Paladar -Chapter 2 B Raiders- M. Puddles 03/13/16 (V) 3126 words

[M.Puddles]

This is the second half of the chatper you started a couple of weeks ago.  I'd appreciate any feedback you'd bless me with.  Thank you for your care and time.  I do repay all crits. I''m behind right now (just had to do 27 reports cards) but I make good, and return what is given.  

Matt

Please keep in mind, this is my story and enjoy reading and writing stories in the like of Abercrombie, P. V. Brett, and M. Lawrence.  I'm trying to write a story like that captures that audience.

 

Edited March 15, 2017 by M.Puddles

[industrialistDragon]

"His uncle's words, " the very first paragraph, sorry. I feel like I'm missing the back end of this sentence. His uncle's words what?

 

There are an awful lot of somethings and somehows and some-whatsits in here.  Having a few aren't bad, but they're inexact, add up quickly and can usually be replaced with  much more expressive or informative words or phrases while still keeping the nonspecific nature. Heck, even "some creature" or "some [noun]" is better than plain old somethings.

I am slightly worried about the tropishness of your Princess Peach girl. She feels like a MacGuffin getting rescued, and handed off, and recaptured, and rerescued, and hanging on our hero's leg -- and it's not a particularly good look on anyone involved.

 

This part moved along at a better pace than the previous one you submitted, but, again, I think it could benefit from being condensed and streamlined a bit more. 

 

P is also reading older to me again. Are you sure he wouldn't be better off at 14? That might more accommodate his seriousness and maturity while still letting him have kidlike hero worship.   

[M.Puddles]

@industrialistDragon 

Thanks for reading my chapter.  Would you mind showing me what, " somethings and somehows and some-whatsits" look like?

The princess peach factor. I hope the following chapter addresses that somewhat. 

Quote

" I think it could benefit from being condensed and streamlined a bit more."

I'm captivated by a comment like this, but I did try and condence this. I chopped 1000 words on my first look over, and 1000 words on a next.  At this point, I'm not sure how to condence it more. Pleaase, would you mind showing me an example?

 

[kais]

Overall

The fight dragged too long for my taste, and it was hard to keep my mind on task. I was (as you will read below), upset about the 'girl' in your narrative. From the very small set up from last chapter, I expected there to be a larger reveal and backstory. Instead, she's a sexy lampshade without even a name, being used for emotional growth of our protagonist.  

I think this chapter could use some 'meat'. All this fighting and we don't really get any introspection or world building from our protag, which would go a long way to helping the reader get invested. I think you cut cut at least 500 words of fight, and then turn those words into world building, and have a much more engaging narrative. 

P's youthful buoyancy is what I am engaged with right now.

As I go

- I'm unsure as to the purpose of the first paragraph. It hangs oddly and serves to throw me from the narrative before I even get invested. Might want to better integrate it

- There are a lot of punctuation, spelling, and some grammar errors on page one. Just a heads up for future revisions

- page four: It's hard to be invested in the girl when she has no name and no story. At this current juncture I'm not sure her relevance to the story, and therefore P's protection of her falls flat

- deltoid leaves: +1 for plant nerdiness

- page five: P is actively stifling any chance we, the readers, have, for getting any information from this girl.

- page seven: WRS? Unsure. What are the stakes here? Why is P fighting these people? Why is he protecting this girl? Without clear stakes and direction for the narrative, it's very confusing and does not generally encourage people to keep reading

- end of page nine to page ten: eehhhhh you're losing me. Girl has no agency, and her assault is triggering blood rage hero fight go. At the very least, strive for your female character to pass the Sexy Lampshade Test, if nothing else. 

- page ten: my fridge sensors are tingling. Please don't make me reset the counter

- page twelve: good grief, she can't even recognize him from him leading her around before?

- page thirteen: Well, she's still alive, so that's something. Still a lampshade, but not a lampshade in a fridge

[M.Puddles]

Thanks @kaisa  

The first time I wronte this chapter, I didn't know what 'fridging' was. I just knew that was the way I'd read stories before. After learning better, I did go back and change things.  The girl never died thoguh. An shed helps protect P, but you don't hear about it till the next chapter. But I'm concerned about the way this presents.  

