Critique #177 — Sarah Laurenson
Kevin Andrew Murphy September 14th, 2007
I avoid looking in the shops. It’s not their contents that bother me, it’s their windows. Block after block of reflective glass. I stare at the sidewalk. A jogger flashes by on the right and brushes my shoulder. He glances back to apologize, meets my eye, sees my face. His mouth hangs open as he runs over the old lady with the bag of groceries. My fault. I should not be out in public. But I can’t stop to help. I would only frighten them more.
I hurry away as fast as I can. I am no jogger. I am barely a walker. My legs are short, bowed, not built for speed. My back is painfully twisted. My hands would brush the ground if I let them hang. I don’t. They remain deep in the pockets of my overcoat. This overcoat that hides so much of the hideousness of my body. I am a moving black lump with no discernable features.
Hi,
Not a fan of the present tense. I like your first four sentences, but felt I wanted to know more before the jogger strikes. I know you want the jogger to reveal the ugliness factor but the fact the guy thinks he is ugly could be established. the jogger can show us what everyone else thinks. Just my opinion.
The jogger bit was slightly unclear. I imagined him running towards Lurch but re-reading carefully realize he strikes Lurch from behind. It would be better if that was clearer, the direction the jogger travels in relation to Lurch.
…runs over an old lady..
Mmm. In my head cars run over people, joggers run into people.
Your sentences also seem very short sometimes. It’s good to vary length but I think you could have improve the structure by tying a few bits together.
I hurry away as fast as I can — I am no jogger — I am barely a walker. My legs are short, bowed, and are not built for speed. My back is painfully twisted; my hands would brush the ground if I let them hang - I don’t. They remain deep in the pockets of my overcoat. This overcoat that hides so much of the hideousness of my body. I am a moving black lump with no discernible features.
The last line concerns me. Do I take that literally of figuratively? In horror, sci-fi, fantasy you have to be careful. To say someone ‘flew across the the room’ may mean they flew, or they ran fast. I would prefer some clarity especially when you mention his face earlier. Isn’t that a feature of sorts?
It sounds interesting, although I wonder at the choice of the present tense.
I would read on.
I love the way you implied, by way of the character’s reluctance to see him/herself in the reflective glass windows, that s/he is possibly hideous. Nicely sophisticated twist on the old character-looks-in-the-mirror cliche.
What I didn’t like was that in the very next paragraph some of the mystery is explained. I think you could have gone longer before revealing that and could reveal it much more gradually as well.
The present tense would be a problem for me if it continued for the whole story, unless the story is quite short. That’s a personal prejudice, though.
Would like to know the character’s gender very, very soon.
The writing itself was pretty good. The one sentence that seemed to stand out as unnecessary and clunky was “I stare at the sidewalk.” The paragraph reads perfectly well without it.
Yes — I guessed it was male. Perhaps that was sexist of me!
Just to contradict everyone, I thought the present tense worked here (which is strange, since I never think it works). I liked it, and I didn’t see many problems.
‘This overcoat that hides so much of the hideousness of my body.’ - this is a sentence fragment, though I see what you’re going for. Use a comma: ‘They remain deep in the pockets of my overcoat, this overcoat that hides so much of the hideousness of my body.’
I also thought that the jogger was running towards your main character - I still do.
Other than that, I had none of the problems that Beth and Adam did (sorry guys!). Maybe I’m just being more forgiving because I like the piece. Either way, it’s a thumbs-up from me, and I’d read on.
The jogger is running towards ‘Lurch’, but I can see how it’s not clear. Reading it again, I think the jogger is coming from behind. I’ll have to fix that.
This one is very short - a little over 500 words.
Interesting about the gender - I never establish it in the story. Not by design either. I’ll have to think about that.
Thanks for the comments. Good food for thought!
If the jogger ran towards Lurch, then after he brushes Lurch’s shoulder, Lurch would have to turn to face the jogger for him to see Lurch’s face.
This would pose the question why would he/she turn to look at the jogger if he/she wished to avoid scaring people?
It would seem more natural for the jogger to run from behind, brush Lurch’s shoulder as he passed. Then the jogger could turn, see Lurch’s face (without Lurch doing anything), and crash into the old lady.
A thought occurred to me. If Lurch really is so hideous most pedestrians passing would see his/her face, as you don’t mention a hat or scarf or anything. If I was concerned about my looks I would at least never venture far from home without my patented Elephant man bag (with eye holes). Why does your guy go without covering up his face even a little. Then at least the reaction of the jogger somehow getting a good view would make sense. Otherwise a walk down, what is obviously a brightly lit busy shopping area, would simply be one person after another showing their ‘disgust/suprise’.
Why does he walk in such an area? Surely he could walk elsewhere, where it was darker and there were fewer shop windows and people. It’s a bit like finding someone scared of heights on the top of the Eiffel Tower at the begining of a story — it needs a reason of sorts. Perhaps your story will clarify why he is there.
All this is really nit-picking — I would read on, as stated earlier — I think I am writing this to avoid going back to my novel!
Adam said:
That’s exactly the way I saw it happening. Not sure the choreography works if the jogger is running toward the character.
It feels very broad brush strokes to me. The character is a generic ugly character. Nightcrawler (or half the mutants pre-M Day), Quasimodo, etc. What makes this one different? I wanted something fresh.
I find the present tense too intrusive, but I’ll grant that’s a personal preference. Still, it’s a turn off a few people have mentioned already.
I have no conflict to hang on. If I saw it all together, I might read on for that conflict, but if I were faced with even clicking a link to get more here, I wouldn’t.
I like it.
