Jun 14, 2024
To:veryberrii
Sure thing! I can't copy paste text on HF, so I'll have to transcribe it. Bear with me as I might make mistakes.
I believe a lot of the 'showing movement' versus 'explaining it' comes from the way you phrase things.
"A sharp pain shoots through her head."
"The man is a few steps in front of her."
"So, she does, and past the bridge is a path where she sees [...]"
"She notices that neither of them spare her a glance."
All of the examples above are explanatory, but for different reasons. Numbering them 1 through 4, we have
1. Lack of deep POV. We are following the woman, but the pain is described as if she's not feeling it, rather as if someone external is remarking that she's feeling it. You can make it feel as if it's narrated from her perspective by adding something sensory to the feeling. "Her head rings with a sharp pain."
2. "to be" used as a state verb; 'prop placement sentence'. It's rare that objects just *are* in the scene. They usually do something, and adding action helps to cement that. "A few steps in front, the man stops/watches on."
3. As above, but with the added 'she sees'. If we're following her POV, verbs like 'she sees', 'she hears' are often implied (not always; there are stylistic values too). You can rephrase that as, "So, she does. Past the bridge stretches a path where [thing happens]"
4. 'She notices'. As above, we are following her POV, so noticing is implied. Phrasing it as "An old couple rests on a park bench. Neither of them spare her a glance," retains the meaning, whilst removing the explanation.
In medias res means starting in the middle of the action. It presupposes something exciting has happened before the story time (as in, before the time the story is written). As for clarifying the narrative, I'll admit I somehow managed to erase the word 'Death' from my mind when I wrote my comment - I blame the exhaustion. However, I think my point stands inasmuch as, ironically, those were the bits you could've afforded to explain. I think past the initial hint, you could've taken some more time to set the scenery as something esoteric, fantastic, or otherwise dissonant. Maybe the world distorts at the edges, or maybe the cherry blossoms are overbright, or the people's faces are washed away and stiff, or their motions are listless. Whilst I can appreciate subtlety is probably deployed here to give more weight to the eventual reveal, that reveal is surprisingly muted. Death just says, "I'm Death," then waxes on about the isekai question (do you want to be reborn?). I think the reader could've benefitted from a lot more reaction from the woman, whose knee-buckling is almost hidden by Death's short soliloquy. If anything, I think making these points a lot clearer and having them stand out could really create two pillars to anchor your story. As it stands, these moments don't feel in any way more or less significant than the rest, which makes the progression feel off.
I can explain more, but this should suffice. Any more questions, feel free to join our Discord server and ask me directly.
