Fiction - brigits_flame entry - Mud
Sep. 12th, 2008 05:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hwangoThis is my entry for the writing activity on the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
brigits_flame community. The topic for week #1 of September is "Mud," for which I have written the following:
Professor Samuel Reuben was pouring a cup of hot water for his tea when the whole room suddenly tilted several degrees to one side. This sort of disruption had become a common occurrence over the last few days, and he had become quite adept at adjusting to them, but this incident was considerably more violent than most. With the aid of some rather undignified gyrations, he managed to avoid scalding himself with boiling water, but he was unable to save his teacup and saucer as they slid off the table and shattered on the floor.
"Blast, not another one!" he cried as he leaned against the wall for support. Normally, the room would have righted itself almost immediately, but this time everything was still slanted almost twenty degrees. Professor Reuben frowned as he realized that they were also no longer moving. He looked out the nearby porthole, but it was far too dark outside to see what might have caused the current situation. He set the kettle back on the stove and then donned his jacket. After taking a moment to make sure that the gas was switched off, he unbolted the door of the galley and stepped out into a short hallway. Steadying himself with a firm grip on the ladder leading to the upper deck, he called up the open hatchway. "Good heavens, man, what are you doing up there? You've made me break another cup!"
"Another one!" said a voice to his left. He turned to see Professor Viktor Flint emerging from his cabin, still holding a book in one hand. "How many is that, now?"
"Well," said Professor Reuben, "there was the one from when that ridge collapsed out from under us. Plus the one from when that great beast attacked us."
"Which beast are you thinking of – the one with the tentacles, or the one with the horns? Because I broke one when the one with the tentacles picked us up and hurled us into the hillside," said Professor Flint.
"Confound it, I broke one when the one with the horns rammed us," said Reuben, frowning. "Those, plus the one we lost to that giant bat, plus the one just now… why, we have only three left! What shall we do if we have to entertain guests?"
Professor Flint shrugged, "I don't know, but I suppose we shall be alright if it's just one guest. Devon does not appear to care for tea, so we shall have his cup." He inclined his head towards the ladder. "Speaking of Devon, perhaps we should go ask him what is amiss this time," he said.
Professor Reuben nodded his agreement and began to climb the ladder. Near the top he paused for a moment and then carefully peered over the edge of the hatch to make sure that nothing was on the roof of the Conveyance. These days he was wary of being on the roof of the vehicle, particularly at night. His hand still hurt from when the giant bat had snatched his teacup from his grasp a few days previous.
Seeing nothing that appeared immediately dangerous, he climbed the last few rungs and emerged onto the roof of the Conveyance. He cautiously made his way towards the front of the vehicle, keeping a tight grip on the railing that enclosed the upper deck. The huge gas lamp mounted on the front of the vehicle was slowly pivoting to the right, and he leaned over the edge a bit to see if there were any interesting plants nearby. Wherever the light fell it revealed only a flat expanse of brown muck.
"Mud?" Professor Reuben said incredulously, "We've stopped because we hit some mud?"
"Apparently," came the terse reply from near the controls. Devon was still turning cranks to direct more lamps towards the side that had become mired in the soft mud. Reuben heard a shuffling noise behind him and panicked for a moment as his mind conjured an image of great leathery wings. It was only Flint, though.
"Young man," Flint said to Devon, "This vehicle represents the pinnacle of modern science. You cannot seriously be telling us that it has been thwarted by some mud." Indeed, Flint's faith in the machine was quite reasonable. The Multi-Terrain Thermovaporous Drive Conveyance was certainly the most advanced piece of machinery ever designed by the engineers at Vyn and Tressle Machineworks. Powered by an enormous steam engine, the vehicle should be capable of carrying a crew of three safely through almost any environment imaginable, all with a level of comfort and refinement suitable for gentlemen such as the learned professors.
Devon's private assessment was that the vehicle was overlarge, overcomplicated, and on several occasions he had thought to himself that it was also overstaffed. The professors were an almost constant drain on his patience. Were it not for the fact that the whole point of the expedition was to get the two botanists to the middle of the island and back, he would have happily left both of them back on the boat.
"I'll have to climb down and have a look," Devon said. "I need to see just how soft this stuff is, how big a patch of it we've stumbled into, and what exactly it is that we're caught on." He clipped a thick safety cable to his belt and then flicked off the safety catch on his sidearm. Then he checked to make sure that he had both of his knives. At the beginning of the expedition he hadn't paid nearly so much attention to arming himself before going outside the Conveyance. Once all of his various injuries finished healing, he would have several very interesting scars because of this fact.
