Wow, after finishing your story inside I was literally jumping up and down in joy. Ok, I am using the modern use of "literally" which means I was actually just sitting and said "Damn that's good". Oh hyperbole. I love your use of music and color to define the mood and personalities of the characters. Your retelling of a timeless tale (timeless may not be right as Time was there all along) was fresh. Your use of descriptive words works well and your sentences, though packed, flow well. The story demonstrates your good use of vocabulary without it seeming forced and it felt natural. Phrases like Tongues of light sprouted or Terrible thunders boomed like an unspeakable wave of destruction are put together well and really helped give me good images of the scene.
I was surprised by your divergence from most authors with this story type. The angels as far as I could tell were only with the girl (what, no name, lol) and never seemed to leave her. Usually the "angels" band breaks up and go on separate tours competing for the same audience(loosely keeping your your musical analogy). You are new to WDC but it feels like you have been writing a long time. Kudos and keep it up.
I laughed when I saw your "Genres: Mythology, Other, Other". All of us struggle to place our writing in the specific canned categories that are given so you are in good company. But on this site sometimes people search to read in a category so it doesn't hurt to try and put something else so you have more ways of catching peoples attention.
Some possible spelling changes, word changes or phrase modifications. Remember that these are only suggestions and all reviewers have personal bias and may not even agree with each other so take them or leave them, for it is your work.
-..where to entities.. change the "to" to "two"
- ...be made flesh. Perhaps "take form" or did you mean them to have flesh and blood or be energies that had a physical like form.
-If it were under a guiding hand, or perhaps a coincidental banality, without meaning or goal?
first: possible make it start like a question if you end in a question like "Could it have been under..."
second: banality means common or mundane and for me it does not fit well here. I might suggest: occasion, incidence, juncture, transition.
-Lightings circled Did you mean Lightnings?
When she scattered an abundance of stars, he scarred those with meteors and volcanoes. When galaxies sprouted from her dance, like flowers, he crafted a trap to swallow all light. Perhaps put galaxies first then stars. Also stars can't be scarred or have volcanoes but planets and moons can. Perhaps "...stars and planets around them, he..."
-She regained her temper From that paragraph she did not lose her temper except by loose implication. She was still "captured in his melody" which I assumed was both physically and emotionally and she was frightened. Seeing her work destroyed could have only made her sad and temper is usually about anger not sadness or fright. a suggestion might be to change temper to perhaps "tempo" for the music analogies or use "composure" or let us know in previous sentences that she was angry.
She let her, but instead.. Change her to him.
Putrified from her determination and skill, and failed to regain his control. This was unclear to me as there is no word "putrified" Now putrefied with an e means decays or bad smell which does not seem to fit here. Petrified means turned to stone, not moving but she is moving so that does not make sense to me. Also you say regain his control but she never had "his" control, do you mean "her control"? The over all sense that I get from this sentence is: What she was doing wasn't working and she wasn't getting the results she wanted. I really don't have a suggestion but you might think about reworking that sentence.
...bending to fit her own creation. Actually fine as is but I thought optionally one could change creation to "creations" if it is to be the result of the song or "design" or "melody" if you mean change the song itself.
Each favored his own creation,... "his" as is still acceptable as a collective his/her but is going out of favor for the more gender neutral "their"
...not when men showed such a distinct talent to please both ways. Talent can give the feeling of something learned outside of who you are. I would have liked "proclivity" or "desire" better to feel like it is more innate than learned.
He knew, eventually that stage will be his exclusively. I know that may seem odd to you but I am a believe that not only the meaning of a word but the actually sounds it makes when you say it can have an influence on the reader. words that have hard sounds like the consonant K feel harsh and those with soft sounds like an l "feel" lighter. Take crash and collide that have similar meanings both start with harsh k-sound. Discount the meaning for a moment and listen or say the words. Crash is short and ends in a harsh sh that when you say it it comes out out with more air and gives the feeling of short and collapsing and one can imagine more damage from it. Collide is longer and the with a soft middle final d is soft and clipped and one does not feel from the sound as much damage. Ok, what is my point. Your reader at the end will remember or judge you by your last sentence or word. You end this amazing story with an awkward word "exclusively" which if you say it slowly not only does it have that harsh "k" sound but your mouth does mental gymnastics to say it. It is a perfectly good word in the middle of a story but to end the story with a long exhausting word may not leave the reader "feeling" good. Could I suggest something like "He knew the stage would be eventually his, and his alone."
Thank you for giving us a fresh and vivid vision of an old story type.
