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Pek's Tale, Ch. 1

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The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers:
FYI: for the first few chapters we're dealing only with Westlanders, which have a language I pulled very sort of loosely from welsh/gaelic. The "w" is a vowel, very much like a short "u" in sound. They "y" is usually a vowel too. "F," which I don't think I've used here, is more like "V" in sound. I think that's most of what I have

Things I'll be worried about for the whole book:
Is it boring? Does it need more action?
is it easy to follow?
How's the pacing?
Does the "accent" of Westlanders (expressed by saying "ya" and "yer" instead of "you" and "Your") get annoying? (the abbreviated forms of words get used less later, which form is better?)

For this chapter:
Does the first bit get you interested?
Is there too much exposition?
Are the descriptions of people too sudden or gratuitous?
Do I gloss over the details of the action and describe too much?
Are the hints about sinister things to come too vague, just right, or too obvious?

Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock:
It isn't all that boring, yet. =P I jest though. I think its easy to follow, and the pace is well... kept? I'm not sure which word to use to say the pacing is good. And the accents, I do enjoy them.

The first chapter does get me interested, the characters are interesting enough to want me to find what happens next. I did not find anything glossed over, nor anything too described. The laird stuff I found sinister, and those bullies got me downright upset. All and all, I think its going well.

stacer:
I have quite a few comments, so I'll leave most of them for either tonight or email them to you. Here are my overall impressions:

I like the story so far. You're setting up some good conflicts. I like the first scene, running to the pasture. Gets you right into the action. Pacing is good--something keeps happening, but not too much that'll overwhelm a reader, and you don't linger too long on each scene.

It does need more show and less tell, especially in telling the background. Maybe details the two paragraphs of background at the very beginning can be introduced little by little as reference to them is needed--such as when Birge tells Peks that his foot is as ugly as the girl they tease, adding the detail that she was the daughter of the Laird that they teased would be appropriate. The reasons why they tease her can be brought up in other situations, maybe inserting a teasing scene with the girl, who asks them why they tease, or whatever.

The bullies do seem menacing, and I'm assuming you'll flesh them out more later on in the book.

I'm also assuming you'll address the boys' obvious misogyny at some point in the book (either because it's part of the society or because they have personal reasons), or the two references to women's taletelling would be superfluous. I could see you bringing in references to crones and old wives' tales with this. Both boys seem to genuinely care about their mothers and respect them (or at least Peks does his) and it seems you're setting up a dichotomy. Is this right?

Dialect: sometimes the "ya"s make me feel like they're talking in an exaggerated Canadian accent. Can you add other marker words to give the lilt of the accent, at least at first? There are a couple places where you do this in sentence structure, but I think it could be reinforced a little more. Also, you'll probably want to distinguish between possessive "yer" and the contraction for "you are." I would suggest always using "you're" for the contraction, for ease in understanding. I, at least, usually read "you're" as "yer" pronounced anyway. It might make reading the dialect easier. Also--do the high-born and low-born speak in the same dialect? You have the laird speaking in the same dialect, and I just wanted to check if that's what you intended, especially because the thugs don't seem to.

There are also a couple of things I wondered whether you might want to use. "Hi," "shape up," and things like that seem to be very modern phrases, and if you're setting this in a medieval world, you might want to go for more medieval-sounding idioms. Also, since you're telling the story from Peks's viewpoint and he is low-born, you might want to watch out for some of the more sophisticated words you use when describing their thoughts. Then again, he's a smart kid, so I don't know.

Watch out for passive voice. There are many places where you can say the same thing in half as many words. I realize this is an early draft, but I have some suggestions that I've marked as I read that I can email to you.

Also watch out for really long sentences. They're not technically run-ons, but sometimes the subjects seem unrelated (also noted in the file) and might work better as separate sentences.

One last thing--I usually think of a thicket as a stand of trees, not very large--maybe ten trees standing close together (thick). Is this your intention? You also refer to it as a wood, which in my imagination is much larger than a thicket.

Most of these things are details rather than overall. I think you've got a great start here and can't wait to see what happens next. The overall story arc looks to be fascinating.

The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers:
yay! I'm so glad editors got hold of this. I'm going to need that. More response later, but a thicket is "a dense growth of shrubs or underbrush; a copse"

btw, a copse is A thicket of small trees or shrubs; a coppice (so a thicket is a copse, and a copse is a thicket)

and finally, a coppice is A thicket or grove of small trees or shrubs, especially one maintained by periodic cutting or pruning to encourage suckering, as in the cultivation of cinnamon trees for their bark.

My thicket is not cultivated. but as the earlier definition implies, it isn't restricted to something so small as 10 trees. It's more a description of the undergrowth state, rather than the trees. Though being a copse says trees too, though I'm not thinking small trees.

I've got to wrap presents. More response later as to my intentions.

The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers:
more show, less tell. if there's more than the first bit of extrapolation (something which I knew would need to be re-written the moment I finished it) that needs this treatment, please mark it.

Uh... now that you bring it up, they might need more substance. Right now they're mostly stock, but one of them at least is important to the plot over all, so, keep track of Pytor in future chapters, let me know if he gets any more 3-dimensional for you.

Ok, so the dialect needs work. I'll have to go through and change somethings and make sure it's consistant. As for who uses it: well, it's mostly a regional thing, which comes out when they go to Lund. Basically, even though the Laird is landed, he's still a hick, so I gave him the same accent. I'll look over the vocab in his thoughts as well. Part of the problem is I didn't know where to go there, since very few of the thoughts ARE his thoughts: they're descriptions of his thoughts

Passive voice I don't eve notice while I'm writing. I'll pay attention when I revise.

I like long sentences, so I'm unlikely to change them unless someone already tells me exactly how to do it or informs me that you can't follow it at all. But I'll try to pay attention to this as well.

I already talked about thickets. Look forward to chatting with you at 10!

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