Note: In my documents, there are thoughts and things which are actually italicized, but I'm too lazy to find them all and re-italicize them when publishing on YWS, so I'm very sorry about that. Maybe one day I'll get around to it.
Finnley knew that were it Mia in his place, she would be sprinting towards his voice. But Finnley crept forwards, crouched between the blackened trees, Monica and his mother at his back. When he peered out from behind the stumps, he nearly staggered back at the sight.
On the bare rock stood a horse, tall and powerful. Living in Wyoming, Finnley had seen many horses by now, but none were as big as this one. And none were on fire. The horse was burning, the fire crackling around it, fueling it. Finnley could feel the waves of heat rolling off the beast and started to sweat in his warm fall clothes.
The horse. It was the horse from Mia’s nightmares. And if that was Mia’s nightmare, then… The horse shifted for a moment, stamping its hooves in turn, and Finnley glimpsed Mia just past it, holding up some sort of sword. No matter how ludicrous the situation, no matter how on earth she’d gotten hold of that sword, Finnley’s heart clenched. When he had told her to fight her nightmare, he hadn’t meant this.
Behind him, his mother sucked in a breath at the sight of the horse. “How…?
Though she didn’t finish her sentence, Finnly knew what she meant. How could they possibly get Mia out? The horse’s fire was overwhelming, even from a distance. Finnley could practically taste the ashes in his mouth, and the smoky smell hung thickly enough to choke. The bright tongues of flame were already searing themselves into Finnley’s eyes.
Monica raised her eyebrows at them. “I’ll distract him? It’s not like he can do much to me.”
Finnley’s mom bit her lip, torn between seeming insensitive and doing what she needed to do to get Mia back. “Alright,” she said at last, “but you need to be just as careful as if you were living.”
Monica nodded gravely before pulling her hair back in a ponytail she’d had around her wrist, something Finnley had never seen her do before. She was really going to do this. It took a firm mental reminder that she was already dead for Finnley to keep from holding her back.
As Monica rose from the ruined trees and stepped towards the rock shelf, Finnley and his mom edged alongside it, trying to get closer to Mia. Monica bent down and picked up a rock, testing its weight in her hand before hurling it at the flaming horse. It whipped its head around, but didn’t move.
It wants to keep Mia trapped, Finnley realized. Their plan wouldn’t work. The horse opened its mouth and sent a jet of flame towards Monica, who casually sidestepped. Without looking at Finnley, she nodded, just a bit, to show that he needed to keep going.
As he and his mother advanced, Finnley fumbled with the side pocket of his backpack, searching desperately for a pen. When they paused, he began to draw a spell on the walking stick he had brought with him, fighting to keep his hand from shaking as he did so. He hoped it wouldn’t come to a fight, but it didn’t seem likely any of them were going to get out of there without one.
Finnley scampered forward the last few steps with an energy he didn’t know he’d had. Now they were just below the rock shelf, at eye level with the great black hooves of the horse. Monica was still throwing rocks at the horse, who was shooting fire back, leaving Mia unwatched. She really was holding a sword, her fist clenched about it and her eyes trained on the fiery beast.
She looked like — oh. Oh. She looked as if she hadn’t slept in weeks, and Finnley’s eyes widened impossibly as he realized that she probably hadn’t. She was keeping the nightmare away. Even as they watched, Mia swayed on her feet, and despite the distance between them, Finnley instinctively jerked his hand towards her. That fast, the horse’s attention was trained on them.
“Finnley,” his mother warned, “don’t you do anything rash, don’t —” But as the horse opened its mouth to shoot fire at them, Finnley leaped in front of his mother. He shut his eyes tightly as he flung out his arms. When he didn’t feel the heat of the fire, he opened his eyes again. Nothing had come out of the horse’s mouth. And the flames along its body almost seemed lower.
It needs some sort of fuel, Finnley thought. That was why the trees around them were all burnt. The clatter of a sword drew his eyes back to Mia. She had just collapsed, her eyelids fluttering. The horse turned towards her as well, and without thinking, Finnley launched himself onto the rock shelf and whispered the activation word just as he struck the horse with his newly strengthened walking stick.
It hit the horse squarely, and the neigh that emanated from him sounded almost more like a snarl. The horse advanced one step and Finnley took one step back and to the side, slowly turning the horse away from Mia. It took all his strength not to look directly at her — he didn’t want the horse to track the movement of his eyes. There was a faint footstep, and then Monica was standing beside him.
The horse snorted, then stepped closer to them. Finnley held his walking stick out in front of him as if it were a spear, but the horse no longer seemed to regard it as dangerous.
Out of the corner of his eye, Finnley saw his mother at Mia’s side, picking her up and holding her in her arms. His mom scooted off the rock shelf, Mia and all, and Finnley held back a sigh of relief. Good.
“Got any ideas on how to get out of here?” Mia asked under her breath.
“No. You?”
“You’re the magician!” she said, and in her voice he could hear the same fear that was coursing through his veins. The horse advanced again, further this time, and Finnley stumbled backwards, pulling Monica with him.
“Where do you get all those clothes from?” he muttered to her.
“What?” It didn’t seem relevant, but if the idea Finnley had just had was right… He could see the light in Monica’s eyes as she realized what he meant. She breathed a tiny, “oh” and disappeared into thin air.
