Descriptions are tough, man. How much to include? How much to leave out? What’s worth describing and what’s not? So, high time for another critique session — this one focused on a descriptive sentence or paragraph. Pick a sentence or paragraph from your current WIP (or hell, write a new one if you’re so inclined) — one focused on description. Character description is a good place to look, but you can nab a section describing setting or a weapon or an orangutan super-spy. I trust your judgment. Which is why I’m hiding behind this Plexiglas enclosure while the rest of you paw and slap at each other HA HA HA kidding it’s not Plexiglass it’s bulletproof Gorilla glass shut up. *dons bomb suit* *ducks*
Anyway.
Deposit the snippet of your work in the comments below.
No more than, say, 100 words, if you please.
Putting it in the comments means you’re open to critique and should be willing to critique the work put forth by others. Critique should be even-handed, and focus on good parts as well as parts that maybe didn’t work so well for you.
LET THE MAYHEM BEGIN.
Sakina says:
She doesn’t even have a chance to scream.
One-two slashes, quick, stifling the cry that struggles to crawl across Mary Ann’s throat, she’s down, she’s down, quick, something’s burning in her stomach, it’s another slash, another, someone, please, but she’s going, going–
Mary Ann’s on the ground now, the filthy, filthy ground, and she can hear the faint echoes of horses nearby. The man pauses over her and she can see the knife, oh, the knife, look, how it glints and gleams in that dastardly, secretive moonlight.
“No hard feelings, love,” he drawls lazily as he closes in for another gash. “You’re just collateral damage.”
And then she’s gone; he sees it happening.
The light dims from her eyes and he watches as the last breath escapes from the now-hacked canvas she calls – called a chest. Soft blood drips slowly to the ground; blood, fascinatingly dark crimson and gently deceiving, shining in the pale, silent moonlight.
–
It’s a bit of a prologue, I’m afraid. Have at it. 😀
June 16, 2014 — 10:11 AM
Hannah says:
The pacing here is nice because it’s quick and there’s a lot of action. To up that feeling even more, I would cut unnecessary words. I think some of the repetition like “she’s down, she’s down quick” and “filthy, filthy ground” detract from some of your more descriptive moments like “hacked canvas” and “pale, silent moonlight.”
I would also suggest you choose between dastardly and secretive for the first description of moonlight and watch the repetition of moonlight imagery that you currently have–especially because those sentences seem rather parallel.
The single line of dialogue amid the quick, frantic description at the beginning is a nice, sharp switch in perspective as well as slowing down the pace, which I think works well.
I hope this is a Ripper story because I’ve always been fascinated by Saucy Jack.
June 16, 2014 — 10:32 AM
ngjcdad says:
Two criticisms: Cut way down on your comma usage, and this isn’t exactly a description, as the challenge asked for. This is an action scene. Best wishes.
June 16, 2014 — 10:39 AM
Jenni Cornell says:
Some nice imagery, but I had trouble with point of view. His? Hers? I think you need to pick one and stick with it, and since she exits early, it would probably have to be him.
June 16, 2014 — 11:09 AM
lorettasueross says:
I agree with Hannah regarding pacing and repetition, however I found the sudden POV switch — I’m sorry! — amateurish.
June 16, 2014 — 11:09 AM
Sakina says:
Thank you all so much–and it is sort of a description scene. With the blood. 😀
June 16, 2014 — 11:28 AM
Elizabeth Poole says:
Agreed on cutting some repetitive words for pacing. You have an amazing quick scene here, and some of these words are slowing the reader down. I love how you captured the feel and immediacy of the scene.
I put brackets around what I think you should cut. Using brackets is a really great way to cut things. You put brackets around the stuff you think could go, and read it without those words. If it reads better, you can cut them.
“She doesn’t even have a chance to scream.
One-two slashes, quick, stifling the cry that struggles to crawl across Mary Ann’s throat, she’s down, she’s down, [quick,] (this interrupts the flow of your repetition IMO) something’s burning in her stomach, it’s another slash, another, someone, please, but she’s going, going–
Mary Ann’s on the ground now, the [filthy,] filthy ground, [and] she can hear the faint echoes of horses nearby. The man pauses over her and she can see the knife, {{oh, the knife, look, how it glints and gleams}} (LOVE THIS LINE) in that [dastardly,] secretive moonlight.
“No hard feelings, love,” he drawls [lazily](I assumed it was lazily from the word “drawls”) as he closes in for another gash. “You’re just collateral damage.”
(Alternate dialogue idea: “Collateral damage, is all you are.”
For some reason when I was reviewing this scene, I could hear the man speaking and this is what he said instead. Take it or leave it.)
And then she’s gone; he sees it happening.
***See my note
The light dims from her eyes and he watches as the last breath escapes from the [now-]
(I’m going back and forth on this, but I don’t think I like “now” in front of canvas. First of all, it feels weird tense-wise. He was the one doing the hacking, and I doubt he thought of her as a canvas prior to the hacking. 😉 Second of all, I like the alliteration of saying “…and he watches as the last breath escapes from the hacked canvas she calls –called– a chest. it also puts a lot more emphasis on “called” which is the best part of the sentence I think.)
hacked canvas she calls – called [–] (put another em dash here since you interrupted yourself in the middle of the sentence) a chest. Soft blood drips slowly to the ground; blood, fascinatingly dark crimson and gently deceiving, shining in the [pale, silent] (I would take out both pale and silent because you’ve already used a lot of description, and I think it dilutes the power of the last word. Without “pale, silent”, it reads with a heavy tone on “moonlight”. Read it out loud to see what I’m talking about.) moonlight.
***I agree with the others about the POV shift. Even if you’re writing in omniscient, I think the shift was too abrupt because we are SO deeply into Mary Ann’s point of view, in her most intimate moment, that shifting to the killer is just too jarring, and undoes all of that wonderful work you’ve done putting us inside her head.
But here’s two ideas for a work around if you’re really sold on keeping the last paragraph describing her after she’s dead (it’s a good paragraph so I can see why)
1) I have no idea what genre you’re in, but if it’s remotely possible, you could say her spirit lingered for a moment due to the nature of her death, and keep this in her POV as he watches her die. It could be super creepy when she realizes she’s staring at her own body and the ruin he’s made of her. Then you could say something poetic like “and then oblivion took her and she knew no more”, or something to that affect, to make it clear her ghost isn’t going to wander around the story. You could also make it ambiguous if she’s really a ghost, or it’s just the dying images her brain is showing her as she dies.
2) Idea two, which I suspect you’ll have to run with. F. Scott Fitzgerald and Stephan King have both written scenes from the primary character’s POV, but it’s as if they’re seeing through another character’s eyes. It’s not head hopping, more like the character is thinking “this is how it must have been for X character.” And then go on to include a short paragraph postulating what that character might have felt and saw. This way, you stay in the character’s head, but get to have your alternate POV cake and eat it too.
In “The Great Gatsby”, it’s the scene of Gatsby’s death (spoiler alert!). Nick, our narrator, was not there for the death, and yet Gatsby’s the most important character in the book, and the scene of his death is arguably the culmination of the entire plot. It’s not really something you can skip over or summarize. So Fitzgerald dramatized the scene through Nick’s speculation, and it works well. I would study that scene for how Fitzgerald managed that without it feeling cheesy or awkward. King did this in “Carrie”, when Carrie thought about how her mother was managing without her.
Point is, it could work. It could also not work, so I would pick those scenes apart for how to do it well.
Sorry about the awkwardness of the edits. I don’t know how to html comments or I would have used different colors and bold. I hope this helps!
June 16, 2014 — 4:20 PM
John Bowler (@My140Chars) says:
“He spent his time wondering what her story might be. She was shorter than average but looked strong, muscular. Her hair was dark and tied in a tight braid, she had coppery skin. Her hands were calloused and the clothes she had arrived in looked well suited to working outdoors in the sun. They were dusty with a sort of fine sand. He’d been told the her ship was old and small. Nikolai considered her appearance, building a list of nearby planets that were larger than average and had settlements in hot, arid climates.”
June 16, 2014 — 10:12 AM
Hannah says:
This is an interesting beginning (I assume!) and I think it could benefit from some simple trimming.
Since I’m not sure where this falls in the story or the length of time, you can choose to ignore this (and everything else of course!) but your first sentence would move more quickly if it was something along the lines of “He wondered what her story might be.”
Some other trimming could be similar to this:
“Her dark hair was tied in a tight braid and she had coppery skin. The callouses on her hands and her clothes–dusted with a sort of fine sand–made her look well suited to working outdoors.” (Not sure how callouses and sandy clothes indicate “sun”–reference back to her skin?).
The mentions of the ship and the nearby planets are intriguing and I can tell that there is a story and some interesting characters here. The description of the fine sand dusting her clothes is very vivid even though it’s simple.
June 16, 2014 — 10:38 AM
ngjcdad says:
Great visuals here! You need to eliminate “the” from “told the her ship,” but other than that, well done!
June 16, 2014 — 10:44 AM
Beth Turnage says:
Some good description but it could be tighter.
As a suggestion reduce your filler words. “Looked” appears twice in this snippet.
He wondered was her story was. She was shorter than average with a wiry build but her coppery skin was well muscled. The woman’s dark hair was twisted in a tight braid. Her hands were well calloused and her dusty, sand-textured clothes (and her you might mention something like “fatigues” or “tank and shorts”) were well suited to working outdoors in the sun. She came off a ship (what kind of ship, merchant freighter, transport, etc.) that was old, slow and small. Nikolai thought over the list of nearby larger, arid planets that would fit her appearance.
See where I added description but reduced the word count to make it tighter.
June 16, 2014 — 11:00 AM
amy shoultz, phd says:
I think the opening line is provocative. Well-crafted, John.
June 16, 2014 — 11:22 AM
Mat Hockey says:
I like it. I get a really tactile impression of the fine sand on her hands and the sense of heat and distance is palpable. My personal preference would be to drop the first line altogether, as I imagine the story leading up to this point makes it clear who’s point of view this is – unless this is the start in which case I’ll hush my mouth.
June 16, 2014 — 1:13 PM
Blue Cole says:
“Ma, what the hell?” he cried. She’d had trouble getting around the last few years, but moved quicker now. As she stumbled, he slipped around her and stepped out of his bedroom door. The floor of the hallway was slick and his bare feet went out from under him, sending him sprawling onto the floor. White spots danced in front of his eyes as the impact of the landing brought back the pain of awakening. When he blinked to regain his vision, he found himself staring into Zippy’s glazed eyes.
