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Wrote this tale for some personal experiences of mine:
Here is the link, tale is in the first tab: Silence. (Formerly 1100 words, now 989 words - 2/28/21))
http://scp-sandbox-3.wikidot.com/canofsoup
Thanks.
Sorry for taking so long, here it is:
#) Planning a funeral is no easy business.
Damn right. I could attest to this as I previously worked in a Parish Office. There were certain restrictions that sometimes contradicted what the family wanted to the rules of the Church. I've been in multiple fiascos where I got into trouble because of all of that XD
*sigh* Glad that all of that were behind me, three years ago.
1) with a few designs etched onto its surface
with a few carvings on its surface
2) The employees offer sympathetic smiles and sympathetic words,
The employees offer sympathetic smiles and sympathetic words,
3) and as they turn away James wonders
and as they turn away, James wonders
4) wonders if they would remember him, or leave him as another face in the masses.
The phrasing here was confusing because I, as a reader, could not understand why James felt that way. Maybe if you rephrase it like this:
wonders if they would remember him if he was gone, or dismiss him just like another face among the masses.
#) urns are so damn expensive
It was actually the cremation process that people pay for, not just the urn.
5) begun on the Sunday after
begun on the Sunday after
6) "In the middle of the crowded room, with those who are his friends and offer condolences and help him, he has never felt so alone."
Is it just me or was the sentence kinda read awkwardly? I'm not going to suggest any changes for this because I am not sure.
7) with little designs and it had an odd ability to blend
with a few ornaments. It managed to blend well with the other clump of buildings
I think it would be helpful if you just instead described the coffee shop as "nondescript" rather than add those blurbs in there.
8) "a child was throwing a game board away after a loss."
a child had thrown a game board away
9) "James walks on."
This line alone was among the many errors found across this draft. I will explain it to you at the bottom of this section.
#) was how the swirling patterns of his vomit matched the ones in his coffee.
No it's not! XD I mean really, I don't find vomit's viscosity the same as a coffee's. Well…do you? XD
#) (Picture this:
So I'm going to speak my mind here. Usually in writing flash fictions, we don't address the fourth wall unless the story is in second person point of view (but commonly, it was done with first person POV, depending on the context). Here, you're actually trying to convince me, the reader, to symphatize with the character and its transparency had already a guaranteed a downvote for me because you are "forcing" the emotion, rather than letting it invoke within me.
The subject of the story was about a protagonist who lost his friend. If only you removed that "Picture this:" part and change it to something without having to modify the entire sentence (I mean for sure you would not want to remove the following lines about what you want us to think about), then I guess you could get away with it.
10) "The other two sit, one dejected and staring at the floor as though he knows what has happened. The other looks at the doctor, waiting for good news, hoping against all the odds that he might've survived, that there's a chance that he did."
For brevity, I removed the indention and combined them into one paragraph. I do think that this paragraph was confusing too, not only did it lacked description but it was also confusing.
11) "The doctor extends condolences but none are listening; they know that he's said it a thousand times before."
Again, confusing.
12) The other two don't follow.
did not
#) Picture this: A link from a chain has been broken.)
I won't. Also, my assumption of the draft begging us, the readers, to symphatize with the situation was correct. The imagery you have used already confirmed it.
13) "and it takes a few seconds for him to open his mouth, and another second for him to speak."
This part here was also problematic. What's the difference between "few seconds" with "another second" if he was just going to speak anyway?
he was silent at first before finally answering.
14) ""Hi, Mary. How was- was camp?"
"Hi, Mary. How w-was camp?"
Assuming you're trying to make him stutter.
..
"Boring as well."
Boring too
..
"You have any friends?"
Have you made any friends?
..
"Sure, loads."
What?
..
So, the conversation segment was not only one liner, but devoid of emotions. Even if a person was grieving, you will see (or read their dialogues) as sorrowful. Yet, I could not find it in here, and the fact that all of these are one-liners and had not even one description kind of make the two people as if they were voices from a text-to-speech program.
15) They leave some words unsaid, burying them inside themselves to say at a later date, maybe when things weren't so morose and depressing and confusing.
They left some words unsaid.
The next line, "burying them inside themselves" doesn't make any sense. Also, you might need to add comma between "morose" and "depressing".
16) The rest of the draft from this line "The conversation with his father goes no better. Neither of them had talked, and they had sat there for twenty minutes before his phone had died." and below up to the end.
Additional comments:
#) The rest of the conversation consists of them sitting in silence, and when she says she has to go to bed he doesn't say anything and merely hangs up the phone.
