The Constructive Criticism Thread

I just read the story, and what I have to say differs greatly from what war877 had to say.

First of all, I actually enjoyed the protagonist's voice and thought it was strong — to the point that if you added any more, it would actually be too strong and distract from the narrative. Keep an eye on it.

As for description, it was certainly sparse, but it felt in-character sparse. My comments on the gdoc point out some moments where there weren't enough, and I believe one where I felt there was too much. Of course, this all depends on how much of it will be important later. Important note: When adding description of the scene, focus on details that the character would notice due to their background, profession, personality, etc. That way, your setting exposition doubles as character exposition.

And yes, that does count as exposition. Just not in a bad way.

I didn't feel any problems with the hook, except that perhaps it came late. Think about why you're writing this story. Then think about why someone would read it. Think about what makes your setting, AND your character, AND your plot, unique. Then — and this is the hard part — hint at all of these, or as many as possible, in your first sentence. It's okay to add this later, but for now, you can put [add great first sentence here] at the beginning of the story. Seriously.

To address your points:

• Yes, it feels like something is happening. The problem is, I only understand about half of it. (See comments.)
• Yes. Not just because I don't know a lot of what's going on, but because what I do know makes me wonder what will happen next. Great job.
• I do like how this story starts; it gradually clues me in as to what's going on. It just doesn't clue me in as to all of the stuff that's going on. And the action scene feels unnecessary (and I all but missed it, too.)
• Some description can be added. For instance, you would describe a "blue sky, filled with white puffy clouds" even though those are normal. Just don't add them in the middle of a scene, because that will break up the momentum. All else being equal, you can fix it in post.

I made a couple changes to some of the descriptions last night and showed the Mistress telling Yinae to go hang the painting up in light of the comments that Pablo left.

It might actually work to my advantage somewhat to have his voice just stay the way it is, at least until the first quarter/third of Part ii, when everything changes, including our protagonist's perception of this part of his life. He does mention when he meets the two police officers that he has no memories of his life before the Mistress. (Which is to say he has no memories from before three years ago. I would have mentioned this, but, again, I was too afraid of distracting the reader away from whatever was happening right now.)

So that means I'd have to hook either with an interesting event, or an interesting character. Which brings me to...

I think it's possible (not workable as a deliberate story element, just possible) to have a viewpoint character whose spoken dialogue is distinct and whose personality comes out in their actions or something like that, but who narrates and describes things very blandly or not at all. I'm not saying that's the case here or that even if it is, that makes it okay, but I thought that if his personality was coming out anywhere, it was in his dialogue, or maybe during that second half.

Most of the past critiques I've gotten on earlier drafts of this chapter, which I posted to /r/fantasywriters (a subreddit, if you're not familiar with Reddit), specifically wanted me to get rid of everything before the police raid and start there, because it's obviously what my whole story is actually about. I won't bore you with too many details, but the only critique I've seen people get about their openers over there is how early and strongly they grabbed your attention, and their direct, immediate (as in temporal) relevance to the plot. It's like their go-to quick-and-dirty fix for not-super-dynamic openings. I've seen complaints about people starting their stories with something like sparring specifically because it's not high-stakes action, and I remember one submission that started with a very strong image of a fire, but then the critic balked when it turned out that the viewpoint character was only recalling the fire, and that it wasn't happening right now. For a place that's supposedly crawled by a number of published writers, I'm not impressed anymore.

Starting fast and diving straight into the plot is fine if you're writing a story driven primarily by driving adventure, mortal peril, and physical conflicts like 95% of the critique submissions I've seen there. It's not if you're writing a story that boils down to a guy trying to find his place in the world, but without combat or mortal peril being a huge part of the plot. They also told me that I needed to keep the pace going fast, and whenever I think about describing something, I hear them going, "why does it matter at all that she pulled it off a shelf? Why does it matter right now that Yinae has tattoos? Why does it matter that Seniya's studio is covered in tarps?" and so on.

Which brings me to an idea about how I could start this story and tie this chapter more strongly and obviously to the main plot- make use of Risa's comparison of him to a disgruntled stallion. It doesn't really mess up any future events to make him a bit more openly rebellious throughout this chapter- not as in really changing anything he does, just indicating that he believes certain actions the rest of us wouldn't even think about, like stopping for a moment to take in the atmosphere, would be rebellion in the Mistress's eyes. He's unhappy that all of Shiahab's customers are 'lowlifes' now, and the Mistress has been trying for three years to shove him into various personae (like how Osua is the 'smart girl') with little success. In a way, stopping to wonder about things like flowers and simply feeling better after looking out a skylight is a sort of rebellion, since he doesn't think she wants any of her Sodrei to notice the outside world.

