Critique #143 — Adam Colston #3
Kevin Andrew Murphy June 28th, 2007
Jason watched the distant, black dragon soar upon the rising, afternoon thermals. It briefly beat its wings and rose even higher. It seemed to be watching something on the ground far below it.
“Yeah, it’s very cool, Bill, but look at it, will you? It’s enormous. We can’t catch that.â€
Bill grinned.
“Oh yes, we can.†He clapped his hands, “All we need is a dragon trap.â€
“A dragon trap?†Jason laughed and shook his head, “There’s no such thing.â€
He lifted his hand to shield his eyes from glare of the sun and watched the dragon again. It spun lazily in mid-air, folded its wings close to its body and dived at high-speed towards the ground. At the last moment, it pulled out of the dive and flashed across the tree-tops, its great black wings extended. A jet of blue fire spewed from its mouth and a line of distant trees erupted into flame.
“Yes, there is. “ Bill continued and pulled a small a small brown book from his pocket and read aloud, “To trap a dragon you must first secure a dead cow, a hundred weight of gold — preferably coin — and a net woven from magical thoughts.â€
Jason looked at him in stunned disbelief.
“Bill, we have absolutely none of those things.â€
“Yes, I know, but bear with me.†He went over to the large pack he had carried with him and pulled out some gold cloth and a fishing net, “We can use this fishing net instead of the magical net, and if we arrange the gold cloth carefully, well, from the air…†He grinned, “You know it’ll work.â€
“And the dead cow?†Jason said, his hand resting lightly on his sword.
“Ah,†he smiled, “I thought you could play the cow.â€
Hi,
“It seemed to be watching something on the ground far below it.”
I have realized this reads like a POV violation.
New paragraph and add a ‘, Jason thought.’ after it.
Adam
I don’t think it’s a PoV violation. It’s Jason’s interpretation of the dragon’s actions. He’s guessing what the dragon was thinking.
I like this one. It’s cute. It’s funny. I’d read on.
Ivy,
I wrote it that way, but the minute I saw it posted I became nervous about it. I am glad it read right for you.
Thanks for the nice comments :).
Adam
Hey Adam :).
I like this opening - it makes me smile on several occasions, and I’d definitely keep reading. All I have are little nits to pick (mainly punctuation):
Lose the comma after ‘rising’ in the first line. In fact, lose the other one as well, they’re both iffy. Annoyingly, that leaves your opening sentence a bit long, but that’s easily fixed.
‘It briefly beat its wings and rose even higher’ seemed like filler to me, I’d consider getting rid.
Question for everyone else: ‘Yeah, it’s very cool, Bill…’ - see the comma after ‘cool’? I naturally put that comma in all overthe place when I’m writing (since, if you say it, there’s a very slight pause), but should it actually be ‘Yeah, it’s very cool Bill, but…’?
‘He clapped his hands, “All we need is…’ - I’m the last person to criticise speech punctuation, but shouldn’t that be a full-stop after ‘hands’?
‘… glare of the sun and watched…’ - I’d be tempted to put a comma after ’sun’.
There’s something about the word ‘lazily’ that I don’t like, there. I get the impression that the dragon is just casually mucking about, so I guess it’s fine, but it sticks out at me for some reason :S.
Don’t hyphenate ‘high-speed’.
“Bill, we have absolutely none of those things.†“Yes, I know, but bear with me.†- that made me laugh, lol, nice bit of dialogue.
Otherwise, good.
Oh, and ditto Ivy - I didn’t think it was a POV violation either.
The comma belongs before Bill because it separates out a proper noun or term of address.
Thanks for the confirmation, Ivy :).
HI Daniel and Ivy,
Thanks, Daniel, for your comments regarding this intro.
Yeah, you got it — it was filler. I thought the dragon warranted a further sentence before the boys spoke.
*he pushed his glasses further up his nose*
I’ll kill it in the revision.
I am not sure about your comma after the sun bit. What do others think? It is a mildly clunky sentence, I agree.
The word ‘lazily’ was used to denote a the dragon reaching the top of it’s climb and slowly rolling into a dive. In my head it seemed lazy.
Regarding high speed, presumably you can move at high speed, but then you have a high-speed collision. Is that right?
Well spotted ;).
Adam
I think it’s using ‘lazily’ in conjunction with ‘high speed’ - high speed implies some sort’ve urgency, or movement at the very least. ‘Lazily’ doesn’t seem to fit in with those ideas, though I think I got what you were going for.
And yes, that’s where I would and wouldn’t hyphenate ‘high speed’, though it could just be personal preference.
ack, please forgive the ’sort’ve’ in my reply, lol.
It was utterly unforgivable…please leave.
lol ;).
Haha, noooo
:( *sadness*
A few nits that haven’t been pointed out yet:
This setence seemed a bit jerky to me. How about: “Jason watched the black dragon soar in the distance upon the afternoon thermals” or something like that? I believe that “thermals” means ‘rising air current,’ so you don’t have to tell us that they are ‘rising.’
I believe you need to remove the space between the . and the closing “. You can also remove the “continued and” from this sentence and simply have Bill get straight to the pulling.
Debbie,
I agree with the first sentence. Could be improved.
The gap was an error.
Yes, he could go straight to the pulling!
Would you turn the page? You didn’t mention that you would, so I am guessing not.
Adam
P.S. No-one has mentioned “.. continued and pulled a small a small brown book..”
I think its like an optical illusion or something, my wife spotted it!
Aside from the space, if by continued you mean continued speaking, the period should be a comma.
You don’t need distant, because that’s implied in the second sentence. You also don’t need rising, because that’s what thermals do. Also, when hawks and eagles ride thermals, they circle to stay above them. You might want to be more specific in your description here, because otherwise I pictured the dragon flying straight across the heavens like a jet plane.
