Vilhelm – Monastery Child Part 1 by Michael Ko

I like the concept of this submission. Animals with human-level intelligence and apparently opposable thumbs have appeared in fantasy and science fiction before, but this version does a nice job of depicting them on their own terms. They’re not patronized or infantilized, and they retain key aspects of their original species.

I am curious as to how and why they have human Christian names with a German flavor; this may be explained later. There’s an air of the fairy tale about it, a hint of the Grimm Brothers. It will be interesting to see how that develops through the longer narrative.

The prose has somewhat of the same effect, partly through constructions that seem not to originate in English—notably the insertion of now and then in a manner almost like Greek particles, in contexts that don’t, in standard English usage, really require them. There are long run-on phrases as well, such as

The fragrance of the oiled muttons coated in buttery garlic seasoned with salt and pepper had become so strong that I grasped at the air as though reaching for rolls preparing to stuff the meat into the bread.

The plural of “mutton” is “mutton,” though that may be a typo (but meats appears later in a similar context). I’m not sure oiled means what it wants to mean here. Did the cooks oil the meat and then baste it in butter and garlic? Or did they sear it in oil and then add the other ingredients? My mouth is watering at the thought, but I’m not sure I get what’s going on.

The rest of the sentence would be hard to read aloud—the reader has to take a couple of breaths to get through it. Breaking it up into a couple of sentences will help the prose, and the reader, breathe more efficiently.

Or here:

Do you take for granted the roof over your head, the meals you eat, and the time we took to take care of you to insult the founder of your very home?

The meaning is a little hard to parse here. The insult seems to belong to another sentence. As with the previous example, dividing the sentence in two would help make its meaning clearer.

The imagery throughout is vivid, with lots of sensory detail. Once the prose is polished and the meaning clarified, both the characters and the story will come through even more strongly.

In the meantime, I have a couple of more general suggestions. First, although there are bits of stage business around the blocks of dialogue, the interchanges mostly seem to hang in space. A little more framing, a line here and a line there of tone, expression, body language, how the speaker feels, would help to anchor the conversations more firmly in the story.

Second, first-person narrative is tricky. It’s amazing how it seems to be the most intimate and direct form, but it can actually separate the reader from the direct experience of the story. The narrator’s “I,” rather than becoming the reader’s point of view, sets them apart from it.

One way this can happen is through the rhetorical question. It’s common in third-person narration for the viewpoint character to present thoughts and reflections as “What do I do? Is this true? Am I making the right decision?” This is called an internal monologue. If it goes on for a while, it may be called “murbling”—circling around and around a series of thoughts and ideas without moving the story forward.

Vilhelm murbles a fair amount in the opening of the chapter. He reflects, he remembers, he asks rhetorical questions. It takes a while for the chapter to get going. The question I would ask is, Does he need to ask himself questions? Is there a way to convey the concepts more directly and actively? Could we move in closer to how he feels, live in his body, experiencing his emotions, rather than skimming the surface of his thoughts?

That doesn’t mean all the exposition and the reflections have to go. Not at all. He is a reflective person; he talks to himself quite a bit. That’s part of who he is. But the chapter might move more quickly, especially at the beginning, with some paring and pruning of the internal monologue.

Overall this is a good start, with some good things going on. I like the characters so far, and the setting is nicely established. Best of luck with the rest of the novel, and happy revising!

— Judith Tarr

The Shade Behind My Head Chapter 1 by Shlomik Silbiger

— Judith Tarr

Freets, Part 3 of Chapter 1 by Tracey V. Brown

Description can serve many purposes, but three of the most important are to convey significant sensory details so readers can experience what’s happening; to reflect the point of view character (what that character notices, cares about, and how the character thinks about the world); and to create an atmosphere, an emotional tone, that enhances the story.  I’m very intrigued by the opening of this novel, with Lennie wanting to publicize her bookshop by faking a Blair Witch-type story, and I’m excited by my expectation that some real horror will occur.  The characters, with their agenda of creating something phony, seem like they could add a fresh perspective on the situation, and the setting, an isolated village inaccessible by car, seems very promising.

