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Hello, I was directed to this thread by Mr. Martello and despite my protests I managed to write out a scene from a book I will begin writing soon. This scene does not have much dialogue(read: any), but it is the only scene from the book I have so played out in my head that I could write it at seven in the morning. It's possible depending on the reception of this piece that I will write of their second meeting, which will contain significant dialogue, so that I can get a full critique of my writing, dialogue or otherwise. In the meantime; thank you in advance for any critiques. Scene from a currently unnamed novel, 1016 words. Boston was frigid in the middle of winter, unfortunately that was no excuse to close the schools, not in Massachusetts, they were far too used to the snow and cold here to get any time off. His father left for work earlier than he woke up, leaving him no choice but to walk. He kept his bare hands stuffed into the pockets of his fluffy winter jacket, weaving deftly between the early morning crowds. The thick faux fur along the neck of the coat took the place of a scarf and his scruffy brown hair stretched over his ears enough to keep them from freezing off. It was a twenty minute walk, depending on the crosswalks, and he usually cut through the city hall plaza to save a few minutes in the bitter cold. Today was a day like any other, he mentally prepared himself for a biology test in first period, one he feared he might not pass as he had done no studying the previous night, having spent the night out with his friends. It was when he passed a strange girl as he was exiting the plaza that he snapped out of his world of thoughts and turned his body, craning his neck to see where she was going. She was somewhere around 16 years old, probably the same as him, with golden blonde hair in thick wavy curls down to her shoulders. As she passed him he happened to be glancing up to check his path and had noticed the most striking green eyes, as bright as emeralds, and as hard set as the stone. She was, in a word, beautiful. An amazing girl in any place, nevermind New England, but what caught his attention wasn’t just her beauty, it was her clothing and her apparent destination as well. She wore a pair of plain blue jeans, torn in a few places, stylishly or otherwise, a pair of black sandals and a beige wide necked short sleeve shirt. Clearly she had not dressed for the weather, and it seemed as though she were headed for city hall itself, but why would a girl be going into city hall by herself he could not discern. As he turned his head and lifted it slightly to see if she entered, it felt as if his world had suddenly fractured. As soon as the door closed behind her, the concrete pillars buckled outwards, cracking and shearing under apparent immense pressure, in the following second, a flash brighter than anything he had ever seen shone through the windows, and pillars of flame and smoke flew from the shattering glass. His brain did not have time to process exactly what was going on, other than a resounding roaring noise, and that the entire front of the city hall building, thick concrete pillars, stone floors and brick pavers, were now shattering like so much glass and flying through the air, mostly in his direction. Before he had time to think, the wall of debris reached him, his arms flew up in front of him and his eyes squeezed shut in a vain, unconscious attempt to defend his vital organs and head. He felt a strong wind flapping all around him as if he were caught in a hurricane, and he was blasted backwards by the shockwave, it lifted him off his feet and send him sprawling over the rail of a starcase and into a set of bicycle stands, where he finally came to rest, struggling to remain conscious. He tried to groan, but the effort made it obvious there was no air left in his lungs, having been forced out when his back contacted a solid steel pipe behind him, his lungs frantically searched for air that was not there as he gasped in a new breath, every second if the inhalation felt as though his ribs were cracking, and they probably were. He felt a warmth on his temple as his disoriented body attempted to stand, something one would not normally associate with the current season. As he stood, wobbling to the side, one hand rose to his temple and touched it gently, creating another sharp pain. The entire world snapped back into focus before his eyes and with it came the realisation that the warmth was from his own blood, now smeared onto his fingertips. He raised his eyes up, towards the building that had just previously been a stalwart sight every morning, but was now nothing more than a pile of rubble with bodies strewn about. It was then he saw the rubble all around him, concrete blocks bigger than his body with steel rebar piercing through them, but none close enough to have hit him. In fact, there appeared to be no rubble within a few feet of him. He looked towards the point where he had been standing moments before and traced back his route to the bike stands. There was not a single piece of rubble on the path, not within five feet on either side. A semicircle of debris and dust stopped mere feet from where he had been, as if he had been encased in a glass ball. Someone grabbed his shoulder, and he dimly registered a noise of some kind, distant and quiet, like someone talking through a long tunnel. The arm turned him away from the building, a policeman was shouting at him, but he could barely hear the words. His ears rung with silence, a deafening silence, the officer pulled him roughly away from the former building, pulling him across the road and sat him down on the sidewalk, apparently trying to ask him questions. When all he got in response was a blank look, the man hurried off, back towards the numerous bodies laying all over the plaza, some of them were moving, standing, jostling. Some were not. Unfortunately his brain could no longer handle the various sources of information streaming into him, the pain in his ribs and ringing in his ears went away and he fell sideways, the blackness of unconsciousness embracing him.
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Feb 15, 2013 13:39
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 18:09 |
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Tiggum: Right you are sir, now that I've gone back and read some alternating third person novels, I can see how my writing seems a bit detached and sort've forced. I should be able to fix that by more properly setting up the narrative and sentence structure to suit the style better. Purple Prince: Thanks for the detailed critique! As for the character not being named, that was by design in that I wasn't even sure what his name would be. I actually had chosen Tobias in the early stages of planning; seriously. So that was a little freaky. Many instances of 'he' will be switched to Travis now, as I'm pretty sure I decided on his name, I also want to put more of the exposition into his view rather than a detached outsider. This scene was originally intended to be about twice or three times as long, as the first chapter in the book it would set the stage, the main character, etc, but not develop any characterization until he woke up later on. Having said that, I really should have just wrote it out and posted it somewhere else, but in this form it happened to be about 1000 words so I settled and decided to post it in this thread instead of writing out everything I wanted to in the introduction and making my own thread. That's also the reason for the almost forced descriptions, as an introduction to the characters I generally go a bit overboard describing what they look like when really I should just give an outline in a more natural way. Oh, and the clothes thing...yeah. I'm heterosexual but BOY do I love describing clothes. I honestly do not know why I do it. In this case they're vaguely important because who wears torn jeans, sandals, and a short sleeve shirt in Boston in the winter? It's supposed to be part of what drew his attention. Anyway, I'm going to work on refining and expanding on this scene until I can form a workable first draft for the first chapter, thanks a lot guys.
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Feb 15, 2013 15:47
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Tiggums: Sorry, let my clarify. When I said two or three times longer, I didn't actually mean the scene itself. It is supposed to start at his home with him waking up, and getting ready with his younger sister, where I had intended to include a basic introduction to the character. The problem was, in my haste to get the explosion scene out of my head, I sort've skipped to it much quicker than intended.
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Feb 15, 2013 16:40
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