**part 2**

**Thoughts as I read along**  
  
*She felt she could have hidden in these woods*  
From what I’m reading it seems that she is hiding in these woods, already blended in. or perhaps you are trying to say how similar she is to her surroundings or her want to escape. Either way, I think this first bit is unnecessary as its just telling when you do a good job of showing it afterwards. And there is the issue of tense. ‘Have Hidden’ implies a past perfect as if she has already traversed the woods and is thinking back. But the scene is of her passing through the woods. So it would make more sense if it was just ‘hide’.   
*cushioned and silent*   
Silent here, I feel is redundant. Cushioned already implies a decrease in sound.  
  
You also start three consecutive sentences with she. And you have yet to introduce the character name. I know its chap 3 but this is the start of a chapter. At this point the reader can still think that there might be shifts in pov. You should in

This is my first review so yeah take of the critique with knowledge that I may be wrong on points.  
  
Overall. I liked it. At first I was quite confused by what was happening. It felt like a bunch of stuff was just being introduced and then moved on with. But I guess this is more so because this is chap 3. The first half for me was confusing and kinda meh. The second half picks up a lot though and I was engaged. I really liked your descriptions. They felt rich and set the atmosphere well. Especially when Idora entered the strange hallow grave.   
  
The part with the stag is still really confusing to me? Maybe a later plot point? And I found it strange that her first thoughts were on how she could ride the thing. I know that she desires freedom,  but it seemed a little ridiculous to me.   
  
From my understanding, it is about a young queen from a destroyed land who has been married to a far off kingdom. There is some sort of racial, religious conflict with the stones - a pagan

Also I'm sorry for the lack of whitespace here. I wrote this all in google docs and Reddit mangled the formatting. If I try to edit it again it makes it even worse and removes all the line breaks for some reason.

I made a program to find all the sentences that are 30 words or longer. 30 words is not necessarily too long, and I don’t think they’re all problematic, but maybe it’s worth taking a second look at each of them and seeing if you want to split them up.  
30: “These forests that you walk in peace, that your men hunt in, that you carve your parks out of, they should be crawling with Hallowed so close to the Carve  
31: She felt she could have hidden in these woods, footsteps cushioned and silent upon the snow, hair falling to join the autumn leaves, skin like the pale wood of the trunks  
32: Wrinkled pink mushrooms poked their heads high through the remains, and red thorns grew like a carpet between ribcages and over bones, looking like vibrant hearts pumping blood through long dried-up skeletons  
32: When she breached the forests edge she found herself looking out towards the distant hill and town from the west, rather than the east where she had, in fact, entered the woods  
34: A rin

  
General concerns:  
\- Too many of the sentences are overly long: both in word count, and relative to the content that you’re using them to express.  
\- Not enough variation in the length of sentences. There should be no paragraphs with only long sentences, and there shouldn’t be multiple long sentences back to back.  
General analysis:  
The first time reading through I was stumbling on awkward phrasing and convoluted sentences (of the sort I pointed out) and it was distracting. Now the second time reading I’m able to appreciate how descriptive your story is. I am able to see very vividly the scene that you’re describing in my mind's eye, and it’s a nice experience. So good job on that!  
Like your writing in general, the dialogue seems overly wordy and complicated. People don’t naturally say things like “It matters not what I think”, or “It would seem, then, that you have already chosen whose thoughts you heed”. I get that Idora is a queen and her speaking might be elevated, but 

This is my first review ever. So I also encourage other more experienced reviewers to review my review and point out if I've given any bad advice.  
Also, congratulations on writing 70K words. That’s a great accomplishment!  
Now onto the criticism. So this is a matter of preference, but I don't like how the reader's attention is drawn to Idora’s breasts. The way you did it is not distasteful or problematic at all. But what sours it for me is that there's *so* many books where authors pointlessly draw attention to their female character's breasts. The first thing I thought when I read it was “oh no, not another one of those cringy stories”. Thankfully your story did not turn out to be cringy. But nevertheless, I’d avoid it unless you have some good reason to do so. And here it seems kind of pointless. You could just as well say something like "...that her \*features\* become boles on a tree".  
Also, did you mean "burls" (the knots or lumps that sometimes grow on the trunks of trees) i

Hello again

Third chapter of a 70 000 word novel.

Obviously some of the references won't make sense seeing as you haven't read the first chapters so to sum up the Hallowed are monsters, the Carve is a really big barrier and the Mage is new. 

I'll take any feedback but I'd like to know what you think of the dialogue, if the actions are clear, what mood the overall voice gives to you. 

My piece: [2839](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d2HuLqMLjcHG7ovkVaQwDsIiHyCBWuKty6chygZrAnE/edit?usp=sharing)

My critiques: [1446](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/osuj0r/1446_clothing_store_nightmare/h6rpz0n/?context=3) and I have around 1800 unused words of this one [4338](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/ojzfj4/4338_war_for_water_ch1_scifi/h59jjg6/?context=3), 

Thanks!

[2839] Carve Chapter 3