posted
would anyone be interested in critiquing the first 13? If so, thank you for the taking the time to do so!
Noah reached over and turned off the alarm clock before it beeped. He’d been awake now for over an hour. The bad dream that caused him to wake in the middle of the night kept playing in his mind. He seldom remembered his dreams but this particular dream was so vivid and real that it was hard to put it out of his thoughts. In the dream, the whole animal kingdom had vanished from the earth and natural environments all over the world had been left barren and lifeless. The human population that remained appeared desperate and pitiful as they searched for something they knew they would not find. The planet was a dying wasteland. Noah turned over but continued to feel anxious and so he stayed under the covers trying to shake off the disturbing effects of the dream. After he finally forced himself up and out of bed, he glanced across the room and suddenly remembered what today was. He grabbed a towel and quickly headed to the bathroom to take a shower. His mother was already downstairs preparing breakfast and she would soon be checking to see if he was up and getting dressed.
posted
Hi Callia, I can tell this is an interesting idea but it is hard to read as the text is one big chunk.
Noah reached over and turned off the alarm clock before it beeped. He’d been awake now for over an hour. THE FIRST LINE DOES NOT HOOK ME IN AS IT IS QUITE STANDARD.
THIS WHOLE PARAGRAPH COULD EASILY BE REDUCED TO TWO OR THREE SHORT SENTENCES.
PERHAPS APPROACH THE BAD DREAM IDEA FROM ANOTHER ANGLE.
THE REPETITION OF THE WORD DREAM BECOMES AN ISSUE.
The bad DREAM that caused him to wake in the middle of the night kept playing in his mind. He seldom remembered his DREAMS but this particular DREAM was so vivid and real that it was hard to put it out of his thoughts. In the DREAM, the whole animal kingdom had vanished from the earth and natural environments all over the world had been left barren and lifeless. The human population that remained appeared desperate and pitiful as they searched for something they knew they would not find. The planet was a dying wasteland. Noah turned over but continued to feel anxious and so he stayed under the covers trying to shake off the disturbing effects of the DREAM. After he finally forced himself up and out of bed, he glanced across the room and suddenly remembered what today was. He grabbed a towel and quickly headed to the bathroom to take a shower. His mother was already downstairs preparing breakfast and she would soon be checking to see if he was up and getting dressed.
SO THE INTERESTING IDEAS IN THIS PARAGRAPH ARE THAT NOAH HAS HAD A BAD DREAM AND THAT TODAY IS A SPECIAL DAY.
YOU NEED TO GRAB THESE TWO IDEAS AND MAKE THE READER PERSONALLY INTERESTED IN BOTH. YOU ALSO DUMP A LOT OF INFO ON THE READER ALL AT ONCE. WHAT DO WE REALLY NEED TO KNOW HERE? DO YOU REALLY NEED TO DESCRIBE THE ENTIRE DREAM, RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT?
FIGURE THAT OUT THEN SORT OUT HOW TO PRESENT IT IN AN INTERESTING WAY. JUST NEEDS REARRANGING AND EDITING.
HOPE THIS HELPS ORGANISATION IS SUCH AN ISSUE li
[This message has been edited by limo (edited April 27, 2005).]
[This message has been edited by limo (edited April 28, 2005).]
[This message has been edited by limo (edited April 28, 2005).]
posted
Sounds OK, but it's not hooking me. I think it is because the "waking up from a bad dream" scenerio is one I have seen a bunch of times, therefore it's not that interesting. Is there a way you could get the info in without using the "waking up" scenerio. Maybe something could trigger a brief recollection of the dream. Maybe he could see a picture of a desert in the travel agency window as he walks to work or where ever he is going today. Or maybe he could see a homeless person, who reminds him of the "desperate and pitiful" people in his dream.
FYI - Where I would expect this story to go from here:
1. Noah, being named for the guy who saved animal kind in ancient times, will save them this time.
2. Something interesting will happen today that will either allow him the opportunity to save them, or set-off the chain reaction of whatever kills them.
posted
Hi. Is the dream connected to the story? If not, I'd scrap all that - I dont need it. If it is key to some following events, then keep it - obviously.
posted
I'd have to agree with beniska here - if the dream is not important, cut it.
If it is important then you need to do two things.
The first is to make the reader experience it more. I feel that you're telling us about the dream without really letting us in to it. How did Noah feel while he was dreaming it? Why was it hard for him in particular not to just forget it? (yikes, that sentence sounded SO much better in my head)
Secondly, as Newsbys says, as an opening, waking from a bad dream has been done a lot so if you're going to use it you need it to be extremely powerful and pertinent to the piece as a whole.
Just IMHO
R
[This message has been edited by RFLong (edited April 27, 2005).]
posted
Thank you all for your time in submitting some very good comments re my first 13. if i wasn't so intent on hooking someone in the first paragraph i probably would have left out the info of the dream part. fyi the target audience for the story is what some of you refer to as "Juveys" The word dream was a bit over the top, and that will be dealt with, thank you for that, limo. i definitely agree with your assessment. i still have a problem with getting a hook into the first paragraph or 13 lines, an area i need to work on.
Look forward to doing some critiques on other people's work.
posted
Unlike some of the others, I like the first two lines - they are direct and grounded me in the character as a real person. I was thrown off by the next section, as I was confused about the timing of the dream - to me, "the middle of the night" is not the same as the hour before the alarm goes off, so I wasn't sure if he had been asleep in between.
Posts: 19 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Of course the dream is important. But maybe you could make it more like a dream, less like a dry plot summary.
Since it's been brought up, turning on your Caps Lock isn't very good form in correspondence or on the internet generally. Most people find it quite irritating. This forum is equipped with both bold and italic tags, which you can even use together. Please refer to the UBB Code page for more information. You can also put your comments in brackets, or perhaps simply quote the relevent portions of the text you're examining.
And yes, I do tend to automatically discount any comment made in all caps. This is probably true of a good many people on the forum. It's only a tendency, if your comments are especially insightful someone will eventually get around to actually reading them. But it makes it harder to read what you're saying in a way that simple punctuation problems doesn't quite equal.
Now, if you wrote your comments in Chinese, you'd get our attention quite as effectively, perhaps more so.
Also, make sure to type any UBB codes with extra care
[This message has been edited by Survivor (edited April 27, 2005).]
posted
My thought as I read your beginning was that even though I've only been on this board for about a month, I've probably seen a dozen openers that start with a dream. I had no idea how done-to-death that scenario is. I would recommend steering clear of it if there is any way you possibly could.
I tend to gravitate toward dialog. What if you recounted the dream as Noah talks to a friend, or even his mom at breakfast? It would engage us in your characters faster, and not be so info-dumpy.
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