Just in case anyone was planning on doing the independent e-publishing author thing to earn big cash monies, I just got my first check from Amazon: $21.44.
Hey, that's still more than I've made off of the stories and poem's I've published (which is a grand total of $0.00) so it's nothing to scoff at. There's something legitimizing about having been paid for your work. How does it feel?
Anyway, I finally got around to reading
Fire, and Other Short Stories and found it hard to really come up with a critique of it. My usual method is a line-by-line but that wasn't really appropriate here, so I did my best to work in broad strokes (even though it took me well outside my strengths). So bear that in mind as you read this.
Fire: Wasn't a bad read, but it was extremely short and I'm left wondering what exactly the point was. I don't mean to be harsh, because I don't regret reading it, I'm just not sure what exactly your intentions were when writing it. I also think that your idiosyncratic use of capitals for The City was a bit unwarranted, I suppose it was there to give it a bit of a scifi feel, but I'm not sure that's necessary when nothing else about the story really even hints at it. It just seems a bit out of place.
Trail Blazing: Interesting premise, but I kind of saw it coming. I think it's just because the story is so short. If there were more time to forget about the intro (which I thought was very well done, by the way) then it wouldn't be so clear the direction you're planning to head. I also think you could use a break before the sixth paragraph because that POV change was rather jarring.
The Machine: I think the first paragraph should be set off from the rest. I'm guessing it's from right before the end and then the story flashes back to the beginning, but it's rather confusing as is. I do really enjoy that paragraph, by the way. I also like the description in it. It's not particularly poetic, but it is vivid enough to get me into the story.
After the paragraph where he approaches the machine you change tenses, from past to present, I'm not sure if this was intentional or if you did it on accident because you pulled back from the story for a moment to allow the narrator to describe the winds around the machine. Either way, since the whole story is a flashback I don't really think such a tense change is appropriate, and anyway past tense seems to fit the mood of the piece better to my ear. Later, you change tenses again, on describing his vision. Here I think it is more appropriate and personally love to use present tense to convey the unreal while past to convey the actual, but you also keep present into the following paragraph and it's a bit weird. I also think the present tense at the end is appropriate. So the changes are fine, I just think they ought to be a bit better contained.
Anyway, this is perhaps my favorite story in the collection. Maybe it's just my personal taste for madness, but I think it has the most compelling premise. I still think it was a little brief for its ideas, and the narrator seems to grasp everything so quickly that the reader doesn't have much of a chance to follow, but I definitely enjoyed it. I'm not sure I quite understand what exactly the machine was, even now, but perhaps that was the point. Maybe I'll try reading it a third time.
The Door of the World: That was fun.
The Wishing Box: Wasn't bad, but I can't help but get the feeling you didn't take the premise as far as you could have. Still, it was enjoyable, and nothing to complain about.
As Seen on TV: Another amusing little story, I enjoyed it.
A Mountain's Tale: Another nice story, nothing really much to comment on except you seem to repeat the dinosaur paragraph with only very minor variation between them. I'm not sure if this was intentional, but if it was it still gave me the impression of an accident.
That's all I've got for now. I'll give more critique as I reread the other stories. Hopefully it won't take another three months.
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Topic: On Writing (Read 2247 times)