Are you offering up the whole story for crit? Or just this fragment?

People will be along shortly to critique... I apologize, but at the moment, I'm unable to take on any full stories for crit. I hope this changes by the weekend, though.

In this one, I do see a problem that could be fixed by a different point of view. There are also other ways to fix it, though, so in light of the frustration you feel with the POV POV POV thing I'll just describe the problem.

It's distant. There are a lot of short, even choppy descriptions that are meaningless and even boring. I don't know who these people are, what they want, or why I should keep reading.

That's the brutal truth as you have probably come to expect from Hatrack.

I noticed you mentioning earlier that it gets there, it explains. Here's the trouble: I'm not going to be there when it gets there. In a short story, you have about thirteen lines to hook me, or at least intrigue me into continuing to look for that hook (I call it a little hook or a fish hook, but it didn't catch on).

Worse, I saw you say that you don't like the narrator explaining characters' feelings...you just want to see the action and let the reader get all that inofrmation. Well, there's a problem with that way of looking at things. It's called a movie, and it can do this better than you can. There is quite simply no need for a book in 2005 to simply describe actions. It's not a niche we can fill. We cannot possibly compete with the full visual effect of a movie.

Do not despair, for there is hope, but it may take a large shift in your world view. THere is something books can do that movies can't. Books can get inside people's heads. They can tell us what they're thinking and feeling. They can allow us to truly understand people as we cannot usually do, not even in real life, though we so desperately want to. (Read "Characters and Viewpoint" for a better explanation of all of this.)

Does this mean that you can't do a cinematic or omniscient viewpoint? No! Use whatever viewpoint you like, but you have to throw me a bone here. A thousand words is fast paced and may not even need the explanations or thoughts of a longer tale, but at least have the main characters doing something that catches my attention, something weird, something special.

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In this one, I do see a problem that could be fixed by a different point of view. There are also other ways to fix it, though, so in light of the frustration you feel with the POV POV POV thing I'll just describe the problem.

It's distant. There are a lot of short, even choppy descriptions that are meaningless and even boring. [THE CHOPPINESS IS A STYLISTIC DECISION WHICH I STAND BY. THINK HEMMINGWAY, ONLY NOT AS GOOD, HAHA. AS TO THE DESCRIPTIONS, SOME OF THEM WERE SIMPLY TO ADD ATMOSPHERE AND GIVE THE READER SOMETHING OF A SETTING, AS WELL AS FALL INTO THE THEME\IMAGERY OF FALLEN LEAVES. ANOTHER REASON FOR THE DESCRIPTION IN THE FIRST PARAGRAPH IS FOR THE FLOW OF THE WRITING. I ALTERNATED DESCRIPTIONS OF THE DUDES AND THE SETTING TO MAKE THE SHORT CHOPPY SENTENCES FIT TOGETHER BETTER; IT SEEMED TO MAKE THE PARAGRAPH FLOW BETTER. THE ONLY DETAIL I THINK IS TOTALLY USELESS IS THE SHOULDER LENGTH BROWN HAIR. THAT COULD GO.] I don't know who these people are, what they want, or why I should keep reading.
[YOU DO KNOW WHO THESE PEOPLE ARE. THEY ARE TWINS. THEY HAVE SOME SORT OF CONFLICT BETWEEN THEM (HENCE THE SWORDS). THERE IS THE SMIRK, WHICH ALONG WITH THE GREEN EYES HOPEFULLY SUGGESTS JEALOUSY. ALSO, NO WORDS NEED BE SAID, THEY ARE PAST ARGUMENT, BATTLE IS THEIR ONLY RECOURSE. THE FIRST PARAGRAPH SEEMS TO TELL QUITE A BIT ABOUT THE SITUATION TO AN ATTENTIVE READER]

That's the brutal truth as you have probably come to expect from Hatrack.

