posted
Very short story, about 1200 words. I'd appreciate both critique of the beginning, and volunteers to read the rest and tell me what you think. Thank you.
~~~
The trees flashed every shade of vibrant green that summer. The air felt so crisp and cool in the mornings, you’d think I was lying if I told you how hot and muggy it would be by dinner, when the atmosphere was so thick and heavy it took real effort just to draw it into your lungs. I knew every bump and gravelly spot of every road in that six-thousand-soul-town from riding my bike around.
More often than not, I’d end up at Jessica’s grandma’s house. I’d help her with her chores sometimes; we’d hang the family’s laundry out on lines or hand wash dishes. She never seemed to resent her little half-brother and half-sister, even though they did nothing at all to contribute. Our reward was a raw potato with salt to share. It tasted like summer and earth.
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posted
It just doesn't work for me as an opening. True, you've nailed setting but your use of simile is just a tad 'off' for my tastes and each sentence seems to go on and on. And, with only 1200 words to work with, I feel you need to be extra careful with every one you use. It's easy to say, and extremely hard to do, but with so few words each one needs to do the work of two or three.
As for specific suggestions on how to improve the opening, I have none. I just don't have enough information to go on; and this is another failing of the opening IMHO.
I really think that you need to focus more attention on the protagonist, the milieu and the looming dramatic complication. Take the second paragraph as a case in point, it's describing Jessica's character, but in roundabout terms which I think wastes a lot of those oh so precious words you have to play with. And, from what's posted, I'm still not sure of the relationship between narrator and character, is he/she (we don't even know the narrator's gender yet) the protagonist or is it Jessica while the narrator is just that, a narrator.
Having said all that waffle, remember that it's only my opinion. Feel free to bin it.
posted
You probably do have a bit too much of a setup for a relatively short piece. But I feel the same for most pieces of this length, so I could be wrong. For 1200 words, though, I think you could cut the first paragraph altogether, start with 'More often than not...', a sentence which isn't all that bad of an opening, and then move into the central narrative conflict.
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posted
The otherwise routine summer portrait of the fragment implies a mystical natural world phenomenon impending. The bicycle-riding narrator implies a young male teenager and that implies Jessica's age as about the same. Jessica and her step-siblings living with their gradma implies foster children. Those are masterful writing, enough clues for readers to interpret intent and meaning and artfully engage imaginations. The so-called "hook" is baited and in the water, not yet set though.
Most emphasis of the fragment focuses on the later-day summer heat. Though no dramatic complication (antagonizing want and problem wanting satisfaction) nor emotional equilibrium upset of consequence is introduced, the mystery of what will arise to interrupt the routine is enticing. The heat to come at dinnertime signals that's when a climactic event will occur. Titled "The Mulberry Tree," I think of the nursery rhyme handholding circle song, "Here we go round the mulberry bush . . ."
I don't know what to make of this opening of 140 words to a 1200-word short story, a tenth of the word count real estate passed and no idea what the story is about.
On one hand the evocative portrait is curiosity arousing, the use of implication to set up the scene setting, the characters, portent events most promising a well-crafted story. On the other hand, the language is a little ordinary and somewhat awkward and disruptive to the flow.
"Every shade of vibrant green" superlative, "You'd think I was lying if I told you" second-person direct address and the "into your lungs" second-person reflective self-address; second sentence's too exact and superlative and repetitive description for stream-of-consciousness's signals; "atmosphere" feels too formal and mature for a bicycle-riding teen's voice; "More often than not" lackluster interjection; the last sentence of the first paragraph not fitting the paragraph's main idea, though fitting into the second paragraph's main idea, the jump transition should follow a paragraph break and open the second paragraph; the three contractions "I'd, "I'd," and "we'd" confusing tense; the next-to-last sentence's superlatives--except for those minor though cumulative language slangs, the fragment is understated, rich poetry.
The last sentence richest of the fragment. Exquisite use of gustatory sensation to develop the reality imitation. Rare to see that degree of off-kilter motif deftly, artfully deployed to develop setting and character. Raw potato and salt, taste of summer and earth. Wow.