Don't they know that they're wasting mobile load?! XD HAHAHA
#) finding a coin. It was a Pokemon one that came with card decks. He could remember fighting over
HAHA I remember having one of these!
#) less than a heartbeat, before the error message pops up, the silence is gone
Even in death, ghosts still blocks people on Messenger.
Overall, your draft really needs some work especially in grammar. What could have been a good tale (because its subject was interesting for me) was ruined by the many errors and lacked of description as to where the character is, what is he doing now (well there are description but you just somehow wrote him as if all of it were just in his memories. It's confusing.) and others. Also, I advice writing in the past tense, because it was confusing as a reader to imagine what the protagonist was doing while another line came up detailing that he "walks on" or something.
I could not find any inconsistencies at the moment due to the fact that the draft itself was unfinished and the grammatical errors all over it prevented me from seeing one.
In the draft, none. However, I do liked the author's attempt to project how sad the protagonist is, but it was also the draft's own downfall. I will explain in the next section why.
This was a story about a man coping up with someone's death. The first paragraphs of the story was not clear about who died and I, as a reader, got the impression that it might just probably his friend. However, it was revealed to me, in the concluding paragraphs of the story that the man was actually his brother. Throughout the draft, we see the struggles of James (in a day), and we weren't really given any clear picture as to how James acted prior to Carter's death. For all we know, James might always be a "quiet man that reeks an aura of awkward silence" or a jolly one (if the author got an inspiration from this, hopefully they wouldn't make it too exaggerated) who was highly sociable and likeable.
From bad, the draft just went straight down to the worse and I will tell you why. Bad, because the pacing was confusing due to lack of descriptions and grammatical errors. I believe it was barely even a story at all due to the lack of details present. Secondly, it went to worse because it was "begging" for us, readers, sympathy to feel for the character, especially in the recollection part. And the whole thing was confusing because it just simply identified "other, other, other", not proper persons at all. We didn't even know if they are related to Carter or something.
It ended up becoming "edgy" due to the emotions that the author was trying to squeeze out of us. And I believe that, aside from the confusing pacing, it was also one of the factors that would earn a downvote, at least in my opinion.
Let's move on to the good parts. Losing someone isn't a joke and people could actually be like "not themselves" for a long time as long as they haven't moved on yet, especially if the deceased was close to the person. I understood where James was coming from, but the way the author wrote him kind of butchered that. Firstly, the emotion of sorrow will simply float out of a narrative (or a character if this was written about him) on its own even when it was not forced. Another thing that I wanna know is why Mary doesn't seemed to be affected of her uncle's death? It wasn't clear what "Camp" she was in (if it was girl scout camp, or Army camp or something). Well, if it was an Army camp, I don't recall cellphones being allowed while you guys are being trained? I'm not sure as I only knew of the Philippine Marines' one, not foreign camps.
If Carter was a Foundation personnel whose death was redacted, then I would understand why she didn't know (Good luck explaining to her how Uncle Carter died after choking on a nacho chip, James).
Overall, because this draft was incomplete, my judgment is also incomplete. As it is, if I would see this on the mainsite, it's an instant downvote. I only perceive a half-formed idea, aside from the core concept revolving around a person coping up with someone's death. It needs a heavy editing, and also needed more work around a) pacing, b) handling of character dialogue, and c) description.
1) Firstly, I advice that you should learn and understand how to properly evoke an emotion within your reader through clean execution of your writing. It does not need experience or special degree or whatnot to achieve this. A simple understandable sentence is already enough to do that.
2) Learning how to describe the surroundings of your characters properly. Why is this important? Because you wouldn't play a video game with lots of missing assets, right? And it was problematic because you don't know what's happening around the character. The immersion was already off and it would just serve to annoy your reader.
3) Pacing. Indeed it was too fast to follow. Practicing with a few short stories in your sandbox would help you with this. It was as if you're watching a movie but the camera view was tunnel-vision, or the camera was shakier than what you'd normally see in Jason Bourne films.
4) Character emotions (and I should also add, development). Their emotions, despite already being written through paragraphs, just don't quite fit with what they were describe to be doing or the dialogues that they are saying. You know, Mary kind of reminded me of my exes moments before we broke up. That's how cold Mary was. I would understand James because his brother died.
If you have any questions, don't be shy to drop me a PM. If you needed help with what I placed on Suggestions section, you can also contact me through PM. Unfortunately, I couldn't get to IRC chat at the moment.
Best of luck with your draft.
Planning a funeral is no easy business.
Suggest cutting this, I think it’ll be clear what is happening from the next paragraph.
