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Ef-X
Attempting to regain lost skills (or skills that were never there...) from the past four years of my life...

Age 31, Male

Radical Psychonaut

I wish :(

New York

Joined on 1/9/10

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Writing Prompt.

Posted by Ef-X - April 3rd, 2011


Temperatures keep rising...past few weeks the spirits of the west have laid dormant, only to come out between the fissures of Grand Canyon Reserve. The Native American reserve keeps suffering severely from a drought leading to their greatest mean of production, sheep related items, to drop considerably. With no grass to feed the sheep, mortality rate of the animal has considerably increased. For the time being the scattered tribes have formed a coalition in order to maintain whatever is left...along with some help from a local weather analysis team. Two of its members noticed a sign of hope in the distance while waiting for a bus. "Hey Paul you see those clouds in the east? Looks like a storm is brewing." "Bout time Tim...these rain dances were getting to me, just the other day I had the urge to perform in front of the water cooler hoping for something to drink." After a couple of seconds Tim laughed silently "hey Paul, maybe after the storm you can get one of those Native Americans to sew your suit...its made of sheep wool after all." Winds began to pick up as the storm approached and the smell of rain increased. To start up a conversation Paul recalled a news story "Tim you heard anything of the family lost at sea?" "Huh? Nah...explain." "Well about a week ago to celebrate their son's graduation, this family decided to take a yacht trip to some nearby island planning to spend the weekend...they haven't returned and the coast guards think they are lost at sea." "Bummer... hey Paul, looks like the winds have died down, better for us I don't want to get wet." "Well Tim you shouldn't have rain danced." As time progressed, the dark cloud wall moved at an irrational speed, sometimes fast...sometimes slow, as if it couldn't make up its mind about something. In between conversations of pop culture and viral videos the duo was having, the winds began to increase violently. "Here it comes Tim! Take out some paper bags!" Looking like fools wearing paper bags, Tim and Paul witnessed the supercell blow by at a remarkable speed without any precipitation. "What the hell?" they both said in unison. After the bus ride, the duo met up with a friend of theirs who told them great news about the family "yeah man they found the yacht out of gas after a huge storm...if it wasn't for that storm they woulda died from dehydration."


Comments

The first thing I want to address is your syntax. I know it's a pain in the ass to redo your formatting because it wasn't maintained from the word processor, but please be sure to properly format your work. I don't want to sound like an ass, but the only reason I read this was because so few people responded to the prompt. I want to make sure you don't get overlooked in the future.

Something you want to make sure you do is clearly narrate what's happening. You want to enforce continuity, and encourage understanding. It seems like you ran through this too quickly and didn't take the time to gather your thoughts. I know I said that was the point, but maybe you took me too literally? Slow it down a bit, and actually work out those writing muscles.

And please, for the love of God, format. I don't mean to mention it twice but really it's that important. I say this with my tongue pressed firmly against my cheek, but please don't let that diminish the message.

Understood, never really had prior experience writing out of my own free will (not including class projects and stuff) so i'm a newb when it comes to this. I will take your advice and work on it for the next prompt, thank you for the criticism.

(I've read your post in the main thread concerning your story).

I like the idea of the raincloud being the focal character. However, as Deathcon said, you want to be wary and cognizant of your reader/audience. The only line that made a clear reference to the raincloud protagonist was "As if the [rain] couldn't make up its mind." All other references feel like petty allusions. The dialogue between Tim and Paul also feels contrived and unnatural, most likely because of the difficulties of having a non-humanoid character. Thusly, the rain is undeveloped and does not really make a choice (although the rain cloud choosing to save the family seems too coincidental, it is a bit funny at its implausibility).