Critique #42 — Richard Joseph McKenzie
Kevin Andrew Murphy July 30th, 2006
‘Merlin the Magician’s work day’
    I was the first to arrive at the work hut. I came in early, before everybody was about and making noise and interrupting, constantly interrupting, until a man cannot think straight, let alone accomplish some mighty endeavor.
    Instead, without being disturbed I was able to get many tasks done after I had conjured up fire and with its light set to work.
    I found the scroll that Grendel’s mother was always nagging me about, which should get the old monster off my back for awhile.
    I was able to continue work on cataloguing for the Domesday Books. In due time a person can come to me and ask to look up somebody in the books, anybody of worth in the entire Kingdom, and then I will say ‘no’ and they will leave, mad indeed, but away they will go. Will that not be fun?
    I looked up from my work when the bell for morning gruel sounded and I laughed bitterly. Morgana was late. It would serve her well if she was docked the day’s wage. I had toiled for much time already and she was still nowhere to be seen.
    I went and collected my gruel. I decided not to eat with the others but to go outside.
Rich - a couple of things right off.
- Every sentence starts with the letter “I” (whether instead or “I”) — play with the rhythm and sentence structure to make the words flow more naturally.
- Where are we? This is a disembodied voice (first person makes this especially hard, as you have to describe things in a way that it doesn’t feel like a travel monologue)
- Duplication of information… for ex
then
you can tighten up the sentence structure easily.
- There’s no action. The voice is passive, for ex… the character “found the scroll”, “conjured up a fire”, “looked up from my work”, “went and collected my gruel.”
- There’s a sense of time distortion (”I decided not to eat with the others” right after “first to arrive” either isn’t played up enough (after all, Merlin’s ability to manipulate time is in some tales), or you need to show us that everyone else has come to work to start their day.
It would be a lot more interesting (and a lot more humorous) if you spent the time showing us these things.
For ex,
The glow along the horizon hinted at the sunrise to come. I rushed across the castle yard, my robes swirling around my feet, to the workshop down by the inner walls, hoping to arrive before Morgana. Spiteful creature that she was, she often left unpleasant surprises on my workbench.
—
This at least gives us a sense of time and place.
I do like the image about Grendal’s mother nagging Merlin — spend more time on that. There’s something truly amusing about the idea of Merlin being nagged by Grendal’s mother.
I found the bit about Grendel’s mother to be the one truly amusing bit in this piece.
While over all the writing gives a feeling of passivity on the main character’s part, it’s not in the Passive Voice.
Quick grammar tip: Passive voice is a technical term, borrowed from Latin grammar, which is why it’s hard to remember. Passive voice sentences follow this structure:
The workbench was used by Merlin.
The magician was eaten by Grendel’s mom.
Passive voice puts emphasis on what’s normal the object of the main verb by dumping the person doing the acting into a prepositional phrase:
by Merlin, by Grendel’s mom
Active voice would be :
Merlin used the workbench
Grendel’s mom ate the magician.
Now, the verbs in these 13 lines are all in the active voice. The problem with the piece is that it’s somehow boring. Boredom is hard to quantify, admittedly.
My suggestion: start with a conversation twixt Merlin and Grendel’s mother and see where that takes you.
Richard, you’ve got a promising setup for a story. I, at least, am almost always grabbed by humor. But like Dani hinted, you’re using far too many words for the ideas you are putting across. How about tightening this opening to be brief, witty, and then get to the action? (I love Kit’s idea of showing us the conversation between Merlin and Grendel’s mom.)
Here are your own words, with what I think are unnecessary ones deleted. See what you think:
(I’d smooth that long sentence up there after ‘everybody was’ but I don’t want to mess further with someone else’s prose.)
Kit — D’oh. You’re right that all the verbs are active, but the prose still comes across as passive. Thanks for the catch.
Just a little thing - the term ‘domesday books’ (whether it’s something different or not), automatically makes you think of the English Domesday Book, which was not compiled until 1086 - after the norman conquest. The accepted dates for the mythical period of Merlin/Morgana etc would be around late 5th early 6th centuries. Even if you are using some time travelling system, it still jars in the mind with anyone who knows even a basic amount of history/legend.
I think there might be an interesting story here, but I was distracted from it by a few things:
1) The language seemed stilted and even “in the day,” I doubt that people intentionally stilted their internal prose. Because of this style thang, I found it harder to read than I would have liked.
2) I needed to read some of the sentences more than once to understand them. For example, this sentence:
“Instead, without being disturbed I was able to get many tasks done after I had conjured up fire and with its light set to work.”
You have a broad, time-encompassing (kind of a “fast forward”) clause of events that occur after a very precise prior point in time. It made my mind skip — I had to reread the sentence for meaning.
3) I couldn’t discern if Grendel’s mother’s scroll was the same as the Doomsday book stuff. Why mention Grendel’s mother’s scroll at all right here? Does that have something to do with Morgana?
4) I couldn’t understand why the protag would “laugh bitterly” at Morgana being late. Bitter, I understand. Laughing at it, I don’t.
5) There are others in the workshop (mentioned in the last paragraph), but you began by telling us that the protag came in early to get work done undisturbed. This, to me, is confusing and acted as a “speedbump” in the prose.
Overall, there are many episodes in this person’s morning and I wasn’t clear what the overall point was or portented to be.
This is, of course, my humble opinion, and I thank you for sharing.