quote: The leaves were more green the last time I visited Joyce's family. Every time I visit, it seems the leaves are wilting more than they were the last time. As if the family reflects the leaves, they too seem a bit more sullen, drawn in by sadness. One of the children, Brian, I believe, was playing on the swings, just like last time, but he was only swinging, and not climbing on the set like before, with his sister. My watch says I have five minutes, so I sit down on the bench and wait. This is my fourth visit here. Krystal, the teenager, carrying her back pack from school and what she thinks is the weight of the world, walks into the house and heads upstairs. I wait for her in the kitchen, and as she comes down she takes a look at me and runs away. People always run away once they can see me. Someday, I hope God gives me a suit and car, and not this cloak and scythe. It would be better for business.
[ January 19, 2004, 04:30 PM: Message edited by: dkw ]
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
One point for guessing, with reason given for the guesses. No points for subsequent guesses, unless you guess right. You can guess as many times as you want each round, but one guess at a time. (You can guess again after I answer your outstanding guess.)
*blink* Ok, the surprise at the end is NICELY done -- and funny!
I like the leaf/tree metaphor.
I know this is meant to be a stream-of-consciousness bit, but there are too many commas. And a paragraph break or two might help.
I guess ScottR
Guessed and "No"ed: ScottR Icarus Tom Davidson BelladonnaOrchid Scythrop celia Sopwith
Guessed but Not Yet Answered: T_Smith saxon75
[ January 19, 2004, 04:09 PM: Message edited by: rivka ]
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
Interesting concept; I've certainly never seen a stream of consciousness done from the perspective of Death. I like the attention to detail, the very clear scene being narrated. However, some of the language, especially punctuation, felt a bit clunky to me.
quote:Every time I visit, it seems the leaves are wilting more than they were the last time. As if the family reflects the leaves, they too seem a bit more sullen, drawn in by sadness.
I think these sentences seem like they were deliberately written this way, but I think they might flow a little better as ". . . are wilting more than they were the last time, as if the family reflects the leaves. They, too, seem a bit more sullen, drawn in by sadness."
quote:One of the children, Brian, I believe, was playing on the swings, just like last time, but he was only swinging, and not climbing on the set like before, with his sister.
This sentence is too long, I think. It may benefit some from including some em-dashes, and being split into a couple of shorter ones. Plus there are a ton of commas. "One of the children--Brian, I believe--was playing on the swings, just like last time. But he was only swinging and not climing on the set with his sister, like before."
quote:Krystal, the teenager, carrying her back pack from school and what she thinks is the weight of the world, walks into the house and heads upstairs.
I love the implicit characterization here. It works so well. We get not only an insight into Krystal, but into the narrator, who makes a judgment about Krystal.
Overall, I have to say I like it. I think the author would benefit from a good editor, but there's a strong base underneath the minor problems.
Posted by esl (Member # 3143) on :
No guess saxon?
I agree with him on those points. Some of the sentences are too long and have a lot of commas. And I like it too. I usually avoid these threads cuz the excerpts are so short and I don't get any more or the story. This is no exception.
Adding on to what saxon said, I think the first sentence would sound better if you switched it around. So
quote: Last time I visited Joyce's family, the leaves were more green.
But the leaves are emphasized more the way it is now. I don't know if that's what you're going for.
Random guess: Icarus
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
No and no.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
I guess Tom Davidson.
Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
This passage has two things I really can't stand in most fiction: first person perspective and a stream of conscious. Done to death, grindingly done to death.
It does have something I like, though, a neat twist at the end that I really didn't expect. The paragraph could be expanded to an entire story with no more than you have here. You need to work on pacing and drawing the reader in more to the scene rather than just reporting what is seen.
Sadly, springing the surprise at the end of the paragraph leaves you with limited directions to go. I'm not sure that with an entire book following along behind it, you'd ever get that deep down shock that you get at the end of the first paragraph.
My guess is that the writer is young and female. There's something feminine about the touch applied and the sentence structure is that of a youngish writer.
So, gonna offer BelladonnaOrchid as my guess.
Posted by Julie (Member # 5580) on :
I thought this was good, but there are a couple of places that caught me. I think "more green" should have been switched to greener. Also,
quote: One of the children, Brian, I believe, was playing on the swings, just like last time, but he was only swinging, and not climbing on the set like before, with his sister.
This part made me stop to examine which things were last time which ones were this time. Especially "he was only swinging." Maybe you should add "this time"? Otherwise I thought it was really good, and the bit at the end is a nice touch. I'm gonna guess Scythrop because it sounds like scythe.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
I liked the twist at the end. Didn't get emotionally involved with the family at all
Based on this quote alone I'm guessing Celia... I think it is a play on her "evilness"
quote: I wait for her in the kitchen, and as she comes down she takes a look at me and runs away. People always run away once they can see me. Someday, I hope God gives me a suit and car, and not this cloak and scythe. It would be better for business.
AJ
Posted by Tristan (Member # 1670) on :
quote:The leaves were more green the last time I visited Joyce's family.
I agree with esl that the sentence would flow more naturally if you switched it around. Also, I would prefer "greener" to "more green". As a non native speaker, I feel out of my depth with the grammar here, but to my ear it sounds better. Greener pastures and all that. The sentence would then read:
"Last time I visited Joyce's family the leaves were greener."
On the other hand, it might be possible to scrap the first sentence altogether and instead have the second one reading:
"Every time I visit Joyce's family, it seems the leaves are wilting more than they were the last time."
