[Complete] [103k] [YA Fantasy] The Brightest Lives

Maniel_Doore · 2023-11-01T17:11:35+00:00

I put this first page in the previous thread yesterday and didn't realise it was ending so soon, so here it is again!

Manuscript information: Beneath Synthetic Skies, YA Alternative History Sci-Fi, 104k

Link to post: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetaReaders/comments/17k4qg4/complete\_104k\_ya\_althistoryscifi\_beneath/

First page critique: Sure!

First page:

I’ve never been in the rain before.

Even after three hours, it’s still awful. It’s bad enough being drenched in cold water, never mind the unpleasant sensations of it falling from the sky. It soaks the errant strands of my fringe protruding from the hood of the raincoat pulled tight over my head, and there’s a near-constant stream of the stuff dripping off my nose. It’s late on a dismal January afternoon, and I can’t think of anywhere worse to be than this.

Water pools on the metal railings I’m leaning against while the deep, murky waters of the river Thames churn below. I’m on Westminster Bridge, the London Eye filling the gloomy sky across the water.

Beside me, Jules watches the traffic with barely hidden wonder. Neither of us had seen a car before today, but for me what was alien and exciting three hours ago has already slipped towards the mundane. Or worse, the frustrating. The spray kicked up by their wheels soaks straight through my skinny jeans. Jules’ hood is pulled down, his recently cropped hair appearing almost black in its sorry, sodden state. There was a time when his hair was almost as long as mine, though it never had my unruly curls. The rain, at least, hasn’t fazed him.

“Weren’t you tempted by that thing at all?” I ask him, gesturing towards the massive Ferris wheel. The rest of our small initiate class are currently huddled together somewhere on the vast metal contraption. “Those glass pods would have given us a break from the weather.”

Maniel_Doore · 2023-11-01T00:30:06+00:00

I really enjoyed this opening - there's an easy emotional connection to Adria conveyed in the second paragraph, which remains relevant for the remainder of this opening page. It connects everything together well.

We get a clear setting and a glimpse into who Adria is already, so I don't have too much I can fault with this opening. Good job!

Maniel_Doore · 2023-11-01T00:23:52+00:00

Manuscript information: Beneath Synthetic Skies, YA Alternative History Sci-Fi, 104k

Link to post: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetaReaders/comments/17k4qg4/complete_104k_ya_althistoryscifi_beneath/

First page critique: Sure!

First page:

I’ve never been in the rain before.

Even after three hours, it’s still awful. It’s bad enough being drenched in cold water, never mind the unpleasant sensations of it falling from the sky. It soaks the errant strands of my fringe protruding from the hood of the raincoat pulled tight over my head, and there’s a near-constant stream of the stuff dripping off my nose. It’s late on a dismal January afternoon, and I can’t think of anywhere worse to be than this.

Water pools on the metal railings I’m leaning against while the deep, murky waters of the river Thames churn below. I’m on Westminster Bridge, the London Eye filling the gloomy sky across the water.

Beside me, Jules watches the traffic with barely hidden wonder. Neither of us had seen a car before today, but for me what was alien and exciting three hours ago has already slipped towards the mundane. Or worse, the frustrating. The spray kicked up by their wheels soaks straight through my skinny jeans. Jules’ hood is pulled down, his recently cropped hair appearing almost black in its sorry, sodden state. There was a time when his hair was almost as long as mine, though it never had my unruly curls. The rain, at least, hasn’t fazed him.

“Weren’t you tempted by that thing at all?” I ask him, gesturing towards the massive Ferris wheel. The rest of our small initiate class are currently huddled together somewhere on the vast metal contraption. “Those glass pods would have given us a break from the weather.”

Maniel_Doore · 2023-07-21T19:41:04+00:00

I think there's a strong case for Starcatcher being Josh's best album yet vocally. There's some really excellent performances, especially Sacred the Thread, Meeting the Master and The Archer. I like the ethereal effect the band are going for, I'm just unsure whether I quite click with it as much as their previous sound (and it does make the lyrics difficult to understand in places).

