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Thursday, October 9, 2008

F2S 25

The boom should startle me but it doesn't. I follow the crack forming
in the ceiling with my eyes.

13 comments:

  1. passive... I'm not interested because the character isn't reacting. Maybe sentence #3 is the magical one?

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  2. The boom should startle me but it doesn't. I follow the crack forming in the ceiling with my eyes.

    I personally don't like present tense - it is distracting to me. The idea is good - but I agree with "just me" - nothing is happening.

    It also sounds like the crack is forming with with the narrator's eyes. I think it would work better if you reworked the sentence to make it clearer.

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  3. I would rather the boom did startle so the character would react and draw me into their experience.

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  4. Ditto on just_me and gypsywitch's comments. If the noise doesn't suprise the MC, then why bother to tell us about it?

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  5. I liked this. I want to know why the narrator isn't reacting, though obviously something destructive is happening to the room where s/he is sitting. It's enough to keep me reading.

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  6. Ditto Gypsywitch. To a small extent I'm curious about why they seemed to /expect/ the boom, though. If the blurb was promising, I may read on.

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  7. Not very engaging, and I'm not a fan of present-tense. I usually have a problem with MC's that react to a situation passively. If they aren't engaged in what is happening, why should I be?

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  8. I'd probably read on to find out what the boom and the cracking ceiling were about, but this feels like we were dropped a little too far into the middle of something. The lack of startle would be fine if we had a reason to expect that response.

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  9. The present tense threw me off, and the voice didn't pull me back in. I wandered off with the crack.

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  10. I don't mind the present tense. I agree that it might be hookier if the narrator did get startled by the boom.

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  11. Thanks everybody for the comments! They're very helpful.

    Emily

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  12. No, sorry, while I like the idea a loud noise that should startle the MC doesn't, something feels off about it and didn't really grab me. I also found the present tense more of a distraction here than not.

    ~Merc

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  13. I'm not a fan of present tense, but my main problem is that it's only flat, and as mentioned, the character isn't reacting much.

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