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Why do you keep starting out with a relationship issue like inadequacy or infidelity, and then abruptly and out of nowhere you have one of the characters shoot another character with a gun? Don't be this guy.
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Sep 7, 2013 16:50
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Helsing posted:Why do you keep starting out with a relationship issue like inadequacy or infidelity, and then abruptly and out of nowhere you have one of the characters shoot another character with a gun? Don't be this guy. I... I don't know. I didn't even realize I did this until you said something.
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Sep 7, 2013 16:55
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Mercedes, my advice to you would be to get comfortable writing a "boring" story. A bunch of crazy poo poo doesn't have to happen for it to be interesting. All of your stories have to deal with bank robberies, or shooting, or obscene amounts of cussing. Just relax and tell us a story about two characters interacting. Look at my last thunderdome entry. That was a boring story about a man delivering water to an old lady, but people liked it. You're trying to make up for your lack of writing chops by forcing all this action and crazy crap down our throats. But it's just over the top and makes us roll our eyes. You're writing stories mostly in past tense without time skipping now, so I know you're listening to advice, which is good. Try mellowing out for a little bit. If you're going to explore inadequacy in a relationship, that's a big enough topic to cover BOOKS, let alone one flash fiction piece.
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Sep 7, 2013 16:59
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What Helsing said. Mercedes, would you try rewriting that and just giving me 200 words on the bit where Innes sees her husband with his lover. No guns, no violence and no descriptions of people, just objects. Dialogue is fine.
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Sep 7, 2013 21:13
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I didn't think I was gonna have time to Thunderdome this week so I didn't sign up. But it was a neat prompt and I ended up writing something in that vein. I'm trying to practice atmosphere for the Goonreads horror contest, so this was a good chance to do that. I will crit the next story posted or a dome entry or something. 528 words The draft that fills the room whistles through gap-toothed window shards. There is the gentle, dry trill of magazine pages flipping back and forth as the breeze stirs a travel catalog on the desk. Above the bed, which is made but rumpled into ridges and canyons of fabric, hangs a print of a painting, one of those nice reproductions printed right onto a canvas. Tink. LCD glass falls onto the armoire from the wall-mounted television. The painting hints through broad brushstrokes at brooding cumulonimbus clouds over a low prairie horizon, and dripping wine on the surface of the print leaves lines like slow, red rain. The phone that is askew on the floor has a sticker that says 'Dial 0 for Front Desk', but the cord's been yanked out of the wall, and the handset is silent. Just below the number pad, another sticker reminds guests to dial 9 before all outgoing calls, including, the sticker emphasizes, 911. The catalog flips faster in the draft from the broken window. Shhh, the glossy pages go. Shhh. There's a cosmetics bag on the marble vanity, alongside a travel charger big enough for three electric toothbrushes, only one of which is in its plastic dock. Puddles of water and something red sit like convex lakes around the raised lip of the white porcelain sink. A particularly strong gust of wind pushes one of the little lakes to the edge of the vanity, down the front of the cherrywood cupboards, onto the largest of three sets of Sandals® Resort souvenir flip-flops. Thwap. The first drop hits the rubber insole of the shoe. Tink. Another fragment falls from the face of the television onto the armoire, which is the same polished cherry wood as the cabinets below the marble vanity. A Pack n' Play crib is crumpled against the wall just below the window, so that the heavy curtains catch every so often in the tangle of mesh and plastic rods. Shhh. Tink. Thwap. Shhh. Sirens rise from the street far below like the disjointed crescendo of a tuning orchestra. Shhh. The curtain is caught in the Pack n' Play again, billowing in and out like a sail or a lung. On the bed is one suitcase, open. On the desk next to the travel catalog is one bottle of wine, and like the suitcase it is half full or, possibly, half empty. Thwap. Thwap. Thwa--thwip. A second rivulet has made its way down the vanity cupboard, leaving a translucent burgundy trail of water and the red something-or-other, and drips onto the smallest of the three pairs of Sandals® Resort souvenir flip-flops, which are less than half the size of the other two pairs and decorated with cartoon fish. Thwip-thwap-shhh-shhh-shhh-thwap-tink goes the room as the sirens move from the background into the audio foreground. The diastemic window is on the side of the building that overlooks the portico that shelters the valet parking stand. There is a smear of something red on the top of the arch of the portico, one broad, lazy brushstroke where something landed, left its mark, then slid down to rest on the cobbles of the valet car park.
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Sep 9, 2013 05:35
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Sitting Here posted:I didn't think I was gonna have time to Thunderdome this week so I didn't sign up. But it was a neat prompt and I ended up writing something in that vein. I'm trying to practice atmosphere for the Goonreads horror contest, so this was a good chance to do that. Boss.
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Sep 9, 2013 08:50
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I really did like it! You killed with those descriptions for reals.
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Sep 9, 2013 17:34
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sebmojo posted:Boss. Mercedes posted:I really did like it! You killed with those descriptions for reals. I guess I won writing. I'm glad you guys liked it.
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Sep 10, 2013 03:28
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Sitting Here posted:I didn't think I was gonna have time to Thunderdome this week so I didn't sign up. But it was a neat prompt and I ended up writing something in that vein. I'm trying to practice atmosphere for the Goonreads horror contest, so this was a good chance to do that. This is certainly unnerving. I'm in a room, trying to get my bearings, with no real clue as to what's going on. Leaving gaps for the imagination to fill adds to the piece.
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Sep 11, 2013 18:44
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Sorry for the double post, but I'd love to have this torn apart by goons: Say Cheese (401 words) It was a strange thing when the dead returned to life. Thankfully, none of them resorted to the cliche of eating the person nearest them, except for the three year old who came back as Jean Baptiste Trudeau. The dead were rising, and rising as someone else. While I never ran into the living dead, I can tell you what happened to my good friend Elsie. It’s got to be a dark thing to use those nursing skills you spent years learning to confirm to yourself that your grandmother’s dead. But that’s what Elsie did, holding her grandmother’s wrist and feeling the pulse ebb away. As she laid the arm down on the bed and sobbed softly into her hands, Elsie’s brush with the peculiar began. Normally, your grandmother’s eyes don’t flicker back open, nor does your grandmother sit upright in bed and begin issuing demands in German. The last bit wasn’t too far out there; Elsie’s grandmother was from Cologne and could be a rather needy person. However, when granny began orating and trying to charm Elsie into something, Elsie excused herself to make sense out of what happened. Elsie retreated to the living room. She knew she was an extremely competent medical professional. There was no way she mistook her grandmother passing away for anything else. As she mulled over the situation in her head, the TV that was perpetually on for company caught Elsie’s attention. All over the world, the recently deceased were rising seconds later as someone else. A man in Florida reawoke as Mark Twain. Marie Curie popped back up in the body of some gawky teenager. Mama Cass stood a better chance this time around, reanimating the body of a rabbi. Elsie began to wonder who had propped granny back up. Pressing her ear to the bedroom door, Elsie did everything she could to recall the German her grandmother would jabber at her every summer when she visited. With a gasp, she recoiled from the door after making out the phrase “Last thing I remember, I was in the bunker…”. Sitting back down in the living room, the TV proved useful again. “People are advised not to take flash photographs of the reanimated. It has been speculated the bright light confuses the mind or spirit within the body and sends it back to wherever it came from.” The last words granny heard were “Sag Kaese!”
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Sep 12, 2013 16:22
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I'm not sure if that's the joke, but Germans actually don't say "Sag Käse", since ɛ: is only half open so it doesn't get you smiling; it's still "Sag cheese" in German. ... or was the sound I just heard the joke going over my head? Also, the first sentence of the second paragraph is very awkwardly phrased I think. Finally, if the joke was that Grandma became Hitler, it might have been made a bit more clear to the slow amongst us (me).
