quote:
The tea was hot and spicy and exotic all at once. May took a gulp and then spoke. "I understand. Thank you. You have been very kind to me." There. Said. The necessary thank you. It was a thank you for nothing, of course, things remained as messed up as before, but now for more tea. She took two more gulps, felt the faint wisps of steam in her mouth, and for a moment, felt far away, felt as if she were a dragon.
Amantry slammed the table. Everything rattled. The sound of expensive dishes clattering was hollow and pretty. "It is not fine. Where is your bloody sister? How can such a chit disappear with such audacious efficiency? Where is she?""Maybe somewhere in the city, or maybe by the river, or by the frogs or by the butterflies, it is a beautiful day for playing. And--"
These are the first 13 lines of a short story; do they pique your interest? Where do they falter? Thanks in advance.
[This message has been edited by Phanto (edited February 25, 2007).]
[This message has been edited by Phanto (edited February 25, 2007).]
[This message has been edited by Phanto (edited February 25, 2007).]
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited February 28, 2007).]
My reaction: I like getting May's thoughts and attitude; this is cool.
I started having a problem here:
things remained as messed up as before
This distances me from both character and story, becuase she knows what things being messed up means, but I don't have any idea. I'd much rather know that than get the details about tea, which even she doesn't care about.
Second, the first things May says is, "I understand." She understands what? You give a beautiful opportunity to think the answer to us in the lines that follow, but pass it up. Since you're starting in the middle of something, I'd like to know right away what we're in the middle of.
Let me add that it's a pleasure to see two names whom I recognize from back in the day! Awesome that you've been keeping at it ^^;;.
[This message has been edited by Phanto (edited February 26, 2007).]
I'd add that it's probably not necessary to spend so many words of your first manuscript page on the tea as you did in the first sentence: maybe cut "all at once" (it can't be those things serially), maybe combine the first two sentences. Of course, you may argue that you like the tea, and you might very briefly combine more than two senses in your description -- tea is great for that, and you might do some good characterization of May (by her perception) or Amantry (because it's particularly expensive, or weird, or whatever) that way. (I'm blathering. Sorry.)
More important is djvdakota's comment about "I understand." Since I don't understand, and May does, please tell me.
Regards,
Oliver
As with any crit, this is just my opinion, YMMV, take what you need and leave the rest.
Your general set-up is intriguing and your characters feel pretty strong, but there are a lot of ways you could make it brighter and clearer, I think. You might try dropping the ands in the first sentence and just use the commas. This will give that whole set-up more immediacy, so you could just drop the "all at once" (since it's pretty much implied with the more succinct construction) and spend those words (character spaces, really, in the 13 line, fixed font concept) to further your story in a more powerful way. (With a change of this type, I think was works better than tasted.) (Oh, and once you've played around with the whole thing, if you have a wee bit of line-space to spare, give the tea a name. If it's 'real' tea, let it be some special or specific type of tea or it's an herbal or a conlang alien tea or whatever, but you're making the tea enough of a feature that it'll play its part better if you make it that little bit more distinctive by giving it a name.)
In the next sentence, "gulp" doesn't really go with 'hot' in my mind, unless May is one of those iron-mouth characters. Sip is more evocative of hot, I think, and if you use sip, you can make the whole sentence more active by doing something like 'Mary sipped, then spoke', which is also punchier and saves you a few more character spaces. You might even consider using those spaces to invoke another sense by putting something about fragrant steam from the tea or a sound in the room or coming in through a window or something.
I like what comes next. Those one-word sentences really pack punch, and the short sentence fragment works pretty well too (I'm sort of a fan of that kind of thing, used sparingly and in just the right places). Following that though, the "It was a" sentence opener isn't really needed. You could just go 'Thank you for nothing...' You might also let that sentence end after 'course' and start a new one for the next bit, which needs a serious re-work. I know you can come up with something smoother and more precise than the 'messed up' bit. It's ok if you want to keep things sort of mysterious, but that is just too vaguely written. imo.
In the next sentence, I again don't like 'gulp', though the tea might have cooled a tiny bit, I guess, but something like a long slow or deep sip might be better and still leave a great opening for what comes next, which is conceptually quite brilliant. There may be an even better way to express it, but I definitely find it intriguing and am wondering if it is a foreshadowing and if so, what does it foreshadow? This is a good thing. (Heh heh... it keeps bringing to my mind the recent developments in that progressive story that just revived on the Writing Class board, not that your story has to go in that particular direction. 
) I don't think you need the comma after "moment", as it sits. As for what comes next, as I said, I love the concept. I just love the line you draw between the steam in her mouth and the idea of a dragon.
