Critique for 'Dawnstar' (900 words)

[Cat's Cradle]

She felt a familiar squirm of fear bubble up before she swiftly crushed back down; her father’s training had been very good at beating that particular emotion out of her.

Hi KyleAW! Interesting excerpt! I have time just for a few quick thoughts, both, actually, on this one sentence. First, I think there is a grammatical issue in the first half of the sentence. This reads:
She felt a familiar squirm of fear bubble up before she swiftly crushed back down;

It seems as if this should read one of two ways (other than as it is currently written):
She felt a familiar squirm of fear bubble up that she swiftly crushed back down;
She felt a familiar squirm of fear bubble up before she swiftly crushed it back down;

The other thing is that there seems to be a bit of a contradiction in content between the first and second halves of the sentence. We're told at first that she "felt a familiar squirm of fear"...so, she is familiar with the dawning sensations of fear; but in the second half we're told that her father's training had beaten fear out of her (which implies that she should not be familiar at all with even the beginnings moments of the sensations of fear). Possibly you could say that her father's training had taught her how to quickly quash any rising fear she might ever feel? Just my thoughts, but both of these small things took me out of the story for a moment. Best of luck with the book! CC

 

[KyleAW]

Good thoughts Cat's Cradle.

It seems as if this should read one of two ways (other than as it is currently written):
She felt a familiar squirm of fear bubble up that she swiftly crushed back down;
She felt a familiar squirm of fear bubble up before she swiftly crushed it back down;

I'd say this is a classic case of the word being there in my head, less so on the paper (the word missing was 'it'...)

Again, I am happy I joined this site; I have both found that I have far to go, but that I am better than I feared.