Evoking emotions in 300 words or less

[Stephen4444]

Hi, Springs. This is a Very good piece of writing.

I got the fear. And the semi colon usage. Good stuff.

He looked down. So what if she died for nothing? She’d let him suffer. His eyes burned, and he had to take a deep breath. [He took another, and looked around the small room and the light, reflected from the ocean, shimmered around him, [making] tense him calmer.]

He took another breath and looked around the small room. The light reflected from the ocean, shimmered, and made him calmer.

[ It felt right, like all his life[;] he’d been waiting for something [–] somewhere [–] he needed and hadn’t known it was the wash of the sea rolling in, the pull as it left, one after the other, [time and again] repeatedly.]

It felt right. All of his life it seemed as if he waited for something, somewhere, that he needed. He had not realized until now, it was the wash of the sea. The sea rolled in, the pull he felt when the tide drug at his feet. The waves rolled out one after the other, repeatedly.

He glanced at the queen [,]. He looked into [saw] her eyes [.] [watching]tense delete Her eyes met his [him]delete, soft now, pleading. [If she was right, and his refusal condemned her people to [story books] storybook[,] and myth that wasn’t what he wanted to come out of his pain.]

If she was right… his refusal had condemned her people to storybook and myth. He did not want that to come of his pain.

The slow extinction of people[,] was one of the things he’d fought to end. He thought, briefly, of Rjala, one of the few[ Ferrans]

Ferrans were used in L. E. Modesitt Jr. Imager series, are they the same?

to survive the Empress’ purge, how she’d fought in memory of her people, striving to repay the wrong done…

He dropped his hand from the screen. [“There is no one else?”] does not read well “Is there no one else?” he asked.

She nodded, the faintest of nods, and he [realised] realized in the US she was diminishing now. He moved and knelt beside her, his hand touching hers.

“Shall I get someone?” he asked.

“No,” she said, her voice small.

“You’re fading. I should get someone.”

“Only you,” she whispered. “They know what’s happening.”

Her eyes closed, and he bowed his head; he couldn’t let her die without hope. She had offered things he couldn’t refuse: a place of his own, a restoration of his self.

“Yes,” he whispered, almost silently. “Yes, now pass in peace.”

SADNESS

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Thanks for the crit, Stephen, a few things to think about there. I seem to lend towards long sentences more and more as I go on, I'll have to try and mix it up a bit more, maybe.

Um, the Ferrans, no they weren't the same, and I wasn't aware there were others out there. I'm not sure it matters too much, the name is from a system of planets, and they're not an alien race, or anything. I can change it if needs be, but I think they're small enough within the books to get away with. I hope....

 

[ratsy]

It has been almost a year. A year since the accident. She fell... backwards while walking her dog. The doctors say it could have been many things. She had passed her tenth anniversary since her heart transplant and though there were many complications since, she was doing as well as could be expected.

It is now a blur...the 2 months in Intensive care...visiting daily. Not being able to communicate because of the head trauma, body failing, organs stretching to their limits. Shutting down...Hoping in those last days that she knew we were there by her side.

Almost a year and there is rarely a day that goes by that I don't have her cross my mind. She is now free. Free of the chains that come with a hard life. I love her for everything she did for me and will never forget her.

I will lay flowers at her grave...the grave of a woman who used her heart so much she needed two. I miss you Mom.

 

[Grinnel]

Stephen444444444444444444:

I’m not sure about UK, but US spelling is arbor. The first sentence sounded more like a police report. Good, and descriptive but I’m not feeling it. I almost wish you had started with your later prose…. “In an obscene mockery of the rest of her body, her hair was a rich, lustrous blonde that was carefully coiffed in ringlets that framed her bloated face.” When you wrote that, it got my attention! Then describe more of the scene.

In Canada either spelling is allowed, but proper spelling (for us) is arbour (just like colour)

I edited this down from about 600 words. Originally the merchant and his son from the beginning of the chapter freak at the sight and Drannel is relieved to see it 'cause he know it's harmless and it means he's almost out of the garden.



The rope [was not tied] in a noose, but a [slip knot] . Her face and lolling tongue were purple and swollen: the bloodshot eyes bulged and stared into space. Her fingernails [were broken] and bloody from scrabbling at the rope. Tendrils of dark fog caressed the body.

the descriptions above are too mechanical. Her tongue was purple, her eyes bulged, her dog [was named] spot and Joe Friday is my partner. LOL just a joke Okay, officer Gannon. This too was edited, but i thought it looked scary!



[Her hair, in an obscene, was a rich, lustrous blonde, carefully coiffed in ringlets that framed her bloated face.]

