I'm not sure what you're looking for. I know you said you did a good bit of editing, but do you want us to catch things? If so, I saw this: "She slowly untensed, slowly testing her arms and legs." You could revise this so you only use "slowly" once in the sentence. That's probably the biggest thing I've seen at the beginning of this. There are a couple sentences where you repeat certain words. In your next run through, look for those, and vary them up a little.
Over all, there are a few grammar things that could still using fixing, but I think you know that. Anyway, I like how it starts out. It's very smooth in introducing us to Shyla and her life in the castle.
"Shyla looked at both of them, smiled a little, stood, and began making her way out of the Great Hall. She knew a lie when she saw it. " - I would have liked to have seen a reaction from Mirr about this...both about the twin's potential prediction, and about Shyla abruptly leaving. I'm even a bit surprised Mirr didn't react to Marrin leaving. As the matriarch of the castle, I would think she would have a bit more say about pretty much everything.
You might want to put the hissed conversation between Shyla and Tanir in italics or something to set it off from the narrative.
Like I said, I like how you've set up the characters and relationships. I look forward to seeing where it goes from here. I'll try to get to chapters 2 and 3 over the next couple of days.
Thanks for pointing out the "slowly" thing - I don't know how I missed that - and yeah, I definitely need to give the some of these chapters another look-over down the road.
I really did need someone to just give these a quick look over. I have some confidence in my own editing skills, but it's been so long since I've had someone look over my non-academic writing that I have certain understandings of my own writing in terms of grammar, plot, and characterization, that I want to make sure that I'm bringing to the reader - I want to make sure that I can deliver something coherent and interesting to a reader, basically.
"Shyla looked at both of them, smiled a little, stood, and began making her way out of the Great Hall. She knew a lie when she saw it. " - I would have liked to have seen a reaction from Mirr about this...both about the twin's potential prediction, and about Shyla abruptly leaving. I'm even a bit surprised Mirr didn't react to Marrin leaving. As the matriarch of the castle, I would think she would have a bit more say about pretty much everything.
Yeah, see like I said above - I know things about Mirr as a character that maybe I'm not showing clearly enough in the narrative. Mirr, from what I've made of her, is a character who is a matriarch, but doesn't fit it well. It was something that was more or less thrust upon her and not something she's ever really grown into. So, she kind of let's Marrin get away with a bunch of stupid shit and has for a long time. To a lesser extent she lets Shyla do stupid shit too, but she's always had Tanir around to keep her out of trouble.
Thanks for pointing this out, I'll toy with that a little later.
As for the italics... yeah, this is totally something I actually used to do in earlier drafts! I don't know why I really didn't do it here - maybe I thought I could pull off not having to use them. I'll probably have to switch to italics anyways, because there is a chapter where conversations like that are going to be a little heavy.
Over all, there are a few grammar things that could still using fixing, but I think you know that. Anyway, I like how it starts out. It's very smooth in introducing us to Shyla and her life in the castle.
"Shyla looked at both of them, smiled a little, stood, and began making her way out of the Great Hall.
She knew a lie when she saw it. " - I would have liked to have seen a reaction from Mirr about this...both about the twin's potential prediction, and about Shyla abruptly leaving. I'm even a bit surprised Mirr didn't react to Marrin leaving. As the matriarch of the castle, I would think she would have a bit more say about pretty much everything.
You might want to put the hissed conversation between Shyla and Tanir in italics or something to set it off from the narrative.
Like I said, I like how you've set up the characters and relationships. I look forward to seeing where it goes from here. I'll try to get to chapters 2 and 3 over the next couple of days.
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I really did need someone to just give these a quick look over. I have some confidence in my own editing skills, but it's been so long since I've had someone look over my non-academic writing that I have certain understandings of my own writing in terms of grammar, plot, and characterization, that I want to make sure that I'm bringing to the reader - I want to make sure that I can deliver something coherent and interesting to a reader, basically.
"Shyla looked at both of them, smiled a little, stood, and began making her way out of the Great Hall.
She knew a lie when she saw it. " - I would have liked to have seen a reaction from Mirr about this...both about the twin's potential prediction, and about Shyla abruptly leaving. I'm even a bit surprised Mirr didn't react to Marrin leaving. As the matriarch of the castle, I would think she would have a bit more say about pretty much everything.
Yeah, see like I said above - I know things about Mirr as a character that maybe I'm not showing clearly enough in the narrative. Mirr, from what I've made of her, is a character who is a matriarch, but doesn't fit it well. It was something that was more or less thrust upon her and not something she's ever really grown into. So, she kind of let's Marrin get away with a bunch of stupid shit and has for a long time. To a lesser extent she lets Shyla do stupid shit too, but she's always had Tanir around to keep her out of trouble.
Thanks for pointing this out, I'll toy with that a little later.
As for the italics... yeah, this is totally something I actually used to do in earlier drafts! I don't know why I really didn't do it here - maybe I thought I could pull off not having to use them. I'll probably have to switch to italics anyways, because there is a chapter where conversations like that are going to be a little heavy.
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