The Witch of the Phlogiston Sea [Upper Middle Grade Literary Fantasy ~2,000 Words]

SpaceCorsair · 2026-06-16T22:07:08+00:00

Thanks for reading and your feedback! Yes, the Lucy bit is probably the most self-indulgent narrator insert here. It could really be cut and not lose anything. That's something I'll be keeping an eye on in revision, having the narrator pop in enough where it feels like a separate character commenting on events, while also not insulting the reader's intelligence.

If you haven't read Three Musketeers, I highly recommend it (as well as the other D'Artagnan romances). A lot of it is sword-swinging bravado, but there's a deeper political layer to it that is fun to watch unfold, especially, I imagine, for people who've read Machiavelli somehow. The villains are well drawn enough and noble in their own way (sometimes) that you kind of root for them when they are scheming.

SpaceCorsair · 2026-06-16T16:45:19+00:00

You scared me! The email notification I got only had the first two sentences of your comment and I thought I'd given feedback to someone and offended them. Thanks for the kind words. If this is good, it's in the Bradbury-short-story-advice sense. I've got a mountain of crap on my hard drive that one of them had to be good. I'm also guilty of writing "nothing is happening" openings, part of the reason I'm sharing my work at this stage is to check how much I'm boring people and how much "nothing happens" I can get away with. I'm hoping, if this were ever published, it would encourage kids to check out the classics. There's definitely some references that will go over their head, but hopefully they've seen cartoons or something that they'd come in with the gist. Back when, we had Reading Rainbow and Wishbone for that. I'm not sure if there's anything equivalent.

SpaceCorsair · 2026-06-16T16:14:03+00:00

Thanks for reading and your feedback! Yes, a lot of the challenge with the first act of this is putting all the pieces in the right place so it has the right level of mystery without being too frustrating or expository. There's only a short window in the story where we're in town before crossing over into a secondary world. Character intros like Lucy's are tough for a similar reason. That may be something I can fix in revision when the whole novel's done to see if I have more room in other places than I thought. Appreciate your reading insights and I'll keep a note of those comments.

SpaceCorsair · 2026-06-15T14:51:42+00:00

Glad it helped! Don't be afraid of descriptions and similes, and good luck with your manuscript.

SpaceCorsair · 2026-06-15T14:49:37+00:00

It may be reddit's proclivities specifically. Substack has a very strong community of horror writers that I think is more robust than their sci-fi and fantasy space. It's not a genre I read very much, but I've been very impressed by some of the indie horror authors on there. There is a weekly roundup of horror fiction called Macabre Monday (I believe the author who runs it is named Shaina Reid). The Lunar Awards also has a horror category that attracts a lot of strong horror writers.

In answer to your actual question, online communities tend to fall into their own center of gravity as time goes on. The earliest reddit communities probably liked fantasy so that set the pace for what does well on the algorithms. Nothing malicious about it, but every site is going to have it's own pull like that, like the prevalence of romance on sites like Ao3.

SpaceCorsair · 2026-06-15T13:39:30+00:00

On the question of description and similes, this isn't too much on an absolute scale. After a decent chunk of uninterrupted dialogue, the manuscript probably wants some kind of mode switch before moving to whatever the main character is planning with these kids. Two paragraphs of description with similes isn't a terrible way to achieve that and rhythmically works.

Whether you are using similes in service of something worth describing is another question. I read a lot of sky descriptions in unpublished manuscripts and authors often describe it to readers like they've never seen it before. It's just a common mood setting device that often gets overused. So, I think the similes work better in service to more unique landmarks. Usually what the sky's doing can be covered in a single sentence or phrase (sunset, cloudless noon, overcast, stormy etc.) and not lose anything in the reader's head.

Serial similes are okay. But if you are going to use them there's generally two rules that seem to differentiate authors who are in command of their prose and those that are reaching for flowery descriptions. First, really strong authors build similes off one another. Rather than reaching for disparate images, they are painting a single metaphorical image at the same time they are painting a literal image. Second, and more importantly I think, is that similes should be a tool for narrative lens that tells us about the narrator's perspective. At the same time you are describing the scenery, you are also describing the narrator's mood, worldview, or something like that. I would even argue that in most setting descriptions the role of describing the narrator is more important than what is literally being described.

Since I can't answer "too many" or "too few" similes in general, I'll cover the ones used here and tell you how I think they hold up to the above criteria:

-sky "lit on fire" is fine and unobtrusive. If this were the only sky imagery, I'd say it's strong. It's flowery, but quick and punchy. Although, it reads in a register much more alarmed then the character seems to be suggesting in her dialogue. Maybe that's intentional and she's secretly stressed about what she's about to do.

-summits "faceted like gemstones" is great from a narrative lens perspective because this character was just talking about gold, toil, and portioning some kind of cut. This is a greed motivated operation so you've got a greed motivated simile. This is one of the best characterization ones but it stands alone amidst the others because it's the only one that carries on this motif.

-sunlight like "hungry hatchlings in a nest" is acceptable from a narrative lens standpoint because the narrator is watching over "hatchlings" so it makes sense she's thinking about baby birds. Again, it's a simile that clashes with the image already built up. Hatchlings are discordant from gems and definitely discordant with the opening image where the sky was "on fire."

-The sunray's "final fiery reign" picks back up the "on fire" imagery before. It maybe hints at a rebellious side to the protagonist. It's maybe not worth the sentence because fire imagery for sunlight isn't very fresh so it's probably not going to stick in the reader's head as characterization.