Jeanne Cavelos, editor, author, director of The Odyssey Writing Workshops Charitable Trust

Unfathomable Descent, Chapter One, Going Home by Elizabeth King

There are interesting things going on in this submission. I like the juxtaposition of the sterile environment of the base and the rich greenery of Adna’s home planet. It comes right up at the beginning and sets the tone for the rest of the chapter, and presumably the larger work.

I have a couple of questions about the structure of the chapter. While it’s clear that Adna has made the decision to go home rather than stay in the C.D., it’s less clear why she’s made that choice, or why it’s so difficult. It might help to have a line or so of clarification at the beginning, establishing who and what she is, and what she’s going back to. There could be a little more about her feelings for Kerry, the stress she’s feeling, how she’s had to choose between her duty to her planet and her love for her friend.

Some of that comes through later in the chapter, but I think it would be more effective if it appears earlier. Let us see right at the start what the dream means and why Adna is dreaming it. Layer in her feelings for Kerry. Weave the two concepts together, and show how they’ve come into conflict. Then when we actually meet her friend, we’ll have a better sense of what it means that Adna is leaving.

I’d like a better sense of the timeline, too. We’re told they’ve been together for years, but what we get up front and most clearly is that they’ve been at the base for less than a year. I don’t quite get the feeling of the larger canvas; it’s more focused on the shorter term.

Since this is a final or near-final draft, I would suggest a close line edit and polish. There’s a fair amount of repetitive phrasing that might be pruned and tightened: solid-state screen, for example, or her best friend.

In the latter case, maybe we can get a glimpse of their closeness, see how their friendship works. What is a best friend, in Adna’s world? How important is it as a concept? What makes Kerry her best friend, out of all the people she’s come into contact with? And how does the best friend rank in her world, compared to family? Is it a concept her world knows, or is it something she learned after she left it?

If we know right up front how conflicted Adna is, and why she has to make the choice she does, it’s less essential to label Kerry best friend. We’ll know from context that she’s the most important person here—and that it is not easy at all for Adna to leave her. Then we’ll feel Kerry’s shock and betrayal more acutely, and understand it better.

I don’t think any of this needs blocks of exposition. It’s more a matter of choosing the right words and phrases. Give us a line or a phrase that conveys the concept and helps to build the world.

Some exposition might be saved for later, too, or left to implication: such as Oso’s accent and origins. Is it an essential detail? Do we need to know it at that particular point? Is it directly relevant to what’s happening?

Overall I think it’s a good start. We’ve got the basic conflict. The setting comes through for me, especially by contrast with Adna’s dream. It just needs some pruning  and polish, and some clarification especially at the beginning.

Best of luck, and happy revising!

–Judith Tarr

Doesn’t Look Like A Hero by Shannon Walch

I was drawn to “Doesn’t Look Like a Hero” this month by its non-traditional perspective on quest stories, the rather gentle point about heroism and change, and the light sense of fun it brought to all that. It’s got the bones of a very successful cozy fantasy story, but there are still places where this draft can improve and solidify. This month, I’d like to talk about ways we can let readers move with our characters and make the experience of a story feel more satisfying.

Taking an alternate side of the classic Hero’s Journey situation isn’t a new way to generate a story, but as a wider strategy, it’s a good one. Aside from this story: especially when we’re working with ideas that are essentially formulas—and quests, heroic journeys, and folktales are formulas we use to say things about the world—it’s a very good idea to think of every character in them as a whole person with a subjective experience. Rejigged fairy tales do that as their centrepiece; writing them can be a great way to practice that wholeness and bring it into every piece we write.

And “Doesn’t Look Like a Hero” opens strong in terms of characters with whole personalities: with a stalemate between Maida and the House that implies a great deal about what the House does, doesn’t do, and is for. It’s working off a template of a world that’s familiar to a lot of fantasy readers, and doing something fun with it; leveraging those ideas well.

