Ash - 100614 - Magic and the Sword do not Mix - 2326 Words

[Ash he/him]

Hiya!

 

This is a short story that I wrote a while back but really like.  I wrote it originally for a prompt 'Cloud Storage'.  Most of the folks wrote stories about computers and such...but mine was a bit different. 

 

When this first came up a friend of a friend's daughter was in an abusive relationship.  When I found out about it, though I don't know any of them, I was really PO'd.  I suppose, this story was a way for me to vent.  So...I hope that you like my venting!

 

Thank you all in advance for taking the time to read my work whether you comment or not.

 

Sincerely,

Ash

[Dysphoric Kitten she/her]

This first paragraph reminds me of one of my own stories... Let me guess, there will be much confusion and rape or something of the sort? Probably in the memories and not the actual events, as well.

 

"releasing some of the hurt weeping from an unseen wound" - really not sure what this sentence means, love. The phase that threw me off is "hurt weeping", in this grammatical place. 

 

Ooh! I can tell that you are going for the very flowery. I have always been intrigued by flowery literature.

 

I hope that you are okay with people squinting in thought, trying to understand everything. Because I am doing it.

 

Sounds like the beginning of an abusive relationship - with him being so much better and nicer, her wanting to prove that it can be good still.

 

Oh, it is such a relationship. I... I am sorry.

 

I do not like you blaming it upon their differences, personally. Seems too superficial.

 

Weeping and wanting to live are not opposites. I do not accept the part about her eyes being dry because of her self-preservation.

 

The whole lightning sequence could be worked to fit better with what we know of lightnings. For example, she should be hurt by the charge's proximity at least somewhat, and her hearing should be massively impaired after so many strikes right by her.

 

I do not like you wrapping up with the father. You could just wrap up with the mechanical, depressed walking. I think it is stronger, as well.

 

 

Over all, this was an incredibly fast read, and I liked it. The beginning is very very different from the rest, as the first page or two are very flowery and the rest declines until it is not at all that. It is a problem, as those who are drawn to flowery literature will feel mislead, and those who do not like it will not read this because of it.

 

I think there were also grammar/spelling issues, but I honestly forgot to pay attention to those.

[Mandamon he/him]

I have to say this was hard to read.  As Tal says, the first couple pages are very flowery and purple, with lots of excess adjectives flying around.  It gets better later on, but I don't think you really address the underlying problem between the two of them.

My main question is WHY would she love this man?  He seems pretty horrible, and I can't think he would have changed that much since she met him.  You say that she loves him, and Gianni is crying as she kills him, but I don't get any sense of where that love came from, thus I have a hard time relating to the conflict.  Laven is almost a caricature of a villain.

 

Some comments:

 

Pg 1: "managed to catch the core of a nearby bush"

--This sounds painful.  She'd probably be poked in the eye by the outer branches (from personal experience)

 

Pg1: "releasing some of the hurt weeping from an unseen wound that she could not heal"

--This seems overly dramatic to me, especially only two paragraphs in.

Also, "sour wine of anguish"

 

End of pg3: "his wife."

I assume you mean Gianni here?  Seems odd that she's referring to herself so while thinking about the situation.

 

Mid page 4:  We're not given a lot of reason Laven suddenly turns into a killer.  Without more evidence of Gianni's "evil pox upon the world," I can't really sympathize with either of them.

 

Pg 7: "His head snapped up and their eyes locked"

But before you said she couldn't see or hear him...

 

Also, there are a lot of missing commas.  Here are a few sentences by example.

"I tell you Gianni this marriage will not work."

"She blinked hard hands clinching and unclenching."

"She nodded to herself accepting that her subconscious had been tracking the cloud all along"

"Gianni spoke clearly from across the clearing not moving except for a slight quiver of her lower lip."

 

 

Overall, I think this could be very poignant, but there needs to be a reason for the love in the first place, that will give a better sense to Laven's betrayal and abuse.

[molah]

Hello Ash,

Let me start off with the things I liked. As usual, I try to focus on the bigger things - not on details like grammar/wording etc.

Things I liked:
+ I got a good feeling of the setting and the surrounding
+ Also of the action
+ It was smooth to read for most parts (a bit convoluted in the beginning)

Things that did not work for me:
- The story is based on very strong stereotypes: Swordsman = only muscle, no brain; Mage = no muscle, only brain. Nobody is only one thing. That made Laven look like a caricature to me
- There were no revelations. I never felt any tension when reading this and did not get emotionally involved. I never got the feeling that anything was at stake, really
- It feels like a slice out of a bigger piece of work to me. For a short story, in my opinion, there is too little action/revelation/tension
- Laven drawing the sword stroke me as odd. From what I know, domestic violence often involves passionate/uncontrolled emotions or some kind of power-play. To see him calm his rage and then plan to kill her felt weird to me
- I guess usually people in such relationships take the abuse for various reasons, like maintaining face in the public, not believing that the other means ill, saving the children etc. To me it seems like Gianna is already past this state, having recognized that her husband means her harm. That means that there's no real internal struggle - no inner fight for freedom
- If she knows that he'll kill her, why is she running alone in the woods, instead of having gone somewhere populated? I thought that was odd...
- Pushing away her feelings seemed very easy for her when she started casting her spell. I would have expected more struggle if she was really affected by what's happening to her
- "She lovingly caressed the energy" - I didn't expect her capable of such an emotion at this point
- "Unexpectedly Laven stepped out from the brush" - I very much expected this, actually.
- Laven saying "Here in this place, let us make things again right between us." doesn't match "You and your kind are an evil pox upon the world.  The disease must be removed.  I shall begin, loving wife, with you." I would have expected him to threaten her again, or maybe to say that he was going to right things in the world (=killing mages), but not to make things right between the two again
- Gianna screaming "No, no, no, no, noooooo." threw me off. There was no inner struggle and I never got a feeling of real remorse before, so it didn't seem to fit


I can see how this worked for you as a release of emotions, but for me it did not work as a short story. As I mentioned, there was no struggle, not a lot of conflict there. Almost from the get go I expected how this story was going to end. No surprise there.
There was no tension, so there was also no emotional reward for the solution. It pretty much came down to: A wants to kill B. B runs away till B finds a good spot. B defends and kills A.
The characters felt very flat, because we did not get to know a lot about their past. We don't know anything about their struggles, about what made Daven change etc. We only get a few glimpses into past conversations of Gianna with her father. This is why I feel this piece could fit into a bigger work - where you have more time to elaborate on this and work to the big finale.

I think that if you want to turn this into something more than an "emotion vent" you've got a nice starting point - I just think it needs more work.

Cheers,
Helge

[Robinski he/him]

Hi there, I think I must have overlooked this when the email came in - would you mind awfully sending it to me again? I'll PM you my email address?

 

Cheers!