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125,020 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
The clouds seem uncertain today. Beautiful and original way to start. Fantastic. I do agree with Sarah, however, that the second sentence needs to be cut out. It just destroys all the great-ness of the first. Unsure of themselves, they periodically hurl a handful of raindrops like gravel; then retreat as if to see if the tiny people on the sidewalk will retaliate.I love the imagery here, very good. Strong and interesting. I imagine the clouds are disappointed at the apathy with which the people seek their revenge; more cars in the street and exclamations of that bloody weather. I imagine the clouds feel they aren’t receiving the credit they deserve. It is, after all, their doing that darkness is covering the city at 6pm. Actually, I disagree with Sarah, I don't think that this is too fancy. I adore it this way. I think it's beautiful, poetic, but...but more than that, it's like the prose. The way the character sees life. The outlook.
I want to know more about him, so badly.
Past the dirty window I see the street lit by the flashing neon of strip clubs and the reproduction old-world glamour spilling from cabarets. A dark figure dashes through a break in the traffic and into the lobby below my apartment. Through the paper-thin walls I hear her begin her ascent upYou don't need up after ascend. the stairs and I know I can’t do this without some help. No way out but my one escape hatch. Two by two by two, drowned in my eternal cleanser, past the centre of my imperfection, to settle in the pit of my empty stomach. There they will work their magic.Woah! I love your imagery. In fact, love isn't the right word, adore, worship, admire...?
I open the door before she has a chance to knock.
_Have a seat.
I motion to the faded arm chair facing towards the window; I set myself in the middle of the worn corduroy couch facing the door. I know she will appreciate being between me and the door.
She places a handheld voice recorder on the flat-pack coffee table between us.
If you don’t mind, this session will be recorded.
_Not at all. It can serve as a record that I didn’t do anything wrong.
Of course. Before we begin, off the record, did you do it?
_Would I still be here if I didn’t?
Tell me about your wife.
_What to tell? She was detached. To her; obligation and love were synonyms. She found her true love with other men; with me, consistency.
Did your wife’s infidelity cause all of this?
_My father taught me that the house doesn’t cry when its owner stays in a hotel for a couple of nights. To my wife, almost every man in that room was a hotel at some point. But that’s not why I did it.
Why did you do it?
_Compulsion knows reasons that reason does not.Very insightful. Interesting....
Tell me about your parents.
_My mother was a preacher, my father was a whore; or rather the other way around; or rather they were, each of them, both.
Are you…
I stand and look out the window. Drunkards flow from the dive bars to the strip clubs.
Working the system and getting the best of both worlds; drinks are almost double the price at the strip clubs but at dive bars the entertainment and women leave much to be desired.
Returning to my spot on the couch I signal for her to continue.
Are you trying to escape from your past?
_You can run from your past all you like; but wherever you go, there it is, right behind you. But at least it is behind you, not with you. I’ve run so far that I no longer have a goal, a destination, a limit. I’ve run so far that there’s nothing left with me. Maybe one day it will be so far that I’m stripped clean. I love this, seriously, I adore it.
How is your health?
_The headaches get worse by the day. I take the pills, but they don’t stop the pain; just make me forget that pain is bad.
Who gets you the pills?
_Roxi from FantasyPlanet, on the corner. Her eyes are dead; she knows what it’s like to need to forget.
Are you very unhappy?
_No. Most of the time I feel nothing.
What makes you feel?
_The white noise between radio stations. It makes me feel peace. That is all. Peace or pain or nothing. Sometimes Roxi comes to listen with me and shoot up.
Tell me about Roxi.
_She is beautiful; fair-haired and pretty. But it is her pain that makes her truly beautiful. Instead of scars she carries beauty as her burden; unable to hide it from the all that pass her by. Her face telling the story of a thousand unforgettable yesterdays. True beauty is born of pain.
I stand and very carefully walk across the room which is swimming in front of my eyes. The bar, in its mahogany panelled faux grandeur, contains an arsenal of my chosen poisons. If distilled; 19 litres of pure alcohol. I select a bottle of vintage scotch and fill a cut glass tumbler to the brim, down it, and refill it again.
Do you have a plan?
_Who doesn’t? Can I get you something to drink?
No, thank you, is there anything I can do for you?
_Nothing. Nothing to do but wait.
I return to the worn couch, drain my glass and place it on the wood veneer of the coffee table.
_You have two minutes at the most.
My vision blurs
_I took 6 sleeping pills when you arrived in the lobby.
Her eyes widen and dart to the empty glass on the table.