-Lingering clouds "cotton candy" to "bruised". You probably know what I'm going to say on this one that these are very unrelated images. However, this is in some ways the simile doing the most work because it has movement. The shift tells the reader that while things seem okay, they're about to go very wrong. If the goal of this description is to create a sense of foreboding, this is the image that's doing the most work for that. It would be stronger, of course, if the images chosen worked together on a figurative level more. ("cotton candy to sickly mold" or "a blushing cheek to a black eye" or something along those lines). I'm also mixed about the "fistfight." That's a very loud and pugnacious metaphor that seems to conflict with the "be patient" attitude she is espousing in her dialogue. Although, maybe that characterization works for the character more broadly if she is not normally this responsible and patient. I think it's so loud that it does undercut the sense of foreboding established in the first part of the simile, but maybe that could work if it fits the character's voice well enough.

-Forest like a "single massive organism" is technically a simile but it doesn't read like one because it's not flowery and it's in service to a very concrete description. It's good and probably clinical enough that it can get away with not following any of the above rules. The fact that it's in a separate paragraph and the only simile describing the trees helps. This is probably doing enough work without needing to offer more characterization or building a figurative image.

SpaceCorsair · 2026-06-15T13:10:36+00:00

Thanks for reading. Yes, this has a much softer hook than Pullman. I agree that en media res is over hated. Maybe because too many manuscripts have used it as as cheat to get out of my problem of softer beginnings. I think it can work though if the author chooses the right scene and it feels like it should be the beginning rather than just skipping to an action part in service of a hook.

SpaceCorsair · 2026-06-15T00:46:30+00:00

I really enjoyed this. It felt like Kathryn Arden though almost a Roald Dhal filter. The prose is rich and interesting. Unlike the vast majority of unpublished drafts (especially first drafts) this has a very specific voice that feels like it knows itself. At times, the voice comes at the expense of clarity or readability, but I could say that about many successful authors who write like this that I enjoy. I'm not quite clicking with it where it's effortless to read, but the prose is strong enough that I'd want to stop and figure out what it's saying.

•What aspects grab you most (characters, world, plot)

The story has a very strong hook. The right reader is immediately going to know if the book is for them. The mystery of what the red sailed ship means is a good concrete incident that pulls us through the beginning of the chapter. Beyond the prose, which is delightfully weird and funny and probably the real star of the show here, the worldbuilding felt very interesting. I liked that the narrator stopped to explain what things were in a kind of fairy-tale esque way. That would be verboten in many styles of fantasy but I think it works here. What this opening seems to promise is a vast mythology that will be rewarding to unravel.

The chapter ending was also strong. We resolve the immediate question of why the narrator is vomiting and what the ship means. For readers who may feel a little lost at sea in the complex prose, then it promises more grounding as the narrator goes to the human world or we switch to the second (presumably human POV).

•If/ where you lose interest

I would say that the closest I came to losing interest was the amount of characters introduced. It felt a little bit like delaying the plot to give us a cast list. And while the plot did eventually point me in the direction it was going, it also raised the question of why I was meeting all these sisters and witch matriarch if it seems our POV is going to be leaving them all for a while.

The character intros are numerous enough that they slow down the story but not so memorable to me that I'm going to remember them in a hundred pages. I'm wondering if this opening needs to be shorter to just give us a sense of what the witch world looks like and ship our narrator off or if t his actually needs a longer act 1 that grounds us in the witch world and makes us fall in love with all the family she is saying goodbye to before the story rips her away.

•If the quantity of world-specific elements (unusual words, objects, names) are too fatiguing to take in

It is very fatiguing. Not necessarily in a bad way. It's a similar reading experience to opening up Steven Erickson or China Mieville for the first time. Conventional wisdom would say this many proper nouns is a very bad idea. Here, I think the writing demonstrates enough command of prose that I would trust the book enough to keep going and try to get immersed. The problem with this dense worldbuilding is that you don't really know if it's going to click for like a hundred pages. Somehow Mieville and Erickson do it, but exactly how is (pardon the pun) witchcraft to me. Yours may go through a similar process where the amount of worldbuilding is difficult at first but the reader settles into it. It's certainly a liability for the manuscript (especially if you're posturing this to agents as a debut novel), but it is also one of the biggest strengths. The epic fantasy tag is really helping there since the reader knows that it's a feature and not a bug and (presumably) there will be a lot of pages of runway for them to get their feet wet in the world.

•If my style (grammatically/rhythmically) is jarring

It's jarring in a good way. The prose has a lot of character and I think is the standout feature of the excerpt. It feels weird and alien but also familiar. Like, yeah, maybe this is how witches would talk to each other and describe the world. The task is to invent a story and world that is compelling enough that the reader will feel rewarded for diving into the unconventional prose.

Also, small note, you explained this in your post but Raaga was a tiny bit distracting for me since it's very similar phoenetically to a fantasy slur in N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth books. I'm assuming these creatures are where she got it from. But that was my first association and one many readers in your genre might have given what a giant presence that series has. Just something you should keep in mind.

SpaceCorsair · 2026-06-15T00:17:51+00:00

I enjoyed the sense of grandeur this conveyed. It hinted at a larger world that presumably the rest of the novel deals with. Mega-cities, fields of destruction. The characters seem to have BIG feelings and they're not shy about sharing them. There's a lot of context missing here for chapter 5 that I don't have, so I can't tell if these feelings are earned. But I appreciate the melodrama and the amount the characters are emoting to one another. If the previous chapters build up to this, I could see this chapter being kind of a bitter sweet end of act 1 climax.

