Post 1:
Ok, standard picture and poem.
Alright. Mature Content Warning. Set sail for sexy seas.
Post 2:
There’s a lot of “scene setting” going on in the first paragraph, and it’s all being done in in a big block that’s just listing one thing after another. I would recommend breaking it up in a more natural way by describing the building through actions rather than simply “panning the camera” around the room. Talk about what Amari’s doing to set up the bakery for the morning or something similar and then describe each portion of the room as she interacts with it.
The next sentence, is really choppy, with all the commas, that are put together, without a separate sentence. I do this a lot too, sadly.
The block describing Amari is well done. I really get the feeling of anxious waiting. Watch the punctuation at the end though.
The final sentence feels awkward to me, and I think it’s because you’re just using a staccato repetition of short phrases one after another after another.
Post 3:
Your intro here would have been better served in the opening post beneath the intro poem. Once inside the story it is really jarring to read.
In fact, reading on, this whole post reads like a book flap bio… wait a minute … Joshua Arcus? ARCUS! Hell yeah, now I’m in on this post one-hundred ten percent! Go team “Protagonists with the same last name!”
Post 4:
Chocolate gaze sounds so fucking smooth.
The first paragraph is a good setup into the simple first line of the next. (“Joshua.” She uttered his name in a kind greeting.) This just works so fucking well here. The rest of the paragraph is too passive though. That first line has some passion in it and you should use that momentum.
“… a small hand resting on Joshua’s shoulder, chancing a squeeze.” Also golden. A really good way to show Amari’s hesitant intimacy. Then you go on to just list out a bunch of facts like reading a list. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “show don’t tell” when writing. That first line is showing, the rest is telling.
No wonder Amari’s bakery isn’t doing too well. She keeps throwing free baked goods at the first sexy Arcus to walk into the place. What a lucky mook.
Also, is it really that odd to want tea that your friends are like “lol, look at the weirdo and his tea?”
I’m struck with how stiff the language is in this thread. So much of the character’s words reads as wooden. I get the feeling that you’re trying to write the characters as speaking formally, but there has to be a formal way of speaking that doesn’t sound so forced.
Amari’s trying real hard at the end here. I feel for her. Good job with that.
Post: 5
The conversation between Joshua and his friends at the beginning of this post is well done, conveying information in a way that feels natural. There is still some awkwardness with Joshua’s stiff manner of speaking. The last line though before David’s departure, where he again calls Amari as witch is really odd. I had to read it a couple of times before it clicked.
Fucking Vorsport eye racists.
The payment paragraph could use some clarity. The issue between him leaving too many coins in a pouch, then the offhanded mention of his men leaving too little, then Amari refusing the coins in the pouch but taking the loose coins, then Joshua leaving the coins on the table, it’s all a bit confusing.
Something else I’m picking up on here that continues through the rest of the thread is how Joshua and Amari are constantly saying each other’s names. When people are talking they rarely reference each other that way unless they’re trying to get that person’s attention or they’re directing something at them when in a group. When it’s just the two of them talking back and forth is seems like you’re using the names to remind the reader who is speaking and who they are speaking to. If that’s the case, then you need more work on writing conversation clarity.
Ok, I think I figured out part of the reason your conversations sound so off, and it’s the way you sometimes skip using contractions but other times don’t. If you are trying to make it sound like Joshua is more educated or more formal because he is speaking and is not using contractions when he is speaking it is not working out well because at times he is using them and at times he is not using them and it ends up sounding like he is speaking very slowly and pounding his words at the reader. Seriously though, not using contractions doesn’t make someone sound more high society, it makes them sound stiff and slow.
Oh man, I told a kid to stop stealing and he did. Aren’t I such a good town guard? Except the kid was stealing to have something to eat so it’s more likely that he’s dead in a back alley somewhere. If you’d wanted to make Joshua seem more noble, you should probably had him help the kid in some way other than letting him keep his stolen pie and wagging a finger at him.
Post: 6
I’ve got doors that jingle-jangle-jingle.
Another dump of short sentence expository information.
Enter Girl B.
Does Ophelia really allow Amari to be on a first name basis with her? From how you’ve set this up I get the feeling that Ophelia is just stalking Amari to make sure that she ain’t messing with her man. Unless I’ve read Ophelia wrong she’s super hoity-toity nobility which makes Amari using her first name like that seem odd. Especially since Ophelia simply refers to her as “baker’s daughter.”
So Ophelia comes in every day to look at Amari’s cookies and is all like, “Yup cookies. Bye!” How does Amari NOT think that’s weird?
Bitch is making it rain up in here.
Oh god, the “m’lady.” And all down in Vorsport they say that Joshua’s neckbeard grew three sizes that day.