The employees offer sympathetic smiles and sympathetic words, and as they turn away James wonders if they would remember him, or leave him as another face in the masses.
Suggest cutting “, or leave him as another face in the masses” as it flows better without it.
a Polaroid, of him and Carter
Cut the comma.
In the middle of the crowded room, with those who are his friends and offer condolences and help him, he has never felt so alone.
Suggest rephrasing to: Surrounded by his friends and colleagues, offering assistance and condolences, he has never felt so alone.
It was a modest brick building, with little designs and it had an odd ability to blend in with the other clump of buildings.
Suggest cutting: “with little designs and it” so the sentence reads “It was a modest brick building and had an odd ability to blend in with the other clump of buildings”… also suggest “cluster” instead of “clump”
James walks on.
Suggest cutting this, as its too similar to the end of the last section. I think the section ends well with “The coffee is bitter and sharp; it scalds his tongue.”
It threatens to consume James, so it’s only natural that he has some kind of resentment towards Carter for dying, for being honorable, for sacrificing himself.
Suggest rephrasing: “It threatens to consume James. It’s only natural he has some resentment towards Carter. For dying. For sacrificing himself.”
He’s sitting in his apartment, lying on his bed, looking at the ceiling.
Suggest cutting “sitting” for consistency with “lying on his bed”
He’s crawling out of bed now, putting on headphones and pressing the play button on his iPod, hoping that the silence would drown it out.
Suggest: He’s crawling out of bed now. He puts on headphones and presses the play button on his iPod, hoping that the silence would drown it out.
Get on the train to the Site- or more accurately, the train to the outer edges of the city, then ride a bus for ten miles to the Site.
//replace the - with an – //
It burns his throat as he heaves, and he doubles up, his throat and stomach screaming in agony.
Cut the first “and”
He gets up, flushes the toilet, washes his hands, and walks out as though nothing happened.
Suggest cutting “gets up” so it just reads “He flushes the toilet…”
(Picture this:
Not sure why you have the ( here I know you end the section in an ), but I don’t think it makes sense… especially as you have other () inside those
maybe when things weren't so morose and depressing and confusing
Morose and depressing mean the same thing, so are redundant here. Plus the sentence would flow better without one of them.
It wasn't very special; just an ordinary watch face with an ordinary hour hand and ordinary minute hand, but for some odd reason James can't bring himself to go without it.
Suggest rephrasing to: “just an ordinary watch face with the minute and hour hands”
Overall:
This is good, just a few sentences to iron out imo (see above).
Hi there CanOfSoup, let's take a look at your draft.
Overall:
I enjoyed this one quite a bit. True to its name on the tab, the tone just felt very..quiet. I think the reason I like it so much is that it doesn't go and overcomplicate itself by having James break down in the end over the loss of Carter, nor does it go though a character arc involving him learning that he must move on. Instead, it clearly depicts the pain that James feels in a small collection of moments and little interactions. It doesn't feel overdramatized but rather a more accurate depiction of someone who's lost a loved one, as well as all the little things that convey way more emotion that any crying scene.
The tone does get a bit narrator heavy though in some places. It can feel as though we're just being told what James is feeling instead of being shown. These places stick out since they're using heavier and more emotionally raw language than the rest of the piece. While this would be fine in another more dramatic tale, it feels like it works against the appeal of this one IMO.
Specific:
Squares To Triangles
I'll be honest, I don't really get why the draft is titled Squares to Triangles. Does it have to do something with the removal of a point, like how you'd remove a point from a cube to get a triangle? There's probably something I'm missing, but I don't see why it can't be called "Silence", since it's already the name of the tab and I think that fits the tone a lot better.
As the barista turns away, James wonders if he knows that James’ life was upended, as though a child had thrown a game board away
This makes sense, as someone going through tough times often reminisces on the fact that other people on the street don't know what they've gone through. However, I feel as though James should just quickly remark afterwards saying that of course they wouldn't know. This subtly points out that the person walking past you on the street could have just suffered the loss of a loved one, and you wouldn't know. The could then cause the reader to question what kind of tragic things have happened to people they've passed during commute or on the street that they'll never know about.
It’s only natural he has some resentment towards Carter. For dying.
Since we don't exactly hear James' exact thoughts here, it's somewhat implied that he's okay with this resentment. I feel it better serves the piece if we also know that Carter knows that he shouldn't feel resentment, but does.
It burns his throat as he heaves, he doubles up, his throat and stomach screaming in agony.
Feels like this should be split into two sentences for grammar's sake.
