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Anathema Device
Dec 22, 2009

by Ion Helmet
Crit for Hammer Bro

quote:

Winter Wine (764 words: winter water)

"It's cold this morning." Really, really think about it before opening a story with a description of the weather.

"It's a little chilly, I suppose. Let me fetch you an extra blanket." This feels fake. Think about word choice. Where are the characters from? What social class are they? Give us clues with your word choice.

"Thanks. Will you tell Damon I won't be coming in today? I need to go back to bed. How late was I up last night?" Maybe break this up a bit? Throw some answers in there. It seems rushed.

"We gave your sister the chrysanthemums around eight, then we uncorked the 1993 Chateau Carras you'd been saving for her birthday. I think we popped the Limnio around eleven. I was in bed by one." This is too specific, like you’re talking for the audience instead of reminding someone who was there.

"Right, right, I remember. I hope Mel likes the flowers. I wonder if she can smell them." This is the first line I like. It gives us a clue that all might not be well with Mel.

"Are you sure you're going to be all right? You had me worried last night."

"Don't worry, honey. Everything will be right as rain in a couple of hours."

"You think so?"

"I know so." By this point I’m thoroughly intrigued and creeped out.

---

"Morning, Corey. Where's Persephone?"

"She's out sick today. Might be coming down with the flu."

"Nothing too serious, I hope? She's been in a real funk since the crash." Another subtle clue. I like it.

"No, nothing like that. I'm sure she'll feel better in a couple of days."

"I'll keep my fingers crossed. Did you catch the news this morning?"

"No. What's up?"

"Five more people killed by zombies, and not just the elderly. One guy was a bodybuilder."

"I wonder what the prophets say about that. Was he asleep or something?"

"Doesn't look like it. He just lost the struggle. Nobody knows what makes zombies turn so savage right before they die. The zealots say it's because the soul enters heaven prematurely. I think they just freak out when they can no longer run from reality. That's how they got there in the first place, after all. Still, it's a terrible way to go." Once again, you’re writing for the audience instead of what the characters would really say. You can be more subtle here.

"It sounds horrifying."

---

"Good evening, sweetness; sorry I'm so late. Damon sends his regards. How are you feeling?"

"Euphoric. But I think the heater's broken." Something is definitely wrong with her, and by this point I’ve made the connection with the news report. I’m not sold that she would actually say “Euphoric” though.

"Mm. You left the front door unlocked."

"Did I? I was so excited to see Mel, I must've forgot to lock it when she left."

"Melinoe? We haven't seen her since before, well..."

"She's a full-fledged doctor now! Isn't that nice? She looked me over and said I shouldn't worry; I'd be better soon. And then we can spend so much time together." By here I’ve figured out that Mel is dead, and that Persephone will be following soon. I know that she’s likely to become violent towards the end.

"That's... encouraging. Do you think you'll be all right for the rest of tonight? I would very much like to cuddle you."

"What do you mean? Of course I'll be all right."

"Good, good. Not tonight, but tomorrow I have some serious thinking to do." I like how he’s putting off thinking about it, but I think you can go more subtle here.

"Will I see you at all?"

"I wasn't sure that you wanted to."

---

"Morning, Corey. poo poo, man! You look as glum as an oyster. Everything all right with Persephone?"

"She'll be over it by tomorrow. Any more incidents in the news?"

"Some cop busted a suicide ring down in Asphodel. Caught them just in time; confiscated three bottles of the stuff." The actual mechanism doesn’t come up until here, and I feel like it should be worked in sooner, even if in a subtle way.

"Do you think it actually works?"

"Seriously? You gettin' all spiritual on me?"

"No, it's just... Three months ago nobody had ever heard of Winter Wine. Now there are evangelists on the street corners, preaching the 'gateway to the great beyond'. They never mention the nasty bits, though." This is smoother than your other expositional bits.

"The dead stay dead, man. Nothing can change that. Get your head out of the gutter; focus on the good things in life." I don’t get what Winter Wine is supposed to do. Make you see dead people?

"You're right. Think you can cover for me for the rest of the day? I've got somewhere to be."

---

"Sephy? Are you home? Sephy?"

"Corey! You came back! I hope you're not mad, but I knocked over the television."

"That's all right. It can be replaced."

"And we're out of wine."

"As long as you enjoyed it."

"I -- I saw Mother today. And Father. I haven't talked to them in years."

"I'm glad."

"Ah! This wasn't supposed to hurt. You understand, don't you?"

"You don't have to explain yourself."

"Seeing all my relatives was supposed to make me tranquil and serene; prepared. But I'm still so lonely. Won't you hold me?"

"Of course, my dear."

"I'm sorry. I really am. You know that, right?"

"I know. And I'm here for you."

"Oh, Corey! Forgive me!"

"Don't talk like that. I love you, and that's the only thing that matters."

"I love you too. But aren't you scared?"

"Terrified. You haven't been watching the news lately. But that's not important right now."

"Oh! This isn't how I thought it would be. I can't stop crying. I think I made a mistake."

"You did what you thought was best. No one can blame you for that. And I'm honored you would have me with you. Give my regards to Melinoe." This whole section is the first time I really feel like people are talking.

I really liked this, and I don’t think it deserved a loss. It has a story arc, two reasonably well developed characters, and it’s competently written. I could mostly understand what was going on. It definitely needs some edits, and a better understanding of the character’s voices, backgrounds, and word choices. But it’s solid and it was an enjoyable read. My first time through I didn’t even notice it was all in dialog; I was busy enjoying the story.

