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

Denevius said:

FIRST REVISION: INFECTIOUS, an urban fantasy short story projected to be 3,000 words. First three lines revised below.

********

Five-year-old Jong Eun-Yul had been tinkering with the spell all week. She smiled sweetly at the foreign teacher when he handed out the English worksheet, and immediately flipped it over to the blank side. Mouthing magic words so that she could get them just right, she drew the jungle snake that she would let loose in the class.

Click to expand...

I don't think you need the first sentence. Maybe just put the name and age into that second one, beginning there. I would like the third to give me more ummm, her. More immediacy, if that makes sense. Something like, The color was wrong, of course, but that shouldn't matter--something that gives the reader a direct thought of hers, preferably one offering foreshadowing, as opposed to to backstory (had been tinkering all week).

Thanks ap123, Bufty, Shadowmoo, and Mary Love for the comments. Greatly appreciated!

Denevius said:

FIRST THREE LINES REVISED BELOW IN POST #374: Hoping to keep this story within the 3,000 word count range. Title: INFECTIOUS. Genre: Urban Fantasy. First three lines below.

*********

5-year-old Jong Eun-Yul had been tinkering with the spell all week. She smiled sweetly at the foreign teacher when he handed out the English worksheet, and immediately flipped it over to the blank side. Mouthing magic words so that her classmates wouldn’t hear and get wise to the trick, she began to draw the jungle snake that she would let loose in the room when the teacher wasn't looking.

Click to expand...

Interesting premise, so I'd read more.

But I don't like how you've laid out the order of the story: 1) vague past action; 2) story action begins, but with pronouns only; 3) nice turn of action, intrigue.

If it was my story I'd start with 1) "Five year-old Jong ... smiled sweetly at NAME, the foreign English teacher, while he handed out the worksheets (subject implied). 2) Mouthing magic words she'd practiced for a week, she flipped over ... . 3) Then she began to draw ...

Just some ideas.

This is from the first piece I wrote have actually spent time with. I just finished the first revision a couple days ago.

"Andl had never liked being at the academy. The school itself felt like there was something lacking, or maybe there was something present that shouldn’t be, but he could never put his finger on it. There was just…something."

"Andl had never liked being at the academy. The school itself felt like there was something lacking, or maybe there was something present that shouldn’t be, but he could never put his finger on it. There was just…something."

Click to expand...

I'm going to assume 'Andl' isn't a typo, though because it looks so close to 'And', and it's beginning the sentence, it first struck me as a typo and not a name. This forced me to re-read the line again.

In the second sentence, it reads as if the school feels like something is lacking, since 'school' is the subject of the sentence. So the pronoun 'he' in the second dependent clause refers back to the 'school', and not 'Andl'.

The last sentence is redundant.

The grammar issues, plus the lack of an interesting situation, would have me stop reading the story here. Perhaps it would be better if you start the piece a little later in the narrative, and cut these lines.

fatmanny1901 said:

This is from the first piece I wrote have actually spent time with. I just finished the first revision a couple days ago.

"Andl had never liked being at the academy. The school itself felt like there was something lacking, or maybe there was something present that shouldn’t be, but he could never put his finger on it. There was just…something."

Click to expand...

I would remove the 'but he could never put his finger on it' as that feels implied enough by the previous two sections of the sentence. I would also maybe add a word to the last sentence to make it more dramatic 'There was just something...wrong' for example. Other than that, I would read on.

fatmanny1901 said:

"Andl had never liked being at the academy [Suggest: name the academy, to make it more concrete -- unless, of course, the very thing that is missing is its name]. The school itself felt like there was something lacking[suggest: "The school was...missing something"], or maybe there was something present[suggest: "or maybe it had something there"] that shouldn’t be,[suggest: replace this comma with an mdash] but he could never [quite] put his finger on it. There was just…something."

Click to expand...

A mysterious academy. Intriguing.

I'd read on for a few more sentences, but ideally I'd like to see Andl actively doing something (preferably something that causes tension) fairly quickly, in order to hook me.

THIRD REVISION IN POST #387: Second revision. Starting this story in a slightly different place. First three lines of INFECTIOUS, an urban fantasy short story that's shaping up to be around 4000 words.

*******

The five-year-old granddaughter of the Headmaster of the most powerful school of wizards in Sucheon City raised her hand and stood. Giving Stephen Teacher her sweetest smile, Jong Eun-Yul said in clear English, “I promise to be a generous student!”

It’d taken a week, but with her older sister’s help, Eun-Yul had learned to perfectly pronounce the pledge of conduct before any of her classmates.

