The whole thing is in a constant state of flux, of course.
-----------------------------
A lone human trudged through a quietly exuberant landscape. Noon sun asserted its rights with unseasonable vigor, attacking the remnants of winter. Paying little attention to signs of spring, Radovec followed a path along the edge of the narrow valley of a river that had grown large on melting snow. He wore only a loinclout and simple tunic of soft leather and a pair of ill-fitting mammoth-hide boots. A bundle of dead branches on his back made the slightly built youth look like a walking brush-heap.
Ahead of him, a cluster of mounds nestled between the river's deeply cut course and a rounded ridge that paralleled it. The sod-covered dwellings varied from large oblongs that might house several families in very close quarters, to much smaller units. The primary material of their construction, mammoth bone, showed plainly in their framed doorways.
Smoke trailed into the wind from an open hearth and from two of the smaller earthlodges. Other than the several figures clustered at the cooking hearth, Radovec saw no sign of activity. That was good; if nobody noticed him maybe he could sneak a bite of dried meat out of the storehouse. He was hungry after several trips downriver to collect wood. He plodded on toward his goal, the round hut belonging to the band's shaman.
Well, let me put it this way. The major problems here are: it's too long, with too much description, insufficiently grounded POV, and nothing happens. The POV is the central problem causing (or at least contributing to) the other three.
Take the start: "A lone human . . ." Two sentences later, we find out his name: Radovec. Why not tell us that right away? What you have might indicate that everyone else around is an alien, but you don't follow up with that. "A lone man," then, would be better, but it still leaves us outside the character, as if watching him from a distance, so we don't care about him. The over-written descriptions that follow, if written from Radovec's viewpoint, would either be toned down, or would tell us something about the way Radovec looks at the world. Either would be an improvement.
Most of the rest of the description is of scenes with which Radovec is familiar. From his point of view, he might take note of the things he passes, but he wouldn't describe them to himself, and you shouldn't describe them to us. The entire middle paragraph should go, and the other two should be trimmed.
quote:This extract doesn't quite work: there's a bit of a transition problem between the second and third sentence. But it almost works, and all I did was delete everything that wasn't in his POV. (And the second sentence I included was debatable.)
Radovec followed a path along the edge of the narrow valley of a river that had grown large on melting snow. He wore only a loinclout and simple tunic of soft leather and a pair of ill-fitting mammoth-hide boots. Other than the several figures clustered at the cooking hearth, Radovec saw no sign of activity. That was good; if nobody noticed him maybe he could sneak a bite of dried meat out of the storehouse. He was hungry after several trips downriver to collect wood.
The thing is, that with the passage trimmed this way, you can now include more and quite possibly get to some action or situation which intrigues our interest.
One other comment:
quote:That sounds painful. I hope you meant "loincloth."
He wore only a loinclout
[This message has been edited by rickfisher (edited November 27, 2004).]
Unless the village is described, we don't have a way of know what time frame we're in (outside of the title, anyway), so I think it's fine to help establish the setting. Speaking of which, words like "units" are inappropriate--way too contemporary. And I don't care for "band," either. I'd prefer "tribe" or some such.
[This message has been edited by Magic Beans (edited November 28, 2004).]
quote:
Loinclout is a real word.
Thanks, Magic, I didn't know that. Neither did my dictionary (American Heritage, 1st edition). That sounds sarcastic, and I don't mean it that way. The dictionary does have "clout":
quote:Clearly this could be extended to "loinclout". So I'm genuinely pleased to have that word added to my vocabulary.
4. Archaic and Regional A piece of cloth used for mending; patch.
However, I have grave doubts about using it here instead of "loincloth." This is obviously a story set long ago, and thus it might be considered appropriate to use an archaic word; but as the story is written in modern English I'd say it's best to avoid the archaisms.
If this word has come back into vogue in other than a regional sense, somebody please let me know. (And I was using the 1st Edition of the AHD, c. 1970, so it's quite possible.)
[This message has been edited by Castaway (edited November 28, 2004).]
Another element of these lines that got my attention: the name Radovic has a Slavic or Eastern European flavor to it, to me. When I read about dwellings constructed of mammoth bones, I felt jarred out of what I was prepared to think of as time and setting.