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Sep 12, 2013 16:46
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Still working on my current WIP with the previous critiques in mind, but here's a short prologue or interlude sort of piece from the same work... Beyond the Veil (754 words) The ghost of Charlotte Jane Harper was not happy. The Other Side, after all, was no picnic. For the earthbound spirit of the deceased, she found herself stuck in a whirling vortex of pressure and endless darkness, the nothingness of Purgatory that even ghosts in their limited awareness thought of as a deep abyss. Why Purgatory? For Charlotte, the path of her afterlife was not a clear one. She didn't do enough good to go straight to Heaven; she didn't do enough evil to be sent to Hell. In fact, she didn't do anything at all, simply because she never had the chance to live. Of course, none of this was Charlotte's fault. She died in her mother's womb before she could see the world, let alone experience it. Christian doctrine would state that as a powerless babe, she was an innocent. But then, Christianity was not the only faith that existed in the history of the human world. It's difficult for a spirit such as Charlotte to keep track of the human world. It continues on outside of herself, and for her the passage of time is confusing. She sees the results of human innovation, the shifting advances in science and technology, but she's not part of it. In a way, she grows, too. She grows alongside her twin, outside and yet parallel to her existence. Within that swirling vortex, there is a sense of what her life might have been. However, at her core, she is childishly immature. She is pure instinct and basic urges. Some intangible connection to her sister drives her to watch over her well-being as best she can, but she doesn't understand it. If given the option of choice, she's not certain what she would do. She can't remember when she started drifting through the circle. Her strong connection to her twin must have pulled her to this place, this portal back to the world of the living, through the rift. If she had more skill for conscious self-reflection, she might have wondered why she was able to accomplish this when it was so against the forces of nature. Humans live and they die; they don't usually get a chance to come back. At first, she was only dimly aware of floating out of the vortex of souls and reentering the living world. Soon, she began being inescapably drawn into the slumbering form of a living person. It was strange that it was the same person every time. She wasn't sure how she could tell this was true, but it was. She began to recognize the familiarity of the boy's mind, his dreamscape. No matter what he dreamed about, there was a signature to his thoughts -- perhaps it was his unique brain waves -- that allowed Charlotte to recognize it was him. He rarely dreamed regular dreams anymore. His dreams were a battleground of vague imagery. Part of the boy's uniqueness was in the way other beings like Charlotte could slip into his unconscious and take root, at least for a night. It was easier to try settling here than anywhere else she tried. There was a communicativeness, and Charlotte quickly became hooked on the possibilities. Finally, here was her chance to affect, to convey content. Eventually, whether it took months or years in living time, she became the only ghostly voice to invade the boy's dreams. She pushed away her competitors more and more. The more she did it, the easier it became. It took a while to figure out how to shape the images. At first, the boy resisted. Even asleep, the boy's mind seemed to sense the foreignness of the messages being relayed. His mind knew they were not organic to his own thoughts. Even with practice, the images Charlotte managed to conjure up were not clear-cut, not linear, but it was the best she could do. Ghosts didn't know much, but what they did know, they want to share with those connected to them who are still living. The unfinished business the living believed the dead had in order to linger... Charlotte couldn't finish what she never got to begin. The thing is, she and the other meager spirits of the formerly living weren't the only things that could travel through the rift. Any time a slice in the mortal veil occurred, the risk was the same. What followed her and those like her out of that deep, dark abyss was no human shade. Only the dead know of the horrors to come.
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Sep 12, 2013 21:57
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Kraus posted:Sorry for the double post, but I'd love to have this torn apart by goons: Seems like a lot of settup for "granny is Hitler." I actually like the idea of dead people getting reanimated by more or less benign spirits of famous people, but this sort of just tells its joke and then ends.
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Sep 12, 2013 22:19
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Lying in bed and going through the dregs of a massive quantity of words of varying quality produced in a questionably fuelled marathon writing thing. This is one of them: none of these things have any titles, so whatever The sun breaks over the Arldale crags like molten glass. It bubbles languorously over sheer-faced limestone bluffs and drowns the whole valley. Barns like ancient rocken tombs grow up from the corners of dewy fields, crossed and crossed again by the grey striations of the walls that time built. Sheep float down blind-eyed highways like cotton-whisps on a slow wind and nobody can remember a time when it hasn’t been that way. Geological ages have passed and passed away here. It possesses bleak beauty, the kind that ruins have, the kind cathedrals gain when reduced to baser parts; columns and buttresses, masonry blocks with family names and the weathered eyes of gargoyles all succumbing to grass. And still, you haven’t seen it until you’ve seen it in the rain. The rain there is the most beautiful in the world, when the fog rolls in over the mountain tops and wraps the valleys like a shroud. You know it only when the grey light of afternoon seems everywhere and the moss whispers to you in morse drips against the susurrance of millions more, only when the rain slick slates pick out the staring chartreuse eyes of lichen and you can just smell damp woodsmoke settling on the breeze. I remember hearing as a child some plea or prayer, a wish that we might be understood, as well as understand. It comes back to me under the rain in Arldale, with the fading ring of hymns and organs and I think that maybe, just maybe, all the world’s problems could be washed clean, if only everyone could spend just one day under the rain there - because it’s really something, the rain in Arldale. It really is something. I haven't written seriously purple stuff for a while. I got rid of a few of the words I seemed to have invented while writing, though I left 'rocken' in because it sounds baller. How bad is it? Also Arldale is not a real place, though it is kind of based on a real place I guess.
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Sep 13, 2013 03:37
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Thunderdome homework as administered by Bad Seafood: Two people exchange dark glances from across a crowded place. I want 1,000 words and what is clearly only the middle chapter of their saga. 753 words Jake followed the target inside the car. The target's large headphones framed a boyish face barely out of high school, and his backpack's bulk suggested a laptop nesting inside. He was the hacker known as Pillow-Man. Just some kid beneath their notice. Until now. The stock market had crashed. Entire companies disappeared in the world's major indexes, their records wiped in entirety. A crime so bloodless in this scale was unprecedented, and Jake's organization predicted the worst. But nothing out of the ordinary happened. CEOs did not hang themselves, nor did their companies cease running, despite irreversible losses. The economy doesn't work this way, his mind protested. Where was the chaos? He felt dirty wishing for it to come. The target shifted his bag in front, digging inside it. Jake's hand twitched in his pocket. He wouldn't be able to do anything in this cramped train. Besides, his orders were to observe and follow. He blinked away, squinting at the buildings zipping by. "J9 to J2. I'm in position," he whispered to his earphone mic, covering his mouth. "Copy that, J9. Remember your orders. Observe." If he went beyond his mission parameters and captured the target, what would they do? He acknowledged, swimming in his own thoughts. Very few hackers could have done what happened to the stock market. Because no one had claimed responsibility yet, they ruled out the more politically-aligned ones. Pillow-Man only did pranks, without a care for profit or destruction. His skill was legendary in some circles. Was he acting on his own? Or did someone get him to do the job? Jake evaluated the target again. He was scrawny. A takedown from behind could do the job. But he mustn't risk damaging whatever was inside the backpack. A pair of brown eyes stared back at the window's reflection. A moment of knowing passed between them. As the target's eyes narrowed, Jake wondered how obvious he looked, how green he was right out of training. Pillow-Man held up an old cellphone, texting while maintaining his gaze. A burst of deafening static spat out of his device. The world rolled like a ship caught in a wave. His grip on the handrail tightened. J2 spoke through the ringing in his ears. "Update us, J9. Our feeds are scrambling. What happened?" "He's found me out," Jake said. A wan smile played across Pillow-Man's lips. He looked away, as if the matter had been dealt with. "Abort the mission, J9. Execute Plan E. We need to assume his backer is aiding him. We've played too much of our hand already." "And let him get away? This is our only chance!" Jake considered his options. If he could just get close to him... "Stand down, J9. I repeat, stand down. I'm sending J7 and J5 to extract you." Jake cursed. Not those bastards. J2's line went silent. A voice over the intercom said they were approaching the next station. Pillow-Man rocked his head to the music playing in his ears, tugging his backpack close. It was now or never. "I'll put an end to this," Jake said, more for himself than for J9's benefit. The doors opened. The target scurried out of the doors. His reaction to Jake showed his culpability. Jake pushed his way out, ignoring angry voices. Jake's cellphone went off in his pocket. "You good-for-nothing!" A sharp, female voice said over the phone's speakers. J2's voice modulator was turned off. He--she was using another feed? "How many times have I told you not to leave the house?" "I don't understand, J2. And changing your voice won't make me change my mind." "Shut up and listen to me, Jake! The pills, when did you last--" He turned the phone off. Pillow-Man went through a turnstile, walking away with a spring in his step. When Jake's turn came, it was locked into place. Angry voices stabbed him in the back. The target could hack even hardware on the fly. He took a step back and leaped over the obstacle. That was when the guards started running after him. He dodged one with a feint, and kicked the second guard's shin, clearing his path. He spotted the target walking down the stairs, his backpack's weight slowing him down. "J2, listen to me. I'll capture the target. Call off J7 and J5!" "If you have him when they reach you, I'll make your punishment less severe," J2 replied. His voice was male again, with no acknowledgment of his earlier outburst. Jake smiled. "Watch me."
