manaheim

LOL on the "product placement" bit. And I also laughed out loud (yes, twice... in a dunkin donuts... with people looking at me funny) at the fact that I got you to page 8 without you rolling your eyes. I consider that an accomplishment. lol These comments are great. And it seems like I have made it much further towards the target than I had expected. By the way, I didn't mention this in my earlier remarks but this book is "done" (feature complete?). I have the entire manuscript down. So I know what happens to Candace even if you don't. mwuahahah... Anyway... I'm thinking if I am going to stick with this, that I need to do something similar to what Manadmon was suggesting and basically yank Seth out by the roots. The problem is he is part of the book later and weaves throughout, so I really need to come up with a better way to either handle him (or remove him and replace him with a different thing entirely) in order to make the story work. I once yanked a character out of a book. I described it to my friend as "I'm trying to replace all the walls in my house with new ones, while leaving all the pictures hanging in place and nothing crashing to the floor." Anyway, if anyone is really bored and curious, I can always send you the complete MS to have a look at. It obviously has a few issues, but most folks seem to enjoy the story. Again... thanks for everyone's comments. Wonderfully helpful and supportive. You guys rock.

This is my second. Part of the reason I am thinking of moving on to the next one (and the reason why I dropped my last one and moved to this one!) is WE's advice to write another and move on. My last one... was MUCH worse. The thing that galls me with this one is I think the concept is reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally good and (I think) pretty unique. So it upsets me to drop it, but I think if I drop it now I at least have a chance to come back to it later and redo it when I have the chops. Thanks for the thoughts and advice, Mandamon!

Not at all, I appreciate it. I think I may need to shelve this devil and come back to it after I have more experience. I feel like I've got a great concept that is just a little bit beyond me as far as my ability to execute. I reeeeeeeeeally appreciate your time and efforts reading this. (as well as everyone's)

After all the extremely helpful feedback, a lot of pounding my head on the desk, and some tight clenching, I have re-done Ch1. I won't give too much info so as not to predispose anyone, but hopefully this will be much improved. Thanks again to everyone for taking the time AND for taking the time to re-read it.

I loved this. Really really enjoyed it and really wanted more when I was done. I loved the dark assassin/film noir sort of effect. The magic system is interesting, though I feel I got a little more explanation on it than I wanted to. Common wisdom these days seems to be that prologues are bad. Just something to keep in mind as you write this. I'm not a publisher or an editor, but I see a lot of people saying they'll bin anything with a prologue. *shrug* I got a little confused towards the end of the section where he blew the place up and his shoulder hit the wall. I just lost a sense of what he was doing because I thought he was already outside. I didn't understand how a sniper (a far more simple way of killing someone) would be less noticable or tracable than a dude who breathes explosive gas into a room and blows up a barber shop. The line: "It was the mark of a supremely arrogant man who thought he was immune because of his powers" seemed to stretch credibility on the POV character. How could he know that level of detail when he appears to be speculating on the reaons for his target not using the glass? You repeat "Preparation was the key to any good assassination " a number of times. The second time it felt like an error. The third time I felt like it was probably intentional, but somehow it still felt wrong to me. You have "a little shabby". I would cut "a little". You also have "His shoulder still felt very wrong". I would cut very. I think it was Mark Twain who said [para] "replace all your verys with damns, and then your editor will cut them all out for you." You also have "looking slightly panicked". Are they panicked or not? Cut the slightly. Anyway... still very interesting. Looking forward to the next bits.

My pleasure. And speaking from the standpoint of someone who is now on like their eighth edit of Chapter 1... I totally get polishing. Oh and thanks on the tips on pasting. I also wonder if it might be an IE thing. I'll have to futz with it more.

I'd like to re-submit my Chapter 1 if people don't mind having a second look.

I wrote this giant string of comments for you... and my wifi dropped. And then now this forum won't let me paste my comments back in (I managed to copy them beforehand). I'll send them to you in email. Is there some weird trick to pasting stuff here?

So I re-wrote this chapter. I'm tempted to send it out again, but I'm ascared. lol I didn't change everything. Most notably Seth's dialogue. I did tweak it a bit, but he's sort of supposed to be a little unusual and a touch stiff. I did attempt to have Candace react to it a little bit to take some of the edge off of it... it's very much her to do so anyway. I ripped out a lot of the excessive description. Most importantly, I heavily rebalanced this towards him having her attention, but mostly her just trying to stay the hell out of jail. I think it's much stronger now. Can't thank you all enough for your comments.

