We landed in a cluster, legs spread out for balance. Wisps of neon purple faded around our ankles as I deposited the decoder in a pocket.
"Smooth..." Amy grinned as we stepped out of the landing space, gazing around us at the landscape.
I inhaled the pure, fresh air of the rolling English countryside. A treacherous mixture of wildflowers and bees provided a deep carpet, hiding the many fresh cow-pats that oozed between the grass. As I soon realized.
"Egh," I muttered, extracting my bare feet out of another warm sample of the miracle that was the bovine digestive system. "Where's the dashing knight on his noble steed?"
"It was you who brought us here," Lucy grumbled as she pulled a sandal out the soft loam with a dull sucking sound. "Why didn't you deposit us somewhere closer to civilization?”
Wayne squinted at the horizon. “Essie happened to be rather taken with the scenery, I imagine.” He frowned at me. “You really ought to keep better control of your mind. This isn’t the first time you’ve let something slip that landed us into trouble.”
“Maybe you could try meditating, or something. I heard it’s good for self-awareness and discipline—the monks do it in China, you know,” said Lucy, and with a snort of laughter, she chanted a few variants on “oo” and “raa” and waved her hands in a mock-sepulchral manner.
“Stop it, Lucy,” laughed Amy.
For all our idle chatter, and for all the time that passed, the horizon remained unmarred by those firm square shapes suggestive of human inhabitance. A cool breeze began to blow, which soon waxed to a gale. Dark clouds laden with rain drove across the moors.
“How much worse does it get?” howled Amy, tramping through curtains of icy rain; the soil had turned into a thick sludge, challenging even my endurance. Lucy’s sprinter’s legs were even worse suited to this kind of drudgery.
“Take off your shoes,” said Wayne, having already discarded his own. “It’s difficult enough to stay moving without lugging half a field on your feet.”
Lucy pulled off her sandals with muffled curses. Amy followed suit.
“A fine sight we’ll be if we ever manage to get to to Meryton. I mean, look at our clothes, our feet... imagine all the looks we’ll get!” giggled Lucy, flinging her shoes into a ditch. But her mirth was short-lived. We all realized what a mess we were in and strained our eyes searching for an escape.
“Look!” shouted Amy. “There’s a wood coming up on our left! Let’s go there—it might shelter us from this wind!”
We pressed on with renewed vigor towards the dark hulk of trees, clutching at one another’s shoulders as we stumbled onwards. The wood was of a prodigious size and consisted of large, leafy trees that kept off most of the wind and some of the rain. A twisting path led us deeper into the forest, where squirrels swore at us and birds squawked their warnings through the drunkenly swaying canopy. The moist peat soothed our muddy feet.
“Thank heavens we found the place!” said Lucy, whose head was drooping like a racehorse on the last lap.
“This path is worn—we have reached civilization at last,” I noted. There were tired nods from the rest of the company and a contented sigh. “I vote we find a sheltered spot and get some sleep.”
“Same here,” Wayne yawned. “Let’s lie down over there.” He pointed at a knot of dry vines.
We curled into the den and instantly dropped into a deep sleep.
End of chapter
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140,788 Literary Works • 673,688 Reviews
Okay, Black back for another Review Day review (though I'm thinking this one will be short, so as to make for the last one), even for the final comment in the last review! I'll cover what I can, but it's going to be short, so don't expect huge amounts of detail.
That was a bit harsh, I DID enjoy it, I'm not joking, my point is that you really need to be careful to put emphasis on whether or not a chapter advances your story -you do this kind of chapter a bit too much.
Okay, this chapter actually was better on your cutting down of action, and boosting up of description and pacing (and originality), I enjoyed it! I really think - Wait! This is beginning to sound stereotypical and boring. Besides, now that we know what your problem is we can put aside a number of these problems, and compliments, and move on to solving other problems. Smaller things that are more involved in the base concepts of writing!
So, I'll set aside problems that are related to your skipping of things that you don't really want to write , and passing on to action attitude, and deal with some other problems that I ran into which I think could use some addressing!
Believe me, they exist! First off: Your chapters are still shockingly small. I just went and measured chapters 10 and 9 (this one and the last), and this is what I got: 610 and 570 words respectively! Those are some VERY small chapters. EXTREMELY SMALL!
I like to keep my chapter's size around two and a half THOUSAND words. . . . Now granted, 1500 words works for a novel chapter, but anything under that is pushing the limits. Small chapters work, but unless you're planning on having a hundred of them, you'll never get yourself a good novel. When making chapters you have to contemplate whether or not you can add more to a chapter and if you should break the chapter off where you break it off!
Next problem is a quick technical detail. When your trotting through the clay mud that sticks to your shoes, it usually tends to stick to your feet as well. Believe me, I know from experience. Also, when you're walking through the rain, unless it's a light rain and you're swinging your legs really hard, then the rain usually keeps you pretty clean, thus there's no need to get all serious about them getting dirty while they're stomping through the rain.
Also, this chapter doesn't really lead anywhere. Usually a chapter should be a part of or a selection of, scenes, each of these scene's either advances the plot of the story a whole new step, or pulls it back a step! This chapter really didn't lead anywhere. There were a lot of places in it where you skipped a few minutes (which wasn't a bad thing, mind you), but you still have this chapter of your story as the best paced of your chapters!
Nice and slow. However it really didn't carry the plot of the story anywhere. As in, anywhere AT ALL! That makes it a redundant, stand-out, useless chapter . . .
Anyway, time to wind down on this review! You did a good job, really! I still think you should work on your story here some more! I do really enjoy it! You must, however, remember my main point that I stated in the Chapter Eight review! You need to work on that badly! (But don't ignore my comments here!) And remember: KEEP WRITING! Do that and you WILL improve!
~Black~
Hello twice again barefootrunner. Jordin here with another review for you my
fellow knight of arms.(Fellow knight at arms.)First off you need to make this writing smaller as I have mentioned. (It annoys readers.) (Maybe that is why it is not reviewed.)
Well this was good but it did not make total sense. Example: You said that the nasty lady had the decoder and then Amy has it see does not make sense.
Here is another one you made no sense as to where they are.
Grammar: Good!
Punctuation: To many periods I think you need to cut it out.
Spelling: Great!
Keep writing and good luck.
~Jon~