A Stone of Contention - Comments Thread

[RevenantsKnight]

Just in time for the new year, a few clarifications:

Also, “reaping bird” sounded odd to me, since the literal image doesn’t really work.

Okay, though I'm not sure what literal image you would be referring to.

I guess what I meant there is that because you’re working so much on the bird image, “reaping” seems like you’re mixing in a quality that seems very out of place.

I could use a bit more explanation of this one. One of the last things Swag thinks in the previous chapter is "Are they for me?" in reference to the daggers. How is it that "The daggers were not meant for me… " at the start of this chapter is a non-sequiter?

My issue with it is simply that you answer the question “Are they for me?” in part 6, so revisiting it in 7 is confusing. I caught that the turning point was when Swaglord has his little oops with the choking; this was a much smaller issue than how you read it, I guess.

Hope that helps.

[RevenantsKnight]

Yes, I know I’m behind, and no, it’s not likely to get much better soon. Boo.

Anyway, on Part 9: definitely amusing, it is. For what you seem to be trying to do, this works very well; the dialogue flows nicely and most of the jokes here were worth at least a grin. The only major comment I have is that after the seriousness of the highlander-fighting, and to a degree the overall tone of the rest of the story, this level of out-and-out absurd comedy feels like it doesn’t quite belong with everything else. That aside, though, this read pretty nicely, and leaves things on a good ending note (at least, until you pick it up and start running again.) Some specific comments:

From the angle of the dart in Kass’s head, Swaglord judged the owner of that voice to be standing near the spot from where it was thrown.

I might try to pare down this sentence a bit or perhaps even work it into the preceding one, because this seems like a rather wordy way to get the point across.

“Look! It’s still stickin’ there. Right in the back’a the head.”

Maybe it’s just me, but while the rest of the story certainly has its humor, it takes most of its characters a little more seriously than the Blue family and so I wasn’t quite expecting this degree of outright silliness, or Swaglord’s sit-and-wait reaction. Once I accepted that, things were just fine, though it might throw other folks a bit more. Probably good to get a second (or third) opinion here.

“They work better in the neck,” the woman continued, “or weren’t you listening to the old man we bought ‘em from.”

The period at the end should be a question mark, even if this is a rhetorical question.

Swaglord squinted into the sun trying to locate the source of the voices.

There should be a comma after “sun.”

He had already spotted three other shadowy figures that had positioned themselves around him like points on a compass, with the nasty pair directly in front of him marking the spot at due North.

My apologies if I’m taking something figurative entirely too literally, but the “due North” bit confused me, given that Swaglord’s apparently looking into the setting sun as he searches for them, which would mean that he’s facing west. If you change this, I think it also means reshuffling later compass references, though I couldn’t be sure.

“Blue leader! It’s Blue Leader!”

The first “leader” should be capitalized, I’d think.

“Blue one,” he barked.

Another minor nitpick: “one” should be capitalized, to distinguish it as a callsign.

“Aye?” repled another man, the one Swaglord had previously spotted lingering at compass point East.

That should be “replied.”

Blue Leader slapped on one hand over his face and appeared to have gone quite rigid.

I’d reword this to remove the qualifying “appeared to have gone,” though it’s not a big problem or anything either way.

The drool running down her chin didn’t particularly worry him, he’d seen many people sleep like that, but the twitch in her right eyelid, the way her tongue was repeatedly curling and uncurling in her slack, open mouth was downright disturbing.

Grammatically, this feels a bit messy, as there’re two subjects (“the drool” and “he,”) as well as an odd verb conjugation. Because “he’d seen many people sleep like that” is really a separate sentence, I’d set it off with dashes on either side if you want to keep this all as one. As for “was downright disturbing,” I think that should technically become “were,” since it refers to two observations, and in that case, there should be an “and” instead of the comma after “eyelid.”

“Say,” he called, “what you said about brain damage…”

Swag going on with his point throughout all the chaos...:smiley:

“Sir! Yes, sir!” came the enthusiastic retort.

“Retort” suggests to me a reply that is in some way counter to the original speaker; for that reason, I’d use a different wording here.

“Gee thanks, Dad!” said Blue Two.

Hilarious...the setup for this was great.

Blue Leader stopped, shook his head, and then resumed his course back to where he started, a little slower than he had started and once again with the occasional angry fist to the forehead.

I’d see if you can’t reword this to drop one use of “started,” possibly the second one.

“On account of the blue blowhard over there,” she said, jerking her thumb in the direction of who Swaglord had by then come to assume was her husband.

If it matters, I saw nothing to assume that, though I could just be thick and I suppose the reader doesn’t necessarily need to be able to come to that conclusion independently.

“RIGHT!” shouted Blue Leader, interrupting.

“Interrupting” seems redundant, given how you set this up.

The boy smiled and bowed and then started running after the others with his armful of darts and daggers.

A minor issue, but this seems to run on a little bit, perhaps due to sentence structure.

He took off his shield and laid it down, stacked his sword on top of it, and then started to sit himself down on the soft sod where he hoped to take a long nap.

Given Swaglord’s previous concern about brain damage, his intentions here felt a little off. Certainly, it might not be a life-or-death thing just yet, but I’d think he’d approach the issue with a little more urgency.

“Me? Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m just off to pick you some flowers.”

Clever.

Overall, I liked this, and it’s a nice, light-hearted wrap-up to this part of the story. While it does feel noticeably different from previous chapters, I don’t think that’s a serious problem. Thanks for posting!

[Holyknight3000]

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