neongrey

Hmmmmm. I'll keep an eye on that, thanks. e: Sorry if I've got a bit of a brusque manner on some of this; I'm definitely paying attention to what everyone is saying and I'm definitely thinking of how to go about this when I get to redrafting, and how to incorporate it as I keep going on the initial draft in process.

This is actually something I worry about a fair bit, not just in this section. I thiiink I'm on okay ground with it because clothing (and cosmetics) comprise both a lot of actual relevance to proceedings rather than just being a shorthand for character quirks; clothing in general and fashion in particular are highly significant to how you get received in the circles Lasila moves in, and it's also a huge amount of how she relates to other people. Relative social standing is significant so she's using it as markers for how she should be behaving. And the other POV doesn't care about any of this at all so we don't get any of that. Which is another reason I think I have to move up their first appearance, just to make it crystal clear that a fair few of the oddities in Lasila's bits are pure POV. Well, I've only got three in mind... Yeah that last line is clearly not good. Yeah, I definitely need to hammer home more Lasila's discontent with the situation; that's a lot of what her drive here is, the fact that she could sit back and have everything be fine but fine is in no way good enough for her, and I think that's one of the biggest things I'm gonna have to work in. If she were a proper heroine I'd lean more towards her being driven by need, but the thing here is that she is choosing to do the things she does... Nah, weighting as in a weighted average; Lasila likes mathematical views of things. Yeah, I've got this noted but you're probably gonna see it like this until 12 or so. This is definitely the first direct statement of this, but Lasila and Ilea circumlocute around this earlier in the conversation, and it's supposed to be pretty oblique until this connection is outright drawn. The conversation is Sirie asking if Lasila knows what she's getting into, then offering to dress her solely with that aspect in mind; the night that only she would remember. One of the social graces... This isn't actually considered rude for reasons I hope will be clearer with the prior alt pov section and the upcoming one. I mean, it is rude and is very much suppose to appear as such to the reader, but it's definitely socially appropriate, for a given norm of appropriate. Her father died when she was quite young, maybe five or six; he got called to the war and never came back. This is of some significance but I think has only been mentioned the once so far. It's probably something I should work in a little more prior to now since it does have some future relevance. Her mother died two years ago; this and Lasila's ambivalence about that is given some space in the first and I think a little bit in the second, though how exactly she died isn't mentioned. The shadow she casts is harder to see because Lasila very actively doesn't think about her except when she has to. So you're not necessarily supposed to have the details on the tip of your tongue, beyond that they've been dead for a while. She's a particular shade of golden blonde; if she were to wear copper, it would bring out the more orange-yellow tones in her hair and make it look brassy. It comes up most often when you dye your hair blonde and the undertones aren't right but in this case her hair is a warm enough shade that the copper of the dress would bring that out unpleasantly. Colour's weird. Thanks, to everyone!

Me too please.

Page 9 "Yes comma the contract seems" Page 11 "The breaks, dear" sort of feels like a mismatch with veiled panic. That 'dear' pulls most of the urgency away. Page 12-- fewer ties, not less ties. Also, the bit 'some individual Sureriaj...' bit feels framed a little out of step with the prior stuff. I think 'a few' would feel better? Around 14-15, I feel like Amra stops being angry far too easily over this, but the initial lie that set off the fight makes me like Prot as a person a lot less. That last isn't necessarily a flaw on your end; I see the sort of character it's establishing and it's fine for what you're doing, I just very much dislike that particular sort of character, lol. Either way, she crumbles too easily, I think. 15 "started with us a just the" The last couple pages feel sort of like they go on a bit long to me, about the maji, and I really don't love the 'needed the money more/wanted to travel' thing there, specifically dropping to 'want' gives it a selfish feel. This may be intentional. The Sureri dialogue reads fairly well to me, though I do also agree that the dialectual choices you're making don't necessarily map to 'musical' in my head. Otherwise this flows pretty fluidly; not my bag so much but I'm liking what you're doing well enough. I'll be curious to see what's actually in those crates (because of course it's not medicine; it's never medicine).

