Amery’s hand shook violently and the jar of honey slid from his fingers, crashing on the floor, the thick goo immediately spreading across the tile in a slow moving glacier, taking slivers of glass with it.
“Crap,” he said. He slid down with his back to the counter, taking stock of the mess, half of him wanting to lick the substance off the floor and the other half wanting to curl into a ball and sleep until the feeling of impending death melted nicely into blackness. He reached out to get the jar but his shaking hands jerked at the wrong time and the cut glass sliced his thumb, blood suddenly mingling with the honey. He closed his eyes, sweat pouring off him and soaking his clothes and matting his hair to his forehead. He couldn’t tell the difference between the warmth of the sweat and the warmth of the blood. He leaned over and let his body fall gently to the side. He wanted to sleep.
Of the last three, this is my least favorite. It's good, but it's my least favorite. Am I allowed to say that?
ReplyDeleteThe other two transported me; here, I was reading. There is a slight difference.
I love the imagery here, but I think the sentences could be smoothed out more. The fluency feels a bit choppy, and I think that draws us away from the power of the scene.
ReplyDeleteI love the comparison of the honey to a glacier. The one spot where I stumbled is where he closed his eyes, sweat pouring...soaking...matting. That's a lot of -ing's all in a row. Try changing that description into two sentences. I would also watch the 'nicely' in there. I think the sentence would be more powerful without it.
ReplyDeleteFor the sake of this exercise-It's definitely enough to keep me reading.
The sentences are too long, I think. And there's too much description. I like things leaner, so I think it needs to be cleaned up a bit more. Revision is a writer's best friend.
ReplyDeleteThe question is whether this is the beginning of a story, or something in the middle, too. That might make a difference as to whether I read on.
The idea of this has me wanting more.
ReplyDeleteThe sentences are a bit long, especially that first one. I agree with the above comments about fluency/choppy. But, I think Kristi hit the nail on the head: it's the -ing's causing the issues. Shorter sentences and stronger verbs create great tension.
Of course, I could be misreading the need for tension here. This is really hard with such a small amount of writing!
I am definitely interested in finding out what is wrong with him and why the jar of honey is so important. You've skillfully built up the mystery in a small scene.
ReplyDeleteSo I would keep reading a bit further to satisfy that curiosity if this is the beginning of a chapter. It is also an interesting opening for the novel or short story; starting in the middle of the action and filling in all the gaps. I like the approach, but it is sometimes difficult to write in appropriate POV and tense.
You've got a good start. I have to agree that the run on sentences really slow the pace and distract from the tone. It won't take much tweaking to fix that. If the entire story is written in that style, however, you might want to think about the voice and pacing and if that style really works for the story.
Overall, these were excellent choices for paragraphs to submit for this exercise.
.........dhole