We’ve been critiquing first paragraphs of my loyal blog readers for the past week. Today, it’s Cate’s turn to be critiqued. Following a suggestion today by Camille, I think I’ll give you all a shot at critiquing Cate first. We’ll get to that in just a minute. First, I’ll respond to a few comments from today:
There was a question about Dale’s paragraph, which I critiqued yesterday. Some asked whether his use of the Rule of Three was a little lopsided, since the last sentence actually had a different form. Actually, that’s typical with the Rule of Three–the third time is different. This is true in fairy tales and jokes and many other situations. (Think of any fairy tale with three sons, where the youngest one gets the princess. Or think about those three nuns that went into a bar, and consider which one gets the punch line.) As the old cliche says, the third time’s the charm.
So I think Dale’s paragraph is fine just as it stands. Dale actually asked whether he shouldn’t explain just a little bit more, as follows:
“His first thought was that nothing had changed since he ran away.”
Randy sez: I vote against this idea. Now we’ve lost that big hairy “WHY?” that hangs over the whole first paragraph and impels us to read on. Don’t tell us! Make us wait!
One thing I like about Dale’s first paragraph is that we KNOW that something is about to change, just by the fact that Dale is saying so clearly that nothing has changed in the last year. The fact that he’s choosing to focus on the sameness is a signal to any intelligent reader that the sameness is ripe for a change, pronto.
Once again, good job, Dale.
Now we’ll move to Cate’s paragraph. Her first paragraph is:
They came for me on the fifth night of the hospital stay, when my arm had started to heal and I was restless to get back to my guardian, Luc. I cursed the rock, in my sleep, that had brought me down in the fields, brought the thirty lashes on both me and Luc, left him bloody and unconscious and me just alive enough to watch. Was he alive, was he dead? They wouldn’t tell me.
Want to play? Post your critique here. I’ll post mine tomorrow and then you can see how close you came to mine.
One thing that catches my attention is “my guardian, Luc.” Personally, I tend to think of appositive phrases like this as cheating. It’s almost as if the author can’t wait to tell the reader everything, so they MUST know it now. Personally, I would say my guardian the first time and then do Luc the the second time. Just make sure that it’ll make sense.
Ok Cate, I’ll bite. Be warned though, my thoughts have been a bit different to everyone elses recently.
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1) The first sentence is too long. It feels like effort to get through it. “They came for me on the fifth night of the hospital stay.” is a good first sentence. Actually, “They came for me on the fifth night.” sounds even better. Short and sweet and very mysterious.
2)Do we need to know about Luc straight away? or can we get onto him later? it feels like inserted info where it is and feels fake and breaks the flow. Remove if you can.
3)Woah, the second sentence is way long. I am biased; i don’t like long ones, but this is a mouthful. what is more important? the status of Luc or how the event happened? I think you want some mystery in here to keep people reading.
4) My rewrite would go something like this:
“They came for me on the fifth night. I tossed and turned in the hospital gurney, remembering the rock. And Luc. My guardian. I had last seen him face down and bloody, thirty lash marks across his back. Then there was darkness. Was Luc alive? No one would tell me.”
Ok it is pretty avg and I am not good with first person but hopefully shows you where I am kind of coming from.
SUMMARY: I loved the first line, but there was too much detail for me in the middle.
Good luck with getting it sorted.
That first clause is a grabber! I would emphasize the intensity by putting a period after “hospital stay.” Then continue with, “My arm had started to heal …”
The “in my sleep” threw me. Cursed in your sleep?
Also, the construction of that sentence suggests that the rock brought thirty lashes, and the rock left Luc bloody. That’s probably not what you meant.
The long middle sentence packs a lot of info about Luc, the MC, their relationship, and their world and immediate situation. At the same time tickles my curiosity about the details. And it does all of that in a way that intrigues me rather than overwhelming me.
Another thing I would do (alas, I seem to be rewriting as much as critiquing) is to combine the last two sentences: “Afterward, they wouldn’t tell me whether he was alive or dead.” The “afterward” is kinda ominous, and invites the reader to participate by filling in the horror of what happened in the meantime.
We get a lot of information in just a few sentences. We learn the MC’s relationship to Luc. We learn that they’re both low enough in the social structure to be beaten nearly to death. We learn that they work in the fields, which suggests perhaps slavery or at least “slave labor.”
Overall, I like it a lot. The beginning grabs me, the middle informs and intrigues me, and the ending tells me that lives are at stake.
