I love the mystery you're building up around the Storm. The interactions are wonderfully charming, and this little derg is so cute. I'm fascinated to see where this goes. :D

Glad you liked it! Thanks for the kind words, and I hope you'll like where it goes even more.

Well written and interesting start. I will certainly want to read more. One thing that isn't clear to me though is if this is set in our own contemporary world (with mention of cities, airports and colleges}, or a fantasy world similar to our own before the 'upheaval', given the existence of sapient, bird killing trees, and the farmer not being too amazed that he had hatched a baby dragon. Or would things like this be attributed to the Upheaval, and were unknown before that time?

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the comments! They're very appreciated.

To clear things up, this is set in a world that once was very much like our own (as seen through Sal's flashbacks), but when the Storm came, it changed just about everything. It brought fantasy to the world if you will. Ten years later, it would take a lot to really surprise any of the people left, especially those living outside the remaining cities, which are really the last glimpses of the old world left (and even they've changed quite a bit as you'll soon see...)

Thoughts as I read:

I get a good sense of who Sal Warner is right off the bat. Great portrayal of his character through his diet, his actions, his dialogue for the first half of the story.

I like the idea of his friendship with Ol' Whistler. Even the name choice helps the reader infer more about Sal, and the tree itself is a somewhat unique idea.

Awesome introduction of the dragon. In stereotypical fantasy, you expect humans to be wowed by or in reverence of dragons. The way Sal just hurls the dragon into the pot... is great. XD

Okay, some random Tara bitch with forgettable dialogue. She's pretty loose-of-language for a lawyer.

"As a country bumpkin trying to learn to play the piano and evade the rest of his family's farming life, the statuesque lawyer-in-training had seemed so far out of his reach." Wording here suggests that Tara is the country bumpkin in addition to being the statuesque lawyer-in-training.

"Something glimmering in the distance caught his attention; a brief flash of a color he'd never seen before and that couldn't possibly exist." It's really hard to visualize the leaping arcs, where they're actually coming from and going when all you elaborate with is that they're on the horizon and jumping "every which way."

"being dragged away by what had been a squirrel moments before." I appreciate the suspense, but this gives me no visualization of this creature whatsoever, unless you want me to imagine it as a squirrel still. Slightly large than a squirrel? Slightly smaller? More monstrous? Or is this squirrel now Rachel Ray in a tuxedo?

"No sooner had he left the bedroom and returned to the kitchen though than its head popped out" is apparently a correct variation of "No sooner than" but still sounds jarring and needs to be reread multiple times, especially with the random "though" thrown in there.

Sal seems pretty quick to switch his stance on the dragon from 'too much trouble, is food' to 'cute, I'm gonna keep you.'

"save one that was slowly bearing down on a small blue shape in the opposite corner. One that had grown to three times its normal size, sprouting an extra set of legs along the way, and whose muzzle had split vertically, giving its face an appearance not that unlike that of the grotesque worms that popped up every few years to ravage the countryside." 'One' seems to refer the dragon in one sentence, then refer to the modified swine in the next?



Overall, you've got some good, differing characters. Sal's his own man, Ol' Whistler's his own tree, the dragon's his own dragon. You make use of relevant symbolism, like the tree being a giver/protector, the Storm bringing evil (relevant enough for the post-Frankenstein West), the swine embodying gluttony.

You write the story with a syntactic formality. There's lots of cohesion, but not a lot of you. I could not for the life of me discern your voice from the 1,000,000,000 other living writers.

Splattered, flashed, impacted... boring verbs are boring. I'd recommend beefing up your verbs and taking risks with your general word usage.

You really like to use variations of the word "impact" when "impact" doesn't have any actual impact. Verbs that evoke specific images with context as a prerequisite are key.

A lot of cases of the passive voice.

Story-wise, the plot feels sound to me. You don't need any critique there. I can enjoy this from a story aspect, and I'm also curious about these weirdo creatures that keep poppin' up... Looking forward to reading the rest. =)