2015/04/21 - Turos - Gold Sun

[Turos]

This is me forcing myself to say nothing and accept feedback while convenienty creating a place for said feedback.

[rdpulfer he/him]

- Just a minor note, but the spacing is off in the document. There's four spaces between each paragraph where there should only be two. 

 

- Be on the lookout for unnecessary or vague words in your description. For example, instead of saying "a ray of sunshine struck where she stood", say something like "a ray of sunshine struck her" or instead of "She finally reached the edge of it", maybe "She finally reached the edge".

 

- Watch out for look-out sentences too, like "Sare continued the process again and again, but when the sun finally came, several minutes later, it enveloped the entire area, drying up all of the mud covering her reserves back into glowing dust."

 

- I am really interested in what your main character is doing, playing a high-stakes game with the sun itself. It's a very cool premise, and I can't wait to see where it leads.

 

- When Sare leaps out into nothing, the aside seems a little unnecessary. Just continue the paragraph as you normally would.

 

- I don't like changing the POV at the end of the story. It seems a little too random. You could have a section with Torin at the beginning, interacting with Sare, and then book-end the story with his reaction at the end.

 

-All and all, I think it's a very original story. I think you just need to make sure your prose is tighter and more direct, that way it works with Sare's mission. Best of luck with this story! 

[Mandamon he/him]

First off, I enjoyed this, even though it left me with more questions than answers.

 

 

Pg 1:  I'm interested already by the rain searing, and what cost it entails.

 

Pg 1: "dismissive" might not be the right word here?  She would be dismissive OF the pain.

 

Pg 2: I like that the light is playing with her.  It reminds me of a cat playing with a patch of light

 

Pg 3:  While she's chasing the light around, is it still raining ?  You don't mention it, or the pain, again (edit: you mentioned it right after I wrote this).  Also, is the sun peeking through clouds?  Why is it dissapearing in one spot and appearing in another?

--I think you address this point later too.  It might just be there's not enough mention of it at the start.

 

Does the rain make any physical mark on her?  Does she actually get burned, or is she just feeling it?

 

You make the sun a character as much as she is.  Does the rain have as much of a personality?  Do other objects or natural forces?  Does the sun make the wind blow, or did it talk to the wind?

 

I was a little confused at the end as to why a handful of gold dust would make the whole land fill with light.  Didn't her mother bring back handfuls of dust before?  Or did she bring something else?

 

Overall, a cool story.  I still had some questions on: why the rain hurt, what the sun was, and where the new sun came from (though I assume that was Sare, somehow).  Still, for the length of this, it works.  You never really answer any of the worldbuilding questions, but it kept my interest throughout.  There were a couple places where the sentences got a little wordy (which rdpulfer describes above) but aside from that, well written.  I didn't have a problem with the new POV at the end, as I assume Sare isn't around any more to be one.  You could do the same thing though narration, but it wouldn't have the same connection to people like Torin and his father.

Edited April 22, 2015 by Mandamon

[Mr. Wednesday he/him]

Nice story! The main thing that concerns me is that the writing is a little vague in certain places. With something that is primarily action-based, you could probably tighten it up just a little bit in some of the ways Mandamon mentioned above. I'm really curious, is this a standalone short story or the beginning to a novel? Either way, assuming it is the very beginning of something rather than a later chapter, I would have liked a little more motivation for her actions from the beginning. I feel like it starts with a lot of action and it takes a little while before we understand what she's doing and why. 

 

Pg 1: I agree that "dismissive" isn't the right word in this context. Maybe "negligible"?

 

Pg 2: "Trying to stay in the largest patches, she soon realized it would soon disappear."  You use the word "soon" twice back to back and it makes the sentence a little awkward.

 

Pg 6: "She bore with the pain almost to the point of losing consciousness" I feel like you don't necessarily need the "with", "she bore the pain" seems a little bit more direct.

 

Pg 7: "Its comforting glow warmed her each time, yet she was feeling an odd emotion from it now." Going into the past progressive tense with "was feeling…now" makes this sentence a little awkward. You slip into the past progressive a lot throughout the story, and to me it gets a little murky. Also, I feel like you could be more specific about her odd emotion. What emotion is she feeling, exactly?

 

I kind of agree with RD about the abrupt shift in POV at the end. If this is a short story, I think it's a little dangerous to do so. I get what you were going for, I just feel like it's a bit too stark in this draft. It might work if you smooth out the transition a little bit, although I don't really have any recommendation for how you would do so.

 

Very cool concept overall! Keep up the good work!

[Turos]

Thanks for the in-depth feedback! I can see all of these things definitely needing patched up.

 

I wasn't aware of what past progressive was until you explained it, Mr. W, so thanks for mentioning it.

 

What do you mean by look-out sentences, rdpulfer? Do you mean how it runs on or is there something else involved?

 

You're right, Mandamon. I do need to explain important things in more detail so the reader isn't left in the dark on how to judge the implied danger or intensity of things happening. For all I know, you guys may have been imagining her skin peeling off in acid and wondering how she isn't curling up and dying.

