The Goat

Dude, I loved this chapter. I haven't read anything else you've done, but I thought you did a great job. Keep going in this vein. I liked the character, you did a great job showing his dilemma with his ailments and age. The magic system is clear and well thought out. I love the world building info you peppered in there too. I agree with Andyk on the change of pace for the next one with him, but I didn't feel like it was long at all, the only part that felt slow to me was when he thought about the harvest and all that. If you are looking to condense or cut anything, that might be worth looking at. Solid work - keep it up!

I'm coming in late here, but everybody says what I felt too. I haven't read any of your other stuff, but I'm super interested in this manticore and how it fits in (i.e. the interlude). I really enjoyed the dialogue between your characters, especially at the beginning of chap 9 with the preacher guy. The description was woven in with the dialogue nicely and it flowed. I did think it was a little long, but I also think that the old preacher guy talks like that. He's the kind of dude that will keep you there talking about whatever all day if you let him. Nice characterization there. For the rest, I think everybody else said most of it already. I really didn't get why they had to risk the river, and I was a little lost on the convo with mercedes, but that is probably stuff you put in earlier that I just didn't know. I did find one word that kind of popped out to me on p. 2. "Take another bite, you'll get used to it." The preacher scruffed the boy's black hair. I might be wrong about this, but to my knowledge scruff is the hair on the back of an animal's neck. It's not a verb. I think you mean to say ruffled.

Hey, I'm new to the group and coming in late so keep that in mind. I assume you are a more discovery type than an outliner based on the i had no idea where I was going. That is cool, but you might want to sit down and at least define the endpoint of the chapter/scene if nothing else. That way you can devise a way to add a bit more conflict. I completely agree with mandamon and andyk, I really think the problem here is that nothing is going on and I see no direction in the story. To me these chapters seemed longer than they were. Adding in characterization and world building in ways that it is caused by some sort of conflict, should make it read a bit faster, regardless of the number of words you need to do so. I think that looking at your characters and their desires, along with the overall plot to decide how they are going to hamper each other from doing what they want and what needs to happen, will make a lot of the other stuff take care of itself.

I'm new to the group, so I'm coming into this story pretty late, but I have to say I loved the characters already. I wasn't lost at all. I'm excited to see where this one goes. You did a really good job sucking us into Varus's head. The interaction with the father and daughter was nice too. However, I felt like the girl kind of stole the show away from Varus in some respects. This might just be me, but I found myself wanting to follow her more than him. This might just be because I am not attached to him like most readers because I'm entering late, or it might be because he was completely in reaction the whole scene and she was the one acting and dominating others. I don't know, but it might be something to look out for. I thought you did a great job setting the mood for the scene at the beginning, assuming you were going for a kind of gloomy thing bc people were grieving. I actually thought it was night or raining the whole time until I got to page 10. After looking back, I found that was purely my assumption based on Varus's thoughts and interactions. Anyway, I liked that a lot. on a more micro scale: p.4 "He needs to focus on the senate. You distract him, you let him wallow in grief or in the past, and I'll have you sent to the arena." The arena part seems off. I think it's because the first three parts of the sentence are about Varus and her dad, the last one suddenly jumps to her and him. I felt like that should be broken off into it's own sentence. That and I'll have you sent to the arena part just jarred me, it seemed to skip out of the flow of the sentence. Anyway, I really enjoyed it, and can't wait to read more.

I'm new to the forum, and not sure how to get involved in the critiques. I read the thread on submissions and whatnot. I think I understand that to submit you ask for a slot, and then email your chapter following the guidelines, but how do I get chapters to read and give feedback?