“So Mel,” Alistair said after a long pause, “you still haven’t answered my last question. Were you raised by pulpas?”
“That’s rude,” Alan said as he whacked the back of Alistair’s head, which he screeched an ‘Ow!’ to in response. “You’re basically asking her if she was raised by monkeys.”
Alistair rubbed the back of his head in irritation and started stomping through the grass. “Hey, I’m not making this up. That’s just what the rumors say.”
“I haven’t heard of this rumor,” Evaline said quietly.
Len and Alan suddenly exchanged a devious look with one another, and, simultaneously, ran into Alistair on opposing sides, sandwiching him while yelling out, “Liar sandwich!”
“Is this normal?” Mel said to Evaline while they stared at the boys brawling.
“Yeah. Boys are weird,” Evaline mumbled, walking around them.
Mel followed suit and looked back at the boys who were still wrestling in the grass, then back at Evaline who already looked like she was thinking of something else. “Alistair keeps asking me if I were raised by pulpas…”
Evaline sighed. “Just ignore him; he’s—”
“…but I’m not really sure what pulpas are.”
Evaline suddenly stopped walking and turned around, laughing. “Really?” she said inbetween the laughs. “That’s funny. I guess that answers that.”
She continued to walk forward, leaving Mel behind and more confused than ever, like usual. “What do you mean?” she asked, keeping up. The grass was starting to get long enough to brush her knees.
“Pulpas,” Evaline replied matter-of-factly. They don’t look like us. You’d remember if you’ve seen them, wouldn’t you?” she gave her a quizzical look, almost like she was trying to ask, ‘Were you raised by an animal?’ without directly asking it.
Mel looked out in the distance, trying to remember the faces of those she interacted with in Sector 4. “Yeah, I guess so,” she said quietly, still not completely sure if she understood what Evaline was asking.
Seconds ticked by, and Mel could hear the boys argue about unfair wrestling matches behind them. “So,” Evaline said softly, “were you raised by valen?” She gave her a gentle smile, not trying to sound rude. “It’s just… it’s unusual to hear that you don’t know much about vale.”
“I’m not sure,” Mel said back, even quieter. “I thought my life was normal.” She blurred through her memories of Sector 4: the thick forests, the cold dirt, the dirty bed, the hearty food… She went to school everyday in a small room and learned how to speak and write and multiply numbers, but she also remembered how to make fires, catch fish, and grow vegetables. The teacher was always grumpy and her classmates picked on her for being taller, quicker, and smarter. It seemed like that wasn’t the case here anymore. Did her old friends miss her? Did she really have anyone she could call a friend? Or family? Will life here in Sector 3 be better or worse?
“Whoa!” Alistair called out, interrupting her thoughts again.
Mel snapped back to reality, realizing that she dazed off and accidentally showed her vale again.
“Awww, it’s gone now,” Alistair grumbled. “Do you do that every time you space out?”
Mel wasn’t sure what exactly she did with her vale, but she nodded, reaching out to feel the grass touching her fingertips. My grip on reality, she joked to herself.
Evaline nodded in agreement, understanding. “I used to do that, too. It wasn’t fun.”
Mel tilted her head, remembering what Len said about her reliving-time vale. “So with your vale, are you like a time traveler?”
Evaline laughed—a soft, velvety kind of laugh. “No…not exactly. I can’t change anything. Just relive it.” She shrugged and tugged a strand of loose hair behind her ear. The breeze blew it back to place, almost like it was teasing her. “My parents have the same vale, too.”
“Yeah,” said Alan, overhearing the conversation. “Our parents have an energy-related vale, so we’ll probably have something like that.”
“I hope we get different ones,” Alistair continued on. “I don’t want to have the same vale as you.” He scrunched his nose at him.
“Well, I want the same vale as my sister,” Len said. “She can't get scraped knees!”
“So we can throw rocks at you, and you’ll be okay, right?” Alistair said with a devious smirk across his face.
“Ha. Right.”