I’m also personally fond of fantasy stories that look at the sheer amount of work that sustains a fantasy world (yes, there is laundry!) but I also like the instant Ghibli-esque characterization of the House. It comes across like a cat or a stubborn toddler, which I think really works: something with a mind and definite opinions, but missing the language to communicate them. The first word we have about the House is “sulking” and the first metaphor Maida’s small cousins, and that makes a huge impression.

That said, I do have two major suggestions, both to do with deepening the situation “Doesn’t Look Like a Hero” already creates. It’s started some ideas: What I’m suggesting is taking this draft and spending the next draft or two exploring, setting, and finishing what’s been started.

The first is sense of place (and this is something that came up in this author’s last Editor’s Choice!). The House itself is a place—and I think that would be more vivid, believable, and impactful if attention went, on the next draft, to deepening that sense of place. There’s discussion early on about the House’s usual hiding places when it’s in a mood: a false roof panel, a grotto at the back of the cellar. But we never see or taste or smell any more about those spaces; they’re ideas, rather than concrete places, so they vaguely float in readers’ awareness but don’t give us a stronger sense of the House as place and character.

Likewise, we get a somewhat timeless and vague sense of where the House is situated: a little pocket universe somewhere near Bremen, in a pre-industrial era. While that’s along the lines of fairytales, a few concretizing details would bring this world into colour—and because it’s a folktale world, you can choose the concretizing details.

There are already some good sites for adding grounding into “Doesn’t Look Like a Hero”. When Maida is “really listen[ing]” to the creaks of the house, its state as a building, that’s a perfect time to let readers join in on that activity and really listen: give us a share in that awareness of it as space. What kind of sensory details does she notice? What is the House in terms of smell, colour, organization, height, roominess, structure, permeability? Which of these are usual, which of them new? What does she associate with those details? It’s tailor-made, as a plot development, to let readers in too.

(There’s a broader principle in here: When our characters do certain kinds of actions and the readers can follow along—perceiving something, feeling something—it’s satisfying for us. There are a lot of technical, neurological reasons for why that makes us feel closer to other human beings, and it doesn’t work differently for characters or stories. (If you’re curious, look up mirroring.) But the short version is: opportunities to meld together what the reader’s experiencing and what the protagonist’s experiencing are always good ones. There’s a great opportunity to do this with the House as a space in “Doesn’t Look Like a Hero”, and I think it would really anchor this piece.)

The second suggestion is to pick up on the way the House is being written as capricious, intelligent, almost childlike, and lean into that idea: how it communicates, what it cares about, and why. What goes on between Maida and the House is a full-on relationship—but it’s not entirely being written like one yet.

There are relationships throughout “Doesn’t Look Like a Hero” that aren’t yet being picked up on and developed: with the messenger bird, with the tomcat, with Guion (it hints a few times that Maida low-key thinks he’s irresponsible, and that might actually be her problem with boundaries, and that’s an interesting thing to explore! What’s that about?). Because this is a story fundamentally about relationships changing—Maida’s with the House not being what it used to be; her relationship with herself not being what it was; Hans’s relationship with the House beginning—I think it’s important, again, for “Doesn’t Look Like a Hero” to do what it’s talking about: look at relationships.

I think there’s a great deal of depth and poignancy to be gained here if the story spends more of its space thinking about—for Maida, for Guion, for Hans—what their relationships with the intelligent House actually look like. How they’re different; how they treat it and each other differently, and what those approaches bring them, or don’t. And what those relationships say about their relationships with themselves—which, considering this is about Maida’s self-image changing, we never quite hear enough about. A problem’s getting solved here that’s never been stated: Maida is becoming a hero. But why is that important to her, and where did she start, and where did she get stuck? Why is this the answer?

There are spaces, likewise, to develop this idea: the little hints about Maida’s cousins, her leaving home. There’s room in her emotional reactions to certain incidents to think about why she feels that way. But it’s work that I think would make this piece make more emotional sense.

I think looking at the sense of place, and looking at the relationships between all these people and magical entities would solve one of the structural problems in “Doesn’t Look Like a Hero”: a slightly dragging pace in the middle. There are a few too many problems being repeated—the House not doing what it’s supposed to, little acts of sabotage which Maida never really moves forward with an answer on—and substituting the repetition of the problem (House misbehaves, Maida doesn’t really cope) with more emphasis on the relationships and spaces can take the same amount of plot and make it feel like it’s moving forward more effectively.

