Coop - 8/8/16 - Clouds - 3237 words

[Coop]

Hello all, this is way early because I'm leaving right now on a hiking trip and will have limited access for a few days. These are the first four chapters (3237 words) to a middle grade novel, probably targeting 10-12 year-olds. Looking for any feedback you'd like to give. Also, what's your initial reaction to the title?

Thanks

[krystalynn03]

Hey there, Coop!

Welcome to the group. Glad you’re submitting this week. Fresh voices are fun to read. Your comments accompanying the submission aren’t very particular, so I’m going to give you some broad feedback and some line by lines. Temper all suggestions/criticism with the knowledge that I don’t know where you’re taking the manuscript, the level of experience, or what draft/version this is.

Big Initial Thoughts on First Read Through

·         I liked the title of the file better than the given title. “Clouds” had me curious on how that was going to play into an either scifi/fantasy MG story, but then “The Sky is Always Blue Above the Clouds” felt long and more like a theme than a title. It gives me too much to feel like a tease and not enough to probe me to ask interesting questions.

·         My second big thought was why so many chapter breaks for what are scene breaks more than chapter breaks?

·         My third big thought was that you lost me around page five of description because there was no rising conflict. As Mary put it on the podcast (and I liked) there were a lot of obstacles happening but not a lot of complications.

·         Last big thought: I really liked the opening.

Read Through Number Two & LBL’ using Mary’s ABCD format:

·         Awesome (A): The introduction of the strangely specific cloud formation was fabulous. In the first page of content, I could tell I was in the hands of a good writer. I liked the odd image; it gave a sense of whimsy and foreboding at the same time.

·         Confusion (C): Sira? I can’t place the setting yet. She’s got a cell phone, but then a mock fantasy spelling name. Odd juxtaposition. I was expecting magic-realism with the opening, but the name is throwing me. I’d like to know why you chose that one.

·         “wonderfully-cursed” (C): I thought maybe she really was cursed—this is a fantasy forum after all. This threw me.

·         Disbelief (D): Sira’s age. Now hold on, before you shut me out: I accept that she’s skipping. You hang a lampshade on that. What I don’t accept is her imagination paly after that. I know you’re a school counselor, but I’m a teacher, and I’ve been working with 11 year olds for six years now, and this is abnormal for a 12 year old. I know kids comes in all different varieties. I’ve seen very sensible children with no care for imagination and I’ve seen ones who organized an entire pretend hospital at recess utilizing half the fifth grade and all of first grade, but I’m just not buying Sira at all. Maybe I don’t struggle with believing that 12 year olds indulge their imagination, but rather, that her chosen fantasies are so simple. If her play were interspersed with memories or thoughts that explained her words then I’d believe it more—like it some kind of strange self-talk to self-soothe some home life realities she can’t change (or practicing for a play she wants to try out for—or something). As it stands, it breaks the fourth wall for me. I’m not hammering on it because it’s bad; I’m hammering because I think there’s more to this sequence and I want you to clear away the debris so that the clearer picture of what you’re trying to evoke comes through.

·         D: The fear over the squirrel—it’s broad daylight and she seems familiar with this area. She’s been making a lot of noise herself, so I’m surprised she notices it. If it’s not some kind of seed or foreshadowing for later, what’s it doing for the plot? If it’s not doing anything, it’s an obstacle (contrast complication) that you could cut.

·         A: ‘emerald mat’ Another spot where I enjoyed your imagery

·         Boring (B): From “Sira placed one foot…through the forest and out of sight” This is the first place where I really felt the narrative to veer into the problem I cited above in overall thoughts. See what other people say, but the tension drops too much in these four or five paragraphs. Why not have her notice faster that something’s off and then not break the chapter? She hasn’t resolved any conflicts. This is four pages in and there’s no obvious conflict, just that the road looks weird, and my patience as a reader (not as writing peer) is waning.

·         Disbelief (D): I believe she would conclude that something made the path, but again, being led seems to lead to her seeming strangely paranoid. One moment she’s humming and dipping her feet in the pool and playing make believe, and the next, she jumps to a very dark conclusion. I don’t have a problem with this content, only that I don’t feel like it’s grounded in enough context yet.