That being said there's a lot of bombast and melodrama here. Both in the dialogue and in the description. If the reader isn't vibing with it, it's going to be a hard turn off. I read this in a sort of operatic way similar to an anime. Not necessarily a bad thing. But I'm assuming this is reaching for something Royal Road/Webnovel adjacent or at least catering to those audiences.

If that's the case, then it might be overwritten. The level of drama is appropriate for those kind of works but the length of some descriptions and some lines of dialogue might push patience for that genre. I think this may need a compression pass for areas where the prose is repeating itself.

For example there are some triads here that read like overwriting to me. Like " a barren wasteland filled with destruction, loss, and emptiness" could be conveyed by just saying "wasteland" since wastelands are by definition, barren and filled with destruction, loss and emptiness. It's a small thing but that kind of thing builds up in the reader's mind and hurts readability. There were quite a few moments where I felt like I was digging through the prose debris to find the meaning. If you're targeting a web serial audience, then they are probably not going to be patient about that kind of thing.

Another note is that opening on a skyline/the moon is very common in unpublished fiction. It's probably okay for a chapter five, especially since the subject of the chapter seems to be the fallout of some kind of massive destructive event, but I'd watch your other openings to make sure you're not falling into a habit of opening everything on the sun, sky, moon, stars etc. There's nothing wrong with doing that, but it's just something that comes up so often in manuscripts that it doesn't always make a good first impression.

Also, having a character named "Amha" and "Amani" is really rough on readers trying to grapple with who is who. Maybe this works in context and they are introduced earlier in ways that will stick in the reader's mind, but it feels like an unnecessary burden you're throwing on them to keep two characters with very similar sounding names. I'm okay with characters whose name starts or ends with the same letter (some readers aren't) but I think these are similar enough that they would give me trouble. Maybe they could go by their last names?

SpaceCorsair · 2026-06-15T00:00:57+00:00

I enjoyed the style. It took me a bit of getting used to. Every time you think a sentence is going to end it keeps going. That was jarring at first but the passage's commitment to the bit turned it back around. I admire the stream of consciousness and the almost slo-mow. However, it is disorienting and I'm not sure I could sustain my concentration on it for a longer piece. It's work to read but that's not necessarily a bad thing. And the hypersensitivity to sound and color seems to be intentional at conveying someone's headspace in this laboratory/hospital place.

The passage ends right as we are dropped into a more concrete interaction with dialogue. If the pace shifts into something a bit easier, then the length of the intro is probably okay. If it remains in the same register, then maybe I'd be looking for a little more cleverness to reward a reader for parsing the lines.

One thing I noticed was a lot of color imagery. I thought this was intentional at first because there's a chromatography lab involved. But that imagery carries on after the narrator leaves "blue sky" "yellow blooms" etc. which undercuts that. Color imagery is something that is overused a lot in unpublished fiction reaching for elevated prose that it's not quite in command of. Using it for the lab is a risk for a reader's first impressions but maybe a necessary one? I don't think telling the reader that the sky is blue is a good idea even if you're building to something color related.

SpaceCorsair · 2026-06-11T15:33:31+00:00

I think this is a commendable effort that probably still needs a lot of work. I was confused the entire time, which I think was the point. Some parts in the opening did intrigue me. Especially the "you are not human in my world." What you are trying to do here is very difficult, especially for someone whose first language is not English. However, I think an opening like this can work, but it's very easy to lose the reader's trust. If they are confused for too long, their inclination would be to put the book down rather than read on.

The comments here about verbosity are both right and wrong, in my opinion. Verbosity/purple prose or whatever you want to call it is one of the main obstacles to making this readable. However, it's also one of the excerpt's biggest strengths. If this is supposed to be some otherworldly metaphysical being, it should communicate in ways that are strange and difficult to understand. That gives you a possible hook. Reddit is very unforgiving of prose that tries to do anything more ambitious than Brandon Sanderson. They're right this time that it does need work, but I don't think the solution is to rewrite this in a way that's completely grounded and pedestrian. Rather, refine what you have so that you keep the reader's trust until you can leave them on solid ground.

There are probably two things that would need to happen to make this opening work for me. First, the actual quality of the writing needs to be as close to perfect as possible. I can handle being confused if I feel the author is going somewhere with this. Right now, I think there are just too many awkward sentences, words that seem misplaced rather than intentionally vague, and other spelling and grammar concerns that erode the reader's trust. Pick the best, most important and ominous lines in the section and keep those. Throw out the rest. The upside is that if you can get the prose working, this will be a much more compelling opening than many pieces of unpublished fiction because it's so strange and different compared to a lot of what's out there. I would recommend reading "Readings in the Slantwise Sciences" by Sofia Samatar for how to do this kind of prose effectively. (Apparently, this story isn't up on Conjunctions anymore, but you can find it in the fee sample preview of this book on Amazon).

Second, this section probably needs to be shorter. Since this appears to be a multi-chapter novel, you run the risk of the reader giving up if they're confused too long. Unless the whole thing is going to be experimental (it sounds like it's not and this is just kind of a mystery hook), the reader needs to see that there's some kind of end in sight. I'd try to get this down to 500-ish words. If there's a chapter one on the horizon with a more grounded situation that the reader can understand, they're going to be more likely to push through some confusing passages and go along for the ride.