I like the concept very much, but again, it could be sharpened up and the rhythm could beimproved (rhythm in prose is sometimes a hard thing to pin down, but it can be important to drawing the reader smoothly on, and I've sort of got a feel for it, probably because of all the songwriting and poetry I used to do). It would be nice if something tied the 'far away' and 'dragon' together a little more, because as they sit now, they are both good images but a little disjointed, and you could use that addition to alter the flow. Depending on where you go with that, you might not need the second 'felt'. You might try something like 'felt far away, something-that-connects-the-two, as if she were a dragon.' and see what you think. That something else might have something to do with a sense of altitude or you might come up with something entirely different and even more creative that does the job, but something to tie the two and change the rhythm a little to give it a better flow.
Amantry makes a strong dramatic entrance, but it would be nice if there were some little visual clue somewhere in that paragraph beyond the fact that she's got a fist. You've got a long enough little stretch of dialogue there that you could break it with a short-ish beat that could add another descriptive note and possibly even an emotional show-clue as well... her whatever-color eyes could flash or grow cold, her hair could crackle, her square jaw could clench, etc, or some brief combination thereof... whatever strikes you the most when you make your own mind-picture of that scene and see what she's looking like. Take that thing and try making it into a descriptive beat, either after the second spoken sentence or after the third. It wouldn't take many words to be just enough, and you'll save some by tightening other bits. Play around with it and see what you think.
A little beat in the middle of May's response would be good, too, probably after 'butterflies'—a breath or a gesture or some other small thing, so we keep seeing the story as well as hearing it. Again, play around with it (save anything you like as you go along!) and see what you come up with, but I think a small beat in there would help.
If you can give a little clearer picture of your characters, it may help at least some readers who don't understand what's going on yet to care enough to want to hang in and find out.
The 'crack' is good. I really don't think you need the "ended her speech", because you already did that with the dash and the crack. I also don't think you need to explain so extensively that she didn't realize she was holding the cup so hard, though going straight to 'Her grip' is maybe too abrupt. Perhaps she could do something else more show-y... stare at her own hands in amazement or wonder at her own strength or something. Something that would show her 'not realizing' and in the process show a feature or mannerism or characteristic of her. Think about it anyway. Again, it would paint a clearer picture.
I think you could drop "forward" without losing anything (and pick up a little more space if you need it for something more important). The cracking to echo the crack is very nice. See if you can come up with something you like that is more precisely pictured than "spilled everywhere". Keep it short, but again, try to really see it in your own mind, specifically. I would think that tea in a falling cup would be more likely to splash or splatter or spatter or something than just spill. And instead of 'everywhere', think about where it's primarily splashing or spreading itself out. The plate? The tablecloth? (Heh heh... does any of it splash on the angry Amantry? ) With just a very few more words, you could again give a sharper, clearer picture.
It's a good beginning though. You've got two strong characters. I would like to have a clearer picture of them (even just a little bit, just a feature or characteristic or two more would help), but still I'm curious for sure about why one seems so bitter and one is so riled, and then there's that dragon reference.... You've definitely got my interest, Phanto. The best of the writing here is very good, the ideas are strong, and I'm sure it'll get better if you work on it some more.
There's no way I can realistically commit to a full crit on 10K anytime in the near future... come Thursday, the fact that I leave for my writing conference and visit in CA in less than three weeks is going to start looming like... aw heck every single way I can think of to describe it as tired as I am right now is a cliché, but anyway.... If you get to where you've got a draft with some polish that you're pretty happy with, I might be able to at least skim through it and give you some overall tips to take you further. I'm good at spotting things like too many of certain 'little words' and flow stuff like sentence lengths and such, where even a few clues in the right direction can help a re-write. Do feel free to e me if you get to where you have something you'd like me to look at, and I'll try to squeeze something in that might give you some more food for thought.
I think it will help you in this if you keep striving to get a really clear picture of your scene and characters in your own mind, examine it for specificity, and then try to write more precisely (but still simply, using, in general, the least and simplest words that can really do the job) what you are seeing. Good luck with this! I really do think it's a good beginning... and I really do want to know what's going to happen next!
Regards,
SharonID
The visuals are nice, the wisps of steam, and the sound of expensive dishes clattering, but beyond that, I'm not really hooked by the story.
Matt
It would help to know up front what and who she is responding to. If she is the PoV character, then let the reader inside a bit. Is she lying? If she's the PoV character, I think the reader should know.
For example, she first says "I understand." I would like to know what she understands.