Yeah, that's the thing here; this early section is never exactly going to be fast-paced but what's also going on is a whole lot of plot assembly that I don't necessarily want visible. Definitely want Lasila chafing more prior to this; the thing with the bank last chapter is effectively a denial of what she wants initially. And it doesn't devastate her, no, because she's the sort of person who will immediately think of what else to do, but I think we're not established enough by that point for it to be very obvious that all that's what's going on. That's not actually wholly unintended, though I prefer my prose a little more restrained and I'm not intending to border quite as closely on erotica. The culture is very very different, but there's definitely... similarities. I think if I work the second POV in sooner it should become clearer what level we're playing on faster, but among other things, the Ilie Alevrin will give us exactly what happened to the goddess and why, though not what that means, very nearly as soon as we get into their head. They're... a very different person from Lasila. Hah, I was wondering if anyone would catch this. The irrelevant, I can easily go over: the price would surely go down in a time of lesser fiscal austerity. But as far as the aelin are capable of, it takes magic to make, and moreover the type of magic required is a particular and specific combination of talents, and from there fairly precision skill to be dealing with acids is required. And if you have those particular talents, there are a lot more prestigious, practical, or socially preferred fields to go into. Pretty much anyone capable of learning it would also be capable of going into healing as a field instead, just as one example. So it's rare because there's not very many people at all who are capable of producing it; most of those who might have been both willing and capable of doing so are being pulled off to go do other things like get killed and/or stop that from occurring for other people. Wizard-based economies kind of suck. It's not more expensive than silk, but it's not common at all and it's an appropriate fabric for the event and for the age and station of the person to be wearing it. For the highly, highly relevant: spider silk is embargoed (and more on this will come, I think, in the scene to be inserted prior with the other pov character). This mostly comes up in the form of lace, which was mentioned, because that's what the primary producers thereof do with it (for... reasons). There's a fair bit of vintage stuff around from when trade with the shudkathra was still legal, but new imports are forbidden so obviously there's absolutely none at all ever coming into the city, right?* *not right

You're not wrong, but while there probably c/should be a few more explicit references to them, I feel like when I'm already overloading description on plot-relevant stuff, diverting into worldbuilding for its own sake feels like a clear mistake. There's only so much ancient history that's even relevant to Lasila's mindset at present. Like, I know why it gets missed; we're in the head of someone who completely takes their existence for granted and so references to them are very casually placed; if people are losing them it's less the fault of the references themselves and more to the surrounding text which apparently is losing people. So, you know, I see what needs done. Just in this case, the specific questions absolutely have already been answered.

Pretty much all your questions about the wings have already been answered and I'm not particularly intending to emphasize this further except, perhaps, the story of what happened to them, which is liable to influence some religious rhetoric later on. (they're vestigial and non-functioning; they flew... once) The present state of things is normative to Lasila's eyes (and our upcoming other POV has grown accustomed) and so not uniquely called attention to by those who are used to them any more than hands or hair, and what happened is, well, ancient history. They have wings because, among other things, they are absolutely and definitively not human. A chart exists for the honorifics which is intended to be provided, but I have been holding off on providing it to see how people deal; I believe the only one that isn't explained on first usage is Endera which is left to context (it's for workplace inferiors). Otherwise the honorifics are regular in how they gender, though this is the first time we've seen how the ungendered forms are styled. (Ilia/Ilien/Ilie) That early bit at the shop before the fitting room deffo needs some work, though it should be by this point very clear Lasila assesses people by how they dress, and walking through how she selects pieces for herself should offer the tools to see how she does so when she looks at others. And there's some fairly thick... I think foreshadowing's not the word, but there's definitely brickwork for a plot laid in that section too.

Geez, I'd believe it, too. Good luck with those.

Hiii! How pretty is it there?