·         Awesome: ‘soft blinking of her eyes’ Great phrase.

·         Confusion: Black-winged demons—like Oz? Again, I want more knowledge of why she jumps to these conclusions—unless her self assessment of cursed brain was more serious than I ended up concluding it meant.

·         B: I don’t care for “muscles began to relax…fruit snacks’. I don’t dislike the context; I just think it took too many words. I’m sure it’s important she’s from a single parent home, but I want it more concise. It’s slowing the narrative to a halt.

·         A: “Now you have to go” She’s playing really weird games with herself. I’m starting doubt her mental stability. If this story is using that as a central theme, this is going to be a very interesting adventure into an unexpected venue.

·         D: On the other hand, if this is meant to be normal behavior…then I don’t believe it.

·         D: “three of her” Hm. Not really believing that picture. I get what you mean, but it distracted me.

·         D: Why all the fuss over crossing that log? This is another example of obstacle vs. complication. I’m struggling with it. If it makes you feel better, I call out famous authors for the same thing: CS Lewis and the description of the journeying from the Beavers’ to Aslan’s camp puts me and my students to sleep. Their eyes glaze. I use it to teach them the word suspense. Where is the suspense right now, up or down? Lois Lowry does it, too, when they’re traveling from Copenhagen past the Deer Park and even worse when they’re walking the country path to the uncle’s house and the mom gives her childhood memories. Both of the authors are geniuses, but they both needed someone to say: “Cut the walk-time and get to the plot.”

·         A: “several puddles of water embedded in the moss” – I can feel the place with my hands. Overall, you’re doing a fabulous job of inciting the sense of touch through your writing, one of the least invoked imaginative senses. Nice.

·         D: “bobbed and cocked like a chicken” – forgiving the cock pun that goes with the chicken, this is distracting imagery rather than good imagery since it doesn’t feel as close-third-person-ish (imho)

·         A: There was a room below her. There’s a room under the water—this is good. I like this. Get here faster. I can’t do a word count in .pdf form, but there was probably a 1000 words to get here. Hack them. Slash them. Especially if you want to hold ten year attention spans. Also, I’m not against long sentences. I like them, but if I were to run a Lexile on your writing, it’d probably skew high right now. Probably sixth to seventh grade appropriate. If you want to reach down to average 4^th graders, you’ll want to do some consideration of clarity and brevity.

·         Confusion: Bounced from puddle to puddle—fishbowls. I didn’t get that she was looking at something circular when you called it a room at the end of chapter 2.

·         Confusion: Most of the description of the room and how Sira’s looking at it. :S

·         Awesome: I like the idea of what she’s doing a lot.

·         Bored: The door won’t budge. Another obstacle that I wish were a complication.

·         Awesome: Discovering the insides of the strange room is fun.

 

Okay, well I’ve skimmed it and read it now. Overall, I like where you’re going. I like the tone. I can feel a kind of Ronia the Robber’s Daughter in the attention to nature detail and love of freedom in the woods. I’m going to hold with my initial impressions above. Hope I didn’t scare you off with too much feedback, but I like to leave a thought and explain my thoughts to make sure you see what I’m getting at and see that I only pause to pick at things I see potential in to grow.

Thanks again for submitting, and I hope you sub again soon! Enjoy your hiking trip!

[kais]

Welcome to the group!

Overall

I liked it! It could use expansion, but generally I think the starting sketch of Sira is solid, and I like her personality. More detailed comments are below. I'd suggest doing some of the edits below before continuing on to more chapters, as there are loose edges to Sira that should be woven in somehow before you put her in conflict. 

In terms of tension, however, it did lag in places. I was very engaged by Sira, but some of the wandering, and the skipping of the stream crossing, frustrated me. Overall, however, I'd love to read more!

 

As I go thoughts

- page one: that IS an extraordinary cloud! So much so that I'm having a hard time with suspension of disbelief and edging into perhaps magic? 

