GFF Literary Workshop: Week 8

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

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
The Masque by RainMan
Prose, 1700 words

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Dark Nation

(I was going to review week 7 but the file was taken down, so onto Week 8!)

Maybe I should have left it up a bit longer Here it is if you're still interested; I'm sure Matt would appriciate it.

I think I'll just leave the files attached from now on, just in case.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I'll post my thoughts, and the new week's thread, in a little bit. Been in only sporadic Internet contact lately, what with the holidays and all.

Additional Spam:
Okay, just a little bit of a delay there

There was some good description, and I felt that the piece gave a good sense of the characters within a short space of time. Rather than telling readers about them in big expository chunks, the author let their actions and words do the work of development.

When I say "character development" I'm talking more about the main character and her feelings. I think that some more is needed to connect her to Eugene, and certainly the dialogue needs to be loosened up a bit--as noted above, it came out a bit stilted and formal for best friends.

As for the mask itself, I'm curious to see where the story will take it. The descriptions of it making Adrian uneasy could use a little tweaking, as it seemed less like she was apprehensive of it than the plot demanded that she be. I'd also suggest doing a little reading about how museums and their staff work, to glean a few details that would help build the setting and character--the museum studies program at my university, for example, probably wouldn't accept a doorstop donation, but they might take in a package with no return address.

I was intrigued by the last bit with Adrian's vision, and I'd be keen to see how the story develops. It could use some tweaking here and there, but I was impressed overall.

How ya doing, buddy?