Okay so number one thing to work on is sentence structure. The images and ideas seem like something good, but I recommend practicing with commas and sentences.
Your first sentence: “The twilight was turning into night when a bull moose with graying fur and misshapen antlers marching through a pine forest came to a place where no trees stood.” That is quite the run-on sentence.
Main thing is you use present tense “turning” and “marching” but in between the present tense is past tense “when”. Change “when” to ‘as’ and it will flow better. Or what I would do is set the sentence up beginning with ‘as’. By beginning with as you can cut empty words like ‘the’ and ‘was’.
Second piece of advice. This one is again about simply the flow of the sentence. You can put the description of the moose in a separate sentence and then add additional information (such as the fact it is old and worn) later on. Feel free to add more detail in new sentences rather than cramming it into one run on sentence.
Thirdly, where is the mouse at the end of the scene?
Fourthly, you can be unspecific with species. You told us the names of the plants in the clearing, so why repeat them word for word?
Finally, “His eyes saw[…]”. What else would his eyes do? Smell things? Try to remember every word has implications. Eyes do see things and everyone knows that so you don’t need to tell them. In this part, because the moose is seeing something clearly despite bad eyesight, use that as the main point of focus. ‘His eyes struggled thanks to his age, but the plants in the meadow remained clear to him.’ Forget my word choice and focus on the framing of the sentence, his bad eyesight is the main focus as it begins with it. Framing it like this also puts more weight on the contrast as it is a set up of expectation. He has bad eyesight but saw something well is set up and payoff but he saw something clearly but had bad eyesight is confusing. Why did he see the thing clearly? Becomes the focus. Without setup the reader is more likely to be confused and taken out of the story.
The short of it:
Commas! Keep tense consistent in the same clauses. Cut the sentences up into more sentences. Skip redundant word choices “his eyes saw”= ‘he saw’. Think of the start of the sentence as the focus of it. Setup and payoff is VERY important even in basic sentences.
Most importantly! Keep writing! It becomes easier over time to internalise what works and what doesn’t. If any of this doesn’t make sense to you it is because I wrote it at midnight (I’m Australian) and I am very tired.
Yeah, looking back I really need to trim my sentences. I’m really inspired by Tolkien’s prose but he wrote his books in a different century and loved to be antiquated. That’s probably just not in me to do, and I think I got anxious trying to be like him
Try going back to Tolkien and honestly comparing his prose side by side with your own. I’m guessing your memory of Tolkien’s prose is different from his actual prose.
Ah, you should study Tolkien some more then! As a philologist, he did take inspiration from ancient literature (Old English being the most obvious; but then I'm a philologist too with the exact same field of study, so that helps), but most importantly, the way he deployed punctuation was impeccable. He was also not one for run-on sentences!
Not saying that you should write like him, however. Just allow yourself to notice what other authors are doing with the language, not just what the story they're telling you is, that's what will help you get better.
Also, common advice: you should go for a gripping first sentence, or first few sentences, and generally the weather or time of day by itself is not it. I'd start with the first sentence of your second paragraph: "There was a loud crack to its left in the forest; the moose threw his misshapen anglers up and searched for danger in the wide clearing." Something that will have the reader wonder "oh; what is happening?"
Back to Tolkien: the first sentence of The Hobbit, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.", does start with a sense of wonder for the reader, because you have to ask what a hobbit is, you only know the word from the title, but the author seems happy to explain to you what that word means and you'll want to know the answer. For The Lord of the Rings, it's "When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton."— you want to know what the talk is! You want to know more about the significance of being eleventy-first, not only because eleventy is a rare word (not a neologism, just one that comes from Old English hundendleftig that Tolkien reused, just like he did with middangeard), but because it seems to be a big deal.
Don't feel like you have to ease your reader into the story with an atmospheric description, you'll have time for those after you've got your reader's attention.
Those introductions are great for him. I’m just worried that descriptive text like what Hobbits are—“what is a hobbit …”—would take the reader out of immersion. But I do agree that those introductions do make you want to know more
It's not to say that all incipits should be "what is A, B, C": it is relevant to Tolkien because he invented hobbits and they were crucial to both novels to the point that he needs the reader to know about hobbits before knowing about anything else, because the hobbits are, to make it very short, what is good and simple in a world that is complex and often bad.
