Reading Excuses - August 29, 2016 - The Wolf - 5.7k

[Tariniel]

Hey everyone!

Now, I know this is a bit like an orator reminding everyone he’s not that great at public speaking, but...

I should mention that this is the first time I am sharing anything I’ve written, both on reading excuses and ever, so I have absolutely no idea how this will go. I’m at that weird point in my writing (I’m sure many of you can relate), where I can tell exactly what a great piece of art is…and what isn’t. I haven’t had a lot of time to develop my writing skill itself, although I am trying to start a daily habit of writing at least 300 words per day. Going strong, so far. Until now, however, I’ve been working in writing excuses, Brandon’s college lectures, and practically any writing advice I can listen to on the go. They’ve greatly expanded my knowledge contextually, but obviously haven’t done much to improve my actual writing. The only way to do that is through practice. 

And so, I give you my attempt at practice.

I’m aware it’s likely not very good, but I would appreciate any advice you guys can give me on it, no matter how long-winded. If you see anything that I can better in the story, go for it. (If I had to specify something I’d say I wanted to know how the flow/pacing of the story is coming across, as well as whether I am fulfilling promises. I feel like those are the first things I want to start working on.) I really do enjoy learning about writing, and having the advice be on an actual piece of my own writing does much to drive the points home. I’m really shooting for that eye-opening, “Wow, that really is a golden piece of advice,” but really I just wanted to break into the community. Let’s hope this works

Thanks so much!

 

P.S. I can’t for the life of me think of a satisfying title. Calling it “The Wolf” as a placeholder for now, but if any of you have suggestions, please throw them at me. Thanks again!

 

Edited August 29, 2016 by Deepfry

[Tariniel]

Marita just brought to my attention that I missed the Email List and Submission Dates Forum  

I'm really sorry if I messed up anyone's schedule, and I’ll totally understand if you guys don’t have the time to read it.

If anyone does, however, I set up this thread. Going to sit and start reading up on all the information I missed out on, and hopefully no more of these mistakes from here on out. Thanks for your patience with me! 

[Robinski]

29 minutes ago, Deepfry said:

Thanks for your patience with me! 

It's fine, I'm sure we can call the Inquisitors back before they reach your front door

Actually, I would not mind having another week with the material that I was going to submit, so I will step back and submit on September 5th (please, Silk?).

[Tariniel]

Thanks so much!

Love your work, btw. Definitely learned quite a bit just from reading your posts. Hope to be there myself someday 

Edited August 29, 2016 by Deepfry

[Hobbit]

5 hours ago, Tariniel said:

Love your work, btw. Definitely learned quite a bit just from reading your posts. Hope to be there myself someday 

Me too.

[kais]

Welcome to RE!

Overall

It is an interesting start to a story. The twists were entertaining. I didn't build sympathy for any of the characters, however, and found them a bit two-dimensional. A lot of the forest descriptions made me feel like I was in a dream, as they felt more like urban forests (with cement, the ability to walk straight and evenly) than actual forest. 

In terms of characters, I'd suggest one POV per chapter. Introduce us to the character before you make stakes, so we are invested. 

On the ending - you may get other strong reactions on this. I was not a fan. Perhaps we could discuss ways to have emotional growth of our primary POV character without killing the only female? I'm happy to help if brainstorming is needed.

As I go

- unsure how I feel about the prologue bit. "Tonight he dies" seemed over the top for a book opener. Like it's giving away the ending somehow.

- transition needed between the last two paragraphs of page one

- page 1: loggers near a hunting area? This seems at odds. Logging sites are noisy, the ground is well disturbed. Game is not often to be found in such areas. If you're making allusions to the hunt being for this werewolf thing, if it is around, why are the loggers still out?

- page two: loggers dragging bodies. Excellent. 

- page two: I don't care for the sudden POV switch of only three lines. It breaks tension and doesn't seem to add to the narrative at all. The monster is always the scariest when we don't know it.

- page two: I thought they were in a forest? How is the logger walking in a  straight line? There are no straight lines in forests.

- gait not changing as he left the trees for the open path. - nope, calling this one out. Gait changes all the time in the forest, even with seasoned professionals. The ground is uneven and you are constantly adjusting your step. If he is walking in a straight line with an unchanging gait he is unnatural.

- Cut trees, work the wood. It seemed so simple. Kazer doesn't forest much, does he?

