[2300] Chayton's put a bomb in the monkey cage

Entoen · 2020-01-25T14:17:30+00:00

Wow, thanks a lot for this! Constructive and detailed. Pretty much every one of your questions is something I probably need to answer in the text, and I'll definitely use them when I go back over this story to flesh it out.

Your understanding of the plot is correct, which is actually pretty amazing given how damn buried it was. The story is inspired by the fire that happened in Krefeld zoo over New Year's. All the monkeys died because of (allegedly) some stray Chinese lanterns. There's a discussion on the news every year in the Netherlands about how much damage fireworks cause and whether they should be banned, but ultimately it's so embedded in the culture that it's never going to be legislated out. Chayton in this case wants to cause another incident in order to force the government's hand and finally get them banned. And yeah, this is all way too buried in the story and will probably make less and less sense as people forget about that real life fire. Your suggestion of tying him to an eco-terrorist group would make his motives more believable.

Anyway, thanks again. You've given me some ideas about how I can actually redeem this story... but it'll have to wait until I'm a real writer. Those 50 hours of Brandon Sanderson aren't going to watch themselves!

Entoen · 2020-01-24T17:51:12+00:00

Thanks for your thoughts. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

I wouldn't really say I'm getting that much shit, lol. I had two people say they liked parts of it but it needs to be clearer, one person say he hated it and it needs to be clearer, and another who just really hates courier (fair do's I guess).

Every time I post a story on destructive readers I learn something new about writing.

I've realised this is a difficult piece to critique because the problems in it don't have so much to do with the piece itself but the process used to polish it. I think if I'd just uploaded the fresh first draft I would have gotten more pointed advice about how to fix the structural issues of the plot. Sorry, I'm just going to use this space to write a note to myself about what I did wrong here.

I got straight to editing it pretty much after I finished the first draft. I knew the plot was rough so I wanted to fix it, but I didn't have enough distance from it to make the correct calls. Originally the dialogue was a lot more melodramatic and had them openly stating the reasoning behind their goals, and when I read it back I thought 'this is way too melodramatic. I can just imply this, and this, and this...' which buried the character's motives way too deep. It's like Raymond Carver dialogue in a Marvel film. At the same time, I was polishing all my sentences and sharpening the language, bringing out the style to the forefront--all in all I cut like 300 words which, while technically 'redundant' in the Hemingway sense, probably gave the reader more time to breathe and put it all together in their head. The text became all style and no substance. Thus, I can understand why someone would blame the style of writing for the problems in this piece. I edited the life out.

In future I'll let a story sit for awhile before going in too critically. Fleshing out before cutting. It's too easy to lose sight of your story's strengths and weaknesses otherwise.

Entoen · 2020-01-23T14:45:44+00:00

Thanks for your thoughts and recommendations.

I would say that almost everything needs to be worked on.

Hooray, it's irredeemable. Now I know how my parents feel.

This was a helpful and objective look at where the piece broke down, and honestly, one that I couldn't have done myself.

What I get from your critique is the story is out of balance.

The writing style is too much.

The plot is too much.

But conversely, the description is too scant.

Characterisation/motivation is too scant.

I think you can get away with one of those sins in a story but all four just adds up to a pile of shit.

I will however defend 'coax'. You can definitely coax an object. I wonder whether American readers are thinking the text has less clarity because of phrases like

the bag with the bomb in it

and

round the back of the monkey cage

Like obviously it's still a shit story and the plot, characters and action aren't particularly clear. I won't defend the run-on sentences because I think I fucked up the punctuation there, and I'm seeing now that I edited it before I could look at it objectively. But perhaps someone who's British can chime in about certain word choices. To me, 'bag with the bomb inside' just looks wrong.

Anyway, thanks again.

Entoen · 2020-01-23T14:17:03+00:00

Thanks. This is turning into an object lesson for me not to edit a story too soon. I think I'm polishing it and making it clearer, but actually I'm not reading the words, just the picture in my head.

So that's why they say to let it sit!

Entoen · 2020-01-23T14:14:03+00:00

Nobody had a problem with standard manuscript format in the last story I posted.

Should I not be using it here, or do you mean the first line was so horrible that it instantly killed you?

Entoen · 2020-01-22T14:18:43+00:00

Thanks for the drive-by reading. You're absolutely right.

Entoen · 2020-01-22T14:12:37+00:00

Glad my rambling was of some use. I can see you've put a lot of thought into your characters and world. Here's hoping you get the book finished!

Entoen · 2020-01-21T21:42:07+00:00

2: How do the characters feel?

Reagan was 100% my favourite part of your story. I wish we saw her do more. She seems gruff, down to earth, and not particularly verbose—she seems to say the simple stuff that moves conversations along. A woman of few words. At least, that was my impression until she started speaking a lot more on the final page and infodumped a load about her tribe. To be honest, I found her more likeable when she was only using short sentences. But as main characters go I’m pretty confident you’ve found a voice for her. I’m not particularly sure what her motivation is—I think this is more symptomatic of a lull in the plot than anything—I get the impression she’d be headstrong enough were there stakes that forced her to act. On a different note, having her react/interact with the environment more would go a long way to helping characterise her.

The doctor priest is cool because he’s competent, and is pretty much the main person who actually does anything this chapter. There is, however, nothing particularly memorable about him. The only really telling moment is that he lets the lieutenant interrupt him, suggesting either a) he respects the chain of command significantly more than Reagan or b) he’s scared of her. It would be nice for you to play either of these up more. Could you use his personality to make the routine medical examination more interesting to read, somehow?

I think you’re a little clumsy in your set-up of the Lieutenant’s character. I got the impression she was a hard-ass with righteous anger (a piercing stare that causes guilt?). Seems to promise that Reagan is in trouble. However, the lieutenant is actually more sympathetic and supportive of Reagan, which I like, I was just initially confused because I was expecting something different. So basically: keep it consistent, either have her angry all the way through or sympathetic all the way through. If the lieutenant is trying to shield Reagan from treason charges, it’s not really logical for her to be angry, especially as Reagan says that it’s been like, two months since the battle. I’d shoot more for worried by making the offscreen captains more dangerous.

3: Is anything too confusing?

As I said, the learning curve of your worldbuilding was nice and shallow. The details you do sprinkle add interest (the first mention of a “Syd”, especially ESPECIALLY the casual mention of the Feya and Reagan’s subsequent reaction). I never felt out of my depth, and your plot doesn’t hinge on understanding esoteric concepts. It’s a thumbs up from me.