These are all really helpful comments. I just want you to know that I'm silent mainly because I'm processing them and trying to decide what to do with them. I think I'm going to have to make a few surgical changes. I'm probably going to have a few questions for you guys if you don't mind? Some thoughts on how to handle some stuff. Thanks again for taking the time and leaving me some feedback. REALLY appreciate it.

Oh boy can I ever understand THAT. Good luck with it. Looking forward to seeing more when you're ready.

Thanks for taking the time. Happy Monday!

First off, my apologies. Somehow I missed this submission, so I'm coming to it late. I'm really interested in the story, but there were some things about it that made it hard for me to read. If I wasn't reading for RE, I would have put this down and walked away within the first couple pages. There is a lot of exposition. It's just too much to wade through. My advice would be to try to give us more of what is happening through the characters. Have them talk more to break things up and that will give us all that you're trying to give us and more. The sentence structure is also a little challenging. There are many sentences that run on for a long time and combine many different elements into one sentence. Example: "It had faded after the first morning and by dusk that day, which they had spent struggling through woodland, crossing two rivers and trudging across fields, resignation had made her more relaxed." I just think you're trying to cram way too much into one sentence. I'm also confused about Saffen... you made it pretty clear she was captured, and yet she speaks as if she is not a captive, and they oddly talk to her as if she is not a captive. I was forced to go back and read it again to be sure. There were a few other concerns here and there, but for me, these issues are going to be your top ones to deal with. It seems like an interesting story, but these elements makes it challenging to read.

Hm... that's a wall of text. I hope it's not too much. As I said, I'm definitely interested. I wouldn't have been reading so carefully if I wasn't.

