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Author Topic: the fall WIP
redapollo9
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Hi all! Haven't posted on here in a long while, so I apologize if I've botched the 13 lines convention. Just looking for general feedback and not sure if this is working as a hook:
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When her prince disappeared, Josephine did not say anything. No goodbye. No good luck. She was not among the crowd of people stationed by the city gate, waving and jeering as he took his leave. Instead, she was in her room, high in the castle and far from a window. She was the daughter of a King who still lived by the old ways, who believed in the laws that forbade a future bride from glimpsing upon her husband-be-be on the day he set off on his marriage quest.

When her prince disappeared, Josephine stewed behind locked door and loyal guards. Her knuckles peeled against the door as she begged to be let out, begged to just see her dear Claudio one last time and whisper into his ear that she didn’t care about the quest. She wanted to say she would still love him even if he

[ February 12, 2014, 07:58 PM: Message edited by: Kathleen Dalton Woodbury ]

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Denevius
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Interesting, but slightly confusing. Like, the prince didn't exactly disappear, which usually implies a sudden and unexpected...well, disappearance. Instead, he leaves under much fanfare. I get what you mean, as it's somewhat rhetorical. The prince leaves, and is never seen from again. It just takes a moment to figure it out for me.

The second line is Josephine did not say anything. Again, confusing, because we see later on that, indeed, she did say something as she begged the loyal guards to be let out. What you mean is that she didn't say anything to the prince because she was locked away in her room. But it reads at first as if she simply didn't say anything to *anyone* at all, which isn't what you mean.

Also, if she's locked away in a room, how does she know about the crowd stationed at the gate, waving and jeering? I suppose she could hear the jeers, depending on where she is, and I guess she could imagine where the crowds are, but that's forcing me, the reader, to fill in a lot of blanks in the narrative.

But overall, the writing is clear, and you've got a nice if somewhat convoluted setup of the beginning of an adventure for young Josephine.

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babooher
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I think I would want to start this closer to where your protagonist becomes proactive instead of reactive.
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Jared W. Cooper
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Agreed with above, but I'd add a bit onto that. If these sensations of the princess are integral to our first impressions of her, you could put them in with what her first actions are. Emotions can be motivations, not just a state your MC is stuck at.
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extrinsic
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Hi, redapollo9,

My fragment responses tend to pick high and low hanging fruits that inform each other's strengths and shortcomings and strengths that are also shortcomings and vice versa. This opening, remarkably, has not one but two potent dramatic complications: Josephine's and Claudio's, and they are closely connected. That is extraordinary. Well done.

This scene opening is of a reflection-event scene. Managing third-person, close narrative distance, internal reflection, limited to one character, narration is a highly challenging and highly appealing method or, actually, number of methods. This opening manages those challenges and methods mostly artfully.

Content organization, diction, and syntax confusions--mechanics--make the opening a little bumpy. The pattern and sequence of causal events is, to my thinking, jumbled. The string of four negation statements makes interpreting meaning a little more challenging in the moment of reading and confusing for that reason. Opening both paragraphs, singly or both, with the subordinating conjunction word "when" also raises confusion.

Repetition of the identical "when" phrase signals an underlying rhetorical intent, the meaning of which isn't given. Unsupported, confusion arises about whether the repetition is intended or accidental or whimsical.

A grammar issue with using "when" as a subordinating conjunction term is whether it is as strong and clear as it can be. A subordinating conjunction, and its phrase, function to emphasize a sentence's main idea. "When her prince disappeared, Josephine did not say anything." The "when" of that sentence does to a small degree subordinate its clause to the main idea, to a lesser degree serves to emphasize the main idea. Shortcomings, however, make the meanings of the parts and wholes vague and which of the clauses is the main idea or even if the main idea is present at all.

"When" is a time conjunction. When is this time? This time function of "when" is an event, setting, and character point for clarification, needing further clarification in this case. //When Josephine came of age, her future prince departed the realm for his requisite marriage quest.// Time sense in terms of event, setting, and character relativities.

Contrarily, substituting another subordinating conjunction for "when" shows how "when" can be vague and confusing in this use. "[Because] her prince disappeared, Josephine did not say anything." "Because" is a cause, obviously, subordinating conjunction. The sentence does not have a correlation between cause and effect. Or "[Although] her prince disappeared, Josephine did not say anything." "Although" is a concession subordinating conjunction, less obviously. The sentence doesn't concede why she didn't speak. None of the three conjunctions clearly and strongly subordinate the auxilliary clause or emphasize a clear main idea. This is why there's confusion from the vagueness of "when."

