Critique #80: Samer Rabadi
Katharine Kerr September 10th, 2006
Once there was a rabbit who invented dreams. An incredulous occupation
perhaps, and certainly not one expected of rabbits who are often as
not farmers or shoe makers. It is the truth, however, or at least as
close to the truth as such things can be.
He was a rather ordinary looking rabbit, and he lived in an ordinary
looking shoe. A thing made of worn, beaten leather, but still
comfortable in the way old shoes can be. He led a rather solitary
life, as most inventors do.
This rabbit’s name was Milo, and Milo invented many dreams for many
people. John P. Hopper, for example, needed a very specific dream. A
dream of meeting Nancy Jane Wollop at a fancy dress party and
“accidentally” spilling chocolate pudding on her shoes. Milo didn’t
particularly understand that dream, but John T. Hopper seemed
particularly enthused by the final product and Milo washed his hands
of it. After all, once dreams are out in the world, there’s no taking
them back.
More often than not, Milo made dreams for the mass market. While not
his favorite creation, Milo was responsible for the ubiquitous Going
to School in Your Underwear dream.
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.
There’s no need for a sentence fragment here. Change it to “shoe, a thing made etc”.
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.”
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.
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.
Samer, are you telling me that this is the opening for a novel? Not a short story? Did you read the guidelines carefully?
Arrggh.
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.