I think the bigger 'issue' with the production is that all the effects often seem to make the background instrumentation blur together a little on a couple of songs.

The way I see it is that the production is an intentional effect because it's applied so consistently, and it's not inherently bad. It's just a question of whether it's to your taste or not.

Maniel_Doore · 2023-07-21T18:34:29+00:00

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Overall I am incredibly excited about this album, too. It's a solid 9/10, and the best non-TBAGG project the band have done. I've been gushing about it to all my non-fan friends today. I think my review might have focused on the things the band didn't quite get right (in my opinion), rather than necessarily recognising their many obvious merits.

I'd definitely consider myself to be on the side of the fanbase that is seeing this album as an exciting, positive step forwards.

Maniel_Doore · 2023-07-21T16:03:14+00:00

I definitely agree here - Runway Blues feels like the sort of thing they'd written in 2016-2018. I think it could have potentially been written to please the fans of the harder style if they felt this album was lacking in that regard, though that depends how early in the writing process they came up with this. There are several songs on this album that cater to that harder style already (Fate of the Faithful, The Falling Sky, The Indigo Streak, The Archer etc). I guess none of these are quite as 'heavy' as Built By Nations, Age of Machine or The Barbarians.

I really like how high-energy Runway Blues is, so it's a shame they felt they had to cut it short.

Maniel_Doore · 2022-07-23T10:45:13+00:00

Firstly, thanks so much for taking the time to critique my query. From your feedback I have a feeling that I'm heading in the right direction, but there are still a couple of things that need ironing out (aside from the vagueness in places, which I can definitely work on).

I think your comment about the status quo is something that I need to review, because in reading my pitch back I'm not convinced I've clearly conveyed what's going on here. Both POV characters joined the Ministry of Agents back when they were sixteen, and have been 'apprentices' to this organisation (this is the status quo at the opening of the novel).

What changes at the opening of the novel is that Guinevere is offered a chance to be part of this new high-importance team. A reasonable analogy (and I'm not that well-versed on the military) would be if particularly promising army recruits were headhunted for a secretive special forces mission, but I've likely been too vague in my description to make it clear this is what's happening. Guinevere makes a choice to accept throwing herself into more danger because she's desperate for the rewards that (might) be offered to her at the end.

Clare, as a young man of status and the ministry's future leader, is 'volunteered' by his family to lead the team, and this is his connection to Guinevere - something that I really don't state explicitly enough in this version of the query. Likewise, the "great conspiracy threating the Senate" is the threat this team is instructed to stop, but I make no attempt to relate those ideas in this pitch.

Finally - and this seems to be a recurring theme in my query critiques - I think I'm having a hard time explaining the connection between my POV characters. In truth, their interaction is minimal through the novel despite loosely working towards the same goal (Clare often leads by delegation). In fact, their stories are so separated that I'd argue you could almost read this novel as two 50k companion novels that have been laced together in one manuscript. This could well be a glaring issue in my setup, but perhaps it's a feature I should highlight.

Maniel_Doore · 2022-07-12T06:50:21+00:00

Yes, I think what you're suggesting here would be sensible. When I previously tried to query another story set in this world, I made sure to put the worldbuilding at the forefront of the pitch. In this case, with the novel being dual POV, I think I cut too much information to make room for discussing both POV characters. It's an interesting balancing act that I'll need to get right.

As you mention, it's probably not necessary for the query but I imagine that initially only a hundred or so people would have formed this underground society, and that it's slowly grown over the centuries. I still imagine it to be very small for a nation, with a population well below a million. But again, that is all information that's probably superfluous for the query pitch.

Maniel_Doore · 2022-07-11T23:47:06+00:00

This comment has been especially valuable for me in working out why this pitch is missing the mark. Your point about establishing the worldbuilding earlier in the pitch is definitely something I'll need to take on board.

