Cyril Darkcloud

Talking about movement ‘within’ a piece of writing is a curious thing as, quite obviously, a written text is static in the fixity of its words relative to one another and relative to the page. It remains, however, an important idea and perhaps a consideration of a few of the structural features of composition might allow us a bit of insight into this. 1. Visual Movement - Often the simple arrangement of words generates movement not only in the eyes which read them, but also in terms of their ability to narrow or broaden the focus of the ideas they convey. The use of spaces between lines or the use of long and short lines in verse has long been a used by poets, and an excellent example of such technique here at the Pen is the poem Words by Vlad who has been especially active at exploring this aspect of writing. Vlad’s poem can be found here and my comments upon it are in the Critics’ Corner, here. 2. The Arc of a Story – It is something of a commonplace, especially among those who write extended, multi-part stories, to speak of plotting out a ‘story arc’, essentially an outline of the movements of a narrative over a given period of time, episodes or pages. The implied image here is that of the trajectory of a projectile – an arc of motion from one point to another. While very few narratives can be described as moving in the shape of an arc – they generally have too many ‘high’ and ‘low’ points for such a simple characterization – the idea is helpful as it serves to highlight the unfolding of a definite sequence of events over time so that the end can only reached and understood my moving forward from a certain beginning. Movement from beginning to end imparts a certain ‘forwardness’ to a text and this directionality shapes the narrative. 3. Emotional Movement – While this might seem to be merely something that takes place within the reader, that is not entirely true, as a well told story or a well written poem will tend to be written in such a way as to produce emotional responses – the highs and lows of a story, or the steady building of emotional intensity from word to word in a poem, for example. This can be done by the intense clustering of plot elements in a story or the relentless exploration and sharpening of emotional language in verse. The use of forceful and strong words, for example, will tend to heighten the emotional intensity of a piece whereas the choice of weak and overly general expressions tends to diminish emotional intensity. 4. Flow of Ideas – Narrative plots are not the only things that have a forward movement about them, arguments and expositions do as well as one idea prepares the way for the next and the arrangement of ideas relative to one another can give rise to a ‘smooth’ or ‘rough’ aspect to a text. For example, ideas that are strung together in a disjointed way or without clear transitions grant a disconnected quality to a bit of writing making it either unreadable [in the worst cases] or something akin to a series of stepping stones in a stream – one gets to the destination only by carefully placing his feet onto each stone one at a time. Pieces with tightly connected ideas and clear transitions between thoughts and units often have a sort of ‘seamlessness’ about them – one does not notice the structure much like one does not notice the feel of smooth road when riding along it. 5. Perspective and Place – Every piece of writing, including the most technical, is written from a perspective – be it an ideally objective observer, a position of authority or that of a an involved and invested narrator. When the perspective is constant and low-key throughout the piece, as in most technical writing, one does not tend to notice it. Often, however, a piece of writing will contain a variety of perspectives within it as, for example, when the author tales a story from the perspectives of various characters or allows the reader to ‘see’ through the eyes and ‘feel’ the feelings of diverse characters within the narrative. Your piece, Vanity makes great use of this in the way its scenes are presented – there is the public eye immediately around the model and the private view of the girls in their rooms and the reader is shifted between these locations through the movement from one set of eyes and feelings to the other. Narratologists call such a technique ‘focalization’ – that is focusing a scene through a specific set of eyes or ears or through a specific character’s voice. Related to this, is the use of ‘scene changes’ and changes of place or setting that one often finds in a longer work which helps to create the sense of movement within a world which makes many stories so powerful and immersive. 6. Pace – We will often describe a work as ‘moving’ quickly or slowly. This can pften be the result of the writer’s decision to rapidly move from event to event in a story or to ‘slow things down’ by dwelling on certain descriptive elements. In poetry, meter – the combination of accented and unaccented syllables – can also produce these effects. Stressed syllables, especially when clustered together, will tend to slow a piece down – thus these are often used at points of emphasis and impact within a piece – and unstressed syllables, especially when grouped together will often speed the pace of a piece. My own writing, at least poetically, tends to make use of shifts in meter, often in ways that will mirror the cadences of my speaking voice. Again – quite a bit of oversimplification was necessary here. Still, I hope this has been helpful.