Devon climbed slowly down the ladder, holding the rail with one hand and a small lantern with the other. The sides of the Conveyance were covered with scrapes and gashes, and one rung of the ladder was missing, but there didn't appear to be any new damage since yesterday's encounter with the dinosaur. When he reached the lowest part of the ladder than wasn't submerged, he was very careful not to let his boots touch the surface of the mud. Ever since that incident with the bright blue fish in one of the rivers they'd crossed, he was wary of submerging his feet in anything. He had been quite fond of that pair of boots.
Overhead, Devon heard the professors talking quietly, but was only able to make out the word "tea." Devon wasn't sure he'd ever heard either of the professors talk about a subject other than tea or botany. Since Devon had no interest in either subject, the professors mostly left him alone to manage the Conveyance…unless they drove past an interesting-looking tree, shrub, flower, or blade of grass, at which point they would have to make yet another unscheduled stop. Devon was determined to keep to their schedule, and the constant need to stop so the professors could snip a leaf off some new plant had led Devon to get in some extra driving at night. He hoped that doing so could let them make up lost time. The professors had resisted the idea at first, complaining that they could miss all sorts of fascinating specimens as they drove past them in the dark. Eventually, however, the professors' eagerness to reach their ultimate destination at the center of the island had allowed them to be won over to Devon's way of thinking
Devon hooked the handle of the lantern over a twisted piece of metal that used to be part of the ladder. He reached to take a pencil out of the pocket of his vest, reconsidered, and instead wrenched a twig free from one of the rents in the side of the Conveyance. He was running out pencils, after all.
He leaned down and poked the surface of the mud. No flames, no wisps of smoke, and no screaming. It was a testament to the difficulties already faced by the expedition that this did not reassure Devon, but instead made him deeply suspicious. Surely it could not be something so simple as ordinary mud.
They had been driving along at a good clip when all of a sudden the vehicle had slewed to the right, tilted alarmingly, and come to a dead stop. It made Devon nervous. During the course of their journey they had driven over rocks, bushes, fallen trees, and alligators, and the Conveyance had always righted itself. They had driven over gravel, through rivers, and even across one shallow pond, and the great gear-like wheels had never lost traction. Now they had hit a patch of soft, deep mud, and all of a sudden the great leviathan was brought to a halt? Something was obviously up.
Distracted by his musings, Devon didn't immediately notice the movement next to him. There was a bulge forming in the surface of the mud. It was about three inches across before Devon spotted it, and at first he thought it was a bubble. However, once it had expanded to a diameter of eight inches the bubble split neatly apart to reveal a glassy black orb, and he realized that it was a giant eye. Well, this probably explained why they weren't moving, Devon thought to himself.
"Do you see any flowers or mushrooms down there?" came a voice from topside, and it startled Devon so badly that he dropped his twig. It had barely touched the surface of the mud before it was sucked below, leaving behind only a soft gurgling sound. Devon tightened his grip on the ladder, but dared not make any other movements. He thought of his sidearm, but it seemed laughably inadequate for shooting at something large enough to have an eye eight inches across. Besides, he dare not move to draw the weapon. Whatever it was in the mud didn't seem to have reacted to the Professor's shout, though. Maybe it couldn't hear them.
"Professor, would you be so kind as to aim the Gatling gun at a point a few feet to my left and then start firing?" Devon called back. He faintly heard Flint's voice say something about holding his tea, and then the metallic shriek of the Gatling gun being repositioned. He tensed, waiting for the hail of bullets. A moment passed. Nothing seemed to be happening.
"About how many bullets should I fire?" said Professor Flint. Devon closed his eyes and wished not for the first time that he had not accepted this assignment. The important thing was to keep calm. If he panicked, the professor might panic, and then…well, it would probably get him eaten or shot, if not both.
"Just start firing," Devon called back, "and I'll come up and let you know when you've fired enough."
"Jolly good," came the reply, followed shortly by the cacophony of the Gatling gun, which was itself followed almost immediately by a wet splattering and a low, dreadful hum that made Devon's teeth vibrate in his skull. He'd been expecting some kind of animal shriek but was satisfied for the moment that they'd prompted any sort of response at all. Mud spattered his legs as the surface of the muck was churned by the Gatling gun and the movements of whatever it was that lurked beneath the mud.
