I like your voice. It’s distinctive. Authentic. I like how breathless it gets. Fantasy isn’t my jam, either, so... I have no idea how this would play for the contest, but if it’s still all lord of the rings and game of thrones, then making a poor girl with an unrequited crush the protagonist is an awesome choice.
I’ll try to reread and revisit with more thoughts later... right now, on first read, I didn’t catch the cascading red curls at the end as being Margot having falling through as well until i glanced back through the story and saw that same description... so much had happened between those moments, that the red curls seemed vague (to me!)
Thanks for the catch on the curls, Wil. And for your thoughtful insight as always. I'm off for a play date. Yay. Hope to see your bid for a possible title later, wink wink. :)
[shrug] maybe? Doesn’t seem like the color of her hair would matter? But you may want the association that comes with the shared red?
More notes: I really like your description of the tassels like on a graduation cap for the other girls barely covering outfit. It’s such a great juxtaposition - graduation/achievement/freedom x stripper outfit. Also, I like how her dream comes true but everything is wrong/twisted/worse than imagined; from Sid rescuing her but not taking her to Margot coming along but not having been invited nor being as innocent as Tallie imagined.
That's cool. I like that as a possible title too. I was liking the shared red with the crimson dragon and the red curls, but then I was doubting if that worked or not...
And maybe slow down a bit when the ground opens up? Like give the gap some of the same kind of great description you give other stuff in the story? The grounded way the beginning is and your use of very detailed imagination scenes (flying away on the dragon and spray paint) I wasn’t sure if the ground opening up was really happening or also fantasy (pun intended). But it’s an easy fix. Describe the gap more. Have Margot say “what the hell?” So it’s verified by two characters
Titles are hard. How about “Tallie’s Mark”? A bit of word play that references the T + S/Z + S.
As for the story, Tallie’s voice is perfect. Her personality comes through bright and clear. I really like the bit about them ridding on the purple dragon near the beginning. It illustrates all of Tallie’s thoughts and wishes without info dumping them on the reader.
I think I agree with Wil about the ground opening up. I almost missed when it happened. What he suggested about Margot would work well. I also want to see more description of the wind during this point. The “tornadoed” bit is great, but as the scene goes on I forget that it’s windy. I think describing how it starts to get more and more violent as Tallie search’s the valley would create more tension before the ground opens up.
I think this is absolutely fantasy. Maybe not epic fantasy, but a kind of Labyrinth fantasy (if that makes sense?). It sounds ridiculous, but I imagined the world to be in the same colour pallette as the film.
I love the voice. I wasn't sure initially about the long paragraphs, but I think they really give a brilliant sense of character. All the little nods to the knife were good, I kind of wanted more of a payoff, but if this was an opening chapter it doesn't need to lead anywhere yet. I was unsure if it was going to get darker in tone, it felt like it could've gone Pan's Labyrinth (another Labyrinth film?) levels of dark. Again, I could be misinterpreting things.
I loved the sentence:
'the meat was tender in the same way the arch of a foot was tender from having never touched anything but the inside of a sock or Sid’s hands or the crimson dragon'
I love the symbolism of the crimson dragon (although I could be reading this wrong).
I might also be being thick, but is the Z initial a character, or just that the letter shifts though welling up eyes?
Really liked it though, I'd seen the same writing prompt and just haven't had the time to finish anything, so good luck with the competition. I'll have a think about a title.
Hey Matt! Thank you for reading and commenting. I know what you mean about not epic fantasy! I was looking at the contest description like hmm... can I pull this off? And just kind of went for it I guess. I LOVE that this is Labryinth-ish in your head. That was top five film for me as a kid (I even just recently bought the illustrated book I was obsessed with from the 80s for my kids), so that is super cool.
Yeah the darker tone too, I felt that coming through as well. I was going back and forth with this teenage girl voice and this darkness that was sort of happening at the same time.
And I had the same thought about the long paragraphs! I was like, I don't know, and then was just like screw it! Do it!
I'm digging the symbolism you're pulling out. This story is so fresh, I'm still making connections with whatever my subconscious just wrote and what my editing brain is puzzling together.
