Hi, thanks for submitting to *Trashrock, we all really appreciate your participation. I apologise for the lateness of the critique but life, as you know, commonly interferes with the cyber sphere. Better late than never, eh? Well on with the task.

So what I will do is take each section of your story and give you an ongoing critique. I am quite sporadic in my approach at time, which I’m sorry for, but I find it works anyway. If you need me to further clarify any point, please don’t hesitate to ask . Also any edit examples are just suggestion and are by no means perfect, due to their impromptu nature, but they are there to give you a general idea of what I mean

Christopher walks with his father towards the edge of the shore. Clouds swell on the sky from the west so that its vast expanse appears bruised. He can see the last translucent patches of cloud attempting to prolong the light of today. However, Christopher knows that darkness is inevitable. His feet sink slightly into the sand each time he takes a step. This sand is not like the powder-fine, golden particles that fill most beaches, but instead it is dark grey, the texture of cement.

Does this appear obstructive to you? I’m sure Amber has told you in critiques (as she has always told me) that the opening line is the hook, it’s supposed to real the audience in and propel them into the story or intrigue them enough to keep reading. So far, I’m not intrigued, but we’ll address the obstructions first. This section is an edit of the first eighty five words of your piece; I have it down to forty two.


Suggested examples of Edits:

Christopher walks to the shore, beside his father, as the clouds swell across the western horizon, bruising the sky. The darkness is inevitable as it starts to snuff out the last lines of day; he sinks into the stand with each step.
I know that’s a huge cut back, but bear with me for a moment. After the edit, we still have the core of it; nothing is lost other than extra words and senseless images that do nothing to propel your story. The two figures of attention are still doing what they are supposed to be doing; there still exists imagery that transmits the general idea of the time of day and its appearance, while playing on atmospherics. What you need to remember, when writing imagery and general structure, that less is more. I’m not suggesting complete minimalism here, but by your Year 12 results, I’m guessing that you would have quite an extensive vocabulary, if not a developed one. Word choice is key, when one word will operate just as effectively as two or three, choose the one. Don’t be afraid to pick up the thesaurus (but don’t go crazy with it, nothing kills a story more than over written paragraphs).


Suggested examples of Edits:

The waves rolled in and Christopher imagined his brother, coasting the curl on his surfboard; he couldn’t understand how one could enjoy being swallowed up and spat out as the white wash hurtled to his feet.
Comment: But since the brother is only mentioned once in the entire story and does nothing for the piece or the progression, I would like to offer you an alternative example.
Suggested examples of Edits:
The waves rolled in as Christopher watched the surfers, perched on their boards behind the breakers, waiting for the right wave to catch them. He didn’t understand how they could enjoy being swallowed up and spat out as the curl failed and the white wash hurtled around his feet.


Reasoning for edits:

The repetitive crash of breaking waves (It stands to reason that waves would crash repeatedly since 1. They are waves controlled by tides that are never ceasing natural forces 2. The plural of waves implies that it is a repetitive happening. Waves are also naturally loud, in some instances during high tide, I can hear them from my bedroom. It is a noise that invades your sense and surrounds you, it does not really reach you, as if it takes a long time to travel. It’s loud, infectious and at time, very violent). reached Christopher's ears and he thought of his brother, of how he liked to surf (The brother is a redundancy I have addressed in the edits). Christopher could not understand it. He did not desire the feeling of being swallowed up and spat out the other side.