A big roadblock with trying to tie this start to the main plot has been the fact that the protagonist is deliberately kept in the dark about so much stuff, albeit for reasons that are consistent with the Mistress's motives (which he's also kept in the dark about and tries to infer later on). Except this part of his life can't really be flashed back to or thought about later because of that perspective shift, and the whole situation leads up to a big reveal in Part ii that he's not happy about, and which drives him to leave and go carve out his own place in the world, the primary driver of the whole rest of his story. A secondary driver of the plot is reconciling the contrast between how he felt about working for the Mistress while he was actually doing that, and how he feels about that situation once he's out of it and has his perspective widened.

And that's if having him describe the Underlands a bit (the height of the ceilings, that the skylight is some kind of shallow dome, and that pretty much all of the buildings are boxy white fiberglass inside and out) is still a necessity, or at least could be made to not detract too much from the start. And if the description is needed, it'd have to come near the start or at least before he meets with Seniya, since he's feeling a bit frantic the rest of the time he's outside. Franticness which probably needs to be shown more clearly, too.

And thank you for the feedback, Pablo. I was working on this post last night and you kinda ninja'd me, but in a good way. One question, though.

You're talking about the police raid, right? Could you elaborate on why you think it feels unnecessary- do you find it unnecessary to the overall plot, unnecessary to show, or unnecessary for some other reason? By 'miss', do you mean that you weren't sure what was going on because the pace was too fast or the actions weren't agreeing, or was it not clear why it was happening?

edited 3rd Jun '16 8:11:25 AM by CrystalGlacia

It's not that the police raid itself is unnecessary, just that I feel like it doesn't really need to be played as an action scene but instead to advance character and plot directly. Try writing it from the point of view of the police, not to put that version in your book, but to help you understand what's going on so you can convey what's really important. I can't tell a lot of what's going on there.

So how do I help here? Do I need to help Glacia too while their 1 week's not up? I'm glad to help, but I might not be able to be around for too long.

I've been working on a story (might come in a few chapters comic or novel, dunno, but I'm definitely not gonna get sequels, at least for these characters) about a world where suddenly out of nowhere, a good fraction of humanity recieves 3 distinct sets of superpowers/magic/whatever (dubbed the miracle surge). Take note this happens in near-future Earth, like a few years away from now. there'll be also another superpower surge (with 3 more sets of superpowers), and that's not spoilers because it happens maybe near the midpart. The fraction of people getting the superpowers scale up with the local population density, from 0% in African tribes to 45% in NYC.

The story revolve around a (not so young) couple, both 25 and work as managers in the same food company in Kyoto, Japan. Let's call them John and Pepper (Yohanan and Dzuhomi). and the Kyoto part is important since there's a good amount of Christians there and I want to write this 'story' around that part, also they're not as busy as Tokyo. They both are Christians (Catholic and Orthodox to be exact), but they only recently got married since the Orthodox and Catholic Churches were also joined recently. They will serve as the characters for audience to relate to, but really since almost nobody (except few guys) knows about anything, everyone should be able to relate to the audience (or vice versa).

I've been trying to write maybe a Fantasy-Mystery-Character Development genred story (think Attack on Titans) around those ideas mentioned above, but I don't think I can deliver an exposition slowly and in a way that'll hook up audience (What're they gonna find out next???) without overdoing the 'one character explaining everything in a way that the audience will act like idiots trying to translate his sentences into English' kind of way. Also I don't really like having a big bad character running around destroying everything, either. The main point of getting Christianity (especially Catholicism) into this is to emphasize (or for audience to interpret, because indoctrination is quite difficult to do right) that no man is perfect but the Christ, but he'll reward you for at least trying to be good, and I'll make no clear distinction on the absolute good and absolute bad. Everyone gets their share of good and bad, with only some getting more dessert than main course. Can you guys please help me try and hit the right plot points for John and Pepper to solve the mystery from behind their desks? (or after work hours) (hopefully with some action involved).

Okamoto Yohanan (John): starts out as bored, irresponsible, stern and envious all the time, but is a charming sweettalker. Ends up as a dignified, virtuous, caring man, but is demanding and quite hesitant in doing dangerous things. His only superpower is slow healing, and that's it. He can use it for himself, too. He's too much into his managing work to go around healing people left and right before his shift is done, but he will go healing and investigating after work hours.

Okamoto Dzuhomi (Pepper): has an inferiority complex, calm, blunt, very-not-observant, curious, extra-obedient, caring yet ruthless when mad (yes, even to her husband), and the only thing she can do is sword-handling (no, not katanas, machete, or that sword between Yohanan's legs, but the European longsword) and overlooking a group of people. May be great as the team mama, but I dunno. Her superpower is that her genes unlocked glyoxylate cycle, but that's it. (it means she can create glucose from fat in her body, whereas most animals can only do the opposite, yet fungi and plants can create glucose from fat too) and again, that's it. Ends up more happy-go-lucky, protective and grateful. She also has super thick eyebrows and brain surgery scar, it'll be important later.

