neongrey

Same. It's got people talking about taxes in it! Everyone's favourite thing!

Yeah, there are a few semi-pro markets out there that are probably worth considering (Shimmer, eg, is pretty prestigious but only gives 5c/word which is just short of a pro rate) but for most purposes if it doesn't move at a pro rate, just sit on it. It is possible to get some exposure value out of something that pays less, but be careful. Look at who a lower-paying market has published; if you see names you recognize it's probably fine but if you have no idea who any of the people they're publishing are, chances are nobody else is going to either and you're not getting exposure or what the work is worth. While in other genres (litfic, eg) this isn't true, in SFF there's basically no non-paying markets of any value at all. I like to submit in order of turnaround time. Most places don't allow simultaneous subs so that keeps it moving.

This is the best option unless you want to pay for a Duotrope subscription and I just don't think the benefit to doing so is there. Even if you don't track your subs there it'll give you a good idea of where's worth your while. Otherwise, read your markets that you're submitting to so you know what they like. That said: * It's always worth it to submit to Clarkesworld first. They're not gonna accept it. But the pay is through the roof and a three-day turnaround is a long time for them so it never hurts to try. * F&SF responds within a week, often sooner, and almost exclusively give personalized rejections. Not more than a sentence or two but it's always good to have that.

I finally got around to reading Three Parts Dead, by Max Gladstone; I'd kind of held off because it treads some slightly similar ground to what I'm doing (legal wizardry) but I ended up finally figuring it wasn't all that close (and it's not) and I ended up being really very disappointed. I don't think the quality of the writing held up to the premise in the slightest; I very much sighed at my screen when at the end a major character confronted the defeated villain and straight-up explained in precise detail the villain's Plan All Along. And this was not the first time this sort of thing happened either. Way too much characters explaining things to one another and I was not thrilled by that. I'm liable to keep going with the series because I was entertained but geez.

Yay!

P.1 It's difficult to marvel for very long, but we've got most of a page of really meandering description that I'm not sure there's much of a point to. P.2 some of these phrasings are really awkward.'dreamgarb that could figure out who used the washroom recently', eg. I believe the word you want is feign, rather than fake, but far more pertinent (and I'm assuming this wasn't addressed in last week's) is that I still have absolutely no reason why Ellis isn't the slightest bit concerned about his sister given how critically dangerous this substance is, and I have even less reason to know why this is such a desperate secret. This is categorically not a mystery, this is a character behaving in ways that make literally no sense and the text doing the 'I know something you don't know and I'm not going to tell you' dance. It was baffling the first time it came up and it's getting to be completely unforgiveable now. P.3 This is really awkwardly written; it reads like a summary more than anything else, all throughout. p.4 as of 'all of this exposition doesn't mean anything to me' 'well I'm going to exposit at you anyway', I'm tapping out.

This is an extremely direct follow-up to some stuff earlier, it just was put around here in like november, I am not gonna sweat it. ironically except for some adjustments to match contextual changes, Varinen's lines are nearly identical to the original version's (that's actually how I wrote this one), so it's a little funny to see how the changed context does effect things. He is directly quoting Lasila, yes, only adding 'before I go', yes. Do you feel that Varinen believes what he is saying? If no, why not? Yeah, and this sort of thing is where I'm sort of looking at the arrangement of the early chapters, since it's been a while since we've dealt with this. Either way I think the issue here is mostly due to this not having come up much lately, and whether that's a spacing issue or 'it's been literally months' can be shaken out when I look at the earlier stuff next. It needs some spot mods anyway. yeah, thanks. This, I'm not gonna sweat too hard if it happens on that bit, because that's a fairly reasonable reaction to it. This is always tricky to have shine through, because he gets exactly three scenes, she's mad at the whole time, and doesn't actually care about him as a person (both for bad reasons and because he's really in that awkward brother-dad space in her mind which for everyone i think is more of a symbol than a person), so, good he still gets through her edges, lol. ngl i can directly trace these lines to people calling her lissa in crit even when he's the only one who ever calls her that lololol Pretty much every single interaction they have is largely focused around her being really bent out of shape about this, despite him not actually being that big a part of her life. I'm not gonna worry about this too much. Especially since she does not, so much, care to narrate the exact reasons she's objecting. Which are left as an exercise for the reader to determine. Thanks, everyone!

