Critique #100 — Bob Lock
Kevin Andrew Murphy January 14th, 2007
 The spring sunlight crept across my desk, the bands of light and dark formed by the bamboo slats across my window swarmed with tiny motes of dust and I sat fascinated by the amount of them in the air. However, they were nothing compared to the dust that had permeated the air in the Mali desert.
  Mali…one of the five poorest countries in Africa…if only dust was an asset…
 “If only…†I whispered as I slowly unlocked the top drawer of my old desk and slid it open. The vintage Webley .445 revolver languished like a black snake in the bottom of my drawer.
The faint, sweet aroma of gun-oil and the harsher sulphur smell of gunpowder wafted up, tantalising, conjuring images in my mind’s eye. Within a moment I was transported back to Africa; the cool night spent alongside the Tiber. I was composing the dialogue to the film we had finished shooting that day and looking up at the velvet sky bejewelled with more stars than grains of sand upon the desert in which I stood.
 No…even more stars than sand grains upon our very own jewel…Earth.
If this story began with “If only…” I whispered, I would be instantly hooked. The pistol, Africa, Tiber dialogue of film is all great stuff. I began to lose interest as soon as you got to the old cliche about stars and grains of sand (especially when you repeat it); but the elements I just named were so interesting I would have skimmed past that to find out what was going on in Africa.
What Sherwood said. The memories of Africa are compelling, the gun in the drawer, even the description of the dust reminding the narrator of Mali.
I’d turn the page because I like the descriptions and see some promise, but there are some things that simply need clean-up, like the star cliche.
Also, as a member of the Association to Preserve the Subjunctive Mood, please change:
if only dust was an asset…
to
if only dust were an asset…
It really sounds better and more evocative, even if the old error has now become permissable in modern writing.
The problem with reading these and commenting after Sherwood and Kevin is that mostly I agree with them.
I’m with Sherwood - start at “if only.” The first paragraph is a distracting framing element, and unnecessary, I think. And, yeah, the stars - grains of sand jolted me out of the story. Isn’t that the title of a sci-fi novel?
Hi everyone and many thanks for taking the time to read and critique my opening couple of paragraphs of ‘The dust of other days’
Sherwood:
I understand you preferring the opening line to start with ‘If only…’ yes, it does sound more enticing etc, however, because of the tie-in later on in the story of ‘dust’and ‘Mali’ it is necessary to mention them somewhere and therefore to start with ‘If only…’ it wouldn’t lay down enough backstory. Regarding the stars, yes I agree wholeheartedly with what you are saying, it is very cliched and I’ll try and work something better in when describing the African night sky, yet another description needed for further on as the story is a SF one and deals with an alien craft.
Kevin:
*Nods to the star cliche again* will sort that out
Re: your memebership of APSM, my bad. Somehow the verb just came out that way and seemed right, however, on seeing your note I have to agree it does sound a lot more evocative when done correctly, that will be changed, thanks!
Kate:
No problem with agreeing with the previous critiques, at least everyone found the same things to mention which is better than everyone finding something wrong independantly, so in a way I must be doing something right… hmm.. does that make sense? hehe.
Grains of sand… Isn’t that a title of a SF novel you ask.
Yep, Sam Delany did Stars in my pocket like grains of sand.
and Brian Aldiss did Galaxies like grains of sand (if my memory serves me correctly)
Finally, if anyone is interested in the whole short story it can be found here:
The dust of other days
For consideration: any backstory that a reader (or three readers, for that matter) thinks he/she doesn’t need at that point isn’t needed at the point.
Backstory is authorial throat-clearing and no one in the audience is interested in that.
Another way to think about the issue with backstory — break it down — you progress dust - Mali - Africa - Mali - dust. There’s a lot of redundancy in a short space, which close to wide to close angles on geography.
Also, the Tiber River runs through Rome. The Niger River runs through Mali.
Hi Theo,
Thanks again for another critique and for spotting such a stupid geographical error!
Cheers,
Bob