Necropolis

chapter 11: quiet efficiently needs to quiet efficiency.

Yes, it's back with edits! Please enjoy! LAST CHAPTER IS THE GLOSSARY AND CAST OF CHARACTERS.

Please don't ask why chapter 7/6 and 14/13 have two different fonts. I've given up trying to fix it.=(

3/20: the horrible affliction of any writer has struck! WRITER'S BLOCK! AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!! yes, i've had it for so long on this one i've gone on to something else entirely. sigh =( but i try to plug at it and i've written a new paragraph! yay!

CRITIQUE AND DESTROY, PEOPLE! i don't mind in the least.

ps. underling is in replace of italics for manuscript form. =D

Read a few more:

Matilda:
No problems with this one. Sister Matilda clearly knows more than she's letting on, and I'd suspect she mentioned the job to Lili's father (or perhaps even ensured it'd be available for him) because she wanted Lili in town.


School of Culture Shock:
Again, no real problems apart from one bit, where Lili's telling the story of the boy who got injured. To start with “a young man” seems very formal – why not use something a bit more colloquial like “there was this guy...” and carry on from there? As written, it sounds a bit like she's reading aloud from a folktale instead of recounting a story she has personal knowledge off, off-the-cuff. Also, some of the dialogue seems a little unnecessary: you could easily skim over the conversations about grandfather's wanting fishing stories with a quick bit of description of what was talked about in class, instead of the actual words (since the conversation doesn't seem directly relevant to the story).


First Meetings – Zev:
Given the close bond that's been established between them, and how an act of defiance as small as having a window open is worthy of comment, it seems unrealistic to me that Lili will creep out of the house towards the graveyard (which she ran screaming from the other day) to investigate mysterious flashing lights without letting her father know. If it was later at night, he was deeply asleep and she didn't want to wake him because he had an early start for work the next day or something, that I could understand. Just sneaking out while he's watching TV doesn't seem realistic. Maybe if he was asleep, Lili's fear of the graveyard would be overridden by wanting to find out what's going on in her dad's property. Are the football guys hazing someone? Is someone trespassing? Should she find out what's going on before waking him? This sort of dutiful (if misguisded thinking) would seem more in keeping with their relationship, to me.

Not quite sure why there's a thunderous roar when she's got to the graveyard, whereas the flashes were silent before. This may get explained later, but you don't want to leave it too long. If there is no real reason why we now have sound, I'd say that a bright flash followed by cursing would still serve the dramatic purpose, and possibly maintain a greater air of mystery.

Why doesn't Lili follow her own advice? There are many reasons why she might continue, but I think the reader needs have at least a hint of why the girl who ran screaming from a graveyard in broad daylight is now pressing on into it at night in the midst of mysterious bangs, flashes and unearthly hisses. Also, I see we now find out that Lili is seventeen – I really think this needs to be established almost as soon as the character is introduced. This may have been hinted at by some of the conversation in the previous chapter, but for a non-American reader such as myself unfamiliar with the US schooling system and phrases like 'in line for a full ride to just about any school', it'd be nice to have it stated outright.

What was the noise that made her feel like she was punched in the gut? And why did she have such a strong reaction to a noise?

Zev moves like a snake, looks like a vampire and is apparently a werewolf (or similar). How about informing the reader that he moves like a 'predatory animal' instead of a snake? Also, I think Lili needs to recognise his voice straight away, because he's not acting like expected; hearing Zev and Mei-Xing arguing about trying to catch/stop/destroy this monster, I'm expecting them to be 'good guys', not people about to bite her throat. It wasn't until the sentence saying that she didn't have the strength to push Zev away that I realised this was meant to be Zev, instead of some other, more human-looking monster stalking the graveyard that Zev and Mei-Xing were not aware of.

The final part is good, but there's too much internal dialogue from Lili (partially, perhaps, because I find her inner voice a bit annoying). I think the action needs to take precedence here, rather than Lili yelling at herself. A good cliff-hanger to the end of the chapter, though.

Commenting in detail on the first few, I'll try to get around to doing more! :)

Prologue:
I think the opening sentence should have a question mark instead of an exclamation mark, as it's a question. Some of the description is laid on a little thick for my taste such as the ruby pulsing with evil energy – given the nature of the bearer, its unlikely to be a beacon for good. I'd have suggested either leaving it as 'energy' and letting the reader interpret that it's evil, or going full bore and describing why she thinks its evil, but still in a 'show don't tell' manner. Likewise, the filigree gold ring that's centred on his middle finger seems a little overdone in terms of description. It's centred on his hand because it's his middle finger, unless you mean that the ring is centrally-placed on his middle finger, which seems an unnecessary detail. Finally, the shadowy character seems a bit over-the-top; a mustache-twirling, cackling villain who's a little too pantomime to be truly menacing.