Z is going to be the woman who Tallie thinks is trying to steal her man. I'm going to name her Zara. Should I put her name in this prologue/chapter one or leave it as a page turner?
Glad you liked it. Thank so much, it is so helpful to have your guys's take.
There's still time for the prompt, hit me up if decide to do it and want me to take a look!
Nah man, I don't think you need to mention the name as such, it was more that I read it as the letters shifting. I think if she notices that they've already changed it might clear things up a bit (for me at least). So leave her to be revealed later.
And yeah, with the my interpretation of the symbolism, I possibly went too dark in my reading. I think there's so much sexual tension there that I read as Tallie's fantasy to escape trauma. I was wondering whether something sexual had happened between then and Tallie had murdered Sid? The fantasy was her working though things finally revealing the murder (what with the knife, the pain and the running; damsel in distress kind of deal). But that was just me wondering off topic.
But yeah, very cool and I hope you carry on with it. I'd like to see if the pace of the sentences changes with the story.
And I'm sure I'll bug you about writing soon! I just don't have the time at the mo to finish something to submit.
May 26, 2022·edited May 26, 2022Liked by Maegan Heil
Some general thoughts, definitely in the FWIW category. First, I like the prose style. Some of those really long sentences just flow and create an imagery. Maybe be careful about too many of them, or having two or more in a row.
The story itself is vague -- intentionally so -- more about creating imagery and emotion than laying out a narrative. I enjoy stuff like that, and do some of that myself. The story is there, but it's submerged under the prose. I think this can work well in a short story. I'm not sure I'd want to read an entire novel in that style and voice though.
If this is the first chapter of a novel, then that would be my immediate concern. I'm not sure this sets up a story question about a longer narrative arc that would hook me in to continue. It feels almost complete as is.
Some points that might be too vague (at least for me, but I can be dense):
Tallie's age. At first, I was picturing a younger child, then Sid is cracking open a beer and giving her tongue swirlies and playing with her knee. I wasn't sure then -- older, teenager, or is Sid a pedo or is he an 8-year-old playing with dinosaurs who swiped a beer? I'm just not sure. Later, we learn she was old enough to get her learner's permit (and a year late), so she might be 15 or 16 maybe. Felt like her general age bracket needed to be established a little more firmly in the opening paragraph or two. Maybe it was the Tonka trucks and GI Joes that established the image of small children in my head.
I wasn't quite sure when Sid went poof! that he actually disappeared, or just left or what. That eventually becomes clear. And when the ground opened up and swallowed her and Sid was there on a dragon, again I was unsure what was really happening. Since there had been this imagined scene where Sid came with his dragon to rescue her from her suck-ball parents, I immediately assumed this scene was also just in her mind. But as it wraps up, it feels like maybe it was real. I'm unsure.
The bleach line confused me. Not sure what that was referring to, but it seems important to know.
The Z confused me. Who is Z? The two-tongued woman on the dragon with Sid? And the red curls at the end -- is this Margot?
Some little things like that might need to be nailed down a bit more.
But that's all my niggling little things that I didn't get (or at least not the first time I read it, and most readers aren't going to read it three times like we do here). The overall prose voice and the imagination/creativity behind this are really stellar. I've written some of those long, flighty single-sentence paragraphs in my day and I love them and then I wonder if any readers are going to love them like I do and then I say I don't care I'm going to write them anyway just like this comment and I can feel James Joyce looking down and nodding in approval or maybe he's looking up I don't know. ;)
Great points, Robb. The long-sentence style is a bit out of the ordinary from my usual, but I was just going with the flow on this one. Interesting point about whether or not it could work for an entire novel.
Right now I have no intentions to actually turn this into a novel. But on the 1 in 1,000,000 chance that I were to actually win the contest and down the line were asked to write the rest, my vague idea for is that Sid has forgotten who he is and who Tallie is, and Tallie's mission is to save him/win back her man.
The "Z" is the woman with the tassels. Her name is going to be Zara, but I don't reveal that here. Do you think I need to? In my head that would come in the next chapter, along with that the red curls are Margot's and now Tallie must also get her sister back to safety as well. Other things I left unanswered were the Old Hag Henry (where Sid got the dinosaurs) which would be key to this other realm they are in and this Nazi guy in the trailer park...
