Critique #6: Makoiyi
Katharine Kerr June 22nd, 2006
Submitted June 22, 2006:
For once, the voice in Kyriel’s head stilled. There were few times in his life when it had, so that now the absence worried him. When you lived your entire life with your brother’s voice urging you to acts a sane man would avoid, it was natural to wonder what Lewin planned next. Yet surely his brother would do nothing here among the trees of the forest, with half the Court out on the hunt?
Kyriel glanced at the young woman beside him as they slowed their horses to a walk. The rest of the hunt had fallen behind, leaving Kyriel and Citilas some rare privacy. Autumn frost rimed fallen birch leaves, glistening in early sunshine in the forest below Vorengart Mountain. Citilas raised a gloved hand, casting her Ger falcon aloft. The bird winged across sky as blue as her eyes, high above the trees, its lonely cry poignant as loss as it echoed down between pines.
Citilas remained silent as the falcon winged in search of prey. Kyriel wondered how long that silence would last. Citilas, became stubborn in her pursuit of the truth.
“I’m not afraid of you, Kyriel Sathkin, although you make it deliberately difficult to get close to you,” Citilas said, startling him out of his thoughts. “I can see by your expression that something troubles you–will you admit it?”
Makoiyi,
Apart from prefering that “Ger falcon” be lowercased and spelled as one word, “gerfalcon,” I loved this. Excellent job of having both characters well drawn in thirteen sentences, and extra points for the lady sending her gerfalcon out to hunt at the same time as she hunts for the answer to a question.
I know some folk of the bob all adjectives and adverbs crew might want to snip this to shreds, but honestly, I find them well used here and it’s nice to see prose that doesn’t look like mid-20th century business correspondence.
I’m wanting to read the next section.
Whoo! thank you, and it actually bugs me that I missed the gerfalcon spelling. I did look it up and got several versions. There’s a comma typo there too, but, never mind.
One of the things I learned through workshops. There is nothing wrong with adjectives or adverbs. In their place. What I really appreciated was the comment about the prose. One thing I’ve strived for is to find my own ‘voice’, and even if everyone doesn’t agree with you, I’m glad to have reached one person.
Thanks for taking the time to do this. It is appreciated.
I like this piece in a general way, but despite the wonderful images in the middle, it doesn’t grab me. With the usual caveats about readers, tastes, so forth, for what it’s worth, here’s why it doesn’t quite make me want to turn the page. I’m going to get as picky as I can because first pages are so important, and because I don’t want to say “Oh, didn’t work for me!” and then not tell why. But before I dive in, let me repeat again, there’s good potential stuff here–graceful images especially. (And every one of those adjectives in the bit about the mountains and the gerfalcon works for me.)
First, and pickiest, I’d take out the comma after for once. Otherwise I really like that first line. My interest piqued immediately. But the next line dropped into neutral datadump mode, and because I am being told so neutrally, my eye wanted to skim. The third line as well until what Lewin planned next. We find out that Lewin is his brother in the next line, so I don’t think we need all that telling before. Instead, I want to see Kyriel react–brace himself–look about uneasily–something, which lets us know that when the voice stops, bad things are might happen.
Fallen behind? They are going slow. It doesn’t sound like a hunt so much as a pleasant airing. Or have the other hunters brought down their prey? Then we should hear the barking, shouts, etc, echoing through the woods, yes? Anyway, this is perfectly good prose, but it’s not exciting prose. He seems tranquil here, neutral, Lewin and his impending threat forgotten. Why is he glancing–to see if she’s all right? Wondering if he made a physical reaction and she noticed? Did he hear a tiny intake of breath, or some subtle clue of body language indicating that she, too, has something on her mind?
This is beautifully written, but it seems the narrator is watching the countryside and the gerfalcon. If Kyriel is, why? Assessment? Lewin definitely seems forgotten, and he has no reaction to the young lady so far. Again, it’s neutral. At the beginning of a story or a book, neutral does not built interest, it lies there flat.
First: get rid of the comma after Citilas. The subject is not a subordinate clause–nor is there an appositive following. As for context, now here I am confused. Kyriel wondered how long her silence would last, but he doesn’t seem to have any reaction. Then the next line really confuses me–is it his thinking or the narrator commenting to us in an aside? And if it is he, why does he think she’s pursuing truth–and what truth? You’re telling us, but not enough, and not showing us any character emotion or motivation.
What thoughts?
Good! But I wish that had been way up at the top, maybe second graph. Would he look at the scenery while trying to figure out what to say?
Well, there goes a million words of picky picky picky. I hope at least one of those comments helps.
“I see by your expression” — it would be a good idea to show the expression.
“as poignant as loss” strikes me as very weak because too abstract. Some losses drive people to scream with grief. The gerfalcon (and yes, that’s all one word) has a cry which isn’t so much lonely as harsh. Most falcons sound like sandpaper rasping on some hollow thing. You need to find a better way to convey the sense of wilderness here, if that indeed is what you’re after.
Thank you to Sherwood and Katherine, that’s a lot of help. I guess the falcon’s cry is a personal intepretation because I always find their cries lonely even if it isn’t ‘pretty’, although, I suppose, a raven’s cry is the most haunting. I will look at that and twiddle.
I’ll beef up Kyriel’s emotions, Sherwood. I probabaly overdid the telling at the beginning because some people said they wanted to know who, what, where, and why and be grounded into the scene straight off since I began it in a forest. And I have no idea where that comma came from after Citilas. I must have done a typo when I typed into the box. I checked several times and my eyes skimmed over it, which just goes to show how we all need a fresh pair of eyes.
Thanks so much, this has been very helpful.
Well I’m the typo queen.
My own feeling is that ‘what where when” are important, but a stake–and emotion–need to be right up front. (And I didn’t really feel any why in the segment: Levin was my hook, but he wasn’t mentioned again in the succeeding text.)