All in all this is pretty structural work, but I think (like the House!) the bones are absolutely there. It’s a question of thinking differently about the draft you’ve got, and finding the places those new perspectives can fit.

Thanks for the read, and best of luck!

— Leah Bobet author of Above (2012) and An Inheritance Of Ashes (2015)

The Village Of Proof by weeg bree

This an interesting story. The title in English has so many meanings—from mathematical proof to legal proof to culinary proofing (activating the yeast or other agent that causes bread to rise). I think it has a handle on the voice that signals a fairy tale: omniscient narrative, with a hint of the narrator’s views and opinions. There’s a strong moral tone, and a lesson to be learned from the characters’ actions and reactions.

It’s even more interesting that it’s translated from the original by its author. Translation is an art, and it’s a rare writer who can render a text clearly and faithfully from one language into another. Respect to the author for the effort, and for mostly succeeding.

There are a few points at which the structure of the original language seeps through into the English, and a few words that don’t quite mean what they want to mean. Here are some examples:

some children in the village inexplicably had such that they were immediately given to the milkman to grow up as artist’s models in the far-off city.

“Inexplicably had such that” is hard to parse in English. Perhaps “children who had such hair were given to the milkman” and so on.

Or:

differing at most into shades of green and yellow might read in English as “differentiating at most” and so on.

Other words are just a hair off the English: Machinists I think want to be “mechanics;” overview perhaps would be “oversight,” or else a word that has to do with authority—some sense that everything is done to code, and follows specific rules; dense bins may be either “heavy” or “numerous,” depending on the original meaning of the translated word. Would the whole village spoke outrageously be rendered more clearly as “The whole village expressed their outrage”?

Zulma’s eyes are described as hazelnut forest ponds. The original image, in which we’re told at more length what color her eyes are, is lovely, but English doesn’t quite condense into so concise a phrase. Forest ponds might work better, but it’s still a little odd. Strange speckled gaze? Penetrating green-gold stare? Pools of green and hazel?

I would recommend running the ms. by a native speaker before it goes out on submission, to make sure all the translations work in English. Sometimes odd or unusual phrasing can be striking and memorable, but if it’s a choice between deliberately unusual phrasing and clarity of meaning, I tend to come down on the side of clarity. For example, while this is correct English syntax, I’m not sure what it means: statistics had shown that mothers almost invariably had daughters and fathers had sons.

Do people in this world not tend to reproduce sexually? Are they cloned, so that the offspring will be of the same sex as the parent? I’m curious too about how marriage works in Proof—it seems as if Zulma’s mother has had consecutive spouses. Are the people of the town not monogamous? Do people pair up for specific periods or specific reasons? Is it marriage as we know it, or is it another form of relationship?

The flow of the story could be a little smoother, as well. First we meet Zulma, then we learn about Proof, which is a reasonable progression of the narrative, but there may be a missing paragraph break between the cannibalism during the famine, and the reference to gossip and backbiting. The concepts don’t quite follow logically. I found myself wanting a line or two more about the cannibals, and a more coherent segue into the backbiters.

I quite like the ending. It’s nicely portentous, and it has a good sense of universal justice coming, at last, for the people of Proof. The one thing I might ask is for a tiny bit more detail about the squirrel’s tail. I would have liked to know the exact direction in which it turns. That would bring us back to the beginning, when we’re told how the tail turns to the East. If we get the same image in the last line, the same slow, inevitable shift, we know for sure the prayer has been heard. And we know what’s going to happen next.

Best of luck, and happy revising!

— Judith Tarr

A Cure For Witching: Part Six by Lyndsay E. Gilbert

Novels can so often get stuck in the morass of the middle with scenes that don’t move the story ahead; or scenes that make an episodic side trip; or scenes that churn with conflict, struggle, and action but are ultimately meaningless to the story.  When you’re deep into the novel, it can be hard to avoid these pitfalls and find the right path forward.  While I haven’t read all the previous excerpts of A Cure for the Witching and so can’t comment on the big picture issues, it is clear to me that the two scenes that comprise Part 6 accomplish several things that scenes in the middle should:  they each show a change to a value of significance to Etain, show that events have an effect on Etain’s character arc, and build the conflict toward a crisis point.

