Wrote this the other night while I was at work.
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I saw an old man, walking up the sun baked road. The small puffs of dust escaping from underneath his steps, left a wake of his approach. He looked weathered, like he has seen more than I will ever know. As he approached, I could see that he was favoring his right hip more than he should. I started out the road, to see if I could help him. As I approached, he just stopped. His pants were soaked in blood, which I mistook for dirt. His eyes were steel gray. The life in him seemed to have been replaced with sorrow, yet hope sparked deep in those steal gray wells.

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Not sure why or how the rest to the 13 lines didnt get posted

Second, I don't really have anything yet that makes me care about reading further. I know it's hot and there's an old guy with a limp walking around. Not too terribly interesting at this point. There's no hook here for me. I hope it is in the next 7 lines, because then I might be inclined to read more. If it isn't, then I'd stop reading and move on to something else.

Third, the flow or something doesn't feel right to me. I kept reading the same piece over and over again (the small puffs part) because it was worded in a way that didn't make much sense to me. I already know it is sun-baked, so you don't have to give more detail here. On the other hand, you could leave out the sun-baked part and just tell me about the dust so I get it myself (that would be my preference, but you know this piece better than I do).

Fourth, I wonder if it is valuable to give us this rough, short piece. Wouldn't it be more valuable to work through the entire piece (especially such a short one) at least once, then go back and edit, then post (you say it's 100% complete, but this short excerpt doesn't seem to jive with that)? I guess I'm not sure whether you are just looking for info about whether this is a good topic, or whether you are a good writer, or whether this is a good intro?

Hope my ramblings help

-V

[This message has been edited by Verloren (edited March 15, 2007).]

Not the only way, of course.

You say that he looks weathered, which means to me that he's been outside in the weather a lot and that the weather has left a mark on him. Yet you correlate his weathered appearance with seeing things. Did you mean that he looked haggard?

As was already pointed out, I'm not sure how wet blood (implied by the word 'soaked') could be mistaken for dirt.

quote:

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His eyes were steel gray. The life in him seemed to have been replaced with sorrow, yet hope sparked deep in those steal gray wells.

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You can drop the 'His eyes were steel gray" and say "...deep in his steel-gray eyes" instead. Otherwise the eye color description is repetitive. I assume you meant to use 'steel' instead of 'steal' in "...those steal gray wells."