In an obscene mockery of the rest of her body, her hair was a rich, lustrous blonde that was carefully…


Though he knew she was harmless - no more substantial than mist - she still caused Drannel to shiver every time he passed her.

Lady Margoss [had] disappeared in The Garden over a hundred years ago. [Search parties [had] spent days looking for her, only to have her body appear on the fourth day here, at the very entrance the searchers had been using.] [Since that time she has been the most frequent time-distorted image in The Garden, hanging on the [arbour]].

The above is a very long sentence. The writing is good but I would break it into smaller sentences. The “Since that time…” sentence threw me. Don’t know what it’s called, possibly run-on sentence? It's called ART, you philistine!

As he passed her[,] a bruising grip seized his shoulder. Drannel froze, his vision [narrowing]tense; his heart [hammering ]tense in his ears. The tense shift was a deliberate attempt to heighten the tension by shortening the sentences and making the danger more immediate. Further, something (possibly wrongly) tells me that the way the sentence is structured the gerands actually are legal. (though it may require a full colon instead of a comma after 'Drannel froze:' The 'was' is assumed.

Her cavernous eyes rolled over and focussed on him. The face distorted, trying to speak through the ravaged throat and swollen tongue.

I like the above.

“You have deprived us of our prey.” It croaked. “We will not forgive or forget.”

I think the quotes would have more effect if they had their own lines. You're probably right.

He lurched out of her grip, falling to the ground outside of The Garden, a piece of his robe tearing in her clawed hand. The body swung on its rope, head flailing and eyes rolling, trying to focus on him.

Lady Morgass disappeared, the torn black cloth floating to the ground in her wake.
I would guess you are going for horror.

If you highlite the blank section at the bottom of the posting it will magically tell you I am going for horror.

Dante DiBenedetto:

The first half didn't really seem to build any tension, and the descriptions were very clean and clinical, not adding too much to mood or evoking any feelings.

Darn! Actually the point of the first half was to set you up for the second half.

The second half, on the other hand, that did make me tense. It caught me off guard, and I felt like this character was in real danger, even after she disappeared (who is the "we" after all, if not just her?) This passage is mid-story. "We" have been chasing Drannel all over the garden. Lady Morgass is just a grusome signpost indicating the hero is almost to safety.

So good job on nailing it overall.
Yay!

 

[notveryalice]

deleted for not-goodness

 

[notveryalice]

“Poor thing,” said the nurses. “Poor little lamb.”

Poor thing she might be, poor broken clock, but she wasn’t stupid. When someone forgot to lock the door of her sickroom, she left. One ugly girl wrapped in an army-grey woollen blanket made no difference to anybody.

She felt neither frozen flagstone nor heavy-weave carpet. She wanted something that way—over there in the frozen light of the sun.

She got lost a few times—with the same unerring, unnerving tread and unfocused pupils—a tickertape machine devouring ground one tick after the other, a person following one wall of a labyrinth. People and objects flowed through the hallways, sometimes around her, sometimes bouncing from her or pushing her away.

In her forebrain there played a small scrap of music, over and over—she didn’t know what it was, only that it was familiar—the chorus of an easy-listening pop song she hated in primary school that was now chewing at her like a corpse beetle.

The people that moved around her began to look a little blurred. In the air above her head, clear and brittle as glass, was a ribbon of colour: birdsong. The pop music in her head faded. She followed the singing—down corridors, through halls, out a thick wooden door, past a smelly impromptu market and a snow-buried garden—to a bright spot on the distant treeline.

No, not a song—a delicious smell, something with honey, gravy, ripe fruits, roasting pig. Ice cream and hot fudge, cider, cinnamon, caramelizing onions, the best steak you’ve ever had. It filled her brain with light.

Her feet drew troughs in the snow. When she was close enough that the light began to leak from her pores, the red thing turned to face her.

From completed novel. 299 words. Meant to evoke melancholy.

 

[Dante DiBenedetto]

Easy there, guys. This isn't the critique section. Lets keep it to strictly on-topic: evoking emotions.

Grinnel, I find that it helps reading the sentences aloud after a silent read, in a monotone or calm voice. As a writer, it's difficult to disconnect yourself from the scenery that you know in full detail and to simply appreciate it at its base, text form. If you can still pull off an emotional response that way, chances are you have a winner. If you need a bit of dramatic flair, you might want to go back and spice things up.

That being said, there is nothing wrong with having parts of these entries to contributing to whatever emotion you're going for, so long as you nail the emotion(s). 280 of the 300 words can be a setup for a zinger, so long as you nail it in the end. I couldn't tell if you were just painting the scene for us, or trying to set up tension, thus, my commentary.

