First Critique - 785 words

[choccoweeble]

Well I've made it to 30 posts, so about time I dipped my toe in the water here. I've had a go at some of the challenges, but this is the first decent length bit of writing I've unleashed on the world. Really I'm just keen to know I'm doing okay and not making any major errors with what I'm doing, but any feedback would be great. This is not part of my current WIP, but a beginning of something that could potentially be novel length at some stage in the future.




Avari skipped joyfully through the forest on this delightful spring morning, watching the sunlight dappling the floor with gentle patches of shadow and light, which danced to the soft breezes that rustled the canopy above. Here and there, the delightful patterning opened out into brighter patches where the sun broke through stronger as the trees thinned. Green-yellow mossy grass carpeted the floor, and there were thickets of shrubs crowning the bases of trees, interspersed with primroses and wood anemones. Insects buzzed in a lazy fashion, hovering in the air in no particular hurry to be anywhere.

It was a delight to be out on this sunny morning, when winter had finally submitted to spring’s warm breezes and heady scents. As she skipped, she played out a simple tune on the reed flute she carried with her, watching as the sound subtly rippled the air – a disturbance which would be completely invisible to the untrained eye.

And then, abruptly, she was forced to stop. She had reached that point where the forest suddenly ended and gave way to wire and mesh and concrete. There was no gradual fading of one to the other - but a brutal shift as if like a light going off. The trees were pressed up against the fence so that branches were forced to contort out of shape, but lower where more slender plants grew, the tendrils of brambles and the odd fern frond had managed to push their way through the layers of chain link and barbed wire into the exclusion zone.

Fear clouded her face. She could hear the approaching savage barks of a guard dog, which had clearly smelt her presence, and she wanted nothing more than to turn and run but found herself rooted to the spot – the wind biting at her face as it swept across the stark vista before her. The creature was there before she knew it – seemingly comprised entirely of fangs and snarling and slobber flying in all directions, but it still took her a few seconds to finally gather her wits enough to back away before she turned and ran – the barking becoming more fevered behind her; manic frustration of an animal trapped in its metal prison and unable to pursue.

Avari’s flight was desperate – she knew it would not be long before the Clerics were after her, and soon she began to hear the sound of a hoverpod growing louder behind her, louder and louder and then there was shouting and lasergun fire, and she threw herself to the ground in terror. As the full length of her body impacted the dirt, hard, she felt her ribs crack against something metallic in the undergrowth. Wincing with pain, she felt around to see what it was, and her fingers met the handgrip of a large energy weapon. How had this got here?

The next few seconds were both a blur and a slowing of time almost to a standstill. Everything Avari had ever learnt about the world flashed through her mind – she was about to die, alone in the forest, with the means to defend herself inches from her grasp and yet she could not do so.

She heard the voices of the Elders in her head, “We must cling to the old ways. Abandoning them is what got us into this mess in the first place”.

And yet, she was not ready to die. So, she took up the gun and watched in horror as a different her blasted away the lives of the three men pursing her. She would never forget the looks of horrified surprise on each of their faces as they vaporised into nothing.

Time was suddenly all too fast again, and she buried her head beneath her arms as the hoverpod skimmed her head and smashed into a tree several hundred yards away. She felt the heat from the fireball that scorched a hole through the canopy as the pod exploded in flame.

Instinct took over then, as she flinched backwards at the forest’s pain – her hand reflexed to her belt and pulled her flute to her lips. She felt the soothing, cooling of the music as she began to play, its gentle, soft melody moving the air, rippling, swirling – extinguishing the flames and slowly beginning to knit the wounded trees back together. Leaves reformed, trunks which had been scored and blackened saw life breathed back into them once more, tendrils of ivy crept their way slowly upwards, twisting back into place around their boughs. After no more than a couple of minutes, the forest was as it had always been, aside from the burnt out carcass of the pod, and the spreading cold in Avari’s heart.

