From The Desk of Ezra Must, Attorney at Law
To: Mr. Jacob Whippleton
86 Bank Street, Boston
(Direct messenger to Office With the Yellow Door.)
January 14, 1843
Dearest Friend,
It is my pleasure to inform you that the transactions made for the Beach House have been made in full, and the house now belongs to the firm. We will demolish it when we see fit. The surrounding land should be on the property market before June comes round.
By the bank's request, I instructed a crew to clear the house of possibly valuable objects, and now, waiting for you in humble little Milford, is a the coat closet in my office containing: a Woman's Armoire, a Pearl Necklace, a Bronze Telescope, five Silver Horseshoes, and an Ornate Key.
Not by the bank's request, I confiscated from the crew a Packet Most Curious. It is heavy and bound with leather, and the clasp on the front, I presume, is opened by the Key. My wife and I are very much looking forward to your upcoming visit on the 25th, and I hope, when you stop by the little town by the sea, that you should open it with me, in the case it is also of some monetary value.
Sincerely,
Ezra
___
The First Account
There are three women sitting around the table, eating.
The table is perfectly circular. Two of the women sit closer to each other- twin sisters once beautiful. Annabelle is the other figure sitting at the table, a grave girl far too solemn for her age. She spends most of her time reading the Bible like the good girls do, and the rest of it is spent cleaning for the Twins, the Aunts. The Aunts are good to her. They always have been, since the day Annabelle's parents were carried away in the Pox Cart, gray limbs sticking out of the sides.
Suddenly feeling full, she asks to be excused, leaving two pieces of wild asparagus and a bit of pork slathered and butter behind. The Aunts stare after her as she ascends the stairs into her room.
There, on the floor beside her bed, is her Bible and her bronze telescope. She gathers these and cradles them in her arms before climbing back down the stairs.
The Aunts are discussing something in their usual hushed tones, something Annabelle can't make out. She slips into the kitchen and pushes the door open, struggling against a drift of sand that had been carried up by the wind.
Outside, the smell is briny- it is low tide, and the sand stretches in almost every direction, except for small pocks filled with water and tiny crabs. She balances her belongings between her arm and her hip, leaving the other hand free to hold a fistful of fabric from her skirt as she wrestles through the barrier of reeds- the only thing that separates her from the trail to Salem Rock.
It's not much of a trail; merely a line of black sand, seemingly permanent. It leads to the edge of the rock, where receding water and anxious humans have carved footholds into its sides.
The black sand is rock and rough, and harbors shells that cut into the soles of Annabelle's feet. Clutching her belongings to her chest, she puts her feet in the niches- which, compared to the sand, feel like velvet.
Once on top of the rock, she folds her legs beneath her and gingerly flips the pages to Psalms. She reads them in time with the familiar church melodies, stopping every few verses to look out at the sea, and the setting sun dipping below the horizon.
Suddenly, she remembers what she has brought the telescope for.
To her left, far out on the water, is an island. From her window, she can see there is a smokestack- a chimney that belches out steam every so often, even though the Aunts say it is ridiculous. No one lives there, they say, and give her worried looks, reaching up to feel her forehead with the flat of their hands.
She lifts the eyepiece and looks through, feeling the cold metal against her skin.
The island has very little beach, and so the water merely laps up against straight rock. The trees grow raggedly, erratically- a few of them have been overturned by storms and disease.
Through them, she can see the water. There is no smokestack, at least, not today.
Annabelle is about to put the telescope down when she catches something- a brown corner, encroaching into her view. She yelps and the eyepiece drops to the rock, clattering as it rolls to and fro.
"Hello, Miss," says a voice.
The voice belongs to a boy, looking at her pleadingly from over the rock. He is merely a head from this angle.
"Hello," Annabelle replies, still shaken.
His irreverently messy hair sticks out in wet spikes, no doubt from swimming. Sand is stuck to his lip and his eyebrows, which shield blue eyes reminiscent of a cat that wakes up from a nap- languid and sleepy. "Do you need something, sir?"
He nods. "Do you have any extra cloth you could spare? I cut my foot on a rock, see, and it hurts quite fierce."
She feels panicked. Her heart begins to beat wildly as she shakes out the book and her pocket, feeling compelled by Christian duty to assist him but not having anything to do it with.
He begins to shrug and turn away, but she tears the scarf from her hair and hands it to him.
"Here."
"I can't do that, miss, that's yours. I mean, extra- scraps," he says, smiling. "I'll just head on home, then. Thank you."
She frowns. "Take it."
"No."
"Really, it's all right."
His smile falters. He puts both his palms on the rock and lifts himself up, growing from a mere head to a body. The body is very tall and covered in salt-ironed clothes, no doubt stiffened when he had fallen asleep in the sand.