Hey Joey, I enjoyed reading your article on your rules of magic. You have done a great job in creating layers of magic rules for duration and consequences .I like the fact that you have different types of magic that may fit types of people or cultures (regions). If people were pitted to war or protect themselves would all magic types be equal in power to each other or is there a rock paper scissors balance like Primera beats Elemental, Elemental beats Naturi, Naturi beats Primera and Dynastic beats all.
I was curious on the order you put magic discovery by people. Dynasitc then Elemental, Naturi then Primera? I might have thought that discovery (with no outsiders revealing) would have started with the personal (primera) then to other living things Naturi then to Elemental and finally the most complex to control, Dynastic, would have been the last to be discovered.
It also sounds from your descriptions that each magic form is different enough that if one wants to be great then they need to focus mainly on one type.
Magic is just one of the elements that I call the Mechanics of a world where one needs to decide what is the background for the story. Does gravity behave the same as in our world. Most choose to have most of the world behave like ours as that is easiest write and complex worlds can get unwieldly to explain or be consistent with. Short stories do not need much consistency as they are short, but when you are creating a world that may be the background for many stories or a multiple novel long story then it become more important to understand what the world entails
*like geography and how far does one map it and how consistent one is with how long it take to get the same distance
*Weather and regional seasons
*Countries and people groups
*Histories and how far in the past is needed to reveal
*Number of characters or families that need to be manipulated in the story
*what is the technological level of society.
*
I myself am not a published author but I have several stories I am developing and some include magic yet each is different. In one story what looks like magic is produced by advanced technology and only genetically modified individuals can tap into it. In another story only one people on one planet due to a cosmic event became energy manipulators (users of magic). In another story that takes place in our universe but has the planet of the story with humans from earth but the planet was created by a being (God) to have different rules that allow for the interaction with matter that would not be possible here in earth. A fourth story also uses our universe but energies that we observe on earth (electromagnetic, weak, strong energy, gravity) are not the only energies but the earths solar system has in the last 500 years moved into an eclipsed zone (nodal null) for 2 or three other energies that can be tapped in to so that people in other solar systems can be magical but on earth today cannot.
Other things to also consider in Stories that use Magic
Magical users: In ones world of magic and magic rules, sometimes one needs to decide if all people can use magic or for those that do are they limited to one type of magical ability (randomly or by some family lineage). Do some have the potential to be great magical users while others no matter how hard they train will only be able to use little.
Magical objects: Magical objects in a story allow so many hooks and directions and may need rules or at least a framework for their existence and potential limitations. Are they containers of energy, a conduit for energy or an opening to an energy source. Are there particular materials needed or can anything become a magical object? Can they be created today or are they only from a (mythical) past. Are they brought from someplace else to this world. The objects in the story allow weaker characters to have some equality to or protection from stronger characters. They can be objects to find to rid the evil or object to destroy to stop the evil. They may allow one to reveal the history behind it to get a glimpse of a time past or illuminate some other dimension that is hidden.
Magical Places – Are there natural or created places in the story world that magic is nullified or places in the world that magic is intensified.
Magical Interloper -outsiders that due to rules we may not understand enter the world to disrupt or help or neutrally observe the peoples of a world. They may be gods (beings of great power), advanced civilizations (huminoid or not), machines, other dimensional beings. In our stories they may give advice, teach new things, add tension to the story
Magical Anomalies: LOL, Sometimes no matter how rigid we make our world, the creative process brings things that do not fit our nice tidy package and that is o.k.. For example Tom Bombadil in LOTR does not fit the rules from all other pieces of writing from Tolkien’s world. Any world can have its mysteries that even the author cannot explain, yet somehow works within the story frame.
Amazing story of only 300 (exactly at the limit) words that met the requirement . This is not a story that is wrapped up but gives us the sense at the end that there is so much more to be told. I will admit I did not get the double entendre of the title the first time through, but when I did, I laughed. Some stories endings don't make sense in context of their world and because of that it doesn't work. This ones ending does not make sense (security guard eager to help), but it it only makes you sit up and say 'hey wait a minute that should not happen. OK, what have you not told me you dastardly storyteller, I am all ears, explain that one away.' and I settle myself down in anticipation of a good yarn.
Suggestions:
paragraph beginning with "Even though I..." two possible changes:
1. "...I have learnt them.." to "..I learned them..."
2. You say that you can't unscramble words that you learned implying that you learned them scrambled. Maybe change
"...I can't unscramble the tangle of words." to " ...the words became scrambled [tangled] in my mind." or for word count "...the words became scrambled."
