RuneScape Forum Archive | || The Academy ||

song book

Posts: 90 Iron Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

He shook his head to focus, then got dressed, had a bowl of cereal, and started down his street. He was supposed to be meeting his sister at the next block who hadn’t been home due to having gone to the mall with her friend.
He saw her, and jogged over the concrete where he saw she was holding a notepad.
‘Marisa, you still haven’t given up on song poetry?’ He teased.
She’d been carrying the notepad around for the past month for, as she said, she did*’t want to be struck with a sudden idea and not be able to write it down. Honestly, Henry did*’t think much of her work.
She was decent at it, but nothing super amazing.

She glared at him and they walked down the street towards the park where they sat down on swings and started swinging.
‘Have you written anything anyway?’
He asked her, swinging dizzyingly fast past her.
‘Yeah, I wrote a poem about music. It’s not great, but I think it’s really true. I really think you’d like it. Here.’ She stopped her swing and caught him to stop him from continuing.

He took the outstretched notepad and read it.
‘Not bad,’ he said, earning a glowing smile from his sister. ‘But magic isn’t real sis.’
‘Of course it is! There’s proof everywhere!’ She said indignantly.
‘Really, like what?’ He asked.

04-Jul-2013 23:07:53 - Last edited on 07-Jul-2013 06:36:18 by song book

song book

Posts: 90 Iron Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

‘Think about it. Ever heard a song on the radio that you’ve never heard before and suddenly it’s as if you’re connected to it?
As in you really get the song and it reaches out to you and touches you. That ever happen to you Hen? And poetry, why do we think poetry is beautiful, its just words that we use commonly put in a pattern?
Why when we’re reading books we can’t put it down?
There’s the proof.
What makes music relatable?
Why can we perceive poetry as being something beautiful?
Because every time you write music or poetry, or whatever it is, you’re putting a part of yourself into it. That part of you makes the song relatable, it makes the poem beautiful, and it makes a bunch of words deep.
That’s the magic, Hen.

No one knows why or how it exists, but it does. And in a book, why when you’re reading a great book you can’t put it down?
It’s as if a force is keeping your eyes open, keeping you digging in the information in book and you can’t do anything about it. And that’s why I was to be a poet. Because I love magic, and I want to be able to use it in the way I want.’

Henry shook his head.
He’d never heard such stupid things in his life, even from her.
‘Want real proof?’ She asked him.
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Though I doubt you have any.’
She pointed her finger at him and he turned into a chicken.

I'm sorry it's late I did this last night and couldn't find the time to post it.

Still hope you find the time to review it.

EDIT:
Continuing a bit on as the narator of the story.

And so she had realized that magic in the way many dream of it doesn't exist.
Magic isn't twirling a wand and having the world shaped as you please.
Music, Writing, Expression, is the true magic.

04-Jul-2013 23:08:29 - Last edited on 07-Jul-2013 06:39:40 by song book

Chuk

Posts: 14,177 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Hey, so I'm not Xen, but I've got one piece of feedback right off the bat for ya, Song, and I'm sure Xen would appreciate this too.

It's much easier to read your story if you double space between all new paragraphs. You did it between the last and second to last in your first post, but other than that, you didn't. i'd recommend going through and adding those extra lines throughout the entire piece.

05-Jul-2013 05:25:17

Dec

2023

Poller5

Posts: 11,421 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Aye, I'll second Chuk's advice, Song. Much easier to read things that are double spaced.

Got about half of this week's entry done last night, so hopefully I'll finish it off today or tomorrow.

EDIT: And it's finished.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was nothing around me. Or, yet, there was everything: but it was so uniform, so ubiquitously indistinct, that it seemed more like nothing than something. With a chill bite the snowflakes greeted the exposed skin of my face, but that was all the evidence I had they were real. Try as it may, my sight could not follow them, for they leapt and whirled with such wild freedom that they were not to be constrained by the paths of the eyes.

The vague sense of my own momentum was the only confirmation I had that I continued to walk forward, the soft crunch of gravel – more a sensation to be felt, even through my thick boots, than a sound to be heard – telling me I had not yet lost the path. To do so would mean my death. I was a native of the tundra, in our own language a child of the snow, but we learn early that there is no nepotism in the north.

