The Whispering Woods
Self-Published
Community Rating
Description
“You lie! His body lies in the woods, torn to pieces! You killed him and tried to hide your deed.”Ytir stepped forward and touched Han’s blade with his fingers.
“This blade cuts. It does not tear. If we wished harm to you, then why didn’t we kill you all last night while you were sleeping?”Omar and Karan looked at Hashid, waiting for his command to strike or yield.
Information
- Status
- Completed
- Year
- 2020
- Author
- Mircea Florea
Royal Road Stats
- Rating
- 3.7/ 5.0
- Followers
- 2
- Views
- 483
Chapters(1 total)
Reviews
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Community Reviews(1)
- Not_A_HatRoyal Road★★★ 2.5Firstly, the mechanics; the formatting needs work. Convention is to either tab the beginning of a new paragraph or use a linebreak. This story does neither, and consequently suffers from fairly severe wall-of-text syndrome. There were also some noticeable word problems (graciously instead of gracefully) and several instances of missing punctuation. While it wasn't un-readable, it was definitely more of a chore than it needed to be.
Style is... serviceable, but weak. The characters talk in manners that fit their descriptions, and it doesn't clash with the setting. There's a feeling of wordiness to it, though; one bit describes a character grabbing a horses reigns with his right hand and lifting his left to shield his eyes, specifically. We don't actually need to know which hand he's using for which. If it was important he was left-handed or something this sort of random detail might be useful, but as-is, it's just extraneous, and doesn't add to story. These sort of distracting extras are spread throughout. There's also several instances of head-hopping, where we're given the inner thoughts of a character without prior warning or even a formatting hint. Third-person omniscient is a thing, but I'm not sure it's ever really a good idea unless it's being used for a conceit. Switching characters between scene breaks or something is much clearer and less confusing.
As for plot, well, it's cohesive enough, doesn't contain any noticeable plot holes, and even uses a callback/stinger thing at the end to reveal a bit of interesting information. On the downside, it rather meanders (I'm not sure the scene with the song has any actual use for the story) and is rather lacking in foreshadowing. The actual conflict doesn't begin until a good ways in, and it rather comes out of left field.
All in all, I would put this as 'amateur, but promising'. This has the elements of worthwhile story, but the execution is severely hampering it.