I'd like to contribute soon, but I've been pretty dissociated lately. I'm surprised I'm even able to throw in my two cents for these entries

 

[Dante DiBenedetto]

From completed novel. 299 words. Meant to evoke melancholy.

Interesting.

This actually evoked a lot of emotions for me. I picked up on the melancholy right away, but there was anger, claustrophobia (not an emotion, but something I was empathizing with), hope, relief, and at the end, fear.

 

[notveryalice]

Interesting.

This actually evoked a lot of emotions for me. I picked up on the melancholy right away, but there was anger, claustrophobia (not an emotion, but something I was empathizing with), hope, relief, and at the end, fear.

Thank you. It looks so bare and ineffective when stripped of its context!

 

[allmywires]

OK, been watching this thread for a while and figured I'd throw my hat in. It's not sff (is this allowed?). From something I'm working on now. I would say the main emotion here is guardedness.

That night, the house was decorated with fairy lights, twinkling in the frosty air: I parked my car in front of the closed garage door, sitting at the wheel for a few minutes afterwards. How to play it? Cool and unaffected, in case he hadn’t told his parents? Or could I touch him, hug him, sit as close to him as I dared? What if they didn’t mind? What if they really wanted to meet me?

My phone buzzed.

can see you hiding in your car.

I got out, guiltily, and saw the front door was open. Louie stood silhouetted in the warm, buttery light from indoors; my shoes were loud on the tarmac as I walked to greet him.

‘Hello,’ he said to me, as I stepped onto the porch. I stood a careful, convivial distance away. He was wearing a black motifed tee and a grey cardigan – I always teased him about his cardigans, even at the beginning – and dark grey jeans. I felt overdressed.

‘You look nice,’ he said, and I noticed he was barely concealing his smile, and I couldn’t help mine, either.

‘Sophia dressed me,’ I admitted, before handing him the magnum. ‘I brought some booze.’

‘Good, because we really don’t have enough of that,’ he said, before catching himself and adding, ‘Seriously, though, thanks.’

‘That’s all right.’

‘Thanks for coming, I mean.’ He was standing right in the doorway, blocking my entrance. Somehow, the space between us had shrunk a little; the glittering lights above reflected in his eyes, the gentle upwards curve of his nose.

 

[Dante DiBenedetto]

allmywires

I definitely caught the guardedness (anxiety) early on. It didn't seem to hold through for the rest of the entry, or perhaps it just tapered off. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not. Either way, you pulled it off pretty well

And no, it doesn't have to be a SFF entry. The goal is evoke a targeted emotion quickly, thus the word limit. That's pretty much the only limitation, other than the default Board rules.

 

[allmywires]

Yes, they're softening towards each other by the end. thanks

 

[Hex]

This is "anxiety/ fear" from my new wip:

[FONT=&quot]I settle my backpack tight to my body and scramble onto the tree trunk. My hands slide against the slippery bark. I try not to think about falling in, about my head going under the dark liquid, about the things that might live down there. Instead, I inch forwards gripping the treacherous wood. I have to balance -- it shouldn't be too hard, I can do this in gym -- but every move feels crazily exaggerated, like it's going to tip me into the river. My heart hammers whenever I move. If it wasn't for the voice -- if it wasn't that I'm sure Mum and Dad are on the other side -- I'd go back. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I'm right out over the river when my knee slips and, suddenly as that, I'm falling. My hands scrabble uselessly. The weight of the backpack pulls me round. For a dizzy blank instant I know I'm going to fall, then my muscles take over and throw me flat, wrap my arms round the tree, and cling.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Eyes tightly closed, I hear only my heart going crazy, the roaring ink beneath me. I force them open and wish I hadn't. Down in the swirling liquid, there's a group of fish, dappled like trout, about the length of my arm. They're staring up at me with horrible intelligence. Their lips are golden.[/FONT]

 

[Stephen4444]

(WOW!) This is great. You wrote in first person also, which is extremely hard for me to do. I'm very impressed.

This is "anxiety/ fear" from my new wip:

[FONT=&quot]I settle my backpack tight to my body and scramble onto the tree trunk. My hands slide against the slippery bark. I try not to think about falling in, about my head going under the dark liquid, about the things that might live down there. Instead, I inch forwards gripping the treacherous wood. I have to balance -- it shouldn't be too hard, I can do this in gym -- but every move feels [crazily exaggerated] flow was great until this point. crazily broke the flow and made me stop to think for a minute.Adverbs usually do. I try to avoid them., like it's going to tip me into the river. My heart hammers whenever I move. If it wasn't for the voice -- [if it wasn't that I'm sure Mum and Dad are on the other side -- I'd go back.] [/FONT] The flow breaks here also.

