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This is my first post so I thought I should start with something small. This piece is about 500 words total: somewhere between a prose poem and short short story in length. Feedback/reactions on these first 13 lines appreciated, and if you want to read the full piece, feedback on that would be great too. - Thanks!
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There once was an invisible man. Although he was invisible he was still a man of wealth and property and he owned a great many things. Among these things was a mirror. A wonderful mirror of his own to look into and sometimes also to look within or beyond. But he would look into that mirror and see not himself but rather the things that were around and behind him. Because he was an invisible man. Then one day he was simply bored and in a mischievous and curious mood so he reached out and struck the mirror with his hand and it broke. It broke into a thousand shards and pieces.
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One thing that stuck in my craw right away is that it starts with a cliche. There once was a ____ man. After that it was hard to concentrate on the rest of it because it spoiled it for me. Other than that I find I cannot really bring myself to have an open mind about the style, so I won't try to go into what I don't like, or like about the rest of it. Mainly the first line though, bothers me.
Posts: 60 | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
Unfortunately, I have to agree that it's hard to buy in to the style. That doesn't mean it's bad! But I can't see reading a whole novel in that style. A short-short story, yes.
I will say, though, that I laughed out loud when I hit this line: "Because he was an invisible man." That was just funny funny funny. (I assume you intended it that way.)
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I Find the idea intriging and I personally forgive all cliches provided the explanation doesn't end there. Yet your second line is also a cliche, which dooms the first.
Although he was invisible he was still a man of wealth and property and he owned a great many things.
The______but________ cliche combined with your redundency of wealth and property with owned many things has got to go. Delete it modify it do something with it.
Maybe merely say This Man owned a Mirror.
I understand that you're going for a poetic feel to your narration (whinny the pooh is what sprung to mind)but it has to flow.
Read this out loud and you'll see that your diction and overuse of implicit clauses kills it.
Edit: Stupid UBB coding
[This message has been edited by Matt Lust (edited December 13, 2005).]
first: yes, definitely the intent was to have a certain style. Like a prose poem, almost a children's story or fable, right from the start. So the "There was once..." was by design, and meant to be a signal to the reader that what follows will have a "light" or harmonic style. It was not intended to be a sort of "dark and stormy night, I can't think of any other way to open a book" kind of opening. And I agree that say 25,000 words in this style might annoy, but this little thing is only 500 words total. Picked it because it's my very first post here. I've got longer, more substantive pieces that don't use this style, for example. Okay, end of potentially defensive blurb.
rest: lots of good feedback about other rough aspects to it, talk about implicit clauses, the "Because he was a..." being potentially funny-sounding. Plus the redundancy in the 2nd line. All good points. I just got home from work so let me digest what y'all have said so far and see if i can post a modified version of this opening section that's based on the feedback given so far.
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I concur completely that the style/flow is an obstacle to reader engagement. In fact, the tone I felt/heard was "See Dick. See Dick run. See Jane. See Dick and Jane run up the hill." Remind you of anything?
I don't think that's what you really wanted so you may want to rethinking the execution style. Story concept didn't unfold enough to give me a sense of what the story was, even of what type, but that may have been lost to the style.
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