, and most stories I've read with demons in them have them intelligent and mentally strong.

I was referring more to the story as a whole. I've enjoyed both of Dalcon's scenes I've read, this one and the previous one, in that they have personal action and a character I can somewhat relate to. It is mostly when I consider each of his chapters in the context of the larger story and actions that I tend to have critiques. Each new chapter I get, however, I have to remind myself who the people are and what they've recently been doing. It certainly doesn't help getting the chapters sporadically, but even regularly one week apart may not be enough to stay completely involved in a story. (I'm the sort who, if I really get into a story, will look up as I finish and wonder where all the time went, why is the sun coming up, and how am I going to sleep before I need to be at work in an hour? That is to say, if a story really grabs me, a few minutes is too long to wait, let alone a week at a time.) As I've learned more about writing lately, I've come to realize how difficult your undertaking is, in that you are trying to get the reader involved in a main character who has no emotions they can connect to (at least at first). I wonder if there are other aspects of Darkclaw that you might be able to play up more, despite being unemotional. Loyalty, for example, is one of the traits that can let a reader connect to a character, and Darkclaw seems to have plenty of loyalty to his lord (again, so far). He's also quite competent, and that is another trait people will connect with. Perhaps if you emphasized those two (or others you think are appropriate) more in the first few chapters, it would be easier to get into the story overall.

I really liked it. Most of my comments have been covered by others, so I will attempt to be brief and just hit the others. This is a small nit-pick, but the beginning of the prologue (and some other places), you sometimes have what I would consider two paragraphs rolled into one. The very first paragraph is one example, where I would split it between Rae's speech, and Coil's actions (holding her tightly). A couple paragraphs done, you also have Coil start rocking Rae in the paragraph with her text, followed by his own. I would split his actions into the paragraph with his own words, instead of intermixing them. As I said, it's small, but I think it would help my other problem with the introduction, which is that I thought the first few paragraphs were slow and harder to read than the rest of the story (so far). I think it would work better if you could move one of the unique elements of the story up closer to the very beginning. Off the top of my head, I wonder about having the request for the story, and have Coil start right in, and only then ask if she truly wants to listen to the story. I will say I wasn't confused about times as some of the other readers were. I got a reasonable sense of Coil's age (I would have guessed around 14-ish), and I understood the chronology of their father as presented so far. The text didn't clearly state how recently the plague started (that I recall), though, so if that is important it might help to add. The two civil engineers and their conversation threw me a little out of the story. I think a lot of it was that their speech was so modern, after a slightly older version that Coil was using for the story. I was especially thrown by the "loved one-slash-family member" part, but also algorithm and corroborating. I thought the grandmotherly part was too overdone and drawn out. I was confused by the phrasing "Plague schedules you...". It made it seem as if the Plague was engineered and programmed to hit certain people at certain times. (If that is truly the case, which I doubt but can't dismiss, you might want to work to make sure it reads like it should, and not like an accidental phrasing.) Also where Banner was referenced, I keep reading it as Banner being located near a pair with a girl in the house with the plague, instead of your intending message of the pair learning about his sister via Banner. The soil also, but more particularly their mother bringing their soil. I think that can be solved by saying "brought their own soil" or something, emphasizing that theirs is different than the other soil nearby. Hardbread seemed like an odd curse, especially since it's something he might be considered to be carrying at the time. Also, I kept expecting a reference to drawing the sword (since it was scabbarded on the wall). Did Coil attack with the sword still in the scabbard? It's not unreasonable, just unusual enough you'd want to clarify that as well. Finally, I thought the mention of the pattern was confusing. This early in a story with a lot of apparently odd things going on, I thought you meant that the sun had begun to rise, confirming the pattern of sun risings. Well, it looks like I had a bit more to say than I expected. I'll cut it off here, but I'm looking forward to reading more.

I'll be honest, I'm still having a hard time getting drawn into the story you are presenting. Let's start with the good. The first thing I notice that is good is that we have conflict here, but not military conflict. I like that Dalcon has someone he dislikes, for whatever reason, and who he blames the mistakes on. (I also like that he wasn't 100% correct about it.) The reveal of the video showing him wrong was nice also, especially that he missed the key information on it on his first viewing. I also liked the fact that there was conflict on how best to proceed with the defense. The debate was interesting, if a little one-sided (and therefore a touch short). I would have preferred to have the emotions running high for a little longer. I get the sense that Dalcon is being set up for having to go his own way -- in fact, he more or less does so in this chapter -- but I get less of a sense of what it costs him or what the conflicts are in him doing so. I have the feeling that Dalcon is supposed to be one of the "good guys" in the story, and so far he is presented very favorably. However, if he is one of the protagonists, things don't seem to be going poorly for him soon enough to get me wondering how he is going to survive what is coming. Some of the more critical parts I noticed had to do with timing and actions of his superiors. I'll start with the timing; I don't recall (having read the chapter many weeks ago) where Dalcon was that would have had him away for the recent actions. The last I remember, he was leaving the library station to report back... somewhere. It isn't mentioned in this chapter at all, so I assume it either went unremarkably, or this is where he was to report back. However, when describing the others in the room, Dalcon mentions Ronner, who had investigated the library with him "a few weeks ago". That seems like a long time for Dalcon to be out of touch, especially if he doesn't have much faith in the decisions being made while he is not there, and it seems he doesn't. Also, based on the description of Dalcon being the lowest ranked person in the room, and the number of others, I get the impression that he's about the fifth-most important person in the alliance. Granted, you mention the only reason he's there is due to his unique position, so he may rank a bit below that, but in order to even be present (regardless of other connections), he has to be fairly important. Also by those same words, Commander Ronner is even more important. This leads me to question once again what the two of them were doing on an expedition to figure out what happened to the library. Normally, people that high up send others to find things out. Perhaps Dalcon is one of the others being sent, but Commander Ronner almost certainly shouldn't be. You could probably explain his presence there somehow, but it will be even harder to have him leading the attack instead of in a safe ship kept a secure distance away from the library while the attack happens. Also, information of the superiors. It seemed to me, based on the descriptions, that all of the others in the conference room besides Dalcon had seen the video of the attack. If Dalcon was highly placed enough to know of the attacks and their results, why did he not already know of the video. It seems an odd bit of information to not have access to, especially since it doesn't really show anything about the ships. I was listening to the recent writing excuses podcast on brevity, and wondered if some of the advice in that could be used here also. In particular, I thought the first few paragraphs could be cut down and combined, in order to remove some duplication, but mostly to get closer to the start of the real action. Find some way to show he's mad, sure, but we have seven paragraphs of him being mad and trying to remind himself to keep a handle on his anger. Well, six, plus a recap of what had made him so mad. The recap could potentially be moved a bit later, or even revealed in dialog. Alternately, you could just reference the lost ships, since the chapter is right after the one in which they did lose the ships, rather than the description of where they were lost and all. Anyway, I think it might do better cut down a little more. The last couple of paragraphs might merit a bit more of a look as well, although I didn't think they seemed to drag out as much as the first ones.