He digs past various bits of trash, like a coffee straw rapper and some candy wrappers before finding a coin. It was a Pokemon one that came with card decks.
A touching moment to be sure, but it's a bit strange that he'd just have this in his pocket if they only played with it as kids. Maybe instead of digging though his pants he's cleaning his home or Carter's old stuff and then finds it?
Advice:
I really enjoyed this draft, so I don't have any large scale suggestions in mind. I do however think it can be improved by adding the small but impactful details I mentioned above. Good work on writing a rather somber and restrained but still emotionally powerful piece.
Feel free to contact me via PM if you have any questions or would like me to do a follow up, as I might not see it otherwise. Good luck with your draft!
Thanks for the crit! Will fix these, and I'll probably change the coin one- it was only meant to be a placeholder until I find something suitable.
Hmm. I'm, somewhat torn on this. There's a lot of really nice imagery of loss, and pain, and grief, and like, James slowly trying to come to terms with the death of Carter and I like it on that level; but on some level it feels…static. James starts sad and depressed and grieving and it ends with him in much the same place, and there's a power to that in many ways but it also feels kinda like it doesn't really end up going somewhere?
Iunno. It's clearly a nice sort of, slice of life piece and I don't think it not really going anywhere is an issue but it does mean it feels kinda like a weird interstitial story trapped between the more interesting question of what happened to Carter and the more interesting character moment of James learning to move on and… there's a part of me that's kinda wondering why I'm not reading either of those things instead.
Equally, it's slice of life so being a weird quiet thing like this isn't necessarily an issue, particularly since no-one else seems to be worried about it.
Gonna note that I can miss stuff; flag things which are right as being wrong and indeed flag things which are deliberately wrong.
I'll likely use strikethrough to indicate stuff to remove and green text to indicate stuff to add.
It was slightly small, with a few carvings etched onto its surface.
Hmm. I can't put my finger on exactly why but 'slightly small' reads weirdly to me here
As he leaves, he wonders why urns are so damn expensive.
The leaving here feels… odd. I guess it feels like the introduction doesn't quite contextualise that James is gesturing at the urn he wants to buy for someone well enough; with a first read making it sound like there's like, one urn on someone's desk in an office say, rather than there being many urns and James is pointing at the run he would like.
and he sits there for a few minutes.
Iunno about this; this feels like the action of someone craving the void and I'm like, expecting him to spend like two hours dissociating with headphones in, so it being over so quickly feels a little like… did he even listen to a song all the way through?
And that's not necessarily bad: imagery of him flicking through like, twenty or thirty songs and deciding none are right and giving up could work really nicely here but we're not really given that?
His daily routine hadn’t changed, though.
I feel like cutting the 'though' would make this flow better
It's halfway through a post-death report from a lab incident two days prior when he feels the bile rising up in his throat, and he stumbles to the bathroom.
I feel like opening this with "He's" would be clearer, even if the "It's" kinda makes sense when you view it as a whole sentence
It used to be Carter's, and he gave it to him for his twenty-fourth birthday, two years ago.
the 'and he gave it to him' is kinda hard to parse since the he refers to a different person than the him, I think? it feels clunky: perhaps "Carter's, a gift to James for his…" would be better?
Hi! Thanks for the line by line crit and your thoughts.
I made the deliberate decision to have this as a “static” piece, or a tale with no definite ending because I wanted to capture the emptiness that the reader should feel, and I think that if I try to write a climax where he suffers a nervous breakdown or he suddenly gets better, it detracts from the story.
This is supposed to be a series of vignettes post-death, not really a linear beginning to end with literary tools, such as a rising action part or exposition.
Also, I deliberately left the ending open and vague so that (1) I can expand on the character in future works (I have plans!) and (2) If someone wanted to write about James (Which would be incredibly shocking and pleasing), they have an open platform to do so instead of diverging from what I’ve written.
Summoned Back Via PM
While it wasn't a massive change, I quite like the addition of James' interactions with his father. It's written well and you can really feel and understand what he's feeling at all times. It's also a good commentary on how people who are hurting do push others away.
It was slightly small, with a few carvings etched onto its surface.
It was slightly small, with a few carvings etched onto its surface.
He puts on headphones and presses the play button on his iPod, hoping that the silence would drown it out.
He puts on headphones and presses the play button on his iPod, hoping that the silence noise would drown it out.
He pulls it out and sees a battered leather watch, with a scratched watch face and old leather.
He pulls it out and sees a battered leather watch, with a scratched watch face and old leather.
Not a lot that needs changing here IMO. The insight into what James is going through comes across in the writing clear as day and delivers the intended somber experience.
