Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Sirensong

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

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Posted by baduizt (Member # 5804) on :

Hi guys,

I'm posting two openings up (this one and 'Coral') for a cycle of short stories I've written. There's a third story, but I've yet to type it up. This first is SF erotica, the second is straight SF and third is SF humour. They're set in the same universe, although the styles vary between all three and each looks at different aspects of the same event (i.e., a whale appearing on a beach in a future where the creatures have become extinct). Word count is 1300 for this one.

SIRENSONG

Purple-grey-green skies, the colour of bruises, yawn and sigh beyond the city. Here we can see forever, beyond the palling poisons of man. Rusting, the city is past its prime, postapocalyptic, posthuman. Here the briny ocean massages the oily shore, speaking of boundaries and freedom and sex.
#

Joshua came for the whale. In six hundred years, not a sight. The history books named them extinct. Of course, this proved the contrary.

Somehow, the great leviathan had shored itself. It was colossal, smooth, with gnarled dorsal ridges like a stegosaurus. It was also dead, the stench of it raw and foul. Seagulls gnawed at its speckled flesh and serenaded it with a dirge of creaky birdsong.

[This message has been edited by Second Assistant (edited December 27, 2007).]

Posted by annepin (Member # 5952) on :

Intriguing... there's a lyrical quality to your prose that's compelling, though it feels a little overdone to me (the first para).

Also, the line of reasoning/ questioning about the birds didn't quite work for me. It seemed clear to me the seagulls were drawn to the rotting meat. Probably because they had spotted it or smelled it. So why all this wondering about foreign frequencies and so forth?

(And I have to say, I'm deathly curious where the erotica comes in!)

[This message has been edited by annepin (edited December 23, 2007).]

Posted by baduizt (Member # 5804) on :

LOL! Well I'll send it to you, so you can take a look for yourself.

Cheers

Posted by bluephoenix (Member # 7397) on :

Heya

I'm not sure about this one. There are some really nice lines, followed by some really iffy ones. For me, it has a slightly 'James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' quality to it. That book was the most beautifully written piece of pretentious, self-indulgent rubbish I've ever read.

Now, your opening isn't as bad as all that, lol, but I think annepin hit the nail on the head with 'a little overdone'. 'Purple-grey-green', for example.

Take the first paragraph - there's some downright confusing imagery in there. How does a sky yawn and sigh? I know it's all part of the bruised sky, poisoned earth, postapocalyptic feel, but trying to actually imagine a sky yawning is quite hard. I can imagine yawning darkness, or a yawning crevasse, but not a sky. I have less trouble with 'sigh', for some reason.

That said, there are some really nice things in there, like 'Here we can see forever', and 'Rusting, the city is past its prime'.

I think you just need to sort the wheat from the chaff, as it were.

On a more personal note, I have the same problem with this opening as I had with that book. It's all very well waxing lyrical about frequencies and serenades of dirges, but - as annepin already pointed out - when it all comes down to it, why were the seagulls there? Probably smelled it. What had drawn Joshua to the beach? An oceanic frequency? A cosmic force? Might've been the big dead whale.

I'm not against being poetic and romanticising things, not at all, but I think there comes a point where it's too much.

Anyway, sorry, this ended up being long. Essentially, a lot of this I like, but a lot of it I don't, and unfortunately, the stuff I do and don't is all scrambled up together.

Posted by LCastle (Member # 7363) on :

I'll echo what annepin and baduizt said about the plusses and minuses of the lyrical prose.

"Rusting city past its prime," gave me pause. The fact that the city is rusting implies that it's past its prime. You don't really need to tell me that again. Same with purple-grey-green and bruises. You only need one of them.

Posted by bigdawgpoet (Member # 7046) on :

I love the lyricism of the prose. I also will say this, although I've already been rebuffed for it: I did not think the double description of the sky color was redundant. When you first describe it as purple-grey-green, I see one thing in my head, and think, "No, not possible." Then when you reiterate that it is indeed the color of a bruise, I say, "Hmm. I guess that is what he meant." And then I actually accept the idea and allow my brain to imagine it.

As a reader, I was wondering what was so amazing about sea birds being drawn to a whale carcass. I see it all the time. Your POVC's curiosity about this phenomenon implies to me, as a reader, one of two things: 1) this world does not have enough birds or carcasses to make this a normal phenomenon, or 2) the POVC does not have enough experience to know that birds are drawn to dead things.

Seeing as how we are in a different world, either of these two things is a distinct possibility. However, be aware that if this is the implication you give me as a reader, I will hold you to it. I will expect some further elaboration or explanation as to which of these is the case, and why.

Well done. Please send me the pieces you refer to!