[1986] The Women Who Steal Magic - Enter the Soot (chapter 2)

I like the intro, it grabbed my attention, and I quite like the implication that she thinks it’s been an hour but hasn’t-so an unreliable narrator, my favourite!

Oooh I love the twist already of it not being night but dark, so I take back what I said (I write as a I read), I like how we go from one assumption to another without it being jarring, you pulled this off GREAT!

Also what is a photo being leeched? I took a photograph course and I never heard that once. Granted I wasn’t even remotely sober for any of those lessons lol. I’m intrigued though!

I like how the story has gone from funny to dark, I like a story with dark humour (Sopranos is the best at this IMO).

You could bring out this starless sky even more. Describe it like an abyss like Nietzsche would, a void to fill (mirror the character’s sense of self perhaps? Personify it basically), suffocating etc.

I like how you’re pulling off the frantic pace well, it’s not confusing/is well done. Be proud. I also like the futile imagery of screaming atop the Grand Canyon, that was very profound whilst easy to grasp, instantly put me in her shoes.

I like the mention of therapy, I get the sense you’ve been. I like the inclusion of breathing techniques too, it’s good to get that info out there

I like the description of the smoke, when when you said tufts that makes me think of fur, is this a black dog? Is it transforming into a beast? This part left me confused, maybe it’s just a word choice though, if you want to be abstract then make it clearer for dumb ol’ me, which I feel you are doing by describing it groaning but you could go further

Okay so you are going on to personify the smoke more, but again this is quite confusing. You should make your intentions clearer, the line between mysterious and confusing is very thin.

You’ve reused the word groan a lot now too. It’s getting a bit repetitive and it detracts from an otherwise compelling story, be careful/wise with word choice :)

You should really drag out Naomi wanting to decrease, make us feel frozen in that moment with her and drag it out to really make us feel like it’s happening to us. So far you’ve proved you have the capacity for it, so I’d do it! But that’s just, like, my opinion man

And lol at her thinking you just relax your way out of a psychotic break. Maybe she’s in denial or something (this isn’t clear). But as someone with psychosis you can’t relax your way out of it. I tried to talk walks to clear my mind and I just got convinced I was being surveyed and that the sky was communicating with me by making words fall out of it like rain. If you want to write psychosis feel free to DM me, everyone is different but it might help to hear it from me. Idk though

I do like how you’re introducing her inner monologue, it’s doing a good job at doing three critical things:

1. build character (is she in denial? Which is compelling)
2. Make a compelling story (she’s sympathetic in her suffering)
3. World build (shows what’s happening is abnormal, which also makes the story compelling)

Alright I’m gonna wrap this up here. Final thoughts time. I like how you’ve built from a funny opening (funny to me), which relaxes the reader, to then go into this horrifying descent into psychosis, which is like going on a rollercoaster, it’s scary but addictive. And I think that’s what you were going for. Just work on my suggestions if you want (I’m just one person, we might disagree etc), you have a lot of potential and I genuinely enjoyed reading this story. Good luck in the future!

I thought there were some interesting ideas here but the execution wasn't great. Hopefully, I can communicate why in a constructive manner. Let's get started.

---

Prose

I wasn't a fan of your prose for the following reasons.

Wordy Sentences

In some ways this is stylistic and you shouldn't take 100% of this crit to heart. However, I did get fatigued reading through some of your sentences when you use 10 words to say what 3 words would've said.

The murals, street signs, and storefronts all remained, but their color had been leached like a black and white photograph. The street, so busy a moment ago that Naomi could hear scooters and footsteps on the other side of the door, was now devoid of pedestrians.

The world was leached of color and life. The streets, so busy only moments ago, was now devoid of pedestrians.

You don't need to list off all the things that "remained". It's included if you just say "everything" or "the world" or etc. Otherwise, you can not say anything and its assumed its still there unless stated otherwise.

With him at such a close distance, Naomi realized calling it a man hadn’t been quite right. From afar she could tell he was young, maybe her age and he wore normal clothes too: a patterned button down and shorts. But from him an arms-distance away, Naomi saw how he watched the space behind Naomi’s head with eyes with no recognition. His eyeballs budged from his head against an unknown pressure and black tentacles undulated across his irises, each one leaving a viscous residue on the whites. Wiggling feelers even peeked out from between his parted lips.

From afar, he had seemed a normal young man with a patterned button down and shorts. Closer, his eyeballs bulged from his face, black tentacles undulating across his irises and leaving a viscous residue in this whites. Wriggling feelers peeked out from his parted lips.

It feels like you're really dragging out a lot of these paragraphs unnecessarily. My examples, while not perfect, still cut down your word count by 50-75% and achieve the same clarity. Its probably possible to do the same for most your paragraphs, but I'll leave you to that one.

Framing

A lot of your extra word count also comes from your framing. Framing is where you have to use your character to describe the world. You don't need to do this.

With him at such a close distance, Naomi realized calling it a man hadn’t been quite right.

Calling it a man wasn't quite right.

Do you see how I ignored the "Naomi realized" piece? And why does this still work? Because 3rd close is already through her POV so my example IS her coming to that realization.

The street, so busy a moment ago that Naomi could hear scooters and footsteps on the other side of the door, was now devoid of pedestrians.

The street, bustling with the sounds of scooter engines and footsteps only moments ago, was now devoid of life.

No need to say "that Naomi could hear". If you say it, she can hear it. That's 3rd person close POV.

You get the point, there's a lot of framing in this piece that is unnecessary and only drags us down.

Picking the Correct Verb

I thought that in a lot of your action sentences, you used the incorrect verb.

