Critique Thread i've started work on a new short story

cont.

When she emerged from the house with her two buckets clattering on their pole, Esmeralda found a pale and silent island softened by its veil of fog. It clung to the trees, hung shining dewdrops in the grass, whisped noiselessly across the colorless sands of the beaches. As it moved in sheets and layers before her eyes, it would hide and then reveal the long fishhook of the island where it stretched out to sea. The well was out there, on the furthest curved point of the hook, an ancient and mossy cairn of stones built before living memory. There was a freshwater grotto immediately next to the house, but the Old Woman had long ago declared its waters unfit for drinking and warned Esmeralda never to go near it. Rebellious, she crept from the house one clear and moonlight night after this pronouncement to taste from a dipper its waters, and found them as clean and drinkable as she remembered. The next morning she sat by the grotto for as long as it took her normally to walk to the well and back, then filled the buckets and brought them inside. The Old Woman took one sip, knocked the bucket to the floor, and struck Esmeralda on the ear with her cane.

“You try to make a fool of me? That water is from the grotto.”

“What does it matter?” said Esmeralda, nursing her stinging ear, “it’s good, clean water, I tested it myself.”

“Ignorant child,” said the Old Woman, “the problem is not with the water, but what is in it.”

And she would say no more. She could be maddeningly cryptic at times, and if it pained her to keep secrets from her sole human companion it was not apparent to Esmeralda. She spent all that morning mopping water from the scuffed floorboards. Now she made the daily walk to the well without complaint. In retrospect, it seemed silly to shirk this middling chore with so little else to do on such a small island.

>>8623544
It's not bad. The plot, or what's been posted so far of it, is interesting. It reads a little slow though. Something clunky about it. Doesn't pop for me. It almost sounds a little outdated. If you're like the rest of /lit/ and don't read books written post-1980 (excluding that book from '96), you should do so.

It's absolutely worth finishing though, and I do like the whole thing about not waking up her island-mate. Immediately had me asking questions, which made me want to read more.

>>8623581

now that you mention it, I don't read many modern books. I do want it the writing feel sort of old fashioned, like a fairy tale, but not to the story's detriment.

I think it's kind of bad, man. Not the story (which I didn't read), but your prose style. It's kinda corny to me cause it's so outdated. Also "Old Woman" (w/ caps) is kind of weird, along with the name "Esmeralda" (too whimsical for me).

>>8623870

who are some modern writers with prose styles you like? Getting similar feedback from different people is making me conscious of the fact that most of my writing influences are 60+ years old.

Ok lets just stick to the gorst sentence. We go from somebody waking up, to them fetching water, to treading carefully on 'regions' of floorboards (wft) to the reason for the careful treading. And we meet two characters. In one sentence.

The writing isnt great and needs a lot editing, BUT...I am insterested in your story, so it can go somewhere.

>>8623907
Well if it brings you any solace, you're already head and shoulders above leddit.

To your question–I have no idea. The only interesting nu-prose I've read has been stuff from Sam Hyde and Seinfeld2000 (I thought The Apple Store was really funny).

You shouldn't trust the advice of random people on /lit/, but I provisionally recommend that, when you read the old masters (as you clearly do often), you should strive to absorb their patterns of thought more than their patterns of speech. Maybe that involves translating every sentence they say into regular English before you let it into your mind, maybe it just involves trying to not see the prose at all–but that's my advice. TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT!!!

It was mid-June and Gretchen had staked out the Beeferly house for months, but it had only taken a second of digging through their mail for him to find out where they were vacationing for the next two weeks. He pulled the handle, pushed the car door open, and stepped out onto the street a block away from the home. He had nothing to worry about. The Beeferly's were sipping fancy drinks from coconuts in the hot Hawaiian sun, and only their agoraphobic daughter remained in the house. When most hardened psychopaths break into a home they're looking for two things: A good-looking woman to rape, or some valuable stuff to steal, but Gretchen wasn't interested in either.

>>8623927

I guess I see your point, but when I wrote it I felt that it was good to give a lot of information quickly to establish the story. Do you find it overcomplicated?

>>8623928

I'd rather get harsh criticism than halfhearted compliments. Thanks for the advice

>>8623937

Not enough here yet to make a judgment about the story or the character, but some details I noticed:

> not necessary to say "mid-june" at the beginning, it just distracts from what the character is doing
> too many words devoted to him getting out of the car
> im confused by the fact that hes staked out the house for month, but apparently didnt think to go through their mail until after all that? Am I understanding the chronology here?

