# Short Story: The Fall of Icarus (Comments, Criticisms, & Responses welcome)



## Chaerephon (Apr 28, 2013)

*The Fall of Icarus*
​‘Finally,’ thought Daedalus, ‘The time has come to flee this wretched place. Minos may control land and sea, but air he cannot. My son and I will soon find freedom. Just how could Zeus curse me so? Could he hate Hephaestus with such a fury? And to build such an awful place…’

He rested his hand against the cool, tan-stone, labyrinth wall. Gulls cawed above and he could smell the sea. Wooden brackets holding his wax wings in place were resting on his shoulders where he felt them wrap down to his back. The leather straps connected to the ends of the wings were now fastened around his wrist, he hoped they would work.

“Is the coast clear?” I asked, grabbing my set of wings. 

Daedalus turned to look at me and said, “Yes, my son. We will have freedom.”

I nodded. “This labyrinth is such a horrible place to live, and it still smells of our friend Theseus’s foe. I cannot wait for freedom,” I said. I had just slid on my wings and was fastening the leather straps to my wrists. I was anxious to leave having long realized the true worth of freedom since it was taken so dramatically from me and my father. The way it happened was surreal, almost as if living a dream or myth. It seemed Zeus himself, his alleged son our captor, had turned on us. Since then we had used every freedom we had to regain what freedom we had lost.

“Well my son, considering we are not free yet, events are ordered so you must. We are not _free_ until we land on safe grounds. Even though Minos cannot guard the skies that does not mean Helios does not during Apollo’s ride.” Daedalus replied. He was nervous that I would become overzealous having regained freedom and newly gaining flight.

“Yes, yes. I noticed the sun is in the sky.” I said. ‘Just like fathers,’ I thought ‘always giving advice, even on obvious matters. Even now, reminding me there was a sun in the sky.’

“Okay, and did you notice our wings are held together with wax?” He asked. Daedalus wondered if I was taking the escape too lightly. “Fly too high and it will melt, too low and it moistens. My son, we must fly safe.”

“Yeah, I know. I have eyes and reason Father; I can see the wings and know there are a sun and an ocean.” I said. The anticipation was starting to bother me: I was ready to escape, ready to be free.

Daedalus hoped I would not be brash. He looked me in the eye and said, “Okay my son. We are ready to go, beware the dangers in the sky and do not let hubris blind you. Watch me and do the same as I take off.” Daedalus hoped this would work. Meanwhile, I was thinking the same thing. 

‘If they didn’t, what would we do?’ I thought. My heart was starting to rise into my throat as he began to flap. Suddenly I saw his feet lift off the ground. I almost could not believe my eyes. He motioned his head for me to wait until he was sure they would work. Higher and higher he climbed until he was at least several men off the ground. The wings were actually working, though my eyes were still in doubt. I hoped mine would work the same. He nodded his head to me and I started to flap in the same way. After a moment I felt myself lifting off the ground into the sky. I looked up and saw Daedalus gliding about having flown higher. When I reached his height we took off. The first time I glided through the air was exhilarating.

Flight, I was doing it. Freedom, I could feel it. Minos’s island would restrain me no longer. Father and I were headed to safe-ground. He had flown not too far ahead at first and I was just catching up to him. Looking around I could see the town, Minos’s Palace stood considerably larger than any other structure, except the horrid one we were escaping. The beautiful green fields and wondrous blue sea stood at a beautiful contrast to each on their respective sides of the white sandy beach backed against an open sky with only several clouds. The buildings in the villages looked about the size of the smaller models from Daedalus’ shop. I felt as if reality itself had been transcended, and that feeling sat as the eye in a storm of exuberance.

“Hey!” I yelled. “We’re doing it! We’re really doing it! We are free!” The feeling was amazing; this intense closeness to life felt like it could be sustained forever. My will had become boundless.

“We are not free yet,” he called back, “We are flying.’ He too felt the ecstasy. I heard it in his voice and saw it in his face, but he also knew patience was a virtue. We were not free until we were free.

I looked down as we passed the coast below. Some people had stopped to look up. ‘They must be in disbelief seeing two men in the sky,’ I thought. ‘This would be something they will remember. As man I can live, and as a hero I’ll be remembered, but this is something out of legend, and legends never die.’

In this moment, filled with such pride, I could not help but flap faster. I wanted to show the true greatness of man. We had traveled land and sea, now we had taken to air. Thoughts of a new era, of all mankind traveling through air and of being remembered for times to come met no resistance at the levies of my mind. I started to gain speed and rise.

