Jump to content

4/25/16 - krystalynn03 - Roamwald: C10-12 (5078)


krystalynn03

Recommended Posts

Hey guys!

 

  • How's the pacing within the 3 chapters? Originally, I had chapter 10 and 11 as just one big chapter 10, and I broke it in two. I've slimmed the section down by 700 words, but I still want to know if there are parts that dragged or ideas repeated within this section.
  • How's the pacing feel in conjunction with the chapters before? This is my last 'set up' sequence before I start firing off all the guns I've shown the reader, but I still want to know how it feels in the broad scheme of things.
  • I tried to do a better job introducing minor characters by putting them in a broad sweep rather than introducing them one by one like I did with the relatives. Does this work better for you?
  • Anybody ever kept sheep? I'm going to need realism/consistency checks.
  • Do the characters' reactions to Jennie's explanation feel organic and varied? Can you tell what Will is thinking?
  • Anything that did work/didn't work for you?

 

Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Muah-ha-ha, cut-and-paste time again!  ;o)

 

Chapter 10

 

Decent chapter. Papa’s reaction was pretty convincing. I got disoriented in the forge, when one person after another seemed to pop into existence when they were described. I would have preferred an aside as they walked in that the room was full of people.

 

The exchange of comments in the room worked pretty well. Nate stood out as a character with something different about him physically and personality-wise, which is good. His story about his grandpap made me think of Jack and the Beanstalk.

 

Solid job of something that felt like a scene-sequel, but advanced the plot too.

 

Chapter 11

 

Good chapter, some nice emotional touches with her mama’s hidden tears, for father asleep at the fire and Jennie sneaking then pulled further into the woods to become lost. Feels a bit reminiscent of her first trip into the woods which wasn’t all that long ago, but I think it works. Lighting levels are an issue again, I think. I presumed that it was dusk, or there was moon enough for her to see unaided. Otherwise, no issues, her tussle with the sheep was frustrating and amusing at the same time.

 

Chapter 12

 

[x x x  censored  x x x] - sorry!!

 

(p.s. I feel like such a fraud having now reached Chapter 20   :-D

Edited by Robinski
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very well-told.  I was along for the ride the whole time.  Overall, everything was great, and I only have minor niggles.

 

He was taller than any of the pines we passed, but not the tulip trees I don't remember if you've given us the exact location of the story, so I'm not sure which species of pine predominate. Where I am, Eastern White Pine is the most common species, and it can grow to upwards of 180 feet. Tuliptrees tend to top out around 160, significantly shorter than the pines. Unless the world is getting colder, and forests that were previously deciduous are now becoming pine, and thus all the pines are relatively young? You might have already covered this: I joined the group after you had already submitted the first several chapters.

Dissembled rifle Is the rifle a lie? :)

Did you see tracks?” Nate asked. “Footprints. They'd be as big as a wagon, probably.” Papa rubbed his chin. “Nothing that seemed right.”: rang false. If the dad is a trapper and woodsman, specifically looking for evidence of a large creature, he wouldn't have to think about whether he saw gigantic footprints or not, and Nate shouldn't have to explain that tracks are footprints.  I realize that Roamwald doesn't leave conventional footprints, but this seems like info that would be volunteered instead of mused out.

more compacted” Since we're in Jenny's POV, “compacted” seems too contemporary and technical. Maybe something like “hard and smooshed together” instead.

Tied to a large cut chunk of tree: How did giant Roamwald tie a knot in a tiny rope with a struggling sheep on the other end? He must have very, very dexterous hands...On the other hand, a tied rope is a much better option than a pen, since there's no way you could use whole trees to build a pen that would keep sheep in.  I'm assuming that when Roamwald stole the sheep, the rope was already tied to its neck (why?), so maybe he could just use a large rock/ small boulder to weight down the opposite end of the rope.  --And by the way, do we eventually learn the sheep's backstory?

It when the sheep 'the sheep when it'

They had ruined in their own tracks: Huh? Unless 'ruining in' is a tracking term I'm not familiar with, I don't know what's going on here. Given how snowy everything is, it shoulld be very easy for her to follow her tracks home. Even if she did a lot of small sidetrips, it shouldn't be hard for her to find the overall path. Strangely enough, I actually have chased a goat across snowy ground before, and finding my way back wasn't a problem at all. The goat acted as a bit of a snowplow... Maybe if you had it start to actually snow, you could explain that she was worried that the snow would fill the tracks before anyone could backtrack and find the sheep.  Or maybe you could have her stay in the forest  because she's physically incapable of dragging the reluctant sheep home, and unwilling to leave it exposed to predators and the elements after removing it from Roamwald's shelter.

 

Since you asked about realism with the sheep, I've never owned sheep myself, but I worked at one place that had goats, and another that had Welsh mountain sheep. I'd say you caught their character pretty well. The man who owned the goats would sometimes take them for walks on a leash, and it was always striking that the goats didn't understand leash geometry as well as a dog would. If they moved to the left, they always seemed surprised that the leash was suddenly pulling from their right, and they never lined up their body with the leash. They were quite stubborn, and would often refuse to walk in a given direction, or drag you along in the direction they wanted to go. The Welsh mountain sheep never went on walks, but they were even more stubborn than the goats. They were actually pretty strong and formidable creatures.

