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Veniccio's Clock discussion

post #1 of 9
3/1/05 at 3:39am
Thread Starter 
By Dan Whitehead

http://chud.com/stories/1641
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post #2 of 9
3/1/05 at 10:22am


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post #3 of 9
3/1/05 at 12:11pm
Thanks for the pictorial praise, but I'm still not happy with the ending of this one. The "reveal" feels clumsy and badly explained.
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post #4 of 9
3/1/05 at 12:58pm
Hey that's what rewrites are for.
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post #5 of 9
3/1/05 at 1:12pm
I wasn't happy with the beginning. i was hurrying through it to get to the central mystery of 'what was the clock and what did it do'.
You may have problems with the style of how you did the ending but, from a reader's point of view, it was finally getting to the good stuff and very effectively explained and revealed the mystery and the twist. teh ending does deliver, is the point.

The main character wasn't particularly sympathetic or 3 dimensional, there wasn't too much atmosphere in the writing and the mysterious foreigner with a mysterious offer is an (albeit cool) cliche. But it does set up the mystery of what the clock is and what nasty this it will inevitably do very well - the story comes alive when the clock appears.

So you can take it as criticism, or you can take it as me saying the ending works better than you think.
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post #6 of 9
3/1/05 at 3:33pm
Bravo. That was an excellent short. I also felt the ending was rushed and abrupt but the build up and the actually description of the clock was fantastic.
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post #7 of 9
3/1/05 at 5:58pm
Wow. The central part of the story is just brilliant - it's like actually sitting there in front of the clock. Intimidating stuff, Mr Whitehead.
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post #8 of 9
3/2/05 at 4:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Clarke
The main character wasn't particularly sympathetic or 3 dimensional, there wasn't too much atmosphere in the writing and the mysterious foreigner with a mysterious offer is an (albeit cool) cliche. But it does set up the mystery of what the clock is and what nasty this it will inevitably do very well - the story comes alive when the clock appears.
Well, I don't think in a short story format you particularly need to have a protagonist who is sympathetic or three-dimensional - especially in this genre. I see what you're saying though. The aim was to create something in the vein of EC Comics by way of Clive Barker's Books of Blood, so it was more about mood and story than character.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Clarke
So you can take it as criticism, or you can take it as me saying the ending works better than you think.
Criticism is always welcome. I think there's too little of it, to be honest.

For what it's worth, I'm happier with this story which hasn't attracted quite as much discussion.
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post #9 of 9
3/3/05 at 10:36am
Yep, i liked that one better. I wrote a story about exactly the same thing (guy lying on floor dying) five or so years ago, but in that one he had attempted suicide, and the style was a lot more rambling and mostly concerned making bad puns - it was trying to be a black comedy. Yours was better though the similarities were interesting (free association of fragments of phrases to suggest a brain slowly stopping working, trying to look around the room, flashback memories, 1st person viewpoint). maybe there are only so many ways to tell a guy-lying-on-floor-dying story.
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