Searching for Security
Ch. 1
A cool wind refused to budge from the unforgiving land. Nightly, it tried to budge the human pestilence from its shores. The hills shuttered as the leaves turned from summer towards the hibernation of winter. Among the leaves sat a short bulky imp, her long legs draped over the branches while she listened through her arms: the trees. Her skirt, made up of the tree's own down, fluttered in the wind and tugged around her silky reddish skin. A toothy grin graced the face of the imp, who hid among the colors. She blended in more like a fruit from the tree, than the physical form the land manifested.
The red girl rubs her legs gently, chasing away the ache from twisting and dancing with the wind. Her muscles flex, and twitch as bushes, shrubs, and flowers, shutter to be touched. Tickling tingles traced from her back leg, and she heard the yelling, felt the crackle of fire on her fingers as the sickly humans came closer. They were coming. Her brow furrowed and her upper lip barely avoided a sneer. They stank like rank fish on a river shore, and ate like rabid pigs on holiday.
"After him!" a cry came from the wretched humans. A flash nicked her interest, a fleeting thought of who they could be chasing. She shook her head, determined that she'd hunt them out if they weren't gone by sundown. For now, the caging fools trashed through her underbrush.
Cries of anger bellowed from the forest depths as a thunder of clothed men ran after the wind. She could smell the fire, feel the ache of the long dead trees they held. The imp fled, her trunk legs carrying her further into the safety of her branches. Oil scorched her nose as tears filled her eyes like the ash of her loss. She pulled her arms tight over her chest as she huddled by a tree on the edge of her cleared hill. The dead haunted her memory. She coughed and the branches of the land shook with her effort.
What did they chase to make such a racket?
The imp gazed out over the field of grass. stumps here and there sat like bricks of memory. Something was ahead of them, passed the field, coming close to the river. She could almost feel its paws upon her skin, the dirt squishing beneath its toes, but she could not pinpoint it. Dogs padded across her field, humans on their tails. Her dirt enveloped the human's beasts. They were caked from head to foot with fresh mud along their underbellies. She could feel their twitch muscles, the strain of their legs against her mind. It echoed like a lost memory she just had to think about, to call forth onto herself.
Gently, as a finch upon an updraft, the imp fled to the sky. Her arms lifted to wings, and her skin fell away to feathers. She flew before the furious flustered lot and dove towards her river, the edge of her domain. The armor of the humans crashed after her when the dogs caught wind and began their howling barks. She felt the humans speed faster, packing the grass into the dirt, and the flowers she futilely tried to grow in memory of her lost trees.
What were they chasing? It was no longer a fleeting thought.
She passed the river, the angry thing. It delves deep into the ground to separate her from her neighbor, though they were friendly still. She swam between the trees of her neighbor after the thief of her interest. Thrill filled out her feathers as they puffed on the wind. A chirp twittered from her beak as she tried to find her neighbor.
Another finch joined her and danced around her side. She felt his knowledge like a warm glow she hardly could forget. He darted off, and she followed. Her heart fluttered with such delight at seeing Thoth again. She could hardly keep her wings from beating faster just to catch him.
He was reassuring, knowledgeable, and old. Most of all, Thoth had seen the one the humans chased. Down the hills they flew, fluttering along the wind, until they came to a small cave off the old river bed. The cave was nothing more than an outreaching limb of rock which imbedded itself in dirt and supported itself with mighty trees. Still, it provided darkness and shelter from the wind.
Inside the cave, a fox lay curled against the roots of the mightiest of tree. The grey, matted fur-ball shivered, his ears twitching about to try catching the hounds and humans. He hid from the wind again while the finches came to rest. They clutched the branch of an evergreen across the old river bank and stared down at the creature digging himself into the mud. He rolled in it, flailing his limbs about over his head, covering his grey with muddy, black dirt. Their heads tipped from side to side in the way that birds do, a quick jerk to the left, twitches gradually bringing it back to center, and little peeps of thought.
