Wool of the Prince-- Chapter 44

Hey Widdershins!

I am back! I feel like I apologise before every review and I promise I am going to stop doing so now. But I am gonna say SORRY for all the future reviews that are probably going to be late too. But I still love reading this story. Putting that aside, there isn't too much to be said here, so I am going to keep it short and sweet.

First off, right now I am feeling so much pity for Cabot at this moment. It's almost like he had been working towards the immortality with everything he had, and now that it is unattainable it's enough to drive him crazy. Yes, he's not the best person but he is still a person, and I think by making him go crazy is the perfect way of showing this as well. I have to give that to you. Also, Salim is an interesting character and he seems to be someone who really is ruled by his emotions, but when he comes to term with things he can handle it. I hope to see more of him in here, and even though he is a secondary character you're putting the perfect amount of detail into his personality.

One thing I wondered about was where are the sheep? I felt like we would be able to hear about them because they went to the cave to get them in the first place. But because of the ordeal happening you never quite tell us if the sheep were in there with Cabot or not. And that's a pretty important detail we are missing out on here in this chapter.

I also felt like we sorta skipped over the fight because it was dark! And that made me sad because we were missing out on an essential and possibly juicy part to this chapter I am sure you can write it and add it in! Writing fight scenes can be hard, but all I can give as advice is to stick to the key things. (1) Describe emotions. It's something you are good at, so it shouldn't be a problem. What does it look like Shep is feeling when he is lunging at Cabot. Determined to save his sheep? Angry? Trying to stay alive? Or maybe even a glimpse of sadness as he can already see that the person he is fighting isn't in their right state of mind? (2) Let us see the weapon, don't just describe the sound of it. Knowing it is there for sure and knowing what it looks like makes it a lot more daunting for some reason. (3) Don't describe every movement if you are not sure about writing fighting scenes. Use the in and out of dark to your advantage, but show some of the punches, and the kicks and also the scratching at each other. Show the dodges out of the way. Show us how much strength is being thrown behind the hits, or if someone is fighting more so with strategy. (4) Last one would be to have some suspense in there. Have a moment where it seems like there is one person who isn't going to make it and won't succeed. Make it seem like the end of the road for Shep and then have him do a crazily strategic mood that immobilizes Cabot or makes him weaponless.

Another thing to do with the fight is that Jay is there watching. Sure, Salim is jumping in to separate them, but he should be thinking something as all of this is happening. Maybe have him have conflicting thoughts running through his head. He wants to help his friend, but then on the other hand he doesn't know what to do and how to do it. He hasn't even been in a proper physical fight or something. And while all of this is running through his mind, Salim can jump in between them and save the day.

I felt like this chapter was a bit stiff for some reason. Reading it didn't flow as smooth as it usually did, but I couldn't exactly place my finger on the reason why. (Which I know isn't very helpful at all xD) I would simply read it over aloud and see where it might feel awkward, and tweak some of the wordings and beginning of sentences so it links up to the previous one.

One tiny nitpick...

the attacker off of Shep, as if he had broken up many fights.

I felt like the last word in that sentence should be a 'before', so just add that on to the end.

Looking forward to when I can read more,

Deanie x

Hi there! Noelle here for a Review Day review!

It's really cool to see Shep acting like this. He's always seemed like this wise old sage who was looking after Jay and these sheep. Ever since Jay got back and he was unfrozen though, he seems to be taking a more aggressive approach to all of this. It's one of those times when you see a character doing something that you don't expect them to do, but it's not against their character. In a way, I expected it to happen, but I was still surprised. Shep would do anything to get those sheep. So of course when they were threatened, he'd do something about it.

Wow. You did a good job with the scene with Cabot. It's always hard to write about someone who's gone mad, I think, because you don't want to overdo it and you don't want to leave more to be desired either. You've got to have the right balance and that's what I saw here. He's not all completely gone because he was able to get some words out and explain why he was the way he was. It is interesting that Shep is the only one he went after. I feel like there would be enough anger built up inside of him that he might've launched at Jay too. But I guess he's not at that point right now.

Cabot babbled incomprehensibly. But among the gibberish, Jay made out "melted locket," and "Enchantress," and "immortality." As best Jay could guess, Cabot's new state of madness was some how connected to the Enchantress's melting of the locket.

The last sentence here is repetitive. The first sentence is Cabot explaining that the Enchantress melted the locket. The second sentence is Jay guessing that Cabot is like this because the Enchantress melted the locked. I'm a fan of having Jay come to his own conclusions about it, but the way you've written this, the readers can assume why Cabot is the way he is, so having Jay say it too is unnecessary.