Out of ashes, so it has been said, the phoenix spreads its vanished wings. Over an abyss the rush of wind and spoken word brings light bursting forth from chaos and from death to burn against such darkness as would drape its veil o’er life. Few battles be greater or hold more import than those waged by struggling hearts to claim sufficient light to see the movement of the wings of hope from the cinders of a quenching fire burning weak against a growing night.

Always, ever always, the fallen are many and victory whether hard–won and costly or rapid and cheap finds that footing most reliant and sure which stands upon defeat. And banners unfurled in the hands of the living sing out a kingdom made firm on the backs of the beaten and the hearts of the fallen. A song simply stated and sung well. Nicely done. Thanks for a fun read. Good luck with your application, Dragonqueen.

I am likely to need a couple posts to attempt an answer to question, Salinye, so let me begin by posting a few generalized remarks: As I generally make use of the notion of ‘movement’ when speaking about the experience of reading a particular work, it might be wise to take a moment to reflect a bit upon the act and process of reading itself, especially in terms of how it relates to the ideas of ‘time’ and ‘text.’ 1. To really grow as a writer, I strongly believe, is not possible unless one is willing also grow as a reader. This is in no small measure due to the simple fact that the process of revising and editing a given piece of writing necessarily involves reading it, thus the stronger one’s ability to read critically the stronger one’s critical ability with his or her own work. Skill in reading is often the most overlooked tool in the process of learning to write well. 2. Reading is act that takes place, one might say unfolds, in time. This is so obvious that it seems silly to point it out, and yet it is very important. One never engages any text all at once – there is always a before and after about reading. Even the act of reading a single sentence involves the movement, in time, of the reader’s attention from one word to the next. Precisely because one does not have the entire text at once, reading tends to involve the reader anticipating what is to follow based upon what he or she has already read and strong pieces of writing make powerful use of the act of confirming or defeating the expectations of the reader as the story moves forward. [Note the sheer number of motion verbs I need to employ simply to describe this.] What is first read shapes and anticipates the reading of what follows later in the text, and what is read later in the text clarifies, recasts and provides the decisive meaning of what has already been read. 3. Movement is a part of reading. Physically eyes move along a page [or computer screen as the case may be ]. One moves to acquire the text that will be read, whether by walking across a room to pick up a book or by scrolling down a list of forum threads and clicking on a link. Internally, the reader also moves in the act of reading along the unfolding of the words of the text, and the particular ways in which those words might unfold can give rise to very different experiences within a given reader. A common and simple example of this is the sense of whether or not a piece ‘flows well’ – again, note the sense of motion implied in that description. The words on the page are themselves static, but there is an experience of movement about the act of reading them. 4. One of the effects of this is that some theorists, for example, Wolfgang Iser, will state that a text by itself is not a literary work. Rather a literary work is ‘brought into being’ when someone actively engages in reading a text. Those works in which the interplay between text and reader is particularly powerful are what are eventually recognized as classics. An entire school of literary criticism has come out this insight and is known as Reader-Response Criticism in which the experience of reading, understood as one’s responsiveness to the movements produced in the act of reading, becomes the starting point for interpretation. I’ve made some oversimplifications here, but, hopefully, this is a helpful start. If time permits I’ll try and have another post up either tomorrow or Saturday night to follow up on this in terms of the notion of movement ‘within’ a piece of writing.

