I thought … they were going to set off in the morning? But it is evening. Granted I am reading quickly but I’m a little thrown.
This may be a little late to bring up, but …how often do they have to stoke the engine? And who does it?
Ooh, I like this way of introducing the idea of Stormpirates – is it new, or is my memory that bad?
that Jack began to visibly worry about it.
‘visibly to worry about it’ or ‘to worry about it visibly’ (sorry to be pedantic but this will annoy more than just me)
He didn't sleep as much as either she or Graveworthy would like
Suggest ‘Clare’ instead of ‘she’ as the preceding sentences make it sound like this paragraph is shifting the perspective to Jack and Clare was left behind at the end of the previous one.
Jack was piloting that day, and Graveworthy was washing himself in sea-water dippered up from the Mediterranean.
How high do they usually fly? I got the impression that when they left England they were very high, but now they’re near enough the surface to dipper up water? (which makes me think they can just reach down with a ladle … if this isn’t what you mean you might want to change the word choice.) It might be worth your while to throw in a mention of them not refilling the helium quite so often when out of sight of land, to save on resources, just in case, and would maybe provide a bit of texture to their travel. They could see dolphins or something!
The pyramids of their ancestors would be desecrated
So this was an Egypt that wasn’t overrun in the great Arab Conquest of the handwavey 8th-9th centuries then?
I am so glad you kept the Sea of Glass story in.
The goal is to destroy whoever's hurting you
‘Destroy’ is such a vicious word, and ‘hurting’ so relatively trivial, this sounds like a really petty naive thing to say. I’d replace ‘hurting’ with ‘threatening’ at least, or turn it into more of a kill-them-before-they-kill-you statement. This makes it sound like stabbing someone in revenge for them kicking your shins.
Below her, Graveworthy slept in his bunk, probably entirely untouched by the story he'd told.
I love this detail. And the fact that you acknowledge there are people like this in the world. Sometimes it seems that people think everyone is deeply and profoundly moved by everything, which makes me feel broken somehow. Maybe I am, I don't know, but I can't be the only one broken in this way, and it's nice to see some acknowledgment of this somewhere other than my own head.
no subject
This may be a little late to bring up, but …how often do they have to stoke the engine? And who does it?
Ooh, I like this way of introducing the idea of Stormpirates – is it new, or is my memory that bad?
that Jack began to visibly worry about it.
‘visibly to worry about it’ or ‘to worry about it visibly’ (sorry to be pedantic but this will annoy more than just me)
He didn't sleep as much as either she or Graveworthy would like
Suggest ‘Clare’ instead of ‘she’ as the preceding sentences make it sound like this paragraph is shifting the perspective to Jack and Clare was left behind at the end of the previous one.
Jack was piloting that day, and Graveworthy was washing himself in sea-water dippered up from the Mediterranean.
How high do they usually fly? I got the impression that when they left England they were very high, but now they’re near enough the surface to dipper up water? (which makes me think they can just reach down with a ladle … if this isn’t what you mean you might want to change the word choice.) It might be worth your while to throw in a mention of them not refilling the helium quite so often when out of sight of land, to save on resources, just in case, and would maybe provide a bit of texture to their travel. They could see dolphins or something!
The pyramids of their ancestors would be desecrated
So this was an Egypt that wasn’t overrun in the great Arab Conquest of the handwavey 8th-9th centuries then?
I am so glad you kept the Sea of Glass story in.
The goal is to destroy whoever's hurting you
‘Destroy’ is such a vicious word, and ‘hurting’ so relatively trivial, this sounds like a really petty naive thing to say. I’d replace ‘hurting’ with ‘threatening’ at least, or turn it into more of a kill-them-before-they-kill-you statement. This makes it sound like stabbing someone in revenge for them kicking your shins.
Below her, Graveworthy slept in his bunk, probably entirely untouched by the story he'd told.
I love this detail. And the fact that you acknowledge there are people like this in the world. Sometimes it seems that people think everyone is deeply and profoundly moved by everything, which makes me feel broken somehow. Maybe I am, I don't know, but I can't be the only one broken in this way, and it's nice to see some acknowledgment of this somewhere other than my own head.