Well, I figured I'd toss out a fragment for ya'll to look at. I am just over half finished with this story. It's a 'pastoral' character/morality piece,in the vein of the late, great Clifford D. Simak, if you are familiar with his work. There is no SF in this opening fragment (no worries - the SF comes into it on the first page), but I'd like any and all opinions on whether or not I succeed in reaching the tone I'm going for -melancholy, quiet, simple but poetic.
"I was thirty two years old when I put Pa into the ground, and he was just shy seventy.
I found him on the front porch where he had taken to spending the early mornings, watching the dawn break while sipping the bitter black coffee that he brewed double strength and that I had to water down and sugar before I could tackle. He was calm, peaceful, apparently passed without pain or regret. The half empty cup of coffee still sat on the table by the worn rocking chair that was as much a throne as a simple man like he would ever think to claim. There was a little smile on his face.
"For some reason, that smile made it easy on me, losing him. It made it possible for me to pick him up and carry him to his bed, amazed at how light his body was, when all my life he'd been as solid and strong as the eternal mountains that surrounded our little property. It made it possible for me to call the proper authorities in town and speak in a calm and steady voice and make those arrangements that have to be made for us all eventually.It made me dry eyed and easy with the situation, not reduced to the angry rage and pain that had came over me when Ma had gone years back."
All replies will be much appreciated. Thanks.
-George
From Kathleen: Sorry, but the fragment was a bit more than the 13 lines we ask people to limit their fragments to. This is to protect your electronic rights and to give readers the "first-manuscript-page" reading experience that is intended to be helpful to the writer--if the reader wants to continue after the first page, then the story is off to a good start.
[This message has been edited by g_potter (edited July 23, 2003).]
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited July 24, 2003).]
-George
I suppose I could take the time to copy out each fragment and put it into manuscript format and base my "cut" on that. Instead, I just count the number of lines I see in my browser--give or take a couple--and cut based on that.
Your fragment is fourteen lines, not counting the space between the paragraphs, on my browser. I've copied the lines and put them into my word processor, and they are fourteen lines (Times New Roman 12) there as well.
I submit that that's close enough.
Why have you put everything in quotes? From what you’ve posted, this reads like general first person narration, which doesn’t need quotes. Is the character actually talking, a fact we would learn latter in the story, and this is all told within a narrative frame? If it is a framed story, it would be helpful to establish that frame sooner, to give the reader a sense of where the character is in relation to the story he is speaking.
You’ve also used a lot of long sentences, which actually interrupted your word flow because they grew unwieldy and detracted from the poetic quality.
The last sentence felt like it hinged too much on telling, rather than showing. Or maybe it just told too abruptly for my tastes, after all the previous emotion was shown more gently. Hard to tell completely since it is an arbitrary cut off.
Thank you for the feedback!
The quote thing is habit, from other forums, to differentiate it from the post proper. Your take on the POV was right. Perhaps I should have HTML tagged italics or bold.
I will take your point about the long sentences into consideration. Rereading, I agree that they seem a bit clumsy!
Thanks again!
-George