Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Bride Price

This is topic Bride Price in forum Fragments and Feedback for Short Works at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
http://www.hatrack.com/ubb/writers/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=001559

Posted by aqwinsor (Member # 3006) on :

This is the first 13 lines of my latest:

Dunkr banged his fist on the table. “You insult me! This cloth is worth twice that.”

The merchant shrugged. “You could get that much for it in Eire, certainly. If it’s not enough, take it there next year.”

Not for the first time, he wished [his wife] could have met him in Kebek. He always managed to keep himself calmer when she was near. What he wanted to do, was draw his sax and let it do his talking for him. That would be folly. Becoming an outlaw will not fill the children’s bellies He drew in a deep breath and flattened his palms against the nicks and scratches of the wooden surface.

His gaze lifted to the smug look on the man’s face. He could feel the tension behind him as his crews watched for his

-----
Comments?

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited December 03, 2005).]

Posted by pantros (Member # 3237) on :

Your first thirteen should end at "reaction."

if you need to bracket something here, its done wrong.

The jump from action-dialogue to expository narration gives us too quick of a change in style. I think you can lose the whole paragraph starting with "Not for the first time..."

I know what a sax is, but without first establishing the setting better, I see him reaching for a musical instrument rather than a pre-medieval sword (big knife, really)

Give a little more merchant reaction. That's gotta be one stone-cold merchant to react with just a shrug of the shoulders when a man carrying a weapon slams his fist into the table across from him.

I think the most obvious pop culture similar scene would be Han Solo shrugging at Greedo, just before Han shot first!

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

I don't care about MC yet. All I know about him, I don't like: he's prone to consider murdering someone for haggling with him.

Of course, you may not be going for sympathetic here; but I ought to know somebody to sympathize with, I think, or I won't be hooked.

Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :

As a new member, you may not realize the formatting standards to use are 1" margins, using courier 12 point type. This is how you calculate your first 13 lines. Go ahead and edit your piece down to the word "reaction." You can edit it by clicking the pencil icon at the top of your post.

I think you have a nice underlying style. Some of the technical difficulties have been mentioned already. There is no need for you to have the word [wife] bracketed, so you should delete the brackets.

Instead of using a passive style of "he thought, he said" consider going deeper into your character's POV by using internal dialog.

I read a fair amount of fantasy, but not a lot of military fighting fantasy. I had no idea a sax was a weapon. I DID think of a musical instrument and was confounded as to what YOU meant. Describe the weapon in a couple of words before using the name "sax" for it, or better yet, call it something that won't be confusing to anyone if you can.

And I agree that if he's going to show this level of anger, he needs a more logical reason. Right now it's not believable that he would get this upset over what is probably a standard practice among all merchants: haggling.

Posted by zetars (Member # 2956) on :

It really doesn't hook me, I feal as though I drift in and out of it, and not really... get anything.
Edit-ting, (singing) just everyone loves edit-ting...! Keep going, it has potential.