It all came up to meet him so fast.
There was this burning sun, and this bitter whirling of wind, flicking beads of whitened sand off the tops of the crags, like spray from the temperamental waves. All around the roiling sea lay frozen in time, scorched and blanched by an eternal fire.
The desert was lonely.
Hard sand tasted bitter against his parched, and bleeding lips as he impacted the earthen floor.
No tears were to be shed, certainly not from the heavens above. Never a wisp of clouds in the sky to veil the face of indignation and wrath at this funeral of silence.
And as the great, fiery serpent glared down with its one, malignant eye, mocking, there was not a soul to care about the boy.
No spectators, that is, none but the sun and the wind.
And Death, and I.
She came on winged steps, weightless, urgent to claim that prize which was rightfully hers.
Sprouts of shattered foliage sprang up at each print to choke out the deadened ground beneath, paving the way back for the return of a kindred brother.
To home.
Her pale, and perfect frame drawing towards the child in effortless motion.
Such raw beauty there was.
Icy lips pressed to his. A breath in, to draw out that essence of his spirit, and a breath out as she lifted his poor, pitiful and now limp frame in her arms. Her form was enough to excite the chambers of the heart.
Untouchable.
And like that, he was gone from this world.
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,794 Reviews
Hey there!
The first three paragraphs are killers. I love them. But right afterwards you take a bit of a stumble. I agree with amelie on her point regarding the triple-adjective. I myself have a tendency to word-cram, so I can't claim to have beef with that. Haha. But if I were you, I'd at least try to mitigate the clause.
I promised to write a review when I got the motivation, and at the moment I happen to have some handy. So with no further preface, here we go.
My initial opinion after reading any piece for the first time is a little glossed-over, because I get bit too excited. That being said, even after my second read-through I was thoroughly impressed. I've kinda got a thang for shorts of late, and even though this seems to be part of a greater whole, it's got a feel to it, like it's already complete and resolved. Consonance can get boring, but your presentation is intriguing. The story itself doesn't feel like it needs more, but the fact that I'm informed of a [possible] further elaboration arouses my curiosity. I want to see what you end up doing with the idea.
But, in any case. I'm digging the concept, and it was a nice read. Here're a few picky things, if you're interested:
Spoiler
I'm not sure if I'm fond of how you start using snappy sentences as standalone paragraphs. It definitely becomes a trend (whether intentional or otherwise). I liked it at "The desert was lonely", but at "Too hard" I'm already thinking, okay, it's not fun anymore. However, when we get around to "And Death, and I", I'm starting to fancy it again. So I'm not sure. It depends on your discretion. But I figured I'd mention it.
Clunky. I'd just mess around with the punctuation if I were you. "No spectators. That is, none but the sun and the wind" or "No spectators--none but the sun and the wind". Something like that would hammer out the ruts.
In my opinion, the comma after "pale" is unnecessary. It hinders your flow. To eliminate the fragment, I'd put it the sentence in past tense: "Her pale and perfect frame drew towards the child in effortless motion."
It's way too Yoda, man. So much so that it made me laugh, which I'm guessing wasn't the intention. You could cut it down a bit to "Such raw beauty" and then simplify the second quoted phrase to "The divine form of her existence was enough to excite the chambers of the heart."
Just suggestions. It's up to you, of course. I read in your reply to amelie's review that you wanted to make the reader frustrated with the narrator. I love when an author tries to invoke a certain feeling in the reader via writing style, but there's also a blurry line between aptly invoking a feeling and degrading your own style. Which sounds dramatic, but if the reader doesn't catch your drift, then they start to lose interest in the writing, because they don't know it's meant to make them feel any differently. That's where, contrary to what a lot of people think, author's intention actually does retain some importance.
Either way, there are a lot of things I love about this piece (your personification of Death is the best I've seen), and if you can work out the kinks, I think you'll have something exquisite.
Thanks for your time,
S
Additional note: I happen to really like the ending. So satisfyingly unsatisfying, wrenches your gut, and I want to take it and run with it.
Thanks for the review passenger! It was actually very helpful. I haven't gone back to make an edit of this piece yet, mostly because I'm focusing on getting a little more written out, but I agree with some of the comments that have been made and will be updating it in the near future. I'll tag you, if that's okay? That way you can take a look over it and see if it's improved at all?
Absolutely! I'd love to.
This was quite the piece. If I have it in me later, I'll throw you a review.
Samk642 here!!!
I'm not going to try and write an essay on what you should do (doubt I could even if I tried) but I am going to say, *dramatic pause*, flippin fantastic job!!! I enjoyed the images painted in my head by your soliloquy of words my silver tongued friend!!!
Samk642 out!!!!!
Hi Joseph!
First off, this is such a beautiful story. I love the imagery. As for critiques, I'll begin with those.
Like I previously mentioned, you have some really good imagery in here. However, a lot of the imagery used is very typical. Such as:
1). burning sun
2). The desert was lonely
3). No tears were to be shed, certainly not from the heavens above.
None of these are bad per say, but they seem bland considering how cliché these phrases can be. This is just a tiny detail, but it might help to ponder it for awhile.
There were a few parts in the story that I found to be a bit awkward, like,
This sentence becomes a run-on. Using three different ways to describe his lips leaves you a bit out of breath.
It's sort of abrupt, and leaves the rhythm somewhat off.
I love this!
You have this amazing story building up, and then there's this. The end is fairly dull, and I'm a little disappointed.
Honestly though, I thouroughly enjoyed reading this. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to send me a PM. Wonderful job!:)
-Amelie.
Thanks for the review amelia! It was definitely helpful.
as it's probably one too many adjectives to chuck in there. I do that sometimes, you know, get a little anxious.I agree about this line
As for the other parts, I think it's interesting that you bring them up, as the exact thing that you pointed out as being a possible quote on quote "issue," was actually something I had thought about and decided to leave in there as a way to make things happen. When it ends, and it feels like it's so dull, I wanted it to be that way because I want you to start getting frustrated with the narrator.
It's a really weird concept and I have no idea if it will work in the end, but, can't quite tell until the end of the book. I will definitely take all of your comments into consideration.
Thanks again!
now I'm going to start by this. I LOVE destroying a tearing apart manuscripts and pointing out every single flaw in a paragraph. but I must admit, your story was a tough one to tear apart. its as it its made metal or something. and you know what else is a metal? gold is a metal, which is exactly what this lovely piece is. i thoroughly enjoyed it (believe it or not) and I absolutely loved the details and the mood that you set by your wordings. you just make it look so simple to create art like this.
if I were to change something, i would only make the paragraphs a bit longer, and lessen the intensity of the description. everything else is just beautiful.
keep on writing, i will expect more from you
Thanks for your comments JuneIparis! It's good to see that someone enjoyed this little bit. I definitely agree about the longer paragraphs, in the sense that it's the normal way of writing. I tried to make this a little more artistic by isolating individual sentences or words to draw more attention to them. Not sure if that makes it hard to read, though? If you have any further thoughts about that, love to hear. Thanks again!