hiho hiho, it is i the one-armed dave! You're more than due another review, I feel.


ok, the opening dialogue exchange is... not bad. but it could be better. As it is, it reads kind of petty, when its always best to make dialogue as rich as possible. Also, most of the text you have around the dialogue is too dry, it detracts instead of adds. Maybe focus on how the voices sound, make it a little more poetic and stuff.


I'd say to cut out the bit with Kelly; it doesn't actually add anything to the tale. Focus on Julia.


you tell a lot, like 'extreme exasperration'. try to show this through sound, physical action, tone of voice, thought etc. It always works better that way.


hmm. briefer than i wanted, but not too much happens, i hope both that this helps and that i hear from you soon. oh, and i hope whatever was troubling you before has cleaned up; you said some kind of personal problem had arisen.

Laters

i'm currently nursing a fractured elbow, so i'm afraid my usual in-depthitude will be curtailed. writing with one hand = uncomfortable.

good banter at the start, though i've no clue what a 'take a chill pill' gesture is.

the description on the subway is flawed, quite a few awkward words and slightly odd images. 'uncleanly' for example. you could quite possibly make something significant out of how the needle makes her feel and the thoughts it inspires if you want to, I think. the weird details she picks up on is a nice quirk. possibly expand on that?

you should treat julia hitting her head differently. running headlong into something is INCREDIBLY painful, especially if its headfirst. from the way you describe it, it's also very likely that she'd lose her footing. now could be a good time to tease her stepping on the rails and getting saved.

the pre-last section is full of errors, particularly in how you use the '- -' marks. the sentence you split up with the added words should make sense without them, and this one definitely doesn't. the bit about her 'never again be heard of after a year' is confusing. that suggests she'll be back after a year, which really doesn't seem to be what you're getting at.



despite my rather brief review, i hope to hear some more opinions about my own scribblings soon. and of course i hope you enjoy them, as i remember you were rather taken the last time you checked in. until next time.

A good chapter, but it needs some brushing up in my opinion. There's a lot of bits here that feel a little slack, like they're little cords around the neck but aren't tight enough to grip yet. It feels a little 'tell-y' at times, the camera (as it were) feels too distanced.


-Julia walked around the corner from her apartment in western Chicago to the Blue Line subway where she would catch a ride to her brother’s apartment near Central Park for Thanksgiving dinner.

A little too much in the opening line. It goes slightly long and explains too much. Maybe break it off at 'catch a ride' then do a new sentence about going to the apartment?


-She pushed her long brown hair out of her eyes

This isn't something which bugs me and I do it myself, but a lot of people have told me its a flaw that should be corrected. Basically, she shouldn't really notice the colour of her hair, and as its from her perspective you should draw attention to it as the narrator unless she's looking at herself for some specific reason.


-Another man climbed down the stairs into the station and glanced at Julia, bought a ticket, then sat down two benches away from her, and stared.

Bordering on comma ninja. Three is at least one too many in my opinion. Especially since Julia is firmly our character perspective, I think a little less detail on the new arrival and what he's doing would work well.


-Nobody, except Julia’s subconscious, noticed this transpiring, and the man was left undisturbed.

The first word anthropomorphosises Julia's subconscious, which is pretty weird even as a roundabout way of saying Julia knows there's something odd. Why not pull the perspective in tighter and give us a better feel for how she's feeling? Is she panicked at this stage, or is she starting to feel worried, or just a bit creeped out, or what? So far it lacks intensity. Now would be a good time to build some.


-nto looking back once more, but quickly this time. She slowly craned her head about, as if she was trying to look at the subway tunnel, and then snapped to the left

This threw me a bit. You say 'but quickly' then go for 'slowly' in the next paragraph. I think rewording would be a good idea.


-An unshaven chin made him look rugged, and made Julia swoon slightly.

A bit extreme. Swoon's another word for faint. I've never heard of someone feeling faint on getting first sight of someone before. If this is some kind of weird magic, you might want to think of some way of making it clear to the reader, if not to her, that something odd's up.


