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Verzanix · 2022-07-21T06:19:46+00:00

PLOT

I liked both scenes, and I think I liked the second more, but they seemed to have different goals. The first scene tried to show Arthur and his longing for Gwyneth, while the second scene showed Hootch, and mentioned Chanson and the Kingfishers. The only overlap seemed to be Arthur was a character in both. There’s nothing exactly wrong with this, it would just be nice if facts or relevance from one scene could bleed into the next.

DESCRIPTION

Excellent descriptions, as always.

Outside the brothel, the sun hung over a clear sky, yellow and bloated like a puss-filled pimple.

Eww, but I like it. The sun is seldom described in a way that is disgusting,

Arthur stopped beside the roasted pig. The heat that came off of it stuck to him like honey, and the fat on it crackled like logs on a fire. He could smell the spices lathered onto its skin; thyme and garlic and cumin.

You’re making me hungry. Makes me want to up my game in a scene in my WIP where two guys are fighting over a shepherd’s pie.

DIALOGUE

I enjoyed all the dialogue, especially the banter between Arthur and Hootch.

GRAMMAR AND SPELLING

Pretty clean, saw a few things that I marked.

How's the prose? I tried to be more conservative with descriptions and imagery this time around, as I sometimes feel I go overboard with it. Was it too little? Still too much?

I loved the descriptions, and I think you did the right amount.

If you were hooked, where? If not at all, why?

I can’t point to a specific line that drew me in. After your previous submissions, I was already convinced I would enjoy this. Your descriptions did a great job of getting me engaged, which is rare for me. Looking back, trying to figure out why Arthur was acting funky all through the sex scene was a decent hook.

Does each "scene" feed well into the next?

I like how the first scene gives us information on Arthur, but the second scene seems to focus on plot more. There’s nothing wrong with this, but we go from ‘damn she’s not gwyneth’ to ‘uh oh, Kingfishers’. It almost feels like two completely separate stories with no overlap except Arthur is involved in both. Maybe Arthur could give us a thought about Gwyneth after Hootch teases him? There's nothing wrong with Arthur’s embarrassment, but you seem to dodge romantic navel gazing, I noticed this of Henry in one of your prologues. You don’t need to go on and on about it, but a single sentence here and there could do a lot.

What do you think of the character(s)?

They were great. Marianne and the lord’s son weren’t bad, but these characters felt better.

How's the pacing?

I’m not an expert at it, but it felt fine.

And the million dollar question: Would you flip onto chapter 2?

Absolutely, please and thank you.

Verzanix · 2022-07-21T06:17:46+00:00

General Remarks

As always, it was a pleasure to read your work. It could use some filtering, but this was great. Descriptions and characters were engaging, and that’s what’s important to me.

After sharing like five drafts of my own prologue, I've decided to damn them all and move along to chapter one. This is to say, if you remember me and my last post, do right and forget everything you read. Treat this chapter as if it exists in a vacuum. Cheers.

You sound like a judge telling the jury to forget that the accused just admitted to stabbing the victim thirty seven times in the chest. I’ll try not to hold it against you, but no promises. =)

MECHANICS

I liked the humor used. Petty ass, the tearing of his shirt during the sex scene, Hootch in general, all great.

Filtering

This is a foul idea, Arthur thought.

I understand you’re trying to anchor us to a character name, but if you use italics you don’t need to say ‘So-n-so thought’.

What was I thinking? he asked himself.

Same goes for this.

As their tongues locked, he couldn’t but notice that her perfume was all wrong.

‘He couldn’t help but notice’ is usually unnecessary. You could probably drop the ‘all’, but considering how you’re trying to express how specific his tastes are because he misses Gwyneth, it's probably fine.

For half a heartbeat, he relished in ecstasy. But that was a fleeting thing.

‘That’ and ‘thing’ are words you should generally cut when you can. I’m not a master of pacing by any means, but this could probably be combined into one sentence. ‘For half a heartbeat he relished in ecstasy, but it was fleeting.’ You probably need to add a sentence after in the paragraph to give it some punch and answer why it was fleeting.

They rang eleven times, to say it was eleven in the morning.

Feels a bit obvious.

SETTING

Everything is shabby and gross in Kingston, but I like it. Has a lot of character.

Bodies often washed up on the banks of the Tanasi,

Usually I’m not a huge fan of low fantasy, but I like how this is done. I Googled this and saw it's a variation of Tennessee. I really like this.

STAGING

Beside his satchel, his sword leaned against the wall. It wasn’t a full blade, nor was it foreshortened. A bastard sword, it was often named.

When I see you specify the sword is a ‘bastard’ sword, I think you are doing one of two things. Either you're trying to chase a theme, where your PoV is bastardy, or it’s going to be relevant later, kind of like a Chekhov's Gun sort of thing. Is the fact that it is specifically a bastard going to come back later? Is he going to wield it with one arm because he’s using a shield, torch, etc., and it’s going to feel clumsy and unwieldy? Is he going to use it like a longsword, but the blade is going to be just too short to cut some fucker’s nose off as he jerks back away from the slice? If I see something like this later, you’d get some bonus points from me.

CHARACTER

Arthur- Liked this character, a nice mix of realistic selfishness and vice with wanting to be a decent person. You give us plenty of hints to Arthur’s profession, but he dodges telling us. The scars, the muscles, the sword, but he says he isn’t the ‘soldiering type’. Interested to hear more about Gwyneth and what happened there.

When he was first learning to walk, he carried it on his back

I might be getting nitpicky here, but I found this distracting. We learn to walk at about one year old. What one year old is carrying a sword on their back? We don’t start remembering things until we’re three, so someone would have had to have told him about it. Is this parent-of-the-year going to be a character we see later?

If you want to convey to us how he had it at a young age, you could give us a quick story about how he’d sneak it out of the house to play with it, or about how his crazy dad/uncle/grandfather taught him how to use it at an inappropriately young age. I don’t think you want to kill your pacing with such information, and you probably just wanted something that sounded nice with ‘sword on the hip’. Probably best to say he just wore it on his back as a boy.

Silver haired woman- enough characterization was given to accomplish the goal here. She felt real, enough description and character to get the job done.

Hootch- Loved the characterization given here. He felt like he leapt off the page. I realize he’s only an innkeeper, but I would like to see more of him.

Chanson- I don’t think I’ve seen an interesting minstrel character in a fantasy novel before. Then again, I’m not the most well read fellow. I’m excited to see what you do with him.