The boys continued to chatter about what they wanted their vale to be, and Evaline hung by Mel's side as she gingerly took every step up a hill, careful not to disturb the grassland around her. The sky echoed with soft voices of the boys and their laughs as they pulled the grass out to throw at each other, but the wind picked it up, sending the flyaways far up into the seemingly endless orange sky. She could feel the breeze push her up the steep hill she was climbing, almost like it was beckoning her to come closer. This was the world Mel was in now; it seemed limitless and unreal with people she could already call her friends, and a setting she only dreamed could be reality.
“Here we are,” Alan announced after reaching the top, but Len and Alistair already ran ahead.
Mel abruptly stopped, and at first glance, the edge didn’t look like much: the surrounding khaki-colored grass seemed to breathe in and out together as the breeze tugged them, and a tall, thick tree stood tall in the middle of the field, as if proudly serving to be the protector of the grass.
But that was only at first glance. The edge is where the the sky meets the ground, Len had said—and he wasn’t kidding. Mel had looked up at the sky countless of times in Sector 4, and whatever the weather and whatever the time, the sky always stretched forever, unable to be reached. But here… it ended. The sky curved and took down everything with it: the clouds, the colors, the setting sun. Signaling the end of the day, the giant sun loomed across the curved sky and slowly melted into the grass as soft watercolors. There was no horizon, or a line between the land and the sky; there was only a blurred watercolor version of the sky and the ground.
“Wow,” Mel breathed out, basking in the view. She remembered vivid memories of Sector 4 and its natural forest and warm skies that were beautiful to her everyday, but this… this didn’t compare.
She could feel the proud smiles plastered on Evaline and Alan’s face as they looked at her. “Beautiful, right?” Alan said.
Evaline nodded, answering because Mel was still awestruck and gaping at the view. “So, what do you think? Close enough to being real?”
“Hey! Hurry up!” Alistair called, waving them over from the tree.
Mel couldn’t find the words. “How…” was all the managed to sputter out before Alan swooped in to answer.
“All of this is created by vale, and it’s being controlled by people who run the Capital,” he said while walking towards the tree. “Like my mom. Her job is to make sure the sun gives photosynthesis to the plants, but that’s only one of many. Really, it’s just all…chemistry. And it works. You can even touch the sky and feel it yourself.”
The sky rolled in as a thin layer of fog, and a blanket of mist touched the ends of the grass by the time they arrived to the tree. Len jumped up, climbing branch-to-branch until finding a high-enough spot to sit down on. Alistair followed suit, but the rest of them stayed near the base, soaking in the view in silence. The only noise was the breeze washing over the grass, and the long breaths of all of them staring off into the distance.
“This is our favorite spot,” Len said after a long minute with brightened eyes and a dreamy smile, mesmerized by the setting sun.
Alistair reached out to climb a different branch, then plopped himself next to Len, fidgeting to find a comfortable position. “I dunno,” he said. “I think the cliff view is more scenic.”
“Well, it’s my favorite spot.” He patted down the thick branch he was sitting on. “My favorite tree, too.”
Alistair turned his head to give Len a scowl. “This is an ugly tree.”
“You’re an ugly tree!” Len said playfully, shoving Alistair out of his branch.
Mel laughed, finding it strange that she was enjoying the bickering of the boys upon a peaceful sight like this.
Maybe, just maybe, she thought, this place won’t be so bad.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,006 Literary Works • 672,809 Reviews
the last segment??? SADNESS! i'm really enjoying this story and I do hope you find time to continue <3
**disclaimer: I will most likely focus on negative aspects more so than positive aspects when reviewing, and this is just to help you grow as a writer! It is totally okay not to agree with something I say! Also, If I repeat anything already said, it's probably because it needs to be changed!**
I think the period should be a comma after factly. and then quotation marks before They.
Okay, this was another good chapter. It's setting a very sweet and nice scene while obviously hints about the dystopia and the craziness to come. You've got an outsider, a world, and a controlling capital, so good with that
I think what I'm wondering now is, why is mel here? what happened in her old sector? is it just because she's smarter than her classmates? I don't know if this has been fully explained. If they noticed she was smarter in school, why didn't they move her sooner if she's 13 now? technically she would've already been in school for like six years, so?
