Critique #105 — Charles E. Dunkley
Kevin Andrew Murphy January 21st, 2007
Tomas picked up the dragon scale from the low wooden table, surprised by its oily surface. The scale was smaller than he imagined, too small to fashion into a shield unless as a gift for a child. It was solid though, much lighter than it appeared. As he turned the scale around the colors on its smooth surface shifted in the torchlight, varying shades of green running into black, then back again. It certainly caught Tomas’ merchant eye and he knew it would not last long on display unsold.
Tomas looked across the table at the thick squat Trader, clearly a Dunvellen by his lack of height and thickness of body. The ‘vellen leaned back in a simple wooden chair seemingly at ease and clearly pretending to pay Tomas little attention. Tomas watched the ‘vellen’s eyes take in the shop for a few moments, casting admiring looks at some of the wares on display, and he wondered why this ‘vellen had walked into his business and offered such a gift. The glitter of the dragon scale lured Tomas’ eyes back down to the prize he slowly twirled.
“How many of these are there?” Tomas asked, his business experience masking his excitement.
“Plenty enough for us both to proper,” replied the gravelly voice. “But only if we are swift enough.”
Tomas frowned. “I’ve never known a ‘vellen to propose swiftness on any venture.”
Charles,
First, I believe you mean “prosper” and not “proper.” Second, never rely on a spell check program to do your proofreading.
That said, I thought at first that Tomas was a merchant visiting the shop rather than the shop owner. And there’s similar confusion in the first sentence whether the oilness is the scale or the table.
The descriptions need to be cleaned up and the scene made a little clearer, but all that said, you get an intriguing situation going and I’m ready to read about the merchants ready to loot a dragon corpse or exfoliate a sleeping wyrm.
Charles, I actually found the second paragraph more of a draw, because of the interaction between the characters, rather than the description of the dragon scale. Have you considered switching the order of the two paragraphs? I think most people read for character or plot, rather than the instruments of either, in this case the dragon scale.
I like the setup here–I was intrigued at once by the detail on the dragon scale.
Three things tripped me up, two related. One: the description of the Dunvellen (why not just Vellen? and lose the apostrophe?) makes him sound like a dwarf: short, thick, cultural implication of slowness. This strays into “Don’t call a rabbit a smerp” territory: if he’s not a dward, call attention to his tentacles, or zebra-striped skin, or something.
Second and third thing: it’s a small stylistic tick, and certainly not a deal breaker, but a story reads slightly more smoothly if you don’t personify things that don’t need personification. In other words, business experience doesn’t mask things, people do. It might be slightly less distracting to rephrase, “…he said, experienced in masking his enthusiasm.”–your words, just switched around. And, voices don’t speak, people do. Nothing wrong with “he replied in a gravelly voice.”
I agree with Nicole, actually. I think the second para is a stronger start point because it sets up the conflict - which is - why did this trader come in here with such a valuable item? Also, it alerts us immediately that we’re in Tomas’ shop (I had the same disconnect Kevin did about who is in whose shop).
If you were to switch paragraphs (and obviously this is your call), it segues neatly into the description of the dragon scale (with minor rewriting).
Otherwise - what Sherwood said about stylistic ticks.
I, too, was confused about whose shop it was. In fact, I didn’t get it until reading the comments and rereading the story to see it. I think I was a little hung up on the description of the dragon scale.
“It was solid though, much lighter than it appeared.” This makes it seem as if its solidness MAKES it lighter than it appears, rather than its solidness and its lightness being separate (and perhaps opposite) features. Also, I get the sense that dragon scales are used for shields all the time and this one is unusual because it is so small, rather than its being unusual because it is a dragon scale. Because if I saw a small dragon scale I wouldn’t think about making it into a child’s shield unless bigger ones were made into adult shields.
And the whole ” ‘vellen” thing did throw me off. I thought it was a typo at first.
Thanks for all of the comments. It looks like I made the classic mistake of re-reading what I wrote from the point of view of already knowing who was who and where they were and not realizing that anyone else wouldn’t know.
And, especially as short stories go, I agree that the second paragraph is the better starting point.
As for the Dunvellen and ‘vellen references, that’s actually in there for a reason, based upon a naming convention I’ll be using in the story. People are divided up into a few general areas. In one area every place begins with Dun: Dunvellen, Dunthraegen, etc. For the merchant and his area, they’ve gotten into the habit of dropping the Dun. But I can see where making the shortened reference Vellen instead of ‘vellen flows better.
I’m not a short story writer at all. It’s very hard for me to craft a short story without the Novel-Writer brain taking it over. This is an interesting challenge.