The S at present is less anything suggestive in this particular chapter, and more that the chapter, effectively, warns that suggestive content is coming. It's gonna be a fun party. Previously: The city of Ilidria's living goddess is dead, and the only remaining member of seventeen-year-old Lasila Vahendra's family must leave the war in order to insist with peace talks. Lasila attends the display of the goddess' body and finds herself invited by a mysterious priestess to attend the rise of the new goddess. Having no access to anyone appropriate herself, Lasila requests that her brother find an escort for her; he does so, and though the man is apparently a good ten years her senior, he is a senator's brother. His standing is far too high for this to be anything other than formalities, but if she can take advantage of the company it will do well for her business prospects later. She finds that she will need all the help she can get: the predominant religion of the city still disdains women doing much of anything at all, and while her finances are sufficient to keep her homed and fed, they won't be nearly enough for her to finish her education in any timely manner. And then her brother brings home a kitten for her, because of course he does. This time: Lasila sees to getting fitted for a dress. I suspect this may not be everyone's cup of tea, and I'm quite sure it does drag for at least a bit when she gets to the shop so I've already got part of this slated for rework. But Lasila does care quite a great lot about how people are dressed (and this is also our first look at all at male fashion) so I suspect this is going to be less about cuts (which are probably still necessary, ofc) and more rearranging things so they 'feel' less heavy. I suspect people might twinge onto the word 'lunatic' near the end; it is, in this case, a technical term which is going to have a very very swift payoff...

You know, you're half-joking, but...

Shall I inflict 'Lasila goes shopping' on you all on Monday, too? :v No prob stepping back if I'm hogging.

I'll be the contrarian here and say that I have absolutely zero issue, sensewise with Amra being so bad at negotiating deals-- that's a wildly different skill from being able to do the bookkeeping; the one's raw math and the other relies heavily on being a people-person. It's certainly possible to be good at both (goodness knows thats what I'm writing) but they're not transferrable or even appreciably related skills. If there's anything I find odd about this, it's that the text seems to take it as a given that they should go hand-in-hand.

Yeah, for my ref, I think bringing in the other pov earlier than halfway through 5 will help make it clear that a) there is quite a lot more going on already than Lasila knows to surmise there is a vast amount of cultural reserve at play in Lasila's pov. She will still need rejiggering but that both should do the job I need, I hope. Thanks! e: yeah, bringing them in earlier will also help sell this scene here in 11 a bit harder because otherwise this bit will seem somewhat toothless

Fair enough, and if the routine is seeming sufficient I see what you're getting at a lot more now. Because the point very much is that she's fine but she isn't willing to take "fine".

Like I wanna be clear that I am not brushing any of this off because there are definitely issues here but it's pretty much always going to have a lot on Lasila going "this much money would absolutely be fine but no" right down into a moral cesspit.

Yeah, this is a little bit where I am at with this; I think there might be some misplaced expectations in re subgenre here? This is definitely neither epic nor heroic, nor am is it my intention to bill it as such. While I'm definitely planning to look over pacing in this pre-party section, to my eyes, we've got a fair lot going on-- we're looking full in the face of what is ultimately a primary antagonist for Lasila, an entrenched social order that pretty much wants her to be an object to be protected, one that originates from those worst of places: that of basically meaning well. From there we go into basically a chilling vision of a future that she refuses wholeheartedly, ie, stuck in a closet in a bank; we're also pretty much presented with the outright fact that if she were content to sit back and wait she'd basically have nothing to worry about, but her situation basically precludes any sort of ambitious plan for herself whatsoever. And she refuses. She just doesn't know how to get there yet.Lasila's a lot of things, but it's pretty much always coming down to the almighty dollar for her, in the end. So to speak. And this chapter basically presents her hard rejection of just falling into line. By and large Lasila doesn't have that confidence in him, and this is a point of contention he is politely ignoring out of the awareness that this distresses her quite a lot. But it certainly comes through in her POV.The cat is... he means well, and he'd like her to feel better, but he really doesn't understand her. Yeah, fair cop, though I've used this form a fair bit later on. I'll see about cleaning it up. Yeah, that part is probably laying it on a little thick, and is unnecessary to convey Lasila's overt antipathy for this particular god's faithful. She certainly considers not batting an eyelash in the face of a situation she considers unpleasant to be a significant skill. There's some very hard social stratification-- I've touched on it a bit earlier, and more of the nitty-gritty in re how marriages are negotiated comes up when it's more relevant later but a permanent arrangement is not meaningfully possible here. Haha, be careful what you wish for, because those honorifics come hard and fast next time. I've got a chart but I'm also silently gauging if my tactic of 'explain it the first time then just go' is working, which thus far it seems to be. But next time we're liable to have trouble. She's a lot of unpleasant things but here it's that it's still genuinely uncommon. Bimonthly is also the word for every other month; I did check before using it. It's just a weird word like that.Varinen is, as stated earlier, a civil servant, and while his specific position is one that's socially acceptable for, say, unwed senators' relatives, he's basically come up on a hard limit as to what his position can actually do for him.Lasila is a minor, and even if she and Varinen both believe she's capable of taking care of herself, that's certainly something in her way. And certainly, she would have a much easier go of things if she was willing to settle and work in a closet on basically dead accounts. ?? He's leaving in two weeks from the end of the first chapter and this is said outright. He's not in the next and he's gone at the end of five. Certainly, if she were willing to just wait on things, everything would be much easier for her.Like I dunno here, is the objection both that she's too passive and that she's not willing to wait for things to settle themselves? Because it is very much the point that if she were willing to sit back and do nothing everything would be fine. But fine is very much not acceptable. Well, it's a different god, with a different faith, and a different priesthood, which is established in 2. It's fairly important to have it here if only because that followed by the bank pretty strongly lays out the path of least resistance for Lasila, which she's rejecting here. As above, laid on a bit thick but certainly Lasila does not care for this one bit.

