>I've been having a crisis for the better part of a minute

:) It's called a [plurale tantum](https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/singular-of-scissors#:~:text=In%20Modern%20English%2C%20scissors%20has,its%20plural%20is%20pluralia%20tantum%29.). (I just learned this right now. Shears, like scissors, pants, etc, does not have the singular noun shear, just like there is never a single scissor, pant, etc.)

>It's deliberate

I understand that this is the style you're going for. And I admit that upon several readings, the worldbuilding was a LOT easier to digest. To me there are sections and words that you could filter out of this introduction and trickle in later, but it's because it's my personal preference that a first read should not be so difficult to track. I don't think I'm the only one, but I'm sure there are many people out there willing to put more effort into following a story like this. (And probably people out there that can catch on faster than I can lol).

I've been having a crisis for the better part of a minute trying to figure out how a forest is an it and shears are a they, lmao. When I say it out loud, it's obvious, but somewhere in my drafting space a forest is a lot of trees and shears are a single object -- thank you for pointing that out!

I do agree that the narrative using a lot of interchangeable names can be confusing/amateurish. It's deliberate, but I may have to revisit Aiden's habit of cycling through words and names just to make his internal monologue more bearable. We have enough names going on with characters already without him making things worse for sure.

> ...turning to face the forest and the gardening shears he left by the roses.
> 
> It’s gone.

What is gone? The forest? Are the shears gone? I think it's the forest, because if the shears were missing, you would say "they're gone," but I can't be certain, because a whole forest being gone is so jarring. It's probably part of your world or some magic thing, but I am not clear enough on the rules of this world yet to understand for sure that it is the forest that is gone. (Unless you are referring to the shears in which case check ya grammar.)

> The scrape of salted air and the roar of waves crashing against the rocks, hissing against the sand, keeps Aiden in focus.

Taking out all the filler here, it says "the scrape and the roar keeps Aiden in focus." First, grammar. "The scrape and the roar *keep* Aiden in focus." Also, the grammar is incorrect with "the roar of waves crashing against the rocks, hissing against the sand..." Maybe you're breaking this rule intentionally, but not hav

Hi there. I'll be honest and say I struggled with this. I think it's partly due to my own preference of prose; I like prose that is a bit more straightforward. So bear that in mind. However, I do think there are some objective issues with ambiguity and maybe you can sift through my opinions to find them. I hope that I can help you mold this into your vision rather than my own set of writing ideals, and I'm sorry that some of these thoughts are a bit strong, I just occasionally found this rather frustrating. I had the intention of remarking on character and plot and the like, but I had a lot to say on one element here so...here is my single section critique.

**OPAQUENESS AND OVERWRITING**

I read through the previous version of Aiden in your last post and I read through those crits. This previous crit I think captures my feelings reading this revision: "The world building is more ethereal than corporeal, introducing concepts without tying them down to the physical world we're supposed 

# WRITING (MICRO) ANALYSIS

## PROSE

This is an area where I found this version improved in some respects, but then faltered in others. 

I was very critical in V1 regarding your usage of super flowery prose that had no grounding before taking off, causing me to be disoriented during the entire ~~flight~~ read. In this version you cleaned that up quite a bit, which was great to see. The problem, though, is that many of these grounded sentences and paragraphs now have a host of new problems plaguing them. 

### PROSE: LENGTHY SENTENCES

You have several sentences in this version that are long-winded, with several extraneous words or phrases included that water down the impact you would otherwise have from your writing. It’s almost like that purple prose you used acted as a shield against issues with sentence flow, and now that you’ve grounded your prose, it’s laid bare. Or it could be you’re not used to writing in a more grounded tone. 

Here’s an example:

>His fingers brush ~~against

Hi there, thanks for shar—whoa, hey, put down the brick! I come in peace this time, okay?

# OPENING THOUGHTS

So yeah, I critiqued V1 of this narrative and chapter. I was a bit saucy at times, to put it mildly. I’ve got some good and bad news. The good news is that this version resolved the one major issue that made me absolutely despise V1, and that’s by adding much more grounded prose so I can actually tell what the heck is going on (though with some new problems present). The bad news is that this version has still not solved the problem of lack of hook, whether it be an interesting plot, or character (preferred), or both, to latch onto. As a result, I found this version just as boring as V1, perhaps more so. 

This chapter is super short, and wastes a lot of time navel-gazing or exposition dumping character information in a very unsatisfying way. There is little to no tension or conflict present, making it difficult to care about what happens. Five, yes five, characters get introd

What does *claws out against their glamours* mean??? I can't come up with even a vague guess.

And why *To his back* instead of *Behind him*? Which would you use in real life?

And would anyone bother to say that hell is an ugly word even once, let alone "always"? It's like someone frequently saying "Do you know what? Dog poo smells really bad!" Well, yes, but everyone already knew that. It's not something people say. It's completely forced and implausible. It's also weak. If you want the reader to believe the court is an awful place then give them some sort of telling detail.

And why *a certain prince*? Why not *Prince Cuthbert*? Or just *a prince* or *the prince*? You use *certain* in this sense only as a sort of in-joke, when the listener will know exactly who the speaker is talking about. E.g. 

"A certain Prince got one of the maids pregnant."

"What - again? I wish he put as much effort into his actual duties..."

Hi friends! I'm back. I don't usually go over and rewrite stuff when I'm drafting, but since I decided y'all were right and I needed *something* to happen to get the ball rolling, I did end up taking some of the advice into consideration for Aiden. I'd love your thoughts! Now the problem might be of a different kind, since there's, uh... 5 characters in these pages, but I'd love to know if I'm balancing them okay since it's more of a family unit thing than an individual character thing. If not, I'm sure I can figure out some way to split them in a future draft.

Some of the words are recycled, so if they don't work or feel unnatural pls do call me out on them.

Link [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZEVm7Na62DMAkgY4Gp-02q9DtFN6hfyguc2HXumCV8E/edit?usp=sharing)!

And for the mods: [\[2935\] Excerpts from 'A Draught of Day and Night'](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/w0vuyk/comment/iglt1wf/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3).

[1677] Solstice: Aiden 1 (v2)