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Review #4636001
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The Scarecrow's secret: Chapter One  [18+]
Jack and Sarah take a walk to her special place on the hill by the Scarecrow.
by LightinMind
Review by Beholden
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 18+ | (4.0)
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Review of The Scarecrow's Secret: Chapter One by LightinMind

Initial Impression:

You're right, it is a strange place to have scarecrow. In fact, I don't have a clear picture of the landscape in which the action takes place but it's stated that the scarecrow is not in the middle of any field planted with crops (which would be the usual place). Instead, the farmer seems to have placed it at the edge of the fields.

So I'm a little confused about the setting but then comes the big surprise at the end of the chapter. This is the hook that makes the reader want to continue into the next chapter. A scarecrow that turns out be the actual skeleton of a dead person certainly begs for explanation. It looks as though this is going to be the main point of the book.

Title:

This is fairly intriguing. Do scarecrows have secrets? I imagine most people would be interested in finding out the answer to that in general and to this one in particular. Which means the title succeeds in its aim.

Content:

As I mentioned, I'm a little confused at the setting in which this takes place. The couple seem to be walking through a forest, then they come to a pond and ultimately to the scarecrow. This is on a rise ("it is quite a view") and the fields are spread out before them. It's all a bit vague, however, and I think you need to concentrate more on how these landscapes blend into each other, rather than becoming too poetic in your descriptions. For instance, this sentence puzzled me and seems uncertain as to the effect it wants to induce: "Sarah laughed at the sight and her laughter felt to her like the sound of Summer in a land waiting to die." To me, the sound of summer is the sound of lawnmowers. I'm fairly certain that you don't want me to imagine that the lady's laughter sounded like distant lawnmowers. But it goes beyond that. This is summer in a land waiting to die. Does that make summer sound different? And in what way is it waiting to die? The sentence may sound romantic but probably means different things to different people. Perhaps it's best just to let Sarah laugh without describing what it sounded like.

You seem to have a problem that I suffer from too (which is why it stands out to me, of course). There are times when you try to put too much into a single sentence. " As they walked they realized that they were overdressed shedding their jackets at the invitation of the warm wind that spoke also to the leaves on the tree." I think we can leave out the conversation with the leaves in this one.

Then we come to the last few sentences in which something falls off the scarecrow. There are far too many references to the word "bone" in the telling. It would be better not to use the word at all until Sarah realises what it is. Thereafter I would try to find alternatives so that I don't have to repeat the word too often.

There's nothing wrong with the essential story established in this first chapter. It's just that these minor matters can be a distraction to the reader and they are easily mended.

Style:

I think you would do well to concentrate more on making things simple, rather than on apparently poetic turns of phrase. The sound of summer is something very personal to each of us (before I came to America, summer meant the sound of ice cream vans to me). Think about the sound you want to describe and go for the simplest thing that is appropriate. Laughter is a hard one, I admit. Some have likened it to a rushing stream but there must be better descriptions than that. Avoid the dreaded hyena, however!

Flow/Pace:

The pace slowed in the long paragraph that brought us to the scarecrow. Simplifying the descriptions should help to keep up the tempo through this section.

Suggestions:

Basically, I can only suggest you keep things simple. If you can see what is happening and what it looks like, tell us that without trying too hard to make it sound pretty.

Overall Impression:

A good start to a book with plenty of hooks to draw the reader on. It needs some polishing but nothing too serious. A good effort.

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Beholden


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