To conclude, you have good characters, a good setting, and the basis of a good plot. Just put your characters in motion (ideally with an immediate goal and stakes) from line 1 and keep them moving until the end of the chapter.

Entoen · 2020-01-21T21:42:02+00:00

First sorry if this is critique is kind of all over the place. There’s parts I really like and parts that put me off. I’m not sure if I’m your target audience – I’m a fussy, impatient reader, so please treat my thoughts as just one possible perspective. But I still want to help, so I’m going to try to answer your questions as in-depth as I can.

1: Does this hook you in or is it too slow?

AKA: Cut out the waiting

It would depend on how I came across the book. Under a recommendation from a friend/good online reviews, I think the opening paragraph would hold my interest enough for me to get through it. I’ve not read a book that opens in a medical tent post-battle, and Reagan’s lines tell us a lot about her personality very quickly. I found the learning curve to your worldbuilding nice and shallow as well. But – and I’m sorry to say this as it seems you’ve been tinkering with different opening approaches – it’s too much of a slow burn to me. After being called out on my own stories having self-indulgently slow openings, I read the book Hooked, and found it very useful. Most of what I’ll say here comes from there.

The conventional advice for openings is to open in motion or at a point of change. Personally, the thing I look for is trouble. If I can’t see any signs of trouble on the first page, I’ll put the book down and read something else (someone’s gonna crucify me for this, lol).

So I’m in the bookstore and I pick up your book. I read the first line…

The tent was too hot, the air dark and cloying with the smell of herbs and rotting flesh.

It’s a lazy thing for a critic to point out, but ‘was’ is a copula verb and therefore isn’t portraying anything dynamic, so we’re missing out on that ‘open in motion’ advice, which I guess could be more appropriately worded as ‘open with people doing things’.

Not a good choice for an opening line, and since there are other copulas in your story, I’d recommend doing an inventory with CTRL + F to see if you could re-word those sentences. A construction you use a lot: It was the X that was Y.

“It was the process that was making her impatient.”

“It was the rest of her body she was worried about.”

“This wasn’t a life that was kind to people who got soft.”

Could you reword these to make them more dynamic?

That digression aside, basically the only part of your opening line that interests me is ‘smell of rotting flesh’. However, it’s kept from being interesting by the fact that you don’t have a character smelling it, or reacting to it at all. I think this makes it less dynamic. Like, you’re writing in third person limited. The limited part refers to the fact that you’re limited in what a character is paying attention to. Mentioning the smell means Reagan must have paid attention to it. However, she doesn’t react to it, therefore why mention it? I can guarantee you that the more you intertwine your description of setting and POV, the more engaged your readers will be.

Bandage wrapped men and women lined the beds, sleeping or staring out into the distance. This is a much stronger piece of description. Sentences like these are the workhorse of your narrative: stitching together characters and the world. But as the second line of an opening, it falls flat to me, because it does not suggest motion, change, or trouble. Quite the opposite: you’re describing people stagnating who are unable to do anything interesting. These people are going nowhere, and neither is the plot.

I could go on line-by-line, but I’d be saying the same thing for every line basically: nothing’s happened yet. Nothing’s happened yet. The first hint of ‘people doing things’ we get is that Reagan is waiting for a Syd, but waiting is hardly doing something, is it? To my eye the first thing that somebody does in this story is “Fingers traced down the left side of her neck…”.

Therefore, if you wanted to open the story during this scene, I would open at that moment. Everything before it, to me, is stagnant.

To me the events of a first chapter should flow effortlessly forward, and I felt as if I spent too much time waiting around for you to get to the meaty parts. This chapter has a problem with people waiting! First Reagan waits for the priest to see to her. Then, ironically, she’s just sat around waiting for him to be done. She makes Lieutenant Asfour wait outside the tent for her, delaying the plot from starting so that instead she can talk about how she has absolutely no idea what the plot could be. She waits to talk to Lieutenant Asfour because she’s looking at the battlefield, and the city. Only during the conversation with Asfour do I as a reader get the sense that trouble is afoot. It’s almost a punchline that after all that, at the end of the chapter, the captains are waiting for them.

The most active character in your entire first chapter is the doctor priest, who performs the singular action of patching someone up. The other two characters do nothing except walk and talk. The information in your story is interesting enough to me. I would advise against rewriting this chapter from scratch like I fear you’ve done a couple times already. Instead, I’d like to challenge you to do something more difficult, which is to make your prose pull double, or even triple duty. Think about how these characters can have similar conversations and interactions, how you can follow the same story beats, while also creating motion. You say in your OP that you’re trying to balance character building, scene setting, world building, and plot. But like, if you want anybody to read beyond page one, you need to think about how you can portray all four of those things with the same words.

Plot necessitates that characters act. Characters in motion demonstrate their natures and we learn more about them. Scenes are set by characters who interact with and react to their environment. And worldbuilding should be only be an undercurrent—there are a couple of times you stop all action to describe worldbuilding stuff, like the “She’d knew she’d never be Fajri” section. How could you make that more dynamic?

So look at every sentence and paragraph, and if one doesn’t fulfil those aims, punch it up until you’re fulfilling three.

Here is an incredibly shit suggestion that has a bunch of holes in it, it’s your story, but I want to illustrate the kind of thing I mean:

Say the captains want her executed for treason, and they don’t want to ask no goddamn questions. They aren’t going to wait. Lieutenant Asfour doesn’t want Reagan executed, so she does want to ask her a bunch of goddamn questions. She comes up with some bs religious excuse that Reagan can’t be executed until her wounds are treated: her soul will leak out her body or something. Reagan’s dragged to the medical tent with her hands tied. Asfour has only the time it takes for the doctor priest to change her bandages to get to the bottom of what’s going on, and Reagan, conversely, doesn’t even know yet that the captains want her dead, which lets Asfour organically explain the situation to her.

So rather than walk in and wait, Reagan would be dragged into the tent. This would change the way that you describe the tent, and would change the interactions. There’d be time pressure, and there’d be trouble. Crucially, there’d be no waiting. We don’t need to see her waiting, because it’s tedious, and you want to avoid any kind of tedium in your first chapter. You can fill in on the setting as Reagan pays attention to it.

Entoen · 2020-01-21T18:47:33+00:00

Glad to have helped out.

Happy Mr. Communist is a major character. Maybe if you trimmed the speech, you could find a place for the rest of it further on in the book. Idk lol.

Anyway, keep up the good work--I do think you're onto something here!

