[1912] But None of the Blood was Hers - CH 6 Rewrite

Hi Hi! Getting you back for your critique ;) suups helpful.

General Thoughts

I don't feel anything from this chapter. I was going to call it functional but reading it again, I don't find it even really functional because I'm not totally sure why this chapter exists. I think the big take away is you want the reader to know Sasha controls blood with her emotions/when she's in danger so this whole critique will be with that goal in mind.

Mechanics

There were some typos which I pointed out in the doc. The biggest mechanical issues I see are: repetitiveness and adverb usage.

You've got repetitive sentence structure mostly when describing what Sasha is doing. For example:

She ignored him. She would correct him another time. For now, she had to make sure that Shod and Grunt were okay. She reached their room and stopped.

That's four sentences in a row with the same structure. You can vary it so it doesn't sound to monotonous. For example that same paragraph could look like:

Sasha turned away from the old man content to correct him later. For now, she had to make sure Shod and Grunt were okay. Their door didn't look blood-soaked when she arrived. She hoped that was a good thing.

Here again we get the repetitive "Noun verb-ed, verb-ing" twice in a row.

He clenched his fists, shutting off his stream of flames, and walked away. His fires remained, trapping Sasha inside the dead-end until they had used up the remainder of their magical fuel.

I'd read the whole thing aloud, noting where the similar sentence structure is. You also use very similar words. You use 'nearly' a bunch as well as 'previously' and 'only'

There's a lot of adverbs where I think are a disservice. I'm not an anti-adverb freak either but you're using them as a crutch I think. This piece is already really detail-bare, so to throw in adverbs makes the writing come off as very hallow. My imagination was hampered by it.

For example:

The sun just barely peeked over the horizon which meant that Sasha had been asleep for the whole night. Hopefully at least. Alternatively, she could have been awake and not in control. But last night hadn’t been a blood moon. The Bloody Girl needed that to take control, right?

Her own words came back at her. “You’re thinking of werewolves, silly.”

Truthfully, she had no idea what rules the Bloody Girl abided by. She knew only the girl’s destructive nature. Quickly, Sasha entered the Sanguine Palace to find Grunt and Shod.

This is a super short piece of the work and there are four adverbs there. 'Quickly' is the most 'evil' because quickly entered could be 'darted inside' or even just 'ran'. But instead you've used a week verb and tried to spice it up quickly. You do this a few more times so while you're reading aloud for repetitiveness, I would check for the -ly sound as well. Does that adverb need to be there or is there a stronger verb I could use?

More examples of weak adverbs:

Slowly, they diminished.

“You leave footprints,” he said matter-of-factly.

she settled for crossing her arms and angrily leaned against the wall

Setting

Similar to your last chapter, I am not sure that the fantastical nature of this town is described. I don't even really find the ruins that disgusting either. Often places where I would want descriptions are missing and the descriptions we do get are very simple.

Stone pillars twisted up from the ground and splashed into the ceiling above. A dirty rug extended down the hall all the way to where presumably the throne would be. Except no throne sat there anymore, only an empty raised platform. Missing pictures littered the walls as empty indentations in the moss covering the stone.

What we know this room has are pillars, a rug, and moss on the walls. Those aren't very unique details to share. You've just described any throne room ever and in a pretty bland way. Yet, we are missing where the Royal Arms are. Are they crumpled on the floor? Leaning against walls guarding a throne no longer stand? I think this piece would really benefit from specific, unique details about the setting that are important for our understanding of the world.

Another example, we see her running through the city/gardens/outer walls (it isn't super clear) and you describe it all in two sentences:

Once outside, she picked a direction and walked it, taking turns at random. Only when she had gotten hopelessly lost inside some alley dead-end did she allow herself to stop.

This isn't descriptive of Sasha's mental state or her surroundings so the reader has nothing to imagine and she's running.