- page 3: Still don't have a feeling for Tess as a character yet. I also had a hard time with the sneak up scene. It didn't feel real to me, but I have spent a lot of time in various forests, so I'm bound to be more nitpicky than most.

- page four: Kazer only just now thinks something is off about the logger? The man carrying a dead body through the woods wasn't strange, but living alone is?

- page 6: Tess' constant tears make me wonder about Kazer's choice for an apprentice. Twenty is old enough to have some toughness.

- page 6: Tess as the beast would have been an interesting twist!

- page 9: the actual reveal is a bit slow coming. It hits well on page 6, but by page nine we all know it is there, so it loses its punch

- page 9: Tess' sudden acceptance of her otherness is not convincing. It makes her seem manipulative, like she already knew she was the wolf. That Kazer rolls with it also seems fishy

- Then page 10, the second reveal - I would feel this a lot more if it was still in Kazer's POV. I don't care so much about the wolf right now. Having the scene with Kazer tying up Tess, touching dialogue, then a snarl behind, that would be excellent. I can see their shocked faces now.

- page 11: too many POVs and new characters for chapter one. Characters should be introduced slowly, and each time you introduce a new POV character we need to spend some time getting to know them before you put them into action.

- page 12: You fridged the woman. Please help us stop this sexist trope in its tracks. See here. 

[Tariniel]

Thanks for the feedback! 

Lost of things to work with here, but let me clear up something I should've made more obvious in the post's title. This is actually a story on its own, not a beginning chapter to one. Definitely should have put that somewhere... Well, learning as I go, I guess  

That said, most of the things you mentioned still apply, so let's see how we can fix this:

1 hour ago, kaisa said:

A lot of the forest descriptions made me feel like I was in a dream

Yup, I obviously have very limited experience with regard to forests. I've been in one once or twice, but not nearly enough to catch these now obvious mistakes. Thanks for the heads up!

1 hour ago, kaisa said:

In terms of characters, I'd suggest one POV per chapter

The confusing aspect of having multiple POV's in a short story was not lost on me, and is probably not something I would do if this was the first chapter in a novel. In this specific story, however, I felt that giving both sides gave me more room to work with. I am aware that can be quite jarring though, but I couldn't think of any other ways of setting up the reveal of Kazer finding the fur in Tess' tent. Any ideas?

1 hour ago, kaisa said:

I didn't build sympathy for any of the characters, however, and found them a bit two-dimensional.

Just realized I missed an important one!

This is something I know I have a problem with. Do you have any suggestions as to how I might change that fact?

1 hour ago, kaisa said:

emotional growth of our primary POV character without killing the only female

This was completely accidental! The funny thing is that I was recently listening to a writing excuses episode where they talked about sexism in fiction and this didn't even cross my mind! Now it is very obvious that she is kind of the stereotypical female character throughout the story, who even dies at the end... (This is me face-palming btw)

The original idea was to have Kazer finally break his emotional barrier, dropping the reader's guard for when it is revealed that she's not the beast. Not the happiest of endings. It is so central to the story, however, that I have absolutely no idea how to fix this. Would making the reader care more for her earlier in the story help at all? I'm kind of on uncharted ground here, so any help would be great!

1 hour ago, kaisa said:

Tess' sudden acceptance of her otherness is not convincing. It makes her seem manipulative, like she already knew she was the wolf. That Kazer rolls with it also seems fishy

I had a lot of trouble with this scene, then finally decided to make her accept it so as not to stop my momentum. The manipulative feel was not what I was shooting for, of course, but how could I keep the flow moving towards the ending? 

 

Summary: The main thing I want to change is Tess, and the sympathy for the characters overall. Hopefully that will help with the ending as well. How exactly could I make her more sympathetic?

BTW: The idea is that the bond gave the Wolf sentience and enhanced Kazer's senses. That was supposed to be under the radar, but the fact that proximity is what triggers the union was supposed to be known by the end. Was that clear enough or should I make it more obvious?

Edited August 29, 2016 by Tariniel

[neongrey]

I'm actually going to decline to read here, if only to make the point that submission guidelines are not optional. No hard feelings, and I'll gladly go over a submission that's gone through the usual process, but I'm going to draw my line here.

[kais]

1 hour ago, Tariniel said:

but I couldn't think of any other ways of setting up the reveal of Kazer finding the fur in Tess' tent

But this is still Kazer's POV, yes? I think you could easily do the whole story in Kazer's POV with very little editing. The wold POVs added nothing to the story for me, and the randomness of the logger at the end was more jarring than anything. A little bit of tweaking and this could be a strong single POV short story.

