Prompt 1 - Make a wish

[Wingfeld]

<p>


<strong>Make a wish.</strong> Write something that begins with a character throwing a coin into a fountain. <em>This doesn't involve wishing, really; in fact it is just a plotless excuse to work on describing scenery. Feedback appreciated for if I got the scenery... well?</em> </p>


<div style="text-align:center;"><p> ~.*.*.*~ </p></div>


<p> The golden disk glimmered in the sunlight. Merely the size of a thumbprint, maybe a little larger, and every detail was something new and intriguing. The way light reflected off the back, smooth as ice, a miniature tinted mirror to gaze into. The intricate details on the front, the minuscule cat looking up at him with keen, curious eyes in its seat of metal leaves. The veins of the leaves, so small that it was incredible that they were even visible in the morning shine. The cat's whiskers, looking like they were ever-so-carefully carved by hand into the metal, curve by curve, curl by curl. The cat's tail, elegantly curved around its paws, curving upwards to wave at the words above. The tiny scroll the sat above the small feline, clearly not part of the picture but meaning just as much: <em>'Keen and swift are the unfaltering ones.' </em> It really was something beautiful, he thought as he held the coin in dexterous fingers, standing against a building's wall to glance between passersby and metal token. Maybe something to be treasured, to keep in the back of his mind when things went wrong, to warm in the palm of his hand and wear down until he died. Could even end up as a family heirloom should he keep it as neat as it was today, and give it away to only his most trusted friends, a small keepsake that can't be used to buy anything but loyalty. Maybe, if it were being held by someone different, that was the way it would have gone. But no. Pretty it was, Rain wouldn't deny that. But he wasn't about to keep it. Coins <em>were</em> meant to be used. This one would just be used in a more traditional way, for a more unconventional purpose. He carefully took the coin between thumb and index, holding it by the edge so as not to smear the design with oil. Pushing back against the wall, he strolled off to find a fountain. </p>


<div style="text-align:center;"><p> ~.-.-.-~ </p></div>


<p> <em>Perfect</em>. A five minute's walk from where Rain first stood, a rearing horse posed with pride in its stone features, the piece of land it stood on weathered by rain. Water fell from its hide to the platform below, rolling down the sloping stone before reaching its destination, flowing into the small pond of granite. The pond bottom glittered, gleaming with precious metals. Coins. All were tossed there for some reason or another. Charity, spirit, religion, courtesy, tradition, or just because everyone else did it. Rain was pretty sure that nobody had thrown a coin into the clear depths just for the fun of it though. He grinned, flicked his wrist, and off went the golden cat, sitting on its bed of leaves. Soon to be sitting atop rusting copper and water-smoothed stone. It hit the surface with barely a splash, small ripples expanding from where it made its mark. The coin was surprisingly quick to sink, reaching the bottom faster than most pebbles. <em>That's new....</em> He expected the flat to at least catch some water, but apparently it just landed on its edge and sank straight. Not even a curve in its path. Odd.


</p>

 

[SkyGinge]

Generally, it feels as if you are overwriting. Topically, unless a narrator is incredibly, near-impulsively obsessed with coins, there's never going to be a reasonable moment in a piece of prose to linger so heavily upon something so inconsequential. Nevertheless, whilst I'm aware that the purpose of your response was practicing description in general, I still feel like you're overwriting, trying to make things sound overly poetic and intricate without bearing much regard to what things are achieving in narrative actuality. I've picked it apart a little more closely in bold text - it's gonna look like a bloodbath, but most of it is very nitty gritty and you're certainly writing at a competent level. As a general, always remember what the purpose of each sentence is, both in terms of content and tone, and then judge your description based on that, not on how flowery it sounds!


It's good to see you working on prompts and asking for feedback - I can only encourage you to keep up what you're doing and you will be sure to grow If anything I've said is unclear, don't hesitate to ask me to clarify - I've been a little headachy whilst critiquing!

Make a wish.
Write something that begins with a character throwing a coin into a fountain.


This doesn't involve wishing, really; in fact it is just a plotless excuse to work on describing scenery. Feedback appreciated for if I got the scenery... well?

~.*.*.*~



​

The golden disk glimmered in the sunlight. Straight off the bat, you're unnecessarily abstracted your description of the coin. 'golden disk' is vague, and as a result as the affect of creating a vaguer image, which is unhelpful as imagery by purpose should be for clarifying and enriching description. If I didn't know from your preface what the piece was about, then I wouldn't immediately interpret golden disk to mean coin.


Merely the size of a thumbprint, maybe a little larger, and every detail was something new and intriguing. 'Merely' and 'maybe' are counteracting here - merely means 'just' so it is acting to slightly ambiguate (which is not a word but should be) the size, which you then do through maybe as well. For the sake of avoiding repetition and refining flow, I'd remove 'merely'.


The way light reflected off the back, smooth as ice, a miniature tinted mirror to gaze into.