I noticed you mentioning earlier that it gets there, it explains. Here's the trouble: I'm not going to be there when it gets there. In a short story, you have about thirteen lines to hook me, or at least intrigue me into continuing to look for that hook (I call it a little hook or a fish hook, but it didn't catch on).
[I THINK WE NEED TO GIVE THE READER A LITTLE MORE CREDIT AS FAR AS ATTENTION SPAN, ESPECIALLY AS THERE ARE THINGS IN THE BEGINNING WHICH, THOUGH SUBTLE, DO GIVE SOMETHING BY WAY OF EXPLANATION OF THE PLOT TO COME]

Worse, I saw you say that you don't like the narrator explaining characters' feelings...you just want to see the action and let the reader get all that inofrmation. [NOT ALL THE TIME, JUST HERE, THERE IS A REASON FOR IT REVEALED LATER ON IN THE STORY, DEALING WITH THE NOTION OF IDENTITY IN BATTLE] Well, there's a problem with that way of looking at things. It's called a movie, and it can do this better than you can. [SAYS YOU] There is quite simply no need for a book in 2005 to simply describe actions. It's not a niche we can fill. We cannot possibly compete with the full visual effect of a movie. [I PERSONALLY LOVE THE ACT OF READING, AND STARK ACTION SERVES ITS PURPOSE IN SOME CASES, ESPECIALLY WHEN DIALOGUE EXPLAINS THE CHARACTERS FEELINGS AND BACKSTORIES MORE FULLY (THAT'S COMING UP IN A FEW LINES IN THE STORY)]

Do not despair, for there is hope, but it may take a large shift in your world view. THere is something books can do that movies can't. Books can get inside people's heads. They can tell us what they're thinking and feeling. They can allow us to truly understand people as we cannot usually do, not even in real life, though we so desperately want to. (Read "Characters and Viewpoint" for a better explanation of all of this.)
[PART OF WHAT MAKES READING SPECIAL IS THE READER CREATING MEANING OUT OF A TEXT, IT ALWAYS HAPPENS, BUT LEAVING THE READER WITHOUT A COMMENTING NARRATOR ACCENTUATES THIS. THERE ARE MANY FORMS OF READING, ALL OF WHICH ARE STILL VALID. THE ESSENCE OF THIS ARGUMENT IS THAT THE READER CONSTRUCTS THE TEXT AS MUCH AS THE AUTHOR, NOT EVERY READER IS LOOKING FOR EVERYTHING TO BE DONE FOR HIM OR HER]

Does this mean that you can't do a cinematic or omniscient viewpoint? No! Use whatever viewpoint you like, but you have to throw me a bone here. A thousand words is fast paced and may not even need the explanations or thoughts of a longer tale, but at least have the main characters doing something that catches my attention, something weird, something special.
[I WOULD REALLY LIKE YOU TO READ THIS AND THEN COMMENT UPON IT. YOUR ARGUMENT IS VALID, IT'S JUST THAT I HAVE PUT THOUGHT INTO MY CHOICES AND HAVE DECIDED THAT I LIKE THEM]

And present tense annoys me too, for the record. [HAHA, THATS JUST TOO BAD. I TRY NOT TO USE IT TOO MUCH, ALTHOUGH AS I AM WRITING IT FEELS MORE NATURAL TO ME, SO ITS HARD.]
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So there it is, I hope that some of my stylistic decisions seem more appropriate, and if anyone still disagrees, I would really love to hear it. But now my cards are on the table, and we can see if this is effective. But I would really ask that anyone who wishes to discuss with me my stylistic decisions (please please please!) read the whole thing, I'm still quite happy with it, it's one of my favorite pieces, and if I can make it better, I would love to do so. Thanks for bearing with me through this absurdly long response!

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Ok, I'm, going to do something of a point by point defense here.

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Um no. You don't get to defend your work. Why not? Because if you send this out to a publisher who rejects it, you will not then get to send a point-by-point defense. If you do, he will think you are an idiot. He will definitely not think, "Oh, well, now that I understand...." It doesn't work that way! The story is what you get to say to the reader. All of it. You don't get to say another word more or less than the words that make up the story on the page.

Ok, I couldn't help myself. I peeked at your defense. Let me continue in the same vein I left it by adding that you don't get to tell me what I should have gotten out of a passage if I was paying attention. That is insulting on the one hand and arrogant on the other. Give me a reason to pay attention and I will. And not noticing hidden symbols is not the same as not paying attention. Symbols are best identified after a story has been read, not in progress, and it also works best if the author doesn't try to plant them. They are definitely not hints. I have green eyes. So what if your character does?