Characters

We're mostly with Sasha so I'll focus on her. I keep having to remind myself that she is 14. She reads very very young. If I had to guess, I'd say 9 or 10. It's lines like

'The Blood Girl!' and 'Hooray' that make her seem young when we're hearing directly from her. Her inner dialogue also reads young to me.

They had to be okay because she wasn’t a murderer. No matter if they annoyed her or hated her, she had not killed them for it.

This whole scene too:

“Blood, work!” she tried. To nobody’s surprise, it didn’t.

“I beseech you, blood.” It ignored her.

“Upon my powers, I…” she didn’t even let herself finish that one.

To me reads like 10-12 not 14/15.

The character info we get from Sasha is that she doesn't want to kill anyone, she's sad she killed her family, and that she's sort of down with LGBTQ+. But, I don't see anything else from her? This chapter had a much stronger characterization for Grunt then Sasha. She definitely feels like a blank protagonist. Perhaps you want the reader to self-insert into her shoes? I am trying to think of the defining characteristics of Sasha's personality in this chapter and I don't see any. If I were forced to guess, I'd say Hungry, Screaming, Running. And those aren't characteristics at all.

I would recommend really thinking about how someone with Sasha's personality would react to this situation and make sure she's in situations that highlight her traits. For example, if she's really kind, make her run into someone she can help. If she's a hothead, make her try and fight Grunt. Right now, she's just kind of walking around reacting to things she sees which doesn't give us a great insight into who she is as a person.

Let’s start off with this being a later chapter, so some of the critique may be solved if I read the earlier chapters. I still hope that you have some use for it!

**Mechanics**

*She ignored him. She would correct him another time. For now, she had to make sure that Shod and Grunt were okay. She reached their room and stopped.* You have a lot of repetition of the word ‘She’ here. Try reading the story aloud to yourself, it helps you catch repetitions. 

**Setting**

It feels like a kind of medieval fantasy setting with magic playing a huge part in the world. I want to see more of this. How does magic involve daily life? How does it change life compared to our own? If magic is as natural as music, art and architecture in our world, how does it change aspects of living?

**Characters**

We mainly follow Sasha, who seems to me like a young girl. 14-16 years tops I feel, based on her dialog and actions. She is a queen and sometimes loses control to the Bloody Girl, which I feel is a bit like a jekyll-hyde kind of switch rather than a werewolf-like transformation. She seems to have a sort of quest before she can return to her palace, but she has trouble completing it. I suspect it is related to the Bloody Girl. If any of that is incorrect, try to look at the image you set of the character. I am happy to explain why I might think some of the things that I do, if needed :)

**Staging**

Part of Sasha’s dress is singed, which means it might still be smoldering or even a bit on fire. The fire might have disappeared also, if that is one of the rules in your magic system (which you did describe the paragraph before it), but Sasha is never seen reacting to it. If you were attacked with fire and it hits your dress, what would you do?

**Plot**

Sasha finds Grunt, and Grunt attacks her with magical fire. This means something happened, I don’t know what but I do want to know what happened, that is a good thing! I take that earlier chapters explain why Grunt was searching for Sasha, and this chapter started with Sasha searching for Grunt instead.

While on Grunt, Sasha’s thoughts show that he might want to kill her now, but a few lines further he is shown to be super calm. While I think I get what you want to portray, it is a very quick switch from emotions. Sasha feels Grunt holds a grudge, which he reasonably might, but we don’t see any of it in the actions.

Sasha is greeted by the guards as if she is the queen of the palace, grunt attacks her and the guards get ready to give Grunt a whacking. Next, Grunt can just toss Sasha out. Who is actually in the power position here? If Grunt is in the power position, I would rather expect the guards to stare at Sasha as she came back to the palace, maybe some mumbling among them as she walked by. Suspicion. If Sasha is in the power position, R.I.P. Grunt. 