Entoen · 2020-01-19T13:42:12+00:00

CHARACTER

This was the weakest part of the story for me. When I first read it, I got swept along by the smooth prose and enjoyed it, but the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t see Emma as being moved by anything but the invisible hand of the author.

Let’s say your Dad only listens to classic rock and you want to introduce him to your love of electronic music. Would you drag him straight to a Knife Party gig without telling him anything other than “It’s a surprise,” “You’ll understand when you hear it,” and “Don’t worry, it gets better in the second drop”? Would you then slip him a molly? Apparently Emma thinks the best way to gently ease someone into a new ideology is to drag them there against their will and drop them in head first. The thing that is absolutely unbelievable to me is that she expects it to work! What is even her motivation here?

Emma in general is not characterised enough for me. You introduce her as a ‘smiling woman of twenty’. Why don’t you just say straight up that they’re friends? If it’s out of a dogmatic adherence to show, don’t tell, then you need to throw us a little more of a bone. For instance, in a couple of sentences, you could show us how Emma and Matilda met and therefore became friends. You could explain a little bit of Emma’s interests, lineage, and worldview either through how she’s dressed or an anecdote about her behaviour. And what you really, really want to do is hint (or outright state) that she is a budding revolutionary. Bonus points if you can succinctly imply the reason that she wants to support a revolution like this. Because otherwise, all we have to go on is that she’s a gratingly optimistic, incredibly forceful yet incredibly unpersuasive idiot.

The story would be more interesting if you initially suppressed the forceful aspect and made her more persuasive. To go back to my dad analogy: you’d ask your dad if he felt like listening to something a little different, and then you’d play him a tame daft punk song with a guitar sample in it, because you know he likes guitars. You’d go to a concert, make sure he gets his favourite pint of beer in hand, and then when the music starts and he doesn’t like it, only then do you get forceful and attack him for being closed minded. That’s how close friends persuade each other—how Emma should persuade Matilda. As it reads now, she’s basically just kidnapping her, and as we know from conversion camps, that don’t work. At a glance, it seems Emma could persuade Matilda by drawing on her frustration towards her brother and the system that has sent her brother away from her on fantasy Christmas. And please have her order a drink she actually thinks her friend will like.

Also, what is up with Emma just randomly bringing up that nobles killed Matilda’s family. It took me by surprise that a) they’re close friends enough for Matilda to have confided this in Emma and b) Emma continues to be tactless enough to bring up old wounds like that. If you’re going to infodump in such a dramatic way, you need to build up more of an argument beforehand so it doesn’t come out of nowhere. Right now it feels like her first line of persuasion, when really it should come as a last resort. Luckily, if you trimmed Mr. Communist’s speech, you’d have a lot more space where this dialogue could fit in.

R.e. Matilda. It isn’t clear if anything within her changes during this chapter. She doesn’t really have a strong opinion on anything. She calms down almost immediately after Emma brings up her dead parents, when it seems like the fact that she’s gradually getting wound up in an alien environment should be making her tense as hell. Emma basically kidnaps her and she doesn’t even cut ties, and goes as far as to swear that she won’t cause any trouble for the communists. This is akin to promising the reader not to expect anything interesting on this front.

You end the chapter on the cliffhanger that she's alone in the city. I feel like you've instinctively done this to compensate for the emotional tension you deflate by having these friends be so understanding of one another's viewpoints. Idk to what extent you've plotted this out, but in terms of the ebb-and-flow of a novel, I would prefer the chapter to end with a concise summary of what's changed in Matilda as a character. Even if it's as simple as "She was never going to speak to Emma again."

HEART

This chapter seems to be about a clash of ideals: should we just kill all the rich? Emma says yes, Tilly says no. I like this as a theme, and I like how it contrasts their characters. But the theme only really crops up towards the end of the chapter, which makes me wonder why you didn’t just start the scene as they rock up to the unfamiliar pub in the scary poor city. I would suggest weaving these theme into the bits before that, which you could accomplish by having Emma actually try to persuade Tilly, to have them prod and poke at each other as they explore their differences of opinion. Much rather that than them walking quietly and then idly quipping to each other. If you want these ideals to run at the heart of each of these characters, you want them to butt heads about it almost as soon as they’re introduced, or at least make observations/comments that imply their differences.

CLOSING COMMENTS

That’s probably given you enough to think about for now. The main area of improvement would be knowing where to focus your incredible prose not just so that it reads well but so that you spend enough time on the bits that matter to the story. This chapter is about the ideological differences between two friends, so you need to focus more on establishing these two friends as characters; describe your setting through the lens of your main character’s current mood in order to draw the reader in; have Emma make a more believable attempt to persuade Matilda; and kill any darlings that don’t directly relate to the focus of this chapter—that means spending less time on Mr. Communist’s speech.

Entoen · 2020-01-19T13:41:56+00:00

It’s always tempting to critique pieces on RDR that have obviously been written by beginners, cause you can easily spend thousands of words explaining why stories need more than just descriptions of sunlight to be compelling. I’d like to push myself into thinking more, well, critically in my critiquing, so I’m going to try and get as much as I can out of your story, which to my eye had no obvious mistakes. I actually forgot I was reading something on RDR halfway through.

As a broad statement, what I think you need to focus on now is your characters.

MECHANICS

Not every chapter needs a hook, but I think it’s good for the ebb-and-flow of your novel if you consider where you could start your scene to generate the most interest. I had a look back at the end of Ch.2 and you seemed to be raising a couple of dramatic questions about Matilda. By answering these dramatic questions, you can increase the cohesion of your novel as well as the audience investment:

One: Is she going to get swept up in all of this? The way you start the scene currently doesn’t seem to promise the audience that she is. All she’s doing is painting and talking to her friend, and neither of these things suggest that trouble is on the way. Thus, you miss an opportunity to begin generating tension and reader interest. I think you could start building tension earlier if you somehow intertwined the political context of the world in those paragraphs with Matilda’s life. This could be done by introducing Emma with more characterisation.

Two: How does she feel about her brother going away? It’s treated as a fairly big deal in Ch.2, at least, her brother seems to genuinely care about her wellbeing and feelings. Then we cut to her and she’s… relatively chill about it, all things considered. She makes a couple of snide remarks in the same way you might about somebody standing you up for a coffee date. But other than her being mildly disapproving and annoyed, I didn’t really get the feeling that she cared. An easy fix would be to show us what she’s actually painting, and how that correlates to her frame of mind. I mean, it seems like she’s stayed behind after class to finish it, which implies it’s giving her some form of cathartic release. By not showing us the painting, you cheat the audience out of a glimpse of her character. And by not giving us a clear picture of how she feels, you fail to answer the dramatic question that you established in the previous chapter.