The present tense combined with first person pov works for me, has an immediate and intense feel. I like some of the bluntness of the statements.
I actually didn’t have a lot of the problems that appear to bug some of the commenters, but would consider revising some of this, make it more terse since I think you do actually use too much space to repeat, or drag out, some of the thoughts.
(will run hard and loose with suggestions, so take them with several bags of salt:))
I avoid looking in the shops. It’s not their contents that bother me, it’s their windows.
I avoid looking through shop windows. It’s not the contents but the windows that bother me.
perhaps consider unsettle instead of bother? or some word that implies shame/ embarassment and humiliation?
Block after block of reflective glass.
cut; unnecessary, but mostly it makes no sense why someone who dislikes windows would enter an area filled with them.
A jogger flashes by on the right and brushes my shoulder. He glances back to apologize, meets my eye, sees my face.
agree that it feels implied that he’s coming from behind, and that would be the way I would leave it, feels more effective.
His mouth hangs open as he runs over the old lady with the bag of groceries.
“the old lady” to me implies there is only one old lady or this one is significant, consider “an old lady with a bag of groceries”. She’s a generic character is she not?
I am no jogger. I am barely a walker.
this adds nothing not implied before or after
I don’t
cut; implied by “if I let them hang”
k, so my suggested re-write would go:
I avoid looking through shop windows. It’s not the contents but the windows that bother me. I stare at the sidewalk. A jogger flashes by on the right and brushes my shoulder. He glances back to apologize, meets my eye, sees my face. His mouth hangs open as he runs over an old lady with a bag of groceries. My fault. I should not be out in public. I’d like to help, but I would only frightem them more so I hurry away as fast as I can.
My legs are short, bowed, not built for speed. My back is painfully twisted. My hands would brush the ground if I let them hang. They remain deep in the pockets of my overcoat. This overcoat that hides so much of the hideousness of my body. I am a moving black lump with no discernable features.
I actually like the quiet, almost despairing, rhythm of this last para.
This picks up the pace a great deal more, and I get the impression with the story you’re setting here you need to raise tension from within, not without.
I don’t know where precisely you’re heading with this, but 500 words will likely be too short. That’s hardly more than a mood piece, and this is a nice Frankensteinian set-up. You can do more with it.
have to agree with Beth, that I don’t think you actually need the “I stare at the sidewalk”, disrupts the flow unkindly in a sense.
Adam raised a couple of good points which you could easily slide in here:
1) a hat or face cover of some kind, this would be needed for an ugly person;
2) time of day - this is actually needed otherwise it feels non-sensical for the char to be out and about. Perhaps dusk, when people are rushing home, have rushed home, the light is dim, etc.
Easily fixed.
But I liked it.
I have to add my distaste for the 1st person present tense. But that’s just a personal preference of mine.
I’m curious as to what this person (or some other creature) is doing walking down the street. What purpose has brought this character out into an element he/she/it is so uncomfortable in?
Stephen R. Donaldson opened up his first Covenant book (Lord Foul’s Bane) with Thomas Covenant walking down a city sidewalk. Donaldson’s opening - the reactions to Covenant and his internal reaction to their reactions - pulled me in immediately.
While the above is interesting, I want to know why this character shouldn’t be out in public - and why he/she/it is.
And this is where the 1st person present tense doesn’t work for me. It sounds too much like instructions instead of emotions.
Thanks for all the great comments!
I’m another non-fan of present tense. So right there it makes me unlikely to read past the first sentence.
However, once I did, I discovered that I was intrigued. If this were recast in past tense, I might read another page. I wouldn’t read more unless the character were jolted out of his self-absorbtion, though.
Seaboe
Present tense can work well in short stories - I’m happy with it here.
The opening hooks with the ‘ugly-issue’ and with a secondary ‘where’s he off to?’
For me, it lingered on the ugliness too much - you could have got a couple of quick hits with that, then expanded, and returned to it a bit later. We got the idea pretty quickly!
Also, you might perhaps use the reactions, and the MC’s speculation about them, to better illustrate his condition. Some of the description was out of POV exposition & could be delivered more effectively. That said, I’d read on & feel safe that I was going to get my money’s worth.
The character has some interesting components, but I’m not sure that there is enough story hook in these first two paragraphs for me to turn the page.
It would be great, if you can condense these paragraphs into one that is both descriptive and leads into why this person has ventured outside in broad daylight. Do this, and you will have me wanting to know more.
Right now, the character is interesting, but the paragraphs aren’t quite compelling enough to keep me reading. I need to see the a glimmer of the problem here.
I liked this actually. I agree with some of the wording issues that other people have brought up, but I like the short, snappy present tense structure of it. I’d read more.
I agree with David. I love the Frankensteinian feel, and I think that you could set up a piece that would last much longer than 500 words. Your last sentence had me waiting for more…
Hello everyone….when are you starting back?
Sarah
First, I’m no expert: Nothing I have written has ever been published.
Second, 13 lines is a real challenge (I not sure I’m gutsy enough to post my own efforts yet!).
Caveats out of the way I like what you have written and would surely read more. There’s been a lot said about the present tense; in my view, coupled with the 1st person PoV and done well it can be very powerful. The passage has immediacy that past tense might not have achieved.
Okay there’s the pat on the back. What do I think could be improved? Well, I think more variety in sentence length would help. The short sharp initial sentences are strong but I think longer sentences would work better for the reflective passages (for example you might consider combining the last four sentences of the first para).
In the second para you have three consecutive sentences starting with “my” - I’d see if I could break that up (again compound sentences might help).
Thank you so much for sharing your work. As I said before, I’d be reading more given the chance.