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140,236 Literary Works • 673,049 Reviews
I like this. It has a nice rhythm to it and it sorta reminded me of The Giver for some reason. One thing though, I couldn't really get a sense of when this was taking place. I know it takes place in the future, but is it the remote future or is it a future much closer to us? Keep going, I want to see more!
Wonderful story. The MC seemed real and not just a story character. Old ideas like war and modernization suited the mood and setting of the story. I felt a bit nostalgic reading this story. My little town here also had grown into a small-size city and many of my childhood places had been demolished and replaced with concrete buildings.
I shared the same feelings as the main character. Confusion, regret and sadness.
Yes, i agree with Sarg. That last part was a bit awkward. You should put in a slang word or something. It just seemed so formal and stiff.
I think you should write more parts where he spends time with his family and get to know them. You just mentioned his son once in a single sentence and that's it. The ENd. What's his son's name? How's he like? Please write more in this part.
His wife too. I don't feel connected to her. It's like that she's just a doll without any characteristics and not a human being. I recommend writing and expanding the wife's personality.
By the way, that bionic arm sort of reminded me of Deux Ex: Human Revolution the game. It's not yet released but I'm pretty excited. Good job and i'm hoping i can read more of this story in the near future.
Work harder so I can enjoy your masterpiece!
Thanks guys. I'm finishing off the story this week so I'll let you know when it's all done. Lots of great advice up here.
Fantastic setting and mood. All I know is brick, smoke, and flashes of advanced technology.
You have nice words in this section. However, because there's so much listing, you've lost your reader in a limbo where we're not entirely sure what we're physically experiencing.
What I mean is, our only hint of what is physically happening in the present day are these lines:
All the rest of it is in his head. And because there's such a massive amount happening in his head, the actual actions get lost, and we forget that he was crossing a bridge, and we are lost in descriptive limbo.
Furthermore, you have:
But we don't know who "they" are, until we get to the line:
then we assume that maybe "they" is a family. But are they on foot? We don't know until, much later, we see:
that lets us know they were driving.
So a small issue that can be fixed easily. But an issue nonetheless that causes the reader to flounder for a concrete image.
It took a little bit of inferring to realize what you were going for was that the punishment was the potential to be run over by a train. Until I got to the "gamble with your life", I read it as "your punishment was the shame of squeezing through cracks, tumbling down a hill, running out desperately on the tracks, and just generally looking undignified." Perhaps you should inject more mortal danger into it. Relate a story where a kid did get hit by a train. Or a near hit, where the train blasted by with such force, it ripped the ball from his hands. Etc. Because, again, until we get to that last line, we don't know exactly what you mean.
Not sure if this statement holds any power, since we don't know that the neighborhood is undesirable yet. We don't know that they want to leave the city until this sentence.
I'm not sure if that's an appropriate phrase. "the bridge grew with them" insinuates that the bridge itself changed. But rather, it was their relationship with the bridge that changed, not the bridge itself. The idea you seem to have conveyed throughout is that the bridge itself is an unchanged artifact.
"Farthest." Farther is a measurable distance. Further is to-a-greater-degree. Throw farther. Learn further.
Burn marks?
This section is a bit too heavy on the incomplete sentences. You can have as many as you like, but I think the lists need to be broken up more often with a few more complete sentences. In the above section, in 160 words, or half a typical book page, there are no complete sentences. Just a bit long to go without letting up the intensity.
It's not until here that we piece together his family members. Way back earlier, they met him at the airport and drove him home, but it's not until here that we say, "Okay, 1 wife, 1 son." And because you're revealing them so gradually, we almost wonder if there's any other family members you're hiding. Is there a grandma under a blanket?
Again, we're floating in limbo. Where is the narrator standing? In the foyer? In the kitchen? I know it's the style you're using, but at least the narrator should know where he is in relation to anything else. Looking out into the backyard wistfully or something. The wife's face just kind of rises out of the darkness to offer him a cup of coffee/tea/whatever.
Small grammar issue. No need for a comma there. Commas used with a conjunction are only necessary when they separate two complete sentences. For example:
"The doctor explained, and he stifled a giggled."
"The doctor explained and stifled a giggle."
"Snooze" has a rather temporary connotation to it. You snooze when you nap. But when sleeping for the night, you sleep. Just a suggestion.
The use of the adverb "awkwardly" is weak here. The "limping" illustrates his unwieldiness better than "awkwardly" does.
"or post-it note advertisements" reads better.