The humans tumbled through the woods. The dogs stopped at her river. Their noses buried in the mud of the banks. Human after human barreled through the underbrush, a thick thorny thing of thistles and barbs. First the metal clad humans came, those who guarded the town. Then their followers with torches came and kicked at the bushes the metal clad humans missed. At least she couldn't feel the crying limbs as well. She eyed her neighbor curiously. He shuttered his brown feathers and began to prune his wing.
The fox's ears perked up as the last of the humans fell passed. His head poked from the darkness, blue eyes glowing like the summer sky.
I want those ears. Natsumi realized with a tweet. She hopped around trying to think of just how she could get the fox to become her resident and allow her to change into one much like him. Surely she could convince him somehow to allow her the privilege. Many a great beast gave her such time.
She had hardly finished peeping out her thoughts to Thoth, when a shiny metal caught her attention. It glinted in the broken sun that fluttered through the golden leaves and evergreens. The fox carefully picked up the trinket, a bracelet of silver, and made off into the underbrush with more expertise than a finch could fly in wind. Awe passed the imp as she lept after her new fantasy and followed the flicking tail of the black fox that made off with a human thing.
"Natsumi, he stole from the humans. You need to be cautious with him."
Natsumi circled the old ratty haired imp, and twittered her denial before diving after the sneaky fox. Fear lept through her throat at the thought of losing him again.
When the imp caught up with the fox, he had not gotten far. He was heading back towards her land, but gradually and at a steep angle from his mad dart into Thoth's domain. She idly wondered if this was her resident all along, and no convincing needed to be done! If it was, this would be much easier. Still, she did not believe the fox lived in her land.
Chapter 1, Part 2End of chapter
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138,407 Literary Works • 672,114 Reviews
Hola! But you knew I would be here.
You've got us nice and grounded in a setting here, which is something I usually struggle with. I believe I mentioned on chat yesterday that I like your imps (even though they're very different from mine). The shape-shifting is cool, and imps are kind of an unusual fantasy creature to build off of. Or, not unusual exactly, but people rarely go for them--which is awesome, because (unlike elves, vampires, and werewolves) nobody has a really set idea of what they are/look like/can do, so you've got freedom to write them the way you want, even in the context of traditional lore.
Which is how we end up with imps like mine and imps like yours without anyone getting upset because they're too different.
I had some small questions as I read, but most of the ones that were bugging me were answered through the course of the chapter. For example, "it tried to budge the human pestilence from the land"--does this refer to a pestilence the humans of the land are afflicted by (i.e. bubonic plague), or a pestilence of humans upon the land? But it later becomes clear that the answer is the latter.
One question I still have is how the shape-shifting works in regards to "residents" and needing permission to shape-shift into a certain type of creature, but I speculate that a) it has something to do with ownership/leadership of a certain area of the land and b) it will be further detailed later on.
I'm also curious about Natsumi's connection to the land and the fact that she can feel the plants and animals.
Some quick nitpicks before I move on to bigger things:
1. I think every time you say "shuttered," you mean "shuddered." "Shutter" is the act of closing shutters over a window; "shudder" is to tremble or shiver.
2. You go a little overboard with the fact that humans are looked upon as bad guys in this land. It comes across nice and strong with the wind trying to "budge the human pestilence from the land," but then you pound it into our heads with saying "the sickly humans," "the wretched humans." We can already see that the humans are chasing something, destroying the forest, and so on, and we infer from the "human pestilence" bit that Natsumi doesn't like them. So we don't need repeated reminders, especially in the form of negative adjectives. Let their actions speak for themselves.
3. You switch from past tense to present tense a couple times, so make sure you pay attention and remember what tense you're using.
4. The first use of Natsumi's name comes late in the chapter and almost at random. She has been "the imp" prior to this, and Thoth doesn't use her name at this point in the story, so it's a bit jarring to suddenly read "Natsumi" and have to infer that this is, in fact, our MC's name.
Your style is poetic, which can be used to an effect--especially when describing a natural setting, which you do. However, I agree with the other reviewers that it gets flowery to the point of being confusing.
