~951 words
Shep and Jay followed Salim's footprints and Cabot's drops of blood back to the inn. When they opened the creaky oak door, they were hit with a smell like harsh chemicals, and Jay's eyes began to water. Salim had Cabot on a table padded with blankets and a few pillows. Cabot was grimacing in his sleep, and Salim had collapsed on a chair. His shirt had specks of blood on it.
"I'm glad you're back," Salim sighed. "It's been a long night."
"What happened?" asked Shep, mystified.
Salim stood and beckoned them closer to look at Cabot. He gestured to a bandage that was wrapped around Cabot's left shoulder. "When I asked him where it hurt, he kept rubbing this shoulder and mumbling. I saw the area was discolored-- all purple and red. It wasn't pretty. Eventually, I got him to drink some numbing tea, and, with no little trepidation, I cut into the discolored area. Long story short, I found something lodged in his shoulder." Salim pulled out a bundle wrapped in a handkerchief. Shep took it, opened it, and looked confused.
Jay leaned over Shep's shoulder to take a peek. Broken pieces of silver metal glistened in the handkerchief. "Oh! I know what that is! That's the Enchantress's locket. Or, it must be the matching one that Cabot had. But how did it get lodged in his shoulder?"
Shep pulled at his beard absently. "The Enchantress's locket, you say? Then the most likely cause is magic." He turned to Salim. "Is he going to be okay?"
"I think I got the infection cleaned out. I can't be certain. How he is cared for from here on out is extremely important too. Plenty of liquids, lots of rest..." Salim trailed off.
"I trust you can take care of that yourself?" Shep asked.
"It will do quite a number to my inn business, having a bloody man needing my constant care. But yes, I should be able to take care of him," he relented.
Shep dug in his knapsack for his coin purse, pulling out two silver orbs. He held them out to Salim whose eyes grew wide. "You... I... can't accept this," he said. He gazed at the orbs, then shook his head with greater vigor. "It's only right to take care of a stranger in need. I don't need payment to do so."
"This isn't payment for taking care of a stranger, this is a reimbursement for what you've had to go through these last few hours because of us. You signed up to take care of some sheep, but you've ended up doing much more. And all because of us. Take it also as a sign of our friendship. I must insist." Shep placed the two orbs on a table.
Salim gave a shrug, saying, "Suit yourself," but he had a small smile on his face. Jay could tell he had really appreciated Shep's generosity.
Shep glanced at the windows, dark with midnight. "We need to rest up. I haven't slept since the day I left," he grumbled, rubbing his back. "And Jay here has been doing all manner of adventuring."
"Go right ahead. The room keys are hanging in the kitchen." Salim returned his attention to the sleeping Cabot.
Shep and Jay crept up the stairs to their rooms. Jay collapsed into a soft feather mattress. Shep was right: he had been doing all manner of adventuring. And Jay was tired out. His eyes closed almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.
---
The next day was one of rest and recuperation. Jay helped Salim and Shep attend to Cabot. Salim made soup. The inn was empty of other guests. Jay filled Salim in on what had happened on Earth. Shep had heard the story from the Enchantress, who had somehow known everything that had happened. Cabot stayed unconscious through most of the day. But not through its entirety.
Midway through Salim's story of a guest at the inn who had actually been a polar bear in a very convincing hat, Cabot groaned and sat up a little. He rubbed his head and blinked at Jay. "What happened?"
His story forgotten, Salim answered, "You had a locket lodged in your shoulder. It was infected, so I removed it."
Cabot squinted, looking even more confused. "Who are you? Locket? Where's the Enchantress?" Cabot's eyes focused on Shep. "You should be dead."
Shep raised an eyebrow.
"Where am I?" Cabot asked piteously, turning to Jay.
"You're at an inn. Salim's inn," Jay said, gesturing to the inn-keep in question. "He just saved your life."
"But what happened with the..." Cabot seemed lost for words.
