19-03-2018 - Majestic Fox - The Green Ocean - Chapter Two (First Half) 4413 words

[Majestic Fox he/him]

This is the first part of chapter two (second part coming next week).

 

Interested to know your moment by moment feelings. Please ignore any typos and little things...those will all be sorted on a later draft. 

Also interested to know where you think the second half of the chapter will go (or where you hope it will go).

 

Thanks in advance!

[Mandamon he/him]

I'm still enjoying this a lot. I didn't really have anything to comment on for the first half. It all flowed smoothly and made sense.

The meeting with the elders was interesting, and I felt added a bunch of worldbuilding we haven't seen yet. I'm glad we got an answer to W.'s difficulty with the town. it's all very unfair, but also easy to see happening.

I'm with W all the way up to the end of the section, but then she pulls the line about pretending to feel something for L. Hopefully this will be answered in the next section, but it seems out of character for her to pretend to like someone, especially since she notes L as being one who had shown her kindness and she needed to repay.

Definitely looking forward to W breaking free and getting out into the forest, whether with L, or the huntress, or alone, I'm not sure. I have a feeling there is a lot that isn't as it seems with this little village.

 

Notes while reading:

pg 6: "pain shall be visited upon those whom the dark god’s touch falls upon"
--take out the second "upon" and this is perfect.

pg 6: "strange ears"
--I wasn't completely sure on this the last time it was mentioned. It seemed like was just the inside of the ear that was different, which seems a very specific thing to focus on. How obvious is the difference?

pg 6: "We have questioned why you feel the need to escape from such work"
--I wouldn't think getting away from lifting stone and shoveling dung requires too much questioning...

pg 10: "scrapped up the wax pools"
--scraped

pg 11: "crouched over a writhing loom beetle"
--I remember that too! Which makes this section all the more poignant...

pg 12: "There’s other jobs that need in hands tomorrow."
--??

pg 14: "It was a cruel thing, making him believe she reciprocated his feelings for her"
--So why is she doing this? It seems out of character for W.

[Majestic Fox he/him]

18 minutes ago, Mandamon said:

I'm with W all the way up to the end of the section, but then she pulls the line about pretending to feel something for L

I'm pulling the trigger on this character flaw. Manipulation and deceit have become necessary for her to survive. Will try to find an engaging way of communicating that in the second half.

 

Thanks for the comments @Mandamon, I really appreciate it.

[kais]

I am here. I am ready. I have my shipping hat on. May the huntress be everything I hope for.

Overall

Generally, very nice! I had some impact/buy in issues with the council, but I think a bit of rearranging would fix that just fine. Like @Mandamon, I have some questions about the ending line about pretending to feel, and how it goes will definitely affect how I feel about the protag. I don't much mind if she is stringing him along romantically (I don't like it, but I can understand it), but if she's stringing him along for friendship, that turns her into unlikable for me, and I'll have a somewhat (though not insurmountable) time getting over it.

Keep subbing, please!

As I go

- page one: assuming you meant beginnings OF a blister?

- this idle toying with the blister and popping it is really engaging. I'm very here for this

- page two: training with THE huntress, unless you want to capitalize huntress. Also please, PLEASE start training with the huntress. 

- voice as soft as swan feathers is excellent imagery

- page three: spun, not span. Same line you have a 'the' instead of 'then'

- page five: WRS likely, but there are a lot of names now and I don't remember who most of the people are

- page six: I'm having a hard time with the buy-in on why they won't let her be a hunter. Yes, her origin is mysterious, but I'm not getting a sense of real fear or urgency from the elders here. If they don't really trust her, wouldn't letting her go into the woods and maybe die potentially help them, since if she's dead, she can't rain destruction on the village and whatnot if she has some mysterious dark power?

- page seven: okay so we get a bit more background here, but I'm still sort of on the fence with the explanation

- page ten: a lot of being told that people are concerned on this page

- page thirteen: the fab girl explanation is very helpful! Might need this more spelled out, earlier, to help with the council meeting impact

- page fourteen: wait, she doesn't consider him a friend? Or are you insinuating that he likes her as more than a friend, and she likes him only as a friend? Might want to clarify. I mean, I'm totally pulling for protag x huntress, obvs, but like, friends are important too, even puppy love ones.

[mrwizard70]

Notes as I read;

It’s obvious why she’s thinking about the saying, so her talking like it isn’t was a little odd.