Some questions;

The forest is dark. As in dark.  Only P can see. I'm really trying to bring that out. I'm not sure if I'm doing that. When I think of someone grabbign at me in the dark, especially after being chased already, I'd probably cry out.  Am I being unfair?  

I'm trying to channel a twelve year old's perspective here, but maybe I can bring out some of the ROARS conditions of this girl in the dialogue of the Uncle or the soldiers form before...My hesitation is that they are not the type of characterts to attend to that. If you are willing to offer a suggestion, I'd appreciate it.   

Otherwise I will wait to see how it plays out after the next chapter, and base revision on that. 

My other consideration is the fighting. I like fighting. I enjoy fight scenes. Most of the 2000 words I cut were fight scenes. I got annoyed int LOTR and other stories when they skip over how fights were won. I would have liked to read a chapter or two on teh battle of Gandalf vs. the Balrog.

Now I dont' like M. Bay movies because that is all he offers...but I'm trying to hit the lines of M. Lawrence and Abercrombie.  I've most of my life learning how to fight, and I know I more interested in fighting than most.  I'm trying to target a particular audience with it without derailing other potential readers.  

 

[industrialistDragon]

15 hours ago, M.Puddles said:

Would you mind showing me what, " somethings and somehows and some-whatsits" look like?

PG1

(minor) "worried that some hidden cougar"

"ssaid to descend the rope if something went wrong"

"The cooing of something nearby"

 

PG2

"Then something thudded in the brush"

"and when he did, something shrieked in the woods"

"Something pushed through the brush" (pg 2/3 in my version)

 

PG3

"Get down and hide her somewhere safe,” someone whispered" (double!)

 

PG4

"Someone scuffed their boot nearby"

 

PG5

"She whispered something"

"footfall of someone approaching"

"Then something else moved "

"and someone called out"

"realization snapped something inside "

"something pushed through the brush" 

 

PG6 is free of them, but that's ONE page out of 6 so far. (and 5 more than makes up for it)

 

PG7
"Something thudded into the ground"

 

PG8

"gripped something dry"

"something bit into the top "

"Something had woken him"

 

PG9

"something soft and spongy"

"something sharp poking into his thigh"

"someone shrieked into the night"

"something clicked in Petro's head"

 

PG10

"something like clanging metal"

"something in eyes popped"

"dark to some so faint" (it's not a some-whatsit, but by this point, I've become so sensitized to the word, that even minor ones like this stick out)

 

PGs 11 & 12 are clear

 

PG13

"heard someone cry out"

[kais]

9 hours ago, M.Puddles said:

I'm not sure if I'm doing that.

I didn't get the sense of utter blackness, because of how deftly the fighting was going on. I've been in a lot of forests, and have never been in one completely pitch black. There are always bioluminescent somethings, or fireflies, or stars, or the moon, or the reflective eyes of critters, etc. So if the fighting is going as well as it is, I assume some level of light. Hence the girl's fright comes off as personality, not setting. The options are (IMO) to either give context to her fright (the noises of swords, the creepy glowing fungi, maybe she's like, five) or have the fighting be a lot more terrifying because no one can see anything.

9 hours ago, M.Puddles said:

My hesitation is that they are not the type of characterts to attend to that

Twelve year olds are pretty social creatures, even the shy ones. Asking the girl's name would be pretty expected, or at the very least giving her some descriptor title in lieu of that. 

This is a hard line to walk, because your characters may in fact just not be the kind to ask or care about that, but in order for the reader to connect with them (well, readers like me anyway), we need to see people caring about these things. This conversation comes up every so often here on RE, about writing unlikable characters and needing to find something likable in their unlikableness, or connect-able. 

9 hours ago, M.Puddles said:

I'm trying to target a particular audience with it without derailing other potential readers.