Anathema Device fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Nov 11, 2014

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Anathema Device
Dec 22, 2009

by Ion Helmet

Hammer Bro. posted:

Thanks enormously for the line-by-line. I agree with you on 96.7% of those points. Didn't even notice how badly I was talking to the audience, and the only voice I was happy with was Damon's. I'm still on the fence about the timing of the mechanism reveal: I very much enjoy rereading a story in a different light after making a realization, although in this case it's more like rereading the story in any light after being told a thing, which is a painful distinction.

The lines about which clues worked and what you suspected was going on as you read the story are exceptionally helpful. Usually I write too batshit esoteric obtuse; this time I was a bit hamfisted. Eventually I'll find the balance.

In other news, I've not the creative energy for proper writing this week. But Anathema Device, starr, Djeser, docbeard, and Benny the Snake, your stories tickled my fancy. Each of you may pick a story, not necessarily your own and not necessarily recent, and I'll be givin' that story a detailed crit as my schedule allows for it.

I, too, would like a detailed crit of my story this week. Specifically I am looking to expand it into a longer story, and I'm wondering what readers would like to see more of.

I will also crit the next three people who link their stories. They do not have to be recent stories.

Anathema Device
Dec 22, 2009

by Ion Helmet

newtestleper posted:

Grace is Gone
1199 words

I have’t seen the movie, so this will have to stand (or not) on it’s own.

We were both over at Dad’s for a roast when Dean just spat it out.
“I’m getting married.” The length of the sentence was pretty standard for my older brother, for guys round these parts in general, really. It was the content that shut us up.This is taking away from the impact of your opening. He’d barely left town for months and there were exactly three single girls within fifty k, two of which were under sixteen and a third who hadn’t been right since a four wheeler accident.
“To Jan? Do they even let handicaps get married?” Who’s talking?Maybe he’d got her knocked up, the filthy bastard.
“gently caress off, not Jan. Grace, she’s Filipino.”
There’s this internet service that set lonely blokes like Deano up with Asian girls, so you do see the odd one around. It must look drat nice to them out here in the wops.


The surprising thing about Grace was what a crack up she was. Back when Dean would take her down the pub she’d always have this group of chicks around her. The first time she showed up there after the wedding I think they wanted to take her down a notch or two,. Sshe’d made the rest of them look drab. But when they laughed at the way she spoke she’d just laugh along with them, and taking the piss out of yourself goes a long way around here. In a couple of weeks she was a fixture, chatting away with her mates while Dean sat in the corner with his jug of DB, exactly where he always did. Back in the day he’d play a little darts as well, but he didn’t get much joy from winning and when he lost he’d go into a rage.

I like that you’re setting up Dean’s temper problems here.

Grace charmed me, too. The way she took to that horse, pretty soon I was the only one who could keep up with her. She was so tiny I had to stick a childrens saddle on it, though the way she rode it seemed like she barely touched the seat. Generally speaking, isn’t touching the seat a good thing when you’re riding? I remember one day we’d left the others behind and rode hard along the beach until we pulled up by the old jetty piles, panting from the effort.
“It’s magic” she said, watching the waves struggle to reach the driftwood and drying seaweed that marked the high tide.
“She’s a beaut, alright”
“I wish I could ride forever” Despite the low sun shining through her black hair into my eyes I could make out her face just well enough to see that she was crying. She looked at her watch, then dug in her heels. “We’d better go”.
I like the developing friendship between Grace and the narrator. Generally, you want punctuation inside your quotation marks.

First Dean stopped taking her to the pub, and not long after that she was missing Sunday dinner, too. I’d slaughtered a sheep to roast, and the rich lanolin smell of the mutton fat was as thick in the air as the silence.
“Where’s Grace?” Dad spoke first. He’d grown to enjoy Grace’s company, and had missed her help round the house.
“At home”
“I mean why didn’t she come? We like to see her.”
“She doesn’t want to come here anymore. She says it smells of old man.”
Dad’s face tightened and his breaths came fast and shallow, but he looked back down at his dinner. Dean watched him, deliberate and unblinking, while he reached for the mint sauce.

I like that Dad speaks up here. I get the sense Dad is the quiet type, so it’s significant that he asks about Grace.

It didn’t take us long to get why he was keeping her home. I think this is implied. I was exercising her horse, and kept thinking of her long brown throat and his big callused hands. I rode around to Dean’s place, and saw her briefly at the kitchen window. The corner of her mouth was turned up a touch, period here I’d seen Dad smile the same way when he looked at the old picture of Mum in the hall. I motioned for her to come out but she just stood there with her face half hidden by the curtain. That’s when I was certain. I wondered how messed up the other side of her face was.

The morning air was getting cold, but it was still too early in the season for the families on day licenses to scare away the ducks. I figured that I’d head out to one of the farther lakes with Dean while Dad got to work on the plan. I’d tell Dean what we’d done on the way back. Better he lose his rag with me than with the old man.