June 16, 2014 — 10:20 AM
Hannah says:
I’m really interested in what’s going on here–who is Zippy? Why is the floor slick? OH GOSH WHY IS THE FLOOR SLICK?–but I’m confused on the action at the beginning. I assume “she” is the MC’s mother, but I don’t know where or why she is moving and why he’s walking away from her as she stumbles. Some of this could be cleared up if this falls in the middle of something, but if it’s the beginning the action at the beginning is unclear. You repeat floor twice in the fourth sentence and that could be tightened up by saying “sending him sprawling.” The final sentence could read “Blinking to regain his vision, he found…”
June 16, 2014 — 10:44 AM
Jenni Cornell says:
Definitely got my attention although I was confused by the verb slipped with the slick floor description coming right after. I didn’t know if he was slipping away from her, or slipping on slick floor. Had to go back and reread. Is he trying to avoid her? Also, why is awakening painful for him?
June 16, 2014 — 11:16 AM
kira a. gold says:
Interesting. Is he not a caring son, that he swears at his mother, and then moves around her rather than helping her when she stumbles?
You’ve got a lot going on that could be smoothed out with some minor adjustments: he should probably be stepping out of his doorway, rather than the door itself, and “feet going out from under him, sending him sprawling” is a pretty well-used chestnut. Try playing with something more descriptive, like “his bare heels skidded on the floor and he landed with a bone jarring thud on his ass.” White spots dancing is another cliche’, but a good one as long as we get that his head hits the floor too.
I’m really curious about what has everybody scrambling around!
June 16, 2014 — 6:32 PM
davidjmobrien says:
His eyes had often paused upon her face as he searched through the assembled in a lecture the way he did through the throng of a bar. She was stunning. Her frame was that of someone who was fit without effort. A swimmer or a gymnast at some point, she had a fine body, breasts the way Hemmingway described, wide womanly hips that one just wanted to hold, and a behind that eyes or hands could never tire of. Her face was not statuesque, but was simply sexy. She had crystal blue eyes like glacial ice, and a cute nose. Her mouth was perfect. Her teeth had had money spent on them, but her lips were natural. She had an amazing smile. But before that moment in a Madrid bar Danny had only received the coldness of those glacial eyes.
a little over 100 words, but 100 words is not a lot!
June 16, 2014 — 10:22 AM
jrupp25 says:
Sorry. I accidentally posted this rather than replied.
THis is a great description. It also give me an idea of his reaction to her looks. Recently, an editor mentioned to me that one’s eyes don’t pause but rather one’s gaze would pause – the former implying the eyes have a mind of their own (which, for many men, that may be true). Also, I generally hear the word statuesque used to describe a woman’s figure or the way she carries herself rather than her face. I would also skip the cute nose only because nothing else about this woman seems cute – unless you want to draw attention to the idea that her nose seems at odds with the rest of her. Because you use glacial ice in the middle of the para., perhaps you could cut it from the last sentence. She sounds very desirable. The total package.
June 16, 2014 — 10:37 AM
Hannah says:
I second jrupp25’s comment about the gaze pausing, statuesque for face, and about the cute nose and repetition of glacial.
In the first sentence should it say the assembly in a lecture? That part is confusing.
The phrase “fit without effort” feels clunky…too formal. I think If you tweak the next sentence to something along the lines of “She had a fine body–that of a swimmer or gymnast–with breasts the Hemingway described (although if you’re not familiar with Hemingway’s specific description, this falls flat. You could say “with breasts the way Hemingway described XXXXXXX and put in the description)
The rest of that sentence feels rather distant—“one just wanted to hold” “a behind that eyes or hands could never tire of” — this seems like a VERY attractive woman that fascinates Danny, but this doesn’t feel like active desire. Does Danny want to hold her hips? Does her behind distract him?
You could cut the entire sentence with statuesque in it—the rest of the description shows us that she’s quite sexy.
This is an interesting scene/snippet–especially since Danny is so fascinated with this woman who seems to be uninterested in him. I think the descriptions do a great job of showing his almost obsession with her, and they’ll be even sharper with some trimming/consolidation. Good work!
June 16, 2014 — 10:52 AM
Jenni Cornell says:
I agree with other reviewers, particularly about the use of assembled as a noun instead of an adjective. I first pictured this man at the front of the room, ie. the teacher, which is much more interesting than another student. But the bar reference at the end led me to believe it is another student. Also, may be a typo, but if you are going to reference Hemingway, you darn well better spell his name right! LOL I would like a more original way of talking about wanting to touch and hold. Perhaps the way one wants to run the fingers over the curves of a shiny new car, or a beach polished stone. More than just I want to hold, touch, squeeze. Sorry to go on and on, but your writing is more up my alley, so I got overwrought! LOL
June 16, 2014 — 11:29 AM
amy shoultz, phd says:
I like the overall tone and point-of-view of this passage but I think it could use some tightening up. I bet if you went back over it, as Hemingway would do :), you’d find several modifiers that you could eliminate and some long sentences that you could get into 2 shorter one. The sentence about her teeth is very good and to the point. But, when followed up by the word overused word “amazing”, it loses some of its impact…for me. Keep going!
June 16, 2014 — 11:31 AM
Mat Hockey says:
She seems hot, the sort of woman who most men would be afraid to talk to. However there was one line that I found quite jarring, you say that she has ‘the frame of someone who was fit without effort’ and then compare her to two of the most hardworking types of athlete around. Or maybe that’s just me. Good stuff though!
June 16, 2014 — 1:20 PM
davidjmobrien says:
thanks a million for all the comments. I have another 27k words, if you are doing nothing this evening… 😉
I will cut the double glacial and change cute for something else. Her breasts get described later again, in great detail. And I get that swimming and gymnastics are hard, but the type of person who excels at them is usually fitter than the rest of us. For some reason my spell checker likes Hemingway with two Ms – not the first time that’s happened to me! The eyes pausing has been pointed out to me by an editor before, so my bad on that in a big way! The statuesque line could indeed go, as could a few modifiers. I’m sure my editor will have a razor out if he likes the whole novella.
June 16, 2014 — 2:37 PM
Barb says:
I liked it. Although not sure about using statuesque in reference to facial features, feels odd to me. I think that sentence could be removed as the rest definitely conveyed the idea that she’s attractive and sexy.
June 16, 2014 — 5:36 PM
jamiebeck says:
*contemporary romance genre* [sorry it’s longer than 100 words, but this is the complete description…feel free to stop reading early] :
He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the provoking voice. A cute brunette was animatedly relaying a story to her friends. In a town filled with faded denim and muted, earth-toned fleece pullovers, she stood out like a bowl of rainbow sherbet.
A neon-pink coat draped over the back of her chair, and a snug canary-yellow sweater hugged her sweet curves. Her pin-straight hair, the color of rich milk chocolate, hung down to her shoulders. Dimples indented her cheeks, becoming more pronounced when she laughed. Her hands gestured wildly, and then covered her eyes as she shook her head in the middle of her story.
Within an instant, everything else in the room faded from view. Her vitality—her utter abandon—entranced him. The energy she exuded reached across the room and tugged at his gut and his groin. He noticed every little detail, like the absence of make-up and jewelry, her wide mouth, the way her eyebrows shot up in excitement then scrunched together as if she were revealing something embarrassing.
Her eyes were pale, though from a distance he couldn’t quite make out whether they were blue or green. They were big and round and faintly curled upward at their outer edges and—oh shit—she just met his unflinching gaze.
June 16, 2014 — 10:24 AM
Andy Decker says:
I never read contemporary romance — that’s why I picked yours. Try this without some of the words. What I’m saying is tighten it, a bit. Some of the words here are great and can relay as much about the observer as the observed.
Paragraph 1: Try it without ‘animatedly’ and without ‘fleece’ or ‘pullovers’ – just see how it differently those sentences sound if they’re a bit shorter.
Paragraph 2: I like the ‘sweet curves’ because it lets us into the mind of the person observing; it reminds me of Napoleon Dynamite. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Look for other opportunities to add that type of vocabulary. But then ditch ‘rich’. And the idea that dimples indenting her cheeks is redundant. That’s what dimples do. Work on that.
Paragraph 3: Great descriptions here, but what do you think about getting rid of the first sentence?
Paragraph 4: Get rid of the word ‘quite’. And, because this is a snippet out of context, I don’t know, is this the type of person who has an ‘unflinching’ gaze? Does that fit the character? This would be a great place to find a word to further refine who it is whose doing the looking.
June 16, 2014 — 12:01 PM
jamiebeck says:
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I had to laugh at the one comment about deleting the line from the third paragraph. I agree, but critique partners made me put that in!! See, we can never please everyone. 😉
June 16, 2014 — 3:55 PM
Jenni Cornell says:
Some nice description, but I don’t like “provoking” used as an adjective. Sounds like she is angry, or argumentative. Perhaps “animated”, or something similar would better describe. Also, seems his gaze would flinch if he felt “busted” looking at her. I like the description, but feels like it needs some more original metaphors. And really? No makeup or jewelry and she is this “fetching”? I hate her already! LOL
June 16, 2014 — 12:12 PM
jamiebeck says:
Thanks for your notes. And yes, perhaps I’m living vicariously through my heroine, who is appealing without the extra help most of us need! 😉
June 16, 2014 — 3:58 PM
davidjmobrien says:
I think Andy’s observations are spot on and I am learning from what he says for my own paragraphs! The word sweet tells us lots about the character, and all milk chocolate is rich (apart from Hersey’s but the look fools you into eating it). But I think the word unflinching needs to go altogether, because even if he is the kind of person who is normally unflinching, the Oh shit part makes that irrelevant because it tells us that when he looks at this girl, and she looks back, he does want to flinch – and in the next paragraph he is probably going to…
June 16, 2014 — 2:47 PM
jamiebeck says:
Thanks for weighing in. Good luck with your own writing, too! PS He doesn’t flinch…he winks.
June 16, 2014 — 4:00 PM
Mark Matthews says:
“Seeing the charred remains of the house was like seeing the insides of someone’s body. Like their skin was tore off and just the guts and skeleton were left. It looked ugly. The front window seemed like a mouth, and the big dormer window on the second story was the eye that looked over the whole street. Now the eye was blotted out and the glass was broken. The white was charcoal black. Bars on the windows remained and it looked like a vacant jail cell. The front porch had started to sink.”
(from “Milk-Blood”)
June 16, 2014 — 10:26 AM
lorettasueross says:
I like this. Simple, yet vivid.
June 16, 2014 — 10:37 AM
Curtis Edmonds (@Curtis_Edmonds) says:
If you’re going to say that the building looked like the insides of someone’s body, then you absolutely don’t need to say “It looked ugly.” I also think that you’re mixing your metaphors a bit by saying that the house looked like a body and then saying that it looked like a face.
June 16, 2014 — 10:53 AM
Hannah says:
The charred remains of the house were like the insides of someone’s body — gets rid of the double “seeing” and makes it a little more active.
Get rid of “it looked ugly”—you’ve made that point excellently with your other imagery.
Get rid of “seemed– the front window was a mouth, the big dormer window on the second story was the eye
Bars on the window remained, like a vacant jail cell.
This is a great description of a house–the comparison to a decaying body and a cell are eerie and the tone is very bleak. I think if you just cut some excess “fat” and tighten it up, it will make these excellent images even stronger.
