Hatrack River Writers Workshop: All in the Blood

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

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Posted by Rheniel (Member # 7888) on :

Genre: Modern Fantasy; Length: about 6200 Words; Status: Complete, still in Rough Draft; Request: Please, my friends, rip it to smithereens. And if I haven't lost your attention, I'd love it if you'd read more.

The stairs suspended from the blood donation trailer bounced under the heavy tread of his boot. He licked his lips, cracked dryness melting slightly with the momentary moisture. His hand hesitated on the sun-warmed latch of the door, but it was the last sign of indecision he allowed.
The door came open with a small clack, and the white-bloused nurse smiled at him. He spared a moment of amusement for the girl - with a giant vial full of blood and grinning - looking innocent and helpful rather than manic.
"Have a seat in that chair, and I'll be right with you." She said, and then all he could see was the brown ponytail and poofy white scrunchy at the back of her head. Almost as ironic as the needle-and-grin, that.

Posted by Stucky (Member # 7833) on :

Interesting intro. The only problem I see with it is that the "hook" seems to be assumption, it is easy for the reader to already assume that the MC is a vampire because it is shot from his pov. The thing that makes vampires so scary, and interesting is that; a) they could be anyone... you never know if you're dealing with a vampire until it is too late, and b) they are very sneaky and stealthy... they will sneak right up on you. It would be interesting to see this shot from a bit of a diferent perspective.. perhaps just a bit removed from the MC. We see his actions but not his thoughts right away.... or maybe you shoot the first scene from the pov of the nurse.

Anyway... I'd love to see the rest- go ahead and email it to me and I'll check it out. - dstucky@emporia.edu

Posted by Merlion-Emrys (Member # 7912) on :

quote:
He spared a moment of amusement for the girl - with a giant vial full of blood and grinning - looking innocent and helpful rather than manic.

This passage is a little unclear to me, but I'm not sure why.

Maybe: He spared a moment of amusement for the grinning girl with a giant vial full of blood, looking innocent and helpful rather than manic.

Although I'm still not totally sure why she would be or look manic.

Still, pretty good I think.

Posted by Rheniel (Member # 7888) on :

Merlion-Emrys,

Thanks for the correction; I meant "maniacal", rather a different thing. Apparently I had a moment of random vocabulary.

Thanks also for the sentence correction; that one sticks for me, too, but I like the image... Still not sure if I'll cut it or change it.

Posted by Merlion-Emrys (Member # 7912) on :

Ahhh....maniacal...it all makes sense now. Sort of. That definitely improves it, and maybe just an itty bitty tweak in word order. Thats something I find myself often having to do several times before I get it how I want it.

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

What Stucky said.

Also, I think it could be made easier to read with a few minor wording changes:

quote:
The stairs LEADING UP TO the blood donation trailer bounced under the heavy tread of his boot. He licked his lips, THEIR cracked dryness SOFTENING slightly with the momentary moisture. His hand hesitated on the sun-warmed latch of the door.
It was the last sign of indecision he allowed.
The door came open with a small clack, and the white-bloused nurse smiled at him. He spared a moment of amusement for the girl - [NEED AN EM DASH] with a giant vial OF blood - GRINNING, looking innocent and helpful rather than manic.
"Have a seat in that chair, and I'll be right with you," she said [NOTE PUNCTUATION FIX]

You haven't lost me yet, but you haven't clearly got me either. At 6200 words, I'll only *promise* to read part, but I'll *plan* to read to the end, if that's OK.

Posted by KayTi (Member # 5137) on :

I strongly, strongly suggest you name your MC in the first 13. The "he" business is a real problem for me, and I know I'm not the only one.

The MC knows his name. It's not some sort of secret (at least not from what I can tell) It would fit right in the first sentence "bounced under the heavy tread of Pete's boot."

The "he spared a moment" sentence is confusing, but it sounds like you know what you need to do to fix that. You could break it into two (or more) sentences rather than using the em dash.

Good luck with this!

Posted by nitewriter (Member # 3214) on :

"He spared a moment of amusement for the girl - with a giant vial of blood and grinning - looking innocent and helpful rather than manic." This sentence is awkward. Breaking it up would help clarify it I think. You might consider getting us in closer by a little characterization. Maybe he tells her a joke or says something amusing in an effort to conceal his manic nature. This would be an excellent place to reveal character traits through dialogue, IMO.

Nit: "...giant vial of blood..." This is not clear - it's an oxymoron since a vial by definition is a small container. When you say "giant vial" I have no idea how large that is.

[This message has been edited by nitewriter (edited April 21, 2008).]

Posted by bandgeek9723 (Member # 7886) on :

For some reason when I first read this I get the impression that the nurse is the one to be feared. After all, insane or maniacal people make for great villains, and when you describe her as not looking maniacal it sounds as if she should or that she usually does.

Other than that and other errors that people have already pointed out, there's not much for me to complain about. Though that's not saying much, since I'm still relatively new at critiquing other people's work.

Posted by Wordmerchant (Member # 7778) on :

quote:
He licked his lips, cracked dryness melting slightly with the momentary moisture... He spared a moment of amusement for the girl - with a giant vial full of blood and grinning - looking innocent and helpful rather than manic.

Both of these are cases where the clauses? do not connect with their object. ( I am obviously NOT an English professor.

) In the first case, having his lips cracked prior to the comma would suffice. In the second case, I want to know why the nurse is maniacal.

Posted by monstewer (Member # 5883) on :

I'll read the whole thing if you're still looking for readers.