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Sep 16, 2013 03:32
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This is what I would have wanted to contribute to Thunderdome LVIII: Exile Vilify 846 words The last night my sister came to my room, she said to me, “Remember that God is many things. God forgives. I think we forget that.” She hugged me, and the next day, she was gone. I felt something was wrong with Les in the weeks before she left. At the pickets, she held her signs lower. She joined in the chants, but it didn’t sound like she believed in them. I had never seen her lose her zeal before, not even that time when she got double-whammied by strep throat and shingles. She argued with mom to be allowed to join us outside the funeral. In the end, Les was there proclaiming God’s words at them louder than the rest of us. Mom said it was one of the surest signs of the Holy Spirit she had seen. At first, I thought Les was burning out from school. She was taking seven courses for the semester while still managing the church website and blog. Les started to miss dinners with us. Whenever I texted her afterwards, she would say she was studying at school. Said the books she needed were library use only. She would come home past midnight five days a week, sometimes six. Mom told me she thought a boy was involved and asked me to keep an eye over Les. I don’t think mom actually believed that. I think she was just hoping that was the worst case scenario, because that was at least something she knew how to handle. *** Two days after she left, Les updated the blog for the last time. She announced she wasn’t coming back to the church. Rejected everything we knew as right to be wrong. I called mom over to my computer and watched as she scrolled through Les’ words again and again. She went out of my room to grab the cordless. As she headed to her room, I heard her say “Dad, it’s me. We need to talk about Leslie…” before slamming her door. Mom talked with Gramps for an hour. She was quiet for the hour after that. We had a picket scheduled that day, so I knocked on mom’s door and reminded her, but she didn’t answer. I started packing food and the signs we needed for that afternoon. Mom eventually came down the stairs. She was wearing sunglasses. Outside, the sky was overcast. “It’ll just be me with Aunt Francis and your cousins for the picket today. I need you to stay behind to do something for me.” “Mom?” “Take down every picture of Leslie in this house.” I looked above the fireplace. “What about our family portrait?” “That one too. We’ll get our pictures taken again.” After mom drove off in the truck, I went back to the computer and refreshed the church blog. All of Les’ posts were deleted. That Sunday, Gramps preached a sermon on Eve, and how she damned herself and all of mankind by falling for the serpent’s deception. When it was over, my cousins, aunts, and uncles offered us their condolences. Gramps came over to try and encourage us as well. No one talked about Les. When we went back home, mom said to leave her room alone for the time being, in case she repented. *** For the next month, the door to Les’ room stayed shut. It wasn’t until last night that it opened again. Mom was out of the house for Friday night fellowship, so it was just me at home. The doorbell rang. I looked outside the window before opening the porch door. I left the screen door latched. “Jessie. Is mom home?” “She’s at fellowship.” “Right... How are things?” “Why are you here?” Les winced. “I need to get some stuff from my room. Can I come in?” I unlatched the door and stepped back. Les started as though she wanted to say something, but stopped herself and headed to her room. I waited outside as she grabbed her belongings. When Les was done she headed for the door, but as she passed by the living room, she looked over the fire place and stopped. “Where’s the other family portrait?” “It’s in the garage.” “Can I have it?” We went downstairs to the garage and opened the box with the photographs. The portrait was at the back, so we had to pull out the other pictures to get to it. It seemed that each picture took longer to pull out than the one before it. When we reached the portrait, Les took it out and cradled it. I didn’t keep track for how long she held it, but when I looked at my watch, I interrupted her. “You’ll need to hurry before mom gets here.” Les wiped her eyes. “I understand if you can’t talk about what happened tonight, but I want you to know that I love and miss all of you.” We walked back to the porch. I felt my hand twitch as Les waved goodbye and left for what I knew would be the last time. ______________________ When I wrote this, I was also trying to accomplish what I failed to do with Thunderdome LVI's challenge. Namely this: Sitting Here posted:*Meaning. This is flash fiction so we can only be so poignant, but try to infuse at least some modicum of understanding of the human condition into your story. If anyone's up for critiquing this, can I get a sense of how well or poorly this piece hits this criteria?
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Sep 16, 2013 19:28
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Schneider Heim posted:Thunderdome homework as administered by Bad Seafood: OK, so the story is OK. There's been better, there's been worse. It roughly meets the prompt of being a middle chapter. Your technical skills are mostly proficient. Things to work on: Your scene setting I felt was weak. I hardly ever felt rooted, it felt like the whole story was occurring quite abstractly from any actual place. Don't neglect sounds, sights, and general tactile feedback. Even a small amount goes a long way. Your flow was erratic. Lines should roughly be following one another unless you have a good reason for that not to be the case. This is especially true for writing action. Don't spend time having internal rhetorical questions during a chase scene unless they are relevant. p.s The more I read over the bit where the woman comes onto the feed and starts talking about leaving the house, the more confused I get. What actually is happening?
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Sep 16, 2013 20:35
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M. Propagandalf posted:Exile Vilify This story is at a stage where I don't think a line-edit will do much, and I don't mean that in a negative sense. I didn't notice any glaring errors or actual difficulty in expression, so no worries on that front. Does it meet the target you were aiming for? Does it resonate with me about the human condition, is it poignant? Well yes, it is poignant and I reckon it portrays at least some part of the human condition as I understand it. If I was judging it in TD, I would say it hit the prompt. Now I'm done with praise, because nobody should really be coming here for that. On a micro level, your story is fine but I have problems with it on a macro level. The actual poignancy of that story really occurs towards the end, in what is the obvious affection between siblings being torn apart by religion. The hand twitching is a very cute touch. Other than that though, the character of Jessie does not cut a very sympathetic pair of eyes to be looking through. The character seems impassive and uncaring until the very end, an incredibly passive victim of circumstance - to the point that it undermines the sadness of the circumstances. More macro problems, I feel the first half of the story is meandering and fluffy. We get too much wind up about Les preparing to leave and too much on the consequences that happen in the house without her around. The thing about the pictures is really the key to this story for me, with far greater impact than details like Gramps giving fire and brimstone about Eve and deleting blogposts. To me, that stuff only waters down the overall impression. I don't think the right strategy was quantity but quality. Focusing on the excision of Les from their family, I think you can do better than a blog. Was that a case of following a real-life story too closely? Because it feels like it. To summarise, to kick this story up a notch, the narrator has to become more actively involved in the tragedy and demonstrate the conflict they have between loving their siblings and being loyal to their family. There needs to be more focus on one or two things that happen after Les leaves, and less time spent having the story establish itself.
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Sep 16, 2013 21:30
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Jeza posted:OK, so the story is OK. There's been better, there's been worse. It roughly meets the prompt of being a middle chapter. Your technical skills are mostly proficient. Thank you for the critique. Answer: He may or may not be what he thinks he is. The world may or may not be in danger. If that wasn't clear then I have failed as a writer.
