GFF Literary Workshop: Week 10

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

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
A Detective Story by Acro-Nym
Prose, 1200 words

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I just want to point out that this is closer to the original version of the story, not the modified (and likely better) version I actually submitted for a contest. The 1200 word count should be proof of this, considering the story had to be 1000 words to be submitted.

I couldn't locate the modified one, so I offer this one instead. The story is essentially the same, just a few details (some of which were likely unnecessary anyway) were removed later. That's all.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Responses and submissions have been down the last two weeks; hopefully they'll pick up a bit more in the days to come. Remember, the event can't go on without comments and submissions!

As for Detective Story, I have to say that the setup intrigued me somewhat. The plot, especially the humorous twist at the end, kept me interested and I even laughed a little. The tale does a good job of creating a world and telling a story with a definite end, which is something that fantasy stories often lack in the short form.

It seemed that the author was trying to use a hard-boiled noir narrative style; this was somewhat successful. The dialogue portion--indeed, virtually the only dialogue in the story--is a case in point; it seems to be trying too hard, with the protagonist delivering some awkward threats. Generally, though, the staccato, lean style was hard-boiled enough to suffice.

The biggest suggestion I can make is some thorough editing for style--there are a few places where awkward phrasing or punctuation could be smoothed over (the list of cases near the beginning, for example, begins with a comma and continues with semicolons). Other than that, the story is self-contained enough to stand on its own, and perhaps be joined by others in a similar vein.

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

Originally Posted by orion_mk3

It seemed that the author was trying to use a hard-boiled noir narrative style; this was somewhat successful. The dialogue portion--indeed, virtually the only dialogue in the story--is a case in point; it seems to be trying too hard, with the protagonist delivering some awkward threats. Generally, though, the staccato, lean style was hard-boiled enough to suffice.

I'll look back over that portion and make some corrections.

Quote:

The biggest suggestion I can make is some thorough editing for style--there are a few places where awkward phrasing or punctuation could be smoothed over (the list of cases near the beginning, for example, begins with a comma and continues with semicolons). Other than that, the story is self-contained enough to stand on its own, and perhaps be joined by others in a similar vein.

That's something I'll have to review and something that may have been corrected in the other version. I hope I can find it.

I have actually written more with that character, the second being much less humorous and the current one closer to this one.

Thanks for commenting! Hopefully, I'll have the time to read and comment on Week 11's this weekend.

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

If 9 through 11 are still open by this weekend I'll go through all of them. I don't have much time between work and other stuff, at least, enough time to sit down and read something and give feedback on it >_>

I was speaking idiomatically.