Random Snippets of Writing

[InfinitySquared]

Well, the majority of my Projects are on Hiatus for I have felt the need to improve my style. I've done some modification to my writing and would like some R and R, so I'm posting some snippets of what I'm using as a protoype.

One:

New Exeter gleamed like a jewel against the backdrop of space, a sphere of deep blue ocean mixed with the varying green and yellows of vegetation and the immaculate white of snow and ice. Thousands of fusion trails encircled the planet like a lacy corona, the marks of outbound and inbound spacecraft of varying size.

A far cry from the hellhole New Exeter had become. The planet still glinted in the light of the star it orbited. But the image was muted by the debris of a massive battle; fragments of metal spun aimlessly in orbit, drifting through clouds of air and coolant, smashing into each other and burning to oblivion in the atmosphere.

Small craters pockmarked the major continents, some ringed with lines of angry red and scorched earth. A small spiderweb crack spread across the southernmost continent, molten lava spilling from the mantle and onto the crust.

Two:

Alicia Dawn Harris groaned in pain. Blood ran steadily down her arm, a pile of blood stained cloth was at her feet. She was lucky in some sick sort of way; the Metros had thought her dead and left her alone. But her luck couldn't keep the blood from spilling out of her body, she needed help.

“She's over here!” A familiar voice reached her ears.

The idiot, she thought, they might hear him! Wait, he actually brought someone?

Three:

Arthur was surprised to say the least. The woman was strikingly beautiful, she was different from the majority of the women on New Exeter; she was shorter and more slender. Her hair was a dark brown color, unlike the flaming reds or golden blondes of Exeter's population. Dark eyes reminded him of the situation; they were narrowed in pain.

“Sis.” The boy, Russel said “He's a good guy.”

The woman relaxed slightly, relief mixing with pain on her features.

 

[Ursa major]

New Exeter gleamed like a jewel against the backdrop of space, a sphere of deep blue ocean mixed with the varying green and yellows of vegetation and the immaculate white of snow and ice. Thousands of fusion trails encircled the planet like a lacy corona, the marks of outbound and inbound spacecraft of varying size.

A far cry from the hellhole New Exeter had become. The planet still glinted in the light of the star it orbited. But the image was muted by the debris of a massive battle; fragments of metal spun aimlessly in orbit, drifting through clouds of air and coolant, smashing into each other and burning to oblivion in the atmosphere.

While the regular critiquers are on there way, I'd just like to say that this juxtaposition is far too crude for my liking. It isn't helped by the your use of tenses. The first paragraph, dealing with the far past, is in the (usual) past tense, but when we are in the narrative present (still using the past tense, which is okay), we look at a timeframe midway to that of the first paragraph and find it's described in the Past Perfect (which is also called the Pluperfect).

If this is deliberate, I find it too jarring, and not in a good way. Surely New Exeter's descent should be jarring enough without the need for grammatical tricks.

If it is not deliberate, then it needs work. In either case, it's the narrative that should bear the burden of describing the juxtapostion, not the verb tenses.

By the way, current-day fiction is quite heavily tied to the use of close POVs (3rd or 1st person). In this instance, a character comparing what he or she last recalled of New Exeter as they saw what it looked like in the present would solve the problem: you'd not only get rid of the (need for?) tense confusion, you'd have an opportunity for the reader to share in the POV character's emotions, of loss, of despair, or whatever esle they are experiencing.


Just my 2c.

 

[Nik]

"A far cry from the hellhole New Exeter had become."

I found this jarred most.

IMHO, it should have a leading phrase like, "The distant view's blue-green pearl was a far cry..."