quote:
Birdy was one tough egret. She'd removed parasites from General Nurg's mangy hide for nearly two years.
The general was a walking smörgåsbord of bot flies, ticks, and assorted tasty creatures for her to feed on. She was sensitive to the general's moods and developed a sixth sense to danger.
She'd seen many of her fellow egrets turned to bloody feather dusters after failing to dodge a retaliatory hoof-fist slap for an errant beak stick pursuing bot flies. She always felt it coming and dodged.
Three other egrets shared the general with her. They were the most recent replacements from their last visit to Home Prime. They roved his body from head to tail, except for his left shoulder. That was her personal territory, and off limits.
[This message has been edited by honu (edited January 27, 2009).]
Anyway, even though you're not concerned with hookiness, I'm pretty hooked. I'm interested by how this is from the point of view of a very able egret. It kind of has a fable or a kids story feel, which I don't mind, but it might turn some adult readers away.
I'm wondering how this is sci-fi, though. You're kind of vague on what species the General is, but you do mention a "hoof-fist". Is he an alien? Perhaps that comes later in the story.
At just 900 words, I'll be glad to look at it for you. It might take me a while to get it back to you, since school tends to keep me very busy.
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On a second reading, I do see General Nurg as an alien. With names like "Birdy" and "Nurg", I'm guessing that this isn't a serious story.
[This message has been edited by alittleofeverything (edited January 26, 2009).]
"The general was a walking smörgåsbord of bot flies, ticks, and assorted tasty creatures for her to feed on."
There was an intriguing "ick" factor to the entire piece, so I think maybe creatures could be changed to vermin or parasites or something kind of gross-sounding like that.
Although I really enjoyed all of these opening lines, they felt a bit disorganized to me. My impression was that the ideas didn't flow into one another properly and sometimes weren't followed up on for a sentence or two. What I've done here, take it or leave it, is rearranged the sentences into an order that might have a better flow, at least in my eyes. Obviously some restructuring of the words would be required.
1-The general was a walking smörgåsbord of bot flies, ticks, and assorted tasty creatures for her to feed on.
2-She'd removed parasites from General Nurg's mangy hide for nearly two years.
3-She'd seen many of her fellow egrets turned to bloody feather dusters after failing to dodge a retaliatory hoof-fist slap for an errant beak stick pursuing bot flies.
4-Birdy was one tough egret.
5-She was sensitive to the general's moods and developed a sixth sense to danger.
6-She always felt it coming and dodged.
7-Three other egrets shared the general with her. They were the most recent replacements from their last visit to Home Prime. They roved his body from head to tail, except for his left shoulder. That was her personal territory, and off limits.
I hope you won't feel I've been too presumptive in rearranging your lines like this; it was just something that occurred to me and I thought I'd share it on the off-chance it might help you out some.
Interesting and well-done beginning, overall. Keep up the good work.
[This message has been edited by Brant Danay (edited January 27, 2009).]
The only complaint I have, is "It was her personal territory."
I don't feel "Personal" is needed. Might just be preference, though.
If you need any crits on the entire passage, feel free to send it my way.
Okay, okay. ...after failing to dodge a retaliatory hoof-fist slap for an errant beak stick pursuing bot flies.... retaliatory slap is sufficient. Hoof-first makes it wordy. So does, an errant beak stick pursuing bot flies. It would be sufficient to simply say 'an errant beak stick'.
I believe the resulting sentence would read much easier and convey the same message but leave out one point of data you might have to include later. That the general has hoofs.
I changed the sequence for sentence two and three. It now reads a little smoother in that order I think.[This message has been edited by honu (edited January 27, 2009).]
The first thirteen certainly caught my interest. My only crit was the usage of "her". It seemed a little overused and the flow of the POV could be streamlined without so many.
Otherwise this was really intruiging and left me so curious as to where this was going. Send it over I will return it promtly.
It made me laugh and I thought it was extremely imaginative and visual.
One suggestion re: personal territory. You could get the same idea across if you said the ...shoulder was HERS.