I. Anastasia
Anastasia didn't know the forest was magic.
She had been crouching in the front coat closet of her husband's - sensible, if not overly small for their imminently-growing-family - starter home, listening to him break the last of the delicate china teacups he'd bought her for their wedding. It was often her refusal to acknowledge the house as her house, or their house, that provoked Mike Davis to work on his throwing arm. This time, she'd gone to the pantry for a pack of saltines after only picking over the chicken wings he'd brought home from the bar beside the auto shop.
The little human started to turn in Anastasia's womb, and she wished she'd thought to sneak the saltines with her into the closet. Delicately, she pressed her fingertips to her temple where she'd knocked it on the hardwood dog dish stand Mike had bought for the Great Dane puppy he'd put a down payment on before they found out about the little human.
Her fingertips came away dry, if not stained red from the scrape she got when she fell. Her head ached something awful. In the kitchen, her husband shouted expletives Anastasia had never heard before, followed by her name.
Anastasia. Anastasia. Anastasia.
Mike had been the only one to call her Anastasia since her mother died. It was complicated, the way it made her feel to hear her name on his tongue. It made her miss her mother. It made her hate her husband.
She preferred it when she called the OBGYN and told them, call me Ana. When she ordered takeout milkshakes and left Ana as the name for the delivery guy. She had her own phone number, just so she wouldn't forget as she was prone to do, saved in her cellphone as Ana.
In her profile on the ridesharing app she kept buried on her phone, her name was listed as Ana. While her husband shouted something unintelligible, Ana set her pickup location. While he rummaged through the cabinet for something to break or something to drink, she set her drop off location as the Holiday Inn Express two towns over. While he stormed out onto the half-finished back deck to kick around a deflated soccer ball and drink straight from the bottle of bourbon he didn't think Ana knew he kept in the back of the pantry, she snuck out the front door.
Ana didn't know the forest was magic, but the three pine-scented air fresheners hanging from the car's rear view mirror threatened to strangle her. She rolled down the window, but the air rushing past them threw up a wall so thick it forced the real-pine scent of the forest that lined the highway into the fake-pine scent of the car and when she gasped for air, into her lungs.
Dizzy, she begged the driver to pull over. She threw open the door, left her phone on the seat, and paced across the empty highway, clutching the little curve of the little human in her womb.
If Ana had known the forest was magic, she might not have turned back from the other side of the road and waved for the driver to keep going without her. Late summer thunder rumbled overhead and she fiddled with her braid that had all but come apart in the scuffle back at home.
If she had known the forest was magic, she might not have started to run when it started to rain. She might have let the water soak her through. She might have started walking back toward home, thinking to herself; what an overreaction.
But Ana didn't know the forest was magic. So when it started to rain, she started to run. She ran into the pines she had loved since her father had moved them out into the Pacific Northwestern boonies on her seventeenth birthday. She had loved them since the soccer team summer retreat her senior year when Mike Davis, the junior varsity soccer coach, had kissed her for the first time.
Ana ran into the forest and felt for the little human doing somersaults in her womb. Ana loved her little human. She had loved the way the little plastic stick turned pink, and the way the second one had brought up two thick, bold lines. She loved the way it scared her, and the way it made her husband tender. She loved thinking about the future, with a little human by her side to stack the odds in her favor.
She stumbled and slid down a hill into a tangle of huckleberry bushes, catching twigs and pine needles in her birkenstocks. It sliced up her feet, stole her breath, and set her whole body tingling but she ignored the blood and the wave of nausea that swept through her. Her stomach growled. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had a well balanced meal. It was hard to walk to the grocery store with the little human in her womb, and even harder to carry things back. Mike drove to the auto shop every day, even though Shane, his business partner, lived next door.
Ana landed on her ass at the bottom of the hill and coughed while she fought to untangle herself from the bushes. She wondered if Shane and Lila had been sitting on their front porch when she'd snuck out to the rideshare. Her heart seized and she forced herself to her feet. Shane and Lila liked to sit out and watch the sun set with matching glasses of light beer and their german shepherd dog sacked out at their feet. If they had seen her, they would have known something was wrong. They'd have gone over and had a talk with Mike. They would have told him where she'd went.
Fear boiling in her gut, Ana kept running.
She ran until she staggered out of the trees onto a little road. Her little human settled in her womb, and so Ana followed it until it ran up against a little wood-and-stone cottage settled in a clearing in the trees. The sky opened overhead and poured heavy, cold rain on Ana's head.
Thunder cracked. She felt lightheaded and crazy, drunker than she'd been on her twenty-first birthday when Mike had taken her and a bottle of scotch camping and decided it was time they got married. It was a rare thing for a storm in the Pacific Northwest, for rain thick like curtains, but Ana ran to the house and tried for the door. And when it didn't open, she circled the cottage and climbed through an open window.
If Ana had known the forest was magic, she may never have found herself tumbling over Esther Keeling's kitchen sink. But she hadn't known. And so she'd snuck out of her husbands house, and so she'd run into the woods, and so she'd climbed through the window of a strange little cottage. And so Ana met Esther, and so everything changed.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,005 Literary Works • 672,798 Reviews
Hi there!
