Hatrack River Writers Workshop: The body is like a honeycomb.. please review my opening

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Posted by Willster328 (Member # 3321) on :

Part of what I'm trying to achieve in this opening paragraph of this story of mine, is a sense of myster as well as a negative feeling toward this one object and it's puropse. Please read this paragraph and review it with any feedback. I'm a big fan of capturing the audience with a beginning paragraph, and many of the classic literature pieces have famous opening paragraphs, so I'm trying to match this same goal:

The silver needle glistened in the light, collecting all the dust particles and dirt particles. He held it daintily in his hand, grabbing it like some fragile, crystilline, and valuable object of untold worth. It felt light in his hand, but he knew its potential to endager its victims. It was comparable to some handgun, like a 9mm, the popular weapon in that area. A gun can give immeasurable powet to someone, the power to take life. Testosterone Heptylate. Liquid Muscle. Bad tempers, skin discoloration, acne, and cancer. A wrecking ball of impact, bear-like in mass, bulking muscles like a cow flank, veins running up forearms like highways on a state map. It was a level of inhuman achievement, like some genetic mutation, it seeped through the body as if it were a living honeycomb, the steroids, like a

My short story is that of a team of football players in highschool in a run-down city lifestyle. There are many problems they face, but I want to start off the story with this instance of illegal drug usage, and to stage how I want the reader's opinion to be formulated on the matter. This is the first paragraph of the story, and I decided to make a page break and my second paragraph of the story is a completely different matter. I use this literary device to predetermine how the reader views the rest of the characters.
Here's the second paragraph though, if you have time to look at this that'd be nice too:

This is the second paragraph to my story, and I want it to be the same sort of illegal substance feeling given off by the first paragraph. Please review these two and I'd be greatly appreciative.

[This message has been edited by Willster328 (edited March 26, 2006).]

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited March 28, 2006).]

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

My problem is not understanding. What's this silver needle? *Is* it a crystalline object of untold worth? What is that potential to endanger its victims? These questions get answered later, but I don't like being confused in the meantime.

Consider this order:

Testosterone Heptylate. Liquid Muscle. Bad tempers, skin discoloration, acne, and cancer. A wrecking ball of impact, bear-like in mass, bulking muscles like a cow flank, veins running up forearms like highways on a state map.

He brought the instrument, the syringe, into his right buttocks, and injected the poison into his flesh, and slowly withdrew the needle-point and suffocated the wound with a cotton swab, as if he were trying to clot a massive amount of blood flowing from the puncture.

...still, I want to know his name; and I want to know WHY he's doing this, as soon as he does it.

Posted by Willster328 (Member # 3321) on :

Well, i take so long to officially say what it is, because I want the initial response to the instrument as some sort of mystery. I want the reader to actively think while reading my story that I'm reading, I don't know if thats an appealing strategy, but that was my goal.

And why he does it is later explained in the book. It goes more into the developement of my character.

Instead of just flat out telling my reader that the character is A, B, and C, I want the reader to see Problem X so that they can piece together why the character is A, B, and C. I want it to be intuitive.

And the reason why I don't state the character, is because I want the reader to be suspicious of all the characters in the beginning of the story, if I just flat out said who does it then they'd only feel that way about one character. Maybe I'm going about my strategy wrong, but thats what I was trying to achieve.

Posted by Ray (Member # 2415) on :

You really need to introduce your character, or at least give me a name, because I've got no connection whatsoever to this story.

Oh, wait, I'm reading your explanation below, and he's using drugs? Why didn't you just say so from the beginning of the story? Witholding that info isn't creating mystery, it's just confusing and aggravating. Make sure to tell the reader first thing that the MC is getting high, then you can write all the rest of your paragraph in without me getting frustrated. Although, this is a lot of imagery for me to get down all at once.

And I'm gonna repeat wbriggs, tell me why is doing this. Is it his first time? Is he a habitual user? Where's he doing it at? That'd be nice to know, considering that addicts tend to do these things in private.

Posted by FastCat (Member # 3281) on :

The problem for me in this piece is that I am essentially lazy, and this is stunningly different in writing approach to most other writing examples. I can’t say its bad, just so different that I am challenged to put up with the tone of the writing, and I don’t wanna. This is not saying that I might not be missing out on a well written story just that it makes it hard to want to read it. That being said though it definitely has a personality to it which some of the stories I have read do not.

A few mechanical things that may have added to my difficulty in reading this:

Crystalline does not make sense with the second sentence. How about "...a fragile object of untold worth".

"Felt light in his hand...", does that necessarily translate to harmless? Otherwise, I do not get the link to how it can endanger its victims.

I am not liking the painting of the needle as the wrongdoer in this imagery and the guy jamming it into his buttocks as the victim.

"gun can give immeasureable power...", then you go ahead and define that power: to take a human life.

I don't know if its helpful to explain the whole story with the first 13. I feel the temptation to do this also but I think this kind of misses the point of seeing if the reader can understand the gist of the story. For example, you told us that the rest of the story was going to be about drug use so I prejudged the first 13 based on this. If I picked this story up in the bookstore I wouldn't know all that though.

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

Thing is, you don't create a sense of mystery by confusing the reader about what MC knows. What happens is that the reader puts the book down. To create a sense of mystery, tell the reader almost everything, and let him puzzle out the problem with the MC. This, from OSC's writing class: "Suspense is about the reader knowing 99% of what's going on, and not knowing 1%."

Some past discussions on this:

Just tell me http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum1/HTML/002716.html

Keeping secrets from the reader http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum1/HTML/002021.html

2 cents

Posted by benskia (Member # 2422) on :

Hi.

Might I suggest you tell us the length of this story.
If it's a novel, you might get away with the wordy intro that you wrote. Though it does seem a little long-whinded in my opinion.

If it's a short story, then this is definately overboard. Tell us straight out that some guy is injecting himself & then have him "imagining" what it is doing to his insides. Maybe even disgusted with the facts of what he is doing, but compelled to do so to achieve results.

Posted by kings_falcon (Member # 3261) on :

My 2 cents for whatever they are worth . . .

There was too much imagry for the first 13 lines. The effect is that the reader has to do too much work to understand what is happening.

I thought wbriggs's suggestion of telling us what is in the syringe(Liquid muscle . . . .) right up front. That drew me in and made me ask "why is this character who I assume is the MC using steriods?" which, I think, is the question you want the reader asking.

Also, if the steroid use is a throw away i.e. not directly related to what happens next, throw it away or at least move it. When you jump locations and POV from the opening paragraph to the second paragraph you are apt to lose readers. We are just getting invested in Mr. NoName Steriod User and you leave him behind without telling us why. If Jack, who appears in the second paragraph, is the MC start there or VERY quickly as in the first line or two connect the 1st paragraph with what is going on.

Jumping POV is very difficult and you need to ask does it really help tell the story? If the reader needs to know what is in everyone's head, you may want to write 3rd person omniscient, which is equally challenging.