[This message has been edited by Magic Beans (edited November 28, 2004).]
quote:
Another element of these lines that got my attention: the name Radovic has a Slavic or Eastern European flavor to it, to me. When I read about dwellings constructed of mammoth bones, I felt jarred out of what I was prepared to think of as time and setting.
Nope, MB, Matera was right on there. Some of the largest concentrations of mammoth bone dwellings are in eastern Europe.
Just ask Survivor.
Talk about Freezer Burn!
I think you are looking for a name that sounds Proto-Indo-European, which is the prehistoric language that was supposed to exist at that time in the area. It is, unfortunately, unrecorded. However there are many forensic efforts attempting to identify its elements.
These links may help:
http://www.geocities.com/protoillyrian/
and:
http://www.geocities.com/protoillyrian/pie
Edited to include:
They boiled my brain but holy-smoke they're thorough.
Here is another, much simpler:
http://members.aol.com/yahyam/protoworld.html
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited November 29, 2004).]
Quote: A lone human trudged through a quietly exuberant landscape.
Right here. This is precisly were, if reading, I would switch from stance Neutral to stance On-Verge-Of-Stopping. I'm being this emphatic for the reason that this sentence failing in its purpose is a disaster -- for this is the 1rst sentence.
a) Forgive me if I'm wrong, but my intuitive grammar screams that it should not be "a" landscape. "A" is vague. "A" is bleh. "The" on the other hand...
b) Quietly exuberant landscape -- this phrase is quiantly absurd language. Too many qualifiers, too much meaning is attempted at, and it fails. In fact, it sounds a little funny.
To be honest, trying to tell how great something is...is not going work. It will be neccesary, often, to provide support, but as a rule, saying "A is great" will not do anything but make the reader yawn and look away.
Quote: Noon sun asserted its rights with unseasonable vigor, attacking the remnants of winter.
This sentence is so utterly unexpected that I am stunned by it. Firstly, it is hard to apply to the situation at hand. Secondly, it is a completely different approach to describing the situation.
Quote: Paying little attention to signs of spring, Radovec followed a path along the edge of the narrow valley of a river that had grown large on melting snow.
a) This sentence is saturated with descriptive words. The whole piece is.
b) It is switching approaches again. Now we are zooming in on Radovec, before we were elsewhere. All confusing.
The same afflicts the rest of your work. You do not leave nouns and verbs and such alone. Rather, you attach adjectives and adverbs. Far too many.
To illustrate, I have bolded all the adjectives and adverbs -- and all the prepositional phrases that are acting as adjectives and that are excessive.
quote:
A lone human trudged through a quietly exuberant landscape. Noon sun asserted its rights with unseasonable vigor, attacking the remnants of winter. Paying little[b] attention to [b]signs of spring, Radovec followed a path along the edge of the narrow valley of a river that had grown large on melting snow. He wore only a loinclout and simple tunic of soft leather and a pair of ill-fitting mammoth-hide boots. A bundle of dead branches on his back made the slightly built youth look like a walking brush-heap.Ahead of him, a cluster of mounds nestled between the river's deeply cut course and a rounded ridge that paralleled it. The sod-covered dwellings varied from large oblongs that might house several families in very close quarters, to much smaller units. The primary material of their construction, mammoth bone, showed plainly in their framed doorways.
Doing the tags has started to hurt my hand. I can do no more. You seem to love language. Good. But [/b]please![b] write something that is more narrative focused, less adjective.
That said, I also ditto his contention that the opening is non-sucky.
[This message has been edited by Magic Beans (edited December 01, 2004).]
For example instead of telling me he had ill-fitting boots. Show me. How were they ill-fitting? what did it matter? In a glacial environment poorly made boots can get you killed. this would be an opprtunity to create tension by showing his struggle to survive. an example: the boots chafed his feet and cold slush soaked through the ragged seams. He had lost feeling in his feet hours ago but he had no other boots and no time to mend these. The thought of his toes turning black haunted him.
a poor example on my part but something like that would show me why the ill-fitting boots are important to the story and create a sense of the character's social and physical condition.