posted
The world was crumbling, metaphorically. Though if you had told anyone that it was crumbling, metaphorically; they probably would have wondered what metaphorically meant. Alliteration, allegory, allusion; all of these literary terms were dead, defunct. In fact, not a single book or essay had been written in 73 years. Yes, the world was at a literary standstill; that is, until Charles Kenan came along. I was 11 years old when I first heard him speak. I had never heard anything like it. Quite simply it was the voice of an angel that flowed from his lips. He was nothing much to look at, a grizzled old man with thinning, snow-white hair. He had to have been at least 70. But from him came tales of everything we had never known, but had always wanted. Heroic tales of knights in shining armor wowed
posted
It's hard to identify the narrator's voice at the beginning. I mean that I first thought you were going for an omniscient, third-person narrator, and then was surprised when you said "I was 11 years old". Plus, there's not much action here. Nothing really grabs me, compels me to read more. Maybe start in the middle of one of these stories that Charles Kenan tells? You might describe what his voice sounded like, how he looked - but do it after you start with something happening, like what the knight in the story is doing.
Posts: 298 | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