Bloody hell.
_Your call; ask me anything or waste your time going for help.
Pause.
Why did you do it?
_I’ll never know
Why did you do it?
_Because I could
Why did you do it?
_Because I had a bad day
Why did you do it?
_To defy myself. To show I had control by relinquishing it.
Why did you do it?
_Because if I didn’t…who would…?
I think of my father at his pulpit, I think of my mother bringing clients home whilst he was at work, I think of my wife with other men, I think of the white noise on the old alarm clock radio, I think of Roxi with her blonde hair and dead eyes, and then, I think of…nothing.
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Ok, so this came to me in a half-dream state and I kept having to sit up to write down snippets of the conversation.
What I need to know is:
a) What did the narrator do?
b) Who was the woman?
c) General thoughts, nit-picks and critiquing.
Thank you so much in advance to anyone who is willing to crit this for me!!!
dreamintechnicolour
ps. the title is just until I think of something better...
Ok, this was amazing. That's it, a single word to describe it. Amazing. I adore it. I'm going to do an advanced critique seeing as it's so good: xD
Grammar.
Your grammar is very good. There are very few mistakes, not that I noticed any, I was too absorbed in the story. I have few tips on grammar, I tend to concentrate more on plot/characterization/dialouge.... not unless there is some blatant mistakes do I point them out. With your's, there was not so I shall not.
Prose
The prose was strong and interesting. Captivating and enigmatic. Poetic and imaginative, original and intriguing. This, is my favourite type of prose. It was formal yet not too formal. Not to the extent that the story was stiff, for it was not, it was far from it. Your narrator is interesting and I hope that you shall go on to explore him in further chapters.
Narrative voice.
Your narrator was interesting, in future chapters I hope you shall go on to explore his personality. Just now he might be a tad under developed but I'm sure that'll change in future chapters.
Characterization.
Your characters were interesting. Beyond interesting, they were mindblowing. I loved them. They may be a tad under developed just now, but there's time to change that, as this story progresses I'm sure they do too. Add some quirks, things that we'd identify them by, things that make them come to life and make us love them. The dialogue is creating your characters just now, it is their foundations. This isn't a problem, far from it, this is a huge help for your story. You have found the starting point, now build the house. We want to know more about these characters, we yearn for more. We demand more! We want more! Give us more
Plot.
This was very interesting. Very interesting indeed. I don't know much about the plot, but then, neither do you, seeing as it was a dream. But I want to know more. I want to explore this plot. This is one that I do so hope you don't give up on. This is one which you should clutch on to, grab and run with. Never give up on it.
Description and imagery.
Beautiful. Just beautiful. I adored the imagery. I don't believe, like some of the other critiquers that it's too sophisticated. I thought it was perfect, perfect for your story. It was magnificent. My favourite line so far:
That, is beautiful. This is what makes good stories. This is where geniuses come from. This is great.
Dialogue.
I left this till last because it was my favourite thing besides imagery, about this. It is very philosophical and intriguing, yet still beautiful and poetic. Don't change it. Please don't. Please, please don't. It's just perfect
Overall
This is one of the best if not the best thing I have ever read on this site. I adored it so much, and I'm not saying that to make you feel nice. It's true. The world you have created, it's perfect. I wish to reside in it
-Kirsten xxx
Here as requested, dreamintechnicolour!
The whole 'the clouds are uncertain today' was a nice way of starting; original. However, I am begging you to ditch the 'unsure of themselves.' Seeing as you have previously stated that the clouds were uncertain, saying in the next sentence that they were unsure of themselves kills the whole atmosphere. You shouldn't drum stuff into the reader's head, trust them a bit.
They periodically hurl a handful of raindrops onto the ground like gravel, then retreat as if to see if the tiny people on the sidewalk will retaliate.
Whoah. Whoah there. At the moment, it seems like you're trying to cram too many big words and sophisticated expressions into the opening lines. The opening paragraph isn't about showing off your amazing vocabulary and witty expresssions, it's about dragging the reader in, showing the personality of your characters so they have something to empathise with.
Opening sentences/paragraphs are probably the trickiest - for me, a least. An opening sentence needs something to fire the imagination of reader. Make the reader want to know what happens next - something that pulls them into the story. Makes them ask questions - who is this, what's happening, what's going to happen? You're not really looking for scene setting or establishing character - that comes later.
One of the best opening sentences I know is from George Orwell's book '1984':"it was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking 13."