 

Also, there's a reason goat's milk is more common than sheep's milk: dairy goats can be productive for about 10 months of the year, but dairy sheep can only produce for about three months after the lamb is weaned.  Therefore, there's a good chance that the sheep will eat their winter stores without providing milk for very long, even if she is producing at the moment.  And sheep are pickier eaters than goats are.  I'm not sure if a family on the edge of starvation would want a sheep for anything except meat...

Edited by ecohansen
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Notes while reading:

I like that Jennie tells her father about the snatcher and doesn't try to hide it, as in most stories.

However, her father does have her hide it...interested to see where it goes.

 

pg 9: "counting out a pile nails."

--missing  a word.

 

pg 13: Why didn't Papa see the tracks?  Did Roamwald erase his tracks?  I would think even if he swept his tracks, there would be something left.  Something that big can't disappear without a trace.

 

 

This entry flowed well.  I didn't have a lot of comments except for the above.  I'm still struggling with how a group of people that big are hard to find.  

 

As to your questions, I thought the last chapter dragged a little.  We've already seen Jennie running out into the forest, and especially because she didn't find Roamwald again, it took away some of the tension for me.  I wasn't too into her chasing the sheep.  I want the family to get access to more food, but at this point the tension is ramped up enough that this feels like going backward (this sort of answers your first two questions).

 

I didn't have a problem with the minor characters in the smithy because they're only mentioned in passing.  I don't feel like they will be as important as family members.

 

no comment on sheep...

 

Reactions to Jennie seem good enough.  As I said above, I'm glad she didn't immediately hide it, but there still was some hushing up so others wouldn't hear.  I guess it's best not to cause a panic until the snatcher has been verified.  I can tell Will knows his daughter and that she wouldn't just make up a story.  I actually think the characters in the smithy might be more accepting.  After all, they know Snatchers are real, so there should be some willingness to at least check out the rumor.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Muah-ha-ha, cut-and-paste time again!  ;o)

 

Chapter 10

 

Decent chapter. Papa’s reaction was pretty convincing. I got disoriented in the forge, when one person after another seemed to pop into existence when they were described. I would have preferred an aside as they walked in that the room was full of people.

 

The exchange of comments in the room worked pretty well. Nate stood out as a character with something different about him physically and personality-wise, which is good. His story about his grandpap made me think of Jack and the Beanstalk.

 

Solid job of something that felt like a scene-sequel, but advanced the plot too.

 

Chapter 11

 

Good chapter, some nice emotional touches with her mama’s hidden tears, for father asleep at the fire and Jennie sneaking then pulled further into the woods to become lost. Feels a bit reminiscent of her first trip into the woods which wasn’t all that long ago, but I think it works. Lighting levels are an issue again, I think. I presumed that it was dusk, or there was moon enough for her to see unaided. Otherwise, no issues, her tussle with the sheep was frustrating and amusing at the same time.

 

Chapter 12

 

[x x x  censored  x x x] - sorry!!

 

(p.s. I feel like such a fraud having now reached Chapter 20   :-D

 

 

Hey there Robinski,

 

Chapter 10 & 11:

 

I took your advice about chapter ten and (after slimming everything in this sequence down as much as I could) I put in a description at the beginning of chapter 11 (was the second half of 10 when you read it) where I noted in brief who all the characters were. So far, nobody's mentioned any problem with the men, so I think (thus far!) your suggestion got that problem fixed.

 

Re: Fraud

 

Are you a fraud or did you just eat the cake while it was still batter? Besides, your input's benefiting everyone else as I'm trying to dig out the boulders before submitting here (not to mention all the annoying typo-pebbles).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • How's the pacing within the 3 chapters? Originally, I had chapter 10 and 11 as just one big chapter 10, and I broke it in two. I've slimmed the section down by 700 words, but I still want to know if there are parts that dragged or ideas repeated within this section.

    Pacing seemed fine. I kind of wonder if the dad really needs to meet the whole house full of men. My thought was that he would start with the man he had the best relationship with and talk it over first.

  • How's the pacing feel in conjunction with the chapters before? This is my last 'set up' sequence before I start firing off all the guns I've shown the reader, but I still want to know how it feels in the broad scheme of things.

    So far so good.

  • I tried to do a better job introducing minor characters by putting them in a broad sweep rather than introducing them one by one like I did with the relatives. Does this work better for you?

    I think always better to introduce one by one. Right now I don't remember any of them specifically. It's just the "male neighbors."

  • Anybody ever kept sheep? I'm going to need realism/consistency checks. No sheep. :)
  • Do the characters' reactions to Jennie's explanation feel organic and varied? Can you tell what Will is thinking?

    Will is the DAD! Okay, I was so confused for a moment. We're in limited POV so I'm not too worried yet. I'm still confused as to why Jennie didn't tell them the Snatcher said he wasn't a Snatcher. Even if it was dismissed as another ploy - it seems like it should belong in the full briefing.

  • Anything that did work/didn't work for you?