Post: 7
Just like his writer!
“No, she was a parasitic woman, who siphoned from high society in order to continue to exist.” Damn! You haven’t really set up that she was anything other than just another noble woman up to this point and then you lash out with that venom. It was pretty surprising, especially since Joshua had himself just been talking about how she was alright, just not the right woman for him. Guy doesn’t have to have a massive hate-on for the girl to not be interested in her. In fact, not hating her makes the story more tragic where just hating her for no reason makes Joshua look like the stuck up one.
Yeah, in fact the more I read the more I feel bad for Ophelia here and that Joshua is just kind of a jerk. They’re engaged, she seems kinda into him, and she’s trying to make the best of it. Instead of just being polite or truthful with her, Joshua treats her like dirt for liking him. What a douche!
Post: 8
Look, I know you’re trying to write Amari as really selfless and pure hearted, but you keep mentioning that no one buys anything from her but she keeps baking all this stuff and giving it away. It makes her seem less like a kind person and more like a really bad businesswoman.
Ugh, I get it, she’s a super good person with absolutely no flaws.
The scene with Duncan sets up a payoff with having the old man offer his fishing boat to Joshua and Amari for their escape at the end, a good use of a minor character.
Post: 9
More narrative exposition dump. A quick fix to get this information out while making it more fun/easier to read would have been a conversation between Joshua and a superior/another guard at Joshua’s end-of-shift briefing.
Joshua doesn’t really seem like a character who has grown up in his own society. What I mean is that he reads like you putting your own ideas on a subject into someone else’s place. “He didn’t like Ophelia, and that was his final thought on the matter.” This reads like Joshua’s not someone who has been born and raised in a society where that’s just the way things are. He’s well within character to not like it, but it seems like he should at least be trying to rationalize something out of it. This would make it that much more impactful when he runs into Amari and realizes what he’s feeling.
*reads in narrator voice* “It was in such a state he found himself tiredly outside his favorite bakery.” What? That doesn’t read naturally at all. You are definitely telling here, not showing.
From what I gather this post feels like it’s taking place at midnight or later. When I think night shift guard duty and I hear that they’ve not only finished up but that it has been over an hour since they did so I assume late means LATE. In that case, how many rolls did Amari have to give out that she’s just now getting back?
(“W-what?” She turned to him, then quickly away. “I’ve been working all day. You’re blind.”) This is cute.
A bakery in a poor part of town with the house attached has a drawing room? I’ve been picturing a small shack behind the red door, certainly not something that’d have a drawing room.
The repetitions of “I am alive” don’t feel very genuine and not in a way that I feel Amari is emotionally lost and looking for something to latch onto. The way it reads is just repetitive.
A good, emotional end to the post. I can feel the drawn out hesitance.
Post: 10
Mmmnnnn….. forbidden love.
As much as I’m enjoying the conversation, and I am, the constant use of letters repeated after hyphens and ellipsis to indicate stuttering are really jarring. A little bit is ok, but there is a lot of it here and it makes it hard to read smoothly.
Gunpowder smell? Ok that came out of nowhere. I didn’t get the feeling that firearms were a thing, especially given that Joshua is a noble guard patrol leader and uses a sword and not a gun. A silly thing to latch onto, I know, but that word in particular came out of left field and stuck me as not right.
Post: 11
Oh boy! This is it! Sexy times are a go!
So in all honesty, as I was typing up this review I looked up at the TV and saw a scene from a the movie The Counsellor wherein Michael Fassbender and Penélope Cruz were in bed together and I think I burned out my sexy-o-meter.
There’s so much cheese in the first three paragraphs that I’m going to go grab some bread and make a sandwich. Romance can easily become cornball. This is cornball. Especially considering how decently written the rest of the scene is.
Get a room you two!
Not perfectly written, but at least it was done tastefully. Given the “mature” warning at the beginning I was expecting something more explicit.
That final line. Lol what? Where did that come from? Commence mustache twirling shenanigans.
Post: 12
Guards wear silk gloves while on duty? I mean, I know he’s a noble but I’m pretty sure day to day guard patrol activity is going to mess up silk pretty quickly.
Hah! “Dad, wake up. I’ve got to tell you about all this awesome sex I just had!”
Man, now I want to go get a cheap-o box of day old donuts.
Oh, oh, bitch! It’s about to get real!
Post: 13
Cue time skip!
Didn’t you mention earlier (Post 9) that the ships were going to Fallien? What’s with all the Dheathain? Continuity!
“Disgorging its passengers” makes the ship sound like a blubbery whale.