-Julia forgot about the man—after all, who would want her, with her freckle-covered face, dry, bumpy skin and cracked lips?—and made her way to the train

You could do with making a larger deal of this. Contact like that is the kind of thing that kicks off spells of self-loathing. You've got a chance at characterization, so I'd take it if I were you.


-She shook her head over and over again, too shocked to be feeling anything but wind whipping her face like a cat-o-nine-tails.

This doesn't seem quite realistic. This is a MAJORLY strange occurrence. I get that he's done this before, but there's no hint of doubt earlier. It doesn't make sense, to me, that she rationalizes it so fast. Also, chance to build tension. After the previous chapter, your readers know something's up. Play into that.


-Among one of the many things Julia failed to see that day was the flash of light from the moon that hit Tristan’s eyes, making them glint red for a moment. Hazel eyes are known to appear as many different colors in different lights, gray, green, and blue among them. However, the color red is not.

Downbeat ending, but it works.


You know the sign-off: Please R & R my stories, if you have the time.

Ok, this is an interesting beginning. I have to admit I perceived a lot more problems with the writing here than I did on the other story. The -ing related tense issues crop up badly, and the occasionally omniscient narrator perspective doesn't quite work for me. If you have no intention of acting on the -ing issue feel free to ask me not to bring it up anymore.

Other than that, it's certainly different. You bring up that boardroom atmosphere very effectively, but you wind magic into it to give it that obvious edge of difference. Also the use of unique jargon's good, and mostly contextually obvious. If not clear, we'll figure out the important stuff when it's necessary, I'm sure. So yes, good stuff. Now, onto the niggles!


-The robin blinked once as it stared straight through the apartment complex’s frosty window and at the frustrated woman in her plaid lounge pants and beige camisole, readjusting its short, plump body on the branch it had been deposited on.

Hmm. An overly long first sentence in the paragraph. The part at 'readjusting' onward doesn't quite read right for me.


-shift its weight slightly against the wind,

'Slightly' isn't necessary, I'd say.


-Instead, it switched to the emotional feed, reading her stress level.

I think I mentioned the -ing endings in the other review, if you're redrafting it would be best to find ways to remove them in most cases. Here, 'read' will almost definitely work better if you work it in. 'read' is a much stronger word in general than 'reading'. There's too many -ings in general around this quote, I won't pick out every single one because that's pointless.


-and the robin could see through the window that her fists were clenched, and, the bird sensing the tension, her stomach was as well.

This one doesn't QUITE make sense. The problem is that 'the bird sensing the tension' is a complete present tense part-sentence fitting itself into an ostensibly past tense construction. Although it seems pretty mixed up in general, you yo-yo quite badly through the whole thing. I'd strongly recommend tightening up this one.


-(which seemed to contradict his occupation, though that didn’t matter, since he had never chosen it – he had wanted to be a priest, but thirty thousand years tend to change much)

Ugh. Brackets. I hate brackets in stories. The problem I have, rather than just whinging, is that it takes me out of the thing. You're drawing attention to this in a rather intrusive way, and while the thirty thousand years thing is pretty significant, but I think it can be done better. The other thing is, since we don't actually know what his occupation is yet, all we've got are people in a suit and the word 'business' mentioned, the comment seems premature. I think it'll flow better if you cut this out or edit it down to something that focuses on the thirty thousand years comment.


-Why were none of the others backing him up? Oh, screw them, he thought.

Careful. You've set Kelly up ABSOLUTELY as the perspective character. There's been no indication of the omnipresent third person here, save the bit with the robin at the start. To just suddenly dip in is something I've been slapped around for in the past. I still have the bruises... :( Anyway, I think this would be better taken out, as it is. It certainly jarred me, and the fact you return to Kelly's viewpoint less than a sentence later doesn't help.


-getting to Kelly, a fact that she was attempting to cover up by hiding her shaking hands under the table, and swallowing

Five -ing endings in one short sentence seems a bit too much for a past tense story. This was another one of those shock moments.


