Comments on: Critique #109 — Rhiannon Rose

By: Gyp Oriens

Gyp Oriens — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 09:37:07 +0000

Oh! Then I really had no idea what was happening. Sorry.

By: Rhiannon Rose

Rhiannon Rose — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 01:39:01 +0000

Okay! Thank you all. I got ahead of myself, though - I think I need critique on the whole story before I can fix the first lines, because I’m no longer sure the story can go anywhere interesting.

Gyp - nope, it’s not.

By: Kevin Andrew Murphy

Kevin Andrew Murphy — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:20:34 +0000

Rhiannon,

The trouble here isn’t the individual lines so much as the fact that you’ve stacked up various evocative lines rather haphazardly. If the person is disoriented and just realizing it, I as reader don’t want them waxing poetic about snakeline roads unless there’s some strong sense of urgency pulling me along through the stream-of-consciousness.

That’s the trouble with stream-of-consciousness–it can be interesting and evocative if done just so, but if not, runs the risk of just sounding like stoned waffle. I was with you for the first paragraph, but you lost me by the second since the image didn’t sharpen up and start to tell us a story. A stoned person driving on a road somewhere doesn’t interest me enough to turn the page.

By: Debbie White

Debbie White — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 19:29:19 +0000

I have to admit that this left me totally confused. I couldn’t get an anchor point on what was going on. I read it through slowly two more times in an attempt to figure it out. The only thing that seemed to fit all the clues is that the viewpoint character is a car and that this is the first time the car has ever been started (thus, all the questions about its existence). The question, then, is why are we on a road instead of a car lot or something.

By: Gyp Oriens

Gyp Oriens — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 11:18:10 +0000

Is this Siobhagn? Because if it isn’t (or someone similar), then I am totally lost.