Lantern Girl

The world from the eyes of a girl in a paper lantern.

If you look high enough into the sky on a clear night, you might just be able to see it.  Maybe faintly, but it’s still there. A small paper lantern, just floating through the stars, it’s warm yellow light glowing faintly against the darkness. And this is no ordinary lantern. Inside the lantern lives a girl.  She’s no bigger than the size of a thumb, and her frame is very delicate- almost fairy like.  She sits crouched inside the lantern, her knees tucked in, her small arms hugging them tight against her body. Her large eyes gaze outward to the large world that she can only see, never to enter.

She soars through the clouds in the great sky, gazing at the world and its doing from the safety inside the lantern.  Nothing from the world remains hidden from her sweet and childlike eye.  She sees all, the good and the bad.

She sees the first, beautiful cries of a newborn baby.  She sees the look a couple exchanges at the marriage altar- promising their life, their future, and their love for all eternity to each other.  She sees the work of humanity, volunteers bringing food to the hungry and homeless.  She sees the less obvious works of humanity as well- in the small charitable acts that people do every day. And every time she sees these things, her heart and spirit grow warm and a smile is brought to her face.  The paper lantern rises higher into the air and then drifts in the expanse of the great sky.

But the world is not all good, and the girl sees much that makes her weep as well.  She sees children in pain because of neglect from their parents.  She has seen the bloody battlefields and bodies left behind because conflicts that arise between humans.  She sees men act indecently toward each other, not seeming to have any moral compass whatsoever.  

She sees all this, and so much more.  And every time she sees something of this nature her heart grows heavy, the sadness of the world weighing upon her. The lantern sinks toward the earth.

For the past hundreds and hundreds of years, this girl has traveled the world, the lantern rising and falling with her emotions. So, still she travels, but every passing year, every passing day, she gets closer and closer to the ground.  Closer and closer to crashing. I believe now she is on the brink of falling, and humanity has almost gone too far to save her. And then the there will be no more of the pure heart who sees all, the little lantern girl.

Reviews

[David Jae]

I enjoyed reading this.

It is strong and emotional, conveying powerful emotions that I can relate to.

I love your concept of your protagonist.

If there is a criticism, it is that you use a little too much show, not tell.

E.g. Nothing remains hidden from her sweet, childlike eye.

It is boring to just tell the reader that she is innocent and childlike, when you can show it.

For example, you could have her smile at the sunrise, at children at play, etc. In this way, you show what she is like without saying so.

What I like are the descriptions of the things that she sees and how they make her feel.

You should be proud of this.

Ganbare

[Jonathan Lee]

I feel precisely the opposite. The whole "show, not tell" paradigm might be fine advice for contemporary 21st century American literature, but it presumes that all fiction needs to fall neatly into this set of conventions. If you look back at older folklore traditions as they were codified in the 19th century, it is all "tell" with virtually no "show."

The advantage "telling" has over "showing" is that you don't distract the reader from the key points. Fables, allegories, and moralistic folk stories all have a purpose and something to express explicitly--even if dense contemporary readers sometimes miss that. In that regard, superfluous sensory details that serve only to paint some kind of literal picture in the reader's mind is a complete waste of time.

Unlike the majority of submissions I received for the "Fairy Tales" contest, dabblingrosalie is one of the few that seem to understand this older set of conventions and she has crafted a decent fairy tale accordingly.

[Jonathan Lee]

Great job, dabblingrosalie. You've really crafted an interesting allegory for the state of the world. I really appreciated the symbolism and the persistent perfect present tense maintained throughout the narrative.

Here's a few suggestions I humbly submit that may make this even better:
- In the last sentence of your fourth paragraph you write "men" but elsewhere refer to "humans" and "humanity." You could change this to "humans" for consistency, but personally I would prefer you instead use the older conventions of "men" for "humans" and "man" or "the world" instead of "humanity." Using "human" and "humanity" as nouns is a very scientific post-Darwin way of referring to people that only really caught on in the 20th century. On the flip side, with your mention of "volunteers" and the like, I imagine this is addressed to a contemporary audience, but nonetheless how the narrative is otherwise communicated reminds me of older folklore literature (which is what I liked about it).
- Your sudden reference to yourself in the second to last sentence seems a bit jarring to me. If you simply removed "I believe" your voice would be more consistent.
- In the first sentence of your last paragraph, I would suggest changing "emotions" to "feelings." It alliterates with "falling" and it carries the weight of judgement, rather than the simply transient and subjective cloud of "emotions."

As with any other advice, take it with a grain of salt. On the whole, I enjoyed this tale.

[dabblingrosalie]

Thank you so much! I really appreciate the constructive criticism, I can use all the help I can get :)

[Takeshi Yamada]

Nice story! :) The intriguing title was a great hook. And I like the idea of the lantern girl. I hope she doesn't fall to the Earth. Quick! Everyone remember your humanity!

[Literally Words]

I like this story! Your such a great writer.