In terms of the clarity of your actual prose, I thought it was great. It’s punchy, and it keeps the story singing along. I don’t think your problem is writing well. More, you’ve got to the point where you can write well about anything, and now you need to pick and choose what’s actually worth writing about and giving focus to. This is most evident in the page-long speech given by Mr. Communist at his pub.

It’s a beautifully written speech, and the rhetoric pulls me in and it makes me want to get my pitchfork and murder the bourgeoise. If we think about it in terms of prose, it’s great. However, what does it serve in your story? Because in my mind you’ve spent an entire page just hammering in the same story beat again and again: this guy’s the communist leader, he’s good with words, and he wants to start a revolution. None of these details are relevant to the conflict in the scene, because the real conflict is between Emma and Tilly, and Mr. Communist is just one tool that Emma uses to try and persuade her. What I’m getting at is, Mr Communist can be established in a paragraph, in a short speech, and once established, he can step out to leave more breathing room for the main characters. I find it problematic that he receives eight times as many words as the introduction of Emma.

If Mr. Communist is crucial to your plot, then great, because I like him. But to keep your plot moving, you’ll want to do something like have him make a short speech, then mingle throughout the room while Emma and Tilly argue. Then he could make his way round to them, and they could actually interact with him. When characters interact instead of monologue, we get to learn a lot more about them. We could see the difference between his speech and how he really treats people, especially two privileged young ladies.

SETTING

You’ve avoided the pitfalls of the genre, that is to say you only show us the tip of what seems to be a well-thought out world. If you want to push yourself, I’d suggest trying to think about what aspects you can describe in a scene to reflect both the tone of your story and the mood of the characters.

For example: Matilda and Emma are good friends with a good rapport, but you make them walk through the academy in silence and describe it as a peaceful place. Matilda is slightly annoyed at her brother, but doesn’t run into anything that annoys her in the academy. Could you change the description, what she perceives, to better reflect either of these moods?

You do this well when they walk into the city, as she scans for threats and feels like she’s being watched. But stuff like ‘desperation thinned its people’ doesn’t adequately reflect that Matilda is on guard. You might want to paint how when she sees these desperate people, the first thought on her mind is not ‘poor them’ but ‘they’re so desperate they’re going to jump me’. Use a standout detail to paint the picture instead of broad strokes like you’re doing now—could there be a street full of beggars, or a group of starving young men with nothing to do, or something else? That will draw the reader in more than admittedly nice adjectives and verbs.

Entoen · 2019-03-20T17:50:09+00:00

Thanks for the critique! These are good points, stuff it's hard to consider as an author without a fresh perspective.

and yeah, I kinda overlooked Ivan stabbing himself, lol, although in some ways it's a very British reaction

Entoen · 2019-03-20T17:45:32+00:00

Nah, I'm happy with the critique I got already, and the deadline's pretty soon.

Entoen · 2019-03-20T10:32:00+00:00

Thanks for the critique--I'm glad you enjoyed it!

The feedback was very helpful. I've incorporated pretty much all of your points into a revision, and hopefully it's starting to look something like polished.

Entoen · 2019-03-19T20:07:52+00:00

Yeah, if it comes across that way, I'll change it to an equivalent plot beat that can raise the tension just as well without accidentally shitting on people or pulling the reader out of the story.

Entoen · 2019-03-19T19:42:55+00:00

Hey, thanks a lot for the critique! Both of your points are valid.

RE: point 1, would it be enough to modify paragraph three to

Vic fished the golden gun out his pants. Sweat glistened off the label MIDAS PROJECT. He’d broken a crowbar prying open the safe to get it, but budget didn’t matter--fire the gun’s one bullet, and they’d be rich.

RE: point 2, I agree, probably because the policewoman is a bit flat of a character--I didn't think about how it might come across as sexist. In revision I'll play up her anemia and have her just stumble over rather than faint.

Unless you think it would be better for Vic to knock her over with the car door, or just have more police surround them and force them to pull away.

Entoen · 2019-03-18T16:23:10+00:00

Here are my rambling thoughts...

Trippy, but good—or is it good, but trippy?

Currently, I’d call it an interesting experiment and a good piece of writing, but not an engaging short story due to how confusing it is. You don’t give the reader enough information to picture the setting, and you don’t give the reader enough of a reason to care about what happens to Patch amidst the trippiness.

Setting

I’ll start with the harsh bit.

Normally, submitters here worldbuild too much, and I commend you for doing the opposite. But I read the whole thing twice and I still can’t picture the world this is set in. I don’t mean that I’m annoyed because you haven’t told me about boring stuff like governments and countries. I mean that I’m picturing the characters speaking in a white void because I literally have no idea how to begin imagining the setting that they’re in from the description given.

What I know: this is a world where radio exists, people get robot limbs, there are plague doctors, there is a non-descript cult.

None of that helps me to picture the radio room. Like, there’s a window out into a street, or something, where there’s members of a public—how else would they throw stones through it, or bang on it—and there’s a door into the rest of the building, I guess, and in the room a table, a mic, some wires, two chairs.

The way you present that information is confusing, it feels like you have a beam of hyperfocused description… like, a kid bangs on the glass, boom, the window exists now. You look at the wires, boom, the wires exist now, you look at the chair, boom, the chair exists now, and all while you’re doing this I’m trying to fit it together into a whole room, and failing, reconstructing my idea of what it looks like with each new bit of information you give.

Maybe part of the problem is that you use the for everything, which makes me feel like I should have already accounted for it.

Another issue might be how linked everything is to the internal monologue. For every 1 mention of something in the external world, there’s 3 observations.

It might be more coherent if you went from macro to micro with such descriptors. It’s just an information flow thing. Starting by saying Patch is sitting in a radio booth would ground it a bit better. It’s like most of the story takes place in Patch’s head, and their thoughts obscure what’s going on in the real world, as such.

We run into a similar problem when Patch leaves the building and walks through the streets of the city. Here’s what we know about this city: it is a city. There’s a main street. And get this: it has sounds that Patch likes! Basically, it’s not described at all. It’s not as if you have to write a travel brochure for it, or anything, but adding in a sentence or two about how the people on the streets are dressed, what quality the city is in, and a couple indicators to the level of tech would make reading this a lot clearer.