1 hour ago, Tariniel said:

Do you have any suggestions as to how I might change that fact?

The best advice given to me by an agent for this is thus: we must have buy in before a character becomes relevant. Every time, EVERY TIME you introduce a POV character, you need to start the scene just before the action. Give us a few moments to meet the character, see them in some normality, get a glimpse of their life. THEN you hit with tension/action. Background always first.

1 hour ago, Tariniel said:

Would making the reader care more for her earlier in the story help at all

That would probably make it worse. I think you need to rethink gender dynamics in this piece. You have four characters, three of which are male (I think I remembered you using male pronouns for the wolf...). You killed the only female. One option, to completely avoid fridging, would be to 1) swap the gender on one of the other characters and 2) not make Tess' death a point of emotional growth for our protag. The better option would be to change the ending so that Tess is in fact not harmed, nor damseled. If you got rid of the wolf POV, you could in fact have two wolves. One could be Tess, the other whomever the actual wolf is (let's say its the lumberjack). Lumberjack wolf attacks, GASP! HE WAS WRONG! Fights lumberjack wolf. Things are looking not good for our POV character, then BOOM, Tess breaks her chains as wolf two, attacks lumberjack wolf. Or lumberjack wolf and Tess wolf team up. Whatever. There are a lot of ways to end this story with a solid twist, using the backstory you've built, without snuffing out the only XX in the room.

1 hour ago, Tariniel said:

how could I keep the flow moving towards the ending?

You've already set her up as pretty overtly emotional. I'd expect crying at the very least. Maybe sullen sadness? Walking to the tree to be tied up with her head drooped, defeated? I don't know what to suggest here. It's a keen place to give Tess backstory, but that'd have to come from MC.

1 hour ago, Tariniel said:

but the fact that proximity is what triggers the union was supposed to be known by the end

Honestly, I'm still unclear on the ending. Was Kazer the wolf, and its his proximity to Tess that triggers his transformation?

[Tariniel]

Going to go back to the working table on this one... Thanks for the advice!

3 hours ago, kaisa said:

Honestly, I'm still unclear on the ending. Was Kazer the wolf, and its his proximity to Tess that triggers his transformation?

I'm clearly going to have to revise the ending quite a bit. The idea was actually a twist on the generic werewolf story, where instead of the human turning into a wolflike creature during full moon, they are actually separate entities that combine through proximity. The wolf is his own being, as is the human, in this case, Kazer. They are bonded, which gives the wolf sentience and enhances Kazer's senses, and when they get close to one another they become the beast- kind of like a werewolf that is both of them and neither at the same time. Neither knows this, however. All they feel is an strong pull towards one another, which is why they are actually hunting each other. This was supposed to drive the plot, at least behind the scenes... Need to go back and change quite a bit. Thanks!

Edited August 30, 2016 by Tariniel

[Hobbit]

Hello!  Jumping in with some thoughts.

I thought this had the makings of a good story.  I like the twists especially.  Things started to get especially interesting when it turned from a hunter story to a hunter+mystery story.  I think you have a good head for plot - it's the story mechanics and characters that could use work.  My main problems were similar to kaisa's - I was often confused, and I didn't have a lot of sympathy for the characters.  

Confusion issues first:

• There were a few times when I didn't follow what you meant in your descriptions, like in the paragraph where you talk about his hunting instinct: He had, however, learned to pinpoint exactly which part of him... The feeling you were describing seemed like something really specific, so at first I was thinking that maybe it was a kind of magic, but after reading the rest I realized he wasn't supposed to be magical.
• A lot of times, your blocking wasn't clear.  For example, I was surprised when Kazer ended up inside the cabin - I had been picturing him watching from outside.  Similarly, when Gemel ended up dead (at the sentence, That was likely what had killed him), I was surprised because I thought he was still alive.  
• Though I enjoyed the twists, I'm with kaisa in that I didn't get what happened at the end.  Your explanation of what you are going for is really cool though!

Character issues:

I agree with kaisa that the easiest thing to do to fix the fridging problem is change the genders of your characters, or shift the plot around.

5 hours ago, kaisa said:

- page 12: You fridged the woman. Please help us stop this sexist trope in its tracks. See here. 

