Hello again! So now I've had my breakfast and I'm ready to give you a second review! Which will be my first as a Squire of the Green Room, very exciting!
Specifics
1. Maybe a one line description of the flag streaming in the wind behind her? I have this image in my head anyway, but it would be a lovely touch and nice to just keep track on where that flag is currently so that we don't come to her stuffing it into her bag and think 'oh yeah, she has a flag'.
2. I don't like the phrase 'hints of the mystery' because hints is too casual or light a word. A hint is usually a good thing. This is why when Sherlock was written, he went searching for clues and not hints! I think you could use 'signs' or 'marks' or 'remnants'. Something that's either neutral or negative. This might be partly because when I first read it, I read misery as mystery because hints= mystery time.
3.
Let's try to avoid saying 'this city' as much! That distances the reader a little from the story. We don't want them thinking of this being one of a million cities. We want this to be thecity. This is where the story is taking place. Maybe try:As she walked through the Market, Auxi looked closer and saw hints of the misery that almost half of the Outer circle’s residents lived in. In this city, the further you lived from the Inner circle, the poorer you were.
...the misery that almost half of the Outer circle’s residents lived in. They were the poverty stricken, shivering on the fringes of the city, out of sight of the rich Inner dwellers.
4.
I am going to break you out of this habit, I promise. But basically this line is one of those where you're phrasing it like you're giving us information, instead of like it's part of the story. I don't want to hear that she has the biggest base just yet. We'll get an idea of that later when we come across other people's and show us the danger at some point. We don't need to hear about it second hand! Show us the drunks and pick-pockets she passes on her way and show us her taking care of orphans. I don't want to hear any of this second hand.Auxi’s base was just on the other side of the Market, so not yet the poorest; it had a bathroom and a kitchen, unlike quite a few others and had two tiny bedrooms on the first floor, one for her and one for her second, Zach.
Please consider deleting any section where you're dumping information on us. This needs to be weaved into the story, not handed out in fatty chunks. You could skip the whole section until you have the kid running up to her and then show us she's an orphan and show her reliance on and fondness for Auxi.
5. I don't like the spiel on money not mattering to her. If it doesn't matter then her gesture means nothing and you've just negated her redeeming factor! For a moment you might have won me around to liking her. So money has to still mean something. It means something to anyone, otherwise there'd never be any hungry people in the world because we'd all give our money to them.
6. I don't wanna hear about Zach like this. I'm sure you're tired of me saying this by now but you should be happy, it's the only big flaw I'm finding in your story and it's not even a deal breaker! But. I don't want more than a line or two about Zach from her thoughts. If you want us to get an impression of him, have her talk to the orphan for longer and drip in a few details then.
7. Your dialogue doesn't match the tone you're going for. In the section I'm about to quote, there's too many exclamation marks and stress words like 'even'. It's difficult as you want him to ask a lot of questions, but it's not until the end that we know he isn't shouting so in my head, he was shouting.
“Oh I’m sure you know what I’m here for. What you did was so irresponsible! We were going to free James back soon anyway so why did you go and free him? That’s not the worst part! Why did you provoke the City Guard and let them almost get you? Did you even stop to think about the consequences? You know that you would be executed so why do you do it? What would the rest of us do if that happened?” he hadn’t risen his voice but somehow that was worse.
To fix this, either have a break earlier. So he says a few things and then you describe his tone and then he says more. Or make the lines less question-orientated and remove that exclamation mark. That's the writing equivalent of raising your voice!
8.
This is a weird sentence. Why is he trying to?He was quite good-looking and couldn’t hide his toned body under his black tunic however much he tried.
Overall
Plenty going on in this chapter. It was a little weak at the end there as I don't find the dialogue between Auxi and Zach believable. You've not shown s a girl who thinks about things like this, especially after such a successful theft. She can feel about about what she did, but she shouldn't go so far the other way into the whole 'I'm worthless' attitude. It's annoyingly out of character and gains her no sympathy. I'd rather see a little genuine regret but a determination to stick by her love of fun and the fire she showed in the first chapter.
That's all for now. Catch you again soon!
Heather xxx
Points: 6235
Reviews: 2631
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