posted
I don't really have a title for this. It's something I threw together for a class, and I like it, so I thought I'd throw it on here and see what happens. This is a piece of the "story," not the beginning or the end. Just fyi.
But this sun barely shone; his resplendent light secluded by the grandiose, snow-capped mountains. Here and there and every once in a while tiny strands would break the blue veil and give off a glassy luminosity. Miles and miles above the village, but still so close you could reach out and take a piece of it, it always served as a reminder to the people. A blue boy always tried to reach the sun, throwing his misshaped ball up and up but never high enough. Every throw is in correlation with the breaths of the earth. Every throw tries to breathe, and in its breath wants to blow. The blue air around it rises and falls with every launch but can never genuinely move.
The blue air is contagious; the shrubbery around the boy (alive but never growing; replete but never showing) might once have been happy and fruitful. At least their frozen state would show that, but as they now are they aspire to wave and be waved to, to be smelled and petted and cared for, to be seen and appreciated for all they have to offer, to be watered as if they were owned. Just like the blue flowers across the way, being sprayed, sprinkled, spattered and sparkled, drenched, drooled, drowned and drizzled with aluminous fibers of transparent elixir. Life stems from the edges of the vessel, craving to share its joy with all that hunger for it. The starving flowers look towards their alleviator with famished eyes, athirst for the solution. The solution to everything is still the solution to nothing; as the matron waves her staff in the breeze across the flowers, the temptress spreads her life.
[This message has been edited by Humchuckninny (edited March 31, 2005).]
posted
Some setup would have been nice... what kind of story... is it milieu? Is it a character story? Dumping us in the middle only allows us to critique your style and grammar skills... therefore...
The following needs to be addressed immediately:
quote:Miles and miles above the village, but still so close you could reach out and take a piece of it, it always served as a reminder to the people.
posted
Without a little introduction to tell me what has come before, what this story is about, and what kind of feedback you are looking for, I'm afraid I can't do more than comment on style and sentence structure, which ar emy two least favorite things to comment on. Why did you choose this particular section?
Posts: 3567 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
Ack, sorry, I posted this in a bit of a hurry. I'm looking for a critique mostly of just that - the style and syntax. For a backround, it's a setup for the small village where a character lives. The character is underdeveloped which is why I posted this particular portion. It's a setting, and I would also like comments on the tone and mood it sets up, if possible. I'm curious to know how it comes across; it is towards the beginning of the story. Anything else would be helpful. I hope this helps a bit, but once again, sorry; I am new to this forum Posts: 7 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
You seem to be describing a lot in this frag, but I can't seem to form a mental picture of the setting. Is everything blue? Is the star/sun somehow dripping elixir on the landscape? Actually, you lost me after the snow-capped mountains, I can't "see" anything else.
It is poetic, but it is not "showing" me anything cohesive.
posted
Hi Hum. Here are few things that caught my attention as needing yours... 1. why is the sun referred to as masculine. Do you explain this earlier? It is a god or being, or are all atronomical objects in your story given gender? Not saying that's bad. It just need to be consciously consistent. 2. Strands of what? Light? Air? Something else? Tell us. Say strands of light... 3. when you use the pronoun "you" in "you could reach out" you are falling out of narrator voice. I don't quite know how to say this, but it suddenly sounds less mystical, more colloquial tending to modcern vernacular. I'd rewrite that line. 4. As HSO points out, it,it together are a problem. It's not just the redundancy, but also the second pronoun is vague. Make the second it a specific noun ie, just say,...it, the sun... 5. the ball thing: I was intrigued by the "blue boy" and his "mishapen ball," moving in response to the Earth but then I need the mysteriousness of this phrase defined. From the next line on to the end of that paragraph, I have no idea what you mean and I feel like you're toying with me, being purposely vague to try to interest me. You don't need to do that. I'm already interested. Don't overdo it. That whole thing needs to be, at least in part, explained. Reader don't like to feel they're being toyed with. 6. The shrubbery "replete but never showing" is the same category Yes, I like the initial tantalization of the idea, but then I like to be given enought to figure it out, not be just left hanging indefinitley. 7. You say the plants are in " a frozen state" yet alive. Does that mean literally frozen or figuatively frozen? I'd get out the thesaurus and use another synonym for frozen. I suspect you mean they are in some kind of suspended animation, but the way you have it now is open to misinterpretation. 8. the verb "drooling" doesn't work for me but the others in the series are ok. 9. a "transparent elixer'? What? Do you mean the sunlight? the air" the pulse of the Earth?' the magic of the caretakers? or maybe 10-20-10 fertilizer? Please clarify what you are talking about. 10. What vessel? I think I could like this if I didn't feel I'm being left dangling. Some dangling is good, but there's enough dangling here to hang myself. Nevertheless, I am interested in all the blue references and if I weren't so lost I'd probably really enjoy this. Please keep working on it. It has great possibilities. Good luck. Judith Posts: 142 | Registered: Jan 2005
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