Nyika - Death on the Snowfield
Dispelling such unnerving thoughts, Nyika turned her attention to Zevka, leaning over her serene features and resting her paw against the pine marten's cheek. Beasts always were the most peaceful in sleep and death. Nyika almost considered them one and the same, the only difference being that death was a sleep in which one would never wake. She didn't want to disturb her. Zevka seemed so peaceful, but they needed to move. Something had happened, an avalanche, or something terrible. Already Nyika could hear the dead stirring, the moaning in her ears growing to an unnerving pitch. They had to leave, to survive.
Editing. I think you could have cut this entire paragraph without negatively impacting the rest of the post. You make some very obvious statements - "beasts always were the most peaceful in sleep and death" and "death was a sleep in which one would never wake" (and it should be "from which".) Then we go back and forth - "she didn't want to disturb her. Zevka seemed so peaceful, but they needed to move." If you had cut either the first sentence or "Zevka seemed so peaceful" and put the other two statements together, there would be a much better flow there. Many times in writing, less is more. In my experience with these contests, you spend a lot of time polishing and editing down your app, using as few words as possible to get your point across. When it comes to the actual contest, though, there is either no word limit or a much higher one, so it's easy to get a little sloppy and laid back on the trimming process. I'm not saying that that's what happened here, but I think you could benefit from reading over your chapters and weighing the importance of every word, sentence, and paragraph.
Hee, Stonewall had the same feedback for me on the same passage.
I'm a terrible editor, and combine that with being naturally long-winded can make for some rambling passages. I can see how and why it wasn't as effective as I hoped. Some rewording of lines would have helped, but I don't think I would have cut the whole thing. I tried to paint a vivid picture of growing tension mixed with the relief of being alive amidst a sudden catastrophe, and I think that passage is important for that. Still, cutting some sentences and rewording others would have produced a better effect, I won't deny that.
My real beef with Nyika is that - and I'm assuming that she's seen dead people since she was a kit - I think someone her age would have either gone crazy by now, or somewhat learned to emotionally cope. But, I'm trying to keep in mind that a pretty big catastrophe has just occurred, and she probably hasn't dealt with anything on this scale before. I just keep getting this vibe that her primary coping mechanism is to try to ignore it all, and that only works for so long.
I tried to address that, actually, through this line here: "Never had she seen so much death in one place at one time."
The vibe you got was correct, but only for this post and that's because she simply doesn't know what to do with them all. In my application and in Zevka's flashback she interacts directly with her spirits, so while she can handle her haunts for the most part, this was just too much for her.
All that said, I'm intrigued by the concept and I'm interested to see where you take this. You can do some really different stuff with her, and that in itself makes her worth keeping around for a while longer. My main advice to you is to spend a little more time on editing down.
Thank you! I will definitely take this advice to heart. It's hard when there's a looming deadline and other writers waiting on you to produce, so it's easy to keep things in from the first draft that need to be tidied or removed completely. You tend to gloss over them or even learn to ignore your gut when something doesn't sit right with you. It's not like the application process where you can mull over something for upwards of a month. You've got a few days, tops, and even with nine other pairs of eyes looking it over for you things will get missed. I'm not complaining or making excuses, just trying to put things into perspective.
Still, I thank you very much for your constructive criticism! Pending future posts from me, I hope to keep them more poised, polished, and gleaming with charm!
