I had this idea for a "writer's workshop" thread that might foster a little more discussion than we normally have.

How about just short passages, excerpts? Sought-after criticism on the power and punch of just a few sentences?

I think sometimes the posting of a complete work (however short) is a barrier to real criticism, because it's not viewed as a "work in progress."

This can be a thread about effective prose itself.

I'll post one to start.

This is the opening to one of the pieces I'm currently working on:

Cold, dripping fences? I am not seeing that. Perhaps in context - melting snow and suchlike. The rest I like a lot.

I have been working on the Diego story. The last line was in the Happily Ever After thread. It is a bit longer than a snip, tho.



Diego had been waiting for two hours. This was not unusual. Diego spent a lot of time waiting. For rides to the grocery and liquor store. For contractors to decide that they needed one more worker. For his wife to come home. This time he was sure it would be different. The message was clear. Be at the big rock at the top of the hill. Be there at 11:00 AM. He had nothing else to do, so he got to the big rock at just after daybreak. He had no watch, so he thought earlier was better than later and he could wait here as well as at home. The empty home that he now shared with no one. Barely a home. More like a place with a cot and a chair and table and a fireplace and a small propane stove and a faded red metal cooler that rarely had ice in it. The room that he had shared with his wife and the room that had belonged to his son he had closed off so there was less space to heat. He had left the rooms just as they had left them. Clothes neatly put away, except the few they took with them. Tidy beds made up with worn patchworks quilts. Once fresh flowers now dried in a mason jar on the dresser. Rusty toy cars with no paint lined up on the windowsill. He went in to empty the mousetraps and sweep the dead flies up off the floor. But he never looked around. Just kept his eyes on the floor and his broom and the small deaths. There was one time he looked up and caught himself peering out of the mirror above the dresser. It was his father’s eyes that looked at him. Tired and angry and a little crazy. It scared him; he had not realized how much he had changed in the years since she had left. So now he kept his eyes down. Even when he went into town. He did not want people to look into his eyes and see his pain and damaged soul. Or to catch another glimpse in a shop window of the man he thought he would never be.
So it had come to this. Sitting in the shade of the rock and waiting. The handwritten note had not given a name, but it did not need to. He recognized the handwriting. Anyone would have. It appeared on enough checks in the county that everyone was familiar with the scrawl. The question was what did he want with Diego. Diego was not popular or dependable or wanted. It could even be said he was disposable. Of course, it had not always been so. But the past didn’t matter. What mattered was now with the heat rising and the lizards skittering past and the ghosts behind him at all times, was the present. And the future.
A vehicle came bouncing up the dusty track. Diego knew it was not the one he was waiting for, so he ducked his head and pulled his hat farther down over his eyes. However, he was not surprised when the car slowed and stopped.
“Diego!” said a voice, deep and strong enough to compete successfully with the full blast Mexican rap erupting from the battered pick-up. Diego tipped his head back.
“Manuel.” he acknowledged.
“You going somewhere? Need a ride?” Manuel called.
“Nah. I’m waiting.”
“OK, man. Gonna get hot soon, though.” Manuel stated the obvious with great authority.
The truck slowly pulled away. Diego was touched by Manuel’s consideration in not raising more dust than necessary.

I can rapidly get to know Diego through that passage. It describes how he feels directly, as well as giving examples so we can feel it too -- always waiting, what he sees when he goes to his empty house, keeping his eyes down, and wondering himself what this powerful man could want with such a wastoid as himself.

On the critical side, there is not much mystery. It is hard to describe how good fiction does it, but the reader's mind paints a vivid picture when you force it to fill in the details. In the passage above, we are told directly quite a few times exactly how Diego thinks and feels.

For example, would it be better to observe in passing that his eyes are down, without telling "He did not want people to look into his eyes and see his pain and damaged soul?"

"small deaths," me like.

Yeah? I don't know. I start with too many words, and cut away and cut away. I can see the road he's walking down, but I don't like descriptions of physical environments. I like to have a character either notice or interact with physical feature of the setting (in this case, throwing a rock at it).

"Cold, dripping fences" conveyed some information about the time of year, the fact that the road is not totally desolate, etc. And I think I like the mouth-feel of the word "dripping."