I'm getting the emotion great so far.

[FONT=&quot]I'm right out over the river when my knee slips and, suddenly as that, I'm falling. My hands scrabble uselessly. The weight of the backpack pulls me round. For a dizzy blank instant I know I'm going to fall[,] ...would read better with a period here. then my muscles take over and throw me flat, wrap my arms round the tree, and cling.[/FONT]

"Good... Good"

[FONT=&quot]Eyes tightly closed, I hear only my heart going crazy, the roaring ink beneath me. I force them open and wish I hadn't. Down in the swirling liquid, there's a group of fish, dappled like trout[, about] The sentence would flow better, if you drop this. the length of my arm. They're staring up at me with horrible intelligence. Their lips are golden.[/FONT]

The last paragraph brought it all home. I love it.

 

[Hex]

Thank you, thank you, Stephen

I will look at the places where the flow breaks down -- it's really helpful to know.

 

[SciFrac]

Agreed. Hex, that's good tension. I felt it.

 

[SciFrac]

Here's my take at 180 words:

----------------
She squeezed my face and spit in my eye, "Why can't you do anything right?"
I cowered back, pleading through tears, "Mother I'm trying. Please, give me another chance."
She wouldn't have it. "You're just a whore like all the other girls."
"I am not! I swear. Why won't you listen to me?"
Smack, another backhand to my cheek. "You're a disgusting pig for a daughter! You understand?"
Tears rained down.
"Apparently not." Mother walked to her bedroom closet and flipped the light.
"No! God, please. No!" I dropped and curled into a ball. "I'll do better. I promise."
Mother walked out with the wooden board in hand.
The blood ran cold from my head and legs. I trembled, praying the floor would swallow me whole right there.
"You're gonna behave like a lady, and by god, I'll knock the sin out your head until you learn right. Now sit up."
My throat dried and heaved. I just hoped she'd end it soon.
"Take your hands off your face."
Mother approached me with her arms raised high overhead.
And she began.

----------------------




You feel anything?

Fear/Anger

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Hex, that piece still sends shivers down my spine. (especially the fish)

Scifac, yes it works for me. Partly because of what's happening, but also the emotions are coming through. The staccato action tags add to the sense of fear. I get the fear more than the anger, though, and I think that's because the pov character is experiencing fear.

This little section is part of a new character arc I'm trying (and, I think, mostly failing) to get right. Actually, here, I'm not sure if I have enough emotion for the action. Highlighted emotion(s) at the end.


He tried to take a deep breath, but couldn’t get it past the tightness in his chest. He tried again, knowing he had to calm down – he had the event to run tonight and security for it was a nightmare, not helped by the warning he’d received. He tried to breathe in, but this time it barely went past his throat, making him dizzy. Calm down. It was nothing new to have threats raised, but the source of this one was generally reliable. The dizziness stayed and he couldn’t think clearly.

To hell with it. He glanced around, saw he was alone, and pulled a knife from his pocket, flicking it open and turning it so the sun glinted off the blade. He pushed his sleeve up, ran his fingers over two old cuts and laid his knife above the second cut. He drew the blade across, slicing through his skin, pressing until he hissed at the pain. He cut deeper, concentrating on the sharp blade and took a breath, right to his stomach.

He removed the knife, flicked it shut and pulled a packet from his pocket. He ripped it open with his teeth and held the gauze pad against the cut, slowing the blood. When he lifted it away the bleeding sped up and he pressed the pad down, its antibac’s making the cut sting. His shoulders relaxed, and he sat like that, watching two condors soaring in the distance. A ship approached the compound from Abendau, its engines breaking the stillness of the day.

What I'm trying for is a sense of panic at the beginning, and then a slow release of it, down to a sense of not exactly peace, but normality.

 

[SciFrac]

Thanks Springs. Yours worked for me too, although I felt closer in paras 1&2 than I did 3.

I think I've heard you express frustration with staying close and I wanted to point out a sentence that achieved what you're wanting: "To hell with it."

That's how you do it. That's close 3rd person and the more you use it, the more we can identify with your character. A trick I use is to write in 1st person, then change the pronouns to 3rd person. That gets me started in the right direction.

Nice passage.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Ty, I'm wondering is the third para having less emotion what I'm actually trying to achieve, like a release and I'll have a think about that.

I was given the advice about the first/third by Boneman at one stage, and it is what dragged me kicking and screaming into close. It's nice to know it's working a little.

I do still struggle with it, but a certain first person specialist is very good at telling me to get rid of all my thoughts, and do what you were saying works and have them in direct voice, instead.