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An Impressionistic Perspective - chrome - 2010-03-27
Felt like it today. As always, I thrive on comments.
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Contemplation.
Her destination was a thousand highways below, lined with a gradient of what could well be compunction and remorse. Her hands shook, ripe with anticipation, faltering not against the wind that edged her ever away from her little niche. This wasn't how it was supposed to go, she thought—not a burden; never a burden. But maybe, being the burden that she was, that couldn't be helped.
The mouths of a thousand and one paved stones, the screams of a hundred standers by were all that awaited her. Her head pulsed fiercely, yearning to just glance down, mind eager to gain some insight. Emotion showered down on her, looming and lingering around like a low coastal rain. The sky was blinding in high daylight; the sun poured its radiance on her, brushing tirelessly off of the transient wisps of hair that danced freely behind her midst. The wind abounded with ozone—pure, weightless, inviting. Monotony from below stumbled and tripped to the soles of her shuffling feet, sounds once characterized by distress and apprehension. But up here, it was nothing; up here, it was silent.
Her heels toyed with the fathoms below her crude sill. Her heart tensed forebodingly, blood rushing through swell strings like a river of astriction. Blocks of anxiety and anticipation stacked high into her brain. Waves of innumerable incertitude crashed in her mind and jarred her ears, lingering like a flashbang. Question towered and piled torrentially in her head like mounds of debris, unyielding to any sanity that might have remained. Her feet took blows to their stability; writhing, pulsating. Quivering. Trembling.
Had it not been this flurry of vehemence that sent her off, I know not the cause of it.
Backward motion gracefully washed away the grime of moments past; she fell freely and eloquently, nimbly sinking into the inviting linen of blind intention. The wind carried her blithely down the length of a thousand highways, down a gradient lined with evenness and decorum. Euphoria and insouciance danced hither and to in wavelengths, bounding from one pole to the other like phases in a sonata. A bird's eye would've laid vision upon her face, hair fluttering upward like flowing ribbons. She fell, aware and enlightened; enveloped in freedom, cleansed from worry. Her eyes and ears opened themselves to jeers and voices, honks and screams. All the compunction she felt rippled back into her head. Suddenly, for a split second, she found herself back on earth.
And then, it was over.[/SIZE]
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AFDS
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An Impressionistic Perspective - Providence - 2010-03-29
This leaves me conflicted. You seem to attempt to make the most of such a small piece (as many impressionist pieces do) through the use of clear and strong descriptions, and in this way, it's successful. Each seems to complement the next, and together, they do paint a very vivid (and thusly grim) picture. However, I also feel that this would benefit from a lesser degree of verbosity. While the descriptions are clear and strong, collectively, they form a very dense piece of literature. It's too heavy in its current state, and the average reader most likely wouldn't properly interpret this without a dictionary handy. Herein lies the problem: would lightening this up dilute the expression?
I appreciate the sardonic humor in "she found herself back on earth." It makes the narrator out to be a rather cold and discerning individual. The description in the fourth paragraph further fleshes out the setting (both mental and physical) as bleak, granting the reader opportunity to empathize with the nameless girl's state of mind. The sixth paragraph's use of terms associated with "beauty" is a clever, and fitting, expression of her fall.
I'm not sure you really need the last line. The previous one would be a strong note to go out on: the comment of this emotionally distant narrator on such a seemingly beautiful event.
An Impressionistic Perspective - chrome - 2010-03-29
Hmm. Well, to provide background, I had two main inspirations in writing this: This video, and the word "sonata". The whole thing sprouted from the one line that I used the word--I wanted to portray various states of emotion and being by incorporating various sentence structures and word usage. Every convention has to do with what's going on. I suppose I can't explain it very well in concrete statements, so I'll map it out. (I'm sorry if I'm coming on strong with this, I just feel like I need to explain it.)
[spoiler=Not sure why I'm putting this in a spoiler]Paragraph 2: "Am I really going to do this?" -- I tried to capture a minute amount of nervousness here. I didn't put much emphasis on it, evidently. "Contemplation" is really the right word to put on it.
Paragraph 3: Blindly knowing what's coming, if that makes sense. Mainly, I tried to vividly capture as much of the natural scenery here as possible, as to distract from what was actually happening, while at the same time being realistic enough to still acknowledge her growing uneasiness.
Paragraph 4: Building up. You'll notice that the sentence structure gets choppy here, and that's to portray a heartbeat (if you will), growing more and more rapid.
Paragraph 6: This is where I tried to be as eloquent as I possibly could. All the negativity from before is...well, negated, and it suddenly switches to a very positive outlook. Nothing matters (in the context of the paragraph) here. What was happening was a period of euphoria (you know, I hate using words that I used in the actual composition to describe the thing). In the middle of the whole thing, suddenly everything is normal again, and you're pulled out of the whole beautiful scene as quickly as you were introduced to it.
Paragraph 7: This is, for me, what captures the whole picture, and where I might disagree with you. It's just a few words, I'm aware, but like I said before, I intended to use conventions to their full effect to capture the event, and this is what did it for me. A few abrupt words that ended the composition just as quickly as her life was ended--capturing the situation.
I still don't feel like I've explained clearly enough (Not trying to talk down to you, I just feel like I have to explain it), but I don't know how I can go any further.[/spoiler]
An Impressionistic Perspective - Throes - 2010-04-07
I hate writing little more than "I really liked it!" but... I did. I think part of the reason is that I have this animation storyboarded in my head about a girl who jumps off a building...
Ben Wrote:Emotion showered down on her, looming and lingering around like a low coastal rain.
This line feels awkward to me. That's pretty much my whole criticism. One awkward line. I think it's the word "around" that I don't like, it feels redundant (yeah so does a lot of the description, maybe intentionally so, but the word "around" really feels unnecessary in that sentence.) I know I already chatted a bit with you about this piece but I just re-read it and wanted to give that tiny little bit of feedback.