Fish Bait - Writers Forum

Glfralin · 07-07-2006, 10:23 AM

Fish Bait

“Angela, why aren’t you home from school?” I thought to myself, “I’m tired of your lateness nearly every afternoon.” Then up the walk she sauntered. I gave no other thought than the anger I felt inside. “Just wait till I get a chance to tell you a thing or two.”

Then there she was face to face, I snap as if my jaws were a bear trap ready to spring. “Angela, I won’t stand for this anymore” I screeched, “You have been told enough to be home on time.” Oh yes, I see the tears welling in those 6 year old eyes. “Too late”, I thought “my child you knew what would happen.”

“You are in big trouble young lady”. I quickly let my wrath fly. “What’s that you are hiding behind your back? Did you sneak to Margaret’s for treats again? We said only Tuesday’s after school for visiting her. This is Friday, and I’ve been worried sick.”

No prisoner did I take of this poor little thing, when she spoke up between her sobs, “Mommy” cried my poor little daughter, I had a quarter, and I bought you a present?”

“What?” I asked as my anger died down.

My child’s voice continued to shake. “I lost the first quarter, and Margaret gave me another. So I went down to Charlie’s Bait Shop and got you this little fishy.”

A small clear sack appeared from behind her back. Inside was water and a small swimming, gray thing. It took me a while, I’d been that mad, to salvage myself to this child. “Oh, Honey I’m so sorry.” I fought too keep my eyes dry. I was feeling less that half an inch high.

That fish lived two months in a jar that I found. A small gray, swimming, slippery piece of fish bait was mine to protect as long as I could keep it alive.

Fantasy of You · 07-07-2006, 11:56 AM

How very, very random.

It is a short piece, so I don't expect much in the way of character developement, but the woman seems slightly retarded. She gets uncontrollably angry and it seems a tad melodramatic.

When you show what a character is thinking, you don't write it like speech, because people don't think like they speak. "Why isn't Angela home from school. I'm tired of her lateness every afternoon," makes sense. And I'm not a fan of "" for speech, I like ' ' or none at all, but that is my personal preference.

To be completely hones, the piece is poorly written. I found myself reading things three times over to work out what you were trying to say. Things like "No prisoner did I take of this poor thing" show my point exactly. I mean, firstly, it's contracting her actions AND previous thoughts- why is she showing sympathy when she's so angry. Secondly, the sentence is poorly structured- it reads like medieval speech, which you should not be doing.

Other than that, I don't really know what you want as far as a critique would go. But hey, this forum is here to help you improve, right! The more you post your stuff, the more you will improve. I would say revise your sentence structure and try to keep your characters constant.

Revise the grammer for speech also- google is a good place.

Chris Miller · 07-07-2006, 12:42 PM

I agree, the prose is a little strained and artifical. If you tried less hard, you could probably make it read more natural, the way you'd tell it to a friend over a glass of wine.

But the story is nice. Beautiful sentiment and twist. I felt like shit right along with you. I bet this is a true story too. Right?

Glfralin · 07-07-2006, 01:20 PM

Ok, how do I delete threads. Obviously a big mistake on this one.

Glfralin · 07-08-2006, 03:10 PM

This has had a title change and a lot of revision. The new version is now titled. An Only Slightly Exagerated True Story of a Redneck Madwoman. The post has a shorter version of the new titile. Have a good laugh, I hope.