Wings Chapter 1 -- R&R please?

Well most of the critique has already been done but I just want to add that I really enjoyed reading this.

I liked that you described everything in detail however as others have said I think that you need to add more descriptions of Lena in order for the reader to get to know her a little more.

So keep up the great work.

Cait

Comments in red.

Rekuen wrote:The northern sky was a dull uninteresting gray all the way to the horizon I'd take out "uninteresting". If something is "dull", it's probably also uninteresting., where low banks of swirling clouds collected I'd take out "swirling"--too many descriptors. Also, she's flying so she probably wouldn't notice them "swirl". around the distant mountain peaks. Lena shivered slightly Strike "slightly". You either shiver or you don't. and pulled her IAF pilot’s jacket closer around herself. Even on the ground, several hundred feet below her I'd personally strike "her". It's below a lot of other stuff too, including the plane. Maybe "several hundred feet down"?, small patches of snow were visible, outlining the rocky ridges No alliteration, please! in crisp definition. In the cockpit of her tiny plane, it was well below freezing. You do a lot of the blah-comma-blah thing (I do too, which is why I notice it). I'd turn the last sentence into "It was well below freezing in the plane's cockpit". The so-called windshield didn’t do much to keep the wind out, and it whistled through the cracks where steel joined to glass. Ghetto plane, much?
It had been sunny when she’d started her flight, and if not exactly warm (it was October, after all) Put the mention of it being October into a sentence rather than an aside. Parenthesis only really work for humor. at least a somewhat comfortable temperature. Four hours later, a storm looked to be imminently arriving strike "imminently", and intense gusts Gusts of what? buffeted her plane, periodically unbalancing it and making Lena glad for her seat restraints. As well as constantly readjusting the flight pattern, she had to keep wiping the windshield free of condensation to be able to see. So she has to reach outside or something? How does that work? The Empire did not waste money on cockpit equipment for trainee planes, or on warm jackets.
Lena tapped the little button to turn on her radio, cursing her terrible luck. Not only was her first real flight all the way to Makhar, half a day away, but it looked like some of that famously unpredictable mountain weather was acting up. She hadn’t had any practice flying through storms in the Academy. Maybe "She'd never practiced flying through storms at the Academy"? “I can handle this,” she said aloud, with no one there to hear except the wind. Or "aloud to herself"... She let out a long breath, and gripped the control stick nervouslyShe's gripping the controls, so I assume she's nervous. . “No problem.”
Half an hour later, it began to snow I would personally say "started" to snow, but that's just a very small nitpick.. The wind swirled drifts I seem to remember "swirling drifts" being used before. of glittering white through the air, making it harder and harder for Lena to make out landmarks on the ground. She punched her radio again, intending to make sure that she was still heading in the right direction, but got nothing but a few garbled words and static from the other end.
“This is pilot number four thirty six I think there would be dashes, wouldn't there? "Four-Thirty-Six"? I also think it might sound better as "four-three-six"., requesting assistance.” she said as loud as she could into the microphone. Is she yelling? Then it's not as loud as she could. “Four thirty six en route to Makhar. What is my position?” No reply came from her radio. Lena’s words became more frantic as she manually scanned the frequencies, searching for a signal. “Repeat: what is my position?” More than anything else, this frightened her. Well, yeah. What else would it do? The flight path from Eluvar to her destination should have been lined with transmit stations; Makhar was an Allied city, after all, and Imperial pilots often flew trading missions there and back. Even in a heavy storm, the signal should have come through clearly. Either something had happened to all of the transmitters at once... or she was a lot farther off course than she’d thought.
Lena flicked her eyes across the instrument panel. The fuel gauge read fifty-six percent, higher than she had expected. She’d been lucky to be assigned a plane with one of the hybrid engines, the ones that actually worked better in the cold, instead of one that just ran on plain fuel. It was an old one, of course, and had probably been repaired countless times. She would eventually have to land. This seems pretty obvious. I mean, I would assume that eventually she would have to land. Maybe "She would have to land soon." or something?
Trying to prolong the inevitable, she poked at the radio and twiddled various colored dials on the dashboard. That's not really trying to prolong landing... more like trying to believe there's someone there. Flecks of ice began to build up on the windshield. Lena swore under her breath when she saw it. We know that it's when she saw it. If she hadn't have seen it, we wouldn't hear about it. If the ice grew any thicker than it was now, she’d be flying completely blind. She had to descend before that happened. Obhras, please let there be a road, she prayed silently.
With that, she began to slowly nudge She's nudging it. It has to be slow. the nose of the plane downward, squinting into the storm, searching desperately for a place to land. The small aircraft skimmed through the skies like a mountain falcon. I don't personally like the random simile, but that may just be me. The snow was playing tricks on Lena’s vision; a promising shadow that might have been a ridge disappeared into the chaos, leaving her unsure whether it was ever there. A rough shudder rocked the plane suddenly Suddenly is superfluous and breaks the action., tearing the controls from her grasp. Ice was building up on the wings, burdening the already unwieldy aircraft with an extra load of weight. It moaned fitfully under the strain. The ice or the aircraft?