"The Enchantress told you that the dagger was a fraud. That you can't gain immortality. Then we left you up in that spire. You came down, suffering from some kind of insanity, and stole Shep's sheep, which he was keeping at this inn. You then fled to a cave to lie in wait to attack Shep. Coming back to you now? Should I go further back?" Jay became more and more angry with Cabot with every word he spoke. Soon he was livid and seething with rage. "I had trusted you, Cabot. Maybe not a lot of trust, but I had trusted you not to hurt my friends when we returned! You promised. But you showed your true colors in the end. That your word is not to be trusted."
Cabot was left gaping at the end of this torrent of words. He blinked slowly. "Sorry?"
Jay was unsure whether he was apologizing or asking him to repeat it. He decided it was the first. "It'll take a lot more than that," Jay growled.
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.
125,021 Literary Works • 672,740 Reviews
Heya Widdershins!
Happy review day! I am back again and going to do all I can to do as many of these chapters before I feel like falling asleep.
Okay, on to this chapter! I felt like Jay's anger at the end was definitely called for. He had tried to give the man he had seen as evil a chance to redeem himself in the slightest, and it hadn't worked out. I thought that maybe Cabot hadn't even been aware of what he was doing because of the locket or something, but it doesn't seem like that was the case at all. It seems like he deliberately did wrong, and after they are saving his life I wonder how he is ever going to be able to make it up to them. If at all. And I am also waiting for them to find this final sheep now, because once they are all reunited I wonder what is in store for this band of friends.
What shocked me was the fact that they had been gone for the whole night! I didn't get that impression at all, and thought they had been gone for a much shorter time. Maybe as they are returning you should their surprise at the way the sunlight and sky had darkened in their absence and take some time describing the sky as well. It's simply because they have been underground for some time and couldn't have been aware of the time passing at all.
This whole paragraph has me really bored. I know you are trying to summarise the day pretty quickly, but all I got from this was he did that and this person did this, and it was super boring for me. I think you need to take this paragraph and shorten it or make it more interesting in some way. Just say the day was for rest and recuperation. They went around daily things, exchanging tales until Cabot woke up. It sounds less stiff and gets us to the point sooner. If you do want it to take longer, think about a better way of doing it.
Watch the toning here! You have 'had' in front of trusted twice when you don't need it. And because of that you slip into passive voice. So I would cut those out if I were you.
I am curious as to how the locket got lodged into his shoulder because that still doesn't seem cleared up to me or properly explained. I do hope it pops up in future chapters. I feel like the Enchantress could cause more trouble for them, or maybe have had something to do with Cabot's behavior! So this is a little reminder so that plot line doesn't drop away. I will be moving on to another chapter now!
Deanie x
Hi there! Noelle back for another Review Day review!
I always feel so accomplished that I'm caught up, but then I remember you're going to be posting the next chapter tomorrow night. Oh well, I'll just have to be super quick with the next one
I totally didn't think that the trip in the cave really took that long. By the way Salim is talking though, they've been gone for hours. Maybe there's a way you can sneak some timing into the narration? Jay could complain about it taking hours to open the latch or being stuck in the coffin for what felt like minutes. Something to give us a general idea of the timing.
Ah, Shep does mention that it's been a couple of hours. By the way Salim is talking though, it sounded like it had been a lot more than that.
I actually like the ending. Well, definitely not my favorite way to end a chapter, but it's funny. Cabot doesn't know what to think about way Jay has said and he replies perfectly. It only seems appropriate too that Jay should be the one to explain things to Cabot. He's the only one that knows him after all. All that built up anger inside of him towards Cabot finally gets to be released. It's awesome.
It seems a bit too good to be true that the inn is empty when Cabot needs to be there, especially because Salim mentions how Cabot will give him bad business. I'm sure there are people around who need to stay at the inn. Unless of course, it's not really a commonly known inn or people just don't like to stay there. I don't know. I just imagined more people coming and going.
Overall, another good chapter here. Now they've rested they can be off again on another grand adventure. We're getting closer and closer to the end and I can't wait to see what happens! They still need that last sheep and then Jay needs to figure out whether he wants to go home or not. Then of course you might throw something else in there to keep us on our toes
Keep writing!
**Noelle**
Hello, darling!
