After an involuntary five-day fast, Fox Manselle finally caught something. In his seventh snare, he found the smallest, ugliest, most nutritionally deprived runt of a rabbit he’d ever seen in his life. It was sickly, and had patches of skin showing through thinned fur. Fur was missing entirely in places, but what did that matter? He would eat today! The thing would probably make him sick to his stomach, but so what? Food was food, and you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, he’d learned.

Fox decided to check his other traps to see if he’d caught anything else, because even though he knew that this measly furball of a rabbit would be all he’d catch for another few days, it never hurt to check. Never hurts to keep a positive outlook, he always told himself.

That’s when he saw her. A woman, walking through his part of the woods, looking around with a gentle smile on her face as though she were seeing it all for the first time. She held out her hand to touch a flower and an apple fell into her hand. Bam. Just like that, a bright red apple smacked into her hand, and she acted like it happened everyday. Without so much as a raised eyebrow in surprise, the woman put the apple to her lips and took a bite.

“That was pretty lucky,” Fox whispered to himself. Huddled behind a large tree, he watched the woman as she moved through the forest.

Again, honesty's appreciated. And so's brutality, as long as it's constructive. How else will I learn?

CVG

Okay.

Edit, then, to say: "He would eat meattoday! The thing would probably make him sick to his stomach, but so what? Food was food, and you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, he’d learned. Especially not when you’ve eaten so many berries and apples and other sorts of stomach-cramping fruits and veggies that hell has transformed from a place of fiery torment to a dark room where red demons feed you greens for all eternity.

Better?

CVG

PS--I can't believe I overlooked the greens! It's so...so, duh! You know?

Also, while it isn't particularly healthy to eat sick animals, presuming that you kill the animal while it is still alive, then clean and cook it properly, you should be okay.

It is eating an animal: uncooked, or with the blood and digestive tract*, or well after it has died, that will get you in trouble.

But prose&incipient-story wise, this looks okay. I'd be willing to read a few more pages.

Any other takers?

BTW, something kind of jumped out at me. I was wondering you could clear it up.

quote:

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...presuming that you kill the animal while it is still alive...

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Um, is there any other way?

CVG

Your very first line makes it clear that Fox had not eaten anything at all for five days. He had been on an "involuntary five-day fast" so saying that he would finally eat meat today will not help at all. You also make it clear that he has eaten nothing in the paragraph below that, when he is looking enviously at the woman with the apple that appears in her hand. I'm afraid, the way yo8u have things now, that even if you change it to meat I will still believe that Fox has not eaten anything ata ll over the past vive days and that for some reason you just wanted to highlight that meat was the food he would be eating today.

So I still wonder why he's not had much to eat and look for an explanation in the next few paragraphs.

Also, there are a cliche I did not like. Never look a gift horse in the mouth is so tired and cliched that unless the story is set in the real world and a very old, syaing-prone man is saying it then it's not going to work. It works even less in inner dialogue, IMO>

As this is a third or fourth draft, I haven't given much thought to the minutea of the story. I was eager to send it out and have the story critiqued, and I'm glad I did. You guys catch things I never could have.

So.

It's late winter/early spring, therefore there are no berries, and no bright, juicy red apples. This saddens me. I like this image, of a bathing beauty taking a bite of a healthy apple, though I can't think of why. Snow White, maybe. *shrug*

But I just can't remove the gift horse part, I'm afraid. I'm sorry it irritates you, Christine, but the passage reflects his determinedly positive outlook, despite (we later learn) that his life is in hardly a shadow of what it once was. He's been reduced to living in the woods, after all.

But I'm happy to fix the rest. I'll send you the story, MR (PS--thanks for the critique ), as soon as they're done.

The gift horse thing...it's over a thousand years old at least. Sayings that old are no longer cliche. Most modern people don't even know the origin of the phrase, even though it is pretty obvious. If you wanted to say Tempus Fugit or Veni, Vidi, Vici nobody would accuse you of using a cliche.

The meaning is a bit variable, here. The expression means "don't express suspicions about the quality of a gift." By extension to a gift by fortune or whatever, it could mean "don't even think your suspicions." The manner in which it is used here is more recent, probably less than 500 years old, and is now the more common usage. I still don't think that makes it a cliche. People will be saying this till the end of time.

OK. So it's early spring/winter, there's not much around to forage, he's just caught a half-starved rabbit. I would think Fox would look something like the rabbit. It might be nice to see him described in relation to the rabbit.

Second, I had the distinct impression that the perfect apple falling into the hand of this perfect woman had some magical quality to it--I had already assumed that there wasn't any forage available to him, so instead of being confused as to why he couldn't find food when suddenly this woman has an apple fall into her hand, I assumed this was either a dream or magical in some way. If so, his astonishment at the appearance of the apple should far outweigh his astonishment at the appearance of the woman. He's darned hungry after all. In which case, Fox's underdone reaction, "That was pretty lucky," is fantastic! It does a great deal to add to his character.

Of course you'd have to get rid of the flower she touches--unless that's all part of the magic too. Does the forest suddenly come to life as she walks through it? Like that fairy creature in the Fantasia 2000 segment?

Anyway, sounds interesting. And I'm sorry, but I'm up to my armpits right now. Maybe in a week or so? Send it on if you can wait.

For instance, the term "giving a shout out to all my homies/brothers/etc." is a cliche. A few years back it was fresh, then it was everywhere, now it is simply stale.

Any term in common use for longer than current living memory cannot possibly be a cliche...it was never fresh to anyone who hears it, and thus can never become stale.

quote:

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Main Entry: cli·ché
Variant(s): also cli·che /klE-'shA, 'klE-", kli-'/
Function: noun
Etymology: French, literally, printer's stereotype, from past participle of clicher to stereotype, of imitative origin
1 : a trite phrase or expression; also : the idea expressed by it
2 : a hackneyed theme, characterization, or situation
3 : something (as a menu item) that has become overly familiar or commonplace

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By your definition, Survivor, I see why you don't technically think it's a cliche, but I'm afraid that I'm going with the idea of cliche that I've always clung to....the a cliche is an overused idea/theme/phrase/etc. In this vein, something that is over 1000 years old is the epitome of cliche, since it has had quite a lot of opportunity to become overused.

Expressions that old usually fall into the catagory of "timeless" truths (or timeless falsehoods, but let us not complicate things ). Cogito ergo sum, X xor ~X, tao keh tao fei chang tao...it doesn't matter when they were first said or how many times they have since been said.

There are certain ideas that simply cannot become overused, by their very nature. Only an expression that depends upon its originality for meaning can become overused and derivative.

Whether it's cliche or not "never look a gift horse in the mouth" is cultural, and you should ask yourself if it is an expression that is natural to the culture you're depicting.

You might also want to ask yourself if it is really the only way your character could indicate his "determinedly positive outlook."

What I'm suggesting is that there may be an analogous expression that would be more pertinent to the setting and/or characters of your story.

Fox is an unemployed electrical engineer. The story is modern fantasy. He would be familiar with "gift horse", not so much with any of those other expressions.

In other words, cliches and triteness can be part of the characterization--as long as they are used to show how the character thinks or speaks. Narrators have to be more careful about cliches and triteness than the characters do.

Of course, if you want your character to show a little more originality in his thinking, Chris, you might still want to come up with another thought for him to think.