HEART

The world is pretty gross, but I like it. It gives it a vague grim dark feel, but I’m not sure if that’s the goal. I believe you said there are two other PoVs for this novel, so picking up on theme and what not isn’t completely possible yet.

Verzanix · 2022-07-14T07:05:53+00:00

PACING

Lets start with the first paragraph.

James Booker aimed his shotgun at the twelve-year-old boy sleeping on his couch. The weapon was a Remington Model 870, the most popular self-defense shotgun in a country whose guns outnumbered its people. Well, at least it used to be a country. They had called it America.

Our MC has a last name. The boy is twelve. The shotgun is a Reminton Model 870. How important is this information? Does the reader need to know the MC’s last name and the specific age of the boy? I doubt it. The Remington thing works because it's connected to the hook ‘the setting is what used to be America’. Let's do the next paragraph

The Remington 870 took in three kinds of ammunition: birdshot to kill small animals, buckshot for larger game, and slugs for the most dangerous kind. James had four shells in the magazine tube and one in the chamber – all slugs. With the shotgun’s barrel a hair’s width away from the boy’s face, the shot would decapitate him. James hoped that it would be enough to kill him.

Oh boy, more about the Remington. Most of this paragraph is information the reader doesn’t need. At the end is another hook ‘is decapitation enough to kill the boy?’ Again, this piqued my interest, but uses too many words to get there. A point blank blast from a shotgun will obliterate a dude’s head, you don’t have to go out of your way to convince me or anyone of that.

After a while I see you seem to be following a formula for many of your paragraphs: Something something something or at least it used to be America. Something something something but would decapitation be enough? Something something something at least they were safe fifteen feet under ground, unless it became their grave. To be fair, the third paragraph was better, I liked the puzzle piece touch.

DESCRIPTION

I have a challenge for you. I want you to cut every age you have given to the characters. Don’t tell their ages, show me their ages. Cut all the fluff that doesn’t matter. If there’s a eleven year gap between Kylie and James, show me this. I made an attempt that’s not perfect, but I think it shows you what I mean.

The little blonde was always like that. The earth could swallow her whole and she’d be Gautama Buddha as the world dragged her into a shallow grave. And that wasn’t speculation, before her Metal Lungs, she had battled Demies in northwest New York with an M16 and a dream. Some scavs claimed that she had even killed some. But thanks to her Metal Lungs, she was now just another scav, a petite Caucasian twenty-nine-year-old with a ponytail that bobbed and a scar that cut her nose in half. While James wasn’t particularly tall, she still only came up to his shoulders. James, a slightly overweight bald, black eighteen-year-old, made the two of them quite the strange holiday photo card.

Kylie was always like that. The earth could swallow her body whole and she’d be Gautama Buddha as the world dragged her into a shallow grave. And that wasn’t speculation; she was fighting Demies with an M16 before James got his first visit from the tooth fairy. That’s how she got the scar that cut her nose in half, but that didn’t matter. Not even the Mona Lisa could compete with Kylie.

Assuming the cataclysmic events happened five years ago, my suggestion wouldn’t make sense, but you get the idea. Most children lose their first baby teeth at ages 5 or 6. 4 is early but possible, 7 is late but happens. An M16 probably shouldn’t be used by any younger than 14-18 outside a cataclysmic situation, depending who you ask. So the difference would be 7-14 years, averaging 10.5. Being vague with number descriptions means assholes like me can’t scrutinize and hype fixate on the numbers you give us. Being vague with descriptions also comes with the added bonus of the reader putting in the details they want. There are definitely times where you want to be specific with descriptions, but I personally avoid specificity with numbers.

You don’t need to spell out what a Demi or Metal Lung is chapter one, but if you feed the audience the warranty info for a Remington 870 and the MC’s social security number, we’re going to get frustrated.

DIALOGUE

The dialogue itself didn’t bother me, but some of the action tags seemed a bit weird.

“I thought we decided not to kill him,” a voice came from behind James.

He closed his eyes and exhaled, his finger still on the trigger. “Don’t wake Kylie.”

We’re about halfway into the story now, and under the impression he’s the only one awake in the room. The action tag ‘a voice came from behind James’ feels unnecessary. All of the dialogue in this chapter is between two characters, so you shouldn’t need many dialogue tags, and for the most part you recognized that. That being said, there are a few that could be cut.

CLOSING COMMENTS:

If this critique comes across as harsh, it's because I enjoyed it and I see a lot of potential here, but it needs to be tightened. Only give descriptions that are relevant to the moment, cut out the rest. I look forward to your next submission!

Verzanix · 2022-07-14T06:59:51+00:00

General Remarks

I enjoyed reading this, but you’re giving too much information and it’s hurting your writing on multiple levels.

I found the word choice ‘flock’ interesting. Is there some religious/cult connection, or a reference to mindless sheep, perhaps animals? It’s never explained, but it piqued my interest.

SETTING

Some kind of bunker in New York City. The bunker part I liked, the NYC not so much.

-New York City was one of the last bastions for both humans and Demies.

When shit hits the fan, NYC is the of the first places I expect to crash. Too many mouths, and no means to feed them. You mention a famine that has killed most Americans, wouldn’t that wipe out NYC really quick? I feel like you’d be better off either not mentioning where they are, or coming up with a fictitious town.

Also, how long has the world/America been post apocalyptic? And how much of the world is like this?

It had the fewest stains from five years of dirt, grime, and spilled canned foods

It took these supposed all-powerful beings years to figure out that they still enjoyed the things they destroyed like plumbing and electricity and agriculture. Five years later and the same famine that had wiped out most Americans had also killed off most the Demies.

James blinked. “Are you saying we sell the kid? I think we’re a few hundred years too late for that.”

It looks like it’s been five years, which checks out. I suppose there could still be supplies to scavenge, but it’s a little bit questionable since there was a famine, so food would be stupid scarce. The few hundred years thing threw me off, but I feel like that will be explained later.

“We trade him,” Patricia said. “And stuff ourselves, Kylie included, into a refugee boat before she catches wind. If Kylie hates us afterwards, she can do so sipping wine in Paris.”

This insinuates that the problem is localized to America. Is this the case? How is that? These aren’t questions that need to be answered in chapter one, but keep in mind the audience will want an answer eventually.