Paragraph beginning with "I am sweating..." Concerning the length of the corridor perhaps change "It must be..." to "It felt like.." or "It seemed like..." unless you meant that it was really a couple of miles. (get those jogging shoes on, lol).
We use distance and time as authors to help enforce the state of mind of the character to the audience. When the time or distance is shortened from actuality with the character we associate joy, or indifference, or lost in thought 'where did the time go?'. When the character senses lengthening of time or distance we, as an audience, will associate that with anxiety or fear or otherworldlyness.
Paragraph beginning with "I'm in." I feel that "gray walnuts of humankind" should be changed but I am at a loss for suggestions as I have no idea what you are referencing here or what social meme I am missing. Since you were talking of jars with peoples names my first thought was of body parts and the only conspicuous body parts of that size would be testicles but that did not make sense with your ending or with the word humankind (only half the population). Then I thought perhaps a brain, but preserved brains do not shrivel to that size even if dried out. I have been accused of having a brain that size, but I may be unique.
Summary: Great story of only 300 words, keep up the good work.
Dr. D
Debbie I will review this as poetry even though you labeled it as prose. This frees me from having to deal strongly on punctuation, capitalization, word order.
This work (poem) speaks powerfully to a parent with a child that has had a tragic event. I can picture a parent on their knees with the child in their arms almost rocking. I like the use of ellipses and italics almost like the regular type is what the head is saying but the italics the heart. I thought of the paragraph spaces as pauses: one pause then two pauses, then two pauses then one pause the three pauses. I interpreted the extra third space (pause) as when the death occurred (implied in stanza eight "as I mourn for you"
My favorite line was "My voice trembled/...as I mentioned your name"
I was not clear to me why you, in stanza six, lead the regular type with ellipses and then ended the italic line with ellipses.
I might suggest on the last stanza moving the ellipses after "you" to the next line to emphasize the pause.
I love poems about fantasy characters as it gives them that epic feel and helps to reveal history to the world and perhaps connects them to the story and characters. This is a interesting character in that we know he is a king but is in almost eternal slumber and dreams with his eyes open and we do not know whether this is self imposed or inflicted on him. Because the poem has a prophetic bent to it the king or his throne cannot be killed or destroyed but will sleep through all the good parts, lol.
What I like:
good 8 beat meter throughout the five couplets
good rhyming (with exception of roots and woods used twice and as far as I know do not rhyme)
favorite line "His glade-green eyes yet now seem dead"
suggestions:
perhaps use a better rhyme than roots/woods
Maybe use on the second line "There sits 'a' king, the king of woods"
How you may use this:
This poem would work best I think if it was introduced with some prose describing the king then belt out the verse.
There are three possible things to do with this king
1. he is an oddity on the side of the adventure, to give character to the land
2. There is an object of the king that you character can take and use.
3. The dreams of the king can reveal things to the characters
Sounds like your lands are brimming with things of interest around every corner. Keep up your writing.
Dr. D.
I love the story in your introduction to the poem, I hope some day you will give us more details to this most intriguing tale. In just a few sentences I was hooked.
My interest was piqued at the name of the tome "Drugir veros do-Drugabar". If DRUGir means dwarf and DRUGabar means the fallen, after ruminating a bit think I might see the connection. If DRUG means to crush then dwarfs (Drugir) would be "crushers", what they do to stone but the fallen (Drugabar) would be crushed or broken ones. I am sure the actual entomology is far different than mine, but to me it made sense.
I liked your poem, it had good lines like
"The hammers struck and embers blazed"
"And songs were sung and pints were raised"
There were a few places that some near rhymes and I might suggest
"In name of king, and name of home" could be changed to "In name of king and home of stone"
and possibly "In ancient dark, no dwarf remains" to "in ancient dark, no dwarf could stay"
to have stronger rhyming but those kinds of things are personal choices.
I was a little confused by the subtitle that the poem was about "life and death" of Ogrimbal. We do not get to hear of any action of his (life) except he is on the throne it would be nice to have a stanza of some action, like leading his people there. Also you do not share anything of his death except he is by his broken throne. Pretty please, a stanza that would give us [me] a glimpse of his last epic battle [grin].
Good job, You definitely have good ideas. Dr. D
Very well spun story with little or no grammer errors. I did find on ommision of "it" in the line "...and placed [it] in her bag.... I was surprised that the last line she uses the same name as before as I assumed she previously used a pseudonym. The twists are clever and is nicely tied up in the end. I would like to see this character evolve in a novel where we can see her practicing her craft and maybe see how she deals with betrayel. Keep up the good work
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