posted
My reading complete, I put down my pages. Bette, the writing workshop leader, cleared her throat and looked at me over the tops of her half-glasses, eyes half-open. The room was silent. “So in this first person narrative of yours,” she asked, “who’s the narrator?” “He’s... he’s a dog.” She traced a finger down her copy. “I don’t get it. Where does it say that?” I looked at my own copy; surely this key point was evident. “Uh, well in the first paragraph, he wags his tail...” “Specifics, please.” I searched. “Uh, his owner pets him on the head in paragraph three, and she, uh, mentions his fur...”
-----
I just did this this morning. This is roughly based on a real experience (actually several of them). Names have been fabricated because I can't remember them. Thanks for looking.
[This message has been edited by muranternet (edited March 28, 2011).]
I think that might be my problem with this. The voice, conflict, everything's fine...I just am not hooked at all. This is as interesting as watching someone gaze at his navel.
I don't want to be mean. I really don't, I just can't get interested in this. The writing's fine; it's just navel-gazey.
posted
I'd have to concur with the others. As writers we can all relate to some extent to situation, but there just isn't a story here, at least insofar as we can see in the first 13 lines.
My thoughts are that if you want to start with an opening in which some relatively ordinary things are happening, there needs to be a subtext that promises the reader that something extra-ordinary will happen. Give us some hint that the narrator is unusual somehow. Maybe he/she doesn't react very well to critiques. You can give us the promise of an explosive reaction by the narrator by demonstrating some nervous ticks early on, or go SFF with it and perhaps the narrators stories literally come to life around him/her as he/she tries to explain the story to Bette. Just some ideas I'm throwing out there to illustrate the point, I'm sure you can do better.
posted
I think the problem (aside from setting the story in a writers' workshop, which isn't reaching very far for subject matter) is that it doesn't matter if the antagonist doesn't understand the story; the stakes are too low.
Posts: 22 | Registered: Mar 2011
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
