Critique #35 — John Zeleznik
Kevin Andrew Murphy July 17th, 2006
By the time the sun had reached its noon apex, the crowd had swelled to overfill the benches and shaded booths that circled the exhibition yard. Even with the hastily built pavilion, seats had been scarce when the exhibition had begun earlier that morning and the crowd had become a noisy cacophony of shouts, boasts and cheers. Until the Sword exhibition had begun. When the two men, one resplendent in the blue and gold of the noble House Amos and the other in a plain steel breastplate and black tunic stepped into the circle, the crowd hushed. Perhaps the two finest Swords in all the Order of Weaponmasters stepped into the exhibition ring, facing one another for what felt like the thousandth time. There wasn’t a soul in the crowd who had not heard of either of them and both men knew it. Not that Jaiman Zarachek had ever grown comfortable with it.
John Zeleznik=Jaiman Zarachek=author-insertion-character
Please don’t do this. While we haven’t had a chance to actually get to know the characters, it screams “Mary Sue.” (If you’re not familiar with the term, “Mary Sue” is the author-insertion character of all author-insertion characters.)
Anyway, ignoring that, you’ve overmodified nouns and done it redundantly. For example, “noisy cacophony.” What other sorts of cacophonies are there? Listing “shouts, boasts and cheers” is also plain dull. If we heard just a few of the catcalls from the audience, we’d get the actual feeling of a sporting event, and more than that, it would give you a chance to let us know a couple of things about the event without having the narrator come out and blather it.
Beyond that, for all the overmodified descriptions, this scene is curiously flat because you’ve only used the visual and a highly muddled version of the auditory sense. Is the sun hot? Does the armor pinch? Is there dust in the air and flies? The stink of the crowd’s sweat mixed with the grease of meat pies and other festival food?
Worse, you come out straight and tell us that these are two master swordsmen in an exhibition match. We don’t know that anything depends on it or anything else, so all I’ve effectively done is channel-surfed to some sporting event with two people I’ve never heard about and consequently don’t care much to see and I’m clicking the remote to see what’s on the next channel.
Sorry, John. If you’d hooked me with the description, I might be enticed to turn the page, but this reads too flat for me to be interested in the fate of either participant.
Like kevin said: how many apices does the sun have besides noon?
I’d cut all that jumble out–every single sentence has a problem, thus is offputting, and besides, i am not interested in how big a crowd is before I know what the crowd is doing.
For me, the story started at “When the two men…”
I agree with what you’ve said. I’ve struggled with this opening for years and stumbled over it forever. I think the rest of the story is good but needs work, however, it would never get read because of the week opening.
As for the Mary Sue (and I did know what it was) bit, I suppose that is true. I do plan on using a pen name when this gets published. But Jaiman is not as much of Mary Sue as some characters are.
I think what I was trying to do was the whole “camera flying in” effect. But Sherwood, you are absolutely right, the story should begin with “When the two men…”
Thanks for the terrific critiques!
No trouble, John.
With the pen name–there are copyright advantages to using your own name, and if you hadn’t noticed, you’ll be shelved at the end of the aisle right alongside Roger Zelazny. That’s not a bad place to be.
But don’t sweat it. If an editor buys it, you can ask their advice then.