Critique #152 — Charles E. Dunkley #2
Kevin Andrew Murphy July 8th, 2007
The longest journey is that of the soul.
His motherʼs words, long since spoken, came back to him as Paul stood in the crowd watching his best friend hanged. The body jerked then went limp, as the crowd shouted and subsided. He remained standing there even as the crowd around him melted away, back to their daily routines, back to their blind lives. His friend had come home one evening, his eyes all wild and yet bright, joyful. Paul had lost such feeling, such caring about anything a long time ago, when the Black Death had come and torn families asunder. Death had killed Joy.
Yet his friend John had come home, on leave from the war in the East, a war that tore apart the families that escaped the Black Death. He spoke of a man who had come. Everywhere this man went men threw down their swords, mages threw down their staves; dragons knelt in awe. Paul listened with many others and he wondered about whether such a man really existed in the East.
Watching Johnʼs lifeless body spill its remains into the street, Paul began to understand while he wondered about this man, others feared.
I liked it a lot. I would just tighten the language some.
This is overmuch and telling besides. It can go. It’s redundant to the information presented in a much better way in the beginning of the next paragraph.
Everywhere this man went men threw down their swords, mages threw down their staves, and dragons knelt in awe.
He was hung. What would spill out? There is no gash or opening.
I’m definitely reading on. It’s compelling. I want to know more about this man from the east.
An interesting situation. The second sentence was a bit of a jolt, and really got me paying attention. I would keep reading, though the prose needs tightening and smoothing. I agree with Ivy’s remarks, and in addition–
Put the first sentence in italics (which it may well be in the original; maybe the formatting didn’t transfer).
This is a trifle awkward. Try this:
His motherʼs long-ago words came back to Paul as he stood in the crowd watching his best friend hang.
“hanged,” just on its own, is incorrect there. The friend must be hanged by someone. Which in turn is a passive construction. You could fix that by doing something like:
…as he stood in the crowd watching [ ] hang his best friend.
You’ve used “as” in the first three sentences. Vary the syntax.
Not sure what you mean by “spilling its remains.” “Remains” ordinarily refers to the entire corpse, so it sounds very odd there. If he’s voiding his bowels and bladder, say it. Specificity is generally better than vagueness.
Hi,
This seems to have chronological issues.
e.g. The ball went up in the air and then down, as their heads lifted up and down to watch.
Bad example though.
Would be better:
The body jerked and the crowd shouted, but as it stilled, so did their cries.
Not the best example but I think it keeps it chronological.
Adam
Besides the other things people have already pointed out (which I agree with):
He remained standing there even as the crowd around him melted away, back to their daily routines, back to their blind lives. … Paul had lost such feeling, such caring about anything a long time ago, when the Black Death had come and torn families asunder. …Yet his friend John had come home, on leave from the war in the East, a war that tore apart the families that escaped the Black Death.
I’d accept the above sentence structure once, but the grammar is technically wrong in these three sentences. Repeating this three times in your first 13 line started to grate on me. I also began to wonder if you didn’t know that it was incorrect grammar.
Also, is ‘Joy’ is wife or daughter or someone? This isn’t clear in context. Also, even if you mean that the body was voiding bowels and bladder, wouldn’t this be falling to the ground below the gallows (probably in a square) rather than in the street?
How about correcting grammar and cutting the redundancies for something like:
Ack. I have meant to hit preview instead of post, so the above is missing a block quote among other things. I apologize. I also realized I let some grammar slip in the cut version. It still doesn’t flow perfectly, but I believe the grammar should be:
Hey Charles, here’s what I thought.
‘The body jerked then went limp, as the crowd shouted and subsided. He remained standing there even as the crowd around him melted away, back to their daily routines, back to their blind lives’ - lose the comma after ‘as’, first off. I think Adam’s right about time, but fixing that requires a pretty substantial rewrite (so I’m not going to :p). Back to commas, I’d like to see one after ’standing there’, and I’d get rid of ‘back to their daily…’ - I think it’s more effective if you just end the sentence at ‘as the crowd around him melted away’.