- page one: sly grin? Excellent and creepy

- page one: undergrowth cleared away - careful with the wordage here. Pine forests with that heavy a needle litter would naturally not have much of an understory. If you want to indicate some type of intervention where things have been cleared, suggest a forest that would have understory, like a young hardwood forest, or a mixed stand. Or if you're just trying to show that there is little understory, you could mention something about the depth of the duff, or the acidity of the needles. #forestrynerd

- page two: the rock thing is...confusing. Rocks naturally occur in forests, and do move with some frequency. That she is surprised by it makes me wonder A) if she is on a path, B). if this is a plantation forest with defined rows that are cleared, C) if this is actually an old growth forest with no understory to speak of, hence rocks would be easier to spot. #reallyreallyforestrynerd

- page two: maple tree now? OK, so we have a mixed stand. Riparian zone? Almost certainly not old growth with pine and maple together. Seeing sycamore now, too. This forest officially confuses me.

- page 2: This imagination scene is adorable. That you have made the protag twelve makes me enjoy this even more, as she has already noted she is acting young, and doesn't care. I had extended imaginary worlds well past when others did, too, so I can relate (possibly I played Power Rangers in my backyard, alone, after junior high school let out. Possibly.).

- page 3: leaping down creeks. AHA! We ARE in a riparian zone. OK, so she entered into upland conifers, then was walking downhill to the riparian zone surrounded by hardwoods. That's a pretty well understood forest, but you'll want to add in some extra descriptors to make this more clear from the beginning I think.

- page four: so she goes up, then encounters a stream. This confuses me, as streams generally cut a path through and down. The placement of the bush makes sense if a large tree had fallen, but you've noted brown leaves on the ground, indicating hardwoods, which you already placed as riparian hardwoods, and now they persist in the uplands. Changing forest type is fine, of course, but this stream being higher up is confusing....or magical. If you're shooting for magical, it totally works.

- chapter two start: All I can think of right now is Wil-o-the-Wisps. 

- page five: the paragraph on the mother reads infodumpy

- The hurling of the necklace seems too young an action for 12, even if you've already established a young imagination. 

- I think you missed an opportunity to build tension by not describing the crossing

- page 6: 'bungalow' does not need to be in upper case

- page 7: the random bits of exposed vulnerability do not really mesh with the rest of the narrative. I think you need to build to these more, include more reasons why. Most of the narrative is spent developing this adventurous, imaginative adolescent. The sudden shock-ins of vulnerability are...confusing. Jarring. They stand out from the narrative.

- ... like a flying saucer. It's these moments when Sira really shines. I'd love to see more of her imagination when you describe her trying to get into the room. Part of the magic here would be her living in two realities at once, the 'real' world and her imaginative world. Those realities are about to combine, and that creates good tension, but only if both initial realities are well defined first. Having her slip from one to the other constantly throughout this scene would really make it sparkle

- page 10: again with the spats of fear. Why is she worried about being attacked from behind? 

- page 10: markings in a language she'd never seen - this isn't as impressive as you'd want, I think, noting she is 12. How many languages has she seen? Would be more impact if it was a script she had never seen

- page 11: unsure about the stealing from the room part. If you're going solid fairy story, this should come with consequences later on

[Mandamon]

Welcome to Reading Excuses!  I had similar reactions to kaisa and Krystalynn.  I didn't tag the lack of tension particularly, as this seems like a "wonder" story, but I think it might need a dose of some tension or hint of where the story is going (aliens? wizards? fairies?).

I had sort of the opposite reaction to the above critiques on Sira's age.  I was thinking more that this is a mid-grade book, and less that she's 12.  I really liked the imagination feel, and thought there were several places where she used words or phrases that were too old.  Maybe she just needs to be younger?

