Thank you. Yes, the dream scene deoes need sharpening up.It’s good to get your feedback, though!
Peace
Novel Treatments / Dante - Extract (Analysis)
Alexei smiled.
An auburn-haired, voluptuous woman was standing on a stage, clutching a silver microphone with both hands. She had a long, angular face, with high cheekbones and pert, pent-up maroon lips. Her small mouth was open in the shape of a perfect circle, her lips occasionally trembling as she warbled over a series of notes in a sonorous, warming tone. The wild curls of her hair fell about her shoulders, caressing them gently as her head swayed slowly to the rhythm. The multi-coloured sequins sprinkled freely across her navy dress sparkled and glittered furiously, casting a starry outline around the curves of her body. Her ample chest rose and fell in line with her breaths, setting off a repeating ripple down to the core of her stomach.
Alexei smiled. He leaned back in his seat, oblivious to the coughing of the man seated next to him.
“Honey?”
Alexei awoke with a start , his entire torso jerking forwards and upwards from underneath the satin sheets. He blinked several times and squinted, confused by what he saw around him: a large wardrobe, two matching laptops, a hi-fi system and several other objects which he struggled to identify in the darkness.
“It’s okay,” a quiet, wry voice spoke from somewhere close by. “The light is off, that’s why it’s dark; the surface you’re sitting on is a bed and the voice you hear belongs to the woman you married nine years ago.”
Alexei closed his eyes and flopped back onto the bed.
Sonya gazed at him, her eyes intrigued. “You’re never done that before,” she said, slowly. “What were you dreaming about?”
“Tottenham,” Alexei murmured, his face half-dug into the pillow. “We lost.”
“Liar,” Sonya retorted. She leant forwards and nestled her head in the crook of her husband’s neck. “Why would that make you jump? Tottenham always lose.”
“Harsh.”
“I’m serious,” Sonya continued, whine entering her tone. “What were you dreaming about?”
A loud, muffled sigh escaped from Alexei’s lips. “Sonya, you’re starting to nag now.”
“Really?” Sonya smiled mischievously, slowly rubbing her right thigh against the back of Alexei’s legs.
“I’m disappointed that you think I’m shallow enough to be emotionally moved by amorous intentions.”
“So it was a woman,” Sonya spat out, pulling away from her husband.
“What?” Alexei lifted his head from the pillow. “Why on earth would you -”
Barber’s Adagio rang out in the darkness, cutting a swathe through the cloud of marital tension. “Excuse me.” Alexei swung his legs out from underneath the sheets and onto the soft rug. Taking a moment to collect his bearings, he reached over to the dressing table and picked up a small machine that was flashing blue. “Hello?”
“Gould?” The clipped, plummy accent was unmistakable.
“Yes, Marcus.”
“Sorry to wake you. How quickly can you get here?”
Alexei allowed his head to gently crash into his upheld left palm. Taking a breath, he began to rub the palm across his forehead. “How quickly do you need me be there, Marcus?”
“ASAP.”
“Done.” Alexei replied, after a pause.
“Good. See you then.”
“Okay, Ma-”
“Oh, say hello to the wife and kids for me.”
“I will,” Alexei replied, phlegmatic. “Thank you.”
Marcus hung up. Taking a moment more to smooth the creases that suddenly began to appear on his head, Alexei gently patted a long shape protruding from underneath the bed sheets. “I have to go, miss.”
“No, you don’t,” came a languid, muffled reply. “It’s six o’clock.”
“I’ll ring home during lunch.” Alexei stood up slowly, stretching his back in the process.
The mound under the bed-covers moved slightly. “You need a new job.”
“She says,” Alexei retorted, flatly. “Oh, by the way…” He broke off to accommodate a long yawn.
“What?”
“What were you going to tell me?”
“When?”
Alexei ambled over to the wardrobe and opened the doors. “Just now, when you woke me up.”
Sonya directed a piercing gaze at the back of her husband’s head. “I was going to tell you about the beautiful man I was dreaming about.”
“I love you, too, babe.”
“It wasn’t you.”
“Yes, it was,” Alexei replied, closing the wardrobe doors. “It was allegorical.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means, my dear, that your efforts to make me feel insecure are wasted, because, we both know that I’m your dream man.” He took a step towards the bathroom door. “Your dream just proved it.”
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black_butterfly reviewed Version 1 -
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To me , the only character that could exist in real life is Sonya. Alexei seems a bit robotic (and if he supposed to be that way, then you’ve done a fine job). The exchange between them seemed a little forced. All in all the novel has promise, but it’s a bit difficult to get a feel for the characters. Keep writing!
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Gustible reviewed Version 1 -
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I think you managed admirably well to sketch the characters in this short piece – one needs more depth to form a complete picture, but I deduce that there is some marital tension even though the husband and wife are quite close – his job imposes some stress on the partnership.
The only part that bothered me was the dream scene – a few too many adjectives, you could tone it down. Also – “warbled a series of notes”, rather than “warbled over”.
Well done. Curious to know how it turns out.
tkarma reviewed Version 1 -
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Get rid of all ‘ly’ words to strengthen you’re sentences.
Alexei and Sonya have the potential to be compelling characters. I don’t feel I know them yet, of course. I assume they will flesh out or are fleshed out in other parts of the story. They work well together in this scene. The dialog feels real and I get an inkling that Sonya is the jealous type? This is tough to review as to the characters with just this small glimpse of them. I hope this helps.
Tina
bdfielding reviewed Version 1 -
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A couple well into the comfortable stage of marriage, very much in love. There is a trust between them, unconditional and relaxed. Whether they are physically beautiful or not is of no importance as they find one another very attractive.
