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Ooh, I don't have a rule. Depends on how much room there is a propos the other shenanigans

First thing I usually target is the environment.

Is there a second sun? > How does this affect time recording > ow does it affect sleep patterns?

or

Does the planet orbit within an asteroid belt? If so, meteor showers might be spectacular and frequent. They might even have a name ("oh here comes another dusting!"). If society is not sufficiently advanced, they may think the storms have deific origins.

Basically I adjust the environment in some significant way then work backwards to find out how the characters have adapted to it.

I've had a chance to peek at chainsaw. Holy points, Batman! Aside from that, you seem comfortable in the style, which is very different style from the Warden story I remember. Impressive range.

Only read the first scene in detail, so I can't justly leave a review.

re the NIT I have reached the insight I was seeking

**************** SPOILER SPACE **********************

I've been comparing the MC to my "evilest good guy". [J e n n a] kills her sister along with her enemies in an elevator. Reviewers were upset, of course. J3nn does it by accident because she hates her enemies. Nit does her evil also by accident because she hates her enemies. The parallels are difficult to ignore.

Where the two characters break pattern is in foreshadowing. It's established in chapter 1 that J3nn has taken lives, and she's consistently evil by nicking things, lying, back-stabbing. That element is not present in the Nit (Her beating up computer mice & answering machines doesn't count - it makes her an angry person but not a murderer).

I shall compare it to Ned Stark. Let's put his approval rating at 80% as-is. If Stark gets angry at something and punches a window or similar inanimate object, his approval rating would probably drop to 79% (This is the equivalent of the mouse). Stark, angry, but in cold, calculating blood, strangles Arya to death. Approval rating plummets.

As a dramatic story, there is a disconnect I can't resolve. If you're going for that, consider foreshadowing it. During the phone call, the sister could mention the family pet MC has killed. Basically make sure not one reader can assign her the good-guy trait. Once a character gets in that slot, the fall from grace really hurts the narrative.

If you're going for any other genre, like noir or crime etc, I wouldn't change a thing - it's perfect as is.

Nb: part of this is I work in technology. I see a lot of people all but hurl mice at walls. I think they're mad that Word deleted their perfect paragraph. I never think they abuse people. If MC would go downstairs, find a car that doesn't belong to her, and smash the headlights and windows, this would have been good foreshadowing. Someone able to break an inanimate object that doesn't belong to them is so far out of the "good person in desperate need of help" slot that the ending resolves well.

Even shorter: Lord of All

killing a well-liked character only makes them better

Dun fret about the review counts. Chapters 1-3 are greatly loved on this site. Once you hit chapter 4, things naturally dry out, and only the really dedicated reviewers remain.

Also welcome. You'll get a lot of help here, and I'll be able to pick on you even more for not writing Yufu

Is Thecla going to be in it?

Think about your hook... if you had to choose four words for my eye to fall on in the first sentence, what would they be?

I'd hazard to guess "fourteen boy special powers"

It's probably not "Living orphanage Rome fourteen". That "Grab" is for a very different book, probably closer to Les Misérables.

Once you have your key terms, try to topload them if you can.

These things are always easier to see in other people's writings, so he's a sample for VQS:

(Actually, that can be much more top-loaded, but that's a whole different topic)

Paragraph two lost me by word #7 (Don't accuse me up pulling punches!). Hopefully by the time you're ready to publish you've got that whittled down to awesome-sauce. Here's my rendition of line 1:

Now that you mention it, there is a certain redundancy in having a mother + a grandmother in one head + a father in the other.

Perhaps he doesn't cause her death - anti-religion lunatics do?