Awesome - I like the bit about the spices, but as we might have gathered I'm a fan of the mercantile stuff. Still, if it's not going to be important, then yeah, it's taking up too much space. Bored - the narration diverts into overt asides a few times that just kind of hit my snooze button. You're also introducing a lot of characters really fast for such a short piece and then kind of setting a lot aside right away, which doesn't do much to make them stick. Confused - early on going back and forth between 'Amra' and 'My accountant' it took quite a bit too long for me to realize they were the same person. Don't believe - yeah again, the fact that they have any liquidity here they didn't before is a benefit; it's not ideal but when the alternative is tossing it, yeah. I have no particular line-by-line callouts that weren't already covered. Aside from being a bad negotiator, Amra feels like she's got a better head on her shoulders than Prot does, to me.

This strikes me as an interesting point of POV here, because tbh stripping away the way Lasila's painting the situation, she's being incredibly petty on this. But she's painting a very pretty picture of her being in the right. And if you're buying into her version of things that's fine and not necessarily unintentional, but I think it's definitely a sign here that I should find a way to move up the other POV. Because if there's one thing that's critical here, it's that there really can't be any suggestion that there's much in the way of authorial agreement with Lasila. Whether he should be wasting so much time trying to persuade a stubborn seventeen-year-old who uses guilt trips like a hammer that this is a good idea is another thing entirely. Well, you know what they say about assumptions...

The first sentence is a giant turn-off. Calling out that she normally never thinks of this is just painting long and loud that it's shoving info at you. Same with the paired compound words in the first sentence. The poet line too is very very telly. 'In a world where' is, again, not great POV unless there's other worlds they encounter. I feel like you'd have a more solid start if you cut the first paragraph entirely and did something about the first sentence of the second; it's extremely bulky. Page two paragraph 1; past, not passed dawn. Later in the paragraph you're already 'it was unlike her to' and this is the second time thus far, this is our introduction to the character, you don't want to be having her do things and go 'but actually this was not like her at all'. We should be seeing what she's like, not what she's not like. I like paperwork, and I like bureaucracy. You fall into the construction "(verbing aside), (main clause)" a fair bit. Nothing wrong with this construction in a vaccuum but it's coming up often enough that I'm noticing it. Comma splice on Laurea's initial line to Janus; makes the phrase feel a lot more awkward than it actually is, I think. 'It was very recognizable' is kind of a cop-out. I feel like nothing would be hurt by the loss of that sentence. 'Laurea's raised eyebrow...' is a very very passive sort of description. You're tossing narration out the window once dialogue starts and your frequent drop of any sort of dialogue tags means there's a couple points on 3 where I'm just counting lines to determine who's talking. Not big on ending dialogues with '...' either unless they're actually trailing off midsentence. As I go onto 4, I'm not buying the flirting so much? They're very rote lines.` These comma splices are a big big problem for me. I'm definitely more sensitive to them than most but they absolutely will pull me up short and they're everywhere. Yeah, when I hit page 6 and it's all just untagged unnarrated dialogue, I kind of checked out until the scene ended. There's a couple points on 8 and 9 where the narration breakts to stress that something's Laurea's opinion; this is kind of unnecessary if we're using her POV because all of that should be a given. If we're using her head stuff being her opinion is the default state of things. Page 11 on the sentence starting with 'Clupean was a' you dive headlong into a spliced run-on. By and large you have me a lot more once they actually get to Laurea's workplace. I don't mind going on about the dhe so much here because it's relevant to the matter at hand but pretty much any time I hit a comma splice my train of thought gets lost. I like the Roman-esque deal, and I am a sucker for that sort of ritualized symbolic magic but the description thereof feels kind of shoehorned here. I'm still feeling like you c/should be able to just relabel your prologue as 1 and this 2.