The night before I got paroled, I couldn’t sleep. I took all of Desiree’s letters and piled them beneath the sheet under my head. I stayed up in the orange glow, willing the local college radio station’s jazz program to drown the muttering, snoring hum of the condemned one last time. The DJ finally stopped talking and put on “Flamenco Sketches.” You ever hear that song? The bass rolls you gently, up and down, up and down; crest to trough, crest to trough. It’s comfortable. It’s warm. You float. Coltrane’s saxophone floats along with you. He shows you what he sees when it crests. He shows you how he feels in the trough. But then when it’s that dope fiend Bill’s turn, he does something different. He doesn’t present you with a seafaring vessel. The bass rolls and, unexpectedly, his piano conjures a single, pure marble step. It stands immobile as the waves wash right over it. Then above it, he creates another. And another and another and when you think it won’t go any higher, he adds one more. It’s a small staircase of light rising from the parabolic rhythm of the bass. And as I rested my head on my gathered memorials of intimacy, the waves slapped below me, and for a moment I thought I saw over the horizon.

>>8623975
>I'd rather get harsh criticism than halfhearted compliments.
This attitude alone, if you can keep it up, will get you very very far.

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>>8624037
dude I hate reading and I liked that... good job

>>8623544
Stylistically, use commas correctly. Or even better, break up the longer sentences into shorter sentences, while remembering to vary sentence length.

I think that you're extending yourself into a shape that you can't necessarily hold. That said, and as >>8624059
pointed out, your attitude will help with this. Just keep writing, edit ruthlessly, and balance out the sounds in your sentences, manipulating the syllabic aspects of your syntax will stop the prose from weighing itself down.

>>8624037

reminds me of DFW, but not in a good way. Too direct/manipulative. Like that famous line where he says "imagine what it would feel like to be John whatever. Feel it". It's a fine sonic analysis of that song, but what does it really mean to the character or the story?

>>8623544

Needs less descriptors. The subject seems like a fairy tale, and fairy tales are more straightforward. Less of the "dry and ancient voice", more with the simple "croaked". You don't need a fair number of the words you write. They distract from the plot, from the core.

>>8624105
I disagree with this criticism. What it means to the guy is expressed in that sweet metaphor about the ocean. The music gives him some hope for the future.

>>8624107

this is good advice, thank you.

First attempt at a Shakespearean sonnet.
I realise I've completely messed up the metre as I didn't completely understand iambic pentameter until a few moments ago however I'd appreciate some feedback nontheless.

And then she appeared. A blue velvet rose,
Scent which could dispatch perpetual bliss,
Head of golden hair which warming wind blows,
We briefly met eyes-mistook for a kiss;
There I realised the danger of lust,
For a second bare then she ensared me,
Stole my exposed heart, left me with stardust,
Thinking could we be-forever me and thee?
But a fantasy of my mind's weaving,
However no less important I say!
Beauty will remain, at no cost leaving,
unconquered by time, a most perfect ray;
Therefore do not dwell any longer for you,
And divinity will not bid adieu.

Is it worth the effort to translate my shit to English to have it critiqued or is that as stupid an idea as it seems?

>>8624952
Depends on what kind of critique you want.

>>8623544
>Though the Old Woman was blind she knew the house as well as a spider knows its web, and the slightest vibrations in its furthest regions would be enough to raise her from her chair and set her tapping across the floor with her cane, croaking “who is it?” in her dry and ancient voice.
Too much like Lolita.

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http://pastebin.com/g508zasG

>>8625603
This was supposed to be a picture of Marilyn Monroe, but whatever.

>>8624037
This is a competent enough rip off of Sonny's Blues. Good for practice, but pretty obvious in its inspiration. Still, this is decent enough that it doesn't look like shit when held in comparison, so good looking out.

>>8623937
If this is the beginning of the story, it is in too much of a rush. Fill it out some more and give us some sensory details instead of just plot points, otherwise we are free floating.

>>8623544
Not horribly written but horribly antiquated. Take that anon's advice and read some modern fiction.

Good luck, homies.

>>8625026

lmao you guessed my favorite book

>>8624921

the beginning is pretty good, I think the ending could be stronger. It doesn't quiet feel conclusive to me

>>8626207
Thank you

Opening up a new connection into the brain feed, he began to pour his thoughts through the opening with all that he could force himself to think. His mind began raptures of convoluted thought, forcing itself to find every strange crevace of thought, which seemed obscure and unable to be amalgmatated into something presentable in the real world. The machine began sputtering and purring, and it emitted back to him the connection of similtanious mind transfer. A marriage of two minds coallescing telepathically, a marriage of organic matter and synthesized organs.

>>8626572

i feel you were hitting the thesaurus a little too hard here. I also feel you don't even really understand what's happening in this scene, so you just describe it as incomprehensible. Seems like a bit of a cop out.

Twisting maze like underfoot
A silent labyrinth lies,
Filled with soot and weathered bones,
Of the First Fallen’s devise.

And in these tunnels of despair
That first one met his end.

Now Cerberus is muzzled, calm.
And Charon rows no more,
He lies real still upon his raft
And out the earth his waters pour.

>>8627119

i like the first line a lot, and overall its good, but the last two lines sort of kill the mode. The words "real still" don't belong in this poem, and the final line feels inconclusive.

>>8627135
Thanks familia, fixing it up now.