[1300] Prodigal

This confidently-written excerpt is thoughtful and reflective without wallowing in itself. I am not sure I grasped the entire significance of the conversation between the narrator and Stephen but have given benefit of the doubt slightly that this would be clearer if I had read from the beginning. However you get tripped up by some awkward word decisions at prose level, which mars some otherwise good description.

> The ocean breeze is cool and crisp, smelling like the sea, salt water taffy and a dozen bonfires all rolled into one.

Very clear, evocative description. I question whether “a dozen” is necessary, though; why not just say it smells of bonfires? Attributing a fixed number to it feels quite exact and clinical, which jars with the carefree atmosphere you have otherwise invoked.

I also don’t think “smelling like the sea” works here. Your narrator presumably is smelling the actual sea and actual taffy and actual bonfires, not something else which happens to smell like those things. Use “smelling of the sea…” or alternatively something a bit more poetic, e.g. “carrying with it the smell of the sea”.

> There is not a sound between us but what is in motion around us: the crashing of waves, the occasional chirping of seagulls and the crunch of sand between our toes

Awkward phrasing. I stumbled over “There is not a sound between us but what is in motion around us” and had to read several times before I understood it. Why not replace with “There is not a sound but the crashing of waves…”

> His eyes still a warm hazel that melt like caramel.

Not a complete sentence. “His eyes are still…” would work.

> His crooked nose and ears slightly too big for his head remained resolute in being his biggest identifiers

There should be commas after “ears” and “head”.

> Strong, German men with locks of hair as dark as coal; strong eyes and jawlines to match, yet toothy smiles and dimples settled comfortably in their cheeks.

Good description. I would remove the comma between “Strong” and “German”. It’s a subtle tweak, but I think it works better if you are describing them as German men who are strong, rather than men who are strong and German (if that makes sense).

That semi-colon ought to just be a comma.

> Meanwhile, Ezra and I took after our mother’s side: the light eyes and sandy brown hair of the Watsons. But now, Stephen mirrored the Roth family men even more with his whiskered face.

Again, awkwardly-phrased. I think it would be clearer to say something like: “Ezra and I always took after our mother’s side, the light-eyed and sandy-haired Watsons, while Stephen’s whiskered face grew more and more like that of the Roth family men”.

> he shakes his head and lets out a large sigh

Why not just “he shakes his head and sighs”? To me, it conveys the same picture but in fewer words.

> He nods again and continues down the beach in silence.

This implies it is only Stephen continuing down the beach, which is not what I think you mean. “He nods again and we continue…”

> “You know, I remember you being quite the surfer in your day. There’s even a trophy or two in the school, in a case by the cafeteria.”

It is not clear who is speaking here. Stephen is the last character mentioned which implies it’s him, but reading further on I believe it’s actually your narrator. A speech tag would be helpful here.

> In the silence, he rubs his fingers along it’s jagged edges.

“It’s” means “it is”. This should read “along its jagged edges”.

> years of overhearing our parents arguments on the subject

There’s a missing apostrophe here: “our parents’ arguments…”

> Like Dumbeldore dragging Harry through the pensieve.

I am undecided whether I like this simile or not. It is quite revealing about the narrator, implying they’re bookish and somewhat nerdy, but the Pensieve it is a relatively obscure reference which many readers might not get. It is up to you whether you’re okay with that or not but I would be inclined to make this a little more mainstream.

Also Dumbledore is misspelled and I believe Pensieve should be capitalised.

> I can still hear the loud cracks of thunder, striking the beach by our house at a frequency far too repetitive for my taste.

On first read I thought this was occuring in the present day rather than being a flashback. I think getting rid of the paragraph break after “sixteen years” and replacing it at the end of “too repetitive for my taste” would make this clearer.

> “Honey, what it is?” my mother whispered. “Mark?”

Someone pointed out on the Google doc that this reaction is too immediate, and I agree. Clue the reader in to what is distressing the narrator’s mother. Is there a long silence? Is it the dad’s expression?

> Ezra’s school bag was packed up on the counter, filled with a brown bagged lunch, stacks of multi-colored notebooks and box of Ticeronda pencils. Meanwhile, Stephen’s bag sat on the floor unzipped, empty with the tag from Target still dangling from it’s strap.

The contrast between normality and abnormality is well-conveyed here. “It’s” should be “its” again.

> Aunt Emily had feigned some excuse about a Great Uncle who needed my parents for some task that seemed like it was something adults did when Ezra had asked about the reason for her visit.

This sentence is overlong and complicated enough to lose the reader, particularly with no commas to break up the flow. “Had” is unnecessary and the use of “feigned” sticks out, as it is the same (relatively unusual) verb you used only a few lines previously to describe the narrator pretending to sleep.

