GFF Literary Workshop: Week 5

Week 5: Closed

Welcome to the rotating literary workshop here at GFF. Each week will feature a new piece of member-written literature for you to critique and constructively criticize. Download and read the work at the bottom of this post, and offer your comments! The event will continue as long as there are submissions in the queue, so be sure to nominate and participate!

Comment Rules
There are no rules per se, but all comments are expected to be mature and within the bounds of common decency. The key is to be as helpful as possible to allow the author to improve their work.

Each work will be open for comments for one week, starting on Monday and ending on Sunday.

Submission Rules
The workshop is open to any and all GFF members; simply post in the thread and ask to be added to the queue. New participants are automatically placed at the top of the queue to allow them a week to prepare a submission.

Please send all submissions to orion_mk2@yahoo.com. Be sure to include your GFF username, preferably in the subject line. Submissions can be sent at any time, and will be held until your next turn in the queue.

Length
Submissions are limited to prose (stories) for the time being. They should be no less than 500 and no more than 5000 words long.

This is just a guideline; submissions slightly over the limit may be allowed. Sections of longer works are also permitted.

Format
Submit work in .doc, .txt, .rtf, or .pdf format.

Submissions don't have to be written especially for the workshop; feel free to submit anything you've got lying around already.

Queue:
Dark Nation
Lycanthrope
Pyromaniac
Matt
RainMan
orion_mk3
Acro-nym
Ozma
Phone
The Wise Vivi
Ayos
Helloween

People in bold have submitted work for their week. If you have not submitted anything by the time your week begins, you will be moved to the bottom of the queue and the next participant who has submitted will go.

This Week's Submission
Beautiful, Depressing, Gray by Helloween
Prose, 1500 words

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Lycanthrope

Unfortunately, due to the mass malfunction of my life, I don't have anything to show for my week. I did, but it's... gone. So I don't think I'll have anything up to par for my week, and I'll probably have to be dropped.

If by "dropped" you mean "dropped to the bottom of the queue." You'll have a chance later on, no worries.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Just a friendly reminder:
We need submissions!
The queue's looking kind of empty.

That said, here's my impression of Beautiful, Depressing, Grey.

There are some nice descriptions in the piece, especially at the beginning of the first and third sections. It gets a bit ornate and obtuse at times (e.g. "frozen moguls"), but generally the description is a strength--I think that some more of the same might help, espeically as it seems to be mostly absent from the later parts of those sections.

I'm not sure how well the second section, which is virtually all dialogue, fits in with the other two--there's a lot of contrast there, though that may have been intentional. On its own, the dialogue is well-written but a little jagged--there's a realisitc (if inconsequential) give and take before an enormous plot dump. I think that things would work better if you could mix that information into several lines of dialogue, with some give and take in between.

The story itself is very emotional, and reminds me of several things that I've written myself (or read on behalf of my students or classmates). While that does lend a certain rawness to the work, it also means that it's likely got more resonance for the author than readers. As such, I didn't really feel as invested in the characters as I might have. It's a tricky balance to strike, and I don't really feel I can offer any concrete advice there.

At the end, I was entertained and I think that the author has a solid base for revision. Mix the descriptive passages more thoroughly with the rest of the work, integrate the dialogue (unless its isolation is especially important), break up the plot dump, and do what you can to draw readers further into the psyche of your characters.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Helloween

Also to orion, i have several pieces that i dig up and submit, if i'd be allowed to go again so soon.

Please feel free; I'll hold onto them until your turn comes.

Good turnout this week, and thanks to everyone who submitted or promised to. I didn't mean to seem overbearing in my request--heck, CHz uses a much larger font when the SotW nomination queue is getting thin

Additional Spam:
The creation of this week's thread will be a little delayed; look for it later tonight or tomorrow morning.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?