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The first thing I noticed about your piece was the voice. You did a very nice job keeping it young sounding and I believed that I was dealing with a child of sorts. Job well done! :D
‘"Terrible” was Nurian’s vocabulary word for the week, and he still had a little trouble figuring out what it meant exactly.
A few things with this sentence. The beginning of terrible needs a double quotation mark ("). I don't believe the comma after week is necessary.
If you make it into an adverb, take away the letter E at the end and change it into a Y, it does exactly that, make things worse than they are.
Since you go into a digression in this sentence (an interruption of sorts), dashes might work better than commas here. I also suggest removing "does exactly that" to increase the flow. It would read something like this:
If you make it into an adverb - take away the letter E at the end and change it to a Y - it makes things worse than they are.
“I’ll be here, and even when I’m not, just stay put, and I’ll come to get you,“
Not sure if you want to break this up by taking the first "and" out of quotation marks. It depends on the message. Is the father saying "and"? Or are you just connecting two separate (but similar) thoughts?
A loud creak, and he saw a little sliver of yellow, like the tip of a nail where the cover of the pit had been shaken loose by the drunken man’s fall.
I like the idea of this sentence, but it could be communicated better. Try making the first part a complete thought. Such as: A loud creak sounded. He saw a little sliver of yellow, like the tip of a nail... (etc.)
He felt like crying, not that he was scared, no, he knew they were lying, daddy would come, he said he would, and daddy always came to get him. He willed himself not to cry; his daddy would frown if he found Nurian crying when he got there, so he just stared up at the sliver of yellow, trying not to think of the slishy-sloshy gooky things by his feet, or whatever it was that went crunch when he stepped on it, or those things that felt like clammy jelly on the walls.
The same with this section. Put a full stop after "there" and start the next sentence with "he" (dropping the "and" in between). The comma before "trying" can be removed if you add "and" and change "trying" to tried. This section would read:
He willed himself not to cry; his daddy would frown if he found Nurian crying when he got there. He just stared up at the sliver of yellow and tried not to think of the slishy-sloshy gooky things by his feet, or whatever it was that went crunch when he stepped on it, or those things that felt like clammy jelly on the walls.
He could hear loud screaming, terrible screaming for what seemed to be a long, long timeand then suddenly, everything was quiet.
There are spacing issues here. Just go back and double check it. :)
He heard the grating sound of the steel cover being removed,.and heHe blinked as a leathery claw reached down, the black nails sharp and glistening as they closed around his little arm, pulling him up.
You used "leathery" in the previous paragraph and I think there might be a better word to describe his father's claw. Sharp? Shiny? Stone-like? Be careful with your commas! Some of these form misplaced splices. These can easily be fixed with some slight rearranging. :)
Overall, this is a very sound and interesting story. I'm getting the feeling that Nurian's family are sort of gargoyle-esq creatures. Well, they're not human anyway. :)
I really enjoyed reading this child perspective from you. Seconding Pip, I hope you write more about these characters!
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2011-02-27 04:33 am (UTC)The first thing I noticed about your piece was the voice. You did a very nice job keeping it young sounding and I believed that I was dealing with a child of sorts. Job well done! :D
‘"Terrible” was Nurian’s vocabulary word for the week,and he still had a little trouble figuring out what it meant exactly.A few things with this sentence. The beginning of terrible needs a double quotation mark ("). I don't believe the comma after week is necessary.
If you make it into an adverb, take away the letter E at the end and change it into a Y, it does exactly that, make things worse than they are.
Since you go into a digression in this sentence (an interruption of sorts), dashes might work better than commas here. I also suggest removing "does exactly that" to increase the flow. It would read something like this:
If you make it into an adverb - take away the letter E at the end and change it to a Y - it makes things worse than they are.
“I’ll be here, and even when I’m not, just stay put, and I’ll come to get you,“
Not sure if you want to break this up by taking the first "and" out of quotation marks. It depends on the message. Is the father saying "and"? Or are you just connecting two separate (but similar) thoughts?
A loud creak, and he saw a little sliver of yellow, like the tip of a nail where the cover of the pit had been shaken loose by the drunken man’s fall.
I like the idea of this sentence, but it could be communicated better. Try making the first part a complete thought. Such as: A loud creak sounded. He saw a little sliver of yellow, like the tip of a nail... (etc.)
He felt like crying, not that he was scared, no, he knew they were lying, daddy would come, he said he would, and daddy always came to get him. He willed himself not to cry; his daddy would frown if he found Nurian crying when he got there, so he just stared up at the sliver of yellow, trying not to think of the slishy-sloshy gooky things by his feet, or whatever it was that went crunch when he stepped on it, or those things that felt like clammy jelly on the walls.
The same with this section. Put a full stop after "there" and start the next sentence with "he" (dropping the "and" in between). The comma before "trying" can be removed if you add "and" and change "trying" to tried. This section would read:
He willed himself not to cry; his daddy would frown if he found Nurian crying when he got there. He just stared up at the sliver of yellow and tried not to think of the slishy-sloshy gooky things by his feet, or whatever it was that went crunch when he stepped on it, or those things that felt like clammy jelly on the walls.
He could hear loud screaming, terrible screaming for what seemed to be a long, long timeand then suddenly, everything was quiet.
There are spacing issues here. Just go back and double check it. :)
He heard the grating sound of the steel cover being removed
,.and heHe blinked as a leathery claw reached down,theblack nails sharp and glistening as they closed around his little arm, pulling him up.You used "leathery" in the previous paragraph and I think there might be a better word to describe his father's claw. Sharp? Shiny? Stone-like? Be careful with your commas! Some of these form misplaced splices. These can easily be fixed with some slight rearranging. :)
Overall, this is a very sound and interesting story. I'm getting the feeling that Nurian's family are sort of gargoyle-esq creatures. Well, they're not human anyway. :)
I really enjoyed reading this child perspective from you. Seconding Pip, I hope you write more about these characters!