Fleur Du Mal
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A suspicious-looking smiley you got there...hmm.
Anyways, as I said in PM/IRC/whatever, good stuff! Now you'll just have to wait what I shall conjure up in the next chapter...
But, before that, comments to iron out some spots:
First of all, capitalize the words in the Chapter title for consistency:
A Cure Like No Other
1)quote:
As Josh wondered about why she’d approached him, his curiosity managed to annihilate his discomfort completely. “I have everything I could wish for. And even if I didn’t, it would be none of your business.”
Firstly, I would put Josh's line on a separate lines to add to the reading-pleasure. =P
Secondly, what he's saying sounds a bit too fancy. How about a little edit?
"And even if I didn't, it's none of your business."
2)quote:
“I know your kind of people,” she now said, almost arrogant enough to upset him.
'arrogantly'?
3)quote:
“You’ve go a cute face, a good brain, and a clear vision of your hopes and dreams. You just don’t have the guts to stand up for yourself.”
'got'?
Other stylistic suggestions:
'You've got a cute face, brains, and a clear vision of your hopes and dreams. You just don't have the gut to act.'
or 'You just don't got the guts to stand up for it.'
I'd also separate the rest of the scene to a paragraph of its own, since you can't have her talking and he thinking in the same paragraph, anyway.
4)quote:
To the queen of my heart, whose name suits her royal status; Elizabeth,
10+ points for a very good opening line...
5)quote:
You see, that very affection has given me the ability to describe it; to let you know about its infinite size.
Just my opinion, but this word seems a bit chunky here. He's using fancy words elsewhere so why note here?
'nature'?
'magnitude' would be pushing it to the realm of too fancy =P
6)quote:
I am eager to obey to this rule, but mindless cliché’s would be the greatest insult
remove the 'to'
A typo: 'clichés'.
7)quote:
You are the teardrop of joy, the smile that shows it expresses no pain, and the handkerchief to remove it with before it becomes a burden.
This sentence might be even a bit too original, imho. Considered substituting that handkerchief-part with something else? Like: 'and the soft touch that wipes it away before it becomes a burden'?
8)quote:
Think about what you think about me and how you feel now that you know what I feel. If you feel anything at all, please tell me,
I know it's a letter and therefore prone to some repetition, but anyways, the 'feel' gets repeated a bit too much, imo. Is there any way you could think about to change that last instance to something else. All suggestions I can think about are, unfortunately, too cumbersome to be used.
9)quote:
(both the tape and the machine had been in his possession when he wrote the letter),
Maybe a matter of preference, but I would put this in between dashes instead of parenthesis.
Also, I dare to make a rephrasing suggestion for you to consider:
'– both the tape and the machine dated further back than to the days he had written the letter – '
10)quote:
; longed for the nervousness that had once made him rewrite this letter many times, still with a pathetic result.
I think you're missing 'he' in between the semi-colon and 'longed'.
Do you really need to repeat that 'once'? It's been used just before that semicolon already.
Plus, just to make this a tad stronger, here's a rephrasing suggestion:
'; he longed for the nervousness that had forced him to rewrite this crumpled proof of affection countless times, still with such a pathetic result.'
11)Now, I think that you need to add some brief transition to both to the end of scene 1 and to the end of scene 2/beginning of scene 3. To take care of the first transition, you could just add something about him heading back to his car. The second addition could be taken care of by adding some feelings and action to the last paragraph of scene 2. For example (just added a sentence to the end):
'Suddenly he knew. He knew the woman in the park had been spot-on and he would have to do whatever he could to trace her back and accept any help she had to offer. Shivering but resolute, he pushed himself up from the dusty floor and withdrew from the traps amongst the memories.'
12)quote:
The twenty-or-so-year-old had now taken a bloc note from a purse Josh hadn’t noticed before, and was violently penning in it.
A purse doesn't seem too practical if she's going to jog off from the scene, eh? Maybe a tiny back-pack?
'in' or 'on'? I have no clue about these prepositions....
13)quote:
before he even met the woman he had recently ceased to love,
A bit too strong a word, since I think there are still some strings attached, no matter how weak or worn out they are...
'the woman who was now gradually losing his affections'?
'the woman whom he now readied to rip out from his heart'?
Or purrhaps something better...
14)quote:
You want me to do something for you, to help you out of the void that your life has turned into, right?
A tad too long of a sentence for speech, perhaps? A suggestion:
'You want me to help you, eh? To pull you out of the void your life has turned into, right?'
15)quote:
“What kind of answers do you have? What can you do for me?” She wasn’t eager to accept a question as an answer, or to give away her secrets this easily. “Admit that you want to change. Admit everything you do, like, own, and feel is fake. Tell me you hate your life!” She was now shouting, more like a gospel preacher than an angry person.
“Only one person can speak per paragraph.”
Chop after the bolded part.
16)quote:
(an attempt to make up for her unfaithfulness?)
Again, I would use the dashes here. But, either way, I would add 'past' here:
'her past unfaithfulness'
17)quote:
In fact, he knew even he, being a complete amateur, could probably write a better poem.
To kill some of that repetition (see sentences before and after this), I recommend that you substitute this one with 'one'.
18)quote:
It’s not wrong to meet some people with interesting ideas, is it?I don’t know what’s going to happen, so how can I even be to blame?
Too formal for a thought, imho. How about:
'Can't be anything wrong to meet some people with interesting ideas, now can it? Not that I even know what's going to happen in there; there's no way I can ever be blamed for this.'
19)quote:
Josh didn’t know exactly what he was going to encounter in this eerily normal house, but he knew it was wrong. He didn’t want to face it, but he knew that he was here to be cured.
Some of the repetition here actually suits the style, but too much is too much, especially after that 'know' was used also in his thoughts. So I suggest that you'd changed the beginning of the first sentence a bit and limit the repetition to the rest:
'Josh had no clue on exactly what...'
OK. That was it, I think...
This is going to be good!
Give some thought to those transitions, it now feels a bit too much like he's hopping around pointlessly. Though that's exactly what some people do when they are distressed. =P
Anyways, is my deadline now on the 27th or on the 28th?
< Message edited by fabula -- 7/20/2008 7:00:04 >
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