Small Finds Readers' panel: Chapter Two/Three

Comments on Chapter 2/3.

Mostly liked it but there was a bit that I struggled to digest which I fear may be important later on! It is the historical section at the bottom of page 13 and top of page 14 which I found hard to follow. If it is important to understand this bit I think it would be helpful to use more of the chapter to explain it. I thought it may help to make the conversation less broken up, allowing one character to explain it from start to finish as there is a lot of information and I'm not sure it has a logical enough flow to the uninitiated! Or if that feels artificial then maybe some of it could be explained in a different prose device such as 'x had been particularly fascinated by y since they first learnt about it because..' In that instance some of the other descriptive bits that are less important to the story could be shortened to avoid the chapter becoming too long.

Otherwise if it isn't important to understand all of that then perhaps that part could just be stripped back a bit.

I liked the idea of two shorter chapters rather than one.

I think it's really great. It's setting the scene nicely and introducing the characters well to my mind.

I just had a couple of thoughts you might want to know:

 On page 8, the start of the chapter, I wondered whether to open with the second paragraph where Marco is thinking about food, so his thought chain (and the reader's attention) doesn't jump from bodies to food and back again in the first three paras. Perhaps 'On Friday evening as he was driving home-into para 2' then into the rest of para 1, and into 3 and on.  Then page 12, the section where Joshua is walking home and thinking back. I got myself a little muddled and wondered if using all ?past perfect? tense for the minibus flash back would avoid this to distinguish from the past present narrative? some paras have it already but some of the early ones don't which confused me a bit E.g. They Had gathered around the open doors of the minibus... Then on page 13 i like the use of it, but maybe for the first use of 'Oliver man' you could use 'The Oliver man' like elsewhere, so it reads as intentional use. 

I also think a break for a new chapter would fit well, although as it's all from the same time of day I can see why it might be all one chapter, perhaps with a few ****** as a line break?

I liked this chapter, more easy to read and get into, so these few things are me knit-picking really! But a few things to consider:

I'm not keen on some of the names -  Elyssia Goodenough? Is Joshua Jake and Joshua Williams the same person?

Moslem? I would probably change this to Muslim, I have never come across the Moslem spelling before and just read a bit about it by googling it, apparently some people find Moslem spelling offensive, although some just say its the old fashioned spelling - either way Muslim is probably better?

I'll give you the following feedback which I hope you'll find useful!
from which he only emerged later on Sunday morning.
'later' and a day and a half's time difference doesn't strike true to me...  Perhaps 'later that weekend, on Sunday morning'?
He wanted to hear more about the circumstances surrounding the
break-in at the dig and about the items that had been stolen and, if
To me, this would read more smoothly if the 'and about' was either ', about' or just 'and'
There's a missing 'he' in:
he thought might as well hear about them
Also a little confused about the 'handful of old coins' earlier in light of the medallions here - probably my ignorance, but a medallion to me signifies something larger and heftier than a coin... Maybe the explanation about medallions can come with the explanation about Constantius?
Chapter break - I think so, although it depends on how long the other chapters are I guess.  It's a good breaking point in the scene.

Ends