June 16, 2014 — 10:55 AM
Sharon Joss says:
Good images here. Creepy house. I might be more effective if we see the house within the context of the POV character’s attitude. For example, if the character is a butcher (or serial killer), the sight of the house might excite them in some way. A former felon might see the bars on the windows and shiver with the memory of their cell. A child might think of monsters. A homeless person, or drug dealer, or someone else would have an entirely different perspective. Using character attitude to describe something also reveals something about the character in the story as well.
June 16, 2014 — 10:59 AM
ngjcdad says:
Two minor suggestions: “torn” rather than “tore” (“was tore” is incorrect), and rather than “had started to stink,” consider simply “already stank,” or the even simpler “stank.”
June 16, 2014 — 11:03 AM
lorettasueross says:
It says “sink” not “stink”. I particularly liked that bit of imagery.
June 16, 2014 — 11:18 AM
ngjcdad says:
Oh! My mistake. Sorry.
June 16, 2014 — 12:28 PM
Hannah says:
I assumed the “was tore” was the narrator’s voice and not the author—but if not, I agree.
I think the suggestions about the porch are good, too—except it’s sink and sank not stink and stank 🙂
June 16, 2014 — 11:38 AM
Jenni Cornell says:
I would just go with “the front window, a mouth” or maybe “a yawning mouth” cut the “seemed”. let your reader make that jump without the bridge.
I would also go with just one metaphor, and stay consistent. Choose body or face or jail cell. It will give you better flow.
June 16, 2014 — 11:37 AM
Mark Matthews says:
Love the feedback. My inner-editor had issues with the sentence “it looked ugly” too, but wanted a short 3-4 word sentence to break up the longer ones. Surely I can find another, else this will stink, stank, and stunk. The book hits the press in July, a portion of proceeds to benefit a program in Detroit that fixes up abandoned homes and gives them away for a Writer’s Residence. See Write-a-house: (http://www.markmatthewsauthor.com/2014/06/DetroitWriteAhouse.html)
June 16, 2014 — 1:22 PM
Jana Denardo says:
I loved the comparison of the burned house to a human body. It’s very evocative. This draws me in.
June 16, 2014 — 9:36 PM
Hannah says:
There was a thump against the heavy wooden door and she straightened, lifting a hand to the steel crest that arched from her forehead to the back of her skull—a parody of a helmet from a long dead warrior culture. It fit close against her skull and the hammered metal fins were feather-light, but she felt the weight of it nonetheless. She checked the clasps on the shoulders of her gown—deep purple and plunging in the front and back, with decorative silver plates across her breasts and stomach. They might turn a knife. Once. The gown pooled on the floor in artistic whorls that were more suited to marble floored ballrooms than dank stone. She heard the massive bar lift and the keys turn in all three locks.
-from “Circus” http://secondstaronther.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/circus/
June 16, 2014 — 10:27 AM
wickedpen says:
I’m going to say something here that’s probably going to sound rude. Sorry in advance. The thump against the heavy wooden door…she straightens…then what? The writer is gets lost in what the character is wearing, like listening to your mother tell a ten second story where she spends twenty minutes embellishing on what X-person was wearing, to the point where you’re left wanting to pull your hair out and scream, “Who’s at the bloody door?!” I’ve seen this more common when the author is a woman.
Character description is great…at the right moment.
June 16, 2014 — 11:18 AM
Jenni Cornell says:
I have to respectfully disagree to this. She is checking what her strengths and weaknesses are. Spoken like a man who has never known the inherent “danger” of trying to protect oneself in a full-length gown. The pooling on the floor tells me that running would be difficult especially if she has to hold the gown up. But women are always left in difficult situations in their underwear, right? Best description I’ve read so far, and rudest, most sexist comment.
June 16, 2014 — 11:54 AM
Hannah says:
Not rude at all! Thank you! And you’re right—I get distracted by the clothing etc. when I write fantasy because I have a very specific image in mind. I knew that was probably one of the weaknesses of this tidbit.
Since it’s a chunk out of the beginning, the door part becomes more clear in the next sentence that didn’t make it into the word count—but I can see that it definitely kills the tension.
June 16, 2014 — 11:57 AM
Jenni Cornell says:
Very nicely done. I love the way your description is worked in to the action. I vaguely wondered why she was checking the clasps on her shoulders. Did she have trouble with them before? Is she just “girding her loins”? Otherwise I have nothing to say but great job!
June 16, 2014 — 11:43 AM
Hannah says:
I was going more for the “girding her loins” feel, but it does sound like her dress is about to fall off at any moment–I’ll work on that. Thanks so much!
June 16, 2014 — 11:57 AM
Beth Turnage says:
Your first sentence runs on a bit too much.
She straighten when she heard the thump against the heavy wooden door. The massive bar lifted and keys turned in all three locks.
(Then have the next person who sees her observe what she wears.)
Certainly, vivid images.
June 16, 2014 — 1:14 PM
Hannah says:
I agree–that sentence is clunky. I like the idea of someone else observing her clothing. Thank you!
June 16, 2014 — 2:27 PM
davidjmobrien says:
I think that the description actually increases the tension of the situation. The reader is wondering who is out there, but the reader has to wait a little while while the character readies herself. And the description is needed to a certain extent, as Jenni Cornell said. The character seems to know who or what might be on the other side of the door. Sometimes the other character doesn’t have a POV soon enough to describe what she’s wearing, anyway, and once the door is open, the action might not give us time to worry about the clothes anymore, or what she’s wearing becomes pivotal and we see why we needed to know about it…
June 16, 2014 — 5:00 PM
Hannah says:
Thank you so much for your input–I’ve played around a little with moving the door thumping down to the end when the door actually opens–since this is an excerpt, there is more text before this showing that she’s in a tense spot. I’m glad you thought the description increased the tension–as another commenter said, she’s girding her loins and (literally) preparing for a fight. Obviously this paragraph needs some work so thank you so much for your suggestions!
June 16, 2014 — 5:06 PM
urdith says:
The earliest paintings lived the corners of the house. Clive Barker style art, Cathy called it. Broad, bold brush-strokes of dark paint outlined alien beings, casually standing against the walls. All were nicely dressed in riotously colored suits, with butterfly collars and double breasted vests, Their bodies spouted flippers and tails, spikes and tongues long enough to reach down to the floor. Or at least dip into their martinis.
Later artists were respectful of the room’s first occupants. They painted around them, filling in the background with old hip-hop style street art and replicas of vistas from metal album covers. But the masterpieces came later.
Errant poets conquered the master bath. The tiles were covered in Baudelaire verses. Alejandro snapped a few shots as Cathy pulled up duvet bags hidden in the tub. The bathroom was a storehouse for supplies – blankets, sheets, and more. Everything needed for an overnight stay.
He helped her cover the rough, broken patches of floor, but they avoided the spot just before the master bath. A realistic portrait in brush and acrylic of the floor falling away into intergalactic space sprawled at their feet. They never impinged on this picture. Layers of shellac and preservative kept it intact, but they stepped around it. No one wanted to chance falling through.
June 16, 2014 — 10:32 AM
Hannah says:
There is a lot going on here–which I think works because this house (?) seems very chaotic. I am a little confused about the paintings themselves. When i see “painting” I think a painting in a frame. This seems more like murals and graffiti–which is even better, but that needs to be clear from the get go.
I’m not sure about the word choice of impinged–it doesn’t seem right. I know interfere and encroach mean the same thing, but something along those lines would fit better, I think.
Those last few lines are really interesting–about falling through the painting and I loved the ideas of poets scrawling Baudelaire on the bathroom walls.
I hope it becomes clear what/where/(why?) this house is, because it’s fascinating.
June 16, 2014 — 11:05 AM
Jenni Cornell says:
Love this. Fascinated by the painting in front of the tub. I would agree with others about the form of art.
June 16, 2014 — 12:00 PM
Johan says:
Wonderful descriptions. I’m not sure what kind of house this is, or why, but it got me reading, and rereading. The last paragraph is really pulling me in, great work!
June 16, 2014 — 5:11 PM
urdith says:
Thank you all for the comments. It’s given me a bit to think about. This is a section from a larger description but I need to be more specific, more direct, with the language. Say graffiti and mural where I’ve put in painting, etc.
June 17, 2014 — 5:22 PM
ngjcdad says:
Slowly, she appeared at the head of the stairs: first, the familiar brown-and-silver hair, wrenched back into a perfect bun, then the New England alabaster skin, with the tiny smile and worry lines that were destined to deepen, then the high black collar all the fashionable wealthy Methodist women were wearing this holiday season, then the modest bosom, strangled miniscule waist and bustled hips. As much as I adored my mother for her triumph at gifting me with my only tender moments in this house, I loathed what money and religion and society had made of her: a portrait of suffocation.
June 16, 2014 — 10:32 AM
lorettasueross says:
I found the length of your sentences distracting. The first sentence, especially, seems to go on forever. It’s structured with repetitive clauses — “then the… then the… then the.” The effect is that I start paying less attention to what you’re saying than to how you’re saying it.
If you just break that up, your word choice is fine.
Also, both of your sentences use a colon. That’s a construction that’s more striking if it’s used sparingly. In this case I think it’s more apt in the second sentence.
I hope this is helpful.
June 16, 2014 — 11:02 AM
ngjcdad says:
Very! Thanks.
June 16, 2014 — 12:30 PM
Hannah says:
I understand that the description is following an action–as she descends the stairs we “see” more of her, but the long sentence and the “thens” make it easy to rush through the description, which is a shame.
“Slowly, she appeared at the head of the stairs, the familiar silver-streaked brown hair wrenched into a perfect bun. Her tiny smile was surrounded by worry lines that were destined to deepen in her New England alabaster skin (not sure if the NE part is needed–alabaster is descriptive enough). She wore the high black collar that was fashionable among the wealthy Methodist women this holiday season. As she descended the steps, I saw the modest bosum, strangled waist, and bustled hips”
Separating the descriptions into separate sentences allow us to take in your wonderful images more slowly, it also slows down the pacing so that we can SEE her walking down the stairs in (what I assume to be) a stately, sober manner. I think doing something along these lines makes her also seem imposing and rings true with your wonderful last sentence and the “portrait of suffocation.”
Great work!
June 16, 2014 — 11:13 AM
ngjcdad says:
Thank you, Hannah! Awesome suggestions.
June 16, 2014 — 11:41 AM
Hannah says:
You’re welcome! Hope you can use some of them.
June 16, 2014 — 11:55 AM
Rose Red says:
Very descriptive. I both can see her and imagine what she sounds like. My favourite phrase is ‘strangled miniscule waist’.
June 16, 2014 — 2:23 PM
Sharon Joss says:
It was well after midnight when the guy in the red zoot suit oiled himself into a seat at my counter. His eyes lingered on my nametag deliberately, but that didn’t make me care one way or t’other. I’ve been around enough not to let these guys get to me.
