Welcome to my world and beyond...

A collection of snippets of the books I write and, occasionally, my life and the things that inspire my writing...

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Weekend Writing Warriors: October 6, 2013

Weekend Writing Warriors
      
Welcome Warriors, and Snipsuns and anyone else who wanders in. Happy first Sunday in October. Yikes!  October!  :-)

Weekend writing Warriors is a weekly bloghop. Each week, participants sign up HERE at wewriwa.com, then post 8 sentences of their work, published or unpublished, to go live between noon, Saturday and 9:00 AM Sunday EST. Then we visit each other and read, comment, critique, encourage--all those things that do a solitary writer's heart good.



The Snippet Sunday group can be found HERE




This from a WIP, a fantasy story. Working title is: "Taydan: Child Denied"
The ruler, Deamante, is about to become a father. He's been waiting for quite some time outside of the birthing room listening to his mate's cries of agony.  Finally, allowed inside, he's faced with a surreal time.
Creative punctuation in use. :-)

    
   
Leaning close to her face, the healer’s tone was firm when he said, “It’s too soon to bear down. Just breathe.”



Deamante bent to whisper in her ear. “Listen to the healer, Rella.  Put the child first; he’s more important than you or me.”



When no comprehension registered on her face, it came as no surprise to him. He’d been told by the healer what to expect when the time came, and every word spoken was proving true. When she was imprisoned by the pain, her sole focus was to free herself from the hellish bounds where neither thought nor reason had stay.

That's it. What jumps out at you, good or bad ? I'd love to hear it and am truly grateful for every bit of criticism, opinion, and shared wisdom.  Thank you so much for visiting!

48 comments:

  1. This makes me curious. She seems so out-of-it. Is giving birth more difficult for her than for humans? It also makes me wonder what they expect of the baby since he says it's more important than either of them.

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    1. She's barely more than a girl, and this is from a man's POV. :-) Thanks for visiting, Cara. :-)

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  2. Oh yeah, what's that super-intensity of the birth about? Why so much pain that she's in a sort of trance? And are they planning more for this child than simply being successor to the ruler? Very intriguing story you've got going :-)

    I have a suggestion for tightening the sentence that starts "he'd been told by the healer" but I'm embarrassed that I keep offering rewrites for your sentences! I do like the story.

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    1. Ha! Please, don't ever hold back. I don't take offense. I'm the one who should feel bad when people have to suggest a better way, over and over again...

      It's right near the end. At that point, the pain owns you. This is her first, and she's actually pretty young, which the reader will know shortly. :-) Thanks for the read and the comment, Marcia! :-)

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  3. Ack! Still no baby! I'm freaking out! LOL. This is great, the waiting is killing me!

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  4. "He’d been told by the healer—what to expect when the time came, and every word the healer had told him was proving true."

    In this sentence I don't see any need for the hyphen that divides it. It sounds perfectly natural without it. "He'd been told by the healer what to expect when the time came," or "He'd been told what to expect by the healer when the time came." To me the hyphen is very jarring.

    Other than that, I'm eager to see how this continues. Birth is pretty horrifically painful, particularly if you're in a low-technology society that doesn't educate women on what to expect (this still happens today, sadly...), but the intensity of her struggle makes it seem like there may be complications. Breach birth, maybe?

    I'm intrigued. Keep it up! See you next weekend. ;)

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    1. Thanks Nora! Removed, and it does work better, :-) See you next weekend. :-)

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  5. Great snippet and difficult births were not that unusual. The husband comes across as very sympathetic/understanding (he goes up a notch). I agree with an earlier poster about the hyphen and I wondered if bounds should be bonds.

    The snippet leaves me anxious to discover if mother & baby end up being ok. Good job - look forward to the next snippet to find out.

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    1. I played around with that wording a lot longer than it makes any kind of sense to do. Oy! The "where" refers back to bounds. Bounds: a place. In that context, I don't think bonds doesn't work. But if you sensed confusion over it, I might have to rethink it. :-) Thanks, Susan!

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  6. I wonder where her mind has gone, she seems totally out of it. I also wonder if they are going to manage to bring her back, too much pain can be fatal.