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saying "HAHA, THATS JUST TOO BAD." is not a very effective technique for getting people to keep reading your work.

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A cool wind flows through the forest, blowing shoulder-length brown hair.

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Whose hair? Who is seeing this? Why is the wind only blowing someone's hair?

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The two men are identical in all but their eyes: Blue and Green.

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Yawn.

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The smell of autumn is strong, dead leaves and dampness.

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Fine. Who smells this? What happened to the two men?

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They are garbed in black, the cloth sliding against lithe muscle like a second skin.

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Who are they? Unreferenced pronoun. Previous sentence was about the smell of autumn. The one before that was about two men. We must be back to the men... my attention span is fairly good. *pats self on shoulder*

[quoteTheir hands hover by their swords, offering silent challenge.[/quote]

Hover "by" you say? As in detached and free-floating hovering by? Hmm... I wish my hands could do that. Oh, and silent challenge to what?

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No words need be said.

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They do for me. I have no freakin' clue what's happening. And if no words need be said, why bother telling me the tale?

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A leaf falls, floats to the ground between them.

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Yawn. I want to know what's going on with the two guys... and now I'm reading something about a stinkin' leaf. Grr. Hey! I thought the wind was blowing... it seems to me that the wind would carry that leaf around a bit... I doubt it would just "float."

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A bird call slices through the silence. Green’s mouth twists into a subtle smirk.

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Bird call slicing through the silence? Surely the wind is making some noise in the trees, right? I mean, there are dead leaves about too. Ever hear the rustle of leaves when the wind is blowing? Oh, yeah, and I don't care about a bird. I simply care about knowing what's up with one of these two guys. Except, at this point, I don't care anymore at all. I feel like I am being yanked around relentlessly in details that mean squat.

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A sharp metallic ring accompanies Green’s sword sliding from its scabbard.

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Probably would be an excellent sentence if I knew why Green was drawing his sword in the first place. Since I don't, I'm skipping to next sentence. Maybe something will happen there.

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Once clear, its crystalline tone fills the air.

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Wow! The sword gets two sentences in a row! I don't think Green or Blue got two consecutive sentences to describe either of them. This sword must be important. It's a shame I'm not a sword, for if I were, I might understand a sword's motivation for filling the air with its crystalline tone.

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In this world, only one other sound matches its beauty.

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What world? And what is that other sound. I don't think I'll find out. But that's all right. I'm not going to read this much longer anyway.

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Flat of the blade on his forehead, he says: “Melody, be true to me this day.”

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Seems like this sentence is missing something. Oh, I know, the author wants me to guess what words should be at the start of the sentence before "Flat", so let's see... hmm... Well, now that I've read it twice, I can confidently assume it should be "With the flat..." Yep. That's the only choice, I feel.
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Right. Whatever your trying to acheive isn't working for me as a reader. The trouble is that I don't have anyone or anything to care about. Plus there are huge continuity issues... The wind blows, but I have no idea how strong it is and how long it lasts (is it a continuous wind? Only you know, because I sure don't).

The above fragment reads a lot of like a screenplay minus the proper formatting. If you are going to write a "movie" or "cinematic" tale, write a script, not a short story. That's my advice.

Good luck.

What I have asked for several times is for a judgement of the whole story. If you think the hook isn't hooky, as you have made painfully clear, I should probably change it. But the hook has never been what I have been worried about particularly a this point, honing the hook is a matter of polishing, and I am not at the stage of revision where I want to polish. What I want to know is if the conflict between the characters is believable and defined enough without being overly so, if the dialogue sounds natural, if the recurring imagery of fallen leaves is effective, if the sound imagery is effective, if you like the section where I switch into past tense to achieve the effect of narrative distance from the characters and the effect of time elapsing, and the sorts of stuff that require a full reading of the story. Which I humbly ask for.

