Critique #10 — CaitrÃn Tuathal
Kevin Andrew Murphy June 27th, 2006
Grand Park Street ended in a cul-de-sac, one of the many scattered throughout the city where the wealthy Tellese lived. Grand Park Ring was one of the most extravagant of these, sustaining many mansions without appearing too crowded. Carefully up-kept hedges seemed to increase the space rather than take away from it, and it was behind one of these hedges that Soren crouched, watching a particular house. He’d sat in these hedges for days, watching the house and the man who lived in it, and knew with absolute certainty that the Tellese man would not be in until well after dawn.
The shimmering white line of his Destiny beckoned to Soren almost pitifully, but he ignored it—something that had become very easy in the past months. His Destiny stretched out behind him, away from the mansion—most likely, the line led to the Grove, which Soren had pointedly avoided all his life. Unlike the other, “sensible†Praide, Soren had no interest in his Destiny. Gods be damned—Soren was going to do as he pleased.
Caitlin,
This is nice. Mostly small things here.
First, “upkept” doesn’t need a hyphen, as it’s just conjugation of “upkeep.” However, it sounds a little awkward anyway, so you should use “maintained.”
Though I know someone likely told you to keep adjectives to a minimum, you’ve missed a trick by not naming the type of hedges. Boxwood, perhaps, or yew. The reason why you should specify this is that specific plants let you telegraph to the reader the type of terrain and environs they’re in. As it stands, we don’t know whether this city is temperate or tropical, coastal or inland, new world or old, or even on this planet. One word solves that.
A slightly larger problem is that carefully upkept hedges have gardeners, so I’m wondering how your character has maintained his stakeout in the bushes for that many days without someone noticing. Not to mention the problem of sleeping, eating and going to the bathroom. I’d suggest putting in an “on and off” before “for days.”
You should drop the comma after “other” in the next to last sentence.
The last few lines are a bit more tell than show, but it’s a sensible enough bit of exposition about something interesting that as a reader, I forgive it, and am interested to read the next lines afterwards. I’m hoping there’s going to be both some description of your main character’s garb (and by inference his culture) and likewise that we’ll find out more about his quary.
Hm. These are my 13 lines, but my name seems to be wrong. ‘R’ instead of ‘L’. Glad to see it up here, though, since I thought my emails kept getting returned…
Kevin, thanks for the help. Sometimes I get hyphen-happy, not to mention comma-happy; and now that you mention it, maintained does work better. In my own mind, soren is in the hedges on and off, but I never actually mentioned that, did I? I’ll have to do some research on hedges to find what kind would belong in my city.
CaitrÃn,
Apologies on the name fumble. We’re trying to sort out the coding interface, and in the juggling trying to save pages from getting lost, we lost your name, so I just did it from memory. Anyway, it’s now been fixed here and on the main splash page. Nice thing about the web at least.
Glad this was useful to you.
Kevin
The name of the hedge wouldn’t be an adjective anyway. It would be a name.
I quite agree with Kevin’s comments about the living in the hedges for days, too.
Beware of is using adverbs that don’t add much — as in beckoned almost pitifully. Do you mean ‘begged’ here? ‘Almost’ destroys what effect ‘pitifully’ has. ‘Cajoled’ might convey this shade of meaning more clearly.
This sentence is stiff and convoluted. It seems to point toward something important, which is why I single it out. I suspect that space is at a premium in this city, but I could be wrong. Why not try a rewrite and post it here as a comment?
I agree with the comments about the hedges (and living in them–where is he putting his garbage after he eats?)
The opening is neutral, about a place I have no interest in. I wanted to skim to look for a character. I hooked into the second graf because here we have a character with a problem. Could the two be possibly switched?
Good idea, Sherwood, about the paragraphs. The description doesn’t grab because it’s not very visual, I think, or exotic. The opening doesn’t say “genre story” till the Line of Destiny appears.
Katharine, is this a better sentence: Grand Park Ring was one of the most extravagant of these, housing many of the richest lords; though the Ring had many occupants, pains were taken to keep up the twin illusions of spaciousness and privacy.
Switching some of the paragraphs around IS a good idea, or even some cutting and pasting… I’ll have to work on it, and I thank you for the idea.
And my name seems to be wrong again. *sheepish grin*
Ack! I was skimming comments when I saw we had it wrong. So I changed it, not realizing that Kevin had already corrected the mistake! Catrin, right. I’ll change it back. The only time I have for deepgenre.com is late at night, unfortunately, and I’m not the most clear-headed soul at 2 am.
Well, now it’s clear what you were trying to say, yes, but the construction’s gotten a bit stiff and passive with that ‘pains were taken’. We already know, too, that the Ring has many of the richest lords, and the hedges were important. So what about something along the lines of “All around the ring, well-placed hedges gave the twin illusions of etc” ? You can also shove the name of the kind of hedges in there, too, should you want to.
Kit
Grand Park Ring was one of the most extravagant of these, housing many of the richest lords; yew hedges, arranged carefully around the Ring, gave the twin illusions of spaciousness and privacy.
Is this any better, or am I not quite there yet?
Do you mean that I should get rid of the first part of the sentence entirely?
Caitrin, would these be correct as your original and your revised versions? If so, this writing-craft-less reader definitely likes the second one better. It seems to be more ’straight-to-the-point’ than the original, and I like that in stories. I also apreciate that you specified the hedges as ‘yew’, as that tells me straight away that we are on probably earth, in a country where yew hedges exist, or on another world that just happens to have the same plants as earth on it (and therefore probably the same climate and soil etc as well). Just my two cent’s worth.
Rosamunda, yes the top one is my original, the second one is the result of much editing, thanks to the wonderfully helpful Katharine Kerr. I certainly like what the revisions did to this graf, and I’m glad I’m not the only one!