This could be written more concisely without losing anything. It contains redundancies and wordy constructions. Using mostly your words and just trimming a bit…”He shielded his eyes from the sun’s glare and watched the dragon as it spun in mid-air, folded its wings, and dived. At the last moment, the great black wings extended and the beast flashed across the tree-tops, a jet of blue fire spewing from its mouth. The foliage erupted into flame.”
What everyone else said about punctuation.
I had trouble with the very modern expression “cool” being used in a setting that includes dragons and mysterious brown books advocating the use of magic and cows to trap one. It’s possible you’ve got a Harry Potter-like setting going on here, but if that’s the case, drop a few more clues to let us know where and when we are.
Finally, the big question: would I read on?
The interaction between the characters is amusing and I’m curious to know whether they end up trapping the dragon, but ultimately, I would not turn the page because the writing lacks polish and freshness. The good news is, these are fixable problems.
Polish, which includes competence in things like punctuation and word choice, has been addressed by most of the critiques above.
Freshness can be improved by using punchier, richer verbs and nouns. Yes, and adjectives and adverbs, too. When we sit down to write, the words that come most easily to us tend to be those we use and hear in everyday speech. They accumulate on the surface of our thoughts like pond scum, and it’s easy just to grab some and slop them on the page. There may be some writers somewhere who consistently scoop up brilliant phrases right off the top of their metaphorical mind-pond, but I am for sure not one them; I have to dive deep to find the pearls. You can, too. Don’t always be satisfied with the first word that pops into your head; consider it suspect while you root around and see if there’s a fresher, more interesting alternative.
I can’t get this one out of my head. I really liked it. Are you going to post more of it?
My only excuse for not catching that is that I just got new glasses (yesterday) that are giving me a headache. Ack. So I’m not quite up to my normal standards in catching things.
Would I read on? I liked the amusing interaction between the two characters and wanted to see if my suspicion that things go terribly wrong in a funny way is correct, but the writing really could be tightened up and polished more. So ‘yes,’ but a sort of reluctant ‘yes.’ Consider the suggestions of Beth S. and continue the polishing throughout the story, and that’ll change to a definite ‘yes.’
HI
Hold me down and shoot me! A real horror story is trying to deal with a company like sky on their **$@#** phone system!
I was on for 3 hours, spoke to twelve people, go cut off four times.
May be I should do short story on someone who does something horrible to them, as a form of catharsis.
Anyway…thanks for the critiques.
Beth, you have done a sterling job critiquing the intro and I agree the whole thing needs tightening and polishing.
I may argue with you over the use of the word ’soar’. Do you feel that does not adequately describe what Jason saw in a quick look at the dragon? I like ‘circle’ too, but felt that required a longer look.
The use of ‘cool’ wasn’t because it was Harry Potteresque. I just thought I’d try out the use of modern diction in the setting. I was *he blushed* trying to be *cough* experimental. The other version was:
Jason watched the black dragon as it wheeled in the distant sky. A sudden flurry of wing beats drove it higher into the blue and it seemed, as it twisted its long sinuous neck earthward, to be tracking something.
“By all the Gods,†Jason said, shaking his head, “it’s immense, we can’t possibly catch that.â€
Bill smiled him and raised an eyebrow.
“Oh yes, we can.†He clapped his hands together. “All we need is a dragon trap.â€
Still, you live and learn.
Ivy,
I would post more…but its not finished. When it is I can tell you if you want.
Debbie,
Do things go terribly wrong in a right way? This intro may be a case in point. Yes, it needs a polish. I am reminded of a brief stint I did in the army (6 weeks if you must know — I hated it). We had to shine our shoes. Most people could polish them, some people could get a good shine, but it took a skill to really bull them up to a mirror finish.
I guess I need practice.
Adam
Hi
I have replied, but my comment is awaiting moderation — dunno why. I used some asterisks and stuff — maybe that was it.
Adam
HI
Hold me down and shoot me! A real horror story is trying to deal with a company like sky on their annoying phone system!
I was on for 3 hours, spoke to twelve people, got cut off four times.
May be I should do short story on someone who does something horrible to them, as a form of catharsis.
Anyway…thanks for the critiques.
Beth, you have done a sterling job critiquing the intro and I agree the whole thing needs tightening and polishing.
I may argue with you over the use of the word ’soar’. Do you feel that does not adequately describe what Jason saw in a quick look at the dragon? I like ‘circle’ too, but felt that required a longer look.
The use of ‘cool’ wasn’t because it was Harry Potteresque. I just thought I’d try out the use of modern diction in the setting. I was *he blushed* trying to be *cough* experimental. The other version was:
Jason watched the black dragon as it wheeled in the distant sky. A sudden flurry of wing beats drove it higher into the blue and it seemed, as it twisted its long sinuous neck earthward, to be tracking something.
“By all the Gods,†Jason said, shaking his head, “it’s immense, we can’t possibly catch that.â€
Bill smiled him and raised an eyebrow.
“Oh yes, we can.†He clapped his hands together. “All we need is a dragon trap.â€
Still, you live and learn.
Ivy,
I would post more…but its not finished. When it is I can tell you if you want.
Debbie,
Do things go terribly wrong in a right way? This intro may be a case in point. Yes, it needs a polish. I am reminded of a brief stint I did in the army (6 weeks if you must know — I hated it). We had to shine our shoes. Most people could polish them, some people could get a good shine, but it took a skill to really bull them up to a mirror finish.
I guess I need practice.
Adam
I tried re-posting it without the asterisks etc. but it still wants to moderate it. There are no links or anything in it…
Just have to wait.
Adam