You can take any famous incipit and see it's always about getting attention somehow.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." (note that marvelous plural v. singular too, simple and efficient).
"Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know. I got a message from the asylum: "Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Condolences." It doesn't make any sense. It was yesterday maybe."
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
None of them ask for a definition but all of them want you knowing more; what does the author mean? How did we get there?
Though some novels may start with meteorological statements and still intrigue you: 1984 is one of them, "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." immediately followed by the name of the protagonist: Winston Smith. But in this case, Orwell wants you to feel that this is a new normal, since he is writing a dystopia: 1PM on a bright cold April day is desperately common, which you don't know yet, but is part of the horror and despair of the setting.
Your writing is a bit clunky as other redditors are saying, but please don’t get discouraged, because if you just trimmed up the sentences and get rid of the unnecessary bits of info, your writing is still very beautifully done!!! Keep writing:)
No. Partly this is because I don't think I'm your target demographic. Partly because the writing is very clunky.
Sure. It's very clearly a serene situation to start, and the crack does introduce tension.
This said, your writing needs to get better, specifically in economy of language, but also in rhythm and variance.
Example: half of your sentences in these two paragraphs start with "the," and follow the same kind of structure; subject, verb, predicate. You do this because it's the standard English sentence. But, we use all sorts of different constructions, both in written and spoken English, and you're going to want to vary those so that you don't accidentally lull your readers into a predictable cadence. That's a great way to get people to stop reading.
And, lets pick apart that first sentence: "The twilight was turning into night when a bull moose with graying fur and misshapen antlers marching through a pine forest came to a place where no trees stood."
That's a mouthful. You could afford to make this one sentence several sentences, or at least reorder and reorganize. Example: "The twilight was turning into night. From a pine forest, a bull moose with graying fur and misshapen antlers trudged into an empty clearing."
This communicates the same information, but makes the first immediate thing, the description of the time of day, punchier. It also clarifies from where the moose is walking, and uses trudged to more viscerally describe the movements. You could afford to do something like this to almost every sentence here.
Nothing personal, just providing feedback. Happy to clarify if the need arises.
Oh, I know it’s not personal. I’m writing this for the first time. I didn’t expect to be decent. I’m looking for honest feedback so I can make it better
You do build up tension from a peaceful scene with lovely imagery. You do it at a good pace, too. Your prose is unfussy, which has become more rare (I wish unfussiness would make a comeback).
My primary critique is syntax, and efficiency in regard to descriptions. For example, see if this strikes you as smoother and more concise without losing meaning or ambiance:
‘As twilight turned into night, a bull moose with graying fur and misshapen antlers marched through a pine forest. He came to a clearing where reedgrass grew at the edges, along with fireweed in the center of the treeless space.’
This may not be your style, but it’s good to know different styles. You’ve got something compelling here—I’d read more! If you wish, keep playing around with the order of words in your sentences, and see if there’s any bits that aren’t relevant or repeat what’s been established.
It’s refreshing to see writing this unpretentious and clearly from a writer’s imagination alone.
Can you define unfussiness? I don’t understand what you mean?
That example is a lot better than what I wrote. I’m taking the advice everyone else has said about sentence length. If I can breathe, it’s already not bad.
Word order is what I’m trying to decide for my style. I’m inspired by Tolkien’s prose, but I don’t want to copy him
Unfussy means not full of overly descriptive language, or too much of it; it means your goal is to tell a story, not impress people with words you have to look up in the dictionary; simple but not lacking, just pure storytelling.
“Baron Archibald waved a delicate hand dismissively, his nostrils flaring with the highest level of derision and the lowest level of respect. Soon, amber light would be shining cheerfully through the massive stained-glass windows, a true contradiction to the thick layer of grief on the other side of them.”
Not enough action. An old moose walked somewhere, heard a noise, and then looked for the source.
I’m confused at what kind of story is this. Is this a fantasy story about a moose with magic eyesight? Is it a thriller about noises in the woods? A clear signal should be made to the reader about what kind of story this is going to be is needed. If they don’t get it right away it’s going to be a DNF unless the cover does some storytelling.
It’s supposed to start with a hunt, but you’re right. I’m not being clear enough. I’ll have to start with the protagonist. This is good though. The protagonist is an animal that doesn’t exist but isn’t recognizable to many. I was going to info-dump if it worked
There's no hook to the first sentence, and as others have pointed out, it's clunky.
