C_Vallion

May I have a spot for the 18th as well?

Title thoughts: I think I like Stowaway at the Academy best. It gives us more of an idea of plot and setting going into the story. I probably won’t comment much on the romance aspect of things. I still find my own experiences with middle school/high school crushes to be cringeworthy enough that I don’t get much enjoyment out of reading them in fiction. You did a really good job of portraying the feelings involved, but if anything, I think that just makes it more likely to call me back to how much I just did not enjoy that aspect of being that age. Just as a bit of a heads up on why you won’t get much feedback on that. And I think everyone else caught most of the typos I noticed. Pg 2: “Do …pronoun?” On one hand, I like how this is introduced, but on the other hand, it seems like writing in a journal is one of few places they wouldn’t have to choose a pronoun, since they’d be writing in first person. Unless there are potentially other first-person pronouns that people go by (I am still very much learning about pronoun choices and related etiquette. So I’m not sure if this comment is relevant or not) “What the…anyway?” I like this line a lot. Normal earth-time has been irritating enough to keep track of lately… “Sure I am” Should this be “I sure am”? “twenty-nine…” I really enjoyed both the fact that the number jumps around throughout and J’s comment on the sort of arbitrariness of some aspects of swearing. “twine into knots” I think mixing the ideas of guts twisting/twining and tying themselves into knots is a little odd here. There’s too much of a disconnect between twining and knots in my mind. “fitted sleeves” They wear uniforms, right? It might be worth adding that detail in here to further flesh out what exactly this school looks like. It’s not shocking when it’s revealed later (I think we expect it from “Academy” if you reference that in the title), but this seems like an obvious place to introduce that detail to me. Pg 3: Like others mentioned, I don’t entirely get a feel for the stakes. A says they could get expelled. And J acknowledges that, but is far more focused on doing what A asks than anything else in the world. So while J isn’t exactly pleased about the idea of virtual school with one of their moms, they don’t seem all that conflicted about it. Also, how did A come across L in the first place? Pg 4: Again, I enjoy J’s overthinking of the deities. Pg 5: If it’s such a crime for non-student individuals to be here, how is it so easy for them to find a uniform? Even if it’s not quite the right fit? Wouldn’t the powers that be keep a close eye on that sort of thing if bringing in outsiders is an expelling offense? “Whenever…meals.” This just hurts the little rule-loving part of my brain, but it fits the character perfectly. We just probably wouldn’t have gotten along. “keeping …alive” Yep. There are definitely days when I get home from coaching and the best I can say is that at least we didn’t need to call an ambulance. “I’m an …one.” I don’t quite follow this. Pg 6: “They treat…tree!” I’m not sure the deep breath is enough to convey the tone of what L is feeling here. How old is she supposed to be? They refer to her as a kid, but I’m not sure what age or self-awareness/world-awareness that implies. And the “I completely…tree!” line seems like a far too carefree response for someone who has recently accepted that 1. Her entire village believes a harmful lie that would have gotten her killed, and 2. She’s been shipped away by someone who has called out the entire belief system she grew up with as a lie. Or misunderstanding. I get her gratitude for Dr. Mom, but there is a whole lot going on there that should have far more impact on L than it seems to be. I know the scope of the story doesn’t allow for in-depth analysis of dealing with the trauma of being pulled out of a harmful and problematic cult, but the way it’s put here makes it feel like it’s being brushed off. Pg 8: “The little door…middle.” So, this to me says that it isn’t entirely abandoned, but that isn’t the same as it being used regularly. If it was clean and spotless, that would imply regular checking/cleaning, but I’m not completely sure what we’re supposed to assume from it just being unevenly dusty. How long are they planning to hide L? And who do they expect to find living under bleachers? I can’t think of any reason to spend any significant amount of time under nasty bleachers when students have rooms available, unless your other alternative is to be fed to a tree. Also, in a post-roomba age, I find it odd that there isn’t some sort of auto-clean process that would be preventing dust build-up there altogether. “Can you think…” I know J is supposed to be the one with the experience sneaking around, but A seems to just be along for the ride for this whole process. And I still don’t have a good idea of why. Pg 9: “It’s not like someone…security.” But isn’t being seen what they were afraid of before? “Go in …mats.” This seems like it would be a perfectly effective way of keeping anyone from seeing her. Unless I’m picturing the setup wrong. Send L in under the bleachers, close the door, problem solved. Leading into the next page, I can see reason for concern about W and company being suspicious about why A and J are there, but I don’t see it as a risk to them seeing L. Just for them to cause trouble with A and J. Pg 10: Okay. I hadn’t realized they had all gone in under the bleachers (I think that’s where we are at this point?). Was the door closed and W opened it? If so, why were W and friends going to go hide under the bleachers? And if the door wasn’t closed, what would have made them go over to check it out? Pg 14: I’m not quite following L’s explanation and the related g-spore conversation. Pg 15: “A crack in the door…tablet” Where are we now? I’d assumed that we were in the halls on our way back to J’s room during the spore conversation, so I don’t have a good sense of where W is or what he’s doing there. Are we all still in the gym? Still under the bleachers? If not, can’t they go another direction to get to J’s room? Does the gym only have one exit? Overall, I don’t really enjoy a ton of teen mischief / school crushes / etc. so in many ways, I think the main troubles I have are that I’m not the intended audience for the story. Which can't really be helped. I do think the other concerns I mentioned are still relevant, though. The stakes don’t seem all that immediate (other than W, but I'm not quite buying the behavior of him and his friends). I’m still not sure what A’s motivations are or how they got involved in the first place. And It bothers me that L’s thoughts about being shipped away from home because her village wanted to kill her are being brushed over. All of that being said, I think J’s voice was really fitting for the character, which is great, and I didn’t have any issues adjusting to present tense like I was expecting to going into it. It all seemed to flow really well even with the shift in tense that I’m not used to. Thanks for submitting!

