posted
Well, the common reaction to most of my writing has been a resounding "huh?", so I figured I'd go WAYYY to the beginning of my tale. If this isn't clear enough, well.. I don't know what to tell you! --- The skyline of Royale District was lit with so many fireworks, it bathed the granduer architechture of the city in a radiant hue, and one would have thought it day. The eruption of color and light, punctuated every second by deafening rolls of thunder, had never ceased to amaze the crowd. Fireworks still had their touch, and even the watercolor night sky welcomed their presence. The whole city moved as one and the roar of applause and spectacle reverberated off the beige city walls. Acarta was in celebration, or was it jubilation, for the foreboding years ahead. "So are you ready for this?" Corello murmured to Carmaine. Carmaine chuckled, picked up his rifle, and fell in line next to him. "For what? The parade?" "No, the war right after." --- I hope this fits. I've been trying to make sure my entries are only 13 lines, but my lack of a proffesional word program makes it a little hard. Forgive me.
My last two 'first 13' have started the story pretty far into the tales actual timeline, so i've gone to the start of it all. For those still trying to connect some dots with previous posts, carmaine was the boy in the mirror. Thanks again for input!
posted
Well, I haven't read the other fragments, so I suppose going in unbiased will be helpful. Yeah?
Right. Here is what's good about this introductory fragment: The setting is being developed -- good! And presumably the main characters are being introduced -- also good!
There are some things that are not-so-good about this fragment. The easy ones are grammar, spelling, and punctuation. The first sentence is a bit passive (passive voice using "was" -- I'll explain below) and perhaps is trying too hard in my opinion. Consider making it two sentences for best reader comprehension. And it's unclear whose POV we are in, which if the first sentence were edited into two sentences, a perfect opportunity to establish POV exists.
The good news is that everything is easily fixed, I think.
Passive voice: That first sentence could be much stronger if it were rephrased -- it's the "was lit" that is passive. Now, there's nothing wrong with using passive voice from time to time, as long as it's not done all the time or too much (judgment call there). But that first sentence seems a bit weak. So, consider the following (very roughly):
"Fireworks lit up the Royal District skyline and bathed the grandeur architecture in a radiant hue. So many fireworks that Carmaine thought it could be mistaken for daytime."
That's all I wanted to point out. I'll leave the rest for others. But as introductions go, this has promise. It simply needs a bit of tightening here and there.
Good luck.
[This message has been edited by HSO (edited December 18, 2005).]
posted
I haven't read your earlier versions, either.
I love the visual I get from this. I can easily imagine the thousands of people caught up in a city-wide festival! The colourful, surging crowd, bursting fireworks... good job.
A couple of things caught my attention, however. HSO made some good points, and hopefully I can help with the tightening
quote:Fireworks still had their touch, and even the watercolor night sky welcomed their presence.
I had to read this sentence a few times and I'm still not sure I get it. We know from the previous sentence that the fireworks are doing a good job of keeping the people entertained. "Fireworks still had their touch" suggests to me that perhaps these celebrations are common and fireworks had been used on different occasions to good effect. But then again, why should I care? If this isn't what you were trying to emphasize, I think you could, to much greater effect, append the "and even the watercolor night sky welcomed their presence" to the previous sentence. By the way, "watercolor night sky" is also great imagery for me!
quote:Acarta was in celebration, or was it jubilation, for the foreboding years ahead.
Hmmmm. Celebration and jubilation are very closely related, although not exactly the same in definition. I would pick one of them, or remove "was it" since it makes me think you couldn't make up your mind and threw in "jubilation" in case the reader didn't like their first option.
quote:Carmaine chuckled, picked up his rifle, and fell in line next to him.
The only other thing that bothered me was the use of pronouns in this sentence. We only know about two active characters at this point in the scene, so the confusion is minor, but you have an opportunity to state the relationship between these two by changing the end to something like "...fell in line next to his brother/cousin/best friend". This would work well with HSO's suggestion to establish POV earlier. Who are we focusing on, Corello or Carmaine?
posted
Hmmm…the lengthy, detailed description was too much for me. You gave me too many details to hold in my head while reading more details. I think you could strip your description of the city down to enough for the reader to understand there is a celebration going on. There are fireworks lighting the sidewalks as our MCs walk along.
The three lines of dialogue were very good. I am not sure, though, about where the narrative beat about Carmaine should go.
Perhaps –
"So are you ready for this?" Corello murmured to Carmaine.
Carmaine chuckled, picked up his rifle, and fell in line next to him. "For what? The parade?"
"No, the war right after."
That seems slightly better. Repeat the word “ready” maybe? Such as --
"So are you ready for this?" Corello murmured to Carmaine.
Carmaine chuckled, picked up his rifle, and fell in line next to him. "Ready for what? The parade?"
"No, the war right after."
Cutting down on the excessive (my opinion) description would allow you more space to put in actual story on that first page.
posted
I think what is going on in this beginning is very clear and (after the bit of rewriting that others have suggest) it is a story I would read more of. However, I did not really care for the character names being so similar, both beginning with "Cs", ending in a vowel and being of very similar lengths. Having to think which name is which could take me out of the flow of a story, if they both are main characters.
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posted
Thanks again for the input you guys are giving. I appreciate it and am putting it to use. I actually picked up on the thought that the two names were too similar as well and have changed it to Renault.
As for the lengthy description, I'll see what I am willing to cut down.
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