So there was once a girl who couldn’t write non-filler stuff. Also, my chapters are very short. I’ve noticed that.
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“Alright, let’s get out of this forest.” The sky was still a scorched orange, but with Claud’s endless persistence, everyone was grudgingly awake and ready to go. The man in question was leading the parade of five westwards, where there was supposed to be some sort of shelter.
“You’re telling me that there’s an ocean that we can reach in an hour’s walk?” Lucius scoffed, running a hand through his hair. He had managed a couple hours of sleep last night after Mikhail took up night watch, and sleeping on the grass did not help his already disheveled hair. Then, he thought about his situation. “You know what, at this point, I think just about anything could happen and it would make sense.”
“That’s the spirit!” Reyna moved to give Lucius an encouraging slap on the back, but he dodged her hand, still wary of her attitude from the night before. The woman scrunched her eyebrows but didn’t try again.
Wila walked besides Lucius, scanning the environment and playing with her fingers through her long sleeves. In front of her, Mikhail kept on turning back and giving her brief, unreadable glances.
“Yes?” Wila sped up her pace to walk besides the albino, tired of his constant looks for no discernable reason. “What’re you looking at? Because I’m totally available, but I prefer the more direct-“
“N-not that!” Mikhail looked horrified that his glances were taken that way, a light blush covering his face. He bit his lip, looking down at his sneakers. He tugged at his collar and a couple loud exhales were heard before the boy looked back at her, the redness mostly gone. “I-it’s just… Have we met somewhere before?”
Wila stared at him for a little bit, tilting her head. Then, she let out a mischievous giggle. “I’d rate that an eight out of ten. Overused line, but that face of yours is pretty cute, so that makes up for it.”
Lucius snorted, trying and failing to cover it up as a cough. It didn’t fool anyone, but no attention was drawn his way.
Mikhail’s face reddened once more, this time a couple shades darker than before. He wildly shook his head, his chin-length white hair flying in all directions. “No! I-I mean-“
Wila cut him off with a laugh and a light nudge in the shoulder. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Funny, Reyna asked me the same thing, but no, I don’t think I’ve seen you guys before. I’d remember what you’d look like if I had. Albinos aren’t everywhere.” She frowned. “Where’d you think you saw me from, though?”
“I don’t know about him, but I swear I saw a woman who had the same hairstyle and figure as you in the arena,” Reyna popped into the conversation, a cheerful smile plastered on her face. “I can’t remember how long ago, but it was from a distance on a hill, so I didn’t really see her face.”
“I’m not sure, to be honest…” Mikhail averted his gaze, scrunching his face as if thinking really hard about something. “I don’t really want to d-describe it, but I r-remember seeing s-someone who l-looked like y-you when I w-was tr-travelling w-with s-some o-other… p-p-people…” He paused before his stammering became incomprehensible. “The other person looked taller, though… Do you know s-someone named Alexandra?”
“Afraid not.” During the whole time the two were talking, Wila wore a troubled expression.
Claud, who had remained silent during everything, came to an abrupt stop, surprising everyone. They had reached the edge of the forest, beyond which lay a great expanse of grass.
“What’s wrong?” Reyna skipped over to his side where the man was looking at behind a small hill. She froze besides him at the sight of whatever was there.
“What’s wrong?” Lucius stepped forwards, worry seeping into his mind.
Claud moved to push him back, but Reyna put her hand on his shoulder with a slight frown, motioning for the other three to come over. They obeyed, looking to where Reyna was pointing.
There wasn’t a gory scene or anything extremely out of place- just a single, lopsided wooden cross made of two sticks tied together with grass. It stuck out of a long bump of dirt and it was obvious what it was for.
“A grave,” Wila stated.
“Yes.” Claud clasped his hands together in prayer, bowing. He stayed that way for a while, before straightening up and turning to the others. “Anyone good at digging with their hands?”
“What?” Lucius did a double-take. “Are you implying that we’re going to dig the body up?”
Claud nodded in confirmation but didn’t say anymore, instead getting onto one knee and beginning to remove the loose dirt on top. Reyna stood beside him and used her bat as a replacement for a shovel. Since the two were working, Wila took the opportunity to explain things to Lucius.