The foot in question is wet, and blood runs from an ugly gash on his heel, only to mix with water and fall in dilute, spidery patterns.
Annabelle wraps the scarf around it twice, once over his foot and the second along the back of the ankle to keep it secure. All the while, the boy looks out to sea- to the island.
He gives her a strange look when she finishes, sleepy-cat eyes distraught and troubled as he notices something over her shoulder. "Thank you.” His smile is forced.
She nods back and watches him as he slides back off the rock, careful to walk on the balls of his feet. The wet sand kicks up in globs around him, and he begins to whistle. Annabelle tears her gaze away from him and looks back up toward the house. The Aunts are watching from her window, identical faces peering out towards the sunset.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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Original Text:
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125,013 Literary Works • 672,842 Reviews
The CCF thanks you for your patiance. We have been going through your piece and assuring that we give you the best possible advice.
A note, Since this is a business Letter, perhaps comes around is a bit out of character. You want to keep it the same tone through the letter and this alters it. Perhaps, Arrives, would be a better choice.
This read a bit rough. Particularly the part in red. The repatition of say disrupts to flow.
POV - It is third person. Not a bad POV but you've written it a bit detached. It is difficult to lose one's self in this story with it in its current sate. A bit more of Annabelle's insides would be nice. You have given us her Christian background nicely but it is still a bit flat.
Your tense choice is challenging. It is indeed the cause of the detatched and unnatural flow of the story. I suggest working on your sentece structuring to help this. You do a very nice job of avoiding turning the story into a list of events, but it causes it to block up. It might help to remove some non essential descriptions. That will allow the reader to go from place to place without the drag of a description that isn't entirley neccesary at the moment.
Annabelle is presented strongly. Even with the small amount of information you have made her easily discernable from the rest of your characters. The Aunts are only stuck out by there name "The Aunts" This worries me as it is combining two characters into one. You may want to make each one more seperate. The boy sticks out as well. More so than Annabelle because he seems to deviat from the character norm of the story. This is a good thing. It helps keep your cast interesting.
We hope this is of Aid to you.
*hugs CL*
I do love your paper critiques; they are lovely, indeed...
Especially the last point about the aunts' POV- that was something I would never have thought about, and yet it makes perfect sense. It's a grand point to keep in mind. ^_^
And, as usual, I agree with your grammar points. The all-seeing Cal eye is always right, and with grand suggestions! Teehee, make drafting a bit easier when you've got someone who knows what they're doing at the wheel. ^_~
Anywho...grand points. I've gobbled them all.
O M G, look who finally uploaded.
You know the drill.
Ta,
Cal.
I liked it, it was mature writing with a simplistic style which could pull the reader in. Good job Sam.
Thanks, Imp and Tri!
Glad you enjoyed it!
IMP: Ergh. I love those adverbs a bit too much, I suppose...I'm about to try Fand's removal activity, and I shall see how many of those 'merely's can be removed. They need to leave.
And, hushed is much better.
TRI: A relief, right?
I'm rather sorry that I don't really have the inclination to leave a detailed crit (IMP has captured some beautiful points). But I would like to leave a few comments.
The letter at the beginning was very well done. Sometimes when pieces are started off with correspondence or letters and the such, they are dull. But yours is both believable and very intriguing. Kudos.
I most definitely would keep reading this after just this section (I'm eager to get to part two as I type this ^_^).
Thanks for not cluttering this up with unnecessary description and thank god you didn't linger on some of the more boring aspects of the aunts that Dickens just might do
Cheers. I'm off to two.
Hullo Sam,
I can't but enjoy your work - something in its lightness strikes juxtoposition against depth of subject and intermingled long sentences. 'Tis invariably inventive.
And this was intriguing, both for its quiet, held-breath understatement and its use of the present tense.
So...
Present Tense:
It works excellently for the understatement. It keeps things on the moment in a way that leaves one grasping for the answer to all the questions - who, and why, and what?
But in doing that, it needs to be unnoticeable in itself, of course, otherwise it drags attention away from questions to the devices used to elicit them. ^_^ It sticks out when the sentence lengths stop varying. Otherwise, it's spare and smooth. (Some subject-verb structure gets caught in a line a few times until it can't get away with being diffident and unnoticed. ^_^)
You're very easy in your use of it. That aside, it tends to stick out like the poor boy's hair (he with the cut heel), because the structure sticks to reporting - subject-verb rather consistently. Even in present tense, you know doubtless, structure and even tense referencing backwards and forwards, may be toyed with.
...demonstration above of the keenness of the present tense. ^_^ I'm not certain whether the repetition of shorts and structure before the final sentence punctuate or rag-end it. I suppose it may be a subjective thing.
