What do you think you know? What do you want to know? And where do you need just a little more (or less) for purposes of clarity and personal investment?
Writing that kicks your ass
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Wow, wow. I love the story. Lost baby elephant, lost little girl, find each other in the forest as a wicked leopard watches. Not everything is as it starts out and that is what I want to see. Does K'la really mean to devour or join forces? Perhaps he has lost his parents a long, long time ago. I don't feel so bad now, having kids and animals lose parents and strike out on their own. There is a theme deep inside Write Fu writers, loss and recovery, never give up.
ReplyDeleteBut as much as the story, I love the elegance and imagery portrayed in the words. I can feel, see, smell, hear the forest, and taste the mud. "Kalazoo loved the feel of cool, red mud against his dry skin. It made him grateful to be an elephant, even though he was the only one he had ever seen."
"At full height, she was nearly as tall as Kalazoo. She wore no sandals, only a yellow, flower-print dress. Her dark hair was cropped to her chin and decorated with leaves acquired from her forest run."
I see humanity being shown at its best and maybe later its worst.
Keep writing this tale.
This is a shining example of why I am proud to be part of this group.
Dave,
ReplyDeleteThis is such a beautiful tale. It would be a great picture book. I’ve only hazarded a few picture books, but I read a lot of them and I read a lot of them to kids. I have to choose them carefully because it’s easy to lose the attention of young ones. This is a book that would keep their attention.
I love how you begin this tale. What a great way to put us in the story by first giving us directions that put us deep in the forest.
At the beginning of the tale I feel Bwagla K'la, the spirit of this forest, is a benevolent spirit because he visits children who understand his language. Kalazoo is a wonderful character. What a good hearted creature and one to whom children will immediately by drawn. Children will feel empowered by a story with children who can understand forest spirits and wild elephants.
Kalazoo has this great dual opportunity ahead of him to both follow a path to his own desire and save a child. He has a quest; an important one that children will relate to. I still vividly remember being left at a gas station when I was very young. My parents thought I was in the back of the station wagon. When I came out of the little gas station store, no station wagon. I feel like poor Kalazoo got left at the gas station. But he also has a little one to protect as well, which gives this tale even more emotional weight. I want to read to the end and feel the emotional satisfaction that I’m sure will come with a satisfying resolution.
Where you leave off, K’la seems more menacing and I wonder if he is less benevolent than I first believed. I hope he will direct any malevolence at those following Pim. I believe I recognize a hint that whatever K’la’s intentions are he is going to reveal himself to these young ones.
Lots of good hooks introduced along the way to pull us still further into the story as we also continue further into the jungle and K’la’s domain.
Such good work,
Alan
Great comments Alan! Want to review my work emails?
DeleteDave, I LOVE this beginning. I love the mythic tone of it - I can imagine the animated film starting with mist, then the mist rolling back to reveal the jungle. I love the way you start in the second person, then switch into third. I love how you immediately make child-readers feel special, because they "understand his leopard words."
ReplyDeleteAnd the baby elephant Kalazoo playing in the mud - so perfectly childlike! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE.
Your description of the jungle is so powerful and evocative: "The trees were tall and far apart, with slab-like roots that rose like walls from a carpet of dry leads. They snaked far from their trunks, creating little corners in the ground that were perfect for small creatures to hide."
One thing that worked so well for me - you introduce K'la at the beginning, and then the story moves completely away from him. By the end of the chapter I've completely forgotten about him. The last line of the chapter - "Not now, he purred low to himself. Not yet." - gave me chills. I agree with Alan - at the beginning he seemed more benevolent and at the end more menacing. I don't mind a little suspense. Not sure how appropriate it is for your age group?
A question - In the second para about Kalazoo, he says "He would prove himself worthy to remain" with his parents - this seems to imply the he thinks he was rejected for some kind of unworthiness? I wonder if you should either unpack this more here, or maybe leave it out and explore it in a later chapter? (He could just vow not to lose them again.)
Also in that paragraph and the one before - you switch back and forth from what Kalazoo is doing "on this occasion" and what he does "when he isn't rolling in mud." That's a little confusing - action in a particular instance as opposed to habitual action. I think the paragraph that begins "Kalazoo loved..." needs some clarification in that regard.
I can't wait for more of Kalazoo and Pim's adventure!!! Thanks, Dave!
Carolyn
I agree with what's been said already. This is a lovely beginning. I could go on an on about all the things I love, but I'll try to focus on the handful of things that I think are especially great! I agree with Alan and Carolyn about the benevolence/malevolence dichotomy, and I really like it, because it feels like you're developing a complex, unique, and interesting tone that will serve this story well. I don't find the shift jarring. It's a splash on the canvas.
ReplyDeleteThe opening is beautiful, poetic.It's lovely to read aloud, and the imagery is very evocative. And I love how I can feel the "camera" movement in the first three paragraphs,starting wide and gradually zooming closer. For me, viewing the opening this way, and mentioning K'la right away and then not again until the end, actually works quite well.It's sort of a story-within-a-story structure. There's a larger legend/myth that frames this smaller, more intimate story of Pim and Kalazoo. AND it feels like the larger myth will at some point interact directly with the intimate story. That's how I'm reading it, anyway.
My only question for you, Dave, is who is the intended audience? My personal opinion? This feels like a middle grade novel--perhaps one with illustrations. But it could go many different ways, too, and I don't mean to suggest it SHOULD be middle grade. That's just how I read it.
Bottom line--this is awesome. And if I had to choose just one word to describe it, I'd call it gentle. It has a gentle spirit, just like its author. And the reader feels confident that whatever thrills and dangers lie ahead, he or she, at least, will have a good companion along the way (just as Pim and Kalazoo presumably will be to one another).
I may be commenting late on this piece, but I'm so happy to have read it! As the others do, I adore this beginning. I'm rooting hard for these two main characters! I like how they're bold--Pim is bold, having run away from the monkey man (a menacing-sounding character who I'm sure will pop up later as a source of conflict!), and Kalazoo is bold, too, and playful. I love his lines "By the power of my trunk" and "By the might of my tusks"!
ReplyDeleteI, too, first read Bwagla K'la as benevolent and later as possibly malevolent. I wondering if he might be a wise sort of spirit who perhaps has some sense of what characters need and only intervenes when he must, and so he might seem malevolent. Whatever he ends up being, he promises to be a cool character, I think, with an aura of legend around him. Carolyn mentioned having forgotten about him during the middle of the chapter. Perhaps we could enter the story somehow with him, maybe as he moves through the forest and comes upon this odd sight of a young elephant playing in the mud?
I like how Kalazoo and Pim are off on their journey by the end of these 4 pages. The world and the characters are all vivid, and the story's off and running!
The story also has rich ambiance, if that makes since. I trust that the writer has spent a lot of time in the place he's writing about!
Your writing's so evocative in this piece that it has me wanting lush illustrations.
Something else I enjoy about this story is Dave-ness! This tale is in some ways (setting, genre, etc.) quite different than some of your other stories, but it definitely has the same DNA! The childlike sense of fun, the adventure, the gleeful boldness of its main characters--classic Dave!