Thread: The Fugitive

Originally Posted by garza

The ending is totally made up.

Without your imagination?

This is a lack of imagination??? Not that I can see. Maybe what you lack is confidence in your abilities to stir the readers imagination, but believe me, mine was stirred.

Not my cup of tea story wise, but superbly written.

I don't have much more to offer than that.

"Now while you are here, would you like to point out what is good, what is bad, and what needs to be changed in 'The Fugitive'?"

Overall as I remarked earlier the story is good. And also as I remarked earlier I fail to see why you keep on with this nonsense about lacking imagination. The way this came into being, if your remarks are to be believed, is exactly the same way any other writer’s similar stuff would come into being.

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The old man stopped, bent to tie his shoelace, pitched headfirst to the ground, and died. The sniper may have intended a body shot but instead drilled the old man through the top of the head when the target bent forward.

Old man is repetitious. Change second use for ‘him’. ‘The target’ sounds like something our Sam would write, whereas your story has more human values. Try "he".

'Down, Joél. Get down', said Carlos.

Even though later on we see Carlos talking in a wise fashion about spies, ‘Down, Joel’ sounds more like an adult speaking. It jars just a tad.

'They've killed profesor Mateo', said Joél.

Professor


'He was a spy. Maybe you are a spy', said ten-year-old Carlos to his eight-year-old brother. 'So maybe you'd better watch yourself.'

And you say you have no imagination? Pull the other one.


'We wait, like papi says, until we see people walking in the street again and there is no more gunfire, then go to school.'

If this were being pored over by scholars of English at Oxford, no doubt they’d say “then go” is correct. But this is a kid talking. My view is he’s more likely to repeat himself with the use of “we”, and say “then we go etc.”



A truck filled with troops drove fast into the village. One man jumped down and rolled the body of the old man over face up. The soldier said something to an officer in the cab of the truck, then climbed in the back and the truck drove fast out of the village. Soon more gunfire could be heard, but now it was some distance away. More people began to move in the street. A few approached the body and looked but did not touch.

1)See earlier remark re repetition. 2) I’m confused. The opening scene was of a single sniper shooting one man. Now it’s “more gunfire”, which tells of a group. Something needs to be done with the opening scene to eliminate this confusion.

'Vamos', said Carlos. 'We can go to school now.'

Repeating ‘We go’ like this is simply you showing off. Not very professional. No muy professional.




they did not look at the body as they passed but walked on ahead as though nothing had happened.

Redundant

'Oh yes', said Joél. 'No one even mentioned what happened. In some places the village would have been deserted for a week, but in our village life went on.

There’s something about this. “Some places” and “village” mean much the same thing. How about “In some parts of the country the village etc”?

The visitor had arrived just before daybreak, knowing that was the best time to catch Joél, a farmer who would be in his field once the sun was up.

From this, it’s clear the meeting was pre-arranged. I personally would have preferred the meeting to be fortuitous. A writer simply wandering from place to place picking up snippets is far more “romantic” than a pre-arranged meeting. Many will disagree with the idea of romanticism. Phooey to them.

Eek. I have just read on down the page. Clearly a fortuitous meeting will not work in that context. Thinks…maybe both would work. The writer knows Joel but is still a wanderer. That could have loads of potential.



Two years after we saw Mateo killed, Carlos went to the bush and joined a guerilla group.

This could well be local idiom. After all, Aussies say “went bush”, but even so… It jars. If it’s not idiomatic, could you play with it?

Probably he did not know the guerillas had come to the village for no other reason than to kill him. That's what we heard later.'

Here’s this confusion again about how many gorillas were in the village.


'A writer I knew ten years ago, about the time the war was over. He's writing abook (sic) about the war and talking to people about it.'

Aha! So they were known to each other. See earlier remarks.


In the next room Carlos sat in a dark corner, away from the window. The voices from the next room were clear, but there was no sign Carlos heard.

To this point I have had no quibbles about Point of View. Now I have. “The voices from the next room were clear” can only be from the pov of Carlos, which simply isn’t possible. The entire passage will need re-writing.

With that, my stomach is rumbling, and I must go. Good luck with the writing.

In the next room Carlos sat in a dark corner, away from the window. The voices from the next room were clear, but there was no sign Carlos heard. There was no sign he understood. For many years there had been no sign that he understood anything at all, or that he recognised the two men who tended to him, or that he had any memory of childhood or, for that matter, any memory of yesterday.

I know you have re-written this, but an observation, if you intend repeating for effect do it wholeheartedly, otherwise it simply becomes repetition, so,

In the next room Carlos sat in a dark corner, away from the window. The voices from the next room were clear, but there was no sign Carlos heard. There was no sign he understood. For many years there had been no sign that he understood anything at all, no sign he recognised the two men who tended to him, no sign he had any memory of childhood or, for that matter, any memory of yesterday.

A friend of mine once said "We write 'faction' mostly", that's a mixture of fact and fiction. For me the imagination is not concerned so much with the events, as being able to see them from another's point of view, you are not a young man, but the boys' conversation and viewpoint seems believable.

Thank you both. I am reworking the story with both of your comments taken into consideration, and making a few other changes.

xO - 'Professor' is English and means a ranking teacher in university, while 'profesor' is Spanish and generally means a high school teacher, but can be used for lower grade teachers as a mark of respect. Given the easy confusion, I'm changing it to 'Mister'. I'm also changing 'Vamos' to 'Let's go'. I'd thought that a sprinkling of Spanish would help to set the scene, but have decided that going with all English is probably best.

Edit - Regarding the first paragraph, avoiding the use of pronouns is a holdover from radio news writing. Repetition, I like to tell students, is preferable to confusion.

Jamie - Sorry, I missed your comment earlier. Thank you.

Originally Posted by garza

Jamie - Sorry, I missed your comment earlier. Thank you.

No problem. I think the dialogue is fantastic, and it's just my opinion but I'd have kept the Profesor and Vamos in it as well, especially the latter.

Thanks Jamie. I think profesor has to go because of the likelihood that people will, as xO did, mistake it as a misspelling of professor. I'm thinking of keeping 'vamos', as most English-speaking people know what it means. Also, I'm keeping 'papi'. There should be no translation problem there. And I'm keeping Guardia Nacional. The literal English translation is National Guard, but the meaning in El Salvador is quite different from the meaning in the U.S.

Hi Garza,

Apart from the things already mentioned, the entire piece worked well for me. I understood the Hispanic sprinkling instinctively, except for the 'profesor' part. For me, it made the players real. Regarding the child speaking like an adult, I suspect that children living in such circumstances tend to grow up fast, and may speak accordingly. That is just my opinion, however. I really can't imagine what that would be like, but your work helped me with that, so, thank you!

Best regards

CB