posted
Here are the first thirteen lines to a story I've been working on for what seems like forever. It's a time travel/mystery adventure. Let me know if this catches your attention and if you'd like to read more.
Death by speeding bullet isn’t a fun way to go. Having tried it once myself, I can’t in good conscious recommend it. You won’t like the results. There’s no glamour in such an exit; only headache, heartache and grief. Sometimes death isn’t even the end of your troubles. Sometimes trouble follows you long after your body is lying in the grave. My own personal nightmare began sixty-five days ago, on October ninth. I know, by standard reckoning, that's only twenty-one days ago. The math doesn't seem to add up, but trust me, it does. I've kept careful track, and I can account for each and every hour.
Posts: 9 | Registered: Sep 2014
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posted
A delightful opening and yes, I would keep reading.
However, there are a few issues to consider.
1. Can a slow moving bullet kill you? Personally, I'd kill the speeding modifier.
2. It should be conscience, not conscious.
3. Sometimes death isn’t even . . . Sometimes . . .. You've begun two congruent sentences with the same word, always a bad idea. And, second, I'd separate the two clauses with a semi-colon rather than making each a separate sentence. Just a personal preference.
posted
Hmmm. Phil's observations are good, although I disagree with #3. Repeating a word at the start sentences or clauses is sometimes awkward, but it can also be used for rhetorical effect, what people who catalog such things call "anaphora". Anaphora appropriate when you want to drive (hammer?) a point home, as in this passage from George W. Bush's Inaugural Address:
quote:We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.
Or this from the Gettysburg Address:
quote:But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground.
Speaking of repetition something about the rhythm of your opening that feels a bit off to me. The sentence and phrasing length comes across as a bit monotonous. Maybe you'll see what I mean if you try reading it aloud. Or is it just me? Anyone else see it?
Posts: 1459 | Registered: Dec 2010
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posted
This fragment has a few strengths which advise further reading, a few shortcomings that discourage further reading. The main strengths for me come from the mystery and the emotional contexture. The main shortcomings are unsettled voice and potential vagueness and repetition vice.
The mystery of why the agonist dies evokes my curiosity, not much empathy though, since the agonist obviously lived, or at least continued consciousness in the here-present, to tell the tale.
The voice bumps from third person to first person to second person--second-person direct address and second-person self-reflexive. Also, the first six sentences are negation statements, one more in the second paragraph. Negation statements ask for more reader thought at the moment and slow, reverse, and speed-bump the reading ride. Consider revision for positive statements wherever pratical. "isn't a fun way to go." for example, //is a brutal--gruesome--way to go.//
Same with -ing words, consider revision. "speeding bullet," for example, could be recast into sped bullet or mushroomed bullet, the latter emphasizes visceral impact.
Prose serial lists take a serial comma, "headache, heartache[,] and grief"
"body is lying in the grave" could be recast to //body lies in the grave// or reposes or reclines or rests or fidgets or tosses or struggles or suffers or rots.
"My own personal nightmare" is a tautology. "My," "My own," or "My personal" are less repetitive. //My nightmare// is strongest and clearest.
"math doesn't seem to add up, but trust me," No "seem to" about it, the math doesn't add up. Negation statement too. "But," though a contrast conjunction, doesn't change the meaning, left in or excised out, causes a minor speed bump. Consider revision. //The math adds up wrong. Trust me, the time span is right.// for example.
"I've kept careful track[;] and I can account for each and every hour." Extraneous "I have" "have" contraction. Independent-sentence conjunction joins take a semicolon before the conjunction word or are stand-alone sentences separated by a period.
Some craft strengths, some voice shortcomings, some style concerns, some appeal strengths.
I do see a touch of monotony from sentence syntax and close length similarities.
Posts: 6037 | Registered: Jun 2008
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posted
I too had concerns about the choppy sentence structure--short and not so sweet. However, as a reader, I dismissed this concern for the simple reason that most YA fiction, and its close relations, seem to employ the same such choppiness.