**Description**

What I am lacking in my experience are senses. This might just be my own thoughts, and it doesn’t mean that you have to go full purple prose on it, but I always like some more senses to be included. Let’s take the second paragraph as an example, you describe the sun peeking over the horizon, which meant that Sasha had been asleep. Why not show this? Have the rays of the sun warm her skin, her hands rub her eyes, maybe some internal monolog saying “Morning already?”. Show that she has been asleep, don’t tell it. Allow the reader to form images. You have so many beautiful senses to play with, but we never see it.Y

ou describe Sasha being a Blood Mage, this line sounds like something more fit for chapter 1. Perhaps later if she discovers that she is one. Shouldn’t we already know this? If we don’t know it yet, then it deserves far more than a single paragraph to show this. The same goes for her description of magic in the world. 

**Dialog**

There are a few cases of confusing paragraphing. A rule of thumb I always use is to only start a new paragraph (in interactions) when you want the camera to shift to another character. Don t have two different paragraphs for the same character back to back.

Sasha says “Hooray” at some point, but I am lost at the emotional content with it. Is it a happy hooray? A sad hooray? A sarcastic hooray? It might be that I just haven’t had the chance to learn Sasha’s *voice*. 

**Engagement**

It might be because I did not read the earlier chapters, but I dont feel like much is at stake here. I dont feel invested enough in Sasha or her quest to really worry about anything. Similarly, I don’t feel her emotions, which is mainly due to the lack of senses in the writing.

**Pacing**

It feels really fast. We start at morning, some stuff happens at the palace and at the town surrounding the palace, and then it is evening. Lets assume a day of 12 hours, that means at least that amount of time passed in this one chapter. I personally don’t feel the story we read justifies the 12-hour period. 

**POV**

It reads like a limited 3rd person view, which I like for this theme. You have an overview, but our knowledge is mainly limited to what Sasha is experiencing. I’d advice to play more with this. 3rd person is like an outside camera, meaning it can look around. The limited POV restricts you to Sasha, but you can still allow the camera some freedom of motion. 

**Language**

It is simple and telling, there is a lot of descriptive language. If you let me, I would like to advice you to read ‘Pillars of the earth’, even if you just read the prologue, perhaps you can find that as a sample online for free. Ken Follett has a very showing style of writing. You don’t have to be just as showing (one could even call it too much), but it might give you some inspiration.

**Other**

I feel this is a good draft, but you need to put more in it. You have the story, now you need the delivery, the feeling, the perception. 

General Thoughts

I haven't read the previous chapters so I may be missing stuff, but I am deeply confused about what audience this is for. Sasha is fourteen and a lot of the language reads as YA or even MG to me. For instance, the use of the phrase "her current plan sucked." Or the section where she thinks about the candy at the orphanage – the subject matter of candy, and also the shift into what feels like addressing the audience with “you wouldn’t know their true flavor.” That felt very MG to me and the candy name Masked Munchers was reminiscent of stuff from Harry Potter. But then that leads into a scene with a garbage bag containing a rotting body and maggots. And the rest of the chapter has more imagery of death or decapitation, and there's also a sex scene.

Setting

As the chapter starts, I have no idea where anything is other than that Sasha can see the sun (and is possibly close to the palace?). I haven’t read the previous chapters, so take that with a grain of salt, but it’s odd to me that this chapter begins with Sasha waking up (I think?) but not really taking note of where she is.

When we get to the description of the throne room: Sasha has been here before and knows the people there and where their rooms are, but she hasn't seen the throne room before? Even though it seems to be right at the entrance? Because it was dark? There is that line of “The palace looked very different in the sunlight,” but could this be explained more? The descriptions, overall, need something more.

Tone

The humor doesn’t land for me. There's very dark subject matter, and then more lighthearted scenes like Sasha trying to summon her powers ("Upon my powers, I...") and it doesn't mesh.

I could see Sasha laughing with relief when she realizes she didn’t kill Grunt and Shod, but it seems as if she finds the situation funny and it doesn’t quite work for me. It’s just very dark (and I think she just got burned a second ago) and there isn’t enough to drive it into gallows humor territory.

I don’t know what mood to read here - sarcastic? Maybe?

She was a blood mage after all. Hooray.