ooc: Little did I realize when I first promised Salinye an answer to this post that life would keep me away from the Pen for so many months. ic: Deep it has fallen, so far that even the most persistent echo of its words produces no trace of motion within the air about the balcony of the Cabaret Room. Deep it has fallen, tumbling from sight and attentiveness somewhere far below the cliff faces on this side of the Keep. He sits upon the windswept parapet which he has claimed as his quarters here and places the white bow across his knees. Holding the bow he looks outward sending his sight along the shifting currents of air until he marks the location of the long unanswered post. Seeing the post, he rises and, placing the bow once more upon his back, steps off the parapet and into the wind. “To live is to move,” he says quietly as the wind bears him to the stone ledge onto which the post had fallen, “and nothing moves with the freedom of wind.” Stepping onto the ledge, he removes the glove from his hand and grasps the handle of the Stormreaver. He laughs softly as he does so at the thought that a character such as he, a storm-tossed man exiled to wander fierce and forgotten landscapes, should function on a board such as this as a vehicle of literary feedback. His fingers tighten around the handle of the axe and the air near the ledge shifts in its movement. His eyes narrow and he speaks quietly in the dialect of his people and with a gusting burst the winds carry the too-long-unanswered post up to the level of the Cabaret Room balcony along with the silent stormwalker. Stepping onto the balcony he speaks in the common tongue of this place so far from the sky, his accent more pronounced than usual after having spoken in the cadences of his distant home, “My apologies for not having answered this sooner, Salinye. A non-roleplayed response is being put together.” He turns, then, and steps off the ledge seeking out the winds of the Writers’ Workshop where Salinye’s original piece is located. He is a curiously defiant character, however, a character insistent upon having his own say in the telling of his tales and so he speaks with a quiet insistence to the one who writes the words of his tale, “I have done my part. Make sure you get that answer composed.” ooc: As I’ll need a day or two to revisit the Writers’ Workshop and spend some time with the piece and its revisions, I figured I’d bump this question up to give others a bit of encouragement to read what is a fine and promising piece of writing by Salinye. Her work on her poem Vanity can be found here.

Hedged within the hawthorn enchantment bleeds away from this tired thrashing Merlin beneath the crow calls and the shifting clouds whose easy motion mocks that place above the rhythmic sway of grass where movements are ringed and crowned with thorns. An enjoyable piece that makes fine use of meter and sound and that includes a couple very striking lines. However, the structure of the piece seems to overwhelm the content - the words employed are simply not as strong as the form into which they have been placed. While this is a bit of an ironic mimesis given that the poem itself is about barriers, it detracts rather than adds to the work. The challenge, of course is finding strong words that work within the formal constraints of the piece -- still that is a very good problem to have as it a matter of making a fine piece of writing better. Very nicely done, Alaeha.

So brief the swift playfulness that comes with moving freely in the wind. So quick the broad and spreading smiles of those who linger in the sun. So short the careless tumbling of giddy motion into rest beneath the sky. And because so brief, so vivid, so peaceful and so bright. Welcome to the Pen, Lady Shade An enjoyable read. I look forward to seeing more of your work.

ic: Gray are the skies in this place of high jagged stone and the air is heavy with the dampness of late autumn rain. Beneath the heavy dampness, however, a swift and subtle movement runs, a flow of breath and word and syllables parsed into rhythmic speech. Insistent has it been, this movement, a movement so slight he has barely any right to feel its passing against his skin. For weeks now he has felt its persistent closeness, a contact at once intimate and distant, but the focused intensity of his movement within other winds allowed for no response. Once more the rains begin to fall and he turns his face upward to feel the quiet cold within their drops. There is the first real taste of winter within the approaching storm and he smiles, for the turning of the seasons has brought with it a turning of the winds. Words begin to rise within his breathing, but now is not the time for speaking. Once more he smiles and the winds about him burst into gusting movement. He glances at the small owl that glides within the newly moving air. “Yes, Whisper,” he says, “it has been far too long and we have much reading to do.” He steps, then, off the jagged ledge and into the stormy movement of breath striving after speech that surrounds the great building that those of this board so far from the sky call their ‘Keep.’ The wind here is strong indeed. Again he smiles. Yes, there is very much to read. ooc: It’s good to be back.