There's a great balance to that sentence - the first half seems ordinary and reassuring and then, bang, he hits you with the twist. I'm not saying be quite as dramatic as that, because it's not fantasy, obviously. But display something out of the ordinary.
Remove this; it's just rambling. You don't need this much description of the clouds, personificating them and everything. What we want to do is get into the story. So just nix it, kay?
Do you mean 'the reproduction of old-world glamour' ?
This is intriguing, but does not make any sense. I really do not understand anything, which is bad. You need to be less mysterious and elaborate on this or it will end up sounding like nonsense, and the reader will put it down in confusion.
I'm going to mention this once to save me from repeating it the whole time. But your punctuation is really confusing. I'm sure you're doing it for some reason, but I"m intrigued. Why are you using an underscore (_) instead of speech marks.
Break this up into two sentences, it will sound a lot better. And I think 'gesture' will sound better than 'motion' as it makes more sense. You don't really 'motion' at anything.
Ahh. Intriguing. Good.
So the underscore is the main character talking, the italics is the weird woman. But...wouldn't it be easier to use speech marks?
A semi-colon is used to link two separate sentences that are closely related. If you replace a semi-colon with a fullstop, the two sentences should make sense on their own. However a lot of your usage is wrong, as in this example. You should replace the semi-colon with a comma to make it grammatically correct.
This doesn't make sense.
The semi-colon usage is right here, but I think it would add a lot more effect if you replaced it with a fullstop.
Run-on sentence.
Fullstop at the end of this.
a) What did the narrator do?
b) Who was the woman?
You see, Dream. I can't answer these questions for you. It was really intriguing and the mystery was to good effect, but we have absolutely no idea what is going on. We cannot answer these questions - you have to answer them for us.
Overall Thoughts:
I liked it. It was polished, and you have some nice detail. The second part was really intriguing, I really wanted to know what's going on -which is great.
The start dragged on a lot, and a lot of it was useless rambling, but I think we've fixed that now.
Your main problem is characterisation. We really need to know about your character, or we'll have nothing to empathise with.
Remember to make your characters seem real. Nobody is perfect, including those overused "perfect" characters. If you want to capture some gritty, realistic characters, ride the bus. Not the subway. Ride the MTA buses, and go downtown. Look carefully at everyone, you might find some people whose faces alone leak of an interesting character. Typically these people are different from the people one sees everyday at school or work. Don't let them see you staring. Don't jot anything down, just let it settle in. Pay particular attention to abnormalities. Pay attention to their facial expressions, and see what they pay the most attention to. Don't get caught. What to do once you know you've got someone interesting? Try blending in the personality of someone you understand very well (such as yourself) into the shell you have created through your observation.
If you are impulsive in your character-making, and you go a lot more on feeling than planning and order, you're going to make a big melodramatic mess. If you come up with a character, write down some notes, keep adding stuff whenever you like, and come back to it after a little bit of time (couple of days) when you think you feel really clear-headed and ready to focus.
Show characters in different lights when you get a chance. Yes, a character in question can also be a villain. Show them interacting with different people, seeing the world through their own perspective, having their inner monologues, contradicting themselves(yet make sure these contradictions apply consistently and make sense), changing into different directions, having crises of faiths, justifying themselves, making decisions and taking actions of their own, taking chances, making mistakes, trying to make up for them and, the most important of all, getting in different conflicts, be they large-scale, personal or interpersonal.
I hope this helps!
Good luck, Dream!
Ah, this hasn't had any reviews!
Well, hello!
I rather liked this piece but I'm going to be a little nit-picky. I know that this came in a dream (a weird one at that) I think this could be so much more. I want to know what the characters look like, I want to see their facial expressions and get into the MC's head. I mean, I know you hint in your title that the MC is going to commit suicide but
Let's see, think of Suicide as a story Suicide=Story. In a story, you have to have a beginning, middle, and end. And you also have to have a plot with a climax and a resolution. Now Suicide would be much like that. What began the thoughts of suicide or in other words Why did he think of killing himself? Did he argue with himself about committing suicide? And finally, what made him actually commit suicide. You must ask yourself these questions, and yes I know that he already had swallowed the pills and downed some alcohol but I believe you can put so much more feeling into this. The dialog was excellent and believable, so good job there.
A comma between There and they.
Favorite Part:
This was a very good hook, and to be honest with you, I would not have read this if this beautiful chunk wasn't there. I mean, you're a great writer and all but I feel as though, this story was robotic, it lacked feeling.
Welp, that's all, and I hoped I helped.
Cheers,
~Angel