This is absolutely a first draft, yeah; hasn't had much more than a typo pass over it. Feminine wiles is not a phrase I would use here appreciably, nor do I have any particular intention of placing her in any sort of sexual peril. That said, there certainly are sharks in the water, and we've already encountered at least three of them thus far.

Since the prevailing preference here seems to be no linespace with an indent but I write with the line break, tell you what I can do; I'll toss you a link to the gdocs folder I toss these things up into as I finish them. There's some caveats (mostly that as I go through deleting the line spaces I inevitably catch a typo or two) and I need to update some nomenclature before I do, but I'll PM you with the link in a day or two. The thing really with Varinen is that his relationship to Lasila is that of a twenty-nine year old brother who's the primary caretaker of a seventeen-year-old and only has been for about two years. So it's awkward and a bit strained and she has very little conception of him as a whole person but there's certainly a genuine affection going on there. He's gone by the end of five and doesn't physically appear again within the book, but he's got a certain shadow he casts. The lover had been possessed by a fire demon; once it was dismissed from her, the not-yet-sleeping god fell in love with her. The trouble with working this stuff in earlier is that prior to this pretty much all the exposition is detailing fairly plot-critical information and this... well, isn't, so much. It's probably possible to adjust her walk some in the first chapter that I could find a way to work it in, but ultimately what's important is that there are limitations on women which are relaxing because of wartime shortfalls, and not quite so much the reactionary politics of a very long time ago that caused it. It's still important to know that this is a consequence of reaction to tragedy and not 'the way it has always been' but that's sort of why it waits a little bit to get in there. Lasila is reassured because of what she says, and because she lied through her teeth to a priest without batting an eyelash or without him apparently suspecting a thing. Varinen can do better. Bimonthly is a calendar thing; there are two pairs of half-months around the summer/fall winter/spring seasonal changes. So the first of every month except for the second of the paired months. Adult Lasila is somewhat of an archcapitalist pigdog. I'm pulling her away from accounting in particular (which is what the original plan was) because of a certain other book (lol) and into something else but no, while Lasila's attention's about to be diverted elsewhere for a while, the focus on the financials isn't random exposition, it's plot.

Previously: The city of Ilidria's living goddess is dead, and seventeen-year-old Lasila Vahendra's only living family must leave in order to assist with peace talks. Lasila attends the display of the goddess' body, and finds herself ushered into the presence of a priestess of some rank named Maranthe. Lasila is invited to celebrate the rise of the new goddess, but is concerned she has no means to make herself presentable or acquire the necessary mask. Maranthe offers to handle that matter, and leaves Lasila with an odd sentiment: masked, all children of Ilidria are equals. Now: Lasila makes arrangements with her brother for the event and learns unpleasant news about her future prospects. Varinen presents a well-intentioned gift to her. This is by and large the last where Lasila spares a *lot* of thought on her initial financial situation (but she is, ultimately, a businesswoman; money is important to her). I'm not terribly concerned if the banking stuff is accurate to real world stuff, but I am concerned if it's believable.

I'll be the weirdo who says they prefer google docs comments, lol. But same principle in the end, really.

What I will say, by the by, is that you're wrong about the reason for the dialogue being the way it is; the deferential mood used here is a cultural point rather than authorial embroidery. Which doesn't absolve me of the need to make it readable ofc so there's deffo work I can do with it, but it does mean that while the chains of ritualized apologies can get skimmed over later, they need to hit you full in the face at least once.