Vlad, As much as, if not more so than, anyone else at the Pen you really seem to have been pushing yourself to grow as a writer over these last several months. It’s been fun watching the way you’ve experimented with different verse forms in your writing. On a lot of levels, you’ve been a fine model of the process of refining and stretching one’s talent. The willingness to take chances in your work and to risk putting something together that doesn’t quite work for the sake of getting better is a real strength that I imagine will serve you well as you keep working at your writing. Frankly, I think it has already begun to bear some very good fruit in your recent work. One of the hallmarks of your work is a fine sense of the visual form of a piece and how that form can enhance the thematic character of the words. A fine example of this is your piece Words. Lately, however, your work has also been marked by a stronger use of other structural features such as the well-placed repetition of key words one finds in Tears or the outstanding use of vivid and rhythmic imagery in the middle stanza of The Brood. You also seem to be more comfortable in the use of different rhythmic elements, both regular and irregular, in your writing lately, a growth your threads from last March in the Writers’ Workshop illustrate quite well. You’ve also developed a very fine sense of how to bring a work to strong and effective conclusion. Weak Love is an example of one of the ways you do this. There seems to be a distinctive style coming together here and I’d like to encourage you to keep experimenting and allow it to take shape. I’ll follow this post up as I get a chance with a couple more detailed observations about some of your recent pieces and a couple aspects of your style, but given the hard work you’ve put into your writing it seemed appropriate to begin this critical response thread with an acknowledgment of that work and its results. Keep writing!

Vlad, the second stanza of this piece is an outstanding bit of writing which combines a fine use of meter with a striking set of images. It is, in fact, such a strong piece of writing that the two stanzas which bracket it seem weak in comparison in terms of both rhythm and language. It might be worth revisiting the piece at some point to see if stanzas 1 and 3 might be sharpened a bit so as not to be overshadowed by that very fine middle group of verses. Keep writing!

A work like this just begs for a bit of deconstructive fun The potatoes are coming, or so it would seem, and peanut fed monkeys type as their prophets. Or is it perhaps that what passes for protesting anger of roots in the ground is simply the cover for fury of a hirsute and simian sort? The title, perhaps, is the key to the work with its pleading for peanuts unfolding neatly into threats made by food which seeks to devour. It would seem these are not the words of potatoes announcing rebellion but the hidden proclaiming of the anger of monkeys pressed into service with peanuts for pay insisting that all who would take them for granted best beware the typing of underfed apes. A truly enjoyable and engaging read. Welcome and good luck with your application!

Nicely done, Matteo. A piece of this length, however, requires a bit of time to really engage -- don't be surprised if feedback is a bit slow because of that. That being said, it's worth bumping this piece back up to the top to keep it in front of our eyes a little longer. With a little luck I'll have some time to put together a few thoughts on it for posting in the Critics' Corner during the next couple days. Hopefully a few others will be able to do so as well since you seem to have put no small amount of effort into composing it.

Even great Olympian Zeus, so the poets say, once having held out the scales and allowed the measured and balanced fall of Fate to mark the relative height of destiny-bearing plates, was free no longer to act according to his whim but found himself bound a slave much like ourselves to the stern laws and limits of that which comes into being despite our wishful striving ‘gainst. Small wonder then there have ever been those who see in the mighty face of Zeus, but a mask of that impulsive, determined and fatal invocation of Fate by which tomorrow’s hue and shape are surrendered with no small show of pride to the thunder and caprices of today. An evocative piece which is well worth spending a bit of time in sharpening. It's good to see you writing again, DoomGaze.

As far as news goes, this is a relatively old story -- it came out last September. On the off-chance we have a few members here who haven't seen it, however, and who may have wondered about the origin of that now common element of internet communication the emoticon, here is a link to the original post by a microsoft researcher about discovering what is believed to be the first use of a smiley in online discussion: First Smiley The institution referred to in the post by the abbreviation CMU is Carnegie-Mellon University, a very fine technical school located in Pittsburgh. Curiously, the original post was discovered just a few days before its 2Oth anniversary -- I for one had not realized the smiley had been around for 20 years. The "archeology" of the internet and the style of communication that it has produced is a small but growing area of research in both computer related and humanistic fields of study.