Tallie is meant to be 16-ish, Sid 17-ish, I most def. don't want to cause any confusion with that so I'll need to take a closer look. A lot of my stories kind of walk this line along that young adult age and I would never want to write something that comes off as pedophilish lol. Was hoping that the cargo of beer/cigarettes inside the Tonka truck would lead toward older teens, but will look again.
Thanks for pointing out the other points of confusion. Trying to put Tallie's daydream at the beginning and then actual happening of fantasy world at end. Wil has some suggestions for me which I think will help.
I was on the fence with the style but just went for it. Ha. Glad to hear you enjoyed and thank you so, SO much for the thorough feedback! So helpful.
Just go for it with the style. If you're writing a longer piece, that might settle out into something a little different and you might need to go back and tweak later. Filling in the gaps in the next chapter (Z, red curls) might work just fine. Just want to make sure it's raising a question not confusion. But I like dripping details in and filling in the rest as the story progresses.
And I was probably putting beer and cigs in my GI Joe's hands when I was six. ha!
Tallie daydreamed that it was night and Sid was outside her window throwing pebbles at the pane, and when she’d flung open the screen, he’d commanded, “Extend thy purple tail as though...
I had to read it a couple of times to figure out that Sid commanded the dragon. I read it as, when Tallie opened the window, Sid commanded Tallie to extend her purple tail. That confused me a bit. As I read on, I figured out he was talking to his dragon, but it was a bit of a stumble.
First of all, very tidy writing as always. The sentences are like butter. Smooth all over.
I was confused in places, but most of the time the confusion was resolved a bit later in the text.
It took me a while to work out who Sid was, it finally clicked when the parents turned up in sunglasses. But what's with Fiji?
And I'm sure this is because my imagination doesn't usually work on a fantasy level, but did she actually jump and this is where she woke up? Or is she dreaming or fantasising? I'm a little bit confused still.
But would I read more? Yes!
One possible typo (although I'm not sure), I think in the line "it’s affecting your mother and my relationship,” it should be mother's. But I may be wrong!
Hey Kris! Thanks very much for your thorough read and feedback. I'm so glad you pointed out the spots in question. So helpful for revision. Yes, at the end Tallie is made to actually jump and wake up in an alternate realm, a fantasy realm. But you are not the only one who was confused at this point, which is great because it tells me that is a spot I most definitely need to go back over!! :) (I think I sometimes get tired at the end of my stories, haha!) You are right on the typo I believe, but I may keep the typo as a sort of burn tongue? Perhaps? We will see... Thanks for the title suggestion as well. Him-hawing still over titles.
This is skillfully written. You’re balancing the inner thoughts of the narrator and Tallie and some of it gets mixed up and maybe could be tinkered with but it’s simply exciting and satisfying to read. A good blend of the narrator and Tallie was “Tallie would ask Sid could he please fly back so she could add (not you Margot!!) whom she loved infinity plus infinity more...” a bumpy one for me was “then hellooooo hell!” Not because the writing is “poor” it’s just hard to tell whose voice is who’s.
But I am not a critique expert. What I can tell you with upmost confidence is that you should give yourself a pat on the back and enjoy your hard and fun work!
Thank you, Savannah! I appreciate you pointing out the stumble as well. I’m still revising, having a hard time finding time!! But this is good info; I will smooth over that part. Thank you!!
I like your voice. It’s distinctive. Authentic. I like how breathless it gets. Fantasy isn’t my jam, either, so... I have no idea how this would play for the contest, but if it’s still all lord of the rings and game of thrones, then making a poor girl with an unrequited crush the protagonist is an awesome choice.
I’ll try to reread and revisit with more thoughts later... right now, on first read, I didn’t catch the cascading red curls at the end as being Margot having falling through as well until i glanced back through the story and saw that same description... so much had happened between those moments, that the red curls seemed vague (to me!)
thank you thank you
Thanks for the catch on the curls, Wil. And for your thoughtful insight as always. I'm off for a play date. Yay. Hope to see your bid for a possible title later, wink wink. :)
The Boy, the Dragon, and the Kid Sister
Crimson Scales, Red Curls
I wonder if she should have yellow curls to distinguish more from the crimson dragon...
