Status Updates From Phoenix Extravagant

More pacing issues. The moments that get to breathe? We get pages of Jebi in that prison cell but no denouement on [big event] at all? There’s piles of stuff in the cafeteria but no trust building at all when they arrive at [location]. One of these things is more interesting and relevant than another.

Yeah. It’s not style or character. It was pacing. Start this thing at the 60% point and make us figure out the set up in media reas and it would be so much better. Like the plot is actually going now and the characters have finally gotten interesting. It just took two thirds of the page count to get here.

Ok, we’ve got to the prison break and I’m finally starting to be into this.

The style of this puts as little as possible in Jebi’s head. It’s all show. No tell. I like all the ideas. I can’t quite figure out why it’s so hard for me to latch on. Maybe pacing. Jebi just got arrested and my reaction was “sigh I thought it was about to get interesting.”

Delicious political intrigue and conflicting feelings.

There’s this gap in the emotional impact of this style. The structure is fine. The emotional notes are there but there’s this clinical distance which I think is hiding in the style in a way I haven’t locked down yet. The stakes just flipped and I’m not sold on why at all.

The metaphor of the destroyed art is a bit on the nose but it is resonant. I do not like those scenes in quite a vivid way.

The question of collaborators and colonialism is an interesting in to a character. It makes Jebi a little bit hard to like but I’m kind of hooked on the question of where the story is going. The prose is a little clinical but the worldbuilding is very interesting so far.