He pulled at the chin whiskers of his van dyke. “How fresh is the coffee, Mary?”
I could smell the blood on his breath. The sour taste of acid clawed at the back of my throat. Whatever this guy wanted, it sure wasn’t joe.
June 16, 2014 — 10:35 AM
amy shoultz, phd says:
I like your use of the word “oiled”…it evokes many, largely, sinister characteristics of the guy in the red zoot suit. definitely makes me want want to read more.
June 16, 2014 — 12:12 PM
kira a. gold says:
Oh, fantastic!
I have a pet peeve about starting paragraphs with “it”, only because “it” always seems like a missed opportunity to give even more description: “I was well into the graveyard shift when the guy” or “The night had been peacefully slow, until the guy”
I want to read more!!
June 16, 2014 — 6:39 PM
pathaydenjones says:
Hi Sharon the combination of zoot suit & VanDyle definitely give a feeling of a time, past/future, whatever but not now, which is a nice way to telegraph that. The comments to self of the narrator convey experience, perhaps weary and definitely jaded experience, and the “t’other” and “joe” is a nice touch to convey perhaps a level of eduation (or lack of it). You snuck a lot of description in there without getting in the way of the narrative, nice job!
June 16, 2014 — 10:23 PM
Jana Denardo says:
Oh very nice. love the bit about him oiling himself into the seat. Between the zoot suit, the Van Dyke and blood on his breath, I’m wondering if this is historical or a vampire out of his time. Either way I’d like to read more.
June 17, 2014 — 12:20 AM
jrupp25 says:
THis is a great description. It also give me an idea of his reaction to her looks. Recently, an editor mentioned to me that one’s eyes don’t pause but rather one’s gaze would pause – the former implying the eyes have a mind of their own (which, for many men, that may be true). Also, I generally hear the word statuesque used to describe a woman’s figure or the way she carries herself rather than her face. I would also skip the cute nose only because nothing else about this woman seems cute – unless you want to draw attention to the idea that her nose seems at odds with the rest of her. Because you use glacial ice in the middle of the para., perhaps you could cut it from the last sentence. She sounds very desirable. The total package.
June 16, 2014 — 10:36 AM
ngjcdad says:
I think you posted this instead of replying to a post, jrupp. Hit “Reply” at the top of the post you’re discussing, and a window will appear for you to cut and paste into. 🙂
June 16, 2014 — 11:21 AM
eldritchgirl says:
Mayhew had his eyes trained on his pocket watch, waiting for his Captain to make an appearance. Without much to do, the crew was lounging around the deck, airing out bed linens and making plans for a day spent in the city of Pearl’s Cove. The water in the cove was so clear that you could see every manner of sea critter blithely going about their business, picking their way between bright corals. The city itself was a horrible little backwater, shoved between the Black Glass Mountains and the Glass Sea.
Mayhew hated it. He hated his Captain’s tardiness even more. If they didn’t get their license this year… well, even the good and kind Great Lady of the Nine Oceans couldn’t save his Captain from the beating his first mate would give him. He would be damned if he was going to spend three years on land. What could he do? Go back to the Library of Knowledge and become an acolyte again? Maybe take up farming? He bit his lip in frustration. Just as he was about to go back below deck to shout some more, the Captain stepped out of the hold and blinked at the sun. He was still a little unsteady on his feet, but it was less like a newborn foal and more like a brain damaged donkey. He was at least dressed and basically presentable, wearing black trousers tucked into tall black boots and a red tunic under his sweeping black greatcoat. His favorite cutlass was belted at his side, and various knives and revolvers shoved into sleeves and pockets. He had tied his mess of strawberry blonde hair back into a queue, tied with a limp scrap of red ribbon. It was as presentable as the Captain got.
From “License Day” http://eldritchwrites.blogspot.com/2013/05/thursday-tales-52313.html#more
June 16, 2014 — 10:36 AM
ngjcdad says:
I like this! I would only suggest that because your language is so good here (“acolyte,” “cutlass,” etc.), you might consider swapping “jackass” for “donkey.” Plus, it makes a great pun for the captain! B-)
June 16, 2014 — 10:59 AM
Hannah says:
This snippet is a lot of fun–I’m a sucker for a good seafaring story. I think you have some great character development and descriptions, but some things could be streamlined.
Mayhew’s eyes were trained on his pocket watch
the crew lunged around the deck, airing out bed linens or making plans….
He was about to go back below deck…when the captain stepped out….blinking at the sun.
At least he was dressed and, for him, basically presentable in his black trousers…
The description of the captain is great, and I love the tone of disgust that comes through about his appearance. I like ngjcdad’s comment about jackass–you have room to play with some language there.
June 16, 2014 — 11:17 AM
Hannah says:
***lounged, not lunged
June 16, 2014 — 11:17 AM
Ryan James Black says:
Sitting across the immaculate desk from him, I caught myself staring. Sam looked young. Really young. Homework and learners permit young. He had to be my height at least, but he was beanpole thin. No, more than just thin, he was gaunt. Drained. Arms, legs, and torso of a hastily built scarecrow. His neat hair was short jet black with a part so straight you could have leveled a painting by it, and his pale face was so smooth and free of hair it could have been grafted with baby butt skin. Impossibly thick eye glasses weighed down his nose, and a morticians black suit weighed down his bones, giving him the look of a recently deceased Accountant, only a tad less cool.
June 16, 2014 — 10:37 AM
Terri says:
This is awesome. I love the imagery and the voice.
A couple of nits:
1. eyeglasses or glasses, not eye glasses.
2. accountant, not Accountant
3. “It could have been grafted with baby butt skin,” reads a bit awkward. Maybe “his pale face was as smooth and hairless as a baby’s butt,” or some such. Just a bit wordy in all the other short snappy sentences.
4. Either learner permit or learner’s permit
Again, just a few observations that are tactical, not strategic. I love this.
June 16, 2014 — 10:50 AM
Hannah says:
This is a great character description–but you have to cut cliches.
Beanpole thin and jet black hair are so common that they detract from great lines like “…and torso of a hastily built scarecrow” and “baby butt skin” and “mortician’s black suit” and “recently deceased accountant”
June 16, 2014 — 11:00 AM
Jack says:
Good description. I like the “…eyeglasses weighed down his nose” description. My only quibble would be comparing him to a scarecrow, then immediately describing his “neat hair.” I believe you were trying to describe his gangly and gaunt figure, but “scarecrow” also brings to mind a disheveled mess of a guy.
June 16, 2014 — 12:10 PM
Ryan James Black says:
Thanks for the suggestions….here is one more…
I made my way through the windy train-roar, and throngs of sardine-packed rat racers, all the way to Janitor Zeke’s office, which was inconveniently located in the deepest, darkest part of the station. A part of the station without information booths or toll-takers, lit with fluorescent lights that eternally flickered, where the subway track got swallowed up by the giants-throat tunnel, built out of such ancient-looking brick it could have been salvaged from a medieval castle.
Janitor Zeke was fast asleep in a ratty recliner he had reclaimed from the garbage dump. The recliner was easily ten times more hygiene-conscious than Janitor Zeke himself. He was a stinky giant of a man, with a pocked, bald head, mangy-mutt beard, forever waxy, glazed doughnut complexion, and for the entire time I knew him, he wore the same black coveralls, splattered with crusty, rotten stains, more evil shades than you’d find in the Devils Crayon’s box.
June 16, 2014 — 4:52 PM
SheWhoWrites says:
As the morning light flowed over the marketsquare and the cold wind gnawed on his fingertips, he waited. The first ringing of bells was heard quite loudly when he saw a figure walking towards the fountain where he was sitting. ‘Hey, was I supposed to meet you here?’ A gentle voice asked. He turned around and started walking away from her. ‘Just follow me.’ She followed him with light steps, looking around her every ten seconds. ‘Where are we going?’ ‘I would prefer a situation wherein you would be quiet.’ He grunted. After awhile they walked offroad, then along the river towards the mountains. ‘I don’t think I know you…’ ‘You don’t want to.’ ‘Why not?’ She asked while he was looking around. He turned and pushed her against the tree with his hand over her mouth, clasping her small hands tight with the other. ‘Because I’m a murderer.’
June 16, 2014 — 10:40 AM
Hannah says:
This seems like an interesting piece, I like the image of the cold wind gnawing at his fingers. There are a few sentences that are arranged a little awkwardly and I would suggest something along these lines:
He waited as the morning light…
The first bells rang quite loudly when he saw…
With dialogue, if he says all that, he’s not grunting. It’s usually best to just use “said” unless you ABSOLUTELY have to use something descriptive. Our eyes float over “said” and it disappears, other words jump out and jar you from the story.
June 16, 2014 — 11:20 AM
SheWhoWrites says:
Thank you so much 🙂
June 16, 2014 — 11:26 AM
Scarlett says:
If anything this needs more description 🙂 Who is the woman? What is she wearing? She seems to be waiting for a date, did she dress carefully that morning? Is she hyper-aware of her surroundings for him? And the man, is he handsome? Is he what she expected? Is there an air of danger or mystery about him? Even the marketsquare could use a little more. Are there other people? Is it busy? What time period are we in? Are they women wearing jeans and sweaters or corsets and hoop skirts?
Hope this helps! Happy writing
June 16, 2014 — 11:32 AM
SheWhoWrites says:
Thanks!! Exactly the questions I needed to hear 🙂
June 17, 2014 — 6:02 AM
Holly Brown says:
This is taken from a fanfiction story of mine from the video game, Mass Effect 3, DLC Omega. Used here without permission for entertainment purposes only. No profit is expected or intended. I’ve rewritten this paragraph many times and I can’t get it right. Thanks for your input.
Two days. Commander Shepard dropped his fork on the plate and steeples his fingers. Only two days and the entire crew is aware of his intentions to assist Aria T’Loak in retaking Omega Station. With his leadership style, no one was afraid to express his or her opinions and concerns to him. The mess buzzed with the news of his pending trip to the station. Over their meal, his crew shot glances at him and gossiped about the trip. Shepard knew their concern was genuine, but their speculation bordered on insubordination. His reasons for going were his own business. With his frustration level rising, he gave up trying to enjoy his food. He should have known better than eat with the crew.
June 16, 2014 — 10:41 AM
Beth Turnage says:
Arekan sat on his sliver of a bunk in the bowels of the aging merchant space vessel stitching up his forearm. It was a nasty gash, but nothing unusual for him. It would be just one more scar in the litany of scars that scored his body. He winced as he threaded the needle into his flesh, wished he had more liquor in him before he did this, but there was nothing for it. As it was he had to scrape off the scab that formed, but kept bleeding, while he waited for the captain of the ship to bail him out of the Romlin jail.–Arekan’s War
June 16, 2014 — 10:42 AM
Hannah says:
There is a LOT going on in that first sentence. I think you can trim that and choose which details are important—I think “sliver of a bunk” can just be bunk–he’s in the bowels of a space ship–we can assume space is limited.