The first scene turns on the value of proper behavior.  Proper behavior seems to be something Etain tries to outwardly maintain (hiding her improper behavior internally).  Yet at the end of the scene, she agrees to behave improperly in an obvious, external way, reading with Cloda and the others.  That is a change to a value important to Etain.  She is taking a risk, rejecting the accusation that she’s a hypocrite, and supporting Cloda.  This is also a change to her character and seems to be moving her character arc from passive, internal resistance to active, external resistance, which will increase conflict and likely lead to a crisis.

The second scene turns on the value of control.  Etain begins the scene in control of her emotions and her words.  Since she seems to have been hiding her improper behavior from others, control must be very important to her.  But when she sees Kate locked in a cage, about to be taken away, she loses control, grabbing Kate’s dress and speaking hysterically. At dinner, she tries to swallow her feelings and her words but fails.  She confronts her husband with his hypocrisy, smashes bottles, and barricades herself in her room.  She goes from having control to losing control, a clear change to a value that matters to Etain.  This takes her character arc another step forward.  After taking a risk in a safe setting in the previous scene, she is now taking a much bigger risk in a dangerous setting.  She’s rejected her own hypocrisy and is now attacking her husband’s.  She definitely seems to have taken the next step in her journey from passive, internal resistance to active, external resistance, and we seem headed toward a crisis.

These changes indicate the story is not stuck in the doldrums, with scenes that don’t move the story ahead.  These scenes also don’t seem to be episodic side trips; a scene is episodic when you can remove it from the story and it wouldn’t really matter (like an episode of an old TV show, like the original Star Trek.  You don’t need to have episode 2 to get the characters from episode 1 to episode 3; they aren’t connected and don’t build on each other).  And these scenes don’t appear to contain churn, which provides conflict and struggle that is ultimately meaningless to the story.  It seems central to the story that women are oppressed and Etain comes to fight against that, and that’s what we see in these scenes.

Are these the best scenes to show these changes for this novel?  I can’t answer that without having read the rest, but these scenes are definitely accomplishing much that they should.

One area that could use improvement is subjective description.  The excerpt has some vivid description, but it doesn’t feel like it’s coming from Etain, whose POV we are in.  It feels fairly objective.  Subjective description allows us to experience the world through the unique perspective of the POV character.  Because of that, it not only describes, it reveals character, provides a compelling perspective, and gives readers a more emotional experience.

If, at the beginning of the excerpt, Etain is truly someone who values proper behavior, then I would think she would be uncomfortable going through this castle filled with improper items and would see those items through a disapproving lens.  In that case, a “splendour of silk hangings” might instead be “expensive silk hanging from the walls in a wasteful display serving no useful purpose whatsoever.” Or if Etain found the improper items tempting, she might describe the hangings as “lustrous, sensual silk draped to invite stroking and indulgence.”  If she inwardly longs for the beauty of the silk but knows it is forbidden, she might see the hangings as

I think she has a deep appreciation for the beauty of the castle yet fears the consequences of being in that place.  But that’s not really coming through in the description yet.  I feel appreciation in “a splendour of silk hangings,” but not the fear.  And I don’t feel either appreciation or fear in most of the other details.  “Somewhat bawdy stories carved in frescoes” doesn’t convey appreciation or disapproval, fear or excitement.  “There are statues of many armed men and women raised on pedestals” also doesn’t convey those qualities for me; it feels like objective description.

I’m very interested in the “dark corridor, lit by swinging lanterns at wide intervals.”  Is she frightened by the swinging lanterns?  Excited?  In her mind, is darkness where sinners hide?  Or is darkness a source of reassurance and safety, a place where her transgressions are hidden?  We could be so much closer to Etain if we were experiencing things as she did.  Because we don’t, her issue with women reading seems to come out of nowhere.  She sees many objects that are forbidden or at least disapproved of, and seems to have little reaction to that.  Then she sees women reading, another forbidden thing, and has a big reaction.  Allowing us to more intensely experience things as she does can help set that up better.

