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notebookwriter
08-03-2011, 02:50 AM
We drove up and parked across the street. A crowd of people had gathered on the sidewalk, some spilling into the street and around the side of the building. The short squat building was in the heart of downtown. The windows had bars across them and the neon lights could be seen for blocks. The building had loud music and screaming voices bellowing from the walls.

The rest of downtime seemed to be painted with a orange-yellow glow by the street lamps. Looking left down the road the second and thirds story factory building's skywalks hung over the street. Once allowing factory workers the connivence of avoiding the busy streets below them, now just another piece of decrepit building. Looking right was the T cross of another street, with the maintenance exits of the hotel diagonally across the street, complete with dumpsters and all. Looking down the other streets at the crossroads was nothing but the dull buildings of the inner city, covered with a halogen mask.

The Sector was the only thing with any real color. The blue and green neon lights granting the people and road below with the joy of their reflections. We cut a way through the people and swung the door open, as we did we were immediately plagued with several ultraviolet lights. As we bought our tickets the UV lights fought with our shirts and eye whites, eventually taking a compromise and spraying us with a light blue. The smell of cigarette smoke that had caught us outside had fled and been replaced with the steady smell of music and sweat.

The wall was close on our right side but widened and became a wall clothed with band T-shirts. Asking prices varied and this became my friends first stop. I continued to mentally describe the interior as only a writer would. The walls were painted black, and the floors were a light gray, matching the ceiling. Fans hung low and spun fast but seemed to do nothing to settle the heat, the heat of numbers of people, jammed close. Down the left side of the ceiling the air vents hung and led down to the other end of the building. Above the people and then the stage their reflective surfaces were almost like a guiding path in and out.

Eventually, we moved up close to the stage. As the next band tested their equipment, and the people crowded in behind us, the feeling of music took everyones heart. The feeling of music that carried us, in full enjoyment, through the performance. We left with a joyous feeling, but as we left a building the colorful lights of the stage left us and we were again standing in the depressing halogen lights of the city.

Jack of Hearts
08-04-2011, 05:05 AM
This reader hates coming across a piece like this- it's very tempting to rewrite it as he sees fit because it has a lot of potential. In this case he believes that potential was squandered with technical issues. The flow is interrupted with details that are potentially unimportant. Things, for no good reason, 'seem' rather than 'are.'

You've got a lot to work with here. It needs to be treated better. What you should do, in this reader's opinion, is go over this piece like you were someone who was reading it for the first time.

Make an edit where you're not the author but the reader.






J

hillwalker
08-04-2011, 08:59 AM
'covered with a halogen mask' is a worthwhile phrase that gives the reader a memorable image to take away from the piece. It deserves a better setting because the rest of this is over-written.

There's far too much scene-setting - I'm not even sure what it's supposed to be about since the focus switches like something filmed on a cam-phone during a night out on the town. Maybe that was the effect you were aiming for.

As for that closing paragraph - feelings - feelings - feelings - left - left - left (read it again and count).

The word 'edit' springs to mind.

H

notebookwriter
08-04-2011, 02:32 PM
Thank you two, as always, for your critique and thoughts. I do have to admit that, after reading back through this, I realized that their really isn't a plot or a story. Maybe I will use this as a setting in another story, something that is more of "story". Anyways, thanks for reading and writing. :)

Delta40
08-04-2011, 07:24 PM
I agree. For such a short piece, the majority was taking up looking a different buildings down different roads and I wondered by the 3rd para how it was linked. Your writing skill does have potential however as it has the ability to flow.

Steven Hunley
08-05-2011, 09:25 AM
The thing about this, already mentioned and by you yourself, is that it had too much setting. It reads about as interestingly as a road-map.

As was also mentioned, it has some sort of hidden potential. The reader has a nagging suspicion that it wants to flow with story, but because of the excessive building of scene, it's too damned up to flow.

You got the scene, and the powers of description, just use it about characters and plot. You seem to have the tools, just use them to re-shape it.

Steven Hunley
08-05-2011, 09:27 AM
The thing about this, already mentioned and by you yourself, is that it had too much setting. It reads about as interestingly as a road-map.

As was also mentioned, it has some sort of hidden potential. The reader has a nagging suspicion that it wants to flow with story, but because of the excessive building of scene, it's too damned up to flow.

You've got the scene, and the powers of description, just use them about characters and plot. You have the tools, just wield them to re-shape it.