Adjectives and, er, Adverbs, yes?:
Briefest note: This story is bloody spare. It's stark, nearly. It's quite neat, in a very strict sense despite the wan foreboding and dream-like encounter with the cat-eyed boy while Annabelle watches for a smokestack that isn't meant to exist.
But now and then, an adverb or adjective creeps in the pace skips out, or a sentence hangs it shirttails out.
Well, they're discussing something quietly, then also noted as hushed, and it's their usual attitude.
...Perhaps cut 'quietly'? as hushed really is more striking and active; 'usual' might go or stay, depending upon its use after one of the former is struck?
Ah, I'm being painfully fastidious. But 'quickly' weakens 'tears', doesn't, it?
Habitual Phrases/Verbiage:
A note on that: You're a few words that just keep coming back. ^_~
Mere/Merely - I've counted that three to five times; can't recall perfectly.
No doubt - Three times?
More Brevity?:
Ha, well, it's such nice spareness; and I think you could make it more so.
For example, above. Some things are irreplaceable in past tense narration.
Some don't fit as well in present tense. I wonder if you run things a little more together, and let them stand without telling, if you wouldn't have an even smoother piece?
It would, at least, be a change-up of pattern, if you intejected something like the above, now and then. ^_^ Not necassary by any means; for you discernment.
In Closing:
That all said, the impressions I've gotten of the characters are both brief and vivid. I love the young man's incongruous aspect, sleepy cat-eyes and salt-stiff clothes. Anabelle's character is rather bland, so far; but some characters ought to be - and the Psalms contrasted to her interest in 'nonexistent ' island people is intriguing. The Aunts are quite Dickensian. ^_^
IMP
scrambled_pages: Ooh, cool! That's grand- I didn't even realize I was doing that. Hmm. I fixed the sentence, as per request- though I changed the second 'made' to 'paid'. Rhymes, but still...different letters.
Thank you, though- I have a huge problem with openings, so I'm glad it was hookish.
Meep: Poor Meepster.
BFG: Thanks for replying to a reply- awfully nice of you. Ooh, cows...for a second, I thought you were a Midwestern Sister, but I'm sadly mistaken, looking at the location box.
Claudester: Ah, I left off a 'y'...hehe, thanks for catching it! I'm relooking the roughness; my usual style is a lot more...burlesque, but it needs to be toned down, da? It's the sort of thing I wouldn't catch by myself. Thank you, Claudester!
I love the third paragraph in the letter, about confiscating something. The tone seemed real Nabokovish to me, or something. Perhaps it is like someone else, and yet Nabokov comes to mind? The way it's kind of foolishly pulling your leg fits.
How is rock an adjective? That just seems odd to me. Rock is a noun. So it doesn't really help describe the sand, to me at least. It just confuses me.
I love the beach scene, before the boy shows up and she's thinking about the house. It made me thing of James and the Giant Peach (The movies, er, if there is a book?). It has a real fantasy/faerie tale feel to it.
"It hurts quiet fierce."
Wow. Brilliant dialog. The use of "fierce" totally characterized the guy for me. It's one of those words you don't see used a lot, gave off a southern twang, imo. I love it ^_^
Off.
Sorry if I repeated anyone with the fixes ^^'
I adored this, and really, really look forward to more! I totally applaud you for the use of present tense, I could never do that. The story was very well done. I loved Anna's (I'm lazy) Christian generosity. I couldn't really find any problems, other than sometimes your narration sounded like stage direction or something.
Here for example:
Sure, the narration kicks major patootie (haha) , but it feels detached. And I have no knowledge of how to fix this.
If you post more, and I don't notice, tell me!
In Honesty: I'd probably read this first bit, flip through a few pages in the middle to make sure it picked up and went somewhere, and then take it up to the cow pasture behind my house to read it with my dog curled up on my stomach and the dandelions making my legs itch. It seems to be playing into a wonderful adventure story, one of those fulfilling books that makes you feel better about the world, where you don't spend the whole time you're reading it wishing you were the character, you are the character. It's a terrific start, and I can't wait to read more!
Okay, the opening was probably the best. I love the bit about the Office With the Yellow Door. Somehow, the letter sets the stage in the most excellent way. After finishing the letter, I just had to keep reading, despite the fact that I'm, you know, in class.
I really like how the bronze telescope ties in, and I'm curious to learn more about it and the other letters. I'll be keeping my eyes open for more of this!
Very Good! I don't have much to critic on a wide scale here, because I can't find anything wrong with the story, so I will just point out a few places where the sentence structure was a little unclear... to me at least. I love your protagonist,I found it almost comical the way that she jumped to help the boy, I got the impression he thought that she was a little weird, or that he just found her a little funny. It was fantastic because in reality we always think that others are a little weird, or they think that of us, but it is rarely portrayed through writting
"It is my pleasure to inform you that the transactions made for the Beach House have been made in full, and the house now belongs to the firm."
