Here it is guys! A literary excerpt from the 2nd chapter of my book. I am hoping to get feedback on the style, flow and clarity before publishing the international version.
All forms of feedback are much welcomed! :D
His eyelids peeled opened. Sweat glistened on his skin. The same tension that haunted him years ago was still lingering. Slowly, he felt the blood recirculating in his arms and fingers. Vision began to pick up the monotone surrounding him and the rumble of the platitudious thunder.
Something was covering Isaac’s eye.
“Isaac?” A meek voice came from the doorway.
Silence, sometimes it speaks of a person held a certain context. Especially in Isaac’s culture, the twists and arching postures can give a hint of the million thoughts firing and reverberating within his mind. Though his name is of the wild mighty raptor, Vivian saw him as a deep black raven, semi-supine and partially curled on the bed. His long hair flowed onto the sheets; a black waterfall under the grey storm. His face was faintly unveiled by the clouded light from the outside. The skin on his shoulders rivaled the beauty of unblemished white glass. However a shroud was bound in layers over the left eye of Isaac’s head, shutting in an abyss and a well of secrets within.
Murmers of thunder leaked in as he struggled to get up. Vivian rushed over to assist, holding down the needles that administered nurishment for his complete awakening.
Through the past few days, Isaac had been drifting in and out of the realm of the surreal. At first, there were tears, then sighs and frowns on the people around him. His eyes were dead opened at times before his mind dive bombed back into limbo. Motor coordination was fully functional the day before once key medication was administered. And what a time for Vivian to be assigned to the young man; when he was ready to take his first step.
Her touch was warm, his was cold. Isaac’s tank top was faded in grey and meekly tinted in the colour of rum. It held tightly onto his body, rippling across the black fabric in tight folds, hiding a mass of muscles in his midrift.
“What’s this?” the shroud around his head could not be ignored.
“Your wound,” the doctor began removing the many layers.
Isaac’s blinked faster; his pulse became audible to his own ears. Something was in his left eye.
The doctor handed Isaac a mirror. Her eyes dropped to her feet, undaring to experience Isaac’s reaction for the next minute.
“What is this?” Isaac’s voice exited his windpipe in almost a whisper.
Trembling was her lip while both hands clasped and rest in front of her chest. “I’m sorry.”
Crack! Isaac’s fingers pierced mirror surface. The shards stained in scarlet told tales of the tragic left eye: there was no life, no cells. Just an artificial sphere, stuck into his left socket.
An aura of fear seiged the doctor’s heart, feeling her diaphragm pull into hyperventilation. She got up and backed away quickly.
In a second, Isaac pounched upon her, pulling with him the blood-stained blanket and overturning the medical trays.
The doctor gasped; now held in a chokehold with the scalpel to her eye. She whimpered softly.
“Who are you?” Isaac’s voice turned demonic, bringing the cold scalpel close to a jugular.
“It’s…..it’s me….” Isaac’s frown was erased from his face, “its Vivian,” her voice was raspy. “Your friend...Vivian.”
Isaac stared into her eyes. All his muscles had ceased to move. “Don’t you remember?" Vivian begged, shaking her head.
Valves in his windpipe choked. He stepped back to the metal desk behind him. Dropping the scalpel behind his back. Shame forced him to cover his face.
Vivian? Why was that name familiar? Or was she lying? Isaac never knew anyone named Vivian. No…she was never in his memory. But how did she know?
Gradually, Vivian supported herself as she eased her weight onto the edge of the bed. Her mind was crying for escape, yet her heart took in the fullnest of the empty room.
The young man's eyes switched from side to side, peering through the gaps of his fingers. It was then, when a fragment of his memory returned; he saw himself squatting on the rocks, on a cliff, in the pouring rain, behind a sword standing in the earth.
It was the same melancholy of faded brown earth and grey-purple lightning. His long hair was plastered to his drenched face. Yet by-passing that brief memory, Isaac could not hear Vivian’s name resonating in his mental wells.
Isaac’s fingers trembled, and so did Vivian. There were no memories of her, none at all.
“Vivian?” Isaac’s voice hinted a child who was lost.
Vivian swallowed hard, not daring enough to reply. Isaac’s hand drifted down to the desktop, letting his fingers touch the texture of metal.