In the second scene, the description of Connor being “invisible” is a good example of successful subjective POV.  A subjective description of Cillian here could be striking and illuminating.

The description of Kate, for me, is weakened by providing first the vision of Kate as she appears to others, and then the vision of Kate as Etain perceives her.  I think this would come across much more strongly if Etain simply described Kate as Etain perceives her, as a “small, sweat-drenched girl . . . trembling uncontrollably.”  That would create a clearer, more vivid image.

I hope my comments are helpful.  These scenes create some strong anticipation about what’s to come.  I wish you every success with the novel.

–Jeanne Cavelos, editor, author, director of The Odyssey Writing Workshops Charitable Trust

The Sealing Of Scars by Chanon Wong

“The Sealing of Scars” stood out this month on the strength of its emotional arcs and worldbuilding: a pair of aging people trapped in their own loop of love and hurt and stubbornness, and the breaking of it, all in physical, beautiful prose. It’s a powerful story already, but I think there’s some space for the author to get what they want in terms of more subtext, less explanation, mostly by shuffling things around structurally. So this month, I’d like to discuss how we organize ideas in our sentences and scenes—and how diversifying them gives our writing texture.

First and foremost: “The Sealing of Scars” is a deeply beautiful story. It establishes a complex history between Sekha and Suriyan even before he lands, and pays off that promise in a way that’s heartbreaking but necessary. It’s hard-won, but it feels like tangible progress.

The visual metaphors here are spot-on, evoking characters in quick, effective ways: Suriyan is first introduced not as a person, but a body in a shroud, “leaving a long stubborn trail.” It’s a perfect way to instantly encapsulate his grim, rigid endurance: what defines him, and what’s caused all the trouble for him, and for Sekha. That there is a trace of joy in Sekha’s face that can vanish, even after her harsh words—it says everything.

The author’s asked if this works as a standalone piece or if establishing the world is too ambitious a task here, and I think it does work. The centre of the piece is the emotional loop Sekha and Suriyan are caught in, and the details of the three killings only build that loop. It’s working toward the problem that’s been spotlit for readers—the hurt between these two people—so: it’s working.

The author’s notes also ask about writing from a Thai perspective toward an international audience. I think that’s functioning well too. I don’t by any means imagine that readers unfamiliar with Thai culture are going to catch all the nuances here, but as someone who also writes from backgrounds and experiences that aren’t typical, I’ve learned: largely what readers recognize is human motivation. When we’re reading, we connect to people. There is only so much any given reader—especially fantasy readers—needs in terms of concepts if your characters are well-rounded enough, their needs are real enough, and their lives textured enough.

That said, I do get what’s being asked here: it’s a question of managing information. What should “The Sealing of Scars” assume readers already know, and what needs to be explained, or won’t be recognized? I’d like to offer a suggestion about how that information’s organized, versus how much, that might help manage that load. It’s a bit of a sideways strategy, but it’s a way to lighten readerly work in other parts of the story so that there’s room for what “The Sealing of Scars” wants to do with its world.

Generally, I think there’s space in “The Sealing of Scars” to say less. There are instances through the story where the narration is saying the same thing—or using the same structure, or establishing similar ideas—a few times over, and not all of them are necessary, or getting the maximum rhetorical effect. Trimming some of those repetitions down (intelligently, though; thinking about where they’re working and where they work less) is, I think, a simple way to tighten and sharpen the story.

As an example: Sentences like “The prow breached the sand with a crunch and the figure rolled out of the boat, splashing limp into the shallows.” There are a lot of ideas around movement for readers to keep track of in this sentence (breached, crunch, rolled, splashing, limp, shallows). It’s a coherent chain of events, but everything in this sentence is movement—all one kind of idea.

