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dragonlady7I was going to write a jacket blurb but it's just not coming to me. Instead, I'll convey the bare facts a jacket ought to tell you:
1) The novel's set in Wales / Dublin, 922 A.D.
2) there are Vikings in it.
3) The heroine's name is Nyvaine.
4) The hero's name is Njall. (Niall, spelt all Scandinavian.)
5) There will probably be some pretty purple scenes, later. But I don't know if it's a romance novel. We'll figure out the genre as we go along.
So, we begin with Chapter 1. I rewrote this, changing it from the alpha because it was pointed out to me that the heroine was unsympathetic ("obnoxious") in the first draft. I have other questions, enumerated below, but am primarily concerned with whether my characters are, well, characters.
So. Questions about Chapter 1:
1) Is Nyvaine sympathetic / believable? Does she react in a way that it would make sense for a girl in her situation to react?
2) The opening descriptive stuff-- boring, or vivid? Should I pare that down? I don't know where else to stuff in my background exposition, but I'm worried I'm front-loading.
3) Does the scene flow, or can you tell that I chopped up several other scenes and reassembled them? (if it's choppy, where are the seams?)
4) My 'extras' and supporting cast-- did I make believably barbaric and yet human Vikings, or do they rather too strongly resemble either Muppets or the dudes from those Capital 1 commercials ("Arr, wot's in YER wallet")?
5) Njall: Like him? Hate him? Hope so. If you don't feel anything towards him he's going to have trouble carrying this novel like he's gotta.
6) Pacing: Do I have any? Is there too much dialogue? Too much exposition? Too much poorly-described action? What dragged, and what went by so fast you missed it?
Chapter 1: A Lucky Catch
The sun was beginning to filter down through the leaves, streaming little glitters of gold down over the edge of the cliff and into the rocks among the water as Nyvaine sat at the top of the cliff, bundling her herbs. She had nearly finished sorting through what she had collected so far, and then she had one more errand before she made the long trek back home.
Nyvaine had come out before the sun rose to collect herbs for her teacher, as Enid was old enough to feel justified in complaining of the walk. It was a sort of test, Nyvaine had been told, but Enid was telling her everything was a test just now. This was her last summer with Enid. Indeed, it was to be her last summer in Wales altogether. Over the last winter, spent in her family's winter quarters in the king's compound, she had been told that in the autumn she would marry.
It was an honor, she knew, and she looked forward to it with what she hoped was more excitement than trepidation. She was to be a peace offering, and her marriage would cement an important treaty between her king, Hywel, and the Saxons to the east. The Norsemen were raiding again, warring with the Scots in the north, and it was essential that the kingdoms and principalities of Wales unite not only with one another, but with their neighbors and onetime foes, the Saxons.
It was all very high-minded and political. Nyvaine tied a little bit of string around her last neat bundle, laying it on her cloak in an orderly pile with the other bundles. She sighed, though whether it was in worry at the politics she didn't understand (and hadn't her father spent the entire previous winter railing against the Saxons as beasts and barbarians, and now they were allies?) or in appreciation at the beauty of the river below her, she couldn't quite decide. She supposed it would be more fitting to sigh at the beauty of the river. She had always loved this spot, a secluded little patch of bare rock that overlooked the steep drop to the sharp rocks. She probably wouldn't see it again, as she had collected everything she needed.
She got to her feet. Everything except, of course, for one last thing. She made her way back down the hill into the grove below. She had done the important tasks of collecting first, and now could indulge herself in a little pleasure: she had spotted a good little crop of edible mushrooms, which she knew were Enid's favorite food. The sun was not yet high, and she had made quick progress with her collections. Enid wouldn't chastise her for a little extra time to collect, of all things, mushrooms. There was time enough, and plenty, to enjoy the beautiful morning and ensure a nice treat for several meals to come.
She collected the mushrooms into the hem of her smock, being of course careful to leave a well-distributed selection behind so that the patch would regenerate. She knew well that this grove of 'wild' herbs had been carefully tended for at least a generation now, by Enid and her various students. She also suspected that Enid had encouraged these mushrooms more than moderately and had sent her now knowing they in particular would be ready.
She took off her smock and made a neat, careful bundle around the mushrooms, to make them easier to carry and less prone to becoming damaged on the long, strenuous walk home. Her overdress was plain but fine, and she carefully tucked the skirts up into her belt so that they wouldn't get tangled, torn, or muddied without the protection of her smock.
