Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread (Page 74 of 77)

Hi Amy, I've been looking through your back catalogue. Wow.

I assume you aren't looking for crits of the earlier pieces? I looked at your later work, and I think that for the Acts of Academia it would help to read the first book? I can't find it, is it here?

I'm working on Dictates now.

If you don't mind me requesting, I'd like you to read the first chapter of Dictates and then move over to Acts after that. Keeping me getting critiques on the older stuff will help me by keeping me familiar with the older material and nag me to get cracking on revisions.

Mandates is the first story, but it is also the oldest in terms of when I last revised it. It has a weak first chapter, and is full of old mistakes that I've weeded out of my learning curve. Dictates and Acts happen simultaneously, so it doesn't matter when you  read them, since they are being written to be stand-alone stories that link in the fourth book

My major is Linguistics, although I'm trudging through general requirements at the moment. I believe I'll be taking English next semester. That'll be fun.....

Linguistics. Cool.

Should I be looking for something?  I don't see it yet.

I don’t have anything newmup. I just thinned the first chapter of Dictates.

I’m considering what you say about distancing to make Alda less comedic and more mysterious. I’m listening. Just not sure about the presentation

The business with the knots in the library is the Veiled Alda trying to live up to her new rank.  Her dawdling with the diaries is the Old Veiled Alda leaking back out.  Alda is not going to be competent until the Veil lifts, and even then Aldamurrisse has scars that make it hard for her to be a responsible person.

You got so much right, so much rich nuance that makes sense once we know the whole story, that you don't ned to add.  You need to condense, to turn the Catacombs trip nto more dramatically purposefull steps.  Turn the Antlion ino a a few glimpses that tell the story.  (Yeah, what I need to do all over the place.)

Tazar gives her someone who will accept her, who will accept her help, without asking too many questions.  (He asks them, but he can keep them to himself.)

With the Mar, have her treat Tazar when other people's backs are turned.  Show the alert reader that he knows she helped--but chooses not to ask or comment

You got it all right--except for the diluted length of the presentation.

Righty ho. I'll check it this afternoon. Fretting madly with a rather sick cat, so this will take my mind off her

Amy, I've left you a few inlines for bits that still jar, but overall I think this is much better. I didn't actually skip anything, which I did before.
What is your own view? Are you happier now?

Right now, it is Alda’s story. New Jersey is my biggest fan and my hardest critic. Originally, the story was in three perspectives,and I used the POV Willy Billy to tell what was convenient. I did three rewrites and Jaylene is consistently panned. Which is my fault. I just can’t get her worth across to the reader. First, she was too passive. Then she was more dominant, but people described her as bossy.

The characters that people bonded with were Tazar and Alda.

Then I paid a freelance editor to read the whole book. He coached me on the ending, pace, and the hero’s journey. This story isn’t about Jaylene. It is about Alda, and her evolution from passive to active in the mystery.The story is now being solved by the second string players. Not the Wolves.

And New Jersey fights for the material I leave out. It makes him nuts

I'm not sure if it helps or hinders that I didn't read the earlier drafts. Well, I just have to jump in where I am and work from here. I'll check out chapter two shortly.