2015.12.28 - smgorden - How Old Trahaearn Lost His Eye, part 01

[smgorden he/him]

Greetings! Excited to have discovered this group. This is my first submission, and I'm looking forward to participating on both side of the critique process. 

Hoping to hear:

> your feelings about the characters

> curiosities about the situation and setting
> what you think will happen next

All feedback is appreciated. Thank you!

 

[Eisenheim]

Okay.  I love this.  It's awesome that both of us have found this group just now, because I think we'll have a lot to talk about.

 

2 major issues:

- I feel like I don't understand why going to Old Trahearn's house is taboo for your POV character.  He's never explicitly told not to or anything like that.

-The Swan speaks once, and is called out as not being heard, then it speaks a second time and it seems like the potions man understands.  Then it speaks a 3rd time and he freaks out.

 

General feedback:  I like the feel of both stories.  I don't think I can predict the next happenings, because I don't know what flavor your fairies are, and I don't yet know how Trahearn connects to the inner narrative, but very much want to find out.

[smgorden he/him]

Thanks, Eisenheim! I'll definitely have take a look at these points.

 

For the first one, it seems I've made some assumptions about tone carrying enough weight to set that up, but clearly I need something specific in there. I've already got an idea how to address that.

Regarding the swam, according to you description, I've messed up on communicating the potions man's perception there, too. Rest assured, I will straighten it out!

I'm doing just one critique at a sitting, trying to be thorough, but I'm very much looking forward to reading you submission now- stay tuned!

[Mandamon he/him]

Welcome to Reading Excuses!  I love the title of this story.  That and the single bit of description about the eyepatch makes me want to read more.

 

pg 1: I had to read the third paragraph a couple times.  I think there was a disconnect with "Papa turned his back to me." and "He closed the door behind him" because we don't have any description of where they are.  At first I thought Papa closed the door to tell him a secret.

 

pg 2: "but there was not another person of musical inclination anywhere else in the county."

--This seems strange and sad.  No one plays any music there?

 

pg 3: "from Old Trahaearn himself if I must!"

--"If I had to?"  I think you changed tenses here.

 

pg 4: "I saw a giant in the darkness cast behind him, carrying the severed heads of men he had slain and eaten, bouncing on his shoulders with each step."

--cool imagery

 

pg 8: even with the lead-in, the change to the story-in-a-story is kind of abrupt.

 

pg 11: "Looking at the swan, he examined "O bird! How do you speak? What enchantment is here that you utter the words of man?""

--I wasn't sure at first the man couldn't understand the swan.  This clears it up. (Same confusion Eisenheim had above).

 

pg 14: I'm enjoying the fairy tale, but I'm not quite sure where it's going...at this point it seems to be a lot of semi-philosophical sayings.

 

pg 16: The end of the tale is...strange

 

pg 17: "I had held myself at the window and strained.'

--this sentence seems awkward.

 

pg 17: "The only point in the swirling pool of mouths and cheeks and possibilities that remained still and constant was his one eye."

--Some of the poetic phrases in here border on just plain strange.

 

I really like the style of what you're writing.  It reminds me of Grimm's Fairytales and Jim Henson's Storyteller.  However, as it progressed, the story and descriptors got more and more esoteric and ethereal.  As Eisenheim says, you don't really say why Trahaearn is off limits, so we're not completely set up for the “Trespasser!” at the end except for the sign on the lawn.  I enjoyed the story-in-a-story, but we don't get any explanation for it, even just a "let me tell you a weird story to pay for the groceries."  We also don't get anything at the end except that Papa talks about the weather and leaves.  I'm hoping there's more explanation in the next part.  I am enjoying it, but also want to find out more about where these tales come from and what they have to do with the rest of the story.

[smgorden he/him]

Thanks Mandamon!

I'm glad to have these notes. I think the language evens out as the story progresses, and it's been a while since I've looked at the beginning, other than for continuity checking. Fixing this stuff should help with consistency in the prose.

 

As for the mystery around the story, that's intentional. There are things I hope will be worth the wait as things progress. The POV character is curious, but he's got his limitations (including the first person perspective). The experiment with this book is to withhold detail on things the boy doesn't personally witness or understand. 

 

Thanks for the encouragement as well. I'm pretty excited about the comparison to Henson's Storyteller. 

 

Great feedback! I'm looking forward to posting the next section of the book here. These are exactly the kind of notes I need to get this thing ship-shape.

 

Update: I've re-written some sentences and paragraphs related to the feedback above, and I already like my opening chapter better. Cut out some needlessly esoteric (WEIRD) text from my first drafts in favor of clear description. Whenever I get to submit Part 02, I'll be sure to include a link to an update part 01, for the curious. 