The breeze she had so enjoyed at the cliff annoyed her now, tossing stray locks of her carelessly-styled hair into her face. She had put it up loosely this morning, without taking time to plait it properly, thinking it wouldn't matter for just a morning of work. But it was coming down now, and as it was so liable to tangles she couldn't just leave it. She sighed, and decided she had better do something about it before embarking upon the long walk home with her hands full.
She put the mushrooms down and turned to face into the breeze so it would blow her hair back and make it easier to gather. Her hands went up to catch her hair, but fluttered and fell as she suddenly stopped paying attention to them. She stared down at the bend in the river, a cold numbness leaving her nerveless.
A beast's head hung there among the trees, just visible, motionless. A black dragon's head, ornamented with spirals, black fangs gleaming with a malice she could feel right down in the pit of her stomach. Her eyes slowly traveled backwards along the beast's body, to see the mast behind it, green-striped sail furled. She dragged a breath through her cold, paralyzed chest.
Danes.
The dragon-headed ship was immobile, dragged up onto the flat, muddy embankment. They were here. The Danes were ashore. She whirled around, seizing her bundle of mushrooms, and stared in blind panic at the heavily-forested slope. She had to hide herself. Had they come this way? She was too frightened to see clearly, to think, to reason— but her cloak, she had left it up at the cliff. Surely they would see it there. It was the best overlook in the area, the highest point. Perhaps they were already there. They would find it. They would know she was here, somewhere.
She put her hand over her mouth, struggling to breathe normally. A slow breath in, a slow breath out. Think. One ship. Only one. Only room for one at this little bank. Were there more? Had more gone upstream? Was this one alone? She had no way of knowing.
Oh Jesus, she thought, Enid. Would the Danes go far enough inland to find Enid? Would they find their little summer compound, the well-beaten track to the village? What would they do to an old woman and a little serving-boy, alone? They had nothing— but that wasn't true. Enid was quite well-off, with all the folk she'd healed, to say nothing of the fees people like Nyvaine's own father had paid for their children's training.
Even if Nyvaine could hide long enough to evade them and make her way home, what would she come to? And where could she hide in the meantime? The forest was dense, to be sure, but not as dense as it could be— it was well-tended, in a subtle sort of way. She could climb a tree, she thought, but rejected that — she'd look a right fool up there if they spotted her. There were no grottoes, no caves, no truly dense thickets, no good hiding spots that she could rely on. Certainly nothing that would suit if the Danes were actively looking for the owner of the cloak beside the cliff.
And she had nothing— only a knife no longer than her thumb, and none too sharp at that. The Danes wore armor, she knew from her mother's fearsome stories. She couldn't kill one, let alone the many that must have come on such a ship as the one below. And — the knife was up with her cloak, she realized, putting her hand to her belt. She had left it there after trimming the bundles of herbs. Oh God, she said to herself, oh Jesus, I am a fool and a fool. What hope have I? What possible hope?
Hope, of course, she told herself sternly, that they hadn't seen her yet. She crept quietly behind a tree, pressing her back against it and concentrating on breathing normally. Maybe they wouldn't find her in this forest. Maybe they had already gone on further inshore. Please, Jesus, she prayed, don't let them hurt Enid. Whatever happened she could not stand the thought of coming home to find— her mind shied away from picturing anything beyond the thought of smoke and burning. She had never encountered anything Enid couldn't handle herself, but everyone knew what savages the Danes were, respecting neither God nor humanity. Everyone had heard the terrible tales, and Nyvaine's knees trembled at the thought of what they would do to her if they caught her. She closed her eyes for a moment, collecting what scant courage remained. When she opened them, she saw her first Dane in the flesh.
He was a solidly-built fellow, and as ugly as she had ever seen. One of his eyes was missing, replaced by an ugly scar that marred half his face and had left a bald line through his dark hair. He was dressed in foreign fashion, a short tunic girt with a thick leather belt, iron and leather cuffs on his bare wrists. He had an axe at his belt, and was looking grimly past her.
His expression changed abruptly, the empty eye-socket horrible, and it took her a moment to realize that he was looking past her at someone. Chill descended upon her, and she turned her head very, very slowly. Not ten paces beyond her was another Dane, slightly-built and red-haired, his face contorted in an expression of boyish glee as he crept toward her. Obviously, he had seen her some time ago and was trying to take her by stealth. Seeing her eyes widen as she noticed him, he let out a sharp laugh at her terror, and she seized the breath for her shriek between her teeth and used it to speed her away on a mad sprint up the hill instead.