It would be just one more scar in the litany of scars (replace one use of “scar” with wound/injury/cut since you use scar twice fairly close together–a good opportunity for some variety)
He winced as he threaded….wishing he had more liquor
The last sentence is confusing–was that before he was stitching himself up?
He already had to scrape of the scab that formed over the still-bleeding cut for (X days, weeks, hours) while he waited for the captain….
I really like the “litany of scars” line and I think this description has a strong voice and sense of atmosphere–I can see everything that’s going on clearly.
June 16, 2014 — 11:27 AM
Beth Turnage says:
Good comments. Yeah, the original version of the first sentence was more streamlined, but another online writing group object to not know what kind of ship it was! And the last sentence, yeah, I have to fix that. I do tend to wander back in the past to reach for a piece of information. Thanks!
June 16, 2014 — 3:05 PM
Hannah says:
I think the multiple adjectives about his bunk and the type of ship just pile up. You could easily split it into two sentences and still keep all the information–knowing what kind of ship is important!
June 16, 2014 — 3:42 PM
kira a. gold says:
This works really well, up to the scraping of the scab. Perhaps knowing the context would help, but if you’re stitching a wound, you want it to scab up, and if it is scabbing up, it would stop bleeding. Nice word bundles- “bunk in the bowels”, “nasty gash”, “scars that scored.”
June 16, 2014 — 6:49 PM
Beth Turnage says:
Kira,
Yes. This is the value of a critique. I reached into a past event for Arekan’s reflections and didn’t make it clear. I tried to convey, but failed, that he waited a while in jail for the captain to show to bail him in out and the scab formed. But if you are doing stitches you don’t want a scab, and since the wound kept bleeding he needed the stitches. So I’ll rework it a little bit. Thanks!
June 17, 2014 — 11:30 AM
Terri says:
I have so little physical description in my manuscript that I had to hunt. I decided to go with this one. From “Jewel,”
_____
I fumbled with the balky door latch and mentally put it on the growing list of small repairs the motorhome needed. Simon was scaling my legs in a barking frenzy when I finally popped the door open and found Springsteen circa 1992 standing on my patio. Well, that is if the Boss had been Texan and carrying a badge.
Simon shot down the steps and made for his doghouse, keeping the cop in his line of sight the whole time. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, I was nearly naked in front of a strange man. My pajamas for spring in south Texas consisted of boy cut underwear and a tight strappy knit shirt. The only difference between yesterday and today is that today I didn’t have a plan.
_____
June 16, 2014 — 10:42 AM
Jonathan says:
Nice job weaving the description into the story. I feel like I’m getting the details without drowning in them. I also want to know what happened yesterday and why the Boss-clone is at the door.
June 16, 2014 — 12:40 PM
kira a. gold says:
This is so fun. I especially like “found Springsteen circa 1992 standing on my patio. Well, that is if the Boss had been Texan and carrying a badge.”
I’d love a little more reaction from Simon. Does he bark at the stranger? Pee on his leg? Run away with his tail between his legs?
June 16, 2014 — 6:52 PM
Terri says:
Thank you! As the exchange continues, Simon, the little traitor, cozies up to the cop for a belly rub.
June 18, 2014 — 9:45 AM
Curtis Edmonds (@Curtis_Edmonds) says:
Real-estate porn:
The kitchen was splendid, with gleaming white cabinets and salt-and-pepper granite countertops flecked with quartz. The appliances were stainless-steel and showroom new. There was a breakfast area, too, with a sturdy butcher-block table. There was a shiny silver espresso maker and a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer. It looked like the Crate and Barrel catalog had come to stark, glittering life. There was a dining room with lush, velvety green wallpaper and a handsome antique table and spindly, elegant chairs. The table was set with silver candlesticks, and I imagined how exquisite it would look by candlelight.
June 16, 2014 — 10:47 AM
Terri says:
This is great, I love the Crate and Barrel simile. Consider varying the sentence structure. Too many “the” and “there” as starters.
June 16, 2014 — 10:51 AM
Alex Washoe says:
I like this description — it sets a mood and give you some idea of the personality of both the person who lives here and the person describing it. I was a little thrown by the shift to the dining room, which seems like a new topic, like the person viewing the scene has moved without us knowing it. A new paragraph might be best there.
June 16, 2014 — 11:07 AM
Katherine Hetzel says:
Good feel to this…I’d be tempted to agree about the sentence openers…eg Lush, velvety green wallpaper was hung in the dining room…
Actually, I suppose it depends on the mood of what came before; it may be that this listing approach works because it’s someone sizing up a house for purchase. In which case, you could probably stick with ‘The’ and ‘There’…
June 16, 2014 — 12:50 PM
darkforetold says:
There’s six instances of the word “to be” and three “there was.” I think this might need some variation in sentence structure and word usage.
June 16, 2014 — 1:51 PM
Alex Washoe says:
Kendra Tate walked across the cobblestone square with her hands in her pockets of her beige coat. The snow was over her ankles now, above the tops of her sneakers. She didn’t have her hat, and the wind off the sound Sound stirred her hair like straw half-spun into gold. Fido walked just behind her. He was wearing a ratty scarf and a stocking cap pulled down over his ears. They stopped by the empty fountain.
June 16, 2014 — 11:04 AM
Maure says:
There’s some nice stuff here, but I feel like it could use some tightening. The level of the snow only needs to be mentioned once, I think – I prefer the sneakers, since it seems more natural she’d notice if snow was getting into her sneakers. And overall, everything sounds a bit passive; the snow was there, they stopped by the fountain, he was walking there and wore such-and-such. It’d probably improve by a little more character being injected into it. I like the ‘straw half-spun into gold’ phrase, though.
June 16, 2014 — 5:21 PM
Alex Washoe says:
Thank Marue. I believe you’re right about the snow. Saying it’s above her sneakers is enough (and probably more powerful than the repetition). It does seem a little passive — it’s the first scene in a chapter and is mean to be sort of the establishing shot, just before the action begins. I’ll look for ways to give it more energy.
June 16, 2014 — 7:13 PM
kira a. gold says:
This is really interesting. You’ve got these great sentences, but they almost don’t match- the first sentence could be taking place in the summer, the second in winter, the third in the spring, and the fourth in the fall. I would use your modifiers to strengthen each other, and the whole paragraph would become very strong- for instance: “with her hands in the pockets of her warmest coat” and “They stopped by the snow filled fountain”
Is Fido a person or a dog? Either is amusing!
June 16, 2014 — 7:02 PM
Alex Washoe says:
Fido is a person. I knew that was confusing out of context when I posted it. Thanks for the suggestions. I can definitely use that.
June 17, 2014 — 11:27 AM
amy shoultz, phd says:
I like that Fido is following behind Kendra as if he were a dog and his scarf reads like a leash. I was a little confused by the cobblestone…is it significant for some reason? If the snow is above her ankles, it’s clearly covering the cobblestone and so (at least in this tiny snippet) it seems irrelevant. Fido cracks me up, though! Does he always follow close at her heels like a dog? Hope so – very clever.
June 17, 2014 — 1:17 PM
Paul B says:
Gregory went upstairs to look in on Lewis Llewelyn.
He was in the bedroom, laying on his back. He was still wearing his leather jacket. It creased in all the wrong places. He looked impossibly tall and gaunt, like a shadow at noon that had been cut loose from its body. His eyes were open. He was looking straight at Gregory, although didn’t seem to be seeing him. It reminded Lewis of the way the girl had looked when the last touch of life had swam out of her when his hands had been round her throat. Although Lewis Llewelyn wasn’t dead. No, not dead. Not far off, but not close either.
As if to prove Gregory’s point, his mouth lulled open and his tongue fell out, a dry pink sponge that rolled down his chin.
Not long now, Mr Llewelyn, Gregory thought. Not long now.
June 16, 2014 — 11:15 AM
Jonathan says:
Definitely intriguing. I’m not sure what’s happening, but I know things are effed up for one Lewis Llewelyn. How about “Even lying down, he looked impossibly …”
You may want to change the shadow at noon to the shadow at evening or some such as shadows at noon are short.
June 16, 2014 — 12:45 PM
kira a. gold says:
Ooh, icky! I think a bit of work on flow would make it even creepier- Try linking some of the sentences together to firm up the paragraph. “laying on his back, still wearing his leather jacket,” and “his eyes were open, looking straight at Gregory.”
I think you mean “lolled”, not lulled”?
Lewis Llewelyn is such a great name!
June 16, 2014 — 7:09 PM
amy shoultz, phd says:
“Olympia” she corrected him. Of course, that was not what her parents named her. They would never do anything to intentionally improve her world. Probably something more like Emily, or Anna, maybe Elizabeth. She kept that information clenched tight like last-chance directions. She wasn’t going to give anyone ammunition. If they wanted to take shot at her, she wasn’t going to hand them the bullets. Olympia stroked the black velvet ribbon tied around her neck as she waited for a reaction.
The barrista blithely crossed out his mistake and scrawled her name in big print on the paper cup that would soon hold her café au lait. She imagined taking his Sharpie and drawing big X’s over each of his eyes. Light out.
June 16, 2014 — 11:18 AM
amy shoultz, phd says:
Sorry for replying to my own passage…just realized that the final sentence is missing a crucial “s”. Supposed to read “Lights out.” Any comments appreciated. I’m new here but I like it.
June 16, 2014 — 12:18 PM
Maure says:
I’m not sure if that’s what you’re going for, but the character comes off as kinda imbalanced, with the ribbon-stroking, X-fantasizing and extreme tension connected to her name. Of course, if that’s what you’re going for you did a great job – it has a very tense, not-fully-connected-to-reality feeling.
June 16, 2014 — 5:24 PM
amy shoultz, phd says:
thanks maure…and that is almost exactly what i was going for. i don’t especially want readers to like, or trust, her. i really appreciate your thoughts. thank you for taking the time.
June 16, 2014 — 6:23 PM
kira a. gold says:
I like her weirdness, her instability.
I’m not sure I understand the context of “They would never do anything to intentionally improve her world. Probably something more like Emily, or Anna, maybe Elizabeth.” It almost takes us out of the immediate moment, and I don’t think you need it.
I’d love to see the barrista’s reaction to her correction, that makes her want to graffiti his eyes. Does she dislike his smile? The fact that he isn’t phased by her?
June 16, 2014 — 7:17 PM
amy shoultz, phd says:
hi kira…and i appreciate your comments. i’ve been worried about that sentence about her parents, too–was concerned that it was both a digression and that it made the passage appear a bit too #YA and that’s not where i’m going (she’s in her late 20s). but, she’s a bit strange, self-involved, and immature. i will probably take your advice and cut, cut, cut.
as for the barrista, yes, she’s upset that he’s not more shocked, or impressed, or intrigued by her…or all three. his utter disinterest angers her. the next sentence explains that a bit (but i tried to keep it close to 100 words!)
thanks for liking her instability–i like that about her, too. and thanks very much for your comments. it’s fun here.