I know this isn't funny, but I had to laugh that kaisa had to call us both out on the same day on this one...

Anyway.  I didn't relate with Tess, and I was definitely annoyed with her at various points.  She cried really easily.  I could believe her being upset when Kazer yells at her, but crying seems like an over-the-top reaction.  When Gemel dies, I could certainly believe she would cry, but if she's an experienced hunter I would expect her to be able to pull herself together enough to function.  Kazer acts like she's basically helpless, and she doesn't push back or give me as a reader a reason to believe that she's not helpless.

How to make her more three dimensional?  Try giving her a greater range of emotions and thoughts.  Especially if you can give her conflicting emotions: maybe she thinks about talking back to Kazer after he yells at her, but she's afraid of disrespecting her teacher, so she almost says something but then changes her mind and takes it.  Also, she's going to seem flat if Kazer sees her as flat.  If all he's thinking is "she doesn't know what she's doing, she's falling apart, she needs my help," then she'll seem more that way to the reader, too.  Have you tried writing a practice piece from Tess's point of view - first person?  I did that for some of my flat characters, and I was amazed at how much it helped me flesh them out.

 

4 hours ago, Tariniel said:

but I couldn't think of any other ways of setting up the reveal of Kazer finding the fur in Tess' tent. Any ideas?

I think you could pull this off without showing us the wolf being in the tent - the fact that the stool is torn up and there's wolf hair in Tess's tent implies clearly that the wolf was there, so you don't need to actually show the wolf in the tent for us to get the idea.

Hopefully that's helpful!  Welcome to the group and keep up the writing!

[kais]

11 minutes ago, Hobbit said:

I know this isn't funny, but I had to laugh that kaisa had to call us both out on the same day on this one...

@Hobbit two fridgings and two 'evil wolf in the forest' stories in one week. My forestry feminist nerd brain hurts. It is pretty funny (the coincidence, not my brain. Maybe me brain. I don't know. It's late. Wolves aren't bad animals. I'm going to bed.).

[Tariniel]

Hey Hobbit!

Lots of great things to work with here. I'm definitely sensing a theme of confusion here, so my first focus will obviously be building sympathy for the characters and making the ending clearer. I especially liked your suggestions for making Tess more three-dimensional, though. I'll try them all out and see how they work, particularly the first-person narrative. That sounds like a great way to really dig into her character!

Still laughing about kaisa catching us both on the same mistake 

Edited August 30, 2016 by Tariniel

[Hobbit]

9 hours ago, kaisa said:

@Hobbit two fridgings and two 'evil wolf in the forest' stories in one week. My forestry feminist nerd brain hurts. It is pretty funny (the coincidence, not my brain. Maybe me brain. I don't know. It's late. Wolves aren't bad animals. I'm going to bed.).

Hahaha, your poor brain. For the record, I have nothing against wolves. I think they're awesome. Wolves in their natural ecosystems = healthier everything.

@Tariniel Sounds good! Glad if it helps. The first person exercise is something Dan Wells suggests on WE.

[king007]

Hey, welcome to RE and congratz on your first submission!

Positive points:
- Mostly easy to read and follow.
- For me, the relation between the MC and Tess added some freshness to the story which kept me going.
- The tension in the MC's mind is established well enough, but could be better.

Negative points:
- That logger came out of no where. What's his role exactly in the whole story? He's only used as a lazy way to introduce the characters to the possibility that Gemel might still be alive, and to showcase the ending.
- Even though I could feel the tension in the MC's mind, I still wasn't convinced by his motive to keep chasing the wolf even at the risk of losing his life. Maybe expanding on that point with more clever or emotional reasoning could do the trick.
- Even for a short story, the plot is quite flat and isn't really interesting. Maybe a better exposition, or higher stakes, or more attachment to the characters would make it more so.
- The ending is so cliched. It was rather expected. We're used to these kinds of twists.

Overall, I like your writing. It felt vivid and energetic. I was a bit interested in the story at the beginning. But when we reached Gemel's death and the logger turned out to be completely irrelevant, I lost interest. Good luck on your next submissions!

[Tariniel]

Great points, all of them. Thanks!

Quote

That logger came out of no where. What's his role exactly in the whole story? He's only used as a lazy way to introduce the characters to the possibility that Gemel might still be alive, and to showcase the ending.