Here the word "made" is used twice, not a huge issue. I would either drop the first one - as it seems to me that the sentence would still make sense without it- or, change the second one in for another word, maybe "completed"?
"The black sand is rock and rough, and harbors shells that cut into the soles of Annabelle's feet."
Maybe this is just me being dense, but can the sand be rock? And what about the harbor shells? did you mean to say that there were harbor shells that cut into her feet... I am a little confused...
Hope this helped a bit
-Gen
Guess who made it out of the mud? Well, being back among the living rather than the undead has its perks. Namely, YWS-ness.
I am going to print this out and do the do, and scan it in hopefully within the next week.
I adore the name Ezra. Squee! Or maybe it's just that I have been reading too much Magnificent Seven stuff lately.
Chowder,
Cal.
Thanks, Roy and JC!
It's not going to be a short story...I don't think. I'm going to edit this section further and play around with the plot cards for a bit- the most excellent form of procrastination ever invented.
Again, thanks for the critiques!
Sam, this is really good. I really enjoyed it. (small insignifigant note: I almost said quite instead of really...that's how into the story I got)
Question? Is this a short story, or is it going to continue? I would love to see more of it...though I suppose it could end like that...
yeah, I coudn't find anything new to critique, so yeah. Good work, I really liked it!
-JC
Oh OH oh. This was really good. I like the fact that it started out with a letter. It kinda drags you into it, especially when a few paragraphs later, the story refers back to one of the items mentioned in the letter. I didn't see anything wrong, mostly because I got to it too late to point out anything. =[
I know that if I found something like this in the bookstore, I would continue, even just to see where it could go from her. Right now, I don't quite know.
Thanks, guys! I went back and fixed all the typos- I should really, really not try to write anything before ten in the morning. It just doesn't seem as coherent...
Thanks for catching that slip up, though- I've made quite a few odd mistakes. *head/desk*
MAGICMAN: Ah! Yes, that's what I meant to say. The her is kind of embarassing, huh? Thank you, though. I have an easy time overlooking complete weirdness.
BFG: Ooh...good critique. Lawyers from the 18th century are indeed very fun people.
Pace is something I would never have considered. Question, though: I know it's going to pick up in the next section considerably, but if you picked it up in a bookstore and only read this section, would you continue?
And if not, what's slow?
Grand point about the dog thing. I'm going to go kill that line and find a suitable replacement.
INSANITY ABOUNDS: Yay! I'm glad you haven't read anything like it...
Hey Sam.
This was really good; you showed us the image well. Or maybe just people that are familiar with the ocean lol. I quite liked it, and I only caught the one thing.
The foot in question is wet, and blood runs from an ugly gash on his heel, only to mix with blood and fall in dilute, spidery patterns.
I think the second blood should be water.
But it was a nice diversion - I hardly read any stories from this point of view anymore.
PM me when you do the next part. I'm interested.
-Mat
I love the way you describe things, like the boy, or the blood from his cut. (I think there may be a typo in that sentence though - did you mean for one of the 'blood's to be 'water'?) Your descriptions are unique, but accessible enough to form an immediate picture in one's head, and they're not longwinded and they don't have too many adjectives. Very enjoyable to read.
The present tense narration is interesting in combination with the historical setting. I like that, and I'm amazed you managed to stick to one tense for so long (I have so much trouble writing in the present tense; I always find myself reverting to the past, which for some reason I'm more comfortable with). I really like the letter at the beginning. Lawyers, particularly 18th and 19th century ones, are alway fun characters, so that was what initially piqued my interest in the story. The old-fashioned language was well executed - great job with that. The erratic capitalization gives it more of an authentic feel, too.
Overall, I really like what you've written so far. I worry that it's going to get bogged down early on, though; is the pace going to pick up soon? This pace is fine, but a variation in tempo seems in order fairly soon so that it doesn't get stuck on description and not move into plot. I'd like to see some action.
The only other thing that caught my eye, save for a few small typos not worth mentioning, was the line:
Something about this struck me as not quite fitting in with the style of the rest of the piece... I think maybe it was how you included her thoughts, not just her emotions, in the context of just actions, no reasons. Or maybe that wasn't it; I'm not sure. There's something, though, with the "she assumes it will be fed to the dog, Beetle" that isn't right.
Hope that was helpful.
Hi Sam! I liked this piece a lot, I don't know why, maybe it's just how simplistic it is and the way you tell it. Anyway, I like the story for what it is, and your diction is flawless in my opinion, but I found a couple of typos.
You have an extra period there.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you switch tenses in this sentence. You go from present to past. Instead of handed, make it hands. Or switch tears to tore. Whatever tense you want it in.
I'm pretty sure you meant for the second "her" to be "him".
Anyways, good luck with the rest of it!
-Tony