Edited December 31, 2015 by smgorden

[rdpulfer he/him]

- First off, I love the title!  

 

- How could Trahaeran be the oldest man in the county without anyone knowing his age? Are they just going off his physical appearance, or how long he'd been in the community?

 

- When the main character encounter the dark figure, the language briefly turned to present tense. You may want to italicize these if they are direct thoughts. 

 

- I liked that the protagonist gets poison ivy (or something liked it) while sulking around in the plants. It adds a degree of realism to the story. I also liked that he uses dirt to relieve the itching.

 

- The ending definitely feels very ambiguous, as has been pointed out already. I think it might need more of a "stinger" at the end to clarify what happened, even if you intend to revisit it later on.

 

- I really like the cold open of the next story, as the man interacts with the swan. His reactions feel very straight-forward, like you would find in a fairy tale. 

 

- The second story felt more straight forward, like a fairy tale, and I felt the themes were much more concrete and evident than the previous story.

 

- So the third tale is a continuation of the first story? This might be confusing to the audience. You might look at Watership Down, where fairy tales are presented throughout the story without interrupting the main narrative. 

 

- Overall, I like what's going on here, but I'm still confused. Is the story with Trahaeran intended to be a framing story? If so, I think it needs more natural jumping off-points instead of just cliffhangers every so often. 

[Robinski he/him]

Hi there, belated welcome to Reading Excuses and slightly less belated happy new year!

Detailed comments below however, in summation, I enjoyed this first instalment of the story. I think you have captured the lyrical turn of phrase that is so appropriate to fairytale style stories. There are some places where I thought things could have been clearer, and there were a couple of things I found hard to swallow (like the range of sound carrying, for example0, but overall I liked it a good deal and I'm looking forward to your next submission.

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

"to look and see where (Papa) went" - apologies for brackets, I don't have text formatting on my iPad, would usually underline these.

"put that cold(,) hard stare (to) me" - on me? I found this phrasing curious.

I'm not sure what OT being foreign has to do with his age, although this seems to be offered as some kind of explanation for why he is so old. I see now that thought is really linked to the next paragraph, but disjointed, maybe.

I wound it strange that they would have a 'hall of records' and that this farmer and his son would check up old paperwork on OT. That's what I take from that passage. It's like an episode of CSI.

I find it very hard to believe there isn't someone with a tin whistle or something in a whole county, unless it is a very, very small county.

No way you can hear fiddle music at that sort of distance unless it is amplified, magically....

The phrase about wind and rustling grass came over odd to me. If it's not the wind causing the grass to rustle, then why connect the two? If it is the wind, then it's the same thing and sounds like repetition.

The Half-Blind man is a nice introduction to the story. I found it a little meandering, a bit slow in places, but still enjoyable. I have no sense that this will be a rip-roaring adventure yarn, but I am perfectly happy with that. It's nice to read something more lyrical, more poetic in style. I enjoy your writing and find it has a wistful quality.

"Until the heads stop(ed) bouncing."

"I picked up each foot and wiggled (it) and..."

I'm having some difficulty picturing the scale of the hill and the gradient of the path up to it.

I like the passage about the nettles, that's nicely done and certainly evokes childhood memories! My concern is that this should bother him for the rest of the story. Those nettle stings are not going to calm down anytime soon, yet he seems to be up and running very soon after, and whistling happily (I presume) - that wasn't realistic for me.

"a deep forest (lay) ahead of me"

"Please give me your bread" - lol

"you think very loudly" - lol

"though you (are) a slow and stupid creature" - rofl

The Swan and the Potions Man was very effective for me, with an excellent fairytale tone. The swan's last line sounds like a conclusion, but it still feels unresolved to me, so I'm not sure whether to expect some conclusion to that. I must read on!

As noted, I'm sure those nettle stings would still be a major issue.

"I (shrank) back against the cottage"

I don't get the use of the word 'gripping'. What does 'It's gripping out.' mean?

[smgorden he/him]

Thank you rdpulfer and Robinksi for the feedback! There are a lot of little things working oddly in the beginning of this story, and much of this probably has to do with it being a the beginning, where I'm still feeling out what sort of tale is going to be happening. I hear that beginnings go this way sometimes, among new writers. I'll continue to to revise, cleaning up the strange wording. Thanks for pointing out those sticky spots

I'm glad everyone seems to be curious about Trahaearn and the boy. I'm hoping that'll give me some leniency on the lack of explanation. The boy doesn't understand much about the adults in his life yet, nor that he's in a story. I try to push him around and make him consider questions that I think come up as I read back through, but sometimes he says to me "I don't know that, don't make me talk about things I don't know." But rest assured, he'll try to connect the dots as he goes along He is a curious and determined boy, after all.

