forum Story in progress - please critique

Started April 15, 2021 by Tati

tune

So, I'm in the progress of writing a story. It's somewhat related to the other one I've posted in this forum. I'd like some feedback. What do you like/dislike? Does anything need more description/explanation?
Here's the link:

I like that it has fairies, only because fairy lore is my jam. ;P That said, I feel like my advice is the same as with your other one: Write all of this one to the end the way that you are writing, and then go back and find ways to improve the scenes and sentences after this whole thing is done.

Because this reads like a Zero Draft to me. (Sorry this article-writer tends to have plenty of preamble, but this has the gist of it:

https://isabel.substack.com/p/howtowritethethingfast1

https://tinyletter.com/isabelcanas/letters/how-to-write-the-thing-fast-part-2-in-defense-of-drafting-with-arrogance )

… Because, I think that it is not in want of more description of explanation necessarily, but…maybe more like…A way to prioritize what a reader should know to remain invested while at the same time keeping some mystery.

So, for example, what's important about Fairy Queen Tina is that she wants to take the main character away from her home and her parents. At this point in the story, the reader doesn't need to know what she was wearing, and doesn't even need to know that Tina is a fairy or that the main character's father's mother had a bad reputation, or that the main character knows it but was expecting to live a normal life not being randomly taken away by fairy queens.

I think the story beat is: Tina arrives to take the main character away. What's everybody going to do about it?

What Tina is wearing can be described if it's memorable to the character or odd to the reader, so it's not automatically a bad thing to say that any character is wearing clothes—but the way it's written makes it sound like as though what Tina is wearing is as important as everybody saying out loud what everybody else already knows for the benefit of the reader.

If that's the way it's going to be after draft revision, then it does what I've heard of called Front Loading.

Fantasy writers especially are vulnerable to this…We know a feature of our fantasy setting is important to establish, so sometimes there's going to be one character saying to another in the prologue, "As you know, we live on an archipelago of floating islands in the sky that each have their own gravitational field—" or, I'm guilty of this, that the first time a character is shown to cast a spell, the narrator puts on several paragraphs about how it's not magic it's wee robots controlled by cell sites corresponding to a magic-user's surgically-implanted device. Because I thought it was cool. But what it does instead is turn a fantasy story into a user manual for tech that the reader doesn't own, and takes attention away from character motivations.

This is why, while I dearly hope that this hasn't sabotaged your accidental Zero Draft (because Zero Drafts are nifty! They're so nifty,) I mainly want to say beware of Front Loading.

The narrator doesn't have to tell the reader everything that's happening and the reason for it, and the characters don't have to say aloud what they already know the other characters know. The perspective can, for example, stay with the main character on the evening that this mysterious person comes up to the door and upsets the main character's parents. It can even remain a mystery to the reader how much the main character knows…or there can be others ways to set up, frame, and develop a scene. I hope this helps!

Yes. I think this helps. So, I feel as though I need to explain to you what the plot is in order to get further help. Is that ok?

So, in short. Ben has hidden his true origins from the public in order to escape the ridicule that comes with not being human in their world. Throughout her childhood, (since about 8 years old) Amelia has presented powers that no one ever considered would be magic. Two months before the start of the story, Amelia started at a new school, there Tina was able to notice that there was something not human about her. When Ben was 5, he asked his adopted mother to take away his magic and she did so. So, now Ben's confronted with the need to establish that his well-known daughter s a fairy and explain his origins. Tina is without an heir and I'm planning to have her eventually appoint either Amelia or Alya as her heir. Tina is also confronted with the realization that Alex wishes to kill her and take her throne.
Please read the rest. There's some more that's explained next.

Also in terms of the things that you saw as possibly unnecessary. It would be helpful if you could quote some of it so I could easily find it in the docx.

I feel as though I need to explain to you what the plot is in order to get further help

Please read the rest. There's some more that's explained next.

