# Broken (177 words)



## AquaRoxas (May 31, 2017)

Just a short prologue from this novella I'm writing. I'd appreciate comments of all types, but particularly those who target technical, stylistic, and symbolic faults. Thanks! 



> Cold, dead, chestnut eyes gazed into empty space. Shards of an alcohol bottle lying before him, the demonic creature seemed oblivious to the curious, sympathetic eyes falling upon his wretched figure. His face poisoned with a dull, deadly paleness like that of a fish's belly, a solitary tear accompanied his uncontrollably shuddering lips.
> 
> Saleem absorbed the human being's agony empathetically. Ignoring his bored, indifferent companions' yawns and periodic glances at their wristwatches, the sixteen year-old struggled to successfully penetrate the creature's cruel orbs and the decrepit barrier failing to protect them.
> 
> ...


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## bdcharles (May 31, 2017)

AquaRoxas said:


> Just a short prologue from this novella I'm writing. I'd appreciate comments of all types, but particularly those who target technical, stylistic, and symbolic faults. Thanks!



Hi,

It's not bad. One thing however that jumps out at me is the repeated use of two or more adjectives separated by a comma:

Cold, dead, chestnut eyes
curious, sympathetic eyes
dull, deadly paleness
bored, indifferent companions
one last, sidelong glance
cold, hard concrete

Just be mindful of this sort of repeated structure as it can sneak into the brain of a reader and set up all the wrong stuff there  If you want to convey the things as you describe, try and use metaphors and similes in place of some of the adjectives - that is what they are there for .Watch also for tell rather than show. Things like curious and synpathetic and struggled are subjective and inform us of the subject's properties rather than making it obvious from what the charater are doing. And sometimes less is just simply more. 





> Cold, dead, chestnut eyes gazed into empty space. Shards of an alcohol  bottle lying before him, the demonic creature seemed oblivious to the unblinking gaze falling upon his wretched figure. His face,  poisoned with the paleness of a fish's belly, shed a  solitary tear that accompanied his uncontrollably shuddering lips.
> 
> Saleem absorbed the human being's agony empathetically. Ignoring his companions' yawns and periodic glances at their  wristwatches, the sixteen year-old struggled to penetrate  the creature's cruel orbs and the decrepit barrier failing to protect  them.
> 
> "One..." the man's eyes shimmered with tears, "it was just one..."


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## John 3 (May 31, 2017)

I agree, you’re pounding the reader with adjectives, choose the most powerful to deliver hammer blow and never diminish the effect by adding another that lessens the impact of the first.
The whole text is really overwritten; brevity always wins over an avalanche of words.
The purpose of the piece is quite a simple one. The indifference of the many over the concern of the one; you could emphasise this by the crowd moving off leaving the single figure remaining.


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## PunkyBarista (Jun 1, 2017)

I don't think it's a bad start, story wise, but the primary issue here is your voice. It's very over the top, and it doesn't allow any room for the reader to breathe. The problem here is that you pile on adjectives and metaphors that add nothing to the text, and use that as a substitute for more appropriate words that would be less distracting to read, such as 'the creature's cruel orbs'. You don't need to use this type of language when 'eyes' would be a much better fit on its own.

Technically, I found no faults with your spelling, but you tend to put a lot of clauses into some of your sentences, which makes them run on a bit. I would suggest breaking them up a bit so you have less confusing sentences and more sentence variety.


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## -xXx- (Jun 1, 2017)

i can't not agree with the above comments.
i love rich detail, etc.
i want to disagree.

can you convey to me
(interested reader as a given)
in 150 words what you introduced
in 177?

take a moment to find out what
microfiction is.
i found it to be extremely helpful
in the long run. 
_*watches for revision*_


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## Shemp (Jun 3, 2017)

I'd suggest changing _alcohol_ to _whisky_.

Every post in this thread has value.   I especially agree with xXx.   Less is more.   This piece would be even better if the word count fell into the 130-150 range.


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## AquaRoxas (Jun 16, 2017)

Hey, I really appreciate the above comments. As this is a prologue to a novella I couldn't compress this revised version as much as I could otherwise, since there are some symbols that later become recurring which I absolutely must keep. It's now 158 words. Please comment as to which one you feel is better and how to improve this even further. Thanks  



> Hollow eyes like those of a corpse gazed into empty space. A fragmented bottle of whisky lying before him, the demon seemed oblivious to the lamb-like eyes falling upon his wretched figure. His face poisoned with a dull, deadly paleness reminiscent of a fish's belly, a solitary tear accompanied his quaking lips.
> 
> Saleem gazed at the human being. Ignoring his bored companions' yawns, the sixteen year-old struggled to successfully penetrate the creature's cruel eyes and the decrepit barrier failing to protect them. "
> 
> ...


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## Jay Greenstein (Jun 16, 2017)

> I couldn't compress this revised version as much as I could otherwise,  since there are some symbols that later become recurring which I  absolutely must keep.


Simple but sad fact: the reader doesn't care. And, they will probably miss them because they're not looking at the story as a whole. So for the reader the question is, "What's happening?" They're seeking to be entertained by the writing _as they read._ They are not going to stop and appreciate the symbolism because that would stop the action. Ands\ if they _can_ stop, you're not doing your job as well as you should.

Remember, your reader isn't glued to the chair. They may only read a few pages on the train, or at lunchtime. So because may be a few days from the time you placed those symbols and when they're supposed to appreciate themthey will probably have forgotten.

