Critique #66 Grace Rober
Katharine Kerr August 29th, 2006
    A soft chime sounded, and a soothing voice sent electric chills down my spine as my nostrils flared and my ears tingled from the rush of blood that flushed my face.Â
“Today’s date is December eighteenth, twenty ninety-six…†the monotone voice continued.
I ignored the rest, and fought to keep my pace steady as both hands gripped the pink straps at my shoulders. I swallowed and watched as to my left doors slid closed and faces turned away. I fought any urge to run for negative behavior would surely bring unwanted attention. To my right, a face frowned, but the woman just nodded and that last door to safety was sealed.Â
Alone, I let my hands free and at full speed ran the emptied corridors skidding to a stop at one corner and peeked. Fear gripped and turned my stomach as my chest heaved for air. One last obstacle.Â
I’d mentally counted since the initial chime, perhaps, just two minutes left, I thought. Around a far and final corner, I saw a few persons scatter and disappear. They’d made it, safe on the other side.Â
I was not.
Grace, overall this is a good opening, and I would turn the page. The first sentence, however, is a case of overkill. Too much information about biological processes turns into unintentional humor.
There are also too many adjectives — soft, soothing, electric — in a row.
However, once you get past that sentence, this does work.
I agree with Kit. Can you give us a single, vivid reaction in that first sentence? Chills being sent down spines is a cliche, and making them electric only draws more attention to the cliche, it doesn’t add to the effect–and I wonder if you instinctively knew that, and thus piled on all the other stuff. But the effect is distracting, almost humorous, not tight and visceral. Think about how your protagonist feels fear, instead of giving us a generic signpost for fear–does her mouth go dry? Does her heartbeat thump in her ears? Do her knees feel watery, or does she tremble or hunch, tight-necked? Giving your characters individual reactions helps clarify character.
I had a little trouble with ‘faces’ rather than ‘people’ frowning and looking, etc, but not enough to stop my interest in the story. I was hooked by the speaker’s accelerating sense of danger, and would definitely turn the page.
Another nit occurs to me: the last line should be “I had not” rather than “I was not”, simply because it’s parallel with “they’d made it”, ie, “they had made it.”
Katherine and Sherwood,
Thank you so much for your input.
It was a big hurtle to put this up for your critique.
Katherine, thanks for the grammar lesson. I was always looking out the window during English class and it’s coming back to haunt me. I’ll change the sentence and watch out in the future.
I am a commaholic and am surprise that neither of you caught any extra little fellas hanging around in this submission.
WHEW.
No fair, going back and trying and find any. That would be cruel and unusual punishment.
Also, thanks to both of you about the opening.
I HAD NO IDEA.
I go to a very good writer’s group DFWWW out here in North Richland Hills, Texas. Look it up sometime.
But, this little lesson about how to ‘think as the protag feels (mouth dry, heartbeat in throat) I knew of those things, but ….
I thought that that was what I’d done.
I HAD NO IDEA.
I’ve learned something new and have put this little lesson in my happy writer’s tool purse.
I dreaded this experience, but am glad I did it.
THANKS
PS
Did either of you get that this was a little girl.
It’s a very sophisticated eleven year old.
I think I was okay burying it deep, because I wanted her mind and situation to come across first.
NOT prejuidice the reader with her age and gender.
MUCH Appreciate you both
Grace
Grace, good start, but it left me a little less enthusiastic than others principally because I missed some logic in the narrative.
(So, take what follows with a hackneyed grain of salt.)
It seems a lot of description of small actions that don’t add to a lot of story. Okay if this is a novel opening; if it’s a short, I’d expect it to be the other way around (i.e., a lot of story in fewer words).
I read that there is an unnamed protag who ends up on the wrong side of something. Protag has something to be afraid of.
There’s an obstacle that might be important but I’m thinking that it is not important because there was no effort to overcome said obstacle. So far, the Protag didn’t try to overcome the obstacle, and the last sentence reads like it’s too late to try. So why mention it at all when you do? Maybe mention it later?
First, the protag is not hurrying because it would be negative behavior, and shortly after she (pink straps is giveaway) is running at full speed. What happened in between?
Is the “far and final” corner the same corner she’s peeking around when she sees the “final obstacle”? Hard for me to picture the scene since it’s unclear if this is the same corner or not.
For what it’s worth, I only counted a single extra comma. So good job on hiding your comma addiction.
Good start. Hope this helps.
Grace, she comes across as a sophisticated adult, not as a child at all. You might want to rethink this a bit. Young children have a lot of trouble subordinating ideas and tend to express themselves in simpler sentences than an adult would. A possible stylistic device might be to simplify the structure of your sentences a bit, depending on how old the girl is.
Grammar is not some Dreadful Thing — it’s just an instruction manual on how to use our tools as writers: words. Of course, how many people read the effing manual?
Theo and once again Katherine,
Theo, good catch on the ‘final, final’ double entry. I’ll revist the sentences and rethink the images.
How blind we get to our own work. Many thanks.
The confusion as to the action sequence (IMO) is due to the fact that all my paragraphs got messed up through transmission onto this site.
I looks and reads much better on this side. (sigh)
A last door closing her off alone in the corridor is what sets the protag off in a run. (sigh - Oh, for indentations)
And the protag, is quite unique and I know that the story will be hard to place because of who she is (title - The Girl from the Moon); she is the only child of her ilk.
Think a young Jodie Foster persona, but exit sex, profanity, or lurid situations. I don’t go there.
However, I manage to stress out my protag with mutant animals, dark secret societies, diabolical plans, crashing space freighters, destroying evidence, revenge, and….so…. you see she has to be different.
Grace
PS.
Hit me with a wet noodle.
I want to apologize.
No, I mean it.
This was first 13-lines to a novel, but I write short stories, too.
Forgive and forget?
Please. (grovels shamlessly)
Then how about submitting the opening of one of your short stories.
To repeat: how many people read the effing manual? Grrr.
Why? A novel has about 10 pages to develop itself before an editor tosses it to one side and tells the assistant to send it back to the agent/author. You have time, in other words, in a novel to build to some sort of hook or high point. Conversely, you have more time to fail utterly and make the editor laugh when she shouldn’t or some other dire occurence.
No one here has time to read 10 pages. Hence, my stricture of short stories only.
All right, I recently sent in something to a short story contest here abouts locally.
I reread found some flaws, but here goes.
Also, another contest, but wish to experiment. MUWHA HA HA.
SSSHH.
Hubby thinks I should be making money on this by now, instead of taking time to learn a few more tricks.
Hence, my ‘you got question’ question.
I will send out to Mcmillan, but in a few days. Paranoia strikes deep and a few more tweeeks need to be done to the manuscript. Minor stuff.
Impression is everything.
Here, is the short story which won’t win that contest I mentioned—-ARRRGH.
I found grammar errors.
I reedited (that a word?) in a rush (an hour before deadline) and paid pay dearly.
I hope you, don’t catch any now.