Hello Cassie,
How perfectly wicked of you to write such a superb first chapter, and leave it at that...
The style you've adopted to tell the tale of Caitlin is appropriate and plausible, with a lovely hint of witty observation here and there. Your writing flows and is also inventive, with some vivid imagery.
Both characters are rounded and individual with their own idiosyncracies and voices, even in death.
Description of the setting is interesting and relevant without disrupting the narrative flow, and provides great contrast with that which Caitlin longs for.
Just one little (apparent) ommission:
'...the next minute she had fallen to the kitchen floor in a cloud of spilt flour, dead.'
This has all the makings of an exciting adventure, incorporating magic, time travel and an heiress with a lust for life - I look forward to reading the next installment. Soon, hopefully...
What I particularly like about your writing is the crisp rhythm – no excessively long sentences or reliance on adjectives. Where you are descriptive, it’s appropriate, and inventive: “listless grey couch”, “eyelids fluttering like butterflies”
What I also like is how you don’t launch into exhaustive physical descriptions, but leave snippets of detail: “…dark hair falling into…”
There is a bit of the dreaded however…: I don’t know why, but the opening paragraph lacks the punch required to match the quality of your subsequent writing. Maybe the sentences are too long, or some of the phrases – engage endorphins, approximate age, used the sun -- a bit stilted, jargonny. I imagine that the purpose of the paragraph is to describe what strikes Terry most, in his state of shock, so play around with the structuring. e.g.:
She looked like the kind of girl who ran to clear her head.
Blonde hair,from a bottle of course. Hazel eyes with little flecks of black. The lines around her eyes revealed her approximate age. Freckles and blotches betrayed that she was out in the sun too much.
She only wanted to run.
I’m also wondering if you can emphasise the cruelty and/or significance of Terry’s predicament, not simply through the dream, but also in behaviour, or an unintended pun from a detective, or Terry himself.
Couple of typos:
"Damn," he muttered as he searched through the grass.
"I hear this is your third body," the detective commiserated.
muttered to himself in an unintelligible language.
that frozen, shocked look of disbelief apparent on two bodies washing up to shore
sat on the listless grey couch in his apartment,
began to feel positively buoyant
This is an artfully crafted story. Thank you for writing it. I hope you carry on in this unfamiliar vein.
As they used to say in one of my temporary necks of the wood, Glasgow: Dinna fash yerself. You're in the perfect place it would seem here at writing.com to get through your writers block - any thoughts that you feel need to be on a page will be welcomed by at least one reader who feels in some way or another connected to your words.
I hope your short, but relevant, gathering of verbs will lead to some insightful and engaging writing.
Good luck!
Wonderful Prologue! It definitely made me want to read the next chapter and find out what happens to Kylara. I’ve added some points that struck me during reading:
1. Very good opening sentence! The reader is immediately drawn in by the unusual name and the fact that the statement is dramatic. Suggestion: keep it short. Stop after ‘freezing’ and use a new sentence to explain why she is freezing. The second ‘Kylara’ can be replaced by ‘she’.
2. Consider another adjective to describe the wind. It is not the howling that affects her, but more likely its iciness, the fact that it cuts through everything
3. You explain that Kylara had to train in secret to become a warrior. Why then would she possess her own warriors clothing? And if it is a secret it would be great for the reader to discover through her actions throughout the story how powerful she actually is. I’m not sure this information is necessary in the prologue.
4. I really like your idea of using an prologue to establish her motivation for the remainder of the story: survival.
5. I reckon you are trying to convey that a lot of horrible things have happened to her in the past few weeks and she is probably completely numb with starvation, the cold and shock. Stylistically this can be enhanced by using short simple sentences:
Kylara was freezing. It was wintertime in Night Forest, and all she had to protect herself from the brutal wind was her cloak.
She was the only one from her town to survive. A blizzard had caught them all by surprise and food had run out rapidly. All the animals had been butchered. Still there had not been enough to eat.
First the weak had died. Kylara had been fortunate; she was young and healthy, and had been trained by her warrior father to survive on very little. But even giving up her ration of food had not been enough.
Everyone she loved had died. Two weeks of freezing temperatures and nothing to eat had even been too much for her father. He had made her promise that she would head for the Night Forest. She would leave the only home she had ever known and try her best to survive.
"Promise!’’ he had urged, his eyes suddenly fierce in his gaunt face. “You are strong Kylara. Use the skills I taught you. You must survive!” She had only been able to nod, too overcome to speak. But it had been enough. His body had slackened, and Kylara had watched as the last of her family died.
Kylara pulled her cloak tighter around her. Now she understood why no one had tried to leave and seek help. It was complete suicide. There was no food or water here, except melted snow. The flint she carried was useless because the wood was too wet to build a fire. Her bow and arrow and her father’s long sword only weighed her down. There was nothing to hunt in Night Forest.
But Kylara could not give up. She had made a promise. She had been walking for two days now without rest, but she would not give up hope. Not yet. Not ever. She kept her head bent and pulled her hood down as she stumbled on. She would survive.
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