[ctg]

Originally Posted by choccoweeble

Well I've made it to 30 posts, so about time I dipped my toe in the water here. I've had a go at some of the challenges, but this is the first decent length bit of writing I've unleashed on the world. Really I'm just keen to know I'm doing okay and not making any major errors with what I'm doing, but any feedback would be great. This is not part of my current WIP, but a beginning of something that could potentially be novel length at some stage in the future.

I'll try to be gentle and honest. So bare with me as to me your major problem is over description. You seem to like paint the world around the character in major detail, which makes the prose overly purple. Many frown on such act and it's not recommended that you keep continuing such a practice.

I don't want to edit this piece as it doesn't do anything go through this and mark every single bit for the rewrite. So I'll advice you to prune some of the description and concentrate on the essential to bring out the plot. Another thing you might want to think about is the sudden appearance of the weaponry as it makes your prose to look amateurish.

The whole thing has to flow really well to draw in the audience. Things has to be as logical as you can make them to be. Anything else can be picked up in your next excerpts.

[Hex]

Originally Posted by choccoweeble

Avari skipped joyfully through the forest on this delightful spring morning, watching the sunlight dappling the floor with gentle patches of shadow and light, which danced to the soft breezes that rustled the canopy above. Here and there, the delightful patterning opened out into brighter patches where the sun broke through stronger as the trees thinned. Green-yellow mossy grass carpeted the floor, and there were thickets of shrubs crowning the bases of trees, interspersed with primroses and wood anemones. Insects buzzed in a lazy fashion, hovering in the air in no particular hurry to be anywhere.

I like the images but I think they're a little over-emphasised (for my taste, which tends to the under-described). Just as an exercise, I removed most of the adverbs from the first paragraph, and changed a couple of other words around.

Avari ran through the forest on the spring morning; sunlight dappled the floor with patches of shadow and light, and soft breezes rustled the canopy above. Here and there, the sun broke through in brighter patches. Green-yellow mossy grass carpeted the floor, and thickets of shrubs, interspersed with primroses and wood anemones, crowned the bases of trees. Lazy insects buzzed, hovering in the air in no particular hurry to be anywhere.

I think you set the scene so well with the forest description, you don't need to say it's delightful, because it's so clear from the rest of your writing. Does that make sense?

[RJM Corbet]

I love it.

Just as a short story. Just as it is.

Not a word needs changing. Except maybe the second last one. 'Avri's heart'. Change to 'her heart'.

Nice work. I think it's great stuff ...

[springs]

[QUOTE=choccoweeble;1607007]
Hi Chocco, welcome to crits and well done. I had a few bits to comment on, if it helps.


Avari skipped joyfullyI think, in general, you use a lot of adverbs; show me how she skips joyfully, and you won't need the joyful. Jumping over a log? pulling a leaf from a tree? through the forest on this delightfuli got it was delightful from the description. spring morning, watching the sunlight dappling the floor with gentle patches of shadow and light, which danced to the soft breezes that rustled the canopy abovea very long first sentence... it might be able to be shortened eg
Avari skipped through the forest, the spring sunlight dappling the floor. Gentle patches of shadow and light danced to soft breezes rustling through the canopy.
It says the same but in lots less words?


. Here and there, the delightful patterning opened out into brighter patches where the sun broke through stronger - a little clumsy; where the strong sun broke through the thinning trees? still clumsy; maybe look at what you do need? as the trees thinned. Green-yellow mossy grass carpeted the floor, and there were thickets of shrubs crowning the bases of trees, interspersed with primroses and wood anemones. Insects buzzed in a lazy fashion, hovering in the air in no particular hurry to be anywhere. a lot of description - a lot of which is lovely - but my mind gets a bit full. i am, also, a less is more type; mossy grass carpeted the ground. Thickets of shrubs crowned the base of trees, primroses and wood anemones between. Lazy insects hovered and seemed to say they weren't in a hurry to get anywhere. (I try to use your own descriptions in suggestions, but I still think there's too much in it.)

It was a delight to be out on this sunny morning, when winter had finally submitted to spring’s warm breezes and heady scentswe already know it's spring.... As she skipped, she played out a simple tune on the reed flute she carried with her, watching as the sound subtly rippled the air – a disturbance which would be completely invisible to the untrained eye.