Devon had started climbing as soon as the gun started firing, not bothering to look back at what was happening in the mud. He had made it about halfway up when the whole side of the vehicle lurched alarmingly, and then heaved up out of the mud. His lantern slipped off its makeshift hook and was soon sucked away by the mud. The Gatling gun stopped firing. Most likely Professor Flint had been knocked away from it when the Conveyance had shifted.
Vaulting over the last few rungs of the ladder, Devon ran towards the Gatling gun, slipping for a moment on his now muddy boots. He nearly tripped over his own safety line and paused for a few precious seconds to unhook it from his belt. Then he stepped up to the gun, pointed it back down towards the mud, and started firing, not certain if he was even hitting anything. The Conveyance heaved under his feet again, then sank a few inches back into the mud. In the dim light of the remaining lamps he could see ripples in the mud moving away and decided that whatever had been holding them in place had probably gone. It was time to go before whatever it was came back. Devon looked around for the professors to make sure he hadn't lost either of them and spotted them both looking sadly at something on the deck. Professor Reuben was holding a saucer in each hand, but only one of them had a teacup on it. The other cup lay in a pitiful heap of shards at his feet.
"Blast it," Professor Flint said, "Now we have only the two. Devon, make a note in the log, if you will. The next model of the Conveyance should be outfitted with more teacups."
Devon blinked at him for a moment. "Or you could use tin cups, like I use for my coffee. They wouldn't keep breaking." Both professors looked at him as if he'd gone mad.
"Don’t be silly, my boy – tin would completely ruin the taste," said Professor Flint.
Devon was about to respond to this but paused when he realized the nature of the conversation he was being drawn into and the danger still very present around them. He swallowed his original reply and instead said "Of course, whatever was I thinking? I'll indeed make the note you suggested, just as soon as I have a moment. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get moving again." The last few words were underscored by a distant humming noise, and he rushed back to the controls without waiting for a reply.
"Be sure you clean those boots before you come below decks!" Professor Reuben called after him. "We don't want to track mud all over the inside of the Conveyance!" He shook his head in despair at the young man's lack of refinement. Tin cups, indeed.
brigits_flame community. The topic for week #1 of September is "Mud," for which I have written the following: Professor Samuel Reuben was pouring a cup of hot water for his tea when the whole room suddenly tilted several degrees to one side. This sort of disruption had become a common occurrence over the last few days, and he had become quite adept at adjusting to them, but this incident was considerably more violent than most. With the aid of some rather undignified gyrations, he managed to avoid scalding himself with boiling water, but he was unable to save his teacup and saucer as they slid off the table and shattered on the floor.
"Blast, not another one!" he cried as he leaned against the wall for support. Normally, the room would have righted itself almost immediately, but this time everything was still slanted almost twenty degrees. Professor Reuben frowned as he realized that they were also no longer moving. He looked out the nearby porthole, but it was far too dark outside to see what might have caused the current situation. He set the kettle back on the stove and then donned his jacket. After taking a moment to make sure that the gas was switched off, he unbolted the door of the galley and stepped out into a short hallway. Steadying himself with a firm grip on the ladder leading to the upper deck, he called up the open hatchway. "Good heavens, man, what are you doing up there? You've made me break another cup!"
"Another one!" said a voice to his left. He turned to see Professor Viktor Flint emerging from his cabin, still holding a book in one hand. "How many is that, now?"
"Well," said Professor Reuben, "there was the one from when that ridge collapsed out from under us. Plus the one from when that great beast attacked us."
"Which beast are you thinking of – the one with the tentacles, or the one with the horns? Because I broke one when the one with the tentacles picked us up and hurled us into the hillside," said Professor Flint.
"Confound it, I broke one when the one with the horns rammed us," said Reuben, frowning. "Those, plus the one we lost to that giant bat, plus the one just now… why, we have only three left! What shall we do if we have to entertain guests?"
Professor Flint shrugged, "I don't know, but I suppose we shall be alright if it's just one guest. Devon does not appear to care for tea, so we shall have his cup." He inclined his head towards the ladder. "Speaking of Devon, perhaps we should go ask him what is amiss this time," he said.