    This is rather personal, but Jennie's exclamation points are starting to grate on me. Because she says "Snatcher" a lot - it kept making me think of the girl with a really high pitched voice from the movie Prancer. I don't think they all need to be cut or anything so dramatic, but I wanted to make you aware of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

- I like how you make it a point of showing the Snatcher's strength by comparing it with his Dad struggling to carry her.

 

- I can understand (and even expect) her parents not to believe her, but her father's reaction to the name Roamwald has definitely got me intrigued.

 

- Her father's return is a little anti-climatic. I see that he returns with food with everything, but he just came back from outside - where we know Roamwald is - the suspense really builds and builds during his absence. 

 

- Interesting that the Snatcher has a Devil-like quality, at least as the men tell it - kind of reminds me of Old Scratch in American folklore. 

 

- The men not believing Jeanne about the Snatcher feels a tad unrealistic. They spent a lot of the conversation telling how big of threat they are . . . and then they don't believe her because she hit her head? Seems unlikely.

 

- I really like this rustic, and I'm definitely curious to see where it goes next. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi there, Ecohansen!

 

I don't remember if you've given us the exact location of the story, so I'm not sure which species of pine predominate.

 

This is one of the recurring problems I’ve had with this manuscript, which I didn’t even realize was a problem till I started getting feedback at chapter one! I didn’t describe the setting of the valley well enough at all at the beginning of the book to have readers picture what I’m intending at all, so even if you had been around for chapter one, you’d have been just as unsure. It’s a huge problem I’ve got to fix, but judging by your submissions and commentary on it and others’ writing, maybe you can point me toward constructing correct details. Granted all of this is fantasy, so I’m not trying to exactly replicate real life ecosystems (and this is the only book in the series where nature is this important), but I’m imagining the valley set in a geography/climate similar to areas of the Appalachia. I know that’s a sweeping statement as the Appalachia spread so long and wide that there are many different sub-regions, but that’s the feel I want—a chain of mountains long enough and large enough that they could significantly impede travel for a pre-industrial society and house and separate different races and cultures. I can’t say too much on that because the history’s far more detailed than geography and I don’t want to reveal anything there as some of it’s pertinent to Roamwald himself and it’s incredibly pertinent to the plots of subsequent books.

I’ve considered emulating the cove forest sub region of the Appalachia. I read that they have a lot of vegetation, but I don’t know that it would allow for a river like the kind I’m imagining, and the river is not something I can take out of the book.

 

Of course, you’re right about the pines, and that was lazy writing on my side. I put that throwaway word in there because I wanted to make a comparison, but I live behind “The Pine Curtain” and I know very well how tall some pines can get. I’ll fix it, but the overall struggle of making the nature of the forest right persists! :)

 

Dissembled rifle Is the rifle a lie?

Just like the cake. I’ll fix it!

 

Did you see tracks?” Nate asked. “Footprints. They'd be as big as a wagon, probably.” Papa rubbed his chin. “Nothing that seemed right.”: rang false. If the dad is a trapper and woodsman, specifically looking for evidence of a large creature, he wouldn't have to think about whether he saw gigantic footprints or not, and Nate shouldn't have to explain that tracks are footprints.  I realize that Roamwald doesn't leave conventional footprints, but this seems like info that would be volunteered instead of mused out.

 

You’re right. I need to make his explanation here better. It’s important that I keep Will as an introspective character because his ability to stay calm in tense situations is needed later in the book, but he should explain more both for the reader’s sake of understanding what he did/didn’t see and for the sake of logic.

 

more compacted” Since we're in Jenny's POV, “compacted” seems too contemporary and technical. Maybe something like “hard and smooshed together” instead.

 

Hm, compacted does seem very scientific. I’ll try out something else there.

 

Tied to a large cut chunk of tree: How did giant Roamwald tie a knot in a tiny rope with a struggling sheep on the other end? He must have very, very dexterous hands...

 

That is a good question. Yeah. A real good question. This plot point is eight years old now, and I’ve never, ever thought about it quite like that. I mean, I used to tie knot while sewing with tiny thread by rolling them back and forth between my fingers until it formed its own messy knot, but that wouldn’t work on a sheep because you need a loop. I don’t know knot-making, but I would guess he would need the kind of knot that makes a loose loop which he would make before touching the sheep and then slide the knot down the rope toward the sheep’s neck second.

 

Also, spoiler:

The sheep wasn’t struggling. He didn’t steal it. You’ll find out why in two chapters. Roamwald a thief? Nay! His parents brought him up better than that.

 

On the other hand, a tied rope is a much better option than a pen, since there's no way you could use whole trees to build a pen that would keep sheep in.  I'm assuming that when Roamwald stole the sheep, the rope was already tied to its neck (why?), so maybe he could just use a large rock/ small boulder to weight down the opposite end of the rope.  --And by the way, do we eventually learn the sheep's backstory?

 

SPOILER.

in two chapters

 

They had ruined in their own tracks: Huh? Unless 'ruining in' is a tracking term I'm not familiar with, I don't know what's going on here. Given how snowy everything is, it shoulld be very easy for her to follow her tracks home. Even if she did a lot of small sidetrips, it shouldn't be hard for her to find the overall path.