And then, abruptlyadverb, she was forced to stop. She had reached that point where the forest suddenlyadverb ended and gave way to wire and mesh and concrete. There was no gradual fading of one to the other - but a brutal shift as if like a light going off. The trees were pressed up against the fence so that branches were forced to contort out of shapewere contorted out of shape is a little tighter and says the same, but lower where more slender plants grew, the tendrils of brambles and the odd fern frond had managed to push their way through the layers of chain link and barbed wire into the exclusion zone.

I'm not going to go any further, because I think I might be repeating the same feedback, and it wouldn't be helpful. You have a lot of nice imagery, and a knack of getting a visual image, but I think less might be more. Incidentally, it reads like my crits when I first posted them; tightening, using a different way to show something than an adverb are all things that come with time. I think there's a lot to like here, and a lot of promise. Good stuff; I hope you keep at it.

Just seen RJM's; this is why it's so important to have a range of crits, and then the hard bit is taking what's useful from them. Good luck!

[allmywires]

Hey chocco,

I'm not going to add anything else because the others have pretty much covered it, but it all boils down to one point: tightening up. You may have noticed that I have a crit up where I was told essentially the same thing - too long, not sharp enough, too many adverbs. And they're right, but it's hard to see with your own work; you want to get across everything you know and you feel about this world, but the truth is you have to make the reader work for it. Give them hints rather than whole blocks of description.

It's good, but there's too much. Cut it down and it will be great!

amw x

[littlebird]

Delete
Comment

Avari skipped joyfully through the forest on this delightful spring morning, watching the sunlight dappling the floor with gentle patches of shadow and light, which danced to the soft breezes that rustled the canopy above. A lot of description here that could be cut down to "Avari skipped through the spring forest on a spring morning, watching the sunlight hit the floor through the canopy. Here and there, the delightful patterning opened out into brighter patches where the sun broke through stronger as the trees thinned. Green-yellow mossy grass carpeted the floor, and there were thickets of shrubs crowning the bases of trees, interspersed with primroses and wood anemones. Insects buzzed in a lazy fashion, hovering in the air in no particular hurry to be anywhere. I get what you're trying to do here - if you just keep a few of the descriptions it will be nice, otherwise it is an overload of description of description[/COLOR]

It was a delight to be out on this sunny morning, when winter had finally submitted to spring’s warm breezes and heady scents. As she skipped, she played out a simple tune on the reed flute she carried with her, watching as the sound subtly rippled the air – a disturbance which would be completely invisible to the untrained eye. Just a note on your idea - reed flute? skipping through the forest? Unless this is a satirical piece on fantasy, it strikes me as cliche - keep the skipping or the flute, but both comes off comical.

And then, abruptly, she was forced to stop. She had reached that point where the forest suddenly ended and gave way to wire and mesh and concrete. There was no gradual fading of one to the other - but a brutal shift as if like a light going off. The first sentence shows this, this sentence tells the the same thing. The trees were pressed up against the fence so that branches were forced to contort out of shape, but lower where more slender plants grew, the tendrils of brambles and the odd fern frond a lot of adverbs here had managed to push their way through the layers of chain link and barbed wire into the exclusion zone.

Fear clouded her face. Is clouded the right word? You can simply say fear was etched on her face, or her stomach dropped in fear. She could hear the approaching savage barks of a guard dog, which had clearly smelt her presence, and she wanted nothing more than to turn and run but found herself rooted to the spot – the wind biting at her face as it swept across the stark vista before her. The creature was there before she knew it – seemingly comprised entirely of fangs and snarling and slobber flying in all directions, but it still took her a few seconds to finally gather her wits enough to back away before she turned and ran – the barking becoming more fevered behind her; manic frustration of an animal trapped in its metal prison and unable to pursue. A good idea that would benefit being put into separate sentences

Avari’s flight was desperate – she knew it would not be long before the Clerics were after her, and soon she began to hear the sound of a hoverpod growing louder behind her, louder and louder and then there was shouting and lasergun fire, and she threw herself to the ground in terror. Once again, sentences help with action - make them short and sharp to convey the pace and terror she is feeling. As the full length of her body impacted the dirt, hard, she felt her ribs crack against something metallic in the undergrowth. Wincing with pain, she felt around to see what it was, and her fingers met the handgrip of a large energy weapon. How had this got here? It's just a personal peeve of mine, but use italics when asking a question to the audience, as this is her voice. Else it seems as if the author is speaking directly to the audience, and that is jarring.