It took me a while to get around to reading and reviewing this, and I'm not really sure why (other than one week of a particularly relaxing vacation). Anyway, I'm getting to it now. Like SkyhunterCommander, I've read a lot of the other chapters, so I know some about what is going on already. I haven't read all of them, however, and I didn't get any of the description of the various stages of magic the first time, so I can kind of view them with a fresh eye. I agree with Aminar that the beginning might need to be reworked. I liked what it eventually revealed about Lisu's approach to waitressing, but the exposition of an argument isn't exactly something that draws me into a story. In fact, it was the slowest part of the chapter, and the hardest for me to read. I probably spent about half as much time reading the first 8 or so paragraphs as I did the whole rest of the chapter. One possible improvement for this would be to reduce some of the actual argument, and let Lisu summarize it in her head. This would accomplish a few things, including introducing Lisu as the POV character sooner, showing how familiar she is with the arguments (and the arguers), and also removing some of the extra words, especially the big, unfamiliar words. Lisu could summarize the argument in much more familiar terms, rather than the scholarly terms the other two are using. Even with those changes, however, I'm still a little leery about starting a whole book that way. I can't remember if you have a prologue, but right now I'm going as if this is the start of the whole story. Of course, since you have a couple other viewpoints that aren't in the same location as this one, you could play with the three to find a better one for the first hook. What you might lose from doing that is what I thought was a very reasonable primer on the different levels of abilities that people can have in this world. While I agree with some of the other comments about the number of terms being thrown around, I think the introduction to the levels and what (to an extent) can be done with them is very good. You might skip (some of) the actual terms for the first chapter, however, and focus on the levels using english words (communication, command, control, and power). Going with something that worked well, the confrontation with the soldiers. Aside from the proliferation of names (I don't know why the Infantrymen need named, for example), I thought the action described was well done. You showed what she was doing and concentrating on, without getting distracted by the smaller details. It was also a good showcase for the system (as I mentioned already). However, I have the same overarching concerns others expressed. By all appearances, Lisu was expecting that she might have to deal with the soldiers by running. She had also apparently given some thought to it, since she had a stash of money and weapons ready to hand. For all that, the actual actions she took seemed ill-conceived. The others had mentioned actually going into the streets instead of listening some other way, such as via her ivy or have the bartender relay the conversation. Another I had problems with was her attacking the soldiers, rather than just running right away. What did she hope to accomplish with the attack? Best case, she beats them and ties them up or knocks them out. Then what? Was she going to kill and dispose of them, to prevent needing to leave? Or to get a head start? Plus, the lead solder mentioned crucifixion as a punishment, not exactly pleasant, and especially lending an overtone of control and cruelty to the emperor. I would expect retribution to come to the sister; she may be more useful where she is, but that much more useful? Much of the risk of repercussion could be avoided just by not being there, first of all, or secondly by just running and not attacking the soldiers. The running can be explained away more easily than an attack on representatives of the emperor, after all. Now, I don't want to say these problems are insurmountable. Some of them, such as her going outside rather than staying in, can easily be explained by a small sentence or part of a sentence describing her thought process leading her to go outside. Attacking the soldiers is harder, but if you show she has reason to think she either has to, or has a reasonable chance at a good outcome, it may work better. Finally, from what I've seen so far the metsi give their people very interesting and vast powers, but I would imagine nearly everyone by now knows how dogs track. I was thrown off by the idea that the canimetsi soldier could track Lisu even as she is escaping two stories or more above him. You may want to explain a bit further how that works, either by referring to them going well above and beyond what dogs have been shown to do, or the combination of intelligence with the ability to follow the scent leading the soldier to intelligently predict where she might go, and scent those places for her traces.

Here are two possibilities. One, I recently read Born to Run, a wonderful nonfiction book (that I'd recommend to many people). In it, the author starts by introducing the reader to the question that had set him on his journey. It is a very nonlinear book to read, jumping all over the place and digressing into many related topics. However, the initial question was enough to get me reading the first few chapters, and he slowly expands the scope to include more and more questions and mysteries. You might try relating your book like that, treating it almost as a fictional memoir (or biography) and directly introducing a question to be discovered through the reading of the book. The other alternative is character. If you can really get us rooting for a character, and quickly show how his circumstances may be in doubt, you can get readers continuing on to figure out what happens next to the character. If done well, you can introduce more information a bit before it's needed, in order to let the reader properly appreciate the next obstacle that is coming. Another similar possibility, strongly related to this, is voice. You say that eventually there's an "I" showing up. I would think you want to introduce that right away, because it will clear up some POV confusion and allow more flavor into the text. If you do this, you may want to consider a flashback to get the backstory as needed, rather than starting at the beginning (such as there is one in a time travel story) and moving forward from there. I don't usually recommend this, since I think the default order should be chronological, but your story might demand it. If you can introduce the narrator and a conflict that is somewhat understandable, you might be able to jump back for a chapter or two to present information that the narrator isn't present at, but written in the all-knowing viewpoint, which deepens the understanding of the conflict. The book I mentioned at the beginning, Born to Run, has many chapters that are presented in exactly that way, with the narrator just saying what happened, even though it becomes obvious that he couldn't have been there (and likely spent many hours interviewing the people that were). A third alternative, which I'll suggest just to keep the options open, is to move on to another story for a while. It could be one completely different, or one set in the same world but telling a different aspect of it. Perhaps that will let you lead up to how to tell this story.

Fair enough, and I didn't think it really detracted from anything. I just thought you should be aware of it, and that some people will probably be put off by it.

I liked that things turned into a setup for Pirian, and that things were deeper and more complicated than he had thought. I also think you've probably done a good job with your types of magic, distinguishing different ones for the different people. It appears you've got a large world and background for the series set up, and that you've done well to not let all of the information come crashing down into this opening chapter. However, I think you might have gone a little too far with that. Part of it is description, as Aminar stated. However, I don't think it should be entirely related to the environment. I think a little bit more about the different types of magic might help, as long as you don't go overboard. Especially right at the beginning, since all of his thoughts are about how his magic works, when he meets the other group of people in the hallway there is no mention (that I recall) of them being magical either. Of course, if everyone (or at least, all Sihir) are magical, Pirian might not remark on the group being magical either, but he might take note of a couple of them just to let us know what is possible. Later, when Apian fire starts jumping around and he gets punched, the magic being exhibited is a bit much of a surprise to me. So I think a couple of small references to details about this or that other type of magic might help round out the world a bit more and let us know what is possible to have happen in it, before everything starts going downhill for Pirian. It seems odd to have Pirian punished so harshly for using his magic to command others, and yet to have everyone so afraid that he's using his magic to command them. If it were such an offense that being shown to do so meant being purged, people might worry about it intellectually, but it doesn't seem like something that would keep them on edge all the time. If it was that common, it's more like Pirian would be working hard to not have it seem like he was the influence anytime someone does something a little out of what they perceive their own character to be. You know: A husband gets tempted into an affair? Oh, it wasn't me, a Matuon must have caused me to do so. Things like that. Jealous wives or husbands may think that the best way to resolve that insult would be to find the likeliest Matuon and eliminate the problem. Pirian takes control of Jayal and thinks that he will definitely be purged, as nobody had ever done that before. However, it sure seems like that is exactly what Jayal does to him when he is to be purged. Does that mean nobody has been purged in living memory? Those were the biggest issues I had. I thought the chapter read well overall, and I look forward to seeing what might happen in the next one.