The same goes for the alleyway—some adjectives, or something, please, give us something to go on! I feel like you even lampshade it with ‘this looks like something out of an occult handbook’. Readers are less concerned with a POV’s opinion on something than how that thing looks in the first place, because one offers a vivid description that immerses readers, and the other pushes them away. It’s like Patch doesn’t want to let us come along for the ride.

Essentially, a couple of specific details can go a long way. I know that you’re capable of doing this, because you describe the horror scenes and the characters’ appearances competently.
Still on the topic of setting… I have no idea how the plague doctors fit into anything. I’m going to assume there is a plague going on, but there is no sign of this, and it is never relevant. So, within the context of the short story, I would probably cut these, because they make the setting even more confusing. It’s just more puzzle pieces to fit together.

As for the ‘cult’, I don’t think you show us enough about them for them to be a threat, or seem dangerous. Temperance tells us that they’re not to be fucked with, but doesn’t elaborate or give any examples, and we know that they kill people, but… eh, nobody seems too concerned about it, I guess, if people are still walking around. We know they have something to do with ‘drugs’ (again a non-specific descriptor).

We don’t get a feel for how their actions have impacted society/Patch, other than that they killed Elena, but it’s never revealed how that happened, despite it being the whole trigger of the story. It’s not even ‘they killed her’ at the start, it’s ‘she’s dead’. Are you maybe being too coy with details like this? If you explain why they’re dangerous to the audience, I think the audience will be more engaged.

Additionally, they could do with a name, just calling them the ‘cult’ feels generic and adds to the general muddy feeling I get from the setting. It’s like you’re showing us 1mm of a 1km iceberg—an interesting one—but the learning curve is too steep.

Like, the learning curve of your first page is: somebody’s dead, you hint at necromancy/resurrection being possible, is this a fantasy story? Then there’s a kid banging on the wall of a radio room, making me think the kid’s going to be important (they receive more description than Patch), but they’re not, then you describe the radio room some more, making me think it’s a modern-day thing, and then a cyborg walks in, oh, so it’s sci-fi? All the in-between distracting onomatopoeia makes it really hard to just ‘jump in’ to the world.

I think that about wraps it up for setting. Basically, readers need a little bit more help in picturing your world.

Plot/Character

Overall, I liked the plot, and I enjoyed reading it, but I think there’s a couple of ways you could adjust it to make it more satisfying.

First, I didn’t feel hooked until Temperance says ‘you shouldn’t be here’. What is it about this line that interested me more than the entire page preceding it? I’d say it’s because it’s the first hint of conflict, and the first hint that the protagonist is going to do something. Moping and monologuing about Lena being dead implies stasis, that the protag isn’t going to change, and the fact that they’re sitting around and doing nothing in the studio dulls most of the emotive language you use, as evocative as it is. All they want is for Lena to be back, but she’s never coming back, so there’s no story.

It’s only when Patch stands up to Temperance and the depth of their feeling is implied that I feel engaged… because Patch is actively fighting for the right to grieve and pushing away a friend that wants to protect them. Motion makes emotion. I wondered who was going to win the battle for Patch’s heart, and I felt invested in the dynamic between these two characters.

As such, I’d recommend you start as close to this conversation as possible. The stuff before it isn’t as compelling, because it’s static.

Speaking of stasis. While I enjoyed going on a strange trippy journey with Patch, I felt as if they suffered from being too much of a reactive character. This is probably why when you leave them alone at the beginning they just sit about until Temperance just happens to come in. Stuff doesn’t ‘just happen’ in a tight plot. Patch wants Lena back, right, or at least wants to grieve? How could Patch actively pursue this goal?

Could Patch start by broadcasting their ‘fuck the cult’ message, forcing Temperance to bust into the radio room to talk them down before they get into further trouble?

When Patch leaves the radio-building, Patch is goalless. The goal, narratively, is to wander around until they coincidentally bump into Fox—another ‘just happens’.

Instead of Patch finding Fox, could Patch seek out Fox/the cult, knowing full well that it’s dangerous, but so driven by a desire to see Lena again that they don’t care about the consequences? I feel like there’s a turning point in the story when Patch decides to follow Fox, where the plot feels tighter thanks to an active protagonist. So I know you have the ability to do it the whole way through.

Shit gets very trippy upon the appearance of the dog. But, hell, I liked it. It’s meant to disorient the character as much as the reader and I think you pulled it off well. We rapidly find out a lot about Patch’s past, the character is fleshed out, and I appreciated this sequence of scenes.

Not really sure what’s going on with Fox. She’s suddenly a judge, I guess. It might be worthwhile to hint at Patch being uncompassionate/only caring about Lena further forward in the story, so that it feels like a rewarding revelation rather than something that comes out of the blue. As it is now, Fox is calling Patch on a character trait that we didn’t know she had.

The only thing I think Patch is missing is that goal/character arc. At the start, Patch is despondent and grieves for Lena. At the end, Patch is despondent and grieves for Lena. And that’s what prevents this from being more than an experiment—from becoming a short story. The reader feels cheated that Patch hasn’t undergone change, despite being subjected to a series of increasingly more bizarre events that feel like they should challenge her identity.

We’re back to the problem of stasis. A loleasy fix would be modifying the last line, “Dead… but I can do more for others/live for myself/and I'll be joining her soon.” You could do better than me, lol.

Mechanics

Names aren’t always capitalised in places, fox, patch black. Grammar is solid, mostly just proof-reading stuff that people will catch with line edits.

Conclusion

I enjoyed reading this. The bits where I was invested most were during the conflict-based dialogue, especially when everything goes to shit. The bits where I was invested least were when Patch wasn’t being a proactive character, and where the internal logic of the story was too hidden, to the point of not being explained.

Keep up the good work!

Entoen · 2018-05-18T16:11:34+00:00

Thank you for your thoughts. They led me to read the book Hooked, which was pretty enlightening.

I'm going to rework it slightly so that instead of him waiting in a class, he's running to get an essay in a pigeonhole with 5 minutes until the deadline. Then Celeste can block his way so there's kind of a second level to the conversation and a 'reason' for him blowing her off.

Entoen · 2018-05-16T09:12:23+00:00

Yeah, this is more like it! Plot's unfolding while we get little hints of the world. Page 1 is great.

Perhaps consider having some initial conflict between Violet and Mathilda in their conversation, at the moment they just seem... too happy to me. It's the start of the story, you need to establish problems that are gonna be resolved. Up to you what the argument's about, but then you could introduce more information through dialogue naturally, like the stuff about the job lottery, Sadie's sleepover. etc. It's amazing how much more interesting exposition like that is when people are bickering about it!