I should never have left the village. Ha! That was obvious now. But the dark clouds were so distant, and the threat of the cold nothing against the promise of the familial warmth of home. It was a short walk, I told everyone. I’d be fine. The dark clouds were so distant.

Does snow produce silence, or simply consume sound? Through that great white void I walked, blind and deaf. Here was a world where it was no handicap to be senseless, for there was nothing to sense; here was there and there was here, and the only distinction was that you were present in one but not the other. But the path lead home, and I would follow it. Just crunch the gravel. Every step, feel for the stones. Every step*

06-Jul-2013 00:02:55 - Last edited on 07-Jul-2013 13:52:27 by Poller5

Dec

2023

Poller5

Posts: 11,421 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Was that the crunch of gravel, or of gathered snow? Or yet of both, snow upon gravel? I should know. I was born in the winter, suckled at her icy teat. I knew snow. It was my ancestor, my brother, my best friend… But I did not know now. If I was off the path, I was walking to my death. But to stop was to freeze; only the quick may be of the quick here. I took a step, then another, before coming to a stop. My mind raced, but in circles, and so I stood helpless before Death, surrounded by ghosts.

All in white they swirled around me, first here, then there. Fragments, then images, men and beasts of indistinct form, scattering at the touch of my sight. But I could not fail to find them as my eyes wandered, pale spirits of the snow. Were they here to claim me? Was I to become thus, a rime-hearted wraith?

My father stood before me. He had died three winters past. Beside him was a woman, and my throat caught as childhood memories put an identity to the face I had never known. Mother . We are children of the snow, all of us – and in death we return to its bourn, as orphans welcomed at last to a home. Too calm to be afraid, too cold for the nervous heat of anxiety, I stepped forward to join them.

Their faces shifted; half-remembered thoughts gave the names of aunts and uncles as I moved forward – one step, then more, but none brought me closer to the spectral wights. One foot before the other, and the faces changed again – but still I came no closer to them. The eyes were still the same, the features similar, and I stared at my grandparents long deceased. Compelled by something more than human, my tentative steps grew into strides, walking to my ancient home, the frozen halls of my ancestors.

With every step the figures flickered, shifting silently into faces yet older and graver, growing in grace as well as age.

07-Jul-2013 13:53:17

Dec

2023

Poller5

Posts: 11,421 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

At last I stared on faces of such arch beauty I knew not if they were still my ancestors – could I, mortal, be of such stock? – or else the gods of my fathers, whose names had passed from all memory. To the dawn of time and divinity I walked, until at last the storm opened before me, and I slipped into its frosty embrace.

~*~*~*~

“Mommy, mommy, look! Daddy’s here !”

The dull roar of voices around me grew as consciousness stiffly stumbled to life, until at last the thump of another body on my bed jolted me back to the world of the living. “Mommy was so worried, Daddy! We thought you were caught in the storm!”

“I… I was…” my tongue managed as my mind raced. I had… I had been caught in the storm. I had – gods, the ghosts! Was it all some strange dream? But then – how was I home? What had I seen? What strange powers had been at work in the world under the twilit sky? By what strange providence had I-

“Gods, Oswin. You’re alive.” Heavy with relief, coming softly as in disbelief, the voice of my wife drifted from the doorway, scattering all my thoughts aside as irrelevant. A warmth bloomed in my chest as my eyes met hers, and a strange flush spread through my body. I was alive. I was alive!

The memories of our reunion are now as dim as those of the night before, cloaked by overwhelming joy. What came to me upon that frozen night I have never known, nor dare I to guess. Some strange spirit of the land guided me home as a river to the sea, protected and sheltered me as a new-born lamb.

Sometimes now I sit out on winter nights, clear or snowy. I search the falling snow for some token of the power within it, but its secrets remain frozen, unknown and unknowable. On the clear nights, though, betimes the aurora lights the sky, and it seems to me that there is a music in its shimmering waves of colour, the voices of our ancestors raised in eternal chorus. It is on those nights that I pray.

07-Jul-2013 13:53:31 - Last edited on 07-Jul-2013 14:03:14 by Poller5

Xereva

Posts: 7,589 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Sorry for not getting around to assignments faster, guys. I've been busy at work and at home (and interviewing for another job, besides) and while I've read all your entries it's going to take me a couple more days to work through critiques. I'll do my best to have a critique and a new assignment by the end of tonight, but if you don't hear anything from me, don't be surprised.

