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ineptia !!/7cMIiSCHvi/lit/24447613#24470034
6/16/2025, 3:39:43 AM
“When the birds fell silent”
by GreenShirt
>>24455242
First of all, yours had the best opening.
The natural atmosphere you obtained was wonderful, partly wrought with great details of what WASN’T there:
>There was no wind, no squirrels, just the occasional flick of a bug on leaves.
“Serene tension” would be my description, and stumbling upon Long-Sapling was the perfect payoff for it.

Even the start of his coming-to was special—the olfactory dimension—but the story loses any and all momentum from here on out.
There are ways to make what follows more riveting, even with the MC on their back for the whole of the story, but these logistics you chose are not conducive at all for dealing with the theme.
Everything mad-crowd realted either has to take place inside the claustrophobic medical hut, or has to happen through memory, or has to be a mix of both—via overhearing and recalling—but all were too disjointed.

I mentioned to yodo that “They Say Sav-Saba” had no wow-factor for me; your story lacks this too.
>Long-Sapling's eye opened in panic, not at his injury, but at a flash of memory at those knuckles and the scar across the bottom two.
Imagine if this reveal were presented differently—not as a narration in the medical hut, but through a flashback of the treacherous episode.
Last month, PIGS + had a story where the paragraphs alternated between narration and “unrelated” dialogue; I’m saying you should have alternated between the present (Long-Sapling on the cot) and the past (Long-Sapling in the woods with the party).

You so successfully built up delicate pressure in your opening, but any revelations in your story’s middle and end were completely hamfisted, not only because they come out of nowhere, but because there’s no sense of loss or betrayal, not having seen the family members, not seeing Stout-/Strong-Shaft BE friendly.
Treachery means the heel-truning of a good-guy; not evil-fication of just-some-random-guy.

Theme isn’t really there.
If it is, it’s outshined by “the Machiavellian manipulation of crowds”—which is a pretty hollow explanation for their madness, if you ask me.
A real rich development would be that the whole tribe sees through Liar-Shaft’s plot, but DON’T change their minds about attacking the Sap-Drinkers.
Like, what if Two-Pebble was outside the hut, heard the villain monologuing, and then told the whole village?
I’d be on the edge of my seat at this development, and would also have a lot to chew on thematically as the tribe goes, “Eh…” and gives in to prejudice.
Long-Sapling’s silent reaction to this scenario would be as dramatic as reflective—when it’s convenient, wickedness is not snuffed out by the mob, but fanned.

I wish you gave some more details about the objects inside the hut, or weapons, or clothes these folks were wearing.
Such elision worked for yodo’s story, but yours takes place predominatley inside one room—adding these details grow it big.