This is probably true. And I'm sure I'll get closer to that as I go back to it (letting it sit for a bit before going back to it now). This is going to be something that is probably going to be a challenge for me throughout. A lot of my initial writing inspiration starts with snapshots of scenes and lines of dialogue that go with them (most of my initial roughing out of chapters are pretty much dialogue + stage direction), so there are a lot of sections that in my mind are inherently tied to how things have to be, even though they aren't actually important. Initial drafts also tend toward an "I can always cut out the extra stuff later" approach, which doesn't help with the problem. I'm catching more of them as I'm going through my current revision to prepare things to be submitted here (turns out it's suddenly a lot easier to acknowledge unnecessary parts when I know that you guys will suggest cutting them out anyway), but I'm sure that a lot of it is going to be a matter of making multiple passes and trimming back a few things each time as they become more obviously irrelevant. Relatedly, in response to this: Good. I need direct critiquing. Because otherwise I'm going to end up with a 200k word book. I'm sure I'll be less enthusiastic about it when everyone suggests cutting out little things that aren't actually useful, but seemed really clever at the time, but I'm fully aware of how much work needs to be done if I want it to actually go anywhere. So thanks! Even after just two submissions, all of the input from you and from everyone has been incredibly helpful, and I really appreciate it

That is something I've also been a little concerned about (the fridging, that is. The Ob are supposed to confirm M's death, but I try to be clever and end up just being confusing...). Especially because there's no room to give much information about M here, even though she's very much the main person holding the duchy together. I think that if anyone has been fridged, it's probably Br, really. He just gets to say some things beforehand, where as most of M's influence, we see through later snippets.

He rolls to his back to get a little more leverage and pushes it off that way (going back to our weightlifting comparisons-can you tell I started my coaching season? You're going to have more leverage for something like a bench press compared to curls or an overhead press). Which is why it still ends up falling on Br's arm instead of actually falling clear. Though it's possible that wasn't 100% clear either. Will have to go back and check later.

This might need an extra clarifying detail or two if it's still not coming across right. I guess I'm wondering what you guys are picturing. The main problem would be Tr not being able to get leverage to pull Br out from under what's pinning him. He's on his stomach under a bunch of stuff that he's nervous about bumping into, so he's only able to really use his arms to maneuver. He can either get a solid grip on Br with full arm strength or he (or Dw if they switched out, though in my head Dw is too big to fit) just hang on with his hands and use elbow shuffling to back out, at which point, speed becomes a huge issue once things start shifting. Dw has more leverage to pull both of them, and is just generally in a better position to apply more strength (sort of comparing the weight that can be lifted in squats/deadlifts vs. bicep curls). I would have to recruit some help to officially confirm, but I'd still think that dragging a two-man chain, while painful, is probably going to be less difficult overall than anyone trying to backward-army-crawl while dragging a body. Is there something there that you are seeing differently? Hm. I hadn't been aware of a Dresden connection. I'll have to figure out the best way to deal with explaining this (or how much of it needs to be explained. Or if I should just drop it here entirely), because it is a little different. Long story, short (as short as any of my explanations get...) : A lot of the judicial system is based on the detail that if you aren't able to come to some happy compromise with someone who you have wronged, or who has wronged you, then the wronged person (or someone on their behalf) has the right to basically perform a divine judgment ritual that calls on our god of judgment to decide how to punish them. This can be risky on both sides if the accuser isn't 110% sure they're in the right on the matter, and most people tend to feel safer deciding on some less flashy form of justice amongst themselves (usually with the help of magistrates). So in this case, Br would have a right to demand some price from the midwife, and Al would have a greater right, but would have to be involved with divine rituals that he wouldn't understand, which was where the possibility of Tr doing so on his behalf came in in the original version. The blood price the midwife agrees to is basically the arrangement decided upon by all involved that if she follows through with X, they won't call down judgment on her from the gods. The healer's family would also have a right to make similar arrangements. At this point, I'm going to let the prologue sit for a while because it's all merged together in my head and I need to distance myself from it a bit before I make more edits. I do know that I need to incorporate more of the religious/judicial system in the early chapters than I currently have (a lot of it will probably be added by the time you guys see it, but we'll see), and when I'd had some of it in the prologue, it was because it hadn't been there. I'll have to reassess as I go through those chapters before I jump back to rework the prologue.

No worries! It's only a matter of time before I do this or something similar Part of my mind had noticed that the word count seemed off, but I didn't put the two things together. On the bright side, the addition of this section answered all of the questions I had about it seeming to start in the middle of a conversation. This is much more what I would have expected from E being mysteriously transported to some other place, and does a good job of providing details to add to the image in my head while also emphasizing the strangeness of it. I'm still a little iffy about her dialogue voice, but for whatever reason, it doesn't bother me as much when reading the full version of Chapter 3 as it did when only reading the later sections. I have no idea why.

