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125,005 Literary Works • 672,805 Reviews
I finished reviewing the other novel so now I'm moving on to catching up on yours for this week. I like the existence of this chapter but I realize why you might not be a fan of it/it has too much going on too soon. Rosey talked a lot about that so I think I'll move along.
So just as a btw, Jupiter needs more of an opening than the single view lasting for ten seconds and then some judgement from Zelda? I don't have too much of a sense of the character from just this brief clip before she runs off into the forest.
She runs off into the forest.
For this story, running into the forest is an okay plot line to go and once you get there, you actually have something happening. Mostly when I hear the author saying "oh we're gonna go run around in the woods now", it's another one of those cheap moves. Just like someone passing out.
It's a cheap move.
I started to talk a little bit about this before but you have too many things going on. That's probably how you got to this chapter so quickly because everything was just a whirlwind. It's starting to bother me more as the story is progressing, since there's a maybe/maybe not structure to it.
The ending is a pretty nice cliffhanger. It's still skipping a few steps to hit it but it's a better integration than before. That might just be a mirror of the character's thought process, which I have seen before.
You talked a bit on discord about your characters and what people thought of their certain personal things. I probably would have caught the autism spectrum thing even if I didn't talk to you about it before, because I know all of those cues lol.
Some of them are mine lol.
Alright gonna roll.
- Lizz <3
Back again.
I'm half asleep rn so grain of salt— bucket of it, actually.
This feels like a beginning and a middle at once, not in the transition way, but in the confused way.
Jupiter needs to be introduced earlier, because that's the part that screams "beginning" right now, and it's holding the otherwise firmly introducing-the-middle scene into the "still laying threads" area.
Scott needs to be kidnapped later. This scene, in the grand scheme of what I've read so far, is a firm tipping point that to me reads like the 1/4 point of a novel. This is the point of no return. This is the point when everything goes Terribly Wrong.
Honestly, I'd do both. Introduce Jupiter sooner and have Scott kidnapped later. You'll only be able to tell how much later once you've finished the story (since draft 1's have a tendency to get away from you in wordcount), but right now it definitely feels like too soon.
[edit]Actually, no, keep Jupiter's intro in chapter 2, but move Scott's later. Chapter 2 is still plenty early in the beginning, so you don't really have time to move her intro earlier. This still fits with how chapter 1 had some buildup to the Greys, but it's Scott's kidnapping/finding the car that's tripping this up[/edit]
As evident by Jupiter's rushed introduction, you're still laying some fairly basic threads. There's Zelda's freak nature, there's Justin's outcast nature (which is hinted at in this chapter, I noticed), there's Scott's nature (which we're currently told instead of show; I'd love to see him and Jupiter interact), and there's the aunt vanishing without so much as a goodbye. Everything has so far been Laid Out, but it hasn't been punched in to show how it fits, y'know?
The beginning of this scene with Jupiter and Zelda dealing with the aftermath of getting chewed out for Something Else— because I like the fact she's chewed out, she needs that push so early on to really establish her freak nature, but Scott needs to go missing later— and the end of this scene where she is running from Scott vanishing and her own feelings, need to be about probably 5k if not 10k apart right now. What you can fill that with I have no idea, but I gave some threads I want to see more of before the point of no return.
This is the first point I feel you have introduced too much at once. There isn't enough reinforcement of everything, and all of the beginning threads are more told instead of shown. It's the time when the plot shows its nature as a rough hewn start, and that's reflected in your struggle to transition— you plain old don't have enough to reach the point of no return, and I feel like the next few scenes are going to metaphorically backtrack on what they show in order to introduce everything.
Which is still going to be great to read, because this is fascinating and the punch to the gut with the running and the car and Everything About That Tipping Point was just out and out wonderful. But it's too soon. That's really my main critique for this— the point of no return is too soon.
Justin, Scott, Jupiter, Aunt. All of that needs a bit more fleshing out before the end of this, but now when you're moving forward you can weave it all in backwards and get an idea of what could go here. It's not a lost opportunity, but more something that you'll build and move.
You know where to find me.
~Rosey
Heyo, Raye! Sorry that I'm a few days late on review, but better late than never! I really hope that this review helps.
I don't necessarily know if there's something that I would want to take this chapter's place. But! I'll go through what I liked and hopefully that'll help for when you go through what elements to keep and what elements to scrap.
I didn't know this word, so I googled it and it apparently means "a small thicket of trees". I bring this up because later, Zelda manages to pinpoint the type of tree thats he encountered. Are trees a special interest of hers? Or even just a regular interest? It would make sense for her to be into something nature related because her dad is a florist, but I wanted to make sure that I wasn't making a mountain out of a mole hill.