I like a good fight scene as well. But without movement, like, substantial movement, towards a goal, a try-fail, or some type of benchmark system, I get bored. I also need to be invested in characters to want a long fight scene, and I am not yet invested in anyone in this book. The girl could have been a point to care about (although there are pitfalls with that, too), but she has no name and no story. I don't understand why our protag is fighting, really. I don't understand the world. Without the context and motivation and some type of movement, it feels like a fight just to have a fight, and not a fight that builds characters or advances story lines. 

Did that make sense? I know there are readers who do want just a lot of fight scenes, and if you are targeting those readers, that's cool. You won't manage to hook me and my demographic, but then again, not every book can hook everyone, and that's okay! If it matters to you, and it is your passion, write it and sub it and find the agent who also is moved by fight scenes, and find your audience. 

Bonus - your fight scenes are blocked well! I can actually track movements! That gives me hope for future ones, once the characters are better established.

[industrialistDragon]

17 hours ago, M.Puddles said:

Pleaase, would you mind showing me an example?

I've been trying to think of how to respond to this, but I'm not sure I can without rewriting your story for you. What I mean when I say "condense" (instead of "cut" or "trim" for example) is that I can see what you're going for (a cool fight scene and magic breakthrough with some tense chase/hunting moments), but that the words on the page aren't drawing me in so that I feel the emotions you're trying to evoke. I feel that things are drawn out, even if they aren't in the text, because I don't have a solid connection with the story or characters. Kaisa summed it up well in her post, better than I did. 

It could be changes as little as going from "something like the sound of rusty metal" to the more direct "the sound of rusty metal," or "please won't someone aid me I need help!" to just straight up "help!" Or, it could be something bigger like changing around how the fight progresses, or moving dialogue to another chapter or reworking the entire first act. I'm sorry, if I could be more specific I absolutely would.

A good exercise if you're looking at a piece to trim and just can't find any fat to remove is to try to rewrite the scene as flash fiction -- that is, give yourself an extreme word limit. Flash is usually under 1000 words, absolute max. 200-500 is pretty average, I think. I love flash fiction. It's totally possible to create great stories and fight scenes in that space! They're tiny little nuggets of awesome. Flash fiction makes you consider every word, how every phrase is put together, because there's simply no room to sprawl, even a little bit. 

 

Also, just because I was curious, I went and counted up EVERYONE'S "some-whatsit" usage from the submissions this week.

@kaisa had 20 occurrences, about evenly split between some-whatsits and some [word], across 18 pages of text. These were largely in the same vein as yours. She gets a bye, though, because hers is a draft zero (for now...  )

@Ernei had about 24 occurrences (16 some-whatsit, 8 some [word]), across 12 pages of text. The bulk of these were "someone" and "somehow," and clustered around the protagonist musing on events and people she didn't know.  That's not *great*, and a few could probably stand to be reworded, but they didn't jump out to me in the same way as the ones here, partially because I'm really invested in that story.  

@Mandamon wins the some-whatsit count, with a mere 5 some-whatsits and 5 some [word] phrases (for a total of 10) across 9 pages of text.  3 of the some [word] phrases were in a purposefully-repeated phrase near the end, likely for the effect. I did not notice these at all. 

@rdpulfer had a total of 13 (9 some-whatsits, 4 some [word]), across 13 pages of text. These seemed to be mostly in dialogue or in dialogue-like thought processes. 

 

The some-whatsit words are filler, and like the air put into bags of potato chips, they pad out the story without providing much in the way of calories (or information). A few aren't bad, and are occasionally necessary (if you didn't have that air in the chip bag, you'd only ever have chip crumbs by the time the bags are shipped and arrive at the store), but too many and you start to get annoyed (like those bags that're only, like, 1/4 chips. I hate those!). I included the some [word] phrases not because they're "bad," but because they contribute to my noticing the overuse of the word more. They're more nutritious than some-whatsits, but we're still talking chips here, and not, like, carrots or spinach or whatever. 

