Young Writers Society

This is Nikayla here dropping in for a review on this lovely Review Day! Back again Lima Bean. I'll probably finish this chapter with 2.5 and 2.6 and then leave 3.1 for tomorrow (or another day). Without further ado, let's jump right in.

I enjoy the opening to this chapter because of the sense of uniqueness brought by the dialogue and the one-liner that follows afterwards.

After I sensed them leaving around moonrise, most likely for their own room, I threw off the covers and reached under my bed for the writing desk I kept under here. The official reason I kept it there was for when I had a leg injury, so I could make notes while being a good patient and resting. The unofficial reason was nights like this.

I wrote out a list of potential breaks in the chain, from merchants selling a mixed bag of almonds on either a threat or their own ploy, to healers getting bribed, to servants with a vendetta.

Next page, next list. I tried to come up with ways to investigate each potential, a difficult task considering whole ingredient swaps were so rare I had no process— like everything else in this case, it felt like— but my pen stopped just shy of writing it down.

Even asleep, the palace was buzzing with emotion at my upcoming betrothal, feelings ranging from excitement I felt at the base of my skull in the form of a headache, to disappointment I’d waited till sixteen so thick on my tongue I could barely move it.

How can a desk for writing be hidden under a bed? Is it able to collapse? That's something that I wondered here. I've never heard or a desk like that, but now I kinda want one if they exist. I also wanted to note that I love Kerani's voice in particular in the beginning paragraphs of this chapter. Sometimes I feel that the diction is a little odd or her thoughts aren't as strong as they're able to be though the other part of the time--you're amazing at

writing her. The last paragraph here is wonderful at portraying the emotions that Kerani is currently going through.

Even so, this drags on a little too long for my liking? That's a complaint that I have for this chapter--it's so quiet. It's a change from how this is usually written--with dialogue filling the majority of the chapter. Here, at least for the first half, this isn't the case. I'd suggest cutting parts out there in a future draft perhaps. This gets a little...melodramatic? With the whole thoughts based on love, anyway. Not saying it's bad--I just found it that way.

I suppose I don't want any of this information cut out as I do want this to be toned down a bit and--deceased childhood friend? That's new. At least, from what I know this 'he' hasn't been mentioned in any of the previous chapters. Her relationship with her brother is strong. Their connection is probably my favorite part about this chapter and seeing someone who is a strong female lead being able to break down and be hurt is nice for a change. Not the best chapter plot-wise because nothing really actually happens or progresses there but the character development for both Kerani and her brother does.

If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask! I hope I helped and have a great day.

Hey, Rosey! I know I haven't been very regular with reviewing Cat Steps, but I figured I'd get caught up on this before I head out! So first off, I'm going to start this scene off with two little critiques.

My first is that you should probably have commas after what Jalil and Nitika say at the beginning, but it could work stylistically if you left them out, it's just that my inner punctuation dork pauses a little. Not a big deal, just a stylistic choice.

My second is how awkward the fourth line sounds to me. I don't know what it is, but something about the wording of that line is off-putting; I feel like it's missing a "that", or the words have been mixed around somehow. You could even add a colon or a dash after "now" to make the pause between clauses a little more dramatic. I just feel like it runs together as it is, and it's a little distracting -- a little more distracting than the commas.

So, moving on!

I threw off the covers and reached under my bed for the writing desk I kept under here.

Something about this sounds odd to me -- I think it's the "here" bringing us suddenly into Kerani's present, combined with the repetition of "under". Maybe "the writing desk I kept there", instead? Or something like that, of course the edits are all up to you.

I wrote out a list of potential breaks in the chain, from merchants selling a mixed bag of almonds on either a threat or their own ploy, to healers getting bribed, to servants with a vendetta.

This feels off, too. Again, all up to you, but: There are a couple of ways that I feel you could redo this, either by revamping the punctuation (all the commas feel awkward) or by cutting this up into multiple sentences or a list, like so:

I wrote out a list of potential breaks in the chain. Merchants selling a mixed bag of almonds, on either a threat or their own ploy. Healers getting bribed. Servants with a vendetta.

I wrote out a list of potential breaks in the chain: Merchants selling a mixed bag of almonds, on either a threat or their own ploy; healers getting bribed; servants with a vendetta.

