Third Person

One morning the woman Rain awakened to realize the silence filling her days ached more than numb fingers and empty belly. Over months of famine she had neglected both her mother’s harp and the songs of her ancestors so even her children had forgotten the music just as they were forgetting the face of their father, Snow. Though both sons had inherited her sweet voice and quick fingers the endless quest for sustenance had nearly silenced them as well.

Snow was gone to fight his endless war against Axe folk whose bronze weapons never shattered as did flint. But Rain shut her eyes against his absence and forced it out of her mind recalling his music instead. She could not help but laugh for the first time in nearly a season, remembering his cracked voice and dancing so awkward that even the most romantic songs he sung had turned into silly charades.

Third Person

I awakened to realize the silence which filled my days ached more than my numb fingers and empty belly. Over the months of famine and endless quest for sustenance I had neglected my mother’s harp and the songs of my ancestors. Both were so far abandoned that even my sons (though they still sang in their own babyish way) had forgotten them; the old songs faded just as did memory of the face of their Snow, their father.

I still think I would prefer something to happen here. As it is, Rain wakes up, makes an observation, and then we get an info dump. What's the exciting part of the story going to be? What's the real draw? Start there, maybe.

I still don't feel a lot of confidence in the milieu. Part of that is because you try to state the information up front rather than letting it emerge naturally from the POV. Part of it is still that harp, which is now part of a stone-age culture. I mean, even a reasonable lyre would be a stretch for stone-age work.

When you say harp, I picture the big instrument with about 200 strings, and a woman in a flowing gown strumming it.

Seems to me a clash in timelines.

However, your writing is very nice, and I really like your style. Your description is easy to read and follow.

I can see the issue with "harp", but stone age people could certainly have made a kantele-style musical instrument. I'd suggest using Kantele, but it probably has an overly Finnish feel to it.

It might be easier to start with a conversation about "these damnably stubborn Beaker Folk ... can't seem to catch enough of them to show a profit selling to the Hellenes" before the character is ruthlessly jabbed with a stone tipped spear. But that would invite crucifixion by the tiny minority of anthropology fans just to appease unrest among most everybody else.

Better to go back to working on the action until it stands out as more prominent and the background fades to insignificance.

tchernabyelo, I've never heard of a kantele. I did reject phorminx, kinnor and kithara for much the same reasons I rejected more Hellenic names; I borrowed some customs from other cultures so didn't think it safe to pinpoint a specific region and time or worse yet, throw in a Biblical reference.

Thanks to all! This is really helping.

Killing off a first person POV character is even trickier. People tend to assume that with first person POV, the story is being written/narrated.

There are world views where death is less limiting than in our own. (The Romans were bewildered that some Gauls they encountered had as little regard for personal death as the Romans had for killing a slave.) I've been working on non-relevence of death a little in this story though I had more of that concept in the first one.

Could you tolerate mention of a nine stringed harp?

(BTW A harp has a wooden bent neck with strings of varying length, a sound board below rather than behind the strings, a hollowed wooden body, and is plucked by hand.)

That's why the various primitive instruments that predate the harp are usually types of lyre.

Instrument making probably spread through Asia Minor and Europe via the same trading routes that spread glass beads, split board planks, precious metals, pottery and agricultural technology, all while waves of immigrants were coming in from the East and South and quality of life was waxing and waning. Harps reached Ireland in the 8th century AD, but I never said this was Ireland. Would it help if you thought of the people as copper age (since late neolithic is synonymous with copper age in Southeast Europe and Asia Minor) or Beaker Folk or something other than "The Flintstones"?

BTW, my violin seems to work well with wooden tuners powdered with rosin. No metal is required.

[This message has been edited by keldon02 (edited October 03, 2005).]

Initially, the "to harp or not to harp" issue didn't bother me, and really, it still doesn't, and wouldn't if I were browsing this at my local bookstore. This early on in reading a book I usually don't make distinctions like that. But I would probably note in the back of my mind, and sooner or later I'd expect some kind of explanation/exposition to cover the apparent inconsistency.