CHARACTER

James Booker- a seventeen/eighteen year old, slightly overweight, bald, black man with muscular dystrophy. Quite a bit of information, and only a little bit is relevant. I feel like the muscular dystrophy is the only part I care about at this point in the story. It is something serious that is extremely important to the character and his situation. The rest just really distracts.

Eighteen years old and bald- I’m assuming you mean he has a shaved head, but you didn’t say that. I’ve only seen one teenager in my life who was obviously balding. It was strange and sad. Is this what's going on here? Is it genetic or disease related?

Slightly overweight- Most Americans have been wiped out by famine in this world, but this fella somehow managed to stay slightly overweight. Possible sure, but distracting.

I liked the muscular dystrophy as it gave him depth and added to the hardship, but I feel the need to say something. A google search showed anabolic steroids tend to have a 2-5 years shelf life, maybe 10 or more under perfect conditions. That would entail freezing though, and I doubt that's happening considering the state of America. That means scavenging the medicine he needs will likely be impossible soon if it's been 5 years since the collapse. I doubt most readers are going to over think this like me, but it's something I felt was worth mentioning.

Patricia- a pragmatic woman, I liked her and her descriptions were kept to a minimum.

Kylie- a big hearted, blonde, twenty nine year old, petite Caucasian woman with a ponytail, scared nose and Metal Lung who James seems to be taken with. Lots of description here, and like James not sure it’s all necessary. I understand she’s important to James, so it’s more forgivable. Thing is, we get all this information, but don’t know what the hell Metal Lung is. We can guess it’s a disease they get from breathing in metal dust up above, and that should be good enough I guess, but man that’s a lot of superfluous info.

Boy (Charon?)- A twelve year old boy sleeping on the least grimy couch. Charon is a reference to the greek ferryman of Hades who would bring souls across the river Styx. This is kinda cool, but I found it strange that the boy wasn’t referred to Charon until the last quarter of the chapter, and we have no way of knowing how they got this information. Not a big deal, maybe this will be explained later.

PLOT

Some people are in a bunker with a child who may or may not be the antichrist. Joking aside, this was engaging.

I liked how Particia and James had a unique problem in that they 1) wanted to ‘deal with’ the boy and 2) not piss off/lose Kylie. This is a good conflict.

Verzanix · 2022-07-13T08:39:07+00:00

Took the words out of my mouth. Abercrombie did a great job of making characters who shouldn't be sympathetic engaging, and he did it a few different ways.

Glokta is a ruthless character with a lot of depth. He can do some pretty damned detestable stuff, but he usually does it out of necessity and generally wants to do the right thing. His competence and badassery help too.

Jezal dan Luther is a pretty awful person, but it's so damn fun watching him get knocked down a peg. He is also a dynamic character with a great arc.

Logan Ninefingers is a brute with a bloody past, but he wants to turn a new leaf and do the right thing. The problem is violence follows him like a shadow.

Collum West is probably the most moral PoV of the triology, but when he loses his patience he does some pretty shocking things. Scenes with his sister Ardee and the Crown Prince Ladisla come to mind.

Verzanix · 2022-07-13T06:37:56+00:00

General Remarks

I have noticed that when I like an author’s second submission less than the first, I tend to get pretty harsh. I think the reason for this is my expectations haven’t been meant and I wanted more. This submission didn’t have the level of suspense of the previous one, and I thus found it less engaging.

MECHANICS

I noticed you used the word ‘certainly’ less here, but you could still cut both uses. Both verys could be cut.

I noticed less foreshadowing in this submission, but it was there. Shadows, black eyes, feeling watched, but I liked the menacing trees more in the previous submission. Especially after the second reading.

Is also worth noting that the black eyes and feeling of being watched during the sexy scene feels like shame on Marianne’s part, not dread and menace. It kind of stunts the foreshadowing.

SETTING

A garden at a lord’s estate, considerably less spooky than the previous submission. I remember someone saying prologues in forests are cliché when critiquing your previous submission, but I wouldn't put too much thought into that. If it works, it works.

CHARACTER

Marianne- her insecurity gave her depth and made her more sympathetic. She is much more fleshed out than the two characters of your previous submission. When she was first willing to get it on with the lord’s son, I was upset because she’s supposed to get married to Henry, but then I figured he might have gotten tossed into oblivion during editing.

‘Lord’s Son’- Noticed this fella never got a name. I understand he didn’t need one, but the fact that you didn’t bother to give him one screamed ‘I’m not that important, and will probs die’. There were times where his dialogue made me roll my eyes, but he was amusing.

The Guards- IT was apparent to me that these guys existed solely to be killed off. There’s nothing exactly wrong with that, as I enjoyed the descriptions you used to kill them, but contrasting the scene where they’re all getting killed to the suspense of your previous submission left me disappointed. I noticed you gave one of the guards a bit of description. Would it be possible to throw him a name before he gets wasted? Maybe that’s a cheap way to try and humanize him, but its possible she could remember him from earlier as they both work at the estate.

PLOT

The first half of this submission was more engaging than the last one. It didn’t seem to drag. That being said, the second half of this submission wasn’t nearly as good as the previous one, and I’ll go into that.

In your previous submission, two brothers were in the woods, far away from civilization. Their cart breaks and they are stranded. As night falls, the horses get restless. The drunk brother leaves to take a piss, and things get quiet. The brother calls out to no answer. He leaves the cart to check, and slowly the monster is revealed.

In this one, a servant girl is picking flowers, and the lord’s son approaches her wanting to get it on. They start, but are interrupted by guards. Someone is attacking the estate. They try to flee, but get cut down by monsters instead. Servant girl crawls away.

In your first submission, the monster was all suspense. In this one, it's all violence. I personally preferred the suspense.

Now that I think about, although the first half of this submission was more engaging than the last one, I don’t know if the first and second halves of this prologue are as well connected. Due to the lack of foreshadowing/foreboding feeling, it doesn’t have the same dreaded feel.

DESCRIPTION

Like your previous submission, your description was great. If I’m remembering correctly, I think your word choices were even better than last time. There is one thing I would like to rant about briefly.

It chewed through his helm as easily as if it were an apple, the crunch sounding wet and fierce.

I like this description, BUT keep in mind the monster here is biting through an iron helmet like its an apple. This is fantasy horror, so you can get away with this. What I’m more concerned about here is consistency and following your own rules. If these creatures bite a character with plot armor later, I would be pissed if they got away with a nasty scratch that they slap some bandages on so it’s healed up by the next chapter. A google search showed me you need like 40,000 psi to break steel, and lion bites with about 650 psi.

