u/reddiperson1

I've been working on polishing my story, which follows an order of monster-hunting knights in a world similar to 1880's Europe. Their traditions endured because their blessed weapons are lethal to supernatural creatures, and their armor is strong enough to withstand both monsters' claws and gunfire.

In the story, I tried to quickly set the scene in a natural way. I described how the protagonist chased a werewolf through a city, including details about his armor clanking and how telegraph lines and factory chimney smoke blackened the sky. After the fight, he explains to a civilian about how his knightly order has stayed relevant for centuries.

However, every single beta reader expressed frustration and confusion at the story's setting. Some of the critiques were:

• "If you want to write a medieval story, you have to do the barest research into what existed in the time period. Guns aren't medieval. Telegraphs aren't medieval. Gas lights aren't medieval..."
• "The modern setting and the talk of knights came into direct conflict, making the story into a jumbled mess. This is a fantasy story, so all the tech is both nonsensical and jarring."
• "The setting doesn't make any sense. The age of knights ended with the rise of guns, so the two can't exist at the same time. The knights' decision to wear armor anyway just makes them look stupid."

These are a few of the critiques, but all nine of my beta readers had similar feedback throughout the story. Every context clue about the setting and every explanation just added to their confusion. I wanted to write a story about how tradition and progress can clash, but now, I'm wondering if I should switch the story to a standard medieval fantasy world.

She'd lost her eldest son a mere day ago, her next son a week before that, and her father the week before that. Now her first act as queen was to behead her father's oldest advisor.

Even though she's getting the promotion of a lifetime, I imagine most fresh orphans/ bereaved parents would be teary and slouching. Crying seems a pretty normal reaction after so many losses.

And yet, critics are complaining that she's not perfectly level headed. As if she saw her sons as little chess pieces that got knocked off the board. If she was completely stoic, I wonder if she'd get hate for not being sad enough.

When I was little, I'd always been told that my tics were just me being a "bad kid". However, I knew I was in a lot of unusual pain, even though my parents believed I just needed to be disciplined harder.

But when I left home for college, I don't know why I didn't immediately see a doctor. My tics got slightly better after my teenage years, but I was still always uncomfortable.

Now, nearly twenty years since my TS began, I finally saw a doctor. They confirmed that I had a neurological disorder, and helped me get a treatment plan set up. After a single session, I learned some coping methods that took the edge off the tics. A lot of the lingering pain from them has already faded. The doctor said that the path to treatment is a long road, but it's a road I'm eager to go on.

I'm ecstatic I'm finally getting relief, but can't help but be frustrated I didn't get treatment years ago.

"I wish that my crush had migraines that only went away when he thought about loving me."

Recently, I wrote a chapter that included a line like this: "Footsteps echoed down the hallway, and John turned around to find Jill running up to him."

A person who critiqued the line said that "John turned around" is a filter phrase that added unnecessary narrative distance, and should be removed.

Next, I changed that line to this: "Footsteps echoed down the hallway behind John as Jill ran up to him."

However, a different reviewer said that the line breaks the 3rd limited POV, since John wouldn't have eyes in the back of his head. They said that I needed to add a phrase like "John turned araound" for it to make sense.

Since both reviewers gave opposite advice, how exactly should I fix this sort of line?