(Yes, it's lunchtime. And I'm a nerd. )

[Mandamon]

I seem to be in similar company here, as usual. Like the others said, I'm concerned about the girl adding basically nothing so far.

The pacing was better here, and the action kept me interested, but I'm still not very sure of what's going on. There's a girl, who seems to have no function but to slow Petro down, and a vague number of bad guys who he beats up. I'm a little skeptical of how well a prepubescent boy can take on grown men with swords.

Some sort of magic happens later, which may be connected to the snake bite? Not entirely clear on what happened or whether anyone else can see the glowing ball. If so, it should attract people from all over, since this is at night.

I do agree with @kaisa that your fight blocking is well done. I teach karate, to both kids and adults, so I was willing to give most of my disbelief a pass, as you identified targets where a boy could hurt a man (kick to the mouth, groin, soft tissue), however at the end it started to stretch my belief. I think kaisa's idea of cutting some of the fighting out will help. 

Notes while reading:

pg 1: "His uncle's words,"
--his uncle's words what? You give the quote, but not what his reaction is.

pg 1: alot -> a lot

pg 1: "Where are you Uncle?"
--Where are you, Uncle?

pg 2: "slammed P's heart and chilled it still"
--awkward

pg 3: "dropped to the dark ground"
--partly WRS, I'm sure, but I have no idea where he is and what P's surroundings look like. Where is he dropping from? He's in a tree, but I don't where it is in the landscape.

pg 4: "They skulked across the path"
--still dont' have a good grasp of surroundings.

pg 4: "a dark hole underneath"
--a dark hole in the bush's foliage? the ground?
--ah, explained in the next paragraph. Could probably clear this up with sentence construction.

pg 5: "The girl’s repeated warm breath"
--mixing senses. The warmth isn't loud. The breathing is.

pg 5: "I’m going to have to fight"
--I think only this part of the paragraph should be italicized.

pg 7: "freet"
--free

pg 8: "two fang marks in his flesh"
--well that's not good.

pg 9: "He looked up just in time to see the raider fall onto his back, pressing both of his hands to one eye."
--wait, what just happened?

pg 10: "He grasped at his temples and the cries changed into something like clanging metal. His heart raced, and P gasped as a surge of blood energy coursed through him,"
--Do what now? Is this magic? What's happening?

pg 10: "At once, the man froze and glanced furtively in his general direction."
--If P's got a glowing light, the man would have seen him by now.

pg 12: "the girl’s hand relaxed in his"
--I still have no idea who this girl is. At this point she's basically a McGuffin.

2 hours ago, kaisa said:

Twelve year olds are pretty social creatures, even the shy ones. Asking the girl's name would be pretty expected, or at the very least giving her some descriptor title in lieu of that. 

Agree completely.

pg 12: "P's strange vision"
--So can only he see the glowing sphere?

[Mandamon]

31 minutes ago, industrialistDragon said:

Mandamon wins the some-whatsit count, with a mere 5 some-whatsits and 5 some [word] phrases (for a total of 10) across 9 pages of text.  3 of the some [word] phrases were in a purposefully-repeated phrase near the end, likely for the effect. I did not notice these at all. 

Gold star for extra work!

I'm been coming down hard on "some" words in my writing over the past year, trying to be more specific, so I'm glad it's showing!

Have you seen how many carrots they pack in a bag? Just one will last you a while...

[rdpulfer]

I briefly considered writing my thoughts for this chapter in entirely "some-what-it's", but I thought that might seem a bit too passive-aggressive (or maybe I'll just wait until I review something of IndustrialDragon, since he pointed it out.)

- Isn't unnerving kind of exciting on some level?

- Watch out for mixed sensory notes, like "The girl's repeated warm breath left Petro cringing. Does she have to be so loud?" Warm should probably be replaced with something like "heavy" or 'erratic".

- The action scenes generally work, and so does the pacing.

- Pretty good ending. I'm curious to see what's next. 

 

Edited March 15, 2017 by rdpulfer

[Robinski]

Comments.

• First para does a good job of setting mood and tension, I thought. Well, maybe not tension, but unease certainly.