> He took whatever lie she fed him and scarfed it down alongside of pieces of crispy bacon and a glass of orange juice.

Excellent finisher. The transition from abnormality (being fed lies by his great-aunt) to a description of a normal-sounding breakfast reflects Ezra’s mind being put immediately at ease, and is a great touch.

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OVERALL

This piece was a joy, thank you for the opportunity to read. You do a great job of moving the story along even though all the characters are doing in this particular scene is standing on the beach. It's almost Brothers Karamazovian in the way you introduce family ties (especially with the description of how Stephen looks and how that ties to his ancestry). There is a word for relating a character's physical appearance to their personality traits (it is something Russian lit does often) but I've forgotten the technical name for it.

I think you do a good job of at least mentioning where the setting is. But I did not get a full picture from the tab-bit you dropped, however that could be due to the fact that this is an excerpt so say everything I take with a grain of salt and of course only you know the truth of what you have in the other part of this work.

I understand this is an excerpt, so the reader is not being introduced to the characters formally, so my critique is going to gloss over the fact that we do not get a full understanding of who these people are. However, I did really enjoy your use of dialogue.

MECHANICS

I think you do a good job with the mechanics. Admittedly, I'm kinda awful at the mechanics bit myself, but you do a fairly good job of switching up sentence structure. And I like your employment of semicolon, colon and different types of punctuation. It's not overbearing, but still in play. Your first paragraph is the present tense, I don't know if that was your aim, but I think it's fine, totally the writers choice.

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Just a little shave…

Powerful employment of italics and a more personal tone to give us a taste of the narrators internal thoughts and also pulls out a bit of nostalgia. The ellipses leaves room for the readers imagination and in those three punctuations we get pulled back into the past. What if Stephen would shave? Would he automatically resemble the childhood Stephen that the narrator is longing for? "Márgarét, áre you gríeving / Over Goldengrove unleaving?" Strong last sentence to that paragraph, kudos.

SETTING

This is definitely going to be my biggest point. But again, remember that I haven't read the entirety of your work. I am guessing that you have better description of setting elsewhere (at least that is my hope); so feel free to ignore everything that is said if your internal monologue is saying "pshh, if only she knew".

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The ocean breeze is cool and crisp, smelling like the sea, salt water taffy and a dozen bonfires all rolled into one.

Let's break it down. What are "cool", "crisp", and "smelling like the sea" doing for you here? I like the description of "salt water taffy" and "dozen bonfires" because those are the activities of worlds past, of young children, nostalgia -- they fit well into your story. But let's delve into "cool", "crisp" and sea smelling. Give me something more particular, more specific. Something that adds to your story. Every time you describe something, you should be asking yourself: why? Am I through in a word to increase my word count OR am I adding a description that builds my world. As WCW says, "So much depends upon the red wheelbarrow", and you need to cultivate your red wheelbarrow. We can't be out here saying the beach smells like the sea. Every beach on the planet smells like the sea... enough said.

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The scent of summer in Ocean City is one that could never be replicated.

First off, apparently the scent can be replicated because Ocean City "smells like the sea". But also, what is scent of summer? And what is Ocean City? I am not from Jersey?? or wherever Ocean City is to know. You have to give the scene more grip than that. If you want to read an author that is great at describing setting, pick up Joan Didion. But you need to give the readers a better idea of where these people are. What makes this beach special. You are describing their childhood home right? Isn't there some kind of religion in that? Something so particular and special that these kids would associate to this place that no one else would? Give Ocean City some teeth. Give the narrator some stake -- this is the narrator's /place/.

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There is not a sound between us but what is in motion around us: the crashing of waves, the occasional chirping of seagulls and the crunch of sand between our toes as we continue along the shoreline.

I love this sentence structure. It fits really well in the first paragraph. But... change the content? Like every beach has 1) the crashing of waves, 2) occasional gull sounds and 3) sand (actually on second thought I like the sand because it adds to the nostalgia vibe -- crunching in between the toes is good). How about instead 1) hollow childhood laughter sounding in each wave crash, and 2) chattering of seagulls sounding like the worried calls of our mother shouting "don't stand in the riptide". You get the idea. This could be reworked.

General Remarks

For a rusty start, this is solid. As this isn’t the true beginning of the novel, I can only give an impression of what I garnered during this scene. The scene revolves around the narrator and Stephen and alludes to a painful memory in the past whose consequences are directly visited through a flashback. I liked the excerpt, but it does have tensing issues that impede its readability.