[shrug] maybe? Doesn’t seem like the color of her hair would matter? But you may want the association that comes with the shared red?
More notes: I really like your description of the tassels like on a graduation cap for the other girls barely covering outfit. It’s such a great juxtaposition - graduation/achievement/freedom x stripper outfit. Also, I like how her dream comes true but everything is wrong/twisted/worse than imagined; from Sid rescuing her but not taking her to Margot coming along but not having been invited nor being as innocent as Tallie imagined.
That's cool. I like that as a possible title too. I was liking the shared red with the crimson dragon and the red curls, but then I was doubting if that worked or not...
You sure that doesn't already exist? Haha!
And maybe slow down a bit when the ground opens up? Like give the gap some of the same kind of great description you give other stuff in the story? The grounded way the beginning is and your use of very detailed imagination scenes (flying away on the dragon and spray paint) I wasn’t sure if the ground opening up was really happening or also fantasy (pun intended). But it’s an easy fix. Describe the gap more. Have Margot say “what the hell?” So it’s verified by two characters
ooh good idea
I was unclear why she was searching for bleach
To poison herself. Might be too extreme. Thanks for flagging this spot as possibly confusing.
Switching to a brief contemplation of using the pocket knife on herself... Reusing/transforming objects.
Chuck would give a big thumbs up for reusing/transforming objects
Titles are hard. How about “Tallie’s Mark”? A bit of word play that references the T + S/Z + S.
As for the story, Tallie’s voice is perfect. Her personality comes through bright and clear. I really like the bit about them ridding on the purple dragon near the beginning. It illustrates all of Tallie’s thoughts and wishes without info dumping them on the reader.
I think I agree with Wil about the ground opening up. I almost missed when it happened. What he suggested about Margot would work well. I also want to see more description of the wind during this point. The “tornadoed” bit is great, but as the scene goes on I forget that it’s windy. I think describing how it starts to get more and more violent as Tallie search’s the valley would create more tension before the ground opens up.
Thank you, Matt! I will comment more later this evening after I’m done momming. Thank you for taking the time!
I'm digging Tallie's Mark... Thanks for the idea. For me, I either already have a title when I start or I'm completely in the dark!
Glad to hear you liked the voice and the daydream fantasy at the beginning.
Thanks for pointing out that more is needed in the ground opening scene. And also with the wind. Great suggestions.
Thanks so much Matt! I have a story of yours in my inbox earmarked to read after I get this thing finished and submitted!!!
I think this is absolutely fantasy. Maybe not epic fantasy, but a kind of Labyrinth fantasy (if that makes sense?). It sounds ridiculous, but I imagined the world to be in the same colour pallette as the film.
I love the voice. I wasn't sure initially about the long paragraphs, but I think they really give a brilliant sense of character. All the little nods to the knife were good, I kind of wanted more of a payoff, but if this was an opening chapter it doesn't need to lead anywhere yet. I was unsure if it was going to get darker in tone, it felt like it could've gone Pan's Labyrinth (another Labyrinth film?) levels of dark. Again, I could be misinterpreting things.
I loved the sentence:
'the meat was tender in the same way the arch of a foot was tender from having never touched anything but the inside of a sock or Sid’s hands or the crimson dragon'
I love the symbolism of the crimson dragon (although I could be reading this wrong).
I might also be being thick, but is the Z initial a character, or just that the letter shifts though welling up eyes?
Really liked it though, I'd seen the same writing prompt and just haven't had the time to finish anything, so good luck with the competition. I'll have a think about a title.
Hey Matt! Thank you for reading and commenting. I know what you mean about not epic fantasy! I was looking at the contest description like hmm... can I pull this off? And just kind of went for it I guess. I LOVE that this is Labryinth-ish in your head. That was top five film for me as a kid (I even just recently bought the illustrated book I was obsessed with from the 80s for my kids), so that is super cool.
Yeah the darker tone too, I felt that coming through as well. I was going back and forth with this teenage girl voice and this darkness that was sort of happening at the same time.