The mai-mai was a good one, with a little bench and a great view of the lake. I’d bagged a brace of paradise ducks, but Dean hadn’t got anything despite some real good chances. His dog lay bored beside him, vapour rising from it’s soggy coat. He was cruel with it, but it made for a drat good duck dog. I was rummaging in my rucksack for my thermos and just as I touched it I felt the twin barrels of his shotgun in my back.
“You smug little poo poo. Think you two can get away with it do you?” I froze. Had dad said something to him?
“What the gently caress?” I decided to play dumb.
“You and Grace. I’ve seen how you look at each other. You’re jealous. You’re turning her against me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Put the gun down. Just put it down” I could hear the dog growling.
“You better remember this. Keep away from her.”
“Of course, mate, of course. I’ll keep away from her. I’ll sell her horse. Whatever you want.” I felt the pressure in my back relax then subside. I turned back so I could see him, keeping my hand in my bag and tightening my grip on the thermos.
I knew I had to tell him now, despite the presence of the guns. Why? Seems like a bad decision to go on a hunting trip to tell your brother you’ve sent his wife away. His was still within easy reach, but hard to handle in the cramped hut. I gave myself 30 thirty seconds to settle my nerves.
“Dad took her to Dunedin while we’ve been out here. The flights are all sorted. She’s going home, Dean. She’s on the plane to Auckland right now. Grace is gone.” I thought he’d take it like a man, but he immediately went for the gun. I brought my arm out of the bag in a wide arc and caught him across the chin with the thermos. The cap broke off, spilling hot tea that splashed against the dog’s face. It yelped and sprang on Dean, clamping onto his arm like it had been begging for an excuse. I pushed past the struggling pair to reach the shotgun, and they fell through the side of the mai-mai onto the damp dirt.

I took aim at the dog, but my first shot missed, putting a few pellets in Dean’s leg. If he noticed he didn’t show it. The second was better, hitting the dog square in the side and knocking it back half a metre where it lay still, a decent chunk of arm flesh still lodged in it’s teeth. I sized up Dean’s wounds, not too bad, then grabbed my gear and both guns and set off on foot back to get the ute. A couple of hours cooling off in the dirt should do him some good.

So there’s this dog. And it’s not significant at all until the end, when it complicates the action scene and gets shot. Why have the dog at all?

This isn’t a bad story, despite the briefly confusing and then terribly sad introduction of the dog. My biggest complaint is that Grace doesn’t take any action to save herself. This story is the story of men interacting about a girl. She only has one line, and it’s just her going back to her miserable life. I’d like to see more of Grace, and even see Grace take some action on her own behalf. I don’t like it when women become plot points in stories and stop being their own people.

I like the quiet stoicism of the Dad and the narrator, and you do a very good job staying in-tone for this first person view of someone who isn’t a literary genius. You manage to pull that off while keeping the story both realistic and enjoyable to read.


You did an amazing job sticking with the kid-voice all the way through. It was a very difficult read, in part because it was too realistic. There’s a reason I don’t read fiction written by eight year olds.

I felt like I had to spend more time working out what was going on than I really wanted. An eight year old might not be able to write very clearly, but they can understand a lot. I didn’t get a sense of understanding from this kid. In fact, I didn’t really like this kid much.

All in all a very well executed example of a really annoying gimmick.

Somebody fucked around with this message at 08:18 on Jan 1, 2015

Anathema Device
Dec 22, 2009

by Ion Helmet
I’d take a crit of this:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3598931&userid=158999#post433362475
or this:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3598931&userid=158999#post437452767
from anyone who’s interested.

Anathema Device
Dec 22, 2009

by Ion Helmet
Post crits.

Do not respond to crits in this thread.

thehomemaster posted:

64 new posts and no crits. Just drama.
I can deal.

quote:

Flow (810 Words)

A cold wind blew against Lysa as she rested against the tree trunk. Against, against. If you absolutely must describe the weather in your opening line, try to give active, character-based details. It should not have been so cold. The girl shivered despite the furs. Summer was a long time coming these days. Honestly, you could probably cut this whole paragraph.

Around her tents stood blowing in the dawn wind, people moving amongst them eating, cleaning and generally trying to keep warm. They had not been prepared when they arrived and were frozen in place, helpless sheep without a shepherd. This makes me wonder what happened to their “shepherd” or leader. But Lysa knew what had to be one. Done?

With a final glance at the dry riverbed below her, a mere trickle running down the middle, she turned her back on the campsite and slipped away as morning came. Is the trickle frozen? Frozen around the edges? Or were you exaggerating the cold?

***

Water. It all came down to water. Six days march back to her villagecomma where the Reservoir was running dry. This wasn’t such a surprise, but the Flow Festival was meant to be taking place right now. This was Lysa’s first year of attendance at the sacred site, a source of celebration amongst her family, but no water had come down from the mountain. Lysa planned to find out why.

Summer meant water, and but no water meant no summer. It also meant hunger and thirst as crops would be ignored, and then the villagers. This lesson had been instilled in all children of the village from an early age. There were strict rules to follow, and a very definite order in how to handle impending water shortages. If Lysa could find the water and bring it down the river, she could save her family and friends, everyone in fact. She was sure of it. These two paragraphs repeat their point (there’s no water) a lot. We already got this point. Consider consolidating.

The girlLysa trudged through long grass sopped in dew. Her clothes were wet and cold on her skin. There was so much water around her, but no way to gather it. She bent over, took out her knife and cut away a tuft of grass. Bringing it to her lips she sucked the moisture from them. Mildly satisfied she tossed the blades into the sky where the wind caught them and carried them away. She watched them go, scattering as they went. Wind: as unpredictable as water is was sure. Until now, Lysa mused.
***
The grass eventually gave way to icy rocks and gravel. It was nearing night and Lysa could barely see as a heavy mist rolled in. Thoughts of the warm fires and company back at the camp tortured Lysa’s thoughts as she trudged onwards, but she knew that if she found the water, if she convinced it come down the river again, the happiness would be warmer still.

Her feet finally came to a stop. Passive. She needed warmth of her own. In the dwindling dusk Lysa pulled her robes around her, crawled deep into her sleeping pack and pushed herself under a shelf of rock. Silence surrounded her, the mist suffocating all.