I was especially interested in the comments about the logger. I hadn't meant for him to be a major character, but I can see how making him one of the focal points for suspicion could give off that impression. Thanks for opening my eyes to this.

Edited August 31, 2016 by Tariniel

[Robinski]

On 29/08/2016 at 2:08 PM, Tariniel said:

no matter how long-winded.

Lol - I'm your man!

[Robinski]

On 29/08/2016 at 3:00 PM, Tariniel said:

Love your work

On 29/08/2016 at 8:32 PM, Hobbit said:

Me too

Err, really? Uh, well you're very kind. If there's something halfway useful in among all the blather, I'm pleased that you found the patience to sift it out

[Mandamon]

Seems like this one's also been beat to death quite a bit, but I'll throw in my two cents.

I think the character dimensionality and development have been covered a lot, so I'll focus on plot.

Notes while reading:

pg 3: "“Oh come now,” she said, a hint of a smile playing on her lips"
--Tess seems surprisingly cheerful for having run off crying a little bit ago.  OK, you do note this in the next line, but it still seems very abrupt.

pg 4:  fairly sure one of these people is the wolf, but not sure who.  Contrary to kaisa, I like the brief interludes from its POV. It raises the tension for me, but I do agree it could be handled just as easily from Kazer's POV.

pg 6: Not sure how Gemel was unconscious for so long, then fully awake, then dead.  Seems more like a plot requirement.

pg 7: Kazer suspecting Tess here for the first time seems off.  She's been his student for a while and he's been tracking the wolf for a long time.  He would have suspected before now.

pg 7: wolf interlude:  you call it "he" which I think gives things away.  You've just planted Tess as a suspicion so this immediately gets rid of the tension.  Keep it gender neutral if this interlude stays in.

pg 9: “I had to bury him, Kazer. I couldn’t just leave him there.”
--bury who? Gemel?  I missed where she dragged him out.

pg 10: This is the time to mark the wolf as a he--when Kazer has tied his only ally to a tree.

pg 11:  Wait...what?  The wolf can't be Kazer, because from it's POV it enters the clearing and fights him.  But Flint seeing Kazer with Tess' body makes me think the wolf was supposed to be him.  Is this the end?  If so it's a little abrupt.  I was with you up until this point, but something's not right here.  So I see your explanation for the wolf above.  I think it really needs to be cleared up a lot more.  I'm also not a fan of the logger POV at the end.  It's a greater (and more satisfying) challenge to show it from Kazer's POV.  This also may be one of those places where less is more.  If you establish the wolf-man connection well, you can end this without the outside POV of the logger or the wolf and make a bigger emotional impact.

Overall this has a lot of potential, just needs some cleanup of events, and more (not dead) females!

Special thanks to @kaisa for keeping us alert to these sorts of inherent biases.  We've been lacking those voices here for a while, and it makes us all better writers.  The hardest part is training the selection of white males (myself included) to be alert while writing so we don't automatically assume the things that have been drilled into our heads through movies and books over the years.

[Hobbit]

4 hours ago, Mandamon said:

Special thanks to @kaisa for keeping us alert to these sorts of inherent biases.  We've been lacking those voices here for a while, and it makes us all better writers.  The hardest part is training the selection of white males (myself included) to be alert while writing so we don't automatically assume the things that have been drilled into our heads through movies and books over the years.

Just wanted to throw out there that it's not only a male problem:  I'm a woman, but I've been just as socially conditioned as the men, and I've had to deal with some messed up gender narratives in my own writing.  I think we all do it.  Bleh.    But yes, thank you kaisa and everyone else for keeping us alert!

[kais]

Aww, thank you @Mandamon and @Hobbit! It means a lot!

[Tariniel]

Hey Mandamon!

Thanks for taking the plot angle on this one. It's a nice break from the more abstract path of thought on character dimensionality and development that the others have put me on. 

9 hours ago, Mandamon said:

 I'm also not a fan of the logger POV at the end

Yeah, that is likely going to be changed into Kazer's POV. I was definitely taking the easy way out on that one, and an avoided challenge is simply a missed learning experience.

9 hours ago, Mandamon said:

 So I see your explanation for the wolf above.  I think it really needs to be cleared up a lot more.

Here's one of the places I'm having the most trouble with. I actually inserted in the scene where Kazer notices the relationship between the leafling and the moss as a way of trying to explain all this, but without being too over the top... Obviously didn't work as well as I'd hoped. Any chance you guys can help me brainstorm ways I can convey the information to the reader without being too "tell-y?"