And I had the same thought about the long paragraphs! I was like, I don't know, and then was just like screw it! Do it!
I'm digging the symbolism you're pulling out. This story is so fresh, I'm still making connections with whatever my subconscious just wrote and what my editing brain is puzzling together.
Z is going to be the woman who Tallie thinks is trying to steal her man. I'm going to name her Zara. Should I put her name in this prologue/chapter one or leave it as a page turner?
Glad you liked it. Thank so much, it is so helpful to have your guys's take.
There's still time for the prompt, hit me up if decide to do it and want me to take a look!
Nah man, I don't think you need to mention the name as such, it was more that I read it as the letters shifting. I think if she notices that they've already changed it might clear things up a bit (for me at least). So leave her to be revealed later.
And yeah, with the my interpretation of the symbolism, I possibly went too dark in my reading. I think there's so much sexual tension there that I read as Tallie's fantasy to escape trauma. I was wondering whether something sexual had happened between then and Tallie had murdered Sid? The fantasy was her working though things finally revealing the murder (what with the knife, the pain and the running; damsel in distress kind of deal). But that was just me wondering off topic.
But yeah, very cool and I hope you carry on with it. I'd like to see if the pace of the sentences changes with the story.
And I'm sure I'll bug you about writing soon! I just don't have the time at the mo to finish something to submit.
Some general thoughts, definitely in the FWIW category. First, I like the prose style. Some of those really long sentences just flow and create an imagery. Maybe be careful about too many of them, or having two or more in a row.
The story itself is vague -- intentionally so -- more about creating imagery and emotion than laying out a narrative. I enjoy stuff like that, and do some of that myself. The story is there, but it's submerged under the prose. I think this can work well in a short story. I'm not sure I'd want to read an entire novel in that style and voice though.
If this is the first chapter of a novel, then that would be my immediate concern. I'm not sure this sets up a story question about a longer narrative arc that would hook me in to continue. It feels almost complete as is.
Some points that might be too vague (at least for me, but I can be dense):
Tallie's age. At first, I was picturing a younger child, then Sid is cracking open a beer and giving her tongue swirlies and playing with her knee. I wasn't sure then -- older, teenager, or is Sid a pedo or is he an 8-year-old playing with dinosaurs who swiped a beer? I'm just not sure. Later, we learn she was old enough to get her learner's permit (and a year late), so she might be 15 or 16 maybe. Felt like her general age bracket needed to be established a little more firmly in the opening paragraph or two. Maybe it was the Tonka trucks and GI Joes that established the image of small children in my head.
I wasn't quite sure when Sid went poof! that he actually disappeared, or just left or what. That eventually becomes clear. And when the ground opened up and swallowed her and Sid was there on a dragon, again I was unsure what was really happening. Since there had been this imagined scene where Sid came with his dragon to rescue her from her suck-ball parents, I immediately assumed this scene was also just in her mind. But as it wraps up, it feels like maybe it was real. I'm unsure.
The bleach line confused me. Not sure what that was referring to, but it seems important to know.
The Z confused me. Who is Z? The two-tongued woman on the dragon with Sid? And the red curls at the end -- is this Margot?
Some little things like that might need to be nailed down a bit more.
But that's all my niggling little things that I didn't get (or at least not the first time I read it, and most readers aren't going to read it three times like we do here). The overall prose voice and the imagination/creativity behind this are really stellar. I've written some of those long, flighty single-sentence paragraphs in my day and I love them and then I wonder if any readers are going to love them like I do and then I say I don't care I'm going to write them anyway just like this comment and I can feel James Joyce looking down and nodding in approval or maybe he's looking up I don't know. ;)
Great points, Robb. The long-sentence style is a bit out of the ordinary from my usual, but I was just going with the flow on this one. Interesting point about whether or not it could work for an entire novel.
Right now I have no intentions to actually turn this into a novel. But on the 1 in 1,000,000 chance that I were to actually win the contest and down the line were asked to write the rest, my vague idea for is that Sid has forgotten who he is and who Tallie is, and Tallie's mission is to save him/win back her man.