I think that the interaction between Zelda and Justin was incredibly important? At least, I really liked the scene where he gave her his cardigan. It was a nice touch, further established what Justin's personality is outside of Nerissa, and provided a welcome momentary relief from the overwhelming shock of Scott being gone. But I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Justin just... leaving Zelda in a time of emotional shock? I know that he's incredibly busy, but if something truly dangerous is out there, then it feels misguided and a bit too optimistic to just let Zelda go home on her own.
One option, for a future draft, is to very clearly have Justin be so worried that he takes the time to take Zelda home -- I'd imagine her being so out of it that once Justin leaves to head back to work, then Zelda just wanders out of the apartment still in emotional shock of what has happened. You could probably still hit the key points that this chapter has with that sort of set up.
[I don't mean to nitpick on grammar in this section. Just, this segment was bugging me.] This is an important bit of info to keep, but I also think it could probably be presented better? Even if Justin was saying that she lost all of her friends in a factual way, it still comes across as very mean? Like, the visual I'm getting is that Justin and Zelda are sitting around a table, and Justin looks over his newspaper at Zelda and says, "You lost all your friends after elementary school." Liked to remind makes it sound like that he took a small bit of joy in telling her that? Saying that he said it in a factual way doesn't really take away the first visual unless there's some better visual to replace it. I do think that this section is important to keep for a later draft, but it could definitely be redone.
I do like Jupiter in this chapter, but I don't know if she's 100% necessary in this? I can't exactly pin point why she feels a bit superfluous, but I think that with Zelda's penchant for sprinting, then Jupiter isn't exactly needed to kickstart her into the forest? Or, perhaps, I wish there was more substantial information from Jupiter herself -- I don't know if she needs to be cut from this chapter (but, iirc, if she's your viewpoint character in the next chapter then it's probably best to keep her), but I think maybe a bit more could be done with her? Instead of just saying Zelda's name, she could say something that Zelda didn't want to confront.
I'm curious to learn more about ZF? Uh, I'm a bit perplexed by the fact that Zelda didn't recognize that those were her initials? I do very much like the eerie "Zelda is in a future version of the forest" that it sets up, but it feels... off to not have her recognize her own initials? Especially when her name starts with a Z. Again, that's something that I'd love to see in a later draft, but just done a little bit differently.
I looove the forest. I love the ominousness and I love the large trees. I loved the symbols and I loved the ending with how Zelda found Scott's car. If you keep anything, then please keep her going to Yarrow Park and keep the ominous tones -- it's so great to read.
Okay! I'm looking forward to when you update again! I love these characters and I love this setting. Let me know if there's anything you'd like me to focus on more -- if you need anything re-clarified or if you want some more notes, then just let me know!
Keep on writing, Raye~
-E
Hey Raye, I know you said I could drop this but I have this ridiculous desire to get to the top of the month review leaderboard so I'm happy to keep going
The line in my head is kinda fuzzy between grammar nit-picks and style nit-picks, so feel free to regard any of these you don't consider relevant:
I'm pretty sure this counts as style because it's to do with clarification. Same as what? As each other? As something Zelda has seen before?
For me, this is the first detail that has suggested to me that Zelda might be autistic, as you have mentioned to me. I would be very curious to know if there's others that me, an allistic reader, might have missed.
I may be misunderstanding the implication of this sentence (which I assumed to be Zelda referring to herself as a shiny thing that kids were fascinated by, with this wearing off as they got older) but wouldn't the conclusion of this be that Jupiter's special treatment also stopped as the kids got older, because kids were less fascinated by her too?
I'm struggling to picture what this would look like. What shape does a car to look like a tree when covered in bark?
Overall:
For how little you've expected of this chapter, I actually quite liked it. The pacing was spot on, and there was lots of very compelling description. The introduction of Jupiter here was maybe a little random and felt like it was more significant than the time actually given to it. By this I mean the build up of backstory we hear about her and Zelda's strong emotional reaction to seeing her there. I guess that ramps up the emotional tension for the running through the trees section, but I think the feeling of significance it is given is something to consider. In any case, person's friend goes missing, person has strong emotional reaction, cliffhanger at the end is a pretty solid plan for a chapter.
One thing I want to bring up is a question about Zelda's autism, hence me asking about the nature of the word allistic. I really really want to say this right. I am not trying to say that she doesn't seem autistic, because maybe there are plenty of signs that someone who was familiar with one or more experiences of autism might recognise, but I as an allistic person who has limited experience haven't got a clear understanding of that.