This is not a dialogue tag. That should be a period. These are dialogue tags. His turning is not creating the words, so his turning is not a valid dialogue tag.This chapter, first on my list of things to complain about is how boring your description is. You use the same syntax, repeated, for everything you describe. Subject-verb-object. Over and over again. Vary the syntax, vary the flow, and your readers might not be so bored about everything. As it is, your first paragraph alone falls so flat it looks like it's been steamrolled. I'd definitely suggest doing some description exercises to figure out what sentence structures you're likely to use twice or three times in a row, and what to avoid.
I almost feel like I should have saved those links on dialogue for this chapter. Honestly, reading what Salim is saying, it's almost ridiculous—there are points where it doesn't sound like something that anyone would say. You have him saying things like "with no little trepidation, I cut into the discolored area" and "long story short" in the same breath, which almost no one with consistent characterization would say. Figure out how your characters sound and stick to it, because otherwise you end up with exactly this weird applesauce mush of Old-Fashioned Fantasy Language and Modern Slang. If you still wanted to use the phrase, you could edit it into the slightly more formal "To make/render a long story short".
We can see that he trailed off because you so kindly included an ellipsis in his dialogue. Save your descriptions for actual descriptions—for that matter, give us some kind of actual description in the conversation—and leave the useless dialogue tags alone. They're not doing you any favors.
For that matter, I have an idea. Go through this and cut every single dialogue tag you don't need. I mean it. You can add them back later when you think you can use them better, but get rid of the dialogue tags and replace them with actions to show us how the characters are moving, how they look, how they sound—not just if they're saying something, or "relenting" something (which is a weak dialogue tag in the first place because "relent" is a stronger action verb), or asking something. Give us actual characterization, not this "he said" "Shep asked" thing.
Subject-verb-object, subject-verb-object. Mix it up a little. It looks like you're afraid to use anything more than "SVO" or "participle modifier, SVO", or "SVO, participle modifier". It's not doing you any favors to use this sentence structure over and over again, and if it's this bad in chapter 47, I'm inclined to think it was just as bad in your early chapters.
How did he seem lost for words? Is he gesturing with his hands? Making elaborate facial expressions involving at least three eyebrows and four mouths? I have no clue what he looks like, what his emotional tics are, what he does when he's lost for words—and you can't just write that and say "oh, the reader will fill it in on their own". Then you end up with confused readers who can't picture a scene in their head because you never described it.
Again, I feel no emotional involvement whatsoever in this piece.
Keep writing!
Thanks for your review anci!
I totally forgot that Salim would never use those kinds of words. I was thinking along the lines of "hey, he's smart enough to doctor this guy up, so he must be smart enough to speak properly," but in reality, he's supposed to have some kind of slang to be determined, but it won't be something formal.
I was actually trying to do something different with those SVO parts you pointed out. My whole novel thus far has had... similar sentences, in a way, I guess. I was trying to make a bunch of sentences that were short and choppy and all sounded the same to make it sound like tedious time was passing, but if you think that's a bad idea, I'll chop it.
I was actually going to have Cabot gesture inarticulately, but then I realized that he had a massive hole in his shoulder where Salim just dug into him. Right now, his face is preoccupied with being confused and pain-stricken (I should probably add that huh.) Most of what I've characterized him as is this guy who's always cunning and has a too-bright smile (you can tell he's a bad guy from that smile), but right now he has neither of those things, so I'm writing him out of his element, so I'm not sure what I'm doing.
I'll agree that the dialoge tags were weak, but I didn't have anything in my brain to put down there but talking heads, and I couldn't have the reader confused. It's rare that I have 4 characters in a dialogue-heavy scene together, and I hate when I don't know who's talking. My other reviewers have said that they can't distinguish them anyway based on their language which isn't good.
*sigh*
It looks like I have a lot to work on.
Thanks for your review! It helped a lot~
Timmy here!
I'm going to be a sort of decent follower and catch this work while it's still hot off the press. Has happened before, long ago.... I forget when. Probably when I was a little less lazy. *grabs bag of chocolate* Let's get started.