A couple of typos 'unlike the grotesque monsters she'd faced before'; 'like less powerful daemons'; and 'handy work' should be 'handiwork'. I'm also not convinced about the grammar of the Abraxas teleportation sentence: I think it'd work better as 'pulling back for another hit, Estella gasped as Abraxas appeared before her in a blink'.

Now the good bits: Abraxas. He's everything his 'master' is not, and even from this short description he carries an air of menace. The multi-tonal voice is a nice touch, the casual killing and amused laughter at Estella's boldness gives him an intimidating self-assurance, and I particularly enjoyed his opinion of the shadowy man as a 'braying pig'. The events themselves are good; you manage to establish a lot of what's necessary very quickly, including the presence of daemons, shifters, witches etc, the combat language, the notion that the good guys (even if we don't know who they are yet) are being hunted down, and that one of the main weapons of the notional bad guys has his own agenda that's presumably unknown to them. Overall, a satisfying level of intrigue that draws the reader into the next chapter.


Moving Blues:
I think '“I know you don't mean it,” he reassured her' sounds better than 'he reassured Lili'. Also, I think 'he said solemnly' works better sandwiched between her dad's next two sentences rather than leading into them (if not, watch that capital W on 'we'll').

When referring to your main character, I think you should refer to her as Liliana the first time, then Lili from then on unless another character is calling her by her full name. It gives the reader a formal introduction, then allows them to get used to her more familiar name. Otherwise the reader doesn't have a steady name to refer to her by, which is a little jarring (not very, but a little).

I'm not sure you need the 'and said' before “Well, that's me done for today”. I think a full stop after 'basement' would sound a little better. With 'expensive' already used in the sentence about the pizza, 'it was well worth it' suffices just as well as 'it was well the worth the expense', without the repetition. Also I think 'Hooking up the TV and DVD player, they both crashed onto the couch...' works better as a run-on sentence than the two existing shorter ones. Finally, Lili's goodnight to her dad has another unnecessary 'and said', in my opinion. The reader will see that she's saying it, so you probably don't need to throw it in.

The good bits: a good change of pace from the dark violence of the prologue. We know that Lili and her dad are on their own without her mother, that they've moved to a place neither of them are sure about in order for him to find work, and that they get along well. We've now met who we can only assume will be the protagonist and her life is, at the moment, relatively ordinary. The reader now starts to wonder how she will be caught up in the world of demons and magic, persuading them to move onto the next chapter. Good pacing and structure!


Grave Neighbours:
I think you mean 'cliques' instead of 'cliches'. Also, you need an 's' on the end of 'stinging insects' and 'bulbs'.

Good bits: Pretty much everything :) Good father-daughter interaction (possibly a little self-indulgent with that, but I'm not really one to talk about overdoing dialogue). The exploring seems to go on a little while, but there is a point to it; the graveyard. The fact that the house belonged to a relative of her mother's is not lost on me, since we've already heard talk about bloodlines – nicely done! The only question I'm left with at this point is how old is Lili meant to be? I was expecting a teenager, but her shout of 'DADDY!' as opposed to 'DAD!', her screaming and running from a graveyard and the notion of there being lots of new kids with first day jitters at school makes me think that actually she's considerably younger, just starting high school?

Good evening. I've found the prologue a pretty interesting read. I do have a few style suggestions, however. Sometimes you go for the odd word-choice. Examples: "A ruby pulsed with evil energy from the golden filigree ring centered on his middle finger." "Centered" is one detail too many--"ring on his finger" works fine. "Yes, you know who my master is, don't you?" he enthused. "Enthused" is a rather innocuous word, so it jars here. "Said" is fine, or exulted, or gloated, etc. Also, without dropping needed detail, you want to portray actions as tersely as possible. Instead of "Sparks flew from the blades as they clashed together" try "Sparks flew as the blades clashed together."

Again, these are just little details; I'm going to put your book on my shelf and come back when I have a bit more time. I hope I enjoy reading it as much as you've obviously enjoyed writing it.

Nothing like twilight indeed. I almost passed this up when I saw vampires in the description because I am so sick of Twilight heads and their attempts to recreate something that should never have been made in the first place. But this was nice, dark, and terrifying. The characters all have their own distinct personalities and make the story that much better.

chapter 11: quiet efficiently needs to quiet efficiency.

A bit clunky but engaged me quite quickly. Premise is great but there are a lot of similar plots out there, especially in this genre (I know, I've read most of them). I'll continue to read because I want to know what happens next. I think you should regard that as a positive comment.

I will have to come back and read the rest, but this is what I have so far.

