commentary on in the year of the bog witch: notes on a limbo of darkness

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Commentary 1: Random Person from writingforums.org
Dear shelindriaswand,

Manav has just replied to a thread you have subscribed to entitled - In The Year of The Bog Witch:notes on a limbo of darkness - in the Novel forum of Writing Forums.

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http://www.writingforums.org/showthread.php?t=33714&goto=newpost

Here is the message that has just been posted:
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---Quote---
HER hand went instinctively to her hazel eye that was already turning black as it began to puff. She stood in the dark, staring at the figure in the mirror before her. She didn’t need light to see that her eye was beginning to swell, framed by her wiry red hair that hung to her waist. Her hand shook as it rested on the swelling. She could smell him on her; the sour stench of whiskey and Newport intermingled in the spiral ringlets of her hair. Wiping away the silent tears that began to spill down her cheeks, she stared at the reflection of the room behind her.
Clothes scattered themselves haphazardly about the room. The floor, the bed, the chair next to the bookcase that served for reaching above the second shelf—were covered in clothes that had either been worn or tried on in the past two weeks since she’d done laundry. Various shades of lavender painted the room around her—a manic, artistic mood gone horribly wrong. The bookcase was a splatter paint disaster—a dark violet with every shade of lighter purple splattered in small and languid strokes of a dollar store paint brush. Her laptop, covered in purple stickers of fairies wearing corsets and thigh high boots, peeked out from underneath a large body pillow. Several pairs of boots of different lengths were jumbled about without their mates. Books that wouldn’t fit on the shelves were stacked up against the wall, various Shakespeare anthologies, and an odd collection that somehow seemed to fit in the whirlwind of oddity that was her room.
The streetlight came in through the blinds, lighting up the floor to the point that she didn’t need a light. Fumbling with the buttons of her shirt, her hand shook, making it impossible to unbutton it. Without much effort, she gave up and crawled onto the mattress on the floor that was her bed. Without undressing, she curled up under the sheets she’d made of discount fabric and exhaled a choked sob. Feeling underneath the pillow for stray sleeping pills and finding nothing, she swung her head over the edge of the bed and felt around beside it. Lots of stray socks, but no pills. Getting up, she made her way, stepping on clothes, kicking aside boots, and dumped out the contents of her patchwork book bag. Among the pens and notebooks she found the opaque green bottle and shook it. It was half empty.
Emptying six into her hand, she looked around for something to wash it down with. She could chew them, but that was reserved for emergencies and usually made her vomit. Next to the bookcase was a long forgotten Pepsi One can. She shook it. There was about an inch left. Flat, forgotten soda washed down the little blue pills in her hand. Crawling back to bed, Adrienne Judianna Venet sobbed herself to sleep.
---End Quote---
Read only this much. I'll tell you why I stopped reading at this point.

1) 'Looking at the mirror' description of the MC. It's been done many times before and more importantly it is boring, and comes across as if the writer ran out of ideas to give physical descriptions of the char. Find some other way to do it. You mentioned she didn't need light to see the swellings, why not just make her feel the swelling with her hands. And reflection of the room on the mirror is going to far to say the least. I don't think the mirror is big enough to reflect every corner of the room.

2) The tears. It's the first para and we don't know the char yet. Those tears mean nothing to the readers. Let the tears flow when you are certain the readers know her well enough to cry when she cries.

3) The sentences are a bit wordy. Example:

Several pairs of boots of different lengths were jumbled about *without their mates*.[remove the bold part.]

*Flat, forgotten soda *[replace this with she]washed down the little blue pills in her hand.

4) Where indents are lost in posting, please give line breaks. It's difficult to read solid blocks of texts.

Just my two cents. Hope this helps.
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Commentary 2: Courtsey of Father Hyatt:
You're NOT boring. You know how obnoxious people can be on the net. I visit forums sometimes about things I like. It's amazing how people can radically disagree about the very same thing. It's just the way people are. I'm not really sure how good it is that we can give so much vent to it so freely on the web. So take it all with a grain of salt.

The tears parallelism is good, and this commenter wouldn't have any way of knowing that. I suppose there is a point about the logic of light and the mirror and being able to see the whole room. Even if her lights are off, maybe there's light coming from somewhere--through a window, from a street light, another room down the hall, whatever. But I think the darkness is important. I think it makes sense to look at herself... though it would be interesting if she CHOSE not to look at herself because of what happened and the dark and instead FELT the wound to confirm its swelling. That might be nice and say something to us about what she is feeling by our ability to read into her actions. You might be able to condense your description of the room... it works to the point that we get a FEEL for her as a person, what she's like, and we get an impression of her. Beyond that you want to avoid detail that may detract us from the emotion of the scene. We don't want to get lost in her things; we want to know what is going on with her. And, of course, you'll always be wordy! You're a poet; you can't help it! You will always be editing your prose to tone it down a bit. That will always be a discipline you will have to impose upon yourself. But so what? It's part of your style and character as a writer. You are beautiful at putting words together.

Bottom line, I LIKE it. I want to know what happened. I feel her. I understand her emotionally. And I want to know why this happened to her and what's going to happen next. What more good you ask from an opening scene? And that's the thing. There will always be people who don't like what you do as an artist or who think you should change or do it some other way and then it would be better. And they'll be vocal. And you might be tempted to think that what they have to say is some kind of universal truth and everybody feels that way. But they don't. There will be many more people who like what you do and appreciate it than those who don't. Read the bios of almost any writer or published author. It's just the part of the process. The key is that you believe in what you did, you see the art and the genius in it, that it please you and expresses what YOU want it to say. If it does that, it will find an audience of people who will appreciate it just like you do.

That's my two cents.

Last but definitely not lease, from the lovely Jeanine:
ignore her.