Thanks for all the great critiques you guys have given! Having someone else read my work has made me aware of several things I never would have noticed on my own. kaisa especially has opened my mind not only to unconscious gender biases, but also to how much more flavor can be added to a story simply by changing the characters' genders around. Thanks!

Edited September 2, 2016 by Tariniel

[rdpulfer]

- Okay, I like the opening line. It sounds a bit too much like a werewolf, but it definitely has my attention. 

- I really like your opening right in the thick of things, but I'm a little surprised Kazer was unaware all of his men were dead. 

- Tess going back to her jovial self seems a bit odd, given all the horror around them. 

- I really liked the action . . . and the reveal . . . and the ending.

- That said, I never really felt like I could get into the story. It felt like I turned on a really great horror movie halfway into it. The pacing is excellent, but I could have used a bit more details on the setting and the characters. 

[Robinski]

Hey Tariniel, well I'm interested to read your story after your grand entrance – lol

Here we go with the long-winded comments! All detailed comments (below the line) 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) which is for Grammar/typo, an essential adjunct to the ABCDs!

Summary comments at the end.

Oh, and title, I almost forgot. Inside Out? (more interesting than The Wolf, maybe, but has been snagged by Pixar recently); The Open Wound (refers to Kazer's injury, but also potentially the rent between the worlds, if that's what it is); To Hunt a Hunter (meh) - oh well, food for thought anyway, perhaps.

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

(A) – I like the opening / epigraph thingy. Wolves are soooooo common in the genre that the title probably starts you off at a disadvantage straight away – which you’ve already state. Not read enough to suggest a title yet, but I totally agree you need a change.

(D) – “He tore it off, grimacing at the pain and the fresh spurt of blood” – Someone who knows more about first aid jump in a correct me, my training is out of date by about 15 years, but I didn’t see the point of taking a clean bandage off. He should be trying to stem the flow (tourniquet) and cover the wound, I think. Tie off between the heart and the wound then wrap the wound in multiple bandages? Stat!

(?) – “Tess stepped silently up to him” This is the point at which I first thought that it must be either Kazer or Tess who is the wolf. That’s often how these things go. Potential cliché risk.

(G) – “Only then did her tear-streaked face come into focus” – I think this should be hyphenated. That’s my understanding – second opinion?

(C) – “I trained you to fight this monster!” – I would be happier here if I knew what she was trained in. The implication is she has some special skill that the rest of the squad didn’t have – is she an MU?

(C) – “Young, for a hunter” – So, if she’s a hunter, I must presume that the other people were not, because his implication is that she was supposed to protect the rest, so must be more skilled than they were in some relevant area. I would like some clarity on this sooner.

(C) – “A wound that never healed” – But this is a new wound, isn’t it?

(A/C) – “simply to tear a new gash into that same place on his bicep” – This is intriguing.

(?) – “Brin. Gemel.” – Lol, I wrote a piece of flash fiction using author’s names.

(A) – I like the pacing of your wolf pov ‘interludes’. I like the pacing in general, so far at least.

(G) – “always staying just in sight” – This implies that Kazer is in sight of the logger, I think. “always keeping him in sight” – would indicate the converse.

(B) – “perfectly matching her pace to his” – This is not really rocket science, doesn’t seem worth marking it out as special.

(D) – “He was so involved in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice the cottage until he had practically stepped fully into the clearing” – So much for his unconscious mind then, which was supposed to be tracking the signs.

(B/G) – “At the last moment, Tess grabbed him from behind and pulled him back” – If she pulls him back, she must be behind him.

(D) – “Besides, the logger isn’t even inside” – They have dismissed the logger immediately. Where has he gone? Just disappeared?

(B) – “something about that man was very, very wrong” – I find some of the phrasing clichéd. This, for example, and “sometimes you just had to let go”.

(D) – “Kazer paced back and forth, sloshing through the ankle high piles of leaves” – This man is supposed to be a trained and experienced hunter, and here he is making enough noise to wake the dead, knowing that the logger is out there and could return, and that there is a deadly creature in the area!!! I’ve just concluded that Kazer is an idiot.

(G) – “Something in Kazer’s expression must have alerted her, because Tess turned back to him Gemel as he blinked, clearing his vision.” – This sounds like Kazer unless you say Gemel.

