Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Short Story

This is topic Short Story in forum Fragments and Feedback for Short Works at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Worlds (Member # 2221) on :

Heres a short story I just finished here at work. Nothing else to do here so... um the "finished" product is about 1200 words or so. Not to long, if anyone wants to look at it, leave an email i guess. thanks for lokking!

It was raining harder than it had in a long time and my jacket was soaked and so was her hair. She sitting on the ground with her knees to the side, her arms wrapped around me at the waist as I kneeled beside her. She was crying hard into my chest and I did my best to calm her, but I did not know what to do. I ran my fingers through her hair and undid the tangles and I whispered to her that everything would be alright, but I did not look down at her. I stared off into the trees on the side of the road, trying to block out that flickering, crackling noise that was filling my head. The trees were dark after only a couple of feet. The emptiness that the darkness screamed to me seemed morbidly appropriate as I realized that there, on that street, holding my wife as she cried hysterically, I could no longer feel anything.

Ok, I know that that's 14 lines, but i mean the last line is only two words.

Thanks for reading!

Posted by arriki (Member # 3079) on :

It’s too dense. And…it doesn’t sound or feel like the opening of a novel. Opening of a chapter, maybe. Opening after a scenebreak seems more probable.

Why?

Because nothing comes out emphasized(?). You have setting description. You have two characters interacting. But the setting is still vague. It isn’t a recognizable setting. What you have would seem to be building on the reader’s knowledge of setting previously established. And the characters are reacting to something that must have happened or suddenly been revealed to or by one of them. I don’t know what and they are so involved with one another that I would pass them by on the street -- ????

All right is two words.

You have two sentences that might work around to being opening sentences.

It was raining harder than it had in a long time.

and

I could no longer feel anything.

Both are sort of thesis statements which would require sentences of supporting data (INTERESTING supporting data).

The raining idea as opening was best done (in my mind and to my knowledge)) by Bernard Cornwell in his THE BLOODY GROUND where the opening paragraph describes the rain on the battlefield in striking terms as a metaphor for the whole Civil War.

Posted by ethersong (Member # 3216) on :

I think arikki really said it all.

I remember reading somewhere on this site that one of the worst things you can do is start a story in the middle of a crisis since the reader doesn't care about the characters and have no clue why they are all torn up. But I suppose it might work if you give us a reason to sympathize and a quick feel of the characters.

Posted by Dave Andersson (Member # 3255) on :

The first thing that hit me upside the head, was the lack of punctuation. A few commas, and semi-colons would really break this up well, and make it easier on the eyes. As it is now, this reminds me of a few english papers I've read, before I edited them (for friends here at college). My suggestion would be to read a LOT of Ray Bradbury, and maybe some of the other older writers, like Jules Verne or H.G. Wells, to get a feel of flow of really good writing.

Punctuation is like taking a breath when you talk: you can use it to emphasize a point, pause for effect... or just take a brief second to gather your thoughts, and come up with something reslly good, and strong.

See what I mean?

Hope this helps some!

Greetz,

Dave!!!

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

The most crucial bits of information here are why the girl's crying, and the relationship between the two. And that's what you don't tell us. Tell us! Then we can care.

(Some names might help, too.)

Posted by tchernabyelo (Member # 2651) on :

It's clear that something has happened, but we don't know what, and we don't know to whom, and so, as mentioned, we find it hard to care.

I get the impression that you've started the story in the wrong place, though it's hard to be sure. You're certainly going to need some kind of flashback to the events that have upset this couple, but I don't know whether the "real" story is about those events, or about what happens after, or... well, I don't really know anything, and whil I don't believe you should try to explain everything in the first thirteen lines, this just doesn't pull me even close to caring about these people (the narrator doesn't even let us know that "she" is his wife for the first few sentences, which is far more telling that the "I could no longer feel anything" line - but for us to care that he can no longer feel anything, we need to see that he had feelings, before the whatever-it-is-that-happened happened).

Posted by Worlds (Member # 2221) on :

Thank you all for the replies and the comments. I really do appreciate it. It was kind of my intention to be vague with details, I wanted everything to kind of unfold slowly as the story progressed. For example, it's in the next line or two after this excerpt where you find out why the girl is crying. So yeah. But maybe I should rearrange things so the details come out sooner. I guess I'll work on it.

Again, Thank you very much for the comments.

Posted by zipperhead409 (Member # 3268) on :

I really liked the details you used but I agree with the other posters, as of right now it's a little hard to focus on the good parts because to be frank, it's kind of a jumbled mess.

I can see this story going somewhere good with a small grammatical redraft though.