So I’m a little wary of doing my usual mechanics comb-through with you because I’m admittedly hazy on the finer details of the differences between our respective flavors of the English language. What strikes me as an irregularity may very well just be the way you guys do it on your side of the pond, as opposed to a mistake worth patching. So I’m going to keep that in mind as I go through this. With that said…

Post 2

“Her hair danced lie kami raging.” like

“Steeling himself for the inevitable barbed tongue backlash, the bard did away with the awkward silence and put his thoughts into words.” The second half of the sentence can be cut out - fluff.

Strong hook.

Post 3

“orrerry” orrery… at least as I know it. This is one of those spellings that may be acceptable in your English but not over here… I don’ t know for sure.

This is a very dramatic conversation… perhaps a little overly so.

As a reader unfamiliar with your cadre, it’s at times unclear who is speaking. You mention ‘the swordsman’, and I think it refers to Arden? I don’t know to whom to attribute the passage that begins with “Precisely!” Duffy, I think?

Post 5

“Taking his cue, Duffy continued his exposition and started to grow excitable.” ‘Started to’ is weak language – extra words that don’t add anything. “Taking his cue, Duffy continued his exposition and grew excitable.”

“Wainwright’s sole” soul, presumably

“foxtro” foxtrot

“pudgy cheeked” hyphenate

“It will take the Aria back to its beginnings, and use back to the day Oblivion possessed Wainwright’s body and ended our lives.” us

Post 7

“Whichever ones she cut, none lead to a logical conclusion” led

Feel free to take this or leave this as you please: as a reader unfamiliar with your work, a lot of this is going over my head. I don’t know what the Aria is, or what the Ayar was. I don’t know why Ruby is so pissed at Duffy, though I assume it’s because of the “he died, then lived, then died again” thing. I think you could do a better job of bringing the uninitiated up to speed on some of this.

“…becoming a Thayne gave me everything I needed to give up everything to rectify.” Unclear

Post 8

“A atana, sharp as death greeted Lilith like an old friend.” Katana. You tend to make a handful of simple typos that a day-later readthrough would find and smash in five minutes. I’m going to stop pointing them out now; just a piece of advice to pocket for later, if you want it.



Your characters are compelling and rich with lore and history, and as a result you managed to succeed with a simple plot that revolved around one short event and mounds of discussion. For a lesser cast, this template would have made for an unfulfilling read. For this group, it worked. The depth of the lore comes with a double-edge. While the sheer time and effort put into the troupe is apparent, I felt like I didn’t understand a lot of what was referenced. I don’t need every detail of every detail – that’s unreasonable – but I, as a new reader of yours, am looking for enough information to get exactly what is going on and why the characters do what they do.

Your mechanics would be very strong if you’d take a small amount of time and polish off the rough edges. You are eloquent (at times overly so), with a strong grasp of grammar, but you let yourself down by making so many small errors. Writing ‘use’ instead of ‘us’ is typically inconsequential, but there were also a few mistakes that actually broke a phrase to the point where I was unsure what you were saying.

You’re a good writer and a natural storyteller, though. This story was engaging and a good read. Well done.