Some do (although that might depend on the definition of swimming, but in its broadest sense, yes). They don't spend hours in the water or anything and many do just dip and get out, but some swim around the hole in the ice if it's big enough for that or submerge themselves completely repeatedly, but I'd venture to say that most people stay in less than a minute. Kids and skinny people go ice swimming just as much as heavy adults, at least around here. @KaTrian went ice swimming for the first time when she was around 3 years old (give or take a year) and she was always a skinny girl (don't think her body fat has ever been over 15%).
Well, this is two years after she has started her training, and in a winter environment... that adds up to not too much food. So she's leanly muscled, but yes, thinner than normal. Her clothing in that timeframe also mostly consists of animal skins and furs. This character has been training to kill the Shifters for two years. She is definitely not a stranger to violence after witnessing the massacre of her village, her brother, and her parents. I'm going to say that her falling unconscious in this scene was due to her losing control of her powers again. (in this case, she almost stopped time)
http://www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm I'm sorry, I don't mean any offence. It's just that this paragraph set off warning bells. As to hypothermia etc, I don't think you've anything to worry about with all the crazy magical stuff going on to distract from reality. Science sure didn't seem to bother Stephanie Meyer.
Did i ever say this wasn't a fantasy book? I'm not completely unrealistic though, mind you, hence the reason i asked about hypothermia to begin with. *sigh* And no, she's definitely not a Mary Sue -she ends up bedridden after this event for a while. Plus this is only the second (possibly third if you include the event in Altheria...) time in the book that she has even activated her powers, if unintentionally. It's hard to explain how a Starshade's powers work as they are activated on the basis of emotions. And they can have different effects depending on each individual situation. That not only makes them dangerous to the surrounding people and landscape, but to the Starshade herself as she has little to no control. Most of the time just activating them ends in death. Also, most of the book ends up based on her trying to escape the Shifters using mundane means, since her powers are actually locked up due to a dark spirit shield that's around the mountain (aka: the Fortress was carved into it and no the Shifters aren't dwarves, they are just not the original inhabitants of the Fortress). I would probably need to explain the above, but there is a **** ton of history with these people. One that involves war, a cursed winter, and two hundred years-worth of notes compacted into only four.
Did the test on original story and literally only had to say yes to one because she does have unusual powers. As for her love life, LOL I am writing YA not erotica. The guys doesn't kiss her until chapter 42 for Pete's sakes.
I think Mary Sue is never in character's qualities or the events in the story, it's all about how the character is written. Excessive author insertion, where you feel the author is 'protecting' the character, justifying and baby-ing, unable to separate from it enough to allow it to truly have a life of its own, that creates Mary Sue/Gary Stu type characters. They make readers rolleye and sap all the fun out of the story, because they are just too 'precious'.
Protect: to keep safe from harm or injury This character is far from protected. Either mentally or physically. I could go very detailed on this matter, but i won't because i doubt it would be much use. @Macaberz sorry to drag you into this but you are familliar with my characters and I'd like your view on this. Also guys, i only asked about hypothermia to start with.
@Keitsumah : I worry this is turning into 'lady doth protest too much'. I didn't imply your character was a Mary Sue, why so defensive? ps. Mary Sue characters can still have loads of harm come their way, but they always magnificently prevail. As per what I said in my previous comment.
Well, the rest of you may not like me saying this but.... Most people don't really know much about hypothermia. You could say that the fire alone kept her from death, unless you want to make her struggle to survive it part of the story. This sounds like fantasy, so you could say the wolf boy used his magic to keep her from death.
This was cool but I didn't want to start a new thread: Gunshot victims to be suspended between life and death There's a saying that a hypothermic patient isn't dead until they are warm and dead. We had a cold water drowning once who had a flat EEG for three days then abruptly woke up close to normal. They think he was at the bottom of the pool about 45 minutes.
I am normally very skeptical of any claim to the efficacy of cryogenics, if only because when you find a corpse on the side of a mountain there's really nothing that can be done. The frozen lakes you might fall into out here are all at 8,000 feet or more, and it's a long ride for the EMTs.
