Reading Excuses - 2015/08/06 - The Green Ocean, Chapter Four (4,320 words)

[Majestic Fox he/him]

Chapter four of Willow's story. 

 

I'll get round to writing a summary of the previous chapters soon, so apologies for any confusion. I'm inventing a fair amount as I go along, so revelations that happen in this chapter have not been foreshadowed in previous ones. 

 

Anyway, hope you like it. 

 

[Mandamon he/him]

There were several spelling and grammatical errors in this one, but aside from that I enjoyed this submission a lot.  we get some more information about the town and its surroundings.  I still don't have a really good idea of how far the other villages are from this one, or whether they're in the forest our outside of it.  I assume they have farms and things.

 

There's some good description of the giant, which also gives me some idea of the size.  Some of this information could have come earlier, though.

 

The relationship with Lewis is pretty sudden.  You've mentioned him in the past, but I don't have a good idea of his character yet, not how long he has to travel to get to Willow's town.

 

Not too much else to comment on.  I'm still interested in where this is going, what larger conflict will develop, and how the magic/scripture actually works.

 

 

Some notes:

 

pg 2: "noticed the river of green like bleeding up "

--something missing

 

pg 3: "she had an arrow throw her eye"

--through?

 

pg 14: I didn't get that Starfall was the name of the town until the second time you mentioned it in the chapter.  Have you said it before?

 

Quite a few typos throughout, more toward the end of the chapter, and a few other missing words as well.  

[Robinski he/him]

Another good chapter, but I did have some problems here, as outlined below. Also, there are a lot of typos, but that’s just editing, still, I picked out a few that seemed to be more than that.

 

My main difficulty, I think was Willow’s reaction (or lack of it) to being told she is dying. In fact, she immediately starts making long term plans. That may be you displaying her denial of the facts, but it felt wrong to me. She was worried about the mark before and only after being told it’s fatal starts to ignore the significance of it. It troubled me.

 

I’ve also flagged below how the interplay between Willow and any romantic interest strikes me as awkward, but not in an endearing young-love kind of way.

 

Even with these issues, I’m still enjoying the story, but I'm really unsure now about what direction it will take.

 

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If it’s raining, is it dew that is gleaming on the ferns, not just rain?

 

I like what you’re trying to do with the giant’s hand sheltering Willow, but I was disoriented by the way it was written. There’s also something wrong with the green shafts.

 

I'm not overly enamoured with the silence being given sentience and allowed to decide how long it stretches for.

 

Does a deer bark? I did not know that. It’s an unusual thought to introduce. I think 90% of people would think of a dog when you put down the word ‘bark’. That line took my out of the story.

 

Love the foreign language line, very clever.

 

“He didn’t appear to respond to that” – Either he responds or not, it’s a matter of fact, it seems to me.

 

“looked at her as if she had an arrow throw through her eye” – Rather strange expression, I thought. Wouldn’t he be filled with concern or revulsion at such as sight? I didn’t sense that was the tone of his expression.

 

“You’ve been gone for two days” – Nice sting, didn’t see that coming.

 

“Olga was stood” – I refuse to believe that is proper grammar, sounds terrible. (Alternative, ‘was standing’).

 

I repeat that this point that I have very little recollection of all these characters, they’re just names.

 

“She ran through the conversation a few times in her mind but none of them turned out well” – There’s only one conversation, which made me feel that the phrasing wasn’t quite right. I would say ‘It never turned out well’ referring to the conversation, although I appreciate that you’re referring to the times – it felt off to me.

 

“It was day after” – typo

 

I don’t think “like a rare creature out from the undergrowth” adds anything to the revelation about her grandmother (Whose g/m – Willow’s or Olga’s?).

 

“It comes not from God” This phrasing sounds like a holy invocation, rather than something used in discussion. It sounded to me like ‘it cometh not from God’.

 

“ashed ashen faced” There are several typos throughout, but seemed like it was the wrong word.

 

“didn’t drop” – Hadn’t dropped the sickle, but I appreciate that the character might just have bad grammar.

 

“I doubt it made a difference...” I don’t follow the train of thought in this exchange.

 

amoungst > amongst

 

“The message that it was time for her to leave was not lost on Myra.” I don’t think this is worth saying. The message is not lost on the reader either – it’s clear what Olga means, no room for any other interpretation. I really don’t think you need to spell stuff like this out to the reader. Leave them things to interpret themselves.

 

“In the solace of her thoughts she Willow was free to disagree” There’s a lack of attribution when you change the reference here from Olga to Willow.

 

Who is Willow being compassionate to when Olga senses it?

 

“People are beginning to talk” – I thought they were already talking at the start of the story. I would guess that they are talking a lot more – and that the stakes could be raised here rather than just restating a situation from three chapters ago.

 

“About her Olga’s grandmother and how she died. About Myra’s father and the healing power” – Again, you don’t attribute the grandmother. To me it’s unclear whether it’s Willow’s or Olga’s.

 

It strikes me here that I'm enjoying that the character’s name is Olga’s – it’s quite a rare character name, I reckon.

 

The phrase “Poor effort at humour” felt modern to me – ironic, where most of the dialogue is straight forward, almost rustic. For some reason it felt out of place. I think is the same issue that I had when the guard came onto Willow before, but I didn’t quite recognise the source of my concern before.

 

“She wasn’t sure who that was but she didn’t like her” – LMAO! Great line.

 

“though inside her heart was in knots” – Where else would her heart be?

 

I'm struggling a bit with the dialogue here. I don’t seem to have the same issue when Willow and Olga, or Willow and Myra are talking, so I have to assume the issue arises when there are romantic overtones to the conversation. I don’t find the boy-girl dialogue convincing.

 

plathora > plethora

 

“if in fact she this thing on her body was going to kill her, then she needed to think seriously about what to do” – I'm puzzled why Willow and indeed Olga (although she seemed more affected), hasn’t had a more emotional reaction to this news. Willow seems to be in denial – which is probably fair enough, but still, I expected more shock.

 

“or at least trying to the place where who she was met up with the needs of the village” – I have no idea what this means – would benefit from rephrasing.

 

“these coming months” – She might not have coming months, she’s just been told she’s dying. It feels like there are assumptions made for the purpose of the story that aren’t founded in an honest reaction to being told about a fatal illness.

 

“They could build a house together” – Again, where is her acknowledgement that she’s been told she’s dying?

[Majestic Fox he/him]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Useful thoughts there.

 

Robinski, that's quite a detailed response. Thanks for taking the time. 

[Robinski he/him]

Your welcome. It's an enjoyable story, so it's no hardship at all   : o )