“My son!” Daedalus yelled as he saw my excited flying. He wanted me to return to him, but I could see him though and I did not want to fly slowly now: I wanted to taste freedom. As I sped off, I rose higher and higher. Looking down, back over my shoulder I saw my father gesturing more, but why he wanted to limit my freedom I could not understand. ‘Freedom is why we fled Crete.’ I thought.

Suddenly, I found myself sweating. ‘It was actually pretty hot up here. Oh yeah…’ I thought, my heart suddenly rising again into my throat. I flapped trying to change course, but I continued to rise higher carried by momentum. Wondering why I couldn’t change course, I looked back to find my wings long gone. A few feathers hung about the bracers, slowly floating down. I reached out forward with open hands as if there was something to grasp, but when my hands closed all I could feel was air. For a brief moment I stopped at the top of my arc, turned to face the sun, and felt time freeze.

‘Guess this is it.’ I thought. Then I was falling: completely and utterly free.

“No!” Yelled Daedalus as he saw this, “Why?!” He felt despair which only Atlas himself could hold. ‘At such a moment… For such a thing to happen… The gods must truly be against me.’ He thought. Anguish’s razor had sliced him deep and he wondered if he would ever feel again.

Falling I didn’t have much time to think. Thinking wouldn’t have helped anyway. I saw the clouds slowly floating by above, blissfully unaware of my coming demise. My head then hit the ocean like it was slab of marble, followed by my back slapping down like a whip. I was dead before my body sank while the feathers still floated down.

“My son!” yelled Daedalus, “My son…” He had to keep flying on; he did not want Minoan archers to come by boat to shoot him down. His wounds of anguish were salted with despair. Freedom had cost him so much.


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## Coburn (Sep 3, 2010)

A good short. You do a great job of keeping the pacing even, neat, and to the point. The characters are distinct, and Daedalus' motivations are very clear. 

Two points of critique: you write in a very passive voice, which makes the story drag. As a rule of thumb, avoid ending verbs with -ing. Also, avoid "would," "had," and "was." They bog down the story with unnecessary words.

To give an example:



> Some people had stopped to look up.


This should be altered to "People stopped to look up."



> The feeling was amazing;


It felt amazing.



> I had just slid on my wings and was fastening the leather straps to my wrists. I was anxious to leave having long realized the true worth of freedom since it was taken so dramatically from me and my father.


I slid on my wings and fastened the leather straps to my wrists. I was anxious to leave, anxious to escape and regain the freedom taken from us.


I'm not attempting to rewrite your story; I just want to highlight how much smoother text reads when all the passive text is removed. "Had just slid," "was fastening," "having long realized," and "since it was taken" are all passive, and can slow the buildup of excitement and suspense (which this story uses).


As another note, your writing, for the most part, is much more formal. Ex. "it still smells of our friend Theseus’s foe."

So phrases like “Yeah, I know" and "Guess this is it" feel anachronistic. They're too modern and pull the reader from the story. I would change those to match the rest of your tone.

That all said, your overall piece is very smooth and well-put together. You knit the story and characters together tightly, and don't get caught up in the making the entire piece about the fall. You spend a good amount of time building the relationship between father and son, which is great. It adds a personal connection to the story, which ultimately makes Daedalus' fall all that more heartbreaking.


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## Chaerephon (Apr 28, 2013)

Marlowe said:


> A good short. You do a great job of keeping the pacing even, neat, and to the point. The characters are distinct, and Daedalus' motivations are very clear.


Thank you, I really appreciate the kind words.



Marlowe said:


> Two points of critique: you write in a very passive voice, which makes the story drag. As a rule of thumb, avoid ending verbs with -ing. Also, avoid "would," "had," and "was." They bog down the story with unnecessary words.
> 
> To give an example:
> 
> ...


Thank you a lot. This is actually the _exact_ thing I was looking for. I understand you are just trying to help me phrase in an active voice, and since this is only a first draft, revised once and edited a couple times, this critique was very helpful. I have a bad habit of using passive voice, and am glad you pointed out some phrases for me to fix.



Marlowe said:


> As another note, your writing, for the most part, is much more formal. Ex. "it still smells of our friend Theseus’s foe."
> 
> So phrases like “Yeah, I know" and "Guess this is it" feel anachronistic. They're too modern and pull the reader from the story. I would change those to match the rest of your tone.