Of the plot lines so far, I've enjoyed Rosalin's the most, so I was happy to get back to her. I also enjoyed this chapter in general, so don't take my critique as all-bad. I just tend to concentrate on things that confuse me or make me stop and think "huh?", or areas I think could be improved. Right off the bat, I think this might be improved by some stronger language in spots. As Aminar alluded to, a little wordsmithing might be appropriate. In the beginning, I thought things like "cold" was a little overused, especially in the third paragraph where tears were running down her cheeks. Something like frozen or frigid might be better than just "cold". I also noticed a few softening words, like "she was so cold and tired" instead of "she was cold and tired". Well, softening might not be the correct term, but extraneous in my opinion. Other ones I see often (though not necessarily in your piece, I'm just mentioning them) that are more softening are things like "nearly", "almost", and their ilk. I was also confused by the reference to "the city" right at the beginning, as if this was a goal Rosalin had been working toward, but I didn't recall this goal from the previous chapter. Last I recall, Rosalin was looking for her own village again. I realize you said you've edited that chapter, so perhaps it's been changed already. I mention it just so you can be sure to introduce this as a goal somewhere before we come across it, either in the previous chapter or right at the beginning of this one. "Above the closed gate three banners dangled." This sentence seemed backwards to me. For variety, it's not so bad, but it did catch my attention on parsing the sentence instead of immediately understanding what you are trying to say. It depends on how transparent you want your prose to be. Right when Rosalin gets to the door, you have a couple of places where you refer to her opinions or thought processes directly that I think aren't needed. "She wondered if they'd attack her too" could just be "Would they attack her too?" Likewise, "enough space ... that she felt she could run" could just be "enough space ... to run". A couple of dialog miscues or typos: "I'd hate to turn down anyone at the gate [...] I urge you to anyway." To what? "it never ain't been the problem." Was this phrasing intentional? "...seated on the dirt of the terraces that lined street." Something seems to be missing there. As an aside from my criticism, I liked how you gave the guards two distinct voices. When Rosalin entered the city, someone whistled. Was it at her? Something else? I didn't know why that was mentioned. What was it supposed to convey? In the tavern, "a serving girl squealed at the sound of men laughing." Wouldn't it be more the men laughing at her reaction to something they did? Or does she really squeal when men laugh? Most of the tavern part I read right through without any hiccups, so that went well. I did wonder if all of this would be needed in the end, or if some of it should maybe be trimmed, but I can't speak to that until I read the rest of the story. At the end, Rosalin decides to go off into a darkish outhouse in order to investigate her wounds? Actually, it may have been in order to find water to splash on her face, but once there she does some investigating. When she started noticing all of the damage to her body, I was wondering why she was doing the investigating now. The very end of the chapter implied she was doing it for plot purposes, whereas I would have expected her to investigate her wounds -- at least the arm, and her side where she didn't really want to look -- at some point when she was clearly safe and had good sight-lines before she actually got to the city. I mean, if she was that worried about it, why walk half a day to the city, start looking for someone to tell her where her village is, and only then decide to investigate the wound? If you still want to have her not show injury in front of someone who reminds her of her sister, she can re-check the wound to see if it's getting any worse, or something like that. Finally, with the description of the city and how everyone is packed in waiting for an invasion, I assume this is the same city as Dais. I'm sure I'll find out if it is or not, but that's what it feels like. I thought I'd let you know about this, so you can either chuckle to yourself, tap your fingertips together, and say, "it's working", or you can decide if you want to try and distinguish the cities some more if that's not what you want to have happen.

I just wanted to reiterate this (and I want to remember it for my own benefit as well). In addition, right at the beginning I wanted to say I thought the reference to a third horn was wonderful. I think this comes through also, but I wonder if you need a bit more work at how it is being expressed in the story. My main concern with a lot of this is that there are many parts in the story where you reference things that haven't been explained yet. A few of these can be nice, especially if some of them can be inferred from context. The number I recall reading, however, just overwhelmed me and left me so confused that I hardly knew which way was up. These things as well. I'll point out some confusing places later in this critique. As for the description, I struggle with this also, because you might feel like your POV character wouldn't remark on the description, so it shouldn't be in that part of the story. However, especially at the beginning, clarity needs stressed over some other considerations. I thought this as well. I was feeling something similar to this also. My feeling was that it was at least partly due to me not being able to get a handle on Adalir's character. For instance, in the first submission she's naive enough to not even realize she might menstruate. In this submission, she recognizes the byplay between Albertus and Cerstanthany, and even jokes with Albertus about his taste in women. She's knowledgeable about a lot, but often doesn't act on that knowledge. She appears observant about nearly everything except anything that might keep her from getting into troubles. I hope this doesn't sound bad, but this is exactly what I expected from the story by now... both what you thought I might feel, and also the eventual twist you mention. It's almost a given in stories like this that the person gaining a power doesn't understand how it would even be useful until about halfway in, when they start realizing all the places they might be able to use those powers to solve some problems. Well, enough of my direct responses to other comments. I have a couple of technical comments about this. First of all, I have problems with POV. Is this supposed to be third-limited or omniscient? I felt like it was supposed to be third limited, and if that is correct, this section doesn't establish the POV very well. Penny is the first one doing anything, and the first one named. Adalir's actions are only described for paragraphs, which means it could be Penny's POV until about paragraph nine. Also in chapter 2, which seems to be more in Adalir's POV, there is a part ("Although this was meant to be half hearted, it only deepened her longing") that refers to the intentions or feelings of both Albertus and Adalir, which is a POV error unless this is in omniscient. On the other hand, if it is in Omniscient, you probably need to do more to establish it earlier. The second technical critique is your commas. All throughout this piece there were places I thought commas were missing, usually in dialog where phrases ran together. On the other hand, I saw a lot of commas where I didn't expect them. This was primarily where you had a sentence leading into dialog, and would put a comma to break the sentence and the dialog. In those cases, the sentence can just end in a period and the dialog stay on its own. From the beginning, then. Right at the beginning, I didn't understand why Penny bought the muffins for Adalir. It might help to have a reminder of her birthday. The banter about converting to meat was confusing -- is Adalir a vegetarian? And who is Cruso, and why do we care about his taste for poultry? We also don't really know who Fay is (although I think she had a brief mention in the last submission), and we don't know why she has such power over Adalir either. Not at the mention early in the submission. The reference to the woman in black implies that we should know about this woman already. I don't, and many odd things are explained about her. The way the information about her is woven into the story was a little jarring also. Phrases that threw me off near the beginning: "teacher's angel", "even more cranked", and "chiplings". The books mentioned reinforce the relation to (our) earth, but they are all ones we know. It might be more interesting to have a couple that sound almost right, but not completely, just to show that there might be more dimensions that could be reached (if there are). The part where Albertus and Gustav appear is all sorts of confusing, both in who is speaking and doing what, and the implication that they had been waiting for Albertus to reappear. I also didn't know why Gustav might be cleaning plates while delivering food. It seems like it might disconcert people to have the same person doing both things at once. The reference to a "half man cafe" was confusing also. Along with that, I was really confused by the reference to his "half breed" sons and their sonnets. Are there particular sonnets that only half breed people use? Also, when Gustav feeds the deserts to them, something about the phrasing made me thing of feeding livestock, not sons held in any sort of esteem. Also, one of them can just tear hair off? Not only that, but he licks the hair after he tears it off? When Cerst disappears into the bar, does she really disappear? Or is that a metaphor for leaving back into the bar area? I just don't know at this point in the story. Confusing: "Adalir asked, taking her attention away from her." At the start of chapter 2, it is written as if we had seen Adalir make a prediction earlier about the party, which I don't' recall at all. In fact, this is the first reference to a party I recall. Plus, the description is confusing about how it relates to Adalir, since I'm apparently having problems remembering that it is her birthday with all the other things that are going on. I had thought Adalir was an orphan, but there were multiple references to a parental relationship in this chapter. One was a reference to Adalir's two drunken parents, and another was of Fay teaching her daughter not to answer the door after dark. On the other hand, there was also a reference to Adalir's missing parents. How does having a guardian related to all of these other relationships? The bit about lights running her ragged isn't foreshadowed enough, in my opinion. The previous stuff uses light as a description, but I didn't see any actual connection to light until now. I would have thought it would start kicking in before this part, where she can suddenly manipulate lights. Also, I don't know if Adalir would connect her blowing out the light with the fact that she's still a novice. It seems like she shouldn't know what is expected based on the rest of the story. I really didn't understand why Adalir would think about the woman in black, of whom she was quite scared, and then decide to answer the door. I mean, why not? She was only really scared of who might be on the other side. Finally, something simple to fix. At one point you use "rouse" when I think you mean "ruse."

