TITLE: OF OAK AND DRAGONS
GENRE: Urban fantasy/paranormal
By the time Lee challenged the dragons to battle, she knew it was too late to save her friends and now the preternatural rapier has drawn Lucas into the fray. They wait for the dragons to arrive and the coming battle.
The eastern sky had taken on a crisp, clear aura. The early morning symphony would start and the music of the world, with the timeless rising of the sun about half an hour away. A gentle breath of scented morning air touched me.
But…
Something. Was. Not. Right.
A low thrumming barely audible seemed to be vibrating in my fingertips and now my wrists and arms. I felt it in the balls of my feet and then tingling in my legs and torso as I straightened and stood, letting my hands drop to my sides.
The vibration filled me, strumming an indistinct hum. It enveloped me, coursing through me and…I was…
Aware…
…mouse creeping away, branches rubbing, brushing against each other, grass blades whispering with the breeze, roll of gravel shifting, light from stars dimming in the approach of the sun, bugs marching to their own purpose in the undergrowth, rub of cloth against cloth, heartbeat closing, air taken into lungs, escaping in a soft hiss, pulse quickening, the smell of her skin, so sweet, so dear…
I opened my eyes.
Lee stood about 15 feet away, her eyes just beginning to close. She raised her arms, held them out and away from her body, palms up. She seemed to be…listening…hearing…testing…feeling…accepting.
And something moved behind her, a dark indistinct form, stepping to her with hand outstretched, an aura clouding the menace within it.
A Dragon, in the form and body of a man, was at her back.
Miss Snark's First Victim
I really liked this, especially at the end when the dragon appears.
ReplyDeleteThe beginning is a little melodramtic and over-written, in my opinion. I think Something. Was. Not. Right. is overdone. There are other ways of bringing tension to this scene. Just placing this sentence on its own line is enough, I think.
Also, the first sentence in the first paragraph seems incomplete or awkward.
The part with the mouse is also awkward. It might read better if you change that to: "...I spotted a mouse creeping away...". it's best to avoid "to be" verbs whenever possible.
With a little tweaking and tightening up of some paragraphs, this section will read smoother. Good work so far!
I enjoyed this. The first paragraph could be reworded somewhat though. Good job. You kept my interest for sure!
ReplyDeleteI love dragon stories, so I wanted to like this one, but something about the style-- too fragmented in places and running on in others-- made it hard to get into what was actually happening. Also, I didn't really get the sensation of danger until you hit the word "menace".
ReplyDeleteFirst paragraph is very flowery, which also doesn't seem to fit with the way the more active section is written.
"But…
Something. Was. Not. Right." Melodramatic might be a strong word, but it definitely reads a little gimmicky. And feels kind of like a cop-out, imo. The "aware" bit, and the listing of things the mc is suddenly aware of falls into the same category, to me. Also, the listening...hearing, etc. Feels very contrived. Surely there's a better way to do it, to relate in actual sentences what the narrator is experiencing.
"A low thrumming barely audible seemed to be vibrating in my fingertips and now my wrists and arms. I felt it in the balls of my feet and then tingling in my legs and torso as I straightened and stood, letting my hands drop to my sides." This whole paragraph could rely less on "I/me" phrases, which are also taking me out of the story.
"A Dragon, in the form and body of a man, was at her back." Without knowing the dragons are the enemy, this sentence could be construed as the dragon has come to help, and is standing at her back, defending her.
Sorry to be so critical. But if it makes you feel better, I'd probably want to read more. I'm wondering about the character of Lee, and if something bad is about to happen to her. I was able to identify more with her than the narrator, I fear, because of the sort of gimmicky style.
Good luck with the rewrite.
This is neat, but I had trouble with -- I think someone else said melodramatic, and I agree -- the melodramaticness of the writing. The writing as a whole should make me feel like you're using the spacing and punctuation make me feel. Right now, that's overwhelming the piece for me.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love stories with dragons, whether they are on the side of the MC or against the MC.
ReplyDeleteI'll try not to repeat what others have mentioned already, and I agree with most of it. Instead, I'll mention that the descriptions and imagery almost communicate a sense of positive euphoria to me, rather than impending danger. Without that second to last sentence giving the hint: menacing, I wouldn't have known that meeting up with a dragon was a bad thing just from this scene.
For my part, I would think that building up to a danger scene, you might not want the tension you are building to be so positive. Perhaps it could be tightened and adjusted to bring in more foreboding.
Of course, since this is just the one scene, perhaps the effect is as intended. If that's the case, it could work out to be very interesting depending on how it flows into the next scene.
This definitely pulls me in. I wonder what has caused the "ultra-awareness" effect that the MC is experiencing. The description appears to be euphoric, but the MC is weirded out by it. I wonder, while reading this, why the MC is immediately so distrustful of this experience - Lee is described as "accepting," so why is he so disturbed.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I wondered - which is probably explained elsewhere - if the Dragon is "in the form and body of a man," then how does the MC know it is a Dragon?
I liked the voice but the over-use of -ing words really overwhelmed me. My eyes started glazing over about halfway through the ...mouse paragraph. I also felt like the Something.Was.Not.Right was jarring.
ReplyDeleteI didn't get much sense of tension with this one. The new awareness the MC gains overshadows the danger and I didn't feel any concern for the well-being of the MC or Lee.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the punctuational overload was distracting. Too many dot-dot-dots, too many short paragraphs, and I wasn't a huge fan of the "Something. Was. Not. Right." It struck me as too gimmicky, and writing doesn't need to be gimmicky - it just needs to tell the story in a clean, preferably interesting, way. Let the words themselves be the interesting thing, not the way in which they're presented.