Nyvaine was a healer, not a runner. She had never done well in races. But this was more than a race. She flung the bundle of mushrooms aside and pelted up that hill with speed a hound would have envied. She could hear more Danes, laughing and shouting as they ran, and she knew there were more than just the two of them. More than three. They were everywhere.
She disregarded the brambles slicing her legs and ran in grim silence, glad that she had gathered up her skirts. Her hair was a mess, streaming loose now, but at least her skirts wouldn't tangle in the undergrowth and slow her down. She couldn't afford so much as half a step. But even unencumbered, where could she run? She couldn't outrun them. Behind her the sounds of pursuit were coming closer, and downhill one was parallel with her, a stocky dark-haired man with a wide grin, not even winded, running easily.
She darted neatly around thickets, but nothing was thick or big enough to hide her or to put her out of their reach. And she was gasping already, roaring for breath. She had nothing, no recourse, no escape, no destination. She was a deer that the hounds had put up and the huntsmen would spear. She couldn't dart to either side or double back. There were too many of them. They were everywhere, crashing through the forest with shouts of laughter, revealed in greater numbers than her nightmares could ever have conceived.
Desperately she sprinted up the slope, pulling herself around narrow trees and slicing through brambles. If she could make it back up to the cliff, there was one final escape still open to her. She had never contemplated such an end in her short and hopeful life, but the raucous laughter of the Danes was all around her and she knew what they would do to a captive such as she. She was not vain but knew she drew her share of stares when she was among men. And she would rather face the sharp stop at the end of the drop from that steep cliff than anything a dozen Danes would give her.
She hesitated a fraction of a moment, sobbing for breath— she did love her life— but dove through the thicket that kept her back from the cliff, propelled by the nearness of the pursuit behind and to both sides. She had no time to go around the thicket, but went straight through, gathering momentum for that last terrifying leap.
But she collided with something large, something with no business on the other side of this well-known thicket: something too soft to be a tree. Arms grasped reflexively at her, their owner giving a startled grunt, and she stared up for a suspended moment into an astonished pair of bright blue eyes before her momentum swung her past. But he turned with her, hands still on her arms, his grip tightening reflexively as she swung out toward the cliff's edge. And she swung back, and stopped: he outweighed her, and had braced himself to stop her. The astonishment in the eyes hardened into amusement as the Dane, for so he was, realized what he held.
He had her securely now, his superior weight anchoring her away from the cliff. She gave a tremendous writhe, trying to wrest herself free, or to pull him over the cliff with her, but his hands were like iron bands on her wrists and he was immovable.
She subsided with a breathless little cry of despair, and sank to her knees with her head drooping. She could only sob for breath, shoulders heaving, too frightened for tears. They had her. God help her, she knew what they would do now. She just had the presence of mind to note that the Dane who had her now had been going through her bundles of herbs, and her knife was no longer lying beside her cloak.
"I thought you were a deer," he said in the clearest, gentlest Saxon she had ever heard, an amused laugh rippling through his mild, clear voice, and then her pursuers came swarming around the thicket with breathless shouts, laughter, and groans.
"And Njall makes the kill again," a voice panted, rich with laughter.
"I saw her first," a second voice protested, a little shrilly.
"What a catch," a third voice said admiringly.
"She's a beauty," a fourth voice said.
"I tell you I saw her first," the second voice repeated.
"But Njall caught her," the first voice said, still amused. "You were pretty far back in the chase, my boy."
"What did we catch?" a fifth voice said eagerly as its owner came around the thicket.
"Well?" the second voice said sullenly. "Whose is she, then?"
There was a brief silence, and Nyvaine raised her head enough to look at them through her disarranged hair. Five raiders, a sixth just arriving to peer around the thicket, more voices beyond, and the seventh holding her by the wrists. Several of them were gazing at her with a touch of greed that chilled her sharply, and she'd little doubt of what it was they wanted her for. She looked up at the man holding her wrists, and he was regarding her somewhat dryly, with what she desperately hoped was a touch of sympathy.