 

Title:  Not completely sold.  It mainly makes we want to ask, "is it also blue below the clouds?"  I'll think on it again after I read.
Edit:  nope, still not sold after reading.  Maybe something like "The room under the moss" or "beneath the forest" or "Blue sky, green forest."  I don't see any
connection yet to the sky, except for the creepy clown cloud.  

pg 1: "As she strode farther away from the farmhouse, something in the evening sky caught the girl’s eye and she stopped."
--I'd put Sira's name on the first line.  Makes a better connection with the reader.

pg 1: "But then she saw, in the clown’s otherwise blank face, a sly grin, and an eerie feeling settled over her"
--saw on her phone, or in the sky?

pg 1: "wonderfully-cursed"
--don't think you need a hyphen here.

pg 2: I love the pretending.  Makes Sira very real.

pg 3: "Before her, was a squirrel."
--I think this is overlong, and takes away some of the surprise.  Maybe just "it was a squirrel"

pg 3: "farther from the farm she’d left behind—just as she hoped it would."
--why?  I haven't seen any sign so far that she's running away from anything.

pg 4: "plant grew with the moisture."
--for mid-grade, maybe use something simpler that moisture.

Chapter 1 end:  Good hook of following the unnatural moss.  I would have like a little more explanation on Sira, though.  Why is she out playing?  Why does she
want to move away from the house?  Not a lot, but a couple more hints to draw me in.

pg 5: "Because the river cut a gap through the trees,"
--is this the first mention of a river?  Suddenly it's there, with no mention before.

pg 5: "Instantly, before her thoughts could protest, Sira unlatched the chain, ran to the log bridge, and hurled the necklace over the river and onto the bank
on the other side. 
Now you have to go."
--Cool.

Chapter 2 end: "She saw it now. There was a room below her."
--Cool.  I'm hooked to read on.  Some good backstory woven into this chapter.   I'm starting to like Sira more.

pg 8: "biting down through her lips."
--maybe not 'through'

Chapter 3 end:  I love the description of the room under the ground.  I used to imagine things like this when I was growing up, playing in the back yard.

pg 10: "agonizing minute to recover from shock"
--I didn't get that she was shocked.  Excited, maybe.

pg 10: "Martian’s toolbox"
--At this point, I'm thinking fairy toolbox, not martian.

pg 11: "But what in the world is it for? Writing? Surgery? War?"
--I don't know if words that specific would occur to a 12 year old.  Maybe "fixing things" or "fighting"

pg 11: "The glass bubbles above were dark and she couldn’t risk staying any longer"
--why?

So why didn't she take everything in the box?  Why leave what seems like the most powerful tool--the wand--and instead take the costume?

Overall, I enjoyed this quite a bit.  Looking forward to more!

 

[Mandamon]

20 hours ago, kaisa said:

AHA! We ARE in a riparian zone.

This cracks me up, @kaisa.  Leave it to you to identify the growth zone, even in a kid's book ;-)

[neongrey]

Okay, middle grade is definitely not my bag, so I'm mostly going to stick to the broad strokes. Let's see what we can do here~

p.1

Yeah, your opening line is weak. In an internal chapter this would probably be fine, but if you're using a character's action in the first sentence of the book, you do need to use a name, otherwise it feels mushy.

Also, there's something wonky about your pdf; the apostrophes appear to have been eaten. I see some other oddities too; I'll avoid commenting on punctuation unless I see something that is there that shouldn't be.

ehhhh 'had formed in such a way that it appeared' is really bulky. You can use the active voice here. A lot of the phrasing on this page feels unnecessarily circuitous, and a little bit distant.

p.2

It's better on this page; your phrasing flows more fluidly here but there's still some weirdness. 'cheeks lifted' is, I dunno, I'm not sold on that as a descriptor for a smile.

p.3

No comma after 'before her'.

p.4

I think 'unprotected' is a pretty weak word. Exposed might do better?

p. 5

Your sentences definitely bulk up as you're expositing; the big middle paragraph and the one below that show it a lot. Around here the need to convey information is backseating everything else, and it's suffering some for it. 'It depicted', eg, is a very distant phrase for something so very personal.

'before her thoughts could protest' is not, I think, a phrase that really conveys its meaning very thoroughly. Like yeah, I get its role in the sentence but-- it's a weird way of getting to that destination and it's not very effective, I think.

I'm also not sure in the slightest why she needs to take the necklace off.

p. 6

Oh, I don't think this page works for me at all. 'glided forward as if by spell' is, I think, not grammatically correct but even adjusting for that I think it's a little weak. The following sentence is telly in a way that conveys no information at all; I think it'd be possible to remove it entirely without appreciably affecting the surrounds.

