posted
Never submitted anything here before. I'm just out of a four-month one evening a week writing workshop, and I miss it very much, so here goes:
- - - Melinda wore her coronet like a faerie princess. She had made it of cheap plastic and tinsel, but this was her gift: to bless the ordinary and make it precious. Bankers and money-changers would see through these guises. So much the worse for the bankers and money-changers. She was guiding her younger brother through the joys of trick-or-treating. Darkness was her natural element, an environment where she could hide and thrive. George didn't see it that way. Darkness was a place of unseen dangers, like bats and the wind in the trees. They waited at the lone street light wondering which way to go. They could turn right along the lakeshore road, and after a few more trick-or-treat opportunities they would be home. Or they could go straight ahead down the muddy driveway to the witch's house. She did not practice what has come to be called "safe" Halloween. She still handed out real hand-made candies, real fudge, real brownies, and real apples, like in the old days. But everyone knew that she was a witch. Everyone but the grownups, that is. But presumably they too would someday discover it, to their sorrow. Raymond came towards them along the lakeshore road. The grownups persisted in considering
- - -
What happened to the formatting? It was thirteen lines in my word processor!
posted
it won't be 13 lines here, don't worry about it tho.
I really like the character you have here. I particularly liked the first couple of sentences...I could picture just what you meant by it. I have a few friendly suggestions to make this piece better, if you don't mind.
Some of your sentences seemed a little choppy to me. I saw a lot of sentences that could have beeen combined. For example:
"Bankers and money-changers would see through these guises. So much the worse for the bankers and money-changers."
How about just: Bankers and money-changers would see through these guises; so much the worse for them.
I assume George is the younger brother, but you might want to say so explicitly.
The second paragraph was the worst in terms of sentences that could possibly have been combined. And the last two started with but. In formal language this is a no-no, in informal fiction witing it can be used for effect, but I wouldn't do it two sentences in a row.
That's what I saw that might improve things, of course all in my humble opinion.
posted
Choppy sentences are only that when there are too many of them and the text sounds like a children's book, or when used without a good reason such as conveying action or creating flow. Just because a sentence is short doesn't make it choppy, nor does it mean it should be joined with another just because it's short. Too, that last bit of the first paragraph is only a sentence fragment, which wouldn't take to following a semicolon. Hendrik's first paragraph has an almost poetic flow precisely because of the short sentence/long sentence/fragment combination:
quote:Melinda wore her coronet like a faerie princess. She had made it of cheap plastic and tinsel, but this was her gift: to bless the ordinary and make it precious. Bankers and money-changers would see through these guises. So much the worse for the bankers and money-changers.
Leaving that sentence fragment to stand alone is more powerful the way it is and more fitting to the tone than even putting it behind a dash would be.
POV is more the question here, and in the second paragraph, weak verb presentation, including tense and passiveness.
posted
I never said short sentences were the problem...I said choppy sentences were. Choppiness is often a matter of opinion. I do agree about the passive voice, although I had no trouble with POV.
[This message has been edited by Christine (edited April 13, 2004).]
posted
Welcome to the boards, Hendrik (or should it be Boom?).
I noticed (before reading Christine and Kolona's remarks, actually) that the sentence flow seemed off, and that I couldn't tell why. I'm not sure if this would help work it out, but reading it out loud might isolate where changes could make this stronger. (Heavy on declaratives? Choppy phrasing? I'm not sure, and I feel like a prescription is going to go too heavily towards my preferred rhythm and structure.)
But before I noticed that, I noticed that you had me firmly pulled into the piece, even before the witch, and despite using the word "Faerie" which usually is a bit of a reading turn-off for me. I liked this. Is it a short story? Are you looking for people to crit the whole thing?
[Added- It isn't the spelling of Faerie; it's the entire Faerie/Fairy/Phaeraie mythos, which I suspect I've OD'd on. Nothing linked to any one author or area, just a general Sidhe distaste...]
[This message has been edited by Gen (edited April 13, 2004).]
posted
I was almost going to say that by definition a choppy sentence is a short sentence, but of course it's not. Choppiness is a function of sentence type variation or, rather, lack thereof; although probably short sentences are the worst offenders.
In fact, in Pearlman & Pearlman's Guide to Rapid Revision, under the heading, "Choppy Sentences," they write, "Revise your series of short, choppy sentences by varying your sentence patterns," then go on to say, "Do not simply combine your sentences with 'and's' or semicolons. The result of that would be a series of longer choppy sentences."
That you chose the part of the first paragraph you did, Christine, made it seem, to me, you were focusing on sentence shortness (which was really fragmentation in this case) with your choppy comment. At any rate, I still maintain that POV would go a long way to fixing the seeming disjointedness of the whole, especially of the second paragraph.