June 16, 2014 — 10:17 PM
Anna Lewis says:
At the outskirts of the village, two scouts jumped down from overhead, blocking his way with stout spears. The people of this tribe couldn’t look more different than him: they were all a good head and shoulders shorter and dark-skinned, with cropped black hair and brown eyes, and most wore gold rings through their noses. It only took a moment before these two relaxed and lowered their weapons. Hell bowed his head in greeting and pointed toward all the commotion. One of them nodded and led him there.
June 16, 2014 — 11:32 AM
kira a. gold says:
Nice that you are describing him, by making them their opposite. Well done. I’d love to see some of their tension and aggression beyond the blocked spears, and what Hell (great name) does to make them relax.
June 16, 2014 — 7:20 PM
Anna Lewis says:
Many thanks! Since his is the first POV you get, I really worked to figure out a way to get his description in without doing anything cliche. You get a better idea of his features later, from a different character’s POV.
I think if I’d been caffeinated this morning I would’ve submitted a chunk from the next chapter instead, the description of a whore in Tortuga getting ready for a morning on the street. This section is out of context and it’s the surrounding text that makes it work the best. This paragraph purposefully doesn’t specify why they don’t stop him because a bit later he’s walking through a crowd of natives giving him nasty looks until they see the harpy eagle feather he’s wearing in his hair, and then they move aside with respect. Later on, he explains how he got the feather and why it’s important. I didn’t want to mention it too many times, so the way it is works without being an info dump, but it leaves this particular paragraph a little flat.
June 16, 2014 — 9:26 PM
Scarlett says:
Here’s my trouble with this passage. It’s the very beginning of a quick action scene, but it’s the first entrance of this assassin character, and the first time the main character sees her. I’m having trouble balancing the quickness of action, the need for description, and how much is actually possible for the main character to see. Any critique would be helpful!
Not a second later a black-clothed figure with a long, blond braid dropped down from the upper story of a building behind us. The masked person fell down into a crouch, as light as a cat, and the silver of a blade flickered in the sun before the two guards were bleeding out on the ground.
June 16, 2014 — 11:39 AM
Clementine Danger says:
It’s very descriptive and doesn’t leave much confusion as to what’s going on. For my money, I always try to keep the individual sentences in action sequences short and punchy, so to me personally the second sentence is a bit too long. Too much is happening there to match the fast pace of an action scene. I think the cadence would be greatly improved if it the three actions in that sentence (fell down, flickered, bleeding) each got their own sentence.
June 16, 2014 — 11:56 AM
Scarlett says:
Thanks! That helps a lot ^_^
June 16, 2014 — 12:16 PM
kira a. gold says:
I think you could punch up your words to bring the description and the action together. Perhaps “black hooded” rather than clothed, “flipped to the ground” rather than dropped, “twisted” rather than fell. It wouldn’t take away from the quickness, but the loaded words would make her seem more deadly.
June 16, 2014 — 7:31 PM
Andy Decker says:
What a great opportunity. Here’s my hundred or so words:
Bobby and Eddy were a common presence at Ted’s. They were brothers. Eddy, the younger, had been born with a deficiency in his ureters and shortly thereafter a surgeon joined them with a similarly detached loop of ileum, sowing it to his abdominal wall as a stoma that was then used for irrigation. For his entire life Eddy wore an ileal conduit, though young Eddy didn’t understand any of that. All he knew was that he had a pee bag with a nozzle he could turn on or off and that it had to be emptied when full. Eddy always smelled like urine.
June 16, 2014 — 11:43 AM
Scarlett says:
I love this because I was thinking while reading, ‘jeez I don’t understand any of this’. Then I got to the end and was happily surprised to see that Eddy didn’t understand it either. I immediately felt sympathetic toward the poor kid. My only suggestion would be to get rid of “They were brothers” and put that somewhere else. Maybe right at the beginning, “Brothers Bobby and Eddy were a common presence at Ted’s”. Where it is now it’s a little choppy.
Hope this help! Happy writing.
June 16, 2014 — 11:56 AM
Alex Washoe says:
I like the weirdness of this description — it’s not the kind of information we usually get about a person in real life or fiction. I like the way the medical terms are thrown out even though we (and Eddy) don’t really understand it, and then it’s simplified in the next sentence. I’m assuming that this is in some form of omniscient POV since you describe Eddy from the outside, then dip into his thoughts a little, telling us what he understands. I think it works really well.
June 16, 2014 — 12:33 PM
kira a. gold says:
This is interesting and clever. Just for flow, I’d omit the second sentence and just say “Eddy, the younger brother,” in the next.
June 16, 2014 — 7:36 PM
Andy Decker says:
Scarlett, Alex, and Kira – Thanks for the feedback. This is a small part of a work about a Snack Bar/Bowling Alley (Ted’s) and the young people who congregate there. I’m trying for a Midwestern-Gothic feel and what I’m trying to play with is the idea that each character or character set will receive different types of prose descriptions. Eddy is weird and not entirely by his own hand. I’ll be playing around with your suggestions to see what they sound like. Thanks again.
June 17, 2014 — 3:52 PM
Clementine Danger says:
This was not the cute market she had just left. On the blankets and crates she saw old guns that had no doubt had seen use in the last great war. There were big jars and drums of liquids that smelled like antiseptics being ladled into chipped unwashed cups for people who would drink that sort of stuff. She tried hard not to stare, but she did see big rusty knives on people’s belts, bottles and vials of things she wouldn’t put in her body under pain of death, second-hand augments no doubt procured by horrifying means. In front of what had to have been a pre-war maintenance room was a dirty curtain, and she could hear the sound of power tools behind it. The handwritten yellowed sign pinned to the curtain didn’t leave much doubt as to what was going on in there.
Ogment Surgen, it said in faded black letters.
June 16, 2014 — 11:50 AM
Maure says:
You’ve got some interesting worldbuilding going on in just this little section! There are some small issues I think could be improved, though, so I’ll go one-by-one:
– In my opinion, you could get more character voice/worldbuilding into the second sentence by the way the character refers to the war. ‘The last great war’ sounds kind of detached; ‘The Great War’ or some other name for it, maybe paired with her thinking that they LOOKED as if they dated back to it, might give it a more personal feel.
– ‘for people who would drink that kind of stuff’ – I’m interested by the marketplace, but it feels kind of empty. Maybe mention who is drinking that stuff.
– not sure about weapons in your world, but usually people don’t carry rusty knives – and even if they did, she wouldn’t be able to see they were rusty at a glance. They’d be in sheathes.
– you use ‘no doubt’ twice and… I don’t know, it feels a little awkward. Maybe it’s just the way the character thinks, though.
I’ll close by saying I love the ‘Ogment Surgen’ and power tool sounds – like I said, you get across a really good feeling of the world, and that in particular makes me shudder. Good luck with this project!
June 16, 2014 — 5:32 PM
Clementine Danger says:
Thank you very much! This really helps a lot, so thank you for taking the time.
June 16, 2014 — 9:03 PM
kira a. gold says:
I love this!! Great world building in such a small bit.
I am assuming you’ve described the cute market, in an earlier passage-
You would have even more impact if you cut out your introductions and got to the meat of the sentence: “Big jars and drums of liquids were being ladled into chipped, unwashed cups”, “she tried not to stare at the big rusty knives”, and “and the (grind?) of power tools sounded behind it”
June 16, 2014 — 7:46 PM
Clementine Danger says:
Thanks for the advice. That would sound and flow a lot better, I definitely agree!
June 17, 2014 — 8:47 AM
Mickey Platko says:
She frowned at his narrow weathered face with its thin, wide mouth, long nose, and pale eyes. His hair was medium length, dark, brushed back from his face and straight, with a dent where his hat band had rested. He smiled, and she noticed his front teeth were crooked, the edge of one crossing over the next.
He saw her looking at him, and he smoothed back his hair. He smiled again. She did not smile back. He pulled at his shirt with his left hand. “Ma’am?” he said.
June 16, 2014 — 11:50 AM
Clementine Danger says:
I really like the detail of the dent in his hair. Makes it so much more personal than just a list of physical traits. That bit is where I started actually seeing the character. (I personally do not like the phrase “medium length” because it feels a bit too clinical a description, but then I’m 90% sure that’s just a pet peeve of mine.)
June 16, 2014 — 12:00 PM
amy shoultz, phd says:
Really like this description too…especially the “dent” detail and the “edge of one crossing over the next”. The only thing I don’t like, and, I agree with Clementine here is that the “medium length” hair bit — makes your character sound too generic after you’ve drawn him so nicely.
June 16, 2014 — 12:23 PM
Katherine Hetzel says:
Up to the dent bit, this reads quite list-y. Let me try and explain…instead of telling us his face is narrow and weathered, can you show us? Is his skin coloured by the sun with white lines at the corner of his eyes where he’s been squinting? (Except you have a different pic in your head as to what ‘weathered’ means for your character!) From the dent in his hair and onwards, there’s some very nice description going on…just that first bit that needs a tweak?
June 16, 2014 — 12:46 PM
sknicholls says:
Richard got cat calls and winks as he pushed his way to room 106. He knocked. Brandi opened the door quickly and pulled him inside. Her head full of hair was pulled tightly back in a bun secured with rhinestone adornments. She was already dressed in a blue sequined gown and heels, with her face painted white. Dark cat eyes sprinkled with blue glitter were drawn around her green globes. Angel wings of white feathers outlined her thin, broad shoulders.
“I didn’t know who else to call. I have a show in fifteen minutes! Ain’t nobody got time for this,” she said, pushing the girl in front of Richard.
June 16, 2014 — 11:53 AM
kira a. gold says:
I think the description of Brandi has a lot of good detail, it just needs some polishing. Try paring down the sentences: “Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, secured with rhinestones.”
June 16, 2014 — 7:54 PM
sknicholls says:
Thanks. That loses the ly word also.
June 16, 2014 — 9:28 PM
Jonathan says:
The airship pinged and hissed, laying on its side in a deep furrow of dirt and rock. Silken chutes gleamed in the mid-morning sun and frayed rigging clung to the battered craft. In the ship’s wake sprawled the ruined envelope, spikes of its broken frame poking through. Heat rolled off the vessel along with the stink of oil and coal and hot iron, the stink of Stelinople, the stink of memories best left unremembered.
Khyrg’s mind reeled, the mechanical perfume erasing seventeen years and a thousand miles in an instant. Belching stacks and onion domes, endless buildings. Engines hammering over narrow cobblestone and brick streets. The acrid taste of manufactory ash and the tang of corroded metal.
June 16, 2014 — 11:55 AM
Nikki Poindexter says:
I really like this one. You’ve got the good audio bits (pinged and hissed) and some awesome texture in there (silken chutes). But what really gets it for me are the smells. Smell plays a huge part in our memory and I love it when people use that in their writing. That hot metal and oil stink pops me right in. Love it.