10-Jul-2013 23:12:59

Chuk

Posts: 14,177 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Read yours, Poller, and my thoughts came out much longer than expected. Trying out a technique I practiced in my writing class this spring, I'm going to give a paragraph covering what I see and think happened in the story. I found that it can be incredibly valuable to see what readers think is there that you didn't intend and what they miss that you wanted to show. Here goes.

It's night, and Narrator is walking a lonely path in the dark of a heavy snowstorm. His senses are numbed by the feeling of white noise that the snowy isolation provides more than by the cold, and he rebukes himself for the decision he made earlier in the day, the decision to race the clouds home. He tries to stay awake and alert, but fails, as can be expected, and starts hallucinating (or that's what I would've called it, had I not known the concept of the assignment.)

He thinks he's giving into the snow, his journey a failure, and his life ended, but it ends up being this surreal experience where the spirits of his ancestors actually guide him home and help him finish the journey, much in the way Harry's friends and family accompany him at the end of Deathly Hallows. Somehow, Narrator makes it into his own bed at home without his wife or child realizing he's arrived, and he's woken by the sound of his child's voice, which is when he realized what happened. Though he never sees the spirits again, it's clearly a life altering experience has he thinks about them often on those long winter nights.

So there's that. Do with it what you will. More specific stuff to follow now.

"*so ubiquitously indistinct…" – I really liked this phrasing. Not sure why, exactly, but it seemed to fit the tone perfectly.

17-Jul-2013 14:06:02 - Last edited on 17-Jul-2013 14:07:37 by Chuk

Chuk

Posts: 14,177 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I'm not such a fan of the next sentence, however, the one that starts with 'With a chill bite*" (Sorry, copy paste isn't working right, for some reason.) I'm not even sure what it is about this sentence. The concept and content is good description, but the way the sentence is formed does quite fit and seems awkward to read. It's sort of like a string of puzzle pieces that look like they ought to fit together, but never quite do, no matter how much you try to make them.

Here are some other sentences and phrases that I did like, followed by some I didn't, so much"

Good:
-- Post 1, last para. – "Does snow produce…sound."
-- Post 2, Para. 2 – "Fragments, then images…sight."
-- All of the last paragraph of the third post, particularly the description of the Aurora Borealis.

Ones I had a harder time with:
-- "Only the quick may be of the quick here." I understood it, and see what you're going for with the two different uses of 'quick', but I felt it fell short of the mark.
-- "Compelled by something more than human' Just thought that clause was mostly unnecessary. The rest of the sentences that follows it stands well enough on its own.
-- "At last…memory." I had to read this a couple times before I figured out what exactly was written there.

Overall, good, even excellent piece. The bumps don't take much away from its impact, which is excellent. I think the portrayal of magic is nearly perfect. It's otherworldly, and very surreal, yet it touches close enough to reality that, as with the best stories, I could very nearly believe that it happened. It's not at all absurd. Disclaimer, however: some of that feeling may come from the fascination I've always had with the snow and the empty wastes of tundra and wilderness. Also, the appearance of the northern lights was magnificent, as they are very clearly magical, notwithstanding the actual science behind them, and something I've always, always wanted to witness.

17-Jul-2013 14:06:15 - Last edited on 17-Jul-2013 14:09:27 by Chuk

Chuk

Posts: 14,177 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

If there's one thing I would recommend you improve, it's the fluidity of description. Work on figuring out what words you can do without, and are really just mucking up the flow, and try to rearrange orders to see how bumps can be lessened, and the right things emphasized. Like with the first sentence I called out, the imagery of snowflakes biting exposed skin is excellent, but the diction and syntax didn't match the gracefulness of the content, if that makes any sense.

Also I was a little confused by the transition from the storm to waking up in bed. Perhaps being stunned out of his trance by the warmth when he opens a door, or the light of a fire in the hearth or whatever else. Something to consider and explore, perhaps, at any rate.

------

Azig and Song, I'll try to read your pieces as well and leave some thoughts in the next day or two. I can't promise those will be as in depth as this little critique was, since it was much longer than I expected, but hopefully I can give you something worthwhile.

17-Jul-2013 14:12:42 - Last edited on 17-Jul-2013 14:16:27 by Chuk

Forums

|| The Academy ||