Ocramas

Hey everyone, as you can plainly see i'm new here. I've not yet come up with a title for this piece of text, (it is unfinished, will be edited eventually and put into chapter form...perhaps) but i've written this much so far.

Disclaimer:

Some strong language

Huntley sat, unaware, uninformed. Huntley didn't mind, Huntley was drinking.

'Some things never change.' He says to the bartender, the bartender doesn't hear him; nor does he want to. 'I remember when people used to be nice around here, what ever happened to that Jimmy guy anyway?' Still no response. 'What did I do anyway?'

'What did you do? Look at the television, asshole.' Dallas briskly barked, in his usual voice of gravel. He could out-growl a pit-bull, Dallas could. Huntley looked at the television with blurry eyes, he didn't have his glasses on and he was drunk. He could, however, hear the reports. "It's horrible, John. The whole of Island Three is under extreme precaution, an attack looks like it could be immin-" The news report was interrupted by a man small in stature, light in voice, but greasy in hair and large in muscle, 'Hey jag off, get off my fucking stool.'

'Yeah. Yeah, alright. Sorry about that.' Huntley replied, his face the soberest it had been all night, he wasn't usually a pushover. Dallas signaled Huntley over the bar, Huntley obeyed; he isn't nearly as stubborn as he usually is when drunk. 'Yup? Want something, old friend?' He slurred, placing his hand benignly on Dallas' shoulder.

'What the hell is this?' Dallas grabbed Huntley's hand and threw it aside, 'Listen buddy, go home and sober up before you get dangerously drunk. I'm not serving you anymore, and you know how fucking wild it is out there. Trust me, you don't want to be walking around in a state, you're a good customer. I'll see you around.'

'Dallas, you've always been a great friend.'

'Just get out of here.'

Huntley tripped on his way out of the door, taken aback by the bright lights of the neon night. The view gets him every time, the smell sent him straight back to earth, the sounds of a bazaar always sounded so ethereal to him. The throbbing music in the background played by a stall whose proprietor was a very dark man, with thick braided hair that spread across his cranium unevenly. He was selling odd voodoo dolls and powders and hallucinants, Huntley never approached the shop before, and he probably never will. The music sounds nice from a distance, he thinks. Before he took his first step forwards, an eirer flew straight past him, at what seemed like speeds of a 150 miles an hour. He didn't care anyway, he was drunk.

atmyexpense

I'm not a big sci-fi reader, so I don't really anything to say about the plot/theme of the story.

BUT

At the beginning, you switch from past tense to present tense, then back again. You do this a few more times throughout the story. It's easy to mix up your tenses. You just need to be more careful when you edit.

You also have a few comma splices. The one at the beginning "Huntley didn't mind, Huntley was drinking" is acceptable because the clauses are short and similar. However, longer ones are not acceptable: "He was selling odd voodoo dolls and powders and hallucinants, Huntley never approached the shop before, and he probably never will."

Instead, just replace the comma after "hallucinants" with a period.

Hope this helps.

Matt

valeca

I'm not sure of the type of comments you're looking for, so I'm just going to go with what I feel is the biggest problem right now.

Reading anything should be a smooth experience. To really get drawn into the story, the reader can't be tripping over things like punctuation (which is the one thing that will pull me out of a story faster than anything else). Your punctuation, in particular around your dialogue and tags, really needs work. Try looking through some of the books on your book shelf and note how your punct. (especially in those areas) differs from theirs.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

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Xtlk 1

Well I have to say that that is a very unused style in fiction. I felt like I was listening to someone narrate a movie.

Errors in punctution can be used for emphasis which, if done correctly, are fine. "Huntley didn't mind, Huntley was drinking." this, though grammatically incorrect, seems perfectly fine. While others just really throw the reader off.

And tense changes are always bad....

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A shattered daimond does not mend,
Yet pieces of glass are fused again.
The purest hearts are the ones that break,
The guarded and stained are the ones that remain.

Ocramas

Wow guys, thanks for the great insight! I knew something felt off about it all, it didn't read nicely to me either...but I seriously appreciate the help, especially with the punctuation problems.

Peace

astralis

If this is a first-draft this is fantastic! The bartender's dialogue was a bit long as if you were trying to stuff as much information in it as possible.
I think the trick of jolting the reader by suddenly sliding the exotic into the picture is overdone. Therefore, I don't think it's very clever.

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blodren

I can't really say much of anything on it. It's too short and I can't get any feel off of any of your characters. Your barkeep seemed most realistic. From other novels I read, seems like the right thing to do. Until you put more up, I can't really give any advice.

Blodren

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Ocramas

Thanks again guys, i've never really written before, albeit having the interest for a while. I'll keep these in mind next time I write