Critique my prose (please)

[Zinserbruns1]

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[J.R.V.A.]

A BIT HARD TO FOLLOW FOR ME, BUT I LIKE IT. I HAD TO READ IT THREE TIME, BUT AS I DID, I LIKED IT A LITTLE MORE. The correlation between the first and second pert was a little hard to put together, but it seems to be working. Please post some more.Thanks

[Pennington]

Originally posted by Zinserbruns1



Excerpt 1
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At some point we had begun to disregard and meander from the footpath that someone had previosly trodden through the groundcover. We had come to a shallow stream just wide enough to prevent our leaping over it and were now striding briskly toward the source. The irregular clamor of the water as it swayed around various obstacles had gained surprising volume. The upward slope evened as we extracted ourselves in single file from the heavy overshadow of the forest, breaking into a plateau thoroughly overrun with tall, limp grass. Now able to examine the distant landmarks, we looked around to determine our approximate position.

This has alot of potential, but it's really hard to read. I'm not a writer by any means, but I think you may be using passive voice, if thats the right term. My english teacher got on anybody who said "we had" in their papers.


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At some point we had begun to disregard and meander from the footpath that someone had previosly trodden through the groundcover.

This sounds kind of awkward. It might be better as two seperate sentances. For example:

There was a faint footpath here, forged long ago by some unknown traveller. At some point we lost the trail and meandered into the wilderness.

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We had come to a shallow stream just wide enough to prevent our leaping over it and were now striding briskly toward the source.

Same thing here. It's too compact and confusing to the reader.
example:
As we approached a shallow stream, we saw that it was just wide enough to prevent our leaping over and just deep enough to keep us from wading across. Rather than risk getting wet, we headed off toword it's source to walk around.

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The irregular clamor of the water as it swayed around various obstacles had gained surprising volume.

Good imagry but, again with the "had." Using it makes anything sounds funny.

Example:
As we strided briskly along the side of the brook, the irregular clamor of the creek gained surprising volume as the water swayed around various obsticals.


The rest of it is pretty good and there's not much I would change. Again, I'm not a writer and never took anything but highschool english so my opinion shouldn't count for much. I wish you good luck on your story and hope it turns out great.

[Zinserbruns1]

These first two reactions are more or less what I expected. I have a strong tendency to write dense, hard-to-read sentences. Any other comments or suggestions would be great.

[Pennington]

I'd just like to say that I liked the second excerpt alot. I didn't really mention that in my first reply. The style changed so much from the first excerpt that it almost seems like a totally differant author.

[chavos]

There's something i can't quite identify about the first part, that i don't quite know if it works. I've tried reading it aloud, and the end of every sentence seems to inflect downwards, if you know what i'm saying. The punch is never at the end of your thoughts, its always in the middle somewhere...

And i just figured it out. In the first work, you end sentences with objects, never verbs or descriptions. It's a terribly minor thing, but really distracted me for some reason. Variety may be the spice of life here...

The second work has a very different tone, and i couldn't really connect the parts together. Too brief to really engage with, but i liked the feel of the description.