posted
This is a short story about 1000 words or so. Not looking for anything other than feedback on the first 13.
The Judgment By Wil Ogden “Come and be judged before Galt.” The monotonous voices of all nine of the Catalysts rumbled across the chamber. Other than the purple robed figures standing in a semi-circle around the Great Amethyst, only Jeni stood in the vast black chamber. She wore the white robes of innocence, as did all who came to face the judgment of Galt. With a deep breath to cleanse her mind of fear she stepped up to the huge crystal which contained the spirit of Galt, the Judicator. “Speak your arguments to the crystal,” said one of the nine. Jeni didn’t look to see which one. Instead she tried to gather her thoughts. “Help.” Jeni thought she heard whispered. Jeni glanced around, looking for someone nearby.
posted
I found two things that I would change in this first 13.
The first being that you say the name Galt a lot. I got a little tired of reading the name over and over again in such a short span of time. Try finding some pronouns to replace one or two of the instances.
The second thing that bugged me was the last line where you said, "she looked around for someone," or something like that. This story sets up to make me think we are seeing from Jeni's POV and earlier in the first 13 you mention that no one else is in there but her and the nine men in robes. This tells me that Jeni KNOWS she's alone, so at the end of the first 13 when you say she looks around, it feels unnatural. She should already know no one is going to help her so this action seems out of place.
Other than those two things I liked. Good hook in the beggining, I felt like I wanted to know what she was being accused of. Send me the whole story if you want and I'll tell you want I think of the rest. Metal_Matt30@hotmail.com
posted
Not bad, although I'm not quite hooked. I guess I don't feel like I have a reason to care about Jeni being judged, because I don't know anything about her or why she's doing this. When I hear the verdict, I won't know how I'm supposed to feel about it because I don't know what has come before, either from her perspective or anyone else's.
The only real technical issue I had was in this passage:
quote:The monotonous voices of all nine of the Catalysts rumbled across the chamber. Other than the purple robed figures standing in a semi-circle around the Great Amethyst, only Jeni stood in the vast black chamber.
In the first sentence, I have no clue what a Catalyst is. I know what the word means, and it doesn't make sense that a catalyst could speak. But I don't know if it's a person, or what. I don't know anything except the word. In the second sentence, you mention purple robed figures, but you don't indicate who they are. Are they the Catalysts? Or are they separate people, and the Catalysts don't have bodies or are somewhere else and projecting their voices, or something?
As for Galt, all I kept thinking of was the character from Atlas Shrugged. "Who is John Galt?"
posted
I think I would put the description of the nine voice rumblin across the chamber on the same line with the dialogue. It creates an effect to seperate them like that, but I don't think the effect needs to be created so early in the story. That's just my feeling. I try to avoid effects in the opening.
Jeni sounds somewhat modern for a name. I don't know if that works for your story or not, but I thought I would mention it. From this opening it feels like a medieval fantasy (or historical fantasy of some sort), so the name felt a little out of place, to me.
I would recommend moving the line about her being alone with the nine robed figures to later in the story. Personally, I don't feel like that needs to be established until it is actually a question (when she hears a whispered voice.)
I only saw Galt mentioned three times, and this didn't feel too much to me. Names, like many words (e.g., said), tend to be invisible, in my opinion. I only recommened playing the replacement game if they end up being too close to each other and feeling awkward. This might be the case with the last two uses, which are in the same paragraph. However, it didn't stand out to me.
posted
This scene is a situation where you really need to visualize and give thorough descriptions to provide the reader with the right emotional state to be inside this chamber. Is that appropriate for the first 13, I don't know, but I don't think you are doing this scene justice the way it is now.
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posted
Major point: Jeni knows why she's there, what she's accused of, and what's at risk. We should too! Tell us up front. Then we can fear (or anticipate, or whatever she's feeling) with her.
Minor point: beware using words like "monotonous" (or "tedious" or "boring") -- readers are suggestible, and we may feel we're experiencing something monotonous and stop reading! Maybe the word you're looking for is "monotone."
posted
Jeni does know why she is there, just like all of us know that we can't fly off a roof without something to counteract gravity, its a fact of life, and it's taken for granted. If an author is writing a character's thoughts, then it must be accurately portrayed, and I posit that Jeni wouldn't spare a moments consideration to why she was being judged, anymore than she would be thinking about why gravity works. Therefor I think it would be a mistake to give us all that backstory in the first 13. Its the over-exposition of all that backstory that I would warn against, and trying to sneak it into her inner thoughts would be a blunder as well, because she would not be thinking about that stuff at all, her mind would be on the moment, and not the how and why of where that particular moment came from. I think it is better to leave that stuff out at first, and let it come out through the story, that is part of the hook for me, not having all of the information given to me right out of the gate.
If anything, I would say, make sure your not giving us too much, and write it more from her perspective, as this is more a passive voice and not enough penetration into her thoughts for me.
I always feel like I need to provide an example in these posts, most of the time by re-writing something using what Im am trying to communicate, if this is an offensive practice I will discontinue, as it is not my intent to offend but merely to demonstrate what I mean, case in point, for this peice I said I thought it would be better if it were more from her perspective, your original was, "Other than the purple figures standing in a semi-circle around the Great Amethyst..." To put this more into her thoughts you could say something like, "Jeni walked slowly into the vast black chamber, and feelings of deep regret, of dread, filled her as she saw the purple robed figures. Then she saw the Great Amethyst, light refracted a thousand times in its' depths, soothing her, comforting her." This isn't all that good but my point is that it lets us into her mind more, and that is what is fun to me about reading, hearing those thoughts, those emotions, and sharing in them. Once that is accomplished, I can more easily accept that 'why' of the situation, the backstory that leads to this situation.
posted
I am not sure what WBriggs means in the immediately preceeding post. However, I agree with his earlier one, I feel we need to know what's at stake here.
I thought the voice emanated from the crystal and -- like one of the posts above mentioned -- the 'looking around' seemed strange, but its only a minor nit.
If the voice did come from within the crystal, that's pretty interesting.
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited December 11, 2005).]
posted
While i can't speak for wbriggs citation of OSC, I do know that OSC has said in one of the writing class postings on this site that false suspense is poison to a story of any length.
By not naming Galt's exact role outside of the title "judicator" nor explaining why Galt and/or servants of Galt have any power let alone the power to compel people in this particular world to speak into a crystal leaves the reader in the cold.
posted
I thought I had deleted that post! Since I haven't, I'll explain. OSC's thoughts on this: the first paragraph is free. You don't have to be grounded in a POV yet. You can give necessary backstory; you can info dump. So the fact that Jeni wouldn't be thinking about things that we need to know shouldn't be allowed to stop US from finding out.
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posted
Not sure if you still want inputs so I'll limit to what others have not yet said.
For me, the tone is bordering melodramatic. I'm not hooked, I'm rolling my eyes.
The part at the end everyone was harping on bothered me, too. I'd suggest the following rearrangement to tighten it a little but it still needs some 'splaining later
quote: “Help.” Jeni thought she heard whispered. Jeni glanced around, looking for someone nearby.
might work better as:
quote: Jeni thought she heard an errant rustling and looked around to locate the source. "Help." A whisper came from the shadows.
Maybe I'm making too many assumptions here, though. Such as, she doesn't expect to hear someone else in the chamber, she is free to go looking around without anyone else noticing (how come no one else wondered about that, anyway? Isn't she drawing attention to the whisperer?) and I also assume the whisper is from an unknown, unidentifiable source--as in, from the shadows. Oh, which I assume there are in this chamber ;-) The mood was dark and shadowy anyway.
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