Hatrack River Writers Workshop: The Pressure

This is topic The Pressure - First 13 in forum Fragments and Feedback for Short Works at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by feralucce (Member # 4902) on :

***Any feedback, partial or whole***

The pressure had been building for months, and no one had seen it. Not his friends, not his supervisors, not his wife. Least of all him. The head of the call center had told him customer service was a high pressure job, and it was, but he never really noticed it. His childhood, and to a greater extent, his adult life had left him angry and bitter anyway. So it was little wonder that the effects of the stress went unnoticed in him.

He was abnormally large, standing well over six feet, and was of an intimidating bearing. Unlike most people of his towering height, he did not appear to be stretched, which made him seem even bigger than he was. People, being like sheep, and never looking deeper than the surface saw only a towering brute,

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited February 07, 2007).]

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

Summary's cool if it's needed to explain the first scene, but (although we haven't gotten to the scene yet) I don't think it's possible all this will be needed. As a matter of fact, since being under pressure at work is so common, I don't think you'll need *any*. You can start straight in. Nit: give the guy a name. Why not?

POV: you seem to be doing omni. I don't think it's working. I suggest you go into his POV so we can know him a lot better. If you do that, you won't be able to talk about the pressure building for months without him knowing (since he doesn't know!) or that he has the soul of a poet (unless he really thinks of himself that way) or the average person's reaction -- but you gain so much more.

Finally, when you get to that first scene, you'll be specific rather than general (it'll be Joe saying "don't hit me," not the average person being afraid).

Posted by Verloren (Member # 3916) on :

The first paragraph didn't really grab me - it "felt" too far away. This was probably because of the verb tense ("had been building" rather than "was building" or plain "built").

This is also a lot of summary that does little to tell me what is wrong and why this person is important other than his size.

Switching POV might work, or perhaps starting at the moment of conflict.

Keep going!

-V

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Punch up your title by dropping "The". And don't reference the title so directly in your first line. Also, for a title like "Pressure" there should be multiple interpretations possible during the course of the story. Whether or not there are, by nailing it down with a single interpretation in the opening, you exclude any others that might occur.

Other than that, I just ditto the comments already made. Give us a scene, character, and POV.

Posted by RMatthewWare (Member # 4831) on :

It's almost like reading a news article. It's very sterile to me, like I'm watching to scene through a window and I know nothing will affect me.

Also, this one might just be me. When I pick up a piece of speculative fiction, I want to know right off that something is going to happen out of the ordinary.

Matt