All right, here we have the revisions to chapter 8, which should now be far less 'Savae, will you please exposit to me?" "Why yes, yes I will." There's some info I will need to go and backpin in earlier and chapter positions might benefit from some jiggling but in isolation I think this chapter's overall a lot better. Please note Savae's recap especially because it's got info that will be inserted earlier. Chapter 9 is a return to and sendoff for Lasila's family drama. I know you all love that. Features more reused material than usual, but I did like these scenes originally. This remains the last we physically see of Varinen in this book. We're syncing up to the party stuff now and despite being 4 chapters higher in count we're only about 3000 words ahead; the old version did the party in 4; I'm hoping to do it in 3 but we'll see how it goes. If I can end the party by around word 40k (so another 12k words), I'll be happy. There's a ton of stuff going on here and this is the big finish for the first major section of the book so this can take a bit of space. Time to start thinking of annoying questions like where this is at structurally (especially relative to before), but I won't actually be asking anyone that until the upcoming dust has settled. Previously for Savae: Savae has been directed by someone in their government to work with the aelin crime lord Varael Ashana. Ashana seems to be using their cooperation in furtherance of some personal scheme; he asks Savae to obtain some material from one Senator Riruna, so that Ashana can get him out of the way and out of the Senate. Meanwhile, Savae's religious responsibilities don't let up, and they find themself in the care of a young aelin who claims to have killed the goddess Alia, and is clearly touched by the moon-goddess... Previously for Lasila: Lasila Vahendra recently met with her client's fiance's lawyer to hammer out details for the marriage contract. After concluding business, he sort of dragoons her and his guard for that day into attending the upcoming celebration of Alia's return together. No one is happy with this. Last time: Eshrin is disgruntled at Senator Melqueth This time: Savae is disgruntled at Kathalania. Lasila is disgruntled at her brother. Next time: You guys *really missed* mid-chapter POV shifts, right?

Let's go back to where I was at, and do my revised 8+9. Who's looking forward to more of Lasila's family drama!!!!!!

yay! Getting real close now~

yeah, I don't think you need a ton, just a bit of easing here and you can work in the rest as you can go. A lot of it's stuff to mind as you go rather than something that's centered here. I mean for my part on the whore bits, all I really needed to understand why there would be objections from that side was police+underclass; I don't need a lot to have it sold to me that ACAB is a commonly-held principle. If it's something else it's something else, but if so, then that didn't come through so much in the text.

No harm, and it's an honest mistake (has it come up in the main works? i'm assuming not because you haven't mentioned, and it's also less present there, and also people using it as a name for themselves. glad i decided to edit out an instance of the actual word alien, as in foreign, in an epigraph, in close proximity to the word aelin lol), I was just very confused trying to figure out what you actually did read, lol.

yeah the hardest science in here is some intro level linguistics (you might be able to discern my opinion of sapir-whorf if you squint)

Do you mind telling me what about that exactly suggested SF or a space context in the slightest so that I can scrub it from my work of sociopolitical fantasy? Or, for that matter, what you feel is indicating that any of these characters is human? Because if that's there, that needs to be gone too.

It is, regrettably, very much Not My Genre.

I'm gonna play the contrarian here and say I felt this was so obvious it wasn't even worth me commenting on. e: I'm also going to play the contrarian on that final line; I think it is a somewhat more effective (than it was in the prologue) usage of that narratorial thing you had going on earlier. I think if you keep it on about that level and keep it modestly sparing in usage, it works. Was too much in the prologue, I think, but this is better. ee: one think I would caution is the substitution of fantasy racism for real racism that you've got going on here (I am, clearly, simplifying). I'd be wary of too close of a 1:1 map here. I think some of the handling is a little bit graceless as-is (see prior notes on the boy) but I don't think it's unsalvageable in either respect.

p.1 At worst what you're doing here is retreading ground that is generally familiar, this particular sense of cynicism eating at the edges of idealism. I am, if you'll forgive the bizarre comparison, a little bit reminded of that episode of the Simpsons, where Marge becomes a cop, and she's going through the motions and seeing crime everywhere. But that's the worst of it so far; Lyan's telling this in a way that's novel enough for me to run with it. A little bit rambly, but I'd actually warn against cutting too deep on that. Some trimming would be good, but her train of thought getting lost as she wanders is entertaining enough that it's a good character point. P.2 Yeah, not a particularly original scene by any stretch, but you're digging into it pretty well, and not using flash or gimmicks to try and distract from that; you're basically wholly relying on the character and her voice to create interest here, and it's more or less working. P.3 But I think you're laying it on a little thick here, to the top of the page, and I also don't think the boy's dialogue is hitting the right age or social register. Only a couple sentences, but you can pull younger and lower class on this, I think, and maybe ease up on the first paragraph a bit. P.4 Yeah, I'd ease up some a bit with the boy, a little bit too openly laying out info and I think a little too much surety. The segue into the news about the mother is pretty jagged, too. I think smoothing that will help a lot here. P.5 Just a bit of clunk here, nothing I'm going to sweat. So this works; I don't necessarily love the scene it's going over because yeah, it's a little bit done, but I think it works well as an introduction to the character. What I would say is, though, if this is the scene you go with, I would not open the book on this, I would do Till's first. The chapter from last week generally has a lot more novelty to it than this one, rough edges and all; I think if you can get someone on the hook for that, you'll have a reader better prepped to take a more conventional scene that is otherwise still well put together.

yeah, plain ol' cleanup work, ty. Fortunately for the gods of legalities, the only connection here is that I'm familiar with what it does there. I've never quite bounced so hard off of something that I didn't actually hate as AJ, which is a shame, because the author's such a delightful person. Not something I'm going to sweat, tbh. Regrettably, Ilnathoa here opts to not, which I think is the thing I do need to sharpen further, because it's the knot that ties the rest together. It seems the actual point of the story isn't coming through here much at all. The story's actually intended to be about (insofar as intent matters, which is very little) the ethicality of participating in an establishment one considers fundamentally immoral. Which, as above, I think isn't coming through as much as I'd like. This is actually unchanged. I'm okay with this, because this is message fiction, because you have taken a wholly unintended but valid message, and because this is about what Ilnathoa does with what she learns. In a manner of speaking it is, but only insofar as it pertains to Ilnathoa's conclusion that to pursue anything with her, regardless of the servant's own victimization, is a level of complicity with an immoral establishment beyond what she is willing to provide. Which is definitely where I need to sharpen this.

