• Hi Guest!

    The costs of running this forum are covered by Sea Lion Press. If you'd like to help support the company and the forum, visit patreon.com/sealionpress

Monthly vignette: Cheap at the Price.

FriendlyGhost said:
Outstanding. It's so important that younger generations remember the sacrifices made by their forebears. And the line in your intro - 'There is always cost even in an easy victory' - is something which is so often forgotten.
Click to expand...
Somewhat reminiscent of @Meadow 's "Zonen", where the overall drive seems to be "there would be no real impact on anything if Denmark was given an occupation zone in Germany for a few years after WW2" but it turns out (spoilers)

Our protagonist is one of the handful of people who lose relatives in a tiny bit of violence, a footnote to history, that happened differently because of this occupation zone.
 
That bit when it dawns on you that his grandfather can't have made it out and you know what's coming and the last paragraph still hits
 
Ooof. That hit home hard. Lovely writing as always.
 
Paulo said:
Lovely writing as always.
Click to expand...

If I'm honest, I don't actually rate it that highly. Maybe I was too close to it, but it felt forced when I wrote it, it felt forced when Fight Them On The Beaches was being put together (hence I declined to have it part of that collection), and it feels forced and stilted now.

I can't put my finger on why it feels so wooden to me (if I could, I would be a better writer than I am), but it is still very much a work-in-progress.
 
David Flin said:
If I'm honest, I don't actually rate it that highly. Maybe I was too close to it, but it felt forced when I wrote it, it felt forced when Fight Them On The Beaches was being put together (hence I declined to have it part of that collection), and it feels forced and stilted now.

I can't put my finger on why it feels so wooden to me (if I could, I would be a better writer than I am), but it is still very much a work-in-progress.
Click to expand...

I think I said something similar at the time but it would have been good to have more examination of whether or not the engagement really was worthwhile or if it really was just a waste of life halting an invasion already doomed to defeat. There does seem to be an implication (possibly just on the basis of it being a realistic Sea Lion) that the encounter truly was inconsequential and whilst Mr Perkins might be an ungrateful busybody he nonetheless has a point, perhaps that could have been fleshed out a bit more similar to the German anti-war film Die Brucke.

The Granddad's certainly might relate to his being fixed in a certain point and time however you could possibly bring the Grandson into it a bit more, maybe have him revisiting him at different points in his life; first taking the Granddad's convictions without question then later beginning to question them?
 
David Flin said:
If I'm honest, I don't actually rate it that highly. Maybe I was too close to it, but it felt forced when I wrote it, it felt forced when Fight Them On The Beaches was being put together (hence I declined to have it part of that collection), and it feels forced and stilted now.

I can't put my finger on why it feels so wooden to me (if I could, I would be a better writer than I am), but it is still very much a work-in-progress.
Click to expand...
It's hard to pin down, but I think I know what you mean. Good writing has a spring in its step, and this doesn't always succeed in getting there. I sympathise - I'm on the point of rewriting 80,000 words because what I've written has that same problem of being just too heavy footed to work properly.
 
The Red said:
The Granddad's certainly might relate to his being fixed in a certain point and time however you could possibly bring the Grandson into it a bit more, maybe have him revisiting him at different points in his life; first taking the Granddad's convictions without question then later beginning to question them?
Click to expand...

That's a very interesting idea. I'll mull over that. Thanks.
 
David Flin said:
If I'm honest, I don't actually rate it that highly. Maybe I was too close to it, but it felt forced when I wrote it, it felt forced when Fight Them On The Beaches was being put together (hence I declined to have it part of that collection), and it feels forced and stilted now.

I can't put my finger on why it feels so wooden to me (if I could, I would be a better writer than I am), but it is still very much a work-in-progress.
Click to expand...

I hadn't read it until this comment, and then curiosity took over. But despite you putting the idea in my head, I couldn't find it stilted or wooden. If I were to propose any changes it would be a tweak of the last line, which I think is directed in the right way but the word 'puzzled' somehow struck me as out of place. Maybe "to find what had kept Jake" rather than "puzzled at what had kept Jake" - I felt that I wouldn't be puzzled as to why my child had managed to occupy themselves on a beach in the rain for hours, but I might look for what they'd been up to. And maybe change "There was no one there." to "The beach was empty."

The only criticism I would add is that the comment about the age of the defenders seemed off - the average age of the Home Guard was about 35, and yet you have no one younger than 50. Now, that could be that younger members have been deliberately placed in safer positions by Collins, who wants to give them the best chance at surviving, or that young and able-bodied people whose reserved occupations have had to be called up in the face of a more credible invasion threat or a Second World War that's going worse for the Allies, but this needs to be made more explicit if it's the case.

But otherwise I think it is an effective little piece you are selling yourself short on.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top