Daedalus

My small local bookshop, not known for being innovative or adventurous, had put their single copy of ‘Home’ behind, yes behind, a row of Dan Browns.
When I left the shop it was resting on top of them.

Mandy, it was so wonderful to see you up there. You spoke beautifully: so honest and with such heart. You were a complete credit to yourself and to Jessica.

I brought a friend with me to the Festival, a fellow writer (Cynthia) from my local critique group. I have been encouraging her hard to pursue her writing dreams. I think for her, hearing…[Read more]

Raine, as you know, I’m a lazy, non-analytical reader, so you’re getting facile first impressions from me – and thanks for ‘stochastic’ – but I thought this a really enticing beginning, launching lots of characters, all of whom promised interest, tension and above averagely intelligent entertainment.

Brilliant, congratulations!

Thanks everyone who contributed. A name change from Florence to Felicity, to avoid confusion with a hurricane of that name, a couple more edits and it was picked up by Across The Margin. Should be out in the next week or so. Now titled Felicity’s First.

Oop – crossed with Jonathan.

okay, might be waffling on a bit here, but it’s sparked a load of thoughts.

In general I like the opening couple of paragraphs. It paints a strong and immediate picture of character and place.

You set up the omniscient narrator with the phrase highlighted in bold below.
“When the lights went out across Europe, Lina Stephenson did not notice at…[Read more]

Ooh, hmm, okay, now this is challenging. To me, in the opening bits, there is definitely a disembodied voice that says things like “Let her have this moment.” or “Two more people now, to the north of Devendra Kapoor, both of whom he knew although Lina Stephenson did not, yet.”. That opening section is very cool. I like it.

However the voice…[Read more]

Hi Raine,

I love the sound of this story. A literary apocalyptic novel? YES PLEASE!

I definitely like the idea of having scenes from various characters’ lives, i.e. to have sections in different POVs. I think it serves the genre well because it creates an epic, global canvas for your story. Basically – how is the human race as a whole going to…[Read more]

Dammit autocorrect! I’d not spotted the domain thing. Gah.

But thank-you for the vote of confidence. I’ve been vacillating back and forth like you wouldn’t believe!

Yes, good advice, and true. Thanks for posting.