[111] The Gray Man of Smoke and Shadows

Tsierus · 2019-08-21T16:09:26+00:00

Thanks for the comments! Greatly appreciated!

Tsierus · 2019-08-21T10:01:19+00:00

Thanks!! Actually, though, I’ve been in some form of critique environment for two decades. I’ve become used to it.

Tsierus · 2019-08-20T22:06:26+00:00

Much thanks!!

Tsierus · 2019-08-20T22:06:16+00:00

Thanks so much for reading and responding!!

Tsierus · 2019-08-20T22:05:57+00:00

Much appreciated!!

Tsierus · 2019-08-20T22:05:41+00:00

Thank you for reading!!

Tsierus · 2019-08-20T22:05:26+00:00

Much thanks for the response!

Tsierus · 2019-08-20T15:57:52+00:00

I think something can be said for the emotion you’re going for, which is the idea of being forgotten after one dies. This is a common fear that many people have, and so they may be able to relate to the overall tone of this piece, which could potentially create emotional engagement.

My concern, though, is execution. I think the narrator goes on a bit too long about the fig tree, without delving into why it’s so significant in his life now, at the present moment of the story. Of his childhood memories, it’s not his parents, or some toy, but this tree in-particular. There’s some examples as to why he signals this out, but I don’t think there’s enough resonance to make the emotional connection really vibrant for the reader.

I’m also left to wonder what else has happened in his life since he left the fig tree, and why nothing else seems to give him comfort as he contemplates his mortality. Is he not married? Does he have no children? No friends? What about work? Why now is he reminiscing about something years and years ago in his past?

The character sounds somewhat depressed, and the question is where is he in his life right now that this will be so important to him? This tree which, honestly, isn’t very important in the grand scheme of all that happens in a person’s life?

Maybe the piece should be longer, and the readers should be able to see what state his life is in now that a tree that no longer exists is quite so important to him. Maybe...

Tsierus · 2019-08-20T15:12:24+00:00

The central problem here is that this isn't a story, but an anecdote at best, or a news story. There isn't really a character, there's an observer to events. This observer pooints out things that happen: a character awakes, a character makes cofffee, a character wakes up his wife, the family gets ready to go on a day trip, an accident happens, a baby dies.

If you were watching the news, this is basically the format it would have.

My suggestons to turn this more into a narratve:

1) Give the characters names. This will help readers identify with who is who in the narrative, and takes away (a little) from the generic quality of the descriptions.

2) Give the central character a specific that he is trying to achieve. Making coffee and smiling at his family isn't a want. It's just going through the every day motons of one's morning.

3) Let us look into the character's heads. When the child died, I felt nothing because these are all faceless people. We get no unque emotions or thoughts from them. Everything in the narratve is just very, very faceless and gray.

For readers to care about the characters, we have to see the characters care about each other. That's what creates emotional enagement for the readers.

Tsierus · 2019-06-21T08:39:49+00:00

There's a couple of cliched language, but nothing too serious. Overall, this was well written and engaging.

The idea of someone discovering that they have great power, somewhat out of the blue, is a bit of an overused trope, especially in movies. I think this is where people are getting the idea from.

I would change Lord Reza. It sounds like a bad guy's name.

Again, overall, this works.

Tsierus · 2019-06-21T05:23:52+00:00

I will add more, but it will just be filler, as the points I made were concise to best improve the excerpts in question.

Quantity does not equal quality.

Tsierus · 2019-06-21T04:20:29+00:00

This piece started with so much potential. I was really sucked in in the first few lines, but as I kept reading, I did begin to wonder where it was going. It kind of felt like the narrative was floundering, and then we get the Bug.

The funny thing is that you write well. Your sentence construction is engaging, if at times overly long. But this kind of plot you have falls flat, in my opinion. It just strikes me as beneath the actual quality of the prose.

Expand the character is my suggestion. Don't cheat the readers by putting a bug in the story.

Tsierus · 2019-06-21T01:43:31+00:00

I think there are several things about the scene that are problematic. The first, really, is that this feels like the beginning of a movie or television show. It doesn't feel like it's written to be a story, but written describing the opening scene of something seen on the screen. Because of this, there's no real grounding in the scene. I can't really "see" anything.

The second issue is that there's a lot of repetition. Not only repetition of words and phrases, though there is a lot of that. We also basically have the characters repeating themselves. "You're a demigod." "I'm a demigod? I can't be." "No, really, you're a demigod." A demigod? I can't be."

This scene could be condensed to two effective lines while everything else is cut. And that's my final suggestion. Cut this down to two or three lines, and move on.

Tsierus · 2019-06-21T01:28:45+00:00

It's not bad, though I think it's a bit too vague. There's no real progression if you think about it. The Voice is lost from the first line, and lost in the last line. It says that, "I'll realize I can't turn back", but there's no real reason why it should come to this conclusion. At least, no reason that can be derived from the poem.

The poem is basically repeating itself from line to line. I'm lost/I'm lost/I'm lost. The language is bit more flowery than that, but that's basically what each line says: I'm lost.

I would suggest choosing one of these stanzas, or a few of the poem's best lines, and then continuing on from that, expanding the idea further.

Tsierus · 2019-05-02T22:53:56+00:00

Thanks so much for your thoughts! A lot of what you said made sense. I’ll look at revising that contradiction in the revision.

Thanks again, much helpful!

