thanks for reading. yes, please. any feedback you have is more than welcome.
Viewing post in An Apple, Unremembered jam comments
Alright, these were my thoughts while reading:
I'd say the beginning could use a small rewrite. Since both the kid and Othmara are female it wasn't entirely clear to me who was meant when the sentence just used "she" to refer to them. So it seemed like the kid was coming out of a drain, then suddenly standing under the tree, then half-way stuck in the wall while also visibly dragging a sack behind her. And it only became clear when Othmara specifically had the knife in hand, and that only happened 2/3rds down the page.
When Othmara tries the apple, after the kid gets pushy, she has an internal reaction but the kid seems to react to it- it felt like there was a visible reaction missing that the child could notice.
thank you, this is really helpful. after a closer reread, i can see the opening needs a cleaner pass, especially around the pronouns, blocking, and knife placement. good point on the apple scene too. giving the child one clearer thing to react to would probably make that moment land better. appreciate you taking the time to spell this out.