posted
Right, I've actually finished a cheesy, cliche-ridden short story and thrown it at the web via "save as web page" in Word. That's how much belief I have in it.
Synopsis: It's a scary ghost story for the long Autumn evenings.
Disclaimer: It's extremely unlikely to scare anyone. At all. Sorry. It's just that I don't tend to finish stories and I had to celebrate somehow.
Posts: 8467
| IP: Logged
posted
As a diversion, I wandered from Dang's document onto the rest of his web site, and on account of having read his H2G2 entry, I feel the Land Rover must be the most practical and logical vehicle produced anywhere ever.
I would go out and buy one today, in my Stepford Wifeish haze, except that they don't sell the Defender here anyway.
-------------------- Give 'em .0139 fathoms and they'll take 80 chains. Posts: 3201
| IP: Logged
posted
++++++++++ CONTAINS SPOILERS OF DANG'S STORY +++++++++
Well! I rather enjoyed your story, Dang. I thought a lot of the incidental detail was good (ie. the cricket match stuff and the prehistory of the rose) and I liked the 'futureshock' twist - though I don't think it was sustained too well once you tried to follow it through - and the 1937 opening segment seems completely adrift from the rest of the story.
Don't just fall back on lame self-disparagement, though. With a bit of reworking you could have a really quite effective riff on the traditional 'ghost-in-time' yarn.
My recommendations, for what they're worth:
Don't have the cricket match already decided - you could add a dimension of suspense by investing more into the 'everyday' concerns of the characters in the present day segment of the story
Establish the 1937 setting sooner - by the time the guy writes the date in his letter, the reader has already imagined someone in modern dress in a modern pub
Would chick-from-the-future really be naked at any point during her mission? Think this section is a little underdrawn (as opposed to obliquely-rendered... which could actually be more effective)
You do humour well - use it more to humanise your characters and give the reader more of a stake in them... especially if they're put into situations in which they're vulnerable
Leading on from that - aside from the opening sequence, there wasn't enough of a sense of threat - one of the chief pleasures of the genre - if the reader doesn't feel sufficient anxiety on behalf of the characters during the course of the tale, they'll come away short-changed.
quote:Originally posted by ben: I hope that's of some use.
Ben, I really appreciate your comments and suggestions and will get some suitable editing going. I did have doubts about the 1937 bit and will probably re-do it completely. It's meant to set up the circle of the story, but it's somewhat weak. I think I was just a bit over excited at having actually completed a story.
Posts: 8467
| IP: Logged
posted
sorry dang, I will try to post something constructive about your story too but going by the "constructive" criticism I've been awful at giving in fiction writing, don't hold out for much :/
And dervish, you are even more incomprehensible than me, well done! And you must have been lurking forever. / troll.
Printer-friendly view of this topic