Saving Mr. Calvin
Viewing comments for Chapter 10 "Saving Mr. Calvin - Chapter 8"Golf's legacy and future
11 total reviews
Comment from lancellot
Yes, A very clever girl. She mostly invented the game of golf or kolf. Who knew? I am assuming we are reading the translated, modernized version of their language. Just to make it easier for the readers.
Nice alternative history fiction. I read a few books in this genre.
reply by the author on 17-Jul-2023
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Yes, A very clever girl. She mostly invented the game of golf or kolf. Who knew? I am assuming we are reading the translated, modernized version of their language. Just to make it easier for the readers.
Nice alternative history fiction. I read a few books in this genre.
Comment Written 17-Jul-2023
reply by the author on 17-Jul-2023
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Yes, that's true about the language. I've thrown in just a few Dutch words (courtesy of Google Translate), just to give it a little Dutch flavor, but not too many that it becomes bothersome to have to constantly check the glossary.
Comment from Jay Squires
I like the innocence you have achieved with the two kids enjoying the game of golf they were inventing day-by-day. I'll be straight with you, though. I can only take perhaps one more of a similar type chapter before I begin to wonder ... when is something of a dramatic nature going to happen. This is lacking plot development.
She ran up to the ball with me following, took her position beside the ball, and rapped it into the hole. [But what happened to the ball she spent so much time making?]
I looked down into the hole, and there was no ball at the bottom. [Never mind]
She laughed at this. "Good point." [Now this may be a minor point, but as a writer we have to be careful when our character's behavior leaves an impression on the reader that the writer would like to avoid. By not thinking it out in advance what hitting her valuable ball into a hole might mean, it leaves her, in my (the average reader's) mind, as a person who is a little dense. And I know from what follows that she is far from that. As a possible fix, you might have had her and Killian make a lunge toward the rabbit hole to try to save it.]
Don't get me wrong, you are an excellent writer and this post is fun to read despite what I mentioned above.
Jay
reply by the author on 16-Jul-2023
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I like the innocence you have achieved with the two kids enjoying the game of golf they were inventing day-by-day. I'll be straight with you, though. I can only take perhaps one more of a similar type chapter before I begin to wonder ... when is something of a dramatic nature going to happen. This is lacking plot development.
She ran up to the ball with me following, took her position beside the ball, and rapped it into the hole. [But what happened to the ball she spent so much time making?]
I looked down into the hole, and there was no ball at the bottom. [Never mind]
She laughed at this. "Good point." [Now this may be a minor point, but as a writer we have to be careful when our character's behavior leaves an impression on the reader that the writer would like to avoid. By not thinking it out in advance what hitting her valuable ball into a hole might mean, it leaves her, in my (the average reader's) mind, as a person who is a little dense. And I know from what follows that she is far from that. As a possible fix, you might have had her and Killian make a lunge toward the rabbit hole to try to save it.]
Don't get me wrong, you are an excellent writer and this post is fun to read despite what I mentioned above.
Jay
Comment Written 16-Jul-2023
reply by the author on 16-Jul-2023
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These are valid points you make, Jay. You are right about Arie and the rabbit hole. I have changed that so she has that problem figured out in advance (not in the FanStory copy, though).
As far as the pacing and plot development, there are a couple more chapters where other aspects of the game need to be developed (this is primarily a golf novel after all). When you look back at all this from a broader perspective, this entire development of the game will take place in about 40 pages of a probably 300 page novel. It seems like more when you read it piecemeal the way we do on FS, but it goes pretty quickly when reading it in a complete novel.
That being said, I will be mixing in a little romance in the coming chapter, but fairly soon we'll have a significant plot shift. By the time we get to the end of Part 1, and you've seen this entire section of the story, please let me know again if you think I just spent too much time in developing the aspects of the game, and it got boring, and I will consider trimming that part.
I very much appreciate and respect your comments, Jay.
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You, like no other writer here in memory, consider my words in their broader application and test them for their validity. I like that in you. My suggestions may not always be right, but they are sincere. Thank you for seeing that.
Jay
Comment from Pam Lonsdale
This chapter was more of a "teaching" chapter, and people who don't know the game will learn from it and those who do will relate to it. I love that Arie is helping to shape not only the game, but the equipment used, as well.
I'm liking this story, but struggling to keep up with all of the posts. Are you planning to slow down a little bit, lol?
Thanks Jim for sharing your love of golf with this terrific story.
Pam
reply by the author on 15-Jul-2023
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This chapter was more of a "teaching" chapter, and people who don't know the game will learn from it and those who do will relate to it. I love that Arie is helping to shape not only the game, but the equipment used, as well.
I'm liking this story, but struggling to keep up with all of the posts. Are you planning to slow down a little bit, lol?
Thanks Jim for sharing your love of golf with this terrific story.
Pam
Comment Written 15-Jul-2023
reply by the author on 15-Jul-2023
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Thanks, Pam. I think I may slow it down some to every 3 days instead of the current frequency. Next one will be out Monday.
