1) The whole 'Ms' thing is still very grating. It never even gets shortened to a mere 'Miss' or "Ma'am'.
2) Yes, the AI image doesn't match the vision of what I get from the chapter. He actually sounds like he should have a beard, actually.
3) I hate to say 'I told you so', but the 'romantic entanglement' thing seemed to have flopped. Checkov's Gun.
4) Now, my big comment would be that I love it when a story had a mystery, but it seems to me it has to come out as it goes along. Occasionally one big reveal, but not usually when you play with it so much.
So I am finding her situation hard. Too much mystery, not enough dribbled reveal. We get the satan like figure in the prologue, then it seems like they would even know if she ate first, and now we get 'the bosses' will take her money. I'm not getting enough detail, fun details.
When the main character, too, doesn't know the mystery, it works more. But here it just feels like the author is keeping it from us.
5) I don't know if I mentioned it before, but while I love the 'smile 32' kind of thing, I think the formatting needs work. It doesn't seem to work as just part of the sentence.
6) The wording here makes it sound like he 'read' the smile:
I used sincere tone 7, suitable for apologies.
He gave a quick surprised half-bob at my bow, more of a nod than an actual bow. "What have you got to apologise for?"
7) This transition doesn't work for me: "You're not old," I said automatically, putting on smile 10, mostly friendly, but with a hint of invitation. I instantly switched back to smile 27.
8) I like the internal conflict, but not complete helplessness that seems to go with it. See 'mystery', above.
There's some reactions, feel free to ask about them.
1. I've got it. You don't like Ms. We can take that as a given for future posts (should you still wish to do them. But you do realize that everyone has *just* met her? She hasn't been on the property much more than an hour.
2. The image on this page (by @Tiffany Grey) is really closer to what Tolly looks like in my head than anything else I've come up with. Think Uncle Bill (Brian Keith) on Family Affair.
3. Define "flopped". "I told you so"s only work if theother person agrees with you. And we haven't reached the end of the story by a long shot, so Chekhov's Gun does not apply. (If it ever fully applied to novels as opposed to three act plays.)
6. She had just said, "I'm so sorry."
Frankly, if you're coming up with comments such as "I don't like Ms." and "Why is she dressed like a modern day American", and not "Did she just faint?" and "How did she come up out of the water?" then I am doing the whole thing wrong.
1) Well, it is true that I don't like Ms. But even if it had been 'Mr,' it still seems to come up A LOT. Even if in the same places they had used her name (and I am not a modern, I like use of titles) it would still seem repetitive.
3) Oh, that's true. If it turns out that some of that kids stuff actually comes from some kind of romantic entanglement then, more power to you, Chekov's gun fires again :)
6. Yeah, got that. I didn't communicate clearly. What I am saying is because the name of the smile was 'apology'... like that exact word... the fact that he immediately says 'apologise' hit me as if he had 'caught' the smile, like he knew her catalog of smiles.
Again, I have read Retief, where they play with this a lot. So one diplomat will try the face 'apology for unintended offense' and the other diplomat will replly, "I dont' believe that offense was unintended!" IOW they will use the exact name of the face in replying to it... like "I know what that face is supposed to mean and...'
It's really fun and it has me prepped to look for that.
I'm not sure what kind of 'wrong' you think you are doing. I tend to list things that I think about as I read it. And my number (4) is the big thing. And (8) is big, too.
The tension in the story is a huge thing for me, but I haven't yet figured out how to address it.
Ok, thinking about it over dinner. Let's say that this was a military story, and she was 'Captain Hoi'. I think, I could be wrong, that if you were to do a find/replace and everywhere that it says Ms Hoi you were to replace with Captain Hoi, it would make my point that it is very repetitive.
I can't decide if this is a woman setting up a man for blackmail or a woman trying to steal something from Tolly.
Granted, I've only read this much, but what throws me are "Smile #7", "Apology #4", and "Sincere #2". I can see where she would have these defense mechanisms trained or drilled into her by the nameless villain in the prologue, but I find them a bit offputting.
As for your image, I just chalk those up to AI's failure to do what you want it to. I have the same problem with my art. I can't get Nightcafe to do what I want.
I read Von's comments below and was curious. Is there supposed to be romance in this novel? It has yet to show up. If not, that's cool.
I agree with him about Ms. There are other ways to say it, such as "Miss," "Ma'am," "Young lady," etc.
Overall, it has promise, and that's why I'm reading it.
So... my comments, as requested :)
1) The whole 'Ms' thing is still very grating. It never even gets shortened to a mere 'Miss' or "Ma'am'.