I liked it. I've read the other critiques, so I'll try not to repeat things too much, but I'll make reference to some of them. I thought it read easily and well. There was a little bit that I thought was confusing at the beginning, but not enough to deter me from the story. However, you might benefit from reading through with an eye toward tightening up the prose. I recently re-listened to one of the WE episodes that discuss this, and it struck me again how useful the advice can be. In this case, I think you can take an easy and enjoyable read and make it fly by as well with a little editing. One example -- in the first paragraph, I'm not sure if you need "in Iraisa's opinion", since the rest of the chapter firmly establishes that we are in her viewpoint already, so it can be assumed to be her opinion. You might also be able to tighten up the wording explaining how dangerous the raptors are. I understood the sun shifting part of the story, although I had a lot of questions about it. The biggest question I had was why it seemed to affect everything except the priestesses (or the people as a whole, I'm not sure). I also wondered about the line of Iraisa needing to research the shifting later. It sounds like something she wasn't use to in that way, but I get the impression from the rest of the chapter that it is something she should be well used to. I expected Iraisa to have a stronger reaction to the portal being open, once I understood what it meant. As it is, she seems to gloss by it with a brief thought before the narration goes into a bit of a history lesson. When the raptor first attacks, Iraisa brings up a shield behind her, then the narration describes the raptor that she could see "in vivid detail." I don't know if you need to describe her turning, but I don't know if starting with the shield behind her is necessary either. If she needs to see the raptor and reaction, it could just jump from the forest at her. After the sun shifts, Iraisa thinks about where Corlin was and decided he must have gone back to alert the other priestesses. So of course she makes the logical decision to leave the place she was supposed to guard herself, in order to go and notify the priestesses. Does this make sense? To me, it seems like one place where the characters move as the plot requires. I agree with the others that the Tyrannosaur could be slightly better foreshadowed. I'm plenty ready to read the next part.

In my paying job I'm a computer programmer. If I seem overly pedantic at times, that may be part of the reason. I also like playing with words and doing word-games; a good pun is something I'll remember and chuckle over for a long time. So far I've attempted to write four novels, and completed three -- two novel-lengths, and one novella. I've also written a few short stories, and had one published by a college magazine while I was still a student. My first attempt at writing a story that I recall was probably in about sixth grade, although I didn't pursue it as seriously until I picked it up again in college. I've been trying to take more inspiration from Howard, especially the emphasis to keep producing and learn from it. I personally feel my writing has improved significantly over the past couple years since I started trying to write everyday, although I also feel it has a distance to go. My favorite books are wide and varied, and when I'm really interested in the story I can miss problems other people have with many books (although when pointed out later, I can realize the problems). Some of the non-writing excuses authors I admire are G.R.R. Martin, Simon Green, L.E. Modessit, Lois McMaster Bujold, Orson Scott Card, and too many more to figure out. Perhaps not surprisingly, given my previous paragraph, all except Martin strike me as being quite prolific, so that might be inspiration as well. However, despite enjoying their works, I don't know that the type of books I write are much like any of them so far.

I think I joined and started reading sometime around where you put out chapter 3 or 4, so that might account for some of my impression that it is battle-heavy. However, if your focus is to truly be on the characters, there are certainly a lot of battles around, and they are very detailed. It might partially be a blocking problem -- I know they've talked about it in Writing Excuses, about how some of Brandon's early revisions of fight scenes felt more like video game tutorials or (more charitably) movie scripts, describing a lot of the action but not as much of the character involvement. I feel like I'm getting a lot of this. Part of it can likely be improved by focusing more tightly on the character's and their reactions, but you'll want to make sure it's not just an overload of battles. I don't know that I'd recommend returning to Nayasar's battle. It may have only been in contrast to Darkclaw's dragging on at the end that made the departure from her battle seem abrupt. However, you might put in a messaged result at the end of Darkclaw's section or something to wrap it up, if you feel it needs it. Alternately, just having her acknowledge the next step before cutting away might be enough. I'm not positive on this, but I think it's something about surprise being, to me, a very intellectual emotion. It's hard to be surprised by much if you have no expectations, and Darkclaw obviously has a lot of expectations. I could see the surprise leading to a little bit of anger over it as well, although I don't know why it didn't work as well for me. Have you had any points yet at which Darkclaw experiences emotion (maybe just slightly) and it goes right by him? Perhaps it's the fact that he's always confronting the emotions that makes them seem a little awkward. If this is to be a characters in space novel instead of a war novel, I won't belabor the technology point. I thought it was shaping up to be the latter, given the amount of battle shown on-screen, so I thought I'd bring them up. I agree it's difficult to include all aspects of a novel in equal weight, so perhaps this part of world-building will remain generic. Nonetheless, you might want to consider adding a small detail or twist to this, just so it doesn't seem so uniformly generic. Alternately, you could perhaps talk in other terms -- such as how many more minutes the ship can withstand getting hit, instead of what percentage the shields are at.

I liked this chapter overall, although I do have a few of the same concerns ACharles78 has -- the primary one being that we are leaving Alena too quickly, before she's firmly established. However, I think some of it could be improved by setting up some echoes of the first chapter, where we meet Alena. Perhaps if someone comes to notify Rurik of the king's death, and he already knows their message. I think you might also have to work harder to make Rurik's observations of his nephew, and the refusal to fight, less awkward if you want to continue to save the reasons for the flashback scene at the end of the chapter. Looking back through them, his behavior makes sense, but reading it the first time had me more confused. I would suggest trimming the leave-taking scene as well, unless anything said there was important later. Even then, you might trim some of the unnecessary parts out, such as Rurik telling both the boy and Mara about his intentions to visit Oldtown with them later in the year. He could just tell them both at the same time, instead of repeating it. Some of the ride might be trimmed this way also. Rurik and Marius' dialog is a little bit butler-and-maid, but in this case I thought it worked quite well. One reason is probably that they haven't seen each other for a while, and so it's natural for them to discuss certain things to catch up. Another is that the dialog wanders (slightly!) between topics. The flashback sequence should be set apart somehow. It took me a couple paragraphs to realize what I was reading there. Also in the flashback, the King hesitating when talking about Rurik fighting like a creature out of legend. Why would he hesitate, and use the roundabout way of describing it, if they both know what it was? Why is Rurik wondering where his duty is now and the end of the chapter? Has he heard about the new queen's pregnancy? I doubt it, or there'd be a larger reaction. As it is, I don't know why he's worrying about his duty.