This chapter seems to be more of a calm chapter than those before, just moving through time more-so than moving the plot. I'm not saying that in a negative way - it's a good thing. We've been running through this book at the speed of light, it seems. And now we get a breather, reading through at a bit slower pace. This is good - balancing the book with different pacing, and looking at the piece at an almost completely different perspective. For once, there was no violence, no mad dog fights, no fighting. Just Jay living an almost normal day. xD
So I am going to be overly-nitpicky and say I didn't like this bit as much because there was no part to tie into it. This seemed like a puzzle piece that wasn't connected with the rest. When I read through, I see this - and then think chemicals. Okay. Fine. It seemed a bit odd since Trevon always seemed a less advanced country (by quite a bit. xD), but it didn't poke out of the piece too much. But then we continue on into the piece and I don't see anything that points to the chemicals and gives a reason for it. I see blankets, bandages, Cabot, the locket - but nothing that would point towards chemicals. Perhaps piece it together better? c:
This seemed like unnecessary narration of actions by the character. He already has it in his hand, so he doesn't need to take it. The and looked confused read a little odd, but I think you could mend that with a bit of tweaking.
Two sentences.
Capitalize yo sentence, girl. xD
While I like the pacing of this story (it's always been spot-on, I think), it would be lovely at times if you inserted a bit more detail into it. Like in the part above, you zoomed through that part so fast, it read disjointed and wasn't detailed enough to satisfy me. I've seen you use more detail, and build the scene up to something spectacular, but it didn't rise as much as I think you could have brought it to. Bits of detail would do this wonders, and I'm not talking about describing the color of the trim on the floor, but spending a bit more time on certain areas and building the ambience of the scene in more detail.
Two sentences. ^^ And this part didn't make any sense, really. Looking back to my knowledge of the book, I can't think of a reason why Cabot would think so. I'm not entirely sure when his memory was cut off, and why he didn't remember any of it (although it did seem to come back rather quickly), but no matter what, he had tried to kill Shep, but it hadn't worked. So whyyy would he think he was dead? It doesn't make sense.
This seems rather... odd. When I read through it, I went whaaa? He trusted him? The only way I can think that he trusted him is to do the wrong thing. xD He was he villain from the beginning, and had never given Jay any reason at all to trust him. So it seemed strange that he would mention trusting him at all, because he didn't trust him in the slightest. I know I wouldn't, at least. And I always thought he didn't trust him at all. That your word is not to be trusted. <--- That was what I thought his opinion was from the beginning, right after he met Cabot. Because Cabot proved himself untrustworthy from the start.
Firestarter mentioned that there didn't seem to be any differences between the characters. I've been in the story enough to see the differences, but I understand what they're saying. Because how they speak is about the same, and if you took a piece of random dialogue from one character and placed it alongside a different character's, there wouldn't be much different from one to another. Work on setting them apart. Each person has their own colloquialisms they use and ways of speaking - like you know, and blabbing and bluntness, etc... Look at their personality and see what you can do to put it into their dialogue more. Salim? From what I've seen of his personality, he seems like a rambler and someone who loves telling stories. And we get a bit of that from where he's telling the story to Jay (although he never speaks), but I think you can accentuate that more with each character.
This was probably the hardest review I've ever written for this book. >< I went reading through and went uhhhhh... what do I say? All I had were little technical mistakes to point out to pretend I had something to say. But this was wonderful, and I do love your style of writing and how well it flows. While it's simple and doesn't go into the big words at all, it's beautiful and has a sense of you laced into the words.
You're unstoppable, too. Keep writing. <3
~Darth Timmyjake
Oops that part where salim looks at it and looks confused should actually be Shep. Heh. I hate names that start with the same letter. XD
Cabot is in a mindset where he is uber confuzzled. I think he figured that he would have ended up kill Shep by now, even if he had no recollection of it. Does that make sense, or should I take it out. My mind is trying to force this to go in two different directions, and I'm not sure which one is going to win, so I've been procrastinating a bit to scheme.
I agree with everything else. Shep at least was supposed to be speaking all mysteriously like he did in the beginning for the whole book, but I got a little tired of that. When I edit, I'll probably make sure that he sounds like that from time to time.
Salim is supposed to sound more... southern hick or something, but then, I'm not really sure what that's supposed to sound like... I'm not sure. Jay is just my normal voice, and Cabot's supposed to sound sly all the time, but he obviously can't right now because he has lost his wits.
