Coop - 8/22/16 - Clouds pt. 2 - 3982 words

[Coop]

2 hours ago, Mandamon said:

pg 8: Augh!  Grandpa is terrifying!  Maybe mention this sooner in the narrative?  I would think Sira would note this sooner.  As it was, I thought she was having some waking nightmare at first.  Obviously the poor old guy can't help how he looks, but as @kaisa says, building that fear earlier, and knowing that it happened when Sira was younger and left an inpression on her will help us see why she reacts this way.

Thanks Mandamon, I have found all of this feedback helpful, whether it's right away or a week later. Can I ask one last question to anyone still awake at this point? One thing I'm planning to do to make Sira a little more sympathetic (hopefully) is to show that she feels guilty for the way she feels toward and treats her Grandfather. She beats herself up for feeling the way she does about him and wishes she could just get over it, but traumas don't just go away overnight. So my question is, Mandamon and others ( @kaisa @krystalynn03 @rdpulfer @Robinski ) have suggested that it would be better to hint at her fears toward Grandpa earlier in the story rather than splashing it all out there at once. Could you help me understand why you feel this way? I can't read it with the fresh eyes that you have, so I'm wondering what the problem is about dropping it all at once as a major reveal.

 

[Mandamon he/him]

1 hour ago, Coop said:

One thing I'm planning to do to make Sira a little more sympathetic (hopefully) is to show that she feels guilty for the way she feels toward and treats her Grandfather. She beats herself up for feeling the way she does about him and wishes she could just get over it, but traumas don't just go away overnight.

I think this will help a lot.  Also, if you hang a lantern on how she specifically avoids looking at her grandfather and the guilt she feels over the trauma, then the reader is prepared for something awful, and tension is building waiting for it.  Then the big reveal will work better.