Futile Rice

I want to apologize for my unplanned hiatus these last couple of weeks. Unfortunately I ran into some medical issues over the holiday season, but thankfully my prognosis is good, and I will do my best to get back to posting regularly as soon as I am able. Again, sorry about the lack of recent posts.

Feedback sent! See chat, and let me know if it doesn't come through, if something I wrote doesn't make sense, or if you have any questions. Thanks for sharing the story!

Just came across this account of similar, but more focused purpose:

No story to trade, but my tomorrow is open if you have one you'd like to share. I don't read much horror, so I might not be able to give genre-specific feedback there, but I do read thrillers. Sample of my feedback at is.gd/DDubKZ, though I would alter format and focus to fit the request.

Like, it's disheartening to see all of the creative effort put into earnest art, poetry or otherwise, go so underappreciated that it can be replaced by shaped random noise without people noticing.

I have a lot of beef with claims that contemporary AI makes art, especially knowing how much work remains to replicate the processes underlying actual creativity, but I'm also saddened to see that, apart from this issue, AI has exposed another problem: how little artistic discernment the public has.

Thanks! I enjoyed getting a chance to read it!

"she cries", not "see cries" 🤦

One final thing I'll mention, just as a check on authorial intent: from the opener, I entertained the possibility that Shay is the queen who will go missing and this chapter is the "how". I kind of doubt that now, and "queen" doesn't match her being just a girl, but that's what occurred to me. 21/21

… and role dropped sometime early on so that I could enjoy a little dose of dramatic irony by knowing what Lucard is implying before Shay does. 20/21

The part where see cries is again well-paced. Lucard's "there, there" is fun; he really is entertainingly aloof. Shay's confused apology also reads as authentic to me. I don't have a ton of feelings about how the chapter ended other than that it would have been nice to have Ken's name … 19/21

… conclusion immediately; up until this point I've been looking for conflict (I'm not counting her escape, as it'll clearly work), and now we see one. (Side note: for querying, some conflict in the first page or two is important, so maybe put her escape more into doubt, with gains and losses?) 18/21

… sword-pull, then I as a reader certainly want to know what it *feels* like, and this is a memorable take. Lucard's detached "Interesting." is great. But "joy" seems to contradict that; I am back to not having a bead on his character. I'm glad that you got to the subversion of Shay's … 17/21

I'm also thrown by "her actions had already hurt him". I get that she's in trouble, but, at this point in the story, I don't see how Lucard was harmed. No need to call her "despondent"; I can already see that from her actions. Keep "like someone had poured grease …"; if we're going to have a 16/21

I love the pacing of the confrontation by Lucard. I can *feel* the pauses between each of his lines. The shift to her deciding to run loses me a little though—what provoked her to action now and not before? Is it that Lucard's attention wavers when he mutters to himself? 15/21

If you can show the world colored a bit more by her distinct viewpoint, as you already do in "…lack of a color palette" and "simple yet beautiful", I think that would hook me quite well. Okay, right on cue you have her taking off her shoes—perfect, exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. 14/21

Speaking of which, this is a good time to take an inventory of how well I know the MC. I'm quite okay with the lack of physical description—I'd rather you bring that up as needed, but, unfortunately, I can't say much about her personality yet other than that she's a rambunctious tomboy. 13/21

I'm unsure if you intended it, but "simple yet beautiful" comes across as a characterization moment to me. As an engineer, my inclination is "simple = beautiful", so this wording emphasizes to me that Shay is not someone who thinks that way, and we'll see her distinct mindset at play later on. 12/21

The line "she found herself alone in this magical spot" surprises not only Shay, but also me. Could you, before that, help the reader envision the transition out of crowded areas? I was imagining the densest numbers at the sanctum, so having to dramatically revise that mental picture threw me. 11/21

With two such moments already, I starting to feel that having these bits of exposition that make the reader wonder, "Yes, that tells me enough to follow the scene, but, also, how does that work?" (and, like, not in a frustrated way) is an authorial strength you could really lean into. 10/21

I am a little unclear on how much responsibility she takes for that, but for now I'm hoping you'll be exploring the question later. The townspeople cheering her is another makes-me-want-to-keep-reading moment; I want to know how it is that her gender can be mistaken here. 9/21

… but do also demonstrate that you can trust us readers to pick up on things like the in-world sexism or Shay's motivation without being shown them so directly. I like that you've got the protagonist's hijinks getting not her, but someone she cares about in trouble, which can be a fun dynamic. 8/21

… especially since it tells me again what day it is. Could it foreshadow the plot or hint at worldbuilding somehow so that I have a reason to pay attention to it, even if Shay doesn't? Similar comments through the next paragraphs; you've got some good moments showing that we can trust you, … 7/21

… specifically caring for *boys*, not, say, children in general, has me looking forward to finding out what that's all about. I really like the cheek in "…lack of a color palette". The background action (boring class that the protagonist is spacing out in) is throwing up filler flags for me, … 6/21

Implications of gender discrimination have me worried about a cliché plotline again, but I'm not rushing to judgment yet. ¶s 5–7 (up through "Shay yearned…") felt like overkill since I already got the point with ¶4; keep things moving. Retain the detail about what she's learning; that it's … 5/21

Maybe avoid "had failed to mention" in favor of "hadn't mentioned" though, so that I can see right away that you aren't going to be roundabout from habit alone. Third paragraph also jarred me a bit, as I thought that Paragraph 2 had meant the Chosen would be age zero, not just a birthday girl. 4/21

The opener immediately raises my expectations; since the first sentence is terse and clearly wants to be striking, I am bracing for some banal writing, but then you swerve into "yeah, but that was expected; let's talk *stakes*", and I can lower my hackles and begin to trust your writing. 3/21

… (2) that the most direct way for you to improve, from just my amateur perspective, would be to trust your readers a little more and avoid telling them what they can already infer, to focus more on rewarding the reader for engaging with the text. 2/21

I'll post some notes, taken contemporaneously as I was reading, below. Overall, my two impressions were (1) that you've got a hard-to-master skill where you can pull the reader along with intriguing details but also without out-and-out teasing them about unknowns and … 1/21

No worries! That makes a lot more sense. Yes, I agree.