jackofallgeeks | Searching for Criticism

I enjoy writing, but I fear I'm not very good at it.
At the very least, the inspiration only hits me at times.

This is an older composition of mine - I probably wroite this incarnation about a year ago, but it's yet another 'piece' of a storyline I've had floating around my skull since the 7th grade. I've been able to peg down a number of places I want to take the story (most of which exist only in notes) but I have trouble with actually getting the story there. I've written and re-written the opening scene half a dozen times. Each time, it's a little bit different, but some basic themes remain.

ANYWAYS, this incarnation I found when opening up MSWorks to write my paper, and I thought I'd post it up here. What I'm looking for is actually two-fold: First, if anything in particular strikes you, something you like or something you think works well, let me know. Secondly, if you have any ideas as to how I could make this piece better, I'd like to hear it. I've been told that I can be dry and narrative, and that I also have a tendancy to sound forced in my descriptions; the latter of the two I'm quite at a loss as to remedying it.

Oh, you can also feel free to just read it, if that's your thing, but any comments (even 'WaHah, keh keh keh') are more than welcome.
...and i'll try to remember none of this is personal...

<td>The land groaned with remembered agony. Blue lightning split the sky, which was a churning mass of sickly, green-gray clouds. The air smelled of smoke and blood, and the fields still smoldered. The ground was split and broken, the vegetation was burned away and the soil underneath fused into large slabs. Green and blue lights danced in the skies, an eerie display, but neither sun nor moon could be found. The farm house lay in ruins. Beams and boards split, it lay in a massive heap, surrounded by destruction as far as the horizon. The terrain was featureless in it's desolation, everything reduced to charred masses. Here and there, a tree remained standing after the carnage, twisted and torn in its own right, blackened and lifeless. He had managed to crawl out of the collapsed building. Pain shot through his right arm as he dragged himself across the ground with his left, tears streaming down his face. The tears and warm, smoking air blowing around him caused his scrapes and cuts to sing in sharp notes of pain. He sat up against a wooden board that had been stuck into the black earth. His shirt was torn to rags, and his pants were in little better condition. Sitting there, he could do little but cry for long minutes. He wiped the tears off his face with the back of his dirt-covered hand. His right arm was unresponsive - pain shot through it when he looked at the large gash down the side. There was pain again as he staggered up to his feet. Only one of his leather sandals was still intact as he took his first dizzying steps. Somewhere in the collapse of the house, the straps had broken on his left one, and he walked shakily on, grasping his right arm as he went. He passed a broken, blackened tree. Only a few hours ago that dead wood had been vibrantly green and brown. It would've been one of the fruit trees, he thought. His eyes watering from the smoky air, he took another few shaky steps, towards the distant forest on the horizon.</td>

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

fishing for criticism hm? See if I can help you out with that.
I liked the piece in its descriptiveness. I liked it as a vague opening to a larger body of work. I don't think it works at all as a stand alone. There is little tono character description at all. It sets a scene but not a person. If thats what you were going for then great. An interesting idea to play with might be to use a recurrance of color throughout the piece. You use blue, green and black a lot in the opening paragraph, if you could subtly repeat those colors throughout the passage, it could be realy neat. Thats what I would do. Just a thought.
The only thing that really bugged me was the second sentence. The "which was a.." part is very unecessary and interrupted my flow. try "A shock of blue lightning split the churning of sickly grey-green clouds" or something. Its up to you. Those are my suggestions. I'll do what I did for Drudgery if you'd like. I'm just too tired for it tonight.
~La Nif

For starters, yes,this really is just meant to be an opening to a larger work, setting the scene and such, and not specifically meant to stand on it's own. Character description I suppose would come afterwards, though I would admit to not knowing exactly how it should be done. I suppose showing is always better than telling, as in "He ran his hand through his black hair, his green eyes glinting dully in the wan light," so I suppose I should question at which point there's too much narration, or how to otherwise bring it down to his level. After all, how can I describe what he looks like if we're in his head?

Point duly noted on the 'which was.' I agree that it breaks things up, and shall rectify the situation. I would greatly enjoy reading any variation you might have on the scene. Your point of color touches on something I was going for, as well. I was trying to use drab and sickly images, in which case gray and green are probably the most appropriate. The general environment is also meant to be/seem very unnatural, as well, which brings in the green clouds and blue lightning (as it always rather seemed like lightning was white to me). I want to avoid things that I feel are 'over-used,' though - black lightning, for example, just feels 'done,' y'know?

Much appreciated, my Cid. ^_^

Searching for Criticism

::cracks knuckles::

Verily! Let's dance, punk.