h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Tràigh Mhor - a postcard in timelapse (Autumn'06 Crit Run) - A2222894
Author: LLLwaz [h2g2UnderGuide -> A1103329] - U123301


"Crit Run entry (see A16273820), do your worst guys, Crit Runners and non-Crit Runners all, I'm ready for it. (And I've sworn to do the same back at least three times.)"

Right , second attempt at the right forum. The main issue is whether it works as I meant it to.

There are other things I'm doubtful of too... if other people see them maybe it'll give the whatever it is that's needed to sort them out.

I think this *does* work as it's meant to - the title sets the reader up to understand what's going on.

The setting's vivid. And I like the sense of fleeting time as they cross the beach.

What I was missing was a clearer transition with the moving figures. Could you maybe add a couple more stages, describe them a bit more fully? Perhaps a word or two of dialogue?

I realise you want to emphasise the fleeting nature of man's sojourn in the world. But I think just a wee bit longer glimpse might do it better.

I think what you're doing with the description is using a camera pan. And I'd like the camera to zoom in, and then back out again, a bit more definitively.

It's strikingly visual, which is an interesting way of getting at a metaphor.

Describing them more fully is something I hadn't thought of at all - I will think about that. I need some very time specific detail, I think. I'll have to research.

My camera was an old cine, and I saw the figures in snatches - like between damaged bits of film, or perhaps a blurred fast forward on the video.

Cheers, dmitri. A new angle to look at is great.

What fine imagery, thank you Waz

It reads well to me, the use of cutting sentences works in my mind - but that may be because I think I write in a similar manner. Again, as mentioned, perhaps some finer detail in places would help - I feel we're missing something important about the child.

The only thing that jarred a little with me was the sound of the oystercatcher. I know what you're attempting there, but not sure it quite comes off. I'm thinking on how it could be done, but my mind's a blank right now...

All in all, I found it to be a lovely vignette - an itroduction to something greater. Dare I say reminiscent of a certain Mr Michener in telling?

Thanks Matt. More food for thought. I can't imagine this without the child, I'll have wrk out why that is.

The peeping of the oystercatcher - yes. It's probably not enough for anyone who doesn't know it to be able hear it, and isn't necessary for people who do know it... so it could probably be done without.

Mr Michener ... where's the google bookmark... (I'm a Maths you know.)

Trá Mór - Big strand. Irish. I assume your title is Scots Gaelic, yes?

It's a very well composed piece. Good enough for me to pick it out to point out to my mother, who appreciates good writing. As she said, you're reading it down trying to work out what it's saying, and then you think, Ah! I get it.

I really like it. It troubled me for a while that the three families are not equally spaced in time. In fact, I think there's little evidence that people here wore skins at all. (Don't quote me on that, now.) I'm not sure how important it is -- maybe it's not important at all -- but you might try sticking in a family from the time of the Roman occupation. It might work better with that. On the other hand, sticking in an extra family would lengthen it, and when it's so short -- a postcard -- you don't want to lengthen it any more than you have to.

I don't know. Just a notion which came to me.

TRiG.

Scots Gaelic, yes. There is one specific beach in mind, but I didn't want to be that specific and there are quite a few Tràigh Mhors around.

About getting it accurate - I'd like to. And if people think it works in general, as so far they do, then it's worth the time and I'll do it. I used skins to make the time immediately obvious. I know there were Iron Age people - that would be early enough if I found something that would trigger Iron Age for the reader.

I'll do some proper research for the timeline.

I wasn't satified with this piece and you're all showing me why. This is good. Really good.

And that includes minorVogonpoet's comments left on the other thread (due to my daft mistake in submitting this to the Edited Guide Workshop) too. I don't want to reply there because it will go round all the Edited Guide Workshoppers.

"I can't imagine this without the child, I'll have work out why that is."

Probably because you're talking about time and transition. What better metaphor for both than a child/adult mix?

TRiG.

I loved this, lllwaz. I found it beautifully descriptive.

I saw the birds and seals; heard their cries and calls. I found the appearance of the little family an excellent way of showing that Traigh Mhor had stayed the same for previous generations and ages.

A beautiful and tranquil tale.

I also liked this a lot.

I agree with the others, there is something more tha it needs. I like the way that the families from the different times meld together, almost into one, but I feel like they sometimes meld together too much. I would almost like a little more detail, or a little something to make the different time periods more distinct. I think that would help you make the point more.