Take note that their 'superpowers' are nothing compared to their comrades, and that they'll serve as pseudo-side characters, I'll add later but I have a flight scheduled a few hours so bye.

edited 3rd Jun '16 8:59:09 AM by legonut031

Exposition: As the rules lawyer here, I have to come down quite firm that scene description does not count as exposition. It counts as description. One of the other rhetorical modes. I think it is actually rather important to be aware of the distinction, as they develop different problems and have different solutions.

There are other ways to do it as well. Having the viewpoint character's dialogue differ significantly from their first person narration is not really an option.

Reddit: Wait. They wanted you to start at the police raid? Either they don't understand fiction writing, or your chapter has changed massively between then and now.

Tying the start to the main plot: Sometimes I word things poorly. You may want to tie the start of the story to the main plot anyway, but it is optional. The hook is advertising, plain and simple.

Sorry for maybe being confusing about that.

If you are talking about tying the entire first chapter to the plot, I have a very different answer. You absolutely need to do this. But: You already are. You have introduced mysteries in the first chapter.

Description: This is really a matter of artistic style. But if you want an opinion, I would add only the following details. An article or two of furniture to the artists studio, and also the entrance to Shiabab's place, and also the kitchen. But mentioned, not described. Two sentences to the description of L2, to get a feel for the size of the place. The height and the size of the skylight.

Although: If you feel that you need to demonstrate more hurriedness as he is moving through L2, fitting the necessary description in might be harder, to the point where I would drop some of it. I might reduce my recommendation of two sentences down to two adjectives.

The action scene: I want to say two things about this. First, I did not find the action scene to be necessary. But I did not find the action scene to be unnecessary either. It felt well done and fit well. I assume it serves a small job in the greater plot as well. And it helps us see his personality, and hints to his backstory.

Second: You only have one action scene. But you have three other scenes with moderate action in them. The scene before the combat, where he is running around. The scene in the kitchen where the orders and memory erasure occurred. And the scene with the confrontation of two police officers under time pressure. This is what I mean by the action in your story.

Read the rules! Don't post your story if it's someone else's turn; Crystal Glacia's turn doesn't end until the sixth. At that point, we consult the list over on at Sandbox.Con Crit Thread to see who goes next. That's where you would add your story if you want to be critiqued. On the other hand, if you help us critique this story, then you get to jump the queue and take your turn next.

You don't need to review anyone's stuff in order to get reviewed. But you will need to wait your turn. That post you made up there? More appropriate once your turn comes up.

Add your name to the list linked in the stickied post and wait.

edited 3rd Jun '16 9:10:18 AM by war877

Regarding the police raid and its effectiveness as a scene and advancer of plot:

After taking Pablo's suggestion that I run through everything that the police knows when they head over to Shiahab, there's really only two points of confusion that I'm not making obvious enough in the text of the story.

The first is that the police are actually there for two reasons. The first reason is obvious- prostituting Sodrei is illegal. Because Pavia wasn't actively abusing her Sodrei, they made Shiahab lower priority and just sent her notices in the mail every week that if she surrendered them peacefully, she'd get a reduced prison sentence. She ignored this, and now it's been a solid month. But the second reason is quite urgent- it's directly related to Yinae in particular, and it's what really got them to head out to Shiahab. It's also a massive spoiler for the reveal in Part ii. The only reason why Maumid doesn't say it is because he doesn't have time, and he knows Yinae's in no state to understand this second reason. Not only because he's been hit with five times the recommended dose of antimagical tranquilizer, but also because Yinae doesn't have any memories from before he met the Mistress that would give this second reason actual meaning.

And the second point of confusion is probably worldbuilding-related, likely regarding the bit where the Mistress has to prove Yinae's 'sworn' to her. I've been gradually trying to introduce what Yinae and subsequently the Sodrei/Rivari are throughout this chapter by just introducing one big aspect of them, the aspect that sets them apart from other races the most- they feel compelled to do what certain other people tell them to do, and couldn't disobey if they tried. I changed it so Maumid mentions 'oaths of servitude' instead of just 'oaths', for starters, but the Sodrei/Rivari are a really complex part of my worldbuilding. Being one of these 'servant' people also features as a part of himself that the protagonist tries to deal with throughout his whole story.

@War, post #980:

I think it's a mix of the two. What you're looking at is the third draft- I had the first two critiqued on Reddit. The first draft actually did open with a shitty, extremely rushed version of the police raid that had virtually no description, but only because I had no idea what I was doing, and I was just kind of throwing words at the page until I had an epiphany while writing the third chapter that made me decide on the low-key character-finds-his-place-in-the-world plot. I got one critique on this first draft that complained the pace was too fast and to start earlier and more gently, but some others took what I had as a rough, but semi-accurate representation of my story and I guess ran with it.

When I submitted the second draft a month later, which started during Yinae's walk home (except he hadn't been told that his job was illegal, so he was much calmer), the critiques I got on that amounted to people not taking my mention in the OP of a 'complete plot overhaul' seriously, and people assuming that I was writing something else. The primary complaint was that absolutely nothing happened until the police raid, and that the only thing that people were interested in was Yinae's 'arrest'. (Avoiding this misconception was the initial reason why I specifically had Maumid tell him he wasn't being charged with anything.)