For context, I've known a fair few people on the aspergers' spectrum and one person with autism so severe that he had limited speech ability. Obviously these are two different ends of a spectrum that presumably has many dimensions and is not necessarily linear, but that's the best way I have to describe my experience. There are probably people with even less experience for me, who might think Zelda is just being 'fussy' or something when she says she doesn't like seams (which, to be clear, is something I would associate with the guy I knew with severe autism (apologies if there's a better term for that)). I think if you want this story to be about a person with autism who people perceive as an alien, which is a solid idea and I like it, you need it to be clear to as many readers as possible that that's what the situation is. I guess it would be fine to not spell it out, but the problem is that because there's a fantasy feel to this, it's easy to assume that she's literally a supernatural being or something.
Speaking of which - the child at the church and Jupiter? I'm assuming I'm still meant to be intrigued by what's going on with them? I am, for what it's worth. As I'm writing this I'm wondering if maybe those people are the group that people assume Zelda is part of, which would be an interesting idea.
I am really sorry if any of this language was unhelpful and would very much like to be corrected on any outdated or straight up incorrect terms,
Biscuits
Oh also, any time I said "you have to" or "you should", put a "i think that" before whatever I said, because I had a really long argument about subjectivity yesterday and I think it's important here.
http://autisticadvocacy.org/about-asan/about-autism/
http://autisticadvocacy.org/about-asan/ ... -language/
i can tell you mean well with this review! however, i also ask that you keep in mind that you may not be my audience for this piece. this is a young adult piece written for people reading at the 10th-12th grade level (year 11-13/6th form), and the audience i'm primarily going for is autistic people.
so this piece isn't really meant to be educational for allistic people. if you catch that zelda is autistic, great! if you don't, you can at least catch (in draft 2 once I edit it all GOSHDARN YOU EDITING) that she has some issues with anger management, emotional control, and sensory input, which is... basically her autism.
there are a myriad of sources on autism on the internet, especially first-hand accounts and personal blogs.
autistic people are not aliens. while you may have experience with autistic people in your life, it's important to understand that autistic people do not follow anywhere near the same sampling of characteristics from person to person. it's less a linear system of characteristics and more of an ice cream topping bar.
rosey and i are super different! we're both autistic, and we've got some similar characteristics, but for the most part we're really distinct.
in that vein, "severe" and "mild" autism aren't really labels used in the community. personally, i find them to be pretty...insulting. also generally taboo are "high" and "low" functioning labels, which are used as umbrella terms and don't really reflect the individual needs of autistic people. mostly the community prefers high, moderate, and low care or support labels.
care/support labels ask how much support a person needs in their day to day life to be happy or take care of themselves (for example, i hover closer to moderate care because i need a very high amount of emotional support, and a fair amount of household support to offset my executive dysfunction, even though i don't need help to take baths, eat, dress myself, or perform other self-care tasks).
this is a fantasy story. zelda is half-faerie, half-human. she is also autistic. these two things are not exclusive, and when you say that people might assume she's some kind of supernatural creature... that was kind of the point? at least, i saw it that way. i'll put it in my red pen notes for draft 2 though.
in addition, this is a story with an autistic protagonist, not a story about autism. this distinction serves to say that she is a protagonist who so happens to be autistic; it's not a story where the disability plays any impact on the plot other than how the character interacts with the world. it's the same kind of impact it would have if the character was asthmatic or had glasses. young adult novels aren't often written about the pivotal plot point of wearing glasses; hence my novel isn't written about the pivotal plot point of the main character's autism.
thanks!
Thanks for all this, Raye. I really do want to use as helpful terms as I can so if I keep reviewing this I'll definitely read some of these resources (well I mean, I'll do that anyway, but that just seemed worth mentioning). I am also really sorry for insulting you. I know you said you know I meant well, but I also know that seeing ace-exclusionary reblogs on Jace's tumblr makes me very sad even though I know he's trying to learn. I understand that words can hurt accidentally, and I really wish I hadn't done that to you.
This leads to my question: would you like me to stop reviewing? There are quite a few autistic writers on this website and I'm sure some of them would review. I'm not saying that works by/about people with autism should only be read by other people with autism, but they would probably be able to give you more detailed feedback on how this character and their experiences interact, which might be of more use to you. I'm also happy to keep reviewing and adjust the way I look at this story the best I can, but I just want to explain that I will not take it personally (unless I should...?) if you would prefer for me to stop reviewing.
Also the faerie criticism probably got a bit lost in the mess of my review, but I think that was meant to be about the pace at which information is revealed. Thinking about it... it's probably an okay pace? But I think this far in it would probably have been useful to know that this story's parameters included existence of the fey.
Biscuits