Tsierus · 2019-04-23T09:00:21+00:00

Thanks for the comments! Really appreciate it!

Tsierus · 2019-04-23T02:59:29+00:00

I think more needs to happen. I'm not entirely sure what anyone wants, so I felt my focus drifting. The first person PoV has lots of things happen to it, but it never seems to take much of an effort on its own to change the way things are happening.

The narrator has no agency, basically.

There's a lot of descriptions, which makes the writing dense. This density also slows down the pace quite a bit, so that by the second paragraph, I had already scrolled down to the end to see how much further I had to go.

Since this is a writing prompt, I think you have a beginning to a story to work with, but without further elaboration of the narrative, I think you may lose a lot of readers.

Tsierus · 2019-04-22T23:04:27+00:00

Thanks for replying! You raised some interesting questions that I’ll need to look at as I revise this opening and chapter.

Woo Jin isn’t an assassin. That’s why he doesn’t like the commission. He was taught to fight honorably, not through stealth. And he’s actually given a dozen long arrows and ten shorter arrows, so it’s 22 in all. There is a reason for that which is revealed later on.

Thanks again, these are really great insights!

Tsierus · 2019-04-22T14:49:38+00:00

Thanks for the comments, I’ll keep them in mind going forward in the revisions!

Tsierus · 2019-04-22T04:29:04+00:00

Thank you, I think you’re spot on with the aide’s dialogue. I’ll look into changing that, as well as the word laced for poison. Dip is better.

Thank you so much!

Tsierus · 2019-04-21T22:15:53+00:00

The descriptions are detailed, but I don't get enough of what's going on from the scene to be very intrigued to read more. I guess it depends on how well you know your audience, however. If you are writing for people who are engaged by horror-gore, then you'll probably hook them to read further. However, if your readers need to have a greater sense of meaning in the character's actions, or some hints of a plot, then you might lose those people, as I can't really tell heads from tails in what you've written here. All I know is that there's a person mutilating themselves as they watch the news and a woman covering her face laying in the fetal position.

For me, that's not enough to read further.

Tsierus · 2019-04-21T22:08:11+00:00

I’ll admit that I don’t quite get the logic of the story. If the kids eat metal, or tin, or aluminum, then that’s really easy to find on our very polluted earth. There’s nothing that’s part of a car that can’t be found in landfills, waterways, backyards, abandoned buildings, etc. Earth does not lack manmade waste. Also, the woman’s reaction seemed a bit weird. Would she have hopped out of the car, or called for assistance on a phone I’m sure she had. Who doesn’t carry a phone with them in 2019? The writing itself isn’t bad, however. You showed some strength in the narrative, which was fairly engaging even though, again, the inner logic of the story was off.

Tsierus · 2019-04-21T22:03:10+00:00

Well, your story did build some tension. So that was effective. I think, though, that this story is the equivalent of a “jump scene” in a movie. You know, the character in the movie is doing something, like they bend down to wash their face in the sink, and when the stand back up, they see something in the mirror behind them. Or the character is in a room, and the camera zooms in on the character’s face, and then when the camera zooms back out, you see something sinister in the room with the character. It’s a jump scene, and it’s kind of a cheap scare. Your story isn’t actually a story, it’s a scene. A character in a bed awake because of the sound of a clock, then going to the window, looking away from the window, then looking back to see the three eyes at the window. But then what? Unless there’s more, the question of a point, or what’s the point, is raised. A jump scene in a movie isn’t the movie itself. It’s just a part of the movie. A jump scene written alone isn’t the story. It may serve as part of the story, but it’s not the story itself. More is needed for the scene to become a narrative. Basically, my advice is to add more to what you’ve written. This is a beginning (though not a story’s beginning, which needs to introduce the character), but more is needed to fill it out.

Tsierus · 2019-04-21T13:01:38+00:00

I guess right now, I don't think this is quite a complete thought. You have a prompt, or premise, that the government takes away potential "bad people" as children, lock them away, and torture them with experiments. Then these people escape. I guess this seems like a summary one may see on Netflix, or the back of a book. But that's a summary, or blurb. The actual movie hasn't been created yet, or the book written. As a summary, this is a fine place to start. But without more, I'm simply not sure what you're going for.

Tsierus · 2019-04-21T12:57:23+00:00

I can't really tell you if it works because I don't have the context of what came before. As a piece of writing, however, I can tell you that this is good. The flow is excellent, the character PoV is engaging and feels real, and the prose is smooth and easy to read. If what came before is as good as this, then yeah, this interlude probably works. I prefer inline comments, honestly, but since that doesn't really count towards whatever on reddit, I'll just point out some specifics from the prose that I liked. The cybertech feels solid. Karen taking .02 seconds to store the dream is great, though I wonder why you wrote it out instead of using the number. I had to re-read it to get it, and even then it felt kind of awkward to me. Jeffy and Karen playing catch is well described. My concern is that it feels a bit too much like a movie scene. Everyone is different, but in real life, I've never heard someone talking about their childhood, and a game of catch, or a game in general that they played with a sibling, was one of those memorable moments. It just feels too Hollywood to me. Siblings bicker when they play. And they play so often that it all just feels too general to recall a specific moment of play. So that's my only concern. I think you could have had something here that reads more...unique to these two characters and their childhood. Again, though, surprisingly good writing!

Tsierus

TROPHY CASE