NB: Flash fiction inspired by Linkin Park's "Burn it Down" for a competition and limited to 175 words (personal challenge for me at the minute). Please share thoughts!
Finally Time
BENJAMIN FRANKS
Walking along the clouds of the charcoal sky, Lucas lightly paddled his toes in the wet below his soles. Then he leapt. His face landed softly, seeping down through the clouds. Yet his body lay suspended in the grey.
He turned his eyes, enlightened, to the events of below. He watched. The fires of the earth were reeling against the trees, fighting along the natural coasts of forest, and licking at the land until it was simply desert alone. Lucas wasn’t looking at the fire, though. He was fascinated by one thing, and one thing alone:
The beautiful human girl; the beautiful Lily.
Lily: the flower of funerals.
Burn.
He saw her running, sprinting away from the fire. It seemed terribly romantic the way the chasing flames made her skin glimmer. Love and life in death, as it were.
Lucas burned the world in the hope the human girl would join him; he wished she would come and run along the clouds by his side.
So he burned the world.
He burned it all from the safety of the clouds.
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139,257 Literary Works • 672,523 Reviews
I understand this is flash and you cant always fit everything in a piece of this sort but it seems we picked up in the middle of everything and the first sentence seemed confusing to me(I had to read it twice before continuing).
I love the imagery in the second paragraph. "The fires of the earth were reeling against the trees" and "licking at the land until it was simply desert" were beautiful phrases although I would probably eliminate "alone" after that second one. It adds nothing.
" The beautiful human girl; the beautiful Lily.
Lily: the flower of funerals.
Burn."
These seemed odd and disjointed to me, maybe try to squeeze it all into a sentence(?).
I do like the insight into what he's done and why he's done it at the end, really ties the whole piece together.
For something inspired by an LP song its not half bad.
Keep writing!
Hello their Franks! Tucker here with your review today! Well well well, this certainly was an impressive piece. I found it quite impressive that you managed to fit this all into 175 words, your writing is smooth as silk and almost every word you use has a purpose. Which is essential in such a short piece like this to not have useless words hanging around. Really, my only few criticisms I have to offer are just better word choice and all around extreme nit picks. Let get going shall we?
"Walking along the clouds of the greying sky..."
Okey dokey, you have a great start here, way to bring the reader gradually but quickly into the piece, I think you could do better than "greying" though. Try Ashen, smokey, charcoal, even gunmetal maybe. It'll just sound smoother if you switch that word out.
"Yet his body lay suspended in the grey"
I think what's throwing me off about this line is that: firstly, you have already used grey in the same paragraph. Edit one of those out I'd suggest. Secondly, I think the "yet his" is definitely giving me some trouble, because you start a fragment sentence with a conjunction, which is a tad bit awkward. I think you could just cut out the "yet" and you'll be fine.
"Lily: the flower of funerals.
Burn."
You can certainly find a strong word than just plain ol' "burn," look it up in a thesaurus if you're having troubles finding a different word.
"made her skin glow"
Again, can find a stronger and more convenient word instead of "glow," these are just nit picks because you use such great writing in the rest of your piece that wherever the piece has writing that isn't quite as good, it sticks out like a sore thumb.
"he wished she would come..."
Correction: "He wished that she would come" I'm not sure if that line can go either way, but It just sounds better with "that" in there.
Love the ending, interesting thought to leave us on. Not making an obvious and clear statement, but just enough for the reader to chew on and really ponder about. Love this piece, just put in this tiny corrections I offered and you'll be raring to go. Let me know if you ever need a review. Keep up the good work!
TuckEr EllsworTh
Many thanks, I have made some changes.
I am a humogous fan of Linkin Park, and "Burn it Down" is a great song. I think it's pretty neat that someone took the time to write a flash-fiction about it. A good one, none the less! And I know how you feel; word count for contests suck!
Hello
"He turned his eyes, enlightened, to the events of below. He watched. Below the fires of the earth were reeling against the trees, fighting along the natural coasts of forest, and licking at the land until it was simply desert alone."
--This might flow better if you changed it to "He turned his eyes, enlightened, to the events below. The fires of the earth . . . "
"Lucas wasn’t looking at the fire though"
--Perhaps a comma after fire?
"He was fascinated by one thing, and one thing alone:"
--The previous previous sentence ended with the word "alone", you might want to change that.
"he wished she would come run along the clouds by his side."
--I don't like how this is phrased. Maybe remove the word "come" or say "come and", I don't know.
Overall, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this. I don't really understand what this is about, but because it's flash fiction, I'm not sure that it's vital I do understand it . . . it's one of those stories that the reader gives meaning to based on their own perception of the story. If that's what you wanted then good job, it's very thought provoking. The style was great and even though this piece is short, I can tell that you are a good writer. Keep at it
Evil
Many thanks.
Great story perfect in my opinion.