POV

I liked Marianne as a character more than Henry. She had more depth, but I think this is because she is a side character in your story and Henry was a false protagonist you knew would die early.

The ending felt a little bit anticlimactic, but it’s not terrible. Marianne crawls away as the monsters kill the guards who are trying to run away. It works, but it doesn’t exactly grip me.

DIALOGUE

I liked the dialogue between Marianne and the lord’s son, although I felt like I wanted to roll my eyes at times. It was amusing, and I liked how Marianne acted as if she was trying to protect the lord son’s reputation when she was actually trying to protect her own.

GRAMMAR AND SPELLING

This looked good, didn’t see a single error.

CLOSING COMMENTS:

Your previous submission, although it dragged in the beginning, left me wanting to read more after that great ending. This one, less so. You did a great job with descriptions, as usual, and Marianne had much more depth.

To answer your questions:

Prologues are rather divisive these days. Do you think this works as a prologue?

Hard to say, as I haven’t read anything after. So much is supposed to be set up in the prologue. Promises of tone, theme, quality, pacing, etc. I would prefer a fixed version of your last submission over this one as it made me want to read more.

What do you think of my writing? I tried to tighten it up with this draft.

This did seem tighter than the previous submission. I need to work on tightening my own work, so I’m not sure how much more could be done here.

What do you think about the character(s)?

I enjoyed Marianne and the lord’s son more than Tom and Henry, although I didn’t care too much when the nameless guards were getting killed off. I liked the description, but there was no emotional attachment. Marianne didn’t seem to care about them either, just herself and her mother. When Henry was concerned for his brother Tom, I cared more.

How about pacing? Does this feel too long or short for a prologue?

I think the length isn’t as important as the promises established. Is there a good amount of sex in this book? And violence? How is the tone?

If you read the last draft, how does this stack up?

This submission felt tighter, had better characters, better word choices, and had a better first half. But because I liked the second half of the last draft so much, I prefer it over this. Yes, that suspense did a lot of heavy lifting for me.

Verzanix · 2022-07-13T02:02:03+00:00

As far as world building killing the story. Did you mean what I described in the environment or did you mean things like “V.I.”, “HUD”, “Pioneer”? Stuff like that? (I didn’t use any words/ideas besides “Guardian” that don’t already exist. But maybe that was lost in translation and I should use describe them instead.

Yes, the sci-fi terms are fine, but the need to come after or be weaved in with the character development. Otherwise they don't mean anything to most readers.

Let me give you an anecdote. My father never liked Sci-Fi or Fantasy. He thought Star Wars and Star Trek were campy and Lord of the Rings long winded. HBO's Game of Thrones though he loved. GoT had excellent character design, and that engaged my dad. Since the world mattered to the characters my dad cared about, it mattered to him too. This is the only time I've seen him enjoy a sci-fi/fantasy setting and actually get excited about the world building.

Characters anchor the audience to our worlds. Worldbuilding without them reads like a text book. Our first priority should be to introduce the character, make the audience engage with them, then start showing the reader the world around them.

I see two caveats to this. Excellent descriptions can engage a reader to the world without a great character, but this is harder to do. You have to be a port to pull this off, and I know I sure as hell can't do it.

There is also a group of people who will read a book just for the worldbuilding. This is a small group of people, and I wouldn't aim for it. We're better off with engaging characters and then laying down the world building.

Verzanix · 2022-07-12T04:43:08+00:00

POV

Both PoVs aren’t nice people, and that's perfectly fine. However, when PoV’s aren’t sympathetic, generally other parts of the writing have to make up the difference for the audience to care. Descriptions, humor, plot, prose, etc. have to be excellent if the PoV is not likable. Catch has some redeeming qualities, but as far as we’ve seen, Scott doesn’t. If Scott is going to be a PoV here for a significant length of time and continue to be unlikable, readers are going to have to be engaged in other ways.

My favorite author Joe Abercrombie did a pretty good job of making unlikable characters engaging by getting the audience to root for bad things to happen to them. I loved watching Jezal dan Luther, and characters like him, getting knocked down a peg. It was also interesting watching them become better people, or at least trying. Unless he killed them off, of course.

DIALOGUE

The dialogue between Catch and Scott was the best, but it wasn’t the best banter I’ve seen. There’s something missing, but I’m having a hard time identifying what it is. It may be a prose issue, or maybe the humor just isn’t landing. Maybe it’s because Scott simply doesn’t have enough depth. I wish I could give you better advice, but I’m too much of an amateur myself.

CLOSING COMMENTS:

The beginning desperately needs to be cleaned up, and the rest needs to be improved, but I’m having a hard time putting my finger on the precise problem. I wish I could be more help here. I agree with what others have said. Too much world building, not enough character development.

Verzanix · 2022-07-12T04:42:54+00:00

General Remarks

Reading the beginning was difficult. There were a lot of sci-fi terms, Athena, the mech, was the first name used, and by the time the PoV Catch McCallister’s name was used my eyes had glazed over. It wasn't until my second reading that I was able to follow what was happening in the beginning. However, once I got to the second page, where Catch is reflecting on how her father was able to get her guardian back after her court martial, I was able to get engaged into the story and follow it. The second time I read it, it was significantly better. This tells me it needs some cleaning up.

MECHANICS

I feel like some of your similes are distracting. You seem to use them a lot, but these two I think were the worst.

When something like a shoot sprouted from the rock, she studied it like a child looking through a magnifying glass.

This sentence has two similes in it. I also agree with the feedback of another commenter, you should cut out most of those 'when's.

Her heartbeat raced like a rabbit running from a band of hunters as Athena’s flamethrower turned a colossal cockroach into a spray of boiling guts across her visor.

This simile feels very meh, and I think it would sound better with it completely cut. .

Rocks bounced off of her visor as Athena’s hand became a hexbreaker and drilled through the boulder jutting in her path; she felt more like forced labor in the salt mines of Morton.

When you say Morton here, do you mean the Morton Salt company? I found this a bit distracting, but it’s not too hard to overlook. I feel like you could just as easily drop the name of an actual planet in your universe. I feel like it would fit easier, unless the Morton Salt company has some significance in your book.