But my feedback was that there was too much explanation by Front Loading, and not well-paced… More explanation doesn't make that better, because the problem is too much explanation…

But I have read the rest, and I gather that what you want the reader to know within two chapters is:

1980 Inter-Clan Treaty of elementals founded by two fairy elemental parents, Alex Howler elected by one of Tina's parents due to nepotism
1983 Tina born, future Queen of Fairies
1993 Ben born to fairies
???? Ben and Alya orphaned and marked by Alex Howler
1998 Ben requests adoptive mother to take away his magic
???? Ben meets the allegedly notorious Ally Cowiak, outs himself to her family, they marry and have Amelia
August 2021, Amelia transfers school; Tina begins to notice that Amelia has fairy powers
October 2021, Tina pays a visit to Amelia's parents.

• Alex Howler crashes the unofficial house party, monologues exposition, sets fire to something, vanishes after the reveal that Ben's not-having-fairy-magic-anymore spell that his adoptive mother cast, is broken.
• Amelia decides to visit Alex's unmentioned daughter, Alya.
• Samantha was here the whole time somehow? Alya talks exposition, Tina talks exposition, Ben talks exposition, they all walk to the gym to meet with Tammi Denuna. Alex Howler appears again.

All of that happens in just a little under 3,150 words. Unless this is a Zero Draft or stylized like the Silmarillion (Tolkien's entire history of his setting), the reader doesn't actually need to know within the first three chapters that Alex Howler was Tina's mother's sister and elected to lead the Treaty back in the 1980's and gave Alya and Ben tattoos as children.

Let's say that you do have Alex with a smirk tell Ben, "I guess that spell wasn't as permanent as you thought." After which…nothing more has to be explained about that for a while, really. You can show that Ben is upset, maybe that he's too upset to talk about it, or show that more magic happens that didn't happen before that seems to come from Ben who is struggling to cast spells more precisely…but the reader does not actually need to know with words that he says out loud, that he requested his adoptive mother to seal his powers away back in the 1990s.

Or for another example, let's say that Amelia notices that there seem to be knowing looks or weird tattooes on Ben and Alya, or maybe that Ally lets it slip that Ben and Alya are technically siblings, but…that's not necessary to keep talking about out loud in detail.

Because if you want a story concept hierarchy, let it be Amelia's character arc. Too much information spoken out loud about other things rather eclipses Amelia's story and…I think is even unrealistic for so many people to just say everything out loud, especially after they've been characterized as secretive.

All these characters getting so shocked by what's supposed to be these great big personal revelations…it falls flat without the pacing and subtlety of a buildup. Let's say that by the end of reading that excerpt, I was introduced to the idea that this world has fairies and magic a mere two minutes ago: As a consequence, I cannot sympathize with any of these characters being oh so very shocked about who they turn out to be related to. The pacing and lack of subtlety hasn't allowed me to reach the state of mind or mood, as a reader, that I even can be shocked or surprised. Instead, it feels more like, "Oh, no…more to memorize…" That's what Front Loading does.

I cannot care about the entire complex intertwining life story of half a dozen characters whom I have only just met…so the complexity and intertwiningness are not selling points, when the care from me as a reader is not there to begin with. That's the other thing that Front Loading and poor pacing does.

If this is a Zero Draft or a Worldbuilding Bible, it's fine. But if these are the events of the story…they need more prioritization, subtlety, and better pacing.

Let's consider the first scene: The beginning of the scene should frame what the scene is all about. The scene should then funnel down (or develop, or twist) to a single point, with the most important line stated last.

If a scene is not structured in a way that it frames what it's about, and develops until the protagonist decides on a course of action…then, it's a filler scene.

The development of a scene are the turning points between one turning point and another, developing the character motivations that lead to that character pursuing a new goal, or develops a course of action defined by a desire until its completion (as in success or lack of success).

It all started one October afternoon. Before that day, I truly believed that I could be normal one day, but when Ally Cowiak and Ben Miller are your parents, anything can happen. So, when The Queen of the Fairies showed up at our door, I was the least bit surprised.