That's not to say it isn't jarring to us old f*rts, just that I could get past it.
I also took the grammatical shortcomings to be character dependent. I took this as a character dialogue driven narrative. At least at the beginning.
posted
MattLeo, are you contending that oratory and narrative prose are two sides of the same coin? Because they are most definitely not.
Possibly the greatest orator of the 20th Century was Adolf Hitler, and yet his oratory, if used as narrative prose would be deathly dull, repetitive, rambling, and unfocused. It was his voice, his inflection, his mannerisms, his passion, his commitment, his belief, his strength of will, and his charisma that elevated him to such heights of oratory that he could incite millions to willingly indulge in an orgy of barbarity.
To do the same thing in narrative prose would be, I contend, almost impossible.
quote:Originally posted by Grumpy old guy: MattLeo, are you contending that oratory and narrative prose are two sides of the same coin? Because they are most definitely not.
I don't see you can be so sure of your answer, given that the question is so vague. What does "two sides of the same coin" even mean? Here is what I contend: oratory, storytelling, and poetry are each distinct, but they all borrow from each other. Everyone uses rhetoric in writing fiction. I guarantee I could find rhetorical devices used in just about anything you've written.
Using rhetoric to your advantage doesn't mean you have to *stuff* your fiction full of gimmicks. Sometimes you want to know what the gimmicks are so you can tone it down a little. These techniques are part of our literary DNA; they can creep into our writing when we're not paying attention. If you've been reading my feedback in these forums you'll see that I often recommend people use more restraint. And the idea that even oratory is necessarily stuffed full of rhetorical flourishes is mistaken. Study Churchill's famous "We Shall Fight on the Beaches" address, and you'll see 99% of it is an exercise in straightforward storytelling.
As for the idea that oratory is carried by the force of the speaker's personality, what makes you think that would be untrue of fiction? Readers spend a lot of time with narrators, and narrators' personalities and quirks matter, even in the case of third person narration.
The third person narrator is a persona, and it's distinct from the author. Look at the opening of LORD OF THE RINGS, where Tolkien struggles, without limited success, to conjure the jocular, kindly, avuncular narrator of THE HOBBIT. Meanwhile a graver, more poetic narrative voice is emerging, which will eventually take control of the narrative:
quote:The sun went down. Bag End seemed sad and gloomy and disheveled. Frodo wandered around the familiar rooms, and saw the light of the sunset fade on the walls, and shadows creep out of the corners. It grew slowly dark indoors. He went out and walked down to the gate to the bottom of the path, and a short way down to Hill Road.
I've studied this passage over the years and attempted to reproduce the effect many times. But you don't to do this kind of thing *everywhere*; nor would every narrator choose to heighten specific moments like this. It's part of the narrator's style. Your third person narrator isn't necessarily *you*; it can be a persona you construct for the particular story.
Posts: 1459 | Registered: Dec 2010
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posted
Would keep reading, but the beginning is bothering me.
quote:Death by speeding bullet isn’t a fun way to go. Having tried it once myself, I can’t in good conscious recommend it.
Good. Establishes something unique about the narrator right away.
quote:You won’t like the results. There’s no glamour in such an exit; only headache, heartache and grief.
Not so good. It's trite, shallow, predictable. It could have been credibly said by anyone who hasn't been shot, let alone someone who died from a gunshot. And for that reason, it pulls me out.
This is where, if you've done some research into gunshot wounds, you use some of it to give telling details that prove your character has indeed been through what he claims. If you haven't, don't give the reader time to dwell on their absence.
Posts: 388 | Registered: Jan 2010
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posted
I'm debating just cutting the first paragraph entirely. I like how the second paragraph works to introduce things, and I return to the idea of dying soon enough in the third paragraph (and I agree the "won't like the results" bit sounds a little predictable.)
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posted
Well, I'm usually one here who says, "don't feel like you're obligated to use a gimmick to hook the reader."
That said, if your narrator is someone who has already been killed by a bullet, I say don't bury the lede!
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