June 6- dark_prophecy- As a Man Does

[Dark_Prophecy]

Sorry this is up so late

I work nights, so I sleep during the day, and I was super busy before I went to bed this morning and didn't get everything done that I wanted to. Evidently posting this thread was part of that everything. 

[aronsamma]

As far as content goes, I really liked it. I did notice a couple of style issues though.

"4" should probably be written out as "four."
The second paragraph isn't indented.
"Recently born piglets" should probably be hyphenated.
"The celebration of his coming of age" is missing a period.

I thought that the phrase "granted access to a wife" was a little strange. I would probably say "given his choice of the women" or something like that.

"The boy wandered toward her burrow, but having never tracked a warthog before was unable to see the tell tale signs until it was too late." This is worded clumsily. Are you saying that he walked into the burrow without knowing because he didn't know what a burrow looked like? If so, I'd probably say "The boy, having never tracked a warthog before, eventually wandered into the burrow by accident." Either way,  it could use a little clarification.

"The task of falling the mighty warthog." Do you mean 'felling'?

"We study it out" is also a strange phrase. Why not just 'study'? Or 'examine'?


Again,  nice work with the story aspect. It packed more of a punch than I expected out of something so short.

[LongTimeUnderdog]

I disagree with aronsamma in just about everything except the ending.  Your ending really did throw me.  Should have, but did not, see that coming.

I do, however, have a complaint.  You wrote the story mostly as a spoken narrative.  So for the most part, it's all third person.  But then you switch into first person for one instant, and everything again sounds like it could be third again.  That was really grating to me.  I realize there's nothing in the opening that defines it distinctively as third person, but since it all sounds like it's third, tossing in that little bit of first just did not work for me.

Everything else, I thought, was good.  I did not have a problem with the word choice at all.

[Dark_Prophecy]

Awesome! Thanks for the feedback, guys. I had a weird dream, and this was what came of it. I'll look at the wording again, and maybe see if there's a way that I can make the tense switch a little less....tense?

[Silk]

I'd like a little more of this, actually. There doesn't have to be much, but I'd like to know at least a little bit about the conflict between the two parties that show up at the end of the story, who are--it would seem--in fact the main parties. How did they get here, and why does it matter? What makes the warthog story particularly relevant?

I do like this idea. I just think we need a little more information to make this really finished. You don't even have to answer every question, or answer it completely. I know space is an issue in flash.

The third-to-first person change didn't bug me. The spoken tale was consistently in third, and the last few paragraphs were consistently in first. I didn't think it was an issue.

(Because groups like this wouldn't be fun if we all agreed with one another.)

[Shivertongue]

I like this. I was a little confused about it up until the ending, which took me by surprise, put everything into perspective, and tied almost everything up perfectly.

That 'almost' is the one complaint I have with the piece. Like Silk, I wanted to see just a little bit more. The piece whet my appetite, but like most flash fiction failed to sate it. I want to know just a little bit more - why these two are adversaries, what the creature is, stuff like that. Just a little bit more.

Then again, maybe that's the impression you want to leave me with. I don't really know. Regardless, I enjoyed this, and didn't have any real problem with the word choice, and found the entire thing to be quite a neat idea.