 

I fixed the typo of the ruining ‘in’ bit, but I’ve got an idea after reading everyone’s comments and ruminating on them a couple days of a better way for Jennie to get lost that will speed up the pace in these chapters and hopefully resolve some other issues other folks pointed out at the same time.

 

 Strangely enough, I actually have chased a goat across snowy ground before, and finding my way back wasn't a problem at all. The goat acted as a bit of a snowplow... Maybe if you had it start to actually snow, you could explain that she was worried that the snow would fill the tracks before anyone could backtrack and find the sheep. 

 

This is a good idea I was considering until I thought of a way to compact a later event into this one and speed up a sequence I’ve always been afraid was a bit draggy (and several people agreed with that suspicion so I know for sure I need to do something)

 

Since you asked about realism with the sheep, […] The Welsh mountain sheep never went on walks, but they were even more stubborn than the goats. They were actually pretty strong and formidable creatures.

 

 This is a fantastic detail…the kind of thing that only someone who’d worked with the animals in daily life would have ever noticed (and not the kind of thing people mention in expository books). Thanks for building my background knowledge!

 

Also, there's a reason goat's milk is more common than sheep's milk: dairy goats can be productive for about 10 months of the year, but dairy sheep can only produce for about three months after the lamb is weaned.  Therefore, there's a good chance that the sheep will eat their winter stores without providing milk for very long, even if she is producing at the moment.  And sheep are pickier eaters than goats are.  I'm not sure if a family on the edge of starvation would want a sheep for anything except meat....

 

Also something I had no clue about. Thanks again for new knowledge and insights!

 

Thanks so much for all the comments, reactions, and knowledge—and for jumping in to the story so many chapters in.

 

/k

Edited by krystalynn03
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am a bit late to the party, it seems.
​Nevertheless, I read your submission (twice), and I have to say - I am really interested in the story you're telling! Since I've been back on the forums for about a week, I haven't read any of the previous chapters, but it didn't matter. Your writing is concise and awesome, I was easily sucked into the world while reading. I do realize that it's a limited POV, but the people above already mentioned the stuff that bothered me too (like the ​compacted snow etc.).

​I found the pacing was just right for the most part. I felt a bit lost with the introductions of the "male neighbours" in the forge, but that's about it. I really like the way you set up expectations and then soar over them - the father's reaction to hearing Jennie's story is a perfect example of that. Most writers would've had him not believe her, or she'd have never told him - the way you did it is a lot more interesting and fresh.

​About the character introductions - as I said, it felt a bit chunky to me (the paragraph was by no means too long; just that the character introductions were a bit off). I like to apply something I learned in my years of drawing - if you imagine the scene visually, it's much easier to choose the order in which you talk about its contents (descriptive parts of a story in their entirety always reflected the way a painting would work, for me that is; these descriptions would mimic the way my eyes would bounce around the visual equivalent of the thing I'm reading). The major element in the forge is Nate in the middle - that's where your eyes would be drawn to first, so it would feel more natural to me if you introduced him first. That, and the continuous thing he's doing (hammering a nail) whilst the scene unfolds will give me a background to imagine everything else to (otherwise it felt like the others are just standing around doing not much until I read the part about him working - then I immediately felt the scene differently; I think you could achieve that at the beginning). I hope that was helpful in some way.

​I have never, ever kept sheep. That being said, I loved the scenes with the animal - they were both really tense (I was expecting something to happen at any moment; and in a way, it did - she got lost) and funny. The scene had me pinned to Jennie's POV so well, that I forgot to use my real-world brain - I was as surprised as her when she realized she'd gotten lost.

​I'm already liking Will (again - I haven't read any of the other chapters, so he was just introduced to me). He feels honest and down-to-earth, and his characterization in the two chapters was subtle, but enough for me to be "on his side" the whole time. I don't think he is hiding what goes on in his head (at least not from Jennie) - he believes that something weird is happening out there, and is going to try and figure it out.

​Overall: I didn't want to stop reading. The world felt almost tangible - I could imagine the snow, the cold, the woods, the house. And I loved every bit of it. Keep going! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I’ve considered emulating the cove forest sub region of the Appalachia. I read that they have a lot of vegetation, but I don’t know that it would allow for a river like the kind I’m imagining, and the river is not something I can take out of the book.

 

The cove forests are a great choice--they're some of my very favorite places in the world.  Rather than covering a whole region, they're a specific vegetation type in steep dips on the north and east sides of certain ridges. Overall, there are few pines in cove forests, so you'd have to edit that.  Until a decade ago, the main coniferous trees in the cove forests were Eastern Hemlocks, which made horrible lumber and therefore were not logged, resulting in some of the most majestic coniferous old growth in the east.  Unfortunately, an invasive insect called the hemlock adelgid has killed almost all of the old growth hemlock now--these days, you'll find very few living conifers in most cove forests.