A nice view of the kind of marriage that never makes it into print or screen, but is most likely more prevalent than anyone knows. I do hope there is more to come.
I’m assuming this is all you wanted based on your reviewer notes… if you’d like a more detailed critique, please let me know with a comment and I will oblige you.
paulfogarty reviewed Version 1 -
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Your dialogue is vastly superior to your desciptive passages. If I were you I would work out a way to have some kind of dialogue right up front in the opening paragraph. Maybe have Alexei chatting up the singer between sets in the dream. I think that would get the piece off to a running start whereas at the moment the opening is not quite working. For me, anyways.
I never heard of pent-up lips before and it doesn’t make sense but I love it. I would have thought a voluptuous woman would not have an angular face. Is that just me?
You got a nice voice for story-telling – that comes through pretty strong. But I think you make too much of a meal out of many of the descriptive details in this piece. The examples I have given hint at that. I think its quite ok to have a couple of odd or off-centre descriptions of things and of people, but some of your description is sort of not appropriate. An example are the sequins on the singer’s dress that sparkle AND glitter “furiously”. When something sparkles, Or glitters (you don’t need both), it never does so furiously….see what I mean?
I feel like what you might do first is just go over the whole piece and delete any words that are obviously redundant or are not needed. Words that add nothing to the piece. I will list a few: “in the shape of”, “occasionally”, “sprinkled freely”, “sparkled”, “furiously”, “in his seat”, “his entire torso jerking forwards and upwards from underneath the satin sheets”, “which he struggled to identify in the darkness”.
When you tighten up your story be editing out the unecessary words you will suddenly see the space around the story, the scenes, the layouts, and I am sure you will find your story and characters come to life even more than they already do in the dialogue.
I hope this helps.
VoidSucker reviewed Version 1 -
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I love description and am always banging on about it on Urbis because it brings writing to life. However, yours at the start is a bit too much! You say this is an extract so I presume this is NOT the start of a chapter? (Your start would work even less as the opening chapter.) The right amount of description is great but a whole paragraph of it is little risky, because not only does it sound like an infodump, but it also stops the action. Dead.
You might consider splitting it up so it isn’t one whole chunk of text (you can still use it if you ‘smuggle’ it into the text elsewhere) or else cut it back a bit and concentrate on the most important feature.
How about this:
‘On the stage a woman clutched a silver microphone, the perfect circle of her maroon lips trembling out her notes. Wild curls of her auburn-hair caressed her shoulders and her voluptuous chest rose and fell in line with her breaths, rippling the core of her stomach.’
It’s a bit shorter, even if you don’t like it!
With this:
‘He blinked several times and squinted, confused by what he saw around him: a large wardrobe, two matching laptops’
you are making the mistake a lot of people here do, which is to (a) tell use what is happening and then (b) tell us again.
You say ‘by what he saw around him’ (a) and then tell us what it is he can see (b). Much better like this:
‘He blinked several times and squinted, confused by a large wardrobe, two matching laptops’
Resist the urge to tell us emotions we should already know:
‘cutting a swathe through the cloud of marital tension.’
We, the reader, should KNOW there is tension from the body language and dialogue of the characters you have just described, so if you tell us there is tension then it sounds a little clumsy (as if the author thinks he hasn’t done a good enough job of creating the tension in the first place).
You are right when you say the gist of this is a little confusing.
As to the characters, well Alexei sounds like some kind of cop/undercover agent. Sonja sounds insecure and possibly annoyed at Alexei’s job continually butting into their life.
Is the mound in the sheets because of what Alexei thinks about Marcus? Or his job? Is he more aroused by his job than his wife? If this implication is not intentional I would consider moving the description of the mound to be earlier in the piece!
This extract isn’t bad, but I’d definitely trim back the description and the start and possibly add a bit more into the conversation with Sonja and Alexei.
derekosborne reviewed Version 1 -
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I had to read the piece twice to get everything, which for an extract is deadly. We should get these two loud and clear in 500 words or less. Toward that end:
“The multi-coloured sequins sprinkled freely across her navy dress sparkled and glittered furiously” That was quite a mouthfull, and interrupted the nice, sensual image you were developing. What is quite good is Sonya. She comes across well. Alexei feels like evey other quasi mysterious guy. Maybe we already know him well by this point in the novel, but it does point out something. We should get him anywhere we pick up and start reading, at least his essence.
Sounds like a good commerical idea you’ve got going. Hope that I helped.
SinnerASaint reviewed Version 1 -
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The characters were well described. You did a phenomenal job of imagery realating to the characters. I also found that the characters were well-rounded and dynamic. The dialogue also transitioned nicely from the rest of the story content, making it sound as if the characters were realistic.
rotivator reviewed Version 1 -
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To me develope a character believably you need to share with the reader more than the dialogue. Because withought the thoughs behind them we are merely viewing the superficial, not the motivations. As such you have created a scene where there is a decent level of humorous conversation. It was certainly an entertaining read, I would just take a couple lines, to share with us what they are thinking before we hear the response. Keep working at it.
JamesWoe reviewed Version 1 -
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Their interaction seems realistic, although i dont get a real sense of character, which is what you wanted critiqued…the dialogue reveals a bit, but I need more to get a sense of character development. Blue machine blinking? a phone? i get perturbed by pointless esoteric descriptions.
otherwise, your style is smooth, sentence structure mature…. I am assuming the male is some kind of cop/detective or something? just once I’d like to read or see something where the wife of a cop is just like, sure…get the f(*& out, i’d rather eat breakfast alone.
small detail.
peace..
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