Hi, Dragon. Back again to review.
I liked the calmness of this chapter. It's nice to see the characters interacting and having a bit of breathing room, and I enjoyed discovering more of Crystall and Katrina's personalities. It's also good to know that the skating is still going to be a key part of the plot despite the fantasy elements.
I'm going to focus on more general issues later in the review and start with a few specific comments. Here we go.
I woke up the next morning, my annoying alarm aiding me with that.
BiscuitsLeGuin pointed out that 'aiding' was a strange choice, which I agree with, but I also think the structure of the sentence is a bit weird. It makes it seem like she was already waking up and that her alarm just helped her on her way, when what really happened (I assume) was that the alarm just...woke her up. It would be a lot simpler to say something like 'My annoying alarm woke me' or 'I woke to the blaring of my annoying alarm'.
“I hope you slept well.” I called.
“Thanks…” He replied, clearly stretching as he did. “I hope you did too…”
Still punctuation errors. These are littered throughout. It should be:
“I hope you slept well,” I called.
“Thanks…” he replied, clearly stretching as he did. “I hope you did too…”
I also think the use of ellipsis is a bit peculiar in Crystall's dialogue; they don't really add anything. But that's your call.
“Please don’t leave you look very ho- I mean, I could help you find your place in this world!”
I agree with MJTucker that this dialogue is way too on the nose. Nobody blurts things like that in real life, and even if she did say that she'd have caught herself way earlier. It does sort of feel like you're labouring the point about his physical attractiveness, as well.
Besides, I never burned the clothes here at my house. I’d take them, put them on my ex-boyfriend’s doorstep and then set them on fire.
This made me laugh - it characterises her very well. Not that I approve of burning clothes on ex-boyfriends' doorsteps, of course!
All of them looked tight on him, and you could still see his muscles because of that.
This time, you could only faintly see his muscles.
Remember what I said about labouring the point? Spectacular as they may be, it's somewhat monotonous to have her so fixated on his muscles all the time. You're grounding the basis of her affection for him in his appearance, too, which feels a bit cheap; I'm not saying physical attractiveness isn't a big part of how people are drawn to each other, but I want to feel like the relationship is growing from a good dynamic rather than just from his blinding hotness. I'd root for them much more if you presented Crystall more as a real person than a flawlessly cute model boy.
“Not perfectly enough, young lady. If you don’t get this next attempt right, you can forget about the triple Axel.” he said.
Considering pro skaters frequently fail to land tricky jumps, it seems strange that Nate would be so absolute about the inclusion of it after a single attempt. If all skaters were prohibited from including jumps they sometimes wobbled or fell on, they'd never do triples at all, and certainly not quads. And it's not like she even did badly on it - she just stumbled. In competition, she'd still get the element counted and it's not like she'd be deducted for a fall, so the payoff would be worth it even with imperfect execution. I find it hard to believe that Nate would tell her that she couldn't put it in the routine based on that - especially given that it's one of the hardest jumps for female skaters.
If you want to give the impression that Nate is a hard taskmaster, you could have him telling her that she needs to land it better than that before he's satisfied with it, or something along those lines. But him telling her she can't put it in if she doesn't land it perfectly on the second go just seems ludicrously counter-productive.
“You know… Now that I think about it, the Axel was pretty hard…” I thought aloud. “Yeah, let’s stay with the triple.”
Again, you say the Axel is hard, but she seemed to pull it off pretty easily. Realistically, I'd expect her to need more time to perfect it than four attempts, and I'd expect her to fall many times too. Only seven women throughout history have landed the triple axel successfully in international competitions; we need to feel how difficult it is.
“Well…” Crystall replied. “I only started today… Katrina said she’ll teach me and maybe she’ll get me into competitions…”
“To be honest, you do look very sporty. Maybe you should give skating a try.”
Hang on a sec, competitions? Isn't that a bit premature? Ice skating isn't something you can learn overnight; it takes years of training to reach competition level, even if the competitions are small. I can see that Nate might want to encourage him, but it seems strange he wouldn't allude to how much time and dedication (and money!) it would take to reach that level.
Overall Points
1) Crystall and Katrina's relationship. I agree with BiscuitsLeGuin. It seems like we're being informed of how much she likes Crystall without really being shown it. There isn't much banter between them, so I can't really feel the chemistry, and if I can't feel the chemistry I can't root for them. I think you need to rely less on Katrina's inner thoughts to communicate their relationship. Perhaps try to picture the events of a romantic scene from an outsider perspective at first, asking yourself 'if I was a fly on the wall, would I be able to tell that these two people liked one another?' If the answer is no, you need another approach.
Also, the advice I give to every romance writer is to portray them as friends, first and foremost. All good relationships are grounded in friendship, so don't overlook it.
2) Crystall's emotional state. Previous reviewers have mention the strangeness of him deciding to learn to ice skate barely any time after his tribe was killed, and I have to echo it. When you take into account his sudden breakdown in the previous chapter, I can't understand why he wouldn't be even slightly trauma-laden in this one. You said that he wouldn't be interested in finding out about the rest of his tribe because they've all been killed, but that makes me even more confused as to why he isn't more of a wreck. It sounds like he's been through a real ordeal.
Maybe you could have Katrina taking him to the rink in order to distract him, but you must make the after-affects of whatever he's been through more present. Emotional baggage is a pain to write, but it can't only exist when it's convenient.
3) Slightly expanding on the previous point, but Katrina also seems weirdly at ease with the whole thing. If a centaur showed up at my house, I don't think I'd be suggesting a casual ice-skating session the next morning - I'd still be freaking the hell out about a) having a stranger in my home and b) that stranger having damn horse legs. Even if Katrina is the adaptable sort that takes bizarre stuff in her stride, there's still a limit to how casual she'd be, and it's hard to believe that skating would be the first thing on her mind in this sort of situation.
I'll call the review there. Always a pleasure to read more from you, and I'm glad to hear that more Que Sera Sera will be coming soon. I'll be looking out for all new chapters, regardless of where they come from.
Keep writing!
~Pan
Points: 46598
Reviews: 641
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