Comments on: Critique #85 — Pete Lorr

By: tchernabyelo

tchernabyelo — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 16:41:50 +0000

Untagged opening dialogue is very risky. It’s five lines before we even get an “I” to anchor us to which is the narrator and which isn’t. On the other hand, you do manage a decent bit of set-up information in the discussion without it feeling too “as you know, Bob”, so it’s a plausible dialogue.

Ultimately, though, all it says is “hey, we’re about to have a time-travel story”. So I’m not sure you’re starting in the right place.

By: Vivian Francis

Vivian Francis — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 16:31:49 +0000

I like this. I enjoyed how the character who wants to change the past shifted to flattery to get what she/he wants. I agree with Sherwood Smith about wanting a bit more sensory detail.

When writing segments with some humor, I usually end up working it over so much I lose the ability to tell if it is funny. There are a couple of segments I think might benefit from putting the piece away for awhile in order to look at it later with fresh eyes. The Backtraveller/chiche section and the “No, are you crazy?” response. Possibly the “This conversation had no right to be happening” line as well, but then again I don’t know what it is leading up to in line 14.

By: Sherwood Smith

Sherwood Smith — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 20:34:31 +0000

I did like this–the hook for me was Speaker A implying that the book Speaker B had been working on was indeed finished and read further down the line.

But oh, I would like it so much more if it wasn’t talking voices, not even talking heads. Just a bit of sensory detail takes a story from one dimension to three for me. This might be my weakness as a reader, but for what it’s worth, there’s my reaction.

By: Pete Lorr

Pete Lorr — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 16:49:26 +0000

Well I’m glad it’s at least clear that the main character is a historian without me having to say as much directly. I worried that introducing the story with dialogue and not much about the characters would be too confusing to the reader. But I think I should be able to chop down some of the more useless bits of the dialogue (”Yes!”) without much trouble if that’s hurting my clarity. And I certainly hope the characters are engaging enough to merit writing a story about them.

Thank you for the advice.

By: Kevin Andrew Murphy

Kevin Andrew Murphy — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 08:27:04 +0000

Pete,

The dialogue without dialogue tags is basically readable, but it’s late and I got slightly confused as to who was speaking at points.

There’s a lot of “as you know, Bob”ing going on here, but there’s some conflict in the dialogue, so it’s vaguely engaging. However, my main thought is that this reads better as the start of a one-act play as opposed to a short story.

The other trouble I have is that if someone has invented a real time machine, you’d think any historian would be just itching to do research, rather than finish a dry biography.

I would turn the page, but I’d have to get more engaged with the characters soon.