Thanks for your review~
OH. That makes complete sense now. Yes yes, I always get my character names messed up. xD What you're saying about the uber confuzzled part? It makes complete sense to me, so what I'm thinking is that you need to make more sense in the actual story. And then it'll be fine.
The way of talking? Perfect. I think they match each character.
Cabot just suffered from a severe infection along with all of its symptoms, including delirium. Don't tell me you're never confused when you're super sick, or woke up from a long nap, or just came out from some sort of anesthesia.
Whaaaaa? I neveh said I didn't think he should be confused. :p
Wait now I'm confused. <.<
" so what I'm thinking is that you need to make more sense in the actual story."
Why doesn't it make sense?
oh dear
*thinks about rephrasing for the next hour*
I think he figured that he would have ended up kill Shep by now, even if he had no recollection of it. Does that make sense, or should I take it out.[/quote]
This ^^ When I read the part you talked about there, I didn't understand what was meant when Cabot thought he'd already killed Shep.... That woulda been what I said to make more clear on. :p
[quote]
stupid coding. ><
8th reply is a new record for me I think.
Maybe I should just take that part out because it's really not needed and if it's causing this much confusion, it can't be good. XD
Hm. One of the two. I'm not going to sway you in either direction as many readers might still be confused, but it also helps give an accurate description of his problems.
You know what you're doinggg ^.^
Hm. One of the two. I'm not going to sway you in either direction as many readers might still be confused, but it also helps give an accurate description of his problems.
You know what you're doinggg ^.^
>< Now you have eleven. Gosh, today is just not a good day. xd
Hey Widdershins,
It is very tricky to review a chapter of a novel I've read literally nothing off. So I will not go into too much depth, but simply give you my feelings from reading this isolated chapter:
THE CHARACTERS
They blend into each other. I couldn't write what differentiates Shep, Jay, Salim, or Cabot. Their personalities do not shine from the page. I'm almost certain they are different people with different objectives and you know these things, but I don't from this snapshot. That is a worry and something you should be concerned about if it is happening throughout your novel. Make sure you don't fall into the habit of making every character basically the same - it can be easy to do.
Always remember what your characters want, and how they are trying to get it. Characters should have differing aims, even if friends, that can cause conflicts. These conflicts are the bread and butter of your novel. Which brings me to -
THE CONFLICT
The only bit where the characters began to separate in my mind was the conflict at the end. This is the main scene of the chapter, and it is far too short. Just as we begin to get into the meat of the scene, with Jay becoming livid, and Cabot getting reminded of what he did, we FINISH? I have been robbed of a possibly great scene by a needless cliffhanger. I want some RESOLUTION, or at least some more juicy juicy conflict. I feel very robbed. It seems like you cut it off just as it was getting interesting. Give your scenes time to develop and become powerful and hard-hitting. Don't kill them in their prime. 950 odd words is not long enough for a chapter in my mind - if the whole novel is like this, it would be slightly infuriating to me! Perhaps in a future draft you could think about putting more chapters together.
THE GOOD
I like your writing - it is clear, to the point, and your pacing is fine. I don't get distracted by the language at all and there is literally nothing jarring in it at all - which was a pleasant surprise. The basics of writing you have down to an art and that is a good thing to have in your arsenal. That means you can work on your characters and your conflict without worrying too much about the basics letting you down.
OVERALL
Despite the too early ending, and the characters blending into one, the chapter interested me, and I may just go back and start from the beginning of the novel so I know what is actually going on!
Unfortunately for you, I agree that this ending was horrid. I couldn't force myself to write any more, however. My muse was being strangled quietly in the corner and I had to attend to it. Unfortunately (again) I had a deadline to post this chapter (today) so I had to meet it. I promise almost all of my other chapters end in a nice spot.
The characters are (hopefully) very fleshed out in other chapters, but your review reminded me that I should remind the readers more about these things by describing them a little more frequently.
Thank you for your review! ^^
(and if you do go back, just know that my style/pacing/language/knowledge of what the heck to do in a novel has greatly improved since then. Just thought it fair to warn you.)