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12 Nov 2013 yankorro - Manticore Rose, 2nd chap


yankorro

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I really liked the poetic description and setting of this chapter, but that was about all it was.  Rose hits the road, and then...?

There's just not a lot happening in this chapter.  The only action to further the plot happens in the last three paragraphs.  It may just be me being impatient, but I keep seeing missed opportunities (or a la Writing Excuses, "Broken Promises") for action.  You've got a couple in this one:

The forest ranger.  You set up that you need a key, you set up a guard against getting to the refuge, and then Rose breezes past both with a smile and a nod. You also set up the smile and nod, which I like, but it still seems too easy and I wonder why Prince even bothered to mention the key.

The villagers.  She goes out to find information, and gets driven away from several villages.  If you're not going to follow through on those interactions, I'd cut them down to "The Hillfolk were unfriendly."

Afterward, the men attack, who I suppose might also be Hillfolk?  But they are the only ones forcing Rose to act, or react.  Aside from that, it's mostly her observing the world.

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Oh, man. I think I have an idea of what you guys are gonna say about the whole rest of this story. "I like the description but, like, nothing happens". :)

 

Most likely I'll be smashing together the two incidents with the hillfolk into one, cutting out some other bits and strategically sprinkling about in later spots where they'll hopefully seem less wandering and aimless.

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damnation it Mandamon, you already said what I was going to. 

 

Pretend I said something incredibly insightful and useful...

Ha HA!  I guess great minds thinking alike and all that.

 

 

yankorro, now that I've told you my opinions...  I would also be careful (or at least aware) about taking advice only from one subset of readers.  We all tend to think pretty alike in these reviews, quoting things from Writing Excuses.  Your writing particularly seems to have a lot of Spanish and Latin influences (I think you mentioned you taught English in Barcelona) and puts me more in the mind of some of the magical realism influences from Latin America--I'm specifically thinking 100 Years of Solitude.  

 

I guess my point is, while I still think you need more action and need to cut parts where nothing happens, there is a section of literature close to what you write.  Don't mold yourself to the "mainstream" just because that's what the rest of us tell you.  Your description is very poetic and captivating, and I can read it just based on that, even if nothing is really happening.  In real life, things happen sometimes without a sense of closure afterward.  If that's what you're aiming at, go for it.

 

Hopefully I haven't completely confused everyone now...

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Many thanks to Mandamon for the thoughtful words just now. I definitely agree that maybe the stuff I'm trying to do doesn't jibe 100% with what most folks would consider commercial genre fiction.

 

However I'm also not the type to turn up my nose at anything.

 

My stuff needs work. Getting a different perspective on it--even if, or especially if, it's a radically different perspective--is something I find supremely helpful, and which I appreciate quite a bit. Sometimes you know something isn't working, and all it takes is someone else pointing out what you already know--that it's not working--to somehow make it click in your mind how to do so.

 

I've already done a revision of this chapter and it's already way better. The feedback you guys are giving is helping me make it what I want it to be, can't ask for much more than that. So, thanks again!

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I don't have much to add, as I agree with the others. Nice description, not much happening, beware only listening to Writing Excuses fans...

 

There was one more specific thing. There are times when your prose seems to say the same thing more than once. For example, in the space of three sentences on page one the description, Rose and Prince all tell us that rain's coming.

 

Then later on the same page, 'she could feel the rain on her face, fat raindrops that slapped her about the cheeks and forehead again and again and again' - this tells us there's rain and then describes feeling it, when just using the description would remove the need for the telling.

 

I think looking for opportunities like these to take out unnecessary tells could help accentuate your descriptive writing without slowing the pace.

 

My favourite bit of description from this chapter - 'crumbling asphalt edges like a strip of torn paper' - lovely.

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andyk, thanks for catching those redundancies. one of them i'd already remedied in a more recent draft, but the one about the raindrops had escaped my attention.

 

And I think that WE listeners are probably the best demographic I could ask help from. Story mechanics seem to be my bugbear, so it's good that the focus here is largely on that (hell, in my case at least ...)  :)

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  • 1 month later...