"Well," he said, looking down at her. His Saxon, she realized, was strongly accented compared to what she had heard real Saxons speak. But something in his accent was familiar to her, and she couldn't place it. She realized that they were all speaking the same accented Saxon, and she wondered how that could be. For they were surely Danish sea-raiders.
She went limp suddenly, and he released one of her wrists to kneel beside her with an exclamation of surprise and dismay. She waited until he put his hand to her neck to turn her face, and suddenly jerked her other hand free of his grasp, and scrambled desperately for the cliff. But his reflexes were quicker than a cat's, and he had her by the hair before she could so much as get to her hands and knees. She scrabbled at the rock, trying to tear her hair out of his grasp, but he got his other arm around her waist and pinioned her firmly. She got a hand free and clawed at him, but he actually laughed, and caught her hand before she could cause him any real damage.
"You would prefer a long drop and sharp rocks to a simple conversation with us?" he asked gently, his grip completely immobilizing her. She struggled ineffectually, her breath coming in panicked gasps. He had her crushed against his chest now, and she had no leverage to pull away.
"Yes," she managed, stung into a response by the gently teasing note in his tone. How could someone joke about this? What kind of inhuman psychopaths were these? She stared desperately around at them, and saw only amusement and excitement, and darker things. Her fear only intensified the darker aspects of their regard, and she shut her teeth firmly on her lips, trying to freeze herself into uninteresting impassiveness. But she had never been closer to losing her mind from terror in her life.
"Look here," the hideous one-eyed man said, leering at her, and she unsuccessfully stifled her whimper of terror as he leaned closer to her. Her captor only held her more firmly and she closed her eyes, shuddering violently in her fear. Oh Jesus, she thought, but couldn't think of anything else. "Look here," the one-eyed man said again, cutting through the murmur of voices. "This isn't some slave girl. This is a nobleman's daughter. Look how she's dressed."
"I'm looking at those legs," a voice said, and there was general laughter.
"Ivar's right," her captor said, his voice rumbling against her back. She shuddered. He was holding her firmly but not hurting her now that he had secured her. "This is fine stuff. I've no doubt she's some real money."
Nyvaine bit the insides of her lips tighter, twisting hopelessly in his grasp. Her breathing hadn't calmed at all and she was light-headed by now with hyperventilating.
"Here, now, child," and the voice of the one-eyed man was gentle now that she couldn't see his frightening face. "Njall, you're frightening her. See how she's shaking."
"I can't let go," her captor said. "She'll take me right over that cliff with her. You saw how she fights. I let her hand go and I'll look like you."
"Here, shh, girl," the one-eyed man said, and he touched her face gently. She shook her head violently.
"Don’t touch me!" she panted, opening her eyes to stare blankly like a rabbit in the terminal stages of terror. "Don't touch me!"
The one-eyed man withdrew carefully. "See, here, child," he said soothingly. "We won't hurt you." She could recognize now, through the distortion wrought on his face by the scar, that he was trying to be kind. "Look, she's hardly more than a child."
"She looks like a woman to me," someone answered, and several laughed in answer.
"It's moot anyway," her captor said, and his tone was firmer now. "I say she's the daughter of someone important, and the less we damage her, the more she's worth. You all can calm yourselves down and think about how much easier it is to divide money than a woman." His tone brooked no argument and a faint hope crossed Nyvaine's mind that he was some kind of leader.
The rumble of voices didn't all sound angry or disappointed, and the prospect of getting money for her seemed to please them even more than what they had been considering before. Nyvaine calmed enough to see the one-eyed man gazing at her in some distress. It crossed her mind that she still hadn't had a clear look at the man who was restraining her.
"All right," her captor's voice rumbled from behind her. "I'm going to let go of one of your hands. No harm will come to you if you don't struggle. All right?"
She didn't answer, still shaking with terror, and so the grip on one of her wrists eased. She drew the arm back to herself shakily, and pushed ineffectually at her skirts, trying to untuck them from her waistband and hide her exposed, bramble-scored lower legs.
"Can I let go of your waist now?" her captor asked. "You know I won't let you go over that cliff. But there's no need for you to go there. We won't hurt you."
She nodded, and he released her, and she crawled away from him, but not towards the others any more than she had to, and sat shivering with her arms around herself. She wiped her eyes and looked between the one-eyed man and her captor, and her eyes caught on her captor's face and stayed there.