Whoops, one more edit in the first sentence… The end of a sentence is the power position. Readers give it a little extra weight. So I want to put a stronger word there: “They came for me on my fifth night in the hospital.”
Sorry you had to be the first victim, Cate.
Randy, you make this look so easy, but it sure ain’t.
I think this sounds like an intriguing story world. The first sentence gives a character, something about to happen, something he/she cares about, and sense of an initial need.
The info given in the second sentence has value, I think, but structurally, the sentence has some issues.
And I’m not sure when things take place, like cursing the rock in his/her sleep followed by “They wouldn’t tell me.” We aren’t witnessing the fruitless conversation so it’s hard to know when everything happened. But I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. It could be a matter of voice and style. Some books begin with a bit of telling before any in-your-face encounters.
This is just nit-picking on that second sentence: The subject switches in the midst of those comma-separated clauses. Sorry, I don’t remember the cms phrasing for this stuff….. it’s always a gut thing…. but I think the subject switched from the rock to the lashes. You can test it by inserting the implied “that had” in each clause:
“I cursed the rock, in my sleep, that had brought me down in the fields, (that had) brought the thirty lashes on both me and Luc, (that had) left him bloody and unconscious and me just alive enough to watch.”
I don’t think the rock left Luc bloody and unconscious. But that’s easy to resolve, if desired, by breaking it into two sentences.
It sounds like an interesting story, Cate.
First of all, I apologize for not responding earlier. I’ve been reading but have had little time to get involved. We just recently bought a house and it’s been hectic these last few weeks.
Cate’s Paragraph:
The first thing that hits me is the word “They”. That, for me, is an immediate way of pulling me in and wondering, who are “they”?
The first sentence gives us a lot of these hints that raise questions and require me to keep reading to get an answer. I have mixed feelings about this. First of all, “They” had its effect on me, and left me with a mysterious wondering. Raising too many questions in one sentence, especially the opening sentence, might be overkill. It’s supposed to draw you in, not jerk you around (pardon my french).
The second sentence does roughly the same thing, but is even more obscure. The “rock” could be so many things and gives no indication whatsoever whether it is of supernatural or natural origin. This puts me in a very awkward position: I’m left wondering when and where this Story World is. This may be a personal thing of mine, but if there is something I like to see in the first few lines of any book, it’s some indication of the time frame and world I’m reading about. It doesn’t have to be spelled out for me, but a bit more specific “grounds” me, so to speak.
The last two lines I thought were a good closing to that first paragraph, we’re inside the POV’s head and are forced to feel what she/he feels.
Over all I thought it was a good first paragraph, but that it raises too many questions. Raising a few questions early on is good, as it forces me to keep reading, but too many just confuse me. Leave a few things for later, move a few of these questions to later paragraphs or even chapters, and I think that would work better. Though, of course, it’s difficult to say this for sure without reading more.
My first paragraph (should you be willing to critique it):
The ledge is cold beneath my feet. A sudden gust of wind almost rips the hospital gown from my body, providing the crowd that has gathered down on the street a brief glimpse of my privates. Blood momentarily rushes to my brain and gives me a natural high of adrenaline as, for a moment, I feel like I’m falling forward. As I shift my foot to correct the imbalance, my big toe connects with the edge. The crowd gasps, and though fifteen stories separate us, I can hear them clearly. I hear someone praying, a faint voice in the back of my mind, and I regain my balance.
From a reader’s point of view, I am hooked. From a sophomore’s POV, I really can’t make any suggestions at changing anything whatsoever. I don’t know, maybe it is just my personal taste, but I think it is a great first paragraph.
I tend to agree with Daan. It’s a good opening as it stands. Earlier comments show just how subjective this writing/reading business is. Like, do you prefer peaches or strawberries? My (subjective) attempts at tweaking it lead to:
They came for me in the hospital on the fifth night. My arm had started to heal and I was anxious to get back to Luc. I cursed the rock that had brought me down in the fields, brought the thirty lashes on us both, left him unconscious and bloody, and me just alive enough to watch. Was he alive or had they killed him? They wouldn’t tell me.
Probably no better–just a bit different. When do we get to read the rest of the story?
It seems to me that Cate tends to overuse commas to sort ideas. The paragraph can be improved by checking this tendency.
The first sentence is long and deals with too many themes. Two shorter sentences with less content will be more punchy. Unless the injured arm is significant I would drop it. This person has been lashed to within inches of her life, an arm that heals in five days sounds banal after that.
The word ‘restless’ is a state of unfocused being but the character is focusing on something – change the word or drop the focus.
