Cut out the part with the wind, give us an MC and open with something like, "It was one hundred and three degrees at nine in the morning and Shelly wondered what it would be like come noon. So much for the new Ice Age!"
Post the first 3 sentences of your WIP!
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Cut out the part with the wind, give us an MC and open with something like, "It was one hundred and three degrees at nine in the morning and Shelly wondered what it would be like come noon. So much for the new Ice Age!"
And that's why I posted the first three, for the feedback. Btw the wind is essential, as is that odd chill on a very hot day, the reason is found out in the next paragraph.
milkweed, I agree the chill is essential, but only when I reached new Ice Age. I'm not sure if it would be a good idea to try rearranging things so "new Ice Age" gets to the front.
Another issue is the abundant use of hot synonyms: temperature reached 103 (degrees) Fahrenheit (which may be better shown by Shelly looking at a thermostat of screen), hot, summer heat. That means hot in every sentence, kind of repeating. Also, why did you mention laundry? Is it to create a mundane feel, like it's gonna look like another regular day for Shelly and then boom, big deal happens?
Another issue is the abundant use of hot synonyms: temperature reached 103 (degrees) Fahrenheit (which may be better shown by Shelly looking at a thermostat of screen), hot, summer heat. That means hot in every sentence, kind of repeating. Also, why did you mention laundry? Is it to create a mundane feel, like it's gonna look like another regular day for Shelly and then boom, big deal happens?
A few thoughts, in no particular order
You went from past tense to present tense. Was this done on purpose?
With the way you’ve constructed the first two sentences, I expected the last one to follow the same sort of roundabout/backwards pattern (“Bear it, I could not” in the style of Yoda.) As a result, that last one sticks out like a sore thumb even without the sudden tense change.
This isn’t that great of an opener, in my opinion. All this person is doing is thinking and being anguished.
What agony?
The way you’ve ordered the words makes the sentences very weak, especially that first line.
The second line is awkward and was hard to read at first because there’s a missing comma. It feels unnatural to try and read it the way you have it now.
Would I continue reading? Why or why not?
No, I would not continue past your first few lines the way you have them now. Ignoring your sentence construction, nothing about this catches my attention.
Good luck with the writing!
Yes,it was intentional.
Thanks for the honest and thorough critique!
More than three sentences here, and it's rife with comma splices. (Comma splices happen when two complete sentences are joined by a comma. You should use a semi-colon, or separate them with a period.)
So...if the planet is engulfed in ice, why is the chill on the wind strange? It sounds like it's the heat that's strange.
Your character should be identified by name.
The information is rather jumbled in its presentation. There's a chill wind, but it's hot, hot, hot...there's ironing to be done...incessant summer heat...there's an ice age on.
It seems like the important bit is the ice-age, so I'd suggest leading with that.
Just fixing the punctuation here:
The wind was brusque with a strange
Though this is my current WIP, I am not sure where it is going. Might abandon soon, or rewrite completely.
Excellent points, I will go back and look at that first paragraph, right now we are battling the flu here so it may have to wait a bit.
Thank you, I will take this into consideration later in the week when everyone here is feeling better.
I'm not sure where this is going either. The writing isn't bad, but I don't know if the main character is the mother, the child, or even the king. If it is the child (I'm kinda guessing it is?), then I would suggest skipping forward A LOT. "In the beginning" works for the bible and that's about it (ok, the lion king too).
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Are you sure brusque is the word you want there?
The scattered voice would work in first person but I'm not sure it's working in third, tbh. You might want to review the use of the semi-colon as it would work better in some of these sentences than commas.
I'd suggest simplifying that first sentence a little. The scream is so melodramatic and not really necessary. And thunder doesn't strike. Lightning does. So--
Thunder rumbled just as Queen Indela birthed her third child.
But is the thunder important? (Like an omen or something.) Do we need to know that the assistant is small and fragile-looking? And whose POV is this?
I read this as being omni 3rd. If that’s not the POV you were going for, you might want to make it clear whose POV this is.
Lightning strikes and thunder rumbles (or booms or whatever you want your thunder to sound like). So which one is happening?
You have too many commas. There are a few where you don’t need them
Would I continue reading? Why or why not?
Maybe. I can’t really decide. To be honest, the lightning/thunder+birth+scream combo had me chuckling. It just seemed too much. I would either a) slowly put this MS down, or b) keep reading because I found it outright amusing and assumed it was a blatant parody of the fantasy genre.
Hope you have fun with the WIP!
(If you decide not to abandon this one)
The first time I posted here, I did not know this was a critique thread; I had only looked at the first few pages. I know, that's on me for being stupid. Anyway, I took the comments I got to heart. Here's another try at the start of my WIP:
Eyes smarting from a thick haze of incense smoke, Todd Pearson stood beside the old man and the young woman, clutching a burning candle. The old man’s voice rose and fell; the woman’s eyes were wide and inscrutable; the candle’s flame flickered light and shadow on the wall.
“How,” thought Todd, “do I get myself into these things?”
Eyes smarting from a thick haze of incense smoke, Todd Pearson stood beside the old man and the young woman, clutching a burning candle. The old man’s voice rose and fell; the woman’s eyes were wide and inscrutable; the candle’s flame flickered light and shadow on the wall.
