starbuck maddan

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Mon, 2006-11-20 14:02

starbuck maddan

http://www.abctales.com/story/maddan/starbuck

I do seem to flag up maddan's work more than anyone else lately, and have started homing in on it.
I think he has a real knack or relating scenes and telling stories without being "clever", just good solid writing.
i liked the rhythm of the first two sentences.
Could've lost one or two of the "I'm Ahab's this...Ahab's that...
and maybe condensced the reference to the nature of Ahab's hate?
And there were a couiple of punctuation flaws as i read it.

I'm not really any kind of critic, I usually just say what i like and find it hard to express why, and I'm not caning this at all, but just thought I'd get stuck in for once.
Did I say I enjoyed this?

And... I'm picking up on 4g's comment on flagging stuff we like, which was well said, Mr 4g.

Mon, 2006-11-20 15:39

ggggareth

I agree with Josie's comment about the need to condense some of the sentences. It's a tricky line to tread: the repetition gives you good rhythm, but can you afford such indulgence in a 200-worder? Every one of the 200 should offer something. Having said that, I think the story is electrifying, and some redrafting could make this a world-beater.

Mon, 2006-11-20 16:18

maddan

Thanks folks (and thanks Mark for flagging it on the other thread). Reading it again today, sod's law dictates that I feel the exact opposite about Josie's points, I particularly don't like the close repetition in the first two sentences ("boat had broken / ship had gone", "spear/harpoon") - which was got muddled because I initially thought Starbuck had died after falling from a whale boat but when I referred to the book it turned out that he went down with the Pequod so I had to jigger it about a bit and, in my defence, I was very tired I also still like the repetition of Ahab, I was trying to make it sound like a mantra, that Ahab was a cult that finally won Starbuck over. I'll have to go back and mull it over some more. I was thinking of using this as the opening to something longer about Starbuck (no real idea what though) but just wanted to get it down quick last night because I was growing sick of my nanowrimo story (I'm sure I'm not the only one).

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