quote:On hot nights, Ellie sits out the front. From her chair on the deck she watches the sunset. She watches the stars drift into their nightly vigil, mindless of the numbing incomprehension of distance between her and them. She hears the Michaelsons, three doors down, fighting in their kitchen again, until eventually he storms out and hurtles away in his car. He’ll be back later. Drunk.
On hot nights, the air seems to acquire a thickness, a sort of living heaviness that wraps itself around her, embracing Ellie completely, suffocatingly. She breathes the darkness and wonders if the baby feels the heaviness too. Without realising it, her hands rest lightly on her belly.
Her mother brings her food, but the heat has left her without appetite, and the smell stirs deep nausea inside her.
When the night-wind finally stirs through the neighbourhood, its cool fingers are like the touch of a lover.
Two points for providing critique. Critique must be more substantial than “I like it” or “good flow.” If I’m not sure if something counts as critique, I’ll award one point. Critique points can be earned even after the round is officially over.
One point for guessing, with reason given for the guesses. No points for subsequent guesses, unless you guess right. You can guess as many times as you want each round, but one guess at a time. (You can guess again after I answer your outstanding guess.)
Seems like a young to middle-aged woman to me, because of the main character and the attention to details... It's very relaxing despite the themes that are put forth. It's really very beautiful, and I wonder what it leads up to. It's a great introductory paragraph, really. It pulls you in.
The only problem I see is the liberal peppering of commas. This is something I'm trying to fix about my own writing so it really sticks out to me...
posted
I like it. The style is very lyrical and, forgive the pun, pregnant with emotion. The characterization is subtle but very effective. The pacing is good. A very well-constructed scene.
The thing is, I'm not sure I'm deeply interested in reading more. I can't find anything really wrong with it, but I just don't feel that interested in the story. There doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency. In fact, it's difficult to discern much of a plot.
I'd imagine that this is the intro to a long story, or perhaps an internal chapter intro. Given the quality of the writing, I might like the story, but it feels like the kind I might have to make myself get into. Not that this makes it bad; at the risk of sounding sexist, I would imagine that this might appeal more to a woman.
One last thing:
quote:She watches the stars drift into their nightly vigil, mindless of the numbing incomprehension of distance between her and them.
Can I get a grammar nazi's ruling on this sentence? The "her and them" may be right, but for some reason it sounds weird to me.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Hmm, hot nights and decks. Sounds like the South.
Ellie seems to most likely be young and single. Her mother is there, and if the wind feels like a lover, that implies the lack of a flesh-and-blood one.
This does a good job of evoking a mood -- I can almost hear the neighbors, feel the clinging humidity. The introduction of the baby works well; a smooth segue.
posted
Hm, it seems I've missed a couple rounds somewhere.
Well, I really like this, especially the middle couple paragraphs. The one thing that bothers me about the piece is the "her and him" bit. It threw me off. Also, it sounds good alone, but I'm not really sure how well it would tie into a larger story. Because of the spelling, and because I think he could probably pull this off, I'll go with Tristan.
Oh yeah, I'm not too positive about the hyphenated "night-wind," but I could be wrong there, as I can never figure out what is supposed to be hyphenated or not.
posted
Another thing: I usually don't like the use of the present tense—I tend to find it pretentious—but it works here. It gives the passage a sort of poetic, dream-like quality. However, I don't know that I'd be able to read a whole novel written that way.
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Der Grammatikfuehrer
unregistered
posted
quote:Can I get a grammar nazi's ruling on this sentence? The "her and them" may be right, but for some reason it sounds weird to me.
Der Grammatikfuehrer rules in favor of "her and them." It's perfectly good, grammatically correct English.
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posted
But YES to Troubs being from Australia. Don't y'all know that by now?
I really liked this snippet, very evocative and I liked the repitition of "on hot nights." It does sound exactly, or would almost certainly have to be, the opening chapter of a novel or beginning to a short story. The repitition and introduction of character, setting and conflict (oop, young single girl with baby!) are too jammed-packed into so few lines for it to be anything but, imo.