This introduces the idea that Amelia is the main character of this whole story, that family history will be a major theme, and that this world has Fairies. However, I think two points make everything else an inconsistency:

1. It all started one October afternoon (but it really began in August of that same year, according to Tina, or there's even room for a Prologue that takes place 41 years before then), and
2. Amelia believed that she would live a normal life.

This has to do with Amelia's desires: Does Amelia even want a normal life? She isn't surprised by Tina's visit, she isn't in awe that she has the magic powers to do something against people who threaten her family, and she doesn't cry that the fairies are ruining her life because she was going to go on a shopping trip, movie, and slumber party with her new friends from school, or was going to take up all these extracurricular activities, or become valedictorian and apply to some posh university…and now fairyland has ruined everything.

But neither does Amelia's presence in this story seem to bring a sentiment like, "Oh, there's Aunt Tina…an old friend of my parents' not really my aunt, she visits sometimes but it looks serious now so I'm going to eavesdrop," or "There's that girl who sometimes creeps me out by watching me from outside of campus, why does my mother seem to know her and what is it that she saying…?" That maybe later can become 'Wait, she's 38?!' There's no show of the 'normal life' that's at stake, there's only everybody telling each other everything from the first chapter onwards when the reader is supposed to believe that they're secretive.

Before I had time to wonder why[, t]here was a puff of smoke and a woman standing in the middle of the room.

I think this interrupts the development of the scene.

“You just found out she's a fairy, and you're worrying yourself with the thought that I'd hurt her. You've been living here for two months, Ben. How many times have you reminded yourself that if I wished harm or death upon your daughter, you'd know it already? She is not her mother, but she still suffers the same torments. What will happen when the truth about her is revealed? I suspect every damn thing you've tried to prevent from happening will happen. You will be lucky if the world doesn't

Zzz… Sure, not everybody in real life is given a well-paced dramatic beat to really digest something that's happening before some random stalker interrupts and makes everything all about them, but…I haven't been given enough information about the people—not the historical plot twists or powers, but the people as in personalities and motivations and relationship dynamics—I don't know enough about the characters involved in this scene to care.

Especially if Tina or Ally don't seem to exist during this villainess monologue. How are they reacting to Alex? Couldn't Alex have appeared right in front of Tina on the way to Amelia's house 40 minutes ago so this meeting never happens, wouldn't it have benefitted her to sabotage it? Or try to meet up with Amelia while she's alone at school and deceive her into thinking that she (Alex) is not a bad person? Or isolate Ben while threatening to kill Ally if he doesn't agree to let Alex adopt Amelia? What's Alex's motivation here that she should have such terrible timing?

It was clear to me at that moment that I was the only person present who did not know the truth she spoke of. I knew my father was raised by fairies, but that was not entirely what she was referring to. It was a small part of a much larger secret: one that would threaten to crumble my family if we let it.

I suppose that is mystery, or foreshadowing, but I think it's too soon explained in the next chapter…without establishing much that would let me care about or relate to what's at stake, or what the main character wants.

Years ago, my mother told me how my father was adopted. How he was born a fairy; how not many fairies were orphans. How he had to witness the ruthless murders of his adoptive parents. How the murderer — Alex Howler, did not kill him even given numerous chances. I thought of all this […]
"[…]thanks to you, I am about the most unlucky girl on the planet. After all, you and Samantha are the two most hated people on the planet. Except, no one wants anything to do with you. You have wished harm upon every one of my family members. You deserve to rot in jail.” There was a twinkle in her eyes like she was planning something. A heartbeat later, Alex had thrust out her arm; a column of flame had erupted from her arm and was heading right toward me. It engulfed my arm; it was inescapable agony. It felt like I had stuck my arm in a pot of molten hot lava. Suddenly, there was a gust of wind, and the column of flame dispersed.

Flashback exposition and monologues also seem out of place to me.

So that's why I recommend some re-structuring and re-framing of these scenes, that perhaps a different angle would help make "the little things" interesting enough for you to mention, and by doing that improve pacing and allow for more "show, don't tell".

