Paragraph Review Eight - And so on, by Spiralese

A man sat alone on the steps of a building in the middle of a city. It was a busy afternoon, a constant crowd of motion eddied around him. He watched the ground.
            After a time another man came and sat beside him and, having looked about, asked, “He’s not here yet?”
            The first man gestured a reply of, can you see him?
            The newcomer gave a shrug of, fair enough. He sat back. It was warmer than expected and he was regretting his choice of clothes. Something on the other side of the square caught his eye. He squinted against the sun. “Isn’t that …” he trailed, pointing with the stubble on his chin.
            The other looked up and nodded his head.
            “But who’s she with?” continued the second man, the man on the right. “I think it’s that senator.”
            The other raised a hand against the sun, nodded, then returned his eyes to the ground.
            “Dirty old git,” said the man on the right.
            They waited again. A third man joined them, immediately asking, “Isn’t he here yet?”
            “Can you see him here?” asked the man on the right, now the one in the middle.
            “Okay, okay,” the newcomer answered, nettled by the tone. “I’m only asking.” He sat back and regarded the afternoon shoppers busily pumping the heart of the city’s commercial district.
            “There’s what’s-her-name,” he said with surprise. “Look, there. She’s with that senator.”
            “We know,” sighed the man in the middle, now thoroughly bored with waiting. He was thinking about the cool shops behind him, the shade they afforded. But he stayed where he was.
            Soon enough another man joined them. He sat down. “He isn’t here yet?”
            The first man rolled his eyes. The second tutted.
            “This could go on all day,” joked the third man.

A man sat alone on the steps of a building in the middle of a city. It was a busy afternoon, a constant crowd of motion eddied around him. He watched the ground.

(This isn't a bad opener.  Simple - but simple can work.  I'd like to see some description soon though.)

            After a time another man came and sat beside him and, having looked about, asked, “He’s not here yet?”

(I'd suggest making this more than one sentence and putting the dialogue on its own line, but those are copy edit things.  So far, we're at 'okay'.)

            The first man gestured a reply of, can you see him?

(And were I reading a submission, we'd be done right here.  If the writer can't show me a shrug and a gesture, rather than telling me about it, this is going to be a long, dull ride.)

            The newcomer gave a shrug of, fair enough.

(Again, give visual cues to lead the reader to the 'fair enough' conclusion, don't just tell him/her about it.)

 He sat back. It was warmer than expected and he was regretting his choice of clothes.

(Give a little something more to go on - is this guy wearing an overcoat in spring?  A snowsuit on an unexpectedly warm winter day? A suit in the middle of a July heatwave?

You don't have to get bogged down in minutiae, but I have zero idea what's going on here.)

 Something on the other side of the square caught his eye. He squinted against the sun. “Isn’t that …” he trailed, pointing with the stubble on his chin.

('Pointing with the stubble' made me giggle, but not in a good way. Is this dude's beard sentient?  I do like getting the unshaven detail of the character - but I bet you have a better presentation in you.)

            The other looked up and nodded his head.

(What else could he be nodding?)

            “But who’s she with?” continued the second man, the man on the right. “I think it’s that senator.”

(While we don't need to know who 'she' is just yet, I'd like to see some sense of place.  Did they watch her get into a limo?  Having lunch in a park?  Are they looking into a hotel room?  Something.)

            The other raised a hand against the sun, nodded, then returned his eyes to the ground.

(Is anyone else having trouble figuring out which man is doing what yet?  I am.)

            “Dirty old git,” said the man on the right.

(Is this about the senator, or about the other man watching?)

            They waited again. A third man joined them, immediately asking, “Isn’t he here yet?”

(Shoot me.  Now there are three unknowns.  Aside from one having stubble, they make the same gestures, speak in the same voice, and have no distinguishing characteristics.  Unless they're waiting for Godot, there better be a point soon.)

            “Can you see him here?” asked the man on the right, now the one in the middle.

(Gah.)

            “Okay, okay,” the newcomer answered, nettled by the tone. “I’m only asking.” He sat back and regarded the afternoon shoppers busily pumping the heart of the city’s commercial district.

(Ok, we now have a clue as to where they are.  Nobody's stopped to comment on three guys sitting on a stoop in a busy shopping area?  We also now have a time: afternoon.  But it's far too little, far too late.)

            “There’s what’s-her-name,” he said with surprise. “Look, there. She’s with that senator.”

            “We know,” sighed the man in the middle, now thoroughly bored with waiting.

 He was thinking about the cool shops behind him, the shade they afforded. But he stayed where he was.