The point of this research is to apply it to people who arrive in the ED alive, but not likely to make it. I had a sister in law that had an MI. Young, only 44, she had cardiomyopathy. She got CPR and was revived by EMS 10 minutes later but never woke up. That's when I read anything and everything about not getting to the ED in time, even with CPR. It's the free radicals that accumulate in the system which do a lot of the brain damage.
@Keitsumah Well, you asked for it. Though I wouldn’t dub your character “A” a Mary Sue, I do think she falls into the pit of melodrama several times, and not to her benefit, nor to the benefit for the rest of the story. But before I delve into what you could improve to make her more grounded as a character, I’d like to take this opportunity to say something else. Keit, I know you’ve been working very hard on this story for, what is it, years? You yourself say you have loads of notes and every so often I hear you say, “well I could explain it, but there is this enormous history taking place prior to it.” That’s all fine, but the reason I am bringing this up is that I feel you’re standing far too close to your story. From an objective point of view, you do get quite defensive about your story, a typical signal that you’re too close to it. I think most of us have been there. Your story is your baby and I get that, but if you’re so protective of it, all the good advice in the world will fall on deaf ears. So I urge you, as an internet friend, to leave your story be for six weeks. Not a day less, and not a day more. No note making, no re-reading bits, not even drawing anything related. You’re not even allowed to think about it too much, and when you do find yourself thinking about it, you will start doing something else immediately. It won’t be easy but the reward will be so worth it. I can’t spell it out plainly enough for you. If you do this, you will come back to your story with fresh eyes, and you’ll be able to see a lot of things that completely slip past you right now. When I say lots of things, I really do mean lots of things. Just to add a little weight to my argument, this is not my advice. It is Stephen King’s and many writer blogs repeat this advice and give examples of how it worked for them. I cannot emphasize enough how important this is, not just for any writer, but for you, specifically, at this point in time. I can hardly make my advice any more personal than this. I’ve actually been thinking about this whole issue for two hours straight, as I was travelling back home from college. If you chose not to distance yourself, I do sincerely believe the results will be nothing short of disastrous for your story. Cue dramatic drum roll please. But seriously, if you keep close to it you will lose yourself in it and you will be blind and deaf to the flaws that others might point out. Have you ever found yourself in love? And then you did silly things that seemed brilliant at the moment but were nothing short of stupid in hindsight? This is exactly the same. You’re so deeply wrapped within the ink and paper that there’s almost no reason left for you to write this story. Why not? Because you know it in-side-out. You know it so well that your ability to communicate it as a novel will begin to dwindle. You’re losing yourself in the details and I would add, the wrong sort of details at that. As a reader I can easily suspend my disbelief at someone falling in an icy river and surviving. However, reading about someone shifting into wolf form to save the damsel in distress (who is supposed to be a strong character), will only work if you’ve managed to dispel my disbelief first. Moreover, this sounds a lot like a plot driven scene, not a character driven scene. The difference? This scene feels forced to me. I can tell you want to put this in for the sake of having this dramatic moment happening. You didn’t write it because the story naturally led you there, no, you forced the story to bend towards this climax. It feels like a set-up, as if you make the reader turn around a corner where a bunch of actors are cued to start acting out this scene, only they start a little too late and I can tell that they had been waiting for me to arrive. It feels superficial and gives your characters as much depth as a cardboard cut-out. Moving far beyond the boundaries of your initial question, I think there is a key problem with your character “A”. From all the things I’ve read about her, and from all the scenes that she is in, she strikes me as passive. That is why people bring up the Mary Sue, because here you have this character who has all these dramatic things happening to her because…? Well? Why is this happening to her? Once again it strikes me as plot. It happens to her so that this next thing can happen, and then that next thing, etc… I don’t think you want to go about your story that way. I think you want to start with a character in a scene, and a vague idea of the world she is in and start writing away. Let the story write itself, let the characters guide you. Don’t force the plot. Is she just a victim? If so, when will she start fighting back? If she gets nearly killed after two years of training by sheer bad luck, I have trouble rooting for her. Apparently this character cannot