 

I'm not sure how large you need the river to be. As for largish rivers, the Tennessee, the Little Tennessee, the French Broad, the New, the Hiwassee, and the Shenandoah are all fairly large while still in the Appalachians.  All of them except the Shenandoah flow near cove forest areas. The Shenandoah is entirely confined to the broad flat valley between the Blue Ridge and the Ridge and Valley region, so it probably isn't mountainous enough for your requirements.  The Tennessee and Little Tennessee flow through terrain that would closely match your story, and the Tennessee is the largest river in the region. Unfortunately, the Tennessee and Little Tennessee  are heavily dammed.  I'm not sure what would happen to the dams in the events leading up to your story, but they'd be a complication.  So I'd probably recommend the New or the French Broad.  Other options: the upper Chatooga isn't quite in the Appalachians proper, but it gets quite large while still surrounded by respectable foothills.  The Nantahala is a world-famous whitewater river, if you just need the river to be impassable rather than large.  The Whitewater River in the South Carolina foothills is a tributary of the Savannah River, and it has Upper Whitewater Falls, the tallest waterfall east of the Rockies.  The Coosa in Alabama starts to get biggish while still in the Ridge and Valley region.  I don't know anything about West Virginia, but it might have a river or two that would fit your bill.

Edited by ecohansen
Link to comment
Share on other sites

imagine the scene visually, it's much easier to choose the order in which you talk about its contents

This is a really neat idea, the bit about the painting. It's one of those moments when you go, "Well of course that's how you do it, why have I been doing anything else for the last (insert number) years?"

Edited by Robinski
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi there Mandamon!

 

pg 13: Why didn't Papa see the tracks?  Did Roamwald erase his tracks?  I would think even if he swept his tracks, there would be something left.  Something that big can't disappear without a trace.

 

I think the confusion here is because I didn’t allow Will enough dialogue. He’s not a long winded man, but I should have had him describe more specifically what he did see. This was a recurring problem in most of the feedback I got, so I definitely go back and clear this up. Thanks for mentioning the confusion.

 

This entry flowed well.  I didn't have a lot of comments except for the above.  I'm still struggling with how a group of people that big are hard to find.  

 

The giants aren’t hiding from anybody, and Roamwald’s the only one in the valley. There aren’t any others for miles and miles around. Just him. There used to be others living in the mountain ranges, but not anymore. There’s a lot of really good reasons why, but they’re not a part of this book’s plot and saying it now would spoil stuff in the next book.

 

As to your questions, I thought the last chapter dragged a little.  We've already seen Jennie running out into the forest, and especially because she didn't find Roamwald again, it took away some of the tension for me.  

 

I was afraid of this to some extent. While musing on this and ecohansen’s comments, I’ve considered a way of collapsing the upcoming chapter into this chapter to speed things up a bit, but I’m not sure if I can fully collapse this sequence in a way that keeps the suspense completely up.

What appears to be the main conflict of the book is not synonymous with the climax, so this little arc here is setup for the first conflict and the second. The book doesn’t end where a lot of books with this trope would end. I think it’ll make more sense after the reveals.

 

I wasn't too into her chasing the sheep.  I want the family to get access to more food, but at this point the tension is ramped up enough that this feels like going backward (this sort of answers your first two questions).

 

I’m trying to connect your thoughts to see which phrase is modifying which phrase. Is the backward tension feeling about a) visiting with neighbors B) finding the sheep or c) chasing the sheep? I hope you mean C because I’ve got a plausible change in mind that I mentioned where I could fix that pretty quickly.

 

Reactions to Jennie seem good enough.  As I said above, I'm glad she didn't immediately hide it, but there still was some hushing up so others wouldn't hear.  I guess it's best not to cause a panic until the snatcher has been verified.  

 

Yes, I wanted to evade that cliché, but I also wanted to evade the ‘nobody believes her’ cliché as well. I think I’m on thin ice (cliché!) with the reaction of the men as is. Nate listens to her seriously, but overall, they dismiss her at the end in conjunction with Will’s admission that he didn’t find actual footprints.  If I shore up that dialogue, maybe have Nate repeat ask Will about what he saw in the woods after Jennie’s been shooed out of the forge house, maybe I could emphasize that Nate discounts it based on Will’s description rather than Jennie’s. I want to keep as far away from the ‘adults never listen’ thing as I can.

 

I can tell Will knows his daughter and that she wouldn't just make up a story.  I actually think the characters in the smithy might be more accepting.  After all, they know Snatchers are real, so there should be some willingness to at least check out the rumor.

 

Yeah, I think I’m going to have Nate press Will a little harder to telegraph that.