I saw your newest chapter and was interested so I figured I'd start from the beginning
I have a bit of a qualm about Ana's name here. You begin by referring to her as Anastasia, but then later you mention nobody really calls her that except for her husband. After that you switch to calling her Ana in the narration. I'd stick with Ana everywhere. That makes it especially apparent when her husband is screaming her name because it goes against what we know. And it won't seem as mundane. I already knew she was Anastasia so hearing him call her that didn't mean anything to me. Where as knowing her as Ana would make me feel something else.
The first handful of paragraphs up there a a little plain. Your writing is wonderful and flows really well, but I don't feel anything after reading it. The whole beginning part of this chapter is Mike being mad at Ana over something. Mad enough to throw things and curse. But I don't feel the anger or anything at all. It seems like just another normal day. That's fine of course, maybe he does this a lot and it is normal for Ana. We need to know that though. Give us a little bit of background information to support Ana's reactions. Otherwise it seems like a woman is hiding in a closet and a man is throwing china at the wall. Get what I'm saying?
I like the little details about her name. Obviously the name Anastasia is important to her because it's what her mother used to call her. But the fact that you go deeper and really explore what the name Ana means to her makes it more important. Going through those places and people that she says her name is Ana to gives her another dimension as a character. It's a tiny thing, but it makes her really come alive. There are so many emotions attached to both of those names and you really showed us the ones linked to Ana. I like that.
Your transitions are a little iffy to me. This chapter seems almost like a prologue to me as it mentions the bare minimum just to get to the beginning of the "actual" story. Doesn't mean you have to have it as a prologue of course, but just saying it seems like it. Whenever something new happens you just sort of jump to it. Like going from the closet to ordering a ride. She's sitting in this closet and then all of the sudden decides to order a ride. Why does she do that? What thought patterns got her to that point? Is she leaving because she feels bad or because she's scared? There are so many questions I have that haven't been answered. I'm forced to come up with my own ideas which may or may not be true. Also I felt a disconnect when she ended up in the forest. I didn't even know there was a forest. A bit of description there would help a great deal.
There's a lot of potential for this novel. I'm very interested in Ana's story and can't wait to see what this magical forest holds. Your writing is very smooth and I like the way it flows. It's very professional, as in I would see it in a book at the local bookstore. You have a good style that works for you. I'm impressed!
I hate having to focus so much on the negative, but sometimes that's what needs to be said. I was not a fan of all the jumping around. One thing leads to another in a somewhat understandable way. However, there's a real lack of stable transitions and description. I can understand if you don't want to go all into what the setting looks like and things like that, but there has to be at least some of that. Otherwise I'm left feeling like I could've gotten more. I wanted more. Don't ever leave me wanting more. Give me all of it! xD
Can't wait to read more!
Keep writing!
**Noelle**
Lauren <3 I said I would review this, and here I finally am! I've been trying to review all the lms first chapters that I want to follow, so my reviews will probably be late and spaced out, so I apologize in advance! Let's get into it though
**disclaimer: I will most likely focus on negative aspects more so than positive aspects when reviewing, and this is just to help you grow as a writer! It is totally okay not to agree with something I say! Also, If I repeat anything already said, it's probably because it needs to be changed!**
before I read anything, I like to focus on your hook, by itself. Mostly because I'm the kind of person that when I go looking for random books, I always pick the one with the best hook. So I like your hook, but it's also not the best. Like, if I read this, I might set it aside and see if I could find a better hook in a different book. Maybe add if not knowing was bad or good? like why does it matter that she didn't know? It's not a bad opening line by any means, I just think it could be better (personal opinion, though).
now into your story
I thought this was an unnecessary sentence and it was weird to start a new paragraph with it considering it goes with the topic in the paragraph before it.
oh..xD
So, she's in the car now? I think this kind of jumped in a weird way, maybe write about the car pulling up and her getting in or something?
wait, student-teacher relationship? Or am I reading that wrong? xD
I feel like some of your repetition like the forest is magic thing, is good. But I'm kind of bothered by how many times you say "little human in her womb". Maybe try and switch it up a bit?
I'm very intrigued by this story. I'm interested to see why everything changed and why she wouldn't have done it if she had known everything was going to change. this was a well paced first chapter! great job!
- del <3
Hello hello Lauren!
I haven't read the previous reviews so my apologies if I repeat anything!
It's hard for me to imagine this as a first draft because this prose itself is quite polished in my opinion! It's pretty clean (I didn't really feel like it got clunky) and the diction is lovely too. I also dig the repetition of "Ana didn't know the forest was magic". It sets a very gentle rhythm to the chapter here and it also worked well as an opening hook.
There was a lot of telling here about the relationships here but the detail was point on and it worked. If you followed "show don't tell" strictly, I imagine that you'd have to present so many scenes with action and narrative and dialogue that would have bogged the pace. I'm really fond of this kind of telling, where the relationships and character are explained in evocative detail.
I think you did a great job making me care for Ana. She's in a bad place--she's married to an abusive man who gets drunk often, she's quite helpless the way she can't go to the grocery store by herself. BUT she still manages to survive anyway. She can sneak out and have her freedom and I really like her pluck.
