Squidge

Well done, John. I enjoyed reading it but didn’t comment as things I wanted to say were already dealt with.

Thank-you so much for your comments, everyone. They are so helpful. Oh wait, I should tag, right, else you might not see it? @jd73, @daedalus and @sandradavies, you are ace. Thank-you. I love the word stochastic too!

@philippaeast – no this isn’t the one with pub/agents, it’s one of the next two and I’m trying to decide which one to throw out…[Read more]

Closed groups is what we used to do on the Word Cloud, and it seemed to work okay. With a communal password-protected area, how would you keep the password secure and at the same time make it accessible to those who want it? With a closed group per WIP, the owner has complete power over who can see it. and it’s easy enough to find if you click on ‘Groups.’

Why not secure groups per wip, invited/accepted folk only? Nested below/within a Critique section? Surely mixing them up would soon become unwieldy.

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!

Brilliant, well done John. Please put a link in the Podium when it’s published? You’re on a bit of a roll, there

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]