• I think the burst of action works well as a release to P’s tension. His uncle is there and gone, barely seen at all, which I enjoyed and then P is interacting with the girl. “he felt her fingertips flutter over his hand” I though you did a good job of raising more tension through her resistance. Even these little notes add greatly to character and therefore enjoyment. It’s easy to say he grabs her hand and they go off and hide. I think these touches of the unexpected are a great addition to any piece.

• “the girl stepped with surprisingly soft feet” – really? Not sure why it’s surprising.

• “a Crispen Bush” – I’m still waging war on unnecessary capitals. Why capitalise ‘bush’? You don’t say ‘Oak Tree’. This here is distracting, it looks like a person’s name.

• “anger at the sight of the blade. Sacrilege.” – I know this was mentioned in the first chapter, but I don’t feel I have a strong enough sense of why carrying a sword is a sin.

• I think you use P’s name too much sometimes; I feel it sounds awkward, but also slows the narrative down.

• “The man spat out a tooth” – Don’t see why he would lose a tooth from a punch on the chin – a punch in the mouth, maybe.

• “landed a kick to the man's fruits” – Sorry, maybe it’s just my coarse northern sensibilities, but this seemed lame to me; we’re in the midst of a fight and it’s just so polite. If you don’t want to say ‘balls’, you could use ‘sack’, not really rude, surely, but less lame, imho.

• The magic leaves me kind of cold. We read so much magic on hear and this variety doesn’t stand out for me, it feels rather generic. What I do like if P continually reminding himself, pushing himself to focus, because it’s not natural for him, because he’s new and learning. I think that works well.

• “Relief flooded the girls face” – This statement is rather anonymous, because you’ve given no description of her. You described her before in terms of breathing, fingers, etc. when they were hiding and it was dark, but when you describe a character looking at someone’s face, I kind of expect, something. Not long description, but the eyes are the window to the soul, apparently, so there is so much character in the face that I just expect to learn something when a face is ‘viewed’ – if you see what I mean.

• “He pulled her close and looked about” – This makes no sense to me. Why does he do that? He’s just restricting his own movement (and the girl’s) when he could be attacked again at any moment.

• “He led the girl” – just before he leads her into the clearing, P spent about half a page running, but there was no description of the girl running with him or him leading her. I was like he had left her behind.

• “Don't leave me again” – Okay, damsels in distress, clearly, they exist, but it’s very generic. Sassy, belligerent females also exist and are becoming a cliché very quickly. So, what am I saying? I think you need something to set the girl apart from generic damsel in distress. Anything to give her some character, because she really is pushing all the stereotype buttons here. Sure, she can be scared, she can be unable to fight, but give her some better lines, I would suggest.

• I do like that P does the ‘hero’ lines, I will return to save you, then falls over; that’s good, a bit different.

Overall, I enjoyed this, I think it’s a good continuation of the story and I like P’s voice, I can root for him as a beginner. He’s not super competent, but he’s trying, which is a great aspect for a hero, attitude before competence. I think the girl and the magic need some work, for similar reasons, to make them more interesting and engaging. Nice job though, I feel like this can go places.

<R>

[M.Puddles]

On 2017-03-15 at 0:38 PM, Mandamon said:

pg 12: "P's strange vision"
--So can only he see the glowing sphere

Yes. The magic lets him see all sorts of new wave lengths. 

[Robinski]

On 15/03/2017 at 6:07 PM, industrialistDragon said:

Also, just because I was curious, I went and counted up EVERYONE'S "some-whatsit" usage from the submissions this week.

Oh, sure, pick the one week in two months when I'm not in competition!! Well, I went ahead and counted mine up from the week before, and I had 0 'some-whatsis' and 5 'some' [word]s over 16 pages.    Hey, that's fun, can we do it every week? 

Seriously though, I've commented about this before, imprecise language really kills momentum and involvement of the reader. Like @Mandamon, I've been working on it for about a year now and it really pays off. Great work @industrialistDragon!!