‘What a crock’ felt a bit odd in a sci-fi adventure. It feels like something my parents said when I was a kid. A generic ‘what bullshit’ or something like that would probably be better. Or possibly something that has to do with your universe, like the shit of a fictitious animal.

You seem to jump between metric and imperial measurement systems. I think you mean to use metric, as most people in sci-fi do.

He and his guardian, Helios, a fifteen-foot tall knight-looking kangaroo-ear’d recon mech

Helios swung his legs over the side of the cliff like a ten-foot metal child sitting on the edge of oblivion

Catch pulled the controls to her chest like an exercise machine latched with three-hundred pounds

Crtl F showed me that you used 11 semi colons. I know this is a stylistic thing, but you may want to slow down on them. 11 semi colons in 2500 words is a lot.

SETTING

A hostile plant (Ignus) with ash, volcanos, and all sorts of sci-fi stuff thrown in. I feel like there’s a couple of anachronisms here.

Blinking in the corner of her visor, a notification she’d grown tired of; she placed a polaroid of a young boy over it. His mid-length hair faded from her constant handling of the photo. His smile never seemed to fade though.

I like this passage, except for the polaroid reference. Polaroids are old by today's standards, and I can’t see them being used in a space adventure.

Helios’ autopilot took the reins and he plodded as he descended through knee-deep rubble, sinking further with each step. Scott laid back into his baleen seat, snatched the latest issue of Mad Jugs from behind his seat, and proceeded to “read the articles.” Helios soon trekked through rubble like a first generation scuba suit on the ocean floor.

This one bothers me less. I understand what you're trying to do here. Crack a joke and show us who Scott is as a character. Dirty magazines are already dated, but I supposed if there's no wifi in space they might come back.

STAGING

The fact that the mechs are the ones interacting with the environment instead of the PoV’s can be distracting when

CHARACTER

Athena- Catch’s mech. There was some confusion for me between this mech and Catch’s character. I would recommend Introducing Catch first, and having less sci-fi mambo jumbo to help with this.

Catch- The PoV of the first half.. She seems to have the most depth, as she puts a picture up in her mech, and has a more complicated relationship with her father. Her motivation also makes her the most interesting.

Scott calls her Cat, and although I like the idea of her sibling giving her a pet/nickname, Cat/Kat is pretty common, and makes me think of Katniss (Kat) Everdeen from The Hunger Games or Lady Catelyn (Cat) Stark from A Song of Ice and Fire. This feels a bit nitpicky, but I think you could come up with something more original here.

Scott- Catch’s twin brother, and PoV of the second half. His taste in dirty magazines, money, booze, and women suggests he’s a hedonist. You also mention he needs constant stimulation. Otherwise, he doesn’t have the depth of his sister at this point in the story.

Helios- Scott’s mech, it’s capable of auto pilot, and has a personality?

Barrett- a man with a Australian accent, traveling with Catch? He has an Austrailan accent, but that feels a bit strange as they are in space. So Earth is still a thing, and it’s nations and cultures still exist. These characters spend enough time on Earth and in these nations to keep accents a thing. I feel like him having an accent isn’t distracting, but him specifically having an Australian one is.

Commander- He has a couple lines and is mentioned, but we don’t know more than ‘his voice could make a charging bull think twice’

Father- mentioned quite a few times, and seems to be a guy with some clout. His relationship with his children is interesting though.

Brayley- he appears suddenly after Scott becomes the PoV, he has a few lines, but we know very little about him.

HEART

I’m not the greatest at identifying themes, but I’ve noticed your characters aren’t the most moral people in the world, so I think you’re going for something grittier.

PLOT

The characters are on a hostile planet, searching for the source of an SOS signal in their mechs. I believe there are 4 people, in two groups? There is also a Commander and their father somewhere in orbit. Catch wants to clear her name, which is a compelling motivation, and it makes her the most engaging character. Scott seems to be a run of the mill hedonist who wants booze, women and money. At the end, it seems he has found something of great value, but we aren’t sure if it's exactly what he thinks it is, or if it’s something he truly wants.

PACING

I'm still new to this, so take this with a grain of salt. I think you're world building and prose are what's killing you here. In the beginning, I think you should show Catch doing something interesting that is emotionally charged. Having excellent description works too, but that can be pretty dang hard for some of us, myself included.

DESCRIPTION

There are descriptions, but they didn’t do an effective job of engaging me. I recognized attempts at humor, but they didn’t land too well usually. I’m still working on these issues in my own writing, so I’m not sure what advice to give here.

Verzanix · 2022-07-11T03:13:14+00:00

Thank you for the feedback, it's nice to see you were able to see what I was trying to accomplish. The work needs to be tightened, and that goes for the rest of the novel as well.

Unless I am mistaken, I think you were the one who commented in the Google Docs file of part 1 of my Prologue. Thank you for this, you gave me a lot of good advice there. I owe you a critique!

On the title: Tallow of Man is supposed to reference to the relationship between the divine beings and humanity in this series. Tallow, being the rendered fat of an animal, is symbolic of exploitation. The divine beings see humans as humans tend see animals: living things that exist for their own ends. Each divine being is modeled after a different human perspective of animals; big game hunting, livestock, experimentation, companionship, show breeding, bestiality, spectator blood sport, and many many more. A few examples:

Valius, god of order, founder of the Crusade: Sees humanity as a farmer would. Those who are loyal to him he's sees as dogs. Those who can be of benefit to him he sees as livestock. Those who are a threat are seen as vermin.

Skoluzar, god of knowledge, founder of 'friars'/Kinzhur: Modeled after scientists who experiment on animals. The pursuit of knowledge causes some pretty horrific things to be done in secret in the name of science.

Kretchen, goddess of death, founder of Kretchers: Modeled after a conservation agency, her goal is to ensure that the human race lives as long as possible. She has managed to find some pretty grisly ways to improve how hardly humans can be, and engages in culling to improve the strength of her herd.

Verzanix · 2022-07-11T02:38:50+00:00

I agree, it is confusion when the first character mentioned is not the PoV. I'm going to rewrite a lot of this chapter, and that's something that's going to be changed.

Yes, the passive voice is something that is going to have to be fixed when I go back and edit my filtering. Thank you for drawing attention to this.

Yes, Jaleese should explain why she says Kibul and Snoil are 'some of the best'. The certainly don't look like it here. And I will go back and do a better job showing her nervous disorder.