-Kelly’s eyes once again went over the details of his face, the novelty of the lack of wrinkles there, or that she could find no gray streaks in his dark-red hair, the greatest part being the weight of age that was held tightly in his black eyes. He would have had to spend a long time developing that color…she wondered what they had been before. And why he had decided to change them.

Introducing multiple characters is always hard, description wise. This one's a little bit obvious. It just doesn't feel natural. I get the impression Kelly's been here for a long, long time, an impression you put up well, and she's been here many times. After a while, you don't 'just notice' someone and pick out the details. Maybe pick a couple of details and bring them out in his facial expression? She'd notice that, you always notice when someone starts laughing or frowning. Don't focus on how it 'changes' his expression, just use it to tell the reader A) what expression he's adopting and giving an indication of his mood and B) an idea of what he looks like. Or at least, that's my suggestion.


-her mouth curling upwards slightly, gesturing towards Allen with her hand, but staring at Virgil,

All of these -ings, I think, will work better as -eds. They're stronger endings and reinforce the perspective, which in turn helps with immersion.


And my usual sign-off, it's practically a catch phrase at this point: Please R & R my stories if you have the time

I cracked up with the last few lines... ANYway... cool. It's interesting watching Julia deal with this. She deals with it rather realistically... lots of mistrust going around.

:) CD

'Ello, old chap.

Okay. The reason why I'm not signed in is because this isn't a real review. To tell you the truth, I'd love to review. I'd love to read, but I seemed to have forgotten a lot of the details of this story.

I need a major summary before I go on or I need to read this baby over. AND! Guess what? I'll have time to do that after these next two weeks. Do you know why? Because school is almost over. Yes, that's right. I'll get back home on May 13th, I believe. So I'll have a lot of time to get back into reading this story, as well as writing (woot, woot).

Okay, buddy. I'll talk to you soon.

-Liz

PS - VM tomorrow. YAY.

I have to admit that I was totally lost for most of this, probably cause I read it fast and skimmed a lot of it. But even though I was completely lost, I continued reading because it was interesting even when I didn't think it made any sense. I guess that's a compliment. I usually leave more detailed reviews, but I guess I'm tired.

The intolerably sexy Tristan saves the day! Mad props to him, yo.

I like the way this version of the story is coming along a lot more than the first. It flows more easily when read and teh details allow for clearer visuals. Mad props to you, yo.

And I'm reading and enjoying, so mad props to me, yo, too.

Apparently, I already reviewed this chapter. Bah.

Anyhoot, looks like I learned something. I have hazel-colored eyes. I think. I mean, I've asked various people if they could name the color my eyes are at the time, and I get varying answers.

Tristan sounds intolerably sexy. Can I say that? Well, bollocks if I can't, because I already have.

McDonald's is the anti-Christ.

Okay, so I finally got around to this and curse myself for not doing so sooner. [That's a compliment, so accept it! Accept it, I say!]

I really liked that part with the robin. It's fall from the tree held some weighty symbolism as well. I liked how you gave away more of Kelly's personality and thoughts through that bird as well. Gawrsh, you're so chock full o'metaphors these days--I'm jealous.

I'm liking Allen a lot, too. Something about his character appeals to me a lot. Yes yes.

In any case, I have no criticismses. Maybe I'm losing my touch, or maybe you're just good or splendid or some such thing. Or both. Yes, probably the latter. In any case, I'm off to the next chapter. Hurrah!

Wow... Not only do I feel really bad for Julia, that her family went kablooie like they did... i feel really bad for Kelly, too!

:) CD

The things I do for you...

I was half-way done with this chapter when (all of a sudden) a pop-up came onto the REVIEW screen -- the ** review screen -- and deleted the longest ** review ever. It was so detailed. I'm so ** ** off -- I think I'm going to cry. Oh man, here come the tears. It was the best review ever. BAH! DAMN IT ** IT ALL TO HELL I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS **.

*Breathes.*

That is the *last* time I'm leaving a review on this ** review screen. I'm doing it on word and then copying and pasting. I hope I can remember what I've written so far in the review. DAMN.