“Vivian…?” reduced to a mere breath, the name was echoing in his mind. His fingers gripped the edge of the table. The doctor’s eyes locked onto them.
“I don’t know you!” Isaac’s hand sank almost effortlessly into the metal desk. Seizing hold of the interiors, he ripped out the cabinet and drawers, flinging it across the floor.
Hi there, Stella here to review!
just tell the story the way it's meant to be told!
Okay so I noticed a few things here:
-you drift a lot from one perspective to another. In general this is a big nono. It comes off as sloppy at worst, lazy at best. Try and stick to one character. So, say, if you stuck to Isaac, you would describe his experience of trying to get up and needing help. Say something about the quality of Vivian's help- is she strong enough? Were you thankful? Or maybe from Vivian's perspective- how does she feel when Isaac can't remember her? It's better to stick to just one character at a time- we only ever experience the world as one person, right? So maybe your story should be the same.
-I also got the impression that you spent a long time choosing every single word of this story, and it's what I personally call 'thesaurus syndrome'. Sometimes, the words don't quite fit- like when you describe his hair 'flowing' onto the pillow- flowing suggests movement, and his hair clearly isn't moving if he's just lying there. My key advice for this is just: relax. We are not here to give you a vocabulary test, we're here to read your story. And if you choose a word that doesn't quite fit instead of a word that does but isn't as fancy... you're really losing out. Don't be worried about showing off your vocabulary, we'll trust you to have it
-as far as characterisation went, since this was a character teaser, I didn't get much of an impression off either of them. Especially not Isaac, I really couldn't tell you anything about him except for his appearance. That's probably because as soon as he's lucid it's clear he's lost his memories and then he also gets really angry. So maybe getting angry is one of his characteristics xD But other than that, they were both just blank outlines.
I also think that a description of the room would be good! At first I thought it was like a dungeon or something but maybe it's more like a hospital. Also why on earth did she leave scalpels out if he was in recovery?
Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything!
-Stella x
Hmm I think I should explain the purpose of the teaser here; it is part of the novel, not a stand alone description so it must fit into the context of an opening chapter.
What do you mean stick to one character? The story is written in 3rd person so I don't quite understand when you said drift from perspective to perspective.
I actually followed a more poetic approach that is somewhat similar to the writing of 'The Great Gatsby.' So the idea of hair 'flowing' is metaphorical and subtle to describe Eagle's character.
And I would consider changing the scalpels part, it would make more sense if he took a shard of glass instead.
Hey, Aquila, I'm here to review your piece you have here
I'm really big on characterisation (I cannot express to you how much I thrive off it), and so when I saw this I got all giddy and decided to review it!
I actually very much like this opening line. I think it was a good move not to name your character, and the use of a short sentence works well in your favour. By keeping your character anonymous at first, it creates a sense of mystery which encourages the reader to read on, and the shortness of the sentence makes your reader focus.
A little misspelling there. It should be platitudinous
I really like how this is on a single line by itself, kudos to you for that
Admittedly, there's a 90% chance that I'm just being dumb here, but I'm not quite sure what it is you'r actually saying in this sentence. Is there a word missing maybe?
Okay so this description is pretty fantastic and you're making me jealous so excuse me while I curl into a ball and cry for a few moments due to jealousy, thank you
Nourishment
Midriff
That 'the' needs to be capitalised
You need a full stop/period after 'wound' and then you need to capitalise 'the'
I think you have a typo here and you were just meant to say 'Isaac blinked faster'
Sieged
I think you were meant to say 'pounced' rather than 'pounched'. Also, wouldn't the blankets be clean? I mean, the hospital is very unhygienic if they don't clean that kind of thing.
You need a full stop/period after 'face' and also after the first 'Vivian'.
This technically makes no sense as a sentence, it would have to be: He dropped the scalpel behind his back.
Vivian? Why was that name familiar? Or was she lying? Isaac never knew anyone named Vivian. No…she was never in his memory. But how did she know?
I think you mean 'fullness'
I must say, Aquila, that I am actually very impressed with this. As this is a character extract, I'm going to assume your main focus here was character, and I think you've created some great characterisation here. I'm very fascinated by Isaac and I'm desperate to know what's going on, how he got his injury e.t.c. I'm also impressed with some of your descriptions, especially that one paragraph I quoted near the beginning of the piece. After reading this, I must say that I'm definitely interested in seeing what happens in the rest of the story, so kudos to you for being able to have that effect on me!
