Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Hope For Five

This is topic Hope For Five in forum Fragments and Feedback for Short Works at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Temuchin (Member # 3278) on :

Alright - this is a work my friend and I have been colaborating on for a while. It's as yet unfinished, but will probably end up being a contemporary short story. At the moment it's ~9,000 words (16 pages in MS Word), so bear that in mind if you offer to read it.

Don't remember if I should offer a synopsis or not, so I'll hold onto it unless it's asked for.

Also of note - there's a small introduction, but it adds nothing substantial to the story and I wanted to get your opinions on the beginning.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Note from Kathleen: only one set of 13 lines per story, please, and those thirteen lines should be the first 13 lines in order to benefit from the whole point of the "first 13 lines" approach

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Thanks, and let me know what you think!

~Temuchin

[This message has been edited by Temuchin (edited March 05, 2006).]

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited March 07, 2006).]

Posted by Temuchin (Member # 3278) on :

On second thought, with the limit to only thirteen lines, the intro might be needed here:

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Many readers find it unpleasant when an author introduces his work. I admit, I have often thought it a weakness in an author if he cannot tell his own story without an introduction. However, this author is not here to be a great author; I am here to tell of an adventure. And adventures warrant explanations.

Five friends escaped from lives they did not want. They had the hope that there was more than what their world could give them. They clung to it when they had nothing else; that hope lit the way for them, and it may for you too someday.

That hope always lights the way in darkness; that happiness shall forever trump despair; that it is not foolish to desire more: these are the lessons. This is their story.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

Mostly I'm liking this. The memory description didn't work for me. You gave a visual image of them (creeping up), but Beth isn't experiencing them that way; she's remembering the upraised knife, or the screaming child, or whatever it is that she doesn't want to remember. Tell us what it is (and, of course, you can keep the feeling of dread, which is the hook).

(That was about the first post. About the second: I'd skip it. That is, if I were a reader, I'd skip it, looking for the story.)

[This message has been edited by wbriggs (edited March 05, 2006).]

Posted by Silver3 (Member # 2174) on :

I'd have to agree with Will here. That Beth can think that way about her memories suggests that in fact she's not traumatized at all. Vague, frightening images would work better, all the more so since they're in striking contrast to the peace you describe before.

And I'd strike out the "sinister" from "sinister cue", which would make the whole thing a little less melodramatic.

Posted by Temuchin (Member # 3278) on :

So noted. Also, to dissuade any more notions: The memories she's talking about are of her normal life, before she and her friends ran away. The descriptions, though, were lines 14-16, so I had to cut them.

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Wait, was that the whole intro? And are you creating a narrator character here, or are you just writing an apologetic intro to your own story?

If your narrator character is a person who exists in the world of your story (in other words, is a fictional person telling the fictional events as history rather than fiction), then I can understand having an intro of this sort (though this intro is, in itself, a failure).

If not, then don't have the intro at all.

As for the opening itself, you use a regressive temporal structure leading into a flashback. It may have literary merit, but it felt terrible. I thought that you were doing well with establishing the physical scene, but where you should have been establishing the present context of that scene you're lapsing off into the past. I don't know if that was clear so I'll explain a little.

Did she want to live here, or is she compelled to do so against her will? Are there other people, a village or anything like that? Is this real or illusion? All of these questions occurred to me because of the way you slid away from the present after only creating a superficial setting.

Posted by Temuchin (Member # 3278) on :

Survivor - that's the whole intro, and yes, there's a narrator who will be in the story.

The flashback is only temporary - she remembers her past life, pushes it away, then goes on with the story.

This limit of 13 lines is crippling.

Posted by pixydust (Member # 2311) on :

Does she have to remember her past in the first 13?

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

The way to do the first-13 excerpt is to write the story as best you can, and then post the first 13 lines. Doesn't matter if that ends a section or not (and it probably won't). I'm not stating a law, just saying how it's usually done.

Why the problem with the first 13 isn't that it's too short
http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum1/HTML/002662.html

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

If that's the whole intro, I should be able to tell that the narrator is not you, but a fictional character. I can't. That's why the intro is a failure as it stands now.

Also, if the narrator is a fictional character, then the intro by the narrator is the beginning of your story's text, and that's what you should post as the first thirteen (though it isn't a hard and fast rule that you must post the first thirteen lines, just that it will be easier for people to get an idea of how well you start your story that way).

As for the flashback being "only" temporary, I never supposed it was anything else. Very few stories let the flashback continue indefinitely so that the story never returns to the present in which it began.

Don't let yourself get hung up on thirteen lines. Besides, if you start posting more than that, all that would happen (even if KDW didn't edit your posts) would be that everyone would stop reading after about twenty lines rather than telling you why they didn't want to read more than thirteen. Remember, everyone here is able to read more if they feel like it (well, actually it's a bit more complex, I just don't have time right now, for example). If they don't feel like reading past that point, then posting more won't help you any.

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

KDW didn't edit the posts because she hasn't decided which 13 lines to delete.

I think I'll go with the first "first 13 lines" because they aren't actually the first 13 lines, and I'll leave the introduction up there.