A dark space opened up below her, and Lena jerked back on the brakes as hard as she could. One of her wheels slammed against the rocky ground, and she lost all control. Is she that low? I thought she was like four hundred feet up. There were several more harsh thumps and then she was being smashed against her restraints as the plane began to flip, rolling over and over, losing half of a wing and then almost all of the tail section as it hit rock after rock. The lights in the cockpit flickered and died. When the hunk of battered metal finally came to a stop, Lena hung limp, upside down and dangling from the straps that had kept her alive. She was bleeding heavily from several places where shards of glass had pierced her. Owie! Seriously, though, I don't know that "pierced her" is really the phrase you're looking for. Blood stained the gray patches on her uniform jacket, turning the whole thing the same dark red as the sleeves. It sounds like she's absolutely drenched in blood. I have a feeling this isn't the case.
You have to move, she told her unresponsive body. The icy wind, now unimpeded by the shattered windshield, blew angrily through the cockpit. She imagined it talking to her. You hid from me for a while, but I’ve got you now, it shrieked. You're going pretty metaphorical. You weren't at all in the beginning, so it's kind of weird now.
Lena brought one shaking hand over to the catch that would release her from her restraints. “Shut up,” she told the empty air, and dropped. Her impact made the broken glass scattered along the ground tinkle lightly Awkward phrasing., making a sound like mocking laughter. She winced, both from the pain in her legs and from overwhelming hopelessness. Where the hell was she, anyway?
Somehow, she managed to stumble out of the awkwardly You use way too many adverbs. angled exit hatch and out into the storm. Lena surveyed the area anxiously, looking for a cave or somewhere else nearby where she could take shelter. No luck. By the gift of Obhras or some freak chance she’d crashed on a long, fairly wide ledge against the mountainside, which was slick with frozen snow. I don't see how that's a "gift"... There were no visible openings into the cliff face, and she didn’t think she had the strength to crawl along the edge long enough to find one.
The snow continued to fall, even more heavily than before, covering Lena in a soft white blanket that obscured her features and drained her of her motivation. Her wounds had ceased to hurt, leaving behind only a dull ache. Her eyelashes, which were heavy with frozen crystals, began to close, and she slipped quietly into silence. I dunno. She's bleeding...she loses consciousness. I'm pretty sure she would die, but it's obvious that she won't.

First off, welcome to YWS! I know you've been here a couple months, but that's still new to us.. um.. oldbies.

First off, this is pure awesome sauce. Be proud. It's really fantastic. There's been this onslaught of really original fantasy in this forum lately, and it makes me feel happy and warm and fuzzy. I love the whole concept, and I'm hoping (judging by the name) that you keep the plane theme going, because it's really an interesting concept. Keep doing what you're doing.