 

Thanks Mandamon so much! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey there, Spieles,

  • Pacing seemed fine. I kind of wonder if the dad really needs to meet the whole house full of men. My thought was that he would start with the man he had the best relationship with and talk it over first.
    • Well, yes and no. If I don’t introduce these men here, then I’ve got to slow down the narrative later when the suspense really is a lot higher than it is here. I mean, Nate or Will could suggest they have this talk not in front of an audience, but I’d lose Oscar’s participating in his dad’s 100x told story and I’d lose the line about her hitting her head. Hm, maybe if I escalated her reaction to the men laughing at this, then I could shift the conversation out of that locale and fix up a comprehension problem I gave some folks by not having Will describe what he had seen enough.
  • I think always better to introduce one by one. Right now I don't remember any of them specifically. It's just the "male neighbors."
    • And for the most part, that’s all I need the reader to know. For later plot purposes, I need the valley not feel like Jennie’s immediate family and her relatives are the only people living there.
  • Will is the DAD! Okay, I was so confused for a moment.
    • I’m getting really, really mixed reviews on the naming. Some people want me to keep the narrator calling Will ‘Papa’ all the time and other people think it’s annoying when I denote the family relationship as a name because they feel as a reader, that I as writer, think they’ve forgotten and so the repetition sounds annoying. I’m going to struggle with this for a while, I think. Jennie’s parents are going to play a role later without Jennie present, so I’m really struggling with keeping the narrator so limited that they are always ‘Papa’ and ‘Mama’ to the reader.
  • We're in limited POV so I'm not too worried yet. I'm still confused as to why Jennie didn't tell them the Snatcher said he wasn't a Snatcher. Even if it was dismissed as another ploy - it seems like it should belong in the full briefing.
    • Good point. That line wasn’t always there, and it impacts the way she’s thinking, so I felt there was an inconsistency there, especially with her introspective scene following after.
  • This is rather personal, but Jennie's exclamation points are starting to grate on me. Because she says "Snatcher" a lot - it kept making me think of the girl with a really high pitched voice from the movie Prancer. I don't think they all need to be cut or anything so dramatic, but I wanted to make you aware of it.
    • I don’t think I’ve seen Prancer since I was little, so I can’t make the connection you’re making, but if the exclamation point is overused, I want to fix it. I’ll take a look.

Thanks for all the feedback, spieles!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hiya rdpulfer,

 

- Her father's return is a little anti-climatic. I see that he returns with food with everything, but he just came back from outside - where we know Roamwald is - the suspense really builds and builds during his absence. 

 

 True, I do have it building for Jennie (and therefore the reader hopefully) only to ask both to wait another chapter to find out what’s going on. Hm, that’s a bit of a problem. I mean, I could tone down the tension some, maybe, a lot easier than restructuring the sequence. There’s some things built into the sequence with the forge house that I can’t drop or it’ll drag down the suspense much worse later… Hm.

 

- Interesting that the Snatcher has a Devil-like quality, at least as the men tell it - kind of reminds me of Old Scratch in American folklore. 

 

 I’d never heard ‘Old Scratch’ before!

 

- The men not believing Jeanne about the Snatcher feels a tad unrealistic. They spent a lot of the conversation telling how big of threat they are . . . and then they don't believe her because she hit her head? Seems unlikely.

 

 I’m going to go back and change that up some. Thanks for noting it.

 

Thanks rdpulfer!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey Valthyr,

 

Your writing is concise and awesome, I was easily sucked into the world while reading. I do realize that it's a limited POV, but the people above already mentioned the stuff that bothered me too (like the ​compacted snow etc.).

 

Please do let me know anytime you notice anything in the voice that feels off. Words strike people in different ways, and you reading this in L2 makes me suspect that I’ll get some interesting language feedback from a different kind of perspective.

​I found the pacing was just right for the most part. I felt a bit lost with the introductions of the "male neighbours" in the forge, but that's about it.

 

Originally, I had them mentioned one by one, but a friend thought that it was confusing to have them introduced like that—as if they were suddenly appearing, so I thought I could fix it by describing them all upfront, but I didn’t do it well enough on first try.

 

I really like the way you set up expectations and then soar over them - the father's reaction to hearing Jennie's story is a perfect example of that. Most writers would've had him not believe her, or she'd have never told him - the way you did it is a lot more interesting and fresh.

 

You’ve divined exactly what I was trying to do. I’m glad it hit all the notes I wanted it to for you.

​About the character introductions – […] Nate in the middle - that's where your eyes would be drawn to first, so it would feel more natural to me if you introduced him first. That, and the continuous thing he's doing (hammering a nail) whilst the scene unfolds will give me a background to imagine everything else to (otherwise it felt like the others are just standing around doing not much until I read the part about him working - then I immediately felt the scene differently; I think you could achieve that at the beginning). I hope that was helpful in some way.

 

 I will try that out! This was a really useful suggestion!

​I have never, ever kept sheep. That being said, I loved the scenes with the animal - they were both really tense (I was expecting something to happen at any moment; and in a way, it did - she got lost) and funny. The scene had me pinned to Jennie's POV so well, that I forgot to use my real-world brain - I was as surprised as her when she realized she'd gotten lost.

 

Good. Some folks (the ones who have read up to this point) felt like this dragged the suspense back down, but I’m glad you saw the humor. It’s meant to suggest something about Roamwald (that he really was listening to what she said before and cared enough to try to help her family out) and to break the overall plot tension a little before ramping things back up again. I’ve thought up a way to collapse some of the tension of the next chapter into this chapter which would mean dropping the sheep tug o’ war, but I probably won’t actually try out the revision until I’ve completely worked my way through the book and then weigh out that kind of a change on the whole since it got mixed reviews—some liking it and some not caring for it. Since my audience is actually kids (although I want to write the book smart enough for adults to enjoy just as well), I’ll need to think about which version would be most fun for a child to read and go from there.

