Hi Connie.
I am new to this forum; I only today decided to join, hoping I could learn a few new things, as my own writing skills needs more polish. (So, says my editor) I have written many different things and even had a few published, (Periodicals in some trades back in my working days, my first novel won’t be released until this fall.) but technical writing is so different from fiction story telling, which is my new passion.
This is only the second entry on Writing.com I have read, and I am not sure what context your entry is presented. (I am still trying to learn how to navigate this site.) so I will offer my review (more aptly my impression) based on how it made me feel and what I gleaned from its content. My comments are sincerely meant as constructive opinion; on the work please do not take anything personal.
First, I am assuming that since you have bolded the words Elbow, Rattle and Bracelet then this is some contest entry, to use these words in a short story, if that is indeed the case, then Kudos on the effort.
I gleaned from the title your subject had car trouble and one vague line thus the reason he was moving through the woods. But you might have put some action in the story body, better indicating this. Maybe he could have been wiping the grease off his hands as he walked. I get beat up repeatedly about “Show don’t tell”. There’s a pretty good explanation in Wikipedia though it is always easier to tell someone they need to do this then to do it ourselves. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show,_don't_tel
There is no explanation as to how a Pygmy rattler was able to bite its victim on the elbow; He would have had to be sitting on the ground or have fallen, to be accessible to the snake. I only point this out because I have learned that little imperfections in feasibility or possibility distract the reader. I am told by my mentors, that these types of inconsistencies kill a story’s momentum. As a southern boy, I have known about and interacted with hundreds of Pigmy rattlesnakes. They are very small, (only 14 to 22 inches) their Rattle is also very small and is rarely heard, and they rarely bite humans even in self-defense. A bite on the elbow is not likely to happen due to their very small mouths (they eat mice, moles and very small birds). The southeastern Diamondback would have been a better choice, more-over because its venom is much more potent and it is more frightening, though even this snake’s bite takes hours to become life threatening.
You gave no picture of the victim; I had no empathy because I didn’t know anything about him, other then his gender. For character to become real, we must be able to step into their shoes either as ourselves or see them as someone we know.
The cell-phone malfunction could have been better shown with action (the dreaded “Show not tell” adage) maybe something like ‘He slapped the black screened cell-phone against his palm but still it refused to stay on, displaying Low battery before going black again.’ Telling us that he knew the battery was old did nothing to advance the story
Most people when along do not verbalize their thoughts, that requires work that we simply don’t do, his dialog should have remained as thought and been in Italics rather then quotations.
His knees giving way has he lost consciousness only matters if he was standing, and if he was then you have the opportunity to build more drama with the fall to the pine needles.
Your scene break is witnessed with three non-standard characters. (~~~) This can sometimes cause problems when you change to Manuscript format, most editors seem to prefer a plain, single, asterisk. (*) using formatting outside of the norm is highly frowned upon.
There were other problems like, Joey almost falling over the unknown snakebite victim, underbrush in southern pinewoods is mostly palmetto palms and they grow very thick and a woods savvy youngster like Joey won’t suffer surprise footing.
There is the problem that how did the EMT’s know where they where. There were a couple of SPAG issues (Spelling, Punctuation And Grammar) also one of my common issue in my writing. I write and rewrite everything I do, and after much editing, I hand my prized pose to my wife or friend and they still find plenty of places to put red marks.
Hee-hee-hee, guess that’s why we have to pay for those line and copy editors.
Please do not take my long-winded critique too serious as it’s easy to pick someone else’s work apart, if only I was as good at seeing like issues in my own work. I wouldn’t have needed to spend the $4,000 on my last book’s editing.
I hope anything I noticed helps, it would be very cool if one of us became famous, then we could say, “I knew him (or her) when!”
Best wishes,
Joey C.
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