an untitled story [prologue]

[bertie]

This is the first story I have put online its very early on I only started writing it about 3 hours ago

A young man, not having yet seen his twentieth winter, wondering in marvel at the wonders of the eastern world so unlike his own. A small tan dog chasing a mottled sandy-grey cat run down the streets past large square sandstone houses knocking darkly tanned people in to brightly coloured market stalls selling all manner of perfumes and jewellery. The cat climbs up a small dusty tree and sits on a branch and in a instant turns into a young girl not more than 18 summers, she reached down her hand to the dog who turns in to a teenage boy. She pulls him in to a lovers embrace. The foreigner looks on in shock at the sudden transformation and hurries on around a corner into the arms of a large, scared and tattooed mercenary, he rushes out a apology to which the the mercenary replys to with a hard, cold stare. The man shies away like a frighted pony. He pulls out a golden pocket watch and as sun glints of his clammy head he starts to run towards the westernised part of the great city. He runs down side streets to the only large, white, Parisian style hotel in this little corner of this massive city.
As he enters the hotel he hears the wop wop of a over head fan that brings the temperature down to being only just bearable to a westerner. He runs up to the desk and slams his sweat drenched hand down on the bell again and again asking to see his uncle who resides in the hotel. The uninterested receptionist looks up at the man-boy.

[hillwalker]

It's a big step posting your first work on-line. It's a very vivid piece with some strange, almost fabulous plot developments.

But my first piece of advice would be to shorten your sentences. It’s too easy to lose sight of what you’re saying – your second sentence is a prime example: it goes on and on, and generally speaking your writing contains far too much description. You don’t have to label every single thing with two or three adjectives.

There’s a lot more you can trim away, not least some of your more heavy-handed expressions:

A young man, not having yet seen his twentieth winter - a young girl not more than 18 summers – the underlined parts are over-written and don’t add any relevant detail

wondering in marvel at the wonders of – why not just say ‘wondering at’?

Also the verb tense changes here – [B]she reached down her hand to the dog who turns in to a teenage boy[B]. I’m not sure why.

And having read through this short piece it became obvious that almost every sentence follows the same pattern. You’re recording a list of events rather than telling a story. It has potential but it needs a little more work.

H

[Varenne Rodin]

I like this. There's no metrical structure, so it could be called prose. If you add paragraph breaks and make some adjustments to the flow it will be an interesting story. I'll echo what Hillwalker said and mention your tense. To put it very basically, you shouldn't switch from past tense to present tense to future tense and back again. Example: She went to the store. She has a good time. It should be either: She went to the store. She had a good time; or: She goes to the store. She has a good time. Once you choose a tense, stick with it throughout. It's a tough lesson for writers at first, I'm told, but you'll like your resulting work when you master it.

As a first draft, not bad at all. Flesh it out, make those structural changes and bring it back to us. I enjoyed the "feel" of the eastern heat. I can't stand eastern heat.

[Charles Darnay]

You've got some great advice above in regards to the technical aspects of this piece. I agree that you have some good descriptions. I also like that the cat/dog transformation is almost a side note.

The one thing I will say at this point is: try to avoid Orientalism. Your description of the "east" is a bit stereotyped, as if taken from Disney's Aladdin. There is nothing wrong with the exotic strange land, but either ground it in reality or complete fantasy - not in the centuries old stereotyped tradition of the exotic barbarians.