Reading Excuses - 2015/01/06 - The Green Ocean, Chapter Three (4,260 words)

[Majestic Fox]

Chapter three of Willow's story.

 

It's a little rougher than the first, which is actually a good thing for me. Need to get better at blasting through the story on my first draft. 

 

Any kind feedback is welcome. 

[Mandamon]

Overall, I liked the chapter, and didn't notice any glaring inconsistencies.  I'm interested to know more about the giant, though I'm wondering how they're a threat if they move so slowly.

We're still learning about Willow's powers, but I have a feeling things are going to blow up soon if she runs around healing everyone.  I can't imagine that's good for her body.

 

 

Some notes:

 

pg 2: I forget, is Violet older or younger?  Here she seems like a spiteful old woman, but I don't think you've said.

 

pg 3: did we meet Lewis yet? (can't remember)

 

pg 3: "Clara was stood outside the grain house loading sacks onto the back of a wagon. ‘You can work the rest out for yourself.’"

I was confused here who was talking.

 

pg 5: I"m glad we got to know about Blue Tor, the next village over, but I'm still a little lost on the general landscape.  It sounds like this village is in a forest?  I don't really have a good lay of the land.

 

pg 7: "You can it Willow"

--You can do it Willow

 

pg 8: "felt a prickle of something was she crept past Olga’s house, but decided not to dwell on it."

--The last part of this sentence screams "plot element" to me.  I think the sentence stands well without it.

 

pg 8: Couldn't she also find her way by a light in the village?  Or is there no light at all at night?

 

Looking forward to more!

[Robinski]

I very much enjoyed this chapter. There is a good background in the form of Willow’s prosaic daily life, interspersed with her thoughts of more significant things like the wound and the giant, but also room for girlish thoughts of love. I find her trials in terms of getting on with people and the pressure they put on her for various reasons convincing, as is her desire to explore her newfound power and the mysterious forest.

 

There’s something intimate about the reader’s access to Willow’s feelings, and her doubts about the unknown wound and the burgeoning power within her feels like a very personal thing to be privy to. Good work, I'm keen to read more. Keep those submissions coming!

 

(Detailed comments below.)

 

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I was surprised that her shoes had buckles. I suppose they have a smithy, but with the level of technology and manufacturing that I had implied, I must have presumed (subconsciously) that their shoes would be stitched and laced.

 

“round house” – one word, I think.

 

“mistress Jena” – Mistress should be capitalised as it’s the title of a specific person, as should Master Jerris.

 

Why would she get little help from Jena, just because she missed one lesson? Maybe I'm forgetting something from the previous submission, but most teachers would not give up on a pupil after one transgression like that. I know this because my father was a teacher. Also, Willow’s interpretation of Jena’s reaction (i.e. Jena not liking her) seems naive to me.

 

I liked the quip about Michael never having missed a lesson, and that you didn’t draw any more attention to it by having Willow notice it. Letting the reader pick up some things themselves, makes them feel more involved / immersed.

 

I would say Willow “passed behind the temple” – ‘passed at the back’ sounds like she passed water behind the temple, or something – I think.

 

“There no one eye shot” makes no sense.

 

The whole exchange with David was very awkward, I thought. It should be awkward between them, but not in the writing, which was what I felt. It seemed shoehorned in – rather out of context. Have we met David before? Did we know about Willow’s aspirations towards Lewis before? I can’t remember, and that might be hurting my perception of this section, but if neither of those men / boys have appeared before, then I think  

 

“Clara was standing” – To me, stood is incorrect grammatically, but if it’s a North Americanism, it still sounds wrong. It’s a conflation of tenses.

 

Who is Clara speaking to when Willow arrives?

 

“was to remove herself from them” Also, not sure emotions is the right word, more a case of “the village’s prejudices”?

 

“He had not judged or feared her” – not ‘nor’ I think, also tense issue.

 

“she would never be at home here”

 

I like Willow’s thought process as she considers what she did to the giant, or rather how she did it. As I said before, I didn’t get the sense in her scene with the beetle that she was healing it.

 

I very much enjoy the fact that Willow has so much work to do, and doesn’t have time to pursue her own interests. It’s a practical aspect of your story rarely reflected in other tales. It seems to me it’s quite common for characters to swan off in pursuit of their dreams without consequences, or for the action to take place as part of their occupation (e.g. magician, soldier, etc.) – so this dynamic is refreshing. I imagine a good many readers would identify and sympathise with Willow’s position!

 

“West Steppes” or “west steppes” – if it’s a name then all caps, or say “western part of the Steppes” if the area is not formally divided into East Steppes and West Steppes.

 

I like the exchange between Myra and Willow, but a part of it seems to get lost. Myra says she knows someone who’d be happy to see Willow, but it’s not Lewis. So who is it? Myra doesn’t complete the thought, going off on a tangent when Willow mentions Lewis – that’s fine, but it left me feeling unsatisfied about that point.

 

I’ll make a comment here that I’ve made before. There are so many different characters, and their names are common English names, so it’s very hard to keep them all straight. Mentioning a name that the reader is not meant to remember is all very well, but the reader does not know that at the time. I would try to drop or amalgamate some of the minor characters.

 

“Willow helped her to floor the ground” – They are outside, aren’t they? I think ‘floor’ is only correct if it’s the floor of a forest, because it refers to the forest almost as a building, an enclosure, otherwise, I think it should be ‘ground’.

 

I think the idea of healing Myra comes to Willow very slowly. Only minutes before (it seemed) she was thinking about practicing. I think healing should occur to her almost immediately Myra cuts herself.

 

I wasn’t keen on the (almost) mixed metaphors of the stone and the sapling. Personally, I would drop the sapling reference and let the reader concentrate on the stone – since it’s central to the magic.

 

“It wanted to flow”

 

How does the air make itself known? I struggled with that concept.

 

I like seeing Willow trying to judge the flow of healing, very good, and Myra reaction is well done too, although I think it probably is the most profound thing in the world!!

 

I love Willow’s prevarication. I can’t work in mess either – I so identify with that.

 

You don’t capitalise fey or drake, so why capitalise giant?

 

“a bulb of sadness”- ???

 

“forest evened out” – maybe levelled out?

 

You talk about the boars gathering around the giant (not capitalise!). This instantly assumes that the giant is there, whereas up to now she has been in doubt. It seems like there is no moment of transition from her wondering to a demonstration of his presence.

 

“Any more and she...” – two words in this context, I think.

 

I wasn’t keen on the word ‘substance’ for the thing flooding out of her, it’s a rather underwhelming term, not very dramatic.

[Majestic Fox]

Thank you, both. Very much appreciated.