Punctuation faults: "six-thousand-soul-town," the last hyphen is extraneous.
"house. I’d help her with her chores sometimes; we’d," The semicolon isn't indicated unless the period is changed to a colon, either of which are probably too formal for the context anyway. An em dash instead of the period would be the ideal.
"cool in the mornings, you’d" For the first clause's subject-main idea, and of the whole sentence's about the temperature, the comma is not indicated. That first clause is not a dependent clause, phrase, or word. That, though raises an issue of the lengthy sentence and multiple prepositions and conjunctions joining appropriately the parallel ideas: cool morning, hot at dinnertime.
Underscores mark conjunctions, hyphens mark prepositions below:
"The air felt -so- crisp _and_ cool -in- the mornings, you’d think I was lying -if- I told you how hot _and_ muggy it would be -by- dinner, _when_ the atmosphere was -so- thick _and_ heavy it took real effort just to draw it -into- your lungs."
Except for the stray first comma, no grammatical faults per se, though a grammar school teacher would label the sentence run-on. A strength of the sentence is its stream-of-consciousness signals, where connective parts of speech, conjunctions and prepositions connecting, emulate a reflector's stream of thought. That's headed in a strong direction, even if it is a first-person narration's strength. Unusual to see a developing introspection mode that closes narrative distance that artfully.
A shortcoming, though is the repetition and substitution of temperature descriptions that don't amplify strongly. At the end of the sentence, the main idea left is in the morning cool, evening hot. The word-count quantity signals an idea emphasis that doesn't stand up at the end, memorable-like, that the temperature will matter later but not importantly. Note also the triple doublet "Cool and crisp," "hot and muggy," and "thick and heavy." The repetition rhetorical orality "vice" there would be a virtue if contextual amplification escalated emphasis. Note also the initial hard C sounds of "cool and crisp," the hard T and G's of the second doublet, the hard C-K of the third's first word, and soft consonants for "heavy." This is a diction matter. Stronger descriptors as the sentence unfolds are indicated, and parallel emphatic consonant sounds.
The poetry of the fragment is almost there, a few minor tweaks--the fragment would sing without calling undue attention to the prosody.
Stronger prosody would do the emotional disequilibrium function to a degree, being beautiful and not overly purple language. However, a cue, foreshadowing too, of what's to come besides a hot dinnertime would more strongly arouse tension's empathy or sympathy and curiosity. Consider the heat descriptions for that, using carefully chosen metaphors that describe the heat and foreshadow the antagonizing events to come.
posted
extrinsic, just to be a pedant I will argue with your assumption that the narrator is a male teenager; there really is nothing to indicate gender that I can see. However, I will admit that while my first assumption on reading was that the narrator was a male it still left me with a doubt that I don't feel is a good thing to place in a reader's mind within such a short work.
Having said all that, I will attempt to decipher your other suggestions--I haven't started my study of rhetoric yet but I do understand the reference to the 'poetry' of the written word courtesy of Aristotle.
Btw, thanks for the 'welcome back', I was on a journey of self-exploration which has answered some very fundamental questions about why my life followed its previous path.
posted
I don't assume, I infer from strong and clear, to me, implications. No overt signals the narrator is male--covert signals: masculine voice features, tinted with a few feminine voice features, conventional for a pubescent teenage male detaching from momma's apron strings and becoming masculine acculturated.
Firm assertions, robust verbs are masculine language characteristics. Superlative language and color description specificity are feminine language features, for examples. Conditional and hedging language, bonding behaviors are feminine features. I see bonding in the fragment from "helping with the chores sometimes." Situational awareness of competitive challenges is a masculine feature. I see that clearly in the fragment from the preemptive challenge "you'd think I was lying," though a male teen idiom. Hence pubescent teenage male at the liminal age between boyhood and manhood.
Regardless of a writer's sex, age, ethnictity, etc., an ability to portray a character's sex, age, ethnicity, etc., through implication and not use direct declaration is to me a masterful skill.
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