Isn't it weird that I actually feel a bit sad for Cabot? I don't know, something about him makes me want to pity him. He's not really the best of villains, not as his character allows him to be I mean, and he went through all of this just to not succeed. Now he's gone crazy and it seems like he's dying. The last part about him getting dragged away made me feel for him. However, if he were to die I wouldn't care xD

One thing I think you could work on when you go back and edit is your descriptions. We know just enough about this world and about what it looks like. Sometimes I'm just wanting more. I want to see what the inn looks like, I want to see what the cave looks like, I want to feel the ominous cold air about it. These images are all there, but they're not very prominent. Especially because this takes place in a different world.

Overall another good chapter here. I know I mention this a lot, but it's worth repeating. The plot is moving along so well. I mean, each chapter is moving in a certain direction. There are so many books I read (including some things I write, hehe) that seem to stop at times and take a break from the plot. It's good because we learn things about the characters and the story, but the plot doesn't move. I don't think I've found a chapter like that in your novel. It's continuously moving and leading us to the climax, which I see coming up soon. So keep that up. This is a true adventure novel here.

Keep writing!
**Noelle**

Hey,

I haven't typed a review in awhile *Cracks Knuckles* so this should be fun! Right off the bat I want to congratulate you on your story so far, it's been really well written and just very impressive from the start. I'm looking forward to leaving yet another review for this story. Now onto nitpicks of course,

The theif would have less

The only thing wrong there is theif is misspelled, it should be thief.

started appologizing again

Apologizing is misspelled here.

be brave and dilligent

Diligent is misspelled here.

he answered, straigtening

Straightening is misspelled.

some how connected

You don't need a space between some and how, it can be just one word.

based on his delerium

Delirium is misspelled

you waite for

I'm not sure if the e in wait was intentional or not, but I found it confusing.

Aside from the few spelling errors I found this is a beautiful piece, you have a lot of talent and I love your writing style. In my opinion you never fail to impress with the detail in these chapters and it's always enjoyable to read. Keep up the good work!
Sincerely,
Collideascope

Hello Widdershins! Clickdun here :3 Let's talk about your story...

Let's get the nitpicks out of the way:

He probably has, thought Jay.

Thoughts traditionally go in italics. He probably has, thought Jay. See how much nicer that looks?

and then thought, Understatement of the year

Why is understatement capitalized? It's not starting a new sentence and it doesn't seem like it's a title or name as you don't capitalize year

like a rabbit's

This reminds me of the metaphors from Steelheart, they kind of make sense, but you have to put too much thought to them. In Steelheart though it works because bad metaphors are a part of David's character, but here it seems (and I haven't read any of the other chapters so I'm going blind here) like it's just one of those occasional bad metaphors that pop up in your writing.
Those are the nitpicks

As to the chapter itself, it kind of confused me. And I know that I'm not supposed to start on chapter forty-four (unless you're like one of those crazy books that are out of order o.0) but why are they heading after this dude if there's an evil sorceress on the loose?
Priority's.
But again, I'm a blind man in a jungle when it comes to this story.
Other than that let's talk about fight scenes:
Often enough when I read a book they try to be movies in their fight scenes. They try to have the grand
"There were explosions there, and (Character) was shot down by a (villain name) and blah blah blah" These work in movies because movies are a visual medium. Books? Not really. A good action sequence goes more like this:

Charles ran down to the nearest chunk of gravel the grav-man had lifted. He nodded toward Kecia who drew her longsword from her scabbard and began to chop Grav-man's crony's bullets from the air. Grav-man swung his hand toward Kecia and lifted her from the ground, creating a new gravity point above his head. Charles shook his head, Just another way to show off for Kecia. He ran from behind the boulder, spraying bullets at the nearby assailants. Grav-man turned his attention toward Charles, he had already created a new focus for one person's gravity so he couldn't do the same for Charles. Charles pulled out the pen from his pocket and fired a small explosive at grav-man.