Hah. This is entirely fair. I would not have blamed you. Like I said before, I have no idea how I missed so many incredibly confusing things on the first round. So glad you enjoyed this version It's interesting that you pointed it out as having a more YA feel this time around because of it being more character focused. I do like that aspect of YA (and think that's one of the reason the whole story will feel more YA) but shy away from the general connotation of teen angst and characters who have their priorities way out of whack. Ultimately, my theoretical audience is people who aren't technically in the YA target audience, but who still like to read YA because of the character detail and the lack of graphic sex/violence, and who want to see characters facing larger scale challenges and more difficult decisions than which hot guy to make out with at the end. But that isn't really a marketing category....so we will see what happens. I wouldn't have considered myself a grammar person, but considering how much I tend toward sentences that are a mile long, that's probably a lie. And 15 years is still better off than I am. I think the last time I diagrammed sentences was in middle school? So...ugh. Twenty years ago now? Turns out they don't do a lot of grammar studies in college engineering programs. That being said, I think most of the instances, at least, should be correct. I figure we have the timeline that Tr is experiencing starting at the top of the stairs, going through the end of the chapter. So the midwife's warning, the presence of the second band, the wall falling, etc. should all be before that timeline as he's experiencing it. I guess this does still need a little clarification. Normally, it wouldn't be. It's generally a harmless and entirely legal spell, so the healer wouldn't have had any qualms about asking him to help. It was slightly more risky for Br for reasons that we don't get until a while down the road, but it was reasonable for both Br and the healer to assume that there wasn't any risk in things going wrong. Certainly not enough to just go without trying. I'll have to figure out how to make that a little clearer without doing a full magic system summary. This is more just referring to the general experience of losing his parents (though listed among the other things that the advisers would be taking care of, I see the confusion) and, while there are plans in place, no one ever wants those sorts of plans to actually be necessary. Part of me is assuming that the back of book summary would mention or imply Br's death, so I hadn't felt a need to mention it here. It would at least be clear that by the time the main story starts, he has his title. Chapter 1 calls out the fact that both Br and My die here, and it's addressed a little more when we hit Al's PoV in Chapter 2. Even if help gets there in a reasonable amount of time, I'd assumed that extensive lung damage would be tough to do anything about in this medical era. Thanks so much for the thoughts! And I'm glad this was easier to understand. Now I can start to address the other problems that were hidden under the mess of confusion

Pg 1: I like the opening paragraphs. The sense of detachment as she’s trying to work through her thoughts comes across really well. “less hours” Time has a couple strange exceptions when it comes to less vs. fewer, but I’m almost completely sure this should still be “fewer hours.” Pg 2: “not even noticing its soft cushions” But she did notice them. Her PoV just told us so. Pg 3-5: “More honorable…[through the end of the scene]” I don’t know if it’s just jumping in late, but I haven’t seen any sign of him being dishonorable. There’ve been a few instances of him considering putting Ir’s abilities for mysterious use that I don’t fully get (Chapter 33, I think?), but overall, he’s seemed honorable and considerate. I mean. I get being upset that he took over where you live, but he doesn’t seem like any sort of tyrant. Pg 6: “She longed to race over…she was sure,” It might make more sense for her to think that there wasn’t any reason for her friends to have been in harm’s way rather than her being sure that they were unharmed. I get where her priorities are and what she’s thinking through, but the wording feels off as it is. “into a vase.” Oh. Okay. Are there just a lot of convenient vases nearby for roll disposal? I don’t know why my brain stuck on this point. Pg 7-10 A lot of reasonable fear/grief/anger pouring out in a way that feels realistic. Good emotion throughout. “You know what…” I would have expected something more along the lines of disbelieving/grieved resignation here. I’m not sure what kicks Ir toward anger. It seems unlikely that the lack of honor in slavery would be the comment to do it. Even if Ir isn’t the type to plead for her sister to change her mind, I think we need a better reason for Ir to feel like she is right to be angry. Tying those lines directly to what she’s angry with Sue about seems like a better way to shift into the feelings we see at the end than the currently more vague anger that Sue isn’t going to change her mind. Letting Ir convince herself that it’s righteous anger for Sue’s kids’ circumstances (or something else. I haven’t been reading long enough to know what other things they hold against each other) instead of her own grief and fear working themselves out into anger seems like it might be a stronger approach. Overall- Good flow throughout. I think the combination of dazed detachment and strong emotion once she sees Sue and breaks out of the detachment works well. I hadn’t seen too many details about the religion-related worldbuilding in previous chapters other than mentioning Raviekan statues, and it’s neat to see the reincarnation aspect of that detailed a little further. Yet again I see a lot of details of a really interesting world that I can’t get my head fully wrapped around since I jumped in so late, but some snooping around your website was helpful. Continuing to look forward to reading through this!

Thanks for sharing these! I somehow managed to miss those two while I was digging through old episodes to listen to. I've also found Tim Hickson's youtube videos on empires and how they rise and fall to be really useful to think through some of these things. https://youtu.be/51MWp0Hgo90 https://youtu.be/1yu5MHeLMEY https://youtu.be/jAKfs0TaOR4