Further on-- 'inventoried the surroundings' is such a dreadfully clinical phrase for a twelve-year-old girl's voice. Then you break POV on the 'even if she had known' bit; I think the sentence is repairable but as it is, it is, I think, not quite right.

p.7

'became aware' is a little too passive a phrasing, I think.

p.8

This one flows better.

p.9

Argument? There's no one there. I'm still not sure why she's taking off the necklace.

p. 10

n/a

p.11

n/a

Overall, I think your biggest thing technically is minding the passive voice-- it comes up most when you're needing to exposit. Some of the phrasing overall feels really out-of-voice for a character Sira's age.

Thing is, though-- I'm not sure what this story is supposed to be about and we're four chapters in. It's not unpleasant to read but thus far, I'm not sure that it's strictly speaking a story as yet. I dunno-- I feel like the discovery at the end of 4 should be happening by the end of 2 at the absolute latest. 

[Coop]

On 8/7/2016 at 9:57 PM, krystalynn03 said:

Okay, well I’ve skimmed it and read it now. Overall, I like where you’re going. I like the tone. I can feel a kind of Ronia the Robber’s Daughter in the attention to nature detail and love of freedom in the woods. I’m going to hold with my initial impressions above. Hope I didn’t scare you off with too much feedback, but I like to leave a thought and explain my thoughts to make sure you see what I’m getting at and see that I only pause to pick at things I see potential in to grow.

Kryastalynn, thanks for taking the time to provide detailed feedback. Your comments about obstacles vs. complications nicely capture something that nags at me as a writer, something I need to address. Question: If she was eight or ten would her imaginative play be more believable to you?

 

On 8/8/2016 at 10:25 AM, kaisa said:

- page 3: leaping down creeks. AHA! We ARE in a riparian zone. OK, so she entered into upland conifers, then was walking downhill to the riparian zone surrounded by hardwoods. That's a pretty well understood forest, but you'll want to add in some extra descriptors to make this more clear from the beginning I think.

Holy smokes you've done a lot of thinking about forests!   Admittedly, the extent of my research into this forest was to image-search words that I was pretty sure were the names of trees just to make sure they weren't a cactus.  Thank you for your comments, kaisa.

 

On 8/9/2016 at 6:47 AM, Mandamon said:

Welcome to Reading Excuses!

Thanks for the line-by-lines, Mandamon, they will be very helpful for my next edit.

 

9 hours ago, neongrey said:

Overall, I think your biggest thing technically is minding the passive voice-- it comes up most when you're needing to exposit. Some of the phrasing overall feels really out-of-voice for a character Sira's age.

Thing is, though-- I'm not sure what this story is supposed to be about and we're four chapters in. It's not unpleasant to read but thus far, I'm not sure that it's strictly speaking a story as yet. I dunno-- I feel like the discovery at the end of 4 should be happening by the end of 2 at the absolute latest. 

Thanks neongrey, I appreciate you pointing out problems with particular sentences and with passive voice especially.

And regarding your final point, here's a question for any and all still reading: I'm hearing some concern about the story taking too long to get to this point. Would you still be feeling this way if the same words/narration was in 1 or 2 chapters instead of 4? Is it the narration that drags or the fact that 4 chapters just seems like a lot? For the record, 4 chapters seems like a lot to me too. I was trying to use a very brief chapter format that you often find in MG books, but I've never felt completely comfortable with how it looks in this opening section of this book.

[rdpulfer]

Welcome aboard!

- i really liked the opening paragraph. The cloud's clown shape is pretty specific, but I'm having a bit of trouble picturing it. You might need to explain how it resembles that so perfectly just a little middle.

- I get that Sira is just pretending, but the lack of quotation marks did kind of throw me.

- The last line of the chapter feels a bit underwhelming. I feel like it might work at the end of a section, but not a chapter, and it definitely not the first chapter. It needs to be more attention-grabbing.

- The line about her single mother seems out of place in the second chapter. I'd like to know more about her mother, but this feels more of an excuse why she has an interactive imagination.

