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Thread: The Bridge of Worms

  1. #1
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    The Bridge of Worms

    The water and foam raged in torrents, crashing against the bridge in a confused fury. She knew those waves, that storm they cried; she saw her face in theirs. And just as she knew, the water was beaten by walls to the form of a stream that it could not defy. This mirroring force but showed herself, pushing frantically against the walls, trying to escape the the snide whips of society.
    Yet this body had not progressed as she; for peace was found. Peace and calm in the dryness and lack of feeling. To be shut down, and then die, there was not feeling nor gut to reject; to cry. Embracing it, she allowed her emotion to mist away, and embraced what it left.
    There was the edge, beneath her toes, as they numbly crossed over it and clung. Why so cold? Oh yes. She was naked. It all came to her slowly, but it was clothes among the things that she found pain, and yet the stupid judgement was so easily cut by these scissors.
    There was no care, no longer. Memory had long ago abandoned and spared her nostalgia, and without memory or feeling there was nothing to the world. Not even gravity, it seemed, when she took to the air.
    Ice enveloped her body, her ears filled with the roar of the waters anger, as it screamed at her. Why be afraid? This was the escape, the final innocence that brought her to think that such a thing even existed.
    Life was a messy, filthy thing, like a frayed, ripped length of rope, dragged through the mud. But death was like the light that would save her. So many saw it as a thing of darkness. It was the light, at the end of a long hall, while everything around you, life, was a closing darkness. She wanted to die. Yes.
    But no. There was something. Perhaps she did live, that inside, her heart beat for a lifeless body and beyond those thumps, hot blood filled her cheeks and chest, it burned her stomach, and stopped. Twisted and curled, intestine shaking like a worm, was something she knew. Fear.
    Adrenaline called, like a hallelujah chorus far off, and her arms moved frantically, trying to call to themselves air. But there she was stuck, for the more she screamed, the quicker she found herself unable to move.
    And finally, she lost.

    Please criticize as much as you want! I'd really love to hear it!!!!

  2. #2
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    Asking us to criticize your first post as much as we like is a brave step.

    My immediate thoughts on reading that opening sentence was 'Here's an aspiring writer who's desperately trying to impress us'.
    Does it work? No - because it's confused, muddled, over-ambitious. The term 'purple prose' is used to refer to flowery or over-melodramatic writing that tries to over-describe everything. This is off the scale of 'purple'.

    What are you trying to show us here? A young woman who has thrown herself into a river to drown presumably.

    But it's like watching a cheap horror movie where everythig happens in near darkness. We're fumbling around trying to make sense of what's going on. In the right hands it comes across as wonderful, spine-tingling suspense. In the wrong hands it's a mess.

    You give us too many rambling internalized thoughts that we're supposed to be able to make sense of:

    Yet this body had not progressed as she; for peace was found. Peace and calm in the dryness and lack of feeling. To be shut down, and then die, there was not feeling nor gut to reject; to cry. Embracing it, she allowed her emotion to mist away, and embraced what it left.
    She was naked. It all came to her slowly, but it was clothes among the things that she found pain, and yet the stupid judgement was so easily cut by these scissors.


    and too many profound observations that sound wonderful but mean nothing:

    This mirroring force but showed herself, pushing frantically against the walls, trying to escape the snide whips of society.
    Adrenaline called, like a hallelujah chorus far off, and her arms moved frantically, trying to call to themselves air.


    Could you translate this stuff into simple and concise English? That might make your piece more rewarding for your readers.

    Overall impression - you're trying much too hard to draw attention to yourself - it's shouting to us 'Look at me! I'm writing'.

    Two pieces of free advice - always write to express not impress - and try to remain invisible so that the reader doesn't even notice the writer is there.

    H

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