posted
I'm not really interested in any feedback on this particular portion, what i would like is for anyone who has a moment of free time and finds this passage bearable to request to read the novelette in its entirety.
As Timothy’s eyes followed the passing vehicles he was suddenly blinded by the sunrise reflecting off of a far-off skyscraper. The chilled air made the smoke billowing from the distant stacks more visible than ever, and the entire city was silhouetted against the immense clouds. Timothy followed the trail of sunlight in a circle once and, as his eyes settled on the gargantuan digital clock facing him from the side of one of the larger buildings, he wondered how he had never noticed that his busy suburban area was completely engulfed by the gigantic buildings, which let in only enough light to give the impression of sunrise at eight in the morning.
The imagery kind of bothers me, because he's supposed to be blinded by the sunrise, and yet he still sees all this incredible detail in his city. I don't swallow it. When I look at the sun, I turn away from the sky and don't notice any other details cause it's too bright.
That's not the reason I'm not hooked, though. I'm not interested because nothing's really happened. Just a sunrise over a dense city. Sure, it's a cool sight, but what does it have to do with anything?
When I see a request made by a newbie to critique an entire novel, I am a little put off. Your novel isn't that big at 8,500 words... I've critiqued chapter submissions larger than that.
But my initial reaction with newbies is ALWAYS: "Let's see you post some feedback to OTHER people FIRST, and THEN we might be willing to jump into a critique for an entire novel."
The rationale is that we get a tremendous number of newbies who jump on board long enough to take from the community, but they don't ever give back in the form of commentary in "Open Writing" or critique here in the "Fragments and Feedback."
What I'm trying to get at is that you will get more responses if you invite people to START with your first 13, then jump in and be a participant to help OTHERS. Then the good-will you've sewn will come back to help you.
The last point I'll make is something you'll hear over and over here... when you critique for someone else, it makes you aware of writing errors in a way that nothing else quite does. Every one of us who have done multiple critiques will tell you we learned more from critiquing the work of other people than we have from having our own work critiqued. I invite you to jump in and help yourself by helping someone else.
posted
I have been a member of the Hatrack Rivers site for over two years and during that time I have reviewed and critiqued over a dozen diffrent authors. I have only recently changed my screen name to accomadate a recent change in internet providers that resulted in my absence from the internet alltogether for several months. If you wish to rant about the etiquette of newbie posters please do it elswhere as i only made a simple request of those whom have some time to spare, and i don't want to see this topic stray from that goal.
Posts: 5 | Registered: Jan 2006
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I had a response all queued up and loaded in the breech to this but I think maybe...I should stay out of this one.
Man, I'm gettin' kind of wolfishly scraggly around the cheek and chin region here. Jeez. If I don't attend to it sometime relatively soon, people are gonna start calling me Uncle Jedidiah or something worse <shudder>.
Jeez! Ya know what? I spend so much damn time making these posts I've been neglecting my novel! <quickly injecting self-discipline innoculation, bolting through nearest escape hatch>
[This message has been edited by Nietge (edited June 16, 2006).]
posted
Elan--a careful reading of Aurum's post (always a good idea when making comments) would have shown you that the word was "novelette", not "novel". And at 8,500 words, a short one (as you pointed out) though still a long story.
Aurum--a careful reading of Elan's post would have shown it to be, not a rant, but advice to help you get the most benefit from this site. How was she to know you weren't a newbie? (It wasn't necessary to change your username here just because you changed your internet provider.)
posted
All right. Everyone has made good points. Now please return this to a discussion of the writing fragment.
Posts: 13 | Registered: May 2006
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posted
Aurum, why don't you want feedback on the first 13? It makes me wonder how open you'll be to feedback on the rest. Also, how do you know you want us to crit the story if you don't see how we treat the 13?
If you are willing to wait, this month and next are fairly full for me and I still owe feedback comments to someone else, I would be willing to look the story over. But it will be August befor I can get back to you.
posted
Aurum isn't interested in feedback on this particular segment of the text. Given the severe problems found in this segment of the text, that would suggest to me that Aurum wouldn't be interested in any feedback I could possibly give on the rest of the text. That being the case, I didn't reply before, since the only response requested is offers to read.
Further comments in this thread should be restrained to offers to read, notcritique, the remainder of the text.
posted
Aurum, I know you said you were interested in readers for the entire piece, not comments on this section. But I don't have time for that right now, and I feel like I owe you something that's actually on topic, so I'll critique this section anyway. Maybe you can use these comments in looking at the rest. If not, ignore them. If you really don't want even this, let me know and I'll delete the post.
quote:As Timothy’s eyes followed the passing vehicles he was suddenly blinded by the sunrise reflecting off of a far-off skyscraper.
The first clause combined with the suddenness of the blinding indicates that the blinding is the result of his eyes following the traffic until they are pointing at the source of the glare. But a blinding glare can come from any direction--you don't have to be looking straight at it--so this image doesn't really make any sense to me.
quote:. . . the entire city was silhouetted against the immense clouds.
The juxtaposition of bright sunlight and immense clouds trips me up, even though I can see that these are supposed to be smokestack clouds. You might try a different word, like "plumes," to eliminate the ambiguity. And of course, constant belchings of pollution are going to tend to dim the sunlight anyway. But my real question is, why is he noticing all this after having been blinded? (As Ray pointed out.)
quote:Timothy followed the trail of sunlight in a circle . . .
Huh? This sounds like they have curving beams of sunlight in this city. I take it you mean he turned in a circle until he found the source--but of course that means he wasn't already looking that way, so what did the original blinding have to do with his eyes following the vehicles? And if the source was already visible (which it must have been, since it was blinding him), why does he have to turn in a circle to find it? Can't he just turn his head a bit and look? (Leaving aside the issue of why he would want to look at it, anyway.)
quote:. . . which let in only enough light to give the impression of sunrise at eight in the morning.
Does this mean that, at eight in the morning, only enough light is let in to give the impression of sunrise? Or that, at any time of the day, only enough light is let in to give the impression of an 8:00 am sunrise? Either way, I'm confused, since you've already said that the glare was reflecting the sunrise.
I could pick more, but I'm afraid I'm already giving the wrong impression. The mechanics of writing here--sentence structure, punctuation, etc.--is quite good. I think the real problem is POV--not the presentation of it, which seems fine to me--but how you're actually using it. Here's my guess: you're interested in presenting the image of this immense city that glares and yet blocks the sun, and in doing so you're not really paying attention to what a person in that situation would see and do. You're manipulating Timothy, forcing him to observe what you want to show. You realize, correctly, that it would be a POV error to show what he does not observe--but you're not putting yourself in his position to decide if he would actually do such things, or respond in those ways. You may want to consider whether this is a problem that permeates the rest of the story.
I hope this helps, and good luck with the rest of it.
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