He was a young man, no more than twenty-two, with long blond hair and a well-trimmed blond beard. He had strikingly clear blue eyes, and an oval face, and was regarding her with an expression remarkably close to amusement. "You won't hurt me?" she managed to say at last, and her Saxon sounded hoarse and guttural to her after the ringing clarity of his speech.
"No," he said, "we won't hurt you."
"Do you promise?" she asked fiercely. "Do you give your word?"
"Not to hurt you?" He sounded surprised.
"Yes," she said. He regarded her for a moment, and a crease appeared beside his mouth, twisting his smile slightly with what she was now sure was amusement.
"All right," he said. "I will give you my word not to hurt you or to let hurt come to you, in return for something from you."
"What?" she asked, wary. She looked briefly at the one-eyed man and he shrugged, confirming her impression that this young blond man was their captain.
"You give me your word," he said, "that you won't try to escape."
She drew herself up. "I can't do that," she said frostily.
He shrugged. "I can't guarantee that I won't hurt you," he said. "Or that hurt won't come to you. I may have to hurt you to keep you from escaping. I just can't promise."
"I can't promise away my freedom," she answered him. "I cannot so easily give my word away for such a thing."
She heard a snicker from among the other Danes, and her temper, ever the cause of trouble, reared up from among the last vestiges of her mind-numbing terror. She was suddenly on a hair-trigger, realizing that she was a pathetic figure and had absolutely no power over these people. No word they could give would really be a protection for her, and she had no recourse. But she had rage, and a fine rage she had. She turned on them, her face a stiff mask of wrath, and gave them such a look that they drew back from her in surprise.
"I wouldn't expect Danes to have any notion of honor," she spat at them.
To her astonishment, they all laughed, except for one stocky dark-haired fellow who glowered. "No," her captor said cheerfully, "Danes have no honor whatsoever. Sons of pigs, the lot of them."
The dark-haired stocky one shook his broad, scarred-knuckled fist at him, though the gesture lacked real force. "One of these days," the stocky man said, and subsided with a laugh.
Nyvaine looked back at her captor with some bewilderment, her wrath momentarily deflated in her confusion. Her captor laughed again at her lost expression.
"Erik there is a Dane," he said, gesturing with his chin at the stocky man, "but he is the only one in our company."
"Then who are you?" she demanded, astonished. Who but the Danes raided upriver in dragon-ships? Who had her now?
"We are Norsemen, Norwegians," he said, pronouncing the word with offensive clarity, and switching dialects for her benefit. "We are no more Danes than you are."
"Norsemen," she said. She had thought Norse and Dane to be the same thing, said different ways. "How can there be two such nations of wolves and the whole world not yet overrun?" she asked helplessly, shaking her head.
Her captor gave her a bright and somewhat wolfish grin. "Because we spend so much time attacking one another," he answered, and there was a hard edge of bitterness to his tone.
"Now, Njall," the one-eyed man said, a little chidingly. Njall, for so she assumed his name to be, made a contemptuous noise.
"Save it, Ivar," Njall said. "And tell me, would Wales still be free if we were not so obsessed with York?"
"Njall," the one-eyed man said. "Please."
Njall stood up. "Come on," he said, and came to stand over Nyvaine, extending his hand down to her. "We cannot stay longer."
She looked up at him and set her lips. Did he think she was going to take him by the hand and simply follow him, like a tamed animal? He gazed down at her a moment, and sighed. He clasped her by the wrist and hauled her to her feet, and to her surprise put his shoulder firmly into her belly, knocking the breath from her. He picked her up over his shoulder, holding her firmly by the wrist and waist.
"Wrap up her cloak, there, with all those bundles," Njall said. She struggled, terrified, and he clamped his arm around her waist tighter. "Girl," he said, "if you want me to drag you by your hair, I will be perfectly happy to do so. I could hardly be blamed for its state, as it is hardly in an enviable condition as it is."