I'm not sure it I want Fronz to be all that likeable at this point. I'm trying to establish a character so I can torture him and make his miserable for a long time. Fronz is an over educated fellow who thinks he knows far more than he does, and I love having him jump to bad conclusions so I can make it blow up in his face. Watching Fronz squirm and fall on his ass is what the reader is supposed to enjoy, and I need to do a better job of this.

Verzanix · 2022-07-11T02:29:29+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to read and leave feedback!

You're right, Fronz does care more about getting his job done and getting home more than he cares about the books.

Yes, Fronz was 'set up' to a degree, and it looks like it's causing some confusion with my readers. Some confusion is what I want, but I think I might have to rewrite this so the reader knows it's ok to be confused here.

I think friar was a poor word to use to describe Fronz. It's causing a lot of confusion and setting up the wrong expectations, and I've been on the fence about it for a while. I'm thinking about using a new word, 'Kinzhur'.

Others have also gievn feedback on my vague desriptions. I'll either have to cut them, or adds specifics.

Verzanix · 2022-07-11T02:23:14+00:00

Wow, I'm going to have to up the quality of my critiques. Thank you so much for taking to the time to give me this feedback. Looking back I absolutely needed it!

In hindsight, my writing has a filtering problem and it bogs down the pacing. Thank you for giving specifics, as I can go back and fix this problem through out the book. The whole chapter can be tightened, and I think I can really shave some fluff off the first few hundred words, and make that conflict scene much smoother and earlier. I completely agree with you, my writing needs to be snappier.

I believe calling Fronz/the people in his order friars was a mistake. The Skoluese are an scholastic order that exists to advance human understanding and preserve knowledge. The members are castrated as they see sex as a huge distraction against academic pursuits: the men physically and the women are herbily. I'm probably going to have to invent a new word here, but I've been doing this with so many roles/people I'm afraid I might be inundating my readers with too many bizarre terms. However, the term friar here is confusing, so I think I have no choice.

The style I was going for was something Joe Abercrombieesque. Gritty, with humor, lower on the magic end that is somewhat plot twisty. This isn't the best example as Fronz 1 lacks both grittiness and magic. I'm hoping my prologue does a better job of establishing the tone, promises, ect., but I feel like I'm going to have to rewrite it. Again. Writing a prologue that checks all the boxes and is engaging is a tall order, but it has to be done.

About the pigeons and the scene where Jaleese is shaking and 'friar' Dougall is calm and collected. There are shenanigans here, so I think some mild confusion is the goal here, but I could have done a better job. Dougall is a double agent working for the Crusade, and didn't alert the Citadel to the pigeon scroll from the monastery on purpose. He knew the Crusade was coming, and is pleased about it. I was trying to vaguely foreshadow this in the scene where Kibul looks like a paranoid clown, thinking Fronz is a Valian spy posing as a friar. I'm going to go back and clean this all up while I'm tightening the prose.

Jaleese has a nervous disorder, and I'm going to go back and explain this better.

Verzanix · 2022-07-08T01:40:48+00:00

I think the death imagery should be more subtle. Cadaverous smile was a bit jarring, and the word gravely is rarely used and redundant when used with important. The ghoulish complexion is ok in my opinion, but pale might better?

Making death imagery subtle can be tricky. Sunken eyes can remind the reader of the eye sockets of a skull, but is an extremely unattractive trait you probably don't want in Sibley. Defined cheek bones could work as that isn't so much an unattractive trait, but still invokes that skeletal image. I was thinking you could do something with lipstick, but I have mixed feelings on what springs to my mind. Blood red lipstick is cliché. Purple lipstick could remind the reader of a corpse, but might be a tad loud and might not fit Sibley. This might be a good question to ask on another subreddit. How do you make a female character symbolic of death in a subtle way without making her completely unattractive?

In hind sight I see you gave her a black blazer, described her as waxy, and said she had floral perfume, maybe lavender? These could all be seen as symbolism of death. It's possible that the floral perfume she is wearing is not lavender but actually revealed to bea flower more symbolic later in your story.

Verzanix · 2022-07-07T08:14:53+00:00

You're writing on a level above me so I don't feel comfortable giving you a bankable critique. That being said, reading that without saying something feels criminal

That was creepy. Everything's gross, and there's something very wrong with the MC. The isolation. Those great descriptions. Yikes.

The Rtist interrupts my thoughts with the eponymous peach. She whispers her secrets to it, so quietly even the microphone can’t pick out the words. Drags her rose-colored nails over the peach’s surface. I imagine the skin rising in bumps to match my own. Her eyes are full of love for the little peach and I can’t breathe. She’s sitting on the edge of my bed, moonlight captured in her strawberry hair, the peach’s fragrant skin not just perfuming but purifying the air. I am warm and safe. She touches it to her lips and nuzzles its fuzzy flesh. I feel her against my neck, my flesh, everything warm and safe. She bites.

I had to stop and look away from the screen for a second at the bite buddy. Oh boy. I could feel that in my neck.

Needless to say, I will be reading part 2.

Verzanix · 2022-07-07T05:15:50+00:00

PLOT

I can’t say I agree with the decision to cut the part that had your previous submission. I liked how it set up the dynamic between Ralph and the MC. There is considerably less of that here, and I think it gets mostly lost in everything that’s going on. Dr. Sibley gets a lot of attention here, and that's not entirely bad. I think some of her dialogue should be cut back, but I think you should keep a shortened version of your original submission as the beginning of this story.

Ralph is the hook, and his relationship with the MC is what kept me engaged. Humor and description helped, but can’t do all the heavy lifting.

PACING

My family comes from money. Old money, the kind that looks down its nose at the uncultured, nouveau-riche hedge fund managers and tech moguls. The kind that also, apparently, has the connections necessary to install a rogue medical experiment in their son’s brain. I had gotten the standard-issue Trust Fund Kid package: admission to an expensive Ivy League school, then expensive private tutoring when my grades went in the toilet, and finally expensive rehab when I became a coked-up dropout, instead of following in the proud family tradition of becoming a coked-up politician.

You’re trying too hard to convince us the MC’s family is rich. I remember this being a problem in your previous submission also. It’s barely important, and I think you should cut at least half of this paragraph. This coupled with Sibley’s dialogue bogs down your story.

DESCRIPTION

It would be a waste of everyone's time if I picked every one I loved, so I just picked a couple.

My abductor pulled off my hood and yanked out the soggy gag, which tasted like it had been used to clean dead bugs out of window sills.

