The first glide went quickly and soon the clearing clouds revealed the bright green of the landing lawn, at the base of the next lift. “Perfect no wind slip, we we are right on course.” Lian thought
“We could be lower though.” she criticised and slipped the gliding rod out, allowing her manual control, to loosen her wings. She started a gradual spiral down. Suddenly a smirk flickered across her face and she drew her wings in for a dive. Lian plummeted, the ground rushing towards her, before respreading her wings, just in time for a slightly stumbled landing. Having gained her feet she looked up to see Jiah copying her downward dive. Then without notice he opened his wings, earlier than Lian had and did a double backwards loop before landing gracefully. Nearby two lift operators and a group of travellers gave her brother a short applause. “Whatever” Lian mumbled. But grudgingly she admitted it had been an impressive landing, especially given Jiah was wearing travelling and not trick wings.
The lift beside the landing ground was as tall as the last one, but the clouds were clearing and revealed its summit. It seemed to pierce the sky like a pin. The landing lawn, other than providing a safe landing site, had pockets of trees with a few wooden benches scattered around and acted as a park. Lian bent forward and loosened her leg braces before making her way a seat nearby. Before sitting down she took off her wings and harness, folding them up and resting them on the side of the bench. Slipping her goggles onto her forehead to see better, Lian un-clasped her front pack and set it on the bench beside her. Jiah copied her movements. He sighed as he splashed water from his bottle first on his face then took some glugs. “Do you want some?” Jiah asked, drawing out a second bottle.
“Ah, no thanks” Lian replied “I do have my own”. She un-zipped her pack and withdrew a bottle and a second bag filled with some food. The brown paper rustled and Jiah took it as a reminder that their mother had packed them both lunch.
“Remember when we last went to the city?” Lian asked
“Yea Hughen and Benis were little and you still had your training wings on.” Said Jiah in-between mouthfuls of his cold meat pastry.
“Mmm, it was a good holiday.” Replied Lian, a smile playing on her face as she remembered the hotel they had stayed in, the huge library, eating out each night and the markets where her father had purchased bolts of silk and boxes of clasps as well as treats for each of them.
“It won’t take near as long to get there this time though. We are half way there already. These level three lifts make it so much faster than the smaller ones and twos we had to catch back then. All because you and the little boys were so young.” Jiah said.
“Your only two years older,” Lian protested “and today was only the second time you took a level three lift.”
“Whatever, Little sis.” Jiah teased. “I’m heading over to the bathroom, you mind the stuff?”
Lian watched Jiah go, thinking of their parents left in Balis. It would be odd with just Hughen and Bennis at home. Their father would have to start getting the younger two to help in the wing shop, instead of Jiah and Lian. She watched a ginger cat slink out from a nearby bush and preen it’s self in the sun. Lian took of the wings attached to her boots, then proceeded to walk around the bench a few times to stretch out her legs. The trees shaded her from the emerging sun, but the grass was still damp from the earlier rain and Lian felt a wet patch were she had sat down on the bench. Shortly Jiah arrived back and without a word they switched places. This time Jiah minding the stuff while Lian visited the loos.
Once Lian got back, Jiah asked “ready to go again?”
Lian nodded and gathered her pack and wings. They were awkward to walk in so she buddled them in her arms and followed her brother back to the base of the Lift.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Yo. Pomp here for a RD review~ I've skimmed through the first chapter, but I don't really have a solid handle on how things're going about here; forgive me for any assumptions on my part and weed through the criticism as you will.
First off: You've punctuated your dialogue incorrectly. Here's an article to help you out with that. Also, a lot of the sentences are lacking appropriate pauses and such; read through this and sprinkle a dusting of commas where you feel there's a distinct need for a mental caesura. (One such example would be 'Nearby two lift operators...', where a comma after 'nearby' would really help things.)
On a different note--I found the first few paragraphs to be a bit of a stumbling block for me. There's tons of action, but the sentences don't really vary in length and that lends a monotonous feel to the prose. I'd also advise you to split the paragraphs up into two or more--it's sort of an unofficial 'rule' for a new paragraph to start where another segment of dialogue begins. I also ... don't really know what's going on? Like, yeah, a lot is going on, but there's nothing that really binds me to this world the narrator creates, or intrigues me to the degree that I wish to keep reading. I can't invest my sympathies in the novel yet, because nothing worth sympathising with has happened. It's a barrel of events, one ticking off against the other, but nothing resembling a story arc--with a conflict--has been introduced.
You desperately need a conflict, man. Make things difficult for your characters. Readers love that sort of stuff--it really allows them to connect with your characters, and your work.
I'm wanting for a lot more character-development here, too. As well as other elements of the story--background, setting, something much more solid to cling to. Lian and Jiah are very flat characters, as it stands, right now, and I cannot understand their motives or anything. I wouldn't mind more internal thought, where Lian is concerned. I'm assuming the perspective this is meant to be written in third-person limited? which gives you hella advantage to not only explore the main character's head, but also flit from this to her surroundings. There's an exceptional lot you can do. This is both science-fiction AND fantasy, so there's a lot of room to manoeuvre in with worldbuilding; so take things a little slower, and explore.
Keep writing! Keep it up!
Hope this helped.
~Pomp
Hi,
nice chapter. In the first sentence, instead of telling us that the "glide went by quickly", you could describe the acceleration of the gliding with those wings. Also, I noticed that your punctuation for dialogue was a bit off. In some instances you need to use a comma instead of a period. There were also a few spelling mistakes (you're instead of your).
I also feel like you could describe the scene a bit more while they're still in the air and not after they land.
A few sentences can also be omitted like: "Jiah copied her movements.", "Jiah copied her movements."
I also think the chapter is a bit short. The only info I get from it is the family relations between the characters. I think you can extend it somehow by adding more dialogue or showing some interaction with other characters nearby.
Hope this helped.