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Hello, readers! This is by no means the first thing that I've written, but it's still the first submission that I've made here. I know that it takes a bit more investment to read a story than to look at the image, so I'll give a preemptive thanks for all of you who manage to work your way through it.
Poor, sad Emmet, a simple ferret with a simple life and simple pleasures. He might be a criminal, but he's guilty of little more than... Okay, actually, he's guilty of a lot of things! But that doesn't mean that he deserves to get caught up in... Whatever this sinister plot is.
Either way... Emmet should prepare for a rather rude awakening.
Poor, sad Emmet, a simple ferret with a simple life and simple pleasures. He might be a criminal, but he's guilty of little more than... Okay, actually, he's guilty of a lot of things! But that doesn't mean that he deserves to get caught up in... Whatever this sinister plot is.
Either way... Emmet should prepare for a rather rude awakening.
Category Story / Fantasy
Species Ferret
Size 120 x 120px
File Size 8.6 kB
There you go! A story yay!
Personally, I liked it a lot!
At first I tough the explosive device was a metaphor about something very important he forgot to do...
But then, it really was a bomb. Haha! I didn't really expect that.
I liked your descriptions and all the atmosphere you gave the scene!
Keep em' coming! I'll plug you in my next journal :D
Personally, I liked it a lot!
At first I tough the explosive device was a metaphor about something very important he forgot to do...
But then, it really was a bomb. Haha! I didn't really expect that.
I liked your descriptions and all the atmosphere you gave the scene!
Keep em' coming! I'll plug you in my next journal :D
Hah! I find this kind of amusing because I never intended the bomb to be a metaphor. I was wanting to drop that as a shocker into the narrative... Certainly not something you would expect to be there. But it probably works better as a metaphor so I'm glad you read it that way. I'll just pretend to be smart and brag about my double secret narrative twist that I masterfully executed. Oh wait, but I already told you the truth :<
Wonderful first submission!
'Twas a grand scene you set at the beginning, with such a simple phrase. 'Late!'
I have to agree with Bombird about the bomb, however. It was quite a surprise!
Your descriptions of the scene, and of the characters is wonderful. Such sensory perception of things can really make or break a story, and you did it successfully.
Pity that Emmet had to die though.
'Twas a grand scene you set at the beginning, with such a simple phrase. 'Late!'
I have to agree with Bombird about the bomb, however. It was quite a surprise!
Your descriptions of the scene, and of the characters is wonderful. Such sensory perception of things can really make or break a story, and you did it successfully.
Pity that Emmet had to die though.
Hey! It's Bristlebur~
I particularly enjoyed the humorous bits about the dream, as well as the also somewhat humorous abruptness of the explosion. Agreeing with Bombird, I almost thought the bomb was metaphorical up until the point of him being forcefully discorporated, in which case it struck me as humorous that he could really be that much of a fop and that everyone else was so unwitting as to their ultimate demise.
I particularly enjoyed the humorous bits about the dream, as well as the also somewhat humorous abruptness of the explosion. Agreeing with Bombird, I almost thought the bomb was metaphorical up until the point of him being forcefully discorporated, in which case it struck me as humorous that he could really be that much of a fop and that everyone else was so unwitting as to their ultimate demise.
Hey! Just thought I'd do a little analysis of this.
1. There was a package Emmet was supposed to deliver, containing a time bomb that was already ticking off. It is highly potent, given that "many others died" when it went off, and probably hard to make.
2. The Duke wants to blow up the food supply in the castle, so he had Emmet deliver the package. One can easily infer that he's either an anarchist, an aspiring dictator, or a douchebag.
3. Emmet can be blamed for his unlawful ways and knowledgable conspiracy in the Duke's plot, but could have unintentionally saved many more people from starvation through his inaction.
4. Emmet is experiencing something that not even the priest could have predicted. It seems likely that this priest would believe him to have a miserable afterlife, then he's probably in the happy afterlife place. Thus, Emmet is in the clear of things as far as literary justice goes.
That's what I got out of it. Keep in mind that, even if this differs from your intentions, the more reasonable interpretations a story has the better it is.
Anyways, yeah. Pretty interesting, I enjoyed it. Following is a series of nitpicks on the formal elements of it--prose sniping, as I like to call it. Think of them as steps on the road to excellence: even if you only tackle a couple (randomly chosen by a dice roll, for instance) your next piece will still be that much better off. You can just three or four and ignore the rest.
* I don't like the way the present tense is used here; I think it would be more effective in the past tense. The present tense, to my knowledge, works better if the prose is highly surreal or stream-of-consciousness.
* The transition from Emmet on the bed to his dream seemed sloppy to me. Maybe it's because you mention he's dreaming two flashback/exposition paragraphs before you start describing the dream. Spinning these things around in a different order would probably solve it.
* You use several sentence fragments. While I don't think sentence fragments are pure evil, they are based reserved for the situations in which you want to be intentionally choppy. Try substituting a simple comma or even a mid-dash.