Sometimes we do need a lot of things happening in our sentences, but there can be a benefit to making them different things. Three movements and a smell, for example; a movement, a smell, a sound, a movement again. These set up slightly different rhythms in our sentences that readers won’t explicitly recognize—just the feeling of not too much happening, of manageable information and a rounder world in that moment.

This applies a little more broadly, too: I think I would qualify Sekha’s impressions less in the first scene. She comes across with a bit of a tendency to overthink and overguess others’ motives—a technique to get worldbuilding information in, yes, but one that splashes back on the sense of her as a character and the pace of the scene.

This is the place where we establish our world, our characters, our situations, and it does build characterization and voice. By the time she asks Tortoise Father whether he could sink the boat, I’m starting to have a sense of her—wry, and pained, and a little funny—and the sense of an oral storytelling rhythm: it was not this, it was not this.

But while it’s a useful technique to establish our worlds—and how our characters think—by listing off what something is not, I’m finding that in “The Sealing of Scars” that repetition undercuts my sense of the world. Each of those denials has the same shape, as a sentence or idea: “It could be this, but it isn’t.” And I think that would matter less if the shape wasn’t no. It’s starting the story by telling readers a lot of no, and very little yes, without the benefit of the call-and-response an actual oral story would have (“was it…a turtle? No!”) and that starts to build up into a barrier.

This is where I think varying the shape of the ideas might also come in handy. In the same way we can mix up a sentence from all movements, could get across a firmer impression of either Sekha or the island and give readers a yes into the story. The oral cadence is already there in other places, like Tortoise Father’s questions; I don’t think it’d be lost entirely.

This is kind of abstract, structural work to suggest, but it’s a tool I think could deliver some interesting results for “The Sealing of Scars” if you’re willing to play with it a little, manage the information a little differently, and see what you get. It’s a great piece: emotionally honest, complex, and gorgeous. I think either way, it’ll go far.

Thanks for the read, and best of luck!

–Leah Bobet, author of Above (2012) and An Inheritance Of Ashes (2015)

Silver Star (Silver Star Series Book 3) by Carol Masser

The author’s introduction to this submission addresses a question every writer has to ask when writing a series. How do we provide enough information about previous volumes to bring the new reader up to speed, while at the same making sure we keep the interest of the reader who has been following the series through previous volumes? How much is just right, and how much is too much? Where do we draw the line?

Every book and every author is different, but there are a few basic guidelines that may help. As with every opening, whether it’s volume 1 or volume 20, it should draw the reader in, and keep them turning the pages. A little exposition helps orient them to the backstory, but it should be as concise as possible, and it should be directly relevant to what’s happening in the novel’s here-and-now.

Sometimes a prologue can be useful: a flashback that sums up what came before. Most times, it’s a good idea to plunge right in, and let the backstory fill in as it becomes applicable. Front-loading the backstory tends to backfire, because the longtime reader has already seen it, and the new reader is waiting for the story to start. If they really want or need to know what happened in the previous volumes, they’ll read or reread those.

Readers are busy people, and there are literally thousands of books calling for their attention. Once they’re invested in the book, they’ll settle in for a slower ride. But at the very beginning, the writer has to convince them to make that investment.

My question about this submission would be, Is this the best place for the book to start? In many ways it’s a transitional passage. Allison and Silver are coming back from a trip to Mali. Allision touches base with her old friends and colleagues at the dolphin research center, and informs them that she’s leaving Earth with Silver. There are blocks of exposition and backstory, filling in who these people are and summing up the story to date. The latter part of the submission sets up the plot of the novel, and points us toward what is going to happen next.

If the novel proper is going to take place in space and then on Silver’s homeworld, do we need this interval on Earth? Is it important to the story that we meet each of her colleagues, and that we know what they eat and where it came from? If it is essential for story reasons, would it make sense to convey the main ideas later on in the novel, when the specific characters and events are relevant to what’s happening at the time?

Allison’s relationship with Rob for example could develop in this novel through instantaneous communications at key points in the main plot. Allison might start to miss him fiercely and we’ll get a flashback to a cherished moment; or she’ll be so pissed off about the quarrel they had before she left that she’s still seething over it days later. That way, we get to see and feel it, but it happens as part of the story we’re in now.