(So far, there's absolutely no logical reason for these three people to still be sitting here.  Do none of them have cel phones?)

            Soon enough another man joined them. He sat down. “He isn’t here yet?”

            The first man rolled his eyes. The second tutted.

            “This could go on all day,” joked the third man.

(This reads like a really boring telling of a joke without a punchline.)

I have no idea what this piece is about, and there's not enough here to make me care.

One Hour Game Review 2 - Mystic Gallery

In this game, I guess you're supposed to be an apprentice at an art gallery?  I'm not really sure.

The 'history' of the gallery is presented in huge chunks of backstory text (I largely ignored it) given to the player by a mediocre still figure of the gallery owner.

The hidden object bit itself is full of 'mystery meat' - rather than creating original art, there are famous paintings deluged with random objects in incredibly random places.  Sometimes one must click on the correct object several times before it's acknowledged.  This gets irritating, as it effects your score.

The mini - game wheel on the side gets annoying fast; just send me to the game.  The mini-games themselves feel pretty tedious.  What original art there is, is uninspiring.

Another annoying factor is the score calculator.  The same still figure pops up wearing a different dress, an acid green curtain rises (aren't these supposed to be galleries? with taste?) and then the 'other branches' of the gallery flip cards and give Olympic style scores.  There's no way to skip this, and it's just annoying.

I didn't even finish my free demo.  This one is a pass.

One Hour Game Review 1 - Midnight Mysteries 2 Salem Witch Trials

I'm downloading demos from Big Fish games, so I don't play an of these for more than an hour (sometimes less, depending upon the demo).

In this game, you meet the ghost of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who in this reality was brutally murdered, and you have to catch the killer.

The art is solid, true to itself, and the opener is nicely done, transitioning well into the first scene - which takes place in your study.  The dialogue is simple, but not flat, and there is no voice acting.  The puzzles are well laid out, if simple, and the story compelling.

The hidden object portions have objects in relatively logical places (no sky camels), and I have few nitpicks about the item names (a recorder is NOT a flute, flour SIFTER - there's no such thing as a 'flour filter').  A few things are mislabeled, but not deal breakers (clicking on a rifle, rather than a musket, for instance).


The transitions are interesting and short, with no huge loading lag.


I admit, I do have a soft spot for the paranormal and 'creepy' games, and this one has a nice gothic feel to it without being too scary for a general audience.  The historical bits are put in as interesting asides, rather than feeling like you're being force fed history.


Soft recommend.

Adventure game reviews...

My other love in this universe, besides writing (and making movies of course) is video games.  In particular, puzzle/adventure style games.  The MYST series remains my favorite (except URU - kind of a mess imo), and I've been considering adding reviews of these as well - if not for one big reason:

Aside from graphics and gameplay, the story makes or breaks one of these games for me.  And the more engaging the story, the more likely I am to buy the game.

Writing some of these can be as simple as dialogue and character development (as if that were ever really simple).  Others, the story forms from visual clues, recordings - it's the ultimate 'show', where the player learns about the world and the situation from artifacts, and the story unfolds in a truly organic manner (MYST, Riven, Fallout, BioShock, for example).

I'd like to look at some of these from a story telling standpoint.

Thoughts?

Paragraph Review Seven - Untitled by Theresa

   Theodore Kerns was sitting on the rack in the basement of his home at three a.m. and was puzzled how he'd gotten there.  He remembered going to bed around midnight and had drifted off to sleep soon after turning off the light.  He had no history of sleep walking, nor did he remember dreaming; which was a nice break, since the nightmares of his youth had returned.  He didn't understand it, but he would take walking in his sleep over nightmares any day of the week.  He glanced around the room at all of the other devices of torture and smiled.  Perhaps his mind knew where he truly felt more comfortable.






Ready?  Here we go:




   Theodore Kerns was sitting on the rack in the basement of his home at three a.m. and was puzzled how he'd gotten there.


(Run on sentence - c'mon kids.  One subject, one predicate.  This could easily be broken into two, and with a fairly decent first hook.


Additionally, I want a little bit more about the 'rack'.  It could be a bookshelf, tool table, or medieval torture device.  Perhaps a more succinct word is in order.)


  He remembered going to bed around midnight and had drifted off to sleep soon after turning off the light.


(This again heads into the realm of 'too much information in one sentence'.  It makes the sentence feel rushed and stumble.  Plus, there's a dearth of 'telling' here with no show.)


  He had no history of sleep walking, nor did he remember dreaming; which was a nice break, since the nightmares of his youth had returned. 


