I've changed tack entirely with this - I've gone for more characterisation (trying to make Georgia the sassy girl I'd intended her to be, not the arrogant one she ended up as), and introduced the font and the colours in more detail (so that, hopefully, the smoke rising from the bows etc later on is easier to imagine). I've also dealt with a couple of mistakes (the tutti thing, for example).

Hope you like .

quote:

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‘Let’s try it again, everyone. And please,’ he said, scowling vaguely in my direction, ‘try not to screw it up this time.’

He’d been like this all afternoon, lording it over us like the führer of band practice.

‘Ja wöhl,’ I said. That earned me quite a look, I can tell you.

‘This isn’t funny, Georgia. Look at the Font of Colours over there,’ he said, pointing excessively at a large copper basin in the centre of the room. ‘It’s damn near empty - barely a note left in it!’

In fairness, wild gesticulation aside, he had a point. A single, paltry wisp of blue smoke moped about in the bottom of the thing - you couldn’t power a toothbrush with that, let alone the whole town.

---

* * *

ORIGINAL OPENING:

Heya .

Not sure about this one. There isn't really any hint of central conflict in the opening, I just liked the image. Are pretty colours and a sassy main character enough to keep you going? Equally, there's a certain line that feels very deliberate and clumsy to me - see if you can guess which one, lol (if everyone picks the same one, then I guess that answers THAT question ).

Thanks for reading.

'And,’ he said again, waving that ridiculous baton at us, ‘tutti!’

I hope you know where you can shove that, I thought, as I waited for my entry. The strings section was really showing off today, every bow sending up wisps of blue and purple. Damn cellos. Even Hopeless Gabby managed a ripple of crimson from that harp.

Better than nothing, I thought, watching it all swirl down into the Font of Colours. Maybe we’ll have heating, tonight.

Two bars to go; I raised my flute to my lips. There they were: the colours in the music, shimmering beneath the ink on my page. Three, four, and...

‘Stop!’

Oh for God’s sake.

Any and all comments, as always.
Daniel.

[This message has been edited by bluephoenix (edited August 19, 2008).]

Sometimes, yes.

This time, almost.

The first line threw me because I don't think musicians think of batons as ridiculous and, having played first violin in our school orchestra, I don't recall our conductor ever saying "tutti" and have no idea what it might mean.

More importantly, I had trouble relating the colours to the instruments. Are the colours in the musician's mind? Or can the audience see the Font of Colours? I fear that I don't see what the narrator sees.

Nit: I think it's a string section. (And is the harp considered part of the string section? I've always thought of it as an instrument alone, like the piano.)

I found "Damn cellos. Even Hopeless Gabby managed a ripple of crimson from that harp. " dischordant.

I wouldn't describe the main character as sassy. Arrogant, grumpy, and unattractive come to mind. Yet if I could see the images I might read on, but he or she would need to get sassy quickly to hold my attention.

Hope this helps,
Pat

I was groping for meaning in the first sentence of the second paragraph, but the next sentence cleared up everything. I also suggest doing something about the "it" in the third paragraph. The reading went smoothly other than these issues; I couldn't identify a particularly clumsy sentence.

quote:

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I don't recall our conductor ever saying "tutti" and have no idea what it might mean.

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It took me a minute to figure out what you meant here - I hadn't even noticed that I'd said 'tutti', and then had my main character 'waiting for [her] entry'. I have no excuse; I've played in orchestras myself for years. As for batons, I must admit, that's just a personal thing - I've always thought they look a bit silly.

I too wondered about 'string(s) section', and you're right, harps are generally standalone.

You may be right about my main character, also .

Oh, the colours are meant to be visible to everyone, a bit like smoke rising up from the instruments, and the font is just a physical object in the middle of the room. I was thinking about synesthesia before I wrote this, and thought it might be cool if you could actually draw colours from an instrument (instead of it just being in one person's head). Guess I need to rework the imagery.

Anyway, thanks for your comments .

To C L Lynn:

Thanks for reading, glad you liked it . Thanks for the offer to read, but I must admit, this isn't even close to finished. I just wanted to see what people made of the opening, cos I couldn't figure out what exactly it was I didn't like about it. I'll probably post a revision here, and when it's finished, I'd be happy to send it out .

Daniel.

I think you might have read the original opening (the 'tutti' one), which has since been revised into the 'Let's try it again, everyone' one (others found the original confusing too, and several people didn't like the 'curmudgeonly' nature of my main character [which was a mistake on my part - I was going for sassy, not grumpy]).

They're not in a performance yet, they're just rehearsing, but the conductor keeps stopping them because the colours aren't right. He's going for impossible levels of perfection, which is starting to annoy Georgia.

As for the heating comment, that wasn't linking the font and the colours together the way I'd hoped, so I scrapped it and redid the opening altogether to try and clear things up.

Here's the concept I'm trying for: when these people play their instruments, they are able to extract the colours from the music, and send them out into the room (like synesthesia, except the colours are real - like coloured smoke - and anyone can see them). The conductor then uses his conductor powers to funnel all the colours down into the Font of Colours, which uses them to power the town (hence the old heating comment; the font is currently empty).

I guess it can't be all bad if you were intrigued and liked the concept, but it's still not quite working.

Thanks again for reading .
Daniel.

I wonder if the color bits, a line or two, could be worked back in in some way, clarifying it as needed.

I haven't completely scrapped the image of the colours going from instrument to Font, I just thought it could maybe do with some explanation beforehand - I still have the cellos showing off further down. Then again, I suppose I could bring back 'Two bars to go; I raised my flute to my lips. There they were: the colours in the music, shimmering beneath the ink on my page. Three, four, and...' and have that as the opening line (it's been shunted further down with the rest of it at the moment), introducing the concept immediately. Better / worse? Obviously I'd have to add in another line or two to get from that to 'Let's try it again, everyone'.

I think you're right about Font of Colours though, so I've edited that back in.

Anyway, as I say, the colours do still appear, just not until everyone's started playing (except the little bit moping about in the font, that is).

Thanks for reading .