(D) – “Tess reached over in an attempt to soothe him” – You're in Kazer’s pov still, but this sounds like Tess’s pov. This is an issue.

(B/G) – “Kazer realized what he was thinking” – I don’t like this phrase. For me, people don’t think about thinking. You can delete this altogether and go straight to his internal monologue.

(D) – “the logger chose that exact moment to make his return” – Again, Kazer lokks like a rather rubbish hunter, not having noted any sign of the logger’s return. There’s some good stuff in the WE podcast about character ‘sliders’ – these are, by Sanderson’s definition, Competence, Proactivity and Sympathy. At this point, Kazer’s competence slider is near the floor (for me). He’s not all that proactive and I have little sympathy for him, partly because of his low competence, but also because the only thing I know about him is that he wants to catch a monster. That really is not enough to make an engaging character. Okay, so we know he trained Tess, but because of his low competence (in addition to kicking leaves and not being aware of the hunter, I’d like to add chatting to his cohort in the woods during a hunt).

(C) – “already moving towards Tess” – The blocking of this scene has been bothering me for a bit. Tess climbed in the window, but I had the impression that Kazer came in a door. When you said the logger had returned, I presumed he was in the house. Now you say he’s moving toward Tess, but Kazer is right beside her, so the logger is moving toward both of them.

(C/D) – “We’re going to wait until he walks in the front door” – I feel that the logger has more than enough time to get into the room from the edge of the clearing once Kazer notices him, like 30 or 40 seconds. I felt a jolt when they were suddenly in the trees.

(D) – “He reached over and snapped a branch off a nearby nettle bush” – I would prefer if he paid attention to whether the logger had picked up any sign of their presence. Neither does the word “absentmindedly” do anything to indicate competence.

(B) – “The nettle branch stopped, mid-twirl” – I feel this moment is rather blatantly the only reason that Kazer snapped the twig, so it could stop mid twirl. It feels like the writing is showing here, i.e. not in a good way.

(C) – “the line between predator and prey became less distinct” – Eh? Why? I'm not sure I see how that follows.

(G) – “renewed vigor take him over him” – or ‘overtake him’, perhap.

(C) – “given up their lives for a cause that wasn’t even theirs” – Why isn’t it, does the wolf not attack all and sundry innocent people? If the wolf only attacks Kazer and his men, maybe someone might have realised that the smart thing to do was disband the posse.

(D) – “What? Why?” – Lack of competence again, he’s just explained why. It’s a potentially interesting mechanism that you're proposing, but surely he should be the one telling her he has to tie her up. Instead, she has all the proactivity and he, the main character, is just doing what he’s told.

(D) – “Flint grinned. He loved it when one his axes ‘broke’. It gave him a good reason to get a new one.” – This seems very wasteful, and unlikely for someone living in the woods. It seems to me it would be costly to keep replacing axes. In fact, it seems very unlikely that the whole axe would be replaced, but rather a new handle would be made and the axe head would be reused – as an expensive item, being forged by a blacksmith.

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So, in summary, hmm – I think there’s a good idea in there. The central conceit of having ‘parallel universes’ that intersect is a nice angle for the mystery. I did think early on that it must be one of the characters doing the killing. Actually, it was not quite like that, but in another sense, it was. This is always the problem with murder mysteries, in my view, it pretty much always has to be one of the characters on-screen who did it, so it’s never very surprising. Agatha Christie was good at twisting this formula to create surprising outcomes.

I think the plot needs work. Some of the action and events were unconvincing for me, although the overall pacing and length were good. I thought the characterisation was mixed at best. There wasn’t much to root for in either Kazer or Tess. In fact, I'm not sure either had much character at all, which was disappointing. And, increasingly, I took against Kazer as he proved to be a fairly incompetent hunter.

You can fix all these things, of course, assuming you think they are problems. I think there is a decent idea here that it would be worth going through the work of overhauling the characters and tightening up the plot. I think you might also try to paint the setting in a more interesting way. Being in the wood and a tent and a cottage doesn’t exactly give the reader much sense of place. Having said that, I think you can get away without the setting if the story and characters are strong enough.

So, I hope these comments are useful. Personally, I think there is definitely some potential in this.

Final thought, you might wish to consider having the girl rip Kazer apart, that would be a more interesting, I think, a kind of double bluff ending and I think its pretty much what Kazer deserves.

<R>

[kais]

4 hours ago, Robinski said:

– second opinion?

My editor agrees.