The intricate details on the front, the minuscule cat looking up at him with keen, curious eyes in its seat of metal leaves. Though I'm not particularly fond of this paragraph full stop, this sentence in particularly suffers from what I like to call 'adverb oversaturation', wherein you've put at least one adverb before every verb here. This makes an incredibly dense image which makes the sentence somewhat hard to digest. Remember that your reader should have a part to play in creating the image as well!





The veins of the leaves, so small that it was incredible that they were even visible in the morning shine.


The cat's whiskers, looking like they were ever-so-carefully carved by hand into the metal, curve by curve, curl by curl.


The cat's tail, elegantly curved around its paws, curving upwards to wave at the words above. You use the word 'curve' and its derivitives an awful lot of times in close succession here. Any form of repetition will stand out to a reader and give itself emphasis, which is not something you've intentionally meant to do here as now my focus is on the curving foremostly - make sure you vary things up with synonyms!





The tiny scroll the sat above the small feline, clearly not part of the picture but meaning just as much: 'Keen and swift are the unfaltering ones.' Due to the repetition of sentence structure, these sentences quickly become quite monotonous - make sure you're varying sentence structure in order to keep things flowing nicely. There's some kind of typo shenanigans going on at the start of this sentence too as I'm fairly certain that second 'the' is supposed to be a 'that'





It really was something beautiful, he thought as he held the coin in dexterous fingers, standing against a building's wall to glance between passersby and metal token. 'Dexterous' is a bit of a pompous description, and again the adverb is drawing unnecessary attention to his fingers, which now are the dominating image of this sentence. 'a building's wall' reads fairly clunkily too.


Maybe something to be treasured, to keep in the back of his mind when things went wrong, to warm in the palm of his hand and wear down until he died. Could even end up as a family heirloom should he keep it as neat as it was today, and give it away to only his most trusted friends, a small keepsake that can't couldn't be used to buy anything but loyalty. I rather like this last phrase - the idea of it still being a currency but now buying loyalty is a smart one, well done.


Maybe, if it were being held by someone different, that was the way it would have gone. But no. Pretty it was, Rain wouldn't deny that. But he wasn't about to keep it. Coins were meant to be used. For some reason, your syntax goes full on Yoda mode in a rather distracting fashion in the third sentence here!


This one would just be used in a more traditional way, for a more unconventional purpose.


He carefully took the coin between thumb and index, holding it by the edge so as not to smear the design with oil. Pushing back against the wall, he strolled off to find a fountain. This last line seems redundant to me - the section would end with more intrigue left at 'for a more unconventional purpose' instead of leading us to watching him disappear.

~.-.-.-~



​

Perfect. A five minute's walk from where Rain first stood, a rearing horse posed with pride in its stone features, the piece of land it stood on weathered by rain.


Again, 'piece of land' is a uselessly vague description - literally anything could be a piece of land. Given you're describing a fountain, I think the stone horseman's most likely to be stood on a pedestal. It's up to you as the writer however to research this terminology so that you're not throwing out vague, lazy terms like piece of land!





Water fell from its hide to the platform below, rolling down the sloping stone before reaching its destination, flowing into the small pond of granite. The pond bottom glittered, gleaming with precious metals. Coins. Glittered and gleaming are achieving the same thing descriptively, so you'd be best trimming the sentence to 'The pond bottom gleamed with precious metals'.


All were tossed there for some reason or another. Charity, spirit, religion, courtesy, tradition, or just because everyone else did it. Rain was pretty sure that nobody had thrown a coin into the clear depths just for the fun of it though. I like what you're trying to do here, but logically this isn't making sense to me - think of the inevitable kids who, seeing a pond full of coins, beg their parents to throw one in too, just for the fun of it.


He grinned, flicked his wrist, and off went the golden cat, sitting on its bed of leaves. Soon to be sitting atop rusting copper and water-smoothed stone. It hit the surface with barely a splash, small ripples expanding from where it made its mark. The coin was surprisingly quick to sink, reaching the bottom faster than most pebbles. That's new.... He expected the flat to at least catch some water, but apparently it just landed on its edge and sank straight. Not even a curve in its path.


Odd.

 

[Wingfeld]

@SkyGinge Thanks for the feedback!! This was quite helpful, and I'll try and keep from overwriting in the future. I was honestly completely unsure of what I would be going for when it came to plot/content; this was entirely unscripted. I just wrote down whatever came to me as I looked around my living room, and that's probably not the best thing to do if I'm trying to make my writing better. A plot outline would seriously do me well!


(I completely forgot pedestals existed, thank you for that.)


Just wondering... what's "Yoda mode" mean? I think I've heard "Yoda" before, in the context of Star Wars/Trek but I don't really know much about it.

 

[SkyGinge]

@Eranl : Yeah, having it so unscripted probably lead to much of the problems Yoda is famous/infamous for speaking in irregular syntax such as 'A Jedi you will be', and 'Use the force, you must!'

 

[Wingfeld]

@SkyGinge I'll need to meditate on the plot I want with my things now! So Yoda is really good at... sentence Pig Latin?