I didn't know where to put this. I think it fits here because I'm setting the tone for the rest of the story in terms of style. Is it too poetic? Pretentious? Vague? I like it myself but I'd like some views before I continue to evolve this style: I did not know as a child that I threw a shadow. It rested on my world, dimming the most vivid colours, thinning them out. The earth, the sky, and everything in between, left me unmoved, bereft of wonder. I carried that in my clothes: dim blue denim jeans and jacket over grey V-necked jumper, and off white shirt, buttoned to the top. My shoulder length hair a shadow too, its veiling fringe the peeper’s curtain.
I could give you my personal opinion , but it has little value. I think Harry Potter is puerile nonsense, so what do I know . However I do share your pain. Most beginners, like me , tend to swing between over writing and writing in a clipped stiff style , because they are worried about overwriting . I believe the answer is to relax , don't analize too much . It is practise that will give you fluency and help you develop a personal style that some readers will like . But it will not be a hundred per cent.
I'm more interested in whether the style registers well with the reader. In this opening paragraph I'm telling the reader of how the protagonist feels about himself as well as colouring the language to also reflect the way he sees things. I also throw in a description to solidify the protagonist more. I could approach this in many way but right now I'm building a new style that I've had floating around in my head for years now. I feel this is closer to my 'own' style, born out of reading and emulating many other writers over the years, Clive Barker and Koontz probably the greatest influences. edit: Why can't I edit my first post? I've made a few small changes: I did not know as a child that I threw a shadow. It rested on my world, diminishing the colours, thinning them. The earth, the heavens, and everything in between, left me unmoved, bereft of wonder. I carried that in my clothes: dim blue denim jeans and jacket over grey V-necked jumper, and off white shirt, buttoned to the top. My shoulder length hair a shadow too, its fringe the peeper’s curtain.
I like this style - projecting the psyche onto the physical world and vice versa. These opening sentences make me curious as to what's happened to this protagonist - clearly a loss of innocence or naivete but what dark night(s) of the soul has brought it about? I'd guess it's not something that's happened to him; it is rather something that he's done ("I threw a shadow") - the worst sort of dark night of the soul, as there's no one to blame but oneself. The somber, wistful lament is the realisation that the darkness was in himself all along. The sentence about the world, life itself, being rendered meaningless invoked for me the same sentiment as this WH Auden poem: The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good. When you say "I carried that in my clothes:...." do you mean the shadow? If so, before you called it "it". Perhaps disambiguate - make it clearer exactly what he was carrying in his clothes? Have you written more or do you know what's going to unfold?
You can't possibly understand how excited your posts makes me! You've just perfectly described EVERYTHING I hoped to lay out in that first paragraph. But it's the fact it made you curious what happened to the protagonist that is the main reason I'm excited. It seems I got it right, or at least close enough with my first draft. As far as the clothes are concerned, that's meant to reflect his 'want' to remain invisible: 'The peeper'. I'll take a look at that in later drafts for certain. Thanks for this. I feel as if I can press on. I know yours is only one view but the fact you've nailed my intent with the style and presentation suggests it's not too ambiguous. edit: The shadow refers to the way he sees the world but may reflect something else too ... And yes, I've got the whole short story in my head. It's quite short.
I liked the word choice more in the first version, dimming v diminishing, sky v heavens. Otherwise, the style reads well, dense with each detail significant. The line of "I carried that...." was weak, in my opinion , relative to what surrounded. I'd be inclined to name, or even subtly mis-name, the "that" rather than cause re-read to check if there was a word missing. Very short intro, looking forward to seeing more.
Glad it's helpful. I hope you continue. It sounds like you've got something exciting up your sleeve. Boy is that desire to remain invisible asking for trouble! To try to remain harmless, blame-free, un-splashed by life, in a state of infantile inanition - permanently lovable and fragile. Because at some point life calls on us to do the difficult thing - to act; to criticise; to speak loudly for the truths we perceive; to go against the grain; to struggle against ignorance and prejudice; to confront our own ignorance and prejudice; to have our lives and personality twisted for the worst by our dark desires and deep emotions that often beset us as temporary insanities. To crush flowers as we walk and face ourselves as tough or unlovable - on the wrong side of a moral divide. Was your protagonist behaving like a live person initially, with a child's enthusiasm, and then had his appetite for life knocked out of him, which made him want to be invisible? Or did he think initially that he was innocuous and invisible and then something happened that made him behave like a full-blooded human after all? Or something else entirely?
