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The Cellar: City Smells entry
It's quiet in the cellar where she keeps the bones of feral children. The door is rough with bits of red paint and the hinges are loose. She keeps it smelling nice. She uses Mr. Clean and Odoban, and she boils orange pekoe tea in aluminum pots. There, on rough redwood shelves she's built herself, are row after row of pickle jars and coffee tins.
The cellar door is around back and out of sight. When you walk by the front of the sky-blue Tudor house you notice the plaster flamingo, the stonework toad. The windmill spins, no bigger than a minute or a midget's dinner and the yard is like green carpet with pink rose petals scattered around.
She comes to the door. Perfect hair and eyes. She smiles. You are entranced. You smile back. You can't help yourself. And a cat rubs against your ankles, mewling and mewling like he's lost a friend.
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| Gary, this is great. The sweet descriptions above make that which lies below all the more sinister. :) --Robert Barlow |
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I love the opening line; it took me in.
I suggest you weed out your passive voice verbs. In this short piece, you use NINE passive voice verb constructions, and three gerunds (ing). I believe, if you judiciously consentrate on what happens instead of overuse of the passive verb 'to be' (is, are, has, were, etc) "to exist, or to have" your writing will become concise, active, and expressive, and more fun to read.
Some publishers and writers suggest avoiding adverbs (-ly) also, in favor of descriptions of the action instead of these verb modifiers.
I use a huge macro that highlights such things (and my personal list of over-used words!) |
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Comment by: dseko - 2007-05-18 10:30
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Very intriqueing. I want more also.
A couple of nit picky things. Would (she) instead of (she's built herself) sound better? How about (stand or sit)in the place of (are) in the last sentence of the first paragraph. You might omit the word (And) in the last sentence.
Just some thoughts.
Look forward to reading more. |
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I enjoyed the feel and smell of this, but as a reader I wanted more. ( I wanted my other 340 words lol! )
I wanted to be able to picture the (city?) street that this sky blue Tudor house stood in.
I love that the house IS sky blue, and the whole notion of the horrors hiding behind such perfection and beauty.
I know it's 'flash' but I still wanted something "fuller", if that makes sense.
I'm not sure about the "midget's dinner" sentence....
Thanks for an enticing read. |
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| Very good. I started to get a chill as i realised what was in the jars! Tommy has a point - the woman does need to be more appealing. Maybe describe her smile - rather than just say she smiles. What you've with the cat i think is purrfect! |
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