June 16, 2014 — 2:47 PM
kira a. gold says:
Really well done. I love the way the actual description of what Khyrg sees takes him (her?) to another very different, but equally evocative place.
I’d just go with silk chutes, rather than silken, and maybe find another verb than gleamed? Everything else is gritty and torn and wrecked, and then you have a phrase that is often used for a pretty girl’s hair. (or is that intentional?)
June 16, 2014 — 8:02 PM
Jack says:
He followed the trail along the edge of the river, with one eye on thin grove of birch trees on the far bank. He wondered if the descending sun had played a trick on his vision, if the being he saw was only a shadow of an innocent creation. He crossed the river at a shallow spot near the old bridge posts, but tripped stepping over the snow bank at the river’s edge. As he stood up he heard the soft brushing of snow falling from an evergreen to his left, and despite every innate impulse to run, he slowly turned and saw the creature peering at him from behind the tree, a tall human form of at least seven feet, with sky blue eyes and a malevolent halo of antlers fanning forth from a skull capped in iron-grey fur.
June 16, 2014 — 12:04 PM
Amanda says:
I like the physical description of the creature. You might give it more impact by cutting your last sentence into two shorter sentences. Your creature sounds a bit intimidating, so I wonder if it would simply be peering or something more sinister.
It may be in the context surrounding this description, but it would be good to know why your protagonist is following the trail- if he is looking for what he finds, or is caught off guard. More atmospheric descriptions of the setting could also give hints of this. Is he familiar with the surroundings and comfortable, enjoying a new scene that seems idyllic but takes a turn, or is he creeping through an area that scares him to confront this tall human form?
June 16, 2014 — 12:30 PM
Jack says:
Good suggestions about the last sentence and changing “peering.” You are right about the context surrounding the description. The protagonist is familiar with the area, a campground. I like your idea bout atmospheric description. Thanks for the good feedback.
June 16, 2014 — 1:04 PM
kira a. gold says:
This is descriptive and interesting and quite suspenseful. I think you could tighten this by giving us more, and making the tension even higher. What is his other eye looking at, so that we may understand the conflict? What is his reaction to tripping? (Is he being chased? hunted?) Would he freeze to keep from getting caught?
I love the creepy dude. Is the skull a mask, so that we see its eyes?
June 16, 2014 — 8:11 PM
Jack says:
Much thanks for your kind comments. I like the suggestions, esp. about his reaction to tripping. I definitely think that will improve the scene.
June 17, 2014 — 9:51 AM
Jon Fuller says:
The worst mornings always started the same way: a shuddering breath blocked by the collection of fluid at the back of the throat. He thrashed at the sweat-soaked sheets until he was free, stagger-sprinted to the bathroom, and threw himself at the sink. With a few retching coughs, he sprayed arterial red and tobacco brown onto the chipped porcelain canvas, the Pollock of shitty motel rooms. Once he could breathe again, he reached blindly for the plastic bottle he had set next to the tiny coffee maker the night before, and swished a mouthful of cheap bourbon between his bloody teeth.
A swallow, and he was ready for the next part of the ritual. He looked up into the mirror, and considered the gaunt man that stared back. Dark blue eyes scanned the visible ribs, the bruises on prominent collarbones, the wiry muscles that barely passed Agency physical standards. He made a mental note to actually eat something, once he found an appetite again.
The blood started at the neck.
June 16, 2014 — 12:09 PM
Clementine Danger says:
Haha, gross.
I’m sorry, I’m trying to think of something more constructive to say, but this one just does it for me. If that were the opening chapter of a book, I’d keep reading. It’s visceral and disgusting and very engaging. I want to know who this guy is.
June 16, 2014 — 12:51 PM
Jon Fuller says:
This is precisely the reaction I wanted. Thanks!
June 16, 2014 — 1:05 PM
Jac says:
Great writing. I would definitely want to read more. The second paragraph is strong. You do a good job of describing his gauntness. Only a few suggestions: “sweat-soaked” and “stagger-sprinted” together makes an awkward sentence. The last sentence of the first paragraph has quite a few adjectives: plastic, tiny, cheap, bloody. It;s just my opinion, but four adjective-noun combos in one sentence is a bit too much description for one sentence. Consider trimming at least one out; perhaps ‘tiny.’
June 16, 2014 — 12:57 PM
Jon Fuller says:
Thanks! The first sentence you critiqued does sound better with a change of removing “sweat-soaked,” as it’s a descriptor that can be mentioned in a later paragraph.
I like the way that the tiny coffee machine solidifies how crappy the motel room is, so I’d prefer to keep that adjective in the sentence. Does the plastic bottle sufficiently convey that the liquor is cheap, and thus become unnecessary?
June 16, 2014 — 3:40 PM
mikes75 says:
Very cool scene! I’d actually take “plastic bottle” out entirely, have him reach for the cheap bourbon next to the coffee maker and swish a mouthful between bloody teeth. Also maybe “fumbled” instead of “reached blindly,” I think it’d make the sentence sharper.
June 16, 2014 — 7:58 PM
Amanda says:
Abernathy House creaks at night under the weight of ancestors. In the late hours, their spirits move over the floorboards where they passed countless evenings singing, dancing, and telling the stories of generations past. This, of course, from my mother. I think it’s probably the foundation settling with a side order of raccoons in the attic, but, then, I lack imagination.
June 16, 2014 — 12:22 PM
Katherine Hetzel says:
Love it! We have history, humour and a sense of the narrator. Lots packed in here.
June 16, 2014 — 12:32 PM
kira a. gold says:
This is clever and fun. You’ve described a house, its history, the narrator and the mother in a very short passage. well done!
June 16, 2014 — 8:13 PM
christianfennell says:
He looks at the girl’s face and it is unclear if he sees her yet. His washed blue eyes vague in their focus. He looks up. His cropped hair matted with wet patches of fresh blood—blood on his face, smooth and heavy against his pale skin. Untouched. His clothes are covered, deep red and soaked through and pressed flat to his skin. His hands too, fully red, as if dipped in a vast quantity of it—for he has opened the young girl fully up, from her throat to her navel. The blood of the inside of her, dark against her black skin. He looks down again, touched still by the current of elation she has given to him—her heart there, before him and still beating, the blood of her opened body pressed to him, wonderfully wet and thick, slipping and forming, encasing him in her warmth, his eyes rolling back to their very whites and his own self now wetting his pants, and he moans.
June 16, 2014 — 12:27 PM
Katherine Hetzel says:
From my WIP: StarMark…when Irvana has literally just run into Lord Terenz…There’s a bit of dialogue I’ve skipped in the middle so you get the rest of his description;
“What the devil? Get up!”
The authority in the voice made Irvana’s legs act automatically; she scrambled to her feet, eyes kept lowered. Two dusty black boots stepped into her view, sunlight glinting on the silver spurs at their heels.
“Look at me.”
Did she dare to? A little at a time, maybe? Above the dusty boots, black trousers, held up with a belt whose silver buckle was fashioned in the shape of the same seven-pointed star she’d seen above the gate. Silver buttons on a black jacket. Black gloved hands, gripping a silver-topped riding crop. And above the collar of a black shirt, the face of a man. A man scowling at her, his silvery grey eyes unblinking beneath thick, dark eyebrows.
She felt like a rabbit gazing at a fox. …
… One eyebrow was raised in query and as he inclined his head, apparently studying her, his long black hair fell forward, over his face. With an impatient jerk, the overlord flicked it back, revealing a dark mark high on his cheekbone. It looked like a star.
June 16, 2014 — 12:31 PM
christianfennell says:
I like how you build slowly the description of the man … it’s very good. I had a couple of small notes, for what it’s worth… You are in her pov, and so I would drop the ‘her’ in the first para. – “Above the dusty boots, black trousers, (drop held up with – we know what a belt does – and this would then allow you to get ride of ‘whose’) a belt with a silver buckle (drop ‘was’) fashioned in the same …’ – After ‘the face of a man.’ Drop ‘a man scowling at her’ … you just told us it was a man… and as for the scowling – better, perhaps, for us to come to understand this…
June 16, 2014 — 12:59 PM
Katherine Hetzel says:
Thanks, Christian. I’m beginning to get to grips with deep POV, but the odd ‘her’ etc keeps slipping in! The ‘face of the man’…hmmm, was hoping that repetition would emphasise things, but maybe it doesn’t work so well. Good feedback, thanks again.
June 17, 2014 — 9:20 AM
christianfennell says:
My pleasure, Katherine – I enjoyed reading it …
June 17, 2014 — 2:16 PM
Perrin says:
The dining room, jutting off the vestibule to his right, was bathed in moonlight that creeped in through thinly curtained windows. The pale light fell across their dining table, where a glass vase lay in glittering pieces across the linen runner, fake roses scattered among the debris. The chairs on this side had been shoved into odd positions, one lying on its side with a splintered handrail. Nic’s attention, however, was drawn to a dark smear on the floor that looked a lot like blood, trailing away from between the disturbed chairs, across the room, and out the opposite doorway. Like someone had been dragged, bleeding. The stain, he saw, was still glistening.
June 16, 2014 — 12:31 PM
Anna Lewis says:
Keep an eye out for passive voice: “Moonlight crept into the dining room through thinly curtained windows”, and “A dark smear on the floor drew Nic’s attention” might punch things up a bit. Very nice imagery; I’m curious as to what game might be afoot. 🙂
June 16, 2014 — 1:09 PM
Beth Turnage says:
Good. Almost there.
I stumbled over the beginning of the first line. I feel it should be simplified.
Jutting off the vestibule to his right, the dining room was bathed in moonlight creeping in through thinly curtained windows.
Take out “however” and “a lot” and “like.” Across the room” is redundant. Since Nic didn’t see the person being dragged, it doesn’t fit that he makes that observation. Try it without it. It may be cleaner. Once you follow the stain out the window Nic can make other conclusions on how the stain came to be. You don’t need “he saw” since we are aware Nic is the observer.
Nic’s attention focused on a dark smear on the floor that looked like blood. It trailed away from between the disturbed chairs, and out the opposite doorway. The stain was still glistening.
June 16, 2014 — 1:10 PM
christianfennell says:
I like, a great deal – ‘moonlight that creeped in through thinly curtained windows.’ Well done on that.
June 16, 2014 — 1:27 PM
Perrin says:
Can I just say, I love all you guys! 🙂 Thanks for all the input…
June 16, 2014 — 2:49 PM
christianfennell says:
I like how you build slowly the description of the man … it’s very good. I had a couple of small notes, for what it’s worth… You are in her pov, and so I would drop the ‘her’ in the first para. – “Above the dusty boots, black trousers, (drop held up with – we know what a belt does – and this would then allow you to get ride of ‘whose’) a belt with a silver buckle (drop ‘was’) fashioned in the same …’ – After ‘the face of a man.’ Drop ‘a man scowling at her’ … you just told us it was a man… and as for the scowling – better, perhaps, for us to come to understand this…
June 16, 2014 — 12:56 PM
Mat Hockey says:
Hi all – here’s my offering. Very slightly over 100 words.
