Dancing With a Marionette

This isn't really much of a story yet...but I just want to know if this is an interesting opening.

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Dancing With a Marionette

I’m not sure if I’m awake… I believe my eyes are open, but how can I be sure? I see that man again… I see his mouth making that familiar motion to speak. He’s making gestures…but there’s no sound. Should I be able to hear? I think I am supposed to listen…but there is only silence like in a moving picture show. I suppose I am dreaming. After all I’ve always been able to hear and listen in the past. But this feels so real. I can feel tears burning my cheeks. I feel my heart racing. It’s beating…beating so fast. It’s so rapid; it might burst and leave me dead.

Am I dying? I grab my chest and I feel the tension in my hand. I’m coughing now and the tears aren’t missing a single beat. My eyes… they’re swollen, red. There are tears in his eyes too. He looks as though grieving or worried. His face is in the comfort of his hands now. He’s shaken and I make a note that I am also. I feel by body betraying me… I’m collapsing under my weight.

I’m so heavy... My knees are buckling and I’m falling.
I didn’t see what the man did next. But I felt arms and a warm body surround me. I could only assume it was his holding me, since I now was rendered blind. His hands were frantic as he shook me. In spite of my optimism I had to wonder…Am I dying? It was the strangest thing. My mind began to remember how things once sounded. Past memories of noises, notes, and chords rang out in my head and soon I felt the melodies playing in my ears. I remembered the sound of my voice…

“Are my eyes open…?” My mouth made the motions and now I heard myself.

Half-note,

This seems like a good exercise in writing, but I wouldn't expand it into anything more than that. This would be a good exercise in character development, but it lacks much of anything else.

I felt cheated at that end that I didn't know what was going on, which if you were to expand on, I'm sure we would find out eventually. This beginning really doesn't do justice to sheer action and it left me with a feeling of boredom. Sometimes being sneaky about what is taking place is not a good thing. If you are to go this route, I would suggest cutting some of the inner-monologue and getting to the point, which is what is happening to this person. Good luck with this.

Cool! I was compelled to read all the way to the end, which is really good. However, you could pick up the pace by using more active (less passive) verbs.

There's a really great post in the Writing Tips forum about this, here's the link.

viewtopic.php?t=11631

For example, instead of, "I'm coughing," say "I cough." Instead of "My knees are buckling and I'm falling," say "My knees buckle and I fall."

If you do this all of the time it sounds a weird, but try to do it for the majority of your verbs and your story will be more fast-paced and compelling.


In your story as it is, now, I would like to know less about the narrator and more about the mysterious man. Make it clear that the narrator has some health problem, but give the man some details too. Try to use all five of the narrator's senses; does he/she have a bad taste in her mouth? Does the man smell distinct in any way?

since I now was rendered blind.

This sounds like a tense change. I think it might flow better if you just say "I am rendered blind."

I like the way you tell this in a stream of consciousness. I think you should use less ellipsis (sp?) ("..."'s) though, because they really disrupt the way this sounds. Also, people generally say ...'s, not think them.

In my opinion, stories told in retrospect have to be especially interesting, or the reader will just give up on them because they already know what happens in the end.

I'll look for the rest of this if you decide to post it. If your goal was to make an interesting beginning, I think you did it. Good luck!

There's a really great post in the Writing Tips forum about this, here's the link.

viewtopic.php?t=11631

^_^


Anyways, I liked this, but it only works because it's really short. if you wrote like that all the way through a longer story, the reader would get annoyed.

Also, you mix your tenses at the end (occasionally switching to the past tense for no concievable reason) that could do with some fixing - keep it all in the present tense.

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I’m not sure if I’m awake… I believe my eyes are open, but how can I be sure? I see that man again… I see his mouth making that familiar motion to speak. He’s making gestures…but there’s no sound. Should I be able to hear? I think I am supposed to listen…but there is only silence like in a moving picture show. I suppose I am dreaming. After all I’ve always been able to hear and listen in the past. But this feels so real. I can feel tears burning my cheeks. I feel my heart racing. It’s beating…beating so fast. It’s so rapid; it might burst and leave me dead.

First thing I noticed were the ellipses. They are so annoying when I tried reading so I ignored them. If the person can feel how is it that they cannot hear? The sentences are very choppy, you should go for longer sentences or combining some of the above.

My eyes… they’re swollen, red.

Is there a mirror for this person to be able to see that his/her eyes are red or why doesn’t he/she imagine they are since he/she believes it is a dream.

I feel by body betraying me… I’m collapsing under my weight.

‘by’ = my

I’m so heavy... My knees are buckling and I’m falling.
I didn’t see what the man did next. But I felt arms and a warm body surround me. I could only assume it was his holding me, since I now was rendered blind. His hands were frantic as he shook me. In spite of my optimism I had to wonder…Am I dying? It was the strangest thing. My mind began to remember how things once sounded. Past memories of noises, notes, and chords rang out in my head and soon I felt the melodies playing in my ears. I remembered the sound of my voice…

“Are my eyes open…?” My mouth made the motions and now I heard myself.

The ending was too much. You went into description overdrive, meaning every action was told to the reader. I’m heavy, I’m falling, etc.

I don’t know if you’ve thought about this but try writing this again in third person and see how different it all sounds. I think for this type of story that it would be better in third person, it is up to you but give it a try and make up your mind.

I was expecting much more, I like the idea but there isn’t much there to keep me interested and the lack of description put me off. What does the place he/she is in look like, what do they think of it and does anything seem familiar?

One more thing, give the narrator a gender, right now it could be male or female.

-- Myth

I feel by body betraying me

I think there's a typo here...

I really liked it! It could become something nice. The only thing I didn't like was that we were told he used to be able to hear, we were told he could see and dance and what ever. So the majority of the story was his own thoughts and the reader being told things, which is kind of so so. IMO, while I was reading it, I could have seen it being a poem.

I think this would work better in third person, if you stepped out of the doll, because it will give it a more story-telling view, which might work well with this. I agree, change the passive voice.

But even with what I just said, I think it needs more. Imagine your story is a ball covered in ice. The ball is the bare bones of the story, and the ice is everything else packed on. Description, what I might call purple prose, repetition, trying to show emotions, that don't always work. You need to chop off some ice and leave us with the story.

For the emotions, think of it like this: What do you want your reader to feel? Don't think about what your character feels, thank about what you want the reader to feel. And once you have found that, you write with that in mind. It doesn't matter ow the character feels, so long as the reader can feel it too. make us sympathize with the character so when things start happening (he falls) we actually startle, and want to help him up ourselves.

I hope I helped I really liked the idea behind it and I know that with some hard core editing it will become beautiful! I'd really like to see what this turns into so if you edit, please PM me so I can read it! It was pretty, in its basics.

Edit:

myth wrote:try writing this again in third person

I didn't notice this until after I critiqued So now you have two unbiased people that say it would work in third person, so maybe you should consider it?