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Sep 18, 2013 02:39
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Schneider Heim posted:Thank you for the critique. Yeah, OK, I mean I did veer towards that in the text like I say - but it felt like the view was immediately undermined by there being no consequences to the sudden jarring change of reality. And since the original plotline recovers so quickly, as a reader I am forced to doubt my own conclusions and make a back-step. While I think the whole 'off his meds' thing could probably make for a more interesting story overall and I realise you were trying to make the story deeper under the surface, it feels too clunky in comparison with the rest of what you've got. If you removed the whole part of it, I don't really see the story losing much while keeping it dilutes the focus. I would say it's comparable to the protagonist J9 receiving a phone call saying "JIM, THE TESTS CAME BACK. YOU'VE GOT BRAIN CANCER." Then J9 just says, essentially, gently caress off I'm busy and continues what he's doing. It's a form of adding artificial depth and detracts from the piece as one cohesive storyline.
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Sep 18, 2013 06:46
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Panda So Panda posted:Still working on my current WIP with the previous critiques in mind, but here's a short prologue or interlude sort of piece from the same work... I like the ideas here. I'm a sucker for stories that explore an imagined afterlife. However, there is a lot of vagueness within vagueness. Unclear images in dreams, warning about unspecified threats, supplied by quasi-conscious spirits, described by an uncertain narrator. It's all very wishy-washy. It's one thing to portray Charlotte herself as confused and nebulously aware, but it's another for the narrator to be constantly questioning, speculating and equivocating. I think you need to decide the rules of the world you've invented, then work out how to write within them in a way that retains mystery, but avoids fuzziness. On a nuts and bolts level, you have a tendency to switch tense and to overuse qualifiers like "of course", "the thing is" and "seemed to"; non-specific signalling like "at first", "quickly", and "eventually"; and redundant phrases. Your prose wanders between being overly conversational and too high-flown. I recognise all of these, because they are problems I have with my own writing. Try to simplify, to be more vivid and direct. I recommend picking up Roy Peter Clark's book Writing Tools. You don't have to do everything he says, but reading it is a great exercise in paying close attention to these aspects of prose. I think you have an interesting idea: The spirit of an unborn child wants to protect its living sibling from an encroaching supernatural threat, and uses the dreams of a psychically perceptive child as a conduit into the world. But you need to stop having the narrator tell us things and reveal them through imagery and a ordered narrative: 1. Charlotte is in purgatory. Show us the murk and nothingness of her environment and let us ascertain Charlotte's unhappiness for ourselves. 2. Charlotte travels through the rift to the mortal world. Show us how the world of the living contrasts with that of the dead. 3. Charlotte connects with her sister. Show us how her sister's life of growth and change contrasts with Charlotte's perpetually natal state. 4. Charlotte wishes to protect her sister, but has no way to communicate with the living world. 5. Charlotte finds a boy whose dreams are invaded by spirits. Show us who this boy is and what the dead are putting in his head. 6. Charlotte drives out the other spirits and learns to shape the boys dreams. Show us how she does this and how these other spirits respond. It's also not clear why Charlotte is able to overpower these other spirits. And if she is concerned about the "horrors to come", are the other ghosts? Wouldn't they be even more inclined to warn the living world, as they would have greater connections to it?
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Sep 18, 2013 17:47
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I'm a pretty terrible writer and I haven't read the related piece, so take this with a grain of salt. Giving it a shot regardless.Panda So Panda posted:Beyond the Veil I think the issue with this piece at large is the voice of the narrator and what it implies. It reads naturally in the sense that you can imagine a person actually talking like that, but that consequently implies that there's an actual narrator watching and telling us everything. The closest thing we have to any of that is Charlotte herself, but she's negative nine months old and doesn't know what the gently caress. You're describing Charlotte as this spirit who doesn't understand anything, yet she somehow still processes the world and understands brain waves? This is a supernatural story so you're allowed some leeway, but you're just slapping us with "she's immature" and "she doesn't understand choice" without demonstrating or exploring what any of it means or causes. Hell, the series of events you've described here is easily a novel in itself. If this is an introduction to a larger piece, the stuff that follows better blow your readers' brains out the back of their skulls. Since it bears repeating: You also have some real problems organizing sentences together so the thoughts are logically connected. I've already pointed out the jumps in the twin <-> immaturity bits, but most of your last paragraph actually belongs to the preceding one. You're describing how Charlotte slowly takes over this boy's dreams, but you start it off with saying that she does it and then chronicling her journey there. You need to review whether or not a sentence follows from the previous and leads into the following, because there were too many times when I did a double take and asked myself "Hey, what happened to the other idea? Oh, it's over there now." e: Going to echo Amtiskaw in saying that the conversational tone of the narrator hurts far more than it helps. Prefacing sentences with "Of course" and "In fact" takes away a lot of the impact. --- This is the introduction to an idea I will probably end up butchering during November. Warning, fantasy goon writing ahead. Executioner (790 words) By Masen's best estimates, the execution was today. The jailers who delivered her food were a chatty pair, unaware that she understood most of their words. Assuming they fed her once a day, then this was time to do or die. In her windowless stone cell, reliving her favorite memory served as her clock. Thirty repeats and it was time for another meal. The dream always started with dust clouding her eyes. Instinct dictated that she shield her face, but Masen and Vanessa had finally snuck into the gladiatorial games that year. She could suffer an irritated eye if it meant witnessing every second. Her toes balanced atop the crate, high enough for her to peek over the storm drain. Warm in her grasp, the iron bars framed every stolen glimpse of the fighters. Sir Kendall had pinned Major Vashnu against an arena wall with a woven pattern of halberd strikes. Every attack bounced the major's back against sandstone again, a cloud of sand whirling against the gladiators. When Vashnu's fist punched through an opening in the knight's offense, knocking the armed aristocrat into the air, the audience came alive. The stowaway sisters squealed along with the crowd's erupting cheers. Vashnu sprinted after his opponent, a blur too fast for the girls' untrained eyes. In moments, the general's boot pinned Sir Kendall to the ground. His fists stretched into the air and the crescendo of the crowd's voice signaled his victory. “See?” Vanessa yanked Masen aside, shaking her by the shoulders. “See? I told you imperial soldiers are the strongest!” Masen barely understood these games, but she knew that she and her sister were imperials too. That gave her a warm glow in her gut. “I'm gonna join the academy and be strong just like them!” A chorus of horns sang, indicating the start of the next match. The sisters forgot about each other in an instant, compelled to spectate the next fight. Metal scraped against metal and the grinding of the rusted lock served as Masen's wake up call. Her shins, bony from so many weeks of starvation, hit the stone. Only a shard of splintered wood guarded her against the cell floor. Bowing her head, she began to chant her prayer. A boot heavy enough to send the gravel around her shaking meant the brute entered first. Even in Masen's prime, the brute would have been half again her size. She dared not imagine the difference now. The shrew was second in the cell, always chuckling about something that only he found humorous. These past few days, the jailers would taunt her before throwing her the scraps, certain she couldn't fight back in her state. They had no jeers today, as sound of her voice mumbling silenced them in an instant. The sound of the shrew's sword pulling from its scabbard, that was her signal. Into the air. Close the gap. Keep the height advantage. One hand went to the sword's pommel, shoving the weapon back into its sheath while she kicked the wood sliver into her other hand. Flicking her eyes to the side, she checked her flank. The brute still fumbled with his club, fingers tangled in undoing the loop. Just enough time. Even the numbers. Masen drove the jagged point of her makeshift shiv into the shrew's eye. A jet of blood warmed her skin. One target down. Masen whirled, commandeering the sword for herself. She ducked low and aimed high. The cudgel left a breeze as it caught the air above her head. She answered with a clean slice across the brute's flopping gut. Easier than carving raw meat. Flipping back to a low crouch, the sight of a fat bully trying to hold in his intestines met her eyes. One spin of the blade in her grip and she lunged. The brute's throat stood no chance. Confirm the kill. The brute twitched as she slammed the blade down, cleaving his skull in two. Screams echoing off the stone flooded Masen's ears. The shrew continued to roll and flop around on the ground. Waiting for him to face up, she stomped a bony heel onto his chest. He may have been healthy and fed, but Masen knew by now that physical strength was nothing before conviction. Her victim convulsed, only driving the stake deeper into his socket, eliciting another scream. That warm glow returned to her body, and with age Masen could finally give it a name. Satisfaction, victory, and pride, all at once. One more time, she repeated her prayer. None of her goddesses could hear it, but maybe her long dead sister could. “You were right. Imperial soldiers are the strongest.” Lieutenant Masen hacked off her jailer's head. I am aware and deeply torn up by the fact that the second and third paragraphs completely destroy the flow of the narrative, but I can't figure out how to fit in that precedent anywhere else. inthesto fucked around with this message at 11:37 on Sep 20, 2013 |
