The Killing Floor - Week 9

[clauderainsrm]

If you are interested in having a piece of writing receive some constructive criticism from your peers - this is the place to post it!

The first 5 entries, from people who have not already had their turn - are eligible!

Have fun!

Comments

[bleodswean]

You definitely have a creative imagination and a kind of fantasy love story you want to tell, so that's 3/4 of the battle right there! The last quarter needs to be about style and form.

The most important thing to consider is your POV of choice. There are endless essays and guidelines for learning about POV, here's just one -

http://www.novel-writing-help.com/point-of-view-in-literature.html

Here's an example of where this is not clear in your narrative -

Startled, Naya looked into the darkened corner behind the counter. She had not seen Laron standing there. The relief she felt when she saw him was nearly overwhelming. He looked astounded. She smiled. She did not realize how her smile transformed her face. Suddenly, Laron could see the girl he had known, in this hard looking woman who stood in front of him.

You've switched from Laron's POV as Naya enters the store and we got a bit of exposition and now we're here and it appears to be from Naya's POV until mid-way through the paragraph and it switches back to Laron's POV. This is almost too much omniscience for the reader, as though the writer is telling the reader how to think about and perceive the characters. You want the reader to have to do some of the work and oftentimes, you want the reader to "choose" one of your characters to focus on, this kind of splitting of POV makes that difficult.

There's a lot of story here and much of is told rather than shown, perhaps it's too much story to be written short? Don't be afraid to write this long. You can pick and choose the scenes that you most want to bring to life on the page, write those out, write them again longer, editing more scene and exposition in between paragraphs, more internal monologue and external dialogue. You can string all the scenes together later like shiny beads on a string.

As to this particular vignette, the main thrust is the idea that Loran would wait so long for Naya. That's the perfect jumping-off place for your editing expansion - WHY would he do that? WHAT is powering this unrequited love???