CG's Notes on Trust the Owls

Trust the Owls - CG's Rough Notes on Bugs, Typos, and General Matters

For the first section, I will be taking sections from your story and pointing out places for editing. Please excuse the "rough" nature of these notes. This pastebin is unlisted and will expire in 6 months.

TEXT-SPECIFIC NOTES:

"I'm afraid it's about your boy. At first, I didn't believe it at first but... it pains me to say that he is different," the apothecary continues with anxiety in her voice. "Very different."

- double use of "at first" (post-birth scene)

"Oh yes. I will certainly do that, oh my, how did I not think of that." Varren behaves erratically, gesturing excessively while speaking. "I hired you to help my wife give birth with your homemade spells, and you have proven to be so much more... interesting." he grins now, a sinister look on his face, "You know what your problem is? You are a tad bit desperate."

- "How did I not think of that" should end with a "?" and "do that" should have a period, not comma

Esthia smiles at her, 'Yes, I know. It's scary how fast time flies. It's as if I gave birth just yesterday," he pauses, thinking deeply of what's to come next. "I still think that it's way too early for the Festival. Nero is too young for this."

- Quotation mark before "yes"

Right before the nurse could offer an answer, a man rushes into the room, interrupting her. "My ladies, uh, um, Lord Sir Voievod asked for you, um... Lady Esthia."

- Should be "can" not "could" here. It'd be "could" if this was past-tense.

"The elemental?" Father responds, shocked by my words, "Could it be that it helped you? It is well known that they can do that even if they are still dormant. That's incredible. Never expected a Fire elemental to lend a hand so soon. They usually tend to be more cautious and trust slower than other elements.I wonder if your Spirit elemental did all this. They tend to surprise everyone."

- This paragraph doesn't really make sense. Never expected a fire elemental..? WHen I have spirit? But why bring that up when a fire elemental didn't help? It's irrelevant? Also, Pastebin is telling me there is no space between "elements." and "I" here.

As I leave the main room, avoiding everyone's stares, I manage to get myself in one of the many hallways inside my home. This one is very long too. Looking around, searching for something nicer that the party, maybe hoping to see my mother, my eyes ultimately fall upon...

- Should be "than" the party

 "As for your your choice, My very own element. The most unstable of them all. I can't say much of Spirit because everyone has a different experience with them. My elemental was lacking purpose and direction, and because of that, they simply surrendered to me. I like telling everyone that I enslaved my own elemental, mostly to create this image of dread around me. It helped a lot. On the other hand, I ofter hear about people getting killed by their own abilities, usually Spirit ones. Be careful, Nero."

- "As for your your choice" typo

Over here, Nero!

"Who's talking?" I ask as I look around me, trying to find whoever is speaking to me. It sounds like the voice of a child, much like mine.

Suddenly, I find myself facing three different doors out of nowhere. Blue, yellow and red.

Error: cannot find a closing tag for HTML <span>Hmm.../span>

"What's going on?"

Error: cannot find a closing tag for HTML <span>Try to choose a door. Pick whatever color you want./span>

Looking around me again, I don't see anything but walls. How did this happen? "Hello?"

Pick pick pick!

- Errors

"Red?" As soon as I speak, the walls around me turn into the same color.

Eh, that's a... color. I somehow knew you were gonna pick it.

Voice, is this you? Are you doing this?

No, but I know who is. You need to be careful.

Don't ignore me, Nero!

"I wasn't!" I exclaim as I look around again, trying to find a way out. Voice, help me!

Lumina won't help you, kid. This is between you and me.

"Who are you?"

Why did you pick red? Such a typical Drecul choice.

"I don't understand!"

It doesn't matter which color you picked. The choice was just an illusion. What matters is that you found this place. Unfortunately for you, I need to make you forget you've ever been here.

"Why?"

It won't hurt you. Oh, and my name is Puck. I'm sure we're gonna meet later. Ta-ta!

...

Right. I should get back to my Mother.

What's the last thing that happened?

The... servant from earlier was gone when I checked the room again.

Good. Let's get back to the party.