Professor Reuben nodded his agreement and began to climb the ladder. Near the top he paused for a moment and then carefully peered over the edge of the hatch to make sure that nothing was on the roof of the Conveyance. These days he was wary of being on the roof of the vehicle, particularly at night. His hand still hurt from when the giant bat had snatched his teacup from his grasp a few days previous.
Seeing nothing that appeared immediately dangerous, he climbed the last few rungs and emerged onto the roof of the Conveyance. He cautiously made his way towards the front of the vehicle, keeping a tight grip on the railing that enclosed the upper deck. The huge gas lamp mounted on the front of the vehicle was slowly pivoting to the right, and he leaned over the edge a bit to see if there were any interesting plants nearby. Wherever the light fell it revealed only a flat expanse of brown muck.
"Mud?" Professor Reuben said incredulously, "We've stopped because we hit some mud?"
"Apparently," came the terse reply from near the controls. Devon was still turning cranks to direct more lamps towards the side that had become mired in the soft mud. Reuben heard a shuffling noise behind him and panicked for a moment as his mind conjured an image of great leathery wings. It was only Flint, though.
"Young man," Flint said to Devon, "This vehicle represents the pinnacle of modern science. You cannot seriously be telling us that it has been thwarted by some mud." Indeed, Flint's faith in the machine was quite reasonable. The Multi-Terrain Thermovaporous Drive Conveyance was certainly the most advanced piece of machinery ever designed by the engineers at Vyn and Tressle Machineworks. Powered by an enormous steam engine, the vehicle should be capable of carrying a crew of three safely through almost any environment imaginable, all with a level of comfort and refinement suitable for gentlemen such as the learned professors.
Devon's private assessment was that the vehicle was overlarge, overcomplicated, and on several occasions he had thought to himself that it was also overstaffed. The professors were an almost constant drain on his patience. Were it not for the fact that the whole point of the expedition was to get the two botanists to the middle of the island and back, he would have happily left both of them back on the boat.
"I'll have to climb down and have a look," Devon said. "I need to see just how soft this stuff is, how big a patch of it we've stumbled into, and what exactly it is that we're caught on." He clipped a thick safety cable to his belt and then flicked off the safety catch on his sidearm. Then he checked to make sure that he had both of his knives. At the beginning of the expedition he hadn't paid nearly so much attention to arming himself before going outside the Conveyance. Once all of his various injuries finished healing, he would have several very interesting scars because of this fact.
Devon climbed slowly down the ladder, holding the rail with one hand and a small lantern with the other. The sides of the Conveyance were covered with scrapes and gashes, and one rung of the ladder was missing, but there didn't appear to be any new damage since yesterday's encounter with the dinosaur. When he reached the lowest part of the ladder than wasn't submerged, he was very careful not to let his boots touch the surface of the mud. Ever since that incident with the bright blue fish in one of the rivers they'd crossed, he was wary of submerging his feet in anything. He had been quite fond of that pair of boots.
Overhead, Devon heard the professors talking quietly, but was only able to make out the word "tea." Devon wasn't sure he'd ever heard either of the professors talk about a subject other than tea or botany. Since Devon had no interest in either subject, the professors mostly left him alone to manage the Conveyance…unless they drove past an interesting-looking tree, shrub, flower, or blade of grass, at which point they would have to make yet another unscheduled stop. Devon was determined to keep to their schedule, and the constant need to stop so the professors could snip a leaf off some new plant had led Devon to get in some extra driving at night. He hoped that doing so could let them make up lost time. The professors had resisted the idea at first, complaining that they could miss all sorts of fascinating specimens as they drove past them in the dark. Eventually, however, the professors' eagerness to reach their ultimate destination at the center of the island had allowed them to be won over to Devon's way of thinking
Devon hooked the handle of the lantern over a twisted piece of metal that used to be part of the ladder. He reached to take a pencil out of the pocket of his vest, reconsidered, and instead wrenched a twig free from one of the rents in the side of the Conveyance. He was running out pencils, after all.
He leaned down and poked the surface of the mud. No flames, no wisps of smoke, and no screaming. It was a testament to the difficulties already faced by the expedition that this did not reassure Devon, but instead made him deeply suspicious. Surely it could not be something so simple as ordinary mud.
They had been driving along at a good clip when all of a sudden the vehicle had slewed to the right, tilted alarmingly, and come to a dead stop. It made Devon nervous. During the course of their journey they had driven over rocks, bushes, fallen trees, and alligators, and the Conveyance had always righted itself. They had driven over gravel, through rivers, and even across one shallow pond, and the great gear-like wheels had never lost traction. Now they had hit a patch of soft, deep mud, and all of a sudden the great leviathan was brought to a halt? Something was obviously up.