2) Yes, the AI image doesn't match the vision of what I get from the chapter. He actually sounds like he should have a beard, actually.
3) I hate to say 'I told you so', but the 'romantic entanglement' thing seemed to have flopped. Checkov's Gun.
4) Now, my big comment would be that I love it when a story had a mystery, but it seems to me it has to come out as it goes along. Occasionally one big reveal, but not usually when you play with it so much.
So I am finding her situation hard. Too much mystery, not enough dribbled reveal. We get the satan like figure in the prologue, then it seems like they would even know if she ate first, and now we get 'the bosses' will take her money. I'm not getting enough detail, fun details.
When the main character, too, doesn't know the mystery, it works more. But here it just feels like the author is keeping it from us.
5) I don't know if I mentioned it before, but while I love the 'smile 32' kind of thing, I think the formatting needs work. It doesn't seem to work as just part of the sentence.
6) The wording here makes it sound like he 'read' the smile:
I used sincere tone 7, suitable for apologies.
He gave a quick surprised half-bob at my bow, more of a nod than an actual bow. "What have you got to apologise for?"
7) This transition doesn't work for me: "You're not old," I said automatically, putting on smile 10, mostly friendly, but with a hint of invitation. I instantly switched back to smile 27.
8) I like the internal conflict, but not complete helplessness that seems to go with it. See 'mystery', above.
There's some reactions, feel free to ask about them.
1. I've got it. You don't like Ms. We can take that as a given for future posts (should you still wish to do them. But you do realize that everyone has *just* met her? She hasn't been on the property much more than an hour.
2. The image on this page (by @Tiffany Grey) is really closer to what Tolly looks like in my head than anything else I've come up with. Think Uncle Bill (Brian Keith) on Family Affair.
https://open.substack.com/pub/jasinikc/p/prologue?r=kihoy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
3. Define "flopped". "I told you so"s only work if theother person agrees with you. And we haven't reached the end of the story by a long shot, so Chekhov's Gun does not apply. (If it ever fully applied to novels as opposed to three act plays.)
6. She had just said, "I'm so sorry."
Frankly, if you're coming up with comments such as "I don't like Ms." and "Why is she dressed like a modern day American", and not "Did she just faint?" and "How did she come up out of the water?" then I am doing the whole thing wrong.
1) Well, it is true that I don't like Ms. But even if it had been 'Mr,' it still seems to come up A LOT. Even if in the same places they had used her name (and I am not a modern, I like use of titles) it would still seem repetitive.
3) Oh, that's true. If it turns out that some of that kids stuff actually comes from some kind of romantic entanglement then, more power to you, Chekov's gun fires again :)
6. Yeah, got that. I didn't communicate clearly. What I am saying is because the name of the smile was 'apology'... like that exact word... the fact that he immediately says 'apologise' hit me as if he had 'caught' the smile, like he knew her catalog of smiles.
Again, I have read Retief, where they play with this a lot. So one diplomat will try the face 'apology for unintended offense' and the other diplomat will replly, "I dont' believe that offense was unintended!" IOW they will use the exact name of the face in replying to it... like "I know what that face is supposed to mean and...'
It's really fun and it has me prepped to look for that.
I'm not sure what kind of 'wrong' you think you are doing. I tend to list things that I think about as I read it. And my number (4) is the big thing. And (8) is big, too.
The tension in the story is a huge thing for me, but I haven't yet figured out how to address it.
Ok, thinking about it over dinner. Let's say that this was a military story, and she was 'Captain Hoi'. I think, I could be wrong, that if you were to do a find/replace and everywhere that it says Ms Hoi you were to replace with Captain Hoi, it would make my point that it is very repetitive.
I see. Yes, having them say the same thing three times in two paragraphs can be an issue, totally unrelated to Ms.
I can't decide if this is a woman setting up a man for blackmail or a woman trying to steal something from Tolly.
Granted, I've only read this much, but what throws me are "Smile #7", "Apology #4", and "Sincere #2". I can see where she would have these defense mechanisms trained or drilled into her by the nameless villain in the prologue, but I find them a bit offputting.
As for your image, I just chalk those up to AI's failure to do what you want it to. I have the same problem with my art. I can't get Nightcafe to do what I want.
I read Von's comments below and was curious. Is there supposed to be romance in this novel? It has yet to show up. If not, that's cool.
I agree with him about Ms. There are other ways to say it, such as "Miss," "Ma'am," "Young lady," etc.
Overall, it has promise, and that's why I'm reading it.
I'll reserve judgment for the end of the story.