Other than that, I'm glad we learned more about the vale. But how does one touch the sky? They said something about it but how do they actually get to a place where they can touch it? if it's modeled like outside they'd have to be in a plane or something, you know?
Also, sometimes it's hard to differentiate which of the boys is talking. It's pretty easy to tell the girls apart from each other because of their maturity separation. something to think about!
I do hope you post more! hope my thoughts and opinions help!
- del
Carina oh hey there <3 I'm here to finish off the last segment you've posted and will await the next.
). You mentioned this is a dystopia in your PM (I think) and I'm curious to see how...perfect this seems but how there are underlying cracks in this Valen, how things can get wrong and bad for the characters later on. I'm looking forward to see how this world develops over time.
I am curious to know how this Valen all works. This is artificial but it feels so real and I'm enjoying this science-y aspect of this (well I'm in the mood for some sci-fi
One note I have is how old are those boys? Are they 13 like Mel? Cause to me they feel several years younger, maybe max eleven. Because though they're pretty goofy--and it's okay to be goofy, I LOVE being goofy xD and I'm older than Mel--I don't know, the way they bicker seems...like elementary school age-ish. Something to just consider.
Another note I have about these boys is that I'm feeling like their voices are beginning to blend together and it's not like I have particularly strong impression of them as individuals, which I believe you may want to spend time on to handle in rewrites. So basically that's my biggest critique, I think. I want to get to know the boys better. While I'm sure that I will in later chapters (and I think I said that before), first impressions are definitely important!
This feels like a lovely last line for a scene or chapter.
Happy writing!
-Ink
Sup,
First a recap to see if I got all the details: Mel is a person with a power or /vale/ who was raised in the "wrong sector" (Not sure the details from just this, but it's the vibe I'm getting). The kids of sector 3 are fascinated by her past and excited to show her how cool their world is. Mel is starting to get excited by the prospect of living here.
Overall I like this, you definitely had a stronger ending than beginning, which is rare for a draft usually it's the reverse, but I think that has more to do with the beginning being dialogue heavy which I have some notes on that I'll get to in a second.
You should know that I critique as I read the piece, so if my comments reflect that I'm sorry. I also take a line by line approach, pausing to bring up things when something makes me pause: confused or happy. My comments tend to be long, I know I have a note about that in one of these but just don't be intimidated when I write a lot on a little thing.
Without Further ado:
"'That’s rude,' Alan said" ---- Two names that start with the same sound, can get confusing to readers unless you mean for them to be almost indistinguishable. I have the same problem with names that start with “E.” Not sure if Alan and Alistair are going to get confusing yet, I’ll check in with this experiment later.
“'You’re basically asking her if she was raised by monkeys.'”---- I like that you’re burying the lead on what a pupla is but also using that time to establish the fact that it’s not a proper/acceptable thing in this world.
"Len" ----Alistair and Alan…Alan and Len…
"Len and Alan suddenly exchanged a devious look with one another, and, simultaneously, ran into Alistair on opposing sides, sandwiching him while yelling out, " ---- So this was a little confusing for me placement wise. Because it was placed after Evaline’s whisper-comment I thought they were calling her a liar and sandwiching her which made me pause because the way I was picturing the scene she was at a bit of distance from them across a table (obviously that’s a me thing, but I picture it this way because she seems to not be as friendly with the others so I subconsciously place her there unless told otherwise). Anyway, so I imagine them running around a table (I’m assuming that the setting is clearer in an earlier section given this is a 1.4 (((FYI I was way off. whoops! My logic still stands though that they'd be apart))))) and smooshing /her/. So I paused to talk about that, and /then/ upon rereading I realized that it was reader error and it was Alistar they were making fun of. LONG story short, it would make sense for Evaline’s line to appear after the resolution of Alistar looking dumb because her interrupting (even if it’s in a different line) makes it look like she is the thing being reacted to.
"Mel"---- Alistar and Alan… Alan and Len… Len and Mel… I’m tapping out. I have to return to my earlier comment on similar sounding names. I know names are hard and often specific, but I can already see disaster. Not to mention that there’s a lot of characters in this scene that you’re slowly having to introduce, and I’m concerned about this. Obviously I’m going to wait and see if you suffer from ninja character syndrome, before I bring it up, but I can smell it in the air.