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Sep 20, 2013 11:34
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inthesto posted:
I probably shouldn't be critting in this thread, but whatever. Procrastination rules. I'm on a timed internet thing in a coffee shop, so I'm just gonna give you some general comments and thoughts: - Macro-wise, you say you're deeply torn up about the narrative break to play out a memory. I don't think you should worry about it too much, in fact, I rather enjoyed the lurch back into reality suddenly cutting into the play-by-play. You could italicise it if you wanted to make it obvious separate, but I don't see a pressing need to. - As an introduction to a story, it is a bit played out (fantasy prison break) but that doesn't matter a great deal, so long as it goes interesting places soon after. It's fast paced and exciting and already establishes a bit of character background and interest (dead sister) and (Imperial soldier). Elder Scrolls anyone? ahem - Most of it is combat description. You aren't too bad at that, I guess. You don't drop the ball too often, which a lot of fantasy writing goons really do. If anything, it impressed me with its brutality. But I worry that, and don't be offended, that because most amateur fantasy fiction tends not to write unsympathetic protagonists (especially female protagonists), that perhaps it wasn't entirely intentional. I mean, you establish some kind of Laurel and Hardy style gaolers and then massacre them pretty viciously. Shiv in the eye, stamping on said shiv, head chopping beyond the call of duty. I mean yeah, these aren't nice people, but there isn't enough space or you don't use it well enough to establish them as entirely deserving in my opinion. We get a line about them taunting her I suppose, but that's as far as it goes. Feel free to ignore this if you're establishing your protagonist (if it is) as vaguely amoral or callous, because you succeeded and that is way more interesting than your standard fare. - Aaaand micro-wise. Sadly, there is a whole lot for me to complain about here. I'm not even sure where to start. - Your non-combat writing is inelegant and awkward. You take 10 words when 5 will do, almost as a rule. I don't need to cherry pick here; take your second paragraph: "instinct dictated that she shield her face", "she could suffer an irritated eye", "iron bars framed every stolen glimpse". This manner of writing comes across as very formal and stilted. Sometimes it is OK; I can imagine that final line fitting in alright, but when it happens again and again it undermines your flow. I'm sitting here thinking of what kind of mini-rules you should keep in mind to try and avoid this type of writing. You are most guilty of it when you are being roundabout or too precise. There is no need to tell us unnecessary details or beat around the bush. The shrew, who is always chuckling to himself "at something that only he finds humorous" - well, no poo poo I guess? Only accept further clauses on suffrance: only if there is something that doesn't make sense without it. Her shins "bony from so many weeks of starvation". Yeah, the reader can understand given the previous mentions of scraps of food, one meal per day etc, that she is starved. Her bony shins is plenty. - Still, no need to cry about that. I've seen much worse, and if you don't write much it is understandable. What I perceive as the greatest weakness of this piece is a serious issue with lack of sense. Really, given the type of fiction that it is, I should be finding none to almost no points where I don't understand something. For your 800 word piece, there are far more than that. Stuff like: Reliving a memory thirty times on repeat is ridiculous and incredibly weird. "Only a shard of splintered wood guarded her against the cell floor" - what? "They had no jeers today, as sound of her voice mumbling silenced them in an instant." - what? Sudden introduction of gravel to a cell which has been previously illustrated as being bare stone. "Her shins, bony from so many weeks of starvation, hit the stone" - why? I can't visualise what is happening. "she kicked the wood sliver into her other hand"- eh? "Her victim convulsed, only driving the stake deeper into his socket" - ?!? edit: there's more but time running out, will finish this later Jeza fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Sep 20, 2013 |
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Sep 20, 2013 16:04
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A fragment from a longer story idea I've been toying with. Hopefully it will still make sense out of context. Law (744 words) Livuon was animated. "The treatment of the native populations is intolerable. Their paddock-world conditions are squalid and unlivable. Scripture gives us the right to claim territory, but also demands we find harmony with these lands we take, yet we despoil them with abandon, and expel the creatures who belong here." Prethiu slitted his pupils in distain. "Typical Volist liberal trash, no doubt poo poo out by the same blasphemous pseudo-priests who lurk around the seminary, preying on the acolytes. Is that what happened to you Livuon? Did some fat false cleric whisper these heresies in your ear while he was loving you?" "No," said Livuon, "But you paint such a vivid scene. From your own experience perhaps?" "Cretin. Scripture gives us no rights," Prethiu spat, "The third book compels us to civilise these lands, and bring harmony through our own blessed ecology, not contaminate ourselves by living in the filth we find. It must be sterilised. That paddock-worlds exist at all is an obscenity, instigated by Volist apostates who have corrupted the conclave." "Those you slander as apostates are those who you are faithbound to obey, or would-" "SILENCE!" General Orsc's fist crashed down on the crystal surface of his desk, fractures webbing away from the point of impact. He stared at Livuon and Prethiu. "Not another sentence, not another word. All you clerics fresh from the nestworld are the same; bickering infants, mouths overflowing with politics and dogma. Let me tell you how it is. Out here we do not give a poo poo about scripture, the conclave, Volism, Epthism, or whatever else. Out here, I am God. I am the holy law. And if you have prayers, better that you offer them to me. To start, pray that I don't rip out your tongues and feed them to my pets to cease your prattling." There was a long moment of silence, then Prethiu spoke. "General. You are commander here, but I cannot tolerate this heresy. To speak so-" "'To speak so demands sanction'," said Orsc, "'And no man is so high as to be exempt, and no man so low as he should not perform it'. Some babble from the fifth book, isn't it? I used my copy for kindling in a winter years ago, so I cannot check. You say I am a heretic, and deserve sanction, cleric Prethiu?" Prethiu said, "That is law, General." "Remind me, what is the sanction?" Prethiu was hesitant, "A finger, from the weaker hand." Orsc drew a long, slender knife from a sheath on his uniform and dropped it on the table, then lay his left hand flat beside it. "Do your holy duty then, cleric." Prethiu's gaze flicked between the blade, the hand, and Orsc, then across at Livuon. His fellow cleric looked back, blank and silent. Moments passed, then Prethiu rose from his chair. With slow steps, he made his way around the desk until he stood beside the general. He reached for the knife. Orsc's left hand snapped up and caught Prethiu's arm, wrenching it down onto the crystal. With his right, he grabbed the knife and drew it across Prethiu's pinned hand, slicing off his thumb, then released him. Prethiu screamed and stumbled backwards, clutching at the stump, eyes wide and disbelieving. Orsc laughed. He stood, impaled the severed digit on the tip of the knife and waved it. "There is your law. Do not forget it, or next time you will lose something more intimate." He turned to Livuon, "Seems you are able to hold your tongue. It bodes well for you. Take your holy brother to the infirmary then." Liuvon nodded and went to fetch Prethiu, guiding the shocked cleric out of the general's office. Orsc watched them go, then swaggered over to the far wall where his pets were kept, enclosed by black crystal bars that ran from floor to ceiling. The biggest was half Orsc's height, with strong muscles beneath pink skin, and matted brown hair that sprouted from its scalp and ran to its waist. It was crouched and silent, watching the scene beyond its cage with interest. The general flicked the thumb from the end of the knife through the bars. His pet grabbed it out of the air and turned it over in its hands, exchanging noises with the others in the cage as it did so, then sunk its teeth into the flesh and tore out a chunk before passing it on to its kin. Orsc left them to their meal and returned to the desk to continue his work. Edit: Typo. Amtiskaw fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Sep 20, 2013 |
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Sep 20, 2013 19:01
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Quick responses: *I honestly thought I was being economical with my words, but apparently I was wrong! I'll give this another go and raise the standards when it comes to being redundant, see how it goes. *The protagonist not being particularly sympathetic is indeed intentional. *I didn't even think about Skyrim when I was writing this.  There's enough differences that it shouldn't come across as a ripoff, though.I absolutely see what you're saying about difficulty with sense. While I do write a lot, the vast majority of it is through essays. I've never had trouble describing or explaining ideas, but doing the same with things and actions always befuddles me. Should I take it to the general fiction writing thread for help there?