Mechanics

The title fits the story and is a sound one-word summarisation of what I think is the core of the tale. The return of the ‘Prodigal Son’. However, it isn’t very interesting, when I read the title, I don’t wonder what it's about because I feel I already know. Many readers will share that, and as is the problem with one-word titles, other stories out there will share its name. It also doesn’t exposit anything on the genre or tone because it's simply too short and general. It tells me what it’s about but doesn’t instill any tone. The title is easy to rework so I’d recommend something lengthier that includes the Prodigal theme but also tells the reader what tone and genre the story will be.

A few minutes later Stephen and I are walking barefoot along the beach.

This isn’t the true hook of the story but it’s the hook in this excerpt, so I’ll critique it. It didn’t wrap me into the story. This is because it depicts a mundane act with either no: underlying tension, conflict, or point of interest. It doesn’t give the reader any question barring, ‘Why are they walking on the beach?’. Hooks need the reader to ask questions.

I glance up to Stephen, a face that is familiar and yet so strange.

This line is found further into the following paragraph but is something I would consider a stronger hook. Who is Stephen? Why is his face familiar and strange? Do the narrator and he know each other?

The sentences are easy to read and varied in their length, I didn’t develop much reader fatigue. By variating the length, the writing is less taxing because it allows the reader to rest when they need to and engorge their senses when they need to.

Setting

This excerpt takes place on a beach. It’s not specific but I feel that it doesn’t need to be, the exact location may have been established earlier but it’s not necessary here.

The ocean breeze is cool and crisp, smelling like the sea, salt water taffy and a dozen bonfires all rolled into one. The scent of summer in Ocean City is one that could never be replicated. There is not a sound between us but what is in motion around us: the crashing of waves, the occasional chirping of seagulls and the crunch of sand between our toes as we continue along the shoreline.

The writing describes almost every facet of the setting and I’ve noticed it’s attempted to visual sounds. It doesn’t really work as the final line just feels clunky and a way to meander on with more sounds, it becomes another list of I heard this, then this and then this. The verbs utilised are strong and they serve to colour the setting. This is the first paragraph and I just feel it won’t draw a reader in because it’s just exposition about the beach. The sights and sounds need to accompany action between the characters, otherwise, the staging is non-existent, which I’ll touch on soon.

…smelling like the sea…

Seas can smell like a lot of different things, don’t generalise an otherwise specific description. What did this sea smell like? If the writing generalises then the reader loses their ability to perceive the setting and are shunted out of it.

Great piece! I enjoyed it. That being said, I do have some notes.

• I don't normally like present-tense in prose, but it feels very deliberate here. I think it's a great choice, and really brings the reader into the moment. Thinking on it more, it may work because this is a very slice-of-life story. Having time as a theme definitely helps too.
• Some proof-reading can still be done, as there are small errors, including tense inconsistencies. For example:

His eyes still a warm hazel that melted like caramel.

should be

His eyes are still a warm hazel, melting like caramel.

That being said, I think there are more efficient ways to get your descriptions across. This is a stylist choice, but I would suggest modifying some of your wordier descriptions. Using the example above, I would suggest:

His hazel eyes still melt like caramel.

• On another note, the above metaphor is a bit confusing. Are his eyes melting like caramel? Or are his eyes like melted caramel. This is just one sentence I've singled out, but you seem to have issues with metaphor consistency and wordy descriptions. I would advise going through each description and double-checking if you've found the clearest way to communicate what you want.
• "My mother couldn’t stand the sight of them after."
  After what? Be specific, even if it's to be specifically vague. For example: "After the incident"
• In particular, your paragraph on family resemblances and old pictures needs some tidying. The essence of what you're saying is there, the mood is strong, and there are lots of great snippets, but it's messy and confusing. Check each sentence (and each part of each sentence) and see if you are using more words than you need to. It's okay to be wordy, but it needs to be deliberate, and each word that makes it to the page needs to justify its own existence.
  For example:
  "Stephen loved them, of course, because he had found a new way to support the Eagles despite it seeming like he always had bits of lettuce stuck in his teeth."
  This is a great character moment, but it is bogged down by too many words, and confusing shifts.
• I get the sense that the characters are around the same age, as the story opens with descriptions of how characters used to be. Later, reference is made to "your day" which tells me they are different ages. You need to make their relative ages clearer.
• I feel like you're very close to getting your story out. There are so many great moments, and the events feel very real. Your specificity (such as the kind of pencil crayons characters own, to the colour of their braces, when they had growth-spurts etc) is impeccable, and is what helps bring the story to life. Overall, however, it really needs some cleaning-- whether you do this by yourself or hire an editor. There's so much potential in this story, and in you as a writer. In this short section, I feel like I know these people-- and that's not an easy thing to pull off.