Just another Vamp tale - worth a critique even tho its short

Short epilogue
enjoy the increasing passages of overtly descriptive prose dialogue and action

---------------------------------

Preface

All natural colours bleed into grey with the on coming of night. How I yearn for a clean pastel sunset to fade into daylight, instead of darkness. But how I know I can never see that again. My world is night, with only vivid faucets of colour left to glisten in the moons meek illumination. Cherry reds, opulent purples, and yellow white flames forever dominate my eyes. Rich tones suffocate, lurid black overwhelms me. Such oppressive vibrancy makes it near impossible to relinquish my darker passions. My existence started with an invigorating open… but after all too short a time it was snapped away, leaving me to rot eternal and bitter in this prison of a body. The only time I find solace, with all its mild beauty, is at dusk.


Chapter 1 - so far

“Stop brooding Maria” someone chastised “Your always miserable… it really does dampen the mood.” Marcus stood towering above me as I sat crouched in a heap pondering my misfortunes. Seeing my lack of interest he changed tact teasing lightly. “Seriously you must be the only depressed vampire in the world” Rolling my eyes and scowling really didn’t encompass my contempt for Marcus’s childish enthusiasm with our immortality. Countering darkly he leaned close and whispered “Stop sulking…have a drink”

Guttural snarls ripped from me. How dare he taunt like that! Instantly anger mounted within. Swift attack brought me face to face, arm out stretched in a punch. Knuckles smacked into bone, striking his head awkwardly to one side. But that cocky grin stayed across his face; faltering my confidence. I knew a blow like that should have marred even his skin. I knew with my strength, diamond bone against diamond bone, that blow should have mangled him bloody. But there he stood, flawless, in all my horror.

Head edging ever so slow, a chorus of vertebra clicked back into place, those eyes glared into mine, fingers probing where I'd hit. Protesting his voice gave way to a puzzled growl. “Humf” Marcus declared “I had not thought you that weak”

Body strangely detached from words, rapid infuriation rose; yet he still stood rooted in place, the epitome of calm. “I try to steal you from depression, ease you away from it. And you lash out?” He incredulously questioned. “You are the pathetic shadow of what once was! Where is the vivacious tyrant who could shatter, nay destroy her quarry? I see the day I yell out and scream by your hand is past.” Bitter poignancy was cast in those words. It pained me to hear our friendship described with such perverted brutality. Marcus had outlived my absolute disregard for humanity. And for that I was sorry.

Hi there. =)

It's a bit ... short. It's kindda hard to review it, because of this. I do have two comments though:

1) Beware of purple prose. Purple prose is overly-ornate writing that is so over the top that the reader completely loses sight of what you're saying. The sentence "Only vivid faucets are left to glisten in the moons meek illumination" is probably your biggest offender in here, but really, the entire paragraph suffers from it.

2) "moons" should be "moon's", and "eyes" should be "eye's".


-- Sureal

Meh
Purple prose, I can live with that in an epilogy.
To be honest all my writng suffers from it.
Thanks for review though, and gramer refrences.
x

Huh. I don't nitpick s'much, so I'm just gonna look it over and give you my impressions, a'right? A'right.

Like Mr. Sureal said, the purple prose is - well, let's just say it sounds like you found a lot of new words today, got excited, and decided to try and squeeze all of them into one paragraph. Painful? Yes. It seemed to me as if every single object had three or four adjectives to crowd around it and confuse the reader. x-x;

Purple prose, i can live with that in an epilogy.

I think you mean 'epilogue'. However, that's not why I quoted this. I quoted you because of one little letter, one little letter that goes 'i'. Now, if you're writing this just to write it, and don't intend to put it in a book and try to get it published, than by all means, keep the overflowing description just the way you want it... but, well, I can count on a hand with no fingers how many people would want to wade through this verbal sea. So, if you want to hook a reader, and get him or her to read anymore of this (if there is more), or if you just want them to enjoy it, please cut down on all the flourishy crud. It just looks... inexperienced.

Anyhow, a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, and I hope you can find a good way not to pile the words on. One opulent is as good as three.

-SELA

O sod, thanks for the spelling mistake and the little letter, i do have problmes with that kind of stuff, all corrected.
Ok, less flowery, got it, thanks you guys

Hello Lotti.

This is way too short for it to receive an in-depth critique. However, I'll provide some comments here.
Firstly, what on earth is natural hues? Be more specific. What exactly are you referring to?
Secondly, why would the narrator yearn for the sunset to fade into daylight? Why? It doesn't seem to make much sense. There is still too much colour/adjectives in the piece. It's still quite flowery to read and it really clogs up the flow. When you are writing, you want to be specific and get to the point ASAP to gain the audience's attention. Flowery language only hinders that.

Good luck in expanding this out more.

Andy.

Thank you Sureal, Sela Locke and Squall.
Your comments have all helped me develop this story.

But as you can see several more paragraphs have been added, so I'd like some new critiques!
Bare in mind there's much more to come, but always at my slow pace, literally uploaded paragraph at a time lol

Enjoy and be harsh gramatical crits welcome, I can take it.
lotti

I like what you have so far. However, like everyone else has said, this is short. If you develop it and add more, this has potential to be a very good piece. Just work on spelling and the small nitty-gritty things and this would be fine. I really look forward to reading more.


~Wolfie~

Definitely too wordy in descriptions, but the whole 'purple prose' issue is not entirely do to word choice, but rather flow. Using metaphors to describe something is a really good comparative literary device, just be careful how you choose the words and their proper context.

For instance I am rather fond of 'Baroque'. Whenever I use it in writing it is always under a specific case of extraordinary circumstances or of great importance. That way the intention is clear and does not draw poetic imagery to describe something like fear or elaborate architecture.

This may sound confusing, so I'll give an example.

" Cherry reds, opulent purples, and yellow white flames forever dominate my eyes."

Use of color with descriptors, problem, the reader will focus on the color as the major part of the sentence and not the narrator's view.

"Forever dominating my eyes, ambient candlelight faintly illuminates this hellish prison. "

Instead of describing just the setting, this reworked piece adds emotion and depth to an otherwise neglected state of mind and direction the story will take.

I find that I often need to have such mistakes pointed out myself, so its quite understandable a topic such as 'purple prose' can be fixed without removal or ruin the flow of a story and its chapters.

Most sincerely thank you for the advice, its all been most helpful!
Especially to curb my "purple prose" tendencies, and just generally improve the effect of my writing.
=]

Excalibur - The colors used have value to the rest of the story - in my head that is - They come to represent the plethora which eventually makes her go insane. Its supposed (or will once Ive wrote it) visualize the greed of "vampires" But otherwise your comment was insightful I especially liked you sentence. Beautiful
And i do hate the way word vampires was introduced into my story. If anyone has any comments on that they are greatly welcomed.

As ever Il be constantly adding to this thread, and i wont comment on it again till there is a large section to be critiqued, so not to clog up the boards like.
So Il see you later's
thanks again

- lotti