​I'm already liking Will (again - I haven't read any of the other chapters, so he was just introduced to me). He feels honest and down-to-earth, and his characterization in the two chapters was subtle, but enough for me to be "on his side" the whole time. I don't think he is hiding what goes on in his head (at least not from Jennie) - he believes that something weird is happening out there, and is going to try and figure it out.
 

Again, those are exactly the reactions I wanted. I’m glad to hear they worked.

​Overall: I didn't want to stop reading. The world felt almost tangible - I could imagine the snow, the cold, the woods, the house. And I loved every bit of it. Keep going! 

 

Wow, I’m going to hang onto this critique (felt more like a review?) for days when I’m feeling crappy and need a pick-me-up!

 

Thanks Valthyr!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I’ve considered emulating the cove forest sub region of the Appalachia. I read that they have a lot of vegetation, but I don’t know that it would allow for a river like the kind I’m imagining, and the river is not something I can take out of the book.

 

The cove forests are a great choice--they're some of my very favorite places in the world.  Rather than covering a whole region, they're a specific vegetation type in steep dips on the north and east sides of certain ridges. Overall, there are few pines in cove forests, so you'd have to edit that.  Until a decade ago, the main coniferous trees in the cove forests were Eastern Hemlocks, which made horrible lumber and therefore were not logged, resulting in some of the most majestic coniferous old growth in the east.  Unfortunately, an invasive insect called the hemlock adelgid has killed almost all of the old growth hemlock now--these days, you'll find very few living conifers in most cove forests.

 

I'm not sure how large you need the river to be. As for largish rivers, the Tennessee, the Little Tennessee, the French Broad, the New, the Hiwassee, and the Shenandoah are all fairly large while still in the Appalachians.  All of them except the Shenandoah flow near cove forest areas. The Shenandoah is entirely confined to the broad flat valley between the Blue Ridge and the Ridge and Valley region, so it probably isn't mountainous enough for your requirements.  The Tennessee and Little Tennessee flow through terrain that would closely match your story, and the Tennessee is the largest river in the region. Unfortunately, the Tennessee and Little Tennessee  are heavily dammed.  I'm not sure what would happen to the dams in the events leading up to your story, but they'd be a complication.  So I'd probably recommend the New or the French Broad.  Other options: the upper Chatooga isn't quite in the Appalachians proper, but it gets quite large while still surrounded by respectable foothills.  The Nantahala is a world-famous whitewater river, if you just need the river to be impassable rather than large.  The Whitewater River in the South Carolina foothills is a tributary of the Savannah River, and it has Upper Whitewater Falls, the tallest waterfall east of the Rockies.  The Coosa in Alabama starts to get biggish while still in the Ridge and Valley region.  I don't know anything about West Virginia, but it might have a river or two that would fit your bill.

 

 

Hey eco,

 

The amount of knowledge you have floating around in your head to share like this is flooring me. Wow!

 

I could add Hemlocks into the forest, but I still couldn't use them in that bit of dialogue since the internet says Hemlocks are pretty darn tall trees, too. Actually, I'd really like to put Hemlocks in since their species has been destroyed so much and I could preserve their memory as part of that ecosystem in this fantasy text. What trees could I choose from that are much shorter?

 

As far as the river goes, I guess my question is this: Are cove forests large enough to have a large river flowing through them? I'm not really sure what a believable size is. The rest of my questions I'm going to send via PM because spoilers are afoot if I publicly ask the questions I really need to ask...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I wasn't too into her chasing the sheep.  I want the family to get access to more food, but at this point the tension is ramped up enough that this feels like going backward (this sort of answers your first two questions).

 

I’m trying to connect your thoughts to see which phrase is modifying which phrase. Is the backward tension feeling about a) visiting with neighbors B) finding the sheep or c) chasing the sheep? I hope you mean C because I’ve got a plausible change in mind that I mentioned where I could fix that pretty quickly.

Yes, you are correct.  C) chasing the sheep feels like bleeding the tension away.  

 

I keep running into the same problem, where b ) is too cool to be posted!

Edited by Mandamon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

As for trees, some of my favorite upper-midstory (usually 30-40 feet) trees that would show up in Appalachian coves are hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana, aka musclewood or ironwood), hop-hornbeam (Ostrya virginiana), redbud (Cercis canadensis), Carolina silverbell (Halesia caroliniana).  Hornbeam and hophornbeam often grow together as a very distinct lower canopy, so they could be good trees to use.  They prefer wet areas, so you'd probably see them right after being rescued from the ice but not on the whole walk home.

 

As for rivers mixing with cove forests: the Nantahala and the Little Tennessee definitely flow right through coves.  More often, though, you'd be more likely to find cove forests a few miles up a smaller tributary.  In general, I'd say that it is plausible to have a river large enough to support canoe-trading going through or near a cove forest.  For a boat larger than a canoe, it would be much more of a stretch.