* "Reality is a harsh mistress" is a cliche phrase. You can probably improve on it.
* The second mention of the phonetic "polly tickal" bothers me. If you read it out loud, you'll see why. A lot of people have an internal voice that goes off when they're reading. The way things sound matters even when it's not being read out loud.
* Using the word "cuss" totally broke the tone. Try related words like "mutter", "scowl", or "curse."
* The paragraph about Emmet's "slipperyness with death" seems odd on its own. I can't really explain why, but I wonder if it would be more effective condensed into another paragraph.
1. There was a package Emmet was supposed to deliver, containing a time bomb that was already ticking off. It is highly potent, given that "many others died" when it went off, and probably hard to make.
2. The Duke wants to blow up the food supply in the castle, so he had Emmet deliver the package. One can easily infer that he's either an anarchist, an aspiring dictator, or a douchebag.
3. Emmet can be blamed for his unlawful ways and knowledgable conspiracy in the Duke's plot, but could have unintentionally saved many more people from starvation through his inaction.
4. Emmet is experiencing something that not even the priest could have predicted. It seems likely that this priest would believe him to have a miserable afterlife, then he's probably in the happy afterlife place. Thus, Emmet is in the clear of things as far as literary justice goes.
That's what I got out of it. Keep in mind that, even if this differs from your intentions, the more reasonable interpretations a story has the better it is.
Anyways, yeah. Pretty interesting, I enjoyed it. Following is a series of nitpicks on the formal elements of it--prose sniping, as I like to call it. Think of them as steps on the road to excellence: even if you only tackle a couple (randomly chosen by a dice roll, for instance) your next piece will still be that much better off. You can just three or four and ignore the rest.
* I don't like the way the present tense is used here; I think it would be more effective in the past tense. The present tense, to my knowledge, works better if the prose is highly surreal or stream-of-consciousness.
* The transition from Emmet on the bed to his dream seemed sloppy to me. Maybe it's because you mention he's dreaming two flashback/exposition paragraphs before you start describing the dream. Spinning these things around in a different order would probably solve it.
* You use several sentence fragments. While I don't think sentence fragments are pure evil, they are based reserved for the situations in which you want to be intentionally choppy. Try substituting a simple comma or even a mid-dash.
* "Reality is a harsh mistress" is a cliche phrase. You can probably improve on it.
* The second mention of the phonetic "polly tickal" bothers me. If you read it out loud, you'll see why. A lot of people have an internal voice that goes off when they're reading. The way things sound matters even when it's not being read out loud.
* Using the word "cuss" totally broke the tone. Try related words like "mutter", "scowl", or "curse."
* The paragraph about Emmet's "slipperyness with death" seems odd on its own. I can't really explain why, but I wonder if it would be more effective condensed into another paragraph.
Good god! This is exactly what I was looking for, and I must thank you immensely for it! I was expecting this submission to be far from perfect, seeing as how it's my first time trying a style like this, so it was disconcerting for me to have people not tearing into it :P
For the 4 points on understanding the plot, you're pretty much spot on. The last point is a bit more vague, and yes, I know that it's terrible to leave it hanging that way. It might imply that he passed on well, but the main intent was to open up a way to keep the character, admittedly in a less traditional (and slightly more deceased) way.
As for the prose snipes, excellent! And I present my retort!
1) I was actually unhappy with this element as well. I started in third person and decided to try first as more of an exercise. I was planning on going back to third person for the next story, but it should be easy enough to swap in in this case. I agree that it's hard to get a narrative to flow well this way.
2) I agree, this should be easy to fix. I actually changed this from when I first submitted it, because some people gave comments that they didn't realize there was a dream at all... But seeing as how the nature of his dreaming is already mentioned in the beginning, this might be more of a reader fault... Either way, this is a good spot for improvement.
3) I've been in a kind of odd sentence fragment-y stage of late, but I'll agree that this is something that can be improved on. It's simple punctuation after all.
4) Hahah, caught me red-handed. Oops! Another cliche phrase! Silly me.
5) This was more intentional as a reference back, but it might not be necessary seeing as how short this story is. I'm about 50-50 on changing this, but it might be an improvement... I'll think on it later.
6) This nitpick surprises me a little, but I actually do like the word curse more. And it fits the tone of the setting better as well... This is a simple enough change.
7) Now, this one is interesting! This was actually split originally, but I combined them when I was condensing the flow a bit. I'm pleased that you managed to notice this, because it certainly stands out as a flaw in my mind. I'll be tinkering with this for when I try for another go later.
Again, thank you for taking the time to read and double thank you for the comments and criticism! This is what I've been craving. And I do hope that this submission is the worst that you see from me :>
For the 4 points on understanding the plot, you're pretty much spot on. The last point is a bit more vague, and yes, I know that it's terrible to leave it hanging that way. It might imply that he passed on well, but the main intent was to open up a way to keep the character, admittedly in a less traditional (and slightly more deceased) way.
As for the prose snipes, excellent! And I present my retort!