overcome her streak of misfortune. Apparently those two years of training meant nothing and she still needs to be saved. You can only shove so much misfortune down my throat before I lose the will to read on. Not only was her hometown raided, she lost her brother during the raid and even before that she lost her parents to a fire (if I recall correctly). After two years of training I want to see the difference. She probably escaped her hometown during the raid, and now you’re telling me she is still as helpless two years later? Sure, you can have her get hit by an arrow, but how about she struggles to swim back up, how about making her fight for her life and hanging on, only to be dragged out by the wolf while she is bleeding out. Make her fight her predicament. Make her active, make her fight back and hold on to her dear life. I don’t want a moment’s rest. I want to be put on the damned edge of my chair as she struggles to climb back ashore. I want her to make it out, and if she doesn’t make it, I know she won’t whimper or complain. I know she’ll be strong. Perhaps her assailant even shoots her again as she is clawing her way out. Only then does the wolf appear to tear the archer to shreds (out of a territorial drift of sorts). Perhaps he even considers to let her bleed out, but then he sees that she is unwilling to give up and, as a wolf, he respects that and decides to help her out. Point being, you must make me root for her at this stage. You must convey that she will never give up. You want to show that if the wolf hadn’t appeared, she wouldn’t have gone out like a candle, but that she continued to fight her way up until her dying breath. I don’t want to read about a fantasy super Mario plot where the tanned, muscular peep with the abs gets to save this helpless character time and time again. One twilight is enough thank you very much. (Oh and you really don’t ever want to compare your wolf characters to Twilight, I think that comparison alone made a lot of alarm bells ring in people’s heads) If there’s any promise that things will get better, and that she is working on it, then I’ll keep going, but if it is just dramatic accident after dramatic accident, I will soon get tired of it. So there you have it. Please, please, please distance yourself from your writing. Every second you keep at it is another second hurting yourself in the long haul. Six weeks. On doctor’s prescription. You can keep writing completely unrelated short stories or start drawing comics or whatever. Just don’t touch this colossal work of yours. Don’t, don’t, don’t.
This is why I need you around to hit me over the head with the obvious. And it's not like i can work on my book anyways -my computer still wont turn on so until my dad can get me a new video card I'll have to deal. Now the irony of that makes me laugh.
I am very happy to see you are taking it so well. It isn't easy, not at all. I really think you'd do well to start working on short stories, perhaps even outside of Fantasy/Sci-fi. Also, you might enjoy this channel for writing advice, I watch a video a day to keep myself entertained...and to learn of course! https://www.youtube.com/user/WriteAboutDragons
And of course i come up with something overnight.... and ima shock you with this one. How about non-fiction? (btw, watched some of those videos they are very interesting)
Now THAT would make your eyes pop out. But that alone is a huge project, even bigger than my novels, so no. But i think ill type up a "short story" kind of thing. There is a video lying around when my family was put on the news in Holland -you may have seen it i just need to find it...
(about the eye-popping thing) I doubt you know anyone who's been so...well let's just say i've been involved with animals in ways that should have killed me sometimes. Or at least greatly injured me. I sill laugh when i think about that time i stuck my head into a hole in a tree and came nose-to-nose with a raccoon. Literally. But we were both so shocked that we stared at each other for a full two seconds before i flipped out and jumped away.
As others have pointed out the signs of huypothermia can come on very quickly. Does she need to go the fortress immidiatelly? Can you take her to shore, build a fire, warm her up and dry her clothes, then sneak her into the fortress? That is what we would do in real life
I agree with Macaberz. Maybe instead of someone rescuing her, she rescues herself? Knowing what she knows about hypothermia, she proceeds to treat herself by getting out of the wet clothes and into dry ones and find/make a source of warmth. Come to think of it, her training would instantly kick in the moment she finds herself in mortal danger, initiating a strong surge of adrenaline that'll keep her going for as long as she can to stave off the hypothermia. You'd be surprised at what adrenaline can do for a person in times of urgency, and with this young lady and her training? Oh yeah, she can do this herself. Her wolf friend will just have to sit there. Well, he can lend her aid if needed but remember, she's got years of training under her belt, so she's not exactly Madame Civilian #2,246 who took a wrong turn on her stroll. Or maybe he's the one who needs rescuing? Just a thought, you don't have to do it.