“How,” thought Todd, “do I get myself into these things?”
This is not a critique thread, per se.
But what's the fun if you post something and nobody responds? Ideally, people will applaud your work and worship you. But sometimes your works aren't there yet, sometimes people are jealous and refuse to revere, other times the critters have a knack of being finicky.
Maybe in future we'll see posts marked "Fragile--do not crit" or "Crit only if you've won the Pulitzer" or "Be warned--I own multiple assault rifles and I'm on Prozac" or something.
Your first sentence:
- Todd Pearson is clutching a burning candle
- His eyes are smarting from a thick haze of incense smoke (source?)
- He's standing beside an old man and a young woman
That's a hell of a lot to be incorporated into one sentence, not to mention your first line, which is supposed to be insta-love. I think you oughta break it down and split it.
The first paragraph gives me an impression they're in a temple. It feels unagitated. Then Todd ponders how does he get into these things (as in muddles?). It breaks my perception.
But what's the fun if you post something and nobody responds? Ideally, people will applaud your work and worship you. But sometimes your works aren't there yet, sometimes people are jealous and refuse to revere, other times the critters have a knack of being finicky.
Maybe in future we'll see posts marked "Fragile--do not crit" or "Crit only if you've won the Pulitzer" or "Be warned--I own multiple assault rifles and I'm on Prozac" or something.
Your first sentence:
- Todd Pearson is clutching a burning candle
- His eyes are smarting from a thick haze of incense smoke (source?)
- He's standing beside an old man and a young woman
That's a hell of a lot to be incorporated into one sentence, not to mention your first line, which is supposed to be insta-love. I think you oughta break it down and split it.
The first paragraph gives me an impression they're in a temple. It feels unagitated. Then Todd ponders how does he get into these things (as in muddles?). It breaks my perception.
I missed that as well, which explains the responses I recieved. Hmmmm I think to myself now that's cool!
I don't mind the critique but I too failed to read the first couple of pages to this thread. The upside was someone pointing out that I was using the same description, in relation to temperature, over and over again; that and the comma abuse.
I will state, maybe I should put this in my sig line, that I'm dyslexic as the day is long. I've worked long and hard overcoming the whole seeing letters backwards, etc., the effort I put forth in doing so means my grammar usage sucks I mean suffers.
Nice improvement! I would do some work on the first sentence, though; it's a bit wordy.
"Todd clutched a candle, his eyes smarting (bleary?) from the haze of incense."
*edit*
As for the topic of whether it's a critique thread or not, if there wasn't critique there wouldn't be much to say other than whether we like the lines or not lol
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I like this. It promises angst, and I loooove angst.
Like BethS, I think the second sentence is a grabber. Maybe you could find a way to shuffle and put the midst of agony with the part where he can't bear it...?
But anyway, I like it!
First, consider not opening the first sentence with a dependent clause (generally a position of weakness). It only looks like you've tried to cram in too much information. The bit about his eyes smarting from the smoke is a nice sensual touch, but it could be mentioned later. It's just not an important fact for the reader to know in the first sentence.
Second, does he know the names of the old man and the young woman? Or at least their roles? (i.e., priest and priestess, wizard and acolyte, etc.)
Third, don't put thoughts in quotation marks. Quotes are reserved for dialogue only.
Finally, I think you could sneak some information about Todd into this. I don't know whether to envision a man or a child. The old man and the woman are similarly generic and bland. You need to color this up some.
For instance (forgive the liberties):
Todd Pearson, by day an accountant for Biff, Bonzo & Sons, stood between the old wizard and his luscious young female assistant. The burning candle in his hands jumped in time with every excited beat of his heart.
Not trying to rewrite it for you, but just wanting to give you an idea of how to work in useful, specific information and make the whole more vivid.
This is great. I love the idea of being able to try out tiny bits of prose. It's like tapas for writers - which isn't to say that actual tapas should be avoided by writers.
"Eloise Margaret Townsend was born on a very boring day, which was a poor predictor for her later life. In Green Towers, the apartment complex where her parents rented the little one bedroom that overlooked the alley, most people did nothing that day. Allen Warren, who lived downstairs from the Townsends, spent a lot of time thinking about how he should lose some weight, and very little time actively losing the same."
"Eloise Margaret Townsend was born on a very boring day, which was a poor predictor for her later life. In Green Towers, the apartment complex where her parents rented the little one bedroom that overlooked the alley, most people did nothing that day. Allen Warren, who lived downstairs from the Townsends, spent a lot of time thinking about how he should lose some weight, and very little time actively losing the same."
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We're all here to help, no matter the critique. I don't think anyone here (anyone established anyway) is here rubbing their hands together waiting for the next victim to post their WIP. It's all about making it BETTER. *sings koombaya* Critiques can be hard/harsh- but they are usually the truth. We've all gone through it.
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Wow, there's a lot of NOTHING going on. Everyone is boring and not actively doing anything (e.g. "thinking"). You switch from Eloise to Allen is a jumpcut that could break a neck. I immediately do not care about these characters which means I would not read any more of the book. Where's the LIFE? You should start there. You can SHOW me these people are schlumps instead of telling me.
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