Critique #104 — Michael Adkins #2
Kevin Andrew Murphy January 20th, 2007
Dr. Newhan studied the screen on his notepad with a vexed look in his eyes.
He’d already seen so many patients today they were all starting to blear together, and now, on the last one before lunch, his nurse had submitted an incomplete preliminary exam, forcing him to troll through lines of pared entries in an effort to make sense of it all. With three quick taps, he joined the history folder to the vitals chart and magnified them, floating the conjugation above the screen’s liquid surface.
To his relief, the nurse had completed all of the history and vitals routines.
The patient, Ank Palla, was twenty-four years old, his vitals were all strong, his claimed drug abuse status was a dubious 0.000, and there were no red cursors anywhere, nothing to indicate he was predisposed to any health issues of any kind. He appeared–even just looking at him—to be quite healthy. Yet one could hardly make an observation about a person’s health from a mere glance.
Still, Dr. Newhan tried anyway, noting only that, in spite of Mr. Palla’s slight size, his legs were tan and muscular, as was the rest of his body, and he was dressed in shorts and sandals and a tank tee, as a person who was foolish enough to endure the outdoors in search of more dark skin would be.
Point of view question: who is the narrator? If this is written in tight third, as I think it is meant to be, then Dr. Newhan cannot see the vexed look in his own eyes, even though I like the description.
query: ‘pared’ ? Is this a medical term? if it is, no need to change it or explain it. I’m just wondering if it is a typo for “paired entries”.
Overall: I like this. The details seem believable and not overdone. There’s a funny (as in interesting) tension involved between my own expectations of what a healthy person is and the doctor’s anticipation that he is going to find something wrong. Plus the last sentence (paragraph) twists that further.
I would turn the page.
This is much, much better. Not only is it easy to follow, but it leaves me wanting to know why Ank Palla is there. I would definitely turn the page.
Except for the minor problems already mentioned by Kate (which I also noticed), there was one other thing I noticed. In the second sentence, do you perhaps mean “blur together” instead of “blear together”?
Overall, though, good work.
First, appreciate the opinions on my writing and everyone else’s. I’m almost finished with the story above, and much of it couldn’t have been done without the opinions and advice and all the links offered here.
As to POV: while the avg. editor might become instantly annoyed or toss this, what about an avg. reader? Is it ok to write down to them? Or go will the old adage: DON’T write down to your readers. Should I change it? Or just run with it?
As to PARED: I meant unfinished, didn’t like the way that sounded, and have finally decided on ‘half-finished’ — pared, while maybe technically correct, just trips up the reader too early, and early in only 13 lines is critical.
Also: BLUR would work better, as it is a verb. BLEAR is transitive, I believe, making its case for a direct object, but can it work here in spite? Am I allowed that much authorial freedom? Or should I go with the more trite RUN or BLUR or BLEND or BLEED? (i guess bleed is too creepy in a medical story!!!)
Opinions appreciated!!! Hammer well!!!