Distracted by his musings, Devon didn't immediately notice the movement next to him. There was a bulge forming in the surface of the mud. It was about three inches across before Devon spotted it, and at first he thought it was a bubble. However, once it had expanded to a diameter of eight inches the bubble split neatly apart to reveal a glassy black orb, and he realized that it was a giant eye. Well, this probably explained why they weren't moving, Devon thought to himself.
"Do you see any flowers or mushrooms down there?" came a voice from topside, and it startled Devon so badly that he dropped his twig. It had barely touched the surface of the mud before it was sucked below, leaving behind only a soft gurgling sound. Devon tightened his grip on the ladder, but dared not make any other movements. He thought of his sidearm, but it seemed laughably inadequate for shooting at something large enough to have an eye eight inches across. Besides, he dare not move to draw the weapon. Whatever it was in the mud didn't seem to have reacted to the Professor's shout, though. Maybe it couldn't hear them.
"Professor, would you be so kind as to aim the Gatling gun at a point a few feet to my left and then start firing?" Devon called back. He faintly heard Flint's voice say something about holding his tea, and then the metallic shriek of the Gatling gun being repositioned. He tensed, waiting for the hail of bullets. A moment passed. Nothing seemed to be happening.
"About how many bullets should I fire?" said Professor Flint. Devon closed his eyes and wished not for the first time that he had not accepted this assignment. The important thing was to keep calm. If he panicked, the professor might panic, and then…well, it would probably get him eaten or shot, if not both.
"Just start firing," Devon called back, "and I'll come up and let you know when you've fired enough."
"Jolly good," came the reply, followed shortly by the cacophony of the Gatling gun, which was itself followed almost immediately by a wet splattering and a low, dreadful hum that made Devon's teeth vibrate in his skull. He'd been expecting some kind of animal shriek but was satisfied for the moment that they'd prompted any sort of response at all. Mud spattered his legs as the surface of the muck was churned by the Gatling gun and the movements of whatever it was that lurked beneath the mud.
Devon had started climbing as soon as the gun started firing, not bothering to look back at what was happening in the mud. He had made it about halfway up when the whole side of the vehicle lurched alarmingly, and then heaved up out of the mud. His lantern slipped off its makeshift hook and was soon sucked away by the mud. The Gatling gun stopped firing. Most likely Professor Flint had been knocked away from it when the Conveyance had shifted.
Vaulting over the last few rungs of the ladder, Devon ran towards the Gatling gun, slipping for a moment on his now muddy boots. He nearly tripped over his own safety line and paused for a few precious seconds to unhook it from his belt. Then he stepped up to the gun, pointed it back down towards the mud, and started firing, not certain if he was even hitting anything. The Conveyance heaved under his feet again, then sank a few inches back into the mud. In the dim light of the remaining lamps he could see ripples in the mud moving away and decided that whatever had been holding them in place had probably gone. It was time to go before whatever it was came back. Devon looked around for the professors to make sure he hadn't lost either of them and spotted them both looking sadly at something on the deck. Professor Reuben was holding a saucer in each hand, but only one of them had a teacup on it. The other cup lay in a pitiful heap of shards at his feet.
"Blast it," Professor Flint said, "Now we have only the two. Devon, make a note in the log, if you will. The next model of the Conveyance should be outfitted with more teacups."
Devon blinked at him for a moment. "Or you could use tin cups, like I use for my coffee. They wouldn't keep breaking." Both professors looked at him as if he'd gone mad.
"Don’t be silly, my boy – tin would completely ruin the taste," said Professor Flint.
Devon was about to respond to this but paused when he realized the nature of the conversation he was being drawn into and the danger still very present around them. He swallowed his original reply and instead said "Of course, whatever was I thinking? I'll indeed make the note you suggested, just as soon as I have a moment. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get moving again." The last few words were underscored by a distant humming noise, and he rushed back to the controls without waiting for a reply.
"Be sure you clean those boots before you come below decks!" Professor Reuben called after him. "We don't want to track mud all over the inside of the Conveyance!" He shook his head in despair at the young man's lack of refinement. Tin cups, indeed.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Tea and botany. XD
Date: 2008-09-13 07:25 pm (UTC)Was absolutely.