But I feel I may doing the author a disservice here; I am not a big fan of stream of conciousness writing or having the narrative in the present tense. Thus I'm injecting my bias and am attempting to correct something the probably is an deliberate effect: that the narrative voice is a little clumsy and prone to repeat itself and not always the clear prose that is my ideal.
quote:One of the children, Brian, I believe, was playing on the swings, just like last time, but he was only swinging, and not climbing on the set like before, with his sister.
Even with the reservation of being stream of conciousness, this sentence is simply to convoluted. The reader has to think to be sure what exactly is happening. Is he swinging with his sister now or did he climb with her on the previous visit? The commas are very noticable. I would fix it by changing the punctuation thusly:
"One of the children, Brian I believe, was playing on the swings just like last time; but he was only swinging with his sister and not climbing on the set like before."
Hey, only two commas left! This change presuppose that the punctuation was correct the first time and they were swinging together and not climbing, of course.
quote:I wait for her in the kitchen, and as she comes down she takes a look at me and runs away. People always run away once they can see me.
This doesn't really make sense. If people always run away from Death, how does he work? Does he show himself to the victim a distance away from the intended place of death and let him or her run towards it? Presuming people still die of natural (or unnatural) causes and Death is just there to collect their souls, there are only a limited number of circumstances in which they would have the opportunity to run before meeting their fate. Besides, It seems unnecessary to limit the reaction of characters in a situation that will potentially occur quite often in the course of the story. Judging from the last sentence, this is at least partly a comical piece and the various reactions from people meeting Death could be the source of many humouristic scenes -- but not so much if they all start with running away.
Overall, I like it. The snippet is intriguing. Obviously the family is very big: three deaths already, and at least three more kids to go... Perhaps they are LDS? (Prejudice showing.)
I am uncertain where I ought to go with the guessing; I leaning toward the idea that this is written by someone a little older. Male or female, I can't say. I'm going to guess:
Sopwith.
[ January 19, 2004, 04:00 PM: Message edited by: Tristan ]
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
By the way, I'm not sure if this was done on purpose, but I really like the inclusion of the name "Joyce" in a stream of consciousness piece.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
No to all.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
I like the twist at the end of the paragraph. A good start...
I think the writing could be tighter. Probably should be. You have a somewhat jaded tone going here that I like a lot -- I figure "Death" would be sort of jaded about people's attitudes on everything. Since almost nothing they were doing in their last moments would matter anymore. And yet they would always think it did matter.
As an example of where you did this good was in the description of the teenager with "what she thinks is the weight of the world..." That really works. I think you could tighten the prose to heighten it. But it works as is.
The imagery of the family's spirits failing like the color in the leaves is good too. Very evocative. You might heighten it here too. Maybe a weak breeze is blowing dead leaves around and the boy seems to be swinging slowly in time to the gusts...
I was going to guess Tom D, but then I changed my mind, and someone already guessed him...
So:
I'll go with T_Smith
Posted by Julie (Member # 5580) on :
I'm thinking maybe this is someone whose native language isn't english. (I'm not saying it's bad or anything, it's just that more green has to be either deliberate or because the author doesn't have the instinct to say greener. And I'm picking the first one.) Unfortunately I still don't know enough about the people here so I'll take a wild guess and hope that Dante is from somewhere else. Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
We have a winner!
(And it's Bob)
Edit, becasue of simultaneous posting.
[ January 19, 2004, 04:09 PM: Message edited by: dkw ]
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Hmm. I hadn't noticed that, saxy. It is indeed clever. Kind of you to point it out . . .
Based on his last post, I guess saxon75.
Posted by Julie (Member # 5580) on :
Since you posted at the same time as me I'm guessing T_Smith wrote it.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Quite.
Posted by Julie (Member # 5580) on :
Kind of ironic that Bob won, since he was the one claiming ghost bumps. Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
*blink* That was a short round . . .
Nice work, T_Smith! Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Hot Diggity!!!
I assume we'll continue giving T some comments even though the round ended amazingly quickly due to phenomenal insights and just plain in-tunedness to the cosmic plane.
Posted by Brinestone (Member # 5755) on :
I agree with almost everything that has been said so far. I'd personally make this paragraph into three or four before dropping the bomb. That way, you can work little clues into the narrative that will please readers on their subsequent reads.
The biggest suggestion I have now is that you let the readers know much earlier whether Death is coming for just Joyce or for Joyce's whole family. If just Joyce, who is she? She must be an important member of this family, since all of them seem so affected by her imminent passing.
I think you can make this clear before dropping the bomb without betraying who the viewpoint character is.
Also watch tense. You switched from past to present. I don't think anyone else said that yet.
Posted by Scythrop (Member # 5731) on :
Darn - I go overseas for a bit and miss an entire round! Nice work T_Smith - I really enjoyed it, especially the end - reminded me a little of the book "on a pale horse" (by Nicholas Fisk I think ??) but better done... Hope I get in early enough for a guess next time - especially if the writing quality stays this good......
cheers
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
I'm going to critique, even though the author has already been noodled.
Keep your tense straight-- you skip from past tense ("The leaves were. . .") to present tense ("My watch says. . ."). I liked the present tense better, which is unusual for me. Usually, I think it's pretentious.
But it works here.
The suprise at the end of the passage works so well, I don't have words. There is a little sense of foreboding, what with the withering trees, the narrator's familiarity with the family, but seeming unwillingness to make himself known to anyone but Jenny. . .
The strength of this passage is the deep characterization. Most people can't pull off first person very well-- and here, at least for a brief time, you've done so marvelously.
Bravo.
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
A note: On A Pale Horse was written by Piers Anthony.
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