I agree with Rex (and Obsidian)...I'll look at this once you've had a chance to re-read it, critique it yourself, and rewrite it to the best of your ability. Daemon has commented (I think on this thread) that his first draft is getting thoughts onto paper in a way that he can understand. Second draft is turning that into a language that somebody else might be able to understand - fixing grammar, spelling, etc. I suspect that third draft is turning it into literature that he'd be happy for somebody else to read. It's a reasonable way to go.
I know repetition has its place, but if you want want something narrow and objective to work on try not using the same word twice in a sentence. I bolded words you repeat, and I underlined words that I feel make it confusing. Rewrites: When he arrived he didn't feel the flames, but instead a tingling sensation brought on by the smoke. It was pouring over the city walls concealing the coals responsible for the fire. Or alternatively: The city was on fire and there he was stuck in the middle of it all. I can't figure out if the black mist is smoke from a fire, but I assumed it was given there's flames and coals in your original one. If you don't mean to say that a city is one fire and a character is in the middle of this fire, I missed the meaning entirely.
I think I've suggested this before, @waitingforzion, but you really need to consider the purpose of and audience for your writing. It's pretty hard to judge a paragraph in complete isolation. If this is one isolated bit of purple prose in an otherwise more controlled story, it might be okay. If you're writing for an audience that really loves florid, over-the-top descriptions, it might be okay. If you're writing like this all the time and aiming your writing at a general audience, I think you're going way too far. The black mist ascended rose from drains all along the road, covering the peek of wheels on vehicles, car wheels and causing a tingling sensation on the ankles and feet of pedestrians all throughout the city. James, walking along its walls from the outside, just outside the city walls, beheld saw a shower of flaming coal from above, flaming with black fire,[left out black fire b/c wtf is black fire?] and spiraling down into the city from all across the sky. [POV issue here - are we in omniscient or close third? If close, James couldn't have seen the mist coming from the drains from outside the walls...] He could feel the smoke in his lungs., until the smoke was felt in his lungs. Surely his family could be saved, but he didn't know how to help them. could think of nothing to that end. With no other hope than the peace of limbo, he rushed into through the gates, and embraced ready for the immolating heat of the flaming coals. But when he entered the city walls, he felt no flames. , but felt There was only tingling and the black mist, which was ever rising upon the walls, dissembling eating the coals as it went welcomed them. As suddenly as the terror had begun, it stopped. The coals ceased to fall stopped falling and the mist suddenly became water, swallowed by the drains. which the drains swallowed up, taking vengeance for its earlier departure. [what was seeking vengeance for what's earlier departure?] No one could discern the cause of these events, not even James who was beyond the city, but still his father grounded him for running away. [WTF - I thought James was within the city?] [We've got what seems like an apocalyptic scene, James essentially deciding to commit suicide, and then... he gets grounded? That's our closing? Pretty anticlimactic...]
At this point it'll be hard, but the process of critiquing itself could help you learn about clarity. In some of the workshop submissions, there will be bits which make sense to you and a few things which are confusing. Don't assume that because something is confusing that it's your fault for not understanding. Then at least you have something to feed back. There's no wrong answer here because no one can argue that no you didn't find it confusing. If you want to push yourself a bit more, try and figure out if things are confusing because of poor logic, poor sentence structure, being to vague etc. Another thing you can do is make a note of any part which triggers a reaction in you. This is normally a good thing. For example something might amuse you, or make you want to know what happens later. You might find something which you can identify with or that gives you an interesting new way of looking at things. Most reactions that aren't boredom are good. Evoking a reaction is an important aim of most writing. You may find the most evocative parts aren't particularly 'poetic'.
Thanks for the suggestions. If you could pin point the main problem that is leading me to need corrections, what would you say it is? Is it not being concise enough?
I'd say it's word choice. You're using words that are almost archaic, for no apparent reason (beheld, upon, etc.). You also use the passive voice a bit too much, again for no apparent reason (passive voice is great if there's an actual reason for it, but I don't see that reason in "the smoke was felt in his lungs".) Also, some of your imagery is garbled. Good imagery and figurative language may seem like extra, but it's actually the most efficient way to create just the right effect in the reader's mind. When I read about something "taking vengeance for its earlier departure" I don't get a clear effect, I just get confusion. So, chose simple, modern words; use simple, active sentences unless there's a reason not to; and cut back on the imagery while ensuring that what you do use is top quality.
Actually this is good advice. It sounds weird but I read once somewhere, in some book that the biggest improvement in writing came through cook books because they cut out the bull, used precise verbs - all in all very clean writing.
I tend to do that with my writing. It's a habit I'm trying to break, and start just banging out the story first, and then come back and edit it when I'm sober later. It's a question of stepping back, and putting your reader's head on instead of your writer's head. Hard to do, but essential.
I missed this. I don't revise until I have several paragraphs. Then I tear those paragraphs apart, and often the final product looks nothing at all like the original product. Many sentences and even paragraphs get cut entirely. So I think that revising at the sentence level is probably a waste of time; you're better off revising at a larger level, a few paragraphs if the piece is at least that large, the whole piece if it's smaller than a few paragraphs. I think that this would be part of the exercise of writing for clarity. An individual sentence tends to have limited meaning, so if you get tied up at the sentence level, you're getting tied up at a level below clarity/meaning. And if you made a beautiful sentence, you'll resist cutting it into two sentences, or combining it with another sentence, or throwing it away entirely, even if those things are needed for clarity. If you focus on a larger chunk, those little wounds won't hurt as much.
