Hey-O,
So to start off a summary to make sure I got what you're puttin' down: Cora (who is deaf or mute, I guess, and probably a foster or adopted kid of some sort--this is probably clearer if I read the earlier sections) finds/is told about a secret portal in the grass of a park? The circle can turn inanimate organics dead and is a portal to somewhere (probably the afterlife) her sister(ish) Lena is tired of being left out of things and jumps in the portal. Definitely didn't see the ending coming.
Onto some nitpicky/writing choice stuff since I didn't have any problems with the story. (FYI, I know I write a lot for my line by line critiques so don't be intimidated I just think it helps to be aware of why I dislike the way the line was phrased. I know this is a draft and that nothing is perfect first time and that you likely interpret things differently than I do. I'm just pointing out anything that took me out of the fiction and analyzing why it did that for me.)
"Cora raised her right eyebrow, crossing her arms over her chest and staring at the circle of smooth stones that surrounded the patch of dead grass." ----A lot of description in one line, makes it harder to follow what’s important. Pay attention to what is the focus of the sentence and cut back on anything that might distract from it. Here the focus is on the dead circle, but leading with her reaction to the circle distracts from the circle itself which is a shame because you probably spent the last section hyping it up. If you want to keep Cora’s reaction, try placing it before the thought that way it can lead in without cutting up the Dead Circle description.
"If she didn’t know better, she'd think the grass was solid ash. "----Clearly she doesn’t know better. Cliché, distracts from the point which is that the grass is solid ash—that’s cool world building that again is distracted by a change in tone. "If she didn't know any better" reminds me of cheesy rom coms where the soon to be ex boyfriend or the way too invested best friend realizes that she has a crush on the love interest and they're like "If I didn't know any better I'd say you were in love with him" (this is probably just me) where as the rest of the sentence is like cool description with good eerie sounds and motif. It also adds ambiguity to the description. Like is it ash or is it just like ash? It culminates to a distraction from your world building.
"She cocked her head to the side, recalling how enthusiastic Samuel was in interrupting her drawing routine to talk about the ‘dead circle’." ----Sorry first paragraph I spent a lot of time on you to get my bearings on the story. I’m assuming this is a reference to the previous scene. The word choice here seems a bit off (recalling/enthusiastic vs. talk about). We already know that Samuel told her about the dead circle and this actually tells me very little about that interaction so it isn't adding anything to the scene by recapping this. Instead of summarizing the scene, I’d rather hear something from the character’s point of view. We hear that he interrupted her drawing routine, but is that something he wouldn’t normally do (ala “he was so excited he had the nerve to interrupt my drawing”). He’s enthusiastic, but is he prone to exaggeration (ala “I thought he was kidding, but maybe this was the real deal”)? If you like the recap this could be a great time to integrate character description into your recap and give us some juicy deets about how the characters feel about each other.
"oblivious to Cora’s investigations"----I think I figured out the word choice of "Investigations" by the end of the scene, but I felt like this was a good time to talk about word choice and tone. I don't know how old Cora is, a teenager by context clues, thirty year old PI by the word choice. By which I mean that the word choice you use describing the world reflects onto Cora. You describe the scene very clinically with harsh sounding words like "Texture, register, grasp, withdrew, rambles, death-related matters, contents, etc." which ages her up significantly and makes it jarring when... well:
"She clenched the red delicious in her hand and submerged it in the circle. Within ten seconds, the apple’s outside had gone from firm to absolutely mushy. Within twenty seconds, she completely regretted every single decision in her life with nausea taking root in her core. Cora pulled the apple back out, marveling at the disgusting, molding monstrosity dribbling down her hand."----This is a very immature paragraph (not a bad thing, it feels more like her age actually) which in juxtaposition to the clinical description with harsh cold words feels very jarring and makes me think the character is...well dumb. She sounds like someone who overreacts even though she probbaly anticipated what would happen (ala the last section where she proposes a hypothesis). Plus this section has an excess of adjectives which draws attention to her overreaction (again not a bad thing it clearly gives us the feeling), in juxtaposition to the rest of the scene it is weird.
Going back a bit... "Her hand sunk into the circle, meeting nothing and not even registering the texture of grass. She wriggled her fingers around, a cool chill passing over her hand."---- Is this not surprising to Cora? I would probably have accidentally slipped my whole arm in. A good moment to focus in on the surprised response and then focus on description.
"ignoring the itch in her fingertips to sketch the scene before her"---- Kind of shoe horned in here. We already know she likes to draw everything so unless she has some sort of power connected to her drawing this is a little awkward.
"If the grass was dead and things could disappear..." ----awkward phrasing "things could disappear" she one hasn't proven that yet with any certainty and two it's one of those change in tone things I was talking about earlier. Sometimes she sounds professional and other times she sounds like a kid.
"She clenched the red delicious in her hand"----I know I quoted this earlier but I want to focus on this. "red delicious" is too much detail, it distracts from what’s going on. It is okay to repeat words and not fully realize that image of this apple. I honestly don't care about the apple, and if you wanted to bring up that it was a fresh apple (to juxtapose with it when it turns to a melted dead apple) it would have been better to describe it when it was pulled out of her bag (ala "a fresh apple, only a little bruised from its trip in her bag, but it would do"). At this point it is only important in how it relates to the action.
"absolutely mushy"----probably not your intention but this made me laugh, what is absolutely mushy? Is it like oatmeal consistency, or grits, something beyond breakfast grains?
"It obviously didn't have any warnings around it"----except the ring of extra dead grass around it.
"staring at the numbers 3:16 in horror." ----awkward phrasing. Consider revision
"Don’t lie to me, Cora"----how could she lie about it, it looks super obviously weird.
Overall it's a fine start, just consider tone in your word choice. The way things sound is important it's what gives the characters the characteristics of age and disposition. The integration of details is not always ideal you can consider giving a less vivid picture to make sure that you're highlighting the details that matter.
Points: 2972
Reviews: 35
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