I think people read the fast pace of the first draft, did what most readers would do and thought, 'oh, the rest of the story's going to be like this,' and then read the second draft and assumed I had taken several colossal steps backward by starting what they thought was going to be a fast-paced action-packed crime thriller with a sullen walk home. In their defense, that is a common rookie mistake... if you're actually writing an action-packed adventure. It just gets me that they jump straight to 'gotta go fast' and don't stop to consider that maybe I'm not writing that.

When I tried to clarify that that was not what I was writing, I got silence. I don't know if they're just not used to seeing submissions that aren't action-adventure or what, but for a place that's supposedly frequented by some published writers and is overall focused on publishing, I'm not impressed.

@Legonut: You don't have to critique me if you don't want to- not everyone is comfortable doing that. (Not that I'll be unhappy if you give it a look, but I understand that you're busy travelling somewhere.) You should really read the first post of the thread, however- it's been pinned to the top of each page of this thread.

But I must ask- have you written any of this story yet? The mentions in your post of how your characters 'will' serve a given role kind of implies that you're just trying to work through concepts before you start writing. Which is... technically not what this thread is for. Mostly because concepts are cheap and it's easy to come up with lots of big, intricate ideas, but as you may have seen over the course of my turn, it can be pretty hard to actually put them into practice when you write the story. I've been messing around with this story for a solid year now, I've been practicing writing in general for five years, and I'm still not quite there yet.

edited 3rd Jun '16 5:30:33 PM by CrystalGlacia

I didn't get confused about either point of confusion there. I didn't find anything in the work confusing, really. In addition, I am a very bad judge of what most people will understand. So I can't help with that.

I can say, however, that you should be writing to multiple audiences. You want your entire audience to feel smart when they read your story. This means creating a base narrative everyone can understand complete with some rather obvious mysteries and clues to those mysteries, and also subtler stuff, for your more observant audience.

Action: I don't know where they are getting their books from, but solid wall to wall action never works in books. It almost never works in live action.

Your first chapter has, by ratio, amounts of action I would expect from an action adventure. Based on what you say, I expect the average amount of action to go down, but having a little extra action in the first chapter is usually a good thing.

And having a buildup is essential.

(Sorry for the late reply. I had to do yardwork this morning, I'm really out of shape, and I ended up sleeping most of a precious day of critique away. -_-)

Pablo, I did reply to some of the comments you left on the doc for clarification, in addition to directly addressing a few in the text. If you or someone else could look those over to see if my alterations address those concerns satisfactorily and answer those questions I asked over there, that'd be great.

And was that De Marquis who also left comments on the doc? He expressed in one of the comments that he was going to say something in this thread. I'd like to hear that if possible, but I understand if plans for that fell through.

I am addressing confusion as to how the police raid fits into the story, namely identifying that I don't seem to be putting enough emphasis on or hinting strongly enough at the two points in my last post. Even the fact that he broke someone's leg with his bare hands, and can grapple, and knows where you should hit people, and knows how to fight at all, but seems to have learned this from someone other than his current Mistress serves as a major hint. My current plan is to rewrite the first page, at least the stuff from before he gets to Seniya's studio, to be a combination of description of the Underlands and Yinae also mentioning in the narrative that simply looking at the floors of the Underlands passing by in the elevator enough to feel an emotional reaction is a mild and petty form of rebellion against his boss, and the loss of customers that he's unhappy about.

The loss of customers is, of course, because his job is illegal, which the Mistress has been hiding from him and goes so far as to wipe his memories of so as not to interfere with the spoiler for chapter 2. And Yinae's noticing his surroundings in the first place on his own because he's different from his coworkers- indicated by their confused reactions to him mentioning that he feels better when he looks at the sky -differences which are also directly related to the chapter 2 spoiler.

But specifically, I was addressing these remarks.

I was intending to do things other than show our protagonist kicking the shit out of police, but those critiques tell me that I didn't make those other things clear enough.

This is exactly what I've been needing to hear- that I don't need to go straight from zero to kicking the shit out of police, and that if my redo of the opening is done right, sane readers probably won't instantly balk when the rest of the story is driven by lower-key events. Reddit fucked me up, man.

I should note, however, that when I've mentioned 'action' or 'action-adventure', I'm referring to stories that are driven primarily by combat and at least the immediate possibility of violence, such as thrillers that follow characters who do illegal things that carry a real risk of potentially getting their asses kicked if they're caught, or classic Heroic Fantasy and High Fantasy that centers around gathering an adventuring party to kill a dark lord and save the world or something like that. This story has room for two violent scenes- the police raid, and one more much later on.