The mechanics and continuity of individual sentences are a waste of time to revise until the plot and general structure of the story are cemented, otherwise hard work put into polishing can be deleted as the structure and plot are messed around with. It's like polishing a piece of chrome for your car that you end up not putting on. First I need to know if and where I am using all the of chrome bits before I spruce them up.

I won't read because:
a. It's present tense, and I already told you how intrusive I found your use of present tense, back on the first day;
b. You argue about every damn thing;
c. You dismiss all comments and show no sign whatsoever of benefiting from anything said here. So why bother?

Reading the rest and commenting on it would neither benefit you, nor amuse me.

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Worse, I saw you say that you don't like the narrator explaining characters' feelings...you just want to see the action and let the reader get all that inofrmation. Well, there's a problem with that way of looking at things. It's called a movie, and it can do this better than you can. There is quite simply no need for a book in 2005 to simply describe actions. It's not a niche we can fill. We cannot possibly compete with the full visual effect of a movie.

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I have to say, this is what set me off. I really can take any comments specifically about my work, but I take offense to broad judgmental statements about entire forms of literature. I think these kinds of judgments among artists are dangerous, in that in shutting off an entire realm of form, we cut of potential for interesting and unique art. You can rip up my work six ways to suday, whatever. Just don't tell me that writers can't write a certain way simply because another format does a better job most of the time, part of the fun of art is surprising people by doing something unexpected, like trumping film at its own game (and NO, I am not in any way claiming this lofty goal for myself).

And yeah, I'll admit that in a good bit of what I said, I was being a jerk. I can't take back what I said, so I'll be mature and admit to it and try not to ruffle any more feathers.

(I'm deleting this "stab"; what made me think there was a point? Hope springs eternal.)

First let me say, I will read the whole thing for you.

I didn't offer at first, because after reading the lines you have posted, I wasn't interested enough to read further. Others have enumerated the problems; I won't repeat them. But since you're pleading for someone to help you with the rest, and no one else is offering, I'll take a look.

Remember, though, that what I will be giving you are my REACTIONS as a reader. So if I don't understand something, and then you later explain it to me, that doesn't change the fact that as I read it I was confused. So it is better to spend your energy fixing the problem so that the next reader doesn't stumble over it, rather than trying to convince me that my reaction was wrong.

You may decide that things I flag as problems, you want to keep the way they are. That is your perogative as the writer. You have to decide if your reason for keeping it that way is worth alienating some readers.

Bottom line: don't argue with your critiquers. You can ask for clarification, or you can ask for reactions on changes (if I change x to y, does that help the POV problem, as an example). But telling people that their reactions were wrong just makes them mad, and accomplishes nothing.

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. I think these kinds of judgments among artists are dangerous, in that in shutting off an entire realm of form, we cut of potential for interesting and unique art.

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You can be an artist if you want, or you can be a storyteller. You choose.

Telling stories is indeed an artform... it's not as easy as it seems to be, and it takes most people years and years to hone that craft. In the above fragment, you're not telling me a story. You are simply showing me stuff that is disjointed; it fails to grab my attention for all of the reasons noted above.

Tell a story first, worry about being "artistic" later, once you've mastered the mechanics of storytelling.

And yes, please stop arguing, debating, and defending your points. We know exactly how you feel, because we all feel like that from time to time when we receive criticism. Finally, a critique is an opinion. You don't have to like it, agree with it, or even read it if it bothers you. But if everyone (and it has been everyone) says there is a problem, then you should at least consider the possibility that there is a "flaw in the plan as is." And if you can't, you'll never grow as a writer, let alone an artist.

As to the grumpiness, it's the end of the semester . . . yeah. I'll try not to let it bleed into the boards anymore.

--"Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger."

Kaz, you haven't been around long enough to learn this, but you've stumbled into a very, very common problem that we have all seen many times. Young writers, especially in speculative fiction, seem to want to tell stories like movies. You might think you've got a great new idea, but we've seen stories and novels opened like teleplays and screenplays a million times. They take POV, verb tense, narrative style, and many other tools of fiction writing and use them to paint moving pictures.

Personally, I like the quick style. If you can express the idea using "Flat of the blade . . ." I don't think you need to say "With the flas of the blade . . ."