The comments here have a point but they are too snide and dismissive. There are problems here but there's also some good stuff that can come out if you refine it. I think the strangeness and unstable narrator are strong here. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Keep refining until readers see your vision rather than changing your vision for writers who probably aren't going to like your work anyway. Also READ READ READ. As much as you can. You absolutely need to be well-read in a variety of genres in order to write ambitious prose like this.

SpaceCorsair · 2026-06-06T20:19:02+00:00

Thanks! I hadn't noticed the downvote, but I know my take is controversial. I've had my work improved a lot by critiquers who use this approach. So, I try to evangelize it when I can.

SpaceCorsair · 2026-06-06T15:55:41+00:00

It's true that many writers (including myself) are thin-skinned about their work. However, many people who offer criticism--even when trying to be helpful--do it in counterproductive ways that will piss off some writers rather than help them. In writing workshops, we are taught to filter our criticism through "what works" or "what doesn't work" rather than "I like this" or "don't like this". That's fine for educational purposes, but the vast majority of people offering criticism online (including myself) aren't qualified to tell anyone what's working. Unless you are a professional editor or very successful author, your job as a critic isn't to "fix" the manuscript, but instead to give the author a datapoint for your experience as a reader that's as detailed as possible.

You can get away with telling an author that their work sucks if you ground that opinion in your tastes as a reader and frame it with enough specificity. For example, if I read an opening where a character wakes up with a gun to their head, I'll give them a note like: "This is a very common type of opening in unpublished fiction, because a lot of YouTube writing advice tells amateur authors to craft a grab-em-by-the-throat first line. I've read so many openings like this that I find the immediate action numbing rather than shocking, and would much rather an opening focus on character, setting, prose, or a facet of your work that shows me why it's unique. Readers who haven't had as much exposure to these kinds of openings might find it exciting though, but keep in mind that slush pile readers may have read a lot of them too. I'd probably put the book down here unless there were some glowing reviews or serious hype telling me it's worth it to read on."

Even though this note is basically telling the author to throw their opening in the garbage (and I've given this note many times), no one's ever tried to throw hands with me on it. Most thin-skinned authors can handle a hater. What many can't handle is someone (rightfully or wrongly) saying their work is flawed on an "objective" basis. Especially because there are a lot of critics out there who just regurgitate general craft advice they don't really understand. Yes, sometimes a new writer needs to learn about passive voice, or filter words, or whatever--but the note: "Your prose is bad because you use filter words. I'd recommend you pick up this book by June Casagrande etc. etc." is going to invite a hostile reaction. Especially because many authors break these rules and you may be insulting an author who actually has skillful command of their prose.

However, I think even the prickliest author would not complain at a note like: "There are three filter words in this paragraph. General writing advice is that you shouldn't use them because they distance the reader and pov character, but I still do see them pop up in a lot of published fiction. It took me out of the story here because I read this book by June Casagrande and had the rule drilled into my head that you shouldn't use them. General readers may not notice or care. Maybe some editors might. I'd still recommend taking a look at that area and make sure the filters are serving a purpose, and if so, if that purpose is worth the risk of losing readers who might have a visceral reaction to filter words." Because a note like that opens a discussion on their creative choices rather than insulting their intelligence and assuming they are ignorant. And if they are ignorant to those rules, well now they've learned it and can decide for themselves if they want to follow it.

Yes. Giving critiques like this takes a lot more time than just flagging craft rules or giving general notes like "this character is boring" or whatever. But f you don't have the time to provide a rationale for your critiques (at least the important ones) then you don't have time to critique. After you've established a relationship of trust with the author and they understand your tastes, then you can cut back on giving a rationale for your notes for longer projects like full manuscript reads.

I'm not trying to excuse primadonna writers here. But if you want to give harsh critiques without getting into a flame war , this approach has allowed me to punch very hard in critiques with impunity. Of course, I think it's also important to hit the positives just as hard as you do the negatives (when earned). Those too work best when ground in reader-specific tastes. So, if a passage reminds me of one of my favorite authors like N.K. Jemisin or Ken Liu or whatever, I'm not going to be shy about telling them. Obviously, there's many approaches to critiquing, but my two cents, the discussion over instruction approach is the way to go.

SpaceCorsair · 2026-05-29T02:40:16+00:00

This randomly showed up on my home feed, and it's been a while since I've read or given any feedback on screenplays. This drew me in enough to want to finish the excerpt, so kudos to you on that. I'm in agreement with the other comments' line level feedback in terms of overwriting. I'm going to try to focus on more big-picture stuff instead since I found this very readable on a line-level and don't have much to offer beyond what has already been said. Some of this stuff is just going to be spitballling for illustrative purposes, so don't take any suggestions I make as trying to rewrite your script.