With the smoke holding Naomi in place, all she could think to do was scream.

Held in place by the smoke, Naomi could only scream.

If you saw this scene play out, would you use the verb "think" to describe it? No way! You'd use "scream" because that's what's happening! So why would you use "think" as your main verb within your sentence?

Naomi fought to quell the anxiety bubbling in her gut by taking exaggerated breaths

Once more, let's think of this scene. What is the first verb you'd use to describe what is literally happening if you saw her? It wouldn't be "fight to quell". It'd be about her literal action, which is her breaths.

Naomi gasped for breath, fighting to quell the anxiety bubbling in her gut.

Make it very clear what is literally happening.

Metaphors

A lot of your similes and metaphors seemed redundant. The purpose of them is to clarify description or to provide some sort of extra feeling with it. However, yours seemed only to describe what was already described.

The murals, street signs, and storefronts all remained, but their color had been leached like a black and white photograph.

It feels like you're saying, this colorless world was like a colorless photograph. Unless you're describing the leaching which doesn't happen in black and white photographs. I don't think a metaphor here is necessary as this is a pretty simple concept. If, for example, you described the color being leached, that's where I'd use some metaphor to illuminate the concept.

the monster choked out a garbled laugh like sound playing from a bad speaker

Here, it seemed appropriate to use a metaphor. Garbled laugh isn't that specific and could use clarity. However, the metaphor you used is equally nonspecific. Like sound from a bad speaker? What sound? Anything?

The monster choked out a garbled laugh like the static of a broken radio.

The monster choked out a garbled laugh that sounded as if it had been distorted through a broken radio first.

---

Design

Plot

As faithfully as I can, here's what I thought happened in your piece:

1. MC opens the door to a new world, literally

2. A smoke monster comes to attack MC

3. Fear roots MC's feet to the ground

4. The monster grabs MC and... talks? No real threat it seems.

5. MC burns the monster away

6. Another witch finds MC in an alley

7. The witch says some cryptic shit and leaves

My problem with what just happened is that none of it feels like progressing an overall plot forward. The shadow monster, the big bad of your chapter is dead by the end of the chapter. The witch who notices MC seems not to really give a shit and I don't know if we'll ever see her again. There's no indication that any of this will have a lasting impact as we go on to chapter 3.

I get it, you want to show us this concept of changing worlds. But can't you do that and have meaningful scenes with long-lasting consequences/impacts? I just don't understand how any of this carries over to chapter 3.

My general rule for any chapter is that they must do 2 of the following 3:

• Progress the character arc

• Progress the overall plot

• World build

Doing 3 of 3 is golden, but I'm not good enough to do this all the time. 2 of 3 is okay. 1 of 3 is slow and boring. From my understanding, this chapter only accomplished world building.

Stakes

At no point did I get any sense of stakes. Even as MC was in mortal danger, I didn't feel it. In fact, I still am not sure she was ever in danger. Here's a question: was the smoke monster even evil??

I mean, sure it held her tightly, but did it have any nefarious purpose? Next thing she does, she goes off on how she shouldn't assume things monsters because they look ugly. Yet, she killed this smoke thing without a second thought simply because it was ugly, didn't she? The most ominous thing that the smoke monster said was "come home".

So... what if he was just some good Samaritan helping out a crazy lady?

Obviously thats not what you go for, but these are my confusions because you do not set up stakes!

Show me pain and horror and evil. Just because someone has tentacles for eyes doesnt mean they are automatically nefarious and deserves to be burned with white fire.

Characters

I didn't believe in Naomi as a character. Her reactions seemed way too surface level. For example, when she gets caught by the smoke monster, she gives up near immediately:

Screaming hadn’t worked. Fighting hadn’t worked. Naomi stood in place

There was literally 2 sentences of struggling and she was done. It was as if she gave minimum effort, threw up her hands, and said: I guess I'll die now.

Even beyond this, thoughts like:

If this is just a psychotic break, I should come out of it if I just relax.

Aren't realistic. You ever see someone having a psychotic meltdown and just say to them: "just relax, dude." Also, if she's on the verge of being... talked to? by a monster, I'm not sure she's going to be as coherent as this.

The nail in the coffin for me was this:

Naomi couldn’t hear the woman anymore. Her eyes stayed locked on the body, examining each burnt appendage.

I didn’t have enough time. I couldn’t have hurt him.

First of all, she still doesn't believe that what happened was real, right? And if she does believe it was real, then she also believes that this wasn't a person but a monster.

Instead, how you have it written, she believes that she has magic fire but can't believe that monsters exist. Somehow, she picked and chose which bits from the colorless world to believe and is now having some crisis because she thought she had burned down a random stranger with her mind. What?

Even if this were true, you give her about 2 sentences of reacting! And her reaction is pretty much a nonreaction. She just stares at it and thinks to herself. And she concludes...

You couldn’t burn someone to death in twenty minutes.

As if this is the most unbelievable part of the story.

---

This felt like a chapter made purely to introduce your colorless world and then you threw in a monster just so it wouldn't be boring. So we now have a conflict that spans most your chapter which has little to no impact on the rest of your story (at least that's how it feels to me). If I'm wrong, then I simply don't understand this impact for the rest of the story and you should try to convey that more clearly.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers.

You've already gotten a ton of suggestions on your Gdoc. I added a few and agreed with some others. I think this shows promise, but it reads very rough as-is. It needs a few heavy editing passes, but I'd be very interested to read a later draft. I think your imagination is working overtime here but the prose still needs a lot of work in order to get the images/ideas in your head clearly into the heads of readers.

I'll check out the next segment for sure.