I don't have much to say here other than "Great job! This is AWESOME" so maybe I'll lay out some thoughts on what I imagine might happen next! I'm so curious about what's going to happen once she met Esther and I'm curious who Esther is. And I wonder what will happen to the baby in Ana's womb. I'm sort of predicting that this story might span a long time and maybe the POV will eventually go deep into the person the baby grows into. And I don't think I mentioned it but I think the narrator's voice is fantastic.
Let me know if there's something you want me to specifically give feedback on! Keep writing
-Ink
Lauren! <3
Well I know the forest is magic but I am definitely ready to run and tumble through a window with Ana. I love so much how she literally climbs through a window. I can't wait to see Esther's reaction to that. I can't wait to see Esther and Ana interact (I also have such nostalgia for Ana even if she's probably way different!)
As Dems said your hook is just so good and not even just one hook? There's magic and this vulnerable and yet determined character? And the promise of Esther. And what is this cottage. And basically I wish to devour this story and all its lovely magical lady amazingness.
Also I related to Ana so hard when the pine air freshener made her feel sick. I hate those things.
I don't have much to add other than what people have already picked up on but this is a first draft beginning and I'm just so happy to be along for the ride!
Lauren my love <3
Aaah. It's so beautiful! I have to admit I didn't have the time to follow your NaPo (or anyone's for that matter) so I only have previous knowledge/ideas from what I've seen you talk about, but I think I'm going to go and read them now that I'm reading this! I love the atmosphere, but I'm not surprised because you are the mistress of atmosphere creation. In all that you write the atmosphere is so strong and I can feel and see and smell and hear the setting so nicely.
I thought the ending was perfect. You do know your way around a good hook and I love it. I can't wait to meet Esther.
I love how in a relatively short space we are introduced to so much information about these characters and their relationships, yet it doesn't feel like there's too much because it's so nicely woven in. It's just like "yeah, this is how it is" instead of "woah, a lot of info". I guess it's because none of it is written in an exposition sort of way. Wow, it's almost as if you're a great writer or something.
I also loved "It made her miss her mother. It made her hate her husband."
I was interested to see that Ana feels so lovingly about her baby. At first when it was referred to as "little human" I wasn't sure if it was tender or standoffish, and my instinct was to think the latter. However, now that I think of it more closely, I can see how "little human" is actually quite affectionate. Maybe my first instinct was because it seems quite formal, but it could be just that Ana is not very experienced about babies?
(If we're talking about long sentences now, there was only one where I had to make sure I understood, and that was about the bottle of bourbon he didn't think Ana knew about. Or rather, I understood it but it felt a bit heavy as the sentence didn't end there. But anyway, these are revision matters!)
I am very excited about this, and I am especially excited about magic! And you! <3
LAUREN. WOMAN.
I want more of this, and I want more of it now. I love the repeated tease of the forest being magic. I love the PNW details, how you invoke its fairytale qualities and juxtapose them against the realities that abuse and manipulative assholes happen anywhere and everywhere, even right next door to Portland hipsters drinking IPAs.
And I love how this reminds me of Hansel and Gretel, minus Hansel. Or perhaps Baba Yaga Boney Legs. Except Ana isn't a pure innocent child of the Romantic Grimms but instead most definitely not a virgin and tumbling in over a kitchen sink to escape the rain. I love that she has a princess name that her mother used to call her but that she has given up, like her innocence.
I love your voice. I love your words. I love you.
Other than the few ? sentences Biscuits pointed out, I have to disagree with Biscuits about the long sentences; I thought they were lovely. They made my brain stay on alert, appreciating and analyzing, rather than passively sitting back and enjoying. Or maybe that's just how you draft. Regardless.
I am so here for this.
Rache
<33 Thanks, darling! I do love me a good long sentence. xD I'm sure they're often more confusing than clear and will get sorted in revision, but I just can't resist how it feels in my brain to write them.
I'm starting to get a little hungry but not giving up on my mission yet!
Nit-picks:
I think the dash should come after "sensible" rather than after "husband's".
After the comma, this sentence quickly became a bit of a run-on.
Wouldn't the blood still be wet?
Overall:
This is a clearly well thought out chapter. The repeated lines, the carefully paced climax, it feels very professional. And that might sound like a quite neutral value, but that's something I really appreciate, because I feel like I'm I guess... safe hands? I don't feel like I'm going to have to put very much effort into reading this, and it will be more like normal recreational reading of published books.
What doesn't quite fit with published books is the occasional sentences that are a bit too long. Grammatically they technically work, but it's just slightly confusing to keep track of. I'd just arbitrarily stick some full stops in when you can bear it, because it's about how the reader's mind interacts with pauses and sustained holding of a sentence in the head, rather than about the actual sentence. Well, sometimes. Obviously stylistic long sentences are also a thing.
It's probably different for me to be objective about the plot and setting because strong female characters and magical forests are very much both my jam, so you're just going to have to find someone more sceptical to comment on that
Hope this helps,
Biscuits
oh and of course, let me know when the next chapter is up ^.^
Thanks, Bisc! <3