(I think this was meant to feel ominous or provide some foreshadowing - it does neither.  The first half is fine.  The second comes off as forced and silly.  What does 'nightmares of his youth' mean?  Yeah, bad dreams - but we have no sense of scale.  Plus, what tends to frighten a child would not concern an adult.  Without a visual aid (i.e. some 'show') the reader has nothing to relate to.)




 He didn't understand it, but he would take walking in his sleep over nightmares any day of the week.


(I don't understand the allure of yellow tights and red shoes either. The 'it' in a sentence tends to refer to the last noun in the preceding one, so whether the writer intends it or not, this sentence is talking about nightmares, not sleepwalking.


Also, unless these nightmares are humdingers (which haven't been shared, so we don't know) sleepwalking is NOT preferable, so it doesn't make sense.  Sleepwalking is attributed to doing things like falling down the stairs, urinating in closets rather than restrooms, wandering all sorts of unpleasant places in pj's.  When wakened, the sleepwalker is at the least disoriented, and sometimes in a state of panic.  So no, this doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense.)


  He glanced around the room at all of the other devices of torture and smiled. 


(Ok, it IS a torture device.  That really would have helped show a bit of the character in the first few sentences if we knew that.  Telling the reader now is too late.)


 Perhaps his mind knew where he truly felt more comfortable.


(He's more comfortable wandering around unconscious than dreaming, for some reason.  Maybe he likes being tortured?  Or collects historical objects?)




This is really vague and not very compelling.  


What I'm seeing a lot of, is writers afraid to 'give too much away' in the beginning, hoping to draw a reader in with questions.  The problem arises when the reader isn't presented enough information to be interested in the first place.

Paragraph Review Six - Untitled by Emily

Fighting the urge to yell and draw attention to himself, Jacob instinctively whipped the dish towel from it's customary place on his shoulder and wound it tightly round his finger. He tried to remember if he'd actually washed his hands after prepping that last batch of chicken or just wiped the worst off on the towel, meaning to throw it in the laundry next time he passed. He wasn't sure if you could get salmonella that way or not, but it had to be better than bleeding out in the middle of the kitchen on his first day at work.

"Shit" he muttered under his breath, realizing with dismay that even through the thickness of five layers of material, unmistakable blooms of poppy-red were appearing; the razor-sharp edge he'd honed to perfection that very morning had come back to bite him on the ass, or the finger at least. 

"Where the fuck are table nineteen's app's? They should've been sent five minutes ago, but the docket's still up! What the fuck? Did I look like I was joking when I called 'em?" Chef lumbered towards Jacob, all set to make an example of how little tolerance he had for time-wasters, but his anger turned to exasperation as he took in the scene. 

"Oh for fuck's sake, what'd you do?" Without waiting for a reply, he yanked Jacob's hand towards him and peered under the blood-sodden towel. 

"Taz! Take this clumsy fuck out for some air, see if you can find a glove or something for him to wear. Callie! You're on app's now, move it, I need that table sent NOW!"

Cold rough brick pressed into Jacob's back and the wet concrete step he'd slumped down on was rapidly adding to his discomfort. Taz had handed him an antiseptic wipe and a clean dish cloth then disappeared back inside, and as the adrenaline wore off, the pain was becoming more apparent. Gingerly unwinding his make-shift bandage, Jacob could feel the blood welling to the surface, and sure enough, once the pressure was off, thick drops started to splatter at his steel-toed safety shoes. He tore open the wipe with his teeth, weighing up the benefits of having a slightly cleaner wound against the cons of that stinging agony once the alcohol touched exposed nerves, but eyeing the state of the cloth he'd just peeled off, he didn't really have a choice. 

This was all Jade's fault, he decided. If she hadn't given him that age-old ultimatum of 'get a place together or get out of my life', he would still be happily slaving away in the same little cafe he'd worked in since he quit school. That was ten years ago now, getting paid just enough to get by on but feeling like part of the family and getting satisfaction from knowing that the regulars were regulars because of his food. This time last week he'd been cheerfully singing along to the radio, elbow-deep in coleslaw, (gloved hands replacing the mixing blades that had broken months ago and couldn't afford to be replaced,) deciding what specials to go on the board that day. 

"Now look at me" he thought, "bottom of the brigade, in way over my head, and watching rats dine on leftovers that are worth more than my rent back home."








All set?  Ok, here we go:

Fighting the urge to yell and draw attention to himself, Jacob instinctively whipped the dish towel from it's customary place on his shoulder and wound it tightly round his finger.