Though this exacting grammar exercise may seem irrelevant and overly complex, a screening reader might not read past that first word. I immediately switched from entertainment reader to editor upon meeting that first word, the reading spell broken. From a more basic grammar principle, starting a sentence, paragraph, or especially a composition with a conjunction is generally frowned upon for formal writing. Creative writing's looser formality is nonetheless equally demanding grammatically.

Further, though screening readers and publication editors may not bother with or know the exacting grammar principles on any given style point, they will feel unsettled, confused, or put off by grammar shortcomings. The reading spell broken, why read on?

The reading spell is all important. This opening has spellbinding qualities that recommend it for further reading. Ironing out style, craft, and causality in terms of craft, content, and content organization--dramatic structure, or plot--would rearrange cause to before effect.

What is the first cause here that directly relates to the main dramatic complication? Josephine's. Dramatic complication is wants and problems wanting satsifaction. Josephine wants to be with Claudio. Problems, she's not allowed to see him until their wedding; he must go away on a quest to earn and prove his right to marry her, prove his bravery, patience, cunning, and wisdom are up to the challenges of leadership for the future king. In that latter, is the intangible though easily inferred complication for Claudio, next to his tangible complication of hunting a wild boar. Exquisite.

So what's the first cause that sets all this in motion? At least the most immediate one is Claudio's departure unseen by Josephine, though indirectly perceived in the internal space of her castle confinement and internal world of her thoughts. She hears and imagines the fanfare at Claudio's departure. These are sensory stimuli that Josephine can then react to in her reflection event, her thoughts, and express the intended meanings readers want to understand. That pattern and sequence above is a causally, logically organized pattern and sequence. The content is in the opening, only it's organization is jumbled and, therefore, confusing.

Because Josephine is this opening's viewpoint character, the character through which readers indirectly receive the narrator's narrative, I infer she's the protagonist, confidently. Also because of that inference, although she is at the moment static, not proactive, that she will become progressively proactive in short order. I infer that proactive action is efforts to satisfy her dramatic complication; that is, being with Claudio.

For narratives with a central complication each for two central characters, with their complications closely related, as these are, the secondary (deuteragonist) central character's complication wants satisfaction too; however, through at least a partial agency of the primary character's satisfaction efforts. This structure-type also demands that the two lead characters meet up at some future point.

In short, I infer Josephine will secretly escape from the castle. Secretly because she's further complicated by keeping her king father in the dark. Also that she will go to Claudio's aid in his hunt for the wild boar. In both sequences, she becomes progressively more proactive.

Although I may infer the basic pattern and sequence of events, my empathy and curiosity are nonetheless aroused and not as of yet confirmable in the progress of this narrative's events. I have ambivalent doubts whether Josephine will, in fact, succeed or fail as she intends, though she must suffer great personal cost and personal maturation growth and some degree therefore of complication satisfaction. Keeping satisfaction outcomes in doubt is a key quality for narrative drama purposes. That too in this fragment is artfully managed.

Mechanical style, grammar and such, for me is a shortcoming of this opening.

Craft is both a strength and a shortcoming, working and not working for me, of this opening.

Voice, which I've only touched on in passing, about how this reflection-event scene's narration is managed, is artfully managed.

Audience appeal, I haven't addressed, but I see strong potentials from this opening in that regard. A stifled bride-to-be who has to take matters abroad, into her own hands--what's not to be entertained by? Action adventure appeals for masculine sensibilities and romantic complications for feminine sensibilities. Grand doings afoot.

Mechanical style glitch: "husband-be-be"; husband-[to]-be.

[ February 13, 2014, 06:33 PM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]

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redapollo9
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Thank you! I appreciate the thorough feedback!
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Kent_A_Jones
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Our dear Josephine, bride-(to)-be of Claudio, can't say good-bye to him because his dad, the king, insists on following the law and not letting her see her prince on the day he leaves on his 'marriage quest.' Rather than stoically endure her forced sequestration, she bloodies her knuckles and pleads with callous guards to break the law and allow her to see her true love on the day of his departure. Got it.

I'm sure someone else will mention 'disappeared' and 'people stationed' and 'jeered,' and 'glimpsing upon,' and (my favorite) 'husband-be-be.'

This beginning doesn't grab me. I see little conflict, unless she must overcome her impatient histrionics while she waits. I see no indication that she will follow, so I don't know the plot. Characterization is stock: stock king, guards, prince. Even Josephine is a stock princess, because she doesn't do anything out of the ordinary.

In answer to your query, I feel no hook.

Except... I want to read the _other_ story. I want to see what havoc ensues when dear Josephine wheedles her way out of that locked room and whispers sedition to her sweet hubby-be-be (sorry, I had to).

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