Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Emily Sehsai, Historical Fiction CH3 (7000wds)

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Posted by hinton (Member # 8053) on :

Hello. Here is the first 13 from Chapter 3 of my book. It's about a woman named Emily watching a summoner (who is like a performer) make shadows on the wall.

Critique and readers welcome.
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The summoner had cast a series of beautiful shadows along the candlelit wall of the ship’s commons. Emily found herself peeking up from behind her cards every so often to catch a glimpse of the dark shapes that flowed about the wall.
The children laughed as the summoner made a small colt tumble down a shadow mountain. Then a black butterfly flapped its wings madly to wake the injured animal. When the horse arose it stood strong and then darted up the hill once more only this time so fast that the silhouette creature soared beyond the mountain’s peak and out of the candle’s light.
“Heart,” Emily called out and played her card at last. Lady Regina puffed her cheeks up like a pine-fish at the Queen's move and slapped her cards down on the table in frustration.

Posted by annepin (Member # 5952) on :

?? Why chapter 3? Not sure how to crit this. It certainly seems interesting and is generally well written, but I don't really know the who what where how why when which, I assume, were established in the first two chapters.

Posted by Crank (Member # 7354) on :

Since I had no foreknowledge of the characters or of the story itself, I chose to read this 13 with my attention on the imagery.

I like the potential for mental visuals that the 'summoned' images on the wall gave me, but it took three sentences to actually know what I was supposed to see in my mind. In addition to that, not only are the "beautiful shadows" in sentence one and "dark shapes" in sentence two somewhat of an imagery contradiction to all the more detailed descriptions in the subsequent sentences, but they don't even match each other.

Condense the passage and consider the consistency, and you'll have yourself a much more quick-hitting image that'll snag the reader's attention just as quickly.

Success with this story!

S!
S!...C!

Posted by hinton (Member # 8053) on :

I forgot that the word "dark" had only one, negative meaning. I will be sure not to tell my wife that she has dark and beautifully shaped hair anymore.

I think though, by their nature...shadows are dark. I think.

This is the character's first POV, but in a previous chapter she is talked about boarding a ship along with some other blue-bloods.