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Author Topic: The Short Goodbye--SF-- 4,900 words
Ennis
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Will lay still and awake in the darkness. Soon Rosie would start to talking in that awful language like she did every night now. He was waiting for it, but when it started, it still grabbed him somewhere in the back of his throat. He sat up as quick as he could and turned on the light. She was laying there next to him, her eyes closed like she was sleeping, but she was talking something strange. The words were cold and harsh, and downright eerie. It reminded him of when Ellie went crazy, barking at smelling a bear or coyote out in the woods behind their house at night. Knowing something was out there, but not knowing what.
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extrinsic
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Remarkable narrative voice, strong and clear, and lingering in the scene for the full realization of the illusion of reality. Though the excerpt has not much setting development, that adds to the mystery rather than leaving setting underdeveloped. The setting is implied of a bedroom and a bed for two.

Several words give me pause though. "Somewhere," "something", "something, and "eerie." Perhaps the repetition of the "some" words blunts their mystery. The last one works for me, the first two not as much. "Back of the throat" implies where the back of the mouth meets the throat. Choking or gagging is implied, which resonates with the sounds Rosie makes. That's beautiful writing. If only there was a more specific sense of where somewhere at the back of the throat is.

"But she was talking something strange" doesn't work for me as much. The conjunction "but" is not adding meaning, Stronger and clearer would leave it out and make that independent clause a sentence on its own. Plus leaving out "something." The next sentence describes the strange talk anyway. Same with the prior instance of "but." "But" is used prescriptively to join contradictory clauses. He would have ran the race, but he'd broken his leg. She backed up to the edge but stopped short of going over. Today was supposed to be the parade but rain postponed it indefinitely.

"Downright eerie" feels to me an abrupt and bumpy change in the level of language prior and after. Instead of downright, which has a directional adverb or adjective connotation, or idiom, outright expresses the same superlative degree, similar idiom, yet a stronger and clearer emotional connotation.

"Eerie" I feel goes too far into a sophisticated diction next to strange, which is part of eerie's denotative meaning. Spooky, scarey, wierd, haunted, etc., maybe, whatever most resonantes with and amplifies strange, cold, and harsh. I'd side with haunted. Uncanny would have the same connotation issues as eerie.

This sense I have of issues with "downright eerie" is that it feels to me like narrator voice, where the rest of the excerpt feels close, very close, artfully close to Will's voice, even though in third person. Close narrative distance is about narrator and character voice being so close that they are indistinguishable. Overt narrator voice prominence can cause disconnects from the illusion of reality imitation favored presently.

The next sentence starts with "It." Pronoun-subject antecedent issue. If "it" refers to Rosie's words, the number of "it" doesn't agree. If "it" refers to the overall strangeness of Rosie's speech, then "it" has no locateable subject antecedent. As such then "it" has no meaning until the sentence it starts is read, hence "it" is a meaningless syntactical expletive. That kind of syntax for an opening can be off-putting. It doesn't work for me.

Strong development of a dramatic complication in so short a word count. That Will is worried by Rosie's strange sleep talk implies a dramatic problem, perhaps a horror to come. That's great writing.

The excerpt has a dramatic event, dramatic characters, and an implied dramatic setting--nighttime terrors in a bedroom. Plot, character, and setting development are artfully well-begun. A few minor diction and syntax areas I think could easily be adjusted and this would be ready for debut.

Many of the gerund "ing" words if changed to past tense would also be stronger and clearer time significance for the general flow and pace of the prose.

[ January 11, 2014, 10:20 PM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]

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genevive42
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It was going pretty good, but the language near the end gets confusing. Also, one of my first thoughts is, why isn't he recording filming this?

I would keep reading, but if this just turns out to be a werewolf story, I'm going to be disappointed. If you've written a REALLY different werewolf story, start closer to the point that makes it truly unique.

Good luck with this.

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Ennis
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extrinsic-- thank you so much for such thorough and helpful feedback! I believe you've hit upon an issue that crops out throughout the rest of the story--POV violation through the use of incongruous language. I'll go back through and work on that! Thank you also for your excellent, constructive comments on the diction and syntax issues--you are absolutely spot on! Finally thanks for the shot of confidence, I wasn't sure if this opening was enough to grab readers, but I'm feeling better about that after your comments. Thanks again!
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Ennis
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genevive42-- thank you for your feedback as well! I will work on the language at the end per your and extrinsic's comments.

No werewolfs here! The one-line description would be: "An elderly man realizes his wife's strange behavior may be something more than her Alzheimer's diagnosis."

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