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Author Topic: Short, Literary, Untitled
oliverhouse
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I'm thinking of submitting this to GlimmerTrain's very short fiction contest, which closes at the end of the month. I'm definitely looking for help on the first 13, and any volunteers for the whole thing. You won't get conflict or even a name in the first 13, just the theme: fire. It's pretty short, only 1300 words, but you have to put up with present tense. (I think I've just described every characteristic that would make wbriggs stop reading. )

======
A man paints, his brushes and knives bringing fire to life on the austere canvas. His knife jabs at the palette, cutting into the deeper hues of red, auburn, and smoky maroon; he places fine slabs of paint onto the canvas at the fire's base. He nudges them, molds them, shapes them into tiny forms like the delicate ridges of a fingerprint. Then they sit, hunkering over their feast of logs and shrubbery, wolfing down gobbets of bark and leaf. His brushes set their lighter brethren to dancing over them, orange and yellow and near-white leaping ever upwards. For a few minutes he stares, barely breathing, as the living paint dries, and then lightly runs a fine brush over the half-dried colors, muting their edges and adding rippling heat to the fire's haze.
=====

Thanks!
Oliver


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Green_Writer
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I'd probably have to read it to understand it fully, and I'm not sure if I'll have time tomorrow but if I do I'll post again. I just wanted to say right away that I enjoyed the prose. However I don't see much of the human condition in these lines.
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NewsBys
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I'll read it. As an artist, I was drawn in by the images. But, there will be conflict and a POV character, right?
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thexmedic
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This feels a bit adjective heavy to me. Here's the piece with any adjective that isn't a colour word, removed:

quote:
A man paints, his brushes and knives bringing fire to life on the canvas. His knife jabs at the palette, cutting into the hues of red, auburn, and maroon; he places slabs of paint onto the canvas at the fire's base. He nudges them, molds them, shapes them into forms like the ridges of a fingerprint. Then they sit, over their feast of logs and shrubbery, wolfing down bark and leaf. His brushes set their brethren to dancing over them, orange and yellow and near-white leaping ever upwards. For a few minutes he stares, barely breathing, as the paint dries, and then lightly runs a brush over the colors, muting their edges and adding heat to the fire's haze.

You'll probably want to add a few back in for sense, but I personally think this reads better. I'd also probably tone down some of the more flowery verbs ("wolfing" I'm looking at you).

Just my opinion. Hope it helps.

[This message has been edited by thexmedic (edited July 18, 2006).]


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Novice
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I'm not sure I like "...on the austere canvas." It seems an unnecessary image in a fragment that is otherwise concerned with the paint itself. I'm not sure I need to know what kind of surface the paint is being applied to. So, "A man paints, his brushes and knives bringing fire to life." might suffice. (In that case, I'd also drop the -ing from "bringing.") This is, of course, a matter of preference.

You have such strong, almost violent verbs in the second sentence, then turn to "...places fine slabs..." I'd prefer something in the same tone as the first two images, "jabs at the palatte" and "cutting into the deeper hues." Even the word "fine" works against the images you previously invoked. Maybe stick with the action on the palette, showing how the paint looks on the knife, and simply say the colors are "for the fire's base." (Again, preference...I'm dangerously close to rewriting here, and I apologize.)

You stay with the gentle action, "nudges" and "molds" and "shapes", along with fragile images "tiny" and "delicate", then move back to the more imposing "hunkering over their feast" and "wolfing down gobbets". You can see how the rest goes back to gentleness. IMO, the piece would be more coherent if you stuck to a single tone.

(The repetition of the word "over" near the middle and end is distracting, I'd probably cut or change two of them.)

You seem to be working on the poetic side of things (are you familiar with the term "ekphrasis"?), and what you have here functions as a successful prose poem, IMO. But you have the seed for something really special. I think what keeps me from completely loving it is that it seems to make inconsistent statements about:

1.) the nature of the fire (is it greedy, escaping the painter's control? or is it only beautiful, completely dependent on his will?)

and 2.) the nature of the painter (is he angry, painting his own anger onto the canvas? or is he detached, simply engrossed in the process?)

The mixture of strong/soft in the fragment confuses its emotion, and weakens your ability to bring the reader into any one "mood". Despite all of that, I still think it is a beautiful description of the act of painting, the techniques employed by your painter in creating his fire.


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Louiseoneal
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I would keep reading because of the imagery. It almost seemed your second sentence starts us off more compellingly than your first sentence. As for mixing gentle with more forceful phrases, maybe this could be two paragraphs, or three, forceful-gentle-forceful or forceful-gentle?
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oliverhouse
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Good comments, all, especially Novice. Thanks much. Lots of things to consider there.

