Hey, dear, I'm so terribly sorry that I couldn't get to this quicker, but the war basically consumed all of my time. I hope I'm not too late?
I couldn't help but notice you say that you have an issue with punctuation and semi-colons, so hereis a link to a tutorial I wrote on punctuation. I'd like to know if it makes any sense, so after reading it I'd truly appreciate it if you could tell me how helpful it was.
Alright! Onto the story!
Without any need for calculations, he realised that the flashes were getting closer, the crack of thunder arriving almost instantly after the flash.
The repetition of 'flashes' disrupts your flow. I say this in a lot of critiques, and I'll say it again for you, so you can either change flashes into 'lightning' or 'them'. Kay?
He’s right.
This is a very vague and slightly out of place phrase. Who's right? What are they right in saying or thinking? Is it, "He is right" or is it "He was right". Although I realize that this sentence adds dramatic effect, it doesn't clarify anything and only confuses your reader.
The light was a lighthouse, a lighthouse on land; land that was being struck by lightning.
Joe looked through the water that now layered the base of the boat. I might need you after all; he addressed his rubber gumboots, stolen from a quay last minute in his hurried attempt to escape.
It’s impossible, the thought ran through his mind. Being so close to Death in many ways, so close that he was practically breathing down Joe’s neck, and then; to see the light.
All three of these semi-colons are misplaced, m'dear. They can all be commas. Be sure to check out that tutorial.
his hands were juddering so much that they let it go.
First of all, juddering is an awkward word to use and isn't what you're looking for to describe his shaking hands. You could use shaking, trembling, or any array of synonyms here. And, second of all, the 'they' towards the end sounds a bit funny. You could say 'he let it go' instead of the hands let it go. It's almost like you're blaming your hands and saying that you had nothing to do with releasing the oars, you see?
The grey cloud of the task ahead lingered over him, remarkably similar to the real ones that lurked overhead.
I actually love the image and metaphor you've used here, but I think you should add something to the end of it to clarify which 'real ones' you're talking about. See my additions in bold, but be free to tweak it however you'd like.
Alright, here in this next part, the only thing I have an issue with is how Joe is jumping from thought to thought. His thoughts are actually quite interesting, and I think you should keep them, but one second he's talking about not fearing death, but the next he's talking about forgetting the past? If he's dead, he can't move on to bigger and better things the way that you've described his thoughts. Am I making sense? There is no bridge in his mind to connect death to starting a new life. You might want to add something in the middle to make it more cohesive.
In a back and forth motion, it would eventually cast light on his boat, his precious boat that had helped hi so far, from the calm waters of Papua New Guinea, through to Australia, where he had hoped his crimes would be forgotten, or overlooked at the least.
MASSIVE sentence, darling. Chop it into halves, or even thirds!
The small wooden dingy rocked from the loss of cumbrance, but the miniscule movement was almost indistinguishable from the tossing and turning caused by the waves.
Alright, I think we realize what a wonderful and impressive vocabulary you have. However, I don't think you need to be throwing around the big and fancy words wherever you please. These are three rather haughty and large words in one sentence, where you don't need to use something so extravagent to describe something that could be described with a smaller word just as easily.
In the end, I don't really like how suddenly, as if with a flash of lightning, your perspective shifts from Joe's to the other sailors who find his boat. We've been with this character for the whole story, and then suddenly he's disappeared into the murky depths of the ocean and we're stuck with these two random, un-names fishermmen who find his abandoned dingy? It's a bit like whiplash. If you want, you could describe what Joe sees and hears as he swims away. He can hear the searchers theorizing, and then, in the end, he can say something like:
"However, Joe knew that their search would be futile. After all, the only thing left to find was a slippery oar and a half-submerged boat."
So, I actually liked this a lot! In a short story (and I assume you aren't continuing it?) your writing skills are better honed than in the version of S.P. that I read, where you were trying to come up with an entire plot and characters and all of that really difficult stuff. Here, however, you can really focus on just this excerpt and figure out how best to write it. I think you've managed it, besides the points I've made above.
As for what I think the man is doing, he's trying to keep his boat afloat during a storm he encounters after escaping either New Zealand or Australia when he realizes that he could be apprehended by searchers and instead jumps into the sea. Is that what you meant?
Anyway, thanks again for using my thread, and I hope this was helpful!
~Evi
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