Interesting and thanks. I changed dimming to diminishing because I'm not just talking about colour and thought dimming heavily leant on that definition. I changed heaven for a reason that I can't explain at the moment, but it was changed for a reason and probably not the reason that immediately popped into you head. You're the second person to be pulled up by the clothes line so clearly I need to do something about that. I'm referring to the way he sees the world and himself. That's manifest in his clothing. I have written a little more. Not much and it's fresh of the press: I did not know as a child that I threw a shadow. It rested on my world, diminishing the colours, thinning them. The earth, the heavens, and everything in between, left me unmoved, bereft of wonder. I carried that in my clothes: dim blue denim jeans and jacket over grey V-necked jumper, and off white shirt, buttoned to the top. My shoulder length hair was a shadow too, its fringe the peeper’s curtain. I lived on the rim of Grimsby Town, hidden from its rum soaked bars and choked docks. Park Street, the spine of our small community, ran straight and true, lending access and exit for locals and guests alike. On either side, terraced houses stood proudly, their modest, well kept front gardens, a façade for visitors ignorant of Grimsby’s knotted hub. Harold Street sprang perpendicular to Park Street and mimicked a little of the pomp for the first half dozen houses, before eventually giving up on the deceit. I was lucky enough to live where both Streets converged, one corner shop and one house in.
I can't say yet. Does there need to be motive for a child to wish to remain hidden? Or for him to see things dimly when others express things so vividly? From my own experience, it was bullying that made me see the world like this. Perhaps I could lay that into the text with some well placed metaphors here and there, mere suggestions, but I don't want to explicitly say why the boy feels the way he does. It's on reflection we get the meat of this story. edit: Oh, and the rest of the stuff you wrote: 'You're telling me'.
Being bullied would do it - disabusing one of a naive or positive view of life. Some people come to the view that life is tough very early on; others might sail through comfortably into their 60s or 70s before they encounter something deep and insoluble that throws them back on themselves, with something that neither willpower nor intellect, parents nor the government, can fix. I agree that there doesn't need to be some clunky antecedent to 'wanting to remain hidden' or 'seeing things dimly'; it could just be the unconscious bias or predisposition one is born with - with some people instantly taking to life like ducks to water, taking life by the horns and commandeering it; and others feeling wholly uncomfortable in it from the outset - with a feeling of “a strange place to be” making an impact on them as they are born; a feeling of “I’m not too sure about this, this is far too real”, as if they're very closely connected to an unseen world, a light and nebulous world that isn’t painful and doesn’t have bodies and an incredibly dark side to it. I wouldn't be surprised to find that those who feel such a disconnectedness and need to escape - the archetypal 'strangers in a strange land' - have a higher-than-chance likelihood of being bullied. Now when you write "I did not know as a child that I threw a shadow", the protagonist's shadow could be the sense that 'there's something wrong with me' - the child's view that he is somehow attracting the bullying, being singled out negatively by his peers (an alternative view being that there is rather a need in bullies to dominate and control and wield power). The 'something wrong' might just be a sense of being Other - having unusual sensitivities or atypical thresholds, which are usually a gift but which the collective inevitably resents simply because it is different from the norm. Any differentness from the norm - good or bad - is often deemed by the collective as a threat and in need of destroying. It's understandable that those carrying such differentness should want to be inconspicuous. The trouble is, no matter how inconspicuous, invisible and inoffensive they try to be - erasing their personality and anything distinctive about their physical appearance - the collective can still sniff out the Otherness within, like a monster lurking in the basement that needs to be vanquished. Writing your story in a shadowy, smoke-and-mirrors kind of way might convey to the reader the pain of the experience for the protagonist - that it is too raw and unbearable to be named and faced directly; it can only be imparted obliquely, in clues and codes, with a frightening or haunting quality to convey the child's psychological landscape. It would be interesting to see how you do it.