For example, the bit with the burning trees. At points, as with "the ash of her loss" and "the dead haunted her memory," it seems like she's remembering an act of destruction that occurred long ago--but then there is the fact that she flees farther up her tree and wrinkles her nose at the smell of oil. Is it happening now, or is she remembering a past event? I think it's happening now, but it would be clearer if you gave us a concrete image of a burning forest. There is the smell of the oil, yes, but what else? Heat. Flickering light. The crackling sound of flames. Fleeing birds and beasts. And more fear and sadness from our imp--or is she so distracted by whatever the humans are chasing that she puts her fear and sadness aside? I mean, she seems pretty strongly connected to the trees, so for her to kind of forget about this destruction in the rest of the chapter...it makes her earlier feelings seem like they don't mean anything.
So those are some things to think about while you write. Have you ever tried NaNoWriMo? Because, if not, a) it might be good for your style to have to shed the complexities of metaphor in order to reach a deadline and b) I will peer-pressure you until you do.
Off to read the next part so I can find out more about how this shape-shifting works!
Blue
You use far too many adjectives, and sometimes get caught up in your own metaphor. It took me three readings of this piece to get a feel for what's going on, and that's generally a sign of unfocused prose. The indulgent descriptions of what the characters were doing served to obfuscate rather than beautify or clarify. Try writing everything as plainly as possible first, so that even a 1-year-old could understand what's going on. Then, feel free to add frills and laces and all the pretty dresses.
For example, at first Natsumi is said to raise into the sky "as a finch upon an updraft". The way this is worded suggests that she rose into the sky like a finch, not after assuming the form of a finch. At this point, your readers don't even know that Natsumi can shape-shift, so the simplest assumption is that the finch bit was only a metaphor. Certainly, the next sentence mentions changing her skin and arms into feathers and wings, but it is not clearly stated she is turning into a finch, or, indeed, a bird -- I was imagining some imp/bird hybrid. Much confusion followed as I tried to make sense of the story after that part.
Omit unnecessary words. Example: "The dead haunted her memory." This follows a sentence describing Natsumi feeling the pain of the burning trees. They are already haunting her memory then, so there is no need to re-state what has already been said. Another example: "They stank like rank fish on a river shore, and ate like rabid pigs on holiday." Here, as in a number of other places, you've got an over-saturation of adjectives. "Rank" is not needed; you describe the stench of fish on a shore. Fish don't live on the shore, so it is already obvious they are dead, rank, and rotting. "Rabid"? Is that really necessary? Pigs already eat messily enough, don't they? "Rabid" adds needless madness to the act of eating, diffusing your image and making it lose effectiveness.
Some of your metaphors don't make sense. In the previously mentioned sentence, it's the word "holiday"; do pigs have some holiday where they eat a lot? "Fear lept through her throat": does fear really leap through one's throat? "Blue eyes glowing like the summer sky": is there anything special about the blueness of the summer sky as opposed to a winter sky or a spring sky?
I am intrigued by the plot, although I'm not sure why exactly Natsumi started chasing that fox. Why is transforming into the fox a good thing? Does she really only do this because she likes his ears? Is her quest one of vanity? That's a difficult cause for the reader to sympathize with. What is at stake? These things should be explained and set up before any quest starts.
It is too early to speak of any sort of character development, as we are only on the first chapter. Hopefully tomorrow I will have time to look at another chapter.
Grammar/spelling/nitpicks:
Too much budging. I suggest changing one of them to something else.
Present tense, while the rest of your story is in past tense.
Capital S at the beginning of the sentence. Also, bricks of memory? What are those?
Did the chirp spontaneously self-generate in her throat? Why not "she twittered a chirp from her beak..."? That way it's clearer who's responsible for the chirp. I know, it's a minor thing, but the tighter your prose is across the board, the better.
Mightiest of trees, or mightiest tree.
Fox undergoing spontaneous colour change from grey to black.
"Shutter" is an unusual enough word that its rapid repetition across one chapter in different contexts is noticeable and distracting.