Pg 1: The opening was a little confusing. The end of the previous chapter had me expecting E to end up in some other physical place. I caught on to it being a sort of disorienting void-like place instead, and maybe the shift would be less jarring if I’d read the chapters right in a row, but it took me a little time to get oriented. I think a little more description of what E is perceiving would be useful. We get the glowing lines, but what does the atmosphere feel like. Does it feel like a physical place or just some disconnected mental thing? And if she feels like she’s physically there, what’s her physical reaction before she really processes where she is. She brings her arms up to shield herself from the glowing lines later, but in that initial moment, does she tray to flail her arms for balance? Or try to feel for ground or feel like she’s swimming/floating/flying? I’m not sure “Wy not?” I’m not sure who she thinks she’s asking this to, since it seems like it’s a response to something someone else said. “Stop the killing!” This came across as her telling the mysterious voice to stop killing people, but I assume it’s supposed to be what E is trying to do. Could use some rewording. “Each second…floor.” This to me implies that she’s perceiving it as more of a mental location/presence, unless out of body mental wandering like this is something she’s familiar with. Though, if there are various psychic beings in the world here, I guess it might seem less strange. If she feels physically present here (physically reaching up to shield herself from the lines as they approach, etc.) is she aware that her body is still somewhere else, or what it’s doing? “gravity reassert itself” I think this is what we need the contrast to in the opening lines. I like the description of that brief weird disorientation as she shifts back into what she initially perceives as normal until she sees that she’s not in the throne room. Though I do find it odd that the mental space where the en- communicate has a sort of floor for her to be lying on if the en- are always floating and aren’t actually physically present there (are they?) Pg 2-3: “Information was…” I like this line and the follow-up. “The words … necessary lie” I’m not sure how this is “perpetuating the evils…” Stating that the Resistance is now in control, and that everyone should continue on as normal until they hear otherwise seems like a straightforward explanation of the change in power. She doesn’t seem to be threatening anyone if they step out of line. She’s just hoping they don’t panic. Though, I almost think she’d want to add something to back up the instruction to continue life as normal if she wants to make sure that no other power tries to step in and take over during the chaos of a shift in government. Pg 5: I really like the idea of the opening paragraph, but think it could benefit from clarification of the non-literal fires in the second sentence. Not this exactly, but something along the lines of “Panicked conversations were breaking out all over the station. Little verbal fires that she was responsible to put out.” Then continuing on with the image to mention them being more dangerous than literal fires. I like the image, but before it gets to the clarification that it isn’t an actual fire, I’m just really confused about why Tik is standing there watching things burn. “Now…dead.” Hah. Poor Tik. Is it a problem that I sort of like her better than Ek at the moment. Though it might just be that I’m more sympathetic with the sense of helplessness of having to manage the chaos. I am usually sympathetic to the poor characters left herding cats while other people do more exciting things. “orange instead of yellow.” Are most of their eyes yellow? Is it significant that hers are orange instead? If not, I don’t think we need the contrast. My brain got caught on the word deicide. Mostly because it’s not one I see much, so I automatically see it as a typo for decide. That being said, it is technically correct based on what we know. But it seems like an odd criminal charge to make unless there is precedent for the use of the word. How often are gods murdered in this world? The chapter makes me more curious about en- and what exactly their role in the world is, and how they function. They seem to pick some …something? to imitate or embody? I’m not entirely sure what it means that LN “had obstinately chosen a human gender” It’s obviously not the norm, but I don’t have a good idea of what the norm is. I’m also not sure if Tik’s reference to LN as “their en-” implies some sort of ownership/possession or just specifies LN as the one that Ek happens to be friends with. I’m really interested in figuring out more about the en- Pg 6: “Ek had already…monstrosities.” This is what I want to see fleshed out more. Reasons why Ek was chosen for this, and proof that they have some reason to think she’s capable of this task. Through most of page 6, I’m honestly still more in agreement with Tik than with Gy and LN… I don’t think we knew enough about why they were waiting until the Convergence for this change in plans to be significant. We were told that it was the best plan, but I don’t think there was a clear enough explanation for why they should wait for us to be as concerned as everyone here (except LN) seems to be that the news got out earlier than planned. It’s explained a little here, but when it’s too late to follow that plan anyway, it doesn’t seem like as much of a loss as it seems like it’s supposed to be. Overall thoughts: The flow of these chapters was good. Some spots could benefit from the addition of some extra detail and definition, but I could follow what was happening and am curious to learn more about what’s going on. I do think it would be helpful to have more of an idea of what our end goal is by now, though. We defeated the old tyrant, hooray! And they obviously have plans for next steps, but we don’t have a good concept of what they are really trying to do other than set Ek up as a sort of figurehead, and that Ek wasn’t their primary choice. But we don’t really know what was so bad about the tyrant or why they picked Ek or who Ge was, or even what the Resistance as a whole is aiming for, since we only get Ek’s part of it. I’m still not sure how I feel about Ek’s dialogue. I know she’s supposed to be unprepared and out of her depth in all of this, but her dialogue seems a little naïve or overly casual for someone who is supposed to be the figurehead of the Resistance. Her talking to the en- is more fitting for someone who should have had some training to at least seem like they could be the Au-. It might make sense that she shifts away from her more natural conversational tone when she’s addressing a bunch of en-, but something about her regular dialogue lines make me feel like she seems out of touch with what’s going on. Her response to the en- shows that she can push past panic and speak politically, and that she understands her role and responsibilities, and I’d like to see more of that side of her. Still uncertain and out of her depth, but aware of the situation and engaging with the role that she’s found herself in. I really enjoyed Tik’s chapter, though it cut off rather abruptly. I always enjoy seeing the background support team trying to do damage control or make sure that things are actually working properly so that the more officially important people can do exciting things. I still feel like I don’t get a good concept of what we are aiming toward, or what the Resistance is aiming away from, and think we could use more of that early on. But I’m enjoying reading, and am looking forward to seeing how things progress from here. Thanks for submitting!

Hi again! This is the prologue to my epic fantasy, Price of Peace (filler title, but functional for now). It contains mild language and gore. Thanks to all of those who were able to read through the initial version of this last week, especially because of how painfully confusing parts of it were for anyone who doesn’t already know where things are going. *facepalm* I cut out a lot of the unnecessary rubble moving and vague political allusions, moved key information earlier, and improved our character definition (which bumped the word count up again, unfortunately). I’m looking for the following on this one (though, honestly, I’m still figuring out what sorts of feedback to ask for, so if there are things that seem to need saying, have at it): 1. Are the political details, magic, and physical layout of the scene clear? I think I fixed all of the big things, and tried to spread out the name introductions to be less overwhelming, but it’s so hard to read through from a new-reader perspective. 2. Are there things that still seem to be missing? Either for clarity’s sake, or just as a general story introduction? 3. What spots could be streamlined or trimmed back? (Always point these out. I am horrible at cutting back text, and I like rabbit trails. These are both significant problems when one of my main goals for this round of revisions on the full manuscript is a major wordcount reduction). Once we’re a few chapters in, I’ll want feedback on whether it seems like the prologue is necessary as it is, or if it should be something different, but I don’t think it makes sense to address that quite yet. Thanks so much! I really appreciate all of your feedback!