What would happen if the novel began, say, as Silver’s ship begins the flyby of Mars? We’d get Allison’s feelings about it, and a few key details about who she is and how she got there. Maybe a glance at Silver, seeing him now in humanoid form and a flash of him as dolphin; then maybe a quick call to Earth to show her friends what she sees, and a quick exchange with Rob that gives us a taste of how they feel about each other. They might not be speaking because he’s so upset about her leaving; one of the others might try to intercede, which nearly scuttles the experience of the flyby. And then we see how that’s resolved, or not, as the story requires.

And then on to the next important event in this novel. Events in previous novels crop up as they’re relevant to what’s happening in this one. It’s not necessary to summarize previous volumes, especially at the beginning, before the new story gets started. Concentrate on the new story, and bring in the old one when and as it’s needed for clarification.

The usual guideline for any narrative is, “Start as close to the end as you can.” This is as true for a later volume in a series as it is for the first one. Think of dropping hints about what happened before, rather than going into detail. The reader should get the gist, so as not to be confused, but their interest now is in what’s happening at this point in the timeline. They’ll be looking forward to what happens next, rather than looking backward to what happened in previous volumes.

Best of luck with this novel and this series, and happy revising!

— Judith Tarr

When We Defied Heaven Ch 1 by Eugene Hayman

I love the setting and the concept of this submission. It’s an unsual cultural choice, to reproduce ancient Mesopotamia in a science-fictional context, and I am there for it.

What I want to talk about for this Editor’s Choice is an aspect of craft that has been pinging my radar for a while. Sometimes I call it “stage business.” Sometimes I refer to it as “framing.” It’s the things characters do in and around their conversations, and the things they do in general: their body language, their tone and expressions, how and when they move within a scene.

Many writers draft dialogue without framing. The lines of conversation float in space. Likewise, when characters move within the narrative, they do it without context. They walk, they look, they talk, but we don’t get the sense of how they do it. What vibe they’re sending off. How they’re feeling about it all.

Other writers go in the other direction. In place of one action or tone or expression, we get two or three or more. We see every stage of a movement. Transitions happen in layers, one action following another into or out of the scene.

This level of detail can be very effective in small doses. Sometimes we do need to see exactly what happens. But when it’s the rule rather than the exception, it can slow the story down. There’s too much detail; too many things happening.

This paragraph for example:

She closed her eyes and frowned as if struggling to remember what she should do next. For a moment, she stood motionless. Then she was running down one particular row of shelves out of many. She turned right, proceeding another dozen paces. Closing her eyes, she furrowed her brow a second time.

This paragraph reads like stage directions, like a list of actions in a script. Prose narrative can leave more to the reader’s imagination; can imply rather than state everything she does in the order in which she does it. The prose writer can choose from the array of possibilities, and focus on the handful of details that are essential in that moment.

What do we absolutely need to know here? What two or three details are essential for our understanding of what’s going on? Do we need two frowns? Do her eyes need to close twice? Does she need to run down two sets of rows? Can we get the sense of both her purpose and her confusion in half the number of actions, and half the number of sentences?

Here too, there’s a lot going on:

His right hand rested against his forehead. He stared at the floor, shaking his head as he spoke.

Is it essential that we know which hand he is resting against his forehead? Does he need to stare, shake his head, and speak, or is there a way to combine these three actions into one single, definitive gesture?

The challenge I would set would be to go through the ms. and choose one action in each set of two or more. When there are two iterations of an action close together, pick the one that most clearly defines the moment. Then see if the narative needs any of the others.

In some cases, the actions themselves might be a little more clearly defined. When the draft talks about a worried look or an irritated expression or a fearful expression, what does it actually look like? What is the character’s face or body doing? How do they show their emotions? It may be a visual, it may be auditory—a tone of voice, for example, or the click of a tongue, or a wordless sound.

It’s all about balance. Balancing actions and words, defining expression and tone. Choosing the exact right detail, the right word or phrase. Making the story as strong and clear as it can be.

— Judith Tarr