Denevius said:

*******

The five-year-old granddaughter of the Headmaster of the most powerful school of wizards in Sucheon City raised her hand and stood. Giving Stephen Teacher her sweetest smile, Jong Eun-Yul said in clear English, “I promise to be a generous student!”

It’d taken a week, but with her older sister’s help, Eun-Yul had learned to perfectly pronounce the pledge of conduct before any of her classmates.

Click to expand...

Personally, I liked previous attempts better. This one has a lot of names, telly info and less story, IMO. For a short especially, you want that more immediate grab.

fatmanny1901 said:

This is from the first piece I wrote have actually spent time with. I just finished the first revision a couple days ago.

"Andl had never liked being at the academy. The school itself felt like there was something lacking, or maybe there was something present that shouldn’t be, but he could never put his finger on it. There was just…something."

Click to expand...

This feels pretty telly to me. And all three sentences are telling the same thing, while not offering a lot of insight to the MC. Try skimming to where something happens consider starting there.

Denevius said:

The five-year-old granddaughter of the Headmaster of the most powerful school of wizards in Sucheon City raised her hand and stood. Giving Stephen Teacher her sweetest smile, Jong Eun-Yul said in clear English, “I promise to be a generous student!”

It’d taken a week, but with her older sister’s help, Eun-Yul had learned to perfectly pronounce the pledge of conduct before any of her classmates.

Click to expand...

Too much info for three sentences, IMO. Broken down, here's what I have:

She's five
She's the granddaughter of the Headmaster
She's at a powerful school
School is in Sucheon City
She has a teacher called Steven
Her name is Jong Eun-Yul
English is (probably not) not her first language
She has an older sister
She's an over-achiever

Red is info-dumping. Purple is subtle hand-over of info. Blue is what I infer from her behaviour.

I like the blue. The purple is also fine, as it's info nicely woven in to the narrative. Get rid of all the info dumping, except one piece.

It's your story and take this with as much salt as you like, but I think it would have more oomph to show the blue and the purple first, and then state the red, to the effect of "no other five year old in her class could achieve this feat." Then I would think, "oh, she's got a teacher and she's reciting a pledge in English. Big deal. Oh wait, she's five? Whoa, that's pretty impressive."

JMO.

FOURTH REVISION IN POST 390: Thanks for the comments. Here's another reworked three lines of INFECTIOUS, an urban fantasy story projected to be about 4000 words.

****

The granddaughter of the most powerful witch in Sucheon City raised her hand and stood. Giving Stephen Teacher her sweetest smile, Jong Eun-Yul said in clear English, “I promise to be a generous student!”

It’d taken a week, but with her older sister’s help, Eun-Yul had learned to perfectly pronounce the pledge of conduct before any of her classmates.

Denevius said:

The granddaughter of the most powerful witch in Sucheon City raised her hand and stood. Giving Stephen Teacher her sweetest smile, Jong Eun-Yul said in clear English, “I promise to be a generous student!”

It’d taken a week, but with her older sister’s help, Eun-Yul had learned to perfectly pronounce the pledge of conduct before any of her classmates.

Click to expand...

I like it!

Denevius said:

THIRD REVISION: Thanks for the comments. Here's another reworked three lines of INFECTIOUS, an urban fantasy story projected to be about 4000 words.

****

The granddaughter of the most powerful witch in Sucheon City raised her hand and stood. Giving Stephen Teacher her sweetest smile, Jong Eun-Yul said in clear English, “I promise to be a generous student!”

It’d taken a week, but with her older sister’s help, Eun-Yul had learned to perfectly pronounce the pledge of conduct before any of her classmates.

Click to expand...

This comes across as telling instead of showing. For example, we're being told she's the granddaughter of the most powerful witch in the city. But do we really need to know this right now or could it be mentioned later on when it becomes relevant?

Without the mention of the powerful witch, I wouldn't have guessed that this would be a fantasy story since all we have so far is info about the pledge of conduct. It also makes me wonder why this pledge is relevant or important to the story. Just my 2 cents. Hope this helps

FOURTH REVISION: Another go at the first three lines of INFECTIOUS, an urban fantasy short story projected to be 3000 words.

*****

The granddaughter of the most powerful witch in the world raised her hand. She stood, and gave Stephen Teacher her sweetest smile. Speaking in clear English, Jong Eun-Yul said, “I promise to be a generous student!”

I prefer the third version. I like knowing that it'd taken a week for her to achieve those seven words.

(I know I messed up on grammar here, but I'm having trouble pin-pointing where. I'm trying not to be a stickler about rules that are taught in school but not widely used, like not starting sentences with 'but'. Still pretty sure I did something off here. I'd love some help, if you have spare time)

Everyone said Friedrich was an angry kid. Maybe he was; he really couldn’t say. But he didn’t see it as a bad thing.