Fricking.
HILARIOUS.
This is really the funniest response to the prompt I've read as of yet, in the end it had me giggling and gurgling all through.
...Frick, it's just so funny. XD
I love the matter-of-fact, tongue-in-cheek style of this, absolutely fricking love it, this delightful mixture of the fantastic and the mundane. It reads as if H.G. Wells and Douglas Adams wrote a story together, an 18th or 19th century sci-fi story told in an absolutely hysterical way. Dinosaurs? Giant bats? Monsters with horns and tentacles? Who even cares. Take care of the teacups.
You keep up this absurd-bizarre style, with everyone remarking on anything but the obvious, yet it never gets stale.
Frick, I can't even review this properly. It made me laugh so hard.
Bril_li_ant, incredibly imaginative work. You should seriously get this published.
Re: Tea and botany. XD
Date: 2008-09-14 10:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-15 02:27 pm (UTC)And you have all this high brow wit strung throughout that kept me giggling.
Loved this in the end ( I can just imagine the expression on Devon's face!)
-Devon was about to respond to this, but paused when he realized the nature of the conversation he was being drawn into, and the still very present danger around them. He swallowed his original reply, and instead said "Of course, whatever was I thinking? I'll indeed make the note you suggested, just as soon as I have a moment. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get moving again." -
Very funny tag.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-16 03:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-15 02:31 pm (UTC)OH my-- how clever are you! This was great. You balancing the proper and oh so civilized world of tea-drinking against a backdrop of monster all around- in the sky and on the ground. It had a feel old world and New world mix like "journey to the center of the earth" or 'The Time Machine"
And you have all this high brow wit strung throughout that kept me giggling.
Loved this in the end ( I can just imagine the expression on Devon's face!)
-Devon was about to respond to this, but paused when he realized the nature of the conversation he was being drawn into, and the still very present danger around them. He swallowed his original reply, and instead said "Of course, whatever was I thinking? I'll indeed make the note you suggested, just as soon as I have a moment. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get moving again." -
Very funny tag.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-16 12:48 am (UTC)To be quite honest, I could not think of one thing to say about this. I really enjoyed it. Your characters have big personalities in such a few short words of dialogue and I definitely liked your idea for this prompt. Drinking tea and monsters? Very unique! I'm interested in learning more about the context that this is in. It sounds like quite the story!
Good job! Well written and very creative.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-16 04:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-16 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-16 04:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-19 07:11 pm (UTC)Great story. Like everyone else is saying, I love the idea behind it, the characters, everything.
In general, you need to watch your commas. Commas go after a conjunction (i.e. and, but) only when there is a complete sentence on both sides of the conjunction, and then it is not optional. I'm just going to list the places in your story where you need to take care of that:
He set the kettle back on the stove, and then donned his jacket.
Near the top he paused for a moment, and then carefully peered over the edge...
He'd been expecting some kind of animal shriek, but was satisfied for the moment that they'd prompted...
He nearly ripped over his own safety line, and paused for a few precious seconds to unhook it from his belt.
... he could see ripples in the mud moving away, and decided that whatever had been holding them in place had probably gone.
Devon looked around for the professors to make sure he hadn't lost either of them, and spotted them both looking sadly at something on the deck.
Devon was about to respond to this, but paused when he realized the nature of the conversation he was being drawn into, and the still very present danger around them. both commas here
He swallowed his original reply, and instead said...
More on commas: When one person is addressing another, the name or phrase referring to that person needs to be set off by a comma:
"Good heavens, man..."
"Don't be silly, my boy..."
So, editing, from the top: bold to add,
strikethroughto subtract, italics to comment.With the aid of some rather undignified gyrations, he managed to avoid scalding himself with boiling water...
"Good heavens man, what are you doing up there!" I would make that a question mark
"Well," said Professor Rueben,"there was the one from when that ridge collapsed out from under us..." Because the sentence is continuing from the "well", "there" should not be capitalized.
This is just a formatting note that I find useful: when you have "..." sometimes it ends up going onto the next line unless you put a space after that before the next word. Random, but possibly useful!
He inclined his head towards the ladder as he said this last. This last what? Because "last" is not a noun, it isn't particularly good grammar to end the sentence with it.
(cont.)
no subject
Date: 2008-09-19 07:12 pm (UTC)"I need to see just how soft this stuff is, how big a patch of it we've stumbled into, and what exactly it is that we're stuck on." Should it be "stuck in"?
