Comments on: Critique #80: Samer Rabadi

By: Samer Rabadi

Samer Rabadi — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 14:14:25 +0000

Sorry, I wasn’t very clear. When I posted the above, I had - just hours before - arrived in London after a trans-Atlantic flight from Los Angeles as part of a relocation. It had been a long day and long week before that, and I wasn’t thinking very clearly.

The story originally started as a novelette. Given how it was developing, I didn’t think it was possible for it to be a novel. As I’ve been thinking about it, however, I’ve been wondering if it isn’t possible for it to be a novel after all, weird structure or not.

I do have anothe story that will eventually be a novel that I’ve also started. I’m at the world-building stage and just developing some plot ideas. It’s still a ways off till I start wrtiting.

It’s a little ambitious going back to school for a Masters and doing all this writing, but I plan on plodding ahead a page at a time.

By: Katharine Kerr

Katharine Kerr — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 20:44:52 +0000

Samer, are you telling me that this is the opening for a novel? Not a short story? Did you read the guidelines carefully?

Arrggh.

By: Samer Rabadi

Samer Rabadi — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 19:21:27 +0000

Thank you for the feedback. I’m only 20 pages in, and so this will help steer how the story gets told.

I take your point about the sing-song rhthym, and it eases up dramatically after the first few pages. It’s there early on to help invoke a sense of “children’s fairy tale” even though it’s not meant to be a children’s book. There’s a tension I’m shooting for in my language, but I’ll keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.

Grammar, imagery, and vocabulary points taken.

So you’d keep reading to see what would happen next? That’s what I’ve been most concerned about. It’s likely to be an odd little book (if it’s gets published), and I wonder if people will actually read it. For example, what you don’t see here is that each of the chapters is only 1 to 2 pages long.

The story wants writing, and I’ve committed to doing the best I can to make it happen in as an engaging and interesting way as my skill allows. It’s a case of one step at a time, I suppose.

Thank you again.

By: kateelliott

kateelliott — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 04:23:01 +0000

I can only agree with wht Kit and Mad say above. Drama isn’t everything. It’s a curious enough opening that it makes me curious to see, as Kit says, where you’re going with it.

By: Madeleine Robins

Madeleine Robins — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 01:45:10 +0000

What Kit said. Also–”Incredulous” is (according to one dictionary) an adjective descriptive of a person who is unable to believe something. I think you meant “incredible” or “unbelievable.”

By: Katharine Kerr

Katharine Kerr — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 23:44:48 +0000

I rather like this, overall, but the prose has a sing-song rhthym that becomes annoying after a short while. The main culprit is the profusion of sentence pairs joined with “and”.

Shouldn’t Milo wash his paws, not his hands, of the chocolate pudding dream?

The opening does lack drama, but I would turn the page to see where you’re going with it.

shoe. A thing made

There’s no need for a sentence fragment here. Change it to “shoe, a thing made etc”.