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Sep 20, 2013 20:11
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inthesto posted:Quick responses: Nah, do a rewrite and post it up here.
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Sep 20, 2013 21:53
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I'll post up a third draft in a few days. I intentionally let the first draft of that piece stew for a few weeks before revising it and dumping it here. e: I meant should I take the general question of "How do I describe things and actions?" to the writing thread. -- Important staff meeting in 30 minutes? gently caress it, I have better things to do than prepare for that! Amtiskaw posted:A fragment from a longer story idea I've been toying with. Hopefully it will still make sense out of context. It's a pretty drat clear parallel for colonization and White Man's Burden, if that's what you're asking. Time's almost up, so I'll leave this quick note: Orsc is awfully composed for a guy who gets his subordinates' attention by putting a small crater in his desk. His characterization in this fragment alone is a bit confused. e2: Also, Prethiu is bordering on cartoon villain levels of depth here. He's completely unlikeable with nothing but "BUT JESUS  " to back it up. If this guy has any more presence in the story, he's going to need more than that. Hell, even if this is his only scene, he still needs to be better than "that douchebag who got his thumb cut off".e3: What the gently caress, Orsc is a general. Dude must have better things to do than call a useless meeting where he cuts off a thumb. There's zero framing as to why these three are meeting in the first place, and Orsc's title implies that he can't afford to be wasting his time. Think about this. inthesto fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Sep 20, 2013 |
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Sep 20, 2013 22:55
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inthesto posted:Time's almost up, so I'll leave this quick note: Orsc is awfully composed for a guy who gets his subordinates' attention by putting a small crater in his desk. His characterization in this fragment alone is a bit confused. Thanks for the crit man. Can't say I really disagree with anything you raised. I didn't want to waste too much time trying to explain the setup, but yes, the idea is that it's a sci-fi alien invasion story, told (partly) from the perspective of aliens who have successfully conquered Earth. They've all been raised in this very enclosed, very religious society, and Livuon and Prethiu are basically kids right out of college, recycling the lines they rehearsed for debate club. Orsc is from the same background, but a little more rough around the edges for having living at the sharp end of things for so long. I wanted to depict a militant theocracy, but provide more nuance to the internal politics, with the characters representing the liberal, conservative, and pragmatic forces within this regime. Your comments, plus explaining all of that, makes me realise this is all rather clunkingly heavy handed though. Hmmm.
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Sep 21, 2013 00:09
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Yeah, that passage by itself is more or less every historical-but-modern discussion about colonialism ever, but with sci-fi names jammed in. Also remember your audience: Nobody these days really takes White Man's Burden seriously anymore, so Prethiu comes off as a strawman. Add on the priest molestation joke, and everything about the politics is too close to reality to be interesting. One of the biggest draws of sci-fi and fantasy is fictional cultures. Forget the plot for a bit, get back right down to the roots of this alien race, and figure out their culture from the ground up. If you can't create anything more meaningful than "Well they burp out of their ears after dinner", then just write a historical fiction piece instead.
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Sep 21, 2013 00:53
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So despite the very helpful suggestions and feedback I've received here I continue to struggle with the flash fiction genre, as anyone who reads my upcoming Thunderdome entry will no doubt appreciate. I did throw together one Thunderdome entry a couple weeks back that I'm reasonably happy with however. It got a fairly polarized response from the judges - one of them clearly didn't like it, the other one thought it was reasonably good - so I'm sorta interested in getting a bit more feedback. For the record here's the more positive critique, here's the more negative one. Here's the story: --------------- Good Times 982 Words The first time that she asked, Claire said I’d be doing her a favour. Later, after I said yes, she seemed to think she was doing me a favour. I was still living in Kensington Market, only taking out my school books when I needed to squash a roach. We never ate in and the fridge was always empty, but somehow there were still dishes piled up in the sink. Every time the toilet backed up our Chinese landlord forgot how to speak English. “It’s free money and good food,” Claire said. “Don’t you at least want to try?” “I don’t think I could do something like that,” I told her. “I’m not judging you; I just don’t think I’m that strong.” “It isn’t about being strong. Mostly you just have to listen. These guys are really lonely. They want somebody to pretend that they’re still interesting.” “I know that,” I said, “but what about afterwards?” Claire just shrugged. All in all she was a surprisingly good roommate. When Alice had first told me that she was going to be spending a semester in Europe and would need to sublet her room I had prepared myself for the worst. Two years later I couldn’t remember the last time I’d talked with Alice but Claire and I were still living together. It isn’t easy to find somebody you can live with, and unlike Alice she never had any trouble coming up with her half of the rent. “You’re young and beautiful,” Claire said. Sometimes when another girl tells you that it feels like she is hoping you will disagree with her. Claire wasn’t like that. She seemed genuine. Liberated, almost, like all that bullshit was already behind her even though she was only 22 years old. “Don’t you want to live a little?” “I just don’t think it’s who I am.” “You don’t know that until you’ve tried it,” she said. “Besides, how much money did you make at the bar last week?” It was a loaded question. She knew my hours had been cut almost in half. She had been there two days earlier when I came home crying because one of my tables had skipped out on their hundred dollar tab, leaving me to pay their bill. * * * They took us to a restaurant with $50 entrees and a panorama view of the city skyline. I’d made the mistake of taking a couple rips on Claire’s bong before we left, and in my $60 H&M cocktail dress I felt unbelievably tacky and self conscious entering a room of people twice my age. Somehow I had imagined that my date would look like Richard Gere or George Clooney, all rugged masculinity and salt and pepper hair. He didn’t. In comparison my Dad would have looked young and spry. Claire was right about the food though, it was the best I had ever eaten. From the way they talked to each other I guess my date and Claire’s date were old friends. They talked louder than anyone else in the restaurant, slapped each other on the back and mostly ignored us. It made me wonder if maybe my guy was disappointed in how I looked. Then, while we were all laughing at one of his jokes, he reached under the table and squeezed my knee, and I felt a thrill run up the back of my spine like I was looking off the ledge of a tall building. Later, in his hotel room, I found out he was born in Hamilton, just like me. He really liked hearing that, especially when I told him I was born at Hamilton General. He wanted to know what floor I had been born on, and seemed really disappointed when I didn’t know. He kept telling me that we could have been born in the same room. During the cab ride I had kept mentally preparing myself for what was coming. I was sure he’d be all over me the second we were into his room. Instead he made two drinks at the minibar and slumped down into a chair. Claire had been right about that too. He seemed more interested in talking. I don’t know if he would have made a move eventually, I got tired of waiting. Maybe I was afraid he wouldn’t give me as much if we didn’t do it. Or maybe I just felt like after coming that far it would be stupid not to go all the way. I had never touched an older body like that before. I guess he had spent a lot of time on beaches because cause his skin was wrinkled everywhere. His balls seemed to hang halfway to his knees. His thing was the biggest I had ever seen up to that point, but it looked funny, like a dog had chewed on it or something. Later, when I told Claire how much he had given me she seemed impressed. She told me he must have really liked me, and that I shouldn’t always expect that much. I told her there wouldn’t be a next time. Collin called me a couple of days later. We hadn’t spoken in a few weeks, not since he blew me off on our last date. He told me how sorry he was, that he had been going through some hard times but felt really bad about ditching me. Later, after our date, I lay on my bed staring up at the ceiling. Collin had seemed genuinely sorry when his credit card was declined. He promised he’d pay me back. I tried to remember what it felt like eating good food, holding real money in my hand. I thought about the bar, and having to smile when someone pinched my rear end because I needed the tip money. And I thought about Claire, who always paid her rent on time. --------- So I'm thinking of trying to expand this into a slightly longer piece. Its already been pointed out by Anathema Device that I spend a lot of time in the first half of the story setting up the narrator's relationship with Claire but there isn't really any payoff because at the end I bring in this other character, Collin. I think I can solve that problem by breaking free of the 1,000 word limit and adding more to the story (one question I have is whether Collin should make an appearance earlier in the narrative or whether its appropriate to just have him drop in at the end. He isn't really intended to be an important character). The criticisms of the story that came from Sitting Here are somewhat harder to address, since it seems like they boil down to my story not really being to her taste either in terms of writing style or subject matter. On the other hand she seems like a good author in her own right and its stupid of me to dismiss someone's critique out of hand so I'd like to know what other people think on this score. To me the narrator's actions are quite believable (without going into details most of the plot elements in this story are drawn from my experiences or the experiences of people I know). Then again I'm a man, whereas the story is about a woman and here I have a woman telling me she isn't particularly impressed with the story, so that obviously gives me pause. I also think that the slightly detached voice of the narrator is a strength of the story rather than a weakness, but I'd rather let other people be the judge of that. I was trying to make it feel as though the story is told in the same style that the narrator would tell it to a friend. The gaps and jumps in the narrative and the asymmetrical distribution of dialogue are very much intentional, so if people feel like they aren't working then it'd be helpful for me to know that.