They’d told me since I was eleven it was too dangerous to love, and here I was supposed to forget all that the moment they dictated love appropriate? I always found it ironic love sprung from the heart, the organ dedicated to life, when all love had brought me was blood on my hands.

Love, love, love, love, love. Er, that's one too many, but you still get that there's a lot of repetition in this short section, and you might be able to find a better way to phrase it.

Ranya’s empty suit

I think you meant "suite" here? Unless I'm being silly about words again.

Okay, bunch of nitpicks over, now the big picture!

I think it's been forever since I actually just flat-out gushed over Cat Steps, and this is definitely a scene where I feel comfortable saying oh my goodness I love your writing. I don't know if it's because I resonate so well emotionally with Kerani, but I love being able to feel all these things and just be able to read and sink into a character and and and -- I adore it! Flat out adoration.

I love the way you've brought Kerani's internal conflict to the forefront, and the way you portray it with her emotional state and how Jalil comforts her; I love how you give us more details about the internal conflict without outright stating everything in the narration; I love how you emphasize the fact that Kerani identifies more third-gender than female, obvious enough that it can't be missed but subtly enough that it doesn't feel shouted in the reader's face. I love your characterization and the way you set everything up so well, and I know so much work has gone into setting this up, but goodness.

Okay, okay! That's enough being happy, this is a critique, right? I don't know if I can bring up much more, really, most of my critique this time around was couched in nitpicks and wording. Keep writing!

Hey Rosey! I haven't read previous chapters so please bare with me! I also didn't come away with a lot that I wanted to critique, so I might just talk about how it made me felt and what I thought was going on, in the hopes that you'll get something out of that!

I quite enjoyed this, for not knowing what was going on for the most part. Some chapters I jump in on, I have absolutely no idea what's happening, but with this you eluded to a lot and I was able to form an idea in my head of what was going on. So it was really easy to read in that regard.

I also found the characters pretty decent. I couldn't really relate to your MC too easily in the sense that this is the first I've seen of them (the MC seemed to be leaning to gender fluid, so I'm just going to call the MC "them/they" until corrected... I couldn't find their name in the work, and I don't remember it in there- I could be wrong though), and I've never been forced to marry anyone, nor have a had a love interest/dear friend die. But something about how Jalil comforting them made me really connect with the scene. I think because it's a situation that most of us have happen when something terrible happens to us, or when we get "hurt"; somebody comforts us- and somehow manages to make us cry more! Or at least that's the case with me. I also could relate to the MC's mind kind of going down the rabbit whole- everything in they're mind just kind of seemed harder and harder until it came out in the form of tears.

feelings ranging from excitement I felt at the base of my skull in the form of a headache, to disappointment I’d waited till sixteen so thick on my tongue I could barely move it.

I really liked the first example, it kind of made me giggle to myself... But the second example I found rather confusing. Something didn't transition well in there flow-wise. Part of me feels like you may have made it slightly confusing on purpose, if you're making it that that's how your character would say it, but I don't know. I feel like you tried to use as little words in there as possible, but at the same time more than was needed, and by doing this you obscured the clarity. I don't think you really need "I'd waited till sixteen" in there at all- chances are you've mentioned how long she'd waited previous, and it really only trips the reader up.

Sometimes that helped, but others it just reminded me I could never believe it and I hated that people around me always had to say it was okay.

This is kind of what made me wonder if you were doing that on purpose, like I mentioned before. I normally wouldn't mention this but there was a few instances throughout the piece where things just didn't sound right, grammatically...? It's not a huge deal here, but in this sentence "but others" doesn't sound right. I think it would sound better if you simply had it "but other times".

I really did like Jalil. At first he felt a bit like a love interest, but something tells me the MC is not interested in love right now. They just need to heal. But Jalil did give off that vibe a bit, not sure if you were intending that or not.

Anyway, I hope that was somewhat useful. Keep it up! ^_^

-Socks

Finally, I hath arrived! Granted, I thought I was a month late as opposed to a week, but that confusion in itself clearly states the extent of my uselessness. What I'm trying to say here is that please don't be disheartened if this review just ends up being a mass of word-spew.

