posted
This is the first story that I have ever written. Please don't be gentle on me though, feedback is the best way to get better.
The story doesn't start off too sci-fi ish but it picks up soon afterwards.
Suzi G enters the hippest gym on the beach wearing her new trendy workout suit with matching sneakers. Suzi flashes her lifetime membership badge to the attendant behind the desk and heads straight for the woman’s dressing room. Everyone’s eyes follow Suzi through the lobby as she demands their attention. Just as Suzi is getting ready for her workout her best friend in the world Deborah enters the room and heads right for her. “Oh my, I just love your new outfit.” Deborah greets Suzi with a kiss on both cheeks. “Ohh and look at those shoes.” “These are sneakers not shoes.” Suzi returns Deborah’s greeting with a warm smile. “It’s great to be back, miss me?”
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited September 10, 2005).]
Congratulations on completing your story . That's more than a lot of people achieve. Now for the bad news...
Unfortunately, for me there's just nothing happening here. A woman goes to a gym and meets her friend. They exchange everyday remarks. There's no tension and no conflict. Suzi seems to be achieving her goal, such as it is, of being admired and talking to her friend. She is presented as being superficial, concerned only with appearances and admiration. Deborah is just someone for her to talk to. There's no sense of the setting, no individuality to the characters and nothing's happening.
Presumably, at some point in this story, something is going to happen. Start there.
posted
Much as I'd like to help, I'm afraid I just don't have that kind of time. Your best recourse is to read and comment on the other openings here in Fragments. Find out what you think works and doesn't work, then apply that to your own writing.
Posts: 245 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
POV and tense. You might be starting the story in a kinda boring place too, but I can't tell from this.
Basically, past tense sounds like the way we narrate events that really happened. Why? Take a look at the tense I used to describe those hypothetical events. When we talk about something that really happened, we use past tense.
Present tense is used for running commentaries and telling jokes. Any audience learns to listen to a running commentary with only half an ear, most of what gets reported isn't important at all. And everyone learns not to take jokes very seriously.
As for POV, that's a whole giant discussion. But think about the information that you're actually presenting here. None of it is very interesting, eh? Even more, if something interesting does happen, we don't have any way to decide whether it's a good or bad thing because we don't know what the characters are thinking and feeling. We don't even know who the main character is. Letting the reader percieve the story from the perspective of one of the participants is the entire point of POV.
posted
The way you've structured your POV, it sounds like you are playing a D&D game, or giving a play-by-play commentary. This is not how most novels are written. Until you hone your skills, you might want to start with something a little easier, like third person past tense. This is a sample of what I mean:
Suzie entered the gym, wearing the new outfit she had just bought the day before. By the time she had settled herself into place on the weight machine, she heard someone call her name. She looked up to see her best friend, Debbie, walking toward her. "Hey, girlfriend, that's a great look you have there. Where did you get the outfit?"
The important thing is make sure this story starts where the ACTION starts. As has been previously stated, it's pretty boring to have a couple of people meet and talk about their exercise clothes. And by the way, it really doesn't sound to me like this has been written by a female, because I don't know ANY females who act like this in real life. It's an overblown stereotype and as a real woman, I tend to gag when I read stuff that portrays simpering, clothes-obsessed women like this.
[This message has been edited by Elan (edited September 12, 2005).]
posted
I agree that the present tense is confusing, and I see no point to it. I also agree that this beginning needs to do better. I would change it so that as she's thinking of clothes and meeting her friends, someone is watching her in the shadow's and she is totally unaware. I don't know if this fits in your story or not, but you did take care to point out that people notice her. That makes me think stalker.
Posts: 102 | Registered: Aug 2005
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. That's more than a lot of people achieve. Now for the bad news...
