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Excerpt of a Novel

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Hey Hive!

Recently I've been getting into writing, particularly poetry and short-stories. During one such eventful writing session, I came up with what is written below. It was originally meant to begin a short story, but after reading and tweaking the first few paragraphs for some time, I began to see greater opportunities for this. I posted it here, on the Hive, because I was interested to get some feedback or constructive criticism about it, and basically see what the Hive community thinks about it.

I scrambled to my feet as soon as I woke up.

My first thought was that I was in heaven, or someplace like it, or else someplace birthed from my deepest memories of pleasure and happiness.

The cool, night air was just enough to feel against my skin, and rustle the leaves of the tall pine trees and a seemingly out-of-place willow, which stood much shorter than the surrounding pines. Short grass brushed against my ankles, rolling down a small hill into a large lake which reflected the bright moon and sent shimmers of light around the clearing. The grass turned to rock, and the rock turned to tall reeds standing on the shallows of the shore. And in these shallows was a rather peculiar-looking crane, standing with it's head turned to the water, deep in sleep and experiencing whatever dreams a water-bird might have at midnight.

And among these things was the one word that can instill a feeling of peace, of serenity, of calmness and yet of subtle danger and foreboding: it was quiet. The only sound was the soft chirping of a cricket, or some other insignificant insect which was likely to be the prey of the crane the very next morning, or perhaps a swooping bird from the highest branches of that strange willow tree.

Where I was, I couldn't tell. My only guess was that I was asleep. I'd heard of dreams that looked and felt completely real, and the only time you would realize you were asleep was when you finally woke up from what was usually a pleasant experience. Or unpleasant. It would be quite unfortunate to have a realistic nightmare. Was this a nightmare? No, it certainly didn't feel like one.


Any feedback is appreciated and helpful.
 
Level 37
Joined
Nov 24, 2007
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It's a nice little thing, for personal use.

It might just be my taste, but I don't find anything particularly invigorating about
the story. Halfway through the read I found myself lost, and I didn't particularly
care to get my mind around the subject. It moves a little too slowly, as a start
of a novel it should be captivating, remember: The most important sentence of
a novel is the first one, that's the one where you capture the reader, that's the
one you spellbind them with.

Other than that it seems like a fluid thing, although a little slow, as I said, for my
taste. I also don't particularly care much for some of the words you chose, I'd prefer
"born" to "birthed" and "somewhere" to "someplace" - But that's your choice.
 
Level 2
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Feb 9, 2015
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27
Hey Keiji! First of all, thanks for the feedback!

I understand you found yourself lost after reading it. As I said, I wrote it for a short story, but when I took the deciding leap to novel I scraped the planned story I had. That's why it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. But once I get a direction, I can re-write this to lead more to that direction.

About the first sentence: I completely agree. I have two decisions: either re-write this paragraph if I want to use it in the first chapter, or use this excerpt in a later part of
the novel.

"Born" and "somewhere" will probably be replaced with the words you suggested. I agree they are more fluid. And while speaking about the fluid, I can also address that: if these few paragraphs were not used as the first few paragraphs of the story, then the fluid could be slower, as long as it has a direction (and I know this has no direction as of yet). Whether I will use this as the first paragraph or not, I'm not sure.

Again, thanks for the feedback. I assume you know how valuable it is and I'm looking forward to sharing my future work with the Hive.
 
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