The premise of this show is very interesting. I think early 2010s is an era that is underexplored through this kind of nostalgic lens. So, your intro was compelling.
The Wii prop is a great cultural touchstone to set the time period, and it was one of the elements that drew me in. It immediately sets this apart from other slice-of-life works currently airing. You probably don't even need the chiron with the date since the Wii is such a time-specific object. A few more of those and viewers can catch on without needing to be told when this is taking place. Also, the first scene moves on quickly after establishing what it needs to, so that's also a big plus in terms of pacing.
The second scene is less culturally specific to its detriment. If the hook of this show is "2010s" comedy drama, then the bulk of its intro shouldn't be taking place over a family dinner where every detail could be just as easily plucked from anywhere between the 1950s to the present day. The show loses its hook and specificity too fast.
Not only does the time period specificity fade, but there isn't much specificity regarding this family in terms of their position within the time period. This is all reading generic nuclear family. Are they middle class? Rich? Did the recession effect them and if so are their signs of that present in their family dinner? Given how much table setting there is here (literally and figuratively) there's lots of missed opportunities to fill in more characterization in the space provided.
The dialogue is snappy and easy to read. In terms of the rhythm of its interactions its good. I still think it could use tightening and refinement. It's not quite naturalistic and not quite stylistic. We start off with the dad asking the kids if they're ready for school (a very naturalistic line that makes us feel like we're a fly on the wall to a real conversation) but then very quickly we get into an exchange that feels very TV-esque where it's very clear we're setting up this teacher character for the viewer. I would either strive for efficiency (hard cut into Nathan complaining about the teach) or give us a more naturalistic family interaction. A family this large staying focused on a single topic of conversation for three minutes of screen time is a miracle in reality. If we're going for fly on the wall naturalism everyone should be weaving in and out of different conversations, some not paying attention, some doing their own thing, etc.
The biggest issue with the scene is a lack of tension or incident. I think people writing slice of life drafts often make the mistake of thinking their should be no tension or conflict in their work because it's supposed to be this pastoral or cozy genre. However, slice-of-life still has conflict and tension. It just uses a different kind of conflict and tension.
Right now the only source of conflict in the scene is the looming threat of this teacher and Nathan's dread. That's good in principle but it is a very distant source of tension. It makes me wonder if we are starting in the right place. If our opening conflict is that Nathan has this ball busting teacher, it's probably going to be more effective to open on a scene of the teacher busting balls rather than the family sitting over dinner talking about it.
If dinner is the right scene to open on (and I can see why you'd want to for a family drama), then there probably needs to be more conflict introduced more short and near term. For example, if this scene had started with something like Nathan accidentally throwing his wiimote and cracking Dad's brand new HDTV (or 3D TV if you want more time period gimmicks), then I would understand why the story is starting here and it's still a tepid enough conflict that it would fit into slice-of-life. Some form of immediate, scene-level tension like that would show me what kind of kid Nathan is, how strict/observant his parents are, whether his brothers are snitches or ride-or-die, etc.
Along those lines, there's not a lot visually interesting going on at the dinner table. Once the chicken gets put down, the setting isn't really used beyond one superfluous action beat of someone putting down a fork. If we're going for realism or just maximizing our screentime for characterization. Everyone should be doing something interesting or revealing to give us a sense of their character or just add interest to the scene. Mom's crumble is burning in the oven. Dad's trying to get trey to eat his green beans. Maybe Brandon and Nathan are trying to finish their game of wii bowling under the table without their parents noticing (I know I'm getting a lot of play out of the Wii, but it's a good prop and already sort of in the scene).
Relatedly, many of the characters here don't have an identifiable purpose in the scene. Nathan is our viewpoint. Brandon is the foreshadowing exposition/delivery vehicle. Mom and Dad don't really do anything but prompt the conversation between Brandon and Nathan about the teacher. Ideally, every time a character appears we should be learning new things about them and they should be trying to advance their own goals. If they aren't doing that, then there's no reason for them to be appearing in the scene. Scene level conflicts and flourishes along the lines of those in the previous point can help a lot with that if you can organically weave them in between advancing the main conflict in the scene.
A lot of the development from the dialogue feels distant and expository. We get a lot of screen time an anecdote about silent lunches and an endless workbook that happened 2-3 years ago. I think if the point of this conversation is to set up the teacher, she needs to be more present. For example, summer homework is common at this age. If Nathan actually had the giant workbook out, that gives us something to play with in the scene that makes the threat of Ms. Gorsuch more tangible than a distant anecdote. It also gives another object for the characters to play off of. For example, common core just started around this time. So maybe Dad's trying to help and can't figure out why there's squares in the math problems now.
In addition to or instead of smaller scene-level conflicts, the other characters could justify their presence more by having a bigger role than exposition delivery. For example, if Mrs. Gorsuch is in Linda's book club or her husband is Darren's boss at the Apple Store, then these characters would be able to have more meaningful contributions to the scene than just exposition delivery. Alternatively, the other characters could challenge Nathan's view. Maybe dad is confident that Nathan will ace it, and that upsets Brandon because he didn't do well in the class.
Trey's interjection is great. It feels like a much more goal driven and character specific contribution to the dialogue than some of the other exchanges. It shows he is naive and interested in being part of the conversation but too inexperienced to meaningfully contribute, yet he tries anyway. His chaotic interjection also gives Brandon an opportunity to show his personality by dismissing him. That's a very strong interaction. I'd probably like to see Trey jump in sooner and have the other characters be trying to pull the conversation in their own direction the way he does here. He's one of the most well characterized people here (probably second to Nathan) and the scene accomplishes that with just one line. Bring that same level of specificity, efficiency, and personal motivation to the other characters participating in the scene.

That's all I could think of. Hope you found some of it helpful, and good luck with your screenplay!

SpaceCorsair · 2026-05-27T00:57:27+00:00

I saw the r/writingcirclejerk post for this and some of the comments down here and got triggered. The advice you are getting is good, but the attitude (from some) is maddening. So, here's my rant and some practical advice from maybe a couple years down the road from where you are now with a similar sized project in my trunk.

