Daemon & Sunny

[zephrbabe]

These aren't my stories. I don't think I'll ever write this well. I just want to accrue opinions of this story because LadyoftheMasque, the author, is trying to get some of her work published. And she seriously deserves it.

Here are the links:
Daemon & Sunny: Prequel
Daemon & Sunny
Daemon & Sunny Ch.02
Daemon & Sunny Ch.03
Daemon & Sunny Ch.04
Daemon & Sunny Ch.05

There's quite a lot of story here, so make sure you've got the time/ attention span to read this in full.

These stories are in the Sci-fi & Fantasy category. Also, the Prequel has no sex in it (just a warning for those who want to cut to the smut ). In fact, LotM wrote D&S after D&S.

What I really like about these stories is that an increasingly complex plot is revealed. LotM also fleshes out the secondary characters (an element I find few authors do, but that I really like).

Enjoy!

-Kathryn

 

[NoJo]

Sunny frowned. She was in the middle of a difficult, only partially legible translation, pouring over a shard of etched metal.

That's the first sentence of the first story, the prequel. "Poring" is misspelt. Fix.

This is a bad way to start. "She was in the middle of a difficult, only partially legible translation". It's like me saying "I'm half-way through my book". Am I writing it or reading it? The ambiguity (admitedly resolved by the phrase "partially legible"), coupled with the mispelling of the word "poring" produce an overall effect on me of "This is not a professional writer."

In any case, the sentence is weak.

"She struggled to make out the tiny words etched into the shard of metal" would be more active, more engaging, and clearer too, imo.

Am I being ridculously pedantic? No. I'm giving an account of what a reader at a publishing house would quite possibly be thinking.


First sentence, first impression.

 

[zephrbabe]

Thank god I'm not the author... eesh.

I understand what you're saying, but I seriously hope you read more than just the first sentence. Because while it may be that a reader at a publishing house might only read the first sentence (because, after all, they get thousands of stories sent to them), a Lit reader usually goes beyond that.

As to poring vs. pouring, that is a common mistake (along the lines of born vs. borne and loth vs. loathe), and probably a typo in any case.

But thanks for bringing it to notice.

-Kathryn

 

[inkstain]

i'd like to say in defense of sub joe, that i think he is making a valid point, although he might be being a bit lazy, and not giving the story a chance

but the point about first sentences is true. there's a horrible fact that gets bandied about, that people decide whether or not they like someone within a few seconds of meeting. pretty scary thought for interviewees!

in my limited experience of "pitching" stories to publishers, they do tend to make snap decisions based on what's known as "topping and tailing" -- reading the first and last page of a story or script. some of them have piles and piles of them to go through, so i suppose it has been developed as a time-saving technique, while still maintaining the likelihood of identifying quality work.

ink

 

[zephrbabe]

Yeah. Sad, but true.

I only hope everyone who reads these stories will give them a chance. Many Lit stories are not as good as this. In fact, at any given time, D&S usually has at least two parts high in the top lists.

Cool; I think we've gotten that bit straightened out.

-Kathryn

 

[zephrbabe]

The next installment is FINALLY here!

Or, rather, here.

That's right- "Daemon & Sunny part 6" has been posted. In this chapter, we see Daemon explore being a sub a little (very little). This chapter is what some call a "cliffie," although it's not that someone may or may not die, and we've just gone to commercials, but rather, I can already taste the next scenes, and want to see how expertly LadyoftheMasque lays them out.

I'm anticipating (I really have no idea what she'll write next) a scene of Sunny at the Royal Familial Ball (the matchmaking party of the nobility), confronting the cunning ruthlessness of Queen Astrida, a visiting royal who wants to marry Daemon so she can control about 40 planets (that's quite a lot, aparently).

What I love best about these stories, no matter what I say later, is the political aspect; it'd be damn hard to make this story believable without LotM writing at length about the politics of Daemon's kingdom, Astrida's kingdom, and the Imperium, now rulerless (but not for long!).

OK, enough drooling sycophantism for now.

-Kathryn