If they have animal pens in them, why are they called mines?

I like the moth. Good symbolism, good way to point out her animal connection. 

The elder scene is well done, but also canned. I’ve sat here for like ten minutes rereading trying to figure out why I feel that way, but I think it’s mostly just the ordinariness of the plot, which isn’t a valid criticism because there’s also this interesting religious and possibly racial stuff going on. I’m interested in what others think.

“She needed shadows.” Is both beautiful and clunky. I love it and I love the implications, but it doesn’t quite fit the way it is. Syntax change in the paragraph might help a lot. 

The cleaning scene is well written and designed, but hard to follow because the viewpoint character is freaking out.

The vision is on the nose foreshadowing, but it also excited me. The lack of voice/tone change was a little weird. 

Dialogue is cool. Maybe not the easiest to follow, but I like it. 

Oooohhh. I’m rooting for Lewis. 

And you storming killed it. Ouch. Mah hert, mah soul. Age difference makes that realisitic and reasonable. 

Promises I see thus far

Creatures and Druid magic, cleric magic, monsters, and wonder and awe, love triangle, woman vs society conflict. 

 

[kais]

17 minutes ago, mrwizard70 said:

The elder scene is well done, but also canned. I’ve sat here for like ten minutes rereading trying to figure out why I feel that way, but I think it’s mostly just the ordinariness of the plot, which isn’t a valid criticism because there’s also this interesting religious and possibly racial stuff going on. I’m interested in what others think.

I agree on the canned part. I think it was helped a lot later, with explanations, but without those later explanations, this fell flat. We needed more 'angry fae girl rage' or explanation before the elder scene, I think, and then a bit more emoting on all parties while in the scene.

[Truthweaver she/her]

I'm enjoying this story a lot so far. I'm rooting for W already and genuinely interested in what happens to her, and that doesn't happen quickly for me with a lot of characters. I find her very relatable.

I agree with the others about the scene with the elders. It was good, and I felt pretty crushed for W when they outright refused her, but I'd like to see more of why they refused her. What are they afraid of if they make her a hunter?

Where I hope this will go: W will go behind everyone's back with L and train to be a huntress in secret. Please. I still feel bad for her.

[Majestic Fox he/him]

17 hours ago, kais said:

I agree on the canned part. I think it was helped a lot later, with explanations, but without those later explanations, this fell flat. We needed more 'angry fae girl rage' or explanation before the elder scene, I think, and then a bit more emoting on all parties while in the scene.

Great comments so far.

I think I know what you mean by 'canned', but not certain. Would be useful to know what you and @mrwizard70 mean by it though.

 

Much appreciated.

[Majestic Fox he/him]

20 hours ago, mrwizard70 said:

The elder scene is well done, but also canned. I’ve sat here for like ten minutes rereading trying to figure out why I feel that way, but I think it’s mostly just the ordinariness of the plot, which isn’t a valid criticism because there’s also this interesting religious and possibly racial stuff going on. I’m interested in what others think.

I think there might be a link between this part feeling canned, and something @Truthweaver said:

19 hours ago, Truthweaver said:

I'd like to see more of why they refused her. What are they afraid of if they make her a hunter?

If there was a powerful and convincing reason for why the elders refuse her, then I suspect the story would be more compelling, but you're right @mrwizard70, there are definitely ordinary/cliche/over familiar aspects to the story. They need to be nuanced to add a dash of uniqueness to the familiar. I've got some ideas on how to do that, but it will involve making changes to the writing I've already submitted, which I've promised not to do until I get to the end.

I think the best thing would be to write a brief summary of what those changes are, so that the story continues to make sense for you guys going forward.

Any thoughts on this are welcome.

Thanks again  : ) 

 

 

 

[industrialistDragon]

Oh, I really enjoyed this! I feel for W and the way the elders crushed her dreams.  The main thing that stuck out to me in this section was the way that the elder's reasoning for why W was fey and untrustworthy confused me. I don't have a problem with them seeing her as dangerous, but I feel like their logic needed to be stated a bit clearer or more plainly for me to understand what was going on. I pieced it together later, but I feel like the scene would have had more impact if I'd been able to follow what they were saying better at the time. Looking forward to reading the next part of this!  

[Majestic Fox he/him]

Thanks for the great feedback, all. 

I'll be away for a couple of weeks, but the good @Robinski will be submitting the second half of chapter two on Monday. 