Suggested examples of Edits:

‘Bring the bucket, lad?’ his father asked, staring into the horizon.
Christopher held the blue bucket out, its bottom cracked and crusty from years of use; his father didn’t seem to notice, in fact, he didn’t seem to be seeing anything.
Reasoning for edit:
'Bring the bucket, lad?' his father asked, though he was staring absent-mindedly at a spot on the horizon (This is one long unneceassary attribution that dictates to the audience, suffocating them with too much information. Trust your audience to use their imaginations to fill in the blanks, clued in by the details and atmosphere you provide).
Christopher held in his right hand a blue bucket (so much detail, for no reason at all; again, don’t dictate so much to your audience. You are telling way too much and showing very little), cracked at the bottom and crusty with remains from previous trips (this isn’t too bad, but it could be used a better sense with attention to phrasing. I like the touch of crusty remains, as it reminds me of all the old bucket sets I had as a kid and how it used to build up if you didn’t wash it out properly). He held it out so his father could see, but his father didn't seem to be seeing anything (Some phrasing problems, but I’ve cleaned it up for you in the edits. Just be mindful of word order and how you approach your writing).


Suggested examples of Edits:

They’d walked this beach days on end, searching the rock pools for crabs, that hide beneath rock clusters. By sunset, the bucket is heavy with crustaceans scratching to get away, piled on top of each other, rolling around. Christopher’s mother eats them within the week, shelling them as soon as they walk in the door and settling in the back room, her hand wrapped around a flute of wine. He liked the rock pools, the taste of salt as the breeze stirred the surface and his father, always beside him. He liked to watch the crabs, and their cruel pincers.


Reasoning for Edits:

He and his father have walked this beach many times, to search for the crabs that hide underneath the clustered rocks in small pools of salt water (Wordy, boring and obtrusive – whatever you want to say, there are always different ways to say it; before you settle on one, try out every possibility). Together, they collect them in the blue bucket and take them home for Christopher's mother, who consumes the bucket of fleshy crabs within days.(Very obvious that they collected them together as the father seems like a stalwart presence. Repetition of bucket in the same sequence, reduces fluidity and appears over descriptive. Consumption is obvious, process to get to consumption is more interesting). She liked the room at the back of the house most to devour them, her hand constantly clasped around the long glass stem.(This sentence needs to be integrated with the previous sentence, right now it reads like an instructional manual for their day to day life instead of providing solid imagery- has potential though). He liked coming here with his father, the taste of the salt as he bent low over a rock pool, the way that the crabs conformed to the shape of the ash coloured rocks so that you didn't know they were there until they had you by the finger with one of their menacing claws (Lots of interesting little snippets there lost in a lot of unnecessary words – real potential with your images but fallen flat due to over wrought execution and voicelessness within the text).


Suggested examples of Edits:

‘Stop here, lad, take your shoes off,’ his father instructed, tapping Christopher on the shoulder. They always settled at this spot, the same pools, the same beach; Christopher never said anything, he didn’t want to break their routine. Their shoes and socks came off, sand crusted to the sides of his runners.
‘Reckon we’ll get a lot, Dad?’ Christopher asked, as he wet his hands.
‘Should get a full bucket.’
‘Mum will be happy, won’t she Dad?’ His father didn’t respond, scowling into the water, the surface muddling his face.


Reasoning for Edits:

'Stop here, lad, take off your shoes now,' his father instructed, halting Christopher's path with his outstretched palm (Over written attribution – be mindful of this and how much detail you provide. You can allude to actions and movement without writing it explicitly). His father told him this at the exact same spot each time, though Christopher never said anything because he was afraid to break their routine. (This seems like a salient point within the piece and yet, it is poorly illuminated, I get no tangible feeling from it, other than you were bored with the piece and stumbling over your sentences. In that vogue, the edits give this line more direction, trying to solidify the message that should be communicated through this point. He doesn’t like change, he’s stagnant, drive it home, every feeling, drive it home to your audience if it is a central idea to the story).
Stooping in the sand, he untied his shoes and slid off his socks, stuffing them together in a ball. His father did the same (Okay, there is a point I need to bring up here. From your textual directives, I assume that these people constantly come down to these rock pools looking for crabs on a weekly to fortnightly basis – why do they wear shoes? It does not make sense to wear shoes and socks to the rock pools, especially if you are going to be hindered by a bucket of crabs on the walk back. Furthermore, it is an uncomfortable experience walking on cement like sand with shoes and socks, and a messy one, that goes for any sand – this may seem like a small detail, but it’s really not, especially since your whole piece centralises around the beach. Get a feel for what Coasters are like, especially in their beach/rock pool habits. As a general image, ignoring that redundancy, it’s alright. There are some phrasing issues that I’ve illuminated in the edits but you’ve provided a solid basis leading up to the dialogue).