So getting across that this story really is driven primarily by conversations, nonviolent activities, changing relationships, and emotional conflict (both shown onscreen and off) is doubly important. So the revision to the opener I describe above should help. And it's a minor change with no real alterations to events. That's what I really get concerned about, is needing to drastically change events.

edited 5th Jun '16 12:09:31 AM by CrystalGlacia

I think pablo literally meant that he didn't understand some of what was going on in that scene. Not that he didn't understand the role of the scene. Although he also said that in another sentence. (Not to be putting words into anyone's mouth.)

And I followed up that statement with the claim that it hints to his backstory as well. Not to mention, there are usually many scenes in a book that don't make sense from a Doylist perspective until later scenes shed light on them. This is why I used the wording 'I assume'. I don't know the rest of the plot yet.

It sounds like you are planning on adding new stuff to your narrative.

My experience is limited to fantasy fiction. I am unfamiliar with the first type of thriller you are talking about, but I am still quite sure wall to wall action is bad for reasons of human psychology.

I see no reason for you to alter the major events in your story at this time.

I think I'll skim your draft once more later tonight. But you have pretty much squeezed me for all my useful advice already.

"And was that De Marquis who also left comments on the doc?"

Not I, I just finished reading your story. I dont have that much to add to the extensive comments of the others. Just a couple of quick points:

Since I didn't know what a "ligature mark" was before I read about it here, that clue went right over my head. You should describe what it is anyway, without naming it. "rough chaff marks showing blue where the blood was seeping through" would have made it clear he wasn't human, and provided some visual imagery.

As far as characterization is concerned, the painter is an interesting key character that we don't get to know well enough. Her studio should be a reflection of her personality. It occurs to me that she's the one to tell him the truth about his profession, even though she is guilty of utilizing his services. If what is being done to him is unethical now, it was unethical then, and that makes her a conflicted person, right? I feel that should be reflected in her paintings somehow. I dont know enough about art to spell it out, but somehow her art should contain elements that dont seem to match, or that compete with each other somehow. Garishly contrasting colors, maybe?

Yinae's interactions with the other sex slaves is confusing me. Descriptions do not seem to match actions. He thinks Risa's a hypocrite, but she doesn't do anything hypocritical. She claims he bellyaches, but we dont see him doing that. This extends to the others as well. Telir isnt lacking in originality, and Janae doesnt act shy or delicate. It isnt until we get to Osua and her encyclopedic knowledge that actions begin to match descriptions. Either these are all informed traits, or you are trying to set up a contrast that I'm missing completely. You might want to go over his part of the manuscript, and see what you can to do clarify things.

And then there's Pavia. What motivates her? What kind of person is she, really? If you spelled it out somewhere, I missed it. I do get the impression that rather than evil, she's somehow self-deluded. We need more clues. Her conversation with the protag toward the end would be the perfect place for that.

Your description of the setting is fine. All I need to know is that it's some sort of sci-fi space type thing, and anything beyond that doesn't contribute to the plot. In fact I would delete reference to the floating cars, it's a distracting detail that doesn't contribute anything. Otherwise your setting description is good.

Your plot and pacing is excellent. It was slow at first, but that's mostly because I didn't know what ligature marks are. Clarify that, and I think you get the pacing near perfect.

That leaves your handling of the theme. I forget the trope for this, "What measure is a human?" or something like that. Your handling of this is excellent as well. Overall it's a well-told story that makes it's point. I enjoyed reading it.

I hope these comments were helpful.

There is a commenter on the doc named Marquis Hill who specifically mentioned that they had things to tell me in this thread about the way I handled the indirect internal dialogue, but they haven't done that yet. I could easily tell who was Pablo and who was War, but that was really dumb of me to assume that just because you frequent this thread sometimes and there's a commenter on my doc with a somewhat similar name, that you were the elusive third commenter. I apologize, I still appreciate the critique anyways, but that's pretty embarrassing. D:

Yeah, I'll see what I can do about that.

At the time, it didn't occur to many until those policies were enacted that the use of a Servant Race- that compulsively follows the orders of a particular person regardless of whether they agree with those orders or not -in the sex industry was unethical. It is unethical chiefly because they can have their thoughts and desires changed so that they apparently want to consent to all sex, which kind of turns present-day Earthen concepts of consent on their head. I guess I was kind of playing her thoughts about the situation like situations where people know someone for a short time and don't realize until long after they feel they can do anything about it that something really shitty was going on with their personal lives. (Like some of the interviewees in Carrie, who expressed that only in hindsight did they realize that Carrie's situation was really bad yet they didn't do anything about it, if you've read that.) I should try playing that up.

Maybe she read the reasons behind the new policies at the time when they were enacted, went 'oh shit it's possible that I had five people gangbanged' but got too busy with her own life to check. And now one of those prostitutes has come to her door and reminded her of her mistake. I'll play around with it a little, maybe slip in a few words. I don't believe her conflicted feelings are a super-integral part of her character that need to be shown in her life's work, since, as I said, it's a relatively new addition to her personality.