Another chapter with a pair of space battles. This makes me wonder a little bit more what the purpose of the book is going to be. So far, it has been full of battles; I don't recall a chapter without some sort of fight or battle -- possibly excepting the deliberation of the space library, which was only raided as if a battle was likely to occur. So, I'm going to focus my advice a little bit more to the space battles. I continue to have problems with the intensity of the battles. The way they are written, I don't get the roller-coaster swings between exhilaration and fear that I would expect for a battle. I recall you've mentioned Darkclaw's emotionless state for one of the reasons why they might be moderated when presented from his viewpoint, but here we had Nayasar's viewpoint in a battle as well, and it read similarly to the others. Sure, she took part in more action, but to me it didn't increase the emotional impact at all. For example, her battle was supposed to be a cakewalk, and a chance to try out some new toys. I didn't really feel the excitement building up before this; even though it was a challenge, you wrote that it shouldn't be difficult. That would set up a wonderful swing in emotion when the other battle fleet arrives, and then the determination to do what she needs to in order to wrap up her part in the battle. Also, I thought her battle ended too soon. Sure, the generators were destroyed, but there was still a large Alliance fleet to deal with. Six hundred or so ships should pose enough of a problem that the defensive emplacements shouldn't be all that decides it. On the other battle, I didn't really feel Darkclaw's emotional flashes, either. The one with him surprised was well done, though; even though I don't know if surprise counts entirely as an emotion, it can generate a number of other emotions also, and it was nice to see him surprised that he was surprised. The others didn't sell themselves to me as much. Also, I found Darkclaw's distractedness to be, well, distracting. He is supposed to be logical and emotionless, and more than once he focuses himself on the battle at hand. Why, then, does he take time in the middle of the battles to reflect on so many other things? Things like the similarity between his people and others, or formulating a plan to deal with his emotional outbreaks? If anything, I would expect Nayasar to be more flighty in her thoughts, but she stays focused on the battle the whole time. The end of Darkclaw's battle, in contrast to Nayasar's, I thought went too long. At least, in detail. I think it might have been more effectively presented as narrative summary -- they resisted, so Darkclaw quelled the resistance with the threat of destroying more cities. They only forced him to destroy one before submitting. I think drawing it out with more details takes away from some of the punch of that part, burying it in the rest of the details. Finally, a few more technological comments. Computers today can transmit all sorts of detailed information in little time. Nayasar asks for detailed ship information verbally, as if expecting a verbal response as well. In most any technology advanced enough to have starships, I would expect each ship to be capable of updating the command ships of their status on a near-realtime basis. If not, chances are the updates still won't come any faster whether requested or not, and the request itself could be easily automated via computer. Sure, it may not get all the exact detailed information -- the crew probably has to do a visual examination on some stuff to figure that out anyway -- but it should at least get a brief status from each ship pretty quickly. Also, I'm unsure how the shields/generators work. I know this has been a staple in space-opera for a while, but what is being depleted when shields are only at 30% or 15%? From the way the auxiliary generators are mentioned, I would assume it uses up generator energy for the shields. In that case, however, why would you need an auxiliary in order to maintain shields? Why not just put more fuel in the main one to continue to power them for longer? In most power generators, the fuel would take up a lot less space than the machinery to convert it to energy, so logistically this would make sense. Also, even if that means the aux generator is still needed for some reason, why not hook it up to the shields at the same time as the main one, instead of waiting for the shields to go to 0 before switching to it? If it just takes energy to power the shield, then that prevents the risk of having any time with no shields, or even weak enough ones that something might get through them anyway. On the other hand, if the shield is eating up the generator itself somehow (the power draws ruin the generator's parts), why have the main ship and weapons generator hooked to the shields? Or rather, why have it be the primary source of the power, instead of another dedicated generator and have the others be a fallback. If they were both from the main generator and this was the case, having your shields go to 0% would mean the generator was ruined, and thus environmental and weapons would be gone also. Once you're shields were gone, you'd be unable to do anything. Lastly, this is another time I've seen references to the smaller ships being faster. Why is that? I can think of some reasons for it to be true, but in general you'll want to consider two things about this. The first is that there may be a difference between acceleration and maximum speed. I don't know how this would play out in space -- it would depend on the physical "laws" your spaceship drives work on -- but it is often true in other applications. The second is that smaller ships have less mass to accelerate, but larger ships can hold larger engines to push them around. Thus, it isn't necessarily the case that smaller ships are faster. I don't doubt that they might be in the universe portrayed in your story, but I am curious if there are reasons behind them being so. For many of these technical aspects, you might want to have a more technically-minded person mention them at some point. Or, alternately, you might not. It depends on how much of the end of your book relies on one or more of the aspects of the technology. I have heard, however, that a good number of people that read space-battles enjoy figuring out how the battle will play out based on the rules that have been established earlier in the book. I am sometimes one of them.

I'm going from memory here, and we all know that can be kind of fickle, but at the end of the last Dias chapter, didn't we end with him running from some people digging around in a house? Of course, just as I type that I think to look at your comments to begin the thread and see that it was indeed what had happened. My last recollection of him was running out the door to the house, with people on his tail, thinking he might have found his father. There was at least one chapter in between these, correct? Maybe two? So, when we enter this chapter, I'm expecting to see the pursuit that we were left hanging with last time. In fact, I had expected a good chunk of this chapter, if not most of it, to be Dias trying in various ways to shake off his pursuers. I half expected him to be caught by the end, only to have a reveal at the end that changes his goals all around. (That man was his dad -- but just the corpse! He's now a zombie!) In addition to all of this, I'm already slightly predisposed to not like the Dias chapters because I don't see how they relate to the other main characters, which all have a thread of connection to Black Rose. I assume it does relate somehow, but I can't see that relation yet. This means I'd personally either not take the chapters as seriously, or I'd be examining all of the various players in it to find that connection. All that is background so you hopefully can understand some of the critiques I give on the chapter itself. By this point, perhaps you can anticipate them. So, right at the beginning of the chapter, the chase is resolved in the first paragraph by Dias successfully hiding. In the first sentence, no less. I continued to read for a few more paragraphs before completely accepting that this had happened, as I was expecting him to find out any time that he hadn't thrown the pursuers off that easily. Of course, that means I didn't get the action-packed chapter I was anticipating. Instead, I got a chapter that ended up being very slow (in comparison to my imagined chapter, at least), with Dias leading a girl he doesn't even know across the city, and arriving back at his "home". That's it; that's my takeaway of the plot for the 2300 words: Dias meets a girl and takes her home. Please don't get me wrong; spending that many words on just a little bit of plot may be fine, depending on what you want to accomplish. For instance, it could be used to describe the scene and fill in details, or it could be used to give deeper characterization. Part of my concern is with regards to the plot and the (occasionally arbitrary) designation of chapter, since I expected more to happen in this one. Part of it may also be explained by LongTimeUnderdog's observation about how the events in the chapter are presented. These factors and possibly others combined to leave me feeling unsatisfied with the chapter. Another aspect I wasn't sold on was why Dias chose to help the girl -- whose name we still don't know. (I'm guessing the reveal of her name is supposed to be the resolution of a mystery, or something. However, not getting a name to call her by is slightly awkward.) I realize you gave some rationale to Dias in the text, but to me it wasn't convincing. Especially with mysterious "repercussions" he'll have to deal with for bringing her in -- what repercussions, by the way? Double especially with her exhibiting some signs of illness. You've already shown some signs of the city devolving to an us-vs-them mentality, but I wonder if it wouldn't be stronger by now, and a group would refuse to accept anyone else into the group unless that person had an obviously useful role, which this girl doesn't. Or at least, it hasn't been shown. Fortunately, I think that can be remedied, because I get the feeling that having the girl come along may be important to the plot. In fact, it had better be somehow, or I am going to feel cheated in the end. One final note; in the end, I haven't seen anything more to connect this to the other story lines (yet), so I'm still wondering how it relates, and thinking it might be my least favorite of the set so far. Subject to change, and all that.