Similarly, the second sentence is long with mixed content. A shorter sentence will sharpen the expression. Saying she cursed something in her sleep is distracting. So also for ‘just alive enough’.
Are the ‘they’ of the first sentence the same ‘they’ of the last sentence? In the first sentence, ‘they’ sound rather menacing. In the last sentence ‘they’ sound like anonymous anybody.
I would reduce it –
They came for me on my fifth night in hospital. I had started to heal and I was restless. I cursed the rock that had brought me down in the fields, brought the thirty lashes on us both, leaving Luc bloody and unconscious and me barely alive to see it. Was he alive? Dead? Noone would tell me.
We still have the five nights in hospital and the resltessness. We have the rock, the lashes, the ‘barely alive’ state. And Luc is introduced with a little more mystery so you can tell us who he is later.
I like John’s suggestions and I agree with Dale’s confusion about the “in my sleep” part of the sentence.
I’m with Daan in that I can’t offer much in the way of critque because I don’t know anything about the story to help you make it more intriguing.
I’m very interested to see what happens next, what the significance the rock has and why it brought 30 lashes on them both. So, over all, it’s a good beginning with lots of potential.
I find Kim’s suggestion of how to change the paragraph exceptionally good.
What Camille said. 🙂
Yes, Camille, much harder than we can imagine, but fun; and yes, Parker, each of us brings a different subjectivity, but fun. Take heart, Cate, we’re all here to learn and we’re all rooting for one another.
“They came for me…” Mysterious and strong. Even before reading on, it doesn’t sound like a birthday party coming up. I like John’s idea of cutting it back to “They came for me on the fifth night.”
On the first reading “hospital” registered, but then it clashed with the punishment inflicted. Dale pointed out the element of time, as well as the idea of forced labor in the fields with someone who has the power to issue thirty lashes. A “hospital” sounds a bit modern for that setting, but a hospital stay of five days seems more care than would be offered a slave. Setting might also be futuristic where hospitals and slave labor both exist.
I read the MC as a young woman, but it could easily be a boy (Luc as guardian suggests that he/she is young).
I’m not suggesting you try to get all that clarification in first paragraph. As others have said, that would be too much.
But a polish of the words that seem to set up confusion would help.
I look forward to Cate’s own rewrite. 🙂
Wow, this is unexpected! A medal for Randy and Camille both!
I’ve been reading through the comments so far–you all have some amazing insights here! I’ll be printing and pouring over them in detail.
About saying/not saying guardian: I know I’m cheating, but I’m not sure how else to get this across. It needs to come out now because the MC is male, otherwise it might give the impression the MC is female and Luc is a lover. Any ideas?
My long sentences: My next couple paragraphs really ratchet up the emotional factor, and I knew I had to hit the ground running or else risk punching too hard and the reader closes the book. I wanted the paragraph to sound breathless, dazed, a bit detached. Seems like some of you like it, some don’t–but does it put you on edge, make you want to read on? I do agree the first sentence is long, I’ll probably chop that up.
Hospital stay: I want to keep those two words together, because being in the hospital is no big deal for him, staying there is.
The rock: I’m going to take out the “in my sleep” part: (I cursed the rock, in the fields, that brought me down, brought the thirty lashes on both me and Luc, left him bloody and unconscious and me just alive enough to watch.) As to subjects, my character is mentally associating all these events with the rock, as the rock’s fault. Is that coming across, or does it just jar you up as it is?
The broken arm is very important. The 5-day stay: This is scifi, set after the fall of a multi-planetary empire, 10,000-ish A.D. I’m glad you caught the reference to slaves–I’m hoping that tips the odd-factor just enough to hint this isn’t our place and time and that more explanation is to come. (Does it?)
Thanks for all your ideas! 🙂
Well here’s my shot. I don’t know the story, or what physical qualities the POV might have that would move them from ‘barely alive’ to ‘begun to heal’ in five days, but the whole feels forced with Too Much Information for a first-person reteling of some incident. So I removed a lot of the verbiage to leave only the most important bits, and leave the reader eager to see if the rest would be in the next paragraph. And ending with a punch, of course.
They came for me on the fifth night, just as I had begun to heal. I cursed the rock that had brought me down, brought us the thirty lashes, left Luc bloody and unconscious in the field. I couldn’t get them to tell me what happened to my Guardian. Was Luc dead?