The 'hypocrite' description is a new one- could you tell me what gave you that impression? I'm playing off of the notion that the average person is likely to consider the mere idea of being stuck in sex slavery to be absolutely horrible, except Yinae's relatively okay with the concept, and she's blowing his comparatively minor concerns about his situation way out of proportion. She's using the fact that he's massaging his wrists as an excuse to bitch, since it was his last customer who tied his wrists together. That customer is part of the 'new' customers Yinae's been getting that he's not happy about, and Risa is fully aware of this and doesn't think he has a right to complain about being tied up by a customer, or for that matter, any of the customers he labels as lowlife trash.

Yeah, maybe their personalities aren't strong enough. I was considering inserting a bit of narration where they even talk in a specific order (Janaya shyly asks a question, Osua answers, Talir attempts to be brash) but I couldn't work out a natural way to fit it in. Yinae also believes that their interpretations of their personae are shallow and at the very least repetitive. Janaya could be remedied by making her stammer a little bit more like a Shrinking Violet from a bland high school anime (which could work to my advantage if this also comes across as irritating because none of the other four are planned to show up in the story past this chapter).

And with regards to Talir, it seems to me that he just missed the point of the rest of the conversation just to say something not very nice under the guise of 'speaking his mind'. I added a small line that Yinae finds it unoriginal because he's used similar remarks before and runs jokes into the ground (that nobody else notices) which I guess we'll have to take his word on.

That is part of the mystery- she's deliberately hiding most of her motives from the protagonist. A mystery that doesn't get revealed in full to the protagonist until the first part of a big reveal in chapter 2. Yinae's kind of forced to like her despite that she seems out of touch with reality, Risa's been groomed into being her toady and has been having reservations about her motives regarding Yinae from the start, Seniya thought she was merely a generally okay person who just happens to be a pimp, the other three prostitutes take her words as gospel, and the police see her as a criminal in more ways than one.

Although she does already seem to be playing her motives as a desire to make him 'perfect'. I could slip in a sentence.

(Minor nitpick: outer space plays no role in the worldbuilding at this point. Not that Yinae would even realize it, if it was.)

I don't fully agree. There are three references to cars in this chapter- the first is when Yinae is looking out the skylight, the second is Talir going 'can you even see the sky, it's just cars', and the third is the police van hovering away. My thinking is that it would be useful to establish a small bit of (maybe dramatic) Irony with Yinae finding the little bits of sky he can see through the levitating cars uplifting, followed by Talir unintentionally calling back to this detail by stating that cars are the only thing you can see when you look at the sky through a skylight. And I feel like it should be established at some point before Talir's line that all cars fly in this part of the world, so it's clear that Talir's not referring to some kind of weird version or arrangement of the opaque roads we're used to, and also to at least make it clear that the police van and cruisers are not unique because they hover.

This is the exact theme I'm aiming for. That's pretty sweet, thanks!

War, thanks for the second look. I expect that a lot of the major remaining issues will be fixed when I get the first page rewritten. It's really nice to know what I'm doing right. Pablo, War, De Marquis, Marquis Hill, you guys have helped me a ton. Thanks.

A ligature mark is rather obscure. I bet the less accurate rope marks would get more people. But there is something to be said for sophistication.

Since the three other ones have relatively little screen time this chapter, I did not find it surprising that those are mainly informed traits, although the dialogue they gave was in line with your descriptions.

Oh, wait, you're throwing them away? If they don't appear after this chapter, having informed traits is no problem. Demonstrated traits are only important for important characters.

I don't see how the cars are distracting. How do they distract? Would hovercars be less distracting?

So, I finished reading your draft a second time. I think that you, with minimal changes applied corrections to most of my concerns rather completely.

Except at the start, which you say you will rewrite.

Looks like my turn ended about an hour ago. Thanks a ton, everybody! I'll give everything a second look, and any other inquiries should go to my PM box.

Any of you have anything you want critiqued, or is Snowy Foxes up?

I P Med her that it's her turn. No clue if she'll respond though.

Hi y'all, got the PM. I'm going to bed right now but I'm putting together a list of concerns for what I'm planning to share here.

Well, here we go, I guess.

Enthalpy is the first book of the Entropy series, a Gaslamp Fantasy story about young adults who are totally unprepared to save the world but find themselves playing major roles in huge conflicts anyway. That's... about it. I'm bad at summaries, so I'll just let the chapter speak for itself.

My number one concern with this—and my writing in general lately—is the fact that for a long time, the only people I've been able to get feedback from are people who are already familiar with my writing style and/ or Entropy to some degree. If you are one of those people and you're reading this, I love you and I appreciate everything you've done, but I'm sure you understand the value of fresh opinions, especially with an opening chapter.

Similarly, if you hang out in the Character Development Threads, you already know things about the Entropyverse. Because this is Chapter One, prior familiarity is going to make a real difference in your impressions, so I'm going to request that you not do a detailed critique of this unless you've never interacted with my characters and paid zero attention to my posts.