'Reckon we'll get a lot, dad?' (We need an attribution here, coupled with a short burst of activity to show what they are doing. The first line sets the pacing for the dialogue and the conversational order, use your opening attributions to create a nice atmospheric, we can only see through your words).
He nods, 'a full bucket.' (This attribution isn’t needed here, as the nod is made redundant by the direct connotations of your word choice).
'Mum will be happy, won't she dad?'
His father scowls. (Here is where you can go to town on your attribution and the imagery of body language. His father scowls...So what? I scowl a lot but without other suggestive detail that’s all you have. A scowl with dialogue based context and limited implication).


Suggested examples of Edits:

Christopher sighs, as the water rushes around his ankles, lapping at his heels like a friendly dog. The foam bounds over the rocky walls as his father urges for him to hurry with the bucket, a few pools ahead already.


Reasoning for Edits:

The water greets Christopher's toes and laps over his ankles like a friendly dog's tongue (Okay, you have two images in conjunction with the other. As it stands, it’s weakened by execution, the passive introduction into the image doesn’t do you any favours in terms of pulling it off. Figure out what image is your operative image and which image is your supporting image and re-write it with those factors in consideration). White foam bounds over the humped rocks, propelled forward by momentum (We have some redundancies here, if the foam indeed bounds forward, there is already a sense of propulsion and force behind the waves. I don’t know what they are doing searching the tide pools when the tide is coming in but that’s not my business, although I’d reconsider it, especially since it’s easier to catch and spot crabs between the tide transitions, in my experience. Why are the rocks humped? Why can they not just be rocks and allow the audience to picture the rocks? ). His father is already a few paces ahead, and yells for Christopher to hurry up with the bucket (Okay, who has the bucket? Did the father take the bucket earlier in the piece? Or was that never actually resolved? There was implied transference of the bucket, so that’s something you need to address. Also one does not pace in a tide pool, it’s more of a careful trudging motion considering the oysters and rock fish etc).



Suggested examples of Edits:

Christopher remembers.
The dead look on his father’s face as he attempted to search for his wife, inside the woman; she stood in the doorway, staring past his father and into the wall. Her eyes wandered as she held the empty flute, the rim smeared with more lipstick than her lips. The colour reminded Christopher of blood, clinging to the glass. He sat in front of the TV, time glazed over from one show to another, as the flute slipped from her hand to shatter on the tiles. His father shouts something into time and it becomes lost in the dim minutes when his wife swipes at him and he captured her by the wrists. The sound explodes in Christopher’s ears, as his mother crumpled to the floor, the glass at her knees.


Reasoning for Edits:

Christopher remembers.

He remembers the dead look on his father's face as he attempted to search for the wife inside the woman. His mother stands (consistency issues with tense throughout this paragraph) in the doorway, looking at a spot on the wall just behind his father's head (Obtrusive, phrasing problems and a little bit telly). Her eyes aren't focused, and she's still holding onto the empty glass smeared with lipstick the colour of berries. It reminded Christopher of blood (You can join these two images into one solid cohesive image, as it stands, they are dictatorial images that only highlight the redundancies of the other). He sat in front of the television, not quite noticing if The Wiggles or Humphrey B. Bear was playing while out of the corner of his eye he watched the glass slip from his mother's fingertips and shatter on the tiles (This is a great potential image, just needs to be strengthened in places as you trip over your own words occasionally, as if you weren’t quite sure how to execute the image). His father mumbles something, or maybe he shouts it, but sound has become caught in time (This sentence stumbles and mumbles itself, you have a chance here to make a statement with it). Everything is dimmed. Dull. His mother reaches out, and tries to hit his father, but he only held her by the wrists, and the sound made Christopher's ears hurt even more (This should be a strong moving image, but there is no action in the words, just description of action. I don’t feel the violence of it). His mother crumpled to the floor, the glass at her knees.



