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The floodwaters tugged at Angharad's skirts like cold fists. She sank into the mud of a still pool. Twigs and leaves and hawthorn petals gathered in swirling eddies. A cloud of golden hair swayed a seaweed dance. Angharad's hands shook. She couldn't make them stop. Her fingers held the memory of thrashing waters, a pulse.
A garland spun in the pool, and the white flowers haloed a blue eye. Gwyneth's beautiful blue eyes, laughing, lustful, dead. Mud clung to a white cheek. One silver bubble escaped the parted lips, flitted to the surface and burst. A breath? A word? Silence.
What would Angharad tell them? Father loved Gwyneth best; he would blame Angharad for her death. She heard voices through
--- An old fairytale from the "wicked" sister's perspective. I'd appreciate any comments, as well as readers for the whole thing. Readers will be glad to know that this is the shortest story I've posted.
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited March 25, 2009).]
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I had the opposite reaction as Bent Tree. To me, the style seemed disjointed and stilted. There wasn't enough flow between sentences to keep me hooked. I can appreciate how finely crafted it is, though. You have a strong control of imagery.
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I see what you mean, Bycin. Many of the sentences are the same length and read choppy. I'll work on that.
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Yeah, I think this would be fine in the middle of a story but for an opening it does read a little haltingly. I prefer a smoother opening to a story to lure the reader in and become settled in the world you're creating first. Some nice images in there though, I especially liked bubble floating to the surface.
I was a bit confused in the transition from Angharad's image to Gwyneth's. Perhaps that is intentional. I am assuming the cloud of golden hair to be Gwyneth's as Angharad's is likely to be a sodden mess. For me it took a couple of readings. As you work through the flow of the sentences, that might be an additional consideration.
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The floodwaters tugged ... of a still pool ... in swirling eddies didn't make sense to me. One implied motion, the other, not, then it was moving again.
She sank into the mud served to confuse me on the first read, as I didn't know if this meant complete immersion or not, and it wasn't clear at first who, if anyone, was drowned.
A cloud of golden hair swayed a seaweed dance. My first reaction was "So?" It's a nice image, but I didn't see how it advanced the story. At this stage I feel like I'm looking at a slideshow of unrelated images: Though each image might be artistic, as a whole they are not settling me into the story. Usually, I'd expect the use of short sentences to be used to speed up the pace of the narrative, but a sentence like the one above works counter to this.
On the re-read, I found this fragment made more sense, because I'd established Gwyneth was dead. Until then, however, I felt the point of view had not been adequately established, and I don't know if A garland spun in the pool, and the white flowers haloed a blue eye. is referring to the POV character or not, which makes all that extra descriptiveness seem to have only served to confuse matters.
On considering Her fingers held the memory of thrashing waters, a pulse vs he would blame Angharad for her death, I felt one implied guilt of the pov character, while one implied innocence. If the mc is guilty, then wouldn't "he know she was responsible"?
I don't have a problem with the prose or description outside of some clarity issues. My main problem is a question of chronological clarity. We start off in Angharad's perspective, but the description of the drowned sister seems to come from outside her (i.e. outside of POV) because her emotional reaction doesn't follow the discovery of the body. Is Gwyneth already dead when she finds her or has Angharad arrived in time to unsuccessfully save her? Without this understanding, it does come across as a series of images.
If you start with the first sentence and then have the image of the dead sister, followed by her shaking, we have a better idea of the chronology (unless I've misunderstood the timeline). It would probably also help to establish the relationship straight away so we understand the physical reactions better.
If you can wait until next week, I'll look at the whole thing then.
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