My comments are noted below, but reading what others have said after having written my piece, I would pick up on Mandamon’s comment about different ‘audiences’. I don’t mind that the action is sparse, because I am enjoying the feel of the story, the evocative descriptions of the surroundings, and some of the narrative is really enjoyable (I liked Rose’s rumination about lizards). For me you can get away with a slower pace, and it’s more suited to (almost mirroring) the wide open scenery of the south-western setting, as long as things still happen and the story moves forward, I'm less concerned about the pace.

 

This said, I agree with Mandamon (I should have a shortcut key for that phrase...) that there are some chances missed. I have no argument with Rose running from the stone-throwing indigenes, but a longer exchange with the ranger with have been interesting in what was a pretty short chapter, then again perhaps he will crop up again and we will already have a good picture of him.

 

You’ll see from my comments that my main gripe remains. We don’t know nearly enough about Rose’s motivations and thoughts.

 

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

 

What is a grackle?

 

Ah ha, I like the parting between Prince and Rose, there is some emotion on display and I get a nice sense of what Rose is feeling without an explicit description, which leaves room for me to imagine the detail of her thoughts. I like that, and I think it is one of the major components missing from the first chapter – nicely handled.

 

I like the description of the rain falling, very effective I thought.

 

Are Rose’s socks not included as part of her clothes, have they been ostracised as being unclean? (sorry).

 

I'm not sure ‘contrition’ is the word, to me that means apology or repentance – which I'm not getting a sense of from the ranger in this situation.

 

‘Hasta nunca’ = good riddance?

 

Several times now, you’ve used a sentence construction with two ‘ands’, which I find a bit odd. Example: ‘When the fire died down, she wrapped the blanket around her and cleared the mattress and lay down.’ Maybe it’s just me, but I find it sounds a little childish compared to the more conventional introduction of commas between items in a list, i.e. ‘When the fire died down, she wrapped the blanket around her, cleared the mattress and lay down.’ Just my opinion.

 

Nice image of her burning the letter from Amparo, and then ‘plans melting into dreams’, I continue to like the imagery that you use, which brought me back to keep reading.

 

I still think a major component missing from the story so far is any sign or thought of why Rose is pursuing the Manticore. The end of the section where she is planning then dreaming might be a good place to introduce this, because it continues to leave me wondering every time she sets out again, why is she doing this, why is it important to her? I'm starting to wonder if I’ve missed something, but even if I have, it could do with being reinforced, drawn out more, I think.

 

The use of the word ‘forth’ seems out of place, as it has an archaic sound, which hasn’t been present in the writing so far.

 

Ouch! I wasn’t expecting her to kill the lizard after her remembering scenes from her childhood, nice touch, revealing something of her character.

 

‘She'd seen her stepdad [do] it several times.’

 

Repetition of word ‘meat’ was unnecessary I thought.

 

What does she use to purchase the water and beans? It’s not that I don’t think she has any money, but I don’t imagine she has a lot. Where did she get it from? Did she have it before she went into prison and they gave it back to her? I'm just curious. It’s not necessarily an interesting part of the story – and it is possible to ignore it (e.g. Lord of the Rings – where we can just accept that the four Hobbits have money for rooms and ale).

 

Repetition of ‘once’ distracted me.

 

That was an exciting end to the chapter, well written I thought. Realistic, in that Rose doesn’t turn out to be an expert mountain bike rider, but instead comes a cropper as most people would do in that situation. It did make me think that Rose has paid no great heed to her own safety in what appears to be a rather wild region, even when she was chased away by stone-throwing natives earlier on. I think this is part of the whole issue of her motivation. Is she really that incautious or careless of her own safety? Or is it just because she wants this SO much, but we don’t get a sense of why because she seems so unemotional about it all. It seems to me that her safety is something that she would consider, or weigh up against her motivation for seeking the Manticore. What will she gain from finding it, fame, fortune, contentment?

 

This chapter has some emotion in it, and I found that rewarding, but I think we still need more of Rose’s thought and motivations to keep the reader interested, at a minimum enough for our imaginations to build around, but preferably some examination of her rationale for being here on this quest.

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