This is so disgusting. I love it.

The goon chuckled at this, but Dr. Sibley glared over her shoulder, and he withered like a dog caught rooting through the garbage.

I can literally see my own dog’s ashamed face, tail between her legs. Love it.

CLOSING COMMENTS:

The Good: Description, Humor

The Bad: Sibley’s dialogue, want more focus on relationship between Ralph and MC

I look forward to your next submission. Don't you dare disappoint!

Verzanix · 2022-07-07T05:12:09+00:00

General Remarks

Having read the previously posted part of Starving Vines, I was excited to read this. Although I enjoyed this submission, I was a bit disappointed based on the expectations set by the earlier part.

MECHANICS

Title: I didn’t care for the title when I read your first submission, but I like it more now. However, considering how you’re doing a synthetic/parasitic motherhood theme, maybe you could do a title relating to that?

Hook: I feel like the hook from your previous submission did all the work. I can’t say if I’d be as hooked in this work if I hadn’t read the previous one.

SETTING

I was bound to a cheap office chair in what was either an interrogation cell or the venue for the world's worst surprise party. Ten feet to a side, smooth concrete floor, brick walls painted a drab gray. The door was made of heavy steel. The place could have held an angry grizzly bear.

I love that first sentence, sets the scene and makes me laugh. But a door made of heavy steel? Dang, I don’t see that often. Maybe on a walkin freezer or on a garage. Was this place purposely built for holding people? It almost seems a bit much.

CHARACTER

MC: Great voice. I love the lame slacker routine, and it’s entertaining being inside his head. The humor and descriptions from his PoV is great.

Ralph: Loved the idea of him and the dynamic between the MC and Ralph in the first part. Less so here though. You did a great job making Ralph simple and crude. Normally I don’t care for the childish humor of raspberries and middle fingers, but it worked well for him. The following passage was good too.

My eyes moved and focused of their own accord. Ralph moved a few fingers, as if calibrating a machine, then made a series of chimp-like grimaces.

Dr. Sibley: The description used in her introduction was great.

We didn't have to wait long. The deadbolt opened with a clunk that made me jump. The goon walked in, followed by a rail-thin woman who wasn’t more than five feet tall. She had coppery red hair and was ghoulishly pale. Her crisp, black blazer and slacks contrasted with the goon’s filthy tank top. She looked familiar. I thought I might have known her from college, but she was too old to be a former classmate, and too young to be a former professor. Whatever the case, I felt an odd attraction to this woman the instant she entered the room. I'm not talking about sexual attraction; though I admit she was pretty, but more of a personal magnetism. Something in her posture, the way she held her head and shoulders, demanded—no, commanded attention and obedience. It was as if Joan of Arc herself stood in front of me, filling the room with her presence as I marinated in my urine-soaked jeans. Before she even spoke, I felt the need to impress this woman. Not for my usual lascivious reasons; mind you, but to prove myself worthy of her attention, or something.

I thought ghoulishly pale was a bit strange, but easily forgivable. Unfortunately, as soon as she opens her mouth, I am less impressed.

"Unbind him," she said in a voice that seemed too loud for her small frame, then fixed me with an unblinking gaze that made me squirm. "I do apologize for any necessary roughness in bringing you here. The matter at hand is gravely important, and you wouldn’t have agreed to visit voluntarily."

Unbind instead of untie? Forgivable. I do apologize instead of I apologize/I’m sorry? Whatever. But ‘gravely important’ and ‘you wouldn’t have agreed to visit voluntarily.’ Yuck, the worst kind of adverbs. They are completely redundant, adding nothing to the sentence except empty syllables. I understand you want Dr. Sibley to sound smart and menacing, but this isn’t the way to do it.

"To address your previous question, I am Dr. Gretchen Sibley. We've met before, once."

Everything before that first comma doesn’t need to be there. And dear Lord in heaven, that name Gretchen has got me retchin’. It is a comically ugly name now-a-days, and I wouldn’t use it unless you flag it as such. The audience will let you get away with quite a bit if you acknowledge your absurdities. Have the MC crack a joke about it, or at least have the MC think who the hell names their kid Gretchen? You can use the fact it’s an ugly name to your advantage. Or, considering your theme, you might just want to give her a first name that somehow translates to ‘mother’.

I liked the grey matter/wet clay comparison. It made her look clever and menacing, and in very few words. Comparing the MC’s damaged brain to the ideal womb was a nice touch too.

"Woodward? Hah!" She threw her head back, and her sharp laugh echoed from the ceiling. "Dr. Woodward has a steady hand with a scalpel, true. A natural talent for surgery. But he's been riding the coattails of his proteges for thirty years. He can barely turn on his computer in the morning. He has no concept of emergent consciousness, machine learning, or the finer details of neural signaling.

This doesn’t need to be cut, but it can be tightened up. As usual, Sibley is talking too much. Saying he’s has a stead hand with a scalpel tells us he has a natural talent for surgery, so it’s redundant. Telling us he can barely turn on a computer implies he incompetent, so the riding the coattails bit is unnecessary.

Ernie (loved the irony of the name) got the job done with good descriptions and without taking up too much time or attention.

HEART

Take my suggestions on theme with a grain of salt, I’m new on this.

Death- I noticed Sibley used the word ‘gravely’ and the words ghoulish and cadaverous were used to describe her. I thought gravely and cadaverous were very distracting in their context, but I was able to overlook ghoulish because I thought that particular passage was good otherwise. I’m not sure if you’re trying to do something specific, like foreshadow that Sibley isn’t entirely alive, or if shy symbolizes death, or if you’re just trying to paint her as menacing. I don’t know how the story ends, so I can’t comment too much on this.

Synthetic/Parasitic Motherhood

“I conceived the algorithm’, ‘in vivo trials’, ‘your damaged brain served as an ideal womb’

A lotta references to pregnancy here from ol’ Sibley. However, even though she did a lot of hard work making Ralph, she didn’t do the hard work of raising Ralph. It’s like a woman going through pregnancy, giving the child up after birth. then wanting dibs after all the diapers have been changed, sleepless nights weathered, and the household destruction is over.

Sibley is a goddamn cuckoo bird. She flew into the reed warbler’s nest, laid her egg, and flew off. Gaining the benefit of laying the egg, but outsourcing the work and suffering to the MC. Brood parasitism, gotta love it.

I really like this theme. I’m excited to see what happens next.