Suggested examples of Edits:

‘Hey, you coming?’
His father plods through the shallows; a miniature world of craters, hollows and oysters, shining on the rocks. He passes the net to Christopher, who folds it into the bucket, hanging on his elbow. He peers into the pool, as something scuttles across his sight and behind the safety of a rock. They’re like vampires, Christopher thinks, as he pushes the rock away and watches its legs scuttle sideways, like they were attached the wrong way. He waits for the water to calm, grabbing its claw and swinging it into the bucket with a thwak. ‘Gotcha!’


Reasoning for Edits:

'Hey, you coming?'
Christopher's father is at the shallow rock pools, a miniature world of craters, dips and hollows, inhabited by a vast colony of crabs. He hands over the small net, which Christopher folds into the bucket and hooks into his bent elbow (I like the description of the shallows, but it could be simplified in a more cohesive sentence form and image. Also, you might want to focus on something other than the crabs, from the main action of the story, it is very obvious that there are alot of crabs in these rock pools. Also, why put a perfectly good net in with the crabs that you are about to catch? There are some inconsistencies, earlier in the piece, the reader is led to believe that they catch the crabs with their hands due to the lack of presence of a net and the references to pincers of the crabs biting the fingers of an unsuspecting person, please clarify this when you edit it. Technicaly problems are the same as all throughout, too wordy and wandering).
He peers into one of the pools, the water appears to be clearer here, as if the muddy sand has been siphoned out, leaving a well of iridescent elixir (This is a little verbose, again you could simplify your structure and arrange your word choice to further the image – right now it is obstructed by dictorial language and your own uncertainty).
He prises a small rock from the pool floor, revealing a scurry of legs and pincers as an exposed crab becomes desperate and tries to find solitary darkness (This sentence started out so well! Think about how you use your modifiers and descriptive language – it can either help or hinder). It's like vampires, Christopher thinks (Hehe, I like the comparison, you should integrate this into your previous sentence to cement the image). He likes to watch them scuffle sideways, like they're(their) legs were attached the wrong way round. Fast little buggers, though. He grabs its claw and swings it into the bucket with a thwak (All of this and the sentences before could be incorporated into an image series by punctuation other than full stops, make it an issue of fascination instead of just reeling of images like a list – also, why bother with the net if he catches the crab with his hand?). 'Gotcha!'


Suggested examples of Edits:

‘Give the net here, son.’
He hands it to his father and listens to the crab dance, partnerless, against the bottom of the bucket.
'Dad?
'Hmm?' his father responds, pressing his lips together in concentration, fumbling the net, the grooves around his knuckles aching; he squints his eyes and adds, ‘Help me with this, will you?
Christopher reaches out for the net, it slips through his eagerness and away from his fingers and into the water. His father’s brows tighten; he can’t fathom the clumsiness of his son or understand how insignificant it is. His eyes turn to Christopher.
‘What the hell are you doing, boy?’
‘I didn’t mean—‘
‘Don’t just stand there, pick it up,’ he growls.
Christopher kneels on the rocks, ignoring the oyster shells as they cut through his skin. His hand darts beneath the surface and stirs up the sand, as it struggles to grasp the net. A crab snaps its pincers, urging him to hurry up as the breeze ruffles his hair. The world is blank, and his ears are silent.
‘Good for nothing,’ his father mutters.