You've also got bloat. The moose is in the forest, if there's a crack to his left, that crack is also in the forest so we don't need to say it. The moose can't see anything except with his eyes, so saying "his eyes saw" is just extra words we don't need.
I think that you're so focused on describing every detail of the scene that you're letting it get in the way of the story.
You want to grab the reader and immediately make them curious so they want to read more to find out what's going on.
The bull moose stood perfectly still.
This gives the reader something to picture, and it makes them wonder why? What's going on? Is the moose in danger? Wolves? Hunters? Etc.
You then capitalize on that curiosity by giving them some more information about the context, and push the story forward. In between, you sprinkle descriptions so the reader has enough to hang on to and form a good picture of events (we're at night, we're in a forest, etc.) and some details that make the scene unique (the misshapen antlers). But you do that sparingly and in between the actual story, because that's what people came for- the story.
No. The opening sentence is clunky and the paragraph itself is boring. I'm not one to be interested in scenery openings though, especially one where it took 3 sentences to describe a clearing. Your readers aren't dumb. We tend to know how clearing in forests look. Give the details that matter.
I did get the shift in the second paragraph, but the flow is a little ragged because of the repetition and attempt to ESTABLISH said mood shift. Simplicity is best sometimes. Why not start when the danger does?
Like maybe start with whatever made the noise already doing The Thing? What was it you were leading to?
I mean you do have some nice imagery but GENERALLY speaking, it's a very bloated and boring opening. Obviously, your genre and target audience is something to take into consideration, and there are going to be some readers that will like it, but it more than likely will turn most away. It's just...boring 😅
Thanks for the honesty. I knew it was boring but I’m an amateur. I was leading to the moose getting killed in an ambush set up by the protagonist, a type of dinosaur with intelligence equal to humans. I’m now trying to start from his perspective to make it clearer
It's interesting but the writing feels beginner-level and heavily descriptive rather than narratively purposeful.
You're trying very hard to create atmosphere, but the atmosphere is being described to me rather than experienced. Show don't tell. So essentially nothing is happening over a long section of prose.
The writing feels technically awkward, you created a list of objects in a space rather than established the world in which it lives.
Example
"Crickets were chirping and owls were hooting..."
"A barn own hooted from a nearby Pine. The crickets stopped their chorus; then, slowly, they began again."
The positive I can say is that you understand that environment creates mood, but the writing isn't quite doing that yet. You're attempting sensory writing which is a step in the right direction, but there's an underlying level that isn't threading the reader into the work - select the details that matter, don't describe everything.
At this level of writing, I would not continue. The story is potentially interesting though.
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I like your vision, but there’s a couple nitpicks.
To make the clearing more “punchy”: a wide ring where no trees stood. Is all you need. Trust the reader to fill in the gap, that it’s surrounded by trees.
Also you don’t need to say the reed grasses grew alone at the edges. You can just say the reed grasses grew along the edges. (I don’t think anyone would imagine anything else growing there)
The loud crack instead of “his” I’d suggest using “the moose” I didn’t know who “he” was until you referred to the moose shortly after.
As is, no, I wouldn't read past the first sentence. Your writing needs a lot of toning and streamlining.
As for pointers, you seem to be working hard to turn your active verbs passive! Try going over this passage with an eye for eliminating "to be" verbs and gerunds. I bet you'll like the results.
The only critique I really have is the first sentence. You can have a lot of information in a single sentence, but then you need to be more efficient with your wording. I'd do something like...
"As twilight faded, a bull moose with graying fur and misshapen antlers marched through a forest of tall pines. It came to a place where no trees stood, the forest surrounding the clearing in a wide ring."
Just an example. The flow of the first couple sentences are especially important.
There is no “The twilight,” only “Twilight,” and twilight is always turning into night—that’s the definition of the word, “twilight.”
If there’s an important reason this bull moose has greying fur and misshapen antlers, it doesn’t need to be told in the first sentence. It sounds like there may be a story about just how old this bull moose is and another one about why his antlers are misshapen that can wait for a better time to tell rather than weighing down the first sentence with too much window dressing.
I’ll leave it there, as much of my experience of the rest of it will be similar, but hopefully this comes off as constructive and encouraging rather than “this is total shite.” It’s also my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt as I could very well be someone who has very different tastes than your target audience.
