Critique #135 — Ivy Reisner #2
Kevin Andrew Murphy June 15th, 2007
“Carla, would you marry me?” My heart pounded,
even at the thought of asking her that and when the
time came I’d probably sputter something
incomprehensible. Okay, Pete, get it together.
“Carla, would you do me the honor of becoming my-”
“Move it!” A tall teenager in a ‘Don’t tell me
what kind of day to have’ T-Shirt shoved past me.
I watched him go and wondered what had happened
to common courtesy in this city. At least he snapped
me out of the fog I’d gotten myself into. The crowd
in the park had thickened, but not that much. Oh, and
to set the record straight, New York does have more
than one park; it’s just that there’s only one worth
mentioning. Teenagers hung out on the corner and
popped illegal firecrackers that were left over from
the festivities on the fourth.
Ivy,
I’ll have to admit I’m coming in on this after having read your previous sample, so I know what you’re capable of.
This? Well, a guy nervously rehearsing a proposal is a reasonable classic set-up and gives us some immediate character sympathy, but why on earth is Pete doing it in the middle of a crowded park? And it’s not until the middle of the third paragraph that I realize we’re in a park, or for that matter, a crowd.
I’m certain there’s a good reason for this setting, but having Pete speak the words out loud in a crowd in the first paragraph makes him seem like a weirdo. People rehearse such things in private, or at least when they think they’re in private. If it’s internal monologue, use italics rather than quotes. And it would be a better trick to have the teenager interrupt him mid-proposal, since the kid doesn’t know or care what part of his speech the nervous dreamy guy is in.
Anyway, as it stands, I’m not having that much interest or sympathy. I might thumb hopefully to the next page, but I might just shrug and not bother, depending on my mood. With a rearrangement, you could definitely get the reader to the next page however.
Kevin,
Thank you for the fast response.
I know I’m doing this wrong, but I have no idea how it’s supposed to be done. He’s not speaking the words out loud, he’s thinking them as he waits for her to show up. Do I italicize them or use single quotes? What’s the technique?
Again, thank you.
Ivy,
I may be missing something that someone else is seeing, but I’m lost on the entire final paragraph. I just recently was engaged myself, and so I’m intriuged.
It seems that the story has been opened with an overpowering thought process. The moment just before you propose to your girlfriend is a very nerve racking time, but that he’s thinking about asking or about to ask isn’t said either.
Also, I just feel that his attention to his proposal is cut away far too easily, to be placed somewhere else. Perhaps the interuption should be something a bit more tramatic then an emo kid pushing by him. I think the surroundings need to be involved, but is the park where he is planning to propose, or is he going through the park to get to where he needs to go? Is he late and that is why he is thankful for being pulled out of the “fog” he was in? Does the “fog” refer to his thought process or the people crowding in around him?
In the end I guess I’m just not seeing a hook either in personality quirk or in the situation, he’s just another one of the hundreds of people in the park. In all fun, I wonder why I’m not reading about the emo kid. He obviously has problems.
Btw I just finished reading your last post. I enjoyed the idea immensely!
Ivy,
With single quotes, the old school is that they’re only supposed to be used inside of double quotes, in American writing, with the singles and doubles reversed in British and Australian usage. The new school is exactly as you use in your second paragraph, with the double quotes used to indicate direct quotes, as with the teenager’s dialogue, and the single quotes used to indicate indirect quotes, as with the text on his T-shirt.
Internal monologue is done in a similar fashion, with italics denoting direct word-for-word conscious thought and regular text used to indicate internal thoughts not precisely verbalized but instead described by the narrator.
I like this, but I do have one nit that no one else has mentioned. It seems like you’re pulling out of POV in the third paragraph. At the start, we’re deep inside the POV’s head as he mentally rehearses his proposal. Then we have him wondering about courtesy. The we suddenly have an aside to the readers about the “Oh, and to set the record straight, New York does have more than one park; it’s just that there’s only one worth mentioning.” It’s not like he’d need to set the record straight to himself. Until now, we have no indication that this fellow is telling the story to anyone–and indications to the opposite–so this seems out of place. If this is the only place you do this type of ‘aside,’ then I’d suggest cutting it (though I like the line).
I like this - my main comment would be to lop the opening line, or at least alter the structure a little so we’re introduced to Pete before his wanting to marry Carla. Maybe it’s just personal preference, but as an opening line, I find a proposal - even an imagined one - a little confrontational. It’s the kind of thing we instantly make judgements about as a reader, and when we don’t know either person at all, it’s completely out of the blue. I like the second reiteration much more, because by then, I know that Pete is rehearsing and that he’s nervous, and exactly because I don’t know Carla, I’m as worried as he is about her reaction. Even if it was just a line to tell us who’s thinking what, I think it would sit a lot more naturally on the page.
Also, my preference for inner monolouge is italics. Nobody has to agree - I know everyone has different views - but the main attraction, I find, is that they show the words clearly aren’t being spoken aloud; otherwise, we have to read on - perhaps a bit more carefully than we’d like, at times - to establish this.
Hi Ivy,
As others have pointed out, you have some good elements here, but the sequence could use some work. The intro comes at us a little too fast, imo, before we know who Pete is, what he’s up to, and why we should care. Then the teenager interrupts, but instead of any emotional reaction from Pete, we get an aside about the park.
Consider starting with the paragraph about the park to establish setting. At that point, you could indicate why Pete is in the park, and some clues to his emotional state. That way, we can sympathize with him even more when he’s rudely interrupted. (And the story can keep moving forward because we already know where and why.)