The only thing I noticed on the first read-through was that the part starting with where the ice built up on the wings through the end seemed a little rushed. I'd like to see a lot more panic here - Lena gets a little frenzied, but we still never really get a feel for just how nervous she is. This reads a lot faster than it happens, if that makes sense.

There was one little phrase that stuck out at me:

a storm looked to be imminently arriving

Gripping. This is wonderful and exciting for a first chapter. I suggest more emotions coming from the main character by the time she crashed and afterwards. Somehow, those parts felt hurried, though I'm not saying that you should go on a lengthy explanation of how each and every part of the plane was damaged. Just some few descriptions so that it wouldn't seem as if the whole crash, which feels like a climax here, suddenly zipped by and I missed it because I blinked. Other than that, great job. I'm looking forward to more pieces from you.

Best of luck.

Wow, dark. I'm glad she doesn't die; that would be really awful. This was very well-written and gripping, and my only suggestion is more concrete detail and less direct exposition. I want to know what Lena looks like, and more about her character, too. Maybe a bit more emotion and action. Also, I think you could extend the part where she gets hurt--that was a little too fast. Break it up into a few paragraphs. Go inside her head. Overall, this was wonderful! No grammar problems. Nicely done.

Edits in bold.

Rekuen wrote:The northern sky was a dull, uninteresting gray all the way to the horizon, where low banks of swirling clouds collected around the distant mountain peaks. Lena shivered slightly and pulled her IAF pilot’s jacket closer around herself. Even on the ground, several hundred feet below her, small patches of snow were visible, outlining the rocky ridges in crisp definition. In the cockpit of her tiny plane, it was well below freezing. The so-called windshield didn’t do much to keep the wind out, and it whistled through the cracks where steel joined to glass. Besides the small punctuation error, this paragraph was marvelous.
It had been sunny when she’d started her flight, and if not exactly warm (it was October, after all), at least a somewhat comfortable temperature. Four hours later, a storm looked to be imminently arriving, and intense gusts buffeted her plane, periodically unbalancing it and making Lena glad for her seat restraints. As well as constantly readjusting the flight pattern, she had to keep wiping the windshield free of condensation to be able to see. The Empire did not waste money on cockpit equipment for trainee planes, or on warm jackets. Another great paragraph. You're great with words.[/b[
Lena tapped the little button to turn on her radio, cursing her terrible luck. Not only was her first real flight all the way to Makhar, half a day away, but it looked like some of that famously unpredictable mountain weather was acting up. She hadn’t had any practice flying through storms in the Academy. “I can handle this,” she said aloud, with no one there to hear except the wind. She let out a long breath, and gripped the control stick nervously. “No problem.” [b]I like how she's talking to herself. That's something I would do. And this is your third awesome paragraph in a row.
Half an hour later, it began to snow. The wind swirled drifts of glittering white through the air, making it harder and harder for Lena to make out landmarks on the ground. She punched her radio again, intending to make sure that she was still heading in the right direction, but got nothing but a few garbled words and static from the other end. Still no edits.
“This is pilot number four thirty six, requesting assistance. Trade this period for a comma.” she said as loud as she could into the microphone. “Four thirty six en route to Makhar. What is my position?” No reply came from her radio. Lena’s words became more frantic as she manually scanned the frequencies, searching for a signal. “Repeat: what is my position?” Maybe a new paragraph here?? More than anything else, this frightened her. The flight path from Eluvar to her destination should have been lined with transmit stations; Makhar was an Allied city, after all, and Imperial Whoa, whoa, whoa. When you first said "Empire" I thought "Star Wars", but that wasn't too bad... now it's really starting to get Star Wars-y. Maybe change the titles?? pilots often flew trading missions there and back. Even in a heavy storm, the signal should have come through clearly. Either something had happened to all of the transmitters at once... or she was a lot farther off course than she’d thought. Love the last sentence.
Lena flicked her eyes across the instrument panel. The fuel gauge read fifty-six percent, higher than she had expected. She’d been lucky to be assigned a plane with one of the hybrid engines, the ones that actually worked better in the cold, instead of one that just ran on plain fuel. It was an old one, of course, and had probably been repaired countless times. She would eventually have to land.