My main impression from this submission was confusion. I'll grant that in places you were probably trying to go for curiosity, or possibly wonder, but I just ended up confused, and I didn't think it boded well for the rest of the story. Please bear in mind that this critique may range from high-level to very low as I try to work through my confusion. It starts with action, with Adalir running across what I assume at the time to be school buildings (this later seems to be born out). I had a slight switch when realizing Adalir was a girl, not a boy, but this isn't really your fault. It just happened to be similar to Adalin (or was it Adolin?) from the Way of Kings, and I must have mentally made the association that way. This was an easy one to overcome. Sebastian is also mentioned right away. This is the first spot of my confusion, and it has to do with the "(ferret formed)" text. From the way the text is positioned, I originally thought the ferret formed one was another character running at Sebastian's heels. This is due to it following the comma, separate from the phrase where Sebastian was mentioned as running beside Adalir, instead of with the phrase. I wasn't sure, though, so I immediately stopped and tried to decide if it was Sebastian who was ferret formed, or what else it might be. I eventually settled on Sebastian, but this is the beginning of the confusion. Since I was already considering and questioning things, I wondered who or what Sebastian was. There is no relationship mentioned between Adalir and Sebastian, so I have nothing to go on, and what Sebastian is was also not mentioned for quite some time. I think it would have been fine to give a very brief overview of Sebastian at this point, to clear up some further confusion. This is especially true in that you immediately diverge into Adalir's history of climbing, which I would recommend be shortened in favor of more information about Sebastian. After an apparent diversion into other details about what form Sebastian was in and Adalir's climbing history and current view of the school, "the meeting" was very generic. If you wanted to make it a mystery, it is presented as if she knows all about it -- or at least, all about it besides what was going to be said there. If you intended to have the audience know about it, some more details would be nice. As it was, this was my next point of confusion -- what meeting? With who? Was she invited or gate-crashing? The only thing that is covered within the next few paragraphs about this is her role in the meeting, that of spying on it. You mention that Adalir is sarcastic about how important meetings must be high, but a paragraph later you describe her feelings about being in the heights such that I thought she wasn't being sarcastic, but instead stating what might be a personal belief in a joking manner. Sort of like saying all boys are clumsy, or something along those lines. Why in the world would Adalir not consider herself a risk-taker if she climbs everything in sight, as more or less described in the first paragraph? This might fly if it was truly a character trait developed later, although I think it would be hard to reconcile with the climbing and spying on meetings. However, it then immediately diverges into the bit about spying on boys, mentions Penny, then swings around again. Here was where I felt myself losing confidence in the writing. It has now confused me more than made me curious, not delivered on the details I wanted to learn, given me what I view as unsupported contradictions in the main character, and changed the topic of a paragraph mid-stream (with a throw-away reference to somebody else thrown in at that change). All this, and it's just the end of the second paragraph. I'm not even on to the next page yet. If I were browsing books in a bookstore and read this page, I would be putting the book down at this point and moving on to something else. Had I continued reading, a couple paragraphs later I would read that Adalir didn't want to hide or be coy (that is, shy or reluctant to give details, right?), so of course she pulls her hood up. At this point, I changed from reading to find out what will happen to reading to find out if things will make any more sense later. The John Wayne part was confusing. Even more so was the end of the paragraph, where you state she (Adalir) understood his language to know the confirmation when she heard it. So, did Sebastian say words, or didn't he? If he did, why didn't she understand the words? It sure read to me like he answered in the affirmative; how much language interpretation does it really take? The following paragraph was not particularly confusing, especially compared to the previous one, but it was difficult to read. I think it was primarily due to the phrasing, especially the sentence "Never had she been old enough nor smart enough to comprehend the gravity of his life of alchemy in her prior years, but she had always known it was his possessor." So, he was owned? Looking back on it now, I question the word choice. Did you perhaps mean it was his obsession? You state that both Albertus and Adalir's lives depend on what Albertus was up to, and she planned to find out what he was up to in the meeting. I didn't see any support that her life really did depend on it, and what we found out in the meeting was actually quite dull. From all I could tell, it could have been any sort of meeting, not some secret super-special one. Also, a minor point but by now I'm on a role. At the beginning of the piece Adalir's age was given as sixteen, but her sixteenth birthday is coming up. Now, if she hasn't had her 16th birthday yet, she hasn't lived sixteen years yet. I'm kind of curious if stain-glass skylights generally open at all, especially ones high in a dome above a board room. It seems like those would be permanently mounted. It really surprised me to find out that the secret meeting, and the elaborate introduction to the meeting, was a grant request. It seemed anticlimactic after the buildup to the meeting. I also expected fireworks in the meeting, especially after Adalir ruminates on the attitudes of the attendees and then Albertus begins by basically stating he and the board don't get along (they continue to not support his bid to join them). I'll skip over most of the speech, except to say I only found nitpicks confusing, and that it was much like an info dump. I think the addition of more (obvious or dramatic) conflict between Albertus and the board members would improve this part. I see this is placed roughly equivalent to our late-19th century. I would think that the religion (or religions) of the place would figure on people's minds, especially if Albertus has 1) completely revolutionized what they can accomplish with his Fona stone, and 2) proposed to read the mind of God with an Incantra stone. This would have profound implications throughout all of the religions of the place. In fact, I would expect to see attempts to completely shut Alberta down because of it, and likely right from the get-go with the Dean doing so out of fear of what political and monetary power the religions of the region could bring to bear. They do object, and partially on those grounds, but in far to reasonable of a way to create good conflict. Why in the world did Sebastian continue to imitate a bird in order to warn Adalir of the approaching bullies, instead of, you know, talking to her like he did at least once before? Besides the concerns other people have expressed in Adalir not noticing her flow (and other items in the bully's section), her sore stomach wasn't foreshadowed well. I know vertigo or nausea was previously described in terms of her stomach; it would have been good to mention the soreness then also. As it was, to me it read like "surprise! this had also been happening, just to allow the bad guys to show up". I didn't like having the break between chapters 1 and 2 (or so I assume) with the bullies converging on her, only to have the explosion of light and her own flight from the battle be done in only three paragraphs of the new chapter. It felt like one of those tricks to keep people reading through the chapter break. I thought it would have been much more natural to include those paragraphs in the first chapter, then have another chapter for the confrontation with Albertus. If Adalir knows about bursting, why does she not consider it when in the restroom? I think that about covers it for now, and this is getting to be long anyway. In the end, some of my confusion was cleared up, but a lot of it remains, and I'm not sure I see the consistency of tone and of detail to give me any more confidence in the writing at the end of the piece than I had at the beginning.

Others have covered many of my concerns, especially considering the strength of viewpoint, the clarity of the time-travel aspects, and getting to the conflict faster. Instead, I'll try to focus on a few other items I noticed. The first part starts with a strong statement about cancer. How closely is it related to the rest of the story? Right after the first statement, you pull back and things get very general, covering what Hugh did with his time. If you want to continue to show this, I would suggest more specific details to really get it going. It seemed as if you tried by describing the blow Sir Edric took, but even that wasn't well described. It also goes into an inventory of people and how they are reacting to the current waiting, which really slows down the story. It might be better to space out the introductions and save the reactions each one is showing for when they are specifically in the scene. Either that, or make it more explicit, such as Hugh detailing his family's reactions in order to avoid his own. I will also mention one more technical item: I spotted a number of "was verbing" or similar constructs in the text. Some examples include "the waiting was taking its toll", "Hugh had seen", "had been showing her grief". Those could be, respectively, "the waiting took its toll", "Hugh saw how" or "Hugh noted" or "Hugh noticed', and "showed her grief". Each of these brings the action closer to the reader, instead of introducing a level of removal from them. I'm sure there's a name or label for it from English class that I'm forgetting, but you can hopefully see the effect in the examples. Now, the biggest problem I have with this is the (pseudo) time travel. Not the fact that it is there, but how it isn't being used in your story. From the description at the end, there are many possibly places and times that the bridge may connect to. Why, then, is the family in the 20th century in order to have their mother treated for cancer? Why have they not found, or at least searched out, a more advanced location, one where there has been a better cancer treatment discovered. Heck, even 30 years into the future we understand how to treat cancer more effectively, even if our actual tools for treatment are similar to those before. Even if the people from the older times don't understand the implications of having the installation's computer talk to them, a modern traveler should. A rule of thumb might be, if your readers can figure out what is happening, then modern-day characters should be able to figure it out as well, unless there is a well-explained in-novel reason for them not to. Related to this are the various other anachronisms that surface. I assume some of them were to demonstrate the differences between the times, but (for example), why would the household in the modern times expect Sarah to oversee the household? If there is some reason, it isn't given, and that makes me question some of the other decisions as well. Such as having the knights train and spare in the common area, where everyone can see -- even given the supposed wealth. Maybe especially given the supposed wealth, which could purchase them a private area in the countryside to practice, where they wouldn't be nearly so visible. Others have mentioned other concerns this makes me start questioning as well. Like Asmodemon and ACharles78, I think that the Bridge and it's various regions may be the most compelling aspect to the story, but right now it appears to be a sidelight, not the main setting.

