posted
SF, WIP. Part of the background of the original story needed exploring. It merits its own story, beginning here. Impressions, please. I am especially interested in what you think of Mom's dialog.
Mom was arguing for the second morning in a row against ascending Black Mesa. She’d become nervous and agitated as the family crawler approached. She hated the wastes.
Dad had parked on a dune at its base, nine days west of Little Miss. He had been obsessed by the mesa since his first look at it on a topographical map.
“When all in town think it’s dangerous,” said Mom, “you’re stupid to disagree. Or, you’re crazy.”
Mom gave Verlon a sidelong glance for reassurance. Verlon nodded to placate her. If he and Dad both disagreed with her at once, they’d catch hell for days.
Everyone in the Viceroy Inc. mining community of Little Miss was disturbed by the wastes. Verlon’s friends took days to...
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posted
Well, to start with, I have a huge problem with any character being referred to as 'Mom' or 'Dad' unless it is direct dialogue or a child's internal thoughts about their own parents.
My next issue is that your are telling me a whole lot of stuff you could be showing me--like 'Mom' (Grrr!) arguing against going to the mesa. Why don't I get to hear this argument, it might give me more information about, and a better feel for, the locale? My guess would be that it doesn't advance the story which, to my mind, is a dead give-away that the opening doesn't do much to advance the story either.
Phil.
[ June 11, 2014, 03:52 AM: Message edited by: Grumpy old guy ]
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posted
"Why, dear mother, are you arguing with my father about ascending Black Mesa, a flat topped mountain often found in desert conditions, as we sit here in our family crawler, which indicates how well off we are, nine days west of our little corporate mining town of Little Miss, on top of a sand dune, further describing the desert conditions. You know this is my father's obsession even though you really don't accept that it is my obsession, too, so your arguing, though its sentiment is in keeping with the rest of our community, is kind of useless even though I don't want to tell you that out of respect for you and an immature sense of responsibility to family harmony, which is in response to your sometimes blatantly histrionic behavior. You know we're going up there anyway and you can be pretty sure that something awful is going to happen, so you might want to give this arguing a rest because the awful stuff might just happen to you," said Anna's son, Loron.
Sure, I could get into using dialog to show readers everything that is going on; Brenda Starr, here I come.
Thank you for telling me about your 'Mom' and 'Dad' peeve, and for your 'guess' that my frag doesn't advance my story. In the future, when you have nothing informative to contribute, please contribute nothing. Kent
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posted
Only one dialogue line to evaluate, the dialogue comes from a dearth of context and texture, some from the setup and aftermath of the situation, not much meaningful conversation, though, from which to evaluate the dialogue. Dialogue: "a written composition in which two or more persons are represented as conversing" {Webster's 11th).
"Mom was arguing for the second morning in a row against ascending Black Mesa. She’d become nervous and agitated as the family crawler approached. She hated the wastes.
"Dad had parked on a dune at its base, nine days west of Little Miss. He had been obsessed by the mesa since his first look at it on a topographical map."
Note that the main tense in the above is past perfect, the first sentence past participle progressive auxilliary. Past perfect tense is a tipoff to backstory. A backstory start, usually summary and explanation lecture, generally signals the action started at a prior moment. Past participle progressive likewise signals action began prior. Up-front backstory generally holds narrative distance wide open, where an ideal is close and closer narrative distance.
Then a dialogue line in simple past, prose's immediately-this-past-moment present tense. The dialogue attribution "said Mom" is a blast from the past, an anachrony not seen much presently outside poetry. Its poetic use calls undue attention to the attribution tag, which conventional tag //Mom said// is nearly invisible. The tag placement is, though, timely and judicious and grammatically ideal.
The fragment portrays an unsettled emotional state, a previously upset emotional equilibirum, kind of on the bland side due to being upset at a prior time and low and defused antagonism. Mom seems a peevish boss of the family, though Dad moves forward with a plan to scale the mesa. Mom's dialogue serves to explain and summarize the argument from a one-sided, generic perspective: that of the town's, not hers specifically.
Presumably, Verlon is the viewpoint character, this fragment in third-person narration. Verlon's viewpoint is underdeveloped to me, mostly narrator viewpoint from summary and explanation and sophisticated language, "reassurance" and "placate," for examples. Is Verlon a child, as use of noun synecdoches "Dad" and "Mom" signal, or an older and advanced-educated adult?
