Posted by Radone (Member # 5308) on :
The list was meant to be an arrogant summation of what he's done. And the last line is meant to be depressing. What I'd like to know is this: based on the first 13 lines, would you want to know who this man is? Does he seem broken despite his accomplishments? And if he is broken, does he seem interesting enough to want to see him whole?
The shroud was like a burial shroud. Not literally, but as though he had pressed past a dead existence and into a living one.
I think I should set that oblique metaphor aside and just say it.
Posted by Alye (Member # 5017) on :
I don’t want to be ruthless, but I’m going to let you know how I feel about this not to provoke a confrontation, but so you know what I truly thought while reading this.
From the first 13 lines, I already don’t like the guy. He seems arrogant, flaunting his higher education at me. I went to college, but geez. This guys seems to be more of the villain than the hero.
I’m not going to read for long about a super genius. Don’t flaunt his accomplishments. Let him be smart but don’t let him know it. He will be much more likable if he comes out knowing the right things at the right time rather than telling us outright that he has an Ivy League education.
It’s almost if you fell in to the trap of antihero by making him obnoxious instead of characterizing him.
My take:
I was 28 years old when I learned that all my accomplishments mean nothing. Until then, I had thought that I was a happy man, ticking of everything on my ethereal checklist. That was my life. Ticking off accomplishments, one by one, in a linear sequence, hoping that at the end of the run I would find happiness. My solace and hope had always been that the . . . .
[This message has been edited by Alye (edited April 04, 2007).]
Posted by arriki (Member # 3079) on :
Oh well, I agree with someone earlier on who said he preferred to start reading about something happening rather than a long internalization of angst (?) on the part of the pov.
"Happy 28th!" read the cardboard sign tacked to his office door.
Pov pulled it down. Twenty-eight! He shut the door behind him and looked around at the spare office. No window. Two sheepskins tacked to the wall attesting the fact he had endured to the end of two degrees.
"Mary called." said the note on his computer screen. "Said not to call any more."
He sat down in the chair at his desk. He really should get to work on the Microsoft proposal. Really. He really should. John would be in before lunch asking if it was finished.
not great but a slight bit more active. What I was trying to do was to get the feel across without telling the reader what the reader should feel the pov is feeling.
Anyway...just my opinion
[This message has been edited by arriki (edited April 04, 2007).]
Posted by Radone (Member # 5308) on :
Thanks all. Alye, I think you hit it on the head. It seems to be a common assessment that he is all too aware of his own accomplishments and comes off as arrogant. I don't want him to generate that kind of negativity from the get-go, so some changes will have to be made.
Posted by jeffrey.hite (Member # 5278) on :
First let me say good job, I am interested and want to know more about this guy. And that is the point of this, Right?
I think that you have a hint of a hook. I would read on but I am a very patient reader. (I read the same book to three kids in a row some nights) So in short, I think you need more. I was interested when I read the first line, but there is not enough on that first line for me to turn the page.
IMHO I think that you can move either the list of accomplishments or the "a respected young astronomer working at the Cincinnati Institute of Technology." down to the next paragraph. I would suggest the list, since that would give you the most room to develop a hook.
Nit picking. I am reading right a long and then I see a ;. Am I supposed to to pause twice as long as a comma, or only 2/3's, or is it like it's cousin the:? What is a : anyway? For that matter being a semi : does that make it only half as good? I think you get my point. It is a distraction. Again IMHO there are no hard a fast rules about punctuation in fiction but for me the ; is a deal breaker.
Posted by InarticulateBabbler (Member # 4849) on :
quote:
The list was meant to be an arrogant summation of what he's done. And the last line is meant to be depressing.
[Well then, you succeeded.]What I'd like to know is this: based on the first 13 lines, would you want to know who this man is?
[As it sets, no.]
Does he seem broken despite his accomplishments?
[Not to me. He seems whiny. It seems like he's mad at the world for not patting him on the back.]The shroud was like a burial shroud. Not literally, but as though he had pressed past a dead existence and into a living one.
I think I should set that oblique metaphor aside and just say it. [I agree: Just say it.]
I don't mind an arrogant character, if it's a likeable or acceptable arrogance. This goes hand-in-hand with a Rogue-type protagonist. It is also fitting with a plethora of antagonists. However, I'm not interested in a story where the protagonist's motivation is arrogance.