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Sep 22, 2013 23:41
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Helsing posted:a story I like it. I can see Sitting's point about a passive narrator, and maybe you flirt with that a little too closely in this case, but I mean, this is a diffident character so I think it can be forgiven. I'm not convinced by the case that it must be more emotionally direct and less neutral, but then again that my be own personal preference leaking in. I understand Anathema's point about maybe a little too much investment without pay-off at the start, but I believe that the establishment of Claire as a figure towards whom the narrator is envious, financially speaking, is important for the culmination of the piece - what I took to be the narrator considering being an escort once again. This might change should you choose to extend the piece and pull the floorboards from under this. As to your question; the only narrative jump that jars is the one that introduces 'Collin' from nowhere. It is apropos of nothing and, actually, the whole intro of the character somewhat spoiled the ending of the piece for me. I was reeling, trying to work out whether this Collin was someone new or the old man from the restaurant. This is compounded because it seems like Collin owes her money, and I got caught thinking how stupid it would be for an escort to get paid via credit card. I worked it out soon enough, but the immersion was already broken. As to any critique on my own account, I felt the sex scene to be a little bit...off? The use of the term 'thing' I am a little iffy with, and given the importance/anticipation of it earlier in the story, it seems rushed like you were uncomfortable writing it. It could stand to be longer and more fleshed out. I know you might think this might threaten the narrative distance, but I'm sure you could pull out a sentence or two more and see what it looks like. Not much else to say. There were a few niggling details that I don't consider worth pointing out because I'm sure other people would disagree in equal measure. I didn't feel convinced by the hospital talk, the point of the character of Alice, the use of the phrase "...I'm not that strong". Overall I think a lot of things could be improved/fixed by filling in gaps and writing more. Sadly I don't think this comment will help you get over your own feelings regarding your own potential for writing flash fiction.
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Sep 23, 2013 01:30
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Another repurposed piece. Same universe as my previous one, though I don't think it's relevant. Really took the editing knife to this one; it used to be two hundred words longer. The Red Snake (862 words) The red snake was dancing again. "Not this time," I tell it. "You don’t tell me what to do." It always starts gentle. It loves to coil around my guts and squeeze. The longer I ignore the sensation, the stronger it grows. When it gets bad, I can't even eat. "That’s what you said last time, and the time before. Oh, and do you remember what happened previous to that one?" I hate when the snake teases me. It loves to make me feel helpless, like I need it to live. Some days, I’m inclined to believe it. I know reality is the opposite. "You’re the one who needs me.” The snake doesn’t require a coherent conversation. It can read my thoughts. "I say no, and you starve. Now gently caress off.” Hundreds of needles dig into my shoulder. Always the left one. That's where the snake lives, hidden under my uniform's pauldrons. Years ago, it started on the back of my hand. Everyone mistook it for a tattoo. Nobody ever stuck around me long enough to realize that it disappeared, crawling up my arm. Logically speaking, if I don’t exorcise it soon, it’ll be infesting my head. "Don’t say words you can’t take back." The prickling stops. Soon, a flash of heat replaces it, washing over my entire body. Sweat beads on my forehead, mucking up the grime. "You wouldn’t be here without me. You’d have been another corpse on the battlefield long ago." It’s right. When the snake is being cooperative, when it’s hungry at the right time, it shares its talents with me. It makes me strong, alert, fearless. I become the perfect soldier. But I only do it on the snake’s terms; when it wants me to. Still, too many times I’ve dodged a spear with its help. I shouldn’t antagonize the snake. It can always find another host. "Next time, I’ll get you double." Sometimes bargaining works, when it’s not too hungry. "This prisoner is important. I’m not executing him." "It’s so cute when you try to resist." The tip of its tail tickles the underside of my chin. It knows I hate that. Only one person gets to do that, and it’s not the snake. "I’m hungry tonight, and that means I’m eating. Now get to it, human." "Make me." I make my last stand. "Fine." Even after years of living with the parasite, I still don’t know what kind of magic it uses. All I know is that I was begging it to stop in seconds. I lift my head off the canvas of my tent. There’s a giant sweat stain where I had fallen. The knot in my guts unwinds and the pressure in my head calms down, but not entirely. The snake doesn’t want me to forget why we’re feeding. The prisoner’s tent is on the other side of camp. I hurry. None of the patrols stop me. They know better than to bother the commanding officer when he looks busy. The pair of troopers guarding the prisoner salute. I dismiss them before they can ask any questions. Eagerly, they leave. The rank and file don't like being around interrogations. I tie the flaps of the tent shut behind me. The prisoner looks me in the eye before he realizes who I am. He flinches, no doubt remembering my right hook. He’s saying something to me, but his words are drowned out by the snake’s whispers in my ear. "Just make it fast," it says. The prisoner's trying to back away despite being tied up. He’s not looking forward to what’s coming next. He has no idea. I thumb my dagger. My last instinct resists. "I’m losing my patience." My feet are heavy as I drag them towards the objective. I obey. A stab to the heart is enough. I have to clamp my hand over the prisoner’s mouth to stifle his screaming. All I hear is hissing and unbridled joy. I'm blessed with a surge of strength to keep my victim pinned. The prisoner’s struggles die down. The snake leaps from my shoulder and coils around the dying man’s neck. Its fangs plunge into his throat. If the animal could make any noise, its slurping would be heard across the entire camp. The tension and pain inside me dissipate. The snake is too busy to pay any attention to me. I’m holding a corpse in my arms, but even that can’t mar my relief. My breathing returns to normal. I twist the knife to ensure he’s dead. I’ve seen what the snake does to live meat, and I don’t wish that on anyone. "Satisfied?" It’s not tormenting me anymore, and I realize what it’s made me do. Central command will demote me for this. "Very." It smacked its lips. "There’s no need to feel bad. He was dangerous. Don’t you think your superiors will agree that the empire’s better off with him dead?" The snake always has some kind of justification ready when this happens. "Leave me alone.". I have to stay in the tent a while longer if anyone’s to believe my alibi. "Until the next time you need me, of course."