Well, I just don't understand this. Either I grew up a cliche or you've mined more from my writing than I'd ever thought I'd invested. This is all my experience to a 'T'. However, whilst the shape of the character in this story is drawn from my own views as a result of being bullied, it is more in line with nature than nurture. It's what that 'nature' eventually leads to rather than where the character comes from that forms to backbone of the story. I did that for a cowardly reason. I did that because I want to keep this short. It's over 25 years since I've written anything seriously and this is meant to be a toe dip not a deep dive, but the more I unwrap the possibilities of layers you so eloquently provide, the more I feel it should be longer. I'm thinking of finishing it in time for this months competition just to get that motivation and hunger to write again. I have to say though, reading through what amounts to nothing more than a post on a forum, and analysing the way you've presented your points so well, I cannot wait to see some of your work posted here. I love critique from anyone but I recognise when I'm looking at someone with an ability far ahead of mine, and that's when I really engage my thinking cap and reexamine my approach. It's funny because I was throwing down a sentence early as a placeholder for my character and it was about how he tried to be deep but would always envy those who could go deeper: I’d often sought to deepen myself but always felt frustrated, bounced of the process like a determined fly at the window of a grand room filled with a world of books. It seemed no matter how diligently I dug, the hole only ever got broader.
I liked how it started out, but I agree, might be a bit too highbrow towards the end. This might come across as being too erudite or wordy to a reader, and since it's the opening paragraph, that's where you set your tone for the rest of your story. If a reader has to parse something out that early, you might lose them. Doesn't mean don't do it, but for me, I don't want to have to work too hard to read something. Suck me into the story at least a chapter before going that route, and I'll more likely stay to the end.
I've changed the sentence that seems to trouble people the most. Does it make it less unclear that I'm referring to everything prior to that sentence? I did not know as a child that I threw a shadow. It rested on my world, diminishing the colours, thinning them. The earth, the heavens, and everything in between, left me unmoved, bereft of wonder. I mirrored this in my clothes: dim blue denim jeans and jacket over grey V-necked jumper, and off white shirt, buttoned to the top. My shoulder length hair was a shadow too, its fringe the peeper’s curtain. Atop my head a flat cap, plaid and worn, rescued from my father’s work shed at the foot of our garden. It was a tad too big and often rocked gently on my ears as I walked. I lived on the rim of Grimsby Town, hidden from its rum soaked bars and choked docks. Park Street, the spine of our small community, ran straight and true, lending access and exit for locals and guests alike. On either side, terraced houses stood proudly, their modest, well kept front gardens, a façade for visitors ignorant of Grimsby’s knotted heart. Harold Street sprang perpendicular to Park Street and mimicked a little of the pomp for the first half dozen houses, before eventually giving up on the deceit. I was lucky enough to live where both Streets converged, one corner shop and one house in. My father’s voice ghosted through the front room window. ‘Be back before five.’ ‘Yeah, alright,’ I said, pausing for a moment to view my reflection superimposed on the stern figure of my father. I immediately looked away and began to walk. ‘See you in a bit.’ I had offered the words to the pavement.
I'm very touched by your kind words and your interest in seeing some of my work. I'll try and get something up. Your sentiment about doubting one's talent is so relatable - how often when we see someone else's creative work, we just want to put down our pen/brush/keyboard and not even attempt anything? It's so tricky because other people's work inspires us, we get influenced by it and it spurs us on, but at the same time, if we over-value others' work, it can paralyse us and make us feel hopeless. Apparently Virginia Woolf resorted to blocking out and sealing herself off from the short stories of Katherine Mansfield, because they were so damaging to her belief in her own abilities! Maybe one solution is to write about that feeling as you have done, build a story around it - "Make more of it – any adversity, any difficulty. Pour it out and then own it. Reveal scars, reveal the process", as one creator said. I like your idea of inadequacy expressed through the image of a fly. Hope you use it in your story. Virginia Woolf also used the image of a fly to express insignificance or ineffectualness: "We are all like flies trying to crawl over the edge of the saucer, Mabel thought, and repeated the phrase as if she were crossing herself, as if she were trying to find some spell to annul this pain, to make this agony endurable." A good idea to set the goal of writing it for this month's competition. I have yet to excavate into that part of the forum. Re. your amended sentence, I still feel that "this" is ambiguous in "I mirrored this in...". Could you risk being a little more explicit here?: "I did not know as a child that I threw a shadow. It rested on my world, diminishing the colours, thinning them. The earth, the heavens, and everything in between, left me unmoved, bereft of wonder. My clothes were nondescript: dim blue denim jeans and jacket over grey V-necked jumper, and off white shirt, buttoned to the top. My shoulder length hair was a shadow too, its fringe the peeper’s curtain. Atop my head a flat cap, plaid and worn, rescued from my father’s work shed at the foot of our garden. It was a tad too big and often rocked gently on my ears as I walked." I just feel that the point being made here needs a little more driving home - I throw a shadow, my world is colourless, life is dull as sawdust --- and to clinch the pattern: my clothes are dull and unremarkable. I feel that would make it clearer that the protagonist is in some sort of barren psychological landscape and trying to blend in. IMO "My clothes were" matches rhythmically with "My hair was..." and the explicit description of the cap.