***

Lysa woke to rumbling, the ground shaking up through her. I don’t understand what this means. She leapt up, smacking her head on the rock above. She yelped and fell to the ground. Opening her eyes she yelped again as the Sun pierced into her sleep-deprived mind. And the rumbling did not stop. This action isn’t doing anything for me. It doesn’t really move the story forward, unless her head injury is going to be significant later.

Rubbing her head Lysa got to her feet, a throb pounding in her head and vibrations coming up through her soles. She could see now.

She was a dugout part of land, the soil sandy and strewn with logs and other plant life. Rocks
littered the field. And either side of Lysa there was a cliff – or as she quickly realised, the banks of the river. The rumbling grew louder still, and Lysa looked north. Summer had come. Wait so...she camped in the river? How stupid is she?

A wall of water presented itself to Lysa, churning the mud before it. Without thinking the girl She looked for the nearest log. She spied one and leapt, precisely as the wave reached her. You want her to think. You want her to be active during the story.

Her hands grasped the wood and pulled it tight ’tight’ doesn’t really work here even as the air was knocked from her by the cascade. And then she was rolling, flailing, floating, sinking. She was pulled, pushed, dumped and thrown by the water. Still she held on to the wood. I like the last two sentences. Lysa would feel felt her face break free and she would breathed before plunging again.

Eventually the chaos subsided. Lysa hauled herself firmly on top of her life support and passed out. I’m not buying that she can stay on a log floating in a river while passed out.

***

She woke to a prodding. Slowly Lysa opened her eyes. There was a man in front of her. A man she knew. He saw he move and grinned.

“She’s alive! Pull us in!”

Then Lysa was tugged along with the man toward the shore. The water was calmer here, sedate even. That was why the Flow Festival was held here, she remembered. She looked up into the sky and felt the sun’s heat beating down on her. She could hear birds in the trees, the gurgling of the water on the banks. Summer had come at last. She would never forget this.

The biggest problem with this story is that, while lots of stuff happens, Lysa doesn’t make any of it happen. Neither does anyone else. There’s no tension, no character growth, just a list of events. You start out well: there’s something your character needs that she doesn’t have. You establish the stakes. But you never show why the water hasn’t come, and you never show why it does. Lysa doesn’t learn anything from the experience, except possibly not to camp in dry riverbeds when flash floods are expected? She doesn’t even learn to be patient and wait for spring.

You could use some work on comma placement and a bit more proofreading, but that’s not a big deal. You tend to use “the girl” to talk about your viewpoint character a lot, which pulls me out of her head. People don’t think of themselves that way, usually; her name or “she” works. If you feel like you’re using that too much, think about using a different sentence structure instead of “the girl.”

Focus on your details to provide active, vibrant details that are relevant to the story. Each description should either move the plot along, or tell us something important about the character doing the describing. Ideally, it should do both.

Also, because I was bored and Hammer Bro does all the crits ever:

Hammer Bro. posted:

Kelvin (921 words: "wherein somewhere He sleeps, His bones grow cold with the passing of time, and an empty hearth")

No one dreams in stasis. So when Starchild Flockmother tumbled out of her cryopod, she was nine years old and her parents were still alive. I’m confused already. Is she dreaming? Was she put in stasis as a nine year old?

She sprawled naked across the deck, sitting at the kitchen table in her Sunday best. Catie thought about last week when she snuck into the church to surprise Father. She marveled at the size of the empty cathedral as she meandered up to the confessionals. She meant to speak, but the noises coming from within them were scary so she ran back home. When she asked Father what happened at confession he said he was doing the Lord's work. For some reason that made Mother cry. I’m critting a lot of “adult stuff through child’s eyes” this week. I like the way you handle it, and while I’m not clear exactly what happened, it’s clear enough.

Catie knew she shouldn't wrinkle her nice clothes, but she was so very sleepy. Surely a little nap wouldn't hurt. She nestled her head in her arms. For the first time in a thousand years, Starchild slept.

She awoke to a nightmare. I’m confused enough about whether she’s awake or not already. Failing to stand, she propped her back against the base of her cryopod and surveyed the cargo bay. You chose a very passive thing to focus on (leaning, looking) and not the active part (trying to stand.)The empty walkways radiated hostility under the feeble red auxiliary lighting. Her ragged breaths were an affront to the moldering silence.

Starchild crawled to the nearest maintenance post and tried to organize her thoughts. She had practiced for hundreds of emergency situations, for plagues and famines and deserters, but she barely knew the floor plan of The Covenant. There’s something a bit bland about this. The ship feels more alive and seems to have more will than the protagonist. An acolyte was supposed to anoint her, veil her in the ceremonial habit, and usher her to a glorious new life amongst her flock. Every time I read this my eyes just glaze over. I’m not invested in what was supposed to happen. Instead she felt like some forgotten heathen idol: blood made of molasses, organs wrought in stone.

She managed to stand, leaning heavily against the console. Hers was the only pod to glow green. The rest remained dark, either empty or deactivated. She deliberately slowed into a pattern of controlled breathing. Where was the crew?

Her pulse regulated, Starchild hobbled toward the galley. Her timid calls died on heartless steel. The interstitial darkness was immaculate, and twice she stumbled over invisible entanglements What’s an invisible entanglement? as she followed the railing. Once inside, she gravitated toward the nearest illuminated vending machine, pushed a dusty pile of rags aside with her foot, and punched up a strawberry ration bar. A dusty pile of rags. Was that a person, once?

Nothing happened.

She pressed the button harder. This time she could faintly hear a click and a whir as the machinery struggled to perform its intended function. Again it failed.

In an act of desperate indignity she smashed a chair through the faceplate and reached around the wreckage to claim her prize. This is the most active thing she’s done so far. The wrapper smelled faintly of bitter almonds, significance? but its contents were uniformly delicious.