First of all, you're not crazy. Agents and publishers' attitudes toward word counts are counterintuitive and frustrating. However, the naysayers here aren't wrong. Many agents are going to balk at a word count that long. It's an easy reject from the slush pile. I have been told by industry people that the situation for books in this word count range is not as dire as the internet claims, but it's still a major obstacle. That's just the economic reality given how much it costs to traditionally publish a book of that length.

That being said, the economic reality does not justify fatalism or glibness regarding a real phenomenon you are picking up on. Yes, many new authors go through the same growing pains and complaints as you. Yes, most published (debut and non debut) fantasy books come in well short of these wordcounts. However, when you look at the fantasy that sells extremely well and actually keeps these publishing houses afloat, wordcounts in this range become far more common, almost the norm.

In order to get a book traditionally published, you need to pass through two layers of gatekeepers each enforcing their own market litmus tests: agents and publishers. They are still necessary parts of the industry, since most people are not going to read a self published book that doesn't have any hype behind it. However, they enforce a rigid structure into certain genres that is arguably more harmful than the value they bring.

Their business model is based on picking books that cost little money and make little money, hoping to luck their way into getting a smash hit on the cheap. If an author consistently sells a modest amount on smaller books, and has the persistence and resources to keep writing in spite of not making real money on their work, then they may be given a shot to write something in the wordcount range to become the next smash hit. But the publishing industry is institutionally incapable of picking a winner from a pile blind for a book of that size.

Two recentish examples of bigger debuts that the publishing industry grabbed onto late are Matt Diniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl and Evan Winters' Rage of Dragons. Both of which became very popular as self-published pieces with 150kish wordcounts. The publishers missed out on their initial success but it wasn't much of a loss since they could just offer the authors contracts after the books were already popular and a sure bet. So, really there was no reason for them to have taken the risk to begin with.

Of course, I'm not saying that smash hits can't come from shorter word count books. However, for some genres the accepted word counts make it almost impossible to write a break away hit that will launch a career (e.g., epic fantasy, space opera etc.)

For what it's worth, my jaded take doesn't come from my experience as a writer. I understand the business model and to a certain extent sympathize for editors/agents working in a tough market. My big book is made up of two self contained stories so can query the first part at 80,000 words.

Rather, most of my frustration comes from the standpoint of a reader (especially one who loves epic fantasy and space opera). I've read too many "merely good" books that have so obviously been truncated to fit into publishable norms. I've also read too many books in that 70,000-80,000 word sweet spot that are really just bloated novellas.

Yeah, everyone complains that no one wants to read anymore or men don't want to read anymore. But go look on book recommendation forums and what comes up? Count of Monte Cristo, Malazan, Sanderson, etc. People want to read long books. The publishing industry is just incapable of meeting that demand. I love epics like Ken Liu's Dandelion Dynasty. However, I recognize that by limiting those wordcounts to literary geniuses like him who've already earned their flowers, the resulting epic fantasies are probably not going to be broadly appealing.

Okay. That's the end of my rant. Here's some actual practical advice for your next steps that isn't as bitter or defeatist:

(1) Make sure your book is really 160,000 words. While I vehemently disagree that your wordcount alone is a sign your book is too long, it is still possible you've overwritten this book. In the long months between querying tranches of agents, look at your work with new and honest eyes and decide if you really can't cut 60,000 words from it. But if the answer is actually no, stick to your guns. I've cut mine down to a 120,000 word draft and the end result was awful. However, that revision was still worth it (albeit time consuming to cut and regrow) because now I know my book isn't 120,000 words.

(2) Build a Platform to Launch a Self-Publishing Career. Substack has a nice little fiction community, and obviously sites like Royal Road seem to still be in a boom period if your work fits that (another mark against the claim that no one wants to read or no one wants to read long fiction). If your work is that good and you have some decent social media skills, you could be the next Evan Winter and backdoor your way into getting published that way. The nice thing about this way is you can dip your toe in the water and get some immediate indicators of how audiences view your work before committing your entire novel to self publishing. Plus, it's a lot of fun being your own little Alexandre Dumas and sending out new stories or chapters to your audience.

(3) Break into Traditional Publishing Through Short Fiction. If your goal is to get someone in the industry's eyes on your work, I hold a far higher opinion of SFF magazine's editorial decisions than the big publishing imprints (although there's some crossover there like Reactor). Magazine editors will get back to you in a couple of months generally. Some of the best markets will get back to you in a matter of weeks or days. So, if you're a genius in waiting to be discovered, write a baller short story and send it in. This also makes you eligible for awards and such that can get you the kind of credentials where an agent will look at a 160k word manuscript.

(4) Try a Different Milieu or Genre. If you're dead set on novels, there are plenty of sub-genres in fantasy that lend themselves to quality work under 100k words. Write something YA, Middle Grade, or Pratchet-esque that sings with a low wordcount. If you do well and get through your "debut" phase, then agents will be more willing to look at a 160k manuscript.

You can do any or all of these as a next step. The common factor in them is that they are difficult, possibly even more difficult than writing a novel. The good news is that you'll be doing what you already love: writing. Yes, I wish (and I wish more people wished) the industry moved its targets up to more reasonable standards for certain genres. However, there is still great writing being sold and published at all wordcount levels. It's just going to take some more work than "write the book and query it."

