please criticize my work?

Question

sorry for the confusion, i posted chapter 2 instead of chapter one. i was inspired to do this by the guy who posted his story about the 2 girls and the spider. it is a 2nd (but not final) draft, and i would appreciate any comments, good or bad.

Sunsets in the compound were minimal and efficient. Dusk was only a vague feeling of the onset of evening, and the transition itself was almost instant. The floor light shuts down with a dull mechanical click leaving only a residual image of the room burned on to my retinas and the fleeting echo of the switch in my ears, until those too, or my memory of them, evaporated into the darkness. When everything else is absent, the mind will seize hold of any form of routine change and attempt to ceremonialize it. The dawns and dusks of my days were the only signs that I was alive; the only changing variables amidst a life of constants and pemanence.

It was with a grim spirituality that when I sensed the approach of 'evening', I would lie prone and naked on the floor, my chest covering the rectangular glass floor panel that houses the halogen lamp, and absorb the heat into my body; singing songs of love and loss until that terrifying moment when day became night. Sometimes, I would lie with my face down on the lamp, eyes closed, my nose squashed against the glass and my lips pursed into a kiss, and imagine that the light that permeated my eyelids was the light of the sun.

I began to develop an affinity with the first light of day too. I would wake at the same time every morning; roughly half an hour before the light was switched on. I rose from my hard-floored bed and in the darkness I would crouch over the squat, empty my bowels, and rinse my hands beneath the solitary faucet in an absolution. I scrubbed my teeth with my index finger (the skin has become tough and leathery through years of use) and bowed my head beneath the trickle of water until my hair was sodden and fixed to my face. When the light sparked into life, minutes later, I was curled up on the floor again, the warmth of morning drying my body.

It made no sense to me that there was this artificial cycle of day and night in the compound when every other human consideration was neglected, or even ignored. My meals were delivered, once a day, via a serving hatch in the dining room, I slept in a bedroom that has no bed and I urinated and defaecated into a hole in the 'bathroom' floor. The rooms were separated by thin archways and the only door was the exterior door which had no handle, no apparent locking mechanism (although it was always locked and resisted all kinds of tampering; both forceful and delicate), and was distinguishable from the wall only by a paper-thin groove that surrounded it. I never saw it open in my years of captivity, not once. Nor did I ever see as much as a hand placing the dish of pureed vegetables in the hatch -my food was simply there; once a day, before dawn.

Never did I hear a sound from anywhere beyond my own walls. No muffled voices, no hollow footsteps and not even the sounds of a truncheon rattling the doors in the dead of night. On the walls there were no CCTV cameras, there were no mirrors (2-way or otherwise), and were it not for the contrived daily cycles and the silent appearance of a solitary meal in the hatch each morning before dawn, I would have easily believed that I was the last person on Earth.

Answer 1

I've given critiques to others who've posted in this forum, but never to anyone who who shows as much promise as you. You have talent -- no doubt. Now, let me make a few observations.

For reasons I've never fully understood, new writers (regardless of their talent) have a tendency to write in the passive voice. You do this as well, and must remain on-guard agaist it. For example, you write... "it was with grim spirituality that when I sensed..." This is bad writing. Why not say, "I sensed with grim spirituality?"
Stay away from the passive voice. Use active verbs.

Your writing is also obscure at times. "Sunsets in the compound were minimal and efficient." What does that mean? Sunsets are neither "minimal" nor "efficient;" they are what they are. The adjectives are mechanical and contrived.

And finally, if this is chapter one, you take far too long to get to the point. You want to publish this, yes? Please believe me when I tell you, you have to grab the agent/editor in the opening paragraphs, or you're lost. You must establish the dilemma immediately, or nobody will take you seriously.

That said -- you really have talent; and if you watch your voice, use more evocative descriptions, and establish your rationale early on, you can make this work.

Hope this helps. Cheers, mate.

Answer 2

The "emptying of the bowels" part was a little too graphic. Take it out.

There are some run-on sentences.
You can say;
"Dusk was the vague feeling, leading to the onset of a darkened evening curtain, pulling down the infinite universe of stars, almost an instant."
"The light reflects on the floor. In a distance, the dull mechanical clicking sound left a residual image, burning my retinas. The fleeting sound of an on switch echoed in my ears..."

You need to remember to make the sentences flow and not sound so wordy. Your heart is on the right course, and you're very creative. Keep up the good work and practice...practice...ect.

If you can, get a Writer's Market 2007 (Writer's Market) (Paperback) and The Guide to Literary Agents, I'm sure you can find publisher submission guidelines to your manuscript.

NOW GO BREAK A LEG!!!

Answer 3

It is written very well. Very descriptive in nature but the use of many words to describe very little.

Perhaps this should be at the very beginning so the mind is not floating around trying to find out from where the story line is coming.... ***The dawns and dusks of my days were the only signs that I was alive;***

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK

Answer 4

Well, you shouldn't write a biography unless it is one. This voice is one of the hardest to make sound credible. Wouldn't it sound better to say, "The dawns and dusks of his days were the only signs that he was alive." It is interesting, but a little too poetic in a way. Are you sure that poetry isn't your thing? You do seem to have talent. In your shoes, I think that I would do the novel writing workshop with writer's digest where you work one-on-one with a published author and get their feedback.

Answer 5

I hate reading stories from the first person, but yours is excellent. Whenever I pick up a book written in the first person it is filled with "I"s. I this, I that. That is the single biggest problem in writting in first person (in my opinion) and you have done a great job here of breaking that stereotype. Bravo!

Answer 6

It sounds uncannily similiar to the last 5 years of my marriage. Other than that it's OK. Kind of depressing, yup, that's like the last 5 years of my marriage alright.