10-15k is a bit outside my wheelhouse on erotica, but I do have some friends who are looking to branch out from fanfic, I'll pass it on to them.

This does run a little long, fwiw. As it is, please consider this a standalone short and look at it accordingly. It is set concurrently with Waning, but right now I don't have a need to consider how it fits in with the work being done there. The only specific thing I'm looking for on this is the plot; specifically if you feel it's present enough to sustain this as a story unto itself. If it leaves you wanting more, that's fine; if it leaves you requiring more, that's where I need to know. Otherwise, just go for whatever compels you to go for it.

Here's an interesting series of posts, but quite lengthy. I found it a valuable read, as someone who is both heavily influenced by visual media (serial television in particular) and as someone who generally disdains 'transparent' prose (and, indeed, overly ornate prose too, but that's not the subject here). Calls out a number of different commonalities that I don't necessarily take issue with in isolation (this particular style of scene cutting, eg, which I am quite guilty of) but in combination can often feel quite tiresome. Helps me put my finger on why I don't actually care about blocking in the slightest, too.

Yeah, they're both coming across very unnaturally, I think. Neither of their dialogue is really reflective of actual speech, or even of more formal English dialogue. Just glancing it over again, I feel like the best thing I can compare it to is that it's similar in feel to a fan translation of a visual novel, like it's working with a different underlying language with different conventions of speech, and then translated in a way that holds too close to the literal meaning of the source text. Something like, eg, 'They can't be flamed for failing to save.' is, I mean, I think that's probably grammatically correct (save is a verb that requires an object, though it's not necessary to state it if one is implied), but it's also not reflective of any natural usage of the language. Mostly it's just very bland. Mundane. Doesn't hold my interest or attention. I think maybe trying to convey that terrible power in a scene that is basically here to introduce the character and show us how badass he is is not the best idea; either it'll come out really anticlimactic, or it'll undercut any tension in any future scenes, if we already know he can trivially handle these things that have been built up from minute one. I'd probably focus less on telling us how powerful it is and just convey a sense of power and menace. Let how you frame the encounter create the tension in the scene, and worry about 'yep old dreams are Real Powerful' later. Mostly this is just a very by-the-numbers encounter. Mysterious employer/benefactor hires person and/or adventuring group for mysterious reasons, spends encounter being mysterious. Could see this scene in any noir film, or in a lot of tabletop gaming groups at the start of a new campaign. It doesn't strain credulity beyond pretty much everything relating to the journal or anything, it's just a scene that has been done countless times before and doesn't bring anything new to the table. Mostly it's her showing off how powerful and mysterious she is. (as far as the journal goes, maybe the spymistress labels her notes on the cover with who they're about (though this seems like terrible opsec), but putting his former profession on there feels a lot more like really awkward exposition. and letting him just have the thing, even if it's an expurgated duplicate, I have trouble buying her as being in the position that she says she is in)

Yeah, I'm not sure. As a prologue this would need some massage, timewise; as-written it's after Alia is murdered. But that's simple fixing. It certainly doesn't just slot right in between where I'm writing right now. I'm sure I can find a home for it in the work proper somewhere, though, even if it does find a home as a short. I mean I very studiously avoid most 'standard' fantasy species so having dragons might not be quite as intuitive as it would be otherwise. But dragons are good to have. :v The thing is that most of this is not particularly immediately relevant to the story at hand. It is relevant, particularly in illustrating just how much the aelin are hijacking and appropriating certain things, and it does, as pretty much everyone who's looked at this has said, provide important context. But yeah. Among other things, Ilnathoa knows too much and is concealing too much and is restricted in agency too much to be someone we get a lot from.

In other news, I think I've finally cracked the nut that is the Savae problem. Without dropping them. Yay! e: the trick here is that Savae's half of the story has long struggled with two big things. a) not actually having a plot, like, at all, and b ) most solutions I have ever been able to come up with have been Profoundly Unsatisfying, treading way too close on things like authorially marginalizing them (which no) or falling prey to one of the viler media trends when dealing with the marginalized, respectability politics. Which I do not much truck with. Finally got something that feels satisfying to me that avoids most of this BS.

I appear to have accidentally churned out a complete short from the scene that I did earlier, and I definitely need eyes on it to answer burning questions like 'ok does this actually constitute a self-contained plot'. It's a bit over 5k, but what's six hundred words between pals, I've been running way short lately, lol. So yeah, in for monday, lol.