Author Topic: The Power of Repetition  (Read 4486 times)

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Ionaya

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The Power of Repetition
« on: August 14, 2007, 04:48:50 PM »
I\'d like some feedback on this.
There are run on sentences,
and I intended it as a rushed feel for flow.

Tell me if the style worked.

The Power of Repetition

He drank the blue from her eyes.
He took the red from her lips.
He dissolved her heat.

Pigments of white spread and overtook blue irises, becoming vibrant in indefinite fear; she didn’t understand the depth of instinct thundering her body and pulling at nerves, trying to recover from spastic movements of time. She didn’t understand the unpredictable shivers and shakes catching along her fingers and spine when exposed to the hotly humid air nearly spilling out rain from rolled and grayed clouds. She didn’t understand the urgency of her actions or how completely complicated they were.

These new eyes watched a vague figure stroll down the dim hallway towards spiraled stairwells of wrought iron rust and decaying metal. They creaked from the figure’s weight and he was gone from her intent gaze, shy and half-hidden behind her apartment’s door locked by a small chain. She shut the door and secured her safety with more locks and reassuring sounds of clanging clacks, unsure of the sickening feeling welling in the pit of her stomach or of the hurtful tinges shooting out along the web-work of veins in her arms and legs and wrists and toes and fingers.

Cheap white carpeting soon ended at the bathroom, the consistent footfalls coming up the pathway of scattered water molecules forming the shape of her footsteps’ impressions on the cracking tiles. Moisture was peeling the flowery wallpaper and raising condensation on the sightless mirror opposite the shower she occupied. She had slipped off her robe to the tiles; the fabric was taking in the dirt from the air and the fibers soaked in the frequency waves from his mind.

She was decomposing but she didn’t know it.
She heard a knock at the door.
She shut off the water.

Her piano key fingers unrolled the wrinkles of her robe and wrapped its warmth around her body, oblivious to the frequencies or dangers already occurring. A towel dried her hair hurriedly as she crossed the tile and carpet to get to the front door, first looking through the eyehole only to see that no one stood in the circular tunnel vision. The door was opened by her shaky, unsure will- but she refused to release the padlock –and was early enough to see a figure walk down the hall towards the stairwells. It was a tall thing- all shadows and cloak and spectrum deficiency dripping from rain water, she assumed. Metals gave and groaned under the figure’s weight and then he was gone.

The door closed and she reassured herself by securing each individual lock and felt satisfied with the sounds of clanging clacks. Those same movements reversed themselves and she undid the locks, peeking out to see the figure moving down the hall towards the stairwells and listening to hear the creaking of his weight on the labored steps.

The door closed and relocked itself.

The door unlocked and she looked outward to a figure walking down the hall towards the stairwells but the sound was not there.

She secured herself behind the bolted door and finished drying her hair, walking along the water molecules scattered in the pathway of her footsteps’ impressions on the cracking tiles.

Some of the tiles broke away and they fell down, and down, and down,
and the reverberation that they brought when hitting the very last floor of concrete echoed back and back and back to her.

She was decomposing but she didn’t know it.
The door closed and relocked itself.

Complicated actions simplified themselves in her walk back to the bathroom, rubbing her eyes along the way because something was bothering them. There was no pain or irritation, but something was bothering them. She blinked several times and opened her colorless lenses to a black and white world filled with varying differences in hue and shadow. The tiles reached up and took the robe from her body as she stepped into the shower; they held the cloth close and swallowed it whole.

There is a knock at the door as she washes her hair.
The water is turned off.

Her eyes are shut so hard that they hurt, and she crouches down to hug her knees because she is afraid now. She knows that she must jump or the world isn’t going to be right-side-up again, but she’s afraid to jump into the tiles- they’re chipped into the smiles of crocodiles made of all plaster and teeth and fangs. Translucent eyes push upwards until she can see the tub above her head, and the porcelain toilet and the vaporous mirror and sink.

It’s raining in her house now, the clouds formed and circulated around the ceiling and around her.

She unlocks the door and peeks out to see the black coat wearing a man of skeletal structures and deep skull indentations in his face and cheekbones and jaw line. He’s smiling over his shoulder and she wonders how he can fit all those teeth in there.

She secures the locks and feels satisfied with the clanking clanging clacks.

She’s drying her hair as she walks along the pathway of water molecules in the shape of her footfalls’ impressions when the door unlocks itself.

He’s all spectrum deficiency and he’s inside her house and all the color drains and the lights shut off.

The door locks itself.
She is afraid and she starts to run.
She doesn’t understand that he’s already taken her.
She doesn’t understand that she’s decomposing.

He drank the blue from her eyes until they rolled back white and he took the red from her lips into his cheeks until he blushed and he dissolved all her heat into water until the windows were fogged and the mirrors were crying down with rain. His skeletal hands touched everywhere until he was flesh again and she was made a corpse with blue veins under alabaster stone, paper-thin skin and curled hairs shocked and choking from their lack of oxygen. He left her only as a body pelted by the running showerhead, laying at the bottom of the tub with her left leg up and over the edge.

She was decomposing but she didn’t know it.

Offline Trillian

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Re: The Power of Repetition
« Reply #1 on: September 03, 2007, 09:44:08 AM »
Phrases like \'completely complicated\' don\'t work - they make my mind stumble over them when reading.

The sentence \'rolled and grayed clouds\' could work without the and, I think, to better fit in with the style you\'ve chosen.

\'her arms and legs and wrists and toes and fingers\' doesn\'t work.  The \'ands\' make me mentally stumble as well.  I know you\'re going for a style but that\'s too jagged while everything else is fairly smooth.

\'Cheap white carpeting soon ended at the bathroom, the consistent footfalls coming up the pathway of scattered water molecules forming the shape of her footsteps’ impressions on the cracking tiles\'

Confusing!  Needs restructuring.

He drank the blue from her eyes until they rolled back white and he took the red from her lips into his cheeks until he blushed and he dissolved all her heat into water until the windows were fogged and the mirrors were crying down with rain

Restructure.  Seems too long.

The biggest issue with this story is the skipping from past tense to present tense.  If it\'s purposeful, it should be obvious, but I recommend present tense all the way through - you dominantly have past tense.

For instance, if I change the below original paragraph:

Complicated actions simplified themselves in her walk back to the bathroom, rubbing her eyes along the way because something was bothering them. There was no pain or irritation, but something was bothering them. She blinked several times and opened her colorless lenses to a black and white world filled with varying differences in hue and shadow. The tiles reached up and took the robe from her body as she stepped into the shower; they held the cloth close and swallowed it whole.

To present tense, you get this:

Complicated actions simplify themselves as she walks back to the bathroom, rubbing her eyes along the way because something is bothering them. There is no pain or irritation, but something is bothering them. She blinks several times and opens her colorless lenses to a black and white world filled with varying differences in hue and shadow. The tiles reach up and take the robe from her body as she steps into the shower; they hold the cloth close and swallow it whole.

To me present tense works better with the style of story you\'ve got, it makes it more powerful because it\'s happening right now.

I\'d rethink using \'lenses\' in that paragraph also.  It\'s a bit like saying \'optics\' for eyes, which also bothers me.
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