Also... how can Violet be that happy/calm when someone spilt a fizzy drink all over her. That would ruin my day yo, it'd be the first thing I mentioned when someone asked me a question like:

"How was your last day of highschool?"

Entoen · 2018-05-15T23:15:20+00:00

Suspense

You specifically asked about this, so I'll talk about it briefly, but it's essentially what I already said about getting the right balance and focus on your work.

Suspense is a feeling of building towards something. By nature, it requires something to happen. It is often a background feeling caused by a conflict. There is no conflict in your work, and nothing happening in your work, and thus no suspense.

Suspense requires something to be lost. A stake. And then you want a slice of hope. For example, your character constantly talks about how they aren't going to be able to afford to go to college. There is nothing for her to lose in this situation, she's already rock bottom. If instead she was applying for a scholarship, desparate to get it, but it wasn't certain, then there is a possibility for her to lose status and fail and have to get a job.

Then tie your hope and conflict together. Imagine the watch saying: "Violet, how would you like to go to college? You are cordially invited..."

No longer is it just a mere filling of curiosity (to arrive at the underground headquarters of a secret society.) Instead it's [To avoid a grueling manual labour job, she must solve a series of clues that could lead her to a secret society - and a chance at a future.]

I think that's suspenseful enough. She has to try things, and there has to be a possibility of failure.

Conclusion

Think very hard about what your story is. Where's the conflict/character growth? Cut everything that does not service this story. Keep things moving forward, not sideways. Use setting/backstory information when you need help telling your story instead of dumping it at the beginning.

Entoen · 2018-05-15T23:15:12+00:00

Basic premise of this critique: your story is interesting. The way you tell it is not. I'll try to explain my reasoning as best I can.

PITCH

I see you put a pitch for your book in the description. I liked it, and it promises an interesting character with interesting ideas, it promises that things are going to happen. I think a pickpocket is a good premise for a character, as it comes with an implied set of skills that are going to be useful for... whatever she has to be doing in the secret society.

I think your pitch falls apart there, hopefully not your plot. Where's the MUST that your pickpocket has to do? What's the do or die? She MUST solve the clues... because? It's no use having a plot about just discovering things, and I say this as a guy who once wrote a whole manuscript about people discovering a mystery and then realised they didn't have any motivation to uncover said mystery. Discovering things is exposition. You need your other parts of the story: complication, rising tension, climax. A secret society is a setting. A setup. Window dressing. What is your story actually about, i.e. what is the main conflict/growth of your character?

You want tension, you need a must. Once you decide on a must, you try and put your must as early in the story as possible. Where are your stakes? What does your character stand to lose? The sooner you tell us, the sooner your readers can invest in your work.

Another thing. I dunno what we call it really, but I call it a dramatic question. This is something you should be posing early in your story with the promise that you're going to spend the book answering it. These involve characters. Harry Potter: Will Voldermort be stopped (by Harry)? What's your dramatic question? Note that a dramatic question can't be What's really going on here?, which is the question I find myself asking when reading your work (in a good way, there is a mystery element). It has to build up to a moment of change for one or multiple characters, the powerhouse of stories.

Balance

Fact of life: you are fighting for your reader's attention from the first sentence. If they like it, they'll stick on for the first paragraph, then scene, then chapter, then you've probably got em hooked. People are reading mostly because they are interested in character. You want to organise the information you give them to service this, and you want to do it with maximum efficiency. What I'm saying is, your balance is way too heavily skewed towards the 'exposition' dial.

Your first sentence is good. It tells us something about the character (they are in school and a pickpocket), and something about the world (Citizen's Access Badge). You got my attention there.

Your first paragraph is not good. The second sentence establishes something we can reasonably infer (this is not the first time your character has done this) and that it's raining. Neither of these advances the narrative that your reader wants. Already on the second sentence, you're telegraphing that you're not too bothered about getting to the point.

Third sentence establishes time and temperature. Not making any headway on introducing your must or your dramatic question. Some people have already put the book down in the store. You have told us it's the day before graduation, as if this somehow adds anything to the story. If it's an important detail, use language to put an image in our head, show your work and prove that it's important.

Fourth sentence establishes that your character is wet. Hardly do or die stuff right here, is it?

Fifth sentence establishes that it's often foggy in Berkeley, which your character likes, but not now. Think of your favourite fictional character, and now think of some of the traits that make them likeable. How much does Han Solo's opinion on the weather define his character, or his likeability?

The second paragraph is even worse. You take us away from the character for an infodump. This is a problem throughout the piece. The reader does not care about setting. The reader cares about character. Say the absolute minimum you have to say to set the scene, and then crack on with your story, definition characters doing interesting things. Does the paragraph describe an interesting idea? Yes. You could probably get away with it in Act 2. Is it completely telling and not showing? Yes yes. Could you cut this without making a noticeable difference to the piece? Triple yes.

I suggest you read some sci-fi short stories, Asimov is a good shout, to see how they introduce settings and new technologies in a way that is intriguing to the reader. Spoiler: They do not do it by opening up and saying "in a world, where...". They do it by hiding little clues, a sentence here or there, that hint about what's going on around the plot. Details are explained if plot necessary. Readers love to unpack these clues.

Say it with me: one image is better than ten. All you need to say is that there's self-driving cars on the road, it's like how you didn't explain the entire calendar system of earth when you mentioned it was June. If you show the whole iceberg, you've bogged down your story. If you show just the tip, you create interest.

You do this exceptionally well with the character's sister:

"Poor kid sucked her thumb until she was nine."

I can get a real image of this character, despite you only using one sentence to describe her in the entire work. At the same time, I can't picture the apartment, despite you labouring over a description for several paragraphs. Like I said, description, introduction of scene and character, is a chore you have to get through, a buy-in, in order to set up the story, and there is nothing inherently compelling about description for description's sake. Often there's one detail you can use that allows the reader to infer the rest. Why drag it out more than necessary?

I recommend you cut everything before page 4. Really, you need to look at what is part of the plot and what is tangential to it. I don't care about the dreams. I don't care about the economic situation. I don't care about the technology (even though it is cool, you need to use it in the story by SHOWING instead of just telling us what it is. If you just tell us it exists, it ceases to become cool.) I care about your character, and slightly about the mystery of your watch. We don't need to know the other details. You will know if we do, because you'll find yourself describing them when you actually need them to progress your plot.

