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5003 Posts
The office door barged open as a man came running in. The man was too neat and clean for someone who seemed to be chasing after something. The man took a moment to catch his breath and asked.
"Teacher, what does it mean to believe?"
The teacher turned around and smiled.
"Follow me." was the response.
The man was dissatisfied with the statement. Was it really that simple? He had embarked on a search for truth a long time ago and scoured through the world looking for whatever fragments he could find. He felt as if he had went through the most remote corner of the world, experiencing everything a man could experience.
Yet the more he had searched, the more elusive truth was. The fragments he found began conflicting, and soon after, and eventually, he lost all faith in truth. He decided there must be no such thing as objective reality. Everything was subjective, there was nothing to believe other than the fact that there was no truth. But the man decided to humor his mentor and followed him into the street that was too familiar to him now. The teacher took a turn into what seemed to be an old alley. Hidden amidst the rust was a small door that the man had never seen, which led to a small theater
The sound of screaming strings greeted the pair as they entered. The screech stemmed from a small child, being taught by an old maestro on the art of the violin. The child still made mistakes all too often. His fingers were on the wrong positions, while he still shook as he tried to wield the unruly bow. It took the entire lesson for the child to finally be able to somehow use the bow, and the maestro placed little stickers that told the child's fingers where to go. The maestro smiled, and the parent picked up the child and left.
With his new pupil gone, the old man picked up his own violin and began to play. A mellow sound soon filled the room. Echoing from the harmony was an unmistakable hint of sadness, a sadness that spoke for all the sorrows of the world.
The man stood in awe as he listened and watched the maestro. The maestro was moving with the sound, soon becoming the rhythm. The maestro's soul was pouring into the violin, the man realized. The maestro articulated each of his movements for the sole purpose of brining about a specific tune in a specific way. The piece grew richer and deeper, and the maestro existed less and less. All that remained was the sound and the violin. The maestro's essence soon had no where else to go, poured into the violin, which reverberated through the entire room, sending a sound that carried the maestro's soul.
And then the man understood.
A short story I wrote a year or so ago, that I went through and edited and polished a bit today. I'm posting this to see what people think of it, pretty much.
Criticism? Thoughts? Comments? Anything thoughtful will definitely be helpful. Thanks in advance~
 
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Interesting story! One thing jumped out ....can you call the violin master with words other than "the maestro" all the time though? Seeing maestro maestro maestro maestro maestro maestro in the same paragraph is pretty distracting. There are also a few wrong words, like "scourged," and a few typos. Good work though 
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Great read. Really captivating and created some nice pictures in my mind 
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5003 Posts
On September 08 2010 14:56 Yferi wrote:Interesting story! One thing jumped out ....can you call the violin master with words other than "the maestro" all the time though? Seeing maestro maestro maestro maestro maestro maestro in the same paragraph is pretty distracting. There are also a few wrong words, like "scourged," and a few typos. Good work though
swear to god i fixed that (scourged -> Scoured)
The maestro thing did come into mind when I was editing it (in the original it was old man, so referring to man, old man etc was confusing, i decided to use the word maestro). I'm wondering how weird it would be to refer to the same character different ways on the same paragraph mostly (since using "he" would make it confusing cause of the pronouns)
and thank you
Great read. Really captivating and created some nice pictures in my mind
Thanks
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There's a lot going right here, but this sort of suffers from the chronic problem of short stories; the meaning of the story is too thinly veiled. As a reader, I want to have to dig to find what you're trying to say; I'm not interested in having it served to me on some platter.
I don't really have any definite solutions; as long as it remains as short as it is, there's not a whole lot you can do to improve it in this regard. It's just something interesting to keep in mind.
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This = The deepest thing I've read. What was your grade?
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5003 Posts
On September 08 2010 18:46 Captain wrote:
There's a lot going right here, but this sort of suffers from the chronic problem of short stories; the meaning of the story is too thinly veiled. As a reader, I want to have to dig to find what you're trying to say; I'm not interested in having it served to me on some platter.
I don't really have any definite solutions; as long as it remains as short as it is, there's not a whole lot you can do to improve it in this regard. It's just something interesting to keep in mind.
That's how I wrote the story though. I thought of some imagery/concept and I tried my best to highlight it. I was planning on trying to write a bunch of short stories like this, but what I was planning on doing was making each short story connected and having more interesting things veiled overall, which each short story highlighting an imagery. I'm not sure if i'm a good enough writer to pull something like that off, haha. Maybe over time as I get more ideas.
I do have longer (short) stories planned that are a bit less clear (but probably not as veiled as you would like). Maybe I should write them
What was your grade?
I was beginning my 3rd year in college at that time.
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