‘his eyes all wild and yet bright, joyful’ - lose the yet; it’s possible to be wild and bright at the same time. Then, change the comma to either a hyphen or a full stop (if the latter, it’d be ‘… wild and bright. Joyful.’ - I think it’s called a ‘partial sentence’ or something, but it’s definitely ok).
‘his eyes all wild and yet bright, joyful. Paul had lost such feeling, such caring…’ - it sounds like you want ‘feelingS’ until the next bit, so it flows oddly.
Paul is, at this point, starting to get a little woe-is-me for my taste. He’s now more annoying than grief-stricken.
‘Paul began to understand while he wondered about this man, others feared’ - … what?
Everyone else has covered the other stuff.
Overall, I think this starts out well, but goes downhill fairly sharply - it’s your prose that’s letting you down, plain and simple. A rewrite or two should make this a really nice opening.
Hope this helped :).
Hi Charles,
What everyone else said and then this could be an interesting story.
However, it reads like a Christ story to me, which I don’t personally find appealing. Your main character is named Paul, an important apostle, you have a man of peace from the east and persecution for following that man. Maybe you want to resonate with that story. But if you don’t want to do a Christ story, change your main character’s name to something that doesn’t have biblical connotations.
For “Death had killed Joy” and joy is the feeling, then it should not be capitalized.
If the semicolon in “Everywhere this man went men threw down their swords, mages threw down their staves; dragons knelt in awe” is changed to a comma, then that sentence is perfectly acceptable. While not technically grammatically correct, some poetic license is allowed in prose. Once you know the rules of grammar, it’s ok to break them, if and when you know exactly what you are doing and why.
Thanks for all of your input. I really appreciate it.
Yes, Nicole L, but you want to pick and choose where you break the rules. If you’re not careful, you have every other sentence with grammar problems and people (i.e. editors) simply think that you don’t know the proper grammar and dump the story. Just a warning to go along with her advice.
Debbie, I agree with what you say in general practice, but in this particular instance, I’d had the same thought as Nicole about that sentence.
Everywhere this man went, men threw down their swords, mages threw down their staves, dragons knelt in awe.
Yes, those are technically comma splices, but the sentence flows more smoothly with them. Using semi-colons there would give it a more staccato feel,IMO.
(I would, however, do some other editing in that sentence; I think using “threw down” in the first two instances but not in the third sounds a little odd. Then there’s “man” and “men,” which are close enough together that they set up an almost-echo.)
Everywhere he went, men threw down their swords, mages cast away their staves, dragons knelt in awe.
Just a preference but I think it adds to the rhythm of the sentence to replace the commas splice with an ‘and’.
Everywhere he went, men threw down their swords, mages cast away their staves and dragons knelt in awe.
Sorry to quick on the post button:
…replace the last comma-splice with an ‘and’.
If you put an ‘and’ in there, don’t you still need the comma? [i.e. Debbie's post in Kimberley King's #2 submission]
‘Everywhere he went, men threw down their swords, mages cast away their staves, and dragons knelt in awe.’
Help, please.
Oh, Daniel. There have been bloody wars fought over whether to put in that final comma.
It depends on your generation. Me, I like it, because it’s consistent and symmetrical. And besides, I was taught to put it in. Old habits die hard. (Though I did manage to train myself to stop putting two spaces after a period.)
Later, the fashion changed and everyone was told to leave the comma out unless necessary for clarity. Then it came back into style and out yet again…which may be where it currently stands. I’m not sure.
I say, bah humbug and a plague on both houses…and I always put that comma in.
Sorry,
I actually meant to put the comma there as well as the ‘and’. I had already posted twice in a row when I noticed my error, and thought I had best shut up!
So, Daniel, yes, that is what I meant!
First: The first line is a quote so quotation marks please. After the mention of mum’s words of wisdom I was looking for the quote and got confused for a moment not finding them.
I am going to disagree with the folk above about the commas. The sentence is not a comma splice, it is a list(another acceptable usage for multiple commas).
The second para does need some work but I will leave it with you to decide how. You should do something to link the images of “…their blind lives” and John’s coming home though.
To both Beth and Adam:
‘lol’ :p.