@Valerie Oh man. *cringe* I feel like the list of things that confused you is almost identical to the list I had next to me of things to correct while going through revisions. On one hand, that means that most of them should be far clearer next time, but on the other hand, I just feel like I sat here going "Yeah...oof. Sorry!" for every single one. I promise it's not actually that inconsistent, but the way it was written certainly doesn't portray that (*more cringing*) I know exactly what you mean about having a picture in your head, and I think that's one of the problems I ultimately had. I had the picture in my head of what things should look like, and I didn't realize how many different ways that the ways I tried to describe it could be interpreted. Thanks so much for reading through all of the confusion! Same goes for everyone! All of your comments have been massively helpful! I know I tried to shove a lot into the prologue, because I have really specific things I want it to achieve. Unfortunately, I ended up trying to stick extra things in as well, and it was just way too much. It was great to have everything pointed out so that I could really dig through what I actually want to go here and what fits better later. Thanks!

Sounds good. Thanks!

I noticed a lot of fragmented phrases that seem to be trying to make things quick and snappy. That does keep the pace going quickly and keeps the intensity up, there are some places where I got caught feeling like a word was missing or that the way it was fragmented was awkward. Turning them into short, complete sentences can keep the snappiness and quick pace without risking the reader tripping over a fragment. Other than getting a little lost during the battle, those intentionally fragmented parts, and an oddly worded phrase here and there, I think this flowed really well. The pace was good and kept me focused in even when I wasn’t entirely sure what was being referenced a few times. And the hard hit of the last scene definitely makes me wish I’d had a chance to see the characters’ relationships from the beginning. I will have to make sure to read the whole thing through at some point. Pg 1. “missed the sound” I read this as implying that she wished the guards would come back (which was confusing), not that she didn’t notice it. Not sure if that’s a mistake others have made, but it might be worth rewording. “Good evening …stir” Is there a reason there’s a line break between the two phrases of BK’s dialogue? I don’t have a clear enough understanding of dialogue formatting rules to know if there are reasons for it to be that way, but I would read that as a switch in speaker if not for the immediate indication that it’s BK talking. Especially with only the two of them there. “Lack of loyalty” awkward wording Pg 2 “She tricked me…free.” The detail of being tricked into going to dinner would be odd to mention “minotaur guard” Hello, there. I didn’t realize he was there as well. Pg 3 “You’ve commanded…” This seems like it should come right after the bells. Or right after her action in the previous line. Otherwise it seems like she’s taking a long time to process it while he unlocks the door. Also, I am assuming the need to unlock the door with a key vs. the manacles with telekinesis is an iron vs. bronze (it was bronze, right?) thing? I hope? “Bells…” I think this either needs to be split into two parts (“Bells.” then the description) or made into a complete sentence. It sounds odd as a fragment, though I get what it’s trying to do. Pg 5 Sort of like with the dialogue line split above, I’m not sure what the official rules are and what I habitually do incorrectly, but I think a lot of the phrases separated out with commas here should be punctuated differently. “turn around…blew over.” And “without his…following suit” Pg 6 I like the paralleled descriptions contrasting the equipment “Y-shaped hallway” I don’t know what this means. Is this a specific place that we should know about? Pg 7 I haven’t read enough of the rest of this to know for sure, but the description of the violence/gore seemed more graphic than I would have expected from the tone of the chapters I’ve read. It’s a battle, so there’s certainly going to be some blood, but some of the descriptive words and phrases seem, well, gorier than I would have expected from the tone elsewhere. Especially “coated with blood” and “ripped into flesh,” where I don’t see the implication of BK’s violence being extra horrific as something that’s significant. [checking back in later, the gorier description around T does seem more relevant because it’s supposed to be incredibly horrifying] Pg 8-11 I got a little lost in the battle. Some of that might have been unfamiliarity with the world making it difficult to picture how a battle between people and animals and magic and weapons and some various terms that I haven’t quite figured out all fit together. Beyond that, it looks like you tried to make it feel like Ir was a little lost in the chaos, but having various people talking and a lot going on at once. That feels accurate for a battle scene, but I think there’s a fine line between making the character feel lost and making the reader feel lost. And I think this might have jumped over that a bit. But when I’m already confused about getting my bearings in the world, it might just be the result of jumping in for final chapters. Pg 12-14 This is a powerful, emotional ending, even for someone who has jumped in last minute and doesn’t have nearly the connection to the characters that other readers would coming through. Pg 13 “as shock and blood-loss” I’m not quite sure this makes sense, since I’d think that shock and blood loss would be compounding factors in death, not competing ones? Even if there’s been enough blood lost for systems to start shutting down from shock, I’d still think that blood loss would be the cause. The shock would just be part of that. I think. I am not a medical professional

Can I have a spot for my revised prologue on the 11th? It's at 4,600 words now (far less debris and vague allusion, far more character) And if there seems to be space for a double submission, I'd love to add in Chapter 1 (3900 words now, but I'm hoping to trim it down a little more this weekend). I know double submissions aren't too common, and it's not a problem if you'd suggest holding off, but I figured it was worth asking and seeing where the submission count ends up for the week. Trying to get as much writing/revising as I can in before my coaching season starts up next week.

On one hand, I think part of my choosing to use Trevan for the prologue is to lean away from the YA feel of the opening chapters. Right now, I feel like the opening scene has a very YA feel, and I'm concerned that someone would either A. Pick it up, see that, and happily be reading along then suddenly be irritated to find themselves bogged down in a lot of multi-kingdom political/magical discussions. or B. Pick it up expecting an adult fantasy, then finding the opening chapters feeling very YA, and giving up before getting to what they would enjoy. Looking back now, this was probably not a useful question for me to ask for feedback on until the opening chapters are available... oops.

