Does this interest you enough to keep reading? I'm interested in both your reactions and suggestions for how to improve.
Miriam stood hunched near the peak of the sloping cavern floor, driving a chisel against the bone ceiling with her stout arms. A scrim of pale dust coated her shoulders, sleeves, and the front of her vine-weave shirt. Her snarled hair, entwined with blackberry sprigs, fell slipshod to the small of her back.
She could hear the patter of reluctant rain striking the floor of the cavern above. When last it rained, a month ago, the ceiling was khem, dark and porous, so drinking water just trickled through. But the clan had to eat. They planted blackberry in the fertile ceiling, let it grow, harvested.
And nothing comes free. What is black and supple becomes white and unyielding: khem becomes bone. Now nothing would ever grow in the ceiling again.
Posted by babooher (Member # 8617) on :
I'd keep reading. You've set up a conflict, established some world building, and created a sense of fantasy. If it is done, I'd give it a look.
Posted by Jay Greenstein (Member # 10615) on :
quote:Miriam stood hunched near the peak of the sloping cavern floor, driving a chisel against the bone ceiling with her stout arms.
This is too abstract. Someone we know nothing about is standing in an unknown cavern, in an unknown place, in an unknown era, for unknown purpose.
She apparently is using a chisel without a hammer, on a cave within the bone of an unknown creature. Yes, you later explain that an unknown thing called khem turned to a bone-like substance, but as read, the reader can only apply the term as they understand it.
In short, the reader lacks context to make the line meaningful, as they read.
quote:A scrim of pale dust coated her shoulders, sleeves, and the front of her vine-weave shirt. Her snarled hair, entwined with blackberry sprigs, fell slipshod to the small of her back.
This is visual detail that, in a film, the audience would note in parallel with the action. Thus, it would take no time from the action. On the page, you're talking about what a reader would see, were they watching the film. Why? If we don't know who she is, why she's there, and what's going on, why would we care that she has dust on her? In short, the dust is irrelevant to her, and the reader because the only one noticing it is a narrator who is not on the scene.
quote:She could hear the patter of reluctant rain striking the floor of the cavern above.
Okay, I'm lost. She's in a cave, which, by definition, is enclosed. And the ceiling is bone, a dense material. But somehow, she can hear rain striking the floor of a cavern above her? How can rain strike the floor of an enclosed place?
It may be that you have a visualization of such a place. It may be that it makes sense to you. But will it make sense to the reader? They must have context as it's read or it won't make sense to them.
One of the ways we, as writers, avoid such confusion is to tell the story from within the viewpoint of the protagonist. If we place the reader into the persona of the protagonist, knowing the sutuation as they do, then the protagonist's context will be that of the reader. It's part of the craft of the writer, the writing techniques unique to the profession, that are not taught us in our school years because professions are learned after we've acquired the traditional Three R's.
The library's fiction writing section is a really useful resource, filled with the advice of successful writers, teachers, and publishing pros.
Posted by AndyD (Member # 11215) on :
Thanks for your thorough feedback, Jay. I hoped to convey that this is very different world than ours where caves are stacked on one another and rain comes from somewhere higher up by moving through the porous material, khem.
I'll see if I can be more compact with the world building, or at least better signal to readers we're in a strange place.
Posted by Grumpy old guy (Member # 9922) on :
Now, before you start making radical change in response to critiques, ask yourself this question: What does this scene have to do? I mean, what's its purpose; to reveal character, plot, milieu etc.?
My problem with the fragment as-is, is that it's trying to do too much with limited space.
Phil.
PS More later.
Posted by Jay Greenstein (Member # 10615) on :
quote:I hoped to convey that this is very different world than ours where caves are stacked on one another and rain comes from somewhere higher up by moving through the porous material, khem.
The problem you face is that for you, who have the knowledge of where we are in time and space, what's going on, and whose skin we wear, this opening makes perfect sense. But while the image you hold in your head generated the words, will those same words, alone, generate that same picture in the reader's head? And without thinking about it you provide effect, the material having been turned to bone, before giving the cause, But in the character's life, as in our own, cause comes first.
It's truly said that a picture is worth a thousand words. But to give the reader that picture would take four standard manuscript pages. And most of what you'd talk about is being ignored by the protagonist. And in the end, it would be a still picture.
There's another problem that we miss when we turn to recording our stories, which is that only the author hears emotion in the narrator's voice. But as the author, you're cheating. Since you know the scene, have context, and know how you would read it aloud, the voice of the narrator is filled with emotion. Want to hear what the reader gets? Have your computer read it aloud. That's an important part of my editing process,because it points out where the narrator is explaining, as against the reader living the story with the protagonist as their avatar.
The problem you face is that no one tells us that fiction requires a very different approach from the report-writing skills we're given in school. So when we begin recording our stories we tell the reader our story, either as a chronicle of events, or a transcription of us telling the story to an audience. Neither work, but since they're the only two approaches we know...
But fiction focuses on involving the reader, rather than informing them. And one of the best ways is to present the story through the protagonist's viewpoint, which is a very different thing from first, second, or third person POV. Used well, the story can become so real that when things go wrong, readers will find themselves saying, "Oh my God...what do we do now?" And don't you love it when a story makes you do that?
For a condensation of one powerful way of doing that, try this article. Chew on it till it makes sense, then try its framework with your story, to see how it forces you to think as the protagonist, and how that automatically provides context for the reader.
Posted by Naomi Craig (Member # 11222) on :
For what it's worth, I did immediately assume this is a neolithic people and wasn't confused by a cave system with multiple levels. I did tilt my head at the idea that a blackberry bush would grow without sunlight, though. From this bit I further assume we're going to deal with the prospect of famine.
What's missing for me is, as others have said, why is Miriam chiseling the ceiling? If she's trying to find more khem, you could easily say she's trying to chisel the bone off the cieling instead of she is banging at it. As it is, it seems a purposeless activity.
Posted by Challenge (Member # 11238) on :
Yes, this is interesting enough for me to keep reading. 1) I can immediately identify with the character because of the particularity of the diction and selected details; 2) I like the transition between her falling hair and the falling rain; 3) I am intrigued my the less familiar lexical items: "vine-weave" "khem". I would suggest a better transition between "...harvested" and "And not nothing comes free." That leap lost me. So the last paragraph didn't seem to fit.