Hunger was the one void in her life she knew how to fill, but the satisfaction was fleeting as loneliness and fear crept up her spine. She had to find someone who could explain what was going on.

Starchild checked the saloon. It was empty. The rec room was also deserted. She ran to the crew's quarters and forced several of the cabin doors open, but each one was barren. She was utterly alone. Abandoned.

Cat She was Catie, earlier. Is this later in her life? came home from school that night to find her lawn peppered with policemen. An apologetic woman in white told her that her parents had gone away and that she'd need to stay with a different family for a little while. It would be like going on vacation.

She shuffled from household to household as her legs got longer and her chest filled out. Surrounded by strangers she was forced to call "Mom" and "Dad", Cat felt isolated and alone.

After her third failed suicide attempt Cat discovered the Stewards of Now and Forever. They took her in, nourished her body and mended her soul. They gave her a new name and a new purpose in life. They rescued her from the emptiness. To be alone and adrift again was too much to bear. Starchild screamed. By this point it feels like you might have been pushing the wordcount. Your descriptions are getting less vivid and you’re just telling what happened.

Running through the dark corridors, suddenly ashamed of her nakedness, Starchild thought of all the lambs she would never see again. Sophia, Donny, Dedrick. Elanor, Rebecca, Ruth. This is the only time I’ve been able to empathize with Starchild (as opposed to Catie.)Briefly, she cares about all the dead people who left the ship empty. Without their shepherd, they were condemned to limbo, an eternity in exile from the promised land. She had failed them, and hundreds of others. Disgrace constricted her arteries and burned in her throat.

Starchild staggered onto the bridge, her face a ruin of water and mucus. The displays were blank; the comm channels were quiet. Only the auxiliary lighting still functioned. Starchild smashed her fists on a keyboard and slapped at random switches. She shook monitors, punched cushions, and spat on the center console. Then she saw a note, scrawled with zealous fervor: Because she hasn’t been developed as a character who’s in control of her emotions/actions, this loss of control doesn’t really have impact.

Only death will absolve us. The Lord is our shepherd.

Cat's doleful mother was looking somewhere just beyond her. "You're old enough to walk to school without me, and I have some business with Father mac Bóchra this morning. Be a good little girl. The Lord will be your shepherd." That was the last morning Cat believed it.

Starchild broke down and wept. She wept for her parents and she wept for her flock. Finally, she wept for herself. Torrential tears washed her sadness away and smothered the resentment she'd harbored since that day. She cried away her very identity, until the woman who remained was a stranger to her. This time there was no one to direct that stranger. Interesting.

Catherine mac Bóchra brushed the note aside and methodically began flipping switches. She never was good at operating electronics, but she had all the time in the world to learn.

Somewhere in the distance, a white light flickered. Okay, I like the ending.

I’m not sure the structure of this, with the flashbacks, is doing you any favors. You have an interesting character progression that seems to go (in chronological order): after a traumatic family event, Cat bounces between foster homes until she’s taken in by a religious group. She becomes the leader of a group of colonists headed for ??? but wakes up from stasis alone on a spaceship, where she emotionally reverts to the young child she was. Once she cries herself out, she takes action to save herself.

The way it’s structured now, it feels like there’s too much emphasis on the character’s weakness and not enough on her strength. I think seeing more of her development from Cat into Starchild might lend more power to her reversion back to Cat. I think this story is confused rather than strengthened by being out of chronological order.

Anathema Device
Dec 22, 2009

by Ion Helmet
Problem
739 Words

The needle goes into the arm that isn’t twisted and bloody, swollen and broken. The arm that isn’t hurting worse than anything. Dad hovers next to the bed. The nurse connects the syringe, pushes the plunger in. I accelerate, the world blurring around me. I float, with nothing holding me but the bright cloud of euphoria. Somewhere, my arm hurts, but not here.

Here is warm. Here is nice.



I feel every bump in the road, every jolt to the old jeep’s shocks, as a grinding of bone on bone. I crank up the radio to drown out my whimpers and grunts, and Dad pretends he isn’t hearing them anyway. The muscles in his jaw work.

When he goes into the pharmacy I sit in a purgatory of pain, the still, sunlit air pressing heavy against my skin. Time blurs and stretches.

The creak of the door startles me. I cry out in pain as I jolt my arm. Dad opens the prescription bottle and shoves two oval pills at me. I put them in my mouth and almost gag at the bitter flavor that seeps over my tongue while I hold out my hand for the warm gatorade.

“I’m sorry about your arm,” he says.

“It’s not your fault I crashed.”

By the time we get to the house my eyelids are heavy and drooping, and I’m smiling.



I swallow the pills dry and wait, but the pain still nags at my arm. Frustrated, I take a third pill.
...

I wake up and think about pills, yellow and bright in my palm and bitter in my mouth. In the shower I imagine crunching them between my teeth, the sharp, pervasive taste of them on my tongue. I poo poo twice before I leave the house, runny thin diarrhea with no bulk behind it; I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning.

On the schoolbus I try to do my math homework. In my notebook I scribble calculations. Ten dollars for a pill. Three pills to stop the diarrhea, four to feel a rush. I have a couple twenties in my pocket, the last of my Christmas money.

I think I might have a problem.


“Is your steak okay?” the waitress asks. The steak is perfect, medium rare. Dad and Aunt Jane are nearly done, but I’ve only choked down a few bites.

There’s money poking out of Aunt Jane’s purse. It nags at the corner of my eyes. It’s two fifties, and I can’t believe she’s so careless. Anybody could take it.

