[Critique Game] Post The First Three Sentences of your Short Story

Here's one:

Julie realized with a start that she had just hurt Jason's feelings badly, and had only felt a sense of pride. She thought back over the past few "tough decisions" she had made and saw that she had relished watching a veil of disappointment drop over the eyes of the people she was supposed to care about. Something was backwards.

mrsmig said:

Navel-gazing isn't the most intriguing start, but this is well-written, and that would keep me reading on. If more introspection follows, though, I'd probably put your book down.

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Ooh, good notes. Thanks, there is quite a bit of introspection in this one. I can move things around to keep it moving.

dpaterso said:

Without context or setting or introduction, this just doesn't work for me. It's impossible to understand or feel anything about these complete strangers. Clumsy metaphor, it's like catching a snippet from an ongoing soap and I've missed the first 10 episodes.

-Derek

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Definitely fair, it's very short fiction, so it moves into details pretty quickly, but I don't usually spend a huge amount of time on exposition or scene setting, so that's something to think about. I agree that it's hard to care about characters immediately. Thanks for your input!

Take the day off, they said, her sisters, You’re no good at the pole tonight, and Shelly left. She took off the feathered costume at a go, instead of bit by teasing bit to reveal her brown skin like she did each evening. This time nobody watched her.

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Nice voice. I would read on.

Julie realized with a start that she had just hurt Jason's feelings badly, and had only felt a sense of pride. She thought back over the past few "tough decisions" she had made and saw that she had relished watching a veil of disappointment drop over the eyes of the people she was supposed to care about. Something was backwards.

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There's too many unnecessary words. The content isn't bad, and I would probably read a little further, but if the language remained this convoluted, I probably wouldn't get past the first page.

MegFlick said:

Here's one:

Julie realized with a start that she had just hurt Jason's feelings badly, and had only felt a sense of pride. She thought back over the past few "tough decisions" she had made and saw that she had relished watching a veil of disappointment drop over the eyes of the people she was supposed to care about. Something was backwards.

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We don't know who Julie and Jason are, so we can't bring ourselves to care for them. We need a hint of an intriguing setting or the characters before we are teased into reading further. Show the character in action straightaway, and then let us into their heads without filter words, like 'realize,' that take away from the sense of immediacy.

dpaterso said:

First 3 of a WIP:

Lightning streaked across the sky and a second later, thunder boomed like an angry bass drum. Fomalhaut tilted his face up to the heavens and enjoyed the feel of rain upon his flesh, a rare treat. The raindrops hissed as they touched him and turned to steam.

-Derek

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Intriguing beginning-- I would read more. The impact hinges on the last line, where we see that the character is non human, as raindrop turns to steam. I would suggest taking out 'a rare treat', which reduces from the impact. It could come in somewhere in the following lines-- that rains are rare in the land, and that this character finds it a treat, and why.

I don't know how the story goes on, but the word 'flesh' threw me as well. Does Fomalhaut have no skin?

Lightning streaked across the sky and a second later, thunder boomed like an angry bass drum. Fomalhaut tilted his face up to the heavens and enjoyed the feel of rain upon his flesh, a rare treat. The raindrops hissed as they touched him and turned to steam.

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I would definitely cut the first line. The first thing I'm reminded of is a B-movie, and that would probably make me put this story down there.

The next two lines are okay, though I think you could incorporate the image in the last line into a first line, which would be an intriguing beginning.

I'm intrigued, and I'd read more, but I agree that you are trying to fit a lot into these first lines. What is the most important thing you want to establish? I'd guess it's that Shelly is a pole dancer, and something has upset her so she can't dance that night. I'd keep just enough detail in the opening lines to establish those two facts.

AcaciaNeem said:

Take the day off, they said, her sisters, You’re no good at the pole tonight, and Shelly left. She took off the feathered costume at a go, instead of bit by teasing bit to reveal her brown skin like she did each evening. This time nobody watched her. Not when she took off her painted face, nor the eyelashes that batted and winked, bringing wolf whistles, drunken cheers and dollar bills.

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See? This is exactly what I mean about AW being a tough crowd. If we were to nitpick famous authors like that, we would've never read Isaac Asimov, Stephen King, etc. Asimov used such little expository language, you'd think all of his characters were faceless people standing in an otherwordly desert with nothing else around them. King took, and still does, such liberties with grammar that it's a wonder he's even sold one book, and some books have spelling errors, too! Okay. Rant over. Bring the pain.

redrobin62 said:

See? This is exactly what I mean about AW being a tough crowd. If we were to nitpick famous authors like that, we would've never read Isaac Asimov, Stephen King, etc. Asimov used such little expository language, you'd think all of his characters were faceless people standing in an otherwordly desert with nothing else around them. King took, and still does, such liberties with grammar that it's a wonder he's even sold one book, and some books have spelling errors, too! Okay. Rant over. Bring the pain.

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It's a critique thread.

A critique thread which isn't compulsory.

Also, people nitpick the authors you named. Just go to Amazon or Goodreads and read their 1 star reviews.

Also, writing styles and preferences change over time. Asimov was first published in what, the 30s? 40s? while Stephen King's first novel was published in 1973. Times have changed.

A thick fog covered the country graveyard as the bell of a nearby church chimed midnight. Nearby trees seemed to bow as if in deep sorrow. There were many new graves, recently dug, as a revolution now scarred the land.

A thick fog covered the country graveyard as the bell of a nearby church chimed midnight. Nearby trees seemed to bow as if in deep sorrow. There were many new graves, recently dug, as a revolution now scarred the land.

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There's a bit too much melodrama. Foggy graveyards and church bells are cliched, and the simile of the second sentence is a bit over the top. The only thing I'm interested in is the revolution, but since this is more told than shown, I have a feeling that the prose won't be too engaging.

At this moment, I wouldn't read on, but with an edit, there could be something pretty interesting here revealed.

thanks, I'll work on it; I'll admit I have a problem with tell vs show, especially in short stories.

redrobin62 said:

I'm hoping to make some nice online friends here. BTW, the sci-fi publisher told me that people will be downright vicious on Absolute Write. Sigh. Oh well. Bring the pain.

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redrobin62 said:

See? This is exactly what I mean about AW being a tough crowd. If we were to nitpick famous authors like that, we would've never read Isaac Asimov, Stephen King, etc. Asimov used such little expository language, you'd think all of his characters were faceless people standing in an otherwordly desert with nothing else around them. King took, and still does, such liberties with grammar that it's a wonder he's even sold one book, and some books have spelling errors, too! Okay. Rant over. Bring the pain.

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Bless you, you're really hoping for some pain soon, aren't you? Mind you, it's great that you're prepared to promote all your books via our own library threads in the meantime.

I decided to bite the bullet and lay out, for all the world to see, the first three sentences from my latest short story, The Fairy in the Alley. Sigh. Bring the pain.

It was late on a Saturday night when Thrasher, drunk as usual, thought that the last tallboy of high-gravity rotgut beer he’d jut thrown back would be the end of all alcoholic beverage slipping past his charred lips, at least for a month, anyway. Yes, he’d made such promises to himself over his thirty years of drinking but, at fifty-years-old, and sporting a belly resembling a construction boulder, his decision to stop may not even be a conscious one, not where his diseased liver was concerned. The constant vibrato in his skinny arms, and the yolk-colored sclera of his eyes, only served to remind him his days were numbered if he didn’t stop tippling soon.