Danse Macabre

In music we listen to this odd song named Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens. It inspired me to right this story.
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Once a year at the strike of midnight death summons the dead to dance the Macabre. The dance of the dead...

The last rays of sun kiss the cold planes good night as it disappeared over the edge of the planet. A solum cloaked figure of a man walked into the approaching darkness, as large gloomy clouds drift slowly over the full moon that had finally found it orbit over the earth. The planes where scattered with gravestones marked with the familiar "R.I.P" A clock strikes midnight sending twelve rumbling booms over the lands. At the last boom a small violin slowly drifted from the barren floor. It seemed as if it was being held by a ghost. It began to play. It sounded like the devil himself as it screeched out an eerie tune. This lead into a fast song. Skeletons sprang into the air and began to dance. There bones clicked as they skipped in a circle around death. He seemed quite pleased with this and watched calmly as they circled around him. The song sped up and they began to move faster there white feet a blur in the night. They kicked up leaves and dust. Then as if nothing had happened they where gone... But the violin kept on playing its solum tune.

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I know it needs some work... But I had to get my ruff idea down.

Ah, I've heard this song! I did a project on it in 5th grade!

A solum cloaked figure of a man walked into the approaching darkness, as large gloomy clouds drift slowly over the full moon that had finally found it orbit over the earth.

Firstly, 'solum' should be 'solemn'. Also, I think the idea of a cloaked figure as Death is so overused that it's just not interesting anymore. In other words, it's cliched.

The planes where scattered with gravestones marked with the familiar "R.I.P" A clock strikes midnight sending twelve rumbling booms over the lands.

'Where' should be 'were'. Also, throughout the whole story, you switch from past to present tense quite a bit.

At the last boom a small violin slowly drifted from the barren floor.

Floor? I thought this was outside.

It seemed as if it was being held by a ghost. It began to play. It sounded like the devil himself as it screeched out an eerie tune. This lead into a fast song. Skeletons sprang into the air and began to dance. There bones clicked as they skipped in a circle around death. He seemed quite pleased with this and watched calmly as they circled around him. The song sped up and they began to move faster there white feet a blur in the night. They kicked up leaves and dust.

These sentences are all a bit choppy; you might want to connect them with semi-colons or commas.

Then as if nothing had happened they where gone... But the violin kept on playing its solum tune.

'Solum' should be 'solemn'.

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I know it needs some work... But I had to get my ruff idea down.

'Ruff' should be 'rough'.

Overall, this is pretty good for a rough draft.
I think you did a good job describing things at the beginning, but if I remember correctly, there were a lot more creatures in the song than just skeletons. So you might want to add something about them too.

Just work on this a bit, and it could be really cool!
Keep writing,
Ayra

Thanks I will change that later I am kinda tired right now.
And nope there where only skeletons.
What els am I supposed to make death look like?

This is more like a practice piece, just a random story written... you can't really call it a short story or anything, you know? Not even flash fiction. It has no plot, or conflict, or... happenings. But as just a practice piece, it works. If you want to turn it into a full blown work you'll have to come up with characters and a conflict, because as it is this is nothing more than a setting of the scene.


Something else you might find interesting is this, which I can't doubt is where he got the name of the piece from.. Several images based in the "danse macabre". You can read about the history and meaning of the danse macabre here (although there isn't a lot...). The most famous dance macabre is this one:



Oh, and this is the wiki entry on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danse_Macabre

Sorry, this is more like a lecture rather than a critique? hehe

Thanks Suzanne. I don't think I will make this a story. Maybe I could turn it into poetry or something.
Thanks for the info I will read it as soon as I get a minute!
Thank you again!

I think there needs to be a little more detail. Especially towards the middle, the sentences become rather short, and in the same form of subject/verb/object. Variation of structure, description, and action can help. Ex:

It began to play. It sounded like the devil himself as it screeched out an eerie tune. This lead into a fast song.

"lead" should be "led", but it is such a vague word. I'd incorporate this sentence into the previous one and use a more descriptive verb.

I too really like this piece of music. Maybe that's why I don't have much to say ^_^

I llike the plot it sounds very interesting.
I think the writing needs some work. Of course i'm a novice so my opinion might not mean much

Thanks you two and both your opinions are good!
I will keep on working on it!

One of my favourites from Saint-Saëns. There is a lot you could do with this. Ayra corrected most of the little things, I'd just add to it with this:

The last rays of sun kiss the cold planes good night

The planes where scattered with gravestones

Do you mean plains,? Or are there random 747s in the graveyard? Actually, I like the 747s...

There are a lot of things you can do with this, and though it's rough at the moment, it can be more than a practise piece, in fact Ogden Nash wrote a series of poems about another work of Saint-Saëns',"Carnival of the Animals", that are relatively popular, including the famous lines:

"Camille Saint-Saëns
Was wracked with pains,
When people addressed him,
As Saint Sanes."

But that's very different. I like your over all concept, and you have an interesting sense of space and perspective. You do run the risk of some clichés, but you can give it greater grit if use more specific sense imagery observations such as this one here:

They kicked up leaves and dust.

I liked that, it was a good touch.

I actually didn't like some of the references to the music in this:

It began to play

This lead into a fast song

That's almost clinical. Music is such an emotive medium, the expression of the inexpressible. If you weren't told the title of the piece, or what it was about, what would you have you imagined? You're allowed to be more abstract, to write from instinct when your using music as stimulus, the music itself will ground it, give it form.

But I'm interested in your directions, curious to see how music will further influence your work. If you liked doing this exercise, there are quite a few works that would lend itself to the same. If you haven't already, try the 'Scheherazade' Suite by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Gabriel Faure's Requiem, "the Planets" suite by Gustav Holst, or "Romeo and Juliet" by Sergei Prokofiev. Even though you'd know the story backwards of Romeo and Juliet, Prokofiev is still surprising.

wow... Thats really helping me feel it.!
Thank you so much. Your advise is so true and as soon as I get back home I shall listen to the song once more and write it even better!
Thank you so much!

-Thanks
Genevieve
xxx