[FFML] [SHnY] Later -- Prologue

[Henry Cobb]

On Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 12:58 AM, Brian Randall <durandall at gmail.com> wrote:
>     Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.  And then again, maybe not.

Everything up to this point, including this line, can just be trimmed
off. Every issue dealt with above will be brought out in the passages
below, but in a less immediate, less illuminating style.

>     That may be a bit of an excuse....

You are seriously freebasing on ellipses. Perhaps you should consider
going cold turkey on them entirely. The message I am seeing here is
that you lack confidence in the power of your words to carry meaning
and so you are forced to rely on non-standard formatting. Is that the
message you were trying to convey?

>     My key unlocks the small door within the estate's larger gate,
> and once inside I survey the lawn.  No branches fallen from the winds
> last night, which is good; some of these trees are quite old.  After
> that, I circle around the outer edge of the shrine garden, checking
> the hedges.  This also lets me listen for any sign of the family
> within.

This would be a good point to introduce some of the elements from
above.  I suspect most readers could pick up on the narrator's job if
they just see him in action.

>  I round the shrine garden's outer wall of dense bamboo,
> and walk beneath the tori that defines the entrance, pausing to bow in
> ritual recognition.

Round as a verb generally means to avoid, rather than enter.  He could
round the corner of the wall and then enter.

>     After that, around the back of the house to the traditional
> garden. It's still in order, and the koi are fine -- no need to feed
> them today.

"After that" implies a series of actions, in this case the first
person character in action. This is then comma-ed onto a phase of
inaction on the part of inanimate objects.  In order to keep both
sides of the comma balanced you would need to either have the
character use some sort of observation verb in the second half or
change the first half into a statement of location rather than
sequence.

> I do, and I catch two familiar voices -- Tsuruya, and her
> son, Kintaro.

This would be sufficient to indicate the passage of time since the
series, but the em-dash seems misplaced to me.

Perhaps it should be moved to just before this:

>     At this time of day, he's just arrived home from school, and is
> eagerly telling his mother, "...and tomorrow, we're going to start
> reading up on Basho!"

> green, but he has her grin.

With the two characters standing next to each other this is a little
confusing. Inherited might be a better word.

>     The other two stones I decided to treat differently, combing
> lines to connect the two of them, and then giving those lines (and the
> stones at their endpoints, naturally), another, intentionally
> irregular form.

I hope all of the above is somehow critical to the plot, because it
really didn't tell me anything about the gardener. Perhaps if more
trade-offs were mentioned it could be more illuminating.

>     Kintaro's eyes don't go to me, studying the shapes for a long
> minute.  "I see the sun," he says after a moment, his grin widening as
> he studies the central boulder.  "The trees are the heavens -- clouds,
> and a roof for the sun.  These boulders are the earth, beneath the
> sky!"

This should have been well enough, without the vast majority of the
description above.

>     "All in harmony," she concludes the original haiku, pausing
> briefly.  I can see her, now, somehow missed behind Tsuruya.

Which side of the wall of commas does that now belong to? Perhaps
rewrite it off to the left.

>     Then her gaze sweeps to me, from her study of the garden that I'd
> groomed, and she gives me a look I can't entirely read....  She's
> slightly quizzical, I can tell that much.  Surprised, a little bit.
> And ... I don't know ... I used to be much better at this.  Wistful?
> Melancholy?  I can't say, because she's smiling anyway.

Seriously overdoing the pronoun at this point. She would be fine, if
she happened to be the only female there.

>     "That's a story for another time," Tsuruya says with a chuckle,
> shaking her head at Kintaro.  "Now, you change out of your
> school-clothes, alright?"

Is it a school uniform, or just what he happens to wear to school?

-HJC