The intro is heavy with adjectives. You could cut down on a lot of those and it would make the scene move faster (it reads like it should be fast paced, but the adjectives break you away from the action).

Agree with AVaughn, paragraph starting with "Dry!" is awkward and clunky. Although I disagree with the groan comment; groans can be the result of pleasurable stimuli. Although "mentally moaned in pure bliss" may be overdoing it a little.

I'm guessing you underlined for thoughts in place of Italics; but you need to be consistent. There are bits that should be treated as if they were thoughts from Lili, but instead are narrated. It gets confusing because it feels as if it should read from first person, but is being told from third person perspective.

The story is really good, and engaging, and I like the interactions between LIli and her father. But be careful of explaining too much. "go take our stuff upstairs, you goof" would work much better without "he ordered gently" it is a much smoother break.

The scene following that, where you describe the unpacking and eating, has a complete different tone. Before that the description was good, and the imagery worked; but that whole scene is a lot of telling and not enough showing. It slows down the rest of the read.

chapter five: last sentence meant to say liv not lili.

Well, I backed the book, I love the premise. As always, this is just me, but I am a very picky reader. So, take or don't take these suggestions...they do come with good intentions, K?

1st, i'm gonna assume the underlined words are for your purposes...not for the writing. 2nd, in "gnarled hand" paragraph (prologue) you use manically, I think you mean maniacally. At least that would make more sense. Gnarled hand paragraph again..."From within his shimmering cloak, a gnarled hand..," would read smoother.

Front yard, back yard, rectangular yard all in one paragraph. Too many yards. I would leave front and back, change rect. yard to "lot" or "plot" or drop altogether. When Lili is on porch, she "groans pleasurably" Groan=pain=despair. Use sighed or other word. Then you're all about Lili looking at the house and the yard, then suddenly, "he opens the door." You need to reintroduce him. EX: "Stepping passed her, Lili's father unlocked the door."

The Dry! paragraph. Run on is awkward need to break it up. My take: "Dry! her mind cried out as she imagined her skin already in the process of turning into a raisin. If she weren't careful, the blistering sun would split..."

Furniture...boxes....in their right room. Use "correct room" makes it stronger, plus "right" is so overused.

"Well, that's me done for today." Very cute turn of phrase. It needs to be preceeded by him plopping down on some piece of furniture in exhausion to connect it better to the phrase and story.

Watch the overuse of adj/adv. Within a couple sentences of each other you say, "Lili groaned" then "lili moaned" then "lili blissfully..." With these clarification by the character, I feel it's best to choose only a few that make the story more powerful. All the rest drop off. Because not every time someone speaks does that need to be said. EX: "Do you want me to make you a sandwich from our cooler supplies?" She stood and stretched out the kinks.... Totally don't need to say, "she asked" because the "?" already says that.

"Shoulder deep in a cupboard....banged her head against the cupboard." It would read better, "banged her head against the hardwood" or "lamenated wood impersonator"...you get the drift.

Whew! Again, love the concept. Can't wait to read more. Andrea

Having taught English for so many years I am a very good assessor of the sort of thing that YA audience enjoy in writing. They hate being condescended to, they like sophistication in their material and they enjoy mature writing. This does everything that they would love to read.

BACKED

Dear Mandy


just love your short pitch which really encouraged me to read on. your long pitch sold me your book. I have not read it all and certainly cannot comment with regard punctuation and grammar , i would not presume. but I know what I enjoy and I did your book so far. Over time I will carry on reading for sure. I will say that I like the feel that I am sitting with you and you are telling me the story, we all like that.

Please take a moment to look, COMMENT which is
important to me, and BACK my book. if not that is OK
also
The VERY best of luck to you
BACKED BY ME FOR SURE.
Denise
The Letter

Dear Mandy, I love that you have the list of characters & Latin words' definition :) - that really sets a great light on your story. :) Your pitch prepared me for my read & Liliana's stamina & determination moves her right through your story. :) I've backed this book before & also your other 2 books. :) Your backing never came through for my memoirs book - could you please try again? :) Thanks so very much. :) Love, Susie :)

:) comment to follow :)

Yes, it's back with edits! Please enjoy! LAST CHAPTER IS THE GLOSSARY AND CAST OF CHARACTERS.

Please don't ask why chapter 7/6 and 14/13 have two different fonts. I've given up trying to fix it.=(

3/20: the horrible affliction of any writer has struck! WRITER'S BLOCK! AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!! yes, i've had it for so long on this one i've gone on to something else entirely. sigh =( but i try to plug at it and i've written a new paragraph! yay!

CRITIQUE AND DESTROY, PEOPLE! i don't mind in the least.

ps. underling is in replace of italics for manuscript form. =D