A couple aspects of the piece are worth a closer look. 1. Inconsistent pronouns - The first line of the poem employs the second person form of address ‘you’ but the rest of the poem employs the 3rd person ‘he’ with the possible exception of the ambiguous ‘my dear friend’ of the fourth line. If you do not intend to make full use of the direct address quality of the 2nd person form, an exclusive 3rd person usage would be more effective and less confusing to the reader. 2. Word choice – At least to this reader, lines 5 and 6, do not seem to be as effective as they might be. The question of line 5 might perhaps be more strongly expressed as a declaration of wonder. The coupling of blindness with sight has some potential, but the blindness literally comes out of nowhere and thus lacks force. On a related note, a simple change in the punctuation of line 2 is worth considering a it might lend force to the following lines – I came to slowly but ... O! What a sight! 3. End of line adverbs – The way you have used the adverbs allows you to maintain the consistent use of long E sounds at the end of the lines and this is certainly a good thing. However, it also places the weight of the line on the description of action rather than upon the actions themselves. Another possibility might be to shift the long E sounds to the beginning of the lines which would allow you to highlight both the description and the action in equal measure: Haltingly, I reached out to him. Lovingly, he took my hand pulling me close to him. Tenderly, he whispered Goodbye Here, the commas create a pause that allows emphasis on the adverb while the actions of the verbs is allowed space in which to assert itself. This format also slows down the flow of the words a bit allowing the actions to linger in the experience of the reader a little longer. This is a rather drastic change, however, and so I propose it primarily as something to consider in thinking about the piece. Whether it is eventually re-written or not, this is a fine piece of writing and the coupling of the visual shape of the piece to a somewhat lyrical repetition of sound that it models is a great example of creativity and technique. Keep writing!

Like this one? Click on 'Show All' beneath the list of smilies and scroll to near the bottom of the list.

A touching theme well and simply executed and with a fine sense of sound and shape in its composition. More detailed feedback posted in the Critics' Corner.

Cheyenne's poem can be read here. Cheyenne, This is a lovely piece of writing and a very enjoyable read, so enjoyable, in fact, that I immediately began to jot down a couple notes about its use of shape and sound after a first reading. On the off-chance you might find these observations to be helpful here they are: The two great structural strengths of the piece are its visual and auditory aspects – shape and sound. Shape - The regular and gradual decrease in line length leads the eye along a movement which mirrors that of the poem itself which begins with the vague generality of an experience not properly understood and progresses by steps of understanding and contact to a point of deep and genuine intimacy. This is beautifully done and includes the wonderful and unexpected touch of the word Goodbye being the point of greatest closeness as opposed to a word of disjunction and separation. Sound - The use of repeated long E sounds effectively ties the piece together. The long E sounds bear and carry its movements and the echos of the long E from line to line creates a sense of continuity within the action of the piece. This is so effective that what are ordinarily very weak words – the adverbs – take on a surprising strength. The only line of the poem which does not contain a long E sound is the first and the long E of the final is understated which allows the long I sound of Goodbye to recapture and complete the long I sounds which dominate at the beginning of the piece – nicely done. This being said, I think there are a couple aspects of the piece that are worth looking at with an eye to rewriting. I’ll put a follow-up post together with a few more thoughts either later today or tomorrow as time permits.

Wordless Wordless but not silent, the busy chatter of movement fills this place as hands open to the easy giving and eager taking of trifles scattered between corners, dragging hearts in panting dash from thing to touch and touch to thing. Rushing crowds out breathing and sets distracted lungs to snatching after bursts of air in a gasping give and take of morsels of breath to sustain our motion among the clutter we’ve strewn above the silence of stillborn syllables in the thin parts of our throats. This piece was put together in the Writer's Workshop. The series of revisions can be found here.

Sacred are the songs that rise from the broken places of the heart. Shards and fragments gather voice lifting hymns in phrases that mingle love with pain and the present feel of memory with the bitter taste of loss. Wounded prayers are mighty prayers spoken over bleeding hands and fingers cut upon the edges of shattered bits of life, wordless prayers proclaimed by hands that will not lose the smallest fragment of the heart. Tattered, a piece like the one you’ve written here springs from a pretty deep place in yourself. Simply bringing it into words is no small thing to do. There’s a lot here in terms of poetry, but more importantly in terms of feeling and I think you are wise not to be in a hurry to rewrite it. Coming to terms with what happens in the heart is a lot harder than improving a piece of writing, and a much more important thing to do. Keep writing by all means, but don’t worry about saying things perfectly, simply say what you find you need to say. A piece can always be improved down the road and sometimes when the writing springs from a raw and deep source one needs a bit of time to really understand what to do with it. Take care of yourself, Cyril