Hi. First, definitely an engaging and interesting story. Despite the issues I found, I was reading right along and am definitely invested, so that's great. The writing is nice and smooth, and you handled the first person present tense well, which is a hard thing to do IMO. I personally don't like first person present, but I found myself adapting to it quickly. Most of the concerns are items that either didn't make sense to me given the mechanics of the world I know, or were things that felt illogical or unlikely given either the circumstances or the characters in play. I haven't read all of your stuff, so it's possible that some of this is just related to my not understanding your world, but I'll call them out and you can ignore them as you see fit. Now my concerns... "I find myself surprised to be greeted by the sight of a man clad in a filthy black apron." - Minor, but why is he surprised? It's a smithy, clearly the main character here is experienced. So having a smith in the smithy seems normal enough. Minor, but on the top of page two you say "keyring" three times within 5 sentences. On page two, "As we descend the ladder, I begin to see why..." I don't know why he would be surprised that a smithy would be hot. Again on page two, "insulate my feet from the blistering floor"... I'm having a hard time picturing a fire hot enough that it would make a stone floor hot enough to endanger your feet. Same problem with the walls later on where they mention their hands would be burned by the walls. If the fire was hot enough to make the walls dangerous, I'd think it would be impossible for them to survive in that environment for more than a couple seconds. Pg 3. The few inches of water up there filling up the room down here. I think someone else mentioned this, but it would take a MASSIVELY large upstairs for a few inches of water to fill a room downstairs. Pg 4. "as the water continues to flow above us". It wasn't clear to me that Eril had finished leaving, the door had been closed, and water had started, so the water "continuing" to flow was a bit jarring. Right after that you explain the room in greater detail. I think you would want to set this scene when we first walk in, and not so much time afterwards. Bottom of 5. I found myself envisioning what I would think of a meeting that lasted 5 minutes vs. one that lasted 10, and I didn't feel like I'd think much differently about it. 5 minutes vs. an hour.... sure, though even then I'm not sure what it would tell me of VALUE about the meeting, other than whatever the topic was, it took a while to discuss. Pg 6. I didn't understand why Lady Bastielle being lucky and eccentric was in opposition to her being daft or not. I also didn't understand why it was considered daft to be rich and have a bunch of valuable items, and why the conclusion there would be to sell off the least valuable of these (giving her more money). The logic behind the premise is confusing for me, so it feels forced. Pg 7. So if I understand this correctly, he's going to sneak in at night at some point prior to the auction, hide a bunch of stuff in the coffin, and then buy the coffin at auction with all the stuff in it. This seems like a bad, overcomplicated, plan with any number of different ways of failing. First, a break-in and theft would result in an investigation, which would likely include a search. It seems unlikely someone wouldn't open a coffin to see if there was anything in it. Second, it banks on the fact that the weight of the items in the coffin is not enough to prompt someone to open it to look inside at some point between the time the theft occurs and the time that the coffin is handed off to the buyer, which seems unlikely. Third, anyone buying the coffin would be almost guaranteed to want to open it before purchasing it. The buyer NOT opening it might be suspicious, but the other possibility is someone ELSE trying to buy the item at auction, at which point THEY are likely to open it. Pg 8. "I take another step forward, putting myself closer to Cole-and the hearth behind him". Seems to me you should have set this up the first time he stepped towards him, so we know he is moving him closer with each step, and not just this one. Better increases your tension. Same paragraph- "comply" felt strange here. Wouldn't he be in a position to accept the contract? Not comply with it? Comply implies priori agreement and signature. I don't entirely buy Cole's attitude. He is lavishing on the compliments and it's pretty obvious. I would think the main character would be wise to this and call him out on it, or that he just wouldn't try it. Pg 9. Why is Cole accepting this deal when he was just pretty much told that he might not get paid? Also on 9, they shake, which seems to me a formalizing of the agreement, but then the main character says we have to discuss some details before we formalize the agreement. Pg. 10. The guy behind the door goes from being very rude, snatching papers away, etc. (btw, the rude doorman thing is a little cliché) and then says "Please wait", which seems awfully polite. Pg. 11. Earlier in the chapter you said that Cole would be impersonating the Rolondo nobleman, but wearing a mask so that no one will know that he is not the real one. Issues with people knowing voices, aside... Now you are having him show up as a Rolondo nobleman, where he is not wearing a mask. The earlier thing implied that other people would know an impostor, so I found myself wondering how they could boldly walk up to another noble house and pretend to be the guy without concern. There is a lot of exposition. Someone else mentioned this. I know you're trying to give us the story, but I think you could leave more to the reader to wonder about or fill in over time. It gets particularly heavy by the end of page 11 where Cole is asking "But what about such and such..." a few times. Pg. 12 "Now the first rule..." Technically this is the second rule. The first rule was "we play by Hannal's rules, or you're out." Also... "barring them from leaving with such knowledge" seems weird. How are they going to do that? How are they going to know when they have GAINED such knowledge. I think the real answer here is that they're going to deny them the ability to know anything they don't want to know, which I think they would just state as "Of course, you'll be blindfolded at all times while walking through the house. Don't try to sneak a peak, or we'll kill you on the spot." Pg 15. The whole story with Lord Rolondo is confusing. First, he likes to ride fast... but he likes to let someone else do the driving... but then he decides to take over. It's a little back and forth. Second, he gets into this accident. We know quite a bit about it, so we know someone survived to tell the tale, and we expect it to be the servant who lived because we're being told it's a great tragedy. Though, that seems weird because later on Cole is going to pretend to be this guy. So it turns out that it is actually Lord Rolondo that lives... and the tragedy is a rich man losing a carriage and some horses... and he doesn't want anyone to know because it will make the party moody? So they're going to have this shadowy dealing to purchase a new carriage and horses ... because they don't want anyone to find out? And everyone knows the number one rule of keeping things under wraps ... is not telling anyone... so why is he explaining all this? The BEST thing (assuming we buy all the other stuff) would be to quietly buy a new carriage from out of town with no explanation to the seller. I find this a little hard to swallow.. I think you need to come up with a better reason for them being here. I don't think it would be too hard, either. The driver was the underage daughter of some other noble house and they were having an affair in these fast rides or something. But again, then, he would never tell them. Pg 16. "It will be shared only when..." There is no time at which this man needs to share any of this information with anyone to complete this deal. He is experienced and should know that, and know not to say that, and the main character and Cole should be experienced enough to react to the man saying it and yell at him for even suggesting it. (ignoring the fact that they never should have told him) "...who was a dear friend". If the driver was a dear friend it would make sense to reveal this earlier on. It would also contribute to the event being a tragedy, which would help a little. When the main character excuses Cole... this caught my attention because Cole has been doing the talking. Particularly since the main character has set himself up as the "background guy"- not the front man... I have been assuming the main character has been basically acting as Cole's second, so him excusing the front man seems first unwise, and second, very unlikely to not be noticed by the abettor as peculiar. The lord's absence... I'm confused. We know where the lord is. He's not absent. He's out boozing. This implies the lord has gone missing (Which he, in actuality, has... so that throws me off as a reader because I'm not sure what the main character is doing) Is the main character a woman? Something in the dialogue implies that she is. This also makes me realize how little we know of the character, her name, what she looks like, etc. It was a little jarring as the entire time I was picturing this person as a man. There's a line "You're not just an abettor are you". Is that speech? No quotes, but it read like speech. The last two paragraphs had me totally confused. I didn't know who was talking and couldn't work out why what was said would be attributed to either party.

