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Hi All - This is a repost of the first 13 lines I put up a couple of weeks ago from a science fiction short story (with minor changes). I've finally completed the rough draft and am looking for critiques. The piece is about 7500 words long. Let me know if you'd be interested to read.
I wasn’t ready to abandon my body quite yet, but I didn’t know how much more time I could handle in the quarantine station. According to the untidy scratchings on my wall it had been over 600 days since I arrived. Unfortunately, my grasp on reality was getting weaker than a swimmer stuck in a riptide. Right now I couldn’t even remember if I had already made a mark on the wall today or not. Did I?
I reached over for the punch. Maybe I already marked? Absently, I rubbed my thumb across the blunt tip, my thoughts jumbled. Still unsure, I held the punch to the wall and head butted it with a satisfying smack.
You know it’s true that a nice wallop on the noggin
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For starters, I don't know where he is. Try to explain the setting a little more... Is he in a hospital? Is he in jail? Is he in capture? This is a little confuzing. If he's in the hospital, and he's writing on the wall, then isn't that vandalism? I'm officially confuzed. Please explain.
Posts: 37 | Registered: Mar 2006
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The use of his forehead to drive a "punch" into the wall broke me out of the story completely. I can't do that. If you think you can, I advise you to try head-butting me first. It's less likely to kill you and more fun for me
You insist on using some phrases that don't seem very clear, including the reference in your first line. If you're trying to portray the narrator on the thin edge of mental breakdown, have him clearly state things that don't seem sane, don't use muddled and unclear writing. He's not writing in that moment anyway, he's writing later.
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I must agree with Survivor about using the narrator's head to drive the punch. It pulled me out of the story as unbelievable. I could believe it if the narrator isn't human and/or has some kind of exoskeleton--but you haven't stated that--otherwise it doesn't work.
Posts: 266 | Registered: Mar 2004
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The first line intrigues me enough that I'll give it a read. I'll save any comment on the first 13 until them.
Posts: 195 | Registered: Jan 2006
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The head-versus-wall punch was jarring, to say the least (no pun intended), but I find the first paragraph to be very "readable." Nothing in it made me stumble or backtrack.
The second paragraph, on the other hand, hit me like... well, like being forced to head-butt a punch of some sort into a wall. Is that a sheetrock wall, or concrete? Either way... "Ouch!" I can't imagine it being at all satisfying, but if I were quarantined for over six-hundred days, I might get a bit punchy (Ha ha!) myself. Okay, that time, the pun was intended.
If your speaker has indeed gone so nuts that acts of masochism are now satisfying, then maybe this is all by design and set up nicely (even if it is is literally uncomfortable to read. (Ha, ha! "Literally" uncomfortable! I crack me up.)
I'm definitely interested. I'd love to see where you're going with this. Can I read the rest?
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