At the moment you're trying to make the writing pretty and poetic, while making the reader know what's happening in the scene. But whose viewpoint are we in? No one's. We know what happens, but we don't know _why_ the people are moved to act, and that's what draws the reader into the story. The events are just the framework—the armature that supports the clay. But the clay in a story is the emotion, the anguish, the joy, and the struggle of the protagonist. But in this, we first meet someone lying on the ground for unknown reason—a demon by the wording. We don't know where he is in time and space. We know nothing of the society in which the story takes place, or what happened to place him there. So who's reporting this? An external narrator whose voice is devoid of emotion. Why does this being matter? You don't say.

Then we meet Saleem, who is in that unknown spot with unknown companions for unknown purpose. His companions ignore this being for unknown reasons, while our focus character doesn't, for unknown reasons. Then, the being who was  a demon, then a man, and finally a homeless alcoholic (how does the focus character know that without knowing who he is and why he's there?) spurs the focus character to decide to "save him." Why he does that matters a great deal, and how he feels in that moment will matters as much. Therein lies his motivation and your story. But without that it's just a film-clip described, with none of the body language and expressions that actors work so hard to perfect, to show what they're thinking.

In short, and I wish there were a more gentle way of saying this, you're using the techniques of verbal storytelling, told with a poetic edge, in a medium that cannot reproduce the storyteller's performance.

It's Saleem's reaction to the man on the street—his interpretation of the scene—based on the man's dress, location, and actions—that drives his decision to help. But that's not even hinted at. If we know that Saleem's father was an alcoholic, or that a drunk driver killed his mother, or that his religious teachings and strong beliefs drive him, the story will have a very different feel, depending on which it was. But with none of that, in the end, this is a report on what the unknown external observer notices. But isn't it supposed to be Saleem's story? If he's supposed to be our avatar, doesn't his interpretation of events trump yours?

Storytelling on the page is a very different thing from on the stage, the screen, or verbally told stories because our medium is very different. You can visualize the entire scene, complete with the actor's performance, and do that in an instant. But our medium is serial, with each detail spelled out one at a time, which matters because too much irrelevant detail kills the feel that the scene is happening as we read. And that problem effects and drives the methodology of presenting fiction. How it does, and how to take advantage of the strengths and avoid the weaknesses of the medium is the craft of the writer. And because it can help your ideas take wing, and make the events as real to the reader as they are in your mind, they are the difference between writing a report/history and a living scene. So the time it takes to acquire them is well worth the time it takes, if for no other reason than that they make the writing more fun.

Hang in there, and keep on writing. It doesn't get easier, but we can become confused on a higher level, over time. And that's okay, because writing is a journey, not a destination.


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## AquaRoxas (Jun 17, 2017)

I understand, but wouldn't you say that's where the reader's imagination comes in? I deliberately left it all vague to encourage the reader to read on and find the answers to those questions.


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## Jay Greenstein (Jun 17, 2017)

AquaRoxas said:


> I understand, but wouldn't you say that's where the reader's imagination comes in? I deliberately left it all vague to encourage the reader to read on and find the answers to those questions.


Well, in that case here's the best story ever written. It leaves _everything_ to the reader's imagination:





> The...


 See how it evokes your imagination, and how effective that is?  

It's  not my work though, so I can't take credit.

My point? Why would you want to leave _anything_ to the reader's imagination? They aren't telling the story, you are. Your characters are in your setting, doing what _they_ choose to do in response to what you throw at them. So it's their story. Your reader is borrowing _your imagination_ because the story you imagine is better then what they can come up with. That's why readers pay to read the work. They're not looking for some hints on how the story went, they want you to make them feel as if they're living the story in real-time _*as*_ your protagonist. That sig line at the bottom of my posts says it all.

The problem is, without knowing your reader's age, background, mood, and all the things that make them unique, you don't know which buttons to push to make them live the story you envision, based on _their_ interpretation of your words. So you have no control of their imagination, and if what they envision doesn't match what your character is experiencing, the story can't work. The only viable solution is to make every reader envision only what the protagonist experiences, moment-by-moment. Only then can everyone who reads it get the story as _you_ envision it. For a more complete explanation of what I mean you might want to look at my article titled Inside Out.


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## AquaRoxas (Jun 17, 2017)

I've heard the advice of leaving things up to the reader pretty often though. But, anyway, supposing you're right and you ought to paint a complete picture, I guess you could criticize this piece if it were flash fiction, but can you do the same if it's nothing but a prologue to bigger picture in which, perhaps, the questions the reader seeks answers to would be answered?


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## lucario719 (Jun 26, 2017)

To be honest you probably wouldn't receive beneficial criticism if people responded to this as if it were flash fiction. the biggest problem with that would be that it isn't a story, just a lead-up to an unanswered question. the first time I read this i thought it was about a demon collecting the soul of a teen who died in a drunk driving accident. it wasn't until the end of the passage where you mention the homeless man that that idea was undone. 
i'm not really certain what is happening here to be honest. if this were a prologue i don't think i would continue reading. First off, prologues are most of the time unnecessary. they often can be misleading too. if you put a compelling situation in the prologue and cut away to something else the reader will feel cheated. 
your line of thinking may have an unintended consequence. if you are deliberately leaving out information in the beginning, 1. the reader won't know 2. lacking information is inherently unsatisfying. 3. it's going to be easy to confuse it for narrative incompetence. therefore many reader may abandon the book because you willfully flubbed the only first impression you give to them. 

regarding the "leaving it up to the reader" advice. Do you remember what that was specifically referring to? most of the time the EVENTS of the story need to be depicted. themes and morals can be ambiguous but that stuff comes AFTER a full narrative has been experienced. if the reader cannot tell what is going on they WILL put it down. period.


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