"while they stared at the boys brawling" ---- Something I’m noticing… (I know I’m not even a hundred words in, sorry), you seem to be suffering from compulsive multitasking.
For example:
“Alistair said AFTER a long pause,”
“Alan said AS he whacked the back of Alistair’s head,”
“Alistair rubbed the back of his head in irritation AND started stomping through the grass,”
“sandwiching him WHILE yelling out,”
“Mel said to Evaline WHILE they stared at the boys brawling.”
This is almost every action in the first 100 or so words of your piece.
This is something that a lot of people do when dealing with dialogue scenes, you want to make sure that your characters are appearing physically in your scene and to make sure that each action is described as accurately as possible. You want to make sure that your audience is framing actions correctly (i.e. you clarify that someone’s dialogue is happening /while/ or /as/ the other thing is going on). You want to make sure that strings of actions are connected to each other. The problem comes in dialogue scenes, especially ones that have faster paced dialogue (such as friendly encounters with bonding and gaffs) the more actions you have the more the reader has to pause. The pacing of the scene becomes slower and as it does readers will envision more pauses in between actions. Often times if you have action in between dialogue (instead of just using a dialogue tag which clarifies who is speaking) you want to be skeptical. Ask questions like “does this add something to the way this is being said?” “will the action affect the response to the dialogue?” “will it be more distracting?” “How fast is the other character responding?” “is it already clear what’s going on without this?” I would also be more aware of positioning of actions and dialogue. You tend to do the old "dialogue, action" model, which can be useful but it has its own affect to the pacing. For instance in the quote way at the top you use: “’Is this normal?’ Mel said to Evaline while they stared at the boys brawling” but what might be equally useful would be “Mel and Evaline stared at the boys brawling, ‘Is this normal?’” The pause in the second iteration is at the start indicating that they are considering the scene before them and then speaking and it also helps cut down on repeated word use such as “as” which when you have a multitasking problem tends to be used a lot. ((Wow, sorry this got long. I just have a lot to say, it has nothing to do with your perceived writing ability, I just want to be entirely clear when I point things out. Seriously, balancing action and characterization in dialogue heavy scenes is hard and hard to detect yourself. It’s one of those things where you learn to put characterization in between and then you can’t stop doing it. I’m a repeat and ongoing offender, but mine has elevated to run-on sentences (you can see it in my comments I use “and” quite compulsively))) It’s not something to worry about so much in your first draft, just look out for pacing when you’re editing and be aware.
"“Yeah. Boys are weird,” Evaline mumbled, walking around them."---- I knew my setting would be off. Sorry I’m stepping in without reading the scene before.
"Mel followed suit and looked back at the boys who were still wrestling in the grass"---- You mention the boys wrestling again. I’m unsure of what advice to give at this point because I’m still trying to figure out why this makes me pause. I think it’s something along the lines of a perspective of narration thing. The thing is that I expect a closer look at the brawl, and that’s either because you’ve referenced it twice without describing it in a way that shows is how it “looks” or that you’re building up to a closer inspection with the way this line is phrased. Either way, you should describe it. Is it like noogies/tickling/playful, or more violent, are they laughing, making fun of eachother? Is it all three of them? Partnering this with the fact that it felt weird for them to be in this dialogue scene and then to just start hitting eachother and be ignored. I mean we lose them so early! And we’re answering their question without them? Why not include them in the conversation? Why not answer it later and build up tension to the answer? Why include them at all? It calls back to a comment from earlier of the ninja character, or a character who is present in the conversation but disappears under the weight of everyone else talking over them only to reappear and prompt the reader to say “forgot they were here.” Ideally your characters should all be part of the conversation if they are there. (((FYI, I've made my decision on the boys having finished the piece. I think it's okay that they have similar names and disappear a lot given their nature as main character's friend's 3 brothers (did I get that right?) They're childish and not important so much as full-fledged characters and are prone to loosing interest. You have side-stepped Ninja character syndrome this time, but I still feel like I should leave this comment in as a reminder))))