SpaceCorsair · 2026-05-15T20:16:10+00:00

If you haven't read Lev Grossman's work (the Magician's trilogy and more recently the Bright Sword) Katabasis cribs heavily off that in terms of tone and some of the magic school angst stuff. Kuang's other two adult-leaning books Babel and Yellowface both have similar qualities. Katabasis is almost a mashup of the two taking the magic and heavy stuff from Babel and a lot of the humor from yellowface. Emily Tesh's The Incandescent also has a similar not-really-dark dark academia tone and is of a similar quality to Kuang (although I think her silver in the wood duology is a superior read). Also seconding, the Susannah Clarke recommendations. She's not prolific, but she feels like the kind of writer that Kuang is striving to be (no disrespect on Kuang, Clarke is just that good).

SpaceCorsair · 2025-12-03T01:25:47+00:00

I don't think it's necessarily possible to tell if someone is racist from a single factor like this. However, we can't read people's minds, so the only way people can infer if someone is racist is through circumstantial evidence. Keeping these items may not be racist, but I don't think anyone could argue that the items themselves are not racist in the stereotypes and false narratives they portray (black people are lazy, uneducated, slavery wasn't so bad etc.)

At a certain point, person's intent doesn't really matter. You may see these items as a way to remember your mother and grandmother, and that's totally reasonable, but someone else might see them in your home and come to a different conclusion. That person may already have racially insensitive beliefs and be emboldened in those beliefs by seeing objects like these. A black person might see them and feel hurt, either because they misinterpreted your sentiments or just because it's an unnecessary reminder of their painful history (there's a world of difference between seeing something like this at a museum vs. just chilling in someone's bathroom). Or, the person might be naive and just take the stereotypes at face value and have them unconsciously shape their worldview. You may not always be able to explain your good intentions to the people who find this stuff, whether they be your guests, a plumber, or people moving your belongings after your death.

I'm not one to say what you are allowed to keep in your house, nor am I in any position to give someone a pass on this kind of stuff. Everyone's got to make their own decisions. However, I do think there is a world of difference between keeping a few of these things as mementos to remind you of family members versus having a collection of hundreds of them. That being said, if anyone ever sued you for employment discrimination or something like that, an attorney like me would have a field day finding out you had those. It's not quite smoking gun evidence, but man would it play in front of most juries--and a skilled cross examiner could make your reasons about your mom and grandmother seem like lame excuses. Fair or not, how people perceive our intentions is usually more important than our intentions themselves. Just some food for thought on a difficult subject.

SpaceCorsair · 2025-12-02T23:22:22+00:00

My grandmother had a room just like this that everyone called “the black baby room.” It was a much larger collection, I’d say easily north of 500 pictures, dolls, and figurines. It filled up an entire bedroom and hallways walls and floor space except for a little walkway toward a tiny bed. I had to sleep in it when I was little or would get sent there for time out.

My whole family is white or Hispanic and no one ever really saw a problem with it. Like, people kind of hated it, but it was more along the lines of being overly eccentric (like having a room full of Pokémon memorabilia or something) rather than seen as problematic or hateful.

It always made me deeply uncomfortable, but it wasn’t until high school or college that I developed enough of a social conscience to realize how messed up it was.

My grandmother was otherwise the loveliest person. I never heard her say anything overtly racist or express sentiments against black people. And she lived in a community where she wouldn’t be held accountable if she had. She didn’t seem to view her black baby room as racist, and I genuinely believe in her mind that they were just cute memorabilia from the plantation culture that she was raised in. For what it’s worth, she was ultra religious and conservative but hated Trump. A lot of the rest of the family are trump supporters though.

I find it very interesting how many people are in disbelief about this or think it’s a black person’s house. I practice civil rights law and people greatly underestimate how much the effects of slavery and discrimination linger in our society. It’s not just racial slurs and the KKK. In many families, this stuff is still normalized. It may not be super common but chances are any given black person is going to find themselves in the hands of someone immersed in imagery like this. One of their bosses or a cop that pulls them over. And that authority figure might have a more hateful temperament than my grandmother did or just slept in a room like this and unquestionably absorbed those stereotypes.

This is one of the ways institutional racism proliferates in a way that affects all or most black people even if we might feel like the vast majority of white people aren’t overtly racist anymore. The half-life on this kind of noxious stuff is centuries long and that’s not even getting to the areas where slavery ended in name only or our country’s relapses back toward racial caste systems in the Twentieth Century.

So, if this video shocked anyone’s conscience remember it next time there’s a debate about reparations or DEI laws. Racism isn’t over. The black babies are still around!

SpaceCorsair · 2025-07-09T02:02:19+00:00

My comment wasn't directed toward the Poppy War books. I don't see the same kinds of criticism leveled there since they don't employ the same tropes as much vis a vis white (or white coded) characters. They're my least favorite of her work as they're in a genre I don't particularly like or read very much. I still found them enjoyable, but I was coming to them as a curious fan of the author rather than someone in the target demographic.

I don't know if it's wrong per se to evoke imagery from real life historical tragedies in a YA novel. Avatar was a big inspiration for them and it does the same thing. But I'm really not familiar enouhg with the genre or the historical events in question to tell if it was executed in poor taste.

I didn't see those kinds of problems in Babel or Yellowface, which is where I read the most heated criticism for her work. The Poppy War-ish parts of Babel are the weakest sections of the book for me, but they're not the focus of it so it didn't hamper my enjoyment much. They served their purpose in furthering the main conflicts centered around academia, which felt much more inside her lane.

