From: nicky.matthews@btinternet.com   
      
   On Saturday, August 23, 2014 3:02:34 AM UTC+1, J.Pascal wrote:   
   > The revision...  better?  worse?  pointless?   
   >    
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   >    
   > The spell itself informed her.  The magic wove through Eileen with tendrils   
   of dreamlike meaning. "You are summoned. We have summoned you. You are a   
   demon, bound to us and our cause."    
   >    
   I like tendrils of dreamlike meaning, but it is hard to understand - maybe   
   'tendrils of magic wove through Eileen' and separate out the bit about   
   meaning. How does she apprehend the meaning? Is this a dream or is she really   
   there?    
      
   > She expected to see pentagrams and candles when she opened her eyes if she   
   dreamed, or the ceiling of her darkened room if she woke.  Instead, Eileen   
   opened her eyes and saw a bowl.   
      
   This clarifies the above to some extent and I think it works but the last bit   
   might suggest that she saw an ordinary bowl rather than that she was in one?    
   >    
   >    
   > She stood in the bottom of a perfect half sphere large enough and deep   
   enough that her head came only halfway to the lip. Voices and murmurings came   
   from above, proof that there were people just beyond her sight. She knew their   
   fear and could sense    
   their meaning, though she knew none of the words.   
      
   I think this works much better and places her securely in a situation.   
   >    
   >    
   > "Summoned. You must serve us."   
   >    
   >    
   >    
   > The bowl was made of fitted and polished white marble twined with threads of   
   moss green. Rivulets of crimson tricked down shallow gold-lined channels to   
   pool at her feet and between her toes. Eileen stood in a small but slowly   
   growing puddle of blood.   
   >    
   I don't know why you need 'fitted' and 'twined' suggests something external -   
   do you mean the marble was veined with green or that it is actual moss? It   
   might be clearer to mention the gold lined channels before the blood just   
   because it is more logical    
   to describe the channels in the marble along with the marble itself but it   
   works fine as it is and might be more dramatic that way.   
   >    
   > She screamed and scrambled away from the pool but the sides of the bowl were   
   smooth and her feet were slick with the blood. She fell. Screaming and sobbing   
   she tried again and again to escape the bowl. Again and again she slipped and   
   fell until she was    
   covered with the blood. Finally she stopped trying to climb and stood,   
   trembling, in the lowest spot.   
   >    
   This bit is really clear - maybe more detail about the first attempt so that   
   the generalisation follows a more complete experience otherwise it is a tiny   
   bit cursory and I'd like to see how hard she tried. Could she not pull herself   
   over the lip using    
   her arms - that seems as if it might be possible from the initial description.   
   The summary works of course if you want this section to be brief and dreamlike   
   : )   
   >    
   > The voices droned on. She pushed sopping hair from her face. One channel   
   remained dry above the blood she had splashed in her panic.  Even as she   
   watched she saw the first red drop begin to flow.     
   >    
   I wondered why her hair was sopping - sweat, blood, rain? I'm not getting the   
   channel arrangement so it might have helped to know earlier how many bisected   
   the marble and how many were bloody.    
   >    
   > The spell informed her.     
   >    
   I kind of want the spell informed her understanding here  for sense if not for   
   drama otherwise 'informed' is an oddly businesslike word .   
   >    
   > A mindless demon is of no use to anyone. The spell informed her and she knew   
   that the last sacrifice had been made and the spell complete.   
   >    
   I'm not sure why she would be mindless unless this is an implicit threat in   
   which case I'm a bit thick.   
   >    
   > Eileen stood still in hope that it would delay them if she did not stir the   
   blood. It didn't delay anything. As soon as the droplet of blood reached the   
   puddle where she stood a shaft of pain ripped a scream from her throat.    
   >    
   She obviously knows a lot more about summoning than we do. I think this bit   
   would be more effective if she has some awareness that the spell is incomplete   
   until all the channels are full of blood. Personally I'm not wild about pain   
   being ripped as if    
   pain is the active component.  It's something I read all the time but it has   
   the effect of distancing the reader and the protagonist from the experience of   
   pain which seems counter to the intention of most authors. I like 'shaft'   
   'rip' as an image though.   
   >    
   > "We have summoned you. You must serve us."   
   >    
   >    
   >    
   > Eileen's body twisted and pulled. She writhed as she rose above the floor of   
   the bowl. Her screams became mere animal sounds as she expanded, as she grew   
   large and looming. Visions crawled through her mind of creatures, of people   
   with fox ears and cat    
   eyes, of individuals she never knew and would know forever, of armies without   
   names or faces and all of them dying by her hand.   
      
   'pulled' seems awkward here as 'twisted' describes an impact and 'pulled' an   
   action. If she is being lifted up from the bowl you could make more of this as   
   I imagine it would be disconcerting. The shift to her size etc loses her POV   
   and begins to    
   describe herself as she would be perceived. Again people do this all the time   
   but I'm not a fan. Also I don't know how visions 'crawl' but I'm not sure what   
   verb works there and the last part is really dramatic.   
      
   I think it is a def improvement on the previous and I think it works. Please   
   take all my comments with the usual provisos and handfuls of salt.   
   N   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)