OnceWhen he reached the lowest part of the ladder than wasn't submerged, he was very careful not to let his boots touch the surface of the mud. Ever since that incident with the bright blue fish in one of the rivers they'd crossed, he was wary of submerging his feet in anything.Eventually, however, the professors' eagerness to reach their ultimate destination at the center of the island had allowed them to be won over to Devon's way of thinking. The period wasn't there, not sure if you would have been able to see just the bold, sorry.
Devon hooked the
handle of the lanternlantern's handle over a twisted piece of metal that used to be part of the ladder. That just makes it a little bit more concise, which you may want to consider doing in a few more places.It had made Devon nervous. Try to keep your tenses uniform.
Now they had hit a patch of soft, deep mud... same problem
"
AboutApproximately how many bullets should I fire?" That just seems more in keeping with Flint's personality.The Conveyance heaved under his
featfeet again...It was time to
be goinggo before whatever it was came back.Devon was about to respond to this, but paused when he realized the nature of the conversation he was being drawn into, and the
still very presentdanger still very present around them. He swallowed his original reply, andinsteadsaid instead...Tin cups, indeed.
-----
I hope that helps! It was really a great story, and I loved reading it not only the first time but each time after that, too. Feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions, and I'm sorry about the delay.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-19 11:43 pm (UTC)To address your first point, the terrible truth is that next to my computer there is a rip in the fabric of space and time that leads to a dimension full of nothing but commas. They pour in through the hole, and, get, all,,, over,, everything.
Seriously though, I admit that I have a comma problem. I'll definitely go through and make those changes to this story and apply the same guidelines to week #2. I'll try to remember to follow those rules in the future as well. I'm afraid that I've been away from formal writing for so many years now that many of the rules for such things have long since oozed out my ears and escaped.
---He inclined his head towards the ladder as he said this last. This last what? Because "last" is not a noun, it isn't particularly good grammar to end the sentence with it.---
Hmm, that must be a stylistic thing that I picked up from someone. I'll see if I can rework that and break that habit.
---"I need to see just how soft this stuff is, how big a patch of it we've stumbled into, and what exactly it is that we're stuck on." Should it be "stuck in"?---
I see what you mean, but I really did mean "on." Everyone seems to agree that it's mud. Devon is going to see what's IN the mud that the wheel might be caught on. I suppose if I had said "caught on" instead of "stuck on" in the first place there wouldn’t be any confusion.
---It had made Devon nervous. Try to keep your tenses uniform.
Now they had hit a patch of soft, deep mud... same problem---
I think you're right that I dropped a "had" from the sentence about hitting the patch of mud, but I was referring to Devon being nervous in the present. I can see how mixing narrative about past events with feelings about them in the present makes for some awkward reading, though. I'll see if I can come up with a solution to that problem.
Thanks again for the thorough edit and for your suggestions, and I'm glad it was fun to read.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-20 02:46 am (UTC)There's a wormhole in my living room leading to right inside the front door. We don't seem to have comma-transportation problems, though dishes... dishes wind up behind the door and broken. But what a terrible mess commas must make!
Hmm, that must be a stylistic thing that I picked up from someone.
I used to do that as well, but one of my professors broke me of the habit pretty effectively. It's one of those things that sounds really good until you think about it (what she told me).
I suppose if I had said "caught on" instead of "stuck on" in the first place there wouldn’t be any confusion.
I was pretty sure that was what you had meant, and that does seem to clear it all up.
I can see how mixing narrative about past events with feelings about them in the present makes for some awkward reading, though.
Maybe, "Thinking about it now made Devon nervous."? The only real way I see to help that is to be sure to say that it's in the time of the story. Hopefully that helps more?
no subject
Date: 2009-08-30 03:11 pm (UTC)=P I'm heading over to the next installment now! =p
no subject
Date: 2009-08-30 04:35 pm (UTC)I miss you and your lovely month-long sagas, you know. They were/are the BEST and they need to start again. :D (I'm serious. They're awesomesauce. Then again I haven't read anything in a while, failure on my part. You're probably still being awesome just without me knowing.)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-31 06:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-01 04:32 am (UTC)Can't wait to see what you come up with for Parasite.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-01 08:24 am (UTC)Only time will tell what my brain cooks up for 'parasite' week. = )
Все отлично сделано!
Date: 2011-06-06 04:59 am (UTC)