Critique #158 — Kimberley King #3
Kevin Andrew Murphy August 31st, 2007
Jordan sat staring through the frosted window at the iced world that lay outside. The wooden-cabin had served his family well, but now it was as decrepit as his soul. The arctic breeze that filtered through the house chilled his bones to the very core, but he did not care. He had failed his team, and if death were to come to him tonight, he would welcome it. The thought of the battle ran through his mind, but he pushed the thoughts aside. His taut muscles moaned as he reached for the near-empty bottle of whiskey and topped up his glass. So far the alcohol had done nothing to help him forget, but he hoped when he saw the bottom of the bottle it would.
Jackson, his chocolate Labrador, lifted his head from the floor as Jordan clunked the glass onto the table. Jackson whined softly and, getting no response from his owner, lay his head down on the rug that covered the wooden floor. Jordan looked at him with an emotionless face, envying how simple a dog’s life was. Just sit by the fire on the rug and get fed. Jordan scoffed and returned his gaze to the snow-covered trees that were just beyond the window.
Kimberly:
I’m afraid that Jordan is doing such a terrific job feeling sorry for himself that I can’t scrape up much sympathy. You’ve got a potentially interesting setup, but the first two graphs are simply a stating and restating of misery, with a few factoids dropped in, and nothing to make me want to read farther.
I know that the environment is cold, but I don’t know if it’s because it’s winter or because this is a normally frigid venue. “Frosted window” to me suggests that it’s treated glass (like the privacy-treatment on bathroom windows) rather than that it’s etched with frost; “iced world” is evocative but too uninformative, given that I don’t know where we are.
I know there’s been a battle, and that he’s holed up in his family’s cabin, but there’s no context. And a couple of phrases are simply unfortunate: muscles, no matter how taut, don’t moan (they may make you moan, but that’s a different thing).
I’d like to be more positive; I suspect that you have something very vivid in your head, but the parts you are sharing with us are not supporting that vividness. I’d love to see some gesture or action of Jordan’s (other than drinking) that demonstrates his guilt and misery. Even trying to write a letter to the family of the fighters he lost might give you some space to show us about Jordan without all the self-pity. That’s only one way to go, but it’s a thought.
as an example (not that I am suggesting this - but just as an example relating to what Madeleine says), you could trim the first paragraph down (using your own words):
Jordan stared through the window at the icy world that lay outside. The arctic breeze that filtered through the walls of the decrepit cabin chilled his bones, but he did not care. He reached for the near-empty bottle of whiskey and topped off his glass, but so far the alcohol had done nothing to help him forget how he had failed his team during the battle.
Again, I’m not suggesting that this is what you should write, but look at how that is trimmed down in terms of the points Madeleine raises.
Hey Kimberley :).
Well, I think Madeleine pretty much hit the nail on the head: Jordan’s regret and grief quickly turns into whining and self-pity, which becomes immediately tiresome. There’s nothing wrong with the prose re. grammar and punctuation though, so that’s always good.
‘He had failed his team’ and ‘The thought of the battle ran through his mind’ seem to be your two hooks, but they’re like lone voices in the crowd - drowned out and forced to the back by bigger, louder sentences (and thus, largely ignored). Speaking of team and battle… I dunno, ‘team’ implies ‘game’; ‘battle’ implies ‘war’ (or at least ‘fight’). They’re not really contradictory as such, they just seem to present different ideas (despite referring to the same thing). Just a little complaint.
There’s nothing wrong with having a character who’s lost in despair, but when that’s all you show us, there’s not much left to draw us into the story. Try to incorporate some intrigue into Jordan’s grief (i.e. Madeleine’s letter idea).
Hope this helps :).
Kimberly,
You’ve got three good crits so far, though I’ll add that with the frosted window, aside from me thinking that the word better describes treated glass, well, when frost actually does cover a windowpane, you can’t see out. It’s not until it begins to melt later on in the sun that you get the pretty effect of a clear pane in the middle with frost around the edges, at which point you can look out at the outside world.
There’s also a problem with the wind whistling through the cracks of the cabin but the frost all over the windowpanes. Frost is an insulator, and if it’s forming on the windows, it’s forming in the cracks, and that will cut down on the wind. Not that there won’t be some gaps.
Anyway, the physics and the architecture started to get in the way of the story for me, even before the self-pity. Also, the fact that every noun had an adjective. Pare along the lines Kate suggested.
I think part of the problem here is that it needs to be tightened, but the other part, at least for me, is that we’re being told what the character is thinking and feeling, and at least in part then, what we’re supposed to think about the character.
I’d rather a show, with bits of explanation worked in as needed. If we know that there are enemies out there “He glanced at the sentry system, still disabled, but didn’t bother to get up to turn it on” works better than “if death were to come to him tonight, he would welcome it”. Forgive me if I got the tech level wrong. I couldn’t get a feel for it from the piece. We could then guess his feelings by his actions and choices.
You say his thoughts went to the battle. What exactly is he thinking. I don’t know if it would be too confusing, but could you do something to work the battle in? Maybe insert flashes of it in italics?
There’s no action here except the lift of the lab’s head.
Seaboe