Comment from Liz O'Neill
This is fascinating to consider this may be how it all began. In some of my readings of historical fictions of Native Americans, there are some interesting origins of games. This is clever. It ranks A+
reply by the author on 15-Jul-2023
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This is fascinating to consider this may be how it all began. In some of my readings of historical fictions of Native Americans, there are some interesting origins of games. This is clever. It ranks A+
Comment Written 15-Jul-2023
reply by the author on 15-Jul-2023
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Thank you so much, Liz, for your great review and the 6 stars. Much appreciated. That's the fun thing about fiction: with few available facts, you get to fill in the blanks yourself and imagine how things might have developed.
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So true. The authors, the Gears, archaeologists, simply put flesh & bones on the historical character.
Comment from lyenochka
Wow, Arie is so clever and she is adding to the game by adding the putting part of golf as well as designing the ball. I hope you story is really how it all started! I like that Arie is always thinking how to improve the game and add new skills to develop!
reply by the author on 15-Jul-2023
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Wow, Arie is so clever and she is adding to the game by adding the putting part of golf as well as designing the ball. I hope you story is really how it all started! I like that Arie is always thinking how to improve the game and add new skills to develop!
Comment Written 14-Jul-2023
reply by the author on 15-Jul-2023
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With nothing but strapping males around who could hit the ball much farther than her, she needed something that didn't require such brute force to do well and where she could excel. Hence, putting.
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Great idea!
Comment from Carol Hillebrenner
Arie had a really great idea, didn't she? The game seems fully planned except for the finer points. Now what's next, except for a lot more kolf and maybe Arie and Kilian doing some kissy face?
reply by the author on 14-Jul-2023
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Arie had a really great idea, didn't she? The game seems fully planned except for the finer points. Now what's next, except for a lot more kolf and maybe Arie and Kilian doing some kissy face?
Comment Written 14-Jul-2023
reply by the author on 14-Jul-2023
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Your instincts are extraordinary, Carol. It's like you've read this book already!
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I'm supposed to be a writer with plotting instincts.
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You certainly have those!
Comment from royowen
Anyone who has done woodwork would know how hard it would be to make a a piece of wood in the the shape of a sphere. But Arie's clever dad managed to for sure, one would think if they designed a ball with the elasticity of a golf ball, they would hit it even further, which has me pondering how the golf ball came into being. Like a hockey ball or a cricket ball, which have a cork core. Beautifully wrutten, blessings Roy
reply by the author on 14-Jul-2023
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Anyone who has done woodwork would know how hard it would be to make a a piece of wood in the the shape of a sphere. But Arie's clever dad managed to for sure, one would think if they designed a ball with the elasticity of a golf ball, they would hit it even further, which has me pondering how the golf ball came into being. Like a hockey ball or a cricket ball, which have a cork core. Beautifully wrutten, blessings Roy
Comment Written 14-Jul-2023
reply by the author on 14-Jul-2023
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How far a wooden ball would go, I don't really know. I don't think it would have the spring-like effect of today's golf balls which have stiff rubber-like polymer cores. They used to make them with solid or liquid-filled cores with thousands of feet of rubber band wound around them. Before that they were made of a substance called gutta percha. Before that, was boiled goose feathers inside of leather pouches, and before that it was wood. It's an interesting history.
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t remember those old golf balls
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The feathery's too? I didn't know you were quite that old, Roy!
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That?s me
Comment from JSD
And we have putting. Marvellous. All beautifully described through your entertaining characters. Well done. I look forward to the next instalment.
John
reply by the author on 14-Jul-2023
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And we have putting. Marvellous. All beautifully described through your entertaining characters. Well done. I look forward to the next instalment.
John
Comment Written 14-Jul-2023
reply by the author on 14-Jul-2023
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Thanks, John. Now all we need is the short game (pitching and chipping) and we've got most of it. (Bunker play will come much later in the story.)
Comment from Kaiku
Many years ago I was an instructor for Mundus Institute in Phoenix, AZ. The subject matter was Golf management. One of the papers I wrote as an introduction to the class was on the beginnings of the game and how it came to be. Your story would have been fun to offer as a reading assignment in both Kolf and humor.
reply by the author on 14-Jul-2023
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Many years ago I was an instructor for Mundus Institute in Phoenix, AZ. The subject matter was Golf management. One of the papers I wrote as an introduction to the class was on the beginnings of the game and how it came to be. Your story would have been fun to offer as a reading assignment in both Kolf and humor.
Comment Written 14-Jul-2023
reply by the author on 14-Jul-2023
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I don't know how much of this happened the way I describe because there are so few details about the earliest days of the game. There is more later when it arrives in Scotland, but very little about it in Holland. But it's fun to speculate.
Comment from barbara.wilkey
They have a nice round ball and a Kolf for their short game. This is working out well. I enjoyed reading. Thank you for sharing.
"Good point," she laughed.
("Good point." She laughed. {because laughed is an action tag, not a speech tag})
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reply by the author on 14-Jul-2023
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They have a nice round ball and a Kolf for their short game. This is working out well. I enjoyed reading. Thank you for sharing.
"Good point," she laughed.
("Good point." She laughed. {because laughed is an action tag, not a speech tag})
This rating does not count towards story rating or author rank.
The highest and the lowest rating are not included in calculations.
Comment Written 14-Jul-2023
reply by the author on 14-Jul-2023
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It's fun to make this stuff up. There are very few details I could find about the earliest clubs and balls, so I'm having fun imagining how they may have come about.
Thanks for the good catch!