posted
Any comments on this would be very welcome. The story is finished and pretty polished and stands at 3050 words. This is my first posted fragment here. I hope I'm doing it right so far...
Medium - original fragment:
"But I don't know where I'm from!" Her voice broke and her eyes filled with tears. George tilted his head and nodded.
"That often leaves a deep psychic scar." Should he take her hand? No, too early. "Do you have anything from your parents? A ring? A scarf?"
"No. Nothing." Mrs. Winthrop lowered her head and sobbed. Quickly George reached for a tissue and now he did take her hand, wincing as she clutched at him with her sweaty fingers. "It's so hard," she hiccupped. "I feel so lost."
"You're very brave to say that, Mrs. Winthrop. I-"
"Call me Marilea please."
"Well, Marilea, I'm going to help. Let me turn the light down." George extricated his fingers and dimmed the lamp.
Here is a slightly reworked version. I made George's tension more important, in an effort to hook the reader in more, but it might be a bit obvious and clunky. I sorted out the mixed dialogue/action paras (thanks Denem), and tried to make Marilea's dilemma clearer (thanks Owasm.)
I popped her name in earlier, tried to make George more sympathetic, and changed the grabbing hand bit (without managing, unfortunately, to get rid of a "she.") (Thanks Bent Tree.) I hope this is a more intriguing beginning. Although the mind experiment idea is interesting, it is a false lead, sorry. Hopefully this beginning doesn't give such a mixed message.
Medium. Fragment v2:
"I'm an orphan," said Mrs. Winthrop, stroking the black velvet tablecloth with trembling fingers. "I don't know where I'm from."
George tilted his head and nodded. "That often leaves a deep psychic scar," he said, trying to keep the desperation from his voice. She was his only client this week. He couldn't afford to mess up.
Should he take her hand? No, too early. "Do you have anything from your parents? A ring? A scarf?"
"No. Nothing." Mrs. Winthrop lowered her head and sobbed.
Quickly George reached for a tissue and now he did take her hand, hoping she wouldn't notice his sweaty palms.
"It's so hard," she hiccupped. "I feel so lost."
"You're very brave to say that, Mrs. Winthrop. I-"
[This message has been edited by Dame (edited March 17, 2009).]
[This message has been edited by Dame (edited March 17, 2009).]
[This message has been edited by Dame (edited March 17, 2009).]
posted
If this is a beginning, it's too confusing.
I can understand the beginning phrase, "But I don't know where I'm from!" but it doesn't make any sense in the rest of the fragment. She knows her name, George knows her name. George asks her for an object from her parents."
George talks about something leaving a psychological scar. From what? was my first thought. The rest of it reads fine. I like George's reticence to touch his clients. That's a good touch.
posted
Well done, I'm hooked. A couple of minor structure comments. 1. 'George tilted his head and nodded' should begin the next paragraph since the perspective has changed to him. 2. 'Quickly George reached for a tissue and now he did take her hand.' I would move this to the beginning of George's next quote as you have changed from her perspective to his in mid-quote.
I hope this helps. I'll read the whole thing if you're interested. Denem
quote:"But I don't know where I'm from!" Her voice broke and her eyes filled with tears. George tilted his head and nodded.
"That often leaves a deep psychic scar." Should he take her hand? No, too early. "Do you have anything from your parents? A ring? A scarf?"
"No. Nothing." Mrs. Winthrop[[Is this the same character as above or a new one?]] lowered her head and sobbed. Quickly George reached for a tissue and now he did take her hand,[[I am not sure which her the subject of this sentence refers to.]] If we have her name use her first name]] wincing as she [[ This is suffering from too many "she's" One trick I have learned is to alter a sentence's subject when possible. For example by changing the subject to 'her hand' it will be easier on the repetitions.]]clutched at him with her sweaty fingers. "It's so hard," she hiccupped. "I feel so lost."
"You're very brave to say that, Mrs. Winthrop. I-"
"Call me Marilea please."
"Well, Marilea, I'm going to help. Let me turn the light down." George extricated his fingers and dimmed the lamp.
This was a bit busy and muddled in my opinion. Starting with dialogue is often a great way to start a piece, but here I was unclear of many things. 1) How many Characters are actually in the scene? If the reader has to read twice to figure it out a slush editor will toss it out. 2) With the exception of the brief inner dialogue, There was no clear or deep POV. This is fine, but the first thing I look for is the MC and whether or not I like that character.
So here is my thought on the whole name issue. If the guy is the MC and in his POV and he knows her name, we will know her name. In the introduction, especially, I would start out by using her name because it can sometimes be difficult to get your mind around characters and their names.
As for the lure. for a speculative piece, this seemed a bit mundane. I get she was waking from som mind experiment or something, but I didn't see anything in the characters I was interested in or sympathetic to. I can be picky about subject matter though. I have peculiar tastes and sometimes question my own subjectivity.
Just my two cents. Welcome aboard and thanks for sharing your post. I will give this a once over if you want a candid review.
[This message has been edited by Aliens with HTML expertise(edited March 14, 2009).]
[This message has been edited by Bent Tree (edited March 14, 2009).]
posted
Thanks for the useful feedback and the offers to read the piece.
I'm going to work on the start of this story and then see what changes ricochet through the rest of the story before offering it out to read. If some people thought the start confusing, I'm afraid it doesn't get easier!
This story was written for a competition (it came second) and the prompt was "origins". So while origins are important to the story, they maybe needn't be pushed so hard right at the start and I can be slightly clearer with my MC's motivations and with introducing the characters. I was constrained by a severe word limit too, so kept everything as brief as I absolutely could. I'll see what I can do.
I'll post a new version soon. I still haven't worked out how to do quotes or bold or how to edit posts yet but it shouldn't be too hard!
posted
By typing the character entities for the left bracket and right bracket and solidus characters. Left bracket = [ Right bracket = ] Solidus/forward slash = / In order to get those to display and not express as glyphs, I used the character entity reference for ampersand at the front of the character entity references, which is & I have a clip file of character entities, like acute e in cliché, the euro €, the cents sign ¢, long s ſ, the pilcrow ¶. Comes in handy sometimes.
posted
Any time you want to know how someone did something in a post, you can use the same edit icon (pencil and paper above the post)to look at the post. You can't edit it if you didn't post it, but you can look at it.
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posted
Wow. Well now I know how to check how other poeple's posts are put together. That's a cool feature. I'm glad this chat turned up here as I would still be wandering the quoteless, italicless plain text wilderness.
I've edited a second version into the original post, trying to resolve the points people brought up. Any comments as to whether this beginning is more interesting and clearer would be appreciated muchly.
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