On your first chapter... I thought it started well, with the death of a king promising upheaval. It slowed a little for the scene in the king's bedchamber, but not too badly. The council room scene was well-done overall, with the surprise that the young, up-start wife is pregnant, and possibly bearing a son a nice ending to the chapter. My biggest critique of this chapter is on a word-smithing level. I seem to say this a lot, so maybe I'm curmudgeonly this way, but I think you could find a good number of words to trim from the chapter, and make it flow faster. This is partially in opposition to the suggestions before that recommend delving further into Alena's head, I know, but I don't mean them entirely in opposition. I rather mean that you should trim what is there so that it flows faster and strikes harder. If you decide you need to add some more detail or nuance, by all means, but I would suggest making sure it doesn't lessen the punch that this chapter could deliver. A few specific places I think could be trimmed a bit: The message of her fathers death from Terance (I suggest starting with the main effect, then a bit of setting, then into in slight media res -- 'She learned of her fathers death minutes before sunrise. Lord Councillor Terance appeared to deliver the message she had been expecting. "My father is dead," she stated at his appearance.') Some of Valla helping Alena dress, which repeats the clothing choices already stated earlier. The bit with the servants and firewood -- unless it's important to the plot later, somehow, it seems to stick out. The bit with the High Priest and the Master of Arcana didn't seem necessary at all - neither the description of them at that point in the story, nor the actual interaction with them. On your second chapter... I liked the part right at the beginning with the new information already causing chaos -- cost estimates for the funeral but not the coronation. Right after that, however, the pacing slows way down and I start to lose interest in what is happening. The part where Alena explains to Valla and to her sisters what is happening seems redundant, with little new information presented. Once you get the map out and start discussion the potential votes, it becomes slightly more interesting, but there are too many explanations scattered in. Especially in the dialog. For example, the part about horse lords having a vote -- I would expect people close to Alena to at least know the basics of how the council works. In fact, that is a general problem in this chapter; the dialog verges on maid-and-butler dialog. It's not as explicit as that, and there may occasionally be a good reason for one character to explain something to another, but it seems like most of the chapter's dialog is people explaining things to other people. I would suggest trying to cut as much explanation as you think you possibly can, and maybe even more, and wait until you get feedback that it is too confusing before putting specific explanations back in. Remember also that they don't have to be presented in dialog. It can be an effective way to present an explanation, but the occasional explanatory sentence or two in the middle of other stuff happening can also be very effective, and mostly invisible. Also about the map -- why did Alena even bring it out if there are too many factors to use it for decision making? I assume the main purpose was to bring Alena to the point where she considers what the promise of a marriage will do to her chances. Finally (for this part), why present the order for the new dresses? Unless something goes wrong with them, I don't think the information needs to appear until she wears one of the dresses, and maybe not even then. I won't go into too much detail on the second section, except to say that the conversation over the father's body also feels like it was added to explain the backstory to the reader. It may be important to know, but the presentation here feels very awkward. As for the rest of it, I see you've already mentioned taking out the Irina subplot. I was going to ask if it was really necessary, because it doesn't seem to add to the chapter. I especially didn't think it was very effective here. An overall comment about what I've seen so far, covering both chapters. In the first one you effectively showed Alena's assumed path for the next few weeks, maybe months, then promptly yank the rug out from under her. It was well done. In the second chapter, I expected things to get even worse for Alena somehow. Without knowing what you want to do with her it's hard for me to express specifically what I was expecting, but something along the lines of her setting out to do something, or accomplish some goal that she thinks will help with the new circumstances, only to be thwarted somehow (either in this chapter or the next). Instead, the second chapter seemed like treading water, instead of swimming forward against obstacles. You might also want to be slightly careful about what sort of story this is going to be. The start of the first chapter set up a political battle between Alena and the council, making sure they were going to confirm her ascension to Queen. Meredith's revelation upset that dynamic a bit, but primarily Alena's chances, not the basic conflict. The second chapter reinforces this with the map scene, plotting a political battle where Alena will fight for support. However, the text then turns to be more against Meredith personally, which is a bit of a warning sign. If the rest of the book is a political battle (as the primary plot; you can have subplots), then I'll be getting what I expect. If the rest of the book is more personal against Meredith, unless it's a very small subplot, it won't be giving me what I expect after reading the first chapter and the start of the second.

What I mean is that feelings are given from many characters, especially in the first section of the prologue. For example, it starts with Enthisa being sad, and other observations firmly rooted in Enthisa's point of view. Partway through you mention Ranak "finally speaking up, disturbed from his thoughts by the bright light." This is a minor shift to relating the internal thoughts and POV of Ranak. It quickly returns to Enthisa. Then in the paragraph about strands of hair across Luvesi's face, it seems to read from her POV, that she loved order and now would be providing it for the new world. It goes back to Enthisa, then we learn Dyndara is astounded at what they had achieved (which is a note from Dyndara's POV). Finally, it firms again in Enthisa's POV. These are all fairly minor by themselves, but together it makes me wonder if the section (or the book) is supposed to be in third-limited or third-omniscient (or, perhaps, somewhere in between). I assume you intend it to be third-limited, as a large part of fantasy currently is, but if not it needs to be set to clearly that either I don't notice the transitions, or they are done well enough that I know they are intentional. Right now, these look like slips when you convey what others are thinking and/or feeling, instead of what Enthisa observes about them that would let us draw our own conclusions about their thoughts and feelings. You might want to reconsider this, unless something about it is vitally important that wouldn't come out any other way. For example, the siblings as gods in the new universe could be shown via the religious aspects of the characters in the main story. The energy-draining aspect of magic could be something for the Gods to know and the characters to learn (or at least, to inform the decisions behind the scenes). The summoning of demons can easily be assumed by one or two references to the sudden appearance of the demons when they are fought, and the prime summoner could be conveyed with a paragraph or two of deductive reasoning by Athir in her section. That could potentially cut two full sections from the prologue, and jump the reader into a more visceral opening right away, with Athir discovering the sudden use of demons by the opposing army, tearing her own men apart, and she is working hard to keep them healed. That is, assuming that even the information in that section couldn't be conveyed somewhere in the main story. I don't know for sure, not having read the main part of your story, but let's just say I suspect it could. Of course, I'm not the author; you are. As the Writing Excuses bunch says, take what works for you and leave what doesn't. I'm only one reader, yada yada. On the other hand, the grand old man Tolkien himself didn't end up published with the creation story -- that he had clearly written -- in the beginning of The Hobbit. Nor, even, in the beginning of The Lord of the Rings. It wasn't until his collection of short stories set in Middle Earth was published did his creation story get published -- and for good reason. Though I read and liked The Simarillion, the stories in there were better treated as separate from tLotR, not as prologue to the books.