(Surplusage: excessive or nonessential matter.  There's a bit of over-writing in this piece which makes the sentences feel clunky and breathless.  There are a billion ways to rewrite this to repair the problem, and the challenge lies with the writer to figure out which bits of information are essential to the story at this stage, and which are merely superfluous.


I'll give a couple of examples, just to show how they can change the flavor of the sentence:


Fighting the urge to yell, Jacob whipped the towel from its customary place on his shoulder and wound it tightly around his finger.


Fighting the urge to draw attention from himself, Jacob instinctively whipped this dish towel from his shoulder and wound it around his finger.


Fighting the urge to yell and draw attention to himself, Jacob whipped the dishtowel from his shoulder, and wound it round his finger.


Etc.


And that's without changing any of the wording - merely removing some words.)






 He tried to remember if he'd actually washed his hands after prepping that last batch of chicken or just wiped the worst off on the towel, meaning to throw it in the laundry next time he passed.


(Same issue.  Figure out what's essential.)




 He wasn't sure if you could get salmonella that way or not, but it had to be better than bleeding out in the middle of the kitchen on his first day at work.


(This is solid - we have Jacob's internal conflict, and the information that it's his first day at this job - though clearly not his first day in a kitchen.)


"Shit" he muttered under his breath, realizing with dismay that even through the thickness of five layers of material, unmistakable blooms of poppy-red were appearing; the razor-sharp edge he'd honed to perfection that very morning had come back to bite him on the ass, or the finger at least. 





I have mixed feelings about 'or the finger at least'.  Besides needing a comma of its own, it feels a little bit like the writer is trying a bit too hard to be cute or clever.  It could work as part of Jacob's voice, perhaps, as a sentence fragment, or if the sentences weren't quite so ponderous.)

"Where the fuck are table nineteen's app's? They should've been sent five minutes ago, but the docket's still up! What the fuck? Did I look like I was joking when I called 'em?" Chef lumbered towards Jacob, all set to make an example of how little tolerance he had for time-wasters, but his anger turned to exasperation as he took in the scene. 


(Two things here.


The first recalls my own admittedly limited experience in a kitchen - there flat out wouldn't have been enough time for a rant that long.  The head cook where I worked did have profanity down to an art form; the longest thing I can remember him saying during a busy hour was "Fuck you, you fuckin' fuck!'.   The reply was much to the tune of 'argh', 'gah', or a similar wordless sound of derision.


Were Chef taking a bit of a walk over to Jacob's station, I could buy the longer phrasing.  Which brings us to point two:


That all important 'show'.  Don't tell the reader he's pissed, give visual clues.  We're told a lot about what he's up to, but not allowed to come to that conclusion by ourselves through creation of the scene.  Kitchens are generally noisy.  Like battlefield chaos noisy.  And entrance to Hell hot.  Chefs have bullhorns genetically built into them to shout above the noise, and often remind me of drill sergeants. I'm not sure if this guy is more basic training or Full Metal Jacket, but I'd like to know - and this is a perfect missed opportunity to express both that, and give the reader a little more about this particular kitchen.)


"Oh for fuck's sake, what'd you do?" Without waiting for a reply, he yanked Jacob's hand towards him and peered under the blood-sodden towel. 


(No issues here.)

"Taz! Take this clumsy fuck out for some air, see if you can find a glove or something for him to wear. Callie! You're on app's now, move it, I need that table sent NOW!"


(This feels like a kitchen - the show must go on.  Apropos of nothing, this gave me an extra grin because Taz is the name of my cat.


Subjective?  Absolutely.  I wanted to mention it, because so much of this stuff is so subjective.  This piece isn't quite there yet for me, but might work for someone else.)


Cold rough brick pressed into Jacob's back and the wet concrete step he'd slumped down on was rapidly adding to his discomfort.


(Yay!  This is the first view or outside stimulus we've seen so far.  I'd add a comma between cold and rough, as it constitutes a list.)




Taz had handed him an antiseptic wipe and a clean dish cloth then disappeared back inside, and as the adrenaline wore off, the pain was becoming more apparent.


(Watch out for that 'was' version of passive sentence structure.  While the sheer length of the earlier sentences overwhelmed this issue,  it's becoming pretty glaring in these two.  'was rapidly adding', 'was becoming more' - 'was' is one of those words that can often be omitted from the sentence without changing it with any noticeable significance.)


 Gingerly unwinding his make-shift bandage, Jacob could feel the blood welling to the surface, and sure enough, once the pressure was off, thick drops started to splatter at his steel-toed safety shoes.


(This could easily be two sentences.  I like the safety shoes - again, I'm a big fan of 'seeing' what's in the scene.)