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Sep 23, 2013 17:41
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Casino - 534 words When I turned 18, dad forced me to go with him to the casino. I was scared, I had never been to such a place before, and it was very smoky. He took a big puff of his cigar and then blew the smoke in my face, laughing. I didn’t know him that well, my mother had raised me. He took me to the craps table and told me to blow on the dice. He lost $200 on that roll and started yelling at me. I got really nervous, plus I hadn’t eaten literally all day. He was snacking in the car ride the whole way, but when he offered me some of the pretzel chips I refused because I have a gluten allergy. Plus, I was nervous about making crumbs in his Mercedes. He told me to wait behind some slot machines and after 15 minutes he came back with two whiskey drinks. I had never tasted liquor before and I didn’t like it but he told me to hold my nose and pour it down my throat. I did what he said, I didn’t want him to be upset again like at the craps table. I started to feel ill almost immediately after drinking that foul liquid. Next on the agenda was roulette. As the dealer was calling last bet, Dad yelled at me to select red or black. I was really hesitant and nervous, unsure of which to pick, and we missed the bet. This made him really upset. On the next one I said black and of course it rolled red. He lost $50 and asked me if I had any money to give him to pay for that “mistake”. After blowing his last $100 on pai gow, a game which neither of us understood, we went up to the hotel room. I was feeling quite woozy from the drink and the lack of food. My dad is a pretty big guy, I’d say around 250 pounds and at least six-foot-two. I’m an effete 140 pounds and five-foot-seven. “You got your mom’s weak genes” he’d said in the car ride to the casino. He had been running a bath, and after a few minutes of watching some religious show on the TV he told me to get undressed and get in the water. The tub was filled with thick bubbles, which was nice, but he started to get undressed and I could tell he was coming into the bath with me, which was not so nice. I had my eyes closed so I couldn’t see him naked. He got in the tub and sat behind me, wrapping his big arms around my tiny frame. After a minute, he stood up and told me to face him. My mouth was positioned directly at his crotch. I’m an old man now, but looking back on that night I distinctly remember the rush of pride and happiness I felt when my eyes met with a sight which I will remember for all my days: dangling from his groin was a tiny, golden bean, with a street value of approximately 1 million US dollars.
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Sep 25, 2013 21:48
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Kwasimodick posted:dangling from his groin was a tiny, golden bean, with a street value of approximately 1 million US dollars. 
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Sep 25, 2013 22:36
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Kwasimodick posted:Casino - 534 words thanks for wasting my time with an m. knight shamalan twist. now I'm not even going to say anything else helpful because I'm upset with you.
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Sep 25, 2013 22:49
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I go to the street dealers whenever I'm buying unusually expensive tiny golden beans.
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Sep 25, 2013 22:55
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I can't tell if this is the world's worst metaphor for discovering your sexuality or a post-modern retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk.
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Sep 25, 2013 23:00
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inthesto posted:I can't tell if this is the world's worst metaphor for discovering your sexuality or a post-modern retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk. All I know is I want to find out what happens next. The scene I'm currently envisaging is that the character's Dad been mean to him and/or repeatedly molested him, and, in order to repent for his sins to his son, he pretends to be re-enacting another bath-time rape scenario when in fact he has somehow hung a million dollars worth of hyper-dense gold bullion in the shape of a bean from his pubic hair as a kind of make-up gift to discover when he leans in to give steamy father-son head.
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Sep 25, 2013 23:57
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Jeza posted:All I know is I want to find out what happens next. The scene I'm currently envisaging is that the character's Dad been mean to him and/or repeatedly molested him, and, in order to repent for his sins to his son, he pretends to be re-enacting another bath-time rape scenario when in fact he has somehow hung a million dollars worth of hyper-dense gold bullion in the shape of a bean from his pubic hair as a kind of make-up gift to discover when he leans in to give steamy father-son head. Well that's the obvious answer; I sense there are subtleties in the mise-en-scene we've still to explore. Edit: Dammit, let's break this poo poo down. A one inch ball (lol) of 24 karat gold weighs a bit less than six ounces, not including cockring/ball fittings. An ounce of gold is $USD1300. So we're looking at a value, on the damned, mean, dirty, cold-rear end streets, of around $8k. We need to go bigger. A cool mill of gold is gonna weigh, by my reckoning, around 46 pounds. The dad in the story is carrying (attached, let us never forget, to his penis) a ten inch sphere of gold that weighs more than: •five gallons of water •a 3-year-old child •an average human leg •a Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier •a 15-foot canoe sebmojo fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Sep 26, 2013 |
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Sep 26, 2013 00:16
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Home Chimes 840 words Grandpa would ring the chime when it was time to eat. We generally feasted on soups of beans, occasionally interspersed with wild game such as grouse. The grouse was often under-cooked, as grandpa believed the bird’s blood increased his vitality. He needed it, he was quite frail. It was a miracle he could prepare the daily soup. I had dropped out of school at age 8 to help father pick beans in the field. His face was a deep tan, ruined by the rays of the sun. Most of my skin shared this quality after a good half-decade in the field, but my face remained untouched. Father forced me to wear a large, floppy silk hat he’d found near the town market. I hated it, but he said it was vital to keep my “angelic” visage intact. My trips into town had provided me with a glimpse of many wondrous things. I’d once seen a gold bauble on a woman’s wrist. Another time we ate a food called pizza. It hurt my stomach terribly, but father and I enjoyed the taste immensely. On our monthly trip to town to sell beans, I’d often caught men staring at me. I wondered what it was they saw? We had had a mirror up until about a year ago, when Grandpa shot it with the shotgun. I knew that I was beautiful. Unlike Grandpa, Dad was quite handsome. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a thick mop of curly red hair. We worked silently in the fields, two laborers with one united vision: get the beans. I knew Dad was a hard worker, and I felt proud of him. I always wanted to help out in any way I could think of. Sometimes, while he was sitting on a tree stump and taking rest, I’d come up behind him and massage his shoulders. “That feels good” he’d say, sparse words on a bright day. Grandpa died later that week. We threw him behind the old apple orchard. It was a fitting burial place, we thought, since all the apple trees were dead as well. It was now my responsibility to prepare the soups. Finally, I’d be able to add proper seasoning. I knew I’d have to be careful, I didn’t want to upset my sensitive stomach, but at the same time, I felt like variety would spice things up. I begged father to buy a thimble full of paprika, and after some back-and-forth, he acquiesced. One night, after a long, back-breaking day in the field, father and I were enjoying a bottle of wine I stole from a store in town. He distracted the shop clerk by saying he had lost his wallet in the store the day before, but the clerk insisted that was not the case as the store was closed the day before. We lacked a corkscrew, so father had to break the bottle open. We were careful, and it turned out alright. Candlelight flickering, we slurped down the last of the bean soup. Nights were generally silent, as we were so tired from the fieldwork and Dad wasn’t much for conversation, but tonight he said something which greatly excited me: he asked for a massage. I got behind the rocking chair he was sitting in and reached down to his thick soldiers, feeling their tension and might. He let out a tiny groan, and I asked him if I could remove my silk hat. He said no. After forty-five seconds of shoulder rubbing, father stood up and took my hand, looking me in the eye. He looked at me the way those men in town looked at me, with a sense of desire. All of a sudden, a rooster crowed. He led me by the hand to the bedroom. He laid down on Grandpa’s bed and started removing his overalls. The smell of his body was strong, we didn’t often bathe, as the river was on an adjoining property and the owners of that land had a vendetta against our family going back several generations. Running my hands over his pectoral muscle, I could feel his heart beating quickly. Without taking my eyes off of his, I slid my hand down to his rock-hard abs, tight and hard. He was breathing heavily, I could tell something exciting was going on. I leaned back and took in the scene: he was chiseled, like an Adonis. The only thing I could think of was pleasing him, making him feel fulfilled. He worked so hard in the field, it was my mandate to give Dad whatever he wanted. It was quite dark in the room, and I wanted to get a good look at Dad’s naked body. Grabbing a kerosene lantern, I hovered it over him, illuminating his gorgeous features. I moved the lamp to his groin and took in a most beautiful sight: a tiny bean, solid gold, worth no less than one million US dollars. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Sep 26, 2013 07:13
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