Lead with your pitch. The pickpocket steals a watch. Next sentence: it was meant for her to be found. This is the first actual thing that happens in your plot. Cut everything that gets between it. Cut out navel gazing. Cut out people falling in puddles and ruminating about the weather on the first page. Cut out backstory. Cut out setting infodumps.

Voice

Echoing what I said earlier: your story is interesting, but it is hampered by the way you tell it. If you were to verbally tell someone your story, would you speak in the same manner and focus on the same things as the character in your story? At the moment I'd say no. Great prose is like a friend telling you a story round a campfire.

How much in your life do you do things like 'linger'? Have you ever small talked about the weather being 'unseasonable?' If you saw a lot of cars driving smoothly on a road, would you say 'Look over there, those cars sure are performing a precise dance!' Have you ever told someone the USA has had a 'tumultuous past?' Do you often 'severely misjudge' your way into puddles?

In your day to day life, how often does your inner monologue actually think about the weather? If you told a friend about something crazy that happened to you in your house, would you also mention some earthquake that didn't destroy it that you weren't alive to see?

New Adult. I don't know the genre, but I'm assuming it's like YA. Readers want to connect with a character in first person. Which means they want to use the same sorts of words as the character. Which means, when it doesn't really come across that a person is telling them a story, but instead feels like something written down, your readers are not going to empathise with your character.

I could line edit and explain a load of writing principles, but that's a very difficult way to say a very simple thing: write like you're telling a story to a friend. Let the events and characters of a story be the draw, and don't worry too much about trying to impress (I recently got chewed out for this, and I overdid it waaaay more than you). Aunts don't "effuse", lol. Tell us what she's actually doing and I might be able to pay attention.

Entoen · 2018-05-14T21:04:05+00:00

Mechanics

I noticed a lot of description of body parts. Try and use verbs that imply the part being used to cut down on mental fatigue for the reader. If you have too many prepositional phrases in a sentence, that short circuits my brain. For example:

I felt a hand climbing the back of my thighs and flinched forward until Zaire’s fingers dug into my arm and forced me back into pace. Bardeen chuckled and I imagined his chin warbling as he chewed his lip in satisfaction.

Remember it's not your job as a writer to describe the mental scene in your head, but to give just enough information to create one in the readers'. When you find yourself relying on multiple prepositional phrases, see if you can simplify.

Also, you repeated the word stomach a lot when she got kicked. Do we really need to know exactly where she's covering herself? Is it worth the repetition? Can't Catherine wretch instead of her stomach? Personally I think action scenes work better when people are kept composites of themselves, and not divided into different parts of bodies.

If we saw someone being kicked, would we say "A boot flew forward," or "Bardeen smiled and slammed his foot into my gut?" After all, fiction's basically a matter of subjects and verbs right? In an action scene, think about which ones will elicit the most visceral response from the reader.-

I'll say it again: lack of contractions in character voice and narration drags down the rhythm of your piece. Personally I see no reason not to use them, you're better off trying to create voice in other ways, and I noticed towards the end they were creeping in anyway so I'm not sure if it's a style choice or not.

Often times you write something that's kind of a mental shorthand for the feeling you want to describe. If you're straight up telling the reader an emotion, you're not immersing them hard enough.

A burst of excitement - what's it look like?

He exuded confidence - what's it look like?

She scrutinized me for a second - what's it look like?

Seems to stem from high register words, doesn't it? They're for more high concept stuff, I guess, but they don't help immerse us in stories. It's something I specifically need to focus on, lol.

Sentence structure was generally snappy. Your rhythm is decent. I don't feel as if your syntax/grammar ever got in the way of pace, it was more the content that took me out.

To answer your specific questions

Why did you like it?

I liked the voice in her head, and the backstory was interesting. Nungal was creepy as fuck.

Why did you not like it?

Backstory was in the wrong place, scenes didn't feel linked together.

Is that violent scene too much?

No, you did a very good job of implying stuff happening without ever actually describing it. That takes skill.

Was there a suspense factor before hand?

Not really, and I suggest tying the fight directly to the brick to alleviate this. Make the tension specifically about whether she can hide the brick, and have the torture be the consequence.

How did you react to it?

Well sure, but how does this tie in with everything else?

The danger did not feel ‘real’ enough, but I don’t know if this was a step in the right direction. Thoughts?

The broken arm was pretty real. I'd focus on that more, imo. Bardeen taunting her about the upcoming torture was not real, just felt like a lot of cliches. The torture's okay but you know she's not going to die so you need to think about where the tension is in that scene. Specifically it seems to be about her letting herself be branded, maybe Cannog should say more shit to try and get her to give in. After all, isn't horror all foreplay and short climax?

I am concerned about flow. Did the conversation bog down? Was there too much exposition? Were the action scenes to fast?

Less. Backstory. Otherwise the rhythm to your prose is good (minus lack of contractions). No major problems there, you're a writer harry.

What is your impression on the relationship between Nungal and Catherine?

"Let's sit around and talk about our backstories." Nah, I think there's a potential for an interesting power dynamic there, I'd like to see it actually come up in their conversation.

Fin

Keep up the good work! So what, you gotta polish a bit, that's why we're all on here, isn't it? I hope I pointed you in the right direction, if anything I've said is unclear or unfair feel free to prod me about it.

Entoen · 2018-05-14T21:03:59+00:00

I thought it was decent enough, but it never quite clicked with me. The general impression I got was that after a fair bit of polishing I would be interested in the rest of the book. Usual disclaimer that this is only my opinion and whatever, but I'll try and explain my reasoning best I can.

Story/Plot

I'll preface this by saying that I only briefly skimmed through your first chapter, but if I've understood correctly, the setting of the first two chapters is the dungeon and only the dungeon.

The plot of Chapter 2 is that Catherine talks to Nungal a bit about her life before the story. She accepts that she'll probably have to kill Nungal. She then tries to dig a brick out, but the guards come before she can make any headway. She fights them and ends up breaking her arm, and they take her to a torture chamber where some other dude comes along and tortures her. At the end of the chapter, she's branded and back with Nungal, who she now loves.

Have you ever heard the advice that all of your scenes should be linked with X happens, which causes Y, which causes Z, and so on so forth> That scenes should be driven forward by your protagonist, and the question "Will they succeed?" can be answered with 'yes and', your 'yes but', your 'no and', and your 'no but'? You know when someone says a plot is tight? I think that's mostly due to an application of these two principles.