Reasoning for Edits:

'Give the net here, son.'
He hands it to his father and listens to the crab dance, partnerless, against the bottom of the bucket (Okay, so why does the net even transfer hands if the son doesn’t use it and his father does? It’s a redundancy, you could even play on the fact of their different techniques instead of just describing equipment changing hands for no good reasons other to write about some detail that isn’t at all significant).
'Dad?
'Hmm?'
His father is concentrating on his two hands grasping the net, he fumbles for a moment as if they cannot quite remember how to coordinate. His eyes are squinting, and Christopher notices the deep grooves in and around his knuckles. He doesn't think they were there last time he looked, but he can't be sure (Okay, again, this could be all incorporated in one cohesive image by the means of sub imagery and central imagery. You are trying to build an action by describing instead of showing, build your action by active word choice instead of descriptive word choice. To see what I mean, please look at the suggested edits )
'Help me with this, will you?,' his father requests, hoarsely.
Christopher reaches out and takes the net from his father, though accidentally drops it in his eagerness to help. This small incident seems to trigger a nerve within his father, whose brow creases as if he cannot quite fathom the insignificance of his son's slip-up. (This is meant to be a tense moment, and I can’t feel the tension at all, there is angry descriptors but there is no thunderclap so to speak, no change in atmosphere, I should be able to taste the disapproval of the father. When writing a moment like this, re draft it a few times and think about your execution. What are you trying to achieve, how do you want the audience to feel? How do you feel? And more importantly, how do you characters feel about the situation? It’s up to you to transmit these feeling appropriately. Think about word choice, structure and pacing, don’t over write these moments but don’t under write them either).
'What the hell are you doing?' his voice becomes raised (Rethink this attribution, make it active instead of passive).
'I didn't mean-'
'Don't just stand there, pick it up.'
He stoops to retrieve the net from amongst the rocks and pools of water (The rocks and pools of water are part of the same environment, so why separate them into two different entities? The language doesn’t flow here, it feels tight and forced as with much of the piece). The crab snaps its pincers menacingly, as though laughing. A breeze ruffles his hair and for a moment all noise is white (Integrate this into one sentence and one image, you can make it flow cohesively if you think about phrasing and word choice as you write and redraft your work. Structures like this sound more like instructions when they don’t communicate with the audience).
'Good for nothing,' his father is –(delete) mutter(s).



Suggested examples of Edits:

Christopher remembers.
His parents tangled around each other, his mother shuddered as his father held her, legs curled around his hips as he whispered tenderly into her ear. Christopher could almost smell her musky breath, that used to float around his head as she tucked him in at night until they became shorter, an oddity and then nothingness. He remembers the mask of despair on his father’s face, as he attempted to draw his wife out of the woman. He never took it off.


Reasoning for Edits:

Christopher remembers.
His mother and father entangled. His mother shudders while he holds her, his arms curled around her, cocooning. His whispers tender, so quiet that only she could hear them. Christopher can almost smell his mother's musky breath, the breath which reminds him of when his mother still used to tuck him in at night (This feels like the most awkward sex scene. Your structure is jumbled and forced, like you knew what kind of atmosphere you were trying to create but you had trouble expressing it – that’s okay, not everybody is good at writing sex. The trick is to have a central image, and construct feelings and threads of other images around it, so it all connects in the end. It takes practice and its a rule that is applicable to most if not all imagery. Also its odd to follow a good sexual notion with a goodnight reference, it over balances the scale and what you’re trying to say gets lost in the two very contrasting situational contexts, I will suggest edits for both scenario’s but I will deal with them independently as it is discomforting to have sex and a mother saying goodnight to her child juxtaposed). These goodnights steadily became shorter, and eventually became an oddity, and then were gone altogether. He remembers the same look of despair on his father's face, as he attempts to draw his wife out of the woman.


Suggested examples of Edits:

He looks up at his father and tries to catch his eye, but it keeps going, through Christopher and off into the distance.
'I want to go home.'
'We can't go home just yet, boy.'
'I want to go home,' he repeats. His eyelashes fold in on themselves and he remembers.
'Why the hell would you want to go back there!' his father yells. White noise turns into white light(?This is subject entirely to your own creativity). Christopher's ear stings. He stumbles.
He looks up, sees his father, or is it his mother? He remembers.
Whispers. 'Is it happening to you, too?'