I think i would have said "nausea deep inside her" not "deep nausea inside her." ...it just sounds kind of funny to my ear. And did you mean "out the front"? Is that a southernism, or a foreignerism? Cause if by that you mean "out on the front porch, i've never heard it put quite that way before.
Interestingly, I didn't think this was a woman initially. My first thought was Tom_D because this reminds me of the woman drinking tea passage he wrote for the last round of the game. I hesitate to guess him because it's not the whole passage that reminds me of him...
Based on the strange wording, I'm going to guess imogenPosts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
My second and final guess, because i too don't want to ride the coattails of my reasoning -- not Tristan cause he's already been guessed and I'm a big silly head.
posted
I like this. Very poetic. Like Rivka, I'm getting associations to the South, although I guess "hot nights" could be an Australian thing too. The spelling of "realising" is, as several people have pointed out, British (as is "neighbourhood"), but non-US authors left on the list are running out. However, it could be a deliberate attempt to throw us off, or simply a mistake (although more than one is reaching, I suppose).
I'm trying to figure out something to complain about, but am having little luck. Actually, I wouldn't change a thing. So I'm going to guess instead. I have several names I think may have written this and which I'd like to be first to guess, but the spelling thing is such an important clue so I have to exhaust the non-US names first.
posted
I like. It's very poetic. A large part of that is the substantial use of commas and especially the last sentence. And the whole excerpt just feels like a poem with all the description of the night and the air.
Having said that, I must also add that I'm not much of a poetry person. So I'm not too inclined to read the rest. The trade-off for that is the name. I know someone who goes by Ellie and would probably read as much as I could just because of that. After we guess correctly, author, why'd you choose that name?
Anyway, even though I don't like poetry that much I still like the piece.. It's good that you use the pronoun more than the name. Um, thanks for sharing, Irami?
Posts: 1056 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Sorry for not putting my hand up a little sooner -I'm in transit at the moment and this is being typed in the qantas lounge at Singapore airport...
Well done Jeni (again!) It was me. Thanks all for the comments, too... yet another quick round by the looks of things!
This piece is actually an adaptation of a chapter intro from my book "fireshadow" which I finished late last year. It is from the middle of the book, and comes from one small section which is written in first person (I also can't handle too much present tense in the one story).
Other people who got it right on the money were Ryuko - I do use, far too many, commas. This is something that systematically drives my editor mad. Also, congrats to Rivka who identified the protagonist as a young single mum - again, right on the money, and Leonide whose initial assessment of my gender was also gratifyingly accurate. (just out of curiosity, what gave this away?)
Anyway - thanks again for all the lovely comments, I'll try to post a little more regularly when I get back to OZ
posted
Oh and esl - to be quite honest I'm not certain why I chose the name Ellie - the female protagonist of my book is in fact named Alice, but as I was playing around with this passage, and trying to imply a number of different themes, it didn't feel quite right to go with the same character. I guess I felt the name Ellie just kind of suited the type of person I had in mind (young, unmarried and pregnant in the stifling heat of an Australian summer)
Posts: 466 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I knew I should have posted yesterday. . . not that I would've guessed scy, or anything, but it always feels like cheating when I critique after the author's been guessed.
Everyone's commented on the strengths of this piece, and they are all correct.
This is an example of my biggest problem with the piece: ". . .mindless of the numbing incomprehension of distance between her and them."
What exactly does this mean? It made my eyes blur. Unfortunately, paired with the present tense usage, this piece DOES come off as slightly avant-garde. Which is a real pity, because the first paragraph is masterful. We get such CONTACT with the protagonist, the author generates such empathy for her in a matter of few words, and we STILL have to endure $50 turns of phrase.
That said, I'd continue to read the story, if there happened to be more of it.
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