“Their corpse might have useful items on them, if the burier didn’t have the heart or smarts to remove them, or clothes.” Wila sympathetically patted Lucius’ back upon seeing his horrified expression. “You’ll have to get used to it, Luc-luc.” She, along with Mikhail, joined the two in their work.
Lucius stared at the others for a bit, hesitantly kneeling besides Mikhail and participating in the effort, one handful at a time. Since the person who created the grave probably didn’t have a shovel either, it wasn’t long before Lucius noticed the dusty corner of a pants leg. He grabbed it and pulled the article of clothing out whole, removing the crumbly earth lying on top of it in the process. Then, he blinked, confused. “Where’s the body?”
Around him, the others unearthed the other articles of clothing –a ripped t-shirt, sneakers with holes in them, but no accessories- with similar results. None of the pieces were connected to any sort of body part.
“Maybe the clothes were buried alone?” Claud suggested, but even he sounded doubtful of his own idea. It didn’t make sense to bury the helpful items and leave the naked corpse out. That was also a rather disturbing thought, Lucius mused.
“Did it, I dunno, break down into the earth or whatever that science stuff was?” Wila held up a red sneaker, its sole just barely hanging onto the rest of the shoe. Wrinkling her nose, she beat it on the ground to let dirt escape the shoe.
“No, the clothes don’t look nearly old enough to have reached that stage. We would still have some rotting limbs in them, but the inside of these articles are completely clean- of flesh, anyways,” Claud muttered, holding the tattered t-shirt out in front of him and viewing it from every angle. The shirt was faded and obviously dirty, but it was in otherwise surprisingly good condition.
They laid their findings out while Reyna brushed and stomped on the former grave until it was relatively flat again.
“Well, no use agonizing over this!” Reyna hefted her bat back over her shoulder, giving them all a thumbs-up. There was a small pause, and then she smiled, completing the image. “Let’s go!”
“Right,” Claud said, standing up and stretching. He folded the t-shirt into a small square. “We can dump this stuff off at our base. Not much longer to go.”
Lucius, instead of properly folding the clothing like Claud did, just crumpled it up and firmly gripped the wadded pants in his hand. It wasn’t like it was fresh and new beforehand, so a few wrinkles wouldn’t hurt. Wila and Mikhail held one shoe each, mainly because neither of them wanted to feel guilty for not carrying anything.
The group carried on, leaving the strange grave behind. In a fantastical game of survival, it was much easier to focus on living and leave the mysteries to the nonexistent detectives.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,805 Reviews
I BET IT WAS CANNIBALISM. (Err, actually, that would be way too gross. Please don't do that.)
Well then... Timmy was pretty thorough with his review, so I'll just make a few little comments. (And also reply to what he said, as some of his comments don't really line up with how I understood the situation.)
1. I found a little nitpick. You may want to check the fourth paragraph from the bottom, in between Reyna's dialogue.
2. You are correct about the characters being able to dig with their hands. If the original burial was done without a shovel, and it had been done fairly recently (within a few days?), then the ground would still be soft enough for your people to dig quite effectively with their hands. I doubt the earth was packed very hard.
3. Have more confidence in yourself! I read your note at the top, but given the contents of this chapter, I could never call it a filler. The grave and Mikhail's "recognition" of Wila seem like details that will somehow play very important roles in the story. Honestly, I don't call things fillers unless there is no correlation to the progress of your plot.
4. As Timmy said, I definitely agree that you have the nuances of your characters down pat. Your attention to detail in action and characterization is quite impressive. Honestly, my biggest complaint is that you occasionally lose flow by using an excess of detail. (You've improved on this since chapter one though, so I think only time will help refine this aspect.)
5. If you're worried about overfilling environment details, try working on the tone of the setting first. It may sound a bit surreal in your head, but I honestly think this is the best way to ease into writing about places.
Well... I think that wraps it up. I'll be back for chapter 6!
-Buggie
*hugs your review* Thank you o3o Haha, cannibalism might show up at some point. I don't know. It sounds realistic enough.
Hello, Timmy here!
So before I head into this, I'll tell you that I haven't read your previous chapters... and so have no knowledge of your plot or the personalities of your characters save for what I see here. Because of that, I will be more tentative and won't point out anything I think is out of place when it comes to character and plot. I may, if one seems blatant enough, but I'll avoid the topic as much as I can. c:
Onto the review!
