The waves and the gnawing from sea creatures made it impossible to tell what it was but they knew it wasn’t from around the island. The mid section and chest were still in tack but chunks of the body were missing. Green pigment on the skin was still visible with clumps of ragged sunburned hair swaying with the ocean. The neck was flimsy and the head was completely missing aside from the left cheek. A thick full lip was half there, which also revealed some sort of tusk protruding from the jaw. It looked human but it wasn’t. Large muscular legs and boulder like feet made this creature ten feet tall.
“Zu stop that!” The Chief grunted, exasperated with him but more with the situation. Zu ended his curious poking of the body as it floated near the shore.
“Chief, what do you want us to do with it?” Mal, Zu’s brother asked as he was slumped over the body as well, curios for yet another body has floated ashore.
The Chief placed his hands over his face dreading this morning. Irritated that he was awoken so early, he was still thankful his less than perfect assistants were goofing around on the beach to see it. The sun had just cracked through the clouds that blanketed the horizon giving the island a golden glow. Birds and frogs began melodic songs as the smell of sweet pig and Longa rice were in the air to wake up this tiny coastal village. Turning back to view his home, the Chief paused reminiscing of his childhood innocence and happiness. He thought of his family and his parents and how in 67 years of living in this divine island, not much has changed due to his hard work to keep it that way. Fiery tattoos sprawled all over his face as aging wrinkles changed its appearance from young confidence to bedtime stories. His portly belly and relaxed stance was a metaphor for life on the island. His nightmares had caught up. He could not longer hide the truth and knew today was the day he would have to tell his homeland what lay beyond the waves.
4 comments:
1) You did a great job describing the various pieces of the scene. I have a great image in my head of what this "thing" looks like and what the chief looks like. I also want to know more about this grotesque thing and what happened to it. Makes me want to keep reading.
2) But I feel like the last paragraph tries to accomplish too much. It probably needs to be split into two paragraphs to clearly separate your ideas. So, talk about the Chief's exasperation - hands on his face and necessity to "no longer hide the truth". Then end it there. The description of the land can come later. Focus on this scene and only the thing that help this scene so that it flows. I want to know about the 3 guys and the mangled body. Describing beach, the smells, the town (all excellent by the way) can be done later.
3) There's something odd about the conversation. I feel like there's too much description of who the people are at this point. I don't need to know all that info right now - knowing Mal is Zu's brother doesn't help me understand this part of the story. I know you're trying to fit in their relationship, but I think there's probably a better time later on to do that. Just focus this part on this thing that's washed up on the shore along with the chief and his two "less than perfect" assistants.
So overall, I think it was excellent. But I feel like you need to focus the story around the scene and not stray too far away from it. The other aspects of the story (the brother relationship and town description) need to come later.
So it would read something like this, with my few changes in bold:
The waves and gnawing from sea creatures made it impossible to tell what it was but the 3 of them knew it wasn’t from around the island. The mid section and chest were still in tack ("intact" - not "in tack") but chunks of the body (torso? not sure what body refers to) were missing. Green pigment on the skin was still visible with clumps of ragged sunburned hair swaying with the ocean. The neck was flimsy and the head was completely missing aside from the left cheek (Head completely missing and having a left cheek still there seemed contradictory because of how you set it up (head missing, oh but there's a cheek). How about something like: the left cheek was still there but the rest of the head was missing). A thick full lip was half there, which also revealed some sort of tusk protruding from the jaw. Large muscular legs and boulder like feet made this creature ten feet tall. It looked human but it wasn’t. (Moved this last sentence to the end)
“Zu stop that!” grunted the Chief, exasperated with him but more with the situation. Zu ended his curious poking of the body as it floated near the shore.
“Chief, what do you want us to do with it?” Mal asked, slumped over the body.
The Chief placed his hands over his face dreading this morning. His nightmares had caught up. He could not longer hide the truth and knew today was the day he would have to tell his homeland what lay beyond the waves.
And then you can continue with this scene or introduce the description of the scene.
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There are spelling and grammar mistakes in there, try to find them =) Read out loud.
oh and i'm not sure what the title means. doesn't seem to make any grammatical sense.
wow you're comments made my paragraphs much better! is there a way to have a reworking post so i can keep adding to it?
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