Will be without internet for a while, but will try my best to get some feedback out. Thanks again. 

[Robinski he/him]

Delighted to be reading Chapter 2 now. Apologies for lateness of these comments. I know you are travelling now. Have a great trip: there will be tonnes of comments awaiting your return, I’m sure!!

• I will email LBLs separately, but will paste the substantive comments here.
• I’m going to do a survey of the character names to see how well I remember them, mostly to hark back to the comment (not just from me, I think) about how many characters were introduced in the first chapter. So, Ol=yes (the teacher of initiates?); High=yes (the hunter?); Pete=yes (as you’ve tagged his profession again. I can’t help feeling blacksmiths are a cliché now).
• L=no; first one that I don’t remember. Oh, wait, she’s the hunter. The tag certainly is needed here, I think. The name is quite grand; maybe doesn’t sound very hunter-y.
• W is engaging in her caring attitude, which does her credit, and makes me want her to succeed. The aspect of her character that is a bit off-putting is her indecisiveness. That could be a real weakness going forward. She has goals, yes, and that is so important to keep her engaging, but I would be cautious about how hesitant/indecisive you make her.
• Bunch more names coming up, but you sort of get away with it by prefixing them all with the title ‘Elder’.
• I don’t remember who Gr is when first mentioned, and I still don’t by the time we get to W resuming her duties. This is a problem, I think. I want to know (remember) what Gr does.
• “…as Mistress L had has consented…” – I don't buy this. The tone has been quite informal up to now with names and forms of address, not really using them much at all. This sounds like it's from a different story.
• “You’ve never trusted me.” – This is something you've flagged before, but I don't you've yet explained it clearly enough for the reader to buy into it. Why is W not trusted; why is she apart from everyone else?

·       “turning his eyes on to W-----” – I think you too often describe what everyone's eyes are doing; it's becoming particularly noticeable in this scene, but I remember it from other too. A little of that goes quite a long way. Edit: this recurrs several times. Doing a search, there are fifteen instances of describing what people do with their eyes, or W does to their eyes. I think that’s too much, and often it sounds rather clumsey, I thought, compared to some other, simpler description.

• “She had no idea the elders viewed her this way.” – Really? It seems strange, almost unbelievable, that she could reach the age she has without knowing this, without challenging someone and finding out, or just guessing why she was treated as someone apart. It's not that hard to guess, if she knows her origin.
• “resenting how womanly it made her” – Odd thought. I don't think we've had any other notion of this feeling within her.
• “had considered snuffing her life out” – Did he say that? Not sure I picked that up.
• “Brought you some stew” – I think there is a gap here, surely? L would not know that W was not going to commons until he had been there, or certainly, he would need to have gone there and come back with the stew. It does not read that way though, which threw me right out.

I enjoyed this. There is lots going on, and plenty to think about. The easy style carries me through and I think there is a pretty engaging character there, who has complexity, and also has a clear goal. There are conflicts and challenges too, which is a must, of course, and I think you’ve managed that well. I have some issues, but not major ones, still, I think these are easily fixable without major changes.

Line-by-line suggestions sent separately.

I am looking forward to next week, as you’ve promised some rule breaking action in the pretty near future

Good work.

<R>

[Robinski he/him]

On 20/03/2018 at 3:10 PM, Mandamon said:

Definitely looking forward to W breaking free and getting out into the forest,

Yes, you've made this a big deal. Don't even think of disappointing us now!

On 20/03/2018 at 3:10 PM, Mandamon said:

but then she pulls the line about pretending to feel something for L.

I've suggested an LBL there, because I had a similar issue. I too found it out of character, and I though perhaps that she might not have found a good opportunity to let him down kindly?

On 21/03/2018 at 1:56 PM, Majestic Fox said:

Any thoughts on this are welcome.

Well, you did ask... I could see that point of view on the elder scene. Maybe it's a bit pat in the set up. Circle of elders in grand surroundings; supplicant has been 'bad'/broken the rules, gets chastised for transgressions; punishment is meted out; supplicant goes away feeling bitter and angry. I very much accept that you need the scene, and need it to work that way. I agree with others that doling out explanation is the thing that keeps the scene interesting and moving forward, so, starting that explanation earlier in the scene might well be the way to distract the reader from any patness/canned-ness that might come across.

Ooh, I just realised that I could read ahead ...