-  I like the character's imagination, but the paces feels a bit too slow. I think you need to get to the crux of the story very soon, and four chapters probably won't work for most middle schoolers. 

[kais]

33 minutes ago, Coop said:

Is it the narration that drags or the fact that 4 chapters just seems like a lot?

For me, it's the narration. It's fine to take your time getting some place, as long as you build tension as you go. For instance, the forest gets more magical the farther in she goes. This is good. But then you skip over areas that could build tension, like the log crossing (stream crossing? My mind is forgetful). Adding in elements of wonder that hint at what is to come (she can hear growling, the ground feels too firm, wisps are all disappearing into logs, etc), or just speeding your protags pace through the forest, would clear up a lot of that. 

37 minutes ago, Coop said:

the extent of my research into this forest was to image-search words that I was pretty sure were the names of trees just to make sure they weren't a cactus.

LOL!! Well, if you need help building your forest descriptions, I'm here. Some people do space physics (*cough* @Asmodemon and @Mandamon), and some do macro biology. I'm the master of cellulose for a reason, you know.  

[Mandamon]

38 minutes ago, Coop said:

And regarding your final point, here's a question for any and all still reading: I'm hearing some concern about the story taking too long to get to this point. Would you still be feeling this way if the same words/narration was in 1 or 2 chapters instead of 4? Is it the narration that drags or the fact that 4 chapters just seems like a lot? For the record, 4 chapters seems like a lot to me too. I was trying to use a very brief chapter format that you often find in MG books, but I've never felt completely comfortable with how it looks in this opening section of this book.

I didn't feel the chapters were too short.  They each were a scene with a beginning, middle, and end, so it that respect you've succeeded.  Where I'm having problems is that, although this is a fun journey so far, I don't have a good indication of what's happening yet.  Especially for a 9-10 year old, you want to keep their attention with more conflict, or with a definite statement of what's going to happen.  For example, if the cloud was a fairy queen instead of a clown, I'd say we were going the fairy route.  If it resolved into a spaceship, then aliens.  What does the clown signify?  No idea.

Note: these are just examples that occurred to me.  You may have something totally appropriate and fitting to do with the clown cloud but at the moment I have no clue.

[neongrey]

1 hour ago, Coop said:

And regarding your final point, here's a question for any and all still reading: I'm hearing some concern about the story taking too long to get to this point. Would you still be feeling this way if the same words/narration was in 1 or 2 chapters instead of 4? Is it the narration that drags or the fact that 4 chapters just seems like a lot? For the record, 4 chapters seems like a lot to me too. I was trying to use a very brief chapter format that you often find in MG books, but I've never felt completely comfortable with how it looks in this opening section of this book.

It's definitely not the amount of chapters; I don't know a normal length for this form, but the length of each chapter seems fine. It's just a lot of meandering (and I do mean narrative meandering, which I only say because there's no problem with how your character is meandering, haha) between the beginning and the end of the submission, and I'm not certain I see a point or net benefit to the narrative for doing it. I think it would be more than possible to condense it all down and still keep the overall feel you've got going on.

[Coop]

4 hours ago, Coop said:

And regarding your final point, here's a question for any and all still reading: I'm hearing some concern about the story taking too long to get to this point. Would you still be feeling this way if the same words/narration was in 1 or 2 chapters instead of 4? Is it the narration that drags or the fact that 4 chapters just seems like a lot? 

Thanks for the responses. That answers my question.

[krystalynn03]

6 hours ago, Coop said:

Kryastalynn, thanks for taking the time to provide detailed feedback. Your comments about obstacles vs. complications nicely capture something that nags at me as a writer, something I need to address. Question: If she was eight or ten would her imaginative play be more believable to you?

 

Holy smokes you've done a lot of thinking about forests!   Admittedly, the extent of my research into this forest was to image-search words that I was pretty sure were the names of trees just to make sure they weren't a cactus.  Thank you for your comments, kaisa.

 

Thanks for the line-by-lines, Mandamon, they will be very helpful for my next edit.

 

Thanks neongrey, I appreciate you pointing out problems with particular sentences and with passive voice especially.