The next few seconds were both a blur and a slowing of time almost to a standstill. Everything Avari had ever learnt about the world flashed through her mind – she was about to die, alone in the forest, with the means to defend herself inches from her grasp and yet she could not do so. Is this what she's learnt of the world? That she is about to die?

She heard the voices of the Elders in her head, “We must cling to the old ways. Abandoning them is what got us into this mess in the first place”.

And yet, she was not ready to die. So, she took up the gun and watched in horror as a different her blasted away the lives of the three men pursing her. She would never forget the looks of horrified surprise on each of their faces as they vaporised into nothing. You could expand this.

Time was suddenly all too fast again, and she buried her head beneath her arms as the hoverpod skimmed her head and smashed into a tree several hundred yards away. She felt the heat from the fireball that scorched a hole through the canopy as the pod exploded in flame.

Instinct took over then, as she flinched backwards at the forest’s pain – her hand reflexed to her belt and pulled her flute to her lips. She felt the soothing, cooling of the music as she began to play, its gentle, soft melody moving the air, rippling, swirling – extinguishing the flames and slowly beginning to knit the wounded trees back together. Leaves reformed, trunks which had been scored and blackened saw life breathed back into them once more, tendrils of ivy crept their way slowly upwards, twisting back into place around their boughs. After no more than a couple of minutes, the forest was as it had always been, aside from the burnt out carcass of the pod, and the spreading cold in Avari’s heart. Good.

Well done! I know its hard posting your work but you have done well. My critique is just to help you improve on what is a good start already. Hope I helped.

[choccoweeble]

Thanks everyone. I understand that I have a lot to work on, but at least most of the feedback is constructive.

Originally Posted by RJM Corbet

I love it.

Just as a short story. Just as it is.

Not a word needs changing. Except maybe the second last one. 'Avri's heart'. Change to 'her heart'.

Nice work. I think it's great stuff ...

<3 Thank you so much RJM Corbet, it really means a lot to get such a boost - I'm itching to write more on this now even though I'm working on something else at the moment!

I do agree with what most of you have said about the description being overly flowery - I was a little worried about this to be honest, but I was trying really hard to build up a very strong image in the reader's mind in order to fool them about the setting before suddenly breaking it all down. Clearly I went a bit too far, I will attempt a redraft based on all the feedback then repost.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to read it and reply, it is most appreciated

[RJM Corbet]

Thing is (in my opinion) if you're going to treat this as the intro to a more extended piece, then most of the other crits about flowery language and the coincidence of just finding the weapon etc, probably do apply.

But as a piece on it's own, it becomes 'poetic prose' that doesn't have to justify itself. It's a sort of parable.

In other words, I think that if you're going to build on the piece, you may risk losing the texture altogether, that you've woven so nicely here?

To me this reads like a complete 750 word short story, not an intro.

Which doesn't stop you using the idea of the piece elsewhere?

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by choccoweeble

Avari skipped joyfully through the forest on this delightful spring morning, watching the sunlight dappling the floor with gentle patches of shadow and light, which danced to the soft breezes that rustled the canopy above. Here and there, the delightful patterning opened out into brighter patches where the sun broke through stronger as the trees thinned. Green-yellow mossy grass carpeted the floor, and there were thickets of shrubs crowning the bases of trees, interspersed with primroses and wood anemones. Insects buzzed in a lazy fashion, hovering in the air in no particular hurry to be anywhere.

Stop right there! You're trying to write a film and use over description to over-compensate for the lack of character POV, which I think is a big mistake.

