posted
Tap…tap…tap…tap…tap- “Will you quit it!” Tap…tap…tap…tap…tap- “Quit it!” “Alright alright, God you’re so uptight lately.” “Well frankly John, I have the right to expect to be able to focus in this class, I’m failing as it is, and with you sitting there tapping your damn pencil I can’t concentrate on Mr. Bald Man up front there.” Ashley Hawkins bent over her notebook and began taking brisk notes, trying to keep up with Professor Hibbin’s lecture and failing miserably. John on the other hand slouched complacently in the chair next to hers, his fold out desk remained unfolded at his side and he stared off into some distant world which resided in the top right corner of the lecture hall, absently biting the nub of his pencil.
Note from Kathleen: I cut it down to 13 lines, which is our limit for postings of your work.
[This message has been edited by Gizzmo0411 (edited February 25, 2004).]
[This message has been edited by Gizzmo0411 (edited February 25, 2004).]
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited February 26, 2004).]
posted
Woops, my apologies, I changed the male character's name halfway through, first I called him Tom, then John. So when reading Tom is John. Agian, an editing error, my apologies.
Posts: 19 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Actually, he goes from John to Tom and back again....might I suggest using the edit button to fix the problem before anyone else reads this?
And now for my two cents:
The dialogue opening did not work. Sometimtes dialogue openings work, but not when you have five or six paragraphs of dialogue (and tapping which is as good as dialogue) without mentioning a character name. It totally turned me off and I almost stopped reading right there.
Deciding to go ahead and give the rest of you 13 lines a chance, I pushed forward. Your writing style is fine, and once you get into the point of view it's fine too. But I need a few things answered for me that are impossible to determine at this point. What are the ages of the characters? Some of the details lead me to believe that we're probably past elementary school, but high school, college, grad school? I mean, are these kids or adults?
Little oops I saw...
quote:...not even a court monitor couldn’t keep up!
How about "...not even a court monitor could keep up!" ?
And finally, what is this about? If this is a novel I'll go ahead and give you a few pages, but even as a novel I've got no real clues as to where you might be taking the first chapter, let alone the res tof the book.
I'm done with the bad stuff. If it makes you feel any better, your lines don't suffer from the sort of grammar and style problems that make me wince and think, "Why's this person bothering?" It mostly suffers from lack of direction.
posted
Alright, I just posted this without explanation for a reason, I wanted to get some guesses as to who these people were, I was attempting to get across their age by supplying some adultlike banter, while the goofing around still keeps them young. Honestly I don't know the exact age I was shooting for, but I'll give you the general description of "college age".
I tried the dialogue opening because I'm attempting to give the characters life without simply describing the necessities, perhaps for a novel this would be a better opening, but maybe a short story needs more to catch the reader right off the bat.
posted
Well, they don't come across as 'college age' to me...mostly because they don't act like they're in a lecture at all.
I don't know what Christine is talking about with the POV being fine. As far as I can tell, the POV isn't established in this piece at all. I really can't tell whether John, Ashley, or someone else entirely is supposed to be your POV.
Dialogue openings are generally a bad idea. I sometimes use a dialogue 'vignette' prior to the narrative text, but I avoid opening the text itself with dialogue. It's murder on establishing POV, setting, and even characters.
In particular, this dialogue is bad. If you intention is to give the impression that this is natural dialogue between two people sitting through a lecture, and one of them is supposed to actually be trying to take notes....
You do have the characters both say as much, but I frankly didn't believe them.
“Well frankly John, I have the right to expect to be able to focus in this class, I’m failing as it is, and with you sitting there tapping your damn pencil I can’t concentrate on Mr. Bald Man up front there.”
No sane person would ever say this while trying to take notes. She would either say "I'm trying to concentrate" (if she were feeling wordy), or she'd just get up and move. The only reason to say this would be if she were only trying to look as though she's trying to take notes...and she isn't doing a very good job later when she starts to horse around.
The supposed motives for this dialogue don't add up with the behavior of the characters. In short, it sounds contrived. And you don't have any discernable POV.
posted
I think that you're getting that they don't know each other. I'm attempting to establish that the two are good friends hence the banter...even if she's trying to take notes, it's a halfhearted attempt. I don't know, back to the drawing board I guess.
Posts: 19 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
No, I got perfectly that they know each other (that much is obvious). I also got that they were supposedly in some kind of lecture by a professor. And that they were supposed to be youngish.
The problem is that the characters don't act in character. The things they say and the way they say them make no sense given their behavior.
Here's where using POV can really pull your cookies out of the fire. If we had real access to the thoughts and perceptions of one of the characters, we might be able to get some idea what lies behind their actions...or at least what lies behind the behavior of the POV character. But that's precisely what we don't have here.
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