140811 - Robinski - Waifs and Strays - Submission 3 (VL) 2001 words

[Robinski]

Once again great comments on Submission 2 across both Write About Dragons and Reading Excuses – super helpful. I feel like you guys are really testing me (yes you, Manaheim) which is excellent, thank you.

 

At the risk of pushing my luck, I have again overlapped my submissions, as there was concern over Covelle’s pov in Submission 2, and lack of clarity over the time-line, so I’ve started with the re-write of that part. This continues into the Covelle pov scene, which was going to continue.

 

The story so far:   Ahma, Benam and Covelle live in the port town of Lufmatho, leading generally separate lives. Ahma looks after her mother and works towards her goal of buying a horse and seeing the country. Benam exists by working at the harbour and living on former glory. He bemoans his worsening health and is a solitary man. Covelle is a career criminal with an eye for opportunity and bettering his lot at the expense of others.

 

Benam drinks at the inn where Ahma works, and has a soft spot for her. Ahma has little patience for men at all. Covelle (incognito) has encountered Benam recently but, by chance, their paths cross again, raising Covelle’s suspicions. He follows Benam to the inn where Ahma works. A young girl fleeing pursuers bursts in on Covelle gauging the risk from Benam.

 

All comments greatly appreciated.

[jParker]

Harumph. 

 

This submission felt rushed, just slap-dashed together to get something in for a deadline. The recycled bit at the beginning (while helpful for jogging a memory) means very little material is actually new. And that didn't work very well at all.

 

I've seen fight scenes go a bunch of different ways, but this one felt...off. Covelle is apparently an adept knife-fighter and an even better wordsmith (even though the best he can come up with is "Everybody calm down"?). What, exactly, is he bad at that? How did he develop such broad proficiency at a seeming youth? He feels like he wants to be a likable rogue, but right now he just doesn't feel plausible. 

 

What's more is the girl and her casting--she can apparently summon enough will and strength to set a man aflame, but that's it? While I am grateful for you not going into an explanation of the magic system in the middle of a crisis, the whole scene between Dyllis and Covelle seems wasted. He distrusts her, but not enough to leave her behind; she's a mysterious sorceress with this honed skill , but is complete crap when the chips are down. What is even going on here?

 

I do like Benam's struggles though. Some folks seem to think that being good with one weapon makes you a master with anything. Realistically, he probably hasn't had much reason to invest in knife-fighting. 

 

tl;dr Not very impressed. Maybe it's better to miss a deadline than to make it with chum.

[Asmodemon]

All right, this is the continuous Covelle section I thought he really needed at this point. He’s the character I had least of a feel for coming to this point. Getting into her perspective for a longer time is a good thing. Some action happened and that’s good too – I now wonder if this caster is the same character as the caster in the memory section last chapter. Looking forward to see where you’re taking this.

 

Covelle’s character: On the one hand he’s very confident about his abilities, but on the other he’s really flighty and afraid this chapter. He is distrustful and hides himself behind disguises to keep from being noticed, yet he is the first one to involve himself by speaking to the thugs chasing the caster. It’s hard to get a feel for what he’s really like, since he does contradicting things.

 

Conflict: The conflict in this chapter felt kind of random, it seems purely by chance that the caster comes into the tavern and it’s only because the characters are there that they get involved. It doesn’t have anything to do with what they’ve got going on in their lives. Covelle choses to involve himself more deeply (making it his conflict), but Ahma and Benam have no beef in this, so they still need something of their own to do. They’d leave it with the city guard and keep going with their lives.

 

Let’s stay calm: I didn’t think this was something for Covelle to say. The way I see him is as the guy who walks around in disguises to keep from being noticed. In my opinion he wouldn’t draw attention to himself like that – he’d wait it out and see what happens before making a move. Urging people to stay calm seems more like something Benam would say.

After reading more of the section with Covelle it’s more clear that he doesn’t like to act unless he can benefit from it – the first instinct he has is to get out of that place. Very sensible. He doesn’t think about helping the girl until she shows she is a caster and might be useful/valuable to him. So he wouldn’t just say that everyone should stay calm.

 

Clarification – good: The additional sentence where Benam re-enters the tavern and talks to the youth helps to make clear that this is the second tavern Benam entered and not a third one. Good job.

 

Clarification – bad: The start of Covelle’s section didn’t make it clear whether this starts at the end of the last Benam section (at the second tavern) or if it overlaps part of Benam’s section (at the first tavern, Ahma’s tavern). That’s the same problem I had at the end of your previous submission.

 

Barmaid: The way she acts and fights to help the caster girl reads like this is Ahma. But I thought she was in the first tavern of the previous chapter and this is the second tavern? So what’s she doing there? If it’s not her then barmaids in this city seem pretty much the same – that lessens Ahma’s character.