The first paragraph doesn't say anything: it doesn't bring out the POV character, it doesn't describe any action, it doesn't try and move the story forward, and it doesn't really try and set the scene (though I appreciate that's what you're trying to do).

The result is that your first paragrah doesn't do anything to engage the reader, and that's what you need to do.

Also, watch out for the use of the word "delight" - you make it read like a twee children's story when you tell us how "delightful" the day is, and what a "delight" it was to go skipping through the trees. Because what you are doing is giving your omniscient narrative voice a character, instead of using your characters voice.

Really, your story does not start until she reaches the concrete - find some way to bring us in at that moment, perhaps.

Of course, this is just my opinion - I think your writing shows strengths, but I think you need to tackle the character POV immediately you start the story, and don't worry too much about telling us every detail of how everything looks.

2c.

[Bowler1]

As with most others here I thought it was very descriptive. The descriptions used were good and I can see why RJM liked what you wrote, just too many for me.

Not all readers will be as patent as RJM and will want more action and a faster pace. All she did in the first four sections was go though a forest to a fence guarded by a dog. More movement in the plot is needed to give less forgiving readers something to focus on. However all that aside, you are good with descriptions. More focus on plot and pace please to balance out the descriptions.

The laser gun just appearing was hard to take, that needs reviewing.

[David Evil Overlord]

Laser guns appear all the time on old battlefields. Okay, so maybe not laser guns, but unexploded bombs and mortar shells and bullets.

If you're planning to have her fall over a conveniently-placed working weapon, you need a reason for it to be there. Is this an old battlefield? Do laser guns and their power packs last for decades? Is this a recent battlefield? If so, maybe more believable that a weapon is just lying around where some dying soldier dropped it.

Maybe you have all this answered further on in your story. I don't know. But you do need to bring the reader along, not let them drop their willing suspension of disbelief because they never find working laser guns when they go for a skip in the woods.

As always, just my opinion.

[Sho Pi]

I need to get to 30 posts as well, so I guess I'll try to help those that already have in the mean time.

First of all, yes it is all too descriptive, when you start to write complete storylines you'll find you really don't have the space to fill it with lines describing everything until the minute detail, no matter how poetical you might be.

As a starting author this isn't bad at all, you'll learn to be more efficient in painting the picture. I want to discuss some specifics in your text regarding sentence clarity and the use of verb tenses.


[/B] Avari skipped joyfully through the forest on this delightful spring morning, watching the sunlight dappling the floor with gentle patches of shadow and light, which danced to the soft breezes that rustled the canopy above.

(This sentence has 4 subjects: Avari, sunlight, which and that. That's too many, the subclauses run on and get quite confusing. You switch tenses from skipped to watching, you can do that but then make the subject of the clause specific: she was watching... but I would make it: and watched the... I would again not use the progressive with dappling, it sounds weird. I would use: dappled... and: that danced... )

Here and there, the delightful patterning opened out into brighter patches where the sun broke through stronger as the trees thinned. Green-yellow mossy grass carpeted the floor, and there were thickets of shrubs crowning (that crowned also you can't crown the base of anything, it sort defeats the metaphor) the bases of trees, interspersed with primroses and wood anemones. Insects buzzed in a lazy fashion, hovering in the air in no particular hurry to be anywhere.

It was a delight to be out on this sunny morning, when (watch out for the use of this kinds of adverbials of time, they add very little meaning, especially when you add finally to it. Another one is: this delightful spring morning... they should be relative to a previous point in the narrative, a word like then, will work.) winter had finally submitted to spring’s warm breezes and heady scents. As she skipped, she played out a simple tune on the reed flute she carried with her, watching as the sound subtly rippled the air – a disturbance which would be completely invisible to the untrained eye.