Mechanics

There are some odd word choices. The pillars that “splashed” to the ceiling (pillars are solid and would not splash), missing pictures “littered” the walls (something that is missing cannot be litter).

I like the description of the palace as “a god’s crown.” That was very evocative of its size and grandeur. I don’t like “hollowed out,” though. Crowns are already hollow. “Inhabitancy” also feels like too long and clunky a word.

Plot/Pacing

I saw a couple of issues with consistency. First, the conversation with Grunt.

When she walks into the bedroom, Grunt screams at her and flames come out from under the door, so it seems like he's in a rage. But there's no urgency when she runs away. She's meandering around - I can't tell how long, or what her emotions are like here, because the description is so terse and dry.

Once outside, she picked a direction and walked it, taking turns at random. Only when she had gotten hopelessly lost inside some alley dead-end did she allow herself to stop.

When Grunt catches up to her, the emotion of the scene remains flat. He's no longer raging. He seems very blase and careless, and it's not explained why. He speaks matter-of-factly, “stared at her in silence,” “shrugged.” But then he's back to threatening her with fire. It feels disconnected from what happened a few sentences ago. I'd like to see the emotions stay consistent (he could still be yelling, or he could have gone from a rage to seething resentment), or an explanation of why he acts more restrained, or more of a sense of time. To recap, he must have screamed at her in fury, then got up and got dressed, and methodically tracked her footprints. I'm not even sure why he felt the need to do that right away, since he's so quiet when he catches up to her. Also, how dirty are her feet? Or how dusty is the palace floor?

I also found it weird that after the discussion of homophobia, Grunt and Shod are described as bigots.

Second, the followup to accessing her powers.

I get that remembering her trauma is what allows her to access her power, but it feels like a straightforward recap inserted into the narrative. Are these things that happened in the previous chapters? Could this section be shorter, more evocative? Focus on the emotions rather than the events.

Anyway, accessing her powers should feel like a big moment, but it's undercut by the scene following. There's the "Hooray" line, which I guess is meant to be humorous. I think there needs to be more of an emotional response from Sasha here, since she was working so hard to get her power working. Instead there's a description of her surroundings and she starts thinking about food.

I thought her plan was to leave a trail by marking the walls, but that gets dropped. This could be justified since she hasn't eaten in three days and is starving, but I think that needs more emphasis. She slices open a bag (with the blood?) to look for food. I'm not even sure you need to have this line, because she was just "slashing through the trash bags" a minute before. You might even be able to cut that - for instance, Sasha could slash through the bags and the wall, have a moment of triumph, notice the stench from the bags she slashed, think that there could be food inside, and go straight to looking inside those bags rather than slicing open another one.

Final thoughts

Granted, I am jumping into the middle of this and missing context. But the mood swings between horror and snarky humor so that I can't tell what audience this is for and the overall pacing feels off as a result.

On my first read-through I found this chapter hard to follow along, and was struggling to get to the end. First half had caught my attention - I suppose due to the fact that I haven't read anything of yours previously, and immersing myself in a new storyworld is always something I enjoy. Bearing in mind that this is a sixth chapter - and that an average reader should already be immersed - I think it's a weak one. I would contribute that mainly to the lack of focus and function, uneven pacing (disproportionate to the action) and an unlikable protagonist.

Why I found Sasha annoying

So here's the thing, I found your MC to be bratty, childish at times and overall unemotive. That's fine if you're going for that sort of thing, and if the story calls for such a character. Considering the quick recap you offered in the post, I had quite a different image going in. The MC had caused a massacre, and while she addresses things like the Blood Girl and such (in an overly exposition-y way), it's otherwise business as usual. She says things like Hooray!; every teenager's favourite Whatever when something doesn't suit her; says well no one bothered to give me a map like everything should be served on a silver platter for her; and it's other people's problem that she doesn't have anywhere else to go. I was furious! This person is a murderer, and ever worse off, a ticking time bomb that might unwillingly go on a rampage any night of the week! I don't think you thought through what such tragedy would do to a person's psyche, let alone to a child's. It's such heavy subject matter that's covered in such a light tone, and the contrast is jarring.