Reasoning for Edits:

He looks up at his father, catches his eye. His father's eyes look through him, not at him. (This sentence would benefit from the insertion of and between “father” and “catches” with the removal of the comma. Rethink the following sentence in how it is structured, I understand what you’re saying but it feels incredibly awkward).
'I want to go home.'
'We can't go home just yet, boy.'
'I want to go home,' he repeats. His eyelashes fold in on themselves and he remembers.
'Why the hell would you want to go back there!' his father yells, extending his arm (delete this, action following action is a little pointless). White noise turns into white light (Kind of flat, think about the ways in which you can strengthen this). Christopher's ear stings. He stumbles.
He looks up, sees his father, or is it his mother? He remembers.
Whispers. 'Is it happening to you, too?'




Okay, so now I’ve got the blow by blow out of the way, here are some issues that you need to consider in the general sense before writing further drafts:


Plot

This doesn’t appear to have much plot or any reason really other to show the dysfunction of a family, using this tradition as a central motif. There are implications of abuse, insanity, relationship conflict between father/Christopher and mother/father. But nothing really comes together, you skip over memories and events really quickly, only highlighting minimally any possible central theme. There are some loose connections, between his memories and the climax of the story, which doesn’t really seem like an ending. In fact it feels like you’ve built every edge of tension you were going for earlier on in the piece into this one moment, instead of distributing into these interactions that are meant to be potent. You climax should be a climax, not a flat continuation of a what if.

Before redrafting ask yourself the following questions:

What is the point of this story?

Who’s story am I trying to tell? How can I do this effectively?

What ties do I want to highlight?

Where do I want to build my tension?

Is my voice really working for me in this story?

What can I do to better it?



Structure/Word Choice

You seem like you’re stumbling over your writing because you’re forcing yourself into a certain style, if you can’t make one style work, try to adapt your piece to another that you are perhaps better practiced at. Not to say you shouldn’t branch out, but if you choose to pursue this course of writing further, consider what your structure is lacking. Your sentences are dictorial, boring and flat. You have such a great potential here for an awesome setting, but you have to execute it by the way of sentence structure and word choice. The words you choose and the way you write them influence the tone/atmosphere/setting of the story and how the characters interact with the environment. Make it FEEL real, don’t just write about it. Be active in your approach, really get inside the head of your piece.

So the questions you need to consider are:

What words are working for me and which ones aren’t?

What are my strengths and weaknesses in this piece stylistically?

How can I better communicate the atmospherics in my piece and show the way in which my characters interact with it?

Do I tell too much? Where do I need to show instead?



Imagery

Imagery is like a spider’s web, it’s fragile but incredibly beautiful when it’s whole and done correctly. Build your images by using strands or layers of connecting images that will strengthen your core image, because you really do have some potential image wise. Some use imagery to provide an atmosphere, set tone, scenery, it can be character driven or the result of the events surrounding the image.

But it always has to DO something. Imagery that does nothing but add aesthetic charm to a piece is named purple prose, pointless imagery that sits around doing nothing but look pretty, the trophy partner of the prose world I suppose.
Images ultimately provide a sensory experience for the reader; it bewitches them to pursuing the emotions their experiencing in your writing, increasing their enjoyment. If you bombard them with senseless images or contradictory items their bewilderment will turn to bemusement and frustration. The integrity of your piece can be severely compromised through bad imagery.

I hope this helps even a little and again, please don’t hesitate to ask any questions

Jes

( `poprocksandcharlotte )

Wow, that's one epic crit! I've read through it but will go over it again in more detail soon. Just wanted to mention that in the second 'Christopher Remembers' paragraph, the mother and father were not actually having sex but the father was just holding the mother and comforting her. I guess that came across the wrong way.
I really appreciate the time you took to put this together, and I agree with the majority of your suggestions, and will hopefully be able to make this piece a little better
Thank you again!!

--
"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."
- T.S. Eliot

Epic is kind of my style, assuming I have a style and all...
Ahhh, see I wasn't sure if they were embracing or embracing, thanks for the clarification.

It was my pleasure.