"You pig," she said, her wrath returning in full force. She flew into a nearly-motionless trilingual rage, all her helpless fury at being captured tempered only by her certainty that he would indeed drag her by her hair. "You animal," she raged in her first language, Welsh. "You dog, you son of a sow, you unclean, ill-bred savage," and Welsh failed her entirely and she launched into her mother's tongue, in which insults came much more fluidly. "May your feet knock your head and leave you in confusion, you unworthy son of a flea-ridden mouse! I hope you get a splinter in your buttocks and die of infection, you creature, you louse, you whoreson savage—"
She had to pause to draw breath, and a peal of astonished laughter from beneath her lengthened the pause. "Perhaps you have some civilization in you after all!" Njall said, in the clearest and most beautiful Irish she had ever heard. She was too astonished to answer him, and in that moment it came to her with irrelevant clarity that Njall was obviously the Norsemen's pronunciation of Niall, an Irish name, and in fact had been her mother's father's name. Was this an Irishman after all? A Norse Irishman, who wasn't a Dane at all?
She hung upside-down at his back, pondering disorientedly at her dizzyingly changed fate, and noticing disjointedly the warmth and solidity of the body beneath her, the smell of it— leather, sea, woodsmoke, wool, and a softer tang of man than the stink she was used to. He was a pleasant-smelling, Saxon-speaking, Norse Irishman who wasn't a Dane at all.
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For any interested, the alpha is here.
When I started posting the beta on the other journal, it struck me as a good idea to post mp3s at the end of each excerpt, both as a 'thank you' to anyone who was reading, and as a kind of a soundtrack. The idea being, every chapter has a song to go with it, and then there could be like a Vikings Novel CD at the end. I dunno. I don't have permission from any of the artists, and I'm not selling anything, but I encourage you to explore their works and buy their stuff and all that. I just like the songs. (Most of them, if it matters, are off of CDs I own, rather than being pirated.)
So, this week's mp3, already selected, is:
The Beauty Spot / The Maid Behind The Barrel, a pair of reels by the up-and-coming young Irish traditional folk band Danú, from their 2002 album All Things Considered. They've been winning awards all over and I love them to death, and I discuss them some more on my music page, where I'm keeping an archive of all the stuff I put up in my livejournal.
Right-click and 'save to disk', or whatever your operating system tells you, or just click to listen in your browser's embedded media-handling system: whichever you like. It'll probably take you longer to read than the song to play, though.
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-05 09:38 pm (UTC)Ooh, I LUUURVE this!!
I kinda found it by accident through Viv's lj, but I'm so very glad I did. Very involving story, the plot moves smoothly and the action is realistic - not jerky at all. I found myself sucked into the story within moments of starting it.
Njall is a likable character, but not too likable, as he is supposed to be the raider-type-character, I suppose. He's hard but still not terrifying, and I can see the potential for some interesting developments there. Nyvaine struck just the right balance between innocent naivete and headstrong courage, just as I could have imagined a real person in her place would react. I like her already, and I've only read one chapter. That is no small feat.
The only flaw that I noticed that stood out to me (being a HUGE word geek) is the origin of the word "psychopath." It seemed out of place to me in this context, as the term itself wasn't coined until the mid-1880s. Its use is a judgment call, as it's not really spoken by the character, but I thought I'd mention it.
Otherwise, fabulous work, and I'm hoping to have the opportunity to read more!
-Amy
no subject
Date: 2005-01-05 10:08 pm (UTC)I'm glad you found it too. I've friended you so you can read the next installments once i post them. :) (You don't have to friend me back and read all the drivel in between, however.)
Yay!! :D
no subject
Date: 2005-01-05 10:22 pm (UTC)Wonderful! I'm looking forward to reading more.
Thanks! =D
no subject
Date: 2005-01-06 05:44 am (UTC)First, responses to your questions:
1.Nyvaine was several times unbelievable, but only in the beginning. Later, while I understood her panic because she thought she was going to be gang-raped, I wanted more of her thoughts. What we had left me a little puzzled. As our narrator, she didn't give me enough of a feeling of panic, although she seemed to be panicking from your descrip of her breathing and such. Unfortunately, I'm not sure just what would need to be added. Just...more.
2. Descrip at the beginning was not at all front-loaded, and it made for a nice tranquility which was then sharply contrasted with the Norse invasion. I liked that. I'd recommend one change: The bit where she sighs and then is like, am I sighing about marriage or about the beauty of this place? I was like, come on! Surely you know! One is a sigh of sadness, the other appreciation. It really irritated me, because it felt like a "seam," not a character trait. The sentence is also difficult to read and understand because it's such a juxtaposition. The paragraph goes: Marriage, marriage, marriage -- isn't this place pretty? And as a reader, I go: marraige, yes, that's interesting...what??