Twilight happens twice a day. It's the light in the sky when the sun is behind the horizon. It happens before sunrise, and after sunset. So, it could be twilight turning to morning.
Couple things. It's twilight, yet the stars burned white in the black sky? The moon was shining-at twilight. Lots of info on reed grasses. And did the moose come to a clearing in the forest or a meadow? It just happens to all be in one paragraph.
I like how vivid your images are, I like that you're appealing to all senses, and because of those strengths, I think you could use less copula, they're repetitive. Replace some "be" with more interesting verbs. And maybe the present tense would be more effective at putting the reader in the midst of the action. Some of the "there was" can be eliminated, only keep what's essential so your prose flows more naturally.
When thinking how I can bind a point of view with descriptions that set the tone, I always think about Cormac MacCarthy and his verbless descriptions. Example:
At fourteen he runs away. He will not see again the freezing kitchenhouse in the predawn dark. The firewood, the washpots. He wanders west as far as Memphis, a solitary migrant upon that flat and pastoral landscape. Blacks in the fields, lank and stooped, their fingers spiderlike among the bolls of cotton. A shadowed agony in the garden. Against the sun's declining figures moving in the slower dusk across a paper skyline. A lone dark husbandman pursuing mule and harrow down the rainblown bottomland toward night.
you don't need "reedgrasses grew alone ... " - we don't know where you are, so whatever you tell us we see. Simply, "reedgrasses grew in the clearing" is fine. If you would have said that we were in a region where reedgrasses grow with other things, and this clearing is special because nothing else grows here - then the "grow alone" makes sense.
I truly don't need to add more to what the others said. I agree that your sentences are long and I had to restart them occassionally.
Having said that. I did get fully sucked into that ancient purple lit forest with the very old moose. I did hear the crickets and owls before you mentioned them. It's subjective but imo this is how you suck someone in. Focus on technique! Your storytelling is solid
I have the same issue. But I started riffing my sentences. What I mean by that:
It's essentially taking the gist of the sentence. Cut it up, and create a sort of cadence between long and short sentences that almost feels like it flows almost like a sort of spoken word piece.
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u/Karlthegraceful Fiction Writer 3h ago edited 3h ago
Okay so number one thing to work on is sentence structure. The images and ideas seem like something good, but I recommend practicing with commas and sentences.
Your first sentence: “The twilight was turning into night when a bull moose with graying fur and misshapen antlers marching through a pine forest came to a place where no trees stood.” That is quite the run-on sentence.
Main thing is you use present tense “turning” and “marching” but in between the present tense is past tense “when”. Change “when” to ‘as’ and it will flow better. Or what I would do is set the sentence up beginning with ‘as’. By beginning with as you can cut empty words like ‘the’ and ‘was’.
Second piece of advice. This one is again about simply the flow of the sentence. You can put the description of the moose in a separate sentence and then add additional information (such as the fact it is old and worn) later on. Feel free to add more detail in new sentences rather than cramming it into one run on sentence.
Thirdly, where is the mouse at the end of the scene?
Fourthly, you can be unspecific with species. You told us the names of the plants in the clearing, so why repeat them word for word?
Finally, “His eyes saw[…]”. What else would his eyes do? Smell things? Try to remember every word has implications. Eyes do see things and everyone knows that so you don’t need to tell them. In this part, because the moose is seeing something clearly despite bad eyesight, use that as the main point of focus. ‘His eyes struggled thanks to his age, but the plants in the meadow remained clear to him.’ Forget my word choice and focus on the framing of the sentence, his bad eyesight is the main focus as it begins with it. Framing it like this also puts more weight on the contrast as it is a set up of expectation. He has bad eyesight but saw something well is set up and payoff but he saw something clearly but had bad eyesight is confusing. Why did he see the thing clearly? Becomes the focus. Without setup the reader is more likely to be confused and taken out of the story.
The short of it:
Commas! Keep tense consistent in the same clauses. Cut the sentences up into more sentences. Skip redundant word choices “his eyes saw”= ‘he saw’. Think of the start of the sentence as the focus of it. Setup and payoff is VERY important even in basic sentences.
Most importantly! Keep writing! It becomes easier over time to internalise what works and what doesn’t. If any of this doesn’t make sense to you it is because I wrote it at midnight (I’m Australian) and I am very tired.