I'm not familiar with "ekphrasis" because (a) I'm an ignorant philistine, and (b) I deliberately avoid knowing words that sound like foreign-language curses.

I've looked it up, though, and although it wasn't what I am going for, it's not bad that you got that idea. I'm trying to provide the reader with a sense of the artist's passion, and of how real this painting is to him; and also of the artist's near-instability, his preternatural zest for fire. Hopefully some of that came through.

I think the back-and-forth of vivid vs. ordinary words stems from a sense that the painter is ordinary, but the painting is not. I arrived at that through intuition rather than planning. At any rate, the "violent verbs" in the second sentence don't match that (newly discovered) ideal, so I have to fix that.

In case you're worried, the artist is the POV character. The POV starts omniscient and slowly gets closer and more limited as the story progresses. There's also conflict, albeit not with another person.

Thanks,
Oliver


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Verdant
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I like the imagery, but I am an imagery person. The only problem I have (and it a personal nit, I admit) is that every time I see the word shrubbery used, I expect it to be followed by the demand to chop down the largest tree in the forest with a herring. The word has simply been destroyed.

A piece I wrote in the early eighties demanded the phrase sound of silence but I couldn't use it because it had been taken and automatically conjured images of the song. I was devastated because the scene screamed for those words. I had to re-write the entire thing all because the phrase was impossible to use.

Just my opinion.


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Rilnian
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Hey Oliver, send me a copy. Love your work, look forward to figure out what this is about!
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TMan1969
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I enjoyed the first 13, I could feel the artists intensity as he painted. It was as if he was becoming the flames, only he was eating at the canvas.
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oliverhouse
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Thanks for the most recent comments.

"Shrubbery" is out. I recently critiqued a story in which the main character was told to "follow your nose". I told the author that I couldn't help but see Toucan Sam singing that in my head. So many perfectly useful words and phrases have been lost... Someday fiction writers won't be able to say anything -- all words will be cliche.

The story was sent to NewsBys, Rilnian, and Louise (with a slight bit of presumption on my part, Louise, so ignore it if you like).

Here's a revision of the first 13. I think it's better, so thanks to all for your help. I still don't think I've fully addressed Novice's points about the precise nature of the flame, but I think it's closer.

-----
A man paints, his brushes and knives kindling fire at the edge of an ancient forest. His knife scrapes repeatedly at the palette, gathering the deeper hues: red, auburn, smoky maroon. He deposits them at the fire's base, shaping slabs of paint into delicate forms like the ridges of a fingerprint.

The newly incarnate flames hunker over their feast of logs and underbrush, wolfing down gobbets of bark and leaf. His brushes set their lighter brethren to dancing over them, orange and yellow and near-white leaping ever upwards. For a few minutes he stares, barely breathing, as the living paint dries, and then lightly runs a fine brush over the half-dried colors, muting their edges and adding rippling heat to the fire's haze.

Though silent, quiescent, the colors seem to vibrate with
-----

Of course, now that I'm re-reading it, I'm not sure I like the way the "fingerprint" bit reads anymore, but that's the way of it...

Thanks,
Oliver

Edited to add line breaks to delineate paragraphs, and to fix an attribution.

[This message has been edited by oliverhouse (edited July 19, 2006).]


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kings_falcon
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In this last version you don't have the same intensity that you started with, but I liked it better. The images, which are beautiful, flowed much more clearly. The difference in imagery to me was like the difference between a stream overflowing with mud and sludge after a storm versus overflowing with clear and cool water after the snows melt.

The first version was what I would call too "dense" and difficult to read because so much detail was being thrown at me and muddying the waters. I'd read on with the most recent draft.


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Sara Genge
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I'll read

"Then they sit, hunkering over their feast of logs and shrubbery, wolfing down gobbets of bark and leaf."

That phrase kicks some a


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Novice
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I'm not sure you need "repeatedly" in the second sentence. And the "ridges of a fingerprint" comment doesn't seem to fit, as you note. (It makes me think of "Starry Night", with all the whorls. I don't think that's the image you're going for.)

The word "deposits" doesn't feel just right, you might consider finding a verb that refers back to the forest or the fire. (i.e. feeds, stokes, buries, etc.) IMO, the contrast between "slabs" and "delicate" is too pronounced, and I think "slabs" is a bit too heavy, anyway. These things are just personal preference, it works fine as written.

I'd drop the comma here: "barely breathing as the living paint dries". Also, you don't need to repeat "half-dried".

You've done a good job making this fragment concentrate more on the painter, less on the fire. The fire is still there, but the two subjects aren't competing for prominence anymore. And the tone is more consistent. I think the piece is improved, and it was good to start with.


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