Carnal Abbey WIP - Ch. 12 - Ch. 15

Kate and crew resume their quest for help and seek out Andrew Mazur.  Meanwhile, Crenshaw and Catherine are subjected to more unique rewards as Anniseth opens new paths to let corruption flow to the outside world.

Big chunk this time.  The narrative is keeping a fairly brisk pace.  This section brings things to the end of "act two" with the scene mostly set for the final showdown to unfold.  There's a few things sticking out at the moment.

Consistency feels more off balance in this story than in Neighborhood Bull.  The fixes are probably about the same, but they stick out to me more in this story due to the supernatural element making the swings bigger.  For example, the connection described in Chapter 12 between Kate and Steph will be seeded more clearly in her encounters with Bryce upon revision.  

Second, expository rules dumps.  I'm the kind of reader who loves a good, thick chapter that does nothing but go through different parameters of the world.  Originally, I was going to have one of those happen, but decided to hold back and make it a lot lighter and as needed rather than all at once.  This aggravates the consistency issue as it feels more like the rules are changing from page to page rather than being established in a big lore speech by one of the characters.  Cleaning this stuff up to be more concise and direct will help, but it's something I'm keeping a line of thought open on.

Third, the spicy stuff.  Unlike most stories, this one isn't lingering for too long in the sexy sexy type of spicy stuff.  It's more brutal and momentum driven with the eroticism blending much closer to horror/grotesque.  The brood mother chapter is a good example.  My thought is that this stuff either needs to be reconfigured back to more smoldering fun or, alternatively, ramped up to full blown wtf.

That's generally where my headspace is at the moment.  Next two chapters will be some plot reprieves as the characters need to make time for some spicy fun before the climactic confrontation unfolds.  As always, this is a Work in Progress, expect errors, redundancy, and other mistakes.  If you have any thoughts, I'm always happy to hear them in either replies to this post or in DMs.

Happy Reading!