 He tore open the wipe with his teeth, weighing up the benefits of having a slightly cleaner wound against the cons of that stinging agony once the alcohol touched exposed nerves, but eyeing the state of the cloth he'd just peeled off, he didn't really have a choice. 


(Exposed nerves?  That must be one hell of a deep cut.  Is there a more active/involved way to relate this information?  Right now, it seems that Jacob is completely detached while weighing his choices.)


This was all Jade's fault, he decided. If she hadn't given him that age-old ultimatum of 'get a place together or get out of my life', he would still be happily slaving away in the same little cafe he'd worked in since he quit school.


(Cool.  This is enough backstory to be interesting, without resorting to an info-dump.)


 That was ten years ago now, getting paid just enough to get by on but feeling like part of the family and getting satisfaction from knowing that the regulars were regulars because of his food. This time last week he'd been cheerfully singing along to the radio, elbow-deep in coleslaw, (gloved hands replacing the mixing blades that had broken months ago and couldn't afford to be replaced,) deciding what specials to go on the board that day. 


(Here we walk the line of info-dump.  I do like the coleslaw line, as it gives a great picture of the family cafe - but there's a touch too much wordiness here in general.)


"Now look at me" he thought, "bottom of the brigade, in way over my head, and watching rats dine on leftovers that are worth more than my rent back home."






This would be a pass for me, as it feels like the piece would just require too much editing work before submitting.


I want to talk a little bit about what I mean by a 'breathless' sentence.  Human beings process information at different speeds, sure, but there is a maximum.  That's why run-on sentences can be so frustrating.  Give a reader a sentence with too much information, or too many extraneous words, and the brain starts tripping over those words and needs some time to catch up.  You generally don't want to have a sentence where a reader has to go over the same line twice in order to parse all the information, and it's worse when that 'information' is just made up of additional words that don't really add depth or meaning.

Paragraph Review Five - "Sounds of a Dying Universe" by Collodi

     If you strain your ear hard enough to the heavens and wait for that moment when the wind dies down and traffic stops, you can hear the sound of the universe dying. Not a moan like a dog's whimper or a groan like a man sucking out his last breath, the sound of the dying universe is a perfect b-flat note. Playing for twenty billion years, I often imagine that celestial note hanging like the reverberations of a piano gasping out Chopin's Sonata No. 2 in b-flat minor, Op. 35. Though it brings me to tears, on dark nights when I pour back red wine and watch the river pass by my window, I listen to Chopin and wait for the universe to end. So far, it hasn't happened. When it does, I will surely miss Chopin.




And my thoughts, for what they're worth (by the way, consider me floored):

 If you strain your ear hard enough to the heavens and wait for that moment when the wind dies down and traffic stops, you can hear the sound of the universe dying.

(The first part of this sentence rides the edge of too long, but it still works.)

 Not a moan like a dog's whimper or a groan like a man sucking out his last breath, the sound of the dying universe is a perfect b-flat note.

(This is just neat.  Besides being the default note for clarinets, there's some Gregorian chant significance to b-flat, as well as the diatonic tonal system - where the b-flat was a source of controversy.  The turn of phrase is elegant without additional information; but the added significance of this particular tone lends layered meaning to the statement.  Nicely done.)

 Playing for twenty billion years, I often imagine that celestial note hanging like the reverberations of a piano gasping out Chopin's Sonata No. 2 in b-flat minor, Op. 35.

(Can you see the speaker yet?  While I don't know exactly who they are, the topic and the voice make me feel like I've a pretty good connection with this character's emotions and thought patterns.)

 Though it brings me to tears, on dark nights when I pour back red wine and watch the river pass by my window, I listen to Chopin and wait for the universe to end.

(Here, we sport both the place and an activity.  Both vague enough that the reader doesn't know exactly where we are, but we sure know who we're with!)

 So far, it hasn't happened. When it does, I will surely miss Chopin.

You know how I keep ranting about starting with the action, place, etc?  If you can pull off something like this, don't worry about it.  Why does it work?

Voice.  I may not even know the gender of this character yet (I'm guessing male) but I know exactly how they think, and what emotional state they're in.  Most importantly, it's interesting.  I care what's going to happen next.

The single most important thing you can reach for in writing fiction is this thing I call the 'give a damn'.  It's the reader caring what's going to happen next.  Once you've got that, people will keep reading because they NEED to know what's going to happen.  The 'give a damn' is more important than a clever turn of phrase or a plot point - it's where the reader is emotionally invested in the story, and curious about it.  That emotional investment makes or breaks a story, and this one has it, in spades.

I'll buy this when it comes out.