I'm not into fantasies, so the fact that I'm not drawn into the story is nothing against it, and may even be a plus, but I did think there were too many bits of information and not enough elaboration, Hendrik. And, as Christine says, it is only MHO.
[This message has been edited by Kolona (edited April 13, 2004).]
posted
Is it a short story? Well, it may have started out wanting to be one, but I have about six pages of outline, a number of the scenes are in zeroth -draft form, and I'm guessing the outlined stuff will end up as twenty to twenty-five thousand words. And one major plot element that is introduced in the part I have is not yet resolved, and I'm having trouble desingning the worlds I need to deal with it properly. As for the spelling pf "Faerie", that's the way Melinda would have spelled it. As for the witch's house, the old woman that lives there is, as it happens, not a witch, but she does put on a good enough show at Halloween to convince the children that dare to go there.
And yes, despits all that, the story still is a fantasy.
posted
Well well well. Well written that is. I could get a grasp of your character, her personality and that of her brother. Well done, it hooked me like I was a fish. I would keep reading, but one thing that seems to be lacking is the setting up of a central conflict. What goes wrong that night? Ask yourself this when you write. Well done. Astyanax
Posts: 10 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Thank you for the criticism. I'll try again soon. But until then, . . .
Christine:
I rather like the repetition of "Bankers and moneychangers" I did that deliberately. I think it emphasized their pedestrianness, and it seems to fit the rhythm of the paragraph. Am I wrong?
The multiple buts are a nono. I agree. In fact, I remember something nagging me when I wrote it, but the obvious solution -- leaving them out -- didn't occur to me.
Gen:
Hendrik is indeed my first name, and it's appropriate to address me that way. And yes, I would like people to crit the whole thing, although all I have ready is a first chapter and an outline. And what I suspect is half the story hasn't even made it into the outline. It's still stuck in the shitty-first-draft-brainstorming stage. But I'm learning a lot, and an offer to crit things as they are ready would be very welcome.
Kolona: "there were too many bits of information and not enough elaboration" Indeed. This may have comtributed to the passive mood everyone seems to be upset about. I'll try shifting some of that info out of the second paragraph.
And how do you type italics into this messaging system?
Astyanax: "setting up of a central conflict" That was starting in the sentence that crossed from the thirteenth to the fourteenth line, but won't be completely presented until the seventeenth line. In other words, I seem to be off to a slow start.
posted
When you type a message, there should be a little underlined link to the right of the text box saying "UBB Code is ON"-- click on it, and it'll open a page with explanations of how to do all of the fun formatting stuff.
posted
What POV are you trying to use here? I can tell you what it isn't. It isn't Melinda's POV, or George's, or that of the witch, or that of the grownups...it isn't first person narrative, or second person (rare, but I've seen it tried), nor is it Full Omniscient.
I could go on. At length. For brevity, I'll just reiterate.
posted
I've had a chance to rethink something I said, and I think I understand what my concern was. I'll tell you what it was and you can take it or leave it, as you see fit. You say that the "bankers and money-changers would see through these guises." Then in the next sentence you repeat "bankers and money-changers". I see your point. I really do. The first instance of the "bankers and money-changers" tells the story of the foolish men and women who will not see something for more than what it is, for it's possibilities. The second instance reinforces a steretype. Surely you understand that not *all* bankers and money-changers are pedestrian. Replacing it with "them" would probably leave me with the first impression. At least for me. So that's what bothered me about it and I thought I'd share.
[This message has been edited by Christine (edited April 18, 2004).]
posted
Hendrik, I won't go into what has already been covered except to say that I found it was clear to me that George was her little brother. Okay, something new. I would strike both lines about Bankers and money changers. It doesn't fit the tone of the rest of the work which in spite of some need of work as others have suggested, I found to be good story. This is my opinion and may be worth exactly what you paid for it.
Posts: 35 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
I liked this enough to be interested in reading more - I really enjoyed the first two sentences, and understood what you were doing with the next two.
The overall feel to me was the story was directed at a young audience - kids, maybe even YA. So the issue I had with the 'bankers and money-changers' was that I didn't think a kid would think like that - either as a reader or a POV. The references to 'grownups' instead of saying 'adults' made me feel your POV was young too. However, the second sentence sounded more like an adult speaking.
The POV does seem hard to connect with - are we in Melinda's head (no, too adult), then we have George's thoughts, then we know what they are both wondering, then we are learning about what the witch does, then we learn what 'everyone' knows, then Raymond shows up, then we learn more about the grown-ups who are considering something... so it is like an omniscient POV, but it does jump around a bit so we are not sure whose voice we are hearing at any one time.
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