So yeah, I'm trying to at least get some writing done this summer, so I'm starting a short story that's been in my head for a loonng time lol. Very sad story, but I like what little I have so far, constructive critcism-or compliments lol >_<-are very welcome.
Human...
By Danielle Marie Porter
Part one: Found
I see a lot of death. It's part of my profession..ok..it is my profession. I'm a coroner for the city of Los Angeles, which I guess means I see a lot more death than many others in the same profession. Here, you see it every day, multiple times a day, many times in the same exact areas. I have grown a thin coating of apathy and indifference on my skin in the ten years since I started my job...but still...it's mornings like this that I remember the coating can slide away and I realize I'm still human, as human as each one of them.
I can't help but stare at her, she's one of the dirtiest people I've ever seen. The grime so thick on her tight skin that I can only slightly see how pale she really is. Peeking out from the dirt are blotches of porcelain skin, almost blue with pallidness. Her hair is a wonder as well...thin as well as coarse, rough, rope like strands clinging to her scalp for dear life. She looks like she's been laying here for awhile, at least a few weeks until finally someone walking by noticed her behind the trash bin and called the police. They admitted that at first they thought she was simply another transient sleeping out the day...until they smelled it...the putrid sting of death that crawls up into a person's nose and never really leaves, a smell I hardly notice anymore. I should be used to this by now, we find hundreds of the homeless dead every month, but there's something about this girl that just makes my heart weep and my legs weak.
I want to go up to her and shake her until she wakes up, take her home, make her a meal, give her a blanket...anything but load her into a bag and zip it closed over her weary and haggard face. I think perhaps it's her youth that eats at me so badly, under the filth and decomposition I can see such a young, unlined face. If I had to guess I couldn't picture the girl more than twenty years old, and again it's not as if she's the first young person I've ever picked up, but there's just something different this time, like somehow she is still in the air, watching me load her into my truck, with a sadness in her eyes I could never comprehend, and drive away. For the first time in a long time I want to say sorry for something I didn't do.
I like the concept, I like where it's going. I think you can do something solid with this. But I do have some constructive criticism to offer on what I guess you might either call your syntax or your pacing.
ReplyDeleteThe ellipses. Too many ellipses. Their very existence makes your sentences have so much less impact; it makes phrases with robust sentiment seem flimsy and weak. You also seem to use them in place of colons. So here are two examples:
1) "I want to go up to her and shake her until she wakes up, take her home, make her a meal, give her a blanket...anything but load her into a bag and zip it closed over her weary and haggard face."
Think of what you can do with this sentence that ISN'T trailing off in the middle. If you want to give something a sense of desperation, an ellipsis firmly in the middle of the sentence is probably never the best way to go about it. For example, you could use repetition to heighten the sense of helpless need the narrator feels, like so:
"I want to go up to her and shake her until she wakes up, take her home, make her a meal, give her a blanket. I want to do anything but load her into a bag and zip it closed over her weary and haggard face."
2) "Her hair is a wonder as well...thin as well as coarse, rough, rope like strands clinging to her scalp for dear life."
This is the second type of use I mentioned, where you're more or less just using an ellipses in place of more appropriate punctuation. Fix:
"Her hair is a wonder as well: thin as well as coarse, rough, rope like strands clinging to her scalp for dear life."
Or even:
"Her hair is a wonder as well. It's thin as well as coarse, rough, rope like strands clinging to her scalp for dear life."
Anyways, ellipses should be used sparingly. They can convey very specific things in very specific contexts, and it's really just ambiguous if you try to manipulate them to cover a whole range of emotions in a range of contexts. It'll muddle your text in unpleasant ways that will probably ultimately just frustrate your reader. But overall, this is a good start! Your descriptions are lovely and the tone you set is strong. I can't wait to see more! (:
Thanks :]. I do have an absolutely awful habit of overusing ellipses >_<, so I do really appreciate the feedback so I can remedy that lol.
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