"Mom gave Verlon a sidelong glance for reassurance." Confused: does Mom ask for reassurance support from Verlon or does she reassure Verlon that all is well? "Gave" and "a sidelong glance" are bland attitude description of a fleeting emotional expression that could do with more emotional spice, for closer narrative distance and establishing that Verlon is the viewpoint character, if he is.
"Verlon nodded to placate her." If Verlon is the viewpoint character, this line pulls out of his perception and looks at him from outside of his viewpoint and the moment, place, and situation of the narrative's unfolding action, to narrator's, if not writer's, perception. Narrative distance opened wider and wider, when an ideal for a start opens close and closes narrative distance.
"If he and Dad both disagreed with her at once, they’d catch hell for days."
Presciptively and for closing distance purposes, if Verlon is the viewpoint character, "Dad" should precede "he." "he and dad" and "both" and "at once" is a tautology, amounting to expressing the same idea three times in the same sentence, with little, if any, amplified emphasis from the repetition.
"Catch hell" is trite, at least, outworn maybe, perhaps cliché. Livelier expression might use similar though amplified emphasis terms for emotional interjection strength and close distance therefrom. //catch fiery heck and cold hell.//
"Everyone in the Viceroy Inc. mining community of Little Miss was disturbed by the wastes. Verlon’s friends took days to . . ."
An abrupt transition farther out of the scene, pulled way back out of nearby close distance.
Grammer faults:
"She’d become nervous and agitated as the family crawler approached." "as" vague coordination conjunction, where "while" is warranted. "approached" may be either a transitive or intransitive verb, depending on context. The context above is the transitive case, takes an object, or objective case. Intransitive verb: subjective case. The way the sentence is signals the crawler approached Mom. What the crawler approached is missing: the mesa, the object of the transitive verb "approached."
"Dad had parked on a dune at its base" vague pronoun subject reference "its" references "dune." "parked on a dune" signals the crawler set atop the dune, not at its base. "its" thus seems vaguely to refer to the mesa's base.
"Everyone in the Viceroy Inc." Abbreviation "Inc." where part of a corporation's name is bracketed by commas. //Viceroy, Inc.,//
"'Or, you're crazy.'" Contrast conjunction "or" only takes a following comma when an interjection intervenes. "//Or you're crazy."// or //"Or, you know, you're crazy."//
"Wastes," "family crawler," a mesa to scale for an ungiven reason or story drama function, like what is atop the mesa "besides it is there" to risk the climb, and a town named "Little Miss," if a reference to a young woman, that's nice, if an abbreviation of, say, Mississippi, not so nice, if both and such, cool, raise a mite of curiosity. The dialogue doesn't work for me, for the reasons given above.
quote:Originally posted by Kent_A_Jones: In the future, when you have nothing informative to contribute, please contribute nothing. Kent
The proper response when you feel that someone has given you feedback that does not contribute is "Thank you." And then you ignore what the person said.
Please do not insult your critiquers. They took the time to read what you wrote and to try to offer you their thoughts on it.
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posted
I agree with Kathleen here. Though to defend Kent a little, Phil is a bit, well, gruff, or "grumpy", in his tone. The first line of his critique in the original version of this opening is:
quote:None of this ‘works’ for me.
I kind of understand his demeanor, though (or at least I think I do). My first year in Korea, I met this young Australian guy who'd been working in Japan for several years, and he explained to me a meaning I'd never heard before then: taking the piss out of someone.
It's this antagnoistic way of speaking to people that's, in a way, meant to push them to annoyance, or as my English friend put it, meant to "wind someone up". To amp them up until they react angrily. And when I read Phil's posts, this comes to mind. It's kind of common in Europe, too, and I've sat in bars watching English guys and Dutch guys and guys from New Zealand all just ragging on each other trying to see who's going to want to fight first.
But anywho, I can kind of understand Kent's reaction, though ultimately, it's not exactly useful in a generally calm environment as Hatrack.
Posts: 1216 | Registered: Nov 2011
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posted
Kent, it was not my intent to insult you or demean your work; I was simply expressing a personal opinion, indicated by the repeated use of 'I' and 'my'. Also, I was not trying to "take the piss out of anyone."
