Comments on: Critique #82 Kathleen Retterson Revision 2

By: Sherwood Smith

Sherwood Smith — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 20:39:39 +0000

Ordinarily I’d be outa there like a shot as I dislike horror and grossness, and at the beginning of a story where I haven’t invested anything in character, setting, or situation it’s usually a total turnoff, but the tone here caught me and kept me reading–the bit of humor, the idea that the guy isn’t really suffering though his body is going through all kinds of nastiness. I am very intrigued.

But what was said above about vreckin’–adding the apostrophe to an alien word we can’t apply English grammar rules to seems kind of coy.

By: Kathleen Retterson

Kathleen Retterson — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 15:33:12 +0000

Thanks for the nits. “Gotcha” on those. Especially the alien language. I was rationalizing it based on the “translation to English” thing but since I didn’t translate the word, I really can’t fall back on that argument!

I’m afraid I don’t know Phil Ochs . . . but I do like that quote!

By: Katharine Kerr

Katharine Kerr — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 22:06:14 +0000

Kathleen, although there are nits that need picking (gods, what an image!) this is over all a bang-up opening.

In the first paragraph, notice how many ‘this/that was’ sentences you have. One is too many for a first para.

I suspect that number 1 by vreckin is actually an apostrophe, waylaid by whatever glitch keeps troubling your submissions. Since the word is in an alien language, it doesn’t need an apostrophe at all. I doubt if an alien language is going to form participles exactly like ours, and even if it did, I doubt twice that the local slang would change them as ours are changing. It’s obvious what the word means.

Have you ever heard the old Phil Ochs song about the crucifixion? One line is “do you have a picture of the pain?” This excerpt reminded me of that mightily, not that there’s anything wrong with it doing so.