“It’s delicious.” I force a smile. “I’m just not very hungry.” The waitress smiles sympathetically as she walks away.

I could take it.

“How’s your wrist?” Aunt Jane asks.

“It’s fine,” I say. “All healed.”

“What did you learn about four wheeler racing?” she asks. Irritation prickles at me skin.

My hand slithers down into her purse and closes over crisp bills.

...

As soon as Mark dumps the grubby, sticky pills into my hand I have them in my mouth. It’s twenty minutes ‘till lunch and my empty stomach rebels. I swallow bitter spit.

“Hey,” Mark says. “You can’t take those here!”

“Why the hell not? They can’t catch me with them if I’m not carrying them.”

“You’re going to be high as gently caress for English,” he says, shaking his head.

...

I’m not. The pills leave me feeling bitter and unsatisfied.



“A hundred dollars? Really?” I stare out the window while Dad talks into the phone. “And you had it when we got to the restaurant. Yeah. It must have been the waitress. Yeah, you should call them. You won’t get your money back, but you might get her fired.”

He hangs up. I’m floating on the warm wave of five pills, but something feels hollow in my stomach.

“How do you know it was the waitress?”

He glances at me. “She just seemed shady,” Dad says. “And who else could it be?”

There’s a long, pregnant silence. “But you don’t know,” I say, panic trickling ice into my warmth. “Aunt Jane could have dropped it.”

“She didn’t drop it,” Dad says.

The truth is leaden on my tongue. This is my chance, my last chance, to fess up. To tell Dad what’s going on. Before I let my greed ruin some poor woman’s job. The guilt eats at me, ruins my high.

“I did it,” I say. “I took the money.”

Anathema Device
Dec 22, 2009

by Ion Helmet
In

I will also do three in-depth crits for stories this week, just link your story.

Anathema Device
Dec 22, 2009

by Ion Helmet

chthonic bell posted:

Anathema Device: I'd really appreciate your crit on The Tram!

quote:

The tram has been knocked right off the rails by the blast. It now lies on its side amid the snowdrifts, like a dying animal. I’m put off by the “has been/is now.” Present tense is all about immediacy, so why start with something that has already happened? Snow settles on Isak's face through the shattered windows. He opens one eye and stares up, unseeing. He can taste blood. There's something hard and round under his back. He reaches down and feels someone's fur hat, wet and sticky and then the unmistakable texture of hair.

I'm lying on someone's head, Isak thinks and starts laughing, the sound small and surreal in the stricken tram. To his right, someone swears at him, calls him a lunatic. Isaac turns his head, but he can't see the speaker. He tries to open the other eye and finds it's swelling shut.

The winter wind plays with his hair, whistles into his ears, chills the tip of his nose. He shivers under his shuba, but nothing drives him to move. Not crazy about “nothing drives him to move.” A curious sort of tranquillity has settled over him, a dream-state that makes everything feel like he's watching his life from behind a thick plane of glass. He hears screaming that barely registers, swearing that passes right over his head and the gentle crunch of fresh snow under feet.

There's a centimetre of snow on his face and the head below him is moving, bumping against his back. In the distance, the Stukas wail as they dive. Another blast makes the tram rock, blows the snow from Isak's face. The head beneath his back jerks up and down, nudging him. Isak sits up, his movements slow and deliberate, like he's moving underwater, and turns to look at the man he landed on.

"Are you simple?" the man growls and Isak slowly shakes his head, though he can't quite understand the question. Nice No, comrade, he's quite complex, thank you very much. The man under him shoves him forward and Isak flops over like a marionette, hitting one of the seats with his knee. The pain jolts him, makes him whine. He stumbles up, finding his footing on another fallen citizen. This one doesn't move. Isak climbs out of the window, the shards of glass nicking his mittens enough to cut the skin of his hands. His boots slip and he lands on his arse, right between the tram-tracks.

Another howl of the Stukas sounds in the distance, but fainter, further away. Isak barely feels the next blast. He climbs to his feet, slowly, slips a little but clears the rails before he collapses again, panting.

I'm not going to make it, he thinks and shivers, again. His ears, exposed to the Leningrad winter, are growing numb. He wonders what they'll look like, if frostbite sets in.

The sirens wail again, giving the all-clear. Isak puts his hands over his ears until the sound dies away. He tries to get to his feet, but his legs fold under him and he flops, face-forward, into a drift of snow. Powder fills his nose, makes him panic, makes adrenaline surge. He sits up, wrenching his face clear and pants.

Around him, Leningraders hurry about their lives. Survivors climb out of the stricken tram. He sits back and reaches into an inner pocket of his shuba and pulls out his ticket and stares at it. Eighteen hundred hours, it says. He glances up at the darkening sky and grins.

He's got time to walk to the Bolshoi. Hmm. I don’t really get the ending.

On a line level, this (especially the last half) is pretty good. The strength of present-tense is immediacy, so you need to think especially hard about phrases that pull attention away from the moment. I don’t want to be reminded that someone is writing this; I want to experience it as it unfolds. There are some lines with unnecessary words, but there’s also a few times when you use “like..,” as in “like a dying animal, like he’s moving underwater, like a marionette.” These don’t feel like Isak’s thoughts, and remind me that this is being written.

I normally wouldn’t advocate for anything that makes it harder to understand what’s going on, but the first line reads a bit like the camera is zooming in across the tram, to Isak. Everything else follows really tightly from Isak’s perspective. A bit of confusion at the beginning would make sense, given Isak’s confused state.

