Clary glared at the horizon, which offered no hint of direction. There were no landmarks; there was no sun. Ashes and gloom were all that was left of the world. She was tired of coughing, tired of not being able to tell shadow from shape. The drifting ashes moved constantly into new landscapes, so something that looked surely to be shadow from one glance, might shift subtly into shape with the next glance...then get up and sidle away in a minor whirl of wind before the next glance could catalogue it again.
At first, Clary kicked some of the lumpy debris, hoping to find anything recognizable hidden underneath. But the lumps mostly hissed into clouds of gritty flakes, lighter than air motes.
posted
My first thought was - if there is no sun (ie. presumably the source of light), how is she seeing at all? If she is using some other kind of sight, tell us.
My second thought was - why is she there? It sounds like she is from away since you said "the world" instead of "her world", and I thought perhaps the word "catalogue" meant she was actually trying to catalogue something rather than just discern what the shadow shape was.
Paraphrased, I guess what I'm saying is: Given a literal reading, it's confusing me.
Overall, I'm interested and would definitly read on. I get the impression that we won't be on this world very long and this part of the story is to simply give us insight into Clary herself.
posted
Echo of the sun thing. I'm guessing this is some kind of post-apocalypse novel. Those can be good, but there are sooo many out there. Kinda much with the shadow/shape thing. I think I understand what you're saying, but if you have to explain it too much, you haven't told it right the first time.
[This message has been edited by Netstorm2k (edited April 27, 2006).]
posted
The last sentence of the first paragraph did not flow well for me. Other than that it worked well for me.
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posted
I think I *would* like this, if I knew what was going on. What *is* going on? Who's Clary, why's she glaring, where is she, what happened, and why is she here?
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You start by saying she "glared" at the horizon. First question, why is she glaring? Second question (which comes up later), how is there a horizon if there's no sun, and especially if drifting ashes are obscuring everything to the extent you describe?
I think I know what you're trying to say, but it isn't what you ended up saying.
You need to describe the situation sensibly before waxing lachrymose about it. As it is, I'm mostly figuring out what you mean by what I've learned novice writers frequently are trying to say rather than by what your words actually imply.
You can wax lyrical...but make sure that we understand the context first.
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This was my first time posting, and I kinda forgot to say what I was hoping to accomplish. But maybe not saying is best, after all, because all of this feedback is very, very helpful. (Mostly I wanted to know if it just was "blah blah blah".) It needs bit more character, a bit more background and backstory, and a tad less fluff, to paraphrase. (Any further thoughts are welcome and will be greatly appreciated.) I shall revise. Thank you all.
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posted
I'll get the hang of this eventually. (I'm pretty incompetent with e-mail, too...my computer and I are not yet friends.) I meant to ask a specific question of Netstorm2k...do you think the shadow/shape bit is too much altogether, or is it simply overdone? Thank you for the comments, all of you.
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posted
Shadow/shape isn't overdone, particularly if it is meant to be taken literally, which is very possible. But we do need the context established.
I'm guessing we have a darkened sky ala nuclear winter or somesuch, with dust/ash blowing across the landscape, reducing visibility to less than a mile. Clary is escaping from a shelter or downed vehicle inside of a blast center, and everything for several miles (possibly more) has been leveled. No clear indication on weapons used or how long ago it was, but the area is not hot. Weather patterns imply significant disruption of the local climate.
But almost all of this is conjecture based only thinly on the text. In the context I've described (along with several other possible contexts), most of the text falls into place as interesting POV based description. But that context isn't established by what you have here.
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Novice, that's up to you. It depends on whether you're trying to say that the destruction and smoke and ash make definition difficult, or if the shadows and shapes are intended to be actual concrete entities that you intend to define later.
If it is the former, I'd say that it's a bit clumsy, and repetitious, but it can be difficult to describe things that are both variable and kinda abstract. I'd try to carefully focus on the setting, and then remark what stands out. Make a little brainstorming page with words that approximate the scene. Do that, and you'll find the descriptions start forming themselves, and they'll be clear to others as well. You may have to play around with the words a bit, but that's the fun of it.
If it is the latter, then... hell, I don't know. Depends on the details. As Survivor said, it depends on the context.
posted
I like it. There is never much to go on in these things, but knowing it's sci-fi ahead of time makes me imagine things I wouldn't otherwise. At first, I got the picture of someone shuffling through a dark mist, fighting the wind for every step.
Clary has been there for long enough for the experience to be miserable, but then again if one is walking on a dead or dying planet one might be hard pressed to enjoy it at all.
I personally got the image of "the" world, as in "the only" world, but in a sf reading it seems that would mean either the MC is ignorant of other worlds, or holds this world in higher regard than the others.
On the flip side, if it's "the world" meaning "a world the MC happens to be on at the time" then it seems like she knew about it’s destruction before hand. I got the impression that she was (in that case) doing something to try and stop the end of the world, but was unsuccessful and possibly even partially responsible for the whole thing.
I would say take out the second "glance" but then you would have to take out the third, and then you'd have to rewrite the whole sentence, so I can deal with it.
When I remembered that it was a SF piece, it made me think that Clary might not be walking through darkness. Shadows, figuratively speaking, are things that you can't really make out whether visual or mental. Literal shadows are cast by something blocking light, and light, like generators and electricity, might be present on a dying SF planet. Also, because it is a SF piece, I got the impression that Clary is going to be leaving soon, b/c there are the means (probably) and the motivation (she doesn't like it there) to do so.
Anyway, I thought it sounded different than the sort of thing you find in gas stations, and that hooked me to the doom and gloom motif. Thumbs up.
posted
Well, this revision will highlight how bad the first draft was. And the revision may not be much better, but that isn't because your comments weren't helpful, it's just because this is the first time I've tried to write with specific comments in mind. I've tried to address each of your critiques, and I'm certain I've missed in a few places. Any additional feedback will be welcome.
Clary wanted to know the time, even though she knew it didn't matter. The campus had burned with everything else, so she wasn't missing classes. She simply wanted to know if it was day or night, if day and night even happened anymore. Since the fires it was always dusk. Or dawn. Always half-light, red-tinted like those nocturnal displays at the zoo. If the sun rose and set, it did so behind such thick clouds and haze that its light never grew brighter than the guttering glow from the fires.
The world was all caustic ashes and gloom, foul fumes and weightless motes. No one else had survived, no one to see how Clary's right eye winced and ran, how she had a constant nosebleed.
posted
This is better in many ways. It still stops a little short of answering the question of where she is. We don't need her actual location, since she might not know. But her relative location is probably good enough.
Currently, I'm tempted to think that she's on the campus, but it doesn't seem like that is the case. I'd also like to know where she's trying to go, since I doubt she's just looking for a clock. There is a bit of a POV problem in that you don't have Clary really thinking hard about how long it has been like this even though you say she really wants to know.
If she's been in this situation for more than one waking period, I'd say you should throw caution to the wind and start with her waking up. It would tell us a lot about her situation.
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