Okay, that wasn't so good so let me explain instead. A good action sequence doesn't describe the chaos Metropolis is in, it describes Superman fighting a bad guy, with the torn up Metropolis as a side note.
When writing a action scene focus on the main character and do your best to only say a little info about other characters.
This describes it better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73B9byLxsls
Anyway, thanks for reading my review. I'll be sure to read the other chapters as I love this one!
Write on!
~ Lord Clickdun ~

Timmy heeeere

You just wrote your first 16+ chapter. o_o And it was loooovely. Just my first read through the piece tells me this is your best chapter in a long while, and perhaps even your best. The description of Cabot (especially when he was being carried away) was amazing, and was a very visual part of the scene. And as for him turning crazy - well, it's very believable. He was also like half insane to begin with, but the Enchantress and the melting locket drove him over the edge. I DID SAY IT WAS HIM. The babbling also built onto that image of Cabot you re-designed for this chapter. He is certainly a different character, his domineering and sometimes haughty person brought low to how he is here - a sniveling wreck. He reminds me of Wormtongue from LOTR in a subtle way - from the book, not the movie. Anyway, I think you did a wonderful job transforming his character into this new Cabot, although I do hope he turns to how he was before. He didn't actually seem all bad, really. Just a confused person, chasing after an uncatchable dream - without any boundaries to stop him from going too far.

They ran around back to the small stables Salim had kept the sheep in. The doors to the stalls were wide open.

So I brought the other chapter back into my head using some magic, and I thought about what the innkeeper said about the sheep. I would ask how Salim knew that the sheep were gone, because, you know, he was getting food for them - not getting the sheep. But I tend to be missing details in everyone's books these days. >< So I am just going to leave a little note, because you would remember better than me, obviously. xD

They're not invisible because they're worthless you know!"

Comma after worthless

Jay saw a figure running, tugging some animals-- probably sheep-- along with it

This seemed a bit silly, because sheep are so easy to identify. Plus, there are only two reasons why anyone would run with sheep: 1) they're late for donut break, or 2) Cabot is running from Shep with the stolen sheep and doesn't want to be caught. In this situation, I would vote the latter is more probably. yup yup It seems so obvious that I think Jay wouldn't even guess that they were the sheep. He would just look up and know it's them, because it's so obviously them.

he answered, straigtening

straigten? ouch I love reviewing for you because I can be rude

He yanked the attacker off of Shep, as if he had broken up many fights.

THIS IS A FIGHT SCENE. You need to show, give us the nitty-gritty stuff, delve into their thoughts and actions. Maybe Jay could even try to get involved and then get thrown aside. However you do it, you need to try and avoid things such as as if he had broken up many fights in intense action scenes, because it lacks tension. It lacks an image - something we can grasp. What it does is make the reader ask themselves a question: How does one who's broken up many fights yank people? It's your job to explain all of that to us. Give us a beautiful description like you did when describing Cabot's condition. Just see what you can do there. c:

Understatement of the year.

I loved this part so much, but no matter how awesome it is - still shouldn't be capitalized. heehee

Salim scooped Cabot into his arms, wrestling the dagger out of his grasp.

Okay, so you need to state things in the order they happened. Like I doubt Salim lifted Cabot and then wrestled the dagger from him. That seems like it should come first, not just because Cabot it no doubt a huuuge load to carry, but because Cabot is dangerous, too. And why is Cabot calm all of a sudden? It just seems rather odd how he just calmed down so quickly (although he did remain crazy). Perhaps work on the transition of those two feelings and see if you can get them to slide together easier? And while I'm not going to pull out this bit of your story, because I think it's cheap sometimes for extra characters, it also seems odd that Salim would be able to wave back to them while carrying Cabot. O_o Isn't Cabot a really heavy load? He's a fully grown man, and I think carrying one of those dudes back to town would be a reaaally hard thing to do, and while it says something for Salim's character (and shows how big he really is), I still think that it's odd that he can wave back to them while holding Cabot. Not sure about that one. And part of it may be that I never thought of him as a big guy before this chapter. To be honest, I always saw him as a shorter, round man - not this strong and big guy I see him as now. Since you don't do as much character descriptions as many people, I won't tell you to do a better job on that. But I think you could show he's a bigger fellow right off from the start - through his actions and words (perhaps his huge hand ladling the fruit wash) - to help establish his image.

This was a pleasure to read, Kelly. I enjoyed reading through this piece, and your descriptions were especially lovely especially those concerning the blood ew. Everything I point out here is just so I can leave thinking I'm leaving a good review, but there isn't much to point out in the realm of critique. This is like the model chapter. O_O Put 'er up on da wall and admire it. Even the paragraphing is much better than it usually on, some longer and some shorter (weird compliment, but there it is. xd). This was beautiful, and now I am looking forward again to the next chapter. I wonder what Shep's next step it, and whether Jay will be going home or not soon. And where is da romance between Jay and Fleta I thouuuught we were going to have? >.< Now that I think about it, though, I am not sure if I see enough of the romance nature between them to justify it quite yet, though. hmph.
~Darth Timmyjake