The ending doesn’t really follow from the beginning or middle. His need to get to Bolshoi isn’t mentioned until the last line, so having time to get there (if he doesn’t freeze to death) doesn’t have a lot of impact. For the rest of the story, I’m wondering is Isak will survive, and the ending doesn’t really clear that up (can he really walk overnight in the state he’s in in that weather?)

Overall this has a nice, floaty tone that makes sense with someone in shock, and decent description, but not a lot of plot.

blue squares posted:

musical flash rule: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHrkv4JRnC0
relevant lyrics:
Ocean bursts its banks and all the waters goin my way
Even though you're poison babe I wouldn't even hesitate
This lie inside your head inside your little heart now
Lightin up the fire and the citys painted blood red

Too Late 752 words
Jill saw in the hotel window the aching reflection of Mark’s face, half aglow in the yellow lamplight. The half he always self-consciously joked was his bad side. It’s possibly deliberately unclear whether it’s the bad side of his face or his personality showing here. Beyond his reflection, high-rise condos across the street burned. It looked as if he were on fire himself. She began to smell the stink of the blaze above their own heads.

“We have to try.” Jill’s breath fogged the window. Mark’s second face disappeared into the cloud of her breath like a ghost.

“It’s too late,” Mark whispered into her ear in a shuddering voice. H, his hot breath like fire. “I’m sorry. I could have gotten us out sooner. But I didn’t. I’m so sorry.” Interesting opening. The description is on the edge of overdone, but I’m intrigued.

Jill turned and kissed him. Their tears ran together. “Let’s go down. I don’t know. We could swim out. Come on. Don’t give up.” I get that she doesn’t want him to give up without you actually saying “Come on. Don’t give up.”

“The water’s freezing. And too fast. And full of jagged metal, cars, who knows what. Where would we go? Everything’s on fire or drowned. Everything. Just look at it.” This guy is pretty whiny.

“There could be rescue,” Jill’s pitch getting higher. “There could be rescue.” Jill’s pitch got higher.

“They left a long time ago.” He held out a shaking hand. Two glittering yellow capsules. The power went out and the lamp with it. The hotel room glowed orange from the light of the fires outside. It looked to Jill like the light of a hundred candles. Like the day Mark proposed to her in this very room years ago.

“I don’t want to see you in any pain,” Mark said. “We can go to sleep together. I’m sorry.” So he just happens to have suicide capsules on him?

Jill considered the pills. The easy way out. “I’m scared. I can’t do it.” If it’s the easy way out, is she lying about being scared?

She put her arms around his neck as if to dance but wept into his chest. Mark held her tight.

“I’m scared, too. I wish there was something I could do. I let you down.”

“No you didn’t,” Jill’s words muffled and insincere. Nice

The floor shook. If the fire didn’t reach them first, the flood below would bring the hotel down. They’d already seen fiery towers in the distance slip away into the water like torpedoed ships.

“Don’t make me do it alone, Jill. I’m not going to drown or burn. I can’t go out like that. I can’t think of you going out like that. Please.” I’ve pinpointed my problem with this character. He starts out nihilistic and whiny, and he ends nihilistic and whiny. He doesn’t seem to really grow throughout the story. We never see him when he isn’t giving up, so seeing him give up doesn’t have a lot of power.

Jill pushed away from him and wiped tears from her face, though more followed. “Stop it! I don’t want to go out any way! I want to live. Please help me live. I need you to tell me what to do, Mark. I’m so scared. Help me.” She paused. “Don’t make me die.” I’m not entirely sold on Jill’s character, either, but I like her better.

Mark pulled her back against him. “Jill, I love you. This is the only way I know how to help you. We’ll be together again.”

“Do you really believe that?”
“I do.”

“Okay,” after a long time. “Okay. I’ll do it.” Jill’s transition from “I don’t want to die” to “well, okay then” seems too easy. I’m not feeling the love between them very strongly, so “we’ll be together in the afterlife” isn’t a strong motivator.

She opened her mouth and let Mark put the pill there as if he were a pediatrician and she a little girl. He guided a glass of water to her lips. The water rushed down her throat with the pills.

Jill collapsed to her knees and sobbed. She pulled down Mark with her. The rest of the water spilled and his pill bounced away on the carpet.
“I’m dead,” Jill wailed. “I’m dead and I just killed myself. Oh my god.” She lay on her side curled in a ball.

“I’m coming, honey!” Mark shouted as he scrambled around, feeling in the dim light for the lost pill. “It’s okay! Wait for me. I’m here! We’re still together!”

The door splintered open at the end of a bright red battering ram. Ringing alarms blared through the opening. Firefighters with red helmets and axes clambered over the pieces of the door.

“Sir! Ma’am!” their heavy shouts came. “We’re here to get you out. We have to go now.” The emergency lights in the hall shone in and turned the room red.

Mark and Jill froze. “Oh!” Jill exclaimed. “No! I didn’t want to. Oh god. Help me.” She tried to push her fingers into her throat to vomit, but already her limbs were too weak. She flopped onto her back and began to shake.

“You killed me,” she managed to say.

“Jill! No, please, please don’t go. I’m sorry!”

“I didn’t want to do it,” she whispered and was gone.

“We have to go now, sir!” The firefighters grabbed Mark and pulled him to the door.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he called to her endlessly as he was taken to safety, alone.

Your characters aren’t strong enough to carry off such an emotionally based story, and it ends up being pretty melodramatic. In general seeing a character at their weakest moment only carries power if you’ve seen them strong, and seeing them strong only carries power if you’ve seen them weak. A good character arc contrasts a starting point with an ending point, and there’s change in the middle.

Here we have a character who starts out not wanting to die, and ends up not wanting to die. We have another character who starts out wanting to die, and ends up wanting to die. There’s no change or movement, and so there’s no power.