Okay, this is how I think it went:

I went on and on in my English accent about how grateful I am that you updated before my leave to college, and how I know things have been stressful in school and that everything was going to be okay as long as you breathe. You know, all that preliminary chit-chat before the review that makes everything all dandy and sound nice. And then I went on about how I loved Julia and couldn’t wait to read the chapter and see how she freaks out this time. Oh! And I mentioned the title of the chapter, and I said that it was awesome because, “Yay, Jews!” But then I questioned you and said, “Wait, why did you call it that? Is it because of the Hebrew?” and then I was all, “Well, maybe I’m not Jewish. Maybe I just learned Hebrew because I wanted to learn a foreign/ancient language.” Then I was all, “Just kidding, just kidding, but don’t be quick to assume” and all that jazz. And then I moved on to the real review.

I said I liked the descriptiveness of the first few paragraphs, especially because it makes the setting and mood seem so…mysterious? And slightly confusing; I took note of the couple of paradoxes you placed in the beginning of the chapter – I thought they were nice touches to the descriptions. Then I commented on Julia’s bloody mouth – I mean, I thought she would’ve broken her back or cracked her skull, but how the hell did she manage a bloody mouth? Then I asked about the setting – the frozen earth? But where? In a city? In New York, Toronto, an other-worldly place? Reading on…

And then I questioned the conversation between this being and Julia – ‘cause it kind of confused me. I was wondering if I understood it correctly.

I love the next scene, ‘cause I can imagine it so perfectly in my mind. Is the small creature a kind of wannabee-fallen angel? ‘Cause that would make sense with all the Hebrew quotes. Except one of the Hebrew quotes didn’t make sense – “Don’t you dare sully the Divinity with your English phrases” – the smaller creature’s previous quote wasn’t in English, it was in Hebrew. And…dude, is the smaller creature calling the bigger one Freya because that’s his name, or because it’s a certain allusion to Norse mythology?

Kelly = love. I love how she doubts everyone’s capabilities other than her own. Except one chink in the fluidity of her characterization is when she doubts herself because of the education – or lack of it, thereof – she received. Other than that, my biggest question is why it had to be of willow wood. Is this an allusion to the previous chapter, with Julia’s quest into that tree thing?

Ah, Julia meeting her past. The death of her family. This is sad. But! There is vomit. And vomit can only go out, so good (unless she swallows some, which she did). She’s releasing her discomfort. This is still sad. The blood everywhere thing? Especially the crib? Sad. About this wolf thing – it disappeared? Is that a future sign of her being an adept of the animal realm? ‘Cause that’s awesome. This whole scene reminds me of A Christmas Carol, except more tragic.

Holy **. That was really cool. He stole her memory of her family’s death? That’s…that’s ingenious, again! You keep on doing these really ingenious things. There is an Isaac Asimov or a Stephen King within you, and I see it peaking out. :p

My favorite line of this whole chapter:

“And he was gone. So was the imitation. As was the teenager. And the room. The house. The universe, and time.”

I don’t know why – it just flowed so so well.

And Kelly at the end! Bwah! *Jumps around and makes angel wings in the snow.* I need an update soon, Mister. Promise me that now!

Bye. Talk to you later. :P

-McQuinn

PS - and was that angel the same angel that spoke Hebrew? I wonder...

Oh, so you're going to add a chapter soon, hmm? I don't see it. I'm waiting. I won't stop reviewing until I see another one.

*Waits.*

By the way, leaving for college soon, so I need all the writing support I can get -- which includes my daily dosage of escaping the real world and reading good writing. Which includes this fic. Especially. Get to work, Mister.

Okay, so let's make a deal:

I post a chapter within a week that you post a chapter. We alternate.

Ain't it a cool deal?

-Liz

Okay, so wait...is this Julia's log? Is it the previous adept of the animal realm? Is it Allen's? Kelly's? 'Cause that would be cool. Anyway, I like the idea that this is some sort of memoir, at that it's been donated for "educational purposes."

So we just had a long talk about all this, and I can't wait for the next installment. ;p Hopefully it'll be here in the next 2.6 seconds.

-McQuinn