And regarding your final point, here's a question for any and all still reading: I'm hearing some concern about the story taking too long to get to this point. Would you still be feeling this way if the same words/narration was in 1 or 2 chapters instead of 4? Is it the narration that drags or the fact that 4 chapters just seems like a lot? For the record, 4 chapters seems like a lot to me too. I was trying to use a very brief chapter format that you often find in MG books, but I've never felt completely comfortable with how it looks in this opening section of this book.

Hey Coop, as noted a little in my critique, the chapter breaks are probably shorter than a 10 to 12 year old needs. I'd say those breaks would be good for 8 to 10. More importantly, the content needs to be stronger. Your submission is 3200 words, and regardless of how many breaks there, that's how many words it takes you to get from first real point of tension (the strange cloud) to second real point of tension (the inside if the strange room). I suggest tightening the whole thing. 

Important question: how much of the story have you already written?

[Coop]

1 hour ago, krystalynn03 said:

Important question: how much of the story have you already written?

I've written the full book. This is my first round of critiques beyond the input of family and friends.

[krystalynn03]

55 minutes ago, Coop said:

I've written the full book. This is my first round of critiques beyond the input of family and friends.

If you're interested in an alpha reader, I'm willing to look at the whole thing in a go rather than piece by piece.

[Coop]

3 hours ago, krystalynn03 said:

If you're interested in an alpha reader, I'm willing to look at the whole thing in a go rather than piece by piece.

Krystalynn, if you are up for that, I would be very grateful.

[Robinski]

Hey Coop. My detailed comments are now coded according to MRK’s espoused ABCD method. (A) = Awesome; (B) = Boring; (C) = Confusing; and (D) = Disbelief (-inducing). Now also including their nerdy classmate who nobody spoke to in high school, (G) for Grammar/typo, an essential adjunct to the ABCDs!

Overall, I enjoyed this, although there were some notes that I dislike, primarily the somewhat bratty attitude of Sira to life, her materialism, and the seemingly contradictory careless way she treats her necklace. Much to complement though, some nice images and an effective fairy tale-like quality.

All in all, I liked this and I'm looking forward to reading more.

<R>

---------------------------------------------

Chapter 1

(C) – “That wonderfully-cursed brain of hers caused more false problems in her life than real problems” – awkward phrasing, I thought.

(B) – “Sira strode dramatically into the forest with arms swinging in wild arcs” – This feels like telling, especially when you go on to show the overdramatic nature of her movement in the same sentence.

(A) – “This is the most untidy, second-rate forest I’ve ever seen” – lol, I'm on board with her pretentious over-acting. “bring my travel guillotine, I’m on the move” – more lol.

(B) – “Suddenly noticing how long she’d walked” – How does she notice, and do you mean long in distance or time?

(G) – “She wondered how it had formed this way.” – Why does no one use the word ‘had’ anymore? It’s so good at fixing a thought in time. Omitting it brings the phrase into the present, it’s more distracting.

(G) – “This path definitely did not grow on its own, she thought” – I think the importance of precision should never be underestimated.

Chapter 2

(G) – “And then several more minutes passed uneventfully” – This sounds like the minutes pass in an instant.

(A) – “Nothing terrifying happened. No wild-eyed, overalls-wearing, tangled-bearded kidnappers jumped out of the bushes. No black-winged demons dragged her into the sky.” – Awesome images, nicely delivered by her imagination.

(G) – “Sira had plenty of opportunities to be was often left alone with her fears” – Very complicated phrasing.

(D) – “She had learned ways to force herself, for example, into going down the basement steps” – I wonder if encouraging youngsters to learn how to force themselves to do things is the way to go, rather than them learning to be brave, for example.

(D) – “her neighbor—a silversmith—helped her craft identical necklaces” – Very convenient, the hand of the writer at work.

(D) – “hurled the necklace over the river” – Hmm, nah. I don’t believe this.

(A) – “She had found the end of the road” – This is a satisfying moment, and I think its timing is nicely judged. I’d had enough tramping through the woods, but it still feels like a decent journey.

(G) – “The moss looked good enough to lie in” – ‘Good’ here doesn’t really mean anything. Why not ‘soft’ or ‘smooth’ or some other word that conveys something?

