Prose Critique #11

Use description to draw out suspenseful moments

Welcome to Prose Critique, in which I critique an excerpt for grammar and style. Style is subjective, so my notes won’t resonate with everyone, but I hope that they’ll help writers learn how to focus their writing to convey meaning in the boldest, clearest, most interesting way possible.

In this excerpt of Monstrous by Élise LB, the narrator risks waking enchanted skeletons in order to retrieve something she needs. My comments mostly focus on how well Élise uses description and physical sensations to draw out suspenseful moments, and I’ve added a few notes on sentence construction in order to increase clarity.

Mother taught me to never wake¹ the dead.

I followed her advice for years, but my good sense has run out with my last food supplies² two days ago.

The grass sways gently in the night. The clearing is asleep, so peaceful it’s hard to believe that hundreds of skeletons are buried beneath my feet. There is no moon in Le Bas, no sun.

The realm of the dead would be plunged into absolute darkness if it weren’t for the vibrant auroras painting the sky in rays, spirals, and flickers of blue. The color changes over the span of a day³, and now the lights are slowly turning pink.

There is little time left.

A restless energy course through my body, finding purchase in the tip of my fingers as they tap, tap, tap against the pan’s handle in my hand. I retrieve the stick I found earlier with the other and try to calm the frantic beating of my heart. It is trying to leap from my chest, it knows how foolish what I’m about to do is.⁴

But I am too desperate and hungry to go back.

I knock the piece of wood against the metal of the pot as hard as I can. The sharp sound echoes through the clearing, breaking the silence, making me wince.⁵ The grass stills, the glade recoils. Something shifts in the air and the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I wet my lips and wipe the sweat off my forehead, then strike the pan again, and again, and again. The vibrations run up my arms,⁶ all the way up to my shoulders. I repeat the movement until all I feel is the burn in my muscles.

A thump, from below. At first it’s so discreet, I almost miss it. My limbs drop to my sides, heavy, and the grass absorbs the clanking of the pan as it falls.

Another thump, louder, chased by a rumbling sound. Every inhabitant of Le Bas knows that the skeletons’ resting place must be avoided⁷ at all cost. They are rabid souls, turned corporeal to be entombed and controlled. But I came prepared. I reach for the flute hanging from my belt with trembling fingers. Silas sold it to me for a steep price, promising that the music leaving its mouth could lull to sleep the most ferocious of beasts. Everything is going to be alright, I only need to snatch a single bone.⁸

The earth undulates beneath my feet and my grip stiffens around the flute. There is a thunderstorm trapped underneath.⁹

They are approaching.

I can hear their furious cries, picture their bones ripping through mud to free themselves, and to kill me as well probably.

A gasp slips from between my lips when the first bony hand tears its way to the surface. It taps the grass, searching.¹⁰

1. “to never wake” should read “never to wake” because it’s best to avoid splitting infinitives (“to wake” is a verb in the infinitive form).

2. “my good sense has run out with my last food supplies” The dark humor here helps establish character and voice. It’s a fun phrase and made me chuckle.

3. I’m curious as to what “over the span of a day” refers to in a place with no sun. How could such a day be measured?

4. “It is trying to leap from my chest, it knows how foolish what I’m about to do is.” This is a comma splice, in which two complete sentences are jammed together with a comma. In fiction, this is okay once in a while as a stylistic choice, but using a dash, semicolon, or period in place of the comma can also add clarity.

5. “echoes through the clearing, breaking the silence, making me wince.” This sentence reads fine, but is it too repetitive to mention that the echo breaks the silence? To add on the wincing means there’s a lot happening in this sentence. Will it work to make one of these phrases its own sentence?

6. “The vibrations run up my arms.” The physical descriptions in this paragraph do so well to slow down the moment and add suspense.

7. “the skeletons’ resting place must be avoided” It’s intriguing to hold off on this explanation until the exact moment we need it. The mystery of scene feels very engaging without being confusing.

8. “Everything is going to be alright, I only need to snatch a single bone.” Here is another comma splice, which can be left as is, but see previous note on comma splices.

9. “There is a thunderstorm trapped underneath.” I had to read this sentence twice to know that “underneath” referred to the ground since the phrase is closer to “flute.”

10. “It taps the grass, searching.” As with the rest of the piece, the details here draw out the suspense. I wish I knew what happened to the narrator after this moment!