04-19-2018, 09:47 PM
Hi danny,
enjoying the discussion.
It's established that it's a beach full of sun-bathers, "beach towels" after all, so why is white stretches hard to imagine? It's a good way of avoiding "sand", although I don't think I ended up using that word anywhere else like I thought I would. I don't require the reader to make any great leaps, but expecting some basic intuition or deduction isn't so bad is it? Is it really hard to guess stretches of sand?
Because you don't say 'blinding white stretches', you say, 'blinding white stretches for miles'.
You could try
...blinding white, [which] stretches for miles
or
blinding white, stretch[ing] for miles
either would be less ambiguous.
(There's a negative sense to arguing? News to me
)
You are left with a small inconsistency that, if the beach is effectively cover in towels/sun-bathers
how or what is 'blinding'.
To answer the last question. What's wrong with an impression of the scene from a different angle? Everything slightly repetitive has to be cut? It doesn't have to be so lean, does it?
No, you're right, it doesn't.
What then is missing?
Basically, the relationship between the couple. In your rely to thunderembargo you said: "This poem is about two people at the beach, and the thoughts of one about the other" - yet it takes five or six verses before you get to the narrator's thoughts (and as previously discussed, they really are a separate piece entirely). I understand you want to paint the landscape, but (purely personal opinion), I want to know the couple first/more than the general scene and you give equal weight to both in the first two stanzas (and arguably in the piece overall). You don't, I think, establish the 'relationship' sufficiently before switching away from it. Or conversely, you don't establish it at all, before asserting "my eyes return to you" half way through the piece.
I think you've got the potential for two good pieces here;
- a beach scene (third person view, no particular weight given to the couple, but interesting descriptions and observations - a series of 'impressions' from 'different angles')
- and the final three stanzas.
Regards, Knot.
enjoying the discussion.
It's established that it's a beach full of sun-bathers, "beach towels" after all, so why is white stretches hard to imagine? It's a good way of avoiding "sand", although I don't think I ended up using that word anywhere else like I thought I would. I don't require the reader to make any great leaps, but expecting some basic intuition or deduction isn't so bad is it? Is it really hard to guess stretches of sand?
Because you don't say 'blinding white stretches', you say, 'blinding white stretches for miles'.
You could try
...blinding white, [which] stretches for miles
or
blinding white, stretch[ing] for miles
either would be less ambiguous.
(There's a negative sense to arguing? News to me
)You are left with a small inconsistency that, if the beach is effectively cover in towels/sun-bathers
how or what is 'blinding'.
To answer the last question. What's wrong with an impression of the scene from a different angle? Everything slightly repetitive has to be cut? It doesn't have to be so lean, does it?
No, you're right, it doesn't.
What then is missing?
Basically, the relationship between the couple. In your rely to thunderembargo you said: "This poem is about two people at the beach, and the thoughts of one about the other" - yet it takes five or six verses before you get to the narrator's thoughts (and as previously discussed, they really are a separate piece entirely). I understand you want to paint the landscape, but (purely personal opinion), I want to know the couple first/more than the general scene and you give equal weight to both in the first two stanzas (and arguably in the piece overall). You don't, I think, establish the 'relationship' sufficiently before switching away from it. Or conversely, you don't establish it at all, before asserting "my eyes return to you" half way through the piece.
I think you've got the potential for two good pieces here;
- a beach scene (third person view, no particular weight given to the couple, but interesting descriptions and observations - a series of 'impressions' from 'different angles')
- and the final three stanzas.
Regards, Knot.