1. I will be honest that I was surprised to not see any comments on the Oathbands and Vows and Whatnot, considering the subtitle. I like to think I won't frustrate you too much in that regard, but there are a few things that I haven't decided how to deal with yet. My brain wants to separate Oaths (Judge-Bound. Featuring glowy armbands) from oaths (not formally Bound, used by people who are skeptical about any magic use, but sometimes tattooed with a comparable band without the fun glow-in-the-dark feature). However, I know that going that route is going to just seem like it's a bunch of really inconsistent typos unless I find some way to clarify it. I'll appreciate thoughts on that when we get there. 2. First-lines and everything hanging on them give me so much anxiety. Will keep working on it, though. Hadn't considered the combat possibility, though it's an entirely fair assumption when finding a fantasy novel opening with thundering walls. Also, in response to both you and @kais on resubmitting: Thanks! That's what I was leaning toward, but I like to have verbal confirmation of things while I'm learning the ropes.

I enjoyed reading this. Like someone above said, I love how the name immediately implies a certain character, and carries it through. I had sort of paused there and gone "Is this a little old lady? Please let it be a little old lady." Maybe little old ladies are more common in short fiction, but I feel like I don't see enough of them in the books I read. The writing was smooth, and gave us a good sense of a fun character. The "Righty-O" line confused me a little, though I think I was too caught off guard by end of the call to really register the slamming of the receiver that other people noticed. I don't think I've ever ended a phone call with any member of my family that quickly. I'm more used to the sort of call where you say good-bye half a dozen times then get sidetracked by what so-and-so has been up to recently before you can actually hang up. Other families are likely more efficient about that sort of thing, though. I don't have too many thoughts about the length, since I haven't read much short fiction in quite a while, and am horrible at writing it. I honestly had to look up the cut-off for flash fiction when I saw people referencing it. I didn't get the peonies to experiences connection before the spoiler, but had leaned toward the question of whether the aliens are actually real and she's choosing to go with them or if it's a metaphor for being ready for death. If I were to push that thought further, I might have eventually gotten to the peonies representing her life's work or memories. Taking some part of it with her to whatever is beyond and leaving some of them there for others. Thanks for sharing! Looking forward to reading more of your writing.

Well, I can see the problem with the fact that most of my previous readers had already read the first few chapters before I realized I needed a prologue... turns out things are less confusing when you know where they're going. Who knew? At the moment, I'm going to defend the necessity of the prologue, but will check in on that front later. It wasn't there initially, and I had some early readers asking some of the questions that you guys specifically pointed out that it answers - The danger of magic. The general existence and some basic details of Oaths/Vows/Blood Prices. What actually happened that day, since the story gets twisted to fit various political agendas. I'll be glad to readdress that later if there seem to be other ways to point those out. Beyond that, you guys are awesome. While I'm not hugely excited about the amount of readjusting and cutting down text (this is my least favorite thing ever... I apologize in advance for when I fail to do it adequately) that it will involve, it definitely points out the weaknesses that I wasn't able to put my finger on, and also the ones that I probably could have put my finger on but was shying away from the amount of work it would take to fix. While I'm making adjustments, I wanted to check on a couple smaller questions that I could use more clarification on. Would "The midwife had warned..." instead add any clarity to what's going on up front? Or is the disconnect between the first two sentences and the third just too jarring to approach this way? The google searching I've done says that it's supposed to be capitalized for direct address. Is that not correct? In the meantime, I'll be working on shifting important character details to the front (some of your comments on those resulted in legitimate facepalming on my part.), cutting back unnecessary moving of rubble/conversation/vague political references, clarifying the bedroom/sphere layout, etc. As a general question, how do people generally do revisions if they're working through submitting a longer work over time? As relevant to this, specifically, would a general recommendation be to get details here nailed down and clear or submit chapter 1 in one of the next few weeks while I'm working on adjusting this?