Guilty of witchcraft? I get the idea of people being superstitious about Amari being a witch because of her eyes and that magic is uncommon and can be scary for those not around it all the time but isn’t this Corone? Don’t they routinely deal with big magic stuff? When has magic been outlawed? This is a major plot point but is probably the most “that doesn’t seem right” thing in this thread. Feels like you just wrote a story set in a random New Englandish town but put the place name as Corone to tie it into Althanas more. I mean really, there are probably other charges that a noblewoman could trump up to get her arrested and simply use the “she’s a witch” thing to get popular opinion on her side.
“… sentenced to hang from the neck until dead.” Is this random old man a judge? That doesn’t sound at all like something a commoner would say.
Post: 14
See here’s where the Ophelia thing really fell flat. Ophelia has apparently got ninjas working for her and I assume that she’s knows what happened between Joshua and Amari because of said ninja. It seems like she’s coming into Amari’s store to mess with the girl but she’s been written as being nothing but pleasant. Ok, so she’s the cat waiting to eat the canary. Then Amari gets guilty and confesses and Ophelia reacts rightly so. Then she comes back and has Amari brought up on charges of witchcraft. In the end, the whole ninja thing makes no sense and has no impact. If Amari hadn’t confessed and thought she and Ophelia were getting along well only to have Ophelia turn on her when least expected, then that would have worked. But the way you went, it has no bearing whatsoever. Instead of sly and manipulative Ophelia comes off as petty and spiteful, which is perfectly fine for how her character has been up to this point.
Amari’s 22 and they’re just now charging her for her mother’s murder? If they hated witchcraft so much wouldn’t they have simply done away with her as a child? The whole witchcraft thing makes no sense. And what’s this with glowing hands all of a sudden?
Her father just so happens to be dead in the back room? I guess you’ve mentioned that he’s been getting worse but the timing of everything is just confusingly convenient. The impact of this whole affair would have been greater if you’d written her father passing in the night, she wakes up and is in mourning, then the guards come get her. More emotional tie to the character and a greater feeling of empathy with the writer. As is, her father’s death is kind of a thrown away line and doesn’t really have any impact.
Why would Ophelia wait so long to have Amari arrested and executed? Is she holding on so that Joshua will get back in time to witness? If not, then why not just get it done with so he can’t interfere. If so, then she better have her ducks in a row so nothing goes wrong. Again her plan here makes no sense.
Post: 15
Yeah, see? Here’s where some additional guards being on alert for this sort of thing would have made it an actual plan and not just a lump of things coming together.
“If she is a witch you never would have caught her.” Not necessarily, unless they’re just bad at their jobs. Also, witches come in many forms. And your last sentence in that paragraph is confusing.
The way you wrote the “Not even hung” line makes it seem like being hung is a lighter penalty than being fined.
What’s with the glowing hands? Where did all this come from so suddenly without any sort of mention? I’m so confused. I guess Amari IS a witch. *shrug* Hang her.
“Milady” much better than the previously written “m’lady” but pick one and stick with it.
“Is this hoy you carry out justice? Against an unarmed woman who was merely eking out a living, while you stood by and refused to help?” Ok first, yes, they’re trying to hang a criminal. Who’s to tell that these guards know anything of her other than that she’s been tried for witchcraft and found guilty. Second, it’s not really the town guard’s job to see to it that a business does well, at least not from what I’ve gathered in this thread. Third, SHE’S GOT GLOWING HANDS! While I’m not a fan of the whole “burn the witch” angle of the thread, you’ve written it as a crime in your setting. She should rightly be put to death by the law for flaunting it. You sir are the one in the wrong here attacking those poor guards.
No matter how hard you try I’m still finding that Ophelia doesn’t really feel like a villain here.
All of the tings in your final paragraph once again seem like you putting your own experiences in Joshua’s world. Are those things required for a trial in Vorsport? If so, then Amari’s arrest was just really poorly put together. If those things aren’t required then it makes little sense for Joshua to bring them up. Given the setting, I’m believing that the trial was conducted satisfactorily enough that the judgment stands which means again Joshua is in the wrong here.
Post: 16
Glowing hands means witch. In Vorsport witch means illegal. Amari should rightly be put to death. This is why the witchcraft thing is just a bad plot point.
Interesting tactic Ophelia. Frankly she makes a lot of sense. Still, I feel like you’re just trying to shoehorn a villain into the thread where one really isn’t needed.
Of course there’s no hesitation in Joshua, making Ophelia’s speech irrelevant, just filler.
In contrast to the romantic evening scene the execution scene seems really poorly, uh, executed.
Post: 17
Good communication between the two here. I can feel a connection between the characters.
Epilogue Part 1!
Post: 18
Epilogue Part 2!
Glad to see everything resolved itself and that the protagonists lives long, happy lives together. Odd formatting choice though.