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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  4352 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: "Circle of Life" -Decided to write something tonight

I liked it. Needs more precision, though.

Present tense up to:

    I remain on the dock as Andy paddles out to the drop off. I watch as he pulls up one, two, three a half dozen small mouthed bass in to his boat.

Then past tense from

    The last strings of pink and violet danced across the water.

Fucks up your narrative.

The fish also starts out as "he" but becomes "it" within a paragraph. Pronouns are a choice; make it and make it with a vengeance.

Who, what, when, where, why. Make it clear in your head before you write it, so it will be clear to your audience. The what where and why are all clear in what you present, but you diminish the impact of the fish's suffering by not settling on a gender. We're also bouncing between "Yet here I am, at the end of this dock" and "I took my last cast" and "He would grill them up that night."

Never cheat your words. They deserve to be perfect.





thenewgreen  ·  4335 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Awesome advice, thank you kb. onehunna also pointed out my change in tense. I'm learning as I go and your advice really helps.