 

It is the entire story, by the way, though it was more of a practice bit I wrote up in a few hours. I am writing on my blog six days out of the week, every week, so I will be getting plenty of opportunity to apply corrections to my writing style. I'll try to come up with a short story every other week so I can share it here for more third-party insights.

 

All of your comments are very helpful. Thanks for taking the time to help me grow.

[rdpulfer he/him]

Ooops, sorry. I meant run-on sentences

[Turos]

Ah, makes sense. Thanks.

[Turos]

Do any of you mind if I quote your feedback here on my blog? I want to share a little bit about the effectiveness of writing groups and show an example in an article. Are any of you uncomfortable about me reposting your advice to me? Mind if I mention you by name/username? If you don't want to be named, I can put Anonymous. If you would rather I use your actual name instead of your username, I'll do that.

[Mr. Wednesday he/him]

I don't mind at all! 

[Mandamon he/him]

Fine with me.  Go ahead.

[Turos]

Awesome! I'll have to make an article on writing groups tomorrow, then.

[Robinski he/him]

So, sorry I'm a bit late - been jammed this week, but here we go.

 

- Sare's reaction to the pain seems quite cerebral, she's thinking about it, but I don't get a strong sense of it really touching her. You might consider describing her physiological reaction - she's shaking, flinching, something a bit more active.

 

- I'm not sure it's the pain that's dismissive - isn't Sare able almost to dismiss the pain when the sunlight reaches her?

 

- "reached the edge of it and closed her eyes." (Someone else mentioned extra words and another tightness in the style - here's another example of that.

 

- "Adrenaline burst into her bloodstream at the thought of toppling off the side." Nice line, and a good example of what I meant above when I talked about physiological reaction to the pain.

 

- The recollection of her mother's words worked well for me. It give's us the first clue about why Sare is here, putting up with all this pain, and it ramps up the urgency.

 

- "The glowing earth beneath her was shrinking fast." But it's not the earth that shrinking, it's the glow, I think.

 

- There's something a bit off here "she tossed a handful far from herself, then felt the light from its dust". It seems to be implied that the dust belongs to something.

 

- Not keen on the phrasing "felt out to the sun".

 

- At this point in the story, I can see what she's doing, but I'd like to know why. Without meaning, it begins to feel like she's just playing a game. I don't know what the stakes are. Reading on, I see that you refer to it as a game on Page 4, which seemed to me to diminish the stakes. Is it only an amusement, or is she learning through play to prepare her for some task or role later in life?

 

- How does she sense the sun's awareness of 'it', and by it I presumed you meant her tactic, but it wasn't that clear. Slightly later she senses scorn and frustration from the sun. That felt loose to me, tenuous. I couldn't help feeling that her sensing these emotions for more a reaction / impression in her rather than any sign that these emotions were present.

 

- I didn't get a sense that there was an actual storm. It was raining, sure but, to me, that's not necessarily a storm.

 

- I don't really follow how and where she's constructed this fortress of sunlight. I also can't quite get my head around "Without the light, it would dry up instantly" Does this mean the mud? Surely the sunlight would dry it up, and the absence of the sun would enable the mud to remain longer. Then again, if the mud is covering up this fortress of light, that energy is still there under the mud and would dry the mud out from below, wouldn't it?

 

- "returning her reserves back to glowing mud" - I think. So, the mud insulates the hidden light, but the sand doesn't?

 

- Mandamon and I were talking about this the other day. This section "making it all dry" comes after a reference to the dust, but dust is already dry, and the context sounds like maybe it's Sare that becomes all dry?

 

- Where is Sare lying and when did she lie down? I got a bit disoriented at the top of Page 6, and again at the bottom of the same page when the dust is blown away. Is (was) she lying under a blanket of dust? Also, surely the sun can shine wherever it wants, as has been demonstrated so far, why is it limited by the shadow?

 

- It's Page 7 and now there is a mention of trials and rites. This presumably is the reason for what Sare is doing. I think you could do with revealing that much earlier. Also, there's talk of her dying like her mother. As I mentioned earlier, I didn't really get a sense that the stakes were so high until now.

 

- "She needed light" She has light, just not direct sunlight.

 

- "was partly relieved"

 

- "The new year's crops would never have a chance in the wasteland if she did not bring back the sun. It was the only thing keeping any plants alive for thousands of miles" But the plants need the rain too, surely.

 

- Now on Page 8 is the full explanation for what she is doing. As noted earlier, I think it would help the tension to realise that the fate of her people is resting on what she is doing, which isn't clear for most of the story.

 

- It's a very dramatic solution, her jumping off the edge had real impact, but I struggle with the mechanics of it. I've got no problem with her making this sacrifice and it's a surprising turn of events, but how can a little pinch of dust bring light to the land? I don't understand how it's possible, and because that massive effect is not foreshadowed, I'm left feeling a bit like something has be sprung on me.

 

I enjoyed much about the story, but I think it could be strengthened a great deal by giving the reader more earlier on to understand what Sare is trying to achieve. Also, I think the reader needs to know the stakes earlier on, that failure means disaster for people and death for her. Still, I was pulled through the piece by the energy in the writing. I did find some of the description disorienting, and was not always sure what Sare was doing, but that's all fixable, of course. Very interesting, thanks for sharing!