I think after considering your snag, it works a little better in the singular:



"cold, dripping fences and the faded cans" sounds like some sort of recurring thing that you're supposed to know what it is. Making it singular slows you down to picture a scene.

I think I might make the fence a mailbox. Introduces just a hint of mischief, because you're less likely to be in the right if you throw a rock at a mailbox.

Mailboxes have a certain hollow clang sound, as well. Fences can be metal or wood or stone, so no default sound. I like mailbox better than fence. It is amazing how the singular works better than the plural. Makes it more focused.

I like "small deaths", too. I think it is my favorite part. I have no idea where this story is going - if it's a mystery or a tragedy or just a character study. I am still waiting to see what Diego tells me. I can see your point about giving too much away. I think that is one of my weaknesses. I try to look at the story as a weaving, doling out words in ways to make the piece strong and move it along. The colors need to be spread out so they don't clash. Patterns emerge as you go - you don't get it all at once. But sometimes it is hard to keep all the voices from talking at once.

Where is your walking guy going?

He's going in for his first Army physical in January 1942, where he will find a certain pulp magazine in the waiting area, and carry it with him on board his first ship out after basic.

Double post.

Excellent point.

The second you read that he threw a rock at a mailbox, you hear it. You don't hear it with a fence.

Hmmm. Intriguing! I love stories set in that time period. A time of accidental heroes and unlikely cowards.

Well, that's exactly it. And maybe revision does that.

For example -- maybe he doesn't look up when he's in the other rooms, but we don't know exactly why you're telling us that the first time. Maybe he doesn't see "the flowers dried in the mason jar." (And perhaps no need to point out they were once fresh).

And yet, all of this must be balanced with the value of moving it along, without dragging out forever who the heck this guy is. You've got a lot of insight in a short passage there, which is good.

The sublime comes when it's somehow both.

The piece, as it stands, is still just a step above stream of consciousness. I need to let it sit for a while before I can trim it down and see the weak spots. And sometimes I feel a character so deeply that they are too vivid too soon. There is something about Diego that is like that. I am not completely sure where he came from yet. I know that he will be healed in some way by his encounter, but that his waiting isn't over. It is odd having the last line before I get to the story, but it is interesting working this way.

You have some excellent points. I will revise with a clearer eye.

The singular does help the fence and can part. It also gives the impression that this is something he regularly does--that he walks by this particular fence and can and throws things at them.

I'm really not sure what you mean by the "freshly-minted gait of Errol Flynn" etc. That doesn't convey anything to me. I understand that he's trying to walk like a movie hero, but something reads wrong here.

Tuna,

Your piece draws a nice word-picture in describing the setting and suggests much about the character. A few suggestions:

Seems to me that the sentence enumerating the furniture in the place could benefit from punctuation. Commas would slow the reading down and enable the reader to take in the scene better. At least try it.

This may be just me, but I really think the Annie Proulxish sentence fragments thing needs to be used very sparingly. It's gotten to be a huge cliche in contemporary writing.

Like they always say in writing class, watch that use of passive voice. Some instances in the passage ("It was his father's eyes that looked at him") would benefit from active voice.

Yes, I see. That one is intentional -- cliche is the hardest thing to avoid for the modern writer, because everything has been said so many times.

So one way to give a sentence something new is to put a concept that doesn't really go with another concept, but kind of does -- the vague suggestion causes the reader to fill in and keep going. In this instance, "freshly minted" would refer to a coin, or something stamped or printed. You wouldn't normally think of a style of walking as "minted." But he got it from the movie recently, and he's just trying it out. I don't want to say "He saw Errol Flynn in They Died with Their Boots On and he liked it, and he pretended he was General Custer."

So at the basic level, it's a metaphor, but one that uses what is called a "different register." It combines the concept of printing or stamping, with trying to walk like a movie hero.

It may not work, or may not help envision, but I'm determined not to unpack that one and spell it out more. I just want the reader to have the vague idea he's acting out a war movie, and fill in the rest and keep going. I'll continue to think of a couple of words that could make a difference.