Cate writes: (I cursed the rock, in the fields, that brought me down, brought the thirty lashes on both me and Luc, left him bloody and unconscious and me just alive enough to watch.) As to subjects, my character is mentally associating all these events with the rock, as the rock’s fault. Is that coming across, or does it just jar you up as it is?
IMHO, long sentences can add depth to a character’s emotional state the same way short, choppy ones do. You could keep the flow of that inner chain of thought but just alter the structure slightly to keep the subjects in the right place, also smooth and clarify it a bit like this:
I cursed the rock that had brought me down in the fields, brought the thirty lashes on both me and Luc that left him bloody and unconscious and me just alive enough to watch.
(He didn’t curse the rock in the fields, he did it in his bed.)
I agree with Kim; I thought the healing arm kind of pales in contrast to a near death beating; wouldn’t there be injuries worse than the arm? Unless there was something significant about that arm injury, like he had to hack part of it off to get free or something. 🙂
O Wise One, what did we miss? I’d like to see a list of the MUSTS for a perfect opening paragraph.
I liked the eery feeling of the opening. I think its a wee bit too wordy. I’m not used to doing critiques on a comment form (I usually send the author a critique with cross out lines and changes in red, so this is a bit frustrating for me as I can’t do that here, but I can post the paragraph as I’ve revised it:
They came on the fifth night of hospital stay. My arm was healing and I was anxious to get back to my guardian. Did he survive? I cursed the rock that had brought me down in that field, brought the thirty lashes on us both, and left Luc bloody and unconscious.
It’s simply a suggestion, and I hope you find some of the changes work with the flow and tone you are wanting to set in your work.
Peace,
Bonnie
Hi Cate, I’m certainly no expert, but I saw your comment about wanting to get across that the narrator is male. When I read “guardian, Luc,” I immediately assumed a female narrator, so no name would have worked better for me, as well as reading more smoothly. The rest of the paragraph is certainly interesting, but feels rushed. With the draw of “They” at the start, I wonder if you might want to get more into the head of the narrator, rather than the narration, at the start. Of course, that wouldn’t give you room to give me the gist of the story, but in first person, I feel like I have to like the narrator before I’ll read the story. Still, like I said, I’m no expert. I’ll look forward to reading Randy’s comments and learning from them.
I’m certainly hooked on the story, but even though the word “guardian” is used, I got the impression of an enslaved princess with a protector/potential lover.
I don’t know how to give the impression of masculinity in a first person POV, but maybe someone else can help there.
Good job!
OK, I’m really going along with the group–too much information too fast. My head is spinning. I want to be grabbed, in this guy’s head, FEELING what he’s feeling. I don’t know your story at all, but I want to like this guy–and to ask why/how/when did he come to be here.
I’m going to distroy your first paragraph. I’m sorry. Here’s how I might write it (which doesn’t make it even close to correct…)
They came for me.
It was the fifth night of my hospital stay. I was restless, my broken arm starting to heal, but the thirty lashes, I’d counted them, still felt raw.
They stood around my bed, staring, like I was a specimen under a jar.
“What about Luc?” I’d asked. He’d been there, too. I’d watched his beating.
They didn’t answer.
Blessings,
Carrie
Great critiques. I love the first four words – “They came for me…” Caught my attention right away. Suspense. Why did they want her? What had she done?
Then I got confused. I guess, after reading your comments, Cate, that you wanted me to react this way. My problem was setting. I couldn’t lodge the picture in my mind. If “me” was a slave, why would she be in a hospital? And you didn’t say slave master, you said guardian. Who has guardians?
I was intrigued, and I think that if I’d read the title and/or back copy and had a bit of insight as to where the story was going, I might continue to read. But I don’t yet care about the main character. How about starting with action that will tell us something about the characcter-who and where she is. Maybe, when she’s watching Luc be whipped. As it is, I feel disconnected with the character. JUST MY OPINION, though. Sounds like you have a great story problem to work with!
Wow! We’re a really diverse group, aren’t we? HA! So many different suggestions for one paragraph. It just goes to show, that we all have different styles and tastes – like we didn’t already know that. I’m really anxious to see what Randy says.
Beginning in the first sentence, I want to be drawn deeper into the character’s POV. So instead of “the” hospital stay, I would change it to “my” hospital stay.
Mention of a guardian immediately tells me it’s a youthful protagonist and therefore, likely a YA novel. At the same time, I would drop everything after “…and I was restless.” Leaves more of a question about who this is and what’s going on, causing me to want to continue to read.
I would also drop “in my sleep” from the next sentence. For me, it didn’t add anything. And I would change one instance of “brought” to another erb. I chose to change the first one to “tripped”.
