The Real Alice

Jefferson Soul · 05-17-2010, 11:53 AM

So along with just general mentoring I'm going to give you some tips for basically saying things through different words for the sake of being interesting. I find I sometimes can't think of abstract ways to write things without being told them first, so that's why. Big Grin

Also, you should let me know your biggest goals and what you want to learn most in my helping you out. :3

Quote:--"Rio didn't seem to hear, for she was out in open space..." Sounds a little wonky. Also, usually you can't really hear wind anyway, so it's not a very effective metaphor (but she'd be able to feel its rush against her face).

--"She did not understand why rain drove everyone to hide..." Sometimes it's okay to just pose a question with a question mark, e.g. "Why was the blessing of rain such a deterrent to the world around her?" And instead of saying "she loved the cool feeling" you could turn that into a more powerful comparison, as in "the rush of the cool rain was like bathing waters, cleansing and refreshing to the Marino girl." Also, you said she has skin, but more specifically that skin is below her fur, so you might have to be more specific to be effective.

--"This place was very peaceful..." I hate using choppy, short sentences, so I have a tendency to use a lot of semicolons and dashes to make phrases flow together. Sentences like this one throw off the groove a little, in my opinion, but if you put a dash (—) after "lighthouse" it helps a little. "For now her fur was dry, and the little wolf climbed the slight slope of the land toward the lighthouse--peaceful, despite the domineering wind." Added a comma to break up the sentence and emphasize the word "peaceful." Little changes in grammar like that make a huge difference with the flow of words. Does that make sense?

--"There was little discussion..." I'm glad you can use semicolons correctly, but when you use them, see if you can replace them with a hard dash and if that would help the flow at all. In that particular sentence, you might've done that instead, and somehow merged the following chopped sentence.

--Past tense of "lie" is "lay". ^^ So the dead, ugly rabbit "lay" there, since 'Souls writing is in past tense.

--I feel like the imagery for the rabbit is fair enough; going into much more detail would be sickening. You could, however, go more into how Rio reacts to it, as you are bordering on passive voice to describe her sickness ("she FELT suddenly sick" is much less effective than "her stomach turned and she nearly gagged," etc.) Did she have to turn her eyes away from it in disgust? As always in the writing world, show, don't tell.

--I'm also thinking that rabbit wouldn't be alive if there were maggots on it. Flies buzzing around it, yes, but fly eggs become maggots, and they take time to hatch. Had the rabbit already been dead, they might've been laid in the rabbit's stomach and it would have eventually exploded with them, etc. etc., but it would be very, very dead by then. So I think you might need to fix this so that it's just being harassed by a ton of flies. There can be maggot eggs on it, by all means. Derp, fixed.

--There's a bit of a trick to dialogue. In most cases, ending a line of speech with a comma means it should be the first fragment of text. In other words: "Don't worry, little one," she cooed, "I won't hurt you." It looks a little wonky with the comma last, though I forget if it's technically grammatically incorrect.

[html]

As of late, his tendencies to stray away from the ranch house increased. Naturally, he and Geneva had not spoken of their relationship to anyone outside their little home, and perhaps that was for the best—Jefferson would not have admitted that they hadn't slept in the same room in weeks, nor that they hardly exchanged even glances as they brushed past. He was not angry with her, no, but her emotions ran high and unpredictable. The cyclops had never been the type to be physically reassuring, while Geneva was in no mood or condition to be hugged and touched. Thus, the two simply coexisted in a shared space, allowing time to heal the wounds and holes that had been so abruptly ripped open. He gritted his teeth. It was a miserable life.

And so he wandered away from the ranch, once again giving her the space she desired. It was seldom she ventured out herself, embarrassed and confused by her disfigurements and losses, and the Patriarch's constant presence in the home only brought more tension. He had never been a fan of the rain, but its steady downpour brought a cleansing comfort, racing through his fur and soaking a chill to the bone. He staggered three-legged, an ache craning in his bad joints as per the norm when it rained. Where was he going? Hell if the brute knew; many days had been spent simply meandering, often with no destination at all. The borders had been somewhat unguarded, though he trusted his members to tend to them. Jefferson limped on, green eye unseeing what lay before him, clouded behind the endless onslaught of questions and musings that still took prevalence in his mind.

A stray glance to the side brought his attention to the young Marino girl, drenched with rain. His muscles tensed at first, thinking she had been wounded; he hastened for her as fast as his three-legged limp could take him, only to find the girl completely unscathed. Jefferson exhaled relief, but immediately thereafter affixing his green eye on the bundle of white she cradled so affectionately. He winced at the sight—the rabbit's stomach ripped open and exposed, the insects that buzzed about hungrily, the listless, dead look in its eye. Something twisted in the pit of his gut, and though his nose twitched in disgust, the Patriarch's dark gaze fell heavily on the girl, who curled around its frightened offspring just spaces away. "That thing probably won't survive on its own," he said simply. There was no point in offering false hope.

Login




Remember me Lost Password?