Prose Critique: Momo Arashima Steals the Sword of the Wind
Follow the rule of "show-not-tell" to heighten tension
My friend Misa Sugiura agreed to give us a rare look at how an early draft of her work changed into the final draft of her novel, Momo Arashima Steals the Sword of the Wind, a middle-grade fantasy novel published by Penguin Random House.
In this novel, twelve-year-old Momo discovers that her mother is a banished Shinto goddess who used to guard a secret portal between our world and the land of the dead. The portal is under attack, Momo’s mother is severely weakened, and Momo must find a way to defend the portal before it opens and releases Izanami the Destroyer and her demon army into the world.
In this scene, Momo wakes in the middle of the night and sees a fox in her backyard. Misa’s explanations for her edits follow in the footnotes. My sense is that Misa focused on the adage “show-not-tell” in order to heighten a scary moment for her young readers. I really love the eerie atmosphere she created with her edits!
What happened was, I woke up to a yowl and a yippy sort of bark. I got up and peeked out the window to see the neighbor’s cat streaking across the yard, which was not unusual—and trotting oh-so-casually after it was a fox, which was unusual . . . but not improbable, since Mom and I lived not too far from a forest preserve.1 The fox stopped in the middle of the yard, sat down, and pointed its sharp2, twitchy nose and bright black eyes directly at my window.
The moon was shining from somewhere above and behind me, bathing the fox in cool silver light and casting a magical glow on the entire yard. So maybe it was the moonlight that gave me this strange feeling that the fox knew who I was—and it was waiting for me. Like it wanted me to go outside and have a chat.3 As the fox stared at me, I was seized by this strange feeling that it knew who I was.4 Like it knew I was watching, and it was waiting for me. And then—I swear I’m not lying—it patted the ground with its paw. Yes, you, it seemed to be saying. Come out here at once. I need to talk to you.
That was not just unusual. It was completely bonkers unbelievable. Like, literally not able to be believed.5 Foxes—as we all know—don’t drop in for impromptu midnight chats with human girls. “It’s just my imagination,” I muttered to myself. I shut my eyes and tried to shake what I’d seen out of my head. I couldn’t have seen it…6
I tapped three times—tap, tap, tap—just as a cloud passed over the moon and broke the spell helped break the silvery magical feeling.7 The fox looked startled and scampered into the shadow of the big pine trees at the edge of the yard.
Okay, whew, I thought. Regular old fox, then.
I could just barely see him huddled under the lowest branches, his tail covering him like a fluffy blanket. I watched and waited few minutes, to see if it would come back out. But it stayed perfectly still, and eventually I gave up and went back to bed, a little weirded out but basically fine. Like a normal person.8
If I had bothered to go to the front of the house and take a good look at that cloud over the moon, I might have seen why the fox hid so suddenly. And I would not have been able to go back to bed like a normal person, because I would have been completely terrified. Because it wasn’t really a cloud, as you might have guessed by now. It was a death hag, straight out of the Japanese gods-and-monster stories that Mom liked to tell me.9
She was Hovering several feet in the air above our house, wearing a ragged black ballgown, black stiletto heels, and too much makeup was a shikome10 (Death hags—or shikome—always wear too much makeup. They think it makes them look less dead.)11 —one of the death hags who serve Izanami the Destroyer, Queen of Death. The shikome’s hair hung in patches from her scalp, which was peeling off her skull. Her eyes were pure white under her false eyelashes and drawn-on eyebrows, and although her lips had caved into her toothless mouth, she’d done her best and smeared a bright red outline of lipstick around the gaping hole.12 When she breathed, it was with a rattling hiss that would make your skin crawl. I didn’t know it then, but she had followed that fox halfway around the world.
And she was waiting for me, too.13
You can find out more about Momo Arashima Steals the Sword of the Wind here.
I axed the explanation of why it was unusual but not improbable to see a fox in the middle of the night. That information was unnecessary and slowed the pace of the sentence.
I added “sharp” to make the two descriptive phrases grammatically parallel, and to make last three phrases rhythmically parallel: “his twitchy nose // and bright black eyes // directly at my window” (2, 3, 3) vs. “his sharp, twitchy nose // and bright black eyes // directly at my window.” (3, 3, 3) It just feels better/more complete this way to me.
I replaced speculation about the moonlight causing the effect of the fox seeming to know Momo (telling) with a more immersive focus on the fox’s actions and Momo’s reaction (showing).
The use of passive voice heightens the sense that Momo has no control over the powerful, possibly violent and scary thing is happening.
I replaced “bonkers” with “unbelievable,” partly to eliminate ableist language on the advice of a reader, and partly to emphasize a character note, which is that Momo sees things that other people don’t believe exist.
Removing the explanation about foxes and adding a sentence of dialog allows for more show-not-tell.
I don’t love this edit, to be honest. I think the first version is better writing. But I wanted readers to know that Momo is trying to convince herself that what she’s seeing isn’t magic. I added “silvery” in an attempt to evoke the feeling of moonlight—as a signal that this is magic, even though Momo doesn’t want to believe it. I’m not sure if it was worth the awkward construction. I probably should have gotten rid of “helped,” which weakens “broke.”
The short sentence fragment at the end of the paragraph contributes to Momo’s voice—it’s a bit snarky, a bit self-deprecating. It pops and sort of brings us up short, so to speak. On a character level, it’s a callback to an earlier sentence about how Momo wants to be “normal” but can’t seem to do it.
Just saying what “it” is doesn’t pack the same punch as showing what she looks/sounds like.
I began the first sentence with a series of gerund (—ing) phrases, partly to plunge into color and emotion after building tension in the previous paragraph, and partly to keep building tension until we roll into the reveal at the end of the sentence: “a shikome…”
I eliminated the bit about why death hags wear makeup because it breaks the tension, and I want readers to be scared.
“She’d done her best” gives the shikome a bit of personality without detracting from the tone; “smeared” conveys a sort of chaotic violence, which tells us even more about the shikome, and the crudeness of the “bright red outline” adds to the chaos.
I love a single sentence paragraph to end a chapter. “Too” confirms to us that the fox is waiting for Momo.