Also, and this is just a silly nit-pick, I didn't like the sentances "Heaving and falling in time with the sea, a flotilla of eider duck moult, sulk and grumble a low bass to the seals' tenor. The high call of a buzzard sweeping over the dunes, cuts the air and a dozen rabbits race in panic for cover." The comma needs to be taken out of the second sentance, and so does the second comma in the first sentance - I think. They threw me off and I didn't understand te sentance until I read it again, but I can be anal that way.

Anyway, I realy liked it, it was like a snapshot, or a short clip of film, just enough to give us the idea and get the point across, and then it's done, no extra nonsense. Thanks much.

Autumn leaves falling
Winter approaches quickly
Smoke and ashes soon

Just a little haiku to say the Autumn Crit Run '06 may be over soon, how is everyone doing with their submitted pieces?

Anymore comments?

Thanks Chips, and Still_WRD.

The comma after dunes will be removed next time I edit, for sure. You're absolutely right on that. Not sure on the other - I don't like it that much but it seems more correct.

I've been researching background. (Who wants to know where the best shell middens in the Hebrides are?) I haven't found the detail I want yet and I'll leave any other changes till I do.

One thing I did find out was why this I have this set of times. I think TRiG said he'd found the selection odd. It wasn't consciously done, but late stone age, Iron Age, and 18th/19thC crofters exactly matches the evidence of habitation at a place called Allt Chrisal, on Barra in the Western Isles, where we spent an afternoon a few years back. It's not a beach, it's a hill side, dropping fairly steeply into the sea.

i find the bright light of h2g2, where anything written
is hung out to dry, quite intimidating, so i feel like Dylan's
heron - standing on one leg like a cruel accountant when
I offer criticism that, far from it, is not meant to be cruel -
"Tràigh Mhor" requires a cruel pen : it requires compression,
the excision of all redundancies, that done, it would stand as
a snapshot, a cameo with a life of its own like a Sanderling
just touched down from its thousand mile journey - langsandy

A life of its own, that would be well worth achieving. That's a different take from previous commenters, and much appreciated. Thanks langsandy - another new angle to look at it from. I like!

There are a couple of places where I thought scissors were needed but didn't have the heart to do it. I wonder if they'd match what you see as redundant... michaeldetroit said on one of these threads that he'd been told to cut out his favourite line when revising a piece.

All these comments have clarified and confirmed things - it's really useful. There's one uneasiness I've left about this, and that's the implication in it that the bay is that stable and unchanging. It seems reasonably valid looking backwards, at least for this post-the-last-glaciers' time span. Not so sure about the view into the future.

It's a ridiculously nit-picky comment (I don't know how much those are gone in for in the AWW) but I found this sentence quite clunky: "They jump down the dune, the bright metals of a copper clasp pinning the linen tunic on her shoulder and of the blade at his waist, catch the light as they land."

The bit that actually happens, the metal catching the light, is so far removed from its subject by "...pinning the linen tunic on her shoulder..." that it makes it a bit difficult to understand, and I think you've got an extraneous comma after "waist".

Please feel free to berate me if that's just completely ridiculous PR-style nitpicking.

No, it's very useful nitpicking.

That sentence isn't good. MinorVogonpoet picked up on it too. I really struggled to put in what I wanted while still keeping it short. By reading it enough times I could make it sound ok, so gave up on it and hoped for the best. Knowing other people pick up on it is the incentive needed to sort it out.

Its strength is its imagery. Its weakness, for me at least, is its structure.

One part of that is the length and complexity of the sentences. A lot of people have said as much. So for instance, you wrote :

White sands surround the bay, calming the grey sea within as Atlantic rollers rear and break outside. Small waves lap the beach - sending sanderlings skittering away and back and away and back, sending winkle shells tumbling among pebbles, nudging an edging of broken shell ever further up the sand while an oblivious turnstone hunts the rocks, tossing seaweed this way, then that way.

It could be :
White sands surround the bay, calming the grey sea within. Atlantic rollers rear and break outside. Small waves lap the beach, sending sanderlings skittering away and back and away and back. Winkle shells tumble. An edging of broken shell is nudged ever further up the sand while an oblivious turnstone hunts the rocks, tossing seaweed this way, then that way.

More important, though, you could cut in the Stone Age family immediately after this paragraph, and you could intercut the other families into the descriptive narrative too. You could counterpoint the stretches of time between them by alluding to something slow, erosion maybe.

One last point. You've given it a lulling quality. Do you want that, or do you want to prick the reader into thinking about your meaning?

It's good, though. You choose words well.

Thanks Pin, that's more useful stuff, especially that last point.

I'm working on a draft of a redraft and I think I know where this wants to go.