I’d change “left him bloody…” to “leaving him bloody”.
I would make the next to last sentence two questions. I wanted to simply have the last one read “Dead?” but decided that was my voice and not yours.
So it now reads like:
They came for me on the fifth night of my hospital stay, when my arm had started to heal and I was restless. I cursed the rock that had tripped me down in the fields and brought the thirty lashes on both me and Luc, leaving him bloody and unconscious and me just alive enough to watch. Was he alive? Was he dead? They wouldn’t tell me.
Definitely would keep me reading. Who is Luc? What happened in the field? Is Luc okay?
Noticed Bonnie’s mention of the wordiness. Wanted to point out that I considered that part of the protagonist’s voice, especially since he’s underage.
Cate wrote;
They came for me on the fifth night of the hospital stay, when my arm had started to heal and I was restless to get back to my guardian, Luc. I cursed the rock, in my sleep, that had brought me down in the fields, brought the thirty lashes on both me and Luc, left him bloody and unconscious and me just alive enough to watch. Was he alive, was he dead? They wouldn’t tell me.
My suggestion;
They came for me the fifth night of my hospital stay. My arm had started to heal and I was restless with a need to get back to Luc. As my guardian he was given thirty lashes also, even though it was I who had been brought down by the accursed rock in the field. The last time I saw him he was bloody and unmoving, while I was left barely conscious. Was he alive? They wouldn’t tell me.
Like Parker, I don’t know if this is any better or just different. I did think that one part was a bit over stated. A person left just alive enough to watch a beating five days ago wouldn’t be healed to the point this person seemed to be, unless medical science was greatly improved over what we have now.
I absolutely love the first sentence. It makes me want to encourage you to cheat and leave it on its own, moving the rest into its own paragraph. Creates so many questions so economically. Fantastic.
Cate wrote: They came for me on the fifth night of the hospital stay, when my arm had started to heal and I was restless to get back to my guardian, Luc. I cursed the rock, in my sleep, that had brought me down in the fields, brought the thirty lashes on both me and Luc, left him bloody and unconscious and me just alive enough to watch. Was he alive, was he dead? They wouldn’t tell me.
Cate also commented later in reaction to earlier critiques and mentioned the hospital and slavery and the future and then she re-worded the second sentence. Although all of that extra information is nice to know, for the purpose of evaluating and critiquing her paragraph, I’m going to ignore it and just go with what came to me as I read her paragraph for the first time. I should also mention that I agree with some of the other critiques, but I’m going to try very hard to ignore them as well by going back in my memory to my first reading of the paragraph.
So, Cate, here are my thoughts on your first paragraph.
Right off the bat, your first sentence was too long for for a couple of reasons.
One: the punch of that sentence is the first eight words. “They came for me on the fifth night….” I like that part. It tells me that (a) she had been expecting them, (b) they had made her wait and nobody like waiting, (c) and she couldn’t do anything about it.
Two: This sentence has three completely separate thoughts. “They came.” “Arm began to heal.” “I wanted my companion.” The only thing linking these ideas is that they are all happening inside the POV’s head. Thoughts do run into each other and evolve (or devolve) into other thoughts non-sequentially. So, fine! The POV has three thoughts. I don’t think it is necessary though to burden the reader with trying to untangle them out of a single sentence.
When I read “…get back to my guardian, Luc.” I immediately thought that the POV was a child. If the POV was a slave, the word would have been “guard” and the POV would not be likely to want to get back to that guard. If the POV was royalty or politically important, the word would have been “body guard”. Guardians, however, are adults entrusted with the well-being of children. Still, I got the impression that the POV was female and that there might be some romantic feelings involved. If you want to strengthen the idea of an adult supervising a minor and at the same time remove the gender and the perception of attraction, there might be a better word: “regent,” “protector,” “tutor,” or even “governor.”
The second sentence needs work.
I’m not sure why we need to know that the POV cursed the rock while sleeping.
The image that formed as I read this sentence was that the guardian and the POV had been travelling in some lighter-than-air vessel and had crashed as a result of an encounter with the rock. Tied together with the mysterious “they” of the first sentence, in my mental image, the rock had been thrown or fired at them. However, if the POV is cursing the rock, that sounds personal, so perhaps the POV was piloting the craft or providing navigation instructions to the guardian. In either event, perhaps the POV made an error and the craft struck the rock.
Then, following the crash in the fields, both the POV and the guardian were lashed 30 times. The lashing was so severe that the guardian was rendered unconscious and the POV was nearly killed.