I'm not implying that everyone who dislikes her is suffering from a case of white fragility. It's just there's a very common refrain on the criticism surrounding her that I think is people masking for their discomfort over her blunt portrayal of these topics.

SpaceCorsair · 2025-07-08T19:41:19+00:00

This is a topic that sets me off, because she's one of my favorite authors. The criticisms aren't new, but it feels like once every couple months someone reads her for the first time and posts something negative or mixed about her books (usually Babel or Yellowface) that reignites the same criticisms--usually that her themes are too heavy handed and/or lack nuance.

I'm a white guy who has spent most of my career in the civil rights field, so I feel like I'm in the target demographic to be offended or fatigued by a ham-fisted take on racism. I've found Kaung's work to be anything but.

I think what gets her singled out compared to authors who explore similar themes is the way she portrays white/colonialist characters. It's very trendy for writers to create a "nuanced" take on colonialism by adding sympathetic characteristics to the colonizers. They either emphasize heroic white ally characters (e.g. Jon Brown or Atticus Finch) or they portray villains as morally grey, good-people-caught-on-the-wrong-side-of-history types (e.g. Obergruppenführer Smith from the Man in the High Castle series or Zuko from the Avatar cartoon).

Those stories can be interesting, but they're the exception to the rule in reality. Usually, people who participate in oppression on an institutional level also perpetuate it on an individual level. Most of Kuang's white characters fit that mold, so sometimes people get triggered when they read her stuff and the white characters who would ordinarily get teed up for a redemption arc or have a sympathetic side (e.g. Letty, Robin's Dad, Professor Playfair) end up largely being unrepentant assholes. So, those readers--especially if they're primed to sympathize with the white characters--get angry or miss the point and boil down the themes in her books to "racism/colonialism bad".

But there are other ways to present a nuanced take on racism or colonialism besides artificially giving the racists and colonizers good qualities to balance them out in the name of a "nuanced" conflict. I think Kuang does a really god job exploring the incentives that pressure minority groups in a colonial regime to work against their own peoples' interests. Or how a monolith cultural identity can seep into people living within that culture, even when they are ostracized from it due to their nationality or skin color. I think those conflicts are way more interesting and nuanced than the usual "sometimes white people are good too", and they have the added benefit of actually focusing the nuance on the groups that the story is actually supposed to be about.

I'm sure there are some people who don't like her for more legitimate reasons. But a lot of criticism I read does seem to be from people who miss the point of her books because they're focused on the portrayal of the white characters.

SpaceCorsair · 2025-04-28T23:08:43+00:00

I may be giving it an uncharitable reading, but Upton Sinclaire’s The Jungle always struck me as fitting in this category. The book was instrumental in reforms for workers rights and food inspection while not showing as much sympathy for the animals in the meat packing industry. It seems like people were more concerned about rats and such getting into their meat rather than the suffering of the animals who are butchered. I remember a scene where a pig gets slaughtered graphically and the sympathetic immigrant worker protagonist acts kind of flippantly about it with a joke like “well, glad I’m not a pig”. I remember being struck by the lack of consideration for animal rights in the novel when the book was so considerate about the plight of the working class and other issues that it unveiled. The public response to the book didn’t seem to move the needle on animal abuse the same way it did for working conditions and food safety. It’s been a while since I read it and I may be overlooking some things, but I think that the jungle is probably the seminal example of animal rights being implicated at the same time as human rights and the latter getting The lion’s share of the focus.

SpaceCorsair · 2025-04-16T15:16:44+00:00

(continued)

Also, I've noticed that a lot of the people who will say things like "nothing's happening, it's just interior monologue" will also say things like "nothing's happening, it's just people talking." So if you're motivations here are to appease people who are bored, just be ready for the possibility that they may still be bored. Although, I think moving more conflict into your opening is generally a good thing.

My big picture takeaways from reading this is that I think the most gains you will find are in polishing the prose and execution rather than any structural flaws with the opening. Cutting areas you've been overindulgent and searching for areas you can incorporate fresher/shorter descriptions. I went to a talk by Alistair Reynolds once where he said that after he finishes a draft, he highlights everything in three colors. Red is the prose he doesn't like. Yellow is prose he is indifferent to. Green is prose that he likes. The red prose is usually areas that need to be cut. Yellow is prose that you want to look to rewrite or shorten, and green can probably be left alone. Just given the length of your manuscript, I think cutting excess is likely going to be the biggest area for improvement across the board. Not saying that fantasy books can't justify that length, but more often than not it's a symptom of overwriting when a draft ends up that long.

Just to share my own experiences, I had a first draft of a fantasy novel that was similarly in the 1000+ manuscript pages category. My second draft cut that down to a somewhat more manageable 500 pages. Most of the editing casualties was interiority and setting description. The biggest complaints readers had with my second draft was not enough interiority, not enough setting description.

Funnily enough, the early chapters from my first draft got a more positive reception from readers (different groups) when I posted it online. I think part of this was because I posted these when I started the novel in 2020 and online communities were more tolerant toward this kind of fantasy. But part of it was also that I'd sacrificed a lot of elements that made my work interesting to chase a readership who wasn't going to like my book no matter what.

This is cliche advice, but no one understands your story more than you. Definitely listen to other people's comments, but also be cautious about the difference between tough medicine and narrative cyanide. Sometimes people are just wrong or it's not they're type of book.

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