I'll talk about the pacing for a bit, but that also is something to avoid as a fresh reader in the middle of the book. But what I have here seems a bit slow, while at the same time moving along fast enough by the plot. So your plot is moving along at a fairly decent clip, and I don't think anyone could complain about that. I think you're telling and revealing enough to keep the readers interested, so no worries there. What I'm seeing is a bit slow when it comes to characters? I'm seeing too much frivolous details, most especially after a characters' string of dialogue. I've been down the same road, and for me, adding those bits of detail (such as running a hand through hair, biting fingernails, etc.) was something I did and still do sometimes. In many places, they work fine - and it's good to use those throughout a piece, because people really do bite their nails and run their fingers through their hair! Buuuuut, in a scene that, to me, should be more tense and action packed, it's best to focus the piece on their environment. That, to me, would give the piece a better dimension in this kind of a scene. If they were sitting around a table drinking tea, yes, let them run their fingers through their hair. But they're digging up bodies and running from forests! Give us more of the ambience around them.
So now that I've talked about spending more time on their environment, I'm going to blab about how. When I read through this, you do a wonderful job with the characters. Really, I'm impressed by how real they are, how I see their every action, and how detailed of people they are. They're real. The place around them? - not so much. And the reason is that, while you do a wonderful job showing your characters, you don't do much show when it comes to the forest/whatever around them. And I think you could do absolutely wonderful at it, too. Spend more time cultivating an awesome scene around your realistic characters, and your book will truly be incredible. Focus on a better balance of show and tell. Many people will tell you to "show, don't tell", and that's nothing but rubbish. Don't listen to them. You need a delicate balance of show and tell so that, while you describe the scene around them and bring it close to the reader by allowing them to touch, hear and smell the scene, you implement telling into it as well so it isn't clogged by show. It's a hard balance to find, and I believe most writers never do find it. They can only come close... which is one of the reasons why there are so many different kinds of writing styles out there. We all have our own interpretation of the correct balance of everything, and our own way.
Just... no. If you're going to use alternative names for people, resort to nicknames if you must in the narration. But female and male is, in my mind, going way too far. Even if they weren't distracting and almost humorous to see, they're also misleading and makes me wonder who is actually talking! I understand most of what I'm saying here is personal preference, but I think it'd be best if you stuck to their name and he/she. Everything else is used too infrequently, and so a stumbling block for readers.
I will say that, while I enjoyed reading this chapter, I didn't understand the reasoning for unearthing that body. And I also don't get how it was so easy without a shovel! It seems like it's rather warm outside or at least isn't winter, so the ground would be pretty hard (even if they were only digging a foot), and so they wouldn't be able to dig quite that easily and that fast. Plus, who on earth would want clothes off a corpse? And that'd be the only thing salvageable off one... if it'd only been buried for less than like a month. Other than that, anyone with half a brain would assume that would be the only items in the grave. Because who would leave anything more than the body and their clothes? I'm going to be completely honest and say that part of this chapter was completely nonsensical to me. :/ Buuuut if the preceding chapters explain why they randomnly dug up a grave, then my apologies - please ignore.
I think you have amazing talent and this book has a lot of potential - especially how you craft your characters. I love, love, love that! It really shows your careful attention to detail and how realistic you want this to be. They're wonderful. And your writing skills are great, and I'm sure you'll get even better as this book continues along. I always have!
Keep writing! You're doing really amazing. c:
~Darth Timmyjake
Oh yeah, the grave-digging part was a bit awkward... Pfffft just imagine that the ground is really crumbly or somethinggggg
Also, fun fact. Just before I checked this review, my parents (who occasionally read my stuff) were telling me that I needed more detail on the environments. I'll keep an eye out for that kind of stuff next time
I guess one can hope that the corpse has some useful items, rare as it might seem .u. Wouldn't hurt to try, right?
When I read it, the first thing that came to mind is "why?", because there are so many other ways that are easier (and less disturbing) to get supplies and clothing. xD
Your writing is amazing, though.
And instead of having me imagine the ground being really crumbly, show the reader.
Thanks! I guess it's because during the whole time, I was thinking of my old elementary school's field, which has occasional patches of dirt, all of which are really crumbly. I admit that I was comparing a real life plain to a public school field. I'll try to be more realistic next time