I've said this probably a billion times, but writing openings is my greatest weakness. I'm really hoping I don't have to come up with an entirely different opening scenario again, because I actually really like where I'm starting this time and I already have 75% of the rest of the draft written and I have a clear idea of what to do with the remaining 25%.

Please use the Google Docs suggestion feature to correct typos, suggest rewording, etc.

Also, yes, I know "Common" is a lazy name for a language. It's a placeholder, I promise. I build conlangs at a glacial pace.

And if it bugs you as much as it bugs me, I apologize if there are any straight quotes mixed with smart quotes in there. I did do some touch-ups in Google Docs after I copy-pasted from the file on my hard drive, and Google Docs doesn't do smart quotes as far as I know.

Here be the link.

Highlight the following spoilers after you're done reading to see my specific concerns. I may come up with more questions later. For some reason I feel like I'm forgetting something.

Since this was a point of confusion for a surprising number of past readers, let me just get this out of the way: Renesians reject the gender binary that we're familiar with, but that doesn't mean they aren't sexually dimorphic. I'm kind of amused by the number of people who've worriedly asked me how Renesians manage to reproduce without genitals.

The excerpts before the chapter proper have proven somewhat controversial with readers. Opinions range from "helpful and cool" to "horrible infodump, please stop." And some people are just ambivalent.

These excerpts, which were inspired by the Bioshock audio diaries, are meant to serve one of two purposes. Sometimes they end up doing both. The first is to provide insight into some important characters. The second is to provide the kind of exposition that I find difficult to integrate in the rest of the chapter because it's something that the narrator wouldn't normally comment on. For example, it'd be a little contrived if I had Seilaan comment on Renesian genders or what Renesians in general look like until Angelus shows up, maybe, because then I could set up a contrast. But Angelus doesn't show up until pretty late in the chapter, so I'd rather not.

Exposition is a tricky thing for me in general. I just have a hard time deciding what information goes where. Bleh.

Out of all the main characters, Seilaan is probably the hardest for me to write. I've only recently gotten a handle on her… I think… probably. I'd like you to try to describe her so I can see how close/ off the mark I am to making her come off the way I want to. Also want to know if you like her, find her interesting, etc.

edited 8th Jun '16 4:19:30 PM by SnowyFoxes

So I'm just going to comment on some littler things I noticed despite my familiarity with your stuff, and not really on overall aspects- partially because you asked, and mostly because I don't really have much to say about those things. (Seriously, don't be put off by the length of my post when you open the folder.) Like, I'm not going to comment on the plot, or whether I'd keep reading or not because I've been watching your characters for, like, five years now and I already know a good few of them. But some stuff did jump out at me. These aren't necessarily bad things or things that need fixing unless I say they are, but they might be useful for you to know if you're trying to see how many people might be bothered by something.

edited 9th Jun '16 7:59:59 AM by CrystalGlacia

I'm sure you are forgetting something. Like allowing suggestions if you do want people to make them.

^ ... I shouldn't use the Internet right after I wake up. I didn't realize you were talking about Google Docs suggestions for a full minute. That was a very un-fun and stressful minute.

Anyway, I think that's fixed now.

^^ Thank you, I do see this, but I won't have time to give it a good reading until later this morning.

edited 9th Jun '16 7:23:54 AM by SnowyFoxes

Oh, that is me being vague again. Sorry. I will now go back to reviewing the document.

Speaking of, Do you want me to correct any she in the document?

edited 9th Jun '16 7:51:13 AM by war877

^ Go ahead. Sorry about not catching those. I slip up with some character's pronouns because some of them do have genders and use other pronouns in Common.

Going through CG's post and will be responding later, I just wanted to respond quickly to war.

Hey Snowy. I just created an account yesterday after binging on TV tropes for a few hours, so I should be a pretty decent sample of a new reader. I’m going to start with my own observations and look at your concerns afterwards, so we can see if what I naturally notice runs parallel to your concerns. The first thing I noticed is that you established that Renesians do not acknowledge gender, and Colonel Xue’s first pronoun is ‘they’, so I assume you were following that rule. But the very next line the Colonel is referred to as ‘her’. This makes me slightly confused. Is this a slip up, or is gender acknowledged in certain words but not in others? I noticed the use of the word ‘man’ and ‘his’ as well. I must admit using ‘they’ as a pronoun for individuals was tripping me up at first, but the more I read the more natural it became. The more jarring moments were when you broke your own rule. I kept looking for some significant detail as to why the rule was broken in each instance, and never found it. EDIT: I see now from comments that they were slip ups.

Overall I think the story worked fairly well. It left me with a great deal of questions, which is a good thing for a first chapter to do.