Pg 1: I’m not entirely sure what C’s reaction to the opening scene is. He seems to be observing with no real emotion at all, but if that’s the case, then what’s he thinking about instead? If he sees this sort of thing all the time, is he just exhausted from being on the road? Concerned about weather that’s coming in? Wishing he’d chosen something different for breakfast? Making a mental note to check some loose spot in his gear? Giving V a reassuring pat gives us the idea that he has some sense of sympathy, to want to comfort it, but if C isn’t as concerned about senseless violence, what can whatever he is concerned about tells us about him and how he processes the world? We get a little more of a hint from A. The use of “distaste” instead of horror or shock does a good job of conveying that she has seen enough of this sort of thing to have moved beyond horror or grief, and her already having the others set up camp shows a sense of initiative and practicality. But I don’t get as much of a read on C. Who are “the boys”? Is A using it condescendingly? As a sort of parental fondness? I don’t know enough about her or the FoS or their history to have a gauge on this. [also, checking back later, I’d expected “the boys” to be a small group. A sort of raiding party. Not a group planning to chase down a small army. Which just makes the confusion behind my earlier questions bigger.] This seems like an odd time to reminisce about a first meeting. Especially when the details it reveals don’t seem immediately relevant. Pg 2: First thought in C assuming that the figure is an assassin is that he’s paranoid. Maybe with good reason, but I don’t know enough about who he or his group are to know. I generally don’t trust people who approach burning towns with the intention of killing the first survivor they see, though. “The figure…a woman, C realized.” If it’s a “light frame” that is eventually indicating that she’s a woman, isn’t that something he would have noticed by the time he was close enough to see that she was armed? If he hadn’t gotten a clear gauge on size at first glance, was he likely to assume the assassin was a man until he got close enough to change his opinion, at which point, would his second guess be teenage boy or woman? Which is he more likely to assume for his assumed assassin? Probably whichever he perceives as more threatening. But which is that? This seems like another good chance to show us how he processes things, to see how he works from one guess to another as more information is added in. And how likely it is to have female assassins/fighters in this world. Also, I’m still not convinced that he had reason to assume that she was an assassin? I imagine that anyone who had managed to hide away from people burning her village down would be trying to stay out of the way upon seeing new riders coming in if she didn’t know who they were. And I wouldn’t blame her for being a little jumpy with her sword if that was the case. Pg 3: “Who are you?” – This seems like a bad time to be asking questions. Especially if it’s not important enough for him to hold off on killing her until he has at least tried to get an answer. Also, I don’t know if I just missed the detail above or if it wasn’t mentioned, but I hadn’t realized it was dark out. Pain-numbing swords seem very handy. Is the “light material” of the medallion metallic? Something stone-like? Bone-like? Is light referring to the color or the weight? Also, grabbing her belt knife to cut through the leather is probably going to be a lot easier than snapping it free. Depending on how thick the leather is, it’s likely going to take more than a “tug” to break it. [checking back after later thoughts. If he hasn’t put the sword away yet -because, pain- why not use that? Are there rules for proper use of magic swords? Or polite use, depending on how sentient they are?] Pg 4: A working with the field medics: Wasn’t she organizing a scouting party? I didn’t get the impression that C’s noticing the assassin and fighting her had taken that long. If she’s supposed to be organizing the setting up of camp and such, it seems odd that she’s off working with the medics. If she’s dealt with the scouts, gotten things organized, and is now moving on to another task, and he’s just wandering over, is blood loss going to be a bigger concern? Also, if they have medics, why is he looking for her when a medic seems more immediately necessary? “Made the fury burn stronger.” At the moment, the only thing I’ve gotten the impression that he’s angry about is that there was an assassin there. And that his horse had run off after being slashed at. Is this supposed to be righteous anger at the burning of the town? We’re assuming the Judge is some sort of god of death and judgment, based on C’s comments after his fight. Is there a reason A swears by him here instead of some other deity? Or why his beard is especially relevant? There doesn’t necessarily have to be, and if there is, we don’t need to know that here, but I think far too much about what people’s oaths and chosen swear words say about their perspective of the world, so I always ask these questions. “What happened…vital organs.” They skipped a bunch of basic first aid steps here. Especially if they have medics readily available. And if A is C’s second, I’m not sure why she’s trying her hand at stitching. She’d probably know basic first aid for emergencies, but if they have medics, they would be doing the real work. No reason for her not to report about the scouts while he’s being stitched, but I don’t get why she’s here instead of dealing with the scouts she’d gone to send out. “Sounded like the…we can’t be sure.” How close did they get? And what is the geography like around the village that prevented them from being spotted in the process? “slipped V back into its sheath” – I really like the magic sword so far. Makes me wonder what its full capabilities are. What makes them the way they are? Are there a lot of magical swords? Or is V special? If there are multiple ones, do different ones have different capabilities? Does he consider checking her sword to see if it’s also magical? Is the magic tied to the user/owner (and what if those are not the same people)? These questions don’t need in-text answers, but they are things that I am very curious about “Send a couple of scouts.” Wasn’t it the scouts that she’d sent that saw them? The “check it out” seems to conflict with “follow them.” My perception was that things had already been checked out. Also, “a couple” Seems vague for someone handing out orders. If he trusts her judgment over his own on the matter of how many is the best number, have him imply that. Her former spymastering might make that the case, depending on what all that involved. If it’s going to require certain skills, she’s likely to know who is most suited to the task of stealth in certain terrains. Hah. And getting to the next paragraph, I see that you already took care of my assumptions. Nice. This is exactly how I would have expected her to have acted given what we’d seen of her personality earlier (or at least how I was hoping to have her acting. I always enjoy practical, take care of what needs to be done characters). Might still be good to show his trust in her judgment before we find out that she already did what he expected. Maybe something along the lines of “If you haven’t already, choose a couple of people to follow them.” The questions about P seem really out of place here. Pg 5: “Last I heard…hear news soon.” This seems like something that she would have known already. Pigeons: Do C and company have a regular base of operations that pigeons would be flying to? I don’t know enough about the circumstances to know if they do more roving around or if this venture is an unusual case. A pigeon will go to where it was trained to go, but if that’s nowhere near the burned village, I have no idea what the communication delay on that might be. “recruit the ones who can fight” Where were these people in the opening? If any of them were in the village, why did C set off after the supposed-assassin because she looked suspicious if there were also other people wandering around? “We’ll need more men” I don’t have a good concept of how many men they have. Initially I thought it was a small group, but the addition of medics and scouts and mess tents makes it seem like more. Also, if A is here, my assumption was that there were other women as well. Also, the fact that they periodically refer to the group as “the boys” doesn’t seem to fit C or A’s personalities. “See that it’s taken care of.” If A is in the middle of something important, whether that’s helping the medics or doing whatever she is near the medics, this seems like a rather menial task to assign her. There has to be someone standing around who he would send off to find a horse. Even some random townsperson. Hope he didn’t have anything important in his saddlebags, and that the gear wasn’t valuable… “fires were finally put out by that evening” wasn’t it already dark out? I hadn’t expected C to be the type to wind down by sitting down and smoking a pipe in the evening. Pg 6: “Two hundred horse … open engagement” Seeing that many people from a distance seems like it would be pretty straightforward depending on terrain. The numbers and distances here all feel off. I don’t know enough to know what they should be, but I’d check with someone who does to make sure that they make sense. A’s response to the medallion contradicts what we’ve seen from her so far. I’d expect maybe some fear in her reaction, but not pale shakiness when she’d calmly surveyed the brutal destruction of the village with distaste. I’d expect more anger if anything, if she thinks she was in the right to act as she did. Or if she looks at their turning on her as a betrayal as well. Either way, I think we need to know more about the world before we can figure out where any of the new things she mentions fits. Pg 7: The conversation between A and C after this seems uncharacteristic for either of them. I still don’t have a good sense of his personality, but it certainly doesn’t seem warm and compassionate, and the impression of her that I got from the beginning (which I am clinging to because I like it. If he’s made her his second, it suggests a levelheadedness and steadiness in battle to deserve it.) doesn’t make her seem like the type to give in to fear and despair. Even if they are close enough to be a little more open with each other than out in the open, their personalities aren’t going to do a full 180. The pipe smoking also still seems out of place. Also, if he’s still in pain, expecting an attack, and generally had a long day, is he likely to remember to pull a necklace out of his pocket and ask about it? He thought it might be a clue, but had said specifically said that it didn’t seem familiar. I would think he’d be worrying about how to be preparing his people to defend their camp, should they be attacked. I’m curious about where things with the necklace go, but I don’t think we have enough knowledge about the world yet to make sense of the explanation she gives. “The sounds of fighting woke him.” Wouldn’t one of their scouts have seen a fighting group that size approaching with plenty of time to wake him up? Pg 8: “had no time” Nope. Put on that armor. How would he be likely to respond to the men he commands going this route? The military/battle mechanics seem off through this section, but I don’t know enough to call out specifics. There is a whole lot of information exchanged between C and R in their challenge that we have very little world-context to place any of it in. I’m not sure what the conversation between A&C accomplishes before the duel, and I think the duel itself could be trimmed down significantly. Closing comment: A seems to be very well-stocked on flasks. Overall thoughts: Dialogue: Overall, I didn’t notice anything especially problematic through the first day, except a couple lines in the final conversation between A and C that seemed to be aiming for some sort of accent or slang: “Like seein’ a ghost, that is” is the only one I’m finding now, but I thought there were a couple of others. These seem out of place. And when we jump to the duel, everything gets really wordy and overly formal. Not being problematic doesn’t make it interesting, though. I think really nailing down the characters’ personalities and determining what mannerisms and behaviors they tend toward would be helpful. What impact do their personalities have on how they describe things or how many words they bother to use at once? How does that change when they’re in public vs. private, stressed vs. at ease, etc. I don’t have enough sense of the MCs’ personalities to feel really attached to them at this point. Especially when the things that I did latch on to didn’t seem to be consistent later on. As someone who really likes character driven stories, not getting to know those characters makes it really tough for me to get invested in what they’re doing. And as someone who likes interesting world-building, I saw some details that seemed interesting, but they were introduced too quickly and without enough foundation for me to figure out how anything fit together. I think you tried to add in too many things at once without making sure that the underlying details of what we really need to know were solid. You brought in a lot of wider world details (P, the medallion background, lots of cities and titles that we don’t know anything about yet), without explaining the more immediate concerns (the battle with R) more clearly. I want to know more about the sword magic, especially, and about a few other world-building things as well, but it’s hard to create worlds from scratch, and its even harder to clearly explain them to others when some important underlying details aren’t necessarily relevant to the immediate conflict. I think it can be helpful to deal with it a scene at a time, or a conversation at a time, and figure out what world-knowledge is needed within just those lines. Once you have a clearer understanding of the absolute necessities, then you can find places where there might be room to add in important but less relevant details without bogging down the reader. Hope some of those thoughts are helpful! Thanks for sharing, and good luck!