Robinski- I'm glad you got some smiles from the Swan's dialog. That was a fun bit to write. 
CSI: That is a very good point. I'll come up with something else for that. It is a very small community. I could probably make that point in a much simpler way.
"No way you can hear fiddle music at that sort of distance unless it is amplified, magically...."

rdpulfer- I'm not thinking in terms of a framing story, per se. It all goes together. Not really intending cliffhangers, either. Just not in a hurry to explain a thing the moment it happens. The boy's experience at the beginning is observation in passing, soaking stuff in without thinking, and then barreling toward the things he wants. (This is what my kids (ages 4 & 7) both do). I hope that's not an unbearable reading experience. Let me know where you are on the continuum between confused and curious. I count those as related concepts. Aiming for curious. 
 

[Shrike76 he/him]

Hello, and welcome to Reading Excuses. It's always nice to see new words and faces.

 

I'll start by saying that I enjoyed the tone of this. It's less literary and more the tone of having someone sit you down to relate a tale, and it works perfectly for this sort of story. The general writing is also clean with a good flow. Well done on that note.

 

P1 - "Partly for the goods and partly for Papa's time away from home." I felt this line was unnecessary and took something away from the previous one. Addendum: Later you mention the father comes back with a tale each time, that seems payment enough for the hour spent.

P2 - "not another person of musical inclination" - This stretches the imagination. the world I've seen so far seems very low-tech, and in a low tech world, people will play music for entertainment, even if they suck at it. It's one of those human constants.

P2 - It also stretches belief that the sound carries so far, but you mention that Trahaern is selective about the days he plays so I assume you're up to something with that.

P5 - "trees which seemed bulge" - to bulge

P6 - The narrator's approach to the house was odd, and not well explained. His breakdown with the nettle felt a little extreme. Unless there's a reason for that too? And then his singing as he approached the house, while he was trying to sneak, also was wrong. If this is really an oddness, I'd like for the character to remark it as well.

P9-10 - The sun sitting perched on a tree is a lovely visual.

P12 - "Though you area a slow" - are a

P13 - "stung him distinctly where it has been" - had

P16 - "I am undone." said the potions man. - should be a comma inside the ""

P18 - "his every muscle was taught" - taut

P18 - I liked the individual descriptions you used of Trahaearn, but felt it was long at three paragraphs.

 

I thought the section with the swan and the potions man fell a little flat at the end. It sounded like it was building up to a conclusion, but if there was a moral or something at the end then it was lost on me. Is there supposed to be a continuation to this tale afterwards? I also thought that it ran a touch long. If you're looking to do some word count tightening, I think this is a good place to start, cutting out some of the descriptions could give it more of a fairy-tale feel.

 

Overall, this story worked for me, and I'm very much looking forward to the next submission. I'm guessing some of my questions will be answered there.

[smgorden he/him]

Thank you Shrike76. Good notes. A few of yours are shedding some light on issues raised by the other readers, above. 

I'm curious about the issue of music and why describing a community that only has one musician so difficult. I'm with you guys on it. It makes sense. The curious part is discovering the limits of authorial power. It must be that the farther away from norms you get, the more requirement there is to comment on that deviation and acknowledge the dissonance that readers may feel when reading it. Anyway... I will have to address the music issues, one way or another. 

Thank you again for the great feedback!

Edited January 7, 2016 by smgorden

[Shrike76 he/him]

I'm curious about the issue of music and why describing a community that only has one musician so difficult. I'm with you guys on it. It makes sense. The curious part is discovering the limits of authorial power. It must be that the farther away from norms you get, the more requirement there is to comment on that deviation and acknowledge the dissonance that readers may feel when reading it. Anyway... I will have to address the music issues, one way or another. 

 

Like I said, music is a constant, especially in a low-tech setting without any other entertainment. Music is easy to do, relatively speaking, and many simple instruments like drums or flutes are cheap and easy to make, so it's normal that it would be one of the first things people do to keep themselves from getting bored. Or even singing, if nobody wants to actually grab a musical instrument.

I don't know what the reason is why nobody's musically-inclined, or if we learn it later, but the fact that you mention it in-story makes it remarkable. If the boy narrator has never known anyone else to play an instrument, then it should be normal to him that nobody does so and he shouldn't comment on it, and so it should also be seen as exceedingly strange that the Trahaearn does play an instrument. Everyone seems to enjoy the music, you say so, but nobody attempts to imitate it or hum along to the tune. I suspect there's a very good reason why nobody plays, it's just that the way that you presented it makes it sound strange in the wrong way.

