Carr's Review of Mike's Story 4/3

To: Mike Rocks
From: Carr Kizzier

Re: “To Protect”

Mike:

Like in the first chapter, you start off with some really nice imagery and description here. “The sun still buried behind the mountains as if hiding from the night” is an excellent line, and I also like how Kibin describes his early morning routine – “Like a wave would wash footprints away off a beach.” That’s also very nice, and it’s good to have that come from Kibin here.
OK. Another thing I think you do well here is getting closer to Kibin. This section feels much more grounded in his perspective than the first chapter, which is what you needed. So good work.
All right. My main comment is again going to be to show more than tell. Right now you have a lot of expository dialogue, Mike, probably too much. It’s okay to have characters reveal things to us in their dialogue, but we also just need to see things happen. So try to show more, to describe the scene and action more. Your writing is strongest when you are describing, so do it a lot more. In addition, I don’t think you’ve quite nailed Mary’s voice. She is a master, right? So she probably doesn’t need to talk so much. And she will definitely not be surprised by much that Kibin does. Right?
OK. A final issue here for me is the pace of the story. I think in this second chapter you need to give Kibin a problem to solve. It’s fine to get him to the weapon master, but he needs to be going there for a purpose. He needs something concrete to do. So think about backing up a little and giving him a problem to solve, a goal to attain.

All right, Mike. This shows some real improvement in presentation as well. Keep it up. Keep on truckin with this one and see where it leads you. Good luck.

CK