Beyond that were tangled squares of what had once been the manor’s formal gardens; tame lawns and white stone pathways that had been cannibalised beneath a wave of bramble and gorse. The artfully shaped border hedges had been transformed by the mutating presence of the nearby forest, and now spread all discoloured and misshapen as tumours. Everything growing there fought and vied for light, choking out smaller plants with their roots and blocking the sun with their leaves. The oldest trees stood as battle scarred veterans beyond them, thick-limbed and sporting shaggy beards of moss, while the fallen were left to rot and be colonised by fungal spores.
June 16, 2014 — 1:07 PM
Mike W. says:
I like this…I can almost see the place in my mind (plus I’m a sucker for good nature description); you could maybe take out the word “all” between “spread” and “discoloured”. And maybe use either “fought for light” or “vied for light” instead of both? I think the idea gets across pretty well with only one of those words.
June 16, 2014 — 2:44 PM
Beth Turnage says:
Good. Almost there.
I stumbled over the beginning of the first line. I feel it should be simplified.
Jutting off the vestibule to his right, the dining room was bathed in moonlight creeping in through thinly curtained windows.
Take out “however” and “a lot” and “like.” Across the room” is redundant. Since Nic didn’t see the person being dragged, it doesn’t fit that he makes that observation. Try it without it. It may be cleaner. Once you follow the stain out the window Nic can make other conclusions on how the stain came to be. You don’t need “he saw” since we are away Nic is the observer.
Nic’s attention focused on a dark smear on the floor that looked like blood. It trailed away from between the disturbed chairs, and out the opposite doorway. The stain was still glistening.
June 16, 2014 — 1:07 PM
Morgan says:
In truth she was no girl but a woman as the professor could see upon reaching the front door. He would guess she was in her early twenties though she could have been older, it was difficult to tell. Her skin had a pale, pinched look like she’d lost weight recently. Her hair was long and black and in good need of a comb. The old coat she wore reached the ground and matched the darkening sky behind her. Chipped fingernails peaked out of the sleeves, her fingers clenched up around the cuff in a nervous way. Her eyes stared at the ground.
June 16, 2014 — 1:12 PM
Beth Turnage says:
A good solid description that can be punched up by rearranging the words.
For example:
The professor opened the door.
She could have been mistaken for a girl, not the twenty-something years the professor thought more likely. Her skin was pinched and pale, as if she lost weight recently. Tangle black hair reached past her shoulders. The tips of her fingers peeked out of the sleeves of her old and worn coat, the polish on them chipped. Her fingers clenched up around the cuff of her coat sleeve in a nervous way while her eyes stared on the ground.
June 16, 2014 — 3:35 PM
Eldritchgirl says:
Thank you! I kind of love the idea of jackass there. I think I shall change it! 😀
June 16, 2014 — 1:16 PM
christianfennell says:
One more – and thanks, Chuck, a good idea …
The boy sleeps for three days and in that time he dreams. He dreams of hell and he dreams of fear and he dreams of where he lives now and shall forever and he dreams of the face of horror and the face of a brother in the night of the burning before him and he dreams of the world of men and blood with furs and skins and faces painted with the death of others, their hollowed eyes of broken glory there and coming hard now on their wild mounts from hell with devil hooves pounding the earth in the name of all that have come before him, and shall forever more.
June 16, 2014 — 1:38 PM
Mike W. says:
Hmmm, that is a long sentence 🙂 But sometimes a run-on sentence works…it gives the description sort of a breathless pace. You could maybe replace the “and” after “shall forever” with a semicolon. Maybe another semicolon (or period) after “death of others” would break things up a bit without losing the fast pace of the description.
June 16, 2014 — 2:53 PM
kira a. gold says:
I like what you are doing and I use long wordstring descriptions too, but you might get even more effect by breaking it up into three sentences, one for each day that he dreams, just to make it easier on the reader.
June 16, 2014 — 8:44 PM
mikes75 says:
Just over 100 words, have at it:
“He half turned and smiled, a playful grin brightening his lightly tanned face, and Kim had to admit Melanie had been right. The man had sharp features; defined cheekbones under deep brown eyes. Coal black hair was swept downward across his forehead, and she took a moment to admire the way the strong line of his jaw flowed towards the small cleft in his chin. She allowed herself a quick glance down, taking in how the taut fabric of his shirt accented the powerful shoulders and arms beneath. Individually, none of those features matched what she’d ever defined as her ideal, but seeing how well they worked with each other, Kim definitely felt a revision of her type was in order.”
June 16, 2014 — 1:38 PM
Mike W. says:
This is a pretty good description…not just telling us what the guy looks like, but the other character’s perception of him. The only change I might make is taking out the word “was” after “coal black hair”; I don’t think it’s necessary to get the idea across.
June 16, 2014 — 3:03 PM
kira a. gold says:
well done. This tells us as much about Kim as the man she is looking at. I’m curious to see some reaction from him at being stared at so intently.
June 16, 2014 — 8:41 PM
carolkean says:
….an unfamiliar P-51. There was a finite quantity of the old planes left, but another one would occasionally come out of nowhere. Like this animal. All black, all powerful. Kate admired the highly modified prop, the fangs painted on the nose, the yellow eyes. Instead of the usual clutter of sponsors’ names, it simply had *Ironwolf* spelled out in white near the nose, and near the tail, in yellow, the name Wild Wind. All P-51s exuded an aura of power, but *Ironwolf* hit Kate like a missile.
June 16, 2014 — 1:38 PM
kira a. gold says:
This is really strong and cool. I’d love a little more hint about where something so special could come from, rather than “nowhere.” I’m curious about which name means what- P-51 is the model, Ironwolf is the plane’s name, so what is Wild Wind?
June 16, 2014 — 8:38 PM
christianfennell says:
I liked this – a great way to bring a plane alive … was wondering only about this bit:
“Like this animal. All black, all powerful.’ I think you could consider going one of two other ways … for what it is worth:
1) Like this animal. All black. All powerful.
2) Like this animal: all black, all powerful.
June 16, 2014 — 1:59 PM
Alex Kane (@alexjkane) says:
After taking a barrage of gunfire to the chest at close range, the first bogey blossomed into a flash of smoke and debris; its remains left a long smear of black across the sky. The second pilot, as if emboldened by the other’s failure to bring her down, picked up a sudden burst of speed.
Its railgun glowed in preparation for vengeance.
June 16, 2014 — 2:07 PM
Mike W. says:
Sounds like a cool dogfight! I’m a little confused about the “bogeys”…are they airplanes? If so, the word “chest” doesn’t really fit in the first sentence, since planes don’t really have chests. Unless you’re talking about living creatures, in which case it works 🙂
June 16, 2014 — 2:58 PM
Rose Red says:
He tried to do something really big once. He attempted a family reunion in the late 90’s. He was the youngest and everyone came to him, whether it be by telephone, mail or e-mail. Even Mom would call Pete first when there was something to be done or something to be changed or corrected. Mom. That was before she got sick, before the smile left her eyes for a while. It returned about a month before she died. He saw his real mother then, the one he knew at five and trusted implicitly for everything. She had known about his first crush, his first kiss, and the first time he got dumped. She comforted, listened, advised, and most of all, she gave a damn. That made her first. Then, and always. When she died, it was as bad as losing a partner. Not in a gross kind of mother-son Freudian way. She understood. She was the only one that did. When he let Jessica into his life, it was for that same reason. Understanding. Unfortunately, you can’t build a life together only on that. But he sure as hell tried.
June 16, 2014 — 2:14 PM
Mike W. says:
This is pretty good; I get a good sense of his character from this. The only thing I might change is to take out “it be” after “whether”; I think “whether by telephone…” works a little better (at least to my ear).
June 16, 2014 — 3:06 PM
Rose Red says:
That is better. Thank you . ^_^
June 16, 2014 — 4:00 PM
Rose Red says:
My apologies, I forgot to do a word count.
June 16, 2014 — 2:18 PM
sodmikail says:
This is part of the introduction to a scene in a Storium game:
The narrow alley is a forgotten corner of a neglected neighborhood. A light drizzle spatters through a rusty fire escape that almost blocks the view of a cloudy sky.
The exit to the front of the club is blocked by a chain link fence. The flashing lights from the squad cars flicker through greying, rotten slats tied to the wire.
There are other, even narrower, passages between the old worker’s tenements—remnants of a more prosperous time when the wharfs were still open.
At the other end of the alley, across the deserted street, the Circle Line train rattles by. The clacking sound stops abruptly as the train disappears into the Rathbury Tunnel.
June 16, 2014 — 2:19 PM
Mike W. says:
Yeah, this is a good description, very gritty. You could maybe make the first sentence of the second paragraph active (“A chain link fence blocks the exit…”) instead of passive. Same with the third paragraph…instead of “There are…” you could say something like “Other, narrower passages lie between the old worker’s tenements…” Overall, I think it’s great 🙂
June 16, 2014 — 3:16 PM
kira a. gold says:
really good. You’ve used “blocked” and “block” in two consecutive sentences, so watch that- go with hides, or conceals or something else for one of them.
June 16, 2014 — 8:32 PM
sodmikail says:
Didn’t think about that. Thanks!
June 17, 2014 — 11:19 AM
Rose Red says:
I like lively description and this is good imagery, as if I am there. My only constructive criticism would be to go through and delete all your adverbs, except abruptly which is needed. I’ve found that taking out the ‘almost’ and ‘even’, for example, tightens up the description that you wrote well.
June 16, 2014 — 2:30 PM
sodmikail says:
Thank you for the good advice!
June 16, 2014 — 4:43 PM
Nikki Poindexter says:
A man stood there. He was normal, someone’s grandpa in a button-down shirt and slacks. His clothes were clean and pressed, the lines sharp. His short beard was gray, his shorter hair was balding at the top. He even wore a tie. He looked like a bank manager gone off on his lunch break.
Normal. Nice, even. Except for the eyes.
They were black. The whole thing–iris, the whites–were a solid black like someone had stuffed marbles into his face where his eyes should have been. They weren’t human. They were shark eyes, empty and dead and fixed on me.
June 16, 2014 — 2:38 PM
Mike W. says:
Whoa, this guy has creepy eyes! Your description is really good…kinda chilling. You could maybe say “he looked normal” instead of “he was normal” in the first sentence. And you could maybe take out the word “the” between “iris” and “whites”…it might make the description a little more terse, more immediate, if you know what I mean.
June 16, 2014 — 3:21 PM
kira a. gold says:
This is awesome. I want to know what color his tie is, and I don’t know why. Maybe because the only colors you mention are gray and black and white, so I feel like I’m watching an old b+w episode of The Twilight Zone. Which is not a bad thing.
June 16, 2014 — 8:27 PM