We can draw an useful comparison between your MC and the protagonist of Rothfuss' Name of the Wind. >!Early in to the story Kvothe's whole troupe (his whole family and all the people he'd spend his childhood with) get massacred, leaving him as a sole survivor. Kvothe is but a child, left completely alone in the world, who can't cope with something so shocking and unexplainable. He spends literal months wandering around, scavenging for food, and Rothfuss skips through none of it. Entire chapters are devoted to him gradually learning how to cope with such a loss, and it takes him years to return to some semblance of normality. Rothfuss handles a heavy topic appropriately, and his MC didn't even cause the massacre, when Sasha did, making matters even worse.!<

You try to show Sasha's guilt, though in a very clumsy way:

She remembered her guilt. She remembered her terror. And she remembered that she hated herself. That was right – to starve to death in some foreign land, outcasted by all was only deserved. The only truly awful person here was her for trying to stay alive.

This is a good start, but not nearly enough. It's what edgy teenagers think on a daily basis. And it might be a problem of telling vs. showing. You tell me there's guilt in her, but none of her actions confirm it. Her feelings are skipped over, and while that might've happened in the chapters I didn't read, I still think it's something to think about. Heavy subject matter demands careful and appropriate handling.

Setting, Description (and the lack thereof)

As with everything in this critique, I might be missing stuff from previous chapters. That said, I got no feeling for the setting of the story, other than a few place names here and there. You went really light on the description, and it makes the piece a bit flavourless. The setting and the atmosphere can be considered as characters themselves. They should interact with characters, make them feel a certain way, or better yet be reflections of characters themselves!

I'm not saying you need walls of text to describe every minute detail. What you do describe should be of some relevance - it should either add to the overall atmosphere, relate to characters or be of some plot relevance (and that's just to name a few). As with every line in a story, the more functions it serves, the better. Doesn't have a function? Cut it. Let's look at this, for example:

Stone pillars twisted up from the ground and splashed into the ceiling above. A dirty rug extended down the hall all the way to where presumably the throne would be. Except no throne sat there anymore, only an empty raised platform. Missing pictures littered the walls as empty indentations in the moss covering the stone.

First sentence serves little function - are the pillars so tall they are menacing to those who enter? Are they a great piece of art they invoke something in the viewer? The sentence as it is has no function, it's missing that 'oomph' that will make it memorable and entertaining. The second and the third one stuck with me, and I vividly remembered the rug and the empty spot without a throne, and only after my first read-through. Why? Because they function not only as descriptors, but they add to my understanding of your storyworld, and are now stuck in my mind because they help me paint a better picture of where our MC is. They are building blocks, telling me this place is deserted, unused for god knows how long, and has fallen to ruin. The fourth sentence reiterates the same sentiment, but it has potential to do so much more. Why not have the pictures there, and tell the reader some other fun/meaningful titbit about the world? And then the description abruptly comes to a halt, and we're shaken back to the immediate plot, without our MC having an impression of her surroundings. Throughout the chapter you offer little more in ways of description apart from a rug and a missing throne, which is a shame.

Conclusion

I can think of a few fixes that would make this better. First off, I would reconsider the third person limited perspective, even if for a practice run. Sasha's thoughts serve as little more than exposition delivery, and aren't nearly immersive enough. Stepping out of her head might make you more concentrated on delivering exposition in a more organic way, while showing (rather than telling us) what Sasha is feeling and why is she acting in a certain way (and you can still keep the inner monologue, if that's somehow plot-relevant). Now that we aren't concerned with what Sasha's minute-by-minute thought process is, you might also consider the world surrounding her, and devote more page space to adding a bit more description and atmosphere; in a sense make the world around her seem lived-in, and not just present when the immediate plot demands it.

Anyways, I hope I was of some help and thanks for posting!