Well . . . How do I put this . . .
Why . . . oh why . . . did you torture us with that obnoxious Prologue when you had this piece of awesome sitting around. Seriously . . . what were you thinking?
The actual writing is great, as was before but unlike before I feel like this world is alive. Mia's kinda fun to read, the ninja stuff was fun to read, the extras like the nobles and mistresses all made the world a vibrant and living place. The ironic part of the writing is that we have more information about the world around us then we do about the PoV character.
While the world did sit around something a bit more generic (that is medieval France sounding) the writing grasped me by my ears and forced me to sit in my chair, staring at my computer screen and read. It would not let me go.
From the novel the woman is reading to the gossiping serving girls we are looking at a very living world. The funny part of it is that Mia comes out much flatter then then her surroundings or the other parts of the piece. By flatter I mean there is less substance to her details. The setting and the extras within the setting all come together to make up a very live and vibrant place. It reads like a living, breathing theater place. Alternatively we have almost no details about Mia. As the story starts, for example, we know she's wearing breaches, and has . . . hair. She likes her pocket watch, or at least enjoys timing herself. She has a great number of dimension personally, but mentally and physically we have . . . nothing. On top of that she strikes me as terribly male.
Now, mostly so I can tell Frog to shove it up her nose, I will elaborate. Her focus on details, the minimalistic approach to people, the job, and the other people around her give her a very male feeling (despite constantly being referred to as a she). And if you will permit me, I can elaborate.
In the business world, it has been noted by those academic scholarly types, that women have a harder time advancing in the work place. To determine why (if it was just blatant sexism) studies were conducted. The findings, while indicating a certain amount of sexism in some cases, revealed something that everyone should have known but no one seemed to notice.
Men in general wait for things to go wrong, explode, or break down. They they tear open their shirts to reveal a big red "S," swoop in, and fix the problem. This makes them look more capable to the task then the women around them. Women, on the other hand, tended to think ahead. They figure out what might go wrong ahead of time, make plans, execute said plans, and everything runs smoother. This is less eye catching (mostly due to a lack of red "S") but most people agree is a better way of doing things. My point with this little study is to demonstrate one thing: If this is a school for ninja chicks, the character would appear more female I think if the audience was given more prep, recon, and counter measures verses turning on a magic invisibility spell and walking over to the box.
When the task became all-too-easy, a lot of the awesome tension you had building . . . died. After a quick burial in a shallow grave we get, "I hate easy money." Obtaining the object preemptively was cool though, and redeemed the piece. Unfortunately if there's not emotional investment from the character there is no emotional investment from the audience. Its as if she cant' take the work seriously and that's hard for us as the audience to do too.
Pyrofactor . . . please don't let there be an earthfactor or air factors or any elementalism like that. I would hate to see something so well written lack in creativity there.
As a side, I should mention I used to design women's fashion (in case you're wondering why I have such a personal attention to what my characters are wearing) and it bothers me that out of all the clothing to wear, the only things Mia seems to have (though I know this isn't the case) is the breaches and a hair pin.