 

If the river is actually in the cove, it will probably be steepish, and therefore flowing fast.  Even in much colder weather than coves currently have, it would be unlikely to be able to support ice thick enough to hold a human.  However, if the river was in a valley a couple miles from the cove proper, it could be much easier to believe. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm late this week but I purposely didn't come read comments before reading and writing my own. here goes:

 

“Papa squatted and gestured for her to crawl onto his back.” – I’m wondering why a big man like Will won’t just scoop his daughter up and hold her close to his chest for added warmth while carrying her back to the house.

 

“Within the house, Papa dumped Jennie in the rocking chair by the fire to thaw out just like Uncle Leon had yesterday.” – yesterday? I am not sure this is accurate. If I count days in the story, it adds up to more than this, and that’s if we go with there has been no passage of time not depicted. We have the first chapters where Jennie milks Jessamine, finds Leon and he defrosts, then they sleep. Then we have the day she finds the goat missing and they go for food at Granny’s house. Then the day she gets up to milk Jessamine, remembers she’s gone and goes to check traps and gets carried back by Roamwald. That’s at least 3 days, so yesterday is more the days before yesterday, and that’s if we assume no time has passed off-page.

 

I like how Jennie has trouble reconciling the word Snatcher with her experience with Roamwald. This is very 10-year-old-kid-thinking.

 

“his face was as tall as that wall there, and he was taller than any of the pines we passed” – So, Snatchers are basically bigger than T-Rex? How does anyone even get snatched by these things? You’d be able to see them for miles off, not to mention the earthquake-like ground tremors that would happen when one got near; people would have plenty of time to hide. I have a hard time accurately picturing Roamwald in my head. They appear humanoid, but we don’t know how they work so we can only assume about them within the context of human anatomy (since it’s what we know). We don’t know his age, so that clouds it even further. This is because human proportion changes with age; as humans mature and grow the arms lengthen and the hands and head become proportionally smaller to the body. If Roamwald is a child or teen, then his hands and head will be larger in proportion to his size than that of an adult Snatcher, but that means the adults are even bigger than he is, and he’s already ginormous.  If he’s an adult, then he’s probably done growing, but then it means we can mathematically determine his height based off the size of his hand (which I think someone did earlier to some extent). An adult’s hand is about the size of their face, it can cover from their chin to their forehead. If Roamwald’s head is the size of their wall, then his hands are at least 2/3 the size of the wall. But we don’t know the size of the wall, so this comparison leaves us making up our own dimensions, based on Roamwald holding Jennie in his palm, with room to spare. So, my brain is under the impression their walls are pretty dang tall for a ramshackle of a farmhouse. Also, those must be some pretty dang tall trees. I did look up Tulip trees again and they are anywhere from 60 to 164 feet tall. Pine trees (there are different varieties) can grow up to 40 feet (sm trees) 90- feet (medium trees) or 100 feet (large trees). So Roamwald could be anywhere on the height scale of ginormous to obnoxiously-too-large-to-walk-in-that-forest-without-damaging everything-in-his-path... The part that bothers me the most about this is that these are not the details we want to be hung up on right now and an easy fix would be to put some concrete numbers in here somewhere so readers can do ‘easy math’ and move along the narrative.

 

“and recover that shoe” – is it a shoe or a boot? We’ve been told both.

 

“the puncheon floors” – woo, learned something new again :D Now sure how they’d gleam just from a broom though.

 

“a couple sheets of scrap metal” – where on earth did he get these? And why is he just now trading them out when they’ve been starving for months?

 

“Jennie knew that hammer was heavy even though Nate launched it through the air” – launching implies letting go of the hammer and allowing it to continue to propel itself forward with momentum. I literally imagined Nate throwing the hammer.

 

“Oscar shrugged. “You ain’t been snatched, and the Snatcher you seen ain’t told you to come back, so you can’t have seen a real Snatcher. That’s reason to be relieved, not mad. Snatchers only bring trouble.”” – is Jennie the only person in this book who knows nothing about Snatchers? Even the other kids seem to talk like they know what’s up, and she hadn’t ever heard the word before…

 

“oil paper window” – oil would cost more than a piece of ragged homespun, and paper is pretty pricey too back during times like that. Oiled paper window shades don’t strike me as poor in any sense.

 

“She looked up and saw no box hanging overhead to trap her and nothing about the snow suggested it was covering a pit. There were no other lines, pegs, or triggers as far as Jennie could see.” – I love that we get to see her knowledge work for her and see her reasoning here.

 

“had ruined in their own tracks” – ruined their own tracks, ruined their tracks. Don’t need “in”

 

 

I finally feel like we’re getting to the meat of the story, and it’s hard to comment on pacing because I don’t know how long the book is/how many chapters there are total. It’s a bit of a slow build up for a shorter work, but for a longer work it would be fine.

The characters are starting to grow, but Mama feels inconsistent to me but I can’t really put my finger on why. She seems to be the character whose personality and involvement in the story are whatever they need to be for the scene she’s in at the time; then again we haven’t seen enough of her to really get a sense of who she is in the first place, so this could simply be how she fits herself into her own world.

Can’t wait for the next submission. I need more Roamwald info! lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...