Yup, totally hear what you're saying. Frankly, Candace really is quite a bit smarter than this and I see where she's being a little slow here. I'm reworking my earlier chapters based upon this feedback and trying to sharpen her up a bit. These have been great suggestions. Much appreciated. I hope you'll find Ch3 a bit better. The tone and swearing part will be tough, because that's part of the fabric of the book. (well, not the swearing, really. lol) But I hear what you're saying and will pay careful attention to it. Thank you all.

Thank ye!

Thanks, Andy. I will keep it in mind as I go through my edits. I probably have some loose ends where I've taken it too far or something. I've never been one for subtlety. :-/

I'd love to submit again this week if there's room. (I have my whole book written, so I'm just sorta plowing through)

These have all been extremely helpful comments, and I've only been not replying mainly because I've been reading them over a few times and thinking them through. INTERESTINGLY... when I was reading this just before I posted it, I kinda rolled my eyes at some of the early parts of the chapter and said (to myself) "Come on, come on... get to the point." At the time I thought it was fatigue over having read the thing over so many damned times, but now I think that it was an internal editor that I should have listened to. Fortunately, the comments from you folks have helped me identify that, so it's time to grab the scalpel. While I in no way mean to diminish Andy's comments, I'm a little glad that not everyone responded quite the same way to the tone because it's kinda part of the superstructure of the book. After I read Andy's comments the first time I almost tossed the entire book in the trash. lol I may still... gotta get through my million practice words and this is only book 2. :-/ Anyway... andy, thank you for all your comments and taking the time to read and respond. I'm also super happy to hear that the dialogue worked better this time around. I admit I have a hard time with Seth. It's on the plan to go back and work on him a bit. And EXTREMELY happy to hear you're looking forward to more. That's a big improvement. lol Oh, btw, yes... I know on the commas. I'm trying to figure out how to use them and no matter how many damned books I read on the topic, I'm still confused. Thanks very much to ALL of you. Can't tell you how much I appreciate these insightful remarks. I have very much work to do. Talk soon!

I had a hard time with this one. I get the impression that you're new to this (not that I'm not, mind you), but I see some common problems that I run across with newer writers. You might want to try to look at each one of your paragraphs and ask yourself "What am I trying to show in THIS paragraph?" Then look for anything in that paragraph that doesn't belong to what you're trying to show... and either insert a new paragraph, remove it, or move it to another more appropriate section. I want to say you have too much exposition, and the pacing needs help, but I think a lot of that is really just the organization of the ideas. I'm going to try to come back to it again later when I'm more awake, but wanted to let you know my initial reactions.

No harlequin romance this time, I promise. :-) Thanks for checking it out.

Just catching up on my last week's homework before the new week starts. I gotta say... this was really slick. I was pulled right into the story and really enjoyed the read. I just pretty much blew right through the whole thing without getting bumped out of the story more than a few times. I really enjoyed the interaction between Eril and the main character. I did find some of the first parts a little jumpy at first. The first person present tense thing always makes me feel like things are a little rapid fire. I just think I don't much care for that type of perspective/voice... but even with that, I started got involved enough in the story that I didn't notice after the first few pages. Some minor technical nits... You use the word "quite" several times. 4-5, I think, and in one case you use it twice in two sentences. You also use "very", "clearly" and some other similar words that don't contribute much and can probably be stricken. In the section with the two voices talking about bottles of aether... you say bottles mostly, but barrels once. I assume it's just a slip. One more thing I wanted to mention was along the lines of originality... you're "burning aether". I can't help but think of mistborn with this. Also you have "adepts" propelling themselves through the sky on air... and you have the four elements in play. This rings a lot of Avatar (Nickelodeon's cartoon serial). Not that you can't do stuff that has been done before, but it just caught my attention so I figured I should mention it. Still... all very enjoyable. I have very few comments because I just thought it was very cool. Looking forward to the next installment.

Cool. Thanks!

Great feedback, thank you. You hit very strongly on some very serious weaknesses that I -hope- I have already corrected (in the version you don't have) , and introduced some new ones as well. Thanks so much for taking the time and the patience to slog through it. Ch2 will be better, I promise.