TITLE: ERIN INCARNATE
GENRE: YA fantasy
Spooky shadow creatures called sylph wake Erin in the middle of the night. She's no dummy: she runs.
I ducked into the woods. Branches slapped my face and caught on my coat. I tore myself free every time, pushing deeper into the forest with only hisses to hint how close the sylph were.
Freezing air stung my eyes, and the flashlight was already dimming; it had been Leigh's spare because it was old. My chest burned with cold and fear, and a cramp jabbed at my side. Sylph keened as loud as wind whistling in a storm, closer and closer. A tongue of invisible flame landed on my exposed cheek. I yelped and pushed harder, only for my bag to snag on a claw-like limb. No amount of yanking freed it.
Sylph melted snow as they formed a dark circle of cacophony and wind. Tendrils of blackness coiled toward me, and the burn on my cheek still stung with cold and memory.
I slipped my arms from my backpack, abandoning it, and darted between the shadow creatures, a rush of heat on my face like leaning into an oven. They shrieked and pursued, but I had a head start and could move in tighter quarters now that I was unencumbered. Trees, brush, fallen logs. I dodged and jumped, fighting to keep my thoughts together, focused on getting past the next obstacle rather than the snow and cold, or the fiery death that chased me.
My flashlight went dark. I twisted the tube and the light revealed bright snow and trees and nothing beyond.
This scene is pure adrenalin and I like it. My only nit is the backpack. It must be important for Erin to have put it on when the sylph arrived. So why doesn't she scoop it up after she takes it off?
ReplyDeleteI really liked this. The only part that yanked me out of the story was the second-to-last sentence in the second paragraph (I yelped ... claw-like limb). The last half of the sentence read a bit awkward.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm totally hooked.
I like the title-both the meaning and the flow of the syllables.
ReplyDeleteI too wondered why she had the backpack if she's running for her life, but perhaps if I had read all the story. It's not totally unheard of that there would be something worth keeping in there- maybe she slept with it on, but for me, it negated some of the danger.
I also paused at the sentence "it had been Leigh's spare because it was old." On a reread I understood, but it was still jarring to the flow of action.
This is picky and more of a preference but I'd say "focusing on getting past the next obstacle"- it sounds more immediate to me.
Here goes:
ReplyDeleteA lot of this is stylistic, word choice, that sort of thing, like 'ducked' into the woods instead of something stronger like 'lunged' or 'thrashed'. 'Circle' seems too concrete a descriptive for something obviously in flux. See what I mean? But always, style is personal and I'm sure it's partly because 250 words isn't really enough for a reader to develop a rhythm with the author. It never is for me.
I agree with someone above, 'bag to snag' is too rhymed, but I disagree on the line about Leigh's falshlight. Liked it. Requires the reader to think a bit, to make a connection on their own.
I'd para-break before 'My cheast . . .", setting up more action. I think there a few too many 'and' where maybe the sentence could be stunted a little, or an -ed being fitted as a -ing, to help prevent quite so much of a slurring of actions. She's running and she's unsure, which means she's probably jerking all over the place, rushing in spurts, not thinking of her moves in such an organized, chronological fashion.
The short of it is I like the imagery, but the pace gets me a little. I want more time with it, to fall into the right patterns.
--Amethyst
Your verbs are uber-present and strong: slapped, tore, stung, keened. They propel the motion and keep action/tension high.
ReplyDelete"it had been Leigh's spare because it was old" feels clunky compared to the crisp, fabulous verbs. You can find a way to write that more tightly.
FWIW, I love the word "cacophony." =)
"Trees, brush, fallen logs." It may be anti-purist, but I like the sparing use of non-sentences. In this instance, I think it works well, keeps the pace moving.
The last sentence confused me -- it went dark, so you twisted the tube and got light? I must be flashlight challenged, because I don't get that.
Once this is pruned, it's going to be high-energy! (I think last paragraph, in particular, needs pruning, though I adore some of the imagery..."like leaning into an oven" and "fiery death".)
Good work! Press on!
Okay, my heart was pounding as I read this one. Yay! Great job.
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming you meant the character slipped the backpack off, and not that he actually removed his arms from inside of it. ;-)
You've placed me well and I feel her panic.
ReplyDeleteI loved this sentence--"Sylph melted snow as they formed a dark circle of cacophony and wind. Tendrils of blackness coiled toward me, and the burn on my cheek still stung with cold and memory."
The cold vs the oven heat made for an interesting contrast.
Great verbs here, good pacing. I was absolutely hooked on just this scene.
ReplyDeleteSmall practical point caught at me as I read this - MC has a cramp jabbing into her side, but once she's free of the pack she's dodging and jumping. I wondered if the cramp was forgotten in the fear or if she fought through it in desperation to get away. Either way, I thought about it and it snagged me a little as I was reading through the scene.
I really liked this. My comments are mostly nit-picky word choice things.
ReplyDelete"it had been Leigh's spare..." I know this is the middle of the story, so it's hard for me to say, but this took me out of the action for a second.
"I yelped and pushed harder, only for..." Like others, this sentence slowed me down. 'Yelped' made me think of a dog. The bag snagging felt a bit awkward.
I'll pause here to say I love the sylph. I don't know what they are, but they're scary, in only 250 words. Good job.
I felt like the was a redundant "this and this" phrase. Once I saw it once, I saw it every time. "cold and fear" "cacophony and wind" "cold and memory" "shrieked and pursued" "dodged and jumped". Any one by itself is not bad -- in fact a lot of them are really good -- my eye just picked them out after a while. Might just be me.
Felt like there should be a comma after "I twisted the tube". (Which, having Mini Maglites myself, I could totally see).
Anyway, like I said this is all nitpicks. Assuming I were into the story by now, I probably wouldn't have noticed any of it.
If the sylph have woken Erin in the middle of the night and she runs from them...how does she have time to put on her coat and grap her backpack? Just wondering. Other than that, which distracted me a little bit from the story, I liked this. The sylph remind me a bit of dementors from Harry Potter.
ReplyDelete