I’ll list a few of the things I was left curious about, because it’s useful to know what implicit promises readers might feel you’re making: More elaborate world building details. What is the national situation? How and why are they keeping their entire nation a secret—to avoid war? I want to see more of this culture to better understand who they are, as well as see what these other nations are like. There is both magic and technology in this story. How do both of them work? What kinds of things can they do? Do they interact? What exactly did Angelus do to the protagonist? Who is Wilhelm? I’m also curious to see if/how the protagonist becomes a witch. Just to give you a basic snapshot of the kinds of things a new reader might be wondering as you proceed with your story. Several of them are basic story questions I assume you are certainly going to answer. The world building questions are the ones that could be more easily screwed up, as you want to keep leaving things for me to wonder about so I stay curious. At the same time I want a clear picture of what this world looks and feels like, and I don’t think I have that yet (although that is understandable as I just dipped my toe in).

On to your specific concerns:

I can assure you that I was aware throughout that Renesians had genitals.

As far as the starting excerpts went, I suppose I am of mixed feelings. (This seems a good place to mention I like the use of titles “Enthalpy” and ‘System Anomaly’. As someone going into this blind, getting hints that there is fairly high level technology in the setting is useful. There’s nothing more disorienting than thinking you’re in a swords and horses fantasy only to discover that it was urban fantasy or science fiction or steampunk. Those initial hints are crucial.) You’re starting excerpts tell me that Pallonians want to make the world adopt their culture, and seem to be preparing for war to accomplish this goal. I also learned a few basic points about Renesians, the most notable point being their take on gender. There is something of a hook in these excerpts because it implies a war is coming, but I think it might be more dynamic if you asked yourself not only “what necessary information am I imparting?”, but also “In what ways am I stimulating the curiosity of readers?” I can immediately tell that war is imminent from the text, so it’s not really a mystery. Books that use excerpts at the beginning of new sections and chapters effectively will often give me something of a mystery to chew on. If I am curious about something that will slowly be revealed to me as the story progresses, those kinds of excerpts become more compelling and keep it from feeling like an info dump. As it is I feel that you are playing the middle ground. You are using the advantages of excerpts to help with establishing your world building, but you are not more deeply integrating them to the story. My advice would be to consider them more significant story points. Or just cut them completely.

Describing Seilaan from memory: Young. Female. Somewhat wild, based off of her wanting to spar, but that’s blended with youthful insecurities and attention to protocol. Her youth is accented by repeated thoughts regarding her parents approval and by her drifting in and out of focus, revealing how she’s controlled by her boredom. She has some dark past that isn’t fully explained, which is a good hook. I liked her well enough. She didn’t exactly leap off the page for me, but she didn’t bother me either. I think you are very good at conveying character through subtext: all the little ways they speak and think and move. Perhaps if you took a harder look at conveying character traits through dynamic action you would create a stronger character introduction and feel more confident about Seilaan as a whole? I am mostly spit balling here because you specifically asked.

I hope some of this was useful to you. As I said I just joined, so if there is some etiquette I neglected it wasn’t intentional.

Initial thoughts:
The early part took me a long time to read through. What this means is... um... I'm not exactly sure.

I suppose it could mean that there was too much description, but I don't think that is the case. It could mean that the description is obtuse. But it didn't feel like obtuse description.

This prince(ss) is way out of character for a formal monarch. Such a character would not be allowed to choose their own clothing on such an excursion, without at least the input of a dozen advisors. Nor would they dare smile to a group of soldiers they were inspecting so casually.

Now I know what you are going to say. This is not an earth kingdom. It is a very different kind of kingdom and this all makes sense in context. I agree.

With the two prologues. It feels like you are dropping some anvils early. I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish with them.

She has such a casual voice. I must say, I was not expecting royalty to speak with such a lack of sophistication. That goes double for female royalty. Of course, this is also the first work I read narrated by a royal person.

And for the second half of the chapter, I can't find as much to comment about. It was reasonably well put together.

I would like to point out that currently, your protagonist has the informed trait of being a scientist. They actually come off as more of a jock.

The spoilered questions:

1. I see. Nope. I got it.
2. Sign me up for I don't see the reason for them.
3. Yeah, no need to move the content in those prologues into the chapter proper. Just delete them.
4. Exposition: When in doubt, delete.
5. Wait, she is the viewpoint character, right? Are you going to be switching characters between chapters?

CG's critique:
If you have questions, I am non-cis.

Yep. The timestamps were confusing. I would follow the story and hope more clues for decoding the time stamps would come up. Most people will just give up on them.

Fridge's critique:
What did Angelus do to the protagonist? My guess is rape.

After some thought:
Wait, how did (one of) their (Sei's) crushes just end up at this random military base? They don't visit it regularly? Then How are those three so familiar with each other? I know they have close family. Seems a little odd.

Sei comes off as inexperienced and casual (valley girl speak), with a feigned interest in technology, impulsive, careless, emotionally fragile, naïve and socially unaware. I expect this will shift some in later chapters.

The first half could use a bit more dynamic language. I think that is why I found the first few paragraphs so hard to read. I needed a hook. Not someone talking to me. Something moody and atmospheric, so I can get into it before properly getting into the "I am bored with this tour" thoughts.

edited 9th Jun '16 2:40:25 PM by war877