Thank you, that is interesting, I wanted to give Icarus a little more modern of a hint to his personality. I wanted to use a shift to informality to convey anxiousness and egotism. Maybe instead of "Yeah, I know" I could just have him say "I know"? What do you think? I do like him saying "Guess this is it" because it fits with some of the existential themes I was playing with.

That specific formal phrase you reference, "Theseus's foe." Maybe I should rephrase that to say "And it smells like that beast our friend Theseus killed."

I am eager to read what you think.



Marlowe said:


> That all said, your overall piece is very smooth and well-put together. You knit the story and characters together tightly, and don't get caught up in the making the entire piece about the fall. You spend a good amount of time building the relationship between father and son, which is great. It adds a personal connection to the story, which ultimately makes Daedalus' fall all that more heartbreaking.


Thank you so much. I figured I'd focus on anticipation since we all know what happens in the end.

If there is any other critiques you have, as I stated I am still on draft one, so I am even open to major structural changes as well as major revisions. Thank you again, it isn't easy to find people who respond as thoughtfully as you have. :happy:

Edit: I've also gone through and tried to fix all instances of passive voice, I think it has improved the flow already.


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## FlaviaGemina (May 3, 2012)

Erhem, how does the son know what the father is thinking? Is he telepathic?
This made me stop reading. Unless it does turn out that the son is a telepath or an element of the father's psyche without corporeal existence, this is an untenable shift of perspective/ narrative voice.
If you want to show the thoughts of both of them, you'd have to write all of it in the third person.


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## Chaerephon (Apr 28, 2013)

FlaviaGemina said:


> Erhem, how does son know what the father is thinking? Is he telepathic?
> This made me stop reading. Unless it does turn out that the son is a telepath or an element of the father's psyche without corporeal existence, this is an untenable shift of perspective/ narrative voice.
> If you want to show the thoughts of both of them, you'd have to write all of it in the third person.


The story is written in the past-tense from the first-person point of view of a character who dies in the end. I apologize, but it seems rather obvious how he knows. He even describes himself sinking after he was dead... Although I guess you didn't wait until the end.


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## FlaviaGemina (May 3, 2012)

Chaerephon said:


> The story is written in the past-tense from the first-person point of view of a character who dies in the end. I apologize, but it seems rather obvious how he knows. He even describes himself sinking after he was dead... Although I guess you didn't wait until the end.


Well, it might be obvious to you, but it needs to be conveyed to the reader right when we first hear the son speak. You don't need to say why it is right from the start, because that would obviously spoil it. But there needs to be some indication that the son notices that he can suddenly read the fathers thoughts. Just one little sentence would do the trick, e.g. he might be surprised about it.
Otherwise, the shift from the 3rd person narration about the father to first person just is just so unrealistic that the reader might not be able to maintain their suspension of disbelief.


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## Chaerephon (Apr 28, 2013)

FlaviaGemina said:


> Well, it might be obvious to you, but it needs to be conveyed to the reader right when we first hear the son speak. You don't need to say why it is right from the start, because that would obviously spoil it. But there needs to be some indication that the son notices that he can suddenly read the fathers thoughts. Just one little sentence would do the trick, e.g. he might be surprised about it.
> Otherwise, the shift from the 3rd person narration about the father to first person just is just so unrealistic that the reader might not be able to maintain their suspension of disbelief.


It is past tense. He was not reading his thoughts in the present. He is recounting what happened from the afterlife.


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## FlaviaGemina (May 3, 2012)

Chaerephon said:


> It is past tense. He was not reading his thoughts in the present. He is recounting what happened from the afterlife.


Well, yes. But just because a story is written in the past tense doesn't indicate unequivocally that the character is recounting it from the afterlife. All the past tense says is "this event is finished and has no current relevance."
E.g."Yesterday I talked to my colleague" is in the past tense but as far as I'm aware, I'm not dead.

"Yesterday Mrs X thought 'FlaviaGemina is annoying.' She took a sip from her cup of coffee. 'Is there any milk left?" I asked. She thought that I'm a nuisance and should look for the milk myself." 
---> See, it doesn't work.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with recounting things from the afterlife, but there needs to be some indication for the reader fairly early on that this is what it is. Otherwise it's just incredibly bad writing. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that your whole story is rubbish.


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## Chaerephon (Apr 28, 2013)

FlaviaGemina said:


> Well, yes. But just because a story is written in the past tense doesn't indicate unequivocally that the character is recounting it from the afterlife. All the past tense says is "this event is finished and has no current relevance."
> E.g."Yesterday I talked to my colleague" is in the past tense but as far as I'm aware, I'm not dead.
> 
> "Yesterday Mrs X thought 'FlaviaGemina is annoying.' She took a sip from her cup of coffee. 'Is there any milk left?" I asked. She thought that I'm a nuisance and should look for the milk myself."
> ...