The "Z" is the woman with the tassels. Her name is going to be Zara, but I don't reveal that here. Do you think I need to? In my head that would come in the next chapter, along with that the red curls are Margot's and now Tallie must also get her sister back to safety as well. Other things I left unanswered were the Old Hag Henry (where Sid got the dinosaurs) which would be key to this other realm they are in and this Nazi guy in the trailer park...
Tallie is meant to be 16-ish, Sid 17-ish, I most def. don't want to cause any confusion with that so I'll need to take a closer look. A lot of my stories kind of walk this line along that young adult age and I would never want to write something that comes off as pedophilish lol. Was hoping that the cargo of beer/cigarettes inside the Tonka truck would lead toward older teens, but will look again.
Thanks for pointing out the other points of confusion. Trying to put Tallie's daydream at the beginning and then actual happening of fantasy world at end. Wil has some suggestions for me which I think will help.
I was on the fence with the style but just went for it. Ha. Glad to hear you enjoyed and thank you so, SO much for the thorough feedback! So helpful.
Just go for it with the style. If you're writing a longer piece, that might settle out into something a little different and you might need to go back and tweak later. Filling in the gaps in the next chapter (Z, red curls) might work just fine. Just want to make sure it's raising a question not confusion. But I like dripping details in and filling in the rest as the story progresses.
And I was probably putting beer and cigs in my GI Joe's hands when I was six. ha!
Naughty, naughty! ;)
I adore your last long and flighty single-sentence at the end there, by the way. ;)
On this sentence:
Tallie daydreamed that it was night and Sid was outside her window throwing pebbles at the pane, and when she’d flung open the screen, he’d commanded, “Extend thy purple tail as though...
I had to read it a couple of times to figure out that Sid commanded the dragon. I read it as, when Tallie opened the window, Sid commanded Tallie to extend her purple tail. That confused me a bit. As I read on, I figured out he was talking to his dragon, but it was a bit of a stumble.
Funny, I had "commanded the dragon," then omitted "the dragon" last-minute. Will put it back in! Thanks!!
YOU GUYS!!! THANK YOU soooo much for the helpful feedback. Steve Conway, you too! You guys rock big time. Best writing group ever. I'm so lucky.
Hey Maegan,
First of all, very tidy writing as always. The sentences are like butter. Smooth all over.
I was confused in places, but most of the time the confusion was resolved a bit later in the text.
It took me a while to work out who Sid was, it finally clicked when the parents turned up in sunglasses. But what's with Fiji?
And I'm sure this is because my imagination doesn't usually work on a fantasy level, but did she actually jump and this is where she woke up? Or is she dreaming or fantasising? I'm a little bit confused still.
But would I read more? Yes!
One possible typo (although I'm not sure), I think in the line "it’s affecting your mother and my relationship,” it should be mother's. But I may be wrong!
Possible title: (I Was Thinking to Myself) This Could Be Heaven Or This Could Be Hell.
Hey Kris! Thanks very much for your thorough read and feedback. I'm so glad you pointed out the spots in question. So helpful for revision. Yes, at the end Tallie is made to actually jump and wake up in an alternate realm, a fantasy realm. But you are not the only one who was confused at this point, which is great because it tells me that is a spot I most definitely need to go back over!! :) (I think I sometimes get tired at the end of my stories, haha!) You are right on the typo I believe, but I may keep the typo as a sort of burn tongue? Perhaps? We will see... Thanks for the title suggestion as well. Him-hawing still over titles.
This is skillfully written. You’re balancing the inner thoughts of the narrator and Tallie and some of it gets mixed up and maybe could be tinkered with but it’s simply exciting and satisfying to read. A good blend of the narrator and Tallie was “Tallie would ask Sid could he please fly back so she could add (not you Margot!!) whom she loved infinity plus infinity more...” a bumpy one for me was “then hellooooo hell!” Not because the writing is “poor” it’s just hard to tell whose voice is who’s.
But I am not a critique expert. What I can tell you with upmost confidence is that you should give yourself a pat on the back and enjoy your hard and fun work!
Thank you, Savannah! I appreciate you pointing out the stumble as well. I’m still revising, having a hard time finding time!! But this is good info; I will smooth over that part. Thank you!!