Feb 13 - Syme - The Twelfth Daughter

[Syme]

Please let me know what you thought of my short story "The Twelfth Daughter."

[Mandamon]

A solid story. The setup is good and I was pulled in and wanted to keep reading. Then I got to the end...and was wondering where the next page was. There's no real resolution. I at least expected Taru to get to the island and something to happen. The revelation of naming her after her mother is not nearly enough to end the story.

This is a very good introduction to something larger but right now, it seems unfinished. I spent most of the story wondering what the big grab was going to be at the end. Would Taru have to give up the girl? Would she reveal herself to be a god in disguise? Would the islanders kill them both?

You've got good characters, good dialogue, good description, and I have a good feel for the world. This reminded me a little of "The second son," in that it was very well written, but fell flat at the end. I also just noticed that you've got a "number-child" theme going on there...

Edited May 14, 2013 by Mandamon

[Asmodemon]

I agree with Mandamon on this one, it was a good story up until the end, when the story stops but doesn’t really get resolved. There is no twist, no surprise and no climax – the final pursuit is a kid who backs off, not really the greatest adversary.

 

Taru: I liked Taru, he was as a good protagonist with a clear plight and some heavy setbacks and tough choices to make.

 

Descriptions: While I liked Taru I didn’t really have a clear mental picture of him. I don’t think you describe him anywhere. While that’s understandable, since he’s the POV character, it is something I missed.  You do the same with the other characters, save the daughter (whom you describe as red). The stranger coming down the mountain is a blur, the youth near the canoes is a blur, I don’t know what they look like.

 

Tension: Things never really felt tense to me, the threat to Taru, his wife, and his daughter is in the background. He successfully tricks his village into looking in the wrong direction (if they pursue him at all) and we never see them again. They quickly go into a jungle and trying to find anyone in a jungle is next to impossible, so they are safe from pursuit. Nothing threatening happens in the jungle either and afterward it’s only because Taru tried to steal a canoe that things heat up a little (why not wait until deeper in the night before stealing a canoe? Taru knew some people could still be awake and it wouldn’t have cost him anything to wait).

 

Mori: This ties in with the tension in the whole story. The mori could be a great threat or antagonist, you certainly hint at their power through Taru’s fear, which also serves to make me curious about them. But the one Taru comes across doesn’t do anything. They might as well not have been in the story and it wouldn’t change anything.

 

Screams (nit-pick): This is a minor thing, at the start of the story you use ‘screams’ in both the first and second sentence – I don’t really like repetitions of words and right at the start of the story it worked against me in getting hooked to the story.

 

Flow of the first paragraphs: To me the flow of the first paragraphs was a bit off. Specifically, the second paragraph (description of Taru’s surroundings) feels disconnected from the paragraphs around it. The first paragraph is tense, the second is upbeat, then the third is tense again and the fourth is upbeat. I’d move the second paragraph to after the fourth paragraph (so after “I’m a father, he thought proudly”). That way you have tense, tense, upbeat, upbeat. Taru would only notice his surroundings and how beautiful the weather is after knowing that his child is born.

[akoebel]

I will agree with the others. The piece was well written until the end where it fell flat.

 

You might want to apply the MICE quotient to your story. As this obviously isn't an Idea or Character story, it leaves you with an Event story or a Milieu story. For a Milieu story, the story should end once the voyage is done and in your story, he still hasn't reached his destination (and also the beginning would need to emphasize from the start that he's decided to run in case he gets a daughter). For an Event story, the story should end when a new balance has been achieved, which isn't the case here (I expected the gods to make his boat capsize and claim their tribute no matter what his actions were - thus restoring the balance).

Anyway, looking at the story with the quotient should help you find the right ending.