Critique #72 Daniel Woods
Katharine Kerr August 31st, 2006
Keldyn soared gracefully through the clouds, purring with delight as they dispersed in flurries of white all around him, enjoying his moment of frivolity. His hide glistened with a sheen of water, rich blue scales glinting and polished.
 Your charge awaits you, reminded the insistent voice he knew so well. Aurea was right of course – the human had to be observed, lest she overcame the challenge that awaited her. The thought pleased Keldyn; perhaps all was not yet lost.
 With a new sense of purpose, Keldyn settled into a comfortable glide and let the air carry him as he scanned the surface below. Spotting the Circle River to the west, he dipped his wing and turned towards it. She was somewhere along its banks, and already Keldyn could sense the malign presence amongst the trees that lined the waters.
 There was not much time.
 He drove himself upward, a little tense with anticipation. Observing the challenge would cause him little difficulty – Dragons had excellent eyesight, and could use their innate magic to extend their visual range if need be. He let himself glide, using the updrafts to keep him aloft, and settled in to wait.
 He would not have to wait long – a dark shadow lingered at the forest edge.
Aha, it’s up. My real concern with this version is that it’s just too bland, and that it won’t hold peoples’ interest. I have several different openings for this story (another one from Keldyn set slightly further back in time, and one from the girl herself) - I’ll post those in due course, but I wanted to see what people thought of this one.
Thanks for reading - any and all criticism (no matter how seemingly harsh) is greatly appreciated :).
DAniel, alas, you’re right. It is too bland. What’s this thing with clouds that so many of our posters have? We’ve had whipped cream clouds, milky clouds, clouds dipped in ink, etc etc. as opening images. At least in your case a dragon would have some reason to be concerned with cloud cover. But what you’ve done is opened with “a moment of frivolity”. But the story is not going to be frivolous, judging by the rest of it.
What does this tell you?
Here are a few picked nits. Others may add to the list.
“With a new sense of purpose” is too abstract. If Keldyn is gliding, then we know the air is carrying him. The infinitive phrase “Spotting . . . etc” is awkward here mostly because spotting his destination is important enough to warrant a clause of its own.
Hmm, a general thought dawns upon me: a lot of the writers submitting lines here have trouble choosing a degree of subordination. We should probably open a more general discussion of that in the “Craft” category.
Lol, I thought as much. My only defence for the clouds is that this excerpt was never originally meant to be the opening; indeed, Keldyn (as is shown in my original draft, not here) has in a sense just been reborn, and is enjoying the freedom of flight - I used this extract instead of the original because I am still fundamentally unhappy my true opening.
Ha, it tells me that I’m diluting the story with blather ;).
But yes, my fears for this passage are confirmed (and thank you also for the clause tip - I still need to work on my grasp of sentence structure :)).
If you’ll forgive my double-posting that flies in the face of the one-post-per-week rule, I’d just like to put up my original opening, just to see if I was right to discard it:
The creature gazed outward from the mountain crags of the of the Darkstone Ridge, revelling in the crisp air of the morning as it swirled and eddied about him, one eye sheathed against the sun. Though his wings were stiff and untried, he ruffled them experimentally – yes, today was the day, he could feel it. He began to unfurl them, tentative and excited, determinedly enduring the grating of bone and sinew as his cramped muscles stretched and ached with effort. He grunted with pain as, with an audible crack, his wings shot outwards – joints snapped sharply into place, and hot blood coursed through limp veins with new vigour. The creature stood tall on all-fours, head raised high and wings outstretched in triumph. He flapped with growing confidence as blood rushed to his starved muscles and tensions began to release.
Ken’Dar, young Dragon.
The creature tilted his head round slightly, a wry expression shaping his features.
‘Dragon,’ he said wistfully, ‘it has been too long since I was addressed as a Kiri – the beings of power can no longer afford to forsake this land’.
Aside from general dissatisfaction, I am still searching for an acceptable replacement for ‘the beings of power’.
Looking at your second version, I think you have included some details which are unnecessary at this time. They are cloging up the flow, and making it more difficult to see the main focus.
At several points you include compound verbs, nouns and adjectives, if there is such a thing. For example: ’swirled and eddied’ and ’stiff and untried’. I’m not sure why, but this makes it harder for me to comprehend what is happening in the sentence. It clogs the flow. And usually, I don’t think you really need both words.
You could probably find other words which are not need. Taking them out would also help the flow. Examples: the ‘audible’ of ‘an audible crack’ and the ’sharply’ of ’snapped sharply’.
‘One eye sheathed against the sun.’ I’m guessing there is a story behind this, in which case I would include it later when there is time for the story.
–Katharine, I for one would definitely be interested in a post on subordination.
Thanks for the advice on the second post, Vivian - it always did feel overwritten, but I could never seem to figure out exactly where I was going wrong.
Back to the drawing board with both of these, metihnks - I’ll post the one I think I’ve improved most in a week or two. At least my first attempts weren’t complete disasters, lol.
Thanks to both of you for commenting, and also to anyone else who posts advice for me :).
Since the guidelines specifically ask for the openings of stories, posting anything else is self-defeating, because what you post will be judged as an opening.
True, but I did still submit it as an opening to my story - it wasn’t originally meant for the job, but I’d thought it might work well as the beginning (or at least better than the other one).
Either way, neither of them are up to scratch, so all I can do is take everyone’s advice on board and finish writing the revised opening for next week :).
Daniel, if you’re having this much trouble with an opening, you are indeed starting it at the wrong place, just as you speculated above somewhere.
Find a point of high drama — the dragon swooping down on the girl or spotting her or suchlike — and try jumping in right there.
Daniel: another thing you might consider is making your story seem different from Anne McAffrey’s and those she inspired. A Dragon and his charge, the apostrophes in names…it’s seeming familiar, so you might want to show from the beginning how your story is different from the usual dragon-bonding-with-human stories.