Hello, All! I hope 2021 has started off well for everyone! This is the prologue for a novel that I’ve recently completed the first real full draft of (though parts of it have been through five or six major revisions by this point). I’ll be hoping to be submitting chapters regularly for feedback, but if anyone is interested in jumping in for a full alpha read at any point, I would love some commentary on more overarching plot details. Price of Peace is definitely a filler title at this point. Usually titles come to me pretty early on in a project, but this one’s been stubborn. After spending far too much time making lists of potential terms/ideas, my brain latched onto some alliteration and gave up. So we’ll see where that goes. It’s the first book in an epic fantasy trilogy (2 is roughly outlined, and 3 is outlined and partly written), probably on the edge of YA in primary character ages and content, but the scale and complexity I have in mind for the over-arching story is larger than I’d expect from most YA. As it goes forward, I’ll definitely be hoping for opinions on whether it feels like it needs to be shoved in one direction or another. Fortunately, I think Sanderson fans will have thoughts on that sort of thing (does anyone else’s library divide Sanderson’s books between YA and Fantasy sections mid-series?). Other than general thoughts and feelings, I’m looking for some feedback on what the prologue sets you up to expect going forward. I’d also like to know what does or doesn’t seem to work in regard to world-building and magic-system setup, and what information seems unnecessary or isn’t likely to stick in your head. I am still working on the pacing of introduction of political background information, but am too close to it at this point to know how much is too much to absorb on a first read. Mild language/gore. Thanks so much for reading! -Christen

That is amazing.

Hah! Gonna say. I have one cookie-making grandma and one who was very much not a cookie-making grandma. But neither would find many things worthy of pearl-clutching. I do have a friend who I could probably substitute in for the archetypal pearl-clutching granny, though, which will have to work. Thanks @Snakenaps That being said, you guys all pretty much repeated my own thoughts (I figured I was worrying about it more than I had to. But what else are brains for?). I mostly just figured it was worth checking before going with my default decision of being overcautious.

Do any of you have thoughts on when to tag submissions with things like gore or language when readers' tolerances for things can vary so much? I figure language is easy enough to just be overcautious and tag it for any occurrences, then specify mildness or severity in the intro. I see gore as harder to have an objective limit on, though. Are there rough standards that lost people here tend to follow, or do any of you have thoughts on how you choose what to tag for more subjective things? I am almost definitely overthinking this, but I figured I'd mention it in case this conversation has happened before and I just can't find it