A prerequisite of my appraising any work critically is that I give voice to my opinions without resorting to personal affront or insult, which I always attempt to studiously avoid. If my honest criticism, delivered firmly but politely, affronts your sensibilities, well . . ..
posted
Denevius, just a clarification. "Taking the piss" out of someone is not anatgonistic, rather, it is good natured banter. For example:
"Why are you still here?" "I'm waiting for the Police; I saw a crime this morning." "What, you looked in the mirror?"
I think what you're talking about is "winding someone up like a two-bob watch". That's pushing someone's buttons so often and so long just waiting for them to break--like over-winding a cheap watch.
Kent, I could have responded to your post by saying something like this:
Why not try this--
Verlon rolled as his eyes as his Mom continued her argument,". . .Richard, everyone knows that the wilds are dangerous, why do we keep coming out here?"
Verlon watched as his father seemed to hunch down inside his shoulders, but his voice was firm. " whatever dialogue you want..."
I could have led you by the hand and explained how you could use dialogue to inform the reader of the situation, what everyone knows (myth, legend, fact) and hints to show the personalities of all three people in the crawler. True, it might have taken a lot longer and would not have sounded quite as exciting, or cryptic, but that doesn't mean it isn't good advice. What is DOES mean, however, is that I'm treating you like a child. I would rather incite re-evaluation, and the occasional brusk response, than be accused of condescension.
posted
I took Phil's tone (Grumpy) to be quite neutral. And had some of the same issues as he had with the story opening. Ironically, I preferred the first opening, where there was some color in the descriptions. (I agreed with Phil here about the hook, apart from the colorful description, I wasn't drawn into the story - so the hook wasn't strong. For a further understanding of hooks, I'd suggest look at some of the first 13 challenges in the Writing Challenges forum, particularly the critiques of them.) I'll explain further - but treat these explanations as simply part of the journey of wrestling with writing and critiques.
On the "Mom and Dad" peeve, there are some valid reasons behind it becoming a peeve. Primarily, because this is the opening, the reader is trying desperately to orient themselves with the characters, the world, the target audience and the plot all at once. So they (read we) are looking for clues. A reference to "Mom" or "Dad" very early carries the potential for pitching the audience as pre-teen children, which can immediately turn off a large percentage of the adult audience. It is not true for all stories, but such references usually do carry that connotation, and therefore that risk. (Extrinsic pointed this out too, but I thought I'd phrase it in terms of risk and reward.)
Secondly, if you do use the term Mom and Dad in the narration, these are terms that indicate either a generic role that avoids individual traits (i.e. the role defined by the name also defines the character identity) or else it establishes a relational closeness to the narrator's point of view. Since later individual traits are observed, I immediately presume the latter is true, and therefore this must be in first person POV, just by the use of the terms Mom and Dad. In the later 13, I have seen some further indicators that this assumption is true, for example, opinions about certain character's emotional states (She hated the wastes) and use of words laden with emotional judgments (obsessed, they'd catch hell). These are all fine elements establishing the voice. However, I have had no confirmation of this POV, no direct use of the word "I" to orient me that we are inside someones head. So the tension is turning to annoyance, as I view this lack of confirmation as an oversight. Especially when it turns to background information (Everyone in ...), without having established the POV as first person.
Now, if it turns out to be a third person POV, then there is an entirely different set of issues. (And, to me, this would be more annoying.) Why did it keep me believing that it was first person POV for so long? Why is there commentary on the different character's motives? Why is the POV omniscient third person? And since it is, why is there information that seems to be hidden or missing, or worse - opinionated? That is the contract with the reader that goes with the omniscient POV - absolute transparency with the reader or else the manipulation is too obvious or insulting. And an opinionated narrator makes the writer a character, and therefore makes me constantly aware that I am being manipulated. It's a tough gig to pull off, omniscient POVs, and a tight third person POV is much easier to write.
Whichever POV, to me the speed and amount of people introduced was overwhelming (Mom, Dad, Verlon and I or narrator). I don't yet know which are important, or which to attach to. Verlon may be the key character (because he is named and took a lead role), but he is 4th introduced, and order of introduction is usually a big clue. Mom and Dad have both been given some sort of emotive depth, but neither have the more critical relational attachments needed to orient the reader towards the key character (i.e. who's mom and who's dad? Certainly not Verlon's by the interplay, and whoever they are, that is the probable key character). So I am left with the feeling that the key character is yet to be introduced, and, due to the pace of character introductions, by the end of the next page there could be as many as 15 to remember. These sort of concerns underlie what was expressed as a "peeve".
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