[Writings] Keaton's Writing (NSFW): Chapter Two of Keaton's Backstory, 02/07/09

[Tezkat]

I'm enjoying the story.  Keep it up!


I'm hesitant to cricitize, because it makes for pretty prose, but I find your use of anachronistic metaphors rather jarring. For example:

There were no stars. They had all disappeared, popped and fizzled like light bulbs.

Giant sweeping arcs of living darkness were crawling up the walls and seething at the edges of her ceiling, creating veined spider-web patterns; ugly patches that reminded her of oblivion bullet-holes pockmarked the parts of unmolested wallpaper;

The second one is even more noticeable because it's explicit. It implies that the six-year-old Keaton has had sufficient exposure to firearms (the image it invokes for me is of walls riddled by automatic weapons fire) to associate them with her nightmares. That would be a very powerful piece of character development for a child growing up in a war torn modern state or crime ridden inner city. Unfortunately, since I'm expecting a tale of a young noble set five centuries before DMFA (a world with essentially no gunpowder technology even in the present day), it merely breaks the immersion.

[Sunblink]

Thanks to everyone for the comments! The chapter received a lot of recognition. I'm really happy to see that.

I'm too lazy to respond to everyone but ilu guise anyway <3

Great story! I continue to feel sorry for Keaton. You're very good at depicting her emotions.

I liked the part about the plushies too. The description of the shadows at the beginning of the nightmare seemed a bit too long to me, but everything else was great.

Thanks, Gabi Actually, as far as the nightmare description goes, I had a feeling someone would point it out. It used to be MUCH larger, but then I trimmed it down. Editing's weird.

I'm hesitant to cricitize, because it makes for pretty prose, but I find your use of anachronistic metaphors rather jarring. For example:

[here there be examples]

The second one is even more noticeable because it's explicit. It implies that the six-year-old Keaton has had sufficient exposure to firearms (the image it invokes for me is of walls riddled by automatic weapons fire) to associate them with her nightmares. That would be a very powerful piece of character development for a child growing up in a war torn modern state or crime ridden inner city. Unfortunately, since I'm expecting a tale of a young noble set five centuries before DMFA (a world with essentially no gunpowder technology even in the present day), it merely breaks the immersion.

Dammit, I never would have noticed the bullet-holes thing. XD Weirdly, that was the part that one of my friends liked the most. XD Thank you for pointing that out; I'll probably alter that description after the second beta-ing process.

I just need to come up with something that sounds as good. Either way, thank you for the critiquing, good sir I hope you enjoy the story from hereon out.