"“I’m not sure,” Mel said back, even quieter. ... Will life here in Sector 3 be better or worse?"" ---- I’m sorry, I know this is in part because I haven’t read the rest of the story, but… how is this different from her experience in Sector 3? Like, Mel is comparing right? So it should be clearer? Something is just kind of off about this whole comparison paragraph, and because I haven’t read the rest I can’t tell how much the reader would be expected to know. Like have the readers seen sector 4? Should they know by now that these activities aren’t normal for someone in sector 3? It’s also a matter of how it feels unnatural if that makes sense? She’s ruminating on these things but I don’t know how she feels about them, and I know Mel is emotional from the way she’s described as talking. Is she proud of the other stuff she knows? Is there someone specific she misses as opposed to the generic “friends?” She’s about to get lost in thought, so you can really take this time to just move away from the scene entirely. Don’t feel like this has to be short because you’re in a scene, it’s more important that it has an emotional response that readers can connect with. Obviously you have to be aware of how long she’s spacing out for, Alistar has to catch up with them so it can’t be long and Evaline should be waiting for her response to her question, but these things are flexible and can be rephrased to it your needs. Don’t leave this as a laundry list of items if she’s getting lost in thought, let us see her life before, compare it, describe it, give us her feels.
"her reliving-time vale"---- just a comment, I have no idea what a vale is or what it "looks" like, but I’m VERY alright with this. The vale is a cool word for powers, very relaxed and futuristic sounding.
"She shrugged and tugged a strand of loose hair behind her ear. The breeze blew it back to place, almost like it was teasing her. "---- What does Evaline feel about her vale? Is she as nonchalant as the shrug suggests? Reliving time is a very specific way to phrase it, I sense internal struggle with that power.
"The boys continued to chatter about what they wanted their vale to be,... and a setting she only dreamed could be reality."---- See this is that good description I wanted! YES PLEASE MORE OF THIS!
". Her job is to make sure the sun gives photosynthesis to the plants, but that’s only one of many."---- holy sh*t! that’s a swag job!
So that's the comments I made while reading... Obviously I went back on a few of the things I was worried about, but I kept them in there just in case they might be helpful for a later section. I really liked this, this might be the longest review I've written, but that's really a testament to how great everything else was (if that makes sense?). Like when things stood out to me it was because it was otherwise very well done. I had a good sense of the silliness of the boys and I could sense a lot of little details even if they weren't explicitly in the text. And the description at the end was very well done, I wish I'd had more of that at the start of the scene. I do have concerns about the plot, it's very done recently (hunger games, divergent, maze runner, Keeper of the lost cities) but your ideas seem very interesting. Like how people are using their vale powers to make plants do plant things, that's cool, and you have a good variety of powers just here that aren't cliche like telepath, ice hands, flying... I obviously don't have a lot about the world, but I like that the powers feel. Like Mel spacing out is her trigger, which gives it a sense of dormancy and lack of agency. It's not something she needs to think about to trigger. I also like how you're integrating plot details, like it makes sense that Evaline would know and talk about her mom's vale and how it affects the world, that's very natural and you don't overwhelm it with science like I would. You don't feel the need to explain how the vale can do all these things they just can.
Hopefully Helpful, Lana
I was right, longest review
Hey Carina,
I took a read through the earlier sections of this chapter and thought I'd leave a review on this one.
I liked in this section that we got a bit more of the background of how vale passes on from person to person with the explanations of how people's parents have it. It makes me really curious about Mel's upbringing and her own parents!
In some of the previous sections it felt like the brothers were being a little overly interupty - and even though it built character, it's almost frustrating to read through, since mostly I wanted to know what Mel was going to say next. In this section it felt a bit more balanced and like the boys were sort of calming. In this section I thought the tree joke at the end was even sort of funny banter.
You're really building Mel up to be a cautious and hesitant sort of character which I think is also very interesting, and I hoping will work into her backstory a bit too.
Overall, it was a bit dialogue heavy, but still got a lot of good background info too without feeling info-dumpy.
Looking forward to the next installment!
~alliyah
Ah again such wonderful beautifulness my friend <333 c:
<5