I haven't read any Annie Proulx, but I find I do write in fragments. I think it is either because I am lazy, or because that is how my brain works. Or else I think in fragments. And I often have to go back and straighten out the pronouns so the writing makes sense to someone other than me.
Thanks for the feedback!

Heather had not gotten back to the dorm room yet. She was still out with Glenn no doubt. That suited Lindy fine. Even though Heather was one of the select few who knew her secret, Lindy preferred not to let anyone else see "the unveiling."

She stood before the mirror and slowly undid her artfully tied scarf. Slowly, eyes fixed on the mirror, she pulled the band of colored silk away. People commented on how she always seemed to wear a scarf. Hardly anybody knew that she had a reason for wearing scarves. As always she could not keep her eyes away from the reason once she had exposed it. Low on the left side of her neck, a little above the collar bone, were two spots--two ugly, misshapen, discolored spots that stood out like disfigured sore thumbs from the band of smooth white skin that the sun never saw.

The burn scars had been much worse before the plastic surgery the summer after her sophomore year of high school. Mom and Daddy and her sisters, and Heather and the few others who had seen it all said the same thing--it was not so bad, it was hardly noticeable. Rationally she knew that this was the case. Lindy tried to be rational in everything she did. She analyzed every emotion with care, and tried ruthlessly to dismiss those that had no good, rational reason to exist. It was this habit that kept her tranquil, that gave her the cool, calm disposition that made her a steadying influence around her friends and enabled her to succeed in whatever she applied her mind to.

It annoyed her that in this one matter she could not make herself think and behave rationally. Whenever she looked at herself in the mirror with neck uncovered, all she could see was those ugly scars. And she was sure that anybody who saw them would do the same thing. So she never, ever, but NEVER went out without a high collar or scarf or some such to cover the scars. She had sworn all who knew about it to secrecy.

She knew that ultimately the whole thing came down to vanity. Ever since she was a little girl everybody had talked about how pretty she was. Mom had always dressed her up nice and showed her off. Other women complimented her often. The guys turned their heads as she walked by. And Heaven help her, she liked it that way. In one part of her mind Lindy disagreed heartily with this focus on looks. They weren't important. Other things mattered far more. How she looked shouldn't matter. She shouldn't be paying so much attention to her appearance, like so many more frivolous women. Women should not be under such pressure from men and each other and society in general to look certain ways.

But she liked being pretty. She liked having a good figure, and good skin, and good hair, and always dressing well. She liked looking "feminine." The attention felt good. And in her heart she knew, despite everything Mom and the others and her own brain told her, that if people knew about that scar--knew what she really looked like--the attention would be gone, and she would no longer be considered pretty. And none of that should matter, but it did. And she felt so foolish and vain for it.

Lindy sighed deeply and began undressing for bed.

Personal tic - I don't like the use of quotes unless it is an actual quote. I prefer some other way of drawing attention, capitalizing or just separating it with a suspension point. Or just leave it be. The import become obvious later.

It seems redundant to say disfigured sore thumbs. I like the bit about the sun free skin, tho.

I find I really have no sympathy for this character or her pain/egoistic turmoil. Perhaps it is because I knew a woman with a huge scar on her neck that she never made any attempt to hide. She was striking (Italian and American Indian) and it in no way detracted from her. It was actually intriguing. How she got the scar was mundane - a large mole removed and complications set in.

Okay, "disfigured sore thumbs" must definitely go. I'll have to think about the quotations part. I don't personally see anything wrong with it if it's used sparingly. If it might annoy some readers, I'll have to use it very sparingly.

The character is NOT supposed to be an egotist. She is actually supposed to be a thoughtful person who finds herself tempted to go along with the beauty mystique (or whatever you want to call it) and wants to resist it, and is angry with herself for even having to struggle with it. I've obviously failed to convey that with this passage. Part of the problem may be the nature of posting isolated passages. This isn't supposed to be where the reader meets the character. They're supposed to meet her and see what kind of a thoughtful and together person she seems to be and then learn that she has this inner problem.

Still, I guess your reaction shows that I'm going to have to manage establishing the other aspects of the character's personality very carefully. Thank you for the feedback!