25 November 2013 - jParker - Cut-Flower Sound 2 & 3

[jParker]

Hey gang. Welcome back. So now that we've seen the prologue, what do we think of more Elmer?

[Two McMillion he/him]

I have to ask- is this the extent of the second and third chapters? They don't have really a complete feel about them- I was left thinking there had to be more. That's not really a bad thing, I suppose. Anything to keep someone reading, right? But it probably wasn't the best kind of feeling to leave someone with all the same. The chapters seemed to end abruptly, I guess.

 

For the writing itself, I'm searching for ways to connect the goings-on with the angel and not seeing them quite yet. I think the thing you may have to deal with here is that you built up expectations with that exciting prologue, and now you have the reader's goodwill for a bit to do other things. The trick is to have something else cool or important or significant happen before that goodwill expires. You'd still have it from me at this point, though, the abrupt ending notwithstanding.

[jParker]

Yeah, I had the same feeling with those chapters. Honestly, trying to wrap up NaNo, I haven't had time to do any proper revisions. I'll probably abstain from posting for a few weeks so I can submit other than a first draft.

[Mandamon he/him]

Note--I forgot this was for NaNo, so I may be a bit harsh.  I'm sure this will get better with a once-over.

 

The first page is a just a lengthy description of Elmer sleeping in.  I found my attention wandering and waiting for something to happen.  Also, he gets up, arranges his shaving equipment, and then goes back to sleep?  I'm referring to:

"Some time later, Elmer grew tired of sleeping—for it was very tiring business—and left his room."

But this is after him arranging his things.

 

"presumed-kitchen"

--the reader can assume the thing in back of the bar is the kitchen.

 

"She was at least a head and a half shorter"

--than Elmer? Bishop?

 

“Go duck your belt.”

--this made me laugh.

 

pg 4:  wait...why are they calling him Alan now? 

--you answer this the next page, but I think it's Elmer's complete lack of response that threw me.  We're in his head, so we expect an instantaneous response of "that's not my name." 

 

pg 5: "feigning chastity"

I don't know what this means, unless it's in relation to a prostitute.

 

As you said, it's another slow start.  After two more chapters, I'm still waiting for something to happen.  I don't mean that you have to start in media res, with guns blazing, but on the other hand, six pages of getting out of bed, going downstairs, eating lunch, and then finally asking about the bill is not that interesting.  I still don't know anything about Elmer, where he came from, why he's looking for work, or what the landscape is like.  You mention they're far away from Arame, and also far from Harper.  I don't know where those are, so that doesn't tell me anything except that the town is off the beaten track, and you already told us that.

 

As Two McMillion said, You've got some leeway from the Angel scene, but we've got to know something else soon.

[yankorro]

Hi there. As Mandamon said, some slack is due to be cut considering this is a NaNoWriMo piece. I am tempted to say, though, that these chapters show all the signs of what we might call 'NaNo-bloat'. Stuff that's there for the sake of generating word count more than for furthering the story. I'm sure a judicious look back will be all you need to cut what needs to be cut.

 

It's not unlike the first chapter I submitted weeks back--where the protagonist rolls into town and kind of farts around a little while, eats some soup, drinks some green liquor, etc. etc., and every last person who read it was like, 'you need to cut a big chunk of this', and you know what? They were right. It got the axe. Something to consider anyway.

 

Apart from the slowness (which as you know I'm not one to talk on such matters ) I did notice one thing about the first couple of paragraphs which was your use of 'looking' verbs which didn't seem necessary. 'Elmer surveyed the room', 'Elmer saw for the first time...' etc. Most times when your POV is tight with the character it's more elegant to just state what they see than to tell the reader that they are in fact seeing this thing. Of course, this sort of thing can be useful at time also, it all depends. I guess what I'm saying is having the two 'looking' verbs that I mentioned earlier so close together kind of jumped out at me as awkward. Maybe cut one and use the other? Just a suggestion.

 

I'll refrain from harping on anything else: it's NaNo after all and I'm sure you'll get it all under control soon enough.

[andyk he/him]

I enjoyed this, and actually really liked the first page that some others found too slow - I thought it had a nice balance of description and characterisation.

 

As the others have mentioned, there's not much happening and there's still no clear sign of what the protagonist's after, which could become a problem if it goes on too long. But I like the writing style, and that kept my attention despite the slow pace.