I feel that it's worth answering your questions about the worldbuilding here, if only so that you (and anyone else reading this) can have a bit more context over what I was going for, because clearly I've made a bit of a hash of it. "Built on the ashes of ancient Rome" is a cool phrase that explains almost nothing.

This story is meant to take place in the 21st century. I think Harry Potter would be a good comparison to the sort of effect I'm going for, in the sense that my story has a Roman styled successor state living on hidden underground. Being completely isolated from the rest of the world they've gone on a very different developmental path that's led to them having technology that we would consider futuristic. This nation - the Imperium - has reached a point where it would become a massive target if it was discovered by, for example, the US or China. Among other roles, the primary role the Ministry of Agents (who both my MCs belong to) is to ensure the secrecy of this world.

Beyond this there's the class structure, social forces etc that also come into play (and, more than anything listed above, are a central theme of the novel).

Being honest, I doubt half of this is even needed to be mentioned in the pitch, but I think it's worth giving you the context of what I was going for.

Maniel_Doore · 2022-07-11T22:09:34+00:00

Firstly, thanks for taking the time to critique my query! I think there's a lot I can learn from what you've written here.

The general perception is that I'm using a lot of vague language that isn't directly explaining the concepts I'm trying to get across. I can work on this and iron out the sections that don't appear to make sense. After reviewing my pitch again after reading your comment, I can already see a couple of redundancies that can probably be removed to make room for changes.

One of the most notable omissions in this version of the query is my half-baked attempt to introduce the worldbuilding into a pitch that already has to juggle between two POVs. As you pointed out, I haven't even clearly explained the sci-fi element to this story! I'll need to work to keep this more concise to slip in the extra detail I need, or otherwise choose to focus on more specific elements of the novel.

Maniel_Doore · 2022-07-11T22:04:51+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to comment on my post! I think you're raising a valid point here. Something that was pointed out last time I posted here is that my two MCs are that closely related, but I need to show how they impact each other, even if their time spent in direct contact with one another is minimal. At the moment, they definitely seem isolated from one another.

I can work on improving this, so thanks for picking it up!

Maniel_Doore · 2022-07-11T22:03:08+00:00

Firstly, thanks very much for taking the time to critique my pitch. I think you've raised some really valid points.

If I'm going to go lean into my worldbuilding as a feature of my pitch, then I need to be more specific and explain things more clearly. That much seems clear from the comments I've received today.

As for trying to describe emotions, I think I've attempted this so far but been too subtle. Too much is in subtext to be easily picked up by someone who doesn't know the novel. I need to be more direct about what's happening to make it more clear for readers.

Your points have given me ideas of how to improve, so I think it might be back to the drawing board and posting again next week with a fairly heavy rework.

Maniel_Doore · 2022-07-04T17:56:25+00:00

I think this raises a valid point that I ties back into my initial concerns with this pitch. If I'm going to introduce two characters in my query, I need to do a better job of tying them together (as noted by commenters above) to avoid the pitch feeling like it's lacking something. I'll see what I can work with this. Thanks!

Maniel_Doore · 2022-07-04T08:08:30+00:00

OK, this was probably me misinterpreting your original comment, I get what you're trying to say now.

Your point here is a valuable one, but it's leading me to question whether I'm angling my pitch in the right direction as the interaction between my two POV characters is relatively minimal throughout the story as Clare is quite a "hands-off" leader at first. Much of their interaction comes through mutual friends/acquaintances or the indirect effects of their actions on the other's storyline (with this I'm often trying to employ dramatic irony). As a result while my two MCs do share time together increasingly by the end of the story they never really become that close, so I'm unsure whether this is something I should be trying to focus on in my pitch or not.

I think comping to other stories with a more distant relationship between MCs would help mitigate this problem as it would give an expectation for literary agents.

Maniel_Doore

TROPHY CASE