    By the way, your link in the WeWriWar page doesn't work. When you schedule a post with blogger, the link changes to include the month when the post will be published. To get the correct link you need to get the new link after you scheduled the post then repress on publish. I had that problem a couple of time too.

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    1. Thanks, Linda. This does not end well for her.

      And thank you for the information about posting on Blogger. :-)

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  7. 'imprisoned by pain' wonderful. Beautifully written eight, Teresa. Thank you.
    I posted, forgot to sign up. Scrambled brains this past week. Sorry. Please check out my new post. I'd appreciate it.

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    1. Thanks, Charmaine! :-) It happens. I wanted to finish my post before I signed up. It was 11:50 PM :-) Life is just so busy.

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  8. Very intriguing, all this pain and the trance-like state.

    I also think that this sentence is jarring: "He’d been told by the healer—what to expect when the time came, and every word the healer had told him was proving true."

    I'd go with "He'd been told what to expect, and the healer's words were proven true."
    The fact that the healer informed him is implied and you don't have to use "told" two times.
    Just a suggestion. ;)

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    1. Good suggestion, Aheila, and I'm very grateful for it! Thanks :-)

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  9. Deamante has been prepared to expect emotion and survival instinct to take over, as is natural when in pain. Still, it must hurt to be told the impending baby is more important than poor Rella! Powerful 8.

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  10. Intense stuff, Teresa! I like her disconnected state of mind, that adds an entirely other layer here. Nice work!

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  11. Very intense. I can't wait to read more. This snippet made me very curious about a lot of different things. Great job!

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  12. ::biting my nails:: Gak!! No baby yet!! The suspense is killing me. (Although I can't complain because it's a lot worse for the mother, LOL)

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  13. Tense snippet. I wonder if there's more to how birth happens for these people than we're aware of. The whole setup seems just a bit uneasy-making to me...so, well done!

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    1. You are a smart girl, Veronica. Bad times ahead... Thanks for visiting. ;-)

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  14. I still wonder whether the baby will be the sex the father anticipates.

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    1. I like that it makes people wonder. Thanks, Sue Ann!

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  15. Well, that's for sure! That pain is like no other - I feel for her. :)

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  16. Fabulous tension. I'm so nervous for all of them. I've done a good job of blocking out the pain filled memories when I delivered both of my sons, now 7 and 4, but this snippet certainly brings back some memories. Yikes, lol. Well done.

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    1. Thanks, SJ. Don't you think nature steps in to alter our pain memories? No woman would ever have a second or a third if they had total recall. :-)

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  17. This is really intense! I don't remember being that far gone with my first . . . but maybe that's why I was able to have my second? :)

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    1. Thanks, Sarah. Nature's a funny thing. My first was the hardest. :-)

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  18. I thought...at least, from my space across the years when doing 'natural childbirth' was the norm...this was very well done. With giving birth a year and two weeks apart, I can relate to internalizing the moment so much so my husband commented on how far removed from the 'action' I was. Yeah, it was different when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
    Very well written, Teresa. Well done!

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    1. Thanks for that comment, J.A. That described it perfectly. I might have to borrow form your comment. :-)

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  19. Sorry, I can't comment on this one, I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no babies!

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  20. So emotive, Teresa. I have a bad feeling about this, though... Great eight!

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  21. I feel like pacing the floor until this baby is born! You are definitely keeping the intriguer up. It does sound like there might be complications? Good 8.

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  22. That's some powerful imagery! I can only imagine how Rella feels, being told this heir is more important than her own feelings.

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  23. "Put the child first; he’s more important than you or me.” A curious line. Why is the child more important than both of the parent's lives. Great imagery in this scene!

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    1. All revealed in due time. :-) Thanks for visiting, Karen! :-)

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  24. Thanks, Sue. I'll check it out. I'll be sharing the link with another Texas friend, as well. :-)

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  25. Hi, Teresa! I hope you might consider joining my bloggers' book club. Details are here: http://armchairsquid.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-cephalopod-coffeehouse-october-blog.html.

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