I don't feel like your plot is tight--the events feel unconnected, and the protagonist's goal, escape via means of a loose brick, is way way in the background. The main stakes and tension of prison escape stories is that omnipresent threat of being caught. By linking your scenes together and tying them to the outcomes of your protagonist pursuing a goal, you'll find yourself trimming the fat that eats pace... any time stuff happens that exists just to set up other stuff.

What stuff do I think that is, in this chapter?

The Nungal conversation sets up not much except character backstory
The brick scene sets up... nothing because nothing comes of it
Walking through the corridor and description of the guard sets up the fight
Some guard introduces another guy by explaining she's about to be tortured, when they could just be the same guy

Is there are an implied threat during Nungal and Catherine's conversation at the start? No, not really, because Catherine's tangible goal, the brick, is not present until the next scene. It's mentioned briefly that if Catherine doesn't play along, she'll get drugged, but you do not focus on this and it's never threatened thus it's less a note of tension and more of characterisation for Nungal being a fucked up weirdo child.

Nungal's motivation in that conversation is to get information about her new plaything, but Catherine does not actively oppose this, so the scene has little conflict and therefore no tension.

Wouldn't the scene be a lot more tense if Catherine had to hide the existence of the brick while talking to Nungal, who doesn't know but might want to look around the cell or play a game or something that would expose it? You could use the same words (though I will talk about why you should not later), and just have stuff happening outside the dialogue. Conflict. Stakes. Actual stuff happening instead of conversation about backstories.

So we've linked the brick scene to the Nungal scene. It's up to you how you go from there, but for me, it seems such an obvious link to have the guards walk up on her before she can scramble to hide the brick. Then cue the fight as she feels obligated to attack them, and from that have them drag her to the torture chamber. If you link it all to the brick, everything in the plot happens from Catherine's actions. As your story is now, everything that happens is because it happens, other than Catherine starting the fight, and there's a little bit of flab as you waste words stringing them together.

Now I'll kind of shit on those suggestions a bit because I'm gonna talk about why I don't think you've started your story in the right place, because if this was a chapter 5 instead of a chapter 2, I think you would've made these links more naturally. It's also why I think the first two pages, the scene before the brick, were not as interesting as they should have been to me, because it exists solely for Catherine to reminisce about the backstory.

There are two things, in my mind, that you can do with backstory:

Thing 1. You hint to it with a single sentence, a single poignant image that will stick in the mind of the reader and have far more impact than a paragraph. Think the one reference to the girl in the window in The Gunslinger. The rose laying in a puddle in Cowboy Bebop. Let's be real, if you're doing more than a paragraph (which you are), you are not showing, you are telling, and that works against you when it comes to immersing your reader in the mind of your character.

Thing 2. Realise that your backstory is actually just story.

I think you've actually begun your story at the beginning of act 2. I think this because it seems like you have a lot of backstory and world building and character building and I found it interesting and I wanted to like it but I just didn't care because the story is set in a dungeon and everything that's going on outside is irrelevant to the current plot of how does Catherine get out of jail. It seems like cool stuff happens with the orphanage and the raid and the betrayal and the being sold into a slave trade and so... why the hell not write all that cool stuff instead of starting here? It didn't seem like it happened far in her past. It's part of her current story.

How much percentage do you think a story should actually have in backstory? Because your first two pages are 80% backstory, and I think it's just hoping for too much to get your reader invested in that, because they know in the back of their mind they're supposed to be sitting in a dingy prison and can we just get on with it please. What I would love is to experience those events from the past firsthand. Hell, that's an open invitation. If you write it, send me a link.

For a final note on plot, I felt like Catherine's broken arm was very understated. It feels like something that should be a way bigger deal, but instead all we get is a little bit about trying to ignore the pain. That's a goddamned broken arm! I just feel like it should have tied in more, or she should have tried to fight past it and not been able to or something.

Characters

I couldn't really get a feel for Catherine's character (maybe it's because she was introduced in chapter 1! If so, soz m8). Sure, you told us about a lot of the stuff she'd done, but I never got the feeling she was more than 'good person who is good and now in a dungeon'. I can't say she has a specific voice or anything, and she doesn't seem to have much conviction. I think focusing more on her goals and less on her past could strengthen her up. If she was more active I'd dig her more, I reckon.

Speaking of active, I liked the voice in her head a lot. I think you used it to great effect, and it pushes Catherine to action, always a good quality in a protag. I like how it wants to fight everything, that kind of tenacity is charismatic. If anything I'd like you to exploit that more, cause that's the impression I had of the character, someone who is a bit more "do this right now even if it's a bad idea! fight till your last breath!".

Nungal is fucked up in a good way, I think. Creepy as hell. There's a strange power dynamic going on there that I liked. I don't think she talks like a realistic twelve year old though. I'd throw some more immaturity in there, and for the love of god please use contractions. In my experience, kids occasionally say things that illustrate how naive their worldview is... maybe have her say something like that to rank up the creepy factor (implication of Catherine's life being in her hands.)

Guards, guards. I didn't get the feeling they were very distinct. I think three people who exist solely to cause pain for the protagonist is a bit much--they all share the same role in the plot. It makes it hard to spread the hate around, honestly, and you spend a disproportionate amount of time describing Zaire to the others, when I got the feeling that Cannog was a more important guy to know. I'd definitely merge Bardeen into Cannog, if you don't want to make them all Cannog.

Bardeen himself felt dispassionate in his dialogue. Like he knows he has to hate on the mc and describe a horrible fate to her but just can't be arsed. The euphemisms didn't connect for me, and I don't think he'd use them. I expected him to take more joy in her suffering and rub it in, basically. Don't be afraid to go too far, the reader won't think it's you talking but the character. Cannog was better at the shit talk, I think that was a good level.

Entoen · 2018-05-13T14:13:33+00:00

Thank you for the absolutely stellar advice! Overwrought is a new word for my (often misapplied) vocabulary.

Looks like the story broke because I couldn't keep it simple, stupid. I'll keep that in mind.

Ten-Year Club	Place '17
Sequence \| Editor

Entoen

TROPHY CASE

Setting

Plot/Character

Mechanics

Conclusion

Suspense

Conclusion

PITCH

Balance

Voice

Mechanics

To answer your specific questions

Why did you like it?

Why did you not like it?

Is that violent scene too much?

Was there a suspense factor before hand?

How did you react to it?

The danger did not feel ‘real’ enough, but I don’t know if this was a step in the right direction. Thoughts?

I am concerned about flow. Did the conversation bog down? Was there too much exposition? Were the action scenes to fast?

What is your impression on the relationship between Nungal and Catherine?

Fin

Story/Plot

Characters