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for RG it's been harder than writing it. At least writing came naturally. And there are so many weird fly-by-night marketing agencies whispering promises in my ears

...and "shimbaddo"

Is Merran doing the confronting? Is she confronting with great fortitude?

I feel your pain about Melody. I have this weird character who's kind of a main but kind of a side. I could delete her and the ending would remain unchanged. I'm usually pretty ruthless with that kind of flotsam. But this character is like *puppy dog eyes* Please don't delete me (or feed me to the slaughter machine (or cut my arms off)).

That sounds like the one I'm in. if so, how long do I have? If not, ignore my rambling

I am trying not to target an audience. My platform's modus operandi is I stay in character.

I check the demographic charts sometimes. I wonder if more than 1% have read the story or they're along for the ride. I'm not promoting as much as creating new free content in a world of re-tweets.

Make images of the words and include them as part of the body of work. Not as slick, I know, but works.

bzzt!

Re-read the chapters of interest after a bit of a gap to see if I still saw what I first saw. Here are my takeaways:

Chapter 37
Elsbeth saves Rhiannon from having her head bashed in (She was pinned)
Rhia's men get surprise attacked but the birds swoop in to save her
Shortly after, Harpies join the fray (I'll consider  them separate from the birds because they got their own entrance)

Chapter 38
She tracks Seidel to his castle but gets surprise-attacked in the streets and gets bailed out by a pair of Wyrms
Yeomen show up to help
Red kites show up because she'd have no other way to track Seidel
Branwen shows up in a battleship just in time to bring catapults to bear
(House of Gwyrdall and the wolves show up to help now, but we can give these elements a pass because it was announced earlier that was the plan)
Trolls show up with banana peels once the enemy archers get too dangerous
[* Here's the can't-lose part - See notes below*]

Chapter  39
The wyrms re-appear conveniently when needed against the juggernaut
The birds and Harpies are reactivated (I presume they were on stand-by)

Chapter 40
An unexpected rebel attack had occurred in the Delta -> oh... Pirates showed up and dealt with that

So right about where the trolls appear, it's established by the story that no matter how bad it gets, some cavalry will appear and solve the problem. There is really no danger for her - I mean she even has Death on her side, so I'm thinking she can't really die.

This is all easy to fix eg...
a) Ensure the birds never leave the battle so that they don't appear at the perfect moments
b) Mention the Wyms & the wyrm camps and their comings and goings - again removing the nick-of-time effect
c) You don't get much bang for the buck by having the pirates show up - maybe have Rhiannon lose that city and has to go rescue it herself
d) Reduce the red kites to only the vrouaca - since they were already introduced to the story - one less divergent element
e) Basically I'd recommend the trolls be the only surprise cavalry in this secction

Imagine I leave you a glowing (yet detailed) review detailing a flaw I found in the story. Impressed, you hand me an extra point.

I review members A, B, C. None of them like that I'm exposing these flaws. They don't give me extra points. Guess who I'll review next? Whoever is awarding me extra points.

A, B, C, if they want my reviews will have to pony up the extra points - or their work will sit there unreviewed.  They will be forced to reward points they don't want to. Otherwise, reviewers will flock to people who award points.

People like you & me who have amassed ridiculous amounts of points to give away will soon start harvesting the point-starved reviewers. We will create literary fiefdoms based on the gold standard of who has more points to spend to buy reviews.