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Shorts
A drunk in the night
By RossFlinches
05 April 2008
This is a short scribble, I'm not yet ready to show any longer works in progress so apologies if you clicked here expecting something longer.

He stumbled out of bed foolishly, opening the door and making a loud clunky sound with the handle. The jerky opening motion seemed to vibrate the entire first floor for a short moment. Angry, yet more likely frightened to have been woken, Julie appeared in the hallway where Ken was standing, swaying slightly and glancing around, probably confused as to his whereabouts.

"What the hell are you doing?" Her voice was but a hiss, a sleep coated fearful one to be clear.
"I'm just, just off getting some...water."
He spat the last word out thickly like a child refusing fish. In his vague morning hangover memory Ken would remember his voice sounding far removed from his usual tone. He thought of it as his voice heard through earmuffs after having gotten very cold ears. Perhaps from swimming in the British sea.

Julie grasped his shoulder, half comfortingly. "Get back into your bed, I'll get you some water."
Ken began to garble something about it not being his bed. Julie murmured 'uh huh' and gave him a gentle push. As he muttered something agreeably whilst jauntily turning around, Julie also turned and began shuffling down the stairs, holding the banister to compensate for the dark.

When Julie came back with a glass Ken was sound asleep the wrong way up in bed and snoring in a distressed animal waver. Yawning and blinking the onset of sleep from her eyes Julie placed the glass on the bedside table and went back into her room, quickly finding sleep.

Reviews

Written by fellpony (1603 comments posted) 6th April 2008
Hello there. A practice piece? Not sure what you were aiming for here. One thing that strikes me is the plethora of adjectives and particularly adverbs. Foolishly, agreeably, quickly, comfortingly, jauntily, probably. 
 
You are not yet sure of your viewpoint - whether you are writing as the sleepy, drunk/hungover Ken, or as the omniscient author - using phrases in the description such as to be clear; probably. This confused me. 
 
I think you could describe the whole sequence in about half the words, and the piece would gain rather than lose.

Written by RossFlinches (4 comments posted) 6th April 2008
Thankyou for your input. When I look at this I agree with everything you say. The thing I struggle with most in my writing is continuous viewpoint. Sometimes I get confused as I write.  
 
'Her voice was but a hiss, a sleep coated fearful one to be clear.' 
 
This, when I look properly, is a terrible sentence. Clearly I need to sort these viewpoint issues out. I'm not fully sure how I'd do this but I realise what I have is jarring and wrong.  
 
Horrible overuse of adverbs....my god I should have been more critical before posting it.  
 
Thankyou for alerting me to these terrible and simplistic errors which I shall take note of and observe more carefully in future.

Written by mia_ms_kim (997 comments posted) 6th April 2008
I think you show plenty of potential. I agree with fp's observation. Still I undersood everything you were trying to say, and I wasn't bored with this piece. (I personally think the worst sin as a writer is to be shallow and/or boring.) I think with practice you will find it easier to express yourself simply. I think you trip over words in trying to describe everything. But I'm sure with practice you will instinctively know what to leave to the readers' imagination, and what to bring to the readers' attention. Despite the flaws, I thought it was a good practice piece. 
 
Mia 8)

Written by TwistedTales (548 comments posted) 8th April 2008
Well, i don't know what to say about this because it definitely doesn't do anything for me as a reader. As a standalone piece it is quite weak. Umm, you should post the longer piece and see how people react to that.  
 
Regards, 
TT

Written by RossFlinches (4 comments posted) 9th April 2008
The longer piece is still something in progress. I don't expect it to be complete for a couple of weeks and even then I may not post it. But, I will post something else soon because I realise I must redeem myself :)

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