It is good to hear the speech of new voices and better when talent and thought are evident in what is said. There seems to be no small uncertainty within and beneath the speaking of this new voice, however. That is, of course, to be expected. He smiles at the memory of his own hesitant words of application. He speaks then and the measured cadences of his breathing follow the trail of speech left by this new voice until his own words enter the office of that one who is almost a dragon. There is a slight movement in the air around the visitor as the words he has spoken find her and speak a quiet greeting: Words of welcome and wishes of luck with the application scribed by your pen, and more than greetings and fond wish-filled thoughts: esteem for your words, encouragement to write spoken by a reader whose eyes would see more of your work. ooc: Autumn Sun, welcome, good luck and keep writing!

Long has he been here, seated upon the hard stone ledges of these craggy peaks, here in this place where breathing moves only with difficulty into words. Long has it been, this searching after words for many were the syllables that needed to be found within the shifting patterns of moving air. Still the words have been found and the pages they filled were many and with the filling of these pages has come the freedom to leave this steep and lonely place where the swift and unrelenting movement of wind and the small gray owl he has named Whisper have been his only companions. Standing he breathes deeply filling his lungs with the free and living air of this place. He looks outward to that formidable structure of word and stone that is called, in the tongue of this board, the Keep. He is free once more to visit its broad and welcoming balconies and soon he will do so. But there are new eddies within the moving air near the confining walls of that mighty place of tale and song, the gusting movement of breathing that has brought forth words, and among those words are voices that are new to his hearing. He smiles. Nothing moves with the freedom of wind and in the freedom that has come to him in the speaking of many words he steps off the ledge and lets the free and living air bear to those new spoken breezes that move with such life and freedom. As he steps out into the wind the small owl flies toward the Keep. Silent is its movement and swift is its passage through the speech filled air of this place. Whisper flies into the great festal hall that those of this place have named the Cabaret Room and drops the note that the quiet man took such joy in composing: Yesterday morning I defended my dissertation and much to my surprise and delight was awarded a Pass with Distinction. No longer am I looking at the light at the end of the grad school tunnel, but rather I should be leaving the tunnel itself in just a few short steps. ooc: This news was too good not to share.

the first day of t-shirt season grab my ball and my mitt off the top of my desk and my bat from under the bed some change for a coke and a fresh stick of gum and my cap from my kid brother's head step over my books slam through the screen door get my bike from next to the shed shoot into the alley where I pull my first wheelie and blow by Pete Holloway's dog coast down Fisher's Hill take a turn by the church no hands for the last half a block now it's time for a whistle and a fist in the air there's the guys in the bank parking lot

Looks like this one did not transfer over with the changing of the boards. I'm posting it here for the sake of keeping my work together on one website. Old Flames I burned a photograph of you the other night. Struck the match and touched it to the corner and let your smile blaze until my fingertips were burned. Scratching smoke inside my nose and on my tongue drove the flowers of perfume out of the air around my head. And the crumbled ashes, grey and flaking on the ground, muffled the sounds already distant footsteps were making in my ears. I burned a photograph of you the other night. She walked away from me and I turned away from her and opened up my wallet and took out a photograph of you.

A little late, but this has been taking shape in the Writers' Workshop for a couple days. Spirit Once my knees, new to being pressed against the floor, would feel the texture of the carpet and gritty fragments of outside carried indoors by restless feet. Behind closed eyes I would pause in sudden awareness of the jointed embrace by which tongue fits into groove. The weighty touching between flesh and floor disturbed my knees, provoking them to change position with the awkwardness of those who try to remain unnoticed. Time brings callouses, however, and my knees no longer avoid the pressing touch of weight upon rug or the bite of bits of dirt beneath body. And this morning, behind closed eyes, my heart shied away from the prayerful bite of trifles held under the weighty press of calloused knees.