Now as for critiques, I want to start off with a bit of a nit-pick regarding your grammar and punctuation. Don't get the wrong idea, it's generally completely fine and well used, but you do have some things you need to touch up on. The first one is that I noticed you had some misspelled words here and there, but they're easy to fix. If you don't have a programme such as MS Word that uses a spell checker, there are plenty of spell checkers online you can use. Just copy and paste your writing into one beforehand, and then post it on this here site. It's as easy as that
The other thing I want to mention in terms of grammar is dialogue, specifically dialogue punctuation. If I remember correctly, you only use commas at the end and beginning of dialogue if a dialogue tag is attached to it, despite you needing to use full stops/periods instead. Let me find an example... Okay, bingo!
What you actually need here is a full stop after face, and a full stop after Vivian. You see, you only use commas when you're directly addressing the fact that a certain character said something i.e. Isaac's frown was erased from his face as the woman said, "it's Vivian." Hmmm... I don't think I'm making sense. Try this: http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/writ ... uation.htm It's basically explaining what I'm trying to say, but hopefully more clearly.
Anyway, grammar aside, I do have some more juicy critiques regarding content and what not. One thing that bothered me a little was that, well, I didn't really know what was going on. Isaac had obviously sustained a bad injury and wasn't too happy about it, but how did he get it? Who actually is Vivian? What century is this set in? Is this set in our world? e.t.c. Before you say anything, I know I know, this is an extract so it probably won't make complete sense. Due to that though, I do think you should maybe give us readers a brief overview of what's happened up to this point at the beginning, just so we are a bit more clued up. Although if this extract is actually the very beginning of your novel (which it could potentially be), this critique doesn't necessarily apply.
Something else that bothered me a little with this piece was the way in which Vivian showed Isaac what had happened to him. It's just that it seemed a little... unrealistic and sort of inhumane. I know that this is a Science Fiction story and things are different in Science Fiction, but I know that in this world a doctor would try and make the patient comfortable, gently explain what has happened to them, and then explain what is going to happen from now on. They wouldn't just cower away and hand the patient a mirror. I mean, come on, that would spark a panicked reaction considering the poor guy had no warning in advance. Obviously things might be entirely different in this Science Fiction world, but still, it seems a bit unlikely to me.
While I know the focus here isn't on Vivian, I can't help feeling that her character could do with some tweaking, although bear in mind that this critique is one that could depend on a matter of opinion. Basically, she seems a little plain and one dimensional at the moment. Right now, she comes across as this rather weak woman who doesn't necessarily stand out as especially interesting. Don't get me wrong, I don't want her to belly flop onto Isaac and then knock him out with a single punch when he attacks her, but she just seems a bit too typically weak for me at the moment. It's just that it makes her a bit predictable. From the start I knew that Vivian wasn't going to be a strong character who'd be a good support for Isaac, and be able to comfort him, or deal with him if he got riled, and that just makes the whole thing a bit less fun to be honest... I like unpredictability and originality, and I just don't' feel I got that with Vivian.
But anyway! Critiques aside, I really do like this piece. I think it's brimming with potential, and I'm definitely very curious to find out what the overall situation is, and where this will lead. While I did mention some negatives regarding Vivian's character, I think you've done a pretty awesome job with Isaac, which I suppose is the main focus of this extract really... so yay! With some bits of tweaking here and there, I honestly think you'll have a brilliant piece of writing here. Awesome job!
Keep writing,
xoxo Skins
wow this is a brilliant review! Thanks Skins I'm actually writing my book for international release and was gathering comments and opinions from my beloved audience
I deeply appreciate your review and the meticulous details you put in! Your honest opinions will definitely see to light in coming releases! You're amazing!
Aw thank you, it was my pleasure! I'm glad I was actually useful, and I wish you all the luck with this because it really is a great piece of writing
The description you have here is really good. I would re-read it a few times to check how the sentences are flowing. You have a excellent word choice, and the descriptions are great. Maybe add a little more detail. Overall, it was a great read. I am truly looking forward to reading more! As always, good luck to you and your writing.