I concur with Silk on pretty much all of her comments. I would also say, Erik, that I
did mention that I'm waiting for the "main plot" to happen soon, and so Silk's comments made me smile. Main plot better come up pretty soon. Meandering is okay (like introducing Melia--which was perfectly fine, but if you do that every new chapter it will get old really fast).
I noticed a lot of line-edit issues. This may be because I printed the submission out and had my pen at the ready, rather than just reading on the computer, however. I would like to note: thanks for double-spacing
. Line issues will come at the end.
Maybe I've listened to a lot of Patrick Rothfuss interviews, but every now and then, I start to hear him narrate Kail's chapters...
Reading this chapter, I decided I want more internal conflict with Kail. You had the "do I really love her" thing, which was what I'm missing from Kail. Internal conflict makes the story always more interesting to read. Here, though, it felt like I was getting all of the internal struggle all at once. It would probably work better spread out a little more subtly, in my opinion. Your narration has a lot of jokes, while I'm not fully believing how dangerous or strange this world is. I liked the line with the spiders. I want more of Kail reacting to the environment, and him at least acknowledging his complete safety with Kajsa. A little more balance with the light humor and the darker, strange world can go a long way here.
Kail curses a lot more in this chapter. Makes no difference to me, of course, but just make sure you aren't mistaking curse words for punchlines.
The humor. You've done a good job so far. If you continue at the rate of this chapter though, you're going to need to step up the funny-ness to it. I mean, one liners are great. If you want to be
really funny, you need to subtly set up jokes that have payoffs later on, much like plot arcs.
This leads me into exactly what I want to talk about next: the Obi-Wan line.
Loved it. I noted, however, such a line is really obscure, so it may not be as effective as it would be for a huge geek like me. Later I saw two other spots where you could have Star Wars-related quips. 1. The time where Kail calls her a Princess. I completely heard Han Solo saying "Princess" half-snarkily to Leia right there. 2. The mention of Sith. I have no clue where you whipped that one out, but you should at least acknowledge the Star Wars aspect to that. Kail certainly would, being from our universe. Either make fun of it or change the name. If not, I will fully expect Melia to use Force Lightning and whip out a red lightsaber.
What I mean is, this chapter totally could have had a Star Wars theme to it to add more flavor to the humor, rather than just being a string of one-liners. Reminds me Alcatraz, actually. In each of those books they reference a particular Greek philosopher and sets up a recurring metaphor for bigger payoffs later. You might want to think about it.
Anyways, I fear I got way too prescriptive in those last two paragraphs. I apologize
. I did like the chapter, though. Kail and Kajsa are fun to observe. Just be thinking... main plot!
Okay, line edits. Silk probably got a lot of these already, but I'm going to look through my notes anyways. I'll also point out lines which made me laugh, as I've regularly been doing with your submissions.
A little Troll TLC is just what I needed.
I'll readily admit I'm awful with acronyms, but this one was a bit obscure. Looked to Wikipedia, and when that disambiguation page didn't have anything, I clicked the link to Wiktionary. ...Little obscure.
Magic VD could kiss my ass.
This and the previous Troll AIDS line made me laugh out loud. I wonder if Kajsa will get pregnant!
If they keep going at it this much, she probably will, if it's even possible for humans and Trolls to procreate.
“Whoa . . .” was all I could say.
It's plenty self-explanatory that "Whoa" is all you can say if, you know, you don't say anything else. Seemed redundant to me. (There more of these dialogue-tag issues I've marked, so watch out for those)
“Now I am ready,” she said, looking dark and serious.
My notes here say "Kajsa kicks ass".
Okay, her calling me Lover was hawt.
I like what this line is conveying, but it should be conveyed better. Or at least spelled correctly. As it is, it jars.
I looked her in those golden eyes of hers.
One too many "her" pronouns in here. You could just as easily say "I looked at those golden eyes of hers" for the same effect, but less jarring.
Damn. What a woman.
I love it.
I pointed at it, “Is that normal?”
In my humble opinion, just change the comma into a period. "Pointing" isn't a synonym for "said" or "speak". By virtue of the dialogue being in the same paragraph, you're implying Kail is talking.
And we kept walking, I had millions of questions, but what can I say, I didn’t want to look like a bitch in front of Kajsa.
This threw me out of the story a bit. If anything... females would worry about being a bitch. It's kind of odd for Kail to use that particular word here, referring to himself.
Twice you use the phrase "dirty look". Clearly Kail likes that turn of phrase, so I'll stop bugging you about it
A really smelly Draken, and Draken smell.
This line forced me to reread it to understand what she's saying. It doesn't feel very "Kajsa" to speak like that. Maybe it's because, as Silk pointed out, it is much less formal than we are used to.
This is being a lot of line issues... Sorry about them. They really weren't that big of a deal, I just want to point it out to you.
She shrugged, "Not many."
I'd change the comma to a period, again.
About commas, actually. Usually they are used for offsetting things, like names. In these two places:
"He's not for you Melia.
"Give her to me Kail.
We should have commas offsetting Melia and Kail, respectively.
Okay, I'm done. I feel bad for pointing these out. This is probably why I shouldn't print out submissions and do this by hand. Sorry.
I will say, however, I liked Kajsa's closing line.