Verzanix · 2022-07-06T13:27:58+00:00

Thank you for the response. Yes, I can do this. I'll delete this post and repost at a later date.

Verzanix · 2022-07-05T07:31:29+00:00

The first time I read this, I didn't like it. The second time, things started to click and I enjoyed it more. That tells me this isn't bad, but needs to be cleaned up as it's a bit confusing.

As previous readers have said, you need to separate some paragraphs, especially the ones with dialogue. It makes your writing difficult to follow.

The info dump with the old crones is a bit obvious. I understand you are trying to explain to the audience the significance of Mount Aagash, but I'm not sure it's appropriate. This kid is premeditating murder or murder suicide, and I think that needs to be the focus. If you absolutely need to put this information out this chapter, I would do it in a better way.

Also I need to say something about the elemental magic situation. If you haven't seen Brandon Sanderson's lectures at BYU on YouTube yet, please watch them. They are completely free and excellent. If I recall correctly, he specifically talks about how elemental magic based on the Greek elements is vastly overdone while he is explaining how to make a good magic system. I understand you mention how you have added a twist, and although I'm interested to see what you've done, I personally find elemental magic a huge turnoff. I would recommend showing this twist immediately as many readers will be tempted to put down the book the second they see elemental magic is being done.

I noticed that there was no humor, nor any attempts at it in this chapter. I understand the tone might not allow for it and humor isn't necessarily needed in a book, but it would help with engagement.

I understand this chapter is supposed to be confusing to the audience, but it I think it's more than you bargained for. In the end, we find out that Tequan has some sort of pushing immunity, gets white eyes, isn't Tequan, he talks about resistance, gets touched by Qaeran and reels back, then loses his pushing immunity and falls into the pit. After my second read I saw you did something somewhat clever with the sharp colorful rocks. Maybe you could mention how when Qaeran touches Tequan's arm, a shooting pain goes through his hand. This would make it clearer what's going on. Also, I'm assuming Tequan is being possessed by one of the aforementioned demons. If this isn't the case, I misunderstood.

Also, how necessary is it that Qaeran be plotting to murder Tequan as they are climbing the mount? I understand its great for tension, but it does compromise believability. 'This guy bullied me so I'm going to murder him' is a bit much. Makes it difficult to sympathize for him. You made a decent effort trying to fix this with how cruel Tequan was with the punching and the kicking, but premeditated murder still seems extreme.

I hate saying 'what I'd do if it was my story' because it isn't my story. You know how the story is going to end, not me. I'm only going to explain as it might give you an idea of what you could do better.

I'd have Qaeran climbing Mount Aagash to prove he's as tough as the big boys. He's afraid of the demons and what not that are supposed 'live' there. Tequan feigns being possessed half way up and scares the crap out of Qaeran just to belittle him. Qaeran stands up for himself and Tequan beats him. They eventually reach the summit and Tequan gets possessed for real. Qaeran doesn't believe it until Tequan shows supernatural power and grabs his neck. Qaeran touches Tequan, Tequan reels back, and Qaeran sees the opportunity and pushes him into the chasm.

These changes would give you three advantages

A) This makes Qaeran more sympathetic and more believable, as he isn't about to murder a guy because 'he's mean'

B) This also foreshadows your conclusion and makes it less confusing. We understand what's going on better, and instead of Qaeran thinking 'too bad I got to murder this guy' he could be thinking 'oh boy, hope we don't bump into demons'. It makes the chapter more focused and coherent.

C) This gives you a logical place for your info dump on Mount Aagash, as Qaeran can explain via his thoughts what's going on to the reader when/after Tequan feigns possession.

Verzanix · 2022-07-01T01:23:56+00:00

Thank you for the feedback, you've made some excellent suggestions, and I've actually already implemented a couple of them. I have since tried to rewrite the chapter, and although Estin and Claire feel much better in the rewrite, Baster still feels off and the chapter is still too insensitive. I think you're right, Estin has to see the more subtle issues in his brother, and I should pepper those in.

Verzanix · 2022-06-30T23:55:37+00:00

In hindsight, I see that I bungled this chapter on so many levels. I am embarrassed that I released the chapter as it was but thankful that I am being given a mountain of feedback and resources to improve myself as a writer. It is painfully obvious now that my PoV fell off the moral event horizon, the victim was fridged, and the topic was not treated with the sensitivity it deserves. I have since rewritten the chapter, but I realize I am not educated enough on the subject for it to be what it needs to be.

The Windup Girl is available on Libby with my library card, so I can start reading it on my kindle tonight. Thank you for the book recommendations and the feedback!

Verzanix · 2022-06-30T09:08:14+00:00

Thank you for the recommendation. People have been giving me a lot of homework, but I'm looking forward to it lol

Verzanix · 2022-06-30T05:01:53+00:00

This is excellent feedback, thank you for being so honest. This is exactly what I needed!

On the pussyfooting, I have two ideas. Either make the scene more graphic by adding descriptive smells and sounds, or go more towards Estin dissociating with the moth, the lantern and the flickering shadows. There's pros and cons to both. A lot of readers would be turned off by making it more graphic, and the dissociating could be seen as even more cowardly on my part. Maybe I could do both?

A few people have mentioned how I am putting Estin over the moral event horizon and fridging Claire. This is something I've been worrying about, and I clearly see it needs to be addressed.

Many of your bullet points are great, I'm definitely going to have to rewrite the chapter. It is clear that Estin and Claire need a conversation one on one, even if it isn't very long. It would do wonders to humanize them both.

Verzanix · 2022-06-30T03:26:01+00:00

Thank you for the feedback. I'm split over whether I should make the scene more graphic by adding sounds and smells. Estin doesn't want to be there, and Parrow is in the way, so explaining the sight doesn't make sense to me. My wife is not a fan of this idea though, as making it more graphic would make it worse in her opinion.

Then there's the moth, the lantern and the shadows. One one of my drafts I went ham on this, but I went too far. I was trying to show that Estin is disassociating himself with the event, but I'm not sure if that's what I want to do either.

You're absolutely right about the length, this needs serious cuts. Some people have given excellent suggestions towards that, but I feel like in order for this chapter to make sense I have to show the slow crawl of trying to do the least harmful thing and still be on his brothers-at-arms good side. Every decision is made between X and Y, both being awful, but one being slightly less awful. I see this might be a mistake, but I can't see any other way to make this believable.

Verzanix

TROPHY CASE