After finally wading through that second, informative but very long sentence, you end the paragraph with a nice mysterious punch, but you dilute it (and contradict an earlier part of the POV’s experience.) How? By the sentence, “They wouldn’t tell me.” This sentence runs contrary to “They came for me on the fifth night.”
So, with all that analysis, how would I recommend editing your first paragraph?
They came for me on the fifth night. My arm had
started to heal…
[just a thought, here. The arm sounds broken, and bones can begin to mend in five days. The POV has also been lashed and those wounds are probably starting to heal as well. The problem is, bones and lashes don’t heal at the same rate. The only thing the POV can actually determine that is healing is the skin and muscle that was lashed. Therefore, I’m going to start over and replace the phrase, “My arm had started to heal.”]
They came for me on the fifth night. I still
couldn’t use my arm although my back was
beginning to heal. I worried about my tutor. I
had no idea if Luc was alive or dead. I cursed
the rock that had brought us down in the fields.
We might have escaped were it not for that rock!
Instead, we were captured and each of us received
30 lashes. My wounds left me just alive enough to
watch Luc receive his 30 strokes which left him
bloody and unconscious. Was he alive? Was he
dead? Perhaps I would find out now.
Hiya Cate, your original piece was 76 words, so I’ve tried to keep to that.
I’m thinking thirty lashes is a lot of pain.
Also lots of tell. Sorry if I’m stretching to fill in the story.
‘Roll over.’
Biting down on the pain, I obeyed. ‘Is Luc okay?’
The nurse smeared soothing ointment over my back. ‘Thirty lashes. What you do?’
‘The plow caught a rock. Went out of control. Killed the oxen. My guardian, Luc? I have to know.’
‘Five days. You heal quick. How’s the arm?’
‘Can I leave today?’
She froze as sandaled feet slapped on the stone floor. Stopped by my mattress.
Too late, they’d come for me.
Wow, I’m trying out all these different ideas in my head…some earn an instant Nope, some pull an I’ll Think About It, some are Aha!
I’m guessing the Aha! ones are the ideas I’ll implement. And, like everything else in writing, I guess this all comes down to trusting my gut instincts.
Oh, one other note: I’ve been wracking my brain on how to get rid of saying guardian here and I found I already had the answer. I’m writing in multiple 1st-person, so I have the character’s name at the beginning of each segment. Takes care of that.
Thank you! A million times thank all of you, and I can’t wait to see what Randy has to say.
Critiquing Cate:
Thank you, Cate,for letting us learn through you. As someone already said, Randy makes it look way easy, but ’tis not! Here’s my take at it:
On my fifth night in the hospital, they came for me. I longed for Luc, and in my sleep I cursed the rock that had broken my arm and brought thirty lashes on us both, leaving him bloody and unconscious. Yet they would not tell me: Had Luc survived?
I’m with you on the preference for the long sentences and narrative, Cate.
I’d probably drop the first ‘Luc’ and just go with guardian. I’d also go with Camille’s lower-comma version of the middle sentence. Everything else worked for me.
I can’t add anything beyond enjoying everyone’s critiques.
By the time this is all said and done and you take the advice that fits your story and voice best, you will have a killer first paragraph!
Without knowing, the plot of this story, makes this is a difficult paragraph to critique. I find myself drawn to her suffering (name would be nice, someone I can identify with) and sympathize in her anguish over her plight and that of her guardian. The word “they,” occurs in the first and last sentence. This is a good thing, because now I want to read further and find out whom “they” are. I question what the “rock” is that brought her down in the field. Is this a person or a rock thrown by “they?” That sentence is very long and full of many different thoughts. Some other comments: REM sleep is when a person dreams. Recommend you change the word sleeps to dreams. Change…me and Luc to Luc and me. The sentence can be broken up into several smaller sentences (period at the end of fields) or with use of punctuation. Punctuation can made this a stronger paragraph and easier to follow. The second to the last sentence is redundant. Dead or alive can be implied by picking one word. Examples: I did not know if Luc survived his lashing or I did not know if Luc was dead (or alive). This leaves a question in the readers mind…must read on to find out what happened to Luc. Without changing your style, I submit the following:
They came for me on the fifth night of my hospital stay, just when my arm started to heal. I was restless to return to my guardian, Luc. I cursed the rock, in my dreams that brought me down in the fields; brought the thirty lashes on both Luc and me…leaving him bloody and unconscious…and me, just alive enough to watch. I did not know if he was alive. They would not tell me.