My biggest impression from this quite-large prologue is that surely not all of it is necessary for the story to come? If so, that's a lot of background information for the story. In the prologue, we have the destruction of one world and apparent creation of another, followed by setting up the bad guy, followed by his sister who is destined to beat him -- getting beaten, and dying. It's pretty much a story in and of itself already. Other than that, by best advice is to trim, trim, trim. If we do need all of that information, cut out the in-between information we don't need. Examples might be exactly how the demons are summoned, or the scenery around the Mountains of Magic and the courtyards there? Do we need to know the exact sequence of spells the siblings cast to doom their world? Do we need to see Athir's detour to the hall of the gods just to ask permission to ask the dragons to join the fight? Do we need to know the details about the older dragons doing their training outside instead of in? Each of those details in and of themselves makes the story more authentic, but together they really bog down the pace of the story. For most of the prologue, it felt as if I was reading info dumps interspersed with actions, rather than actions that set the state of the following story. Technique-wise, I noticed a lot of complex sentences, where it read as a number of short sentences, all of them strung together by commas, and you may see what I mean in the following quote: Without simple sentences to set them apart, each sentence starts blurring together to me. I tried a small edit for comparison, and I really hope you don't mind this small example edit; I looked around for a spot you had written your own story more succinctly, but couldn't find one. In the edited bit, the first three sentences probably don't all need to be separate, but I wanted to demonstrate how it could be changed. It was three paragraphs later that the first simple sentence reappeared; the dragon asking, "How may I help you Keling?". Finally, I'm not sure what viewpoint this is supposed to be using. If it's 3rd limited, the first section seems to jump back and forth. If it's omniscient, then you might want to consider making sure the viewpoint changes between characters are smooth.

I just read the latest version of the prologue you sent out, and it does seem cleaner and with a better pace. The only thing I really want to mention from it is the jump to the first chapter. As Asmodemon hinted at, there is no time frame presented at the beginning of the first chapter, so we don't know if it's before or after the scenes in the prologue. If I was coming at it fresh, I would think that the prologue is a glimpse of what will be happening at the end of the book, and the book showing what caused the group to betray the city. This would last until mention of Ayami (or Till's deceased wife, I can't remember which comes first), at which point I would be a little confused.

I continue to catch up on submissions that went out weeks ago... This is a submission I feel I could spend a chunk of time critiquing, but I'll try to hit the high points and not go into every place I noticed something, though I will probably pull some examples out. A lot of these will likely be about the prose itself, rather than the overall plot (at least partially because I haven't read the first two chapters). First of all, the tense kept switching between past and present. I assume this wasn't on purpose, because it would change in the middle of a sentence. You can search your document for the words: glances, smoothes, realizes, writes, pauses, hears, sees, notices, croaks, and probably some more I didn't list. The conversation at the beginning of the chapter to me seemed bogged down by other stuff. I'd like to see a lot of it trimmed so the conversation itself can shine through. Some things to look at: bookisms. The characters asked, grimaced, began, objected, retorted, started, and chuckled. I compare this to only four "said"s. Even then, a lot of those can be trimmed and implied by the back and forth. names in speech. Hubert and Barnabas know who they're talking to. Once is probably fine (each), but it happens seven times in the first section. exrra activity. In that short conversation, we see dry-washed hands, playing with the envelope, setting it down, frowning, smiling, a deep breath, rolling eyes, chuckling, "continuing a jape", shaking head and sighing. A few of these are OK, but the reader probably doesn't need every one. adverbs. Nervously, Idly, and exasperatingly. Barnabas also sighed "a heavy sigh", which isn't quite the same but seems close. Between all of these, there is something besides the conversation occurring in every single paragraph, which dilutes the focus of the scene. I recommend trimming as much as you feel you can. About the conversation itself, a few phrases jumped out. In particular, Hubert at the beginning is shown speaking in a dialect that implies he doesn't speak all fancy-like. However, he then talks about the stranger "deferring" questions, and refusing specifics. That line reads like a more formal or academic speech. Likewise, Barnabas' speech seems a little more refined, but he has a couple of awkward statements also, including "the sham is done away with" and "talk to the coordinator of tonight's disaster and square away any of our business left here. I will worry about this proposition laid before us..." I liked the indication that Barnabas wasn't going to be talked out of the adventure. Whew. That covers the first 350-ish words. The areas I saw to critique do get less concentrated, however. At the beginning of the first section with Jobber, I don't feel like it's fully in his POV at the beginning. In particular, the paragraph where he falls and the next one seem oddly remote. I'm not entirely sure why. The next paragraph, where he hopes the metal isn't too rusty, threw me off for a bit. I assume it's his thoughts; you might want to indicate that somehow. It's possible setting it in italics would be enough. The metal object Jobber finds isn't described well enough to me, and I'm left questioning if it can do all that is described. In particular, how big is it? It is apparently big enough to stab him in the side, small enough to be hard to find, large enough to saw against (and how was it held then?), small enough that he apparently wasn't caught carrying it when being escorted, small enough to fit in his pocket, but large enough to use to lever apart a latching mechanism on a window. Some of the text order is odd in Jobber's sections. For instance, we read that he tries to pull back before we read about the fist coming at him. Near the end, he glances back and freezes before noticing the shadows and steps of approaching people. In the Zora section, you got into a sentence rhythm where you consistently describe one action happening with another. Setting aside [...], she pulled [...]. Checking herself [...], she smoothes [...]. Grimacing, she realizes [...]. This also happens in the last paragraph. Zora's speech didn't make any sense to me. Was she talking to herself? I expected that to either be overheard from someone else, or her talking to someone else. Is just Zora ignorant of why the southern region is dangerous? Or is it nearly everyone in the story, and we've only got rumors to work with? In the last Jobber section, he takes good cuts on the hand. Are there cuts he considers good? Finally, the last paragraph of this chapter. Jobber just recklessly jumps off a third-story window, trusting to luck? That seems quite odd, although bear in mind I haven't read the previous chapters. If he didn't just jump, you might want to clarify the paragraph. Overall, I like the drift of the story, and it doesn't seem like you're spending a lot of time at any one part of the story -- just focus on a character (or set), show what's going on, and move on. (Though the Zora part slowed this down a little.) It reads a little like the preparation for an Indiana Jones movie, or a 50's adventure movie. I hope that's what you're going for, because it seems like that would be fun to read.

I'm going to mostly agree with Asmodemon on this one (which doesn't surprise me in the least -- I appreciate his critiques as well). Because of that, I'll just say the leg is sudden, the consistent run of amateurs is odd, the info dumps are overdone, and then mention a few things about this chapter that struck me. First of all, there were a few places (besides the info dumps) where some sentences weren't phrased quite right. They also slowed me down some. A good read-through with a red pen should fix most or all of them. I'm curious about the sudden intensification of the efforts against Surr. I assume I'm supposed to be, so that's good. I also wonder, at the end of the chapter, what a murder has to do with any of this. I'm hoping it will be related, in one way or another. About the magic, I'm wondering why the Mazer so suddenly started losing strength. I know why Surr looks tired, since he drained so much of his own blood, but the Mazer also gets tired rather abruptly at a convenient time for the fight to end. I'm still looking forward to reading more.