Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Be Still My Beating Heart

This is topic Be Still My Beating Heart in forum Fragments and Feedback for Short Works at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Guy Koehler (Member # 2758) on :

In a room filled with decadent luxuries, she lies draped center-stage, across the Roman divan. She might have been beautiful once, before the augmentations: unnaturally ample breasts rippled with waving cilia, designed to deliver an agonizing toxin guaranteed to awaken the most jaded; irridescent scales, thin and pliable, each edge serrated, razor sharp; double-headed barbs run up her inner thighs. Coming in, or attempting to escape, a supplicant was certain to find her undeniable.

Behind her, hanging on the wall scarred with repeated hammering, the only mirror is destroyed, its frame mangled, reflectant shards harbor brief crystalline entreaties. The safe's door has been ripped off, and crushed. It protrudes from the top of the black walnut dresser.

Posted by autumnmuse (Member # 2136) on :

This is interesting but obviously there is no setting or background as of yet. Were you wanting crits on the whole thing? How long is it? I'll give it a read if you like, though I won't be able to get it back to you until late Thursday if that is okay.

Oh, would you mind taking a quick peek at my thrice-revised opening to Starbursts again, since your comments last time were so insightful? I couldn't remove every look or like, but I really tried to make the passage much more visceral and less passive. Did it work?

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

Word count, genre, what you want here?

Your description is vivid and really works; but description isn't what most of us read for, I think. Get straight to the action, I think, and your descriptive abilities will still get to shine.

Posted by thexmedic (Member # 2844) on :

As a descriptive piece this is really nice. The hook is more subtle than some other pieces I’ve read on this site (admittedly I’m a newb though) but you do a nice job of generating intrigue about the setting and the woman. However, if you’re going to open with description rather than action I think maybe you should ratchet the language up maybe even one more notch.

One sentence seemed a little awkward to me: “designed to deliver an agonizing toxin guaranteed to awaken the most jaded”—while the pay-off is good I was wondering if there was a way to rephrase this so the line was a little shorter. The sentence isn’t quite clunky but it softly thumps a little.

Aside from that, it’s a really nice descriptive piece, and a fairly bold opening. But like I said, I feel it needs to do even more if it’s going to make me turn the page. Maybe it’s a language thing? A few more exotic words, I’m not sure. Anyway, hope this helps. I’d enjoy reading more if have it.

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

I had difficulty with the description, actually. For some reason I thought that the irridescent scales were the jaded things that would be awakened (as you can see, I don't pay much attention to semicolons). That got me confused and I had to read it several times.

I guess that the main problem is that the imagery just doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, I can tell that this is supposed to be an SM themed bodymod, but something about it just doesn't fit. I think (and I don't really know, fetishistic bodymods aren't my field) that a key element of SM theming is that you promise the extravagant reward behind the forbidding exterior. But the actual skin of the object isn't the exterior. So an SM bodymod would want to leave the erogenous areas as inviting (by usual standards) as possible, the mods would be concentrated on the extremities, head, and back (this also works with a diabolic theme, so it does double duty). That still allows for the use of costume, even one that wasn't intended for removal (during...ah activity, I mean).

Still, I don't know much about it. I'm just guessing.

Maybe it would work if I had some POV insight into the reasoning behind this bodymod. You mixed in something like that, but I'm afraid it didn't work for me.