Trying to prolong the inevitable, she poked at the radio and twiddled various colored dials on the dashboard. Flecks of ice began to build up on the windshield. Lena swore under her breath when she saw it. If the ice grew any thicker than it was now, she’d be flying completely blind. She had to descend before that happened. Obhras, please let there be a road, she prayed silently.
With that, she began to slowly nudge the nose of the plane downward, squinting into the storm, searching desperately for a place to land. The small aircraft skimmed through the skies like a mountain falcon. Good sentence. The snow was playing tricks on Lena’s vision; a promising shadow that might have been a ridge disappeared into the chaos, leaving her unsure whether it was ever there. A rough shudder rocked the plane suddenly, tearing the controls from her grasp. Ice was building up on the wings, burdening the already unwieldy aircraft with an extra load of weight. It moaned fitfully under the strain.
A dark space opened up below her, and Lena jerked back on the brakes as hard as she could. One of her wheels slammed against the rocky ground, and she lost all control. There were several more harsh thumps and then she was being smashed against her restraints as the plane began to flip, rolling over and over, losing half of a wing and then almost all of the tail section as it hit rock after rock. The lights in the cockpit flickered and died. When the hunk of battered metal finally came to a stop, Lena hung limp, upside down and dangling from the straps that had kept her alive. She was bleeding heavily from several places where shards of glass had pierced her. Blood stained the gray patches on her uniform jacket, turning the whole thing the same dark red as the sleeves. Describe what she felt. This is just what would be told on the news or something (lol), try to get some personal feelings in too.
You have to move, she told her unresponsive body. The icy wind, now unimpeded by the shattered windshield, blew angrily through the cockpit. She imagined it talking to her. You hid from me for a while, but I’ve got you now, it shrieked. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if I like this. But that's just personal opinion.
Lena brought one shaking hand over to the catch that would release her from her restraints. “Shut up,” she told the empty air, and dropped. Her impact made the broken glass scattered along the ground tinkle lightly, making a sound like mocking laughter. She winced, both from the pain in her legs and from overwhelming hopelessness. Where the hell Tut, tut. (Just kidding.) was she, anyway?
Somehow, she managed to stumble out of the awkwardly angled exit hatch and out into the storm. Lena surveyed the area anxiously, looking for a cave or somewhere else nearby where she could take shelter. No luck. By the gift of Obhras or some freak chance she’d crashed on a long, fairly wide ledge against the mountainside, which was slick with frozen snow. Is this actually on the ground? Because you make it sound as though it's in the air. There were no visible openings into the cliff face, and she didn’t think she had the strength to crawl along the edge long enough to find one.
The snow continued to fall, even more heavily than before, covering Lena in a soft white blanket that obscured her features and drained her of her motivation. Her wounds had ceased to hurt, leaving behind only a dull ache. Her eyelashes, which were heavy with frozen crystals, began to close, and she slipped quietly into silence.

I was thinking the same as DC622! We need some insight into her thoughts, so maybe describing the pain from the crash and her panic as she realises she is stuck.

Also, the time-skipping at the begining makes it jolt or did for me. Make the transistion smooth by missing out the "Half an hour later ..." and instead just describing the snow coming down on her plane.

Other than that, I loved reading it!
I can't wait to read more

Yes more metaphors and things would be nice, and put what she's thinking in. Put yourself in her place, be your character. Oh and some type of survival would be fun. Show us how a woman does it.

DC622 wrote:I really like it. I like the end, how she eased into silence. But the crash wasn't described well enough, and this seems more like a short story then a chapter one. In the end did she die? What is the plot of this? Is it like "Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen(sp?). Overall I like it. But I need more to get it.

I really like it. I like the end, how she eased into silence. But the crash wasn't described well enough, and this seems more like a short story then a chapter one. In the end did she die? What is the plot of this? Is it like "Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen(sp?). Overall I like it. But I need more to get it.