Probably, when I've read the rest of the story, I'll have a better idea of what you were trying to achieve and can provide more useful comments.

[smgorden he/him]

Probably, when I've read the rest of the story, I'll have a better idea of what you were trying to achieve and can provide more useful comments.

First time writer confessions: Probably, when I written the rest of the story, I'll have a better idea of what I was trying to achieve and can make useful revisions

[Shrike76 he/him]

First time... Is this the first story you've ever written?

[smgorden he/him]

First time... Is this the first story you've ever written?

 

First time writing prose, yes. I've done other kinds of writing before but never a novel. However, this winter I found a neat place (which I like to call 3am at Denny's) wherein I stop thinking and can pour out prose without hesitation. I am finding it quite enjoyable.

[Robinski he/him]

It's very nicely written for a 'first story' - I think your other writing experience to date (poetry, lyrics?) shows through - or maybe you're just a natural (grumble).

 

Anyway, please keep writing. I think you have a good talent that deserves to be used and not neglected.

 

Keep going and don't stop for anything!!

 

Edited January 12, 2016 by Robinski

[smgorden he/him]

Robinski- sincerely, thank you- I shall carry on! 

An anecdote about me and stories: 

Other writing experience (poetry and lyrics, yes. Also some script writing for short films) has no doubt played a part in preparing me. But I think the 'natural' part of things comes from reading aloud. From about 10 years ago, when my wife (then girlfiend) got sick with a cold, I started reading folk tales to her while she rested in bed. I read from a little book of fairy tales we had picked up in a thrift shop. The first story was Anderson's The Snow Queen, I think. The misadventure of Gerda and Kai were so much fun that we've continued it all this time, mostly works of fantasy, from George MacDonald to Tolkien on up to Sanderson (almost done reading Hero of Ages to her). There is something about reading all that material which intimately acquaints the brain with the sound of elegant text. Moreover, folk tales all begin in the oral tradition. Combine that with experience in musical performance and it begins to add up to something. I think these things have programmed my brain for a certain kind of output, and it's a real pleasure to finally see what that look like in prose. I'm having a lot of fun here.

[Robinski he/him]

Yes. I completely agree. I can see how reading out loud would do that. I like to think I have a good sense of rhythm (next time I submit, you can be the judge!!) through reading slowly, but I also wrote poetry and lyrics in my youth.

 

I always preach reading dialogue out loud to get it to sound convincing.

[krystalynn03 she/her]

Hey Seth,

 

Firstly, thanks for letting my play catch-up.

 

Overall, I first want to say that I enjoy your narrative voice. I didn't read it aloud (been sick this week), but I felt like would sound good if I did. It felt like it had a good rhythm while my eyes read it.

 

I like your use of vocabulary in general. Being a reading teacher, interesting words pop out at me because I'm accustomed to 'leveling' books in my head while read as I preview them for use in my classroom. Your use of imagery is neither too nor too little.

 

There was one bit I want to nitpick because it pushed me out of the story. The extended metaphor where the narrator thinks of his father as a giant broke the fourth wall for me because I had to go back and reread to confirm I was reading a metaphor (this being fantasy after all).

 

As a reader, I really do read books for character. Your narrator has done nothing yet to make me invest him--hasn't shown any character quirks or so forth. So at this point, the thoughts in my head are that my investment in this book (were I to be pulling it off a shelf in a library or store) would be: "Will I like or be intrigued by this Traehearn fellow when he gets his bit on screen?" For me, that will be the breaking point for whether I bought the book (subjunctively speaking here) or not.

 

One other thing--it's not a criticism and I don't want you to take it as one, but I don't like stories/poems inside other stories. When reading LOTR I read none of the poetry whatsoever. I feel so plot-driven when reading a book that when I see italics or break or something of the sort that I immediately hit the fast forward button and skip it. Not everybody does this, and it doesn't ruin a story for me. When Mockingjay came out and the song about coming to the tree became a hit, I had no recall of it whatsoever because I skipped even that in THG!

 

Anywho, I guess just to think critically about the situation, if there were something obvious, some setup bit to tell me that reading the interlude was going to give me some kind key knowledge of foreshadowing for later, I might be enticed into reading it. Not saying you should do that, just playing devil's advocate against myself.

 

Thanks again!

[smgorden he/him]

Thank you krystalynn03! I appreciate the notes. Seems like the main thing in your read through was that you want a more direct hints or promises about the obscure things being related to the plot. Odds are that the beginning will undergo more revision than anything else in the book. I'll keep your experience in mind during that process.