Everyone said Friedrich was an angry kid. Maybe he was; he really couldn’t say. But he didn’t see it as a bad thing.

Click to expand...

I don't see anything amiss with the grammar. I do think these three sentences are a little lackluster. The first line is passive, and 'angry' is too general an adjective. The second sentence is the first glimpse into the narrative's POV, but it's indecisive language. Not something you want in prose in general, but definitely not something you want to begin a story with.

The third sentence adds nothing to the narrative, and makes the opening feel like it's stalling in neutral. From these three lines, I'm guessing the story actually starts a little later in the prose.

The first thing Les Harrison catches on his new line is a shark with his wife’s hand inside. Little tiger shark with its skin painted on. Nige leans over it and sticks a knife in its belly, and out comes a Coke can and a plastic bag and some fish bones and the hand.

Moving 'with his wife’s hand inside' -altered as necessary- to the end of the last sentence would flow better for me. Presumably he identifies the hand by a ring or a tattoo or something.

The 'out comes' suggests to me they popped out - is that what is meant?

Not sure what 'its skin painted on' means.

Probably not too helpful comments, because I know nothing about where one goes for shark fishing or in what depths a tiger shark is found, or the size of boat needed, or what a 'little' tiger shark is. Do folk gut a tiger shark immediately on catching it?

Anna Spargo-Ryan said:

The first thing Les Harrison catches on his new line is a shark with his wife’s hand inside. Little tiger shark with its skin painted on. Nige leans over it and sticks a knife in its belly, and out comes a Coke can and a plastic bag and some fish bones and the hand.

Click to expand...

The first thing Les Harrison catches on his new line is a shark with his wife’s hand inside. Little tiger shark with its skin painted on. Nige leans over it and sticks a knife in its belly, and out comes a Coke can and a plastic bag and some fish bones and the hand.

Click to expand...

Well, that's a great first sentence.

The next sentence ruins it for me because I have no idea what it means. His wife's hand is inside a little tiger shark that has painted on skin? To me, that makes no sense.

The third line is just weird. I don't know who Nige is. I guess the full name could be Nige Les Harrison, but why leave that fact so confusing is beyond me. Plus, the line goes back in time to before the first sentence, which is a strange thing to do.

My suggestion is to cut line two and three, and just go forward with what happened after the hand is found. No point in wasting a great first sentence.

Anna Spargo-Ryan said:

The first thing Les Harrison catches on his new line is a shark with his wife’s hand inside. Little tiger shark with its skin painted on. Nige leans over it and sticks a knife in its belly, and out comes a Coke can and a plastic bag and some fish bones and the hand.

Click to expand...

Perfect story opening. I'd not change a thing, and will gladly read more.

First three sentences:


The explosion punched a hole in the drug dispensary’s façade as ragged as a shotgun exit wound, hurling burning rubble across the road and grape-shotting the windows and walls of the buildings opposite. As the smoke blackened, a cocaine-white dusting of pulverised stone settled on the cobbled street, the parked cars, the dead horse, and the people sprawled here and there.

Joel Prothero released his grip on the steering wheel, took off his spectacles, and with a shaking hand flicked on his wipers to scrape the dust from his shattered windscreen.

The explosion punched a hole in the drug dispensary’s façade as ragged as a shotgun exit wound, hurling burning rubble across the road and grape-shotting the windows and walls of the buildings opposite. As the smoke blackened, a cocaine-white dusting of pulverised stone settled on the cobbled street, the parked cars, the dead horse, and the people sprawled here and there.

Joel Prothero released his grip on the steering wheel, took off his spectacles, and with a shaking hand flicked on his wipers to scrape the dust from his shattered windscreen.

Click to expand...

Just looking at it, I think this is too much for three lines. These sentences should be broken up, and simplified. There's too many actions going on in too little space.

Denevius said:

I don't see anything amiss with the grammar. I do think these three sentences are a little lackluster. The first line is passive, and 'angry' is too general an adjective. The second sentence is the first glimpse into the narrative's POV, but it's indecisive language. Not something you want in prose in general, but definitely not something you want to begin a story with.

The third sentence adds nothing to the narrative, and makes the opening feel like it's stalling in neutral. From these three lines, I'm guessing the story actually starts a little later in the prose.

Click to expand...

yeah, I'm pretty bad at recognizing passive/neutral/active voices. I've heard of the "by zombies" trick, but otherwise I don't really know how to recognize it. thanks for the feedback! I'll make it the next thing I focus on.