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125,005 Literary Works • 672,804 Reviews
So I think it was really interesting when you brought the signing in, but I'm not clear on what's really going on. It doesn't seem like Katin's actually deaf, since she's listening to the other girls' voices while she's beating the rug. But she signs and she doesn't do much talking herself and also mentions are made of louder voices and whose voices are easier to hear/understand. Is Katin hard of hearing? Mute? Just wondering, and I'm hoping it becomes clearer through the course of the story if you don't end up clarifying it here later.
Otherwise, I thought this was great. The characterization of the characters, even the ones off-screen (so to speak) was wonderful. Even just using little things and the comments of the girls really paid off--like saying Hera would remind Katin it's unladylike to swear, or how Erakh taught Katin some curse words in sign language (at least I gather it was in sign language), and so forth. It was incredibly natural. You managed to differentiate between the different characters without getting bogged down in a lot of physical detail or telling the reader about their different personalities.
BlueAfrica
Thank you for the review!
And yeah, Katin is hard of hearing. She has mild-moderate hearing loss that prevents her from hearing clearly, especially certain people's voices (Firuz's, the cook's), strange dialects (which we'll get to later), and rushed words. (And hopefully the next scene will make it clear enough xD)
It's pretty early in the story, so I am worried about getting bogged down in little descriptions (it's a bad habit of mine, haha), and it's nice to hear I'm not doing that yet.
Thanks again!
The diction in this piece is really good, that I really like the way you form them into sentences. I also really like the storyline and events that happened in this part,too. Though the one thing that I like the most is your characters, they are so throughout and have their own person. Great job on the piece!
Hey, Jay here, your friendly neighborhood critic!
Quick note before I get to my review--I'm writing this on a tablet with a squirley keyboard, so I apologize if I make any grammatical errors. (I really do know how to English!)
#0000BF ">Grammar & Spelling
So far, this is fantastic! I don't see many grammatical errors of your own, nor do I see any awkwardly phrased sentences. And, to my delight, I see that you aren't using "and" or any other words over and over. Great job there!
#0000BF ">Descriptions
You've got no shortage of our main character's surroundings. I know lots, from the dust on the floor to her friend's lovely teal shirt with smooth embroidery. No need for improvement here!
#0000BF ">Characters
We've got quie the mix here! Say hello to everything and everyone, from the shy yet inwardly sassy girl to the chipper yet kinda rude friend! We also have a lord/master that we don't know too much about, except that he's either an honest man or a young one. Perhaps a lover or loved one has died, and he's still recovering from heartbreak? Or am I just looking too far between the lines? xD
I think my only thoughts on this one are, if you're going to make Katin sassy at all (which it seems to be) don't make it inward, unless she's got a reason that we don't know of yet. Sass wasn't meant to be hidden with class, y'know?
Great job! I'd love to read more.
-Jay
Hey, thanks for the review!
It's really nice to know this isn't all boring, haha. As for your comment about Katin being inwardly sassy, it's more because she's hard of hearing than anything else - she sometimes has trouble communicating verbally, so she tends to stay quiet, especially around louder people.
Hope that cleared up a few little things, and thanks again!
Ohh, I see!
If that's the case, them, you should probably make it more obvious--I can derive lots of things about characters from little details but even I couldn't catch that.
Perhaps you could say--or maybe I just missed it--at some point she had a hard time hearing what one of her friends said. Or, just flat out say she was hard of hearing at some point.
Glad my review could help!
I'm making this comment to see if it'll enable my friend to reply; something's screwy with the coding, and maybe this will fix it.
Heyo!
I guess that the fact that Katin's hard of hearing would be difficult to catch if Lareine had only hinted at it once in the passing, but it had been alluded to multiple times throughout the entire chapter.
This one is a pretty big clue that Katin is hard of hearing, given that it actually follows a part of dialogue.
Sign language is a thing that hard of hearing and d/Deaf people use, after all.
This seems like one of the big hints in the middle. They talk about her hearing, and then Katin adds onto it. She doesn't have total hearing loss, like some would assume, but enough to affect her day-to-day life and have people comment on it.
Again, more sign.
Again, another mention of her hearing. This one indicates more of her problems with speech. She probably has some form of moderate loss -- and after asking the author, it appears that I'm correct.
Since this is the first chapter, I'm sure that the fact that she's hard of hearing will just be said outright later on, but this chapter does a pretty good job with alluding to that. In fact, it was one of the major things that I noticed when reading this.
Ahh, I guess I am just blind. xD
I'm in the middle of reading the Belgariad by David Eddings, so when they were speaking of signing I was thinking it was more along the lines of the secret language, not just plain old sign language. xD
As for the other hints... Darn I think I'm just an idiot lol