It's nice that he's bearded, but did you need to add the odd phrase "bearded head"? Unless these are characters that will stick throughout the story, it's inconsequential whether or not he has a beard, but you've made a sacrifice by using the strange words "bearded head."
I agree with Jiggity. And I do so by depressing the keys on my electronic keyboard.
Overall, though, I enormously enjoyed the mood and setting. I hope we get to know more about the narrator soon because we don't really know much about him except 1) he was in the war (what war?) and 2) he is turned off by this futuristic world. We don't know how he feels about his wife, about his son, about himself.
Hey Jack,
Glad to see you're producing again, man, gives me hope I can get back on the bandwagon too. First and foremost, I have to say this depressed me. Depressed me because I'm in a similar state of disuse and disrepair (purported in your case, anyway) and I couldn't hope to produce a piece this well written. Not now. That said, I do have a few comments to make.
Generally, I loved the opening. It's solid stuff. That first paragraph sort of nagged at me though, it's a little too run-on, which was your intent no doubt, but some extra punctation to help break it up, wouldn't go astray, say - a dash - or parenthesis. Your choice really, but for example:
I also can't help thinking you'd benefit from an 'and' at the end there, connecting the last two. None of this is strictly necessary, given you do achieve the effect you're after but I think it could help, without detracting from what you're trying to achieve. You'll see that I've bolded 'innumerable' and that's not simply because it's repeated (although you could easily substitute one for 'countless') but because it strikes me as odd in a section exemplifying this character's almost OCD with regards to numbers - why is it that, with those specific cases, cards and flights, the amount suddenly didn't matter? If it's therapeutic for him, what is it about these two that made him switch off? Was it deliberate and is it important to the story?
Finally, I adore the last line.
My eyes kind of glazed over a bit here. Although an image immediately sprung to mind - it's a very common passage of description, a very common theme, old v new - it was generic and a bit boring and honestly, implied in the very sentence about morphing into modernity. I think it would be stronger if you cut out this passage and went straight from:
'The rest of the neighbourhood was shifting, morphing into modernity. In the night, the new levitating machines ghosted through without a sound.'
Suddenly, that image is predominant, it's the now that matters, and we can superimpose it over the implied shift from ghetto to futuristic modernity. The next few paragraphs are great, it's not just old v new description, it's not to do with buildings - which at the end of the day, you don't care about, it's the memories that matter and the paragraphs that follow are strong because they are personalised, they integrate the bridge as a character, as a force in his childhood and as a glaring reminder of its age and irrelevance in a time with levitating trains. The bridge in and of itself makes that passage I highlighted, unnecessary.
I have to say that I do find the theme a little tired, I wish it were less about consumerism and more about a solider not being able to deal with change in the home he was fighting to protect, and I think you're losing that line a little bit, leaning too heavily on this, but there's a line or two that if cut make it a little more palatable, certainly for me anyway.
I especially hate that last line. Is there a reason in particular he doesn't like fitness gyms? Or suits for that matter? I think a suit can look rather fetching on occasion.
This ought to be rearranged, since there's no apparent reason for them to stop/notice him.
That is rather sloppy. I don't think anyone would ever refer to it as such, especially if there were accustomed to it and/or it was the only form of train around at the time, which is implied. Then, it would either be just 'train' or maybe some kind of slang, like 'Anyway, we've got a levvy to catch' or something along those lines. I just can't see anyone using that line. It's sort of like me saying 'I'm off to my use my touchscreen ipod now!' Or I'm going to use my tablet PC, etc.
Aaand that's all, folks! There's not much to it plot-wise, and I couldn't decide whether I liked the intermediate passage where he arrives home. I like the detached, almost ethereal description, similar to the opening, but it jarred a little especially against the heavily descriptive trip down memory lane that comes beforehand. Honestly, for your first piece piece in a while, this is seriously good stuff, with some great touches here and there. Hope this helped,
Cheers
This is a really great start, so I only have a few comments to make, and they're all grammatical:
The colon is unnecessary here; a period would work better. In my opinion.Either a period after "wound" or a semicolon - if the latter then of course un-capitalize "he."
"Laid" should be "lay," and instead of a comma there ought to be a semicolon, in which case "snoozing" becomes "snoozed." I understand what you wanted to do with this line, but it's a bit awkward and technically incorrect.
Anyways, those are the only grammatical errors I caught. The story itself is going very well, I like it a lot. You're doing a beautiful job with the mood of the piece. I hope to see more of this soon!
~Blue