Cheers for that once again! I'm still not happy with that reworked sentence but it is definitely clearer. Do you think you can come up with another sentence? Bear in mind that everything that precedes that sentence has had a bearing on how he dresses. Imagine each thing he sees handing him something of itself to wear. 'shadow','lack of colour', 'wonderless' He doesn't wear clothes to fit his worldview, his worldview has influenced his attire. That's what I'm trying to get across. A sense of disconnect from choice, as if he is only the prop to be dressed by experience. Great help as usual.
I'm going to keep posting little adjustments and extra paragraphs until I've finished one page. And then I'll finish the story, hopefully in time for the competition. I did not know as a child that I threw a shadow. It rested on my world, diminishing the colours, thinning them. The earth, the heavens, and everything in between, left me unmoved, bereft of wonder. I mirrored these in my choice of clothing: dim blue denim jeans and jacket over grey V-necked jumper, and off white shirt, buttoned to the top. My shoulder length hair was a shadow too, its fringe the peeper’s curtain. Atop my head a flat cap, plaid and worn, rescued from my father’s work shed at the foot of our garden. It was a tad too big and often rocked gently on my ears as I walked. I lived on the rim of Grimsby Town, hidden from its rum soaked bars and choked docks. Park Street, the spine of our small community, ran straight and true, lending access and exit for locals and guests alike. On either side, terraced houses stood proudly, their modest, well kept front gardens, a façade for visitors ignorant of Grimsby’s knotted heart. Harold Street sprang perpendicular to Park Street and mimicked a little of the pomp for the first half dozen houses, before eventually giving up on the deceit. I was lucky enough to live where both Streets converged, one corner shop and one house in. My father’s voice ghosted through the front room window. ‘Be back before five. Your mother’s making tea and you still have that homework to finish.’ ‘Yeah, alright,’ I said, pausing for a moment to view my reflection superimposed on the stern figure of my father. I immediately looked away and began to walk. ‘See you in a bit.’ I had offered the words to the pavement. It was mathematics homework, something I dreaded more than any other subject, not because of my ineptitude but rather the punishment for my ineptitude. I had often wondered how having a cane lashed across my fingers would improve things. Stoicism was at least some recompense. It had imbued me with a profound silence and stillness. Holding my hand out steadily, even though I knew what was to come; watching the teacher impassively while he rose on his haunches; not flinching one iota as the cane fizzed down and struck the very tips of my tiny fingers; and then dealing with the sudden pain and following throb as if nothing had just taken place.
Better? Clearer? I did not know as a child that I threw a shadow. It rested profoundly on my world, diminishing the colours, thinning them. The earth, the heavens, and everything between, left me indifferent, bereft of wonder. But I did not know. I had assumed a shared experience, each individual as smothered by it as myself. My clothing reflected the world I perceived: dim blue denim jeans and jacket over grey V-necked jumper, and off white shirt, buttoned to the top. My shoulder length hair was a shadow too, its fringe the peeper’s curtain. Atop my head a flat cap, plaid and worn, rescued from my father’s work shed at the foot of our garden. It was a tad too big and often rocked gently on my ears as I walked.
We do not allow thread bumping and asking for clarification in ever bigger typeset won't incite people to answer. Locked.