Posted by MrsBrown (Member # 5195) on :
Your first line: I was twenty-eight years old when I stepped through the shroud that was my life.
Set me up for a really cool SF/F experience where the shroud was some kind of mystical alteration of his existence. I'm dissapointed to find that's not what you were going for 
Keep at it! Lots of good feedback already.
Posted by Radone (Member # 5308) on :
Mrs. Brown, I'm not going for the literal 'burial shroud' but I assure you, I am going for a mystical alteration in his life. This critiquing stuff is tough. It's so hard to strike that balance between having faith in what I've written and trying to please those who are reading it.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
Well, not pleasing them so much as making it clear what you are trying to say.
Posted by Hunter (Member # 4991) on :
Well, I'm reading this after Kathleen edited your opening. So I didn't get the bit about him being depressed. I don't know if that changes my reading or not.
If the hook is supposed to be what keeps a reader going, I think you have the hook in the first sentence, but the mystery in the first line is dropped to parade the MC's accomplishments which is kind of boring. I want to know what you meant by shroud. The way you say, "Step through the shroud that was my life," made me think of the veil of perception. If he has somehow stepped through it, I want to know how and how it has effected him.
That's not to say that a philisophical discussion is going to grab every reader.
Posted by Radone (Member # 5308) on :
Here is the re-write.
When I was twenty-eight, I followed my dreams and died. It was a suicide of sorts but also a re-birth; a renewal that I accepted with sorrow.
It all began at lunch.
“What are you reading there, Jason?”
I looked up. It was my mentor, Professor Douglas Nelson, a red-faced, cherubic looking man with a trim, white beard; plump and short, he looked like a right jolly, old elf. He was fifty-seven, with a wife, three grown children, and five grandchildren, but somehow the wonder of discovery had never left him. He always seemed on the verge of a smile. Here was a man in love with living.
[This message has been edited by Radone (edited April 07, 2007).]
Posted by Alye (Member # 5017) on :
I like this one much better.
I would amend that first paragraph to include the second one...maybe it's that that it reads badly, the cadence seems off. Maybe its the transitions from the 1st to the 3rd (flashback) that is off for me. "It all began at lunch." seems so sudden to me.
I donno, I'm just babbling right now. Two days no sleep, really alters your perception on reality.
Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :
The trouble with pushing through the shroud as the hook is that the question isn't "what's going to happen?" but "what's the author talking about?"
I get the same problem with the new first paragraph. Apparently he "died," but he isn't dead. He followed his dreams, but we don't know what dreams. He accepted the renewal with sorrow, but we don't know what's to be sad about. So I don't know if he's alive or dead or, well, anything, from that first sentence.
I think it's a great idea to do a foreshadowing before the lunch conversation, as a hook, but it won't hook me unless I understand it.
Posted by Tanglier (Member # 1313) on :
I like it. I like the sing song approach. At 150k, there isn't a rush. Some people live their lives by a checklist, and such a life has its virtues and vices. I'm not crazy about the first sentence. I'd start the book with "I had thought I was a happy man;" but that's me.
Nice work, congrats.
[This message has been edited by Tanglier (edited April 09, 2007).]
Posted by debhoag (Member # 5493) on :
i like the original. I don't see the changes as being better, just different. the first version has a kind of orwellian quality to it, although i kind of liked the 'died at lunch' thing too. It is suggestive of depths of events and it's got a great rythym to it (if i could spell rythym, that would be more of a compliment) don't change just for the sake of changing it, you have style.
deb
Posted by InarticulateBabbler (Member # 4849) on :
quote:
When I was twenty-eight, I followed my dreams and died [inside<--This word would add a lot]. It was a suicide of sorts but also a re-birth; a renewal that I accepted with sorrow.
It all began at lunch.
“What are you reading there, Jason?”
I looked up. It was my mentor, Professor Douglas Nelson, a red-faced, cherubic looking man with a trim, white beard; plump and short, he looked like a right jolly, old elf. He was fifty-seven, with a wife, three grown children, and five grandchildren, but somehow the wonder of discovery had never left him.[I have to take a couple of deep breaths, mentally here. This is long and an info-dump. I wonder if it intrudes on WHAT "all began" at lunch. I've got a feeling the "what" would hook me.]He always seemed on the verge of a smile. Here was a man in love with living.
lol - since someone dragged this post back out, I realized that I hadn't commented on the rewrite...