- Errors, the section is full of crossed-out lines instead of green lines

"Indeed," Varren agrees, tapping his fingers on the armrest of the throne. "To be the Head Magicus at sixteen, deservedly so. It speaks of her talent and of the potential asset we secured. Now," he eyes me for a second, "why the sudden interest in my son? You were pretty silent these past few years."

- "Now," missing first "

As soon as I answer with ten, I get to see various reactions from her in a short time. At first she shakes her head, but then she grins, "Indeed, how did you know?" she asks back.

Hold on. What? She's only 17? Not... it's not like she looks older than that, but to become the Head Magicus at this age? I remember Ernye and his white beard. And to compare that with... Alye? Kalya is left speechless too as I see her stare at me with the same confused face.

- I guessed 17 so why does it say I answered with 10?

"I think I know what that was," he sniffs the air around him, sounding close to a dog." His face forces me to hold back a laughter. He picks up my reaction quickly, asking with a confused face. "What?"

- Random quote after dog

GENERAL NOTES:

- Sometimes paragraphs are just too long, especially when characters are telling stories. They might appear short on paper, but on the screen they are excessively long and run-on.

- Character descriptions? I don't remember the looks of these folks

- In the scene of the attack, why do they go from panic running away, to then commenting about flowers (or animals if u pick the other choice), to then picking a horse? Shouldn't there be more urgency here?

- In the midst of the period of the story where the protag and Kayla are both training, and the protag was making slow progress, the story suddenly tells us that Spirit says we will soon surpass Kayla. WHAT!? Where did that come from? The elemental has barely spoken at all! And suddenly we're gonna surpass Kayla who was supposedly making progress? It just comes out of nowhere - how it's brought up.

- The little training arc there, when our protag has only learned a single spell, is training hunting, etc. slows the story down a bit. I definitely feel like I had to force my way through. It felt like our protag wasn't developing, but also that the plot wasn't really developing either. We weren't learning anything, weren't discovering anything, weren't befriending anyone, etc. I think there should at least be SOME progress that we "earn" during this period, which will help break up the droning "i'm not really making progress" portion and the other characters plotting random things.

- Spirit is a bit TOO much. Like, it borders on cringe more than madness, assuming that was the vibe you were going for. I think one of the biggest problems is that there is no real tone - no real way of picking up the vibe. It looks like random word slop thrown in by the author, no offense. What kinda voice should his lines be read in to begin with? We're given no indication. That's my point. Spirit's dialogue is almost annoying - and fails to contribute to the story.

- Very strange uses of words like "auch" which should actually be spelled "ouch."

Just read this text you wrote for a second:

One of them tilts their head, staring at me with a strange look. My mind is telling me to run, but... "Welcome, Nero," are the words I hear coming from... her? A soft and melodic voice that seems to have some sort of effect on me. It makes me feel calmer, and more willing to listen to her.

Iele. Strange, but at this point, you can't predict anything.

"How are you feeling today?" she wonders as she approaches me, slowly and careful. As she gets closer, the first thing that catches my attention is the shade of purple in her eyes. The clothes, more like leaves, seem to cling tightly to her body, accentuating her forms.

"S-Stay b-b-back!" I find myself trying to shout, but fail. Somehow my words barely come out. I remember that I read about Iele's after what happened to my father in the past. It's not a good start but hopefully I'll be able to resist their magic.

- First, the default font makes "Iele" show up as "lele" - so, if possible, you may wanna change the name here or note that it is an "I" here.

- Spirit's dialogue doesn't actually contribute anything to the passage. The spirit barely talks, and normally speaks about random nonsense, but then suddenly says this? I'm not sure how exactly to explain this but it just feels like Spirit was handled Lazily.

- "S-stay b-b-back!" is cringe. Also, didn't it just note how the melodic voice was supposedly making him calmer? Lol.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

- The plot is definitely interesting.
- The characters are interesting enough.
- The world is interesting.
- The story writing is messy and significantly detracts from the experience. At some points, the writing just seems lazy or rushed. The longer I read, the more the story writing started to seem cringe/sloppy. I couldn't continue after the Iele encounter - I was too uninterested. This story is in desperate need of editing.

Apologies if some of my notes sounded a little harsh. Lol. But I figured I'd just try and be honest + straightforward with my thoughts so that you can get a clear perspective. I think this story has a lot of potential and I'd love to give it another read after you make progress.