Thanks! This is very inciteful. I think I've realized that I tend to just get my thoughts down first because they tend to be so fleeting. Also, I've thought of a couple of changes. 1) some info is as you said, irrelevant at the beginning. For example, the connection between Tina and Alex is irrelevant because the general public doesn't know this, so neither does Amelia yet. 2) I could make some things less obvious. For example, instead of outright saying that Ben has a scar, I could have him rub at it when they talk about Alex. I could also mention how he has very aggressive tried to hide it by always wearing long sleeves. I'm sorry if I'm basically just summarizing what you said.

No worries! The specific examples you're giving of "show, don't tell" is good… because this is still your story, you are still the writer. Looking forward to how this develops!

Perhaps an outline, or worldbuilding consolidator, or brain dump would help with capturing ideas for your story that don't fit into the present moment of the story that you're writing yet? But it can come upstairs much later that Tina and Alex are related, but if it's been written down somewhere else more casual than the manuscript itself then you can refer to that.

Just curious, how do I quote things here that aren't from the forums. How you quoted my doc. I just have no clue how.

Thanks.

I just realized something. I can get rid of the bit about the scars and it would still flow. So, I think I'm gonna do that.

I changed a section what do you think:
Before:

“I completely understand. She murdered our parents in cold blood, and somehow, I knew she was going to come back. After all, she burned that exact message into your flesh with the symbols of a dying language.” Tina said.

After:

“I completely understand. She murdered our parents in cold blood, and somehow, I knew she was going to come back,” Tina said. At the mention of Alex, my dad began rubbing at his upper arm. He was doing that so often lately. In fact, now that I thought about it ever since I’ve known him, my dad never wore short sleeves, not even around the house.

Better
I'm considering deleting the section about the Old World.

I'm going to replace the following:

My dad looked at her and raised an eyebrow, “You seriously want to tell her?”
“She is much like you, Ben. It’s her birthright.” Tina told him, and my dad smirked. “Did you tell her anything about the old world?” Tina asked.
My dad shook his head. “Why would I, when our… our mothers are so intertwined with its history?”
“Fair enough,” Tina said, turning more towards me, she added, “I was born thirty-eight years ago, and for decades before that my people were at war. It was each clan for themselves. But about three years before I was born, my parents, a water talent, and a fire talent fell in love, and together they created the inter-clan treaty. Also, they created a council that consisted of two people from each clan. So, there was a pair of siblings from the earth talents and a pair of siblings from the air talents. Finally, it was my parents’ turn to choose their right-hand member.” As Tina drew nearer to the end of her story, her voice became taught and frail. “My father chose his older brother. My mother chose her sister; a woman who had stood by her through all her hardships. That woman’s name is Alex Howler,” she finished coldly. My blood ran cold, my hands became slick with sweat.
“If your mother trusted her so much, then why did Alex kill your parents?” I asked, unsure if I wanted the answer.
“As years went on, Alex grew jealous of my mother. So, on the day of my coronation, Alex murdered my brother in cold blood in front of the entire kingdom. But before she did that, Alex told my mother she was pregnant, and in doing so, she later evaded a death sentence. Ever since she has held an unwavering belief that my throne belongs to her, and she’d kill me to get it,” Tina explained.
I smiled half-heartedly, “So, that’s what you meant when you said ‘our mothers are so intertwined with its history’. Did you know this when she tried to kill mom?”
“No. Alex never told me, and Tina didn’t know who or what I was until I told her.” My dad smirked playfully. “In fact, she told me that she and her mother had believed that I had died on the Old World.”
Tina rolled her eyes, “Well, I suppose we all have an affinity for evading death.”

With something along the lines of:
"What do you mean?" I asked.
Tina smirked, "Well let's just say your parents aren't the only ones with an affinity for evading death."
“I think you mean murder,” my dad said, lightheartedly, despite the knowing look he gave Tina. I never thought anyone would ever dare talk to Tina like that, like they were childhood friends. But perhaps that was because to my knowledge, the Queen had no real friends - well apart from my mom's cousin Tammi that is.