(G) – “She noticed something ______ about the small pools of clear water” – Back to my comment about precision. I feel there is a word missing here.

(D/G) – “It splashed into the water and thumped to a rest several inches below the surface. She jerked backward. The rock seemed to hover in the water, touching nothing.” – I don’t like the description here. I can’t imagine the rock ‘thumping’ as the water would deaden any sound, and if it’s just below the surface, it hasn’t fallen far enough to make a sound anyway. Also, the first sentence describes and impact, but in the next the rock is hovering in the water, or floating as the rest of us say

(C) – “she threw in a handful of dirt” – I don’t have any sense of the size of these pools. I have imagined them as a couple of feet across, so the action of throwing sounds wrong. Would she not just drop the dirt into the pool?

(A) – “There was a room below her” – Nice zinger at the end of the chapter, but I still have not clear concept of the horizontal size of the pool.

Chapter 3

(C) – “It was just clear enough” – What, the water?

(C) – “geometrically-shaped object” – I sort of know what you mean, but this is fairly lazy description, I think it deserves better.

(C) – “Sira bounced from puddle to puddle” – I can’t picture what she’s doing.

(C) – “roughly the shape of a football. Or a flying saucer” – When you say football, anyone outside North America pictures a soccer ball, i.e. a sphere.

(G) – “wedged the end into the gap like a lever” – it’s not like a level, it IS a lever

(A) – “She tried sitting on the branch. She dangled from the branch over the rock’s edge” – I like the image here, very good. It feels like a scene Winnie the Pooh, somehow.

(B) – “rapidly losing light” – using the word light to describe (increasing) darkness doesn’t sit well with me, personally.

(A) – “The sharp pain changed her mind. Rubbing her tailbone, she hobbled from the glade” – great imagery here, well done – simple and effective.

(C/D) – “There was no time for argument. She lifted off the necklace and tossed it in.” – I'm not sure about the word ‘argument’ here, and this necklace thing is going to bug me. A treasured thing that she throws around like it’s nothing. I see what you’re going, but I don’t like it, personally.

Chapter 4

(D) – “She moved in a squat with her back against the wall as though trying to eliminate any chance for attack from behind” – Imprecise language. She is trying to eliminate that chance, surely.

(A) – “bathing the staircase and room below in yellow” – I like how this worked. Also, “Glass bubbles in the ceiling were the puddles she’d seen from above” – neat.

(C/G) – “Markings of a language she’d never seen were engraved _____” – Huh? Where?

(C/D) – “a Martian’s toolbox” – Okay, I kind of glossed over the Atlantis reference, but this really has me puzzling over the setting. I think you mentioned a phone earlier on(?), but I don’t feel there’s enough to root us in a particular place or time.

(D/G) – “The girl jumped at the sound of dripping water” – Why suddenly ‘the girl’? I think this is a pov error.

(D) – “But what in the world is it for? Writing? Surgery? War?” – I think you mentioned that she is twelve years old. The words ‘surgery’ and ‘war’ are older than that, imho.

(D) – “It was her treasure. Her reward for the stresses she’d suffered that evening” – Ha, she treats this with more respect than her necklace. Also, this is a really narcissistic thought, not attractive at all. Any stresses she imposed on herself. I don’t like the message of materialism that this carries to a young audience. I hope she suffers some kind of comeuppance in the course of the story.

(A/D) – “The euphoria of discovery made her blind to fear, and the golden fabric in her arms warmed her.” – A nice thought/image, followed by a less nice one.

[Coop]

5 hours ago, Robinski said:

Hey Coop. My detailed comments are now coded according to MRK’s espoused ABCD method. (A) = Awesome; (B) = Boring; (C) = Confusing; and (D) = Disbelief (-inducing). Now also including their nerdy classmate who nobody spoke to in high school, (G) for Grammar/typo, an essential adjunct to the ABCDs!

Robinski, those line-by-lines will be very helpful. Thanks for taking the time on this!

[Robinski]

Hey, you're welcome. Hopefully there is some substance in there as well, and not just nitpicking!