1) I was actually unhappy with this element as well. I started in third person and decided to try first as more of an exercise. I was planning on going back to third person for the next story, but it should be easy enough to swap in in this case. I agree that it's hard to get a narrative to flow well this way.
2) I agree, this should be easy to fix. I actually changed this from when I first submitted it, because some people gave comments that they didn't realize there was a dream at all... But seeing as how the nature of his dreaming is already mentioned in the beginning, this might be more of a reader fault... Either way, this is a good spot for improvement.
3) I've been in a kind of odd sentence fragment-y stage of late, but I'll agree that this is something that can be improved on. It's simple punctuation after all.
4) Hahah, caught me red-handed. Oops! Another cliche phrase! Silly me.
5) This was more intentional as a reference back, but it might not be necessary seeing as how short this story is. I'm about 50-50 on changing this, but it might be an improvement... I'll think on it later.
6) This nitpick surprises me a little, but I actually do like the word curse more. And it fits the tone of the setting better as well... This is a simple enough change.
7) Now, this one is interesting! This was actually split originally, but I combined them when I was condensing the flow a bit. I'm pleased that you managed to notice this, because it certainly stands out as a flaw in my mind. I'll be tinkering with this for when I try for another go later.
Again, thank you for taking the time to read and double thank you for the comments and criticism! This is what I've been craving. And I do hope that this submission is the worst that you see from me :>
5) I'm not talking about its use as a reference to an earlier party of the story. I just mean this:
political
Polly tickal
Physically pronouncing the latter is awkward when you consider that it's supposed to imitate the first one. Of course, looking at it now, I can't think of a work around...
By the way, yes! I'm pretty fastidious about distending troubling story strings. Even if it's a high-quality story I can usually find something that, at least, might make the story better. It earned me quite a reputation back in my high school essay peer review days...
political
Polly tickal
Physically pronouncing the latter is awkward when you consider that it's supposed to imitate the first one. Of course, looking at it now, I can't think of a work around...
By the way, yes! I'm pretty fastidious about distending troubling story strings. Even if it's a high-quality story I can usually find something that, at least, might make the story better. It earned me quite a reputation back in my high school essay peer review days...
I couldn't think of a solution either, from what little time I spent dwelling on it. I was mostly just wanting to capture the idea of Emmet being pretty uneducated without explicitly stating it, but it works well enough as a one time thing. When I pop over and tinker with it, I'll keep this in mind and consider dropping the second reference.
And yeah, it's quite excellent! I'll definitely hope that you can at least stick around for my future submissions. I'm thrilled with your ability to tear into things without being malicious.
And yeah, it's quite excellent! I'll definitely hope that you can at least stick around for my future submissions. I'm thrilled with your ability to tear into things without being malicious.
Apologies for the fave without a comment! ^^
((work tends to pull me away from things a bit quicker than i'd rather like.. >.<))
Anyways, I really liked this one, for some odd reason o.0 It was filled with enough fluff and story to hold things together, but pressed onwards to a rather short, but nicely thought out and detailed end.
I got to know the ferret fellow just enough to be a bit more curious about him, but his untimely demise wasn't too much of a downer at the end.
I'm personally more of a critic when it comes to drawn out lines and pictures, but beautifully worded stories such as this tend to play out more like a small movie in my mind, ((as strange as it may sound)) ..and I personally can't find any fault in this one. ^^
Very well done, my feathered friend. I look forward to more as they come. <3
((work tends to pull me away from things a bit quicker than i'd rather like.. >.<))
Anyways, I really liked this one, for some odd reason o.0 It was filled with enough fluff and story to hold things together, but pressed onwards to a rather short, but nicely thought out and detailed end.
I got to know the ferret fellow just enough to be a bit more curious about him, but his untimely demise wasn't too much of a downer at the end.
I'm personally more of a critic when it comes to drawn out lines and pictures, but beautifully worded stories such as this tend to play out more like a small movie in my mind, ((as strange as it may sound)) ..and I personally can't find any fault in this one. ^^
Very well done, my feathered friend. I look forward to more as they come. <3
I thought I favorited this already.
I like the strong narrative voice. I was imagining it as a short film, too, but one with a voiceover. That'd wear out its welcome in a longer piece, but here it seems to make the story more self-contained. It reduces the immersion somewhat, but that means the things left open—the ending, the Duke and the others who "worked" Emmet, other background details of the world—don't bother me.
I'll be looking forward to more!
I like the strong narrative voice. I was imagining it as a short film, too, but one with a voiceover. That'd wear out its welcome in a longer piece, but here it seems to make the story more self-contained. It reduces the immersion somewhat, but that means the things left open—the ending, the Duke and the others who "worked" Emmet, other background details of the world—don't bother me.
I'll be looking forward to more!
I wasn't intending this initially, but it kind of ended up a bit like a british gangster comedy, but with only half the perspective. I can't say that I'm totally pleased with it, but I'm certainly glad that people like it! I'll promise to bring in some slightly more traditional things soon... But don't worry, I won't bore you with fantasy-ramblings :>
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