Critique #93 — Denni Rael
Kevin Andrew Murphy November 1st, 2006
Life is like a giant turd flying out of the drain you are trying to
unblock. It
lands in a splatter upon the lawn - thick, stinking sludge - making you feel
shittier than when you couldn’t do a shit because the drain was blocked by
shit in
the first place.
Yeah. Life is shit.
If I’d known I’d end up on the wrong side of a sword, a staff, and a pair of
daggers, I’d never have signed up for the weight watcher’s fast track to
slimness.
Geez, you know, I could die happier, and live longer stuffing my face full of
double-buttered muffins than facing off with a hot guy in black leather
threatening
to gut me because I can’t do a one handed press-up while simultaneously
defending my
butt with a machete. Hey! I can’t do a two handed pseudo-press up on my knees
without a dangerous weapon!
OK. OK. I’ll admit, maybe getting my butt cut off with a sharp piece of
metal isn’t
the worst way to go. Sort of plastic surgery without the plastic, but
still the pain
and blood. If only my ass was a balloon that would deflate with the prick
of a
rapier. My overflowing gut that was never meant for lycra bodysuits, too.
Was there
a class for butt and gut busters?
Shit. I can’t remember.
Denni,
While I’ve seen Jenny Craig meets Sword and Sorcery done before, successfully, when you add Potty Mouth, it just doesn’t work.
It’s not that you can’t start your story out with the image of steaming shit, it’s just that this isn’t the image that leads you to either fat people in a gym or barbarian’s clanging swords.
As such, it’s not working. As an editor, I wouldn’t bother to turn the page or even reach for anything other than the basic form letter.
Hi Denni.
I’m afraid I pretty much agree with Kevin. Though I thought the first paragraph was fabulous and laughed out loud, I rather think it was for the wrong reasons. You have to be very careful when mixing swearing and fantasy (well, anything for that matter) together, and this, I’m sad to say, is all expletives and no substance.
So, clearly it’s not ready for submission. However, the premise seems to be interesting (woman is unwittingly yanked from our world into a realm of magic and sword-slinging, and is none too pleased about it). Please correct me if I misunderstood the plot, but as I see it, it has a lot of entertainment potential.
Everyone [or at least I] likes a good old takes-no-rubbish-from-anyone protagonist, but this needs much more work; having a character who swears a lot won’t carry a book through an editor’s scrutiny.
Hope this helped :).
Get rid of the first paragraph, but I thought it was funny!
Yeah, what they said. The tone is so strong on its own you don’t need the shit shittety-shit shittoo of the first paragraph. And though the tone is good, the moment you said “sword, staff and two daggers” made me think I was actually landing in stock D&D-world. Either give us detail on the weaponry, or don’t mention ti at all, but using that phrase just made me think about a character sheet.
There’s intriguing, promising stuff here. But you need to clear out - if you’ll pardon me saying it - the shit.
The second paragraph is a splendid setup to a story–its wise-ass tone is funny, and it actually gets a story started. The first graf labors too hard on the metaphor and made me want to skim.
The last graf also does the same thing–repeats everything, thus dragging the promising pacing down.
My suggestion is, trim off the first and third grafs, and show us what happened.