On Tue, 15 Oct 1996 01:36:14 -0400 Zenki said:
: The Demoness Within (Rewrite #1)
: Zenki aka Michael Chen
: michael.h.chen@yale.edu
: (4) I know the verb tense usage is still a bit unusal. The next rewrite
: will completely recast story into past tense.
Well, that would help somewhat, but I'm sorry to say that the
grammatical inconsistencies were the least of the troubles I had
with this story. For starters there's the *intense* brutality
that I can't get used to. It is, of course, your decision how far
you take this, but this reader felt very alienated. And secondly,
there are a *lot* of scenes that felt very much constructed and
rushed to me. The deus-ex-machina coincidence was used to often
for my tastes.
Also, I noticed a tendency to just let things *happen* and explain
them later "as you go along", which gives the impression of
unplanned spur-of-the-moment writing. The key to successful
storytelling is foreshadowing: giving (part of) the explanation
*before* things happen, so that it makes sense, when they do.
I don't like to give negative critiques, but this story did not
appeal to me in either content or form. Try yourself on something
completely different before you do another rewrite on this.
Sebastian