No I mean that is the explanation. He dies in the end, which is meant to imply he can't be alive to tell the story. I figured most people know how it ends so they can put the pieces together. I don't want to explicitly state that in the story though.


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## FlaviaGemina (May 3, 2012)

Chaerephon said:


> No I mean that is the explanation. He dies in the end, which is meant to imply he can't be alive to tell the story. I figured most people know how it ends so they can put the pieces together. I don't want to explicitly state that in the story though.


I do know the story, but it still doesn't work for me. It had simply never occurred to me to think about whether a dead person would be omniscient and have postmortem knowledge of everybody else's pre-mortem thoughts and feelings. So trying to figure that out would distract me from the story.
"Most people" as in...... My husband has got an M.A. degree and is well-educated and he doesn't know the story at all, nor any other Greek myths. I showed him your story and he said he finds it confusing because he doesn't know who's talking and which one is the father and which one the son.
I guess it all depends on who your target audience is. Those who don't know the myth, would read your story as if it's the first time they've ever seen it and all their brain capacity would be taken up with following _your_ story, so they wouldn't be able to put the pieces together at the same time.


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## Chaerephon (Apr 28, 2013)

FlaviaGemina said:


> I do know the story,


So you knew he was going to die before you started reading?



FlaviaGemina said:


> but it still doesn't work for me. It had simply never occurred to me to think about whether a dead person would be omniscient and have postmortem knowledge of everybody else's pre-mortem thoughts and feelings. So trying to figure that out would distract me from the story.


I see. I do not enjoy stories where every detail needs to be explained, in fact I even enjoy stories where the author intentionally leaves something unexplained. I sometimes enjoy stories where when you finish, you have questions. One of the many questions this story was supposed to point to, you have risen, "What is the afterlife like?" I did not want the narrator to say that he is dead, that is left for the end (or implied if you have heard of Icarus flying too close to the sun). The story ends with him dying, which as I said, is meant to imply that the story was being told by a dead guy. Even further, his actions are as if he does not know what his father is thinking, which again is supposed to make you wonder. I am sure you have heard people use the phrase "Please save all questions for the end." In the end, your question is answered. Since there is no one for him to be telling the story to while it is happening, then that again implies that he must be telling the story post hoc. This very thing is purposely left unexplained to the reader. 



FlaviaGemina said:


> "Most people" as in...... My husband has got an M.A. degree


Most people as in most people. I work in a meat market. Most of my coworkers are pretty uneducated. They have heard it. I let my friend who dropped out of high school read it, he had heard the story. My roommate couldn't finish college, he had heard the story. I don't think citing a degree (unless it is in humanities [if it is, how does he not know any Greek myths?]) will help much.



FlaviaGemina said:


> and is well-educated and he doesn't know the story at all, nor any other Greek myths.


Ok, and what does that have to do with whether most people have heard it or not? He may be well-educated in his field, but he is apparently not well educated in the subject at hand I am guessing since he has not heard this famous myth.



FlaviaGemina said:


> I showed him your story and he said he finds it confusing because he doesn't know who's talking and which one is the father and which one the son.


I mean you were the 10th person I know of to read it, making him the 11th, that means 2 out of 11 people found it confusing and 1 out of 11 have never heard the tale (not counting the people I have spoken to about the myth before: I have not met too many people who mention that they have not heard the myth when it gets brought up).

How the main character could call himself I, and then call the only other character either father or by name does not make it clear is confusing to me. I is Icarus (since the name is never explicity used in the story), Daedalus is the father.



FlaviaGemina said:


> I guess it all depends on who your target audience is. Those who don't know the myth, would read your story as if it's the first time they've ever seen it and all their brain capacity would be taken up with following _your_ story, so they wouldn't be able to put the pieces together at the same time.


The pieces are meant for after the story if you have never read it. I admit that the story is not an introduction to greek culture. I want those with high-awareness of the subject to get entertainment out of it. I do also want those who don't know anything about it to get entertainment out of it, but obviously they will have to have on their thinking cap. The target audience is just people who want stories that require more than simply reading it to fully understand. This story is not here to introduce you to Greek culture, and is not meant to. Most people I have shown it to though know very little about Greek culture (though they have heard this story), and don't necessarily have the best educations: they understood completely fine. This makes this critique a little confusing to me.


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