I like how many of your sentences end with an intriguing twist. The exquisite attention to detail provides additional insights into your main character. Indeed, your capacity to describe lucidly this poor soul's shifting levels of abstraction (perception, emotion, thoughts, and interactions) reminds me of Joyce.
You had me with this opening paragraph: "He has been coming to this beach every week for months, and each time something surprises him. Sometimes it is the size of the waves, or the way they menace the shore, or the way they caress it. Today it is the water’s unhealthy pallor, as if there were no life left in the ocean."
This is a fractal, a miniature containing everything that the rest of the story concerns itself with -- but which we must read with care to understand. Bravo!
I like how many of your sentences end with an intriguing twist. The exquisite attention to detail provides additional insights into your main character. Indeed, your capacity to describe lucidly this poor soul's shifting levels of abstraction (perception, emotion, thoughts, and interactions) reminds me of Joyce.
Everything fits. No distractions from leaving anything out, none from overwriting.
The words slide into place one after the other.
No surprise considering Shapiro's art and craft.
You had me with this opening paragraph: "He has been coming to this beach every week for months, and each time something surprises him. Sometimes it is the size of the waves, or the way they menace the shore, or the way they caress it. Today it is the water’s unhealthy pallor, as if there were no life left in the ocean."
This is a fractal, a miniature containing everything that the rest of the story concerns itself with -- but which we must read with care to understand. Bravo!