Okay, so here's one of several "beginnings" I've written at work during down time. I typically write blurbs while at work, looking back at them every so often. This is one that I'm particularly interested in expanding.
Genre: Other? - It hasn't developed into any particular genre at this point.
quote:"...to black."
Burning chest, white knuckled fists lay out before me. No words. The other man nods as he stands, turns, pushes his chair in and walks out the door. Boiling, simmerring, still. Time for a walk.
So now I sit writing. Writing about writing. What else did he say? "...to black." I remember the burn. The boiling. Why? Something about Craig. "...to black." Write it out. Rocks, waves, and crisp fall leaves. Sunshine half-muted by thin white clouds. Breeze. Eyes closed. Deep breath. "His heart gave way to black."
~~~
We sat out on Two-Tree Hill, blowing off steam with our voices and guitars. He sat under the east tree, I sat under west. We alternated lines of the verse, Craig first:
"Early to rise"
[ January 06, 2012, 07:44 PM: Message edited by: Kathleen Dalton Woodbury ]
Posted by LeetahWest (Member # 9402) on :
"...to black." You keep repeating this line so I am made to think it is important, but I still don't understand it.
Burning chest, Whose burning chest? Or what burning chest perhaps? white knuckled fists lay out before me. No words. The other man nods as he stands, turns, pushes his chair in and walks out the door. Boiling, simmerring, still. Time for a walk. I am assuming we are inside the guys head, but while we may think in disjointed thoughts like this, we also understand our own reasons for it. This is harder to pull off when the reader doesn't understand points A and/or C and all you give them is point B
So now I sit writing. Writing about writing. What else did he say? "...to black." I remember the burn. The boiling. Why? Something about Craig. "...to black." Write it out. Rocks, waves, and crisp fall leaves. Sunshine half-muted by thin white clouds. Breeze. Eyes closed. Deep breath. "His heart gave way to black." I didn't understand the meaning of this paragraph, it jumped around too much for me. ~~~
We sat out on Two-Tree Hill, blowing off steam with our voices and guitars. He sat under the east tree, I sat under west. We alternated lines of the verse, Craig first:
"Early to rise" "Late to lay down" "Time surely flies" "In Stone-Mason town" I liked this bit. It seems to me that the first couple of paragraphs are a distraction, this gets to the point. I feel like sitting under a tree with them and enjoying the evening.
All in all, I don't feel like I know anything about the story yet.
Posted by Christian T. Golden (Member # 9729) on :
I plan on making the points (A,B,C, etc) clearer as the story develops. I completely understand that this makes it difficult for the reader to get in someone else's head without knowing the ties between the thoughts. I will have to develop this story a bit more before posting (as I see I should have done to begin with).
Thank you so much for your review! I will certainly take your comments into consideration.
Posted by Christian T. Golden (Member # 9729) on :
Oh, did I make a goof in my posting, Kathleen? I see that you had to edit out the end of the verse. I just want to make sure I don't make the same goof again.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
You need to keep the 13-line posts at only 13 lines (of monospace 12-point font--what you should use for a properly formatted manuscript).
I wasn't sure whether "... to black." was supposed to be part of those 13 lines, so I gave you the benefit of the doubt.
Please read this topic to see how to tell if you have 13 lines posted.
Posted by Christian T. Golden (Member # 9729) on :
Ahhh, thanks.
Posted by Nick T (Member # 8052) on :
Christian,
At this stage, it strikes me as "throat-clearing"; you haven't figured out where this story is headed and you haven't figured out the true beginning. Nothing wrong with that of course (I tend to write my stories the same way), but it makes it hard to crit.
In this opening, I have no sense of who the narrator is. If I have a character and I have a problem, then I have the start of a story.