Otherwise, your writing is pretty good. The pacing works, and there’s some nice imagery.

Your Sledgehammer posted:

Whenever This World is Cruel to Me
713 words

When Jake woke up from his nap, everyone’s gender but his was flip-flopped. Maybe “everyone else’s gender was” He didn’t notice at first. Wiping the sleep from his eyes, cliche he strolled out of his bedroom on the way to class. He made it to the door of the common room and turned back towards the couch to say goodbye, and that’s when he realized that he didn’t know the person sitting there.

He lived with his best friend since middle school, Terry. This sentence is a bit confusing. Sitting on the couch was a girl he’d never seen before. He frowned, shook his head, and laughed. “Pretty rude of me to stroll out of here without introducing myself, my name’s Jake,” he said. Strangers were not an uncommon occurrence in the Chateau of Mayhem, as they called it.

The girl started laughing so hard that she had trouble getting out any words. “Jake, what’s wrong with you?” she said.

Jake pinched his eyebrows together and mustered up a half-grin. “I just don’t know you and was trying to be polite, is all,” he said. Not crazy about this dialog.

“Well let me refresh your memory. Sam Houston Intermediate, first day of class, you gave me half your sandwich after some rear end in a top hat kid stepped on my lunchbox,” she said. Nice details, but this might be telling the reader information rather than natural dialog.

It started as a tiny feeling of cold at the top of his head. Then the cold swept downward through Jake, goosebumps following as it traveled across his skin. What in the blue gently caress, he thought. It was her eyes, chocolate brown and a little droopy at the corners. The same eyes of the dude he’d been playing Playstation with just a few hours earlier. “Terry?” he said, his voice almost a whisper. Halfway through the story, the character catches up to what the narrative told us in the first line.

“Finally coming out of dreamland, I see,” Terri said, a warm grin spreading across her face.

Jake’s hand unclenched and his backpack fell to the ground. He leaned against the wall, his back sliding down until he was sitting with his head in his hands. The stranger on the couch looked concerned. This has to be a dream, Jake thought. Is Terry the only one? He tried to sound calm but nothing could cover the shaking in his voice.

“Our quarterback is Sean Harris, right?” Jake asked.

“Did you bang your head or something? It’s Blake Hutchins,” Terri replied.

poo poo. I’m pretty sure there was a girl on the cheerleading squad named Blakely Hutchins. “Is there anyone on the cheerleading squad named Harris?” Jake asked.

“I think there’s a Susan Harris, yeah,” Terri said.

A burning pit settled at the bottom of Jake’s stomach. Campus life is already a social minefield, he thought. I’m going to have to get to know literally everyone all over again. I wonder what happened to Mom and Dad? With that thought, the tears began to dredge up to the surface. Jake buried his face in his arm.

“Are you OK?” Terri asked. Jake glanced up at that new but familiar face through the watery film. Her bemused grin had given way to creases of concern. Jake could feel a thought bubbling up through the cloud of confusion and panic. He actually found himself a little bit was curious to see the way femininity would affect his best friend’s personality; what sort of new and fascinating layers would he discover in the coming days? That little ray of light faded, though, and Jake settled back into the gloom of his predicament. I’m having trouble having empathy for his predicament.


“No, I’m not OK. Not at all,” Jake said, the pitch of his voice shifting as the dam finally burst.

He bolted out the door and threw himself down on the porch. Terri wasn’t far behind him, but Jake’s face was already a damp mess. “Hey you,” she said. “I’m not sure what’s wrong, but you can tell me.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” he said.

A small hand wrapped around his upper arm, gentle but firm. “Try me,” she said, as she wiped a tear off his cheek.

Jake took a deep breath. Those chocolate eyes stared back at him, their edges lined with sympathy. There’s a person here that I know deeply and yet don’t know at all, he thought. He took her hand and felt a gentle squeeze as she smiled at him. And in that moment, Jake knew that everything happened for a reason.

On a line level, you had a few little rough spots that more reading and practice writing will help you avoid. You did a good job keeping your descriptions relevant to the story and the characters, but they could be a bit more vivid.

On a story level, this reads almost like an essay with an introduction “Everyone’s gender was swapped” and a conclusion “everything happens for a reason” with the middle bits either expanding on the introduction “yes, everyone’s gender is really swapped” or the conclusion “Terri makes an interesting girl.”

It’s okay for the reader to be confused when the viewpoint character is (within limits.) If you state your premise in the first sentence, you don’t need to show us that it’s true with the conversation about the football team.

I have a hard time connecting to this story. I guess I don’t really see what the big deal is. So what, everyone’s a different gender/sex (these aren’t the same thing.) They don’t seem to have trouble with it; it’s been like that all along for them, so you’re not exploring trans* themes really. The only person it really changes anything for is your protagonist, and mostly it seems to change how he views people. I’d connect more strongly to this piece if it explored questions like “what does gender/sex have to do with personality” but it doesn’t go very deeply into that.

It’s possible this was a humor story and I just missed the funny. Overall, your writing isn’t bad but I encourage you to dig deeper for the emotional consequences of your story premise.

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Anathema Device
Dec 22, 2009

by Ion Helmet

Sitting Here posted:

:siren: Who wants a chance to choose their destiny? :siren:

For those who are tired of playing TD on babby mode, here are two song choices that (in my opinion) will be harder to write stories about this week. The first two people who grab them can have them. If you already have a song and would like to switch to one these challenge songs, that's fine too.


He Gives Speeches

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct21c8xh6AE

I'll take He Gives Speeches. In. With a :toxx:

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