posted
Hello, this is my first post of "13 lines," and would appreciate any feedback. Thanks!
'Do it right, Val.' His father’s voice curled through his mind like rugged work sweat. 'Plan, study, and think. You can’t do anything right if you don’t think it through.' Val focused with his left eye on the woodcarving with unconscious disregard for the split vision his misaligned right eye made. Skillfully his hands gouged and chipped the wood’s fresh moist warmth, forming the last remaining leg for the table he had promised his wife Kala. He inhaled deeply; a thousand aromas filled his genetically enhanced nasal cavities like cargo ships in a busy harbor. He closed both eyes, his olfactory receptors unloading cargoes of wood, spice, sweat, pollen. . .but not a woman in scent.
posted
Ha! you again. I do not like the voice curling, voices don't seem to do that. I would also say the split vision was caused by the misalinged right eye, not end with made.
I am not a big fan of the simile, but hey everyone has different tastes. The genetically enhanced bit makes one want to see what the heck is going on though. Why can't they fix his eyes if they can mess about with his olfactory recoptors?
posted
The bottom line for me is, it's about somebody carving a piece of wood for a table. I'm not hooked.
Posts: 2830 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
Your first 13 lines did a good job of interesting me in Val's character. I'm curious to learn more about the unusual qualities of his vision and sense of smell.
However, the opening does not have a lot of action in it, and it seems as though it tries to pack too much information about Val into a short space. If this is a short story, you might want to consider shortening this intro and selecting fewer characteristics of Val to describe so that you can get to the action sooner.
Whether you choose to shorten the intro or not, some of the description is a little heavy for my taste- namely the use of similes (mentioned above), the liberal use of adjectives and adverbs, and the use of long sentences that might be better split in half and reorganized in a different order.
For example,
*
Val's good eye focused on forming the last leg of the table he had promised his wife, Kala. Skillfull hands gouged and chipped the wood’s fresh, moist warmth.
The smell of his own sweat a thousand other aromas filled Val's genetically enhanced nasal cavities. His olfactory receptors detected wood, spice, sweat, pollen...but there was no scent of Kala.
*
In this chunk I tried to group together the information about the activity in which Val is engaged, and then grouped the information about his unusual olfactory enhancements. I eliminated "remaining", since "last remaining" really gives us the same information twice.
There are many ways to reorganize this paragraph which contains (possibly an overload of) nice images. With some pruning and reorganization it is a great character introduction!
posted
In my opinion the simile is simply a poor choice. Perhaps my perception is colored by being around modern cargo ships, but when I think of cargo ships, I do not think of a while hodgepodge of differentiable smells. Rather I think of the tang of the salt in the air, the nasty smell of rotten fish and mold. I think comparing it to a boquet (sp?) or perhaps a 6 course meal being prepared might be much more appealing.
Posts: 10 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
Hmm, thanks Sxotty. I was actually trying to create a visual of the amount of information being delivered to his nose, not the scent of a harbor.
I want to explore the criminal behind the enhanced olfactory system and the religion that is associated with these people. Basically, Val's people are being exploited, and the accident that caused Val's eyes to be misaligned was simply not dealt with because he could still be used for other tasks.
Thanks for the input. It helps me see alot of blind spots.
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