Struggling to keep down the rising tide of panic, Finnley held onto the hope that Monica really had some way out of this and that his mother was already running down the slopes with Mia in arms.
The heat was slowly baking him. Every breath he took tasted of ash and nearly set him coughing. Finnley began to feel dizzy as the horse took another step towards him, nostrils flaring and eyes blazing. There was no warning before a motorcycle sprang into existence beside him.
“Get on!” cried Monica, sitting astride the vehicle. Finnley didn’t hesitate.
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 • 672,804 Reviews
Hi, Querencia! Could it be that I'm actually catching up?? I think it might just be happening.
Yes, good idea. That's a lot more sensible.
This is pretty decent description, but there's something weird about the fact that the first thing he notices about the horse is how big it is. The whole 'on fire' thing comes across like afterthought, which just doesn't seem right. You'd think he'd notice the fire first, then maybe pay attention to the smaller details (such as its size) once he'd adjusted to the fact that it's literally a burning horse what the hecking heck.
In short, maybe consider rejigging the description around a bit. Fire first, size later, I'd say.
You definitely do a much better job of describing the fire in this chapter than you did earlier in the story when Mia's house burned down, so I congratulate you on that. This kind of sensory description is what I was angling for. You do get a bit tell-y with the bold - I'm not sure it's necessary to tell us that the fire is overwhelming when you show it so well in the rest of the description - but I'll leave it up to you to decide what to do with it.
It's still grammatical without the pronoun, but I think including one would make the meaning come across more clearly.
On the one hand, I love the image of Monica slinking to the side like she couldn't care less, but on the other, I can't envision how a simple sidestep would be enough for her to get out of the way. Wouldn't a blast of fire spread out pretty wide? I'd expect her to have to dive to get clear of it.
I'm surprised that Finnley could come to this conclusion just from the fact that the trees were burning. Surely the trees would be burnt whether it needed them for fuel or not, given that the horse is literally on fire and probably sets any and all woody things alight just by being in their vicinity? It doesn't have to be a deliberate act.
It's also a pretty reasoned and focused thought to have given that he just stared death in the face.
I felt like this progression of events wasn't all that clear; I had to reread it a few times to twig what was going on. Finnley's dialogue is rather cryptic considering that a burning horse is gunning for them. If there was ever a time to ask your intentions bluntly and directly, now would be it!
So, that's all for specifics. I feel like the first half of the chapter is pretty good for pacing, but the latter half - after the horse fails to breathe fire at them - is a little on the slow side. It reminded me of those scenes where the bad guy takes ages to advance towards the good guys just so they have enough time to thwart them. Even if the horse can't breathe fire, it could still try and do a hell of a lot of damage by other means. It could try and trample them. Try and smack them with its hooves. There are plenty of ways that you could keep up the terror and threat - and I would like you to, because I want you to push us right to the point where we think there's no way for them to escape.
Then Monica can grab the motorbike, and lo and behold, you have the most iconic moment in the book.
I'm about to eat so I'll have to wrap this up quickly. However, I do hope that there turns out to be a cool reason for why the horse came out of the nightmare and why it's trying to terrorise Mia in the first place. It feels like this isn't just a random occurrence.
Keep writing!
~Pan
Quite sure you meant Monica here! That will be my only nitpick for the day.
You did better with description here, I think, where we've got the heat rolling off the horse and the black hooves of the horse and Monica putting her hair up because we all know girls put their hair up when we mean business. But for the scene to reach its full potential, I think there's still a ways to go. It's so dramatic but it still feels like you spend a lot of time telling instead of showing, so it doesn't have the suspense and drama it absolutely could.
A prime example here. What does "hadn't slept in weeks" look like in Mia's case? First there's the actual look - dark circles under her eyes, pasty skin - but then there's also actions like swaying, reacting to things too slowly, blinking too much (yawning but that would probably be a little funny and I don't think you want too much humor in such a dramatic scene, although a bit doesn't hurt). Reacting too slowly of course has a ton of potential here because it amps up the danger so much.
You've got a good moment here--
I'd just like to see more of that sort of thing before Mia's actually put out of action.
This is also a good start to description--
But you lose it once you actually dive into the action. Rather than giving us a brief laundry list of "here's what they smell and see right now," weave it into the action as they try to rescue Mia. It will make everything feel more real and also ratchet up the tension
I'm running out of ways to say that, can you tell?I love how Finnley's mom carries Mia off like that's her own baby. It's such a sweet moment and so maternal, even though technically I also guess it just makes sense for the only adult there to be the one to do it.
I also love this line.
That's the type of humor I think you can get away with in a dramatic scene.
I wasn't sure what you were doing when Finn asked Monica about her clothes, but then it tied into the scene, so that was cool.
I belatedly tried to put some desciption in, but I'll weave some more in.
I wasn't sure about the clothes thing %u2014 now I want to explain it to you to get your opinion, but I don't want to give it away if you want to be surprised. Basically, I have a sort of explanation, but I didn't think it was a good moment for explanation. I could probably give some more direction to Finnley's thoughts to lead the reader more where I'm going.
I mean, once we got the motorcycle I think I kind of understood somewhat what was going on and why Finnley had noticed that, but it did feel like an odd moment for him to notice that, unless you at least show us he's thinking quickly and isn't just weirdly noticing her clothes at this moment, you know?