Crescent opened this issue on Apr 02, 2003 ยท 39 posts
jstro posted Thu, 03 April 2003 at 9:11 PM
Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12436&Form.ShowMessage=1126491
Crescent - Thanks for the critique, I really do appreciate it. It's an excerpt from a book I'm writing, so perhaps it was a bit hard to see just who the viewpoint character was. It was Maggie. She's 13. I humbly disagree about the green verge. I don't believe narration should be limited to words the viewpoint character may or may not use. Dialog, yes. Narration; I don't think so. Verge may not have been the right word, but for the life of me I could not think of the proper term for that bit of grass between the sidewalk and the curb. Suggestions? As to how they divvied up the candy, I thought I was fairly clear on that. They took turns, and the name brand pieces went pretty quick. As to preferences, now really. Is there any real candy besides chocolate? All others are but pretenders. :-) jgeorge I thought you had the most original interpretation of them all. It was wonderful. The turning point for me, as I said before, was - Susanna! This is my story, the plot requires you to leave! Until then some words (like dialogue) seemed wrong, but then they (or at lest it) became exactly the right word to have been used. You used some sentence fragments, like A quick glance around the room... That very well may have been the intended style or it may have been working in a different language, so it's hard to say if they needed fixing or not. They worked out OK as written, so I assumed they were intended. If given the job to edit it, the following is what I would have recommended. Take it for what it's worth, as I'm no expert. "Susanna opened the suitcase. A quick glance around the room, to see what she can take as a souvenir without feeling like a thief. ... " - It doesn't work, you know. I won't leave. - You must leave, you are packing... - I'm packing because YOU are making me do so, but you know it as well as me: it cannot work. - Susanna, dear... - I got it! You can make me wait a little, so that I can say goodbye to him... It wouldn't seem so unnatural... - You cannot wait: if you meet him once more a dialogue will follow, and he'll force you to stay. You must leave now, before he's back. - But it is not a natural thing for me to go this way... I won't leave. - Susanna! This is my story, the plot requires you to leave! - Of course, I'll do whatever you write, but you know as well as me that my leaving won't fit to the Susanna character YOU created... and you are going for realism, coherency and so on, aren't you? - But this means I have to change the plot, and the final scene, and the whole thing! ... OK, let's go back to the writing... " Susanna opened the suitcase. A quick glance around the room, to see what she can take as a souvenir without feeling like a thief. Her eyes stopped on the little photograph on the dresser. She took a deep breath, closed the empty suitcase and put it back under the bed. . . Shoshanna I think everyone reading this was lead to believe she was hiding sex toys, so I'd say you succeeded very well. Very funny twist. In addition to punctuation I really think white space would help a lot. Here are my humble suggestions. Again, I'm no expert, so take it with a pound and a half of salt. Do you love any, do you love none? "So you see why I called you, Janet," he finished apologetically, returning the last item to the shelf and closing the wardrobe. " I need your help. We've got to make her see that this is not normal." The old woman sighed, then patted his hand gently. "I'm sorry Alan, I just don't know what to say. I never realized when..." Her words were cut short as they heard a car pull into the driveway. "You wait here," Alan told her. "I'll bring her up. Best to get it over with right away." He left the room as she nodded, leaving her to sit gingerly on the edge of their double bed, smoothing her smart skirt over aching knees. Her eyes kept returning to the shocking cupboard. It looked so ordinary from the outside. Claire's mother shifted uncomfortably, suddenly aware that she could feel something suspiciously furry against her ankle. There were no pets in this house. She leant forward to look under the bed. Straightening quickly, she lost the urge to look in any other drawers or cupboards in the house. Claire must have gotten this from her fathers side of the family, Janet decided, there were none of these kinds of goings on in the Smith family history. Claire was startled to find her husband home before her. She tried to unobtrusively tuck the small gift box she carried behind her handbag as she smiled at him, wondering why he should be standing in the hall with such a serious look on his face. She reached out with her free hand to touch the side of his face, intending to kiss him, but to her surprise he drew back from her touch. She faced him, worried now. Something awful must have happened. Had someone died? "What is it Alan? Has someone been hurt?" He shook his head. "I need to show you something. It's important." He led her upstairs, his expression grim. "Is it a surprise?" Claire asked, anxiously glancing at her husbands face. He couldn't have found them; she always made sure she put them all away. "Just come with me," he replied, seeming more strained than angry. She revised her opinion, not that bad then. She clutched her handbag tightly to her side, treasuring the fact that her little secret purchase was definitely still safe. He'd never go into her handbag. Claire stopped dead in the threshold. Her mother was sitting on her bed. She rushed forward, throwing handbag and box on the dressing table to fold herself down at her mothers feet. "Are you all right?" she asked. "Is it dad?" Then, before she could help herself the words sprang out, "Did you finally leave him?" Her mother jumped. "What? Why would I leave?" She struggled to find words for a moment. "Claire Feiney! How could you ask me such a thing?" she scolded, before pulling her mind back to the task in hand. "It's you, young lady, that has some explaining to do." Claire looked at her blankly. Mrs. Deane gestured towards the wardrobe with her chin. "I've seen inside there, though I can't believe my eyes." She watched as her only daughter looked from one forbidding face to the other, and then at her wardrobe, and dissolving into tears. "Those are my private things," Claire sniffed. "How could you?" "Private things?" her husband burst out angrily. "You can stand there and call those," he spluttered, seeking the right words, "those damned TOYS private things?" "You've got to face up to it Claire," her mother said sternly. "You've got a problem, and you need to deal with it. Nobody in their right mind would have a cupboard full of Gonks" Claire stood up shakily. "They are called Trolls, not Gonks, and you are not taking them away from me. They are the only friends I've got, when Alan is always working away." She moved towards the wardrobe and leaning protectively against the door. With an embarrassed glance at his mother-in-law, Alan held his hands out to his wife. She took them cautiously, her body tense, in case he tried to pull her away. "Look," he entreated her softly. "When you got the first couple of those things, I'll admit, I kind of liked it, but that was a long time ago. You never mentioned them again and I forgot all about them. But honey, there must be a couple of thousand in there! Why on earth would anyone want to keep a cupboard full of gonks?" Janet looked hesitantly at Alan. "I think you might want to look under the bed, dear." She lifted the valance to reveal a heap of the cheerily smiling little creatures. "You betrayer!" Claire shook with rage. "You're the one who bought me my first troll." "And what may I ask, is in the box you brought in with you this evening?" Alan asked before shaking his head. He had a horrible feeling he already knew. "It's the prize of my collection," she replied, rushing over to retrieve it from the dressing table. "A rare white elephant troll." It was going to be a long evening. P.S. The link is to the original challenge in case some passing through wonder where they can be found. jon
~jon
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