Or am I reading this entirely wrong, did Benam leave Ahma’s tavern, take a walk and come back to Ahma’s tavern with the youths buying him drinks? If that’s the case I didn’t get that at all.

[andyk]

My main response to this was that I didn't understand why Covelle was intervening - it wasn't clear how that fitted with his sneaking around agenda. I'm also not a big fan of the familiar 'helpless girl needs rescuing' situation, which seemed to come out of nowhere.

 

It was good that some action was happening after all the scene setting, but it felt like that action just happened to the main characters, rather than it being something that mattered to them or was driven my them, and that reduced how much I cared.

 

So overall a welcome change of pace, and if you can work on its relevance then I think that will help.

[CommandanteLemming]

I just signed up and this is the first piece I've read - so I have a bit of a different perspective as I haven't encountered the rest of the story, and I have a view of this scene in isolation rather than as a deviation from previous work. I like the action, like the pace, and like Covelle and Dyllis as characters. It was a very fast read for me - and I'm a slow reader. It was a good action sequence, and it really put me in the mind of classic swashbucklers such as "Treasure Island". So, if that's what you were going for, you accomplished that, and I definitely want to see what happens with these two characters. 

 

Not a ton of stylistic issues - like your word choice. Found some of the blocking a bit clumsy - but I find most blocking clumsy, hate reading it, and hate writing it, so take anything I say there with some salt. On the whole I thought the fight scene was good and stayed engaged. 

 

The one big thing that stuck out as an error was that, on the second to last page, you have a lot of unattributed dialogue and I lost track of who was talking. 

 

I'll also agree with the earlier comment that some of the writing seemed rushed and not as deliberate as certain other parts (Some, "he did this, then he did this, then he did this" constructions), but we all rush and that stuff can be ironed out in revision. 

 

Sorry if this is a bit cursory - I'm sure I will have more to say as I learn more about the overall story - but on the whole I liked this as an action sequence. 

[Robinski]

@JP: Sorry this didn’t work for you. I wasn’t conscious of bashing it out, but I would normally have at least one pass before submitting, which I didn’t get here. That said, I stand by it, no doubt it will change in the edit (has already), but it’s not that far off what I was going for.

As to Covelle’s response, I reckon a good wordsmith knows when to be erudite and when to be simple and direct.

Dyllis shoots some flames at the man’s face, she doesn’t set him on fire. Also, I'm pretty sure I’ve done nothing to imply that she’s a good caster. In the ex-prologue she manages a light which quickly goes out when she gets stressed. It’s difficult to do anything justice in terms of character development in 2,000 words, and why would you want to, this is long view stuff. Suffice to say there is more to it.

Glad that the one Benam line worked for you, I’ll try to spruce up the chum for my next submission.

@Asmodemon: Glad to hear that you found something engaging here, and that you’re interested in the development. Very interested in your perception of Covelle, in my estimate, a successful criminal needs to act at the right time – by his assessment, but act nonetheless. I take you point about him speaking, but at that point he is trapped.

On conflict, I note what you say in relation to coincidence and relationship to the characters. If a different set of people had been in the inn when Dyllis burst in, no doubt I’d be writing about them. On Covelle’s line, you may well be right, I'm going to consider that.

I’ll look at the continuity again, I’ve made a couple of tweaks, but I’ve got to say I thought it was clear. Benam leaves the Crowded Inn and goes for a walk where he meets the young guy and goes in to a different tavern for a drink. He previously arranged to return to the Crowded Inn to get a haircut, so he goes back there. I can’t name Ahma at first because it’s Covelle’s pov and he doesn’t know her name, although I’ve changed things somewhat so that I can mention her name earlier.

@Andy: Thank you for your comments, always welcome and useful. Covelle’s comment is not coming through well for a lot of people, so I'm almost resolved to change that. I can’t say too much about the helpless girl comment. I know what you mean about the action, but stuff happens to people all the time whether they like it or not, it becomes relevant pretty quickly when you’re in the middle of it :-)

Edited August 14, 2014 by Robinski

[Robinski]

@CommandanteLemming: Thank you for your comments, much appreciated and very helpful. I'm glad the action worked for you, I'm happy to accept the swashbuckler tag. I’ll go back through blocking when I edit. As to the dialogue, I thought with Covelle and Dyllis being alone in the kitchen, it was traceable, but I’ll review.

 

Similarly, I'm sure I’ll tidy up the pace when I'm editing. To some extent I was going for a breathless feel, but that’s not the same as the writing coming over rushed, so I will look at that.

 

Thanks again, and welcome to Reading Excuses. If you want to read from the start, I'm happy to email you the first two submission if you PM me your email.