...to disappointment I’d waited till sixteen so thick on my tongue I could barely move it.

Okay, so 100% biased here, but I don't like it when till is used in writing, particularly without an apostrophe in front of it. Take from that what you will

Memories. An already tentative seal on the past cracking farther. His eyes. His smile. Hugs where I could rest my head against his shoulder while everybody else joked that in a few years he’d tower over me and I’d disappear into his chest.

He’s dead. Don’t you dare think about him.

He was coming here of course he was coming here.

I feel like you need a comma after the first here, reads about awkwardly atm.

His voice was a whisper and even without sensing anything deeper the tones were laced with comfort and reassurance it truly was alright.

I kind of want a comma after whisper and deeper because this is quite a long-winded sentence without them.

I know I’m not being the woman I’m supposed to be but I’ve never felt like a woman so why should I even pretend for their sake?

Again, quite a long-winded sentence without any commas, I'd suggest having one after the second woman. (I don't have a comma fetish, I promise)

I tried to not say I needed him, if only to not risk anybody saying my loyalties were divided again, but from the hours of sleep he’d lost over the years spoke more than words could.

This might just be me being dumb, but I think you need to omit the from bolded above.

So, into the meaty stuff!

N'aw, this chapter (well, this chapter extract) was all emotional and sweet and sad and n'awww. It's nice to be given an opportunity to understand the sibling relationship Cat (I'm doing it, I'm calling her cat, watch out) and Jalil have because so far, we've only really seen it as a rather strained one. Seeing this side of it is wonderful. Everything from their dialogue to your physical descriptions really emphasised their bond, and it's reassuring knowing that Cat has his support. There isn't much more to comment on with this, as that was about it in terms of stuff happening, but yeah... everything flowed nicely, and despite my apparent obsession with commas, the technical side of things was pretty spot on. Bravo, my dear.

Now, critiques. I'm sure they'll be as flimsy as always, but hey ho, let's go. Right, I'm going to be honest with you and say that I pretty much completely forgot about the whole marriage thing. I'm partly blaming that on the fact that my reading pace of this is fairly slow (in 'real life' I would've read a good chunk of chapters by now), but also because I do feel like you've shoved it to the background a bit. I mean, I can't actually remember her fiance's name... oops. I've noticed that every now and then, you'll bring the subject of marriage up, ponder over it briefly, then move on. That's good in the sense that it helps the readers keep it in their mind, but because it's never really the full-front (is that how you write that? idk) of anything, I have a tendency to forget about it.

Now hey, I'm not saying you need to dedicate the entirety of a chapter to Cat and her fiance, but I think actually introducing him in the flesh would be something you could consider. That way, at the mention of the whole marriage thing, we can think back and be like 'oh yeah, I remember that guy form chapter 2 (or whatever)'. I feel like I may have brought up the phantom fiance before as a critique... so I'm probably just sounding like a god-awful broken record here, but it really is starting to bug me. I've grown attached to Cat, so now I'm desperate to know who she's going to be marrying. I need to check he's good enough for her, y'know?

Another thing that's worth mentioning is the existence of this dead past lover, I mean, what?! Now, let's be fair here, I'm the most forgetful human being in existence, and am so easily confused that it's extremely concerning. As such, there's a decent chance that this guy has been mentioned before, or hinted at, but I'm an idiot and have missed it entirely. If that isn't the case though, I can't help feeling like we should have at least some idea of this guy's existence before now. I mean, he seems like a big deal, and people don't go this long with thinking about big deals. Literally just small hints would do the job (again, probably being an idiot, probably missed said hints), just so that when this chapter comes about and we find out that Cat had a past lover who died (and whose death she blames herself for!), it doesn't feel so random. But hey, I won't dwell on this one because I'm fairly sure I'm just being unobservant/way too fussy.

That's all I have to say about this extract, methinks. As I noted earlier, you've got some great character dynamics between Cat and Jalil here, which develops their characters nicely. I feel super bad for Cat, and while you've struggled with some emotion portrayal in the past, you do a wonderful job here. I can feel Kerani's pain, and it makes me want to hugh for, like, ever. But yus, hopefully I've been of some help, and you know where to find me if you need anything!

Keep writing,

xoxo Skins