Sixty-Six Words...

[CTRandall]

Much better. It's much easier to read but evokes the scene and mood. The last sentence is still awkward for me, though.

I think that, if you aim for this level of clarity at the start, you can perhaps add a few (a very few!) impressionist touches later. I liked the "surreal lens" of the original, though I also think it would it's too clunky to use here. It would be great if you can find the sweet spot where clarity and poetry balance out but that will take a lot of practice. (I've been struggling with the same issue.)

 

[-K2-]

Much better. It's much easier to read but evokes the scene and mood. The last sentence is still awkward for me, though.

I absolutely agree on that last line... I had it longer, specific (...kae could see better...), shorter, flipped over and turned inside out. Naturally, adding the passive "be" or "also be" helps a lot, yet it's something of a danged if you do, danged if you don't... Savvy cowboy?

Thanks for your help!

K2

 

[Phyrebrat]

I'd be inclined to ask you who you're writing for and if all this wrangling over 66 words is symptomatic of a larger issue. It comes across as rather too self-conscious to my mind. I've read the thread and your comments/answers to questions raised but I'm not really any wiser as to why it's so important to the story that you're writing it the way you are.

I get what you're aiming for - or I think I do - evoking an ethereal, strange and eerie light, but think you can do it so much more effectively. We're granted latitude when modifying word use, but I think using 'overcast' instead of something more mundane is a poor choice as it reads like you've just missed off a qualifiying noun. If you're wedded to the word overcast, I'd add that qualifier be it as mundane as 'sheet' or fancy as 'stratum'.

On one hand you have this ominpresence of the moon and its light but that is contradicted with the darkening of light when higher clouds pass (presumably above the sheet of lower clouds?). I'd ask myself if its crucial in such a small passage to have that little detail. I get that you want to put across the image in your head, but as writers we have to make that job easy for the reader, and at the moment, it's a bit of a struggle. You might behold the moonlight differently (re @Brian G Turner 's valid question about the physics) but the reader might not (probably won't) have as deep or profound a sense of this as you. Where is the story in this?

How much more of this is written? I wonder if the kind of detail you're striving for in this passage can be fed piecemeal in subsequent lines here and there. That would hopefully satisfy your desire to have the setting just so, and also avoid all the hurdles for the reader so far mentioned.

pH

 

[-K2-]

Or... @Phyrebrat; I can use these 66 words as a reset button as I begin refining the 115,000 words written that make up the story.

You see 66 words and a over-flowery description. What I took from all of the help are reality checks to lean the whole thing up, ensure that I'm direct, check that this portion of a sentence is arranged appropriately to apply to this and not confuse that... plus, a whole host of other peripheral aspects of proper phrasing, etc., etc., plus what I read about elsewhere inspired/led to investigate by the discussion.

66 words are simply 66 words. The lessons and results learned from them are considerably more numerous.

Thanks for your response and help!

K2

 

[Phyrebrat]

115,000/66 = That’s a long trek my friend

Best of luck
pH

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

OK


1. thin overcast - surely this type of cloud has a name cirrus for instance.

2. Most people (no really) are less happy in total darkness than reasonably well lit twilight. Light is normally not considered oppressive.

3. Twilight referenced to a storms light - to me a bad simile because a storm's light can vary so much depending on the time of day, so you haven't nailed it down - why not just say "every night was more a constant twilight, never actually getting dark".

4. We've just established it was twilight - twilight isn't greenish-yellow if it is here on this planet, then it should be so described and all this reference to storms etc is irrelavent because that's not greenish yellow either - well not where I come from

5. the thin overcast - "cirrus" is the highest cloud type unless on this planet it isn't in which case we're being misled with the use of an earth like simile namely "thin overhead."

6. If there's light pollution from other "zones" then would you see any of this near dark stuff at all through the low hazy stuff.

7. Ok at this moment the moon is there - but is it geosynchronous if not this tends toward the misleading.

Unless there's a reason for all this then why not just have a Moon lit night with passing clouds. As the clouds pass in front of the moon it would be darker, so making it easier not to be seen, but requiring constant vigilence to check if the moon was coming through the patchy cloud with the need to take cover.

I.E. a normal less fussy experience for the reader.


Sorry to be picky

Hope I helped

Tein

 

[-K2-]

Thank you @TheEndIsNigh for your thoughts on the passage. I'll keep them in mind when I revisit it!

K2