And then, abruptly, she was forced to stop. She had reached that point where the forest suddenly ended and gave way to wire and mesh and concrete. There was no gradual fading of one to the other - but a brutal shift as if like a light going off. The trees were pressed up against the fence so that branches were forced to contort out of shape, but lower where more slender plants grew, the tendrils of brambles and the odd fern frond had managed to push their way through the layers of chain link and barbed wire into the exclusion zone. (This sentence is very good)

Fear clouded her face. She could hear the approaching savage barks (I don't think that barks can approach, attach the adjective to the guard dog instead.) of a guard dog, which had clearly smelt her presence, and (I would jsut start a new sentence here) she wanted nothing more than to turn and run but found herself rooted to the spot – the wind biting at her face as it swept across the stark vista before her. The creature was there (where? same as with the adverbials of time you have to be careful with these. I would use: upon her... or: at the fence) before she knew it – seemingly comprised entirely of fangs and snarling and slobber flying in all directions, but it still took her a few seconds to finally gather her wits enough to back away before she turned and ran – the barking becoming more fevered behind her; (the)manic frustration of an animal trapped in its metal prison and (change into a comma) unable to pursue.

Avari’s flight was desperate – she knew it would not be long before the Clerics were after her, and (New sentence) soon she began to hear the sound of a hoverpod growing louder behind her, louder and louder and (followed by) then there was shouting and lasergun fire, and (New sentence. Use and ... and ... and, sparingly) she threw herself to the ground in terror. As the full length of her body impacted the dirt, hard, she felt her ribs crack against something metallic in the undergrowth. Wincing with pain, she felt around to see what it was, and her fingers met the handgrip of a large energy weapon. How had this got here?

The next few seconds were both a blur and a slowing of time (were a blur as time slowed down) almost to a standstill. Everything Avari had ever learnt about the world flashed through her mind – she was about to die, alone in the forest, with the means to defend herself inches from her grasp and yet she could not do (like this the last clause is incorrect, it needs a main verb: was in combination with an adjective like able, allowed, permitted to do so) so.

She heard the voices of the Elders in her head, “We must cling to the old ways. Abandoning them is what got us into this mess in the first place”.

And yet, she was not ready to die. So, she took up the gun and watched in horror as a different her (version of her, or Avari) blasted away the lives of the three men pursuing her. She would never forget the looks of horrified surprise on each of their faces as they vaporised into nothing.

(Suddenly, time moved ...)Time was suddenly all too fast again, and she buried her head beneath her arms as the hoverpod skimmed her head and smashed into a tree several hundred yards away. She felt the heat from the fireball that scorched a hole through the canopy as the pod exploded in flame.

Instinct took over then, as she flinched backwards at the forest’s pain – her hand reflexed to her belt and pulled her flute to her lips. She felt the soothing, cooling of the music as she began to play, its gentle, soft melody moving the air, rippling, swirling – extinguishing the flames and slowly beginning to knit the wounded trees back together. Leaves reformed, trunks which had been scoured and blackened saw life breathed back into them once more, tendrils of ivy crept their way slowly upwards, twisting back into place around their boughs. After no more than a couple of minutes, the forest was as it had always been, aside from the burnt out carcass of the pod, and the spreading cold in Avari’s heart. (This last piece is quite well written, there are some minor points that could be done slightly different, but nothing to worry about yet.)[/QUOTE]

[Bernard Howard]

Description was good if a little overboard. But because the story was only about 50 lines, it was good. My only real problem was how vauge the end was perhaps you should put more detail there.

But then again the lack of details made the end ambigous (forgive my spelling.)
Nice Job!

[RcGrant]

Hi Choccoweeble. Congratulations on posting - that's a massive hurdle right there.

I think what struck me most was the lack of immediacy in your story. It felt as if it was all tell and no show. However this can be easily remedied. Focus more on what is happening - the movements, the action. Don't pay so much attention to the static.

Originally Posted by choccoweeble

I was a little worried about this to be honest, but I was trying really hard to build up a very strong image in the reader's mind

This is where it seems muddled. A strong image usually requires a punch. Spend some time trying to find the exact image you are looking for and let it stand on its own. Precision is what you need to deliver impact, not multiple sentences dancing around the same picture. If you can find the unusual within the ordinary then all the better.

Ctg gave brilliant advice - locate the essential. It can feel foreign to pare your description to begin with but give it a go - you might surprise yourself.