So I'd recommend moving the bit about the beauty of the place to the part where she decides there's enough time to enjoy the beautiful morning.
3. See above on the seam. Two other possible seams: she says she's collected everything and in the next sentence, corrects herself to say everything but one. This may be to show she's scatterbrained, and if she is I'd leave it in but add something like "wait, silly, you've forgotten..." The way it is now, it feels like the author forgot, not the character.
Also, she thinks Enid will scold her for delaying to get the mushrooms, then thinks Enid sent her there to get the mushrooms. Which is it?
And in the scatterbrained and/or not believable actions column: she thinks she'd look FOOLISH if they catch her in a tree?!? That's not a reason! If you're panicking, you take any possibility. You don't think rationally about how people will think of you. I think, actually, that's why I didn't really feel like she was panicking.
4. Very believable Vikings. I liked them a lot. Didn't seem at all like the bank commercial, and I haven't seen the Muppets thing.
5. Njall-- I'm intrigued by him. Has interesting political views. Unusual talents (like speaking Irish and Saxon). Seems a decent enough fellow, for a marauder. I like him better than her, so far. Oh, and the guy with one eye -- also very intriguing. I wanna see more of him.
6. Pacing -- not a problem at all.
More comments
Date: 2005-01-06 05:44 am (UTC)When I read the bit where she thinks they're Danes, I actually wrote (I was taking notes) "Wait--Danes? Couldn't they be from Norway? How does she know where they're from?"
So I was REALLY pleased to see that discussed, and I think that surprise was the best part of the chapter. Interesting, offered and solved a slight mystery, and developed a bit of each character -- the girl, the guy, and the one-eyed guy. Very nicely written, in my opinion. :)
I was startled to see her use Jesus as a swear. I didn't think they did that then. Isn't this set in the middle ages, with the passion plays that emphasize Jesus being crucified and going through Horrible Torture To Save Us All? It just strikes me that a society like that would be waaaay less likely to use him name in vain. However, I recognize you've researched this, so you probably know. I'm just checking to make sure that you've researched this bit, cuz your readers will probably be surprised. But that's totally okay if it's historically accurate.
And last thing (this is pretty minor, but I figured you'd want thoroughness) -- she runs up the hill at the speed of a hound, or better. No way. That's 30+ mph. As a reader, this knocked me out of the narrative for a moment because you'd just emphasized that she's not much of a runner. Obviously she's exaggerating... but could she exaggerate a little more obviously?
Overall, I think she needs a stronger "voice" as our narrator. But I found the story interesting and entertaining and very enjoyable. I'm looking forward to chapter two.
Tell me if this is too much -- I know I wrote a lot here. I wasn't sure how much of a response you wanted, so I decided to give you everything and see what you thought of that.
Keep writing!
Re: More comments
Date: 2005-01-06 03:23 pm (UTC)The seams you found were, I think, not where different versions of the scene were joined, but were in between them, where I wasn't paying as much attention. ^.^ Well-spotted, all of those issues.
Going back over it, I'm with you on how her narrative voice shuts down while she's supposed to be panicking, but I'm also stumped on how to revive it-- she's at a point where she's so frightened her brain isn't working, and so she's not speaking to me at all and I don't have any idea what she should say. I'll have to ponder it a while, I suppose. I was hoping that dialogue could sort of carry that, but if it doesn't work, it doesn't work...
You are the second person to comment on the "jesus" thing. Wales was Christianized largely in the 9th century, while the Norse weren't for another hundred and fifty years or so. Later (chapter tennish, I think) there is a scene where Njall uses Odin's name as a curse, and they discuss their gods. Nyvaine is a Christian.
I don't know in detail about early British Christians, but I do know that by the late Middle Ages there was a colorful and detailed variety of extremely profane curses in widespread use that cheerfully took not only the name but the very person of the Lord in vain, with little fear. The reason the prohibition against cursing is so vehement is that it was so often abused.
But in her case, I didn't intend it to be a curse, but more of an invocation-- she is almost trying to pray but is too frightened.
I may try to make that clearer as part of my revision of her panicking.
No, you didn't write too much at all. This was excellent, and much appreciated. Now I'm psyched to post Chapter 2. :) (I'm waiting for Monday at noon. I figure if I'm regular, maybe I'll get regular readers, and maybe I'll not fall behind. But we'll see.)
Re: More comments
Date: 2005-01-06 05:40 pm (UTC)