Your shrike,
cC
How is the land unforgiving? You tell me unforgiving and I begin to think of extreme climates such as the frozen tundra of Alaska, the deserts of the Middle East, or Mount Everest. Tell me, what makes the land unforgiving: the climate, the people, or its magical beings?
One issue with this is that this is an imp. Imps are often portrayed as diminutive creatures and extremely unattractive. Now, if she's a special snowflake -swell, but take care of past precedents. One often sees them subservient to a fey and other magical creatures (such as a wizard) -I know this because of Wikipedia. How did she become the leader of the land?
Second as I pointed out in our Skype conversation, what in the world were you thinking with this phrasing? It couldn't be any more morbid -even if you pass it off as a mundane detail. Amongst the leaves there is a pair of long legs draped over with branches, do you know what this sounds like to me? Your average body dump site that has been compromised by wind. Yes, you heard me. This is the second time I bring this to your attention. Roar.
The next line with the skirt makes it sound that we have a skirt dancing in the wind. Swell, wait. Did you just mention skin? There's skin attached to a skirt dancing in the wind? Talk about morbid, yet again. I understand you're going for the ethereal poetic license here, but I'm not buying it. Make this scene less ethereal and more tangible -you know- with less decapitated body parts.
Now, you missed out on a great scene. I would’ve liked to see you elaborate more on how she danced in the light wind and played in the snow. It would’ve given the reader a chance to see her playful side. Also, that’s a cardinal sin you’ve committed by telling us and not showing us.
No. Something can skitter past the corner of one’s eyes and catch our interest, but to skitter past one’s interest? No. Sounds poetic, but holds no meaning and therefore I question its existence.
Hold on. Her legs were long earlier, but now they’re being described as plump? Is there such a thing as something that is long AND plump?
I like this obscure sentence. It seems to insinuate that there’s a correlation with her cough and the land’s branches shaking. As though the imp is part of nature (due to her position of leadership), possibly?
As Clairebear stated earlier, I agree that there is some exquisite descriptions. The ideal example that reminds me of Miyazaki’s work would be when the protagonist takes flight.
I know while you were crafting this I said past works, but only has an adverb, noun, or adjective. Such as: she marched past the river. Past doesn’t function as a verb. Later on, Thoth’s dialogue also uses past as a verb.
This fragment goes over my head. What precisely were you trying to state again?
I question the use of tickled. This is a chase, there’s a sense of urgency, and tickling is silly. Their noses may have buried into the mud of the banks. Actually, that would be adorable wouldn’t it? In the hounds’ haste, they bury their noses into the mud –quickly pull back up to snort it out, but are unable to do so. Their forepaws raise attempting to rub it off and their masters’ curse.
Creepy, it’s as though you’re fascinated with body parts at this point.
Awestruck? Once her awe subsided?
Natsume or Natsumi?
In this chapter alone, you utilize “as” thirty seven times.
I think mechanical –not rust colored. Suddenly the imp is an android or cybernetic entity in my mind.
Did you mean to say stolen trinket? I know it's not steel, you described it earlier as a silver.
How is the fox justified in ignoring her? Is it necessary to have that word there?
D’aww, I like this line. Don’t leave me with that. Take advantage of the fact he’s a fox. Does his lips pull back in a snarl or does our fox instead wrinkle his nose in distaste of the imp’s scent and her petulance?
Also, in the future for reading ease --I would like to see a break between paragraphs. This piece has quite a bit going for it –rich description, good characterization, but I feel the stakes need to be raised. The urgency of the chase needs to become stronger. Her trees die in the fire –doesn’t that affect her deeply as the leader of the land? Even if the fox doesn’t take the humans seriously